How to adapt your business to online sales

Adapting quickly is the key to success. Whether it is a personal matter or business issues. Adapting to a new situation and new trends does not come for free. You have to invest time, effort, thought and money to be able to change.

2020 was a challenging year for many businesses, in many ways. Many had to adapt quickly to the situation and decided to take their business online. New online shops, online fitness courses, tutorials and much more appeared on every corner of the internet.Every entrepreneur had to find a way to survive the whole challenge of the lockdown. Some were reluctant to take the chance to sell online - not just as an interim solution, but as a long-term strategic advantage. The necessary info on how to get your business online is out there, and in this blog post we will highlight some points on how you can easily adapt your business to start selling online today. You will find that implementing the technical details is not that difficult.

Setting up an online shop

The easiest way, but at the same time the most expensive and complex solution is to create an online shop.There are many ready-made solutions from various SaaS (Service as a Solution) providers such as Shopify,WooCommerce, Ecwid and many more.Little to no programming knowledge is needed. In our blogpost Webshop in 5 hourswe highlighted some shop systems, their advantages and disadvantages as well as their costs. Manage your products, their prices, stock and online sales in one portal, with one click.

Payment by Link (Pay by Link)

Another option for online sales is the Pay by Link solution. This type of payment allows you to easily create online payment links - without a shopping cart. For example, a customer calls you and wants to order a specific product.In this day and age, this is the easiest way to sell and receive money and works for almost any vertical like:

• If you have a click-and-collect business and your shop is currently closed
• If you have takeaway menus for restaurants
• If you do not yet know the amount and send the customer the payment link for payment before delivery
• For call centres

Create the customer in your database with all the necessary details, such as name, email address, phone number, etc. Then send an email to the customer with the payment link that the customer can use to pay for their purchase. With Wallee, you can generate a payment link within your portal and email the link to your end customer. Any customer using the payment link can pay within seconds and payments are made in a secure way. As Wallee also manages your emails and documents, you can send invoices in your design, receipts and emails directly to your customers and you stay in cc. Manage your customers from your portal as well as your payment links. To learn more about payment links, read here.

You can also implement a payment link directly into your website or place it in a QR code on your flyer. You need some HTML knowledge, but once implemented, it is ready to use. An example is using payment links in your Google Sites website. Or if you use WIX or Jimdo, you can read how to implement the payment link in our blog post here. By using these payment links, you can quickly turn your website into a shop without having to host your own payment platform.

Conversational Commerce and Chatbots

In addition to online shops and payment connections, you have the option of selling directly via email or chat. This is a good solution if you focus on a personal approach. When it comes to chats, you can focus on consumer-oriented communication or general chatbots. Chatbots are expected to become more relevant in the coming years. Conversational commerce refers to the trend of companies interacting with customers via messaging apps of all kinds. Be it via social media or directly on their own website. Wallee has entered into a partnership with secondbrain AG for this technology, you can read more about ithere.

Be prepared

It is important that your call centre and support teams are ready. Customers who chat or call directly want the best customer service. Taking a customer's call is easy, but the payment part must always be secure and the details recorded must be compliant. When you use the payment link, the payment is an e-commerce transaction protected by secure customer authentication. Let your customers know that their data is being processed securely. To learn more aboutPCIDSS, read How Wallee is set to the highest standard.

Conclusion

All in all, adapting your brick-and-mortar shop to an online version is not that difficult. Solutions like Payment Links andConversational Commerce allow you to create new sales channels in no time. Especially in these unpredictable times, technology helps you stay agile when customers need change

Support/Help

Are you ready to convert your business to online sales?Contact ourSupport team and we will be happy to guide you through.

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