It is an era of bringing your conventional business online. Whether you sell clothes or you sell stationary, whether you are providing consultancy services or you are a marketplace trader for various goods, whether you are a restaurant owner or you own a gift shop – E-Commerce is the key to position your business on a global level. Be it retail or wholesale, goods or services – Online stores are the future of conventional business.
A proper and efficient use of an E-Commerce platform can increase your profits considerably. It removes the boundaries of physical reach and enables you to expand everywhere you want.
While for some people, business through online stores is really a low hanging fruit, the majority of conventional business owners still remain reluctant to go online. The reason behind reluctance is off course the queries they carry in their mind for online business. We have surveyed and collected such general and frequently asked questions from more than 500 local business owners and here are those FAQs with their solutions which can help the conventional business owners to go online.
- How to create my own online store? Is that a very easy and cheap process?
Yes, The process to make your online store is quite easy and cheap. There are various open source software frameworks like Magento, Prestashop, Woo-Commerce, Shopify and Opencart are freely available. A small to medium size IT company can easily create an online store as per your requirements using any of these frameworks within a week at a very reasonable cost.
- Once my online store is ready, what is the process of selling from that store?
Online stores are developed along with an admin panel to manage them. You can enter as many as products or services you want to put for sale. All you need to do is, enter product name, details, photographs, cost, minimum order quantity, taxes and shipping details in the admin panel and your product will start appearing on your store to your customers. You can edit or remove any product from the admin panel whenever you want.
- How to manage regular selling, sales & discounts and offers from online store?
You can manage them easily from the admin panel. You can put items for sale, see the details of received orders, customer detail etc. You can mark the order for shipping and completed once they are delivered. You can add offers, promo code, discounts etc on various products and categories from the admin panel and the same will start appearing on your online store.
- Are normal business practices like trial, discounts and credit selling available with online store too?
Yes, You can easily customize your online store as per your business needs on a reasonable cost.
- How does the money earned from online store reach me?
You can configure your store for both online payment options like net banking, credit card, debit card as well as offline payment options like cash on delivery (COD). You can use payment gateways like Citrus, Stripe, Billdesk etc or wallets like PayTM, GooglePay, PhonePay etc for the same. The payment gateways and wallets connect with your bank account which receives the money. They provide services on commission basis.
- Is it compulsory to link my bank account to the online store to sell from the store?
No, it is not compulsory if you do not want to use online payment methods and want to go with cash on delivery (COD) model only.
- How much time does it generally take to create an online store?
It depends on the number of features you implement in the store. Store with minimum necessary features can be easily built within a week.
- How would I get notified for an order received online?
You can link your online store with your email address and phone number. You will get notified on receiving the order by an email and SMS.
- How to manage shipping and delivery of the orders received online?
You can manage shipping and delivery by your own staff or you can use 3rd party services like Fedex, Bluedart etc for the same. You can manage the shipping charges from the admin panel as per the location. Customers will automatically see these shipping charges applied and added to the order value on entering their shipping location. You can manage free shipping option from the admin panel too.
- How to manage replacement and refund for orders received online?
You need to draft and publish your replacement and refund policy on your online store. You can manage policy details from the admin panel. You can mark the orders replaced or refunded from the admin panel too once you replace or refund the same. The needful order amounts will automatically apply to your invoices and account statements.
- How to manage GST and other taxes for the products and services sold online?
You can enter GST and other taxes per product as well as per product category too. You can manage region and area-wise taxes too. The same will apply and appear in the order value on your store when the customer goes for check out. Various plugins are available at reasonable cost which can enable your online store to manage your taxes, tax statements and accounts easily. You can ask your store developer company to implement plugins as per your requirements.
- How to keep my online store secured from hacking?
You can easily secure your online store by attaching an https certificate with it. You can ask your store developer company for the same.
- Is it possible to facilitate pre-booking from online store?
Yes, You can easily mark the items for pre-booking and wish listing from admin panel.
- How to put goods for sale on marketplaces like Amazon and Flipkart?
You can put goods for sale by registering as vendors / sellers on the marketplaces like Amazon and Flipkart.
We hope the above information helps and encourages you to bring your business online. Feel free to contact us at info@menloparkworld.com for any further queries and get a very reasonable quote for creating your online store.
