A guide to third sector trading - WCVA

It’s an idea, but is it business? A guide to third sector trading
1: Getting
started
2: First steps 3: Business
planning
4: Legal and
governance
5: Funding
and
resourcing
6: Financial
controls
7: Managing
growth
8: Management
and
governance
9: Social
enterprise
10: Sources
of support
Customer confidence: The online shop is the public face of the
business. Before you can persuade customers to buy your goods in
significant quantities you need to win their confidence. There may
be more to this than you think. The issues include:
• secure payments
• delivery
• site contents
• advertising and promotions
• technical matters such as web-hosting and your domain name.
Secure payments: You will need to establish a payments
system which you know is resistant to hackers, and which your
customers can have confidence in. Systems such as Paypal provide
reassurance, but they will add to the cost of your sales. It is
advisable to include information on the site which describes the
security measures which are in place.
Delivery: You need internal order processing and delivery
arrangements, using Royal Mail or commercial carriers, which
will ensure that goods will be delivered to customers within a
reasonable time. This must be robust enough to handle periods of
high demands, as in the pre-Christmas period.
Site contents: You will need to have arrangements to regularly
check the site to ensure that it is up-to-date and accurate. This
is particularly important if your process or delivery charges and
other costs change. You will have to adhere to the Electronic
Commerce Regulations 2002, and the Consumer Protection
(Distance Selling) Regulations 2000 – see below. You may want to
reassure customers that you are sticking to the rules too.
Advertising and promotions: There are a variety of way to
promote your online shop and you will probably need to use
several of them, and test which works best. These will include:
• links on other business websites
• inclusion on a variety of search engines – these are commonly
supported by website providers, but your own choice of key
words or tags to promote the business could be critical to the
response you get, so you should do market research before
you start
• traditional advertising in community newsletters, newspapers
and specialist magazines related to your products
• collaboration with other like-minded community or charity
traders, like the 3to3 third sector online marketplace.
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