Before even thinking about having your online store, it is crucial to ensure that you analyze in detail, and reflect on the 8 steps that I will list next.

We can sometimes think that to achieve success you just have to subscribe to an online store service, insert some products and that's it!

This may even happen, and if so, great! But, it is more likely than not and there, what are you going to do? How will you reverse the situation?

It is important to be well prepared and well informed to meet all the necessary conditions to create an online business that, hopefully, we will succeed.

Step 1 - Founder / Store Manager

The first question to ask yourself when starting to think about creating an online business is: Are you prepared for it?

Many businesses are not successful, because for the most part, the person in charge was not prepared to face the many challenges that have arisen, and to resolve them in an assertive way. The founder's profile has to be someone who has a well-defined goal and who will do everything in his power to achieve it. You will not give up the first obstacle that arises, will always try, in one way or another, to find a solution to each problem. That's what will make him the right person to run the entire business.

So before anything else, think carefully about whether you think you have the right profile, if you think you will be able to face all the challenges that await you, without ever thinking about giving up.

This is the most important point of any business you may be thinking about creating.

Step 2 - Product

If you've noticed that you have the right profile to set up an online business, then your first challenge is to define what you're going to sell and to whom.

Selling, for example, snow machines in Jamaica may not be very good business. You may think that your idea is very good (and original), but you can not be the only one to believe it, you also have to be able to convince everyone to whom you want to sell it. Without this, your store will not live up to your expectations and at that point you will have to rethink the entire business, having already spent some of your budget. You can avoid this if you do a detailed analysis of the market and who is looking for what.

If you are knowledgeable about the product, and you like to know more about it, this will be a very interesting way to try, because it can explain to people who do not know, how it works, or even create lots of content about it. But always try to first realize if there is a market for it, without it, your sales will not happen.

Step 3 - Suppliers

Now that you have defined which product you want to sell in your online store, the next step is to know who will buy it.

Choosing a supplier can sometimes be a very time-consuming process, because we may not hit the first one, but this, we will only find out when we start working with it.

It's an area where referrals are not always easy to get, because it's often not the public to whom our competitors buy their products.

Early in the negotiation phase of the partnership, you quickly discover how to work from a supplier: whether you respond quickly and assertively, or whether you need to be constantly asking for the same things that you never get. Above all, it is important to build a relationship of trust with the supplier so that we can likewise convey that trust to our customer.

"Can you deliver this this week?" -> "Yes of course, I do not have it in stock, but I will ask our supplier to send it back today!". This is the answer that every customer likes to hear, but for this, it is essential to have trust in the supply chain, because we are making a commitment, which is 100% based on the supplier. And if something fails, the customer will not want to know whose fault it was; only that the next purchase will be in another store because the trust was broken.

Step 4 - Delivery Service

You already have a product and a vendor. And now how will you ensure delivery to your customer quickly and efficiently?

There are several services available in Portugal, but some are specialized in certain types of products and deliveries. Exaggerating a little, you can not ask CTT, for example, to deliver a new car, just as it will not make sense to ask Laso (a company specializing in large transport) to deliver a PEN. Each product has its specifics and cost, which is why the delivery method has to be the most appropriate.

Nowadays, customers are increasingly demanding, they want to know everything that goes into detail with your order: when you leave the warehouse, where it is at a certain moment, when it will be delivered, when of the day, whether morning or afternoon. All of this is information that not all service providers have available. And so, if you want to distinguish yourself from your competition in this aspect you can, for example, look for companies that have, in an integrated and automatic way, a text message sent for each stage of your order. Note that these services have a cost, so it will be important to measure the pros and cons of each option.

One of the main service providers in Portugal is CTT, namely CTT Expresso for orders. Whenever a collection is made, a reference is generated that allows to follow the course of the order online and know in each moment, where is that it is. That way, when sending the email with the information that the order has already been shipped, we can include a URL with this reference and so the customer can follow all the steps of your order.

Step 5 - Forms of Payment

You will not want to risk your customer giving up on your purchase, just because your preferred payment method was not available. Nowadays, the diversity of means is very great, but for most of the clients, one of the following will be enough: Payment to Billing, Bank Transfer, Referrals ATM, Credit Card or PayPal.

