11 steps to starting a retail business

Do you have a great idea for a retail product? Now may be the perfect time to get it off the ground.

Retail business in Australia is changing, transformed by new technologies and evolving customer behaviour. Starting your business in this climate may seem overwhelming, but the evidence is on your side. Our research (global insights and trends gleaned from 8,350 shoppers and 1,700 retail industry decision-makers) shows that retailers are finding value in the new opportunities these shifting sands create.

This 11-step guide, informed by our latest Connected Shoppers Report , will walk you through how to start a retail business and set it up for success in 2025 and beyond.

From product refinement to shop-floor operations, here’s a step-by-step guide to starting a retail business:

Step 1: Validate demand and define your offer

Step 2: Choose your business model

Step 3: Create a business plan

Step 4: Secure funding and build your first-year budget

Step 5: Tackle legal and administrative setup

Step 6: Find suppliers and build sourcing resilience

Step 7: Choose a location and set up operations

Step 8: Set up your retail software stack

Step 9: Hire and train your team (if applicable)

Step 10: Build your brand and market your launch

Step 11: Track KPIs and review monthly

Plan your business around a robust offer. You don’t want to go to market with one that falls short of its potential. Test demand early to define your offer and demonstrate value, which will help you avoid costly mistakes.

Conduct market research to answer these three questions:

Today’s shoppers want personalised service . Understanding your target customers is essential for creating an offer that resonates. Identify target customer segments. Research their needs and pain points. Do rural dog-owners struggle to keep their pets hydrated on the go? Are Gen-Z athletes looking for eco-friendly activewear? These kinds of questions drive innovation and help you capitalise on market gaps.

Market research will help you avoid costly missteps; understanding that Australian beer drinkers are favouring premium craft beers over traditional full-strength ones, for instance, tells you that now is not the time to take a cheaper, mass-produced lager to market.

Research the market you’ll be entering and assess your competition. What do they do well? What could they improve?

Remember: their offer isn’t just their products, it’s their whole customer experience (CX). Research competitors’ marketing strategies, their quality of service, and the extra services they provide. For example, 59% of physical retail stores now offer services like customisation and repairs, while 46% provide dedicated spaces for events and gatherings. With services like these, competitors might just have the edge, even if your product is superior.

Now you know your customers and what’s already out there, consider your unique selling point (USP). Think about how your offer – products, service, brand, CX – will come together to meet the demand you’ve validated and stand out from the crowd.

To get started: Interview potential customers and analyse their feedback.

Now that you’ve defined your offer, it’s time to choose a business model to deliver it. Consider the benefits and drawbacks of these different business types and how well-suited they are to your specific goals.

The work you did to validate demand in Step 1 should provide an indication of the business models your target customers will be receptive to.

Remember, you can start small and test demand with a pop-up or dropshipping model before you invest in costly real estate or infrastructure. Many retail businesses shift between or employ multiple models, evolving to meet the demands of a growing customer base and outpace competition.

Luxury appliance manufacturer Fisher & Paykel combined a Commerce Cloud platform and real-time Data Cloud customer insights to establish a digital storefront where customers enjoy the convenience of online browsing, shopping, and subscription management without missing the personalised, customer-centric service for which the brand is known.

To get started: Select one model to start with, noting your rationale, and test it. If it works for you, think about scaling up by adding another model.

Now that you’ve pinned down your product and your business model, it’s time to articulate your vision in a retail business plan. This is essential for communicating your goals and demonstrating value to the partners, investors, and lenders you’ll work with to realise your business.

Business plans are more than pitch documents for funding rounds; they also provide a practical road map for you to follow as you build, launch, and market your business, and a way to measure progress against your stated goals.

Remember to emphasise and evidence the rationale underpinning your plan (this is where your hard work in Steps 1 and 2 pays off).

To get started: Write a one-page summary of your idea and goals. If you’re struggling with what to include, take a look at How to Write a Business Plan in 9 Steps or try Trailhead’s Salesforce Essentials for Small Business lesson, which walks you through how to write a plan.

