8 Practical Tips for Online Business Owners to Grow their Business

Becoming your own boss always comes with plenty of freedom to make decisions as you please. It also means you're responsible for everything from winning customers to paying invoices. That’s awesome responsibility in the life of a business. This in addition to many competing priorities, it can be very tough running a business. There’s hardly enough time to relax and make proper assessment of your business and how it is doing. Of course without regular performance assessment, it is difficult to plan on how to really grow the business.

Following are 8 things to check, change or challenge in your business operations if you want to enhance its growth.

1. Invest in your skills and knowledge: Because the internet evolves daily, every online business owner no matter how successful must be prepared to learn daily. Staying informed helps every business owner to identify opportunities and adapt to change. Learning practical skills like digital marketing, customer service, financial management, emerging technologies, business planning and strategy can be really helpful to grow your business.

2. Build a strong online presence: Building a strong online presence can significantly help your business to grow. Having your own website and joining popular social media platforms can be really helpful. You must however make efforts to really focus on ensuring your business information is accurate and up to date by maintaining an active website and social media presence and encouraging customers to leave reviews. Make sure your info and data are accurate and consistent throughout the platforms.

3. Strengthen your cash flow management: Cash flow remains one of the most common challenges for small businesses. Creating good habits now can significantly reduce stress later. Be sure to maintain clean business records that can be easily accessed to plan and make important business decisions. If you have a clear visibility over your financial position at all times, it makes it easier for you to make informed decisions and prepare for unexpected events.

4. Build your network and support system: Working independently can sometimes feel isolating. But, building connections with other business owners can provide valuable support, ideas and opportunities. In this wise, you can consider joining local business groups, participating in industry associations, collaborating with local businesses, attending workshops and networking sessions, connecting with other entrepreneurs online. Strong networks can lead to referrals, partnerships and practical advice when challenges arise.

5. Stay on top of your tax and business details: Tax obligations can change as your business changes. This is why it is important to understand what applies to you and how to keep your records up to date. Many business owners only think about tax when a deadline is approaching. If you form the habit of taking a few minutes throughout the year to review your details, it can help you avoid surprises and make tax time much easier. Good record keeping can help you understand how your business is performing, reduce administration headaches and ensure you're meeting your tax obligations as and when due.

6. Focus on your most profitable work: A busy business doesn’t always mean a profitable business. A product/service might bring in sales but still deliver a poor return once you factor in costs and time. If you keep an eye on your current expenses, the amount of time spent on each job, changes in supplier costs, and comparable pricing within your industry, it becomes easier for you to work on profitability. Pay special attention to how much profit each product/service generates and whether your prices reflect what it costs to deliver them.

7. Deploy technology to work for you: This is presently the in thing in online business. With AI, you can spare yourself valuable time by automating some of your business processes. The right digital tools can take the repetitive tasks off your plate, giving you more time to focus on what really matters. You may therefore consider using these tools to send invoices and payment reminders, manage appointments and bookings, track expenses and receipts, create marketing content, and organize customer information. The time saved on admin can be more productively redirected towards serving more customers, developing new products or growing your business.

8. Protect your business from cyber criminals: Don’t kid yourself, cyber criminals are on the prowl in the internet 24/7.  Cybersecurity is hugely important for the growth and profitability of your online business. Regardless of the size of your business, a cyber incident can disrupt operations, impact customers and create financial costs. Therefore, you must always consider some simple cybersecurity steps you can put in place to protect your business. It is good to take such steps as using strong and unique passwords, enabling multi-factor authentication where available, keeping software updated, backing up important information regularly, and educating yourself about common scams. Always treat cybersecurity as an essential part of running your business, not an optional extra. Keeping your business secure will not only protect the business, it will preserve it for growth and profitability.

Tips to Stay Safe When Buying or Selling Stuff Online

Online marketplaces where people can buy and sell items are as popular as ever. As more and more people are taking to the internet for their business needs so are cybercriminals prowling the space. Presently, online marketplaces are also becoming popular venues for scammers. These scammers routinely try to steal money or personal information by ‘selling’ items they never deliver or pretending to be interested buyers. Selling and buying stuff online with relative safety has thus become a matter of concern for everyone.

Experts advise internet users to always use their best judgment, watch for red flags, and remember to make safety their first priority when doing business online. Following are some tested and effective tips for selling or buying stuff online.

