How online shopping can save your business
Last year was crude to put it mildly. Many business owners struggled already before the pandemic and when the government forced one lockdown to another which ultimately made business owners having to foreclose.
There is light at the end of the tunnel, vaccines are being rolled out and less people leave for vacation abroad to opt for the more convenient staycation. With that being said, we’d like to address the ideas of operating your shopping business online rather than from a brick and mortar location. Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon made more money than anyone else last year with the influx of online sales as people had to find other measures of buying things rather than walking down to the mall.
Pros and cons of running an online shop
Let’s start with the pros. If you own a clothing store operating from 9-20 Monday to Saturday, then you will miss any sales happening after 8 PM or before 9 AM when people are commuting to work. If you also have an online business, then you will always be open to customers and visitors they can be shopping any time. You will also have the opportunity of building classic mailing lists in which you can use to drive sales at special events such as Black Friday and Christmas. Payment options online has also made leaps the past few years and using PayPal as your cashier will no longer seem unusual, you can also connect to other ways of payments such as Klarna that has been the buzz word in British Retail the past year for different reasons.
Shipping can be tedious, people buy something online only to not collect the parcel from their outlet and it’s sent in return. There are different ways of handling this, such as sending it back again and most and foremost, contacting the customer in question to arrange the delivery of the parcel.
Online businesses are thriving
We see it everywhere but one industry that is particularly interesting is the casino industry. Whilst brick and mortar casinos have been forced to shut down during lockdown, the online casinos have had a great year in 2020. When sports events were put on pause, the bookies turned to virtual sports, scratch tickets and even casino games, which can all be easily accessed online. There is no need to play casino at the casino anymore as you can easily put in the address on your smartphone and start playing within minutes. Among the popular websites that have seen a growth this year, we have had reports of several casinos seeing an accelerated growth and even casinos not on gamstop making headlines.
How to start your own business online
Don’t let technology scare you, owning an online business can be both fun and rewarding. The first thing you need is a website which you can buy from esteemed hosting providers such as GoDaddy or Namecheap.com. After that you will need to populate your website, and this is usually when people let go of their dream to own and operate an online business. Don’t be fooled by the codes and programs, there are businesses there to help you develop your website to your liking. An e-commerce website can cost anything between £500-10,000 to get started. Other pieces of advice is joining facebook groups that are specialised in e-commerce, dropshipping and shopping online, they have valuable information and are known to be helpful. Don’t let 2021 be a bad year, thrive with the challenges and set up your store online to reach far beyond your locality in sales and revenue.
