By: J Garces Jr
There a many things to consider when undertaking the task of starting a business, whether it be a physical bricks and mortar site or an Internet business from home.
One of the most important things to consider even before building an Internet business is who your market is going to be. Exactly who are you going to sell your goods or services to? If there isn’t a market for your goods or services, it doesn’t matter how great your product is.
Other considerations are how much time, money and patience you are willing to dedicate to your given project. A lot of businesses usually don’t make it past their first year. Some don’t even make a profit until their fifth year. Are you willing to do what it takes to make your business succeed?
Advantages of owning an Internet business
With a normal bricks and mortar retail business, you’d have to pay rent, utilities, insurance, etc. Someone, whether you or an employee, has to be at the store to open it, take care of customers, tend to the register, clean it, and eventually close the store – unless you’re open 24 hours a day.
With an Internet business, you don’t have as much overhead. You don’t pay rent (you actually pay hosting fees) and it’s open 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. You don’t have to be there physically, though you do have to be in front of your computer from time to time. Best of all, you can actually run your web site while still at home in your pajamas.
Though the advantages are great, there are many sobering realities when running an online business. For one, as with any business, you must stay on top of it. You must also learn new things and continue to learn even more new things. You must be able to market your business effectively or it will fail. Just because you’re on the internet doesn’t mean people will automatically find you. You must fight your way to the top of search engines or else risk being lost in cyberspace.
Furthermore, the internet is always changing. New Internet technologies quickly become old news. As such, you must be willing to read constantly about any changes that affect the Internet. If you don’t, you’ll quickly find yourself lagging in sales while your competitors move in on your territory.
As sobering as the above may be, it is not difficult to succeed. Of course, this depends on you. Again, are you willing to do what it takes to make your business succeed?
Basic needs
In order to start an online or Internet business you basically need 6 things. They are:
1) A web site – this is simply a collection of web pages that list your products and/or services along with your company information and order pages. There are several ways to build a web site. You can do it yourself, you can pay someone else to do it for you, or you can use what’s called ‘store building software’. This type of software builds a web site for you. All you do is point and click. It is simple to use and requires no experience.
2) You must also decide on a Domain Name. Domain names are the web site addresses that appear on the address bar of you web browser. An example of a domain name is amazon.com. The name you choose for your domain name is important as it will reflect what kind of company you are as well as what products or services you offer. If you wish to host your site on an online mall or a host provider that provides you with your own web space, then you may not need a domain name.
3) A Web Hosting Service – a Host is the computer where your web site will live. There are thousands of Hosts to choose from. Which one you get depends on what you want.
4) A Shopping Cart – this is the software that processes your online orders. Having a shopping cart is not mandatory. You can, in fact, just have your customers print out an order form and mail you their orders along with a check or money order. However, being able to accept orders online has been proven to increase sales dramatically. Thus, a shopping cart is highly recommended. Like # 3 above, there are thousands to choose from. Which one you get depends on what you want it to do.
5) A Merchant Account – A merchant account allows you to accept credit cards as a form of payment in your business establishment. You don’t have to get one if you don’t want to accept credit cards. Like # 4 above, you can just get your customers to mail you their orders and pay you by check. Nonetheless, I highly recommend you accept credit card payments online. It can mean the difference between making several hundreds of dollars in sales and several thousands.
6) A Payment Gateway – the last thing you’ll need is a Payment Gateway. One example is AuthorizeNet. A payment gateway is what actually makes accepting credit cards online possible. The Gateway integrates with your shopping cart and merchant account to ensure that you get your money when customers buy from your store.
The 6 items can be obtained individually or in a package with different combinations. For example, you might find a Web Host who offers you a free shopping cart. Or, you might find a Merchant Account Reseller who offers you a Payment Gateway in a combined package.
