Selling online is a fantastic way to reach customers. Whether you have an existing business that you want to take online or you’re new to selling, creating an online store means you can sell to pretty much anyone around the world. But before you start getting set up online, either with your own website or a store on a third-party site, you need to make sure you have everything that you need to begin. It could be some time before you’re really ready to start selling, and there are some essential things that you will need to do first.
Explore All of the Tools You Need
To start selling online, you’re going to need all of the essential tools that will enable you to serve your customers. This will obviously include an online store, which could be on your own website or hosted elsewhere. On top of that, you’ll also need a payment gateway or platform so you can accept credit card payments and other online payment methods. You might want to explore other tools that help you to run things behind the scenes too. Software to help you manage your accounts or track your inventory will help you stay on top of your sales.
Check Tax Rules
Make sure that you’re aware of any tax rules that apply to your online sales, especially if you’re planning on selling to different countries. If people buy your products in other countries, will you owe any sales tax or other taxes in those countries? Will you have to pay sales tax on their purchases in your own country? Other legalities can be important to check too, such as privacy laws. If you’re selling to customers in the EU, for example, you will have to follow GDPR rules to keep your customer data safe.
Find the Right Shipping Options
Of course, if you’re allowing your customers to buy online, you’ll need to ship them their purchases (unless they can pick them up). The delivery experience is really important with online sales, and you want to make sure that your customers are happy with it. So offering the best shipping options is important if you want to get things right. There could be several options you can use, from the national post service to various shipping and delivery companies. Offering a choice for your customers is often the best way to keep them happy.
Set Up Customer Support
Selling online means you can often make plenty of sales without direct contact with your customers. But there are times when customers need help too, and that’s why it’s important to provide some form of customer support. There are a few different options for this, including offering email support, chat, or support over the phone. If you can’t do it in-house, consider outsourcing your online customer support so that you can get it taken care of in a more affordable way.
Get these tasks checked off your list before you start selling online if you want to make your sales efforts successful from the start.