Are you in the market for an online store?

Are you confused by all the options available? The platforms, the pricing, the add-ons, the widgets and how it all hangs together?

You’ve got your stock. Maybe even premises figured out. But you know you HAVE to get online to make big sales these days. Where to start?

Have you begun thinking about inventory management, customer journey optimisation, building online trust or marketing automation yet? If the answer’s “No what even ARE those things?!?” you won’t be alone.

Many start-up retailers focus on getting their stock and premises sorted out and avoid thinking about the digital side of their business, but this is a mistake. It’s vital to have your e-commerce strategy planned up front at the same time you’re writing your business plan, applying for funding or sourcing stock.

Here are my top-five tips for people just getting started on their e-commerce journey.

1. Choose your platform

There are lots of platforms available and each have different strengths and weaknesses. Here’s my take on the two I’m most familiar with:

• Squarespace* is absolutely brilliant for service businesses (eg life coaches, therapists) or those with a relatively small inventory and businesses where aesthetics is important. All Squarespace sites look amazing right out of the box and they can be customised to meet individual needs. The e-commerce modules are intuitive to use and enable you to start selling very quickly. Be aware though that there is currently no point-of-sale solution that integrates with Squarespace in the UK. So don’t choose it if you have a physical store as well. It’s very affordable for small businesses.

• Shopify* is the market leader and it’s easy to see why. It’s set up to enable quick and easy inventory management, easy payment solutions and policies. Plus it has a really impressive array of add-on apps that can really add power to your store (for example syncing with DPD for your deliveries). You can also connect their own point-of-sale app and hardware seamlessly so if you have a physical store this is the one to go for without a doubt. BUT - the aesthetics are not so great with the free templates. It’s perfectly possible to create a great looking store with the free template but for some businesses, you may need to invest a little more. The good news is that you can always begin with a free template and switch to a premium template later on, once you’ve started making sales. It’s good value too (though I’m not quoting prices here because they do change and are very variable depending on individual needs). Lastly you can sync your store with Amazon, Ebay and other sales channels relatively easily - though it is through an app and it is not free.

• There are many others. Worth looking at are: WooCommerce, BigCommerce, WixCommerce and Magento. But I can’t recommend them as I haven’t used these platforms.

2. Get your ducks in a row!

What I mean by this is, don’t wait until your web developer is asking until you get your ‘legals’ sorted out.

• Ensure you have decided on - and written - your shipping policy, refund/returns policy, terms and conditions and privacy policy*.

• Understand your business status. Are you registered as a limited company? You may need your incorporation or registration certificate.

• Check your VAT requirements. This is especially important when selling overseas.

• Register with the Information Commissioner. This is a legal requirement in the UK as you are capturing customer information with every transaction.

• Have identity documents ready: passport, driving licence, recent bank statement, proof of address.

• Get your bank account sorted well in advance. Ensure that your payment card is compatible (some pre-paid credit cards are not). You will not be able to trade on some platforms without a verified UK bank account, preferably in your business name.

Note: Shopify does supply pre-filled templates for most policies but it is important you check these very carefully if you are planning to use them. They are legal documents which may cause you grief later on if you get it wrong. I can also supply a helpful privacy template for small businesses.

3. Get great photos

Don’t, whatever you do, rely on snaps from your phone (except in certain circumstances*). Invest in decent photography and video as early as possible during the creation of the store. If appropriate, use a turntable and studio lighting to capture a 360 video of your products. You can also use a turntable to capture 20-30 stills of your product which will then enable you to create an interactive 360 on your site (note that this requires an app which is not free but for premium stores or tech products is probably worth it).

If it’s feasible, get photos of your products in use. People really want to see clothes being worn, pets enjoying their new bed or what that widget looks like in real life.

If you are a reseller of a brand, it’s customary to get assets - branding, photography, product descriptions and so on - from the parent company. Get this set up as soon as you can and introduce your web developer to them so that they can understand the formats and the methods for access as soon as possible.

If you are selling a service you still need great photos. There is an excellent selection of free stock photography on Unsplash which is available as an integrated feature in Squarespace. Shopify’s stock photography is quite limited. Try to think creatively about what you can use to illustrate your words and use images that will appeal to your ideal customer or client. But when you are selling a personal service such as coaching, I strongly recommend that you spend some money on a professional shoot. Budget for about £300-500 for a good studio or location shoot - selfies on your phone really won’t work here.

