How to Start an Online Business and Thrive

Online business is a good business model. It is not possible to start a free business in the real world but you can easily start an online business with zero dollars. Promoting your offline business with offline advertising can be very costly, however, when it comes to promoting your business through online mediums, it can be really cheap. You cannot advertise on newspapers with $10 but on Facebook you can run 10 days campaign with $10. I am not sure if you can actually start an offline business with $5-$10. This is at least not possible in my place. However, when it comes to start a business on the internet, you can easily start with zero dollars. You can use methods like print on demand and dropshipping to start a zero cost business. In the real work, even to sell tea from roadside, you need at least $100 in my place. However, that's not the case with online businesses, you can either start free or start small

What is the Best Online Business Model

The best online business model is the one where you do not have to spend money to manufacture products or spend money to create products. The best online business is the business where you do not have to ship products to the customers or do not have fulfill the order. So what could be those businesses? Here are few examples

Affiliate marketing: No money needed for product, no need to ship product, if you have traffic, you can make money on auto pilot

Print on demand: You can start free or low cost, you just create design and rest of the work will be take care by another company.

Dropshipping: No need to spend money on products or shipping products.

Here are my two cents on how to start an online business:

​Create or find the product you want to sell

Choose a method you want to sell your product

Choose a platform to sell your product

Create a marketing plan and SEO strategies to improve your visibility, 

Enjoy your sales. 

My best advice is use print on demand method to sell through social media platforms. It is free but very effective

How to Become Successful With Print-On-Demand Business?

If you want to start an online business with small to nothing funds, Print On Demand is the business for you. With this business model you can sell anything from clothes, house hold items, to jewelry and accessories. Just like with other online business, you need traffic to your store to become successful with Print On Demand Business. If you have managed to build an audience that buys your products on a regular basis, you can generate sales regularly. Building social media followers can be very helpful. If you have a lot of followers, even one percent conversion might mean a lot of profits.

How to Become Successful With Dropshipping Business?

If you want to start an online business where you do not want to invest in products and do not want to bother with fulfilling orders, dropshippng is the business for you. SEO is very important to become successful with dropshipping business. If you are doing it on an ecommerce markets, your products should appear in the internal searches (searches on the platform where you are selling. If you are doing it on your own website, your website needs to appear on top results on Google search and other search engines. Apart from SEO, digital marketing is also essential to generate sales. If you can master these two techniques, you can become successful.

How to Become Successful With Dropservicing Business?

If you are a service provider but are too lazy to work on service orders, you can do dropservicing. Dropservicing is a lucrative business opportunities for freelancers to build their freelancing business. In fact you can earn more with dropservicing compared to freelancing. To become successful with dropservicing business, first and foremost, you need to establish yourself as a reputed service provider on multiple freelancing sites. Once you start getting more orders than you can actually handle, you can then hire freelancers and let them work on the orders you get. You can keep 10-20 percent of the payment to yourself and send remaining payment to the freelancer.

What Skills Do You Need To Start and Run Online Business

If you are interested in starting an online business, the two most important skills you need are digital marketing and SEO skills. You need SEO to improve your online search visibility and digital marketing to improve visibility on social platforms as well as across web. You not only should know how to rank top on search results but also know how to run effective advertising campaigns. You also need website designing and managing skills. Online businesses are basically websites selling products, you need skills to operate websites. You also need web designing skills as you are required to design your business website.

To tell you the truth, I do not see any difference between online business and offline business, the difference is all about how you sell. Well, all businesses have their own peculiar characteristics but broadly speaking, they are same. For instance, a clothing store and shoe store are practically same but these are also different business s they utilize different tactics to sell. Therefore, despite being almost identical, you need different kill set to operate these businesses.

If you want to run an online business and make it profitable, you need SEO and marketing skills. Without SEO and marketing, it is impossible to generate sales. You need content creation skills to become a marketer, you need writing, graphic designing, and video making skills to create marketing materials for your business. If you are running online business from your own store, you also need skills with web design and development

How to Start an Online Business on Etsy

If you want to start an online business, try Etsy. Etsy is better than your own online store with your own domain and hosting. That’s because without investing huge, and without working hard to build a brand or market your store, you have a chance to make millions. On Etsy you can do print on demand and dropshipping, you can sell digital items, as well as physical products. How much do you need to get started? Well, $50 will be more than enough. You spend a few bucks to list your products, and then use teh remaining money to run PPC ad campaign.

Alibaba Vs. Aliexpress: Which is Good For Your Online Business

If you want to start an online business and do not want to manufacture your own product instead source form other companies, you can use Alibaba or Aliexpress. These companies even sell you white label products that you can build a brand and sell as your own products. Between Alibaba and Aliexpress, which do you think is better? Well, Alibaba is best if you want to order in bulk. However, Aliexpress can be better if you want to order fewer products. Alibaba does not allow you to buy 1-2 product, except for expensive products like machinery or cars. If you want to buy a lot of products Alibaba is best, for instance, if you purchase 100 t shirts you can get them for less than a dollar.

How Faster Shipping Time Improves Sales

If you are selling physical products through your online business, you are required to ship the products to the customers. When you ship products, you are also required to ship the product as fast as you can and ensure that your customers get the product pretty soon. When you buy products, can you wait forever to receive the product or do you want to get it very fast? Well,you want it delivered fast, and the same theory also applies when you sell products as an online business. When products fast, your customers will like to order again and again from you, and your sales will grow.

Free Shipping Vs. Charging For Shipping

When you buy online, would you choose to buy a product that comes with free shipping or buy a product that requires you to pay the shipping cost? Well, we all know the answer. Therefore, when you are a business you also need to offer free shipping. There are multiple benefits of offering free shipping, one, you het better visibility as some people are known to search for products that come with free shipping, two, increase sales, three, loyal customers, etc. Charging for shipping is not a good idea, if you cannot bear the shipping cost, try to add the shipping cost to the product and offer free shipping

How Easy Is it To Make Money From Your Online Store

If you search for money making ideas online, you will find that most people are suggesting you to create your own online business. If you have never tried, the first thing you would like to know is how easy is it to make money from your online store? In theory, if you focus on a specific niche, do SEO and rank your website high in search engine results, and do some digital marketing by posting on social media and running ads, you can definitely make money. Sadly, in practical point of view, it is really difficult to rank on search engines, and digital marketing does not always convert.

What Are the Benefits of Online Business Compared to Offline Business

Digitalization has allowed individuals to operate online business, but what are the benefits of online business compared to offline businesses. Compared to offline businesses, online ventures require minimal investment. For example, setting up a physical shop and paying hefty rents are not necessary for online business. With some online business models like print-on-demand or dropshipping, you even do not have to spend on warehousing, stocking inventory, purchasing products, manufacturing and product. You can do online marketing for your online business and online marketing is better than offline marketing in terms of customer reach. Online marketing is also cheaper. Thus, online business is better than offline business.

Conclusion: Reasons Why You Need to Start an Online Business

If you are running an offline business, consider ditching the offline business and start selling online. Well it is understandable that not only products can be sold online but why not sell the products that can be sold online instead of focusing on products that can only be sold offline. Your online business reaches the world, not just in your neighborhood. Focus on expedited shipping and global marketing. Even if you have an offline business, consider selling your products online. Even something like hotel room and food can easily be sold online. Even if you have a tea shop, you can find your customers through online channels and can offer drop in service to bring sales.