Tips for Safe Transactions Online

• Always document your interactions with anyone online. Record information about anyone you are planning to meet up with for a sale, as suspects often block people online after stealing from them.
• Promptly report scams or suspicious activity in the online marketplace you’re using.
• Arrange all physical meeting only in public spaces. If you plan to meet up with a stranger for a sale, consider meeting at a populated place in daylight rather than giving them your home address.
• Never go for such meetings alone. Always go with someone close to you. Avoid meeting strangers alone without company. Tell someone you trust where you’re going and who you’re meeting. If you’re selling big items like cars or furniture for instance, from your home, make sure someone is with you when the buyer arrives.
• Even if the meeting is outside your home, trust your instinct; leave quickly if anything feels off. Your safety is far more important than the sale. If you’re not comfortable or feel unsafe, just walk away.

Tips for Buying and Selling Online

• Carefully choose the right platform. Many online marketplaces focus on specific goods, like used clothing or furniture. Always research marketplaces well before you sign up.
• Understand fees and charges. Each online marketplace has fees, usually a percentage of a sale or a flat rate per sale. Carefully check the policy before you buy or sell.
• If you’re selling, know your items’ worth before displaying them. Search online for similar items to get an idea of how other people are pricing them. Consider getting an appraisal for valuable items like jewelry, antiques or artwork if these are the products you sell.
• Describe items accurately. It’s always tempting to hide flaws or damage to your items, but this can result in angry buyers or platform bans down the line.

Tips to Avoid Scams Online

• Always check the buyer or seller’s profile very well before you engage. Some people create fake profiles purposely to run scams. Such people disappear with your money after the ‘sale.’ If the profile is brand-new, take extra precautions. It may be a red flag. 
• Beware of buyers who overpay for an item and ask you to send the extra money back. This is a common setup for a scam. 
• Be cautious when selling or buying valuable items. For obvious reasons, big-ticket sales may be more likely to attract scammers.
• Don’t make transactions outside of the marketplace. Online marketplaces usually have scam protection policies in place, but they can’t help you if you made your transaction elsewhere. 
• Don't share your personal information recklessly. Such personal info like your contact or banking information should be well protected. People don’t need such personal info for a sale – not even a phone number. 
• Always see items in person before paying for them. If a seller refuses to let you see the item in advance, there’s a chance it may not exist or may be defective in some way. Take all necessary precautions always.

Last Line

Doing business online carries many risks. To stay safer but not completely safe though, don’t ignore these tips. 

How to Reduce the Risk of Social Media Scams in Your Small Business

Presently, it appears online scammers and cyber criminals are becoming more and more sophisticated. This is more so on social media where nearly everyone appears to be at the moment. On social media, many people are having fun, many are doing business and many others are always on the prowl searching for victims to scam. Even though social media can be a useful tool for your business, it should never replace due diligence. If for instance a seller, buyer or listing is pushing you to move fast to use an unprotected payment method or trust a screenshot instead of a verified payment, just take a step back. Buy a bit of time before acting.

The more familiar you are with common online scam tactics, the easier it can be for you to spot red flags before concluding transactions. Most importantly, before money leaves your account. When something looks or feels odd, it may be best to diligently verify or simply walk away. You must put security measures in place to protect yourself from social media scams, imposter scams, investment scams, job offer scams, romance scams and more.

Business owners may not be able to avoid every threat, but they can drastically reduce the chances to the barest minimum. A few habits as stated below can help lower the odds of getting caught in a scam online.

Train employees on common scams. This is the first line of defense. If employees help manage purchasing, social media inquiries, billing or sales, make sure they also know how fake seller and fake buyer scams work. A simple internal review process for new vendors, deposits and refund requests may help reduce risk. Since online scams are dynamic, updating your employees regularly on the new scams in town can be really helpful.

Independently verify the business or person. Don’t rely on just a social media profile or direct message to do business with any entity online. Take a bit of time to look up the company’s legitimate website, phone number and contact information on your own before sending money.

Deliberately slow down interactions. Doing this is to buy a bit of time since scammers often want a business owner to act fast before they have enough time to think things through. Building in even a brief review step may help you and your team spot warning signs before goods/money exchange. 

