Selling online

Getting a web shop up and running isn’t as tricky as it looks at first glance.

There are a number of ways to get started, from simple PayPal buttons (more of those later), through to a fully featured shop that allows you to track your customers’ buying habits, suggest other products a customer might like, and send marketing emails with your latest offers.

The first place to start is to ask yourself the following questions, and answer them truthfully:

Do I really need to sell my stuff online?

It may sound like a daft question in this day and age, but do you really need to open up a web shop? If you are already selling your goods directly to the public, have you noticed a gap in the market for you to sell them online, or is it just because you think you should have a web shop?

Are the things I want to sell online suitable?

If you are selling perishable goods such as food, then you need to consider whether shipping them via courier or post is going to be cost-effective, or even possible. If they are large, bulky or heavy items, can you send them via regular post, or will they need a special service?

Will I run the shop myself?

A web shop is not usually something that you can just set up and forget about. Often, your customers will decide at 10pm on a Friday night that they simply must ask you immediately whether you can ship on a Saturday - are you available then to field calls or emails? If you don’t want to, then you must make your business hours clear.

There’s nothing worse than sending an email Friday and getting a reply on Monday - you wouldn’t put up with that if you left a message on someone’s answerphone. The web is 24/7, and people expect a real person to be available most days. 

How will I send them out?

There are many courier services other than the big guns of TNT and Parcel Force that will pick up from you and deliver UK-wide for around £15 for up to 20kg. This is much cheaper than using the Royal Mail, but it does mean you have to wait in for the pickups.
For smaller items up to about 2kg, If you think you will be shipping high volumes, then talk to TNT about their rates for multiple packages - opening an account gives huge savings on the one-off package price.

What will it cost to setup?

It will mainly depend on how many products you have, but you should budget from around £1500 to £3000 for a web shop, including the software, design and setup.