Selling Products Online: A Heavy Chef Recipe Book

By Heavy Chef

So you’ve come up with a winning idea for a product to sell online. What now? How do you turn your idea into a successful e-commerce business?

"As a business focused on aiding SMEs in South Africa, partnering with Heavy Chef, which shares a similar vision, is truly remarkable. The book offers countless insightful ideas, making it an essential tool for every SME's arsenal." – Brendon Williamson, managing director of Payfast

Selling Products Online is the book for you. Brought to you by Heavy Chef and Payfast, this practical 10-step guide is designed to support you on every step of your e-commerce journey and will show you how to:

1. Find your customers.
2. Set up your e-commerce store.
3. Take online payments.
4. Sell on existing platforms.
5. Attract more customers.
6. Fulfil online orders.
7. Manage stock.
8. Serve your customers.
9. Make a profit.
10. Build your team.

Heavy Chef sat down with some of South Africa’s pre-eminent entrepreneurs to fill these pages with real, practical advice from experts who’ve beaten their own paths to success in e-commerce. You’ll hear from the brains behind some of South Africa’s most-loved brands, including Faithful to Nature, Payfast, SnapScan, Yuppiechef, and many more. They’ll answer all your questions about selling products online in concise “bites” – as if you’re sitting down to coffee with them. Go on. Tuck in.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pan Macmillan South Africa
• Release date: Aug 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9781770108547

Book preview

Selling Products Online: A Practical 10-Step Guide For E-Commerce Entrepreneurs In South Africa

Heavy Chef has shown a deep commitment over many years to equipping entrepreneurs with practical knowledge and the support of a community. I hope this book on selling online inspires a wave of start-ups and growth for existing businesses.

ANDREW SMITH, co-founder of Yuppiechef

This book provides a tremendous amount of learnings, insights and practical implementation that will guide any entrepreneur looking to succeed in the digital ecosystem.

JESSICA VAN DER WESTHUYZEN, digital and growth marketer

I support Heavy Chef because they train by using real experiences from entrepreneurs that have faced and overcome the same challenges. There is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to running a business, hence creating this space to interact and ask questions is the best way to gain valuable learnings.

NALISHA PILLAY, general manager at KOODOO

Heavy Chef has been instrumental in providing me with valuable insights that answer the many new challenges I’ve encountered while growing my design studio. I know a professional and reliable opinion is just a video away, and their culture of sharing and growth has been a great support in my personal journey as an entrepreneur.

NATALIA CARVALHO, founder of Estrela Studio

Heavy Chef are on the money, and you will be too if you’re savvy enough to taste their awesome ingredients to success.

ROBYN SMITH, founder of Faithful to Nature

In a life full of uncertainties, Heavy Chef has been a calming, constant source of support during my entrepreneurial journey. I view the Heavy Chef team and community as a wise friend and mentor, a useful resource of information, a space to connect with like-minded entrepreneurs, a sounding board and massive cheerleader for all my biggest and craziest ideas.

SHONA MACDONALD, founder of Thursdays Lingerie and Swimwear

selling

products

online

A HEAVY CHEF RECIPE BOOK

A Practical

10-Step

Guide

For E-Commerce

Entrepreneurs

In South Africa

First published in 2023 by Pan Macmillan South Africa

Private Bag X19, Northlands

Johannesburg

2116

South Africa

www.panmacmillan.co.za

ISBN: 978-1-77010-853-0

eISBN: 978-1-77010-854-7

© Heavy Chef Foundation NPC 2023

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

Copywriting by Jade Taylor Cooke

Editing, production and ebook by Liquid Type Publishing Services

Proofreading by Salome Posthumus

Cover and book design by mrdesign

Contents

Welcome To Selling Products Online

So, You Want To Start An E-Commerce Business …

Recipe  #1    Finding Your Customers

Recipe  #2    Setting Up An E-Commerce Store

Recipe  #3    Taking Online Payments

Recipe  #4    Selling On Existing Platforms

Recipe  #5    Attracting More Customers

Recipe  #6    Fulfilling Online Orders

Recipe  #7    Managing Your Stock

Recipe  #8    Serving Your Customers

Recipe  #9    Making A Profit

Recipe #10   Building Your Team

This Is Not The End

About Our Chefs

Welcome To Selling Products Online

We’re thrilled you decided to read this book – partly because we’ve poured a lot of love and hundreds of hours of interviews into it, but mostly because it means you’re one giant leap closer to earning money through selling things on the internet. At Heavy Chef, that’s the kind of career journey we tend to get pretty excited about.

But you can’t do this alone. Our research has shown that the most important ingredient for success is your access to other entrepreneurs. The sooner you become part of a community of like-minded innovators, the more time you’ll have to tap into their ideas, experiences, networks and resources. By doing so, you give yourself and your business the best chance of thriving.

