Harbouring and nurturing a love of fashion isn’t always merely an interest or a hobby. A simple fascination with fabrics and good style can develop into something much more, even a career.
Although this doesn’t necessarily mean you have to attend four years of fashion school, it would help to learn the necessary techniques to create garments and outfits. These days, it’s a little easier to make a start pursuing a career within this fashion industry since the chance to set up an online fashion store is open to all. This requires some careful planning and a degree of insight, but with a few helpful and prudent points you’ll be on your way to starting an online store faster than you think.
Always self-host
There are number of places that make it easy to sell products online, including Amazon, eBay and Etsy, but choosing to host your online store on such a platform often limits the control and functionality of it. You’ll be limited by the selection of plugins and layouts, not to mention the amount of storage you’ll have access to. You’ll further be restricted with a set number of webpages and there will usually be no data backups. The advantages of a self-hosted shop include being able to customize almost every aspect of it as well as being able to include advertisements, it usually costs a very modest amount, not to mention the fact that it looks more professional.
Take cautionary steps
It never hurts to be careful when undertaking any business venture, and the same goes for an e-commerce enterprise. With the development of e-commerce and the Internet in general, a number of legal aspects had to be addressed and resolved. Once you’ve sorted out your business plan, found a platform for hosting and built up some inventory to sell, there’s another important step to take before you launch – insurance. While you can read in depth about the issue here, there are three primary policies that store owners should consider: premise liability insurance, cyber liability insurance and business interruption insurance. It’s important to take out these insurances against a number of external factors such as a shift in the economy or perhaps a change in fashion and taste, making your product less relevant. Always be prepared for the unexpected.
Multiple payment gateways
While PayPal is the dominant service to use when accepting and receiving payments, it’s not the only one. You’ll have a variety of customers who all have different preferences when it comes to payment, so it might pay to use a host of different payment gateways. Consider Authorize.net or perhaps 2Checkout alongside PayPal to ensure that your customers always have choices when it comes to paying. Remember, paying should never be a difficult process!
