Importance of Market Researches and Planning – Sharing by Monique Loh

Monique Loh, a 20-year-old student who owns her fashion directory website. She shares on how she get started her online business and her experiences of market researches and planning.

A Little Bio of Me
Let listen to what my brother thinks about me:
Ugly fat childish

Yet-to-be-swam,
In the process of slimming
Plenty room for mental development

Food lover
Human-food-storage

Loves eggs
Able to take minimum three eggs at one go

I said: Whatever he talks about me, at least I am happy and satisfied with what I am doing now. 20-year-old girl, who owns a fashion directory website, still attending class in Institute. I am on the way to my ideal life.

My Website: Lady Collection.Net – Online Shopping Directory

Online business experience

November 2008 get the first batch of physical products
December 2008 set up a blog
January 2009 dropped the plan of selling physical products
February 2009 start creating website by using XSitePro
April 2009 published own created website

What was I doing before I start the online business?
I have been dreamed of having a physical fashion shop when I was a secondary student. The first thing I must think of before operating a shop is money. How can I own or rent a shop without funds? Asking helps from my family? No way! This kind of desire is out of our budget. So I need to work on myself. At that time, a part time job may help me. I have 3 part time job experiences: waitress, charwoman worker of a trophy shop and wood company. What my experiences told me is that that was indeed the only position and salary I can get because of my new working experience and being a non-outstanding student in school. I quit those jobs finally as I was told I was not capable in handling those position. Oh, I am a science field student.

How I start my online business?
One day in 2008, my uncle brought a bag of hairpins to me. He bought the hairpins from Thailand when he was traveling there. As I know, there are many teenagers sell their physical products in their blogs. I followed their footsteps.

The excitement drove me to

sign up for a blog account under free hosting
taking picture of all the goods
learn Adobe Photoshop (this software may help me to change the background in the photo)
searching for information related to customer service(postage charge, price of goods, merchandise policy)
browsing similar website and take them as reference

I dropped the plan of selling physical products
As I have posted the first batch physical products (sponsored by uncle) on my selling platform, I met with some obstacles:

source of good. The only source of goods that I can think of is oversea wholesaler. That means I have to buy the products online. At that moment reliability and quality of the goods have became my worry.
economical problems. In order to cut down cost I have to buy in large quantity.
commercial awareness. I was new to this field and did not have any idea about niche market.

One day, I came out with the idea providing service instead of promoting physical products. This kind of business does not have me to worry about source of goods and economical problems. After I did some market research, I slowly able to recognize my niche market and keep on with the target.

How do I get my new idea

Browsing website, make them as my reference. Research work is a must do section before I make any decision
Note down the important service that I think I should include in my website
Keep on learning when I come to something that I am not familiar with (e.g. ‘affiliate’ used to be a new term to me)
Digest all the ideas and I come out with the plan that fit me the most. Comparisons based mainly on the demands of market make me clearer about my pathway before operating my website.

I have gone through those steps and nowadays I’m able to create my ideal website instead of using blogging under free hosting. Actually, I am lucky that I was introduced an easy access website builder software (XSitePro) to create website by Moon Loh.

My Advice

