So you want to know how to sell food on the Internet?
I get it, everyone is shopping online now, and you want to get in on the action.
The online sale of food is really taking off. Once upon a time, people didn’t buy food online because they could just walk down the street to a store.
But as people make new foods, they don’t sell them in stores anymore because if they do, they would have to split the profits. Also, stores like Walmart make it hard to shop there because they have too many rules.
Oh, and people are getting more lazy, so they’d rather buy food online.
It’s crazy that I can order my shopping from my phone right now. In a few hours, it would be here. The world we live in now is crazy, and if you want to sell food, you need to get used to online sales.
If you are good at making new snacks or want to sell food online to make money, there are some important steps you need to take to make sure your business is successful.
I’ll show you the steps you need to take if you want to sell food online.
Learn the rules.
There are rules about food in every country. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is in charge of giving licenses to companies that make food in the United States.
Whether you make your own food or not, you need to know these laws because each country has its own rules about what is legal and what is not.
In general, you’ll do better if you only ship products to your own country at first. Also, it is strongly advised that you only buy food from your own country.
This will make it easy for you to start your business without having to spend a lot of time researching the laws and rules in each country. You could also get food from one country and only ship it to that country.
The problem with this method is that you are cutting down on your chances of making sales.
If you are sure you want to ship internationally, try starting with no more than three countries at first. Find that government’s Customs Department and look at the list of things that are allowed or not allowed.
Because of the internet, this job is now easier. You can also look at shipping couriers’ sites. Many websites for shipping now have a long list of things that can’t be shipped, like food or spices.
This site from the US Customs and Border Protection is an example of a place to do research. Here, you can see that meat products, powdered soup mixes, and fresh produce cannot be shipped to the country. If you ship to the US, this page will also show you that any food sent to a person for eating will be inspected.
This will make the time it takes to ship from your country to the customer longer. Also, you might need to meet some special conditions before you can ship your products, or they might get damaged.
There are also other things that need to be done, like getting a notice from the FDA or Customs. If you ship food through the mail, you need to fill out this notice before the food can be let in.
Food products can usually be shipped as long as they are packaged in a businesslike way. Chips, candy, spices, and coffee are all examples of these. But if you send a lot of packages. They will be checked because they might be carrying insects or small animals that can bring bacteria or viruses into the country.
If you want to send food to America, you should learn more about their food laws. If the things you sent to the US don’t meet US standards, they will be thrown away. You can look up Europe’s different food laws online.
If you want to learn how to sell food online, the next step is important, so keep reading.
Find a good provider.
You can start selling things online in one of two ways. First, you can find a supplier. Second, you can make your own products.
It is much easier to find a supplier. As we’ve already talked about, the easiest way to sell food online is to find a company that will ship the food to your customer.
If your business model is dropshipping, you may have trouble doing this because food manufacturers don’t usually send their products in one at a time. They would rather send the products in bulk to stores like Walmart than to individual customers.
The best way to solve this problem is to have the food shipped to your house, where you can keep it as inventory.
If you want to compete with other people who sell the same thing, you need to get a discount from the manufacturer.
Online marketplaces, like Green Dropship, are another way to find food suppliers. It is a website where you can find suppliers whose products you can buy at full price. They’ll also send the items to you.
People who care about their health love organic food, which is what this store specializes in. This is also a good choice if you want to attract people who care about the environment.
The other choice is to cook your own food and put it in your own containers. This is the best option if you know what you’re doing or have made something special. You also don’t have to deal with third-party vendors, which makes things easier.
If you cook your own food, you need to make sure you follow the rules of your own country. This will be the start of your problems. It is not impossible to get into the food business, but it is hard.
First, you need to get a permit from the local government. Then, the health department of your country needs to check out your products. The packaging must also meet the requirements, and it must have the following information on it.
- Ingredients: List the raw materials that go into making the product.
- Health Table: list the amount of fat, sodium, and other things. This needs to be in a way that everyone can understand, like grams per serving.
- Date Of Expiration: This is the date after which the food is no longer safe to eat.
- Made From: This told you where the product was made and in what country.
As you can see, there are a lot of steps to take before your products are ready to go. Only after you have done all of these things can you tell the FDA or Customs that you will be shipping your products to the US.
Put your things in boxes Well
This step is the same whether you buy the food from another company or make it yourself.
If you dropship, this won’t be a problem because the supplier will handle it. But if you sell food in bulk or make your own food, you need to make sure the packaging won’t fall apart while it’s being shipped.
Here are some ideas for how to package your own food.
- Style: Make sure that your food product comes in an attractive package. A picture of the food is a good idea because it will get the buyer’s attention.
- Type Of Packaging: There are different ways to package food, and you must only use packaging materials that are safe for food. If you can help it, don’t use things that are bad for the environment, like Styrofoam, because they might not be allowed into a country.
