In Australia, about five million people consider getting groceries through the internet.
In the United States, online grocery shopping became a $17.5 billion industry about two years ago.
No numbers are quite telling, aren’t they?
If you’re into selling food online, know that you’re on the right track. Your company has massive potential because droves of people are buying food online.
To help you succeed in your online food selling endeavour, we put together several tried and tested strategies you can implement to sell food online successfully.
If you’re dead serious about taking your online food business to the next level, then follow these tips.
Understand the law
This is an absolute must.
Before you even think about which platforms you’ll use, your marketing materials, or your method of engaging your audience, you first need to understand the laws about selling food online.
The regulations may vary from each state, so be sure to ask your health department for the guidelines.
Some general requirements for selling food online are complete business license, water supply safety, proper food labelling, proper food storage, etc.
Know your ideal buyers
Create a buyer persona.
By having one, you’ll know the quirks and qualms of your ideal buyers, allowing you to come up with food products and marketing strategies that highly resonates with them.
From a 30,000-foot view, a buyer persona is essentially a semi-fictional representation of who your ideal customers are.
It contains their pain points, a fake name and profile picture, their job roles, the type of companies they’re working for, their age range, location, etc. The more information you can add to your buyer persona, the better.
Since you’re selling food online, include in your buyer persona the flavours your ideal customers gravitate towards, do they prefer sour food? Sweet, perhaps?
You can also include what types of foods they’re allergic to, among other things.
Once you have a buyer persona, your product development and marketing team has a guiding compass to look into whenever they create something.
For your food product development team, they can somehow foresee if the food they’re thinking of creating will fit your customers’ dynamics. If your buyer persona is into sweet foods, your product development team should avoid developing recipes of sour foods.
If your buyer persona says your customers hang out on Instagram, then your marketing can deduce that spending for paid ads on Twitter will yield very little, to no results.
To create a buyer persona, use Hubspot’s Make My Persona tool.
The online tool guides you through the entire process of creating a persona by asking you questions about the dynamics of your ideal customers, then arranging the information to a professional-looking layout.
Use a reliable e-commerce platform
Depending on the size of your business, you might only need an entry-level saas e-commerce software.
There is no point in investing top-dollar for a massive platform that’s loaded with unnecessary features when they don’t apply to your business dynamics. At least, not yet.
If your business has thousands of people visiting your site and have considerable daily purchases, then you’d be better off using top e-commerce platforms such as Magento.
The key is figuring out your needs and finding a platform that can accommodate your business demands. Your e-commerce software should also have the capabilities, and features to scale your operations should the need arises.
Work with a dependable software development company
If you’re like most food sellers, then you barely know anything about the technical aspects of an e-commerce website, because your area of expertise revolves around food.
Instead of having to dabble with the technical side of running an e-commerce store, such as your website, third-party integrations, automation, you’d be better off employing the help of a software development company.
By leaving the technical aspects to them, you can focus on improving your products, business processes, audience engagement strategies, etc.
The best part is, since you’re letting professionals manage your website, you can be at ease knowing that it’s running as smoothly as it can be.
They can stay on top of monitoring your website’s load speed, protect your store against cyberattacks, and even optimize your website’s performance — something you’d be hardpressed to do because you aren’t as learned when it comes to these aspects.
Invest in marketing
No matter how awesome your products are, if none of your target audience learns of its existence, you won’t get a single sale.
Addressing this issue isn’t exactly easy.
After all, about 4.4 million blog posts are published daily.
With how noisy the internet has become, you’ll need more than just publishing a couple of blogs or social media posts to succeed.
You need proven marketing strategies and be invested in your marketing campaigns to bring relevant traffic to your site.
Approaching influencers or food bloggers is a solid marketing strategy for selling food online.
The idea is simple:
Step 1: Look for food bloggers or influencers.
Step 2: Reach out and tell them to promote your product while offering something of value.
Step 3: Share the link to your product/landing pages along with pertinent information they can use to promote your products effectively.
That’s the gist of the strategy.
Give your due diligence when using this strategy by researching what’s important to your prospective influencer even before you reach out. Others want upfront payments. Others would prefer a commission per sale, etc.
Once you learn of their preference, prepare a compelling offer.
To find your ideal influencer, use a free online tool like Influence.co (they have a paid subscription, too.)
Find relevant influencers with loads of followers using their search feature.
The platform even has advanced search filters, so its easier for its users to find relevant influencers.
By working with influencers, not only can you generate loads of relevant traffic to your site, but your brand’s image as an authority in your industry also improves since your products are seen with influencers.
What’s next?
It might be time to hire a web designer or graphic designer to kick start your online catering business with Oneflare!