Don’t Rush, Plan First

Don’t rush to start up any home business! Do your analysis and planning first.

Many people get excited when they find good sources for some products and especially they can get the products with cheap deal. They easily think of start up the home based business selling online and since setting up a website online could be free using free hosting website, they are happy with the profit margin in their mind.

Without much marketing researches and planning, they bring in the products and set up their online shop. However, after setting up the website, some problems will pop up.

If you are in this situation, you will find yourself facing the following problems:

Postage charge – If selling small items, postage charge easily become more expensive than the item itself. Mailing to overseas incur higher postage charge and it discourages the buying.
Payment method – Payment via ATM is not secure as you have to expose private bank accounts to public. Customers need to go to do the bank transfer at the ATM or nearest bank which is not convenient for them. Yes, there is internet banking which allow them to do the funds transfer online, however, not all the customers have the facilities. Again, it’s not applicable for overseas customers and customers who like to shop online using credit cards.
Fierce competition – It’s too late to find too many competitors in your businesses after set up the online shop. Lots of websites selling similar products with more varieties, their sites look more professional and the price is reasonable. Now, you would lose some confidence in your business.
Check and post orders manually – Selling physical products need an effort to check the orders and send out the items manually on time. Therefore, it’s time consuming where you need to allocate time for the parcels delivery. You hardly have holiday outstation because once you are not around, your business transactions stop unless you can find a reliable person to take care of your business while you are not around.
Not much traffic to your website – When the business started, you may get your friends or relatives to visit your online store. However after some while, you will find that your visitors become lesser and you don’t know how to sustain and grow your business. You become anxious especially if you are selling trendy products which not allow you to store the products for too long.
No time for family and kids – You become busy as you need to take care of the inventory, order, packing, delivery and marketing by yourself. You find that you hardly spend time with your family and kids. Or if you spend time with them, you don’t have much time for your online business.

These are the common problems if starting an online business without market researches and proper planning.

Now, let’s discuss about starting a home internet business in a rush. You might think that since doing business with physical products encounter so many problems, then internet business should be a lot easier. The truth is, internet business also requires market researches and planning. Let’s see what kind of problems you will face if without doing market researches and planning.

Fierce competition – You will face fierce competition as your market is too general. Too many people are doing about the same topic, target and market the same products to same category of customers. As a new entry into the market, it’s a competitive disadvantage for you.
No idea what topic to blog – You may feel that you don’t need a blog for internet business, but blogging is actually a marketing tool and branding for your business. If you know more about internet marketing strategies, you will understand blogging is a need. So, if you are blogging a topic without some planning, very soon you will find yourself run out of ideas and no content for the blog.
Not earning money – You need to plan and decide on the best and effective strategies to present your products and programs to your targeted customers. You only have one chance and you will lose them if no well plan. Without customers, you are not going to earn any money.

Therefore, marketing researches and planning are two important steps that you must not skip if you want to have your home based online business.