Adapting your business for e-commerce - Page 2

Leverage your existing brand

The obvious place to start differentiating yourself online is by taking your existing customers onto the internet – basically, making your successful offline brand work online.

The vast majority of companies that have successfully transferred business online have used their existing brands, with Tesco and Argos being prime examples.
Your existing customers know and trust your brand, and they will be key to your success online.

So unless there are strong reasons for doing otherwise, your website should be built around your existing brand and reflect its values. Ideally, your company name should also be your domain name – your ‘www’ address.

In some instances this won’t be possible, but it’s worth exploring how much it’d cost to buy any owned URLs or, alternatively, to use the name of any recognisable product brands.

Provide adequate resources

Research conducted by my company, Actinic, found businesses solely based on the internet are more profitable. The reason is clear: they’re committed to focusing 100% of their resources online.

Consequently, the level of profitability you achieve with the online arm of your business will reflect the effort and investment you put into it.

In turn, the least profitable thing you can do with the internet is ignore it. Many companies have been put off by the time and effort the internet seems to demand and responded by doing nothing. It’s very likely the majority of those are losing market share to competitors not so intimidated.
 
Like any venture, trading online requires a certain level of commitment and investment to succeed. If you have plenty of resources, or external financial investment, you have the potential to start big and grow fast.

Alternatively, you can start small and grow from there. Either way, you must ensure that technical resources, staff time, finance and marketing are adequately budgeted if you are to achieve your targets.

Invest more in promotion than technology

This doesn’t mean splashing cash where it’s not needed, though. One of the prime factors in generating online profit is spending money where it’s going to be felt, not where it’s just going to look pretty.

Technology is a means to an end. So is good design. Having a functional and professional-looking site is important. But remember, your website is a showcase for your products, not a web designer’s creative prowess.
 
It might even be the case that off-the-shelf solutions costing around £500 can do an equally effective job as an expensive, bespoke site, especially if yours is a tried and tested retail business model. Such packages are now highly customisable and are more than capable of providing front- and back-end management of sales in excess of £1m.
 
Whichever route you choose, make sure you get a reliable solution that will not burn a massive hole in your budget. Spend what you need to on a good design and save the rest on marketing. You can have the most functional and attractive site on the planet, but if no-one visits, you won’t make a penny in sales.

Make sure you are legal

Most rules online are similar to those offline. The main extras are international taxation and the EU Distance Selling Directive.

Under the Distance Selling Directive, you must provide full contact details, including address and phone number. You must accept returned goods for any reason within seven working days.

This may sound like a burden, but if your products are up to scratch then returns will be rare. In fact, you can turn it into a positive. Tell your customers outright that you accept returns unconditionally.