Online business tips from Okinokiyo : #2 - Website

Ok, frankly speaking, the tips Im giving is not in order, you can do which one first, there is no right or wrong.

#2 : website.
We are talking about online business. Which aims to virtual customers who surf the net to get information not like old times who browse the yellow pages for contacts and info. So you HAVE to have a website.

Nowadays you can use blog as a website. Not necessarily to go call a web designer to do one for you. So, thats the one Im doing now.

Because the customer is using the power of Google to surf for info. You are lucky if your website ranking is within the Top 10. Because the ranking is based on the number of UNIQUE visitors coming to your website.

What is the best website for online business?

About us - The initial part we just say that we have the experience.But the experience we had was my experience doing the wedding deco for my wedding. But then customer will not know. So, when we had our first customer, we boasted a bit by saying that we do orders for Singapore customers..yes, the first customer was from Singapore.

So, actually this page keep changing based on our reputation/experience. I think most of us had no experience right.So maybe if you are really, really into the business you are doing, you can put something like "A passionate girl into bla bla who bla bla bla..." because I think its hard to find passionate people rather than forced people to do business to get money to pay bills. Am I right?

Payment - Obviously just put the account number, account name, and mode of payment. We accept COD as well since some of our customers are non IT literate and sometimes they deposit it via CDM machine. Its ok, as long as the money is received.

But we spent quite a lot to have a formal company account since not many home/online business do that. And for us, that means that we a doing a serious business, not a suka-hati business. This will be elaborate in a separate entry.

Shipping and handling - Well, well, well..Some of the losses we made in Kahwin.Net is we sold labu sayung, and crystal where it took a lots of our money in shipping and handling. Those a hard to handle items where we had to spend on bubble wrap, beans to make sure those items dont break. And the bride/bridegroom-to-be sometimes wanted the items to be delivered ASAP to them and we have to DHL the items.

Stupid things to happen that time was we didnt weigh the items properly and simply put an average cost of shipping, end up, customer paid little and we paid more. So, that is a priceless lesson. :p Stupid huh? So, for those who are doing such business which require you to post bulk items, you need to 1) weigh your items 2) get the table of cost from national courier..Pos Malaysia should be ok and also study how fast can the item reach to the customer.

COD is another means. Its easy but then the drawback is time consuming when you have to wait for your customer and they arrive late or not arrive at all. But then, this is business right? And customer always right..hehehe.

Kahwin.net is using a normal Pos Ekspres - Dijamin Sampai Esok by Pos Malaysia all this while and the cost is RM3 for local and we use Register post for International shipping. We dont COD Kahwin.net VCD since we dont see the rush for the customer to get the VCD, but we do COD the birthday paperbags as it deals with birthday date of the kiddos.

Portfolio - Put all your portfolios in this page. You can use either flickr or slide shows or just put them as normal images. That also will do.

Kahwin.Net is using a shopping cart where we spent I think RM2K for the system. So the shopping cart is the portfolio. While mybirthday just a collection of paperbags of orders we have. Speaking of which, I have emmm think like few new paperbags I have not uploaded because of time constraint. :p My husband will hate me saying this.heheheh

This okinokiyo is more to blog and I sell okinokiyo products based on when-the-items-are-there and in my Etsy shop. This is more to hobby and I would like to go slow with this.

Contact Us -This is the important one. You need to put the email address and you have to check this email like 24x7. But I didnt do that, I forward the mail to my personal mail so that I will know when I got the business mai. Due to the awesome technology, you can set the mail to forward to the handphone as well, so go buy business phone :p

But for telephone number its up to you. As for us, we dont reveal the phone number. We only reveal our numbers when the customer is confirm to order with us for COD purpose. Its kind of privacy for me. But if you have 2 phone numbers, that is another story.

But then, having a website means that you have to maintain the website as well. Update the portfolio page regularly by putting more pictures of your items/orders from customers so that customer will feel more 'secure' to buy from you.

If you are making it as a blog shop, update it regularly so that it wont be a dead website. And Im trying very much to make this blog shop alive by updating at least once a week so that people will know that its growing and not monotonous.

Emm I think that is more than enough for a basic business website. So, are you ready to have your own website?