Historically, many ecommerce fulfilment services have struggled to meet the needs of local businesses, with tools, services and packages designed for online-only stores and large conglomerates.
This is a problem because setting up ecommerce cannot be a half measure; a business either commits to bringing their business online or they will likely save money focusing on attracting customers off the street from their place of business.
However, many small local shops will still find a lot of benefit in having an ecommerce section of their business, either through adding to your value proposition for local people or having the potential to ship nationally or internationally without extra work or complexity.
If you feel like your small, locally-oriented business has the potential to be more, here is a guide to getting your online business online, including how to make it work for you, choosing the right ecommerce partners to work with and what to avoid when starting out.
Why Should You Use Ecommerce With Your Local Business?
Most businesses intuitively understand the appeal of ecommerce, but the benefits go beyond widening your catchment area and the reach of your business. In fact, this is a misunderstanding that can do damage to a local shop.
For many local shops, particularly those that specialise in traditional crafts or niche industries, the shop itself is a major part of the appeal of the business, and this is unlikely to change. If your shop is appealing, people will tend to prefer going in person.
Rather than thinking about the quantity of potential customers, consider instead the quality of service you can provide to your local community and how you can provide as many channels as possible to get them what they want and need.
Having an ecommerce option can also help if you run a seasonal or tourist-focused business but sell items that can be difficult for people travelling to your shop to take home with them if they do not have a car, such as bulky souvenirs.
How Does Local Ecommerce Work?
Local ecommerce, also known as hyperlocal ecommerce, is where local physical retailers also sell online, often with the brick-and-mortar shop also acting as a catalyst to inspire online sales.
In some respects, your local ecommerce company becomes a digital twin of your physical shop, and there is typically integration between the in-store sales experience and the delivery experience.
It is perfect for getting around the issues found with both ecommerce and physical retail from the perspective of the customer:
- Physical retail provides an excellent multisensory in-store experience but lacks a consistent, convenient delivery experience.
- Online retail is more convenient, but this can come at the cost of the in-store experience and the personal touch that makes local businesses so special and important.
This is often combined with personal online and offline marketing, making use of pictures and videos inside the shop showcasing their personality, insights into their production and entertaining ways to showcase their wares on offer.
Marketing is storytelling regardless of the medium, and having a physical store provides the ideal stage for the brand tale you want to tell.
Will Your Local Business Succeed With Ecommerce?
Local businesses can use ecommerce successfully, but they need to commit to it and find an approach that is properly integrated with how they run their business, rather than being a bolt-on contingency or a “nice to have”.
Succeeding at ecommerce means adopting a multichannel approach, where you have a system to ensure that ecommerce orders are fulfilled as efficiently as your shop shelves.
This means dedicating resources and staff to each, rather than having shop assistants both keeping your physical retail location looking perfect whilst also packing boxes to ship to customers. This can cause the customer experience to suffer for both online and offline customers.
If you are thinking of adopting ecommerce, seriously consider the following three questions.
Do Your Existing Customers Want It?
It is best to tailor your product offering to serve the needs of your existing customers, which means that the best people to tell you if ecommerce is a good idea are your existing customers.
Set up a market research initiative consisting of surveys, focus groups and asking regular customers whether they would be more likely to buy online if they could not reach your store for whatever reason.
Your existing customer base already proves the viability of your business, and finding out why they like you, trust you and buy from you is the key to running a successful ecommerce business.
Are You Ready To Deliver Outside Of Your Local Area?
Opting for ecommerce means that you may have to deliver to people who do not live locally to you, and this is often where a lot of small online stores come unstuck unless they have a fulfilment plan for their inventory.
If people are a few miles away, it is possible to load up a car or small van with orders and go door-to-door, but if you have a lot of orders and people are buying dozens of miles or more away, you need a more structured and complete approach to your fulfilment.
If you do not have the time, money or space available, third-party logistics fulfilment services are available to fill in the gaps of your offering as and when you need them.
What Can You Offer That Other Marketplaces Cannot?
Local ecommerce has been dominated by international platforms, largely because it is easier to be a small fish in a big pond than to dredge and dig your own.
