Tell People
If no one knows you’re transitioning towards an online selling platform, then no one is going to purchase your items. Simple. You need to advertise the fact. Do so in your local community. Target the people who shopped with you regularly before the global issues kicked in. Bring them to your website or selling platform. You might need some help with SEO or advertising, but remember, you aren’t just setting up an online platform for the short term, it could take your business in totally new directions so invest if you can.
Get The Warehouse Space
If you sell products rather than services, you’ll need to space to store them before sending them out. If you have a brick and mortar store then you’re good as you can use that as a warehouse, at least until shops start to reopen or until people start shopping around again. This might not be practical depending on where the shop is. You might have a spare room or two in your house, if this is the case you can use those or a garage as a warehouse. You might even be able to rent somewhere at a decent rate, especially at the moment where there’s a slight downturn in the economy etc with less businesses using the space. Try to haggle, and find the best rate possible. If you’re doing this short term, consider selling on somewhere like Amazon.
Get The Website Right
If you are thinking of going this long term then you’ll need a good website. This isn’t something that should be rushed, even if you want to get out there as soon as possible. You need to find a decent developer who can do exactly what you want. Look at your competitors and see what they’re doing. Your website needs to flow logically, with easy to follow pages that flow logically on from each other. This means your landing page has to pull people further in, but that they can find exactly what they want to buy quickly. You need to remember to increase the methods of pay too. Don’t just take debit cards. Take credit, apple pay, etc. If your products are quite expensive then you could even think about implementing a pay by installments system. This could come later though. First, it needs to look good and draw people in.