Your craft  beer store can make more profit and  can reach a bigger audience if you take your business online and reach consumers who have an interest in beers made at a smaller brewery. 

The very first step  is you need to create either an informational site or ecommerce store for your craft beer business.  This will help you a platform reach out to more craft beer junkies who find it difficult to find their kind of craft beer within their communities. . Here are some important tips to consider before taking your business online.

Things to Consider Before Creating a Craft Beer Website

It Takes more than Passion

Creating an online craft beer business could be more daunting that you may have thought. When it comes to daily business operations throwing a website into the mix can complicate things. You need not only your passion for beer but  to create a blueprint about how what you want from your business and how to get it done. Marketing a business online is vastly different from your traditional avenues. 

Shipment/Delivery

One issue is you will have to deal with the delivery of fragile and heavy beer bottles to customers  and validate their age depending on the state you are shipping in. Preparing   those fragile bottles with proper packaging is also needed to keep products safe and will help you avoid loses that may arise from damage during shipment.

Legal Considerations

How about the laws and regulations in your community? Take time to make research about the necessary permits to get from the correct government agencies before creating an ecommerce site for your craft beer business. They vary from state to state.

Customer Support Strategy

Supporting  a website is a little different from your store. You can have online chat widgets, forums, and contact forms but all of these will need someone to actively monitor them. 

How to Build a Craft Beer Website

Choose a domain name

Your domain name should be related to the name of your craft beer business but should not only be special but also easy to pronounce and remember. For ideas on how to select the perfect name for your craft beer, visit online forums for recurring keywords on craft beer.

Choose a Shopping Cart App/Ecommerce Platform

Shopify, Magento, Woo Commerce and BigCommerce are some of the available shopping cart software that you can choose from to create your online craft beer store. To help decide which to select, read up what they have to offer as regards payment options, tax and shipping configurations, security and website statistics. Also consider the cost associated with each such was licensing, server hosting, and development. 

Create Your Store

This is when you begin to flesh out the details of the different collections of craft beer that you have in stock. You will also enter  things such as your shipping options, payment options and so on. Bear in mind that your store should be attractive and simple  to entice customers and help them find products easily.

Choose and create payment gateway

Your payment gateway is responsible for collecting the credit card details of your clients and send them to your merchant account. Choose a payment gateway that works fine with your shopping carts and offers reasonable pricing and security.  Feel free to contact me for advice on a safe, secure payment gateway.

Choose a Merchant Account

Your merchant account is responsible for the deposit of cash into your bank account after authorizing  cards used by your customers to make payments. Select the ideal merchant account based on their service charge, transaction time and availability of quality customer services.

Get a Jump Start on your Craft Beer Site

Sometimes it makes sense to use a starting point depending on your budget here are a couple of low cost options to get your started. Themes can always been expanded and tweaked as your business grows.

Best Craft Beer Themes

https://themeforest.net/item/brewery-a-wordpress-theme-for-beer-makers/10941216

https://themeforest.net/item/birra33-brewery-brewpub-craft-beer-shop-/15856643?s_rank=5

Need a custom theme or help setting one of these up? Contact us!

Start Online Marketing

It is true that there are numerous craft beer buffs out there that live on the internet, who could interested in buying from you store. However, they will not reach out, until they your name is in front of them. Make your ecommerce store known using the various online marketing strategies such as Search Engine Optimization, email marketing and social media engagement of customers.

Conclusion

Demand for craft beer is soaring by the day, creating an online store to help beer lovers get this savory treat from the  comfort of their own home definitely has a market!.

If  this process seems daunting contact us and we can help  walk you through it.