Hey Cape Breton Businesses … many of you are closed and not generating revenue.  Tough times ahead!  

Some of you are starting to offer online sales, and that’s smart.  Smart for now and smart for when the world returns to normal because buyer shopping behaviour will be changed forever.

I’ve been a local entrepreneur for 25 years with multiple businesses and have been selling online all of that time.  I’ve processed tens of thousands of transactions totaling millions of dollars from customers around the world … all right here from Sydney.

Here are my tips for you:

1. Start now, not later.  Why pass up revenue?
   
   
2. You can accept orders by email, but email is the most unreliable and inefficient way to do it.  I get it, email is familiar to you, but trust me when I say that it creates more stress than sales. 
   
   The best solution is a website service for selling products.  There are many do-it-yourself options, but I know that many of you will not be comfortable setting it up yourself.  And, you may not want spend money to hire someone to do it for you.
   
   If you want a simple and inexpensive (or free) option, consider using an online payment form for customers to place and pay for orders.  An online form feeds the order data to an online spreadsheet that you and everyone involved with fulfilling the order can monitor.  This approach keeps your order info in one place and visible by your team wherever they are. No email forwarding, no copying and pasting text, no orders lost in email spam.
   
   
3. For online payment, you can accept etransfer, but you will get many more sales if you accept credit cards (especially now when people need to rely on credit). Etransfer is not very efficient because it is done by email and you have to check your bank account every time to confirm receipt of payment. To accept credit cards, PayPal or Stripe are your best options right now, if you don’t already use another payment service.  They normally charge about 3% of the order.
   
   
4. Shipping is expensive for us businesses.  The challenge is that consumers have come to expect free or low cost shipping.  The closer you can get shipping to appear free, the more sales you will get. What to do?  
   
   
• First, consider if you can move some of the shipping costs to your price.  For example, $15 shipping on a $30 order is a deal breaker for most consumers.  So make it $9 shipping and a $36 price. The consumer pays the same, you earn the same revenue, and it avoids shipping sticker shock.
  
  
• Second, consider only offering products that increase the order size.  For example, instead of offering a $20 product, offer a $30 bundle so that you can make the shipping costs more reasonable.
  
  
• The good news is that many local customers are willing to pick up their orders and that eliminates shipping costs altogether.  Just include a pickup time on your order form and you are all set.
  
  
5. Once you are ready to sell online, you have to let people know about it.  And constantly. One Facebook post is not going to be enough.  

There’s a lot more I could add, but best to keep this post short.  You can research more ideas and tutorials online. The most important message here is to start now — your customers are waiting for you.

goCapeBreton.com can set you up for online sales and promote your business to Cape Bretoners at home and away — click here to find out more