Ecommercify: 5 simple steps to take your existing shop online

Christmas has been and gone.

Cyber Weekend is a distant memory.

January sales have had their moment in the sun. Or rain, more accurately.

Time to move on. And prepare for THIS YEAR!

Reasons to make 2022 the year YOU sell online:

It’s estimated that there were around 2.14 billion global digital buyers in 2021 and it looks like e-commerce is only going to keep rising. The sector is growing so quickly that it’s expected to make up a whopping 22% of retail sales worldwide by 2023.

The UK leads the world when it comes to internet shopping. In 2020, as high as 87% of UK households made online purchases within the preceding 12 months and one in three Britons say they have used ‘Click and Collect’ more frequently since the start of the pandemic.

This shows that e-commerce is expanding in every direction and becoming a more integral part of the consumer experience worldwide, offering massive opportunities for businesses.

So what’s holding you back?

Here are 5 simple steps to take your existing shop online.

1. Product selection

This advice is aimed specifically at folks who already have a business selling stuff in the real world. Those who already have things to sell. If you don’t, the first step would be to decide what you’re going to take to market online. The general advice, for someone who doesn’t already have stock, is to do research, find a need and fulfil it.

But even if you do already have a shop or warehouse full of things, there are still decisions to make. You need to decide whether the online market for your goods will be a local, national or global one. Maybe some products will work better online than others? Perhaps there are complementary products that you don’t currently sell in the store that could be made available to order online?

You should do a bit of market research to help guide you. Online forums, social media and customer surveys are a good place to get ideas and feedback. It might be a good idea to start with a small selection and grow it from there rather than taking on the daunting task of sticking everything online from day one.

2. Stock Management

Whether you’re selling online or in-store, it’s always important to have a good handle on your stock situation.

When you start selling online, you’ll likely have two inventories so unless you also have two heads to keep an eye on both, you’ll need to consolidate to avoid insanity.

No doubt you’ll have offline records already, we’ve seen everything from sophisticated systems to a simple notepad. Your new website can also keep track of sales and adjust stock levels automatically if you’d like it. Either way, it’s best to pick one system and then update it with the daily sales from the other channel.

There is one other way we’d recommend: you can have your shop till and website ‘talk to each other’ so they update each other automatically. By connecting your website to your epos system, you can automatically synchronise stock levels between your web shop and your retail stock. Sounds like a good idea, right?

3. Delivery

You’ll need to carefully consider your delivery strategy. Doing a quick survey to find out whether speed, flexibility or cost matters most to your customers will help you pick the right courier to partner with.

The most common reason for a customer abandoning their full basket at the checkout without placing an order is the delivery cost. To avoid this, consider offering free delivery over a certain threshold. It’s not always necessary but can be very powerful way to increase average order values. The main thing that matters, however, is transparency. Make your delivery policy clear and prominent from the outset so there’s no nasty surprises for your customers.

Increasingly, customers want to know an item is in stock before leaving home. They also want to know if they’re getting a good price. This can explain the explosion in Click & Collect services in recent years. Across all major retailers, over half are already offering Click & Collect, with many more planning to add it this year. For retailers, it makes perfect sense. And as we mentioned earlier, customers like it too.

4. Payment

Choosing the right payment gateway for your online shop is a pretty important decision, but one that’s actually quite simple. It’s a common misconception that you have to use the same payment provider that you already have in your store. You don’t. But we would recommend that you should speak to them and check out if they have any offers for you.

Typically, as long as the payment provider allows payments in your currency and the countries you sell to, it just comes down to fees. Every provider will be able to quote on fees. Some will have monthly charges, some won’t, but it’s likely the transaction fees will be slightly higher. You’ll have to decide what suits you best. Lots of people start with Paypal or Stripe because they are simple to set up, and with no monthly fees. You only pay when someone buys so it’s great for getting started.

One of the main decisions you’ll have to make is whether you want an integrated or hosted solution. All that means is whether you want the checkout bit to happen on your site, or whether you’d rather your customers are redirected to the payment provider (usually via a little window that pops up). The first option arguably provides a better user experience but it does require SSL and other security measures to be in place on your site. The redirecting option means that the payment provider can handle the security aspect, but the user experience can feel a little more clunky. You’ll have to carefully weigh up your options on this one.

5. Merchandising

So by now you’ve decided what to sell, you know how you’re going to manage your stock, you know how you’re going to ship your product and how you’re going to take payments. You’re almost there.

Now we just need to merchandise.

We’ve published a whole article about merchandising your online store to help you out but in a nutshell: merchandising means displaying products in such a way that it stimulates interest and entices customers to make a purchase.

Quality product descriptions help get the sale over the line. They are also really useful for search engines which will help your website creep up those rankings.

So your goal is to have words that not only describe the product but to go beyond that. For example, what problem does the item solve? How does it make you feel?

Photography is another one of the most important aspects related to the success of your site.

Good photography improves the perceived quality of your product. It can communicate lifestyle values and increase how credible and trustworthy your site appears. Ideally, you would get a professional photographer to help but if you do use your camera or smartphone, make sure it’s in a clear, well lit environment and that the photos are sharp.

Ecommercify

So there you have it. There are 5 simple steps to take your existing shop online.

Once you have that all preparation in the bag, we can help to get you up and running with your e-commerce shop in no time.

There’s arguably a final sixth step, which is promotion. We haven’t included it in here because this was about taking your shop online. That being said, it’s not enough to just put a website online, you need to let people know about it too. Regularly. But fear not, we’ve already published a popular guide on attracting customers which can help you out.

Get started with e-commerce today.