What you actually need before you can take your first online order
It is easy to spend the first month on a logo, reading about domains, comparing platforms, and waiting until there are twenty products.
Weeks pass and the store still cannot take an order, and taking an order is the point of a store. Here is the real list. It is short, and everything not on it can wait.
1. One thing to sell, and its weight
Not a catalogue. One product you can send today.
Do not skip the weight. Couriers price by weight and size, so a product without one cannot show a real shipping cost at checkout. Weigh it packed, with the box and filler. A kitchen scale is enough.
2. Photos that show what it is
Three or four photos of one product. The whole item, a close look at the material, something beside it for scale, and what arrives in the box. Daylight near a window and a plain surface will do.
A buyer looking at a listing is asking two things. Is it real, and is it what it looks like. The photos answer that or they do not.
3. Somewhere for the store to be
Somewhere a buyer can land, look and pay without you being there. A social post cannot do that. It cannot take money or show what is in stock, and people stop seeing it soon after you post it.
On Berkedai a new store opens on a berkedai.com address with your name and branding. A domain of your own can be pointed at it once your store is verified.
4. A way to take money
In Malaysia that means online banking through FPX, cards, and e-wallets. A Berkedai store takes card, FPX and GrabPay with nothing to apply for.
Taking the payment is one part. Getting it to your bank is the other. On Berkedai the payment is held under Berkedai Protected until the order is delivered, then settled to you. It is not same day. Plan your cash around that from the start.
5. An address to ship from
The address your parcels leave from. Together with the product's weight, it is what lets checkout show the buyer a real shipping cost.
And packing material. A box that arrives crushed costs you the item, the postage and the customer.
6. A price that still leaves you something
Write it out for one product. What the item costs you. Packaging. Any postage you absorb. The fees on the sale. What is left is yours. If it is small, it is better to know now than after fifty orders.
What can wait
- A logo. Your name in a clean typeface is enough for now.
- A domain of your own. Worth doing later. Your store has a working address from the first day.
- A full catalogue. Five products you can supply are better than thirty you cannot.
- Perfect photos. Clear and honest today is better than excellent in three weeks.
- A launch. There is a store that works, and then people finding it.
Registering the business is its own question, and worth settling early. It does not stop you setting the store up.
What the first order looks like
Someone you do not know finds the store, picks the product, sees a real shipping cost and pays. The order appears in your dashboard. You pack it, arrange the shipment and print the label. The courier takes it and the buyer gets tracking. A few days after it is delivered, the payment is released to you.
That is the whole of it. The first few orders will also show you things you could not have planned for. Your packing is slow. The shipping cost puts people off. The photo everyone stops on is not the one you expected.
Start your store at berkedai.com