“I have an online business. Why do i need a physical address for my customers? They won’t come over.”
As business methods evolve there are many preferences and requirements. Some are driven by your needs, some by your customers and in environment where there is confusion, then comes driven by legal compliance. What ever the drivers, what ever your choosen medium for conducting your business there are a few minimum expectations, even if they are rarely used.
In the current online business environment, as it is becoming one of the prevalent methods of conducting business, as it evolves more expectations arise coming from a hybrid of business styles of conducting business.
One of them is that even though you may be online hence “virtual”, is a physical address location that you can be located. Preferably at this location you have a set frame of business hours and someone to help you attend to your customers. No longer is it the expectation that you have a full blown setup, but at least a setup that is functional.
So you could use light lease options for your space such as that provided by Serviced Facility providers, you can also use loose labour (such as temp staff or remote working staff or even outsourced attendants) to meet your live people interaction requirements. But you do need to up your setup in todays environment.
So just a frame of expectations that we have collected via responses and enquiries online, human interaction daily etc are these: –
- Yes i will buy online. But i want to be able to walk up to the merchants and have a direct live discussion.
- I do like the reach online businesses have by them using couriers and such. But would be better if i could just call them up to do the return pick up even if i have to pay for the return cost, but not the replacement cost.
- It is ok that i can go to a multi tenanted or hosted location to find them. Even a kiosk will do as long as i can find them there. Even if it is limited days in a week. Hence even a serviced facility location, a mall, even a bazaar or an office address will do. If i get a house address i will drop by anytime.
- As many communication mediums need to be available to me. Phone, Skype, Messenger, SMS, Email and more. Even fax.
Leaving you with the above in mind. Look out at any serviced office facility for a Internet Entrepreneur package that should provide you a business address, a mail box, virtual assistant and possible share meeting space. Shared storage would be a nice plus so that you could actually put your stock there instead of your homes. Ask if they could help you secure some insurance service too. This is to limit your losses in event of break in or fire. These facilities do not provide you that kind of protection else your price will be much higher.