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1. Back up everything daily. If you lose anything or your computer dies, it impacts business.
2. Systems need to be able to grow. If you sell one item a day, picking it, packaging and posting it yourself shouldn’t be an issue, but put the mechanisms in place early to scale up your operations should you suddenly start receiving 100 orders a day.
3. Your website is your shop window. However, don’t make the mistake of just making it look visibly appealing. It needs to function, so invest in the software that will run it efficiently as well.
4. Make your website as easy to navigate as possible. Have lots of white space. Look at other websites, especially successful retailers such as Amazon, and make note of what makes them so user friendly.
5. My golden rule is that visitors should only ever be three clicks away from purchasing your goods. Don’t complicate the sales process. Keep it simple.
6. Record customer data, including what they bought, how they found your website, and their contact details.
7. Communicate with your customers. Have a dialogue with them. What do they think? Use social media, email, direct mail, and use your sales data to target them effectively.
8. Use your sales data to keep your website fresh. Display your best sellers, put offers on your slow movers, cross sell complementary products, and up sell at the checkout.
9. Just because you’re online, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t offer good customer service. Give customers easy access to a human they can talk to.
10. Don’t scrimp on security. You need to be seen as a trusted source and provide somewhere safe and secure for customers to input their card details.
11. Make returns as easy but as cost effective as possible. I use NEXT as a benchmark. They wouldn’t accept taking worn and soiled items back and neither would I. Just because you’re online, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t operate like a normal retailer.
12. The key to any online business is that you still need a product with a market and demand, and most importantly, a profit margin. Ask yourself, would it sell in a shop or on a market stall?
This month’s top tips come from Sarah Bohn, director of ukswimstore.com. Sarah can be contacted at sarah@ukswimstore.com.
