Despite Brexit and the ongoing pandemic, the e-commerce industry in the United Kingdom grows bigger each year, providing ample opportunities for budding entrepreneurs. Tapping into the UK’s market can help your company grow – but you’ll need to know how to navigate it to be successful when manufacturing and selling online in the UK.
The Foundation of e-Commerce in the UK: Flexibility
If you’re planning to either create a new e-commerce business or expand your existing company in a new direction, always keep in mind that staying flexible is the key to success in this field. Experts agree that there is no single solution to creating a successful online business, and it is mostly the ability to stay on your toes and adapt to the latest trends accordingly.
Trial and error are large parts of any business, let alone online ones. With the industry still shaping and ongoing rapid changes every year, it’s extremely important to research what works and consider implementing appropriate changes in your strategy.
With that said, let’s cover some ways you can actually improve your online manufacturing and selling strategy:
Educate your staff on online strategies
Most often, the largest hurdle to overcome when creating an online business is the hesitance from your staff. If your high-level employees are not ready for the transition from traditional business to an online business, your efficiency might drop. To make sure the transition goes smoothly, you’ll need to educate your staff and organize some sort of training or workshops that could teach them the basics.
Employees who are used to regular business often look for excuses to devalue e-commerce and online businesses as a whole. This isn’t surprising – denial is a natural reaction to something unknown. However, data from all over the world disagrees with the naysaying, as e-commerce and many other online businesses are experiencing rapid growth nowadays and are slowly but surely replacing traditional businesses.
If you want your workers to remain efficient during and after transition and understand how to operate an e-business, training is definitely the way to go.
Choose your sales channel
To actually sell any of your products through online means, you’ll need a sales channel first. A sales channel is simply a way for selling your products online, either through your own means or third-party ones. The most common sales channel for manufacturing and selling online in the UK are e-commerce websites – if you’re looking to sell products that you have manufactured over the Internet, it might be a good idea to create your own website, or adapt your existing one to include e-commerce functionality.
It’s good to have your own website even if you’re pursuing other sales channels – you can always redirect your users to that website for direct selling of your products and services. Usually, hosting your goods at third-party distributors comes with a commission, and redirecting your customers to your own website instead can allow you to keep all of the revenue in your company.
Online marketplaces have been gaining a lot of popularity lately – especially for smaller businesses, for whom it might be difficult to build brand awareness, or at least it might take some time. Marketplaces offer a lot of reach with minimum risks, and you don’t need a platform of your own. You will, however, still have to handle shipping and payment.
Taking care of online payments: PayPal and Stripe
For your customers to be able to purchase products from you using online payment methods, you’ll need to integrate a payment gateway like PayPal or Stripe. A payment gateway needs to be effective and secure, working without issues while protecting you and your clients from fraud.
At Workhy, we’ll help you with establishing your online business in the UK, as well as opening a PayPal or Stripe account. We want to help you transition your business to the digital world, or create an entirely new one that operates digitally – either way, we’re eager to assist!