Now that you’ve decided to run your own business it’s time to start figuring out the logistics. The idea of your business is great, but there is more to being a business owner than daydreaming about success. It’s time to sit down and figure out how to get the product to the customer and the money to your bank account.
Product
How To Find The Best Products To Sell Online – The Ultimate Step By Step Guide
First things first you need to solidify what your product is. These are the things you need to decide:
- Do you hand make your product or outsource?
- If handmade where do you get your material from?
- Do you have a supplier?
- What makes your product the best?
- Quality?
- Price?
- Standards?
- Who else is selling your same product?
- What do people have to say about them?
- How do they run their business?
- Does it work for them?
Once you’ve figured out exactly what your product is and where it’s coming from it’s time to move on to the next stage.
Platform
6 Places to Sell Your Products Online. What’s Best for Your Business?
How are people going to know about you? You can focus locally and try and sell your product at farmers markets, events or local stores. If you want to sell online there are tons of options so you’ll want to do your research to figure out what would work best for you. Some options include:
- Amazon
- Etsy
- Bonanza
- Craigslist
- Facebook Market Place
If you’re expecting your business to soar solely on the wings of word of mouth, you’re going to be terribly disappointed. This business is going to take leg work on your end if you’re hoping to see success.
Ordering
Next, you need to consider how people will order from you and how you’ll keep track of orders that have been filled and need to be filled. Do you want everyone to have your personal phone number and give you a call when they’d like to order your product?
Perhaps you’d prefer to handle everything yourself so that your customers feel cared for and important. Depending on the size of your business and the number of orders you are filling this may or may not be possible. It’s important to think realistically when deciding how to manage orders and customers.
Payment
Everything You Need To Know About The Mobile Wallet
Money is something you’ll want to be very careful and thorough when managing. How will you expect people to pay you? Also, what form of payments will you accept? If you are going to need to ship your product to your customer you’ll need to consider if shipping fees are included in the price of the item or if there will be additional fees.
Shipping
How to Build a Pallet to Ship to an Amazon Fulfillment Center
It’s important to know how you will safely ship your product to your waiting customers. If you have a relatively large product or you sell in bulk than you might want to consider pallet design systems where they ensure that your product has a firm base to travel safely on. You’ll also need to figure out who you will be shipping through and what all of their requirements are.
Returns
As much as you might want to believe there will never be a reason for a return, it is good to know how you will remedy any mistakes that are made. Perhaps you accidentally sent the wrong thing. Or the product was damaged in the mail. How are you going to fix the problem? It can be something as simple as a reimbursement or you could resend the product.
Now that you have a good base for where to begin in actually getting your product out the door, good luck with your small business! With a bit of luck and a lot of elbow grease, we hope you see success very soon.
