Crisis 2020: how to rebuild a business and what to do with marketing

Examples of goods for sale
The definition of a commodity business is the sale of goods from scratch from one-page sites, through CPA networks, dropshipping, and also on Avito.

This site is entirely dedicated to merchandise issues, so we tried to cover all the nuances regarding the trading business on the Internet. In short, today's model of this case looks like this:

1. Find a product
2. Copy one-page website
3. Set up advertising
4. Receive and process orders
5. Purchase products and send to the client

Below we will go through each step in more detail.

Choosing a business direction

Business in the trade sector is considered a promising direction.
When choosing goods that you plan to sell, it is recommended to focus on demand. At the same time, it is very difficult to surprise consumers today. This requires fresh ideas. Many buyers abandon affordable products in favor of higher quality and unique ones.

According to statistics, food products are considered the most popular categories of goods. People are forced to buy them every day. Therefore, entrepreneurs who sell cereals, meat, vegetables, and sweets find customers faster.

To understand what to start trading, you need to take into account personal preferences. It’s easier for people who understand how a car works to start selling spare parts, while for artists, a store with paints and canvases is more suitable.

Important! Before starting your own business, it is recommended to conduct a market analysis. This will help determine the most popular ideas in a particular region.

The most popular area is the sale of food products.
Before starting a business in trade, you should also decide on the format of work. The following options exist:

• Market. To do this, you can buy or rent a kiosk to sell clothes or products. Business on the market is considered one of the most profitable options, since it does not require large investments.
• A store or department in a shopping center. In this case, serious costs are required for rent, equipment and goods. These stores most often sell quite expensive things.
• Outdoor street trading. At the same time, you can sell fast food or baked goods. Essentially, this is a stall that sells one type of product.
• Trade via the Internet. This is a fairly profitable option with minimal investment. At the same time, it is important to decide what is best to sell in such a store.

Retail Tips

Choosing the direction of work

The business plan must include the possibility of saving costs at the very beginning. The balance between costs and revenues must be maintained as much as possible - such optimization requires special agreements with suppliers. To receive an influx of additional profit, unplanned investments may be needed.

We work with assortment

• assortment optimization;
• timely in-depth analysis of trade turnover;
• formation of key positions in the assortment;
• tracking the dynamics of consumer demand;
• adjustment of pricing policy;
• the most profitable use of retail and warehouse space;
• optimization of product display and high-quality merchandising;
• choice in favor of local suppliers and new procurement schemes.

Point of sale concept

• analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of the outlet;
• analysis of competitors' work;
• preparing the layout of the premises, increasing the efficiency of additional premises.

Improving the quality of work

• using quality methods to increase sales,
• optimization of work process and staff employment,
• sale of own products.

Initial capital

Before you try to start trading, you need to assess the need for start-up capital. In this case, there are the following expense items:

• registration of entrepreneurship;
• renting or purchasing premises;
• purchasing goods;
• advertising;
• salary.

Note! In small towns, the minimum cost to open your own business will be 100 thousand rubles. In large cities this amount will be significantly higher.

Which businesses benefit from the situation?

Even during an epidemic, some goods and services remain important to people and are in high demand.

First of all, these are online products. For example, the demand for courses, webinars, etc. has increased 4 times. The audience of social networks, streaming services, online libraries and cinemas, and educational platforms is also growing.

Offline, the most popular offers now are:

• Food and alcohol: demand for them has increased 2-3 times.
• Ready-made food delivered to your home – there has also been a 3-fold increase in orders in this area.
• Pharmacy products: antiseptics, drugs to improve immunity, medical masks, gloves. Over-the-counter medications and protective equipment can now be ordered online and delivered to your home.
• Products for cleaning and disinfecting the home.
• Inexpensive hobby goods (board games, craft kits, etc.).
• Electronics for work: laptops, monitors, computer peripherals, smartphones.
• Furniture and plumbing with delivery.
• Paid laboratory services.

Growth and decline in demand in various industries in March 2020.

If you offer a popular product, then most likely you will feel good even in a crisis. If not, it’s time to quickly rebuild, and not try to wait out the situation.

