Why it is time to get your online shop started

Why it is time to get your online shop started

Think about having your own online shop, today.

Only days after the federal election and before the new government has even been sworn in, signs are already showing in Australia of increased consumer confidence. This is great news for anyone thinking of starting a business.

Consumer Confidence Highest in Three Years

With Reserve Bank wholesale interest rates at record lows, and the uncertainty around Australia’s direction resolved with a clear winner in the federal election, there may be a turnaround in low consumer confidence – all factors leading to a potential growth in spending prior to Christmas. Recent business confidence and other economic reports released measured prior to the election and released this week support this conclusion as well.
business confidence

What does this mean for your online venture?

If you’re thinking about starting an online business, customer confidence improvements can be a strongly positive sign, and it may be the time for you to take action in starting that new business or changing your shopping cart website platform to something more powerful and suited to the way you do business. Here are some things you can be doing:

Launch Timing

What’s a realistic timeline to get a new online business going?

Pitfalls of instant DIY online shop websites

There are plenty of “instant” website technologies that you can download and install into a standard hosting account, but the instantly visual result might not be the result that you really want for your business. That’s because of all the extras that you’ll have to take into account:
  • Do you have the skills to create a professional looking website that stands out from the specific competitors in your industry?
  • Do you have the time to learn the design editor of the solution to modify the built in base design, or to buy a template from a template provider and install it?
  • Do you have the graphics design/Photoshop skills to modify any purchased template to create a striking brand image for your business that is inviting for your customers and reassuring as well?
  • Do you have the technological skills to manipulate the website’s design and styles to get things placed on the screen how you want them?
  • Who will be there to help answer any technology questions that you have while getting up and running?
  • Is the software that you are installing the latest version, and up to date for all security patches that are required? When new ones are required will you have the skills to be able to implement these?
  • Are the Australian shipping and payment options you wish to offer integrated into your website?
  • Does the cart have all of the functionality that you want and need for your business, or do you have to buy additional components to do extra things? Do you have the budget to pay for these, and the knowledge to know what modules you need to look for and install in order to get the result you want?
  • Is the server environment that you will be installing your site on meet PCI DSS security requirements? Many hosting companies that do not host a large number of ecommerce software solutions do not ensure that their servers are requirements which means that you would not be able to validly stay trading online if you wanted to accept credit cards
  • Do you know how to install an SSL certificate to encrypt the checkout of your site?

The Secure Hosted Ecommerce solution

These are just some of the technology factors you’ll need to take into account. If you choose a secure ecommerce solution like Ozcart, then many of these things are taken care of by your hosted shopping cart provider instead of you – and you could get your business up and running faster even if you did have the skills to do many of these yourself. you you do want to get your business online, you’ll need to take into account the following timing factors:
  • Where are you getting stock from? How long will it take to get to you (or direct to your customers if you are “drop shipping” it from manufacturers to customers
  • How many products do you have and how long do you have to type all of them in? Whether it’s through the admin panel or via a spreadsheet, the data will still need to be entered
  • How much time do you have to work out and write shipping and payment policies, set up the links to various pages on your website, write your about us and contact us descriptions, and write unique product descriptions as you load them.
  • Is your shopping cart provider offering an easy-to-use intuitive shopping cart package so that time is not wasted learning how to do a lot of very complicated steps in order to do something simple like load a product or delete one from your product line?
  • Do you have a clear marketing strategy and content development strategy to keep the content in your website fresh and new (from products to descriptive pages)?
You can take one hassle out of the mix by carefully choosing an shopping cart that gives you a design that’s tailored for your business out of the box, has an easy-to-use administration panel, PDF manual, knowledge base of over 350 questions and support 6-days a week, including most public holidays (excluding biblical holidays). The Australian online economy is already over $14b of sales this year and counting. With improved consumer confidence, are you ready to get your business online and have your slice of the $14+ billion online shopping industry?
Ozcart Ecommerce

Ozcart has been in business since 2006 and is an online, hosted shopping cart that you can use for your current or new online store. We offer so many features for the same low price. In fact, we are addicted to adding new ones to ensure that we remain one of the best choices for a shopping cart. https://ozcart.com

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