If you have at least these means available in your online store it is almost guaranteed that no customer will give up the purchase for this reason. Most of the online store platforms - including our izigo Shop solution - includes these forms of payment so as to ensure a fast and secure process, to receive the money in your account.

Although the responsibility of each payment medium is available, or the platform of online stores that you choose, the service contract with each provider, will always be your responsibility. And why this? Because you want the money to be deposited in your account, not the platform provider's. They are always bureaucratic processes because they entail signing contracts, but the sooner you resolve them, the sooner you can launch your online business. It is important to note that for each means of payment, there is a fee that is charged by each entity. For example, if you want to make the payment available on the basis of an ATM reference, when the customer makes payment for the order, the service provider who issued the reference (not the online store service) will charge a fee that varies between € 0.68 to € 1 (+ VAT). It is important to take these costs into account when submitting the order total and in this case you will have to decide whether the charge is included, or whether it will be charged separately if the customer wants to pay for multi-bank referrals. On the other hand, if you do not charge the fee, you will receive the money almost immediately or the next business day, but if the customer realizes that you have an additional fee, you can choose to pay by bank transfer, thus lengthening the time of receipt, or until, give up the order.

Step 6 - Customer Support

This step is often overlooked in most of the online stores known, when the most important in the middle of it all, is the Customer.

We may even be able to make the 1st sale, which is usually the hardest and most laborious, but the big challenge starts immediately: on the second order. And in that case, if the 1st is not perfect, the 2nd will never happen, because what is not lacking for sure, are online stores that sell the same or a similar product and the customer will have no problem buying elsewhere. p>

Customer Support has to exist at all times in the business process: pre-sales, sales, and after-sales, because the customer interacts with your store at all times. If he does not receive the necessary support after the 1st purchase, he will not also make the 2nd. It's not worth having all the possible and imaginary contacts on a contact page, if no one answers the phone or responds to the emails later. The whole process has to be well constructed, so as to guarantee a response on the day itself, even to say that one does not have an answer for now, but that it will be obtained within X days. Customers like to feel that we care about them. All of us, as clients, like to feel that they care about us, so that we can ensure that those who guarantee the sustainability of my company are guaranteed. A real-time dialog system - such as the our solution izigo Webchat - allows you to provide a channel where the person who is responding can be doing other tasks at the same time, something that is no longer possible if you are answering the phone. This is a way to support the customer at any stage of their purchase and guarantees an immediate and assertive response, since we always have a few moments to confirm the information to be provided, or even to respond with preformatted messages, thus saving all writing time.

Step 7 - Online Store Platform

When we have almost everything defined and the processes well assembled, we have to choose which platform of online stores to use. We could say that the izigo Shop is undoubtedly the best option, but the choice has to be made, not only based on the investment that has available, as in the features you seek to obtain. Remember, however, that your online store does not need to start with 1 million products and 1 million features. That means it took a year to make it available online. That is not what is intended. Do a test very simply and quickly with all the steps I've listed so far. Because if you did not hit the product and the market will have spent a year in vain. Choose a simple, fast launch platform with few products that has a Webchat solution available and the main means of payment. You can not run the risk of investing your entire budget and realize that after all you did not choose the right product. With few products and a well-defined market, you'll quickly realize if you're on the right track.

Step 8 - Marketing Strategy

I often say that if you launch an online store and you do not have a well-defined Marketing Strategy, it's like opening a street store and saying nothing to anyone. Although the physical store can still be seen in the storefront, enter and buy, in an online store customers do not appear miraculously. No one will guess the address of your store, no one will look for your store by name. In the online world, everything is different, we have to "go after" the customer, we have to "fish" him to find us. Otherwise, we will have a whole store beautiful, with fantastic products, but no one knows visit. Hence the importance of having a clear definition of how visitors are going to be attracted to the store, how the products will be advertised and the store itself to whom it does not yet know.

To deepen your knowledge, read our specific articles on online stores and get to know the our izigo Shop solution . You can also find our demo shop where you can explore in detail all the available features .

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