However, in the vast sea of commerce, these large platforms are container ships containing vast amounts of product but not designed with your local community in mind.
The advantage of building from scratch and working within your local online and offline community is that you have complete control over your story and you are able to appeal to customers willing to buy in.
You have a face, a character and a personality, and by leveraging them to their fullest extent, you have a strong value proposition to offer to customers old and new in your local community.
How Do You Add Ecommerce To Your Local Shop?
Adding ecommerce to your local shop is more than adding an online shopping plugin to your website, but involves an integration of your online and offline fulfilment channels to create a seamless experience.
There are a lot of approaches and steps to this, but here are three of the most vital.
Have An Effective Ecommerce Fulfilment System
You have to have a way of getting products to customers before you start selling, and this system needs to be chosen or designed with scalability in mind; it needs to be able to grow as you do.
It is theoretically possible to start an ecommerce company at home with a pile of stamps, boxes and products to sell. This will work right up until the point that your operation gets too big to handle by yourself.
If you are committed to ecommerce or have already seen success with local delivery initiatives, consider working with a fulfilment partner who can scale to your needs and fill in the gaps between an order and a delivery.
Have The Right Online Shopping Platform
The best online shopping platform is the one that has the information your customers need at a glance in a readily accessible format that is easy for you or someone in your staff to update regularly.
These systems are designed to work around your workflow, sending orders to your fulfilment centre, whilst making it easy, affordable and efficient for customers to buy from you.
The platform needs to be designed to be easy to navigate with as few clicks as possible for customers to find the information they need or the products they want.
This means having high-quality product copy, a functioning and easy-to-use search bar and clear information about sales, price, shipping costs, payment processing options and expected delivery times.
Market The Online And Physical Business As One Entity
When operating a local ecommerce business, you need to treat your online business and physical shop as a singular entity, even if the fulfilment for orders may take place elsewhere.
Your shop is the centrepiece of your business, and as such should be the centrepiece of your marketing. Even on your online storefront, make sure you have a lot of attractive, inviting pictures of your shop and everything that gives it a personal appeal.
Should You Work With An Ecommerce Fulfilment Partner Or Go It Alone?
Ultimately, if you expect enough online orders to make going online worth it at all, you should work with a dedicated fulfilment partner who can scale their services as you grow.
Ecommerce has a lot of stages involved that you may not necessarily deal with as a high street brick and mortar retailer, including:
- Warehousing
- Inventory management outside of store shelves
- Picking and packing for orders
- Shipping and receiving products
- Returns and customer management
The advantage of working with a fulfilment partner is that you can offer much faster fulfilment and delivery dates than you would if you needed to pack every order yourself.
If rapid service is a priority and you have enough expected online sales to pay for the storage and fulfilment costs, working with a partner is the much better option.
What Should You Avoid When Starting Your Local Ecommerce Shop?
With the history of ecommerce spanning over three decades since a Sting album was bought online, there have been countless evolutions, developments and lessons learned from good, bad and ugly online retail ventures of the past.
However, local ecommerce should always be focused on the people closest to you and providing a service that your physical shop cannot always practically provide.
Because of this, here are some mistakes to avoid.
Do Not Try To Expand Too Quickly
The scale gap or growth gap is the greatest destroyer of small and medium-sized businesses, as they quickly become too successful to be manageable, but without the consistent capital for the significant increases in infrastructure needed to meet demand.
The best way to avoid this problem is to avoid focusing on a global audience, at least at first.
Some local shops have successfully made the transition to international storefronts whilst maintaining their roots, but many more have tried pushing for global ecommerce and running out of money.
Do Not Have Inconsistent Brand Identities
Your customers will see your online shop as the same as your offline one. Avoid the temptation of any significantly different branding or major changes that could cause unnecessary confusion.
Be As Open And Honest To Online Customers As Offline Ones
Your reputation is your lifeblood as a business, and this is especially true with online business.
Maintain a human, personable and approachable online presence, responding to feedback and sorting out issues as and when you find them with the help of your fulfilment partner.