Now that you have a solid business plan, you’ll need the funds to realise it. Securing the resources to launch your retail business is one of the biggest challenges in this process, but there are plenty of avenues to explore if your existing savings won’t foot the bill.

Here are a few potential funding resources to consider:

• Federal grants: Search for federal grants . You might find there are location or industry-specific programmes for which your business is eligible.
• Business loans: Apply for a business loan . Beware of hidden charges or terms and aggressive interest rates. Shop around to find the right lender and product for you.
• Investors and venture capitalists: Approach government or private sector funds for venture capital. Consider the industry expertise, history, and network investors bring to the table, along with funding.
• Crowdfunding: Use crowdfunding to finance your business, offering would-be customers incentives for donations.

Once you’ve secured funding and you know what you’re working with, you can build your budget. A typical year-one budget consists of a mixture of one-off, start-up costs, and overheads. Here are some of the expenses you’ll want to factor in:

Investing in the right technology early on will reduce costs in the long term and help to future-proof your business. Eighty-five per cent of retailers using AI say it reduces their operating costs, and 75% of retailers feel AI agents will be essential for a competitive edge by 2026.

Harness the power of AI to increase automation with Commerce Cloud. (Fisher & Paykel saw a return on investment in just six months.)

To get started: Draft a first-year budget with three cost categories.

Now that you’re backed with funding, you’re ready to start setting up. These are the legal and administrative tasks you should prioritise:

Establish policies that ensure your business fulfils its legal and ethical obligations; for example, require that staff undergo health and safety training during onboarding. Not only will this create a safe, fair, and reputable business, it will also demonstrate compliance and facilitate easy auditing down the line.

To get started: Register your business name and ABN. Next, look for software that can help. Salesforce CRM software lightens the administrative load of compliance processes with a comprehensive suite of customisable business tools and industry-specific expertise.

Effective supply chain management will be essential to your success as a retailer.

Suppliers don’t just sell you the products you take to market; they provide you with the services and materials you need to conduct business, from IT to receipt rolls. Reliable suppliers ensure you meet customer demand at the pace, price point, and standard you envisioned in your business plan.

To find them, refer to directories, network at trade shows, and seek recommendations from local businesses. When choosing retail suppliers, be sure to verify their details using the Australian Business Register (ABR) .

Once you’ve drawn up a list of options, you’ll want to compare them. Evaluate the pros and cons of different suppliers during procurement with a supplier scorecard like this one.

Sourcing resilience starts with robust contracts. Negotiate with suppliers to secure terms that align with your business goals. In addition to the business-as-usual operations, contracts should cover protocols for scalability, dispute resolution, insurance claims, and termination.

Once you’ve started a relationship with a supplier, you can adapt the scorecard above to monitor performance. Track metrics like inventory turnover, contract compliance, and order fulfilment rate to ensure they continue to meet your needs.

Salesforce AI helps strengthen supplier relationships and build robust supply chains by automating inventory management. Data Cloud’s real-time inventory tracking and demand forecasting tools have enabled food manufacturer, Kellanova, to get products to shelves in concert with the changing demand levels that follow promotions, for example.

To get started: Contact two suppliers and request samples.

Where you choose to set up operations will depend on the business model you chose in Step 2. As you read earlier, each model has its own pros and cons. By now, you should know which type of real estate you need, whether that be digital or brick and mortar.

Here are factors you should consider when choosing a location.

If you opt for a traditional lease or market stall, you can maximise exposure to customers with a high foot traffic location. If you’re using an ecommerce site or online marketplace, you’ll need strategies to drive web traffic to your store.

A storefront is an important touchpoint for customer experience (CX). Consider the role of real estate in CX. Is the space accessible and appealing? In a digital environment, is the ecommerce platform user-friendly?

