The Internet creates a profound impact on every aspect of people’s lives, whether it is socializing, entertainment, research, working, or shopping. You name it and we use the internet literally at every juncture in our day-to-day lives.

As people continue to spend more money on the internet, eCommerce businesses will continue to grow.

If we have a look at the statistics, about 43 percent of shoppers research the product online before purchasing. This number is predicted to rise to USD 1.3 trillion in the US by 2025.

So, if you have an office supplies business and you want to reach more potential customers, you need to start selling office equipment online. Although you can hire a developer for the development of an eCommerce store, knowing about the process can assist you in making informed decisions.

In this blog post, we will discuss how you can build an office equipment eCommerce store and grow exponentially in the retail landscape. But, before proceeding further, let’s have a look at some of the reasons why you should choose to sell office equipment online.

Why Should You Sell Office Equipment Online?

The office equipment market is anticipated to rise at a rate of 4.8 percent between the year 2018 and 2023. The demand for commonly used office equipment like calculators, scanners, cash registers, currency counting machines, and printing devices such as copiers, inkjet printers, laser printers, wireless printers have been increasing exponentially.

If we talk about the enormous customer base for office equipment products, financial institutions stand at the top, along with educational and government institutions and small and mid-sized enterprises. These organizations are now embracing the change. They are stepping forward to purchase office equipment online. So, the need for setting up an eCommerce store for office equipment is very high and will generate maximum profitability.

How to Build an Office Equipment eCommerce Store?

Building an office equipment eCommerce store is simpler than you can imagine. It is because there are eCommerce solutions that do the bulk of the work nowadays. However, you still need to understand the nitty-gritty of setting up an online store to sell office equipment. Strong research will greatly help you in making business decisions related to your eCommerce website that will continue to evolve in the coming years.

Start with a Comprehensive Plan

If you want to build an office equipment eCommerce store, the first thing that you need to do is create a comprehensive plan. It means that you have to list down all the details related to the requirements of your eCommerce website.

You should predict the challenges that may develop in the initial phases of growth in your office equipment business. The shipping process is another aspect that will require your attention when starting to build an eCommerce store for VARs.

Therefore, it is essential to have a plan so that the process of creating and growing an office equipment eCommerce business is done without any hassles.

Choose your Perfect eCommerce Platform

Next, you should select the eCommerce platform that meets the needs of your reselling business.

VARStreet is one of the best platforms that allow the office equipment VARs in managing, selling, and growing their online business with its ultra-modern functionalities. The custom templates and responsive website designs allow you to make your website visually attractive and optimized for all devices.

As an eCommerce platform, VARStreet also authorizes you to create a secured eCommerce store with in-built features like free updates, free CRM, smooth order processing, analytics, ready integrations, and omnichannel marketing. All these features work great for providing a better insight into customer behavior. The association between VARStreet and 45+ distributors provides real-time availability and pricing updates for more than 100 thousand products.

Select your eCommerce Theme and Templates

Templates and themes are an amazing way to customize your website even if you don’t have coding or design skills. If you are a beginner, you should look for the following aspects before selecting a template for your website:

Homepage Style

Following are the questions that you need to ask yourself before choosing the template:

• Does the template have a reflection of your brand?
• Does it include sections where you can put pictures, videos, and slideshows?
• Can you share the story of your brand with your visitors using these templates?

The customer should understand the type of business just by looking at your website in the first place. So, you should ensure that the templates communicate the message distinctly.

Easy Navigation

Navigation plays a significant role in creating an excellent customer experience. If a customer loses interest, they will leave and choose from your competition. A navigation bar is an easy way to locate the products and services. So, you should choose a template that has an option of a navigation bar on the left side of the page.

Customization Alternatives

You should look at the following areas before opting for the template for your office equipment online website:

• Is the page fully customizable?
• Does the font and color scheme match your brand?
• How will the products appear on your website? Is there any customization possible?

Multiple store builders use apps to provide additional features that are not inherent. So, you should consider an online store builder that has all the integration features in their platform.

With VARstreet, you can design and build office equipment eCommerce store in just 24 hours with their ready-made templates. It will not only save much of your time but also reduce the cost of hiring an expert to design a website. All the templates are highly customizable to suit the needs of your businesses. So, it’s upon you to choose the right platform that banishes all your worries related to eCommerce website design.

Dropship the Office Equipment

Dropshipping is a great way to cut down the packaging and storage costs. If you look to sell office equipment online with a dropshipping model, you should consider VARStreet.

To begin dropshipping office equipment with VARStreet, you need to have an account with the distributor. You will get access to the aggregated catalog, where you will find a list of 100 thousand consumer electronic products from over 45 distributors from the US, UK, and Canada.

Itemize your Office Equipment in Your Online Store

The product pages are the critical pages of your website as they display your offerings. Hence, you should optimize your product listings with attractive images, persuasive product descriptions, and convenient categories.

Product Descriptions

Product descriptions allow the customers to understand what the product is all about. It suggests the usefulness, textures, measurement, and value of the product. It plays a pivotal role in showing your offerings higher on the search results page, thereby increasing traffic. Hence, you should write compelling product descriptions with short sentences and simple phrasing so the customers can understand your product well. In the case of office equipment reselling, your product description should include the basic details and the specifications of the product.

Product Images

Images are highly compelling to the human eye. So, you must include high-quality images of office equipment to grab the attention of your visitors. You should also ensure that the images displayed on your website are of the same size and there are variations in your product imagery.

Provide a Great Checkout Experience

Cart abandonment is a big pain area in online sales. You can limit cart abandonment by implementing the following things in your office equipment eCommerce website:

• Provide free delivery to your customers.
• Give clarity on the shipping costs, if any.
• Ensure the smooth functioning of the checkout processes in all devices.
• Send emails whenever someone abandons the cart without purchasing anything.

It is advisable to test the checkout process extensively and address the flaws that you may find while testing. This way, you can create a great checkout experience for your customers.

VARStreet not only offers a smooth checkout experience but is also connected to multiple payment gateways so the customers can make payments anywhere and anytime seamlessly.

Preview and Publish your eCommerce Website

The last step to build an eCommerce store for VARs is to test with a few orders. The eCommerce platforms give you the authority to pre-access and test the ordering system before launching the website. After testing and rectifying the bugs, you are all set to kickstart your office equipment reselling journey.

Promote Your Business Aggressively

There is a big pool of resellers selling similar kinds of products. Hence, the competition is cut-throat. If you are not ready to put in the required efforts, your business will be left behind in the online world, and you’ll have to play catch-up.

So, it is essential to promote your online office equipment store using content marketing, social media marketing, email marketing, PPC marketing, etc.

Key Takeaway

Building an office equipment eCommerce store is not as straightforward as it seems. It requires a lot of time, energy, passion, and startup cost. However, VARStreet acts as a helping hand to the office equipment VARs and assists them on their way to making their first sale and many more.