Here in Part 2 of the Mythbuster series of Digital Drops, we’re going to walk through the top 3 myths we receive when consulting with clients on e-commerce websites. For Part 1, click here.

Myth #1: I don’t need an e-commerce store

The first myth or objection we often get a lot in these conversations regarding e-commerce is “I don’t actually need an e commerce store or online shop website”. Well, if you consider the fact that right now we're in the COVID-19 global pandemic, how are people supposed to buy your physical products, considering local restrictions where you can't really move about as much? That reality is also causing you to lose a lot of money, and the first way to fix that is to make sure you're able to fulfill and distribute your products and services online through your ecommerce store. You need one, if you don't have one and you do sell and distribute physical products. 

Myth #2: I can handle managing the e-commerce website by myself

The second myth we hear a lot is, “I can handle managing the e-commerce website by myself”. Well, not really. You see, most medium and large businesses who start to transition into an e-commerce website model, they need to hire staff for that specifically. For example, grocery stores who had to transition into online ordering because of the pandemic, not only had to create and invest in a whole new e-commerce website, but they also had to create a whole new department with dedicated personnel just to handle the processing and fulfilment of orders, because this is technically a new stream of revenue into the business that requires significant attention. But hiring of staff doesn't apply to everyone. If you're a small startup with a small amount of products and generally small client base, you don't necessarily need to hire staff, as you can handle it on your own. But if you are a business with maybe 30 or more individual products with a large volume of customers already, hire before you drown. 

Pro Tip: Hiring staff to support your e-commerce website doesn't necessarily mean 5-10 personnel, it can be one person who processes the incoming online orders and handles customer service, and the other picks the products out of the inventory, packages them and makes sure they get to the distributor (delivery service, shipping company etc.). That's only two people!

Myth #3: I can connect my PayPal account to my e-commerce store or online shopping website

Now, the third (and last) myth we’ll cover here is very important, “I can connect my paypal to my ecommerce store on my online shopping website”. What I’m about to say is very important to note: if we're here in the Bahamas, and you're connecting a personal bank account, to a PayPal account for business purposes, there are legal implications that come with that. That's not necessarily something you will know on the surface when setting it up, but there's a difference between a personal PayPal account and a PayPal Business account. When you start getting a significant number of transactions, from your website to your personal PayPal account, that’s linked to your hitting your local bank accounts (US bank account that is), very consistently, your account––PayPal and possibly bank account––is going to get frozen and your money is going to be locked up in “PayPal heaven”. We’ve seen it happen before over and over. 

The best thing to do is to find a website designer who's experienced enough and knows how to integrate a locally compatible online payment gateway into your website, here in The Bahamas. And if you're looking for someone with that experience, click here and let's have a conversation.