Lease terms have significant budget and operational implications. Ensure terms such as lease duration, permitted use, and maintenance and repair responsibilities are clear and compatible with your business plan. If you intend to fulfil online sales or host events at your retail store, you’ll need use clauses that permit this.

Consider the cost of maintenance and repairs; an older building might be cheaper to lease upfront, but more expensive to maintain. IT infrastructure requires maintenance, too; consider this when choosing a digital platform for your store.

Once you’ve chosen a location, it’s time to set it up. Remember to install and stress-test signage, point-of-sale (POS) systems, Wi-Fi, and stock levels before the doors open.

To get started: Create a shortlist of three to five locations or platforms to deep-dive into.

A retail software stack is a combination of software solutions for daily operations such as POS, ecommerce, accounting, and CRM processes. The more your retail software unifies systems and automates routine processes, the more economical your operations and the better you’ll serve customers at different touchpoints.

As you grow your business, tasks like managing inventory, responding to customer enquiries, and monitoring sales performance will increase in size and complexity, too. Eighty-eight per cent of retailers say unified commerce will be very important or critical to their business objectives over the next two years as they strive to overcome disconnected systems, increase ecommerce sales, and deliver the flexibility shoppers want.

Scale up retail processes with Salesforce. Retail Cloud with modern POS offers a unified commerce platform, leveraging the power of AI and cloud-based intelligence to deliver a seamless shopping experience across digital and physical stores without extra manpower.

To get started: Choose one POS or ecommerce platform to trial.

Service quality can make or break a retail business. Shoppers consider bad customer service the worst retail experience. Seventy-four per cent say they will abandon a brand after three or fewer bad experiences.

Consider the power of customer service when you come to make workforce planning and hiring decisions. Employ people who will represent your business ethos and set them up for success with training, health and safety protocols, and standard operating procedures (SOPs).

Give your staff the authority and skills to handle a range of customer enquiries; this will lead to swifter resolutions and a more gratifying experience for employees and customers. Salesforce’s free online learning platform, Trailhead , has plenty of resources to help your customer service reps or sales associates develop their customer service experience skills and grow within their roles.

Consider how technology can empower your workforce; retailers are enjoying the employee productivity benefits of AI tools that automate routine activity, freeing staff up for higher-value tasks that improve CX.

To get started: Write a standard operating procedure (SOP) for handling customers.

You’ve fitted out your store with stock, staff, and retail software. Now it’s time to get paying customers through the door.

Back when you conducted your market research, you learnt all about your target customers and the retail offers that appeal to them. Remember to deploy this knowledge when crafting your brand. This includes your logo, tone of voice, customer promise, and retail experience.

Your marketing plan doesn’t need to break the bank; there are low-cost strategies you can use to get paying customers through the door. Consider using search engine optimisation (SEO), social media, guerrilla marketing, and email and SMS marketing to publicise your launch.

Again, your target customers’ shopping habits should guide your marketing strategy; for instance, as only 4% of baby boomers use TikTok for shopping discovery, your resources are better spent elsewhere if that’s your target market.

To get started: Create a one-page brand style sheet.

Once you’re up and running, know whether you’re on track to meet your business targets using key performance indicators (KPIs). Monitoring performance across the right metrics will help you identify and resolve teething issues.

Keep tracking simple to start with, focusing on a few sales and compliance performance indicators:

Shared spreadsheets or dashboards are a great way to keep yourself and your team abreast of emerging trends. As your business gains momentum and grows in complexity, consider using AI-powered CRMs to pull rich KPI data directly into customised dashboards.

To get started: Identify three KPIs to track weekly.

Use these steps to launch your retail business with confidence. The journey might seem long, but by following this process, you’ll be firmly on the way to an agile, scalable, retail business fit for the modern customer.

Our research shows that, as shoppers seek more personalised and flexible retail experiences, business owners are looking to invest in unified commerce platforms that can meet them where they are. Use Retail Cloud with modern POS to arm associates with customer data and recreate the personalisation of online shopping in bricks-and-mortar stores.