Posts Tagged ‘online business advice’

The Shoppers Mindset

Thursday, February 25th, 2021 by
The Shoppers Mindset

One of the major battles of putting together a website is knowing what shoppers want and providing information to them in a way that they can easily absorb it. The Shoppers Mindset is what we are going to call it.

“Give the lady what she wants.” Famous words spoken by Marshall Field, entrepreneur and department store founder. Even though that was from the 1800’s, it still holds true today. Give the online shoppers what they want.

How Customers Browse

Let’s start with how the shopper is most likely browsing online. Most people are in a state of hurried distraction. ALL….THE….TIME. They are quickly browsing on their phone will riding the subway. Or they are checking a few things out during a TV commercial. Perhaps they are sitting at the office at 4pm on a Friday just waiting for the weekend to start.

With so much distraction, you have to get the information to them in a way they can comprehend and absorb it quickly. Studies have shown that shoppers aren’t reading top to bottom or from left to right. Actually, they aren’t really reading at all. At least not at first. They are just flipping to the next page.. click .. click… click. Until something gets their attention.

Now, I’m not saying that you should remove your text copy and just throw up images and headlines on your site. You NEED that wonderful content you wrote about you. your business and about your products. That is ESSENTIAL to search engines to get traffic! We are talking about how the Shopper typically browses online.

So keep all that, but KEEP IT SIMPLE at the same time.

Get to the point and get it all out in the open.
Who are you?
What is your mission?
What do you have for me?
Why should I shop here?

Keep those questions in mind when building the copy for your home page. You’ve got about 30 seconds to a minute to get their attention.

Do you like this article? You might also like to read: Know Your Customers
There is also a good article about How to Win Customers With Your Business

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Your Online Business Equipment List

Wednesday, January 20th, 2021 by
Online Business Equipment

You may be wondering what type of equipment you will need to start an online business. One of the best things about online business is the low overhead. (overhead means operating expenses). You don’t have to take out loans, pay rent, remodel your storefront, pay license fees, pay employees and etc.

A lot of these traditional retail tasks are eliminated with an online business. But there are things like instead of painting the walls of your store, you pick colors and graphics for your online store. Other than paying your landlord a rent check, you are paying for hosting instead.

The main expenses for your online business are computer related; software and hardware. Internet, email, networking, programs & applications that you will need to run smoothly and efficiently. You obviously don’t need the best of the best here. You will find things that can fit any budget.

Great news! If you already have a computer and an internet connection, you are already mainly there and so upgrading your equipment may be unnecessary. But also keep in mind that older devices and programs are lacking in new features and connectivity for technical aspects of your business. So if your computer is frustrating you due to slow speeds, then you should research to upgrade your machine or get a new one.

Your computer is your main device for work, and so eliminating as much frustration and stress just by buying a new device will save you so much headache in the long run and will allow you to enjoy what you are doing so much more!

Computer software can add up!

Software is a biggie here. Software can be extremely expensive and the different kinds of things you need can quickly add up.

Office programs like Excel are a must have. With Microsoft 365 for Business you can pay monthly and have access to cloud storage, email and office applications across all your devices. Having this flexibility is super important. If your computer crashes, you will have all your saved things on the cloud to access from another computer quickly. I know that cloud saving with apps like Dropbox have been extremely important for us!

Don’t forget security! You will have access to customers private information. It is your duty to ensure that information is protected as much as possible with anti-virus and internet safety programs. Secondly, viruses are always popping up online and sometimes in surprising places. So just do the right thing and protect yourself and your customers. Norton360 is an excellent program for this!

Storefront Software – thankfully with most store hosting companies these days, they put a nice administration area together for you to use for your online store. So buying other site building, shopping cart type software is eliminated with getting the one service. Bundling as much together as possible is definitely the way to go when you are just getting started. If you can pay just a handful of companies for their services or programs, it will be easier to manage. As you get comfortable and familiar with how things work, then you can start looking into cutting more costs.

You need accounting!

The last thing we will talk about here is accounting software. You can hire an accountant to handle everything for you, or you can do it yourself by using awesome programs like Quickbooks. Quickbooks will integrate to allow you to automatically pull your transactions in to the system for easier tracking and reporting.

You will need other things down the road, like promotion applications and services for marketing and perhaps graphic creation software to edit and create images. If you happen to have an ecommerce business, you might also want to consider ecommerce solutions like the Transaction Heroes Shopify order fulfillment features. But what we have above are great resources for you to start an online business.

