You may still use traditional means of working, such as advertising publicly, having a physical store, business cards, or giving customers information via phone calls, emails, or in-person conversations. While these may be effective, needing to physically speak to or see customers to make a sale or answer a query might not be the best use of your time, especially if you have other tasks to complete. Instead, you may want to think about the ways that a website could be used to simplify some processes as well as as a means of advertising your brand.
Take Payments
Having a website means that, while you can still take payments directly from the customer in-store or over the phone, you now have access to another means of increasing your income. When setting up ways to pay for items or services on your new website, you may prefer to use a company that specializes in online payments, so that you know transactions and information will be handled efficiently and securely.
Unlike physical payments, your website won’t be bound by when you are in the store or available to speak to a customer, meaning you might find that orders or requests come in throughout the day or night, without you needing to do a thing to authenticate them. Likewise, an electronic payment system could also make dealing with returns or refunds that much simpler.
Inform Customers
While the website might belong to you, it is actually made for your customers. The content on each page and the page design can be quite important. You may want to use each page to inform your customers about what you offer and even answer some of the questions that you find get asked quite often. This can save you a lot of working time as, rather than needing to call, email, or visit you in person, people can then get the answers they need with no communication required. This extra time can then be spent fulfilling client orders or even finding ways to continue improving other working practices.
Build Interest
A website can have the power to help you increase your client base, as well as meet the needs of existing clients. Using tools, such as a blog that you update regularly, can boost your position on search engines through the use of specific keywords that users are likely to type in when trying to find a solution to their issue or buying need.
You can cater content to the people you are trying to sell to, and even use it as a platform to upsell products that meet a specific need. While you could opt to have this website and blog built by someone else, many providers do offer click-and-drop designs, or templates, to enable you to build it yourself.
A website is more than just a collection of images and text. In fact, it could become a very useful tool that allows you to make the selling process much easier and gives clients the means to research their buying needs for themselves.