What else to read: If you have nothing to offer a new market, close down

Step-by-step instructions on how to start trading

To start a sales business you need to do the following:

1. Register a business, choose a form of taxation, receive a package of documents. This will help you conduct legal activities.
2. Buy and register a cash register.
3. Open and register the terminal.
4. Purchase licenses to sell alcoholic beverages and cigarettes.
5. Choose a location to open a retail outlet. To do this, you can buy land and install a pavilion there. However, it is much easier at the initial stage to rent a ready-made point, start trading, and only then move on to large investments.
6. Obtain permits from government organizations. First of all, permits from the SES and Rospotrebnadzor will be required.
7. At the final stage of preparation, you need to find employees and equip the outlet with everything necessary.

Before you start trading, you need to complete all the necessary documents

Who suffered the most during the pandemic?

It is especially difficult for those companies that worked with clients offline before the crisis. Personal meetings and physical contact, the concentration of people in close spaces - all this is now excluded.

Therefore, first of all, they are now losing profits:

• Transport and travel companies, hotels - everything related to external and internal tourism or business trips.
• Taxis, public transport and car sharing services – people move around the city much less.
• Restaurants, cafes, food courts, coffee shops. Companies in the catering industry were among the first to be forced to close or switch to delivery mode.
• Organizers of public events of any type: concerts, forums, conferences.
• Sphere of entertainment and family recreation. Theaters and cinemas, children's centers, zoos, and circuses are temporarily closed.
• Sports clubs, swimming pools, water parks.
• Cosmetology and dental clinics, beauty salons.
• Retail chains of offline stores that offer not food, but sporting goods, clothing, etc.

Online stores are also not immune to losses: people are not yet ready to spend money on some goods. For example, the demand for gifts and souvenirs, luxury goods, jewelry, and goods for motorists is falling.

It is important to understand that the industry does not determine the future of your company. At the moment, we are working to increase sales for our clients in the most affected business sectors - there is a result if we quickly rebuild the marketing strategy.

Trade organization process

To organize trade, first of all, you need to select suitable products. After this, you should make a list of manufacturers. It is best to visit factories that manufacture products, talk to managers, and get acquainted with prices and sales conditions. The product can be found in your city or in other localities. In the second case, it is important to think through the delivery scheme so that the products are always in stock.

Important! Experts advise working with several suppliers at once. This will provide alternative options in case of force majeure.

After choosing a product range, you should move on to searching for buyers. To do this, you need to draw up lists of potential consumers, make appointments, and conclude supply agreements. In the absence of start-up capital, you can enter into an agreement with the manufacturer in order to take the products for sale.

After delivery of the product, it is important to ensure that it is fully paid for. Deadlines vary. In any case, they cannot be more than 3 months. If payment has not been received, you can sue the debtor in economic court.

Instead of a store, goods can be sold through a network of distributors. In this case, an agreement must be concluded with each of them. According to it, the supplier of the goods receives 10-40% of the profit received.

Education

Above, we looked at what the commodity business looks like today in Russia and the CIS countries and how to start it, but we ourselves are sure that without a competent mentor you will not be able to start a business as a plus. In a special section we have collected courses from well-known product gurus, including:

• Alexander Fedyaev
• Alexey Dementyev
• Vitaly Okunev
• Alexey Popov

And other trainers who teach commodity business. You can familiarize yourself with each of the courses presented and sign up with whoever is most convenient for you. We, the authors of this site, have been engaged in merchandising for more than 3 years and have studied with all of the above authors. Today, our income from the commodity business is four figures. Do not spare money in your development.

If our article helped you, then please share it with your friends on social networks, so we will understand that our efforts were in vain. If you have any questions, you can ask them in a special section on our website.

Independent business

To implement business ideas, trading can be carried out by an entrepreneur independently. At the same time, he needs to find premises, purchase equipment, hire workers, and launch advertising.

Note! In the field of trade, the right advertising campaign is very important. It helps you stand out from your competitors and attract more customers.

Recruitment of employees is of no small importance for the implementation of business ideas in trade. Good salespeople are able to significantly increase profit margins by attracting customers. Many of them will later become regular customers.

How to attract your first clients

Today, the variety of traffic sources allows you to choose the path to promote your product. If we talk about all the possibilities, we could write a whole book at once, so let’s focus on the main sources:

Yandex advertising network interface

• Contextual advertising Yandex Direct and Google Adwords
• Advertising on social networks VKontakte, Facebook, Instagram
• Placing advertisements on popular boards (Avito, Yula).
• Registration as a direct advertiser in the CPA network (for beginners without a budget, this option is no longer available).

Below we will briefly describe the pros and cons of each source.