Always confirm payments through your own channels. If you’re selling, do not ship goods, issue refunds or release inventory based only on a screenshot or message sent through social media claiming payment was sent. Before acting, always confirm with your bank or payment platform that funds have landed in your own account.

Compare listings and details. If a social media account claims to represent a business, compare the item, service, price and contact information against the company’s official website. If you can’t find the same item for sale at the same price on the legitimate site, that is a red flag. It may be a scam.

5 Ways to Secure your E-Commerce Business

The e-commerce industry is currently experiencing rapid growth, because more and more people now prefer to shop online.  Shopping online may offer unparalleled convenience and unlimited choice for customers, but, it also presents significant risks in terms of cyber-crimes. Hackers and cyber-criminals are themselves having a free run online in tandem with the growth in e-commerce business. This is why e-commerce business owners and even shoppers must always remain cautious against any potential threats from hackers and fraud. Good attention must therefore be paid to cyber security.
If you want to secure your e-commerce business from cyber threats and fraud, following are some of the best ways to go about it.
 
1. Always Prepare for the Inevitable

There is a popular Boy Scouts motto that says “Be Prepared.” It comes quite significant here even though no matter how much you prepare, there is always a chance that your system defenses will be breached one way or the other. That is the scary part but if you have a proactive mindset, you can always have a backup plan ready. Having one enables you to act very quickly whenever there is a threat or if any breach occurs. That’s where preparation comes in. A good backup plan should include but not limited to the following steps. You can quickly report the incident to relevant authorities, make a thorough investigation to find out how and why it happened, and limiting the damage by securing any compromised accounts. If in the course of these steps you discover that customer data is affected, transparency demands that you quickly alert your customers and guide them through the right steps they need to take to keep themselves safe.
 
2. Stay on Top of Industry Regulations

It is usually not easy to fully understand all e-commerce regulations because of the rapid changes in the industry. Making efforts to be up-to-date is certainly helpful. In many countries, if you diligently align your business with consumer protection laws, it will not only help secure your operations but also positively impact your customers’ trust. Even though these rules may vary by location, it is best to comply with all the strict standards and regulations, such as California’s Consumer Privacy Act (CPPA) for instance. To protect your customers’ data and privacy, make sure your online payment partners like PayPal stick to all PCI Security Standards. Doing so helps to safeguard any sensitive customer information and prevents credit card fraud. If you stay fully compliant with the rules/regulations, you can avoid huge penalties and safeguard your customers’ trust.
 
3. Pay Attention to Your Digital Footprint
    
If you do business online, whether you notice it or not, you’re always leaving behind digital footprints.  This is why you must fully understand where your business data is stored online and exactly who has unrestricted access to it. You can get to understand it by auditing all of your physical and digital assets. Do this audit from the computers, servers, all your social media accounts and email addresses that you do business with. If well carried out, these audits can help you uncover any hidden vulnerabilities. You may discover any inactive accounts, overshared data and some unexpected data that may be hidden and can make your business vulnerable.

4. Train Your Workforce

Human errors can make your business vulnerable to cyber-attacks. It is well known that most data breaches usually occur because of human error. The reason you must pay good attention to diligent staff training to reduce such errors to the barest minimum. Granted, even though the best cyber security protocol setups can break down, a well-trained team can help mitigate the effects. If you want your e-commerce business to survive cyber-attacks, never you ignore training your workforce on cyber security best practices. This training should not just be a one-time training session. The best training is long-term and impact regular education sessions and surprise simulation drills to keep your workforce on constant alert. That helps to keep them well prepared, sharp, and ready to spot any phishing scams, weak passwords, and other cyber threats that can gravely hurt your e-commerce business.

5. Implement a Layered Cyber Security Strategy

Layered cyber security setups help to increase the odds that your business will suffer an attack. It is best to set up multiple defenses using strong passwords, multi-factor authentication, and regular software updates if you want to keep your business secure. To make it really secure, you may in addition to these layered defenses add some more security layers like firewalls, antivirus, and anti-malware programs. If you market with email, email security protocols are also recommended.

Summing Up

As e-commerce businesses are growing online, so are the risks. To sustain your e-commerce business online, the foregoing tips can help to secure the business for it to keep thriving. With these tips, you can protect your e-commerce business operations and continue to grow the business without allowing it to fall victim to cyber-crimes.