Starting an online business is a fantastic journey to go on, and it could well be the start of something huge for you. However, once you have gotten over the initial hurdles of setting up a website and getting your first few customers, it’s time to up the ante and make sure that your business is set up for maximum growth. Below are a few ways to make sure that your business infrastructure is not hindering your growth.
Receiving orders
If there is one thing that you will be striving for when trying to grow your business, it is getting more orders in. However, as the traffic on your website increases, it is important to make sure that your website is able to handle the orders being generated.
Obviously, you will have utilised SEO to get those customers onto your page to begin with, but lots of people trying to access one page can cause some difficulties. Consider using a Content Delivery Network to speed up loading times, and make sure you have an excellent way of keeping track of processing orders and so on.
Shipping
The more orders you get, the more you need to ship out. But you can’t rely on doing all the postage and packing yourself like when you were small-time. Somewhere like Red Stag Fulfillment can help you to speed up and grow your fulfillment process, meaning that you can keep on top of that big list of orders to be dealt with.
Production
If you are a product based business, you will absolutely need to think about stepping up your production process. If you are creating handcrafted products, then there will only be so much you can make in a day, and your prices should represent the amount of time taken to create the product.
If, however, you are able to automate your process, then this will allow you to create a huge number of your product within a given timeframe. The initial expense might be quite considerable, but the savings you will make over the long-term will be significant. You need to ensure that you are able to keep up with demand.
Feedback
One of the most important, yet forgotten aspects of growing a business is customer feedback. You need to know that you are offering an exceptional service for your customers, and the only way to be sure of that is to ask them. Put together a short survey that they can complete in a few minutes to provide useful feedback.
You can offer the chance to be entered into a prize draw to give them an incentive to complete the form. By gaining this information, you can analyse your current business model and see what areas you can improve on and what areas you excel in. It is equally important to know your strengths and weaknesses; this will allow you to position yourself in the market effectively.
Conclusion
There you have it, a few excellent ways to ensure that your infrastructure is up to the task of keeping up with your expanding business.
What are your thoughts?