- Weight: The weight of the whole package must be written on the packaging.
- Net Weight: This is the food’s weight without its packaging.
- Protection: Remember that the food will be moved around a lot while it’s being shipped. Use high-quality packaging that can keep this from happening.
Set up your food store online.
Having a place to sell the food is one of the most important parts of learning how to sell food online.
Now that your product is done, you should build your store. You need a platform to do this. There are a lot of options out there. Some are free, and others cost money every month.
Here are some examples of how a store can be made.
- Shopify
- Magento
- WooCommerce
- Big Business
- WordPress
You can look at all of them and then decide which one gives you the best value for your money.
We recommend Shopify because you can try it out for free for 14 days here.
Before you build a store, you need to think about these things.
Simple to Use
If you don’t know how to code, it will probably be hard and confusing for you to set up your own website. You need to find a platform that can be used as social media. This means that you should be able to build a store by dragging and dropping pictures and clicking a few buttons.
Because Shopify is so easy to use, this is why I recommend it.
Some web builders can be hard to use. With Shopify, all you have to do is pick a template and add photos and descriptions of your products.
Try not to pay a web developer, because if this person leaves, it will be too hard for you to fix any technical problems on your web store.
You won’t have to pay anyone to do it for you anyway if you use Shopify. It’s very simple to use.
This video I made for YouTube will show you how simple it is to use.
Food Store Cost Each Month
Think about how much it will cost you each month to run your website. Costs vary from company to company, and you should look at what services you are getting.
Watch out for people who offer really low prices. Some of these will only let you build a site, but you won’t be able to sell anything through it. The best ones have low monthly fees and let you build a website that is ready to run your online store.
Shopify is a good example of this. For only $29 per month, you can get the basic package, which lets you sell online right away.
Once your trial is over and your store is live, you can use Shopify’s free themes to start selling.
Help for apps
A cheap store doesn’t have all the bells and whistles that a professional store needs. For example, the store you built doesn’t have a carousel, which can really make your store look nice and organized by making it easy for customers to look at all of your products.
Apps also cost money. Most, though, are free. You can buy apps just once, or you can sign up to get them every month.
When you choose a platform for your store, you need to give this a lot of thought. Over time, you will want to change the way your website looks. You will also want to add more features, like games for fun, easier shipping and inventory management, or an app that lets you make discount codes that your store can use on customer purchases.
Help for customers
Choose a platform that has at least three ways to contact customer service. These are email, live chat, and phone. This is a big deal. You might run into technical problems that you can’t fix on your own one day.
The worst thing that can happen is if you mess with the code of your website’s theme and make a big mistake. This can only be fixed by a pro. You can either pay an expert for his time or get the same service for free.
Those who take payments
Choose a website builder platform with more than one way to accept payments. As a seller, you should be able to choose which payment methods to accept.
There are a lot of different ways to pay. The ones that have the lowest fees are the ones you should use. PayPal is the most used in the world right now.
When you sell food, you have to think about how much the payment fees will cost. Most of the time, you won’t pay back more than 5% of the money you got.
Get your food store known.
Once your product is ready and your website is up, it’s time to market them. There are many ways to do this, and you must be willing to spend money to get your name out there.
These are my favorite ways to find people who want to buy.
Google Ads
Google is one of the best ways to get the word out about your food items. You can use videos and photos to advertise, and you can also tell Google to only show your ads in certain places.
If you use this, you’ll be able to reach out to specific people and keywords. If your food is made with bananas, you can use keywords that have something to do with bananas, and then your ad will show up when people use Google to look for banana foods.
Social Media
No one can argue against the fact that social media is one of the best ways to sell something online. People use it every day, so it will be easy to sell your food products to these people.
Don’t be afraid to use social media to market your products. Since you are selling food, the best places to post photos of it are Facebook and Instagram. Use pictures that show off how good your food is, and make sure you get close when you take the pictures.
This video will show you step by step how to make an ad for your online grocery store on Facebook.
Marketing for affiliates
This is a way to run a business in which other people try to sell your product. You pay them a commission for each sale they make that goes through.
Before you can do this, you need to use a plugin to set up an affiliate program. This program will make the links that your affiliate marketers will use to sell, and then you can see how much they have already sold. This will also figure out the commissions for you and show you who has been paid and who has not.
Blogging
Food blogs are very popular, and it’s easy to get people to visit them on their own. You can make blog posts on Shopify that will eventually rank in Google and bring you visitors.
It’s time to sell food online!
The food business is a successful one. All you have to do is work hard. Read the rules and laws of the countries to which you want to ship.
Since food goes bad, it’s best to focus on countries where you can ship in as little as ten days. This helps keep the food’s good taste.
You can do all of the steps at once, or you can do them one at a time. If you are in business with other people, it is best to divide up the work so you can get more done in less time.
Now you know how to run your own ecommerce store where you can sell food.
