If you've been selling your fruit and veg in a market or greengrocer but are ready to expand into local delivery, you've come to the right place. The process can seem daunting, but in just a few easy steps you will be able to easily take orders and arrange deliveries in your local area from your very own free Obodo shop. Read below to find out more:
Simply head to obodo.shop when you're ready to get started to sign up for your free online shop. You will be asked in the signup process to provide some basic information about your shop, including your industry and postcode. Take note: you must enter the postcode attached to your business address. Your shop's delivery radius will be calculated from this address (more on this later!).
Before you get your shop up and running you'll first want to personalise your Obodo shop by adding a theme. You'll be able to add your branding, logo, and images later, the theme will serve as the structure for your shop.
From your dashboard, you'll be reminded to choose your theme, but you can also find this section by choosing the 'Design' tab at the top of the page. Obodo will automatically select a theme for you, but if you'd like to change it, simply choose 'Edit' and then 'Change Theme.' Featured Themes will appear at the top showing a selection of themes that we recommend for local businesses.
Themes are sorted by industry on the left hand side, but feel free to choose a theme from any category! To further personalise the shop you can edit some of the colours within the theme if you wish.
All of Obodo's themes are mobile optimised, meaning that your customers can order using their mobile phones or from their desktop or tablet.
You'll have the ability to upload an existing logo to your Obodo shop or you can use our logo builder if you don't have one already. You can easily find this on the 'Design' tab under Theme and then Edit. You can also update your logo from the 'Shop' tab.
Custom web pages allow you to have text only pages. These should provide critical information for your customers, like details about your delivery policies, contact information, and business hours. We recommend having an 'About Us' section at the minimum.. These can be found and updated easily on the 'Design' tab and then by clicking 'Webpages' on the ribbon.
With your Obodo shop you'll have the option to choose between two delivery methods - local delivery and click & collect. Depending on what works best for you and your business, you can choose to use one or both of these methods.
With local delivery you can deliver to any address within a maximum of 15 miles from your shop's address. You can change your delivery radius if you'd like on the delivery settings page. Your customers will enter their delivery address at checkout and provide any additional notes for their order.
With click & collect your customers can place an order without providing a delivery address. Once their payment has come through, you'll want to send them an email letting them know when their order will be ready. You can do this easily from the 'Orders' section of your account.
From the dashboard of your Obodo account you'll be prompted to set up a domain name. A domain name is the web address for your website and it serves to help your customers to find you. You'll want to make sure your domain name reflects your business name. You can purchase your domain name through Obodo, or if you've purchased a one somewhere else you can apply it to your Obodo shop in the domain name settings page.
Next you'll need a way for your customers to pay for their orders, otherwise known as a payment gateway. You can add your payment method by following the prompts in your online dashboard. Obodo offers Stripe- one of the fastest growing and most popular online payment gateways. With Stripe your business will get access to card and digital wallet (including ApplePay) payments. Stripe is fully secure and is compliant with PCI, PSD2 and Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) regulations.
Now it's time to upload your products onto your shop.You should see a message on your dashboard prompting you to add your first product, but you're also able to do this from the 'Shop' tab.
You'll want to start organising your shop by creating categories to hold your products. For example, if you sell fruit, vegetables, and gifts you may want to have a category for each one. Within each category you'll also be able to create subcategories. For example if you made a vegetables category, you may further segment it into subcategories for root vegetables, leafy greens, and beans and peas.
After your category has been created, you can click into it to add a product. Each product will need to be given a name, description, and price. Your description is your chance to sell the product! Be sure to use descriptive words and if applicable, you can include instructions for washing and preparation. If there is any information regarding delivery or anything else, you'll want to ensure it is added to the product description.
For each product variant (more on this later!) you'll be able to add up to 20 images. Ideally, you'll want to use unique images that you've taken of your own products so that your customers can know what they are ordering. If you don't have these images when you are first starting out there are many free stock image websites to choose from like Unsplash, Pexels, and Pixabay. You can also filter for images for commercial use on Flickr.
If your products have several different types or variations, you'll be able to set this up with Obodo very easily on the variants tab for each individual product. The 'size' variant can be used for foods that may be sold in different packs, for example apples that may be sold individually or in groups of 12.
You can also create custom variants for any other options. In the example below I've created the variant 'purchase type' and have given the option to buy potatoes by the kilogram at £0.50/kg or individually for £0.19 each. Once you've created your variants you'll be able to customise the prices for each variant option and decide if you'd like to charge more for certain options.
You'll want to enable stock control if you have an item that is only available in limited quantities. You can do this from the 'Settings' tab on your online account. Once this is available you'll be able to specify how many of each item are available and stock will be deducted as they are purchased from your Obodo website.
We recommend that you familiarise yourself with the Food Standards Agency guidelines on distance selling, mail order, and delivery. You'll need to register with your local council at least 28 days before you can start delivering your food products. You'll also need to make sure that your food products are delivered in suitable containers, including ensuring that any food that needs to be kept refrigerated is sufficiently cooled during the delivery process.
Before your site goes live you'll want to add your social media accounts to your new website. To add your social media information to your Obodo shop's pages, go to the Features tab and open the Social Plugins feature.
Be sure to also add your new website into the description of your social media profiles so that your followers will be able to shop at your new website. But don't stop there! Create a few posts to announce to your followers that you're now offering local delivery. You can even entice them with a special offer to get those orders rolling in.
We're so excited to have you join the Obodo family! For in-depth guides and links to our ticketed support team, visit https://help.obodo.shop/support/home.
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