Here’s the catch: most entrepreneurs have limited access to other trailblazers, especially when starting out. (Unfortunately, it’s not like there’s some clubhouse you’re immediately invited to hang out at.) This is especially true in e-commerce, a relatively new area. While putting our Heavy Chef E-Commerce Education Report, 2021 together, we found that more than two-thirds of online shop owners had no exposure to other e-commerce entrepreneurs when they first started. That’s a whole lot of figuring things out for yourself. Don’t worry, though, because that’s where Heavy Chef Recipe Books come in – connecting you with the collective consciousness of those who have already undertaken the bumpy journey you are about to embark on.

In 10 easy-to-follow chapters, Selling Products Online provides perspectives from a variety of experts in the field of e-commerce about how to make money by selling stuff on the internet. It’s like sitting down for dinner with the most experienced people on a given topic: we’ll guide you on asking the right questions, and they’ll answer them clearly to give you the best possible start.

We hope to inspire you, but remember that ultimately it comes down to you. This book will show you how to turn your idea into a profitable e-commerce business. Along the way, you’ll learn all you need to formulate your own unique recipe for entrepreneurial success.

Don’t forget to share with others as you go. So many like you are standing exactly where you are now, about to take a deep breath and plunge into this adventure we call e-commerce. Get out there, connect with them, and swap recipes.

One more thing. You may have guessed already that we at Heavy Chef are all about helping South African entrepreneurs get a foot in the door. We work hand in hand with Heavy Chef Foundation, a non-profit whose mission is to make entrepreneur education accessible by researching the needs of disconnected entrepreneurs. And while this book is a labour of love produced by the team at Heavy Chef, all our profits from it will go towards funding programmes run by the Heavy Chef Foundation. (You can find out more about these at HeavyChef.org.)

Yours in serving entrepreneurs,

Signature of Fred Roed, CEO of Heavy Chef

Signature of Fred Roed, CEO, Heavy Chef

Fred Roed

CEO, Heavy Chef

Signature of Lukhanyo Neer, Chairman, Heavy Chef Foundation

Signature of Lukhanyo Neer, Chairman, Heavy Chef Foundation

Lukhanyo Neer

Chairman, Heavy Chef Foundation

So, You Want To Start An E-Commerce Business …

You’ve come up with a great idea for a product to sell, you’ve made or bought a prototype, and you’ve got a feeling people would scramble to buy it. In fact, your friends and family have confirmed they would hand over some of their hard-earned cash for it (even your older sister, who is never one to coddle you). You want to sell your product to people all over South Africa (and later, the world) and reckon the internet is the best way to do that. But – gulp – you don’t know anything about building websites, marketing, taking online payments, or how to ship a bunch of packages around the country. This Heavy Chef Recipe Book is here to help. You’ve got questions. We’ve got answers.

Who is Heavy Chef, exactly? We’re a community platform for entrepreneurs. We’ve spent hundreds of hours interviewing successful entrepreneurs, technologists, leaders and creatives, and we’ve packaged their advice into short videos containing easily digestible recipes for success. These are all available on HeavyChef.com, so you can take a self-paced educational journey into just about every aspect of entrepreneurship there is. Each of the chefs featured in Selling Products Online has a recipe of their own on HeavyChef.com. In this book, we’ve brought together all the best bits about e-commerce from those recipes. Our name comes from the saying, Never trust a skinny chef. If a cook isn’t eating their own cuisine, you’ve got to wonder why you should, right? We empower our community by sharing advice from people we call heavy chefs – entrepreneurs with real experience who are authorities in their fields. They walk the talk. They take their own advice. They eat their own food, so to speak.

So that’s what this book is: a hearty serving of practical advice from some of the heaviest chefs in the selling-stuff-online arena. If you’re setting up your online shop, it makes sense that you’d want to chat with the person who helped build one of the world’s most popular tools for doing that. If you’re confused about shipping, it might help to speak to someone changing the distribution game in South Africa. If you’re struggling to price your product, you may want to ask for guidance from someone who’s already made a killing selling things online. However, not everyone can pin these people down for a cup of coffee and a chat (they can only drink so many oat-milk lattes, after all). So we’ve picked their brains for you and presented their advice in neat packages with bows on top – to help you make a success of your first e-commerce store.

Maybe you’re still at the very beginning, thinking, Um, what exactly is an e-commerce store? That’s okay too. We’ve designed this book to be beginner-friendly, with easy-to-grasp definitions and real-world examples. That way, you can confidently approach your new career (or side hustle) as an e-commerce entrepreneur.

How To Use Selling Products Online

We like to keep things practical around here, so this book is for the doers. You’ll learn plenty along the way, of course, but we’re not going to bombard you with endless pages of theory. Instead, you’ll find 10 chapters, each crafted to help you tackle a different challenge of selling products online. These are your recipes for success. Each chapter is divided into 10 bite-sized questions and answers related to the main topic so you can quickly and easily get the advice you’re looking for.

You’ll find a Learn. Do. Share section at the end of every chapter. We believe you can master a new skill better by learning, doing and sharing. How does that work? We’ll give you a summary of the key points from the chapter (Learn). Next, you’ll see a challenge to turn your newfound knowledge into action to further your e-commerce plans (Do). After that, you can dive into further research on HeavyChef.com and start a dialogue with your real-life or online network about what you’ve learned (Share).

