QuickStart Guide: How to Start Online Business with Local Delivery
Recent research confirms that the demand for local delivery has grown significantly over the past few years. This is due to several factors at once: many consumers wanted to support small and medium-sized businesses; this is much faster than expecting a delivery from other regions; most often it is the delivery of unique goods. If you’re about to start your online business, be sure to add the option of local delivery.
Why Choose Local Delivery?
When you start an online business, you are at the very beginning of a long journey, your starting point is a launching pad that you choose and “equip” yourself. Starting with the local delivery is a great idea, if only because you can quickly get the attention of customers and get their support for further development. That is, in this way, you create a thoughtful shopping experience for the local community.
By connecting with your local community – the neighborhood – you highlight your brand, increase loyalty and sales in a relatively easy way.
Local delivery allows you to reduce the time of goods from your warehouse to the consumer several times, and, hence, significantly affects the satisfaction of consumers lately. By offering same or next-day delivery, you solve the problem of shopping delays and gain loyal customers who will recommend you to everyone, everywhere.
Finally, you drive sales. Shoppers are more likely to purchase more locally delivered items and get them in no time than expecting weeks of shipping.
How to Start Online Business?
There is a fairly simple and already well-known algorithm for opening an online sales business. Use this checklist to forget nothing and short tips to boost your business right from the start.
1. Prepare your product. Be especially careful when choosing a product for online sales, conduct marketing research of your target audience to accurately determine the range of products that will be in demand.
2. Prepare a visualization of your product. Photos and short video reviews are your main online sales tools. Make sure the photos are of high quality and resolution, allow customers to view your product from all angles, show the scale and size, etc. A little tip: try to make your photos situational and interesting – storytelling in a photo significantly increases the likelihood of a purchase.
3. Prepare the eCommerce platform. It can be a ready-made template on a well-known marketplace, where you only need customization, or you can use web development to build your own website.
4. Add products to the store. This is often a lengthy process if you offer a large number of types of products. Make sure not to overlook anything in the specs, add a good description in addition to the photo. Remember, a good selling text should be SEO optimized and tell the customer how this product will help him or improve his quality of life.
5. Add payment methods. Choose several methods of payment for your goods at once: cards, PayPal, cash upon receipt (if the goods require inspection before payment), etc. Make sure to consider all possible options and leave room for updates.
6. Add and customize delivery options. Give your consumers more options to choose from: day, time, location. But only on condition that you can provide it – strictly assess your capabilities and constantly expand them.
And now you are ready to accept orders and deliver them to your customers within the specified time frame. Let’s focus a little more on exactly how you can ensure on-time local delivery.
· Your first step here is to determine where you will be delivering your goods from, whether it will be one location or you have multiple warehouses.
· Now define the territory. You can use zip codes to localize areas or a map to mark the radius of delivery in a neighborhood. Delivery terms should not exceed 2-3 days, otherwise, the whole point is lost, so choose wisely. In addition, consider delivery methods: on foot, by bicycle, motorbike or car – this will also affect the local delivery network.
· Determine who will handle the delivery and how often. If you’ll do it yourself, then you will need a time corridor to collect orders and the same for their delivery. If you have employees for this, your opportunities are much broader. You can also delegate delivery to third-party services, but remember that they are part of your user service – make sure the company is reliable.
· Expand the possibilities. Local delivery assumes that the goods will be delivered straight to the doorstep, thus minimizing contact, however, this is not always convenient. Add the possibility of curbside pickup or delivery to parcel terminals (for example) so that the buyer can pick up the goods at a convenient place and time.
· Allow consumers to track delivery in real-time. This option is in high demand as consumers want to know where their order is and how quickly it will be delivered. Send a notification by mail or through the application (if you use it as an online selling platform) that the goods are on the way and make it possible to track their movement on the map.
Hope this short guide will be useful to you, please share your opinion in the comments. What steps and tips have been helpful to you?
