If you’ve recently set up your own business, you could be brimming with excitement right now. You’re your own boss! You can set your own hours! You can work around your kids, allowing you to give them the care they need without necessarily having to spend much time out of the house.
However, frustration could set in when you try to grow your online business – a much bigger ask than setting it up. Fortunately, here are a few simple ways you could help yourself to shed your anguish.
1. Thoroughly research what your customers want
We’ll assume that you aren’t psychic, and so you will have to resort to the likes of research and surveys to discern your customers’ wants and needs. However, soliciting feedback isn’t enough; you need to encourage your customers to be completely honest, even brutally so, with their thoughts.
Otherwise, you will remain at a loss as to what products and services would be well-suited to your target audience. Research should be ongoing, too, given how easily market preferences can change.
2. Be attentive to customer concerns as they are aired
Even if you are confident that you have the best product on the market, you could end up needlessly sacrificing a lot of goodwill if your customer service isn’t up to scratch. After all, your relationship with a customer won’t necessarily end once they have bought your product.
Unforeseen issues with that product could break cover later. Address those issues as soon as you know about them. You could also start a loyalty scheme, as Small Business Trends suggests.
3. Make sure you have a Google My Business listing
Naturally, you want your business to fall in front of the right people’s eyes on Google, but you shouldn’t consider that job done once your firm’s website is all up and running. You should also ensure your firm has its own Google My Business listing, a process outlined by Startups.co.uk.
This listing will show various details relating to your business – think, to reel off some examples, the company’s name, address, phone number and website address – in a single, easy-to-digest box.
4. Reduce your firm’s paper and packaging usage
Fortunately, a profitable business doesn’t have to be an environmentally unsustainable one. Quite the opposite, in fact – as, in this day and age, consumers are likelier to pay extra for items that have been ethically procured. Bytestart.co.uk details how you can reduce paper and packaging usage.
To these ends, you could switch to paperless invoicing and billing, such as by storing office files in the cloud, while you could investigate using a return scheme for collecting and reusing packaging.
5. Be selective with the products you source
Right now, you might not be stocking enough of the “right” products. For example, maybe your stock barely sells for more than what you pay for it. Alternatively, supplies might keep running low, perhaps due to factors beyond your control. Fortunately, if your online store is Amazon-based, Source Mogul’s search capabilities can help you to source better deals.