As you read, you’ll notice we’ve highlighted some of the more difficult or unfamiliar terms relating to e-commerce or tech. You’ll see our definitions for them butting their way into the text. We wanted to save you from having to look them up in the Google machine. You’re welcome.

If you’d like to dive deeper into any topics along the way, we’ve pulled out the most relevant recipes from HeavyChef.com and highlighted them at the end of each chapter. You can also turn to the About Our Chefs section at the back of this book, where you’ll find a little more background on our chefs. We’ve included the titles plus short descriptions of their recipes so you can look them up on our website. For the record, our chefs aren’t the type to sit still for too long. So, while we’ve tried to provide information in this section that is as up-to-date and accurate as possible, we can’t promise that one of them hasn’t dreamed up an all-new, world-changing business idea since we hit the Publish button.

What You’ll Learn

We hope that by the time you turn the final page of Selling Products Online, you feel empowered to begin your e-commerce adventure. Our heavy chefs are going to teach you how to:

Find your customers. Are they online, what do they want, and how do you get their attention?

Set up your e-commerce store. Good news: you don’t have to be a web developer or know anything about coding to do this.

Take online payments. Without transactions, you don’t have a business.

Sell on existing platforms. Listing your products on platforms like Takealot and Faithful to Nature can really give your business wings – if you know how to navigate the process.

Attract more customers. This is Digital Marketing 101.

Fulfil online orders. Also known as making ship happen.

Manage stock. Take your operation from boxes piled up in the garage to efficient warehousing and distribution.

Serve your customers. They’re the heart of your business. This is how to treat them accordingly.

Make a profit. Understand the important bits to ensure your business thrives financially.

Build your team. When is the best time to bring new people in to work with you in the business? Who should you hire first? How do you pick your partners?

Sounds pretty tasty, doesn’t it? Ready? Let’s tuck in.

Recipe Number One

Recipe Number One

Finding Your Customers

Making sure you’re in the digital space at the right time speaking to the right audience with the right deal is important. – Lauretta Ngakane

Imagine having access to millions of potential customers across the country (even the world, as soon as you’ve figured out the logistics) without needing to open shops and spend money on billboards and stuff. Just think how far and high you could take your new business idea. That’s the promise and the joy of e-commerce.

Here’s a bit of a bump back down to Earth though: you’ll have to do some serious thinking first. Are your potential shoppers online? How will you find them? Once you’ve set up your new e-commerce store (don’t worry, we’ll get into how to do that in the next chapter), how do you make it stand out from the millions of others fishing for customers online?

These questions can keep you awake at night, but fortunately, you don’t have to figure out the answers yourself. In this chapter, we’ll provide insights into some of the important things you need to consider before diving into e-commerce. It’s all about finding and reaching out to new customers and winning their trust – by knowing your industry, researching new products, and using word of mouth, partnerships with other businesses, large e-commerce platforms, and email marketing and advertising. Armed with the knowledge, insights and inspiration on the pages that follow, you’ll find – and keep – the customers your business needs and deserves.

10 Tasty Questions

1. How Do I Know My Customers Are Online?

Excellent question that takes us straight into the basics. Before you can find your customers online, you have to know whether or not they are online. If the people who buy your products have no digital footprint or engagement, you cannot sell to them via an e-commerce site.

Fortunately, we have data to help us find our way in the online maze. Enter Arthur Goldstuck, long-standing Heavy Chef friend and South Africa’s leading tech commentator. According to market research by his company, World Wide Worx, only 3.5% of South Africans were shopping online in 2018. There was a direct relationship between youth and likelihood of shopping online, Arthur explains. The 25-to-34 age group was the sweet spot for e-commerce and targeting people to shop online.

The COVID-19 pandemic changed the picture quickly and completely. You suddenly saw that bell curve, with its serious dips and hills, disappear. The pandemic accelerated that shift because it gave people the incentive and the imperative to buy goods online that they would previously have bought in physical stores.

Post-pandemic, around 30% of people in our country younger than 65 shop online. Remarkably, 17% of retirees (people 65 and older) have joined the e-commerce trend and now shop online regularly.

2. How Does Knowing My Industry Make It Easier To Find My Customers?

According to Nalisha Pillay, knowing your industry will help you find customers for your new venture. Nalisha is the general manager (GM) at KOODOO, the sole distributor of Sony PlayStation products in South Africa, and a true heavy chef. She came to online trading from a place of humility, ambition and curiosity. Under her leadership, KOODOO is now one of the fastest-growing e-commerce stores in South Africa.

Nalisha tells us that knowing your industry helps you understand what customers want and where to connect with them. From the outset, the KOODOO team knew and was part of the gaming community. This gave them a base of potential customers to tap into. We asked ourselves where our customers were sitting, says Nalisha. The answer was events like the Rand Show, Comic Con and Rage. That’s where we could interact with people and acquire customers. KOODOO’s strategy was to set up stands there, where customers could experience the magic of a PlayStation and the KOODOO brand.

KOODOO found its market niche – the gamers that retail stores weren’t focusing on – through understanding the gaming community. "The focus of retail stores is core gamers and new content, whereas we knew that the casual gamers didn’t really understand gaming. They needed more