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How and Why to Curate Your Small Business Experience.

In the Age of Amazon, many businesses seek ways to differentiate themselves from the low price, buy-anything, same-day shipping behemoth. A majority of stores aren’t able to compete with the convenience and scale of Amazon, but what they can do is craft a shopping experience that is unique. Partnering with the best credit card processing for small businesses can actually open a business up to a range of tools to do just that.

One way to differentiate from Amazon and the other Big Sellers is to curate, with a “less-is-more” inventory approach. Where Amazon offers everything, you offer a select group of products that make an impression. As a growth strategy, “Less is More” can feel counter-intuitive, but if done right, you’ll be enjoying a wide swathe of benefits that are great for your bottom line.

Make an Impression

For an example, picture a specialty donut shop. Such shops could certainly go off the deep end in crafting dozens of unique baked offerings that wow their customers with choices. The downside is that more varieties of donuts mean the production line needs to put in more hours to make them. Also, it means more types to track, for the purpose of knowing how many batches to make for tomorrow. It’s all doable, but it can create pitfalls. The alternative is to curate a selection of, say 6 to 10 donut types. Right away, the perception of the store becomes different. The shop looks more high-end or boutique, as opposed to the dime-a-dozen donut shop by the freeway. Your goal is to do what you do well and push people toward the few options you have, rather than humoring the customer’s limitless preferences.

It can also generate demand. If you offer a special donut only on the weekends, or only a few times per month, you can leverage this scarcity to generate buzz. With the right promotion, all of a sudden you have an event on your hands. This same principle applies to a range of businesses, from fashion, to cookware, to outdoor gear.

Limitations

Naturally, not all businesses can effectively curate their product lines. For example, if you sell car parts, you have to do your best to carry an encyclopedic parts catalog worth of products. For this reason, these and similar businesses are gravitating toward eCommerce, where customers themselves can easily look up what they need.

The Middle Route

Curated inventory works well for fashion and donuts, and other such businesses where your customer is looking for a shirt, or a dessert, rather than one specific type or brand. If your curation skills are top-notch, you will encourage your customer to buy the item you have decided to carry.

Still, customers certainly value choice, and you may find yourself in a position where you can benefit from both a curated brick-and-mortar inventory and a robust eCommerce platform that offers the more expansive inventory that your customers want to see. It’s called multi-channel selling, and many businesses are finding that it has a lot of benefits. You’ll want to make sure that your payment processor, your inventory management, and your order fulfillment processes are able to keep up. Shopify is one of the most widely used solutions out there to do this, and, in an effort to offer the world’s best credit card processing for small business, we’ve made sure that Shopify integrates beautifully with Moolah.

From the most extensive catalog of products to the uniquely curated shops, your business is your art, and we give you the tools to succeed at Moolah.

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