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Do I Need a Business Plan?

Thursday, March 9th, 2017 by

Pen and PaperWe get this question from time to time. Some of our members comment that other websites and tutorials tell them to write up a business plan, but we don’t talk about it. So, let’s talk about it!

Is it necessary to create a business plan? It depends!

Let’s start with what a business plan actually is. A business plan, is a formal statement about your new business. What your goals are, reasons why they are attainable, and your plans for reaching those goals. It serves as a roadmap for your business that you can follow to help you reach your goals.

To get started with your business plan, you ask yourself specific questions like:
Why do you want to start a business?
Why do you want to sell online?
What do you want to sell online?
How do you plan on selling those products?

Don’t ask your friends and family to answer these questions. They can only be answered by you!

Write answers for each of those questions, and then start digging into the details.

For example, the answer to your first question might obviously be: “I want to make money.” But take that and add more details once you really think about it. For example, it could be that you have a fantastic idea & want to sell products that cater to a specific demographic, that you have found is missing and be as detailed as possible.

The last question, how do you plan on selling those products; this is where you would list out your marketing strategy and the services you plan on using to accomplish that.

You would also research costs to get an idea on how much “Facebook ads” would cost per month, or if you sell on eBay, what is the cost associated with that.. if you need legitimate wholesale suppliers then you would also list out WorldwideBrands.com and the cost associated with our service. Listing your costs is important. It will give you an idea of what you will need to spend per month or to get started to see if your ideas are feasible with your current budget.

As you write up your business plan, you research at the same time so you can truly be detailed with your answers. So a business plan can be something that takes quite some time to create, and of course you can modify it any time.

Now, let’s get to the answer for is it necessary?

If you plan on having a buisness partner, or want to take on investors for your business or even a business bank loan, a well thought out buisness plan is essential and is usually required. This will let all parties know what they should expect with your business and help them to determine if they want to work with you or not.

If you do not have plans on taking on a partner, inventors or a loan, it’s not an absolute necessity. However, a business plan can also be used internally by you, and anyone that you work with, for YOU & them to understand what your goals are and how you plan to reach them. Think of it as a written detailed vision board 🙂

So is a business plan a necessity? If you are not going to seek outside monetary help, then no.
Should I write one anyway? If you need something to follow to make sure you don’t forget anything, then sure, you can write it up grocery list style, or go through the process of writing a detailed one.

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Posted in Online Business, Online Business Advice, What's New | 1 Comment »

Selling Online and Social Media

Tuesday, September 20th, 2016 by

social networkThere is more to selling online that just the buying and selling of products. You have to stand out from the crowd, and Social Media gives you the outlet to have your unique voice.

Just like how selling online is more than what I said above, Social Media is more than just posting a comment or a note on Twitter or Facebook.

Social Media is a marketing tool for your business. You can use social media channels to sell your products and get the word out about your business.

Here are some ways that you can use Social Media for your online business:

  1. Targeting Customers
    Instead of using paid ads in the search engines, only to convert a handful of customers, you can use Social Media to find customers with the same likes as to what you are offering. Social Media sites have very targeted options when using their advertising and the cost is usually less than what you would pay for the search engines. You can then engage those customers through your social media posts. You can also find groups online that like the things you are offering and can join those groups to promote your company if you can offer advice or information other than just blatantly promoting your business.
  2. Engaging Customers
    Replying to your customers or potential customers questions is super easy when they reach out to you on the social sites. Plus if they do it via post, you can answer other customers questions at the same time when you publicly post these questions and answers. That one-on-one interaction will build better customer relationships.
  3. Get Your Employees or Family & Friends to Help
    When your employees or family and friends re-tweet or re-share something you have posted for your business, you organically reach more customers and immediately get a bigger reach and pool of customers that get to know your business.
  4. Get Silly!
    Have you seen many of the latest TV ads or big brand social shares? So many of them are just plain silly and humorous and that’s because Millennials are the ones that engage with social media the most.  You can share funny pictures, videos and jokes. But of course make sure that these are all in good taste and are actually tied to your business!

Now don’t forget that there are most social media sites than just Twitter or Facebook. There is also; YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram, Google+, LinkedIn, Digg, Tumblr, Blogs, Forums and many more. Just find the right outlets for your business and concentrate on those.

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