Why You Should Open an Online Store Now - Not Later

The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is today.

The Story

By the time I was 35 years old, I had opened over 100 brick-and-mortar retail stores in 22 countries. I had evaluated over 250 locations and had turned down the opportunity to open more stores than those I had approved, based on a likelihood-of-success formula that I had developed from previous successes and failures. I was at the peak of my retail career when I was hired by Crocs to open stores in the Caribbean. I was hired by Porsche Design to analyze potential store openings in Panama. I was hired by the $100MM Australian-based swimwear company, Seafolly, to identify the site of their first retail store in the United States. I was a brick and mortar expert. 

So why did I join an e-commerce company? 

In 2012, on a Sunday afternoon, my wife and I sat in our car in the empty parking lot of an e-commerce company that had just made me an offer to be their new president. In an industry I wasn't familiar with, and a platform that wasn't brick and mortar. "You really want to do this?" she asked me. "I don't fully understand e-commerce", I told her, "and I think it's a blind side in my career. I can't be a one-trick-pony that only understands brick and mortar. I believe the future of retail is both in-person and virtual." So I took the job and spent the next decade becoming an e-commerce expert. 

In 2020, the unimaginable happened during the COVID pandemic that changed the face of retail forever. The world was forced to move online, and brick-and-mortar temporarily came to a halt. It has since made a return, but the pandemicforever changed the retail landscape. Retailers with a virtual presence thrived during COVID. Those without a virtual presence faltered. And since the pandemic, more people shop online than ever before. 

The Lesson

If your retail strategy doesn't include a virtual store, you are not only missing out on revenue, but you are also avoiding a low-cost strategy to mitigate the risk of failure. When you realize that you need an online store, it is almost always too late. Like the tree metaphor, you will wish that you started 20 years ago. But remember, the second best time to start is today. 

When we speak with entrepreneurs, these are the top reasons that their retail strategy does not include an online store:

• I can't ship my product.
• It's too expensive to run an online store. 
• I don't know how to build it.
• I don't know how to market online. 
• I don't understand all the regulations. 
• I'm just not very tech savvy. 
• I don't need it. People prefer doing business in person.
• I'm happy with the revenue I make right now and don't need to grow online.
• My products are seasonal and only available a few months a year, so online is a waste of time and money. 

There are other reasons, of course, but those above tend to be the most frequently used. And while every entrepreneur is not required to open an online store, we have never met an entrepreneur that regrets opening theirs. In fact, as we have helped people open their first store, these are the comments we hear most:

• I didn't realize how easy it. 
• I didn't realize how affordable it is. 
• I didn't know I had customers that lived that far away. 
• I wish I would have started an online store earlier, just as a way to collect emails and texts. 
• I didn't know that most of my marketing is free. 
• I didn't realize that an online store would increase my brick-and-mortar sales. 

An online store doesn't have to be complicated. For most start-ups, it shouldn't be complicated. It also doesn't need to be expensive. Shopify stores start at $30-$40/mo for a beautiful store with all the functionality that you need to begin, including email capture. 

The most compelling reason that you should start your online store today is this: your customers expect it. They want to see you online, they want to learn more about you, they want to learn more about your products and who they are buying from. And they will happily share their emails and allow you to contact them when there are promotions, new products or important announcements. 

Let's address several of the top reasons people don't start online stores individually. 

Reasons #1: I  can't ship my product.

It may be that your product is something delicate that appears unable to ship without custom packaging and/or expensive delivery services. (Like cakes with frostings, or soft goods that simply can't be wrapped.) Or it may be that you are worried that you need special licensing to ship various items through commercial shippers because of various shipping regulations. Whatever your concern may be, if you have competitors that are currently shipping their similar products, you can too. There is a way and it isn't as complicated and/or expensive as you think.

Reason #2: It's too expensive to run an online store.

10 years ago, this was a valid concern. But platforms like Shopify have made it easy, safe and secure. You don't have to worry about servers, credit card processing, hackers, custom programing or hiring expensive web developers. For $30/mo, you can have a beautiful, secure, functioning website up in a matter of hours. You might need a little guidance to get started, but their intuitive process can be managed and navigated by even the earliest of beginners. 

Reason #3: I don't know how to market online.

You don't need to market online to begin. The very act of having a store is marketing. Within hours of opening, Google will begin to crawl your site and you will begin climbing the Google ranks for search terms that will lead to your business. And once you are live, there are many free marketing initiatives that you can launch that aren't difficult to execute. 

Reason #4: I don't understand online selling regulations.

Shopify will manage most of these for you. That have simple application for sales tax in addition to easy-to-install apps (many of which are free) that ensure that your website is compliant. They will help with privacy policies and other pages that are needed to open. They take care of all credit card processing, so you and your team never store or handle customer credit card information. Customers can set up accounts on your own and they can even purchase your products through the Shop App without the need for you to do any app developing. Shopify does it all for you. 

If there are shipping regulations that you are worried about (like a product that you are concerned cannot be shipped for various reasons), let's schedule a call and we can help you navigate possible solutions. 

Reason #5: My products are seasonal. I won't have anything to sell in the off season.

We always ask this question to seasonal sellers: Would you like to sell other products in the off season? We have yet to meet anyone that says no. Once you have an online store and learn how to build a product page, you learn how easy it is to add more products over time. And as you learn and interact more with your customers, you will find that there are products they are purchasing that are closely related to what you are selling...and those products can now be easily added to your store. Every time you add a product, Google crawls your site and you begin ranking for that product. Adding product pages is another form of free marketing. 

Conclusion

There is no reason to delay starting your online store. It will enhance the experience with your existing customers in person, it will provide a medium that will allow you to begin collecting emails, it will help your customers get to know you and it will increase your in-person sales by providing a level of sophistication that makes people more likely to order your product. 

If you have any reservations that haven't been discussed in this article, give us a call and we can work through every hurdle together to help you form a path that allows you to begin. 

The world will always appreciate in-person selling, but the world simultaneously expects online options when selling in person isn't convenient. And it is much easier and much less expensive than you believe it may be to begin. 

We have never met an entrepreneur that said, "I wish I never started my online store."