Would you love to be running your online business as smoothly as possible heading into 2023?
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Running An Online Business Differently Going Forward
If you run a small business, chances are, this year has seen you undergo a whole lot of change in order to keep things up and running, especially if you were initially running a traditional brick-and-mortar store.
The 2020 pandemic couldn’t have been foreseen by many and has hit the vast majority of businesses hard. When it comes to running a brick-and-mortar store, chances are, you’ve faced a whole lot of difficulty.
Many governments around the world have closed non-essential stores of this type in a bid to reduce contact between different households and consequently slow the spread of the virus.
While this is an essential move to take, it could have impacted your livelihood significantly. Many businesses have taken to operating online in a bid to still make sales and keep their businesses afloat.
If this is a change that you’ve made, then congratulations! You’ve taken a step in the right direction. But you may still be struggling to get used to this change.
Here are a few suggestions that can help you to get by and ensure that all of your customers are left satisfied with their online shopping experience with you!
Package Products Well for Your Online Business
When customers shop in-store, they take the product away in great condition, and then it’s their responsibility to get it home safely.
When you operate online, responsibility switches hands and it’s up to you to make sure your products make it to your customers’ homes in good condition. Packaging plays an extremely important role in this. Consider using packaging solutions to ensure your goods are well-packed.
This will give them the best chances of getting from A to B safely and looking great too!
Focus on Customer Service When Running Your Online Business
When you operate on a face-to-face basis, providing good customer service often comes naturally. It’s much easier to talk and gauge people’s moods and character when you’re talking to them in person.
But you still need to offer great customer service when you operate online. To achieve this, you need to make sure that you offer your customers as many means of contact as possible.
This will ensure that all customers have a way to get in touch that they like and feel comfortable with.
- Have a contact form on your website.
- Be sure to also post your business phone number.
- Include a business email address.
- And be sure to have social media profiles with messaging options turned on.
You could even have a chatbox on your site. The more options, the better! Then, make sure that there’s always someone available to answer customers’ questions, queries, and complaints during your opening hours.
The sooner you can get back to customers, the better and the more profit you’re likely to generate.
These are just a couple of suggestions that should help to get you on track when it comes to operating online. Hopefully, each will come in particularly useful for you at some point or another!
Not answering messages from site visitors? A good way to sabotage your business. If you want to convert visitors, you need to be available to chat 24/7.
But if you’d rather not be forever glued to your site, you need a live chat solution that works for you.
Don’t Promise Delivery Dates
If you cannot be sure of a delivery date, do not promise it. Give options on your products for delivery dates. Online stores that cannot deliver goods when they promise may lose customers quickly.
It is better, to be honest upfront about your delivery capabilities. This season it may be more difficult as carriers will be overwhelmed with online orders. Encourage customers to order early. Even after the holidays, it may take time for delivery services to catch up.
Online stores that cannot deliver goods when they promise may lose customers quickly. #onlinebusiness Share on XMarket Online
If you are running your business online now vs. brick and mortar be sure to advertise online! Take advantage of social media and online ads. If you are unsure of which social media network to be on, read up on which networks cater to specific audiences and niches.
Not all social media networks are the same. For example, Instagram has a younger female audience and Facebook has an older audience. Twitter is more male-dominated. So depending on your products and who purchases from you can make a big difference!
Your Turn
What are you doing now about running your online business? Are you making changes as more people are shopping online? I’d love to know more in the comments below!
She has 30+ years of experience in marketing/advertising with 11 years of experience in content marketing, social media, blogging, and SEO.
You can purchase her eBook about Twitter on Amazon.
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Excellent advice as always Lisa. I particularly love the piece about not promising delivery dates. Until you run an incredibly well-oiled machine, making promises on deliveries can be a nightmare. Amazon does a fine job with its unimaginable resources. Smaller operations should do their best job and beware making ambitious promises too hard to keep.
Ryan
Thank you Ryan. It certainly can be a nightmare. I experienced it with my old medical scrubs websites years ago. I can’t imagine today what a nightmare it must be. Thank you for coming by on this one and I hope your week is starting out well there.