You are like me? When you think about starting your online business, is budget and money concerns one of the first things that crosses your mind? I am here to tell you that you can have your own e-business and start it on a shoestring budget.
These are the things you need to know to start your online business, your e-business, on a shoestring budget.
- Take your time to find a profitable niche. This may not be what everyone else is doing, you may find that the most profitable niche for you is a small untapped niche that the rest of the online world is not focused on.
- Take a look at your income plan. How long do you have before you have to start making a profit? What is your advertising plan? In how many ways can you make money in your chosen niche?
- Choose your name wisely. I once ran an online fundraising site where I raised money for churches; I called the site Laetans which means joyful. I thought it was a great name until people started calling me and asking me what Laetans stands for. Your name should reflect what your e-business is about and have a URL available. Remember that you are building an online business and people expect to be able to type in your business name.com and land on your website.
- What resources and needs do you already have? You may already have most of what you need to get started. A desk, Internet access, a computer, but what about the software, the business cards, the letterhead? Take a close look at what you have, what you need, and what you can do without.
- Create an attractive website. In today’s world, it seems like any kid with a computer can open a website, but is it a good website? Take your time and build a quality, attractive website. If you don’t have the chops to build your own, maybe you can hire one of those kids to build your ecommerce website for you.
- Build trust. Show your image; let people know you. Think about it, when you go to the grocery store, don’t you stand in line and have a chat with the cashier? Well here you are the cashier and you need to build trust. Let people see and learn about you through your informal writing style, newsletters, and blog posts.
- Find cheap advertising, opps, I mean low cost. This means starting a blog, writing articles and posting on other people’s blogs, doing the things that don’t cost you much. You can always choose pay-per-click advertising; it worked for me with that fundraising website. Although I spent most of my time explaining the name of the e-business.
- Sign up for PayPal or a shopping cart. You need to be able to accept payment, so consider checking out a shopping cart or using PayPal. I like PayPal because you only pay when you use the system. This means there are no up-front out-of-pocket costs, which helps when you’re starting your e-business on a shoestring budget.
- Sell someone else’s product if possible. Think about it if you make a widget and sell it online, you have to produce and stock your widget. Now if you sell someone else’s widget, they have to stock it and produce it, you just have to sell it. It’s called affiliate marketing and it works.
- Keep customer service your number one priority. If you don’t have customers you can’t sell anything. So keep your customers happy. Remember what your first boss told you ‘customers are always right’.
It’s easy to start your online e-business on a shoestring budget if you follow these helpful tips.