How to Move From Offline to Online Business

How to Move From Offline to Online Business

Many business owners and entrepreneurs are looking to update or evolve their business model. If you’re a business owner operating purely brick-and-mortar locations, looking to diversify and tap into a booming market, then you might consider moving your business online.

There are a diverse range of benefits to this, now more so than ever as online business enjoys a boom that shows no sign of slowing down. The online sales stream is becoming a firm favorite of retailers across a variety of sectors.  But how? We’re going to explore how you can break into the world of ecommerce successfully.

Why move your business from offline to online

From ready-built ecommerce platforms like Shopify to ease of reaching a wider customer base, the benefits of online business are many and easily harnessed.

If you're looking to start an online store, now is the perfect time to make the transition and tap into the potential of the digital marketplace.

Let’s review some of the major reasons why you might move your business from offline to online and how it can help to boost sales and grow your brand.

1. It’s cost-saving

Offline businesses often require brick-and-mortar locations and all the associated costs, including rent, certain taxes, and utility payments. Moving your business online removes most of these costs.

An online business also creates increased scope for efficient and cost-saving measures, like using virtual numbers for your business instead of a traditional calling system, which may be less efficient, as well as relying on potentially expensive hardware.

2. It’s easier than ever

With an incredible range of ecommerce platforms on the market, moving your business online has never been easier. These platforms come with a variety of features, from simple ecommerce pages to comprehensive CRM systems.

Additionally, online business provides increased flexibility to use innovative business practices, like Paylocity recruitment strategies to create the best team that represents your brand and understands the intricacies of operating online.

3. It’s time-saving

Online businesses are available 24/7. Not only does this provide you with more flexibility when it comes to opening hours—allowing your team to work around other commitments and ultimately promoting staff retention—but it works for your customers, too.

Another benefit of online business is that it can be done from anywhere. Fitting it in around travel and personal commitments will allow you to get more done in the same - or less - time and grow your business more efficiently.

4. It’s great for your brand reputation

Returning to the great range of ecommerce tools mentioned earlier, one of their most impressive features is enhanced customer service capabilities through integrated CRM systems.

You can store all customer information securely in one place, allowing your customer service team easy access. This results in a better customer experience, as well as smoother business processes. Enhancing your customer service efficiency will boost customer experience, retention, satisfaction, and the overall reputation of your brand.

5. Finally, it can help you go global

Consider the world’s most popular ecommerce brands. Why are they so popular on a scale unmatched by any other sector? The answers are many—convenience, product range, 24/7 availability—but they all have one uniting factor.

These brands are global.

Of course, there are plenty of multinational corporations with retail locations in many countries, in towns, cities, and rural locations. However, even they are limited by an array of other factors, including transport, weather, and surrounding businesses.

With ecommerce, brands can reach a global audience. Providing that you have the fulfillment capacity, you can offer your products or services to anyone, anywhere in the world with an online business.

How to move from offline to online business

With the right tools, moving your business online has never been easier. By getting to know the key things you need to consider, you’ll be well on your way to a successful, international online business. If you're looking for guidance on what products to offer, consider researching things to sell on Etsy as a starting point for your product ideas.

1. Choose an ecommerce platform

As mentioned above, there is now a huge range of ecommerce platforms on the market. One of the most popular, Shopify, is popular with retailers of all sizes, from solopreneurs to international brands.

One of the reasons is that Shopify has a range of customizable features to suit your business needs. Through one platform, you can take care of all your ecommerce operations, from order management and payment to marketing. Pricing and features can be altered and scaled as you grow, including only what is relevant to your company.

Whether you choose Shopify or one of the many other ecommerce platforms on the market, be sure to do your research and choose the one that is right for you.

2. Choose the right team

As a business owner, you probably already understand the benefits of employee engagement with your brand. This is even more important for an ecommerce brand when staff can be spread across a wide geographical area and have less face-to-face contact than in retail locations.

As such, it’s vital that you carefully lay out your criteria for a successful team. If you already have a cohesive team, you need to ensure that your team is properly trained in online business processes and that they are able to manage the transition to ecommerce.

You should make sure that you have all the required expertise in your team to make this transition as efficient as possible.

3. Analyze your fulfillment capacity

Moving to an online business is a great way to scale your brand and accelerate growth, but only if you have the capacity to fulfill more orders.

Start with your team, understand their capacity, and work out a strategy from there. If necessary, you can bring on more people or engage the services of a fulfillment agency.

You should understand and apply up-to-date talent and resourcing tools to make sure that you have the talent and team capacity to support this increased business. Give “HCM definition” or “HR tools” a search and take a deep dive.

4. Consider security

One of the main concerns that operators and customers of an online business may have is security, particularly when it comes to customer data and payment information.

The good news is that most ecommerce platforms have built-in security features to prevent data loss or breaches, meaning that most of the legwork is done for you.

However, you’ll still need to think about possible causes of security breaches and proactively address these. They may include:

• Staff error.

• Improper use of your CRM or ecommerce platform.

• Platform-wide security breaches.

• Loss of data banks or files.

Ensure that your data is always stored securely and in line with any applicable data protection laws.

5. Invest in content

How do the most successful brands build their identity? They drive sales, true, but they also establish thought leadership and brand authority. This is particularly true for ecommerce brands, who rely entirely on their online presence to convey their messaging.

To do this and to support your transition to an online business, you should offer value beyond your product to your customers through your content.

The form this takes will depend on your product or service. For example, an online communications brand might produce a series of blogs or articles answering key questions in the industry, such as “How to fax online” or “Which VoIP system is right for me?”

Doing this will support your existing customers and allow you to reap the benefits of online business—opening up your brand to a wider audience who will find high value in your proposition.

6. Review your website

Most ecommerce platforms can be integrated with your existing website. This means that you cannot rely purely on your ecommerce platform. You also need to optimize your website.

Optimizing your website for ecommerce sales takes time but is worth the effort. To do this, you’ll need to analyze:

• Your content

• Sales and landing pages

• Ease of use

• Mobile and desktop view

• Geotargeting

• SEO

• Product pages

• Contact and support pages

In short, you need to review every aspect of your website through the lens of ecommerce. Everything on your site should serve your customers and help you in converting leads into sales.

This might take different forms. You might choose to invest in a new web domain, for example, an OnlyDomains .nz domain for regional brands in New Zealand, or multiple region-specific domains for multinational businesses. Or else, you might decide a complete overhaul is necessary to deliver the best results for you, your brand, and your customers.

7. Choose your shipping partners

If you’re an ecommerce brand that’s going to be offering shipping services, then it’s crucial that you choose the right shipping partner. Consider:

• Your shipping area

• Advertised (and realistic) timings

• Insurance for high-value items

• Whether the service offers tracking services

Your shipping partners ought to be cost-effective but also have a strong reputation for good service in order to differentiate your brand from competitors. Using a company with a poor reputation will have an impact on your brand’s reputation, potentially before a purchase has even been made.

8. Don’t forget marketing

Once you’re ready to move your brand online, it’s time to get the word out! It might seem like a small thing, particularly if you’ve got an established offline business, but this is a major change for your brand. For this reason, it’s important that you communicate clearly and consistently with new and existing customers.

Your marketing can make or break your offline-to-online transition, so it needs to be handled by the experts. Consider your options when it comes down to insourcing vs outsourcing—you may find that you need to engage the services of a freelancer or marketing agency to get the best result.

What’s next?

Now that you have all the tools that you need in order to move from offline to online business, it’s time to get moving! Make sure that you have considered everything listed above, as well as anything relevant to your specific industry, like legalities and taxation. Once you have everything in place, you can begin your move to online business!