The word recession is being thrown around in the press a lot these days. With layoffs at companies such as Facebook, Twitter and Amazon, even tech sector is not immune. Yet, a silver lining exists. Often times recessions are the best times to start your business.
If you’re starting up your own business, chances are, you’ve already invested a lot of time, money and effort into the process. Just to get into a place where you’re ready to engage with customers, you need to have developed an effective and appealing product or service, conducted plenty of market research, figured out your finances, registered your company, considered branding, packaged your goods and a host of other steps. But simply having your products ready to go isn’t enough to make you money. You need to convert sales which will, in turn, generate profit that can line your pockets and keep your business afloat. But how do you secure those first few sales to get the ball rolling? Here are a few suggestions that will help you along the way.
Have Your Order Fulfilment Process Ready
Before doing anything, you need to make sure that you have an order fulfilment process ready. You never know, your first sale may be quickly followed by a second, third and even more flooding in. You need the means and capacity of processing multiple sales simultaneously, ensuring that everything gets to those who’ve ordered your goods in good time. There are countless ways to go about order fulfilment, from organising courier collections yourself to outsourcing to an order fulfilment company. Shop around for the best deals. You can find Significant Savings on LTL Shipping.
Effective Inventory Management
A key aspect of successful operations is effective inventory management. By maintaining an updated and balanced stock level, effective inventory management enables you to meet demand without overstocking. Modern inventory software offers real-time tracking of stock levels, sales orders and deliveries while automating many tasks reducing human error while freeing up time for more pressing activities such as decision making processes and customer relations activities. Remember, efficient inventory management may lead to improved customer satisfaction since less problems with stock availability or delivery delays will likely arise as a result.
Have Multiple Payment Methods Ready
Most businesses nowadays operate online and will already have card payments set up on their site. But you should also make sure that you have other payment methods ready too. You don’t want to lose a sale because someone tried to order while they were out and about and didn’t have their actual bank card on them. Instead, offer options such as Apple Pay or Paypal too – these allow people to pay with the click of a button or face recognition.
Offer Discounts
Entice people into a first purchase with a discount. Sometimes, people don’t want to pay full price for a product they’re not sure they’re going to like, so offering a small discount can help them to justify their spend.
Mailing List Sign Up Discounts
A simple discount to offer that benefits both you and your customer is a mailing list sign up discount. You exchange a small discount (usually 10%) or another gesture (such as free shipping on their first order) for their email address. Not only will they be more likely to check out, but you can then send them marketing materials to bring them back time and time again too.
Advertised Discounts
Chances are, you’re going to need to advertise your goods a lot as you start out. This will ensure people know they’re out there and to look further into them. Whether you opt for TV ads, radio ads, leaflets, posters, billboards, PPC ads or other digital ads, attaching a discount code can drive more sales.
Hopefully, some of the advice above will help you not only to secure your first sales effectively, but can make the entire process a little more straightforward and successful too!
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