How to Sell Cooking Equipment Online

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Selling Cooking Equipment Can Be a Recipe for Success

Good cooks know that preparation is the key to making the perfect meal. Building a business follows the same recipe, and learning how to sell cooking equipment online is easier than it's ever been before — with calculated preparation, of course.

Want to get started in the world of online business? eCommerce is a bustling industry. If cooking is your thing, don't be daunted by your competition. In fact, competition breeds better business, and you can always create your own recipe to show that you have great taste. Everyone needs kitchen gear to make breakfast, lunch and dinner. If you take your time and learn how to sell cooking equipment online the correct way, you'll have a great opportunity to start a long-lasting business. Check out some tips to get started below.

Sell Cooking Online

How to Start an Online Cooking Equipment Business

Starting a business should be looked at like creating a recipe: you need to plan out your ingredients and make sure they all work well together. For businesses, though, this is even more important. Proper planning and preparation means you'll get much better results without making a costly mistake. For example, you'll have an easier time finding high-quality products to sell if you investigate more suppliers.

The most important part of starting an online cooking equipment business is understanding the challenges you're going to face, and the solutions you can use to meet them. Here are some of the details you should consider.


Find Your Specialty

Cooking equipment spans the gamut from big wooden spoons to blenders to oven mitts. What products will you specialize in when you get started?.

By specializing, you have the ability to differentiate your store from the competition while simultaneously making it easier to speak to your products. After all, if you want people to buy from your online store rather than a big one, you should give them a compelling reason to do so. Specializing works here, so consider it as you learn how to sell cooking equipment online..

Pick the Brands You'll Represent

Not all cooking equipment is created equal. Using a discriminatory hand in choosing which brands to represent is an important part of establishing your brand's reputation.

Once you've chosen the right brands, you can get started creating relationships with wholesalers. Find distributors with the best wholesale pricing, check out current market prices and figure out your margin. This will help you with projecting your profits. And, of course, the point of learning how to sell cooking equipment online is to make a profit.

Choose Appropriate Shipping Methods

Shipping is a central part of eCommerce, and multiple carriers exist to provide solutions to meet different needs. The shipping carrier (or carriers) you use will partially depend on the types of cooking equipment you sell.

Smaller items like utensils or saucepans can be shipped with a typical carrier like FedEx. But if you're selling appliances, you may need to opt for freight shipping that can handle large items like ovens and refrigerators. Likewise, some items may simply be too expensive to ship by certain methods, or to faraway destinations. You'll need to decide whether to restrict your shipping range for these items, look for alternative carriers, or simply deal with the extra cost.

Add a Little Spice to Your Business

You'll need to create an image for your store that is fresh, unique and appealing to customers. For that, you'll want to come up with a compelling and original name, hire a designer to create the perfect logo and website design, and put together your company's story through smart copy or video production.

Don't be afraid to spice things up — no one ever made it in business by trying something that's been tried over and over again. You'll find out that originality is crucial as you learn how to sell cooking equipment online. This is especially true since cooking is a creative field. Customers will be more interested in your business if they know you understand this and have a creative streak yourself. Just remember your site's overall tone needs to consider your target audience!

Get the Word Out About Your Store

Usually, when something's cooking, people will be attracted to pleasant aromas and find themselves drawn to the source. Think of your eCommerce marketing the same way: you need to catch the interest of as many people as possible, and guide them to your online store.

Social media marketing, email newsletters, and search engine optimization (SEO) can all be very effective for this purpose. SEO in particular is worth starting on right away, as it has the highest return on investment (ROI) and takes time to start working. While some of your SEO will depend on tactics such as blogging to add fresh content that can help bring your site more attention, much of it will depend on the SEO tools in your eCommerce platform, which is why you should look for eCommerce software with the best SEO.

Shopping Cart Software: The Perfect Finish

Speaking of eCommerce software, this is also one of the most crucial decisions you can make for your business. Besides the SEO considerations, your shopping cart software will also determine how well your store functions and how many tools are available to you for running your business.

Consider inventory management, eCommerce shipping features like connections to shipping carriers, eCommerce marketing tools, and more. You'll want a platform that gives you a full set of features for managing every aspect of your business, either natively or through simple integrations. For instance, a shopping cart that connects easily to QuickBooks is a must for many small businesses.

