ImagesMagUK_August_20

www.images-magazine.com AUGUST 2020 images 23 BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT ensure customers get help and advice. Most customers will have questions about items or branding methods as it is a personalised product. Manage your products and pricing carefully: This is a huge task with thousands of garments being available to sell online. Prices often change, descriptions are amended and products are discontinued. Ensure your website is up to date. Keep safe and secure: Security is vital to ensure your website is a success. Ensure that your customers’ data is safe and secure (imperative since the introduction of the General Data Protection Regulation). Your website’s checkout and the website itself needs to be secured with an SSL certificate. Taking payments online: You need to consider how you are going to take payments online. What checkout will you use? What payment provider will you use? There is a cost associated with these and criteria to be met when opening up an account. S ince lockdown kicked in during March, ecommerce has soared. With social distancing rules expected to be in place for many months yet, online shopping continues to be a popular choice for many. If your business is one of the many print and embroidery shops that are missing out on online sales because they don’t yet have an ecommerce website, now is the time to set one up. Selling online will help your business get through these tough and uncertain times. Purpose-built website solutions for garment decorators, such as ETrader, are a popular choice, but there are pros and cons to consider. Bear in mind they are built for the industry and will cover most bases, but may not tick 100% of the boxes you want – there is a bit of compromise to be had. But the time, money and resources that can be saved using a purpose-built ecommerce solution is invaluable. There are a few factors to consider when taking your business online: Ensure your website uses responsive design: Your website should look good on both a desktop PC and mobile or tablet. More than half your website users are using a portable device and need an easy user experience. Promote your expertise: Write about your passion, knowledge and expertise. Customers find it easier to place orders with businesses that know what they are talking about. Help your customers: Chat with your customers using bots or live chat facilities or have clear ‘call to actions’ to Ecommerce and creating yourwebsite Andrew Langridge is from ETrader, one of the industry’s leading suppliers of websites to garment decorators across the UK. www.etraderwebsites.co.uk A n alarm system is a necessity rather than a luxury: not only can it provide an immediate response to a break and enter, but also, merely having it is often enough to discourage break- and-enter attempts. Depending where your business is located, it’s often also necessary to supplement an alarm with other security measures such as iron bars over all accessible windows; steel doors; and CCTV cameras. An alarm system is a sound investment for a small business, particularly when the cost of the alarm is weighed against the cost and inconvenience of burglaries. There is, of course, no guarantee that an alarm system will prevent burglaries, but an ear-piercing siren and the knowledge that alarm company guards or the police are on their way should limit the burglar’s ‘work’ to minutes rather than hours. Even this is worth the price of a system. In Canada, a wireless alarm system in a 3,000sq ft premises consisting of two motion detector, detectors on each of the three doors, and a two-way response unit, all controlled by a keypad, cost my business just under $50 a month on a 36-month contract. In addition, the alarm system earned us a discount on our insurance premiums. There are three important aspects to an alarm system: set-up; maintenance and repair; and rapid response in the event of an intrusion. I wouldn’t even consider a service that didn’t offer 24-hour monitoring and rapid response. How often have you heard an alarm and done absolutely nothing because you assumed that someone else or the ‘authorities’ would attend to it? In the event of an incident, your alarm company needs current contact Alarm technicians: a necessity, not a luxury information as they will often ask the contact to attend the premises to give them or the police access. A list of contacts that includes people who are out of town and ex-employees is not helpful in an emergency. Control over the code also needs to be strict: just as locks, computer passwords and website and system access codes are changed when an employee leaves, the alarm code should be changed as well. With a good alarm system installed by a good alarm technician, you will be in a better position to prevent a burglary – an event that has the potential to break your small business. Michael Best is a print industry veteran, accountant and author of Characters Who Can Make Or Break Your Small Business . Through 39 characters, Michael covers all aspects most small business owners can expect to encounter in the life of a business from inception to disposition. It is available from Amazon and www.smallbusinesscharacters.com .