The online business is one of the most popular starting points for entrepreneurs these days. They research the markets and develop, or purchase, the right products that have the ability to break the sales charts. Although most of them succeed, the number of people who fail is also pretty high.
However, a person can only compete in the online world for so long. Whether you are a one-man army or have a whole team working to enhance marketing and increase the flow of traffic towards your site, it might be good to open a store or an office.
A physical location will reduce the headaches of always bidding for keywords on the search engines, and competing with hundreds of thousands of other businesses on the internet.
Not only that, but many consumers still prefer to shop the physical stores. Even though they might search for the products online, they might head down to a few stores to find the goods, feel it in real life, and make a purchase.
Nevertheless, starting a business is not easy. You will have to put in a lot of work in the beginning to make sure everything runs smoothly once it starts. It may also be quite expensive, but you can outsource many services and get investors to help.
If you are still interested in opening up a physical location for your online business, here is everything you need to know.
Test the Waters
Before you get ahead and start planning for your store, it might be necessary to think about testing the waters first.
With a Pop-Up
Pop up shops have been gaining plenty of popularity lately with various kinds of business. Particularly with people running online stores. The reason is that they are excellent to test out products in physical locations before they are released to the masses. People also use them to see whether their products would sell better at a physical location or not. While there are also many other reasons, these should be enough to get excited about the idea.
You can come up with an excellent design for the shop and figure out some unique marketing strategies to make it a hit.
With A Stall
Although a pop-up store is a great idea, it can be quite expensive to open one up. You can look into opening a simple stall at a festival, event, expo, a market, or any other suitable spot. It will be possible to see how people are interested in the products you have to offer. Not only that, but you can utilize the opportunity to get started on email marketing by collecting people's emails.
Brainstorm Ideas for a Store
After being certain about opening up a store, figure out the type of retail business that best suits your needs. There are many kinds of brick and mortar stores, but store-front and home-based are the most popular.
Home-Based
A home-based business is a more traditional way. Everything is neatly put together in your own house, and your family members can be your employees.
Starting your own store can become pretty expensive and stressful. There are many things that you may have to deal with, and money can always present itself to be a big problem. If you are not able to put together that much money and don't want to deal with investors or banks, then a home-based business can be an excellent idea. You won't have to pay any rent, nor have to buy a property. You will save on salaries, utilities, and many other things that would have cost thousands otherwise.
Although the home-based store is an excellent option to save money, it will keep you in the same place forever. You can't expand with a home-based store, meaning there is no way but to leave and start a store-front business if you're looking for development. These stores also seem incredibly unprofessional, as they are located in a house. Not only that, but you might have a challenging time separating your personal and work life.
Store-Front
A store-front is the kind of shop that you see on the streets, malls, and everywhere else. They display all their products with a brilliant design to attract customers. They have a professional working environment where a consumer can feel confident about their purchase.
These stores are the most popular kind. Although most retailers prefer to open them on the main streets to get the most customers, some open up shop in malls and commercial buildings. These stores are very carefully planned, and they showcase a wide range of products. The owners often put up big glass windows in the front, which allows every person passing by to view their collection.
Any retailers can open up a store-front, which is why it doesn't matter what you have to offer. As long as it attracts people and they want to purchase it, you are good. But the problems arise in starting the store. There are many things that you need to plan for it to be a success.
Why Is Location Important?
With a home-based store, you are most likely going to open up shop in your own home. That is why you might have to deal with a lot of things.
On the other hand, a store-front can be in any place of your choosing. But when you're looking around for the best area, here are three things you need to keep in mind.
People That Are Around
Most people don't consider this as an essential factor, but the people that live around the area and visits it often matter.
You need to carefully look at the crowds that are around your potential location. It might even help to conduct a random survey and ask people if they will be interested in purchasing your products.
To help you better understand why it's necessary, here is an example. You are trying to sell expensive products in an area lined with average priced or cheap goods stores.
By knowing what people want, you can adequately choose the right location.
The Costs
The store might already be costing you a good deal of money, and the location might just add to it.
If your funds are limited, then you should consider looking at less favored places. The more popular areas have very high rents, and they require your store to have a certain standard. That means you will have to spend huge chunks of cash on designing as well just to stand a chance against the others on that line.
Competition in the Area
When you are looking for a location, look at the stores all around it. It would be best to check what prices they offer, what products they sell, what brands they have, and many other things.
It will help you create a better business plan that could compete with the others in the market. You already have a good name online, having the right physical location can make your store a hit.
Why Is Customer Service Important?
Customer service is one of the best ways to make sure your business stays booming. If you are not able to provide quality service to consumers that call or are physically there at the store, your business can get hurt.
Since it will cost a good amount of cash to hire employees to deal with customers, and separate help dedicated just for answering calls, consider outsourcing. You can hire an Answering Service to make a good name for your company. They can answer all the calls and handle the inquires while you focus on making the store a hit.
Point Of Sale
The point of sale is the cashier area of a store. It is one of the main places in the shop because that is where your system is tested.
Consumers nowadays have online wallets and use various methods to pay. If a store doesn't have their preferred method, they have no choice but to leave. Therefore, you need to have an advanced point of sale system to attract the most customers. You can even advertise your store as the one that accepts all sorts of the latest payment options.
Insurance and Permits
When buying or leasing a site for your store, there are many things you have to keep in mind. You will require several kinds of insurance, permit, and licenses.
While you had the freedom to sell anything online, every physical store requires a license or permit of sorts to operate. You will also need to have an insurance policy to protect the structure of your store from any harm. According to the kind of store you are planning to open, it may be possible to get a few other policies.
If you plan on running it from home, don't expect your homeowner's or renter's insurance policy to cover the business. You will require commercial insurance to avoid suffering from any losses if a disaster ever strikes.
Community manager at Visual Contenting. Jacqueline loves to talk about social media trends, new technology and how they help businesses accelerate their marketing efforts.
