The differences between a business plan for a store and a webshop

It is a good idea to draw up a business plan. Something that is seen as a logical step when starting a store. Yet too few entrepreneurs choose to draw up a good business plan for their webshop. And that's a shame because you can get so much more out of your webshop! To what extent the business plan differs from that of a physical store? We will discuss this for you in this blog!

We can be very brief in answering the question of whether the business plan differs for both start-ups. Basically not. Every business plan has a number of topics that must be included, as you can also read in this article. However, the actual implementation differs.

A retail business plan

When you deliver tangible goods from a physical location to consumers, it falls under retail. To write your business plan, you do market research. For example, you will look for competitors. Depending on the products you offer, you can see in which environment there are direct competitors. You take into account possible travel distances that customers are willing to travel for your shop/products.

Nevertheless, it is important to also research web shops. They may offer the same products at a lower price. What can you offer customers (extra) with your store that webshops cannot offer? Why should they choose you as a shop owner? That's where your distinctiveness lies!

A business plan for an online store

We already emphasized that the structure of a business plan for an online store looks the same as that for a physical store. And here, too, you should do research on your competitors. Both physically and online. The biggest differences are the marketing mix and the financial plan. How? We will briefly explain that.

Promotion of an online store

The marketing mix consists of a number of components often referred to as Product, Place, Price, and Promotion also called the 4 P's. We see that 'online entrepreneurs' sometimes make a mistake in the P for Promotion. Of course, the start-up costs and fixed costs of a webshop are lower than with a physical store, which means that, on average larger margins can be achieved. However, a webshop must have a good online strategy to get customers to the webshop and then convince them to buy its products. With a physical store, it is mainly about choosing a good location to reach the target group.

On the other hand, a webshop is about analyzing potential customers' search behavior. How often are your products searched for, and how do you get your webshop well positioned in the search engines? And how can you use different social media? For a webshop, online traffic is one of the most important factors that determine your turnover.

Financial plan for a webshop

Another big difference between a business plan for a physical store and a webshop is the financial plan. A physical store entails a number of high costs. Not only the rent of your property but also insurance, costs for personnel and depreciation of furnishings, materials and equipment.

Although a webshop and its online promotion entail costs, these are generally lower than the fixed costs of a store. Yet entrepreneurs also make a mistake here and often include costs and budgets that are too low in their financial plan. As an entrepreneur, you, therefore, run the risk of having to incur more costs to generate visitors. This reduces your margins and can jeopardize the revenue model.

Our advice? Get good advice about the possibilities to promote your webshop and inquire about the costs. This way, you can better estimate your costs in advance. For example, you can have a very nice webshop, but if no visitors come to it, you cannot make any sales.

Are you well prepared to start your store or webshop?

Maven Business Plans have already helped many (online) entrepreneurs with business plans. These entrepreneurs saw how important the business plan is for starting or expanding their business. Would you like to have business plan writing services? Then visit this link.