Starting Online from home

[Bobby Donald]

I am going to close my storefront and work from home. Looking for tips and advice on how to go about this. Any helpful tips? I am in country West Australia.
Do you suggest online and or by app only, or have potential customers just rock up? This will happen in a residential area and would like to cover all bases before commiting.

[Ron Citerone]

This is not my expertise, but seems like you need to get a sign on your store front explaining what's going on. If you have a list of customers, call them or text them to make a personal connection. Make it as esy for them as possible. Good luck, i wish you the best !

Ron

[Jim Becker]

Moving your business online involves...promotion and having a system for handling sales. Many, if not most, businesses with online presence utilize a platform provided by a service provider that helps with many things, from presentation to order processing to taxes and the financial part of the transaction. What is common in your geography isn't something I'm familiar with, but some names that often come up for small businesses include ETSY and Shopify. There are also online marketplaces run by Amazon, Walmart, etc.

You really need to come up with a plan on how you're going to promote your business to your customers as well as to find new customers. While the specifics of businesses including home businesses vary from place to place, you'll also want to discuss things with your accountant and attorney to insure that you are structured properly for functional, liability and taxation reasons, especially relative to how "working from home" comes into play.

[Kev Williams]

For a cheap and effective online presence, get in touch with Google and tell them you'd like a free ad. I never even asked for my free ad, just showed up one day. I was able to write my own advertisement, list hours, put up pics, when holidays approach I get an email reminding me I may want to put up 'holiday hours', all for free. While it mostly serves the local area, I do get calls from out of state on occasion. The visitor stats show many out-of-state 'looks' per month too. Since you currently run a store, the 'mostly local' aspect will work nicely for you.

If you don't have a facebook account, get one. Most of my non-industrial customers (gun shops, a knife maker, etc.) do a lot of business on facebook. If you get a Google ad, link between the two...

[Bobby Donald]

Great advice, thank you