Every business needs growth but with growing competition, retail businesses are finding it extremely hard to expand their business presence.

Here are 5 ways through which retail businesses can effectively increase their business.

1. Leverage The Power of Online Marketplaces

An online marketplace is an ecommerce site where you can list your products and generate extra orders for your business. It is easy to list your products on popular marketplaces and you start to receive orders once you products are listed and they become popular. You need to pay a commission to the marketplace on every sale that you are able to generate. Amazon, EBay, Mercato, Flubit, Walmart etc. are some of the popular marketplaces where you can list your products and start increasing your sales.

2. Utilize SEO More

SEO is one of the best ways to expand the presence of your retail business online. SEO helps to increase organic search traffic to your website which in turn generates more leads and revenue. The only thing that’s required for SEO is patience because you likely won’t see the results overnight. You need to keep aside a separate budget for SEO each month and invest time to improve your website structure, earn high quality backlinks, improve website experience for the user, make site content user friendly, earn publicity for your site etc.

It’s also important to choose a legit SEO expert if hiring out. Too many business owners end up working with inexperienced SEOs that can actually do more harm than good. Poor quality links, spammy website content, and other low-quality work can ruin user experience and lead to lower search engine rankings.

If hiring outside help is out of your budget or doesn’t seem worth the risk, you can do SEO yourself. You just need the time to devote to it and the drive to learn. This article and this guide can be great starting points.

3. Use Tools To Streamline Communication

Communication is the lifeline of any business. Retail businesses often face a lot of difficulty because the information sent by head offices are not received or executed by the stores in time. This lack of communication results in decreased productivity.

Communication needs to be streamlined in order to boost store execution and this is where a tool like Zipline comes handy. The modern task management solution helps everyone in your retail team to track store communication and get personalized updates of what’s new and what’s pending.

With the help of Zipline, the headquarters can send the information to the store, the team can remain updated with the information received and assign tasks to each other, the staff can provide better user experience by keeping the customer updated with useful product information.

4. Acquire Another Business

One of the best ways to expand your retail business is to acquire another company having a stable base of customers. However, acquiring another company is a difficult process.

First of all, you need a solid reason to buy a new company like finding new markets or increasing your market share. Thereafter, you need to build an acquisition team consisting of investment banker and acquisition lawyer who can manage the governing laws and finance related issues.

Proper market research should be done to review the actual profits of the company. All the necessary documents like the NDA and the purchase agreement should be prepared. At last, an offer is made and a purchase amount is finalized after negotiation.

5. Sell Franchises

McDonalds and KFC were able to expand their business presence because they started selling franchise outlets. This helped them acquire real estate at prime locations of this world without actual investment. The result was a flourishing business.

If you’re a retail store owner then one of the easiest ways to expand your retail business is to start selling franchises. You can charge a fixed fee for franchise or you can offer it for free. Thereafter, you need to market your franchise for sale like giving ads in the print media or digital media. Once you have a fixed number of applications, you need to negotiate and close the deals.

Conclusion

Business expansion is a critical process of running a successful business. It leads to increased sales and higher profits when done correctly. Follow the steps discussed in this article to effectively expand your retail business in other locations.