3 Barriers to Break, Get Your Service-Based Business E-commerce Ready

You might not think your service can be sold online but here’s 3 reasons why you might be wrong!

We’ve all seen how rapidly eCommerce has taken over but many service-based small business owners and entrepreneurs are still gun shy about taking their business to the next level online.

Whether you sell a physical product or provide a service you could benefit from online sales.

In this post we look at the barriers presented by eCommerce for service providers and how many perceived obstacles are easily and affordably addressed by planning your approach like a pro (or with one) and using third party tools that make the whole process much easier.

Here’s 3 common barriers business owners face when contemplating adding eCommerce to their business tools:

1. You Don’t Have the Time

   This is the biggest reason most people don’t get into online sales.

   The setup, the maintenance, and the eventual product shipping all look like major time commitments.

   The new reality of eCommerce for small businesses is these things take very little time.

   The setup can be quick or take a long time and the barrier will actually be you. Being overly picky about design elements or quirky functionality always hold businesses back.

   Always put the emphasis on your business servicing the user.

   Really all you need to do is make sure your website can take and process an order and the information and products are presented clearly with as few steps as possible for the user to complete their purchase.

   Maintenance can vary and often it’s a good idea to start things yourself and then hire a third party or freelancer to handle the maintenance.

   Sometimes there isn’t much required other than logging in a few times a week, though once you see it all working you’ll likely be inclined to check all the time (in a good way).

   Shipping is as easy as applying an app to print shipping labels and then having the item picked up for delivery or taking the items to the post office.

   Look at your potential profit margins and see what selling could mean for your business. You might be surprised at how much revenue you’re missing out on!

If you do elect to explore eCommerce as an option, put a lot of time into the planning. Not just one day of grinding out ideas but weeks of spit balling and brain storming.

Look around at what others in your industry have done and even more importantly what they’ve not done and plan everything out properly.

Hiring a professional business mentor to guide you can be the best decision you ever made. You’ll be walked past the typical hiccups and hurdles and on your way to launching your e-commerce project much faster and with much less effort.

More and more service-based businesses are seeing the potential of e-commerce so the quicker you jump into the ring the better. For many, the eCommerce even takes over as the primary revenue driver.

Thanks for reading,
Mark Hare