Setting
an Opening Date for Your New Business
When you decide to launch
an online business, you should not officially open for business until
you are ready.
This is especially true
for online businesses. You do not want to start sending people to
your online store when you have numerious pages "under construction",
only 1/3 of your product listed and a shopping cart system that is
not running correctly.
If it is a physical business,
you don't want to invite people in when you have no shelves and all
your product is unpriced in cardboard shipping boxes.
If any of the previous
two scenarios happened to you, would you be very likely to visit again?
Probably not. First impressions are vitally important - they can make
or break you.
When you set your opening
or launch date, it is usually advisable to add another week or two
to your scheduled date for unexpected delays. If your child comes
down with an ear infection or a stock order goes missing in the mail
system, you want to be able to have the extra time to prepare everything
or reorder stock.
Particularly with an online
store, it is far easier to launch earlier with an opening sale than
it is to try and get visitors back again when their initial visit
is anything less than spectacular. And in the world of online sales,
word can travel so fast, and it is far better to open a month later
to great word-of-mouth reviews than it is to open earlier and get
disasterous ones.
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