Understanding the Cooking Equipment Industry

Main Product Categories

As we briefly touched on earlier, cooking equipment can cover a wide range of products that probably number into the thousands. As you plan your business, put some thought into which types of products you want to focus on. Here are some examples:

  • Cutlery and other utensils
  • Pots and pans
  • Appliances (ovens, refrigerators, etc.)
  • Microwaves
  • Crock pots and pressure cookers
  • Blenders
  • Measuring cups and spoons
  • Scales
  • Grills and hot plates
  • Tools like grinders and graters
  • Other specialty tools

Regarding the products you choose to sell, you may be considering a "superstore" that sells everything related to cooking, but you're more likely to be able to establish yourself if you devote your business to a specific range of products or even a single type of appliance, like microwaves or blenders. By narrowing your focus, you'll be able to become an authority in your niche much more quickly than you would if you tried to sell everything. You can always expand later on to offer additional types of products.



Accessories for Furniture
Understanding the Furniture Business

Accessories

Some cooking equipment has accessories associated with it, like roasting racks or steamers to use with a pressure cooker. Sometimes these accessories come with the main product, and sometimes they don't. In either case, you can increase order sizes by offering accessories and displaying them as "Related Items" on the main product's page. For products that don't initially include their accessories, customers may be looking to buy them so they can get more use from the product. For products that do include accessories, customers might need to buy replacements.


Bundles and Kits

Besides offering accessories for sale as related products, you can also upsell your customers by offering a bundle that includes all the accessories together at a slightly discounted price. Bundles can optionally include the main product as well, so a customer could opt to buy the item and all its accessories together. Bundles can also be used to create a collection of products that go well together, like a skillet and spatula, so someone can quickly buy what they need if they have a specific purpose in mind for their cooking. On that note, you could also use bundles to create kits such as "starter kits" that include basic necessities for a new cook, or other kits that include items specifically for a particular style of cooking or even a certain recipe.

Successful Stores Selling Cooking Equipment Online

Online Cooking Equipment Stores Thriving on Shift4Shop

Online Store Themes for Selling Cooking Equipment

Create Your Own Kitchenware Website with These Delicious Templates

Cooking website template

Cookery

Cookery is a free kitchen appliance website template that uses modern design to evoke the atmosphere of a clean, versatile kitchen. The menu structure is familiar and easy to understand, and can handle large numbers of products. The default color scheme's heavy use of white brings a classic kitchen to mind, but the use of colorful highlights suggests room for innovation

Cooking website theme

Pro Cutlery

Pro Cutlery is a free kitchenware website template that uses white, black, and gold colors to make a subtle yet effective statement. The layout is built to draw attention where you want it and allow for easy navigation even for new customers. Additional images on the home page can be used to showcase categories, products, and more.

How to Get Your Online Cooking Equipment Business Started

Once you've fully planned out your business, secured your suppliers, and are ready to take the first real step, it's time to build your website. Shift4Shop is the right software to give you everything you need to set up an online store built to sell. Built-in tools include management for unlimited products and categories, a module to create product bundles as we suggested above, automation for marketing and other crucial functions, and much more. Best yet, you can have it all for free with no monthly fee — and we're the only eCommerce platform that offers a completely unlimited, free plan.

Online Cooking Business

Shift4shop includes everything you need to sell online

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Frequently Asked Questions

How can I start selling cooking supplies with a tight budget?
If you want to start selling cooking equipment online with a low budget, you'll need to keep your costs down — but you can save money on both your website and the products you stock your store with. For your eCommerce website, use Shift4Shop's free End-to-End eCommerce plan to get pro-level features (worth over $229/month) for free, without any limits on your store. To save money on your products, look into dropshipping. This will allow you to start selling products directly from a supplier without having to invest in inventory first.
I want to dropship kitchenware. Isn't Shopify the best software for dropshipping?
Shopify dropshipping is popular, but has some serious limitations described in the linked article. Shift4Shop has many advantages over Shopify when it comes to dropshipping, making Shift4Shop a better choice for your business.
Where else can I sell cooking equipment besides my own website?
It's a smart idea to expand your business onto multiple channels. You can also sell your cooking equipment on Amazon, eBay, Facebook, Instagram, Google Shopping, and more. Shift4Shop integrates with these sales channels to let you manage all of them from a single dashboard and keep your inventory consistent across marketplaces.