More and more people these days seem fed up with being bossed around and having their ideas ignored and ridiculed. If you are one of those people, you might have already thought about bringing into life your own idea of a business, service or product. But where does one begin?
It is not an intimidating task, to answer your question; it’s an endeavor that requires effort, passion, devotion and time, lots of time:
- Have a rough plan and a vision, discuss it with people, estimate its feasibility, originality and profitability. Ideally, it should have all three
- Think ahead: can you cope, if suddenly you have 200 placed orders? What about your sources provider, are they reliable? Do you have alternatives and backup plans for unexpected events?
- Marketing and Advertising strategies: this in plain English means: retail or wholesale, who’s your target customers etc., these need to be identified early on.
- Brand Image and Philosophy, these will establish what is interesting and new about what you are offering. Specialize, offer something worthwhile; if people need it, they wouldn’t mind paying more for it.
setting up your own online store
- Find a reliable web host company, preferably one that offers many other facilities, like a merchant account for your online transactions, an e-commerce software for managing these transactions online and so on.
- Start putting into action your marketing strategy. Always remember; put the customer in the spotlight, your goal is becoming essential in their lives. Also, offering more than one expects is always a plus, provide them with everything, not just the product itself, give them additional information through a blog or articles, be there for questions and returns, offer deals and discounts to royal customers and so on.
If all these sound frightening to you, you can always start small and see how it goes. Try eBay and Etsy for example, If your selling your own artistic creations or old, vintage items and not services, this is a good place to start.
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