3 Questions To Ask When Expanding Your Digital Business

    With the recent pandemic fast-tracking a digital economy, digital business owners have experienced a surge in activity and competition. Not only have eCommerce businesses flourished thanks to rising eCommerce sales, but physical stores have also had to adapt their business model to a digital one. For many digital business owners, this can be the perfect time to capitalize on the growing demand by expanding their business. However, before investing in any business growth plans, business owners need to make sure they can comfortably answer a few key questions so that they can successfully achieve their expansion goals.

    Can Your Infrastructure Behind The Scenes Cope With Escalating Demand And Business Activity?

    As a digital business, your IT infrastructure will play a pivotal role in your business expansion plans. As traffic to your website increases, you will need to ensure your site can handle the spikes in traffic and continues to function seamlessly. This is also particularly important to ensure you make the best impression on first-time visitors to your website. Statistics by the FX Blog indicate that 89 percent of consumers choose a competitor after having a poor user experience. Approximately 47 percent of them also expect a web page to load in two seconds or less. Optimizing your website load time and navigation are two tasks that should be on your agenda.

    You may also need to take a look at your existing checkout process. An increase in sales would mean larger volumes of checkouts to contend with. Delays in your website checkout and payment can project a bad impression on new customers and cause them to abandon their purchases. Also, adding alternative payment options such as mobile wallets or Paypal can increase your appeal to more customers. Finally, there is the additional infrastructure to consider with online business expansion. While you may not have to think about additional storefronts, there will still be the need for additional warehouse and storage spaces, along with transport facilities.

    Do You Need Additional Manpower To Support Expanded Business Operations?

    Expanding your business’s sales activity would also require an expansion in your business assets, including human resources. For instance, expanding your customer service function to 24/7 would mean more hours to be covered and the need to hire additional employees for shift work. Similarly, expanding your warehouse and production capacity may not only require investment in machinery, but also operators of that machinery or additional delivery drivers.

    With the expansion of these assets, comes additional legal requirements, including the need to adjust the relevant business insurance to protect your growing business. Not only is it prudent to take steps to increase your business protection, but in some states like Alaska and Arizona require workers compensation for all businesses. Increasing your property insurance to account for additional warehouse or storage space, along with increased workers’ compensation premiums for any additional employees, are all aspects of expansion you need to address.

    Do Your Digital Marketing Strategies Support Your Business Growth?

    Finally, consider whether your current digital marketing strategy aligns well with your plans for growth. Marketing plays an integral part in any business expansion, including organic growth. Digital marketing, with its cost-effectiveness and high ROI, can support the increase in sales by optimizing your conversion, and therefore, converting website and social media visitors into customers. Ensure your social media presence is increased in line with the growth in sales you’re aiming for. Getting the word out to more people means you are creating more chances to convert them into sales. You may also want to consider investing in search engine optimization to improve your website content and drive traffic to your website.

    Growing your digital business can be both exciting and challenging. Getting it right depends on making the right decisions and preparations, and implementing the correct safeguards. Before making the leap to expand, make sure you can comfortably answer these questions. Answer them, and you are well on your way to a successful expansion.

    Tags:

    You May Also Like

    Android Text Hack

    Researchers at Zimperium zLabs have uncovered a series of vulnerabilities affecting Android operating systems that could ...

    Hacking Team Hacked

    Over the past couple days, we’ve seen a rapid influx of Zero-Day vulnerabilities hit ...