Opening an online store has never been easier, and with up to 90% of them failing within the first year, it shows. In this guide we will show you how you can reduce the risk of your business failing, and share with you our tips and tricks to make it a success.
Validate Your Product Idea
You’ve got the idea, but you need to know if it’s going to be a success, before you invest any of your time or money, make sure there is a demand for what you’re offering. You can use tools like Google Trends to spot any rising demand and validate your ideas early.
Think it’s a unique product that people might not be looking for yet? Ask your social network, friends, family, colleagues, ensure you’re solving a problem, not creating one for yourself. Don’t forgot to also look at platforms like Etsy, eBay and Amazon to check what is selling well.
Register Your Business
Before launching your website or taking payments, you need to ensure you have set your business up the right way. When setting one up in the UK, this is a simple process.
Steps to Registering a Business
- Choose your Legal Structure, decide what you want to operate as, whether this is a sole trader, limited company or a partnership. Each one of these has it’s benefits.
- Register with HMRC or Companies House, sole traders need to register for self assessment, a limited company needs to be registered with companies house.
- Get a Business Bank, Whether you’ve set up as a sole trader or a limited company, getting a separate bank is a beneficial to keeping your finances separate, making it easier to know what you owe
- Applying for Insurance, Depending on what you are selling you may need to set up insurances, these are normally public liability insurance, product liability, or professional indemnity if you’re offering digital services.
Pro Tip: If you are launching with a co-founder, make sure to set up a founders agreement and register the business jointly. This will outline the ownership split, decision making and what happens if someone wants to exit the business.
Choose Your Platform
You’ve got the idea, your business registered, now what. You need to decide how you’re going to build your website. There are many options currently on the market, the most popular being Shopify and WooCommerce, both of them have their benefits. Choose one that fit’s your technical comfort level and business goals.
If you’ve got a web developer or marketing agency already in place, great. If you don’t, feel free to contact us and we will be able to advise on what is the best solution for you and we can recommend someone we trust to assist.
Sort Out Logistics
Without the right logistics in place, it could lead to unnecessary stress and unhappy customers. Set up your delivery and returns process, using companies such as Royal Mail, DPD, Evri. Clearly communicate your delivery timelines and return policies with your customers to avoid any issues later down the line.
Get Your Payment System in Place
Choosing the right payment provider can be the difference between success and failure, sticking with the major providers like Stripe or Paypal are recommended. Remember to be honest when signing up about what you sell, as without these you won’t be able to process any customer orders.
Make sure to test your checkout process when you’ve got a payment provider in place, you need it to be simple and trustworthy, this will keep customers coming back to your store and also reduce the amount of abandoned baskets you will get.
Create a Strong Brand and Website
Your online store should look professional and represent your companies values. Remember that your customer aren’t buying from you, they are buying from your brand. This means your website needs to look the part and be trustworthy, something as simple as your content touching your footer can make you look untrustworthy.
Start Marketing Your Store
If nobody knows you exist or what you sell, you won’t make any sales. Use email marketing, Organic SEO, social media and paid ads to drive traffic to your store. Creating content is the best for a long term strategy, whether this is showing people a glimpse behind the scenes and creating videos for youtube, or having a blog on your website to answer common questions about your product and industry.
Track Performance and Optimise
Always make sure you have analytics tools installed on your website, whether you are building it yourself or having someone else build it for you. Tools such as Google analytics or Microsoft Clarity are great to see how customers are interacting on your site and what they are drawn towards.
Testing different landing pages and marketing messages is a great way to get feedback on what customers are looking for, you can see what headlines are grabbing attention, or what product range isn’t generating much so you know what not to push.
Get Expert Advice
While it all can be overwhelming and not knowing what decision to make, we are able to help guide you through the process, help you decide if you should register as a limited company or a sole trader. We are able to assist with everything from creating your business plan to launching your website and following up with you regularly to keep you on the right path.
Learn more about our startup services.
