Planning to start a small business? Surely, your business idea is amazing but, a business does not just run on pixie dust or magic. A lot of planning and decision making is involved, one of which is “where you should start your business?”
Finding a suitable and affordable place might be a hard task to think of. So, why not start a business on the Internet. Here are 7 reasons why you should start selling online and grant your business an online presence.
1. Make use of the smartphone era
At this generation, it is safe to say almost everyone, if not everyone, owns a smartphone. From public transportation to restaurants, people are often on their phones, listening to music, playing games or even browsing through social media. Heck, You can even hail a taxi cab by a click on your smartphone.
By putting your business in the Internet, there is a higher potential for people with a smartphone or internet to come across your business. ‘Internet plus’ is growing in popularity and for good reasons, one of them is to maximize the trend of the smartphone culture.
2. Can be reached by more people
Easy enough to say, if more and more people are owning and using smartphones then more and more would be online. Since you are a very wise and innovative entrepreneur, you will harness this increasing market. The secret in expanding your business is to get more demand because more demand means more supply.
Imagine, anyone with an internet device with internet access can purchase your products, anytime, anywhere. Compare that with having a “physical” store with only passers-by as potential costumers. Additionally, people share almost about anything online, and that could be your business getting shared. Through friends of friends of friends of friends, your business is receiving attention in an Internet-wide scale.
3. Easy to manage
The beauty of online stores is that they are comparatively easier to manage. One person could get the job done. Setting up might come off as a bit tricky but there are a lot of online platforms that help set up your business online.
You receive orders then you deliver the items or services to costumers, and that’s the only thing you need to do when your e-business is fully operational. If you do not want to use these platforms, you can use social media as a start. That too wouldn’t be too difficult as most of us are very aware on how to navigate common social media sites like Facebook and Instagram.
4. More Efficient
Costumers want efficiency, that is for sure. With an online business, efficiency wouldn’t be a problem. Take a traditional apparel shop versus an online clothing business.
For traditional apparel shops, the costumer would need to travel to reach the store, upon reaching the store they would have to rummage through all the rack of clothes or items that is in display. After finding the desired item, the costumer would need to ask for his/her size, which in many scenarios takes a hefty amount of time, if you’re lucky enough, you’d proceed to paying for the item, if not then “Back to rummaging!”.
As for online stores, the costumer can browse through a wide selection of clothes and other items, and all the info will be provided such as available sizes, color, designs and price. Then, the costumer could tap purchase. Voila! The transaction is done. It saves both yours and the customer’s time.
5. Convenience
Ebay and Amazon receives a tremendous amount of patronage from online shoppers and you might be wondering why. It is because of the conveniency brought about by the service. The purchase is just on the tip of their fingertips and once the order has been made, all the consumer have to do is wait for the deliveryman to knock on their door.
Not convinced yet? Take Uber as another example. We all know that hailing a cab can be difficult at times and if you really ran out of luck, it will be a stinky, petrol smelling cab. Uber revolutionises car-hailing. With its online interface, anyone can hire a private car to take them to their desired destination without shedding any sweat but with style and luxury.
Next time customers will be needing a product or a service, they’ll be thinking about your business. Convenience = more repeat business.
6. Cut cost
Let’s be realistic, you need money to run a business but that doesn’t mean that you need a lot. Owning a store means paying for fixed assets, paying for rents and bills and paying for human resources. With an online business, you can scrap all that and stay focused on using your revenue to improve and upsize your business.
Also, with this strategy, you can use cost plus pricing, keeping your products/services at its most affordable fee. Not only would this attract costumers but as well as financially meeting the needs of running the business with some money left on your piggy bank. You would be hitting your breakeven point in no time.
7. Good Learning experience
And most importantly, you get to learn, a lot! You get to learn and grasp about all the aspects you have to bear in mind when running a business. You get to learn from other enterprises on effective ways of running a business.
Lastly, you get to communicate with your costumers, constantly improving your methods and strategies by maintaining a good Peer-to-Peer communication. Everyday, you will learn new things, from the difficulties you face, negotiating with costumers , or making new connections and partnerships, an even make new friends along the way. There will always be a room to grow and learn.
The amount of learning and experience you get from putting your business online is unceasing and endless. This makes your time online worthwhile, and that includes the money you earn as well.
So what are you waiting for? I’ll be waiting on my smartphone for you business.
Shopping trolley on button of computer keyboard — Image by © Matthias Kulka/Corbis