Conclusion: Based on our own experience, we recommend starting advertising products through context and free message boards. There are much more chances to sell for a profit there.

In this article we will not tell you how to set up advertising, because this is a topic for a separate article. There are many product business courses online that will teach you the process of setting up advertising campaigns.

After setting up advertising and receiving applications, all that remains is to process them and send the goods.

Batteries

The sharp development and great prospects of this direction are noticeable even in everyday life. Devices that 5 years ago worked only after being connected to the electrical network are now equipped with batteries. With the development of alternative energy sources, this area has become even more interesting, and promises great prospects for those who can quickly adapt and start working with new technologies. The issue of conserving resources and creating new types of batteries that provide recharging without being tied to traditional energy sources is recognized as one of the most pressing today.

Automotive components

The demand for cars is growing relentlessly, and forecasts show that this trend will continue in the coming decades. Manufacturers are constantly working to improve old models and create new ones. If only very large companies can handle the complete assembly of a car, then small enterprises can produce various components. International corporations are happy to enter into contracts with contractors around the world, because this allows them to significantly reduce the cost of cars.

Online trading and grocery delivery

In developed countries, this trend is developing very quickly and is pushing traditional shopping trips out of the market. The ability to order groceries through a special service on the Internet and receive them through delivery upon arrival at home saves a lot of time. Retail chains are also happy to develop this area, because it allows you to reduce queues at the checkout counters and significantly reduce the cost of organizing work.

Commodity business student reviews

I tried to leave a review for Alexander Fedyaev’s course, whose spam is now everywhere on the Internet. I went to the website https://info-hit.ru/author-fedyaev-aleksandr/reviews/?. I wanted to write something, but I couldn’t find a button that would help me post a review. But a window pops up with a girl: “You are very interested in Fedyaev’s courses. Can help".

I couldn’t leave my review on any of the review sites, which indicates that Mr. Fedyaev was well prepared, who created a lot of fake personal pages with positive reviews.

1. How reviews are written. Go to freelance exchanges, workzilla, article exchanges. I can give an example from Text.ru. The customer issues a task to freelancers “Product business reviews”, and in the technical specification he requires a positive review.

Honest Internet businessmen say for free that you need to spend at least $200 just to test advertising for one product. Just drain it, and not start earning money, as the fraudulent author promises with 5 thousand rubles!

Anti-training is a symbolic name for the course, from which it follows that you have already been fooled and no one is going to lead you by the hand to the result!!!

How to act in a crisis for small and medium-sized businesses

Now even large companies are shaking, but, of course, they have a fairly large margin of safety. But it is important for small and medium-sized businesses to quickly respond to changes and adapt on the fly in order to survive the crisis with minimal losses.

Think about what you can do today:

1. Review expenses. Perhaps you can save on something for now: remove unprofitable items from the assortment, agree on installment payments, and, as a last resort, reduce staff.
2. Master a new format of work to become more accessible to customers. If you offer a physical product, arrange contactless delivery. Transfer everything you can online: events, training, classes with a trainer. In the field of tourism, organizing holidays or construction, you can now collect pre-orders for summer-autumn: clients, just like you, are waiting for the quarantine to be lifted. Another way to work for the future is to sell certificates for services that clients can use later. You can now add “Buy a certificate” or “Order delivery” buttons to the card if you work in this format.
3. Launch a new product or change an existing one. Taxi services are urgently restructuring and starting to deliver purchases, and clothing brands are starting to produce fabric masks. Think about what need you can fill during the pandemic.
4. Review the offer and USP (your unique selling proposition). Perhaps it is not the product that needs to change, but only its presentation. If you sell sporting goods, equipment for work, or online courses, show the buyer that he will need all this at home during self-isolation.
5. Establish contact with the audience online. Don’t go into the shadows: now, more than ever, it is important to continue maintaining the company’s social networks and useful e-mail newsletters, and maintaining the brand’s reputation on the Internet. In addition, some companies produce free online lessons in their field and other expert materials - this also makes sense. If customers don’t forget about you during quarantine, you’ll be able to recover much faster.

What else to read: 4 ways to promote a brand and build a company’s reputation on the Internet

Yes, some companies are forced to pause work or close down altogether due to government restrictions and niche specifics. But if there is at least a minimal chance to transform and survive, it must be used.

We have focused on your own actions, but in addition to this, many companies can now receive government support measures. Read more about them on the My Business portal and on the website of the Kommersant publishing house.