*Snaps from your phone can work really well on social media. Getting short clips of your products being made or being used are a really great way to get people engaged with the whole life of your product.

4. Automate your marketing

There are lots of plates to juggle when building an online retail business. You need to be focused on delivering great customer service, fulfilling orders on time, responding to requests for returns, ensuring the packaging is good, responding to questions and getting paid! So ensure that you automate whatever you can from an early stage (day one if possible). Essential automations include:

• Syncing to Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest: you can sell direct in these channels if you integrate. Bear in mind you will need a Business Manager account for Facebook and Instagram - this can take a while to set up. Begin by creating a Facebook profile using the same email address as you use as the admin for your store for the smoothest set-up. Pinterest is a little easier but you will still need an account to get started. There is no cost for these integrations.

• Abandoned carts: all stores have abandoned carts. The goal is to reduce the proportion as much as you can and recover any that do get abandoned. This is part of all ecommerce platforms but does need to be configured, don’t assume it will happen automatically.

• Customer reviews (and see below) are vital. People really do pay great attention to the reviews. Even if they don’t read them all, they want to see that reviews exist and that they are primarily positive. You will need an app or third party integration depending on the platform but they usually have a free plan for small businesses (with a monthly or weekly limit). Set this up so that customers recieve a request for a review 7-10 days after purchase and ensure all reviews are embedded in the site home page and product pages. Note that responding to reviews is important and can even be a source of further sales. You can respond with an offer or discount by way of a thank you, or just sending the email is a reminder and can prompt customers to return.

• Set up some form of online chat. You might think this is a big no-no for a solo trader as how can you possibly resource it? But take it from me, people love to be able to send a message direct from the page they are looking at - even if they don’t get an immediate response. The trick is to manage their expectations by letting them know that you may not be around to answer immediately but that you promise to get back to them - and make sure you do! You can also set up frequently asked questions which will enable most customers to get an immediate response any way. This can be done seamlessly with Shopify’s Inbox channel or you can embed the Facebook chat widget into any store (you will need a Business Manager account). Sales can be made this way and, perhaps more importantly, customer relationships will be improved.

• Have an email marketing system set up. There are numerous ways to do it and both Squarespace and Shopify have in-built systems (Squarespace’s costs extra). But you really can nurture great customer loyalty by keeping in contact with people. A great way to use this is to give them something they feel they could not get any other way - a special discount code or refer-a-friend code, advance access to special offers and sales for example. You don’t want to spam people but if they’ve taken the trouble to sign up for your news, the least you can do is give them some. Decide on the tone - which needs to match the tone of voice for your business (friendly, cheeky, formal, trendy etc) - and make absolutely sure that your emails match your branding. For emphasis: make sure the emails are on brand! Off-brand emails are confusing. There’s a lot of noise out there and if your customers can instantly recognise that an email is from you because it looks exactly like what they’ve seen before, you are already halfway towards preventing them hitting the delete button before they’ve even opened it!

5. Build trust as quickly as you can

According to customer engagement platform Yotpo, 98% of online customers say that authentic customer reviews are the most important factor influencing their decision to make a purchase (see above). But this isn’t all. There are things you can do before the store even makes its first sale:

• Show payment logos in the footer. Customers want to see that all the usual payment options are available to them: credit/debit cards, PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay etc

• Have an ‘About Us’ page. They may not read every word but they want to know you are real people! Don’t be afraid to include photos of yourself and, if you have one, your team.

• Include all of your contact details in the footer. Address, email and phone. This is essential for advertising on Google and some other platforms that will not accept websites that don’t include this information. It also shows you are bonafide, legit and thoroughly Kosher to shoppers.

• Make sure you show your policies clearly - also in the footer usually. Again, they may not read them but they want to know they are there. Also essential for Google.

• Have an FAQs section. This is good for SEO and for customers it can be one of the first places they look if there is anything about your product they are unsure of. It’s an easy way to present your policies in a more human-friendly format too.

• Link to your social channels - customers often like to check you out elsewhere before committing to a purchase. It reinforces your legitimacy if they can see you are on Facebook or Instagram or any of the others. Remember to target the channels your audience are most likely to be on. If you are selling trainers, get on TikTok and/or Snapchat. If you’re selling cardigans, you’ll be good with Facebook.

Next time I’ll be talking about that all important conversion rate. What is it, why it’s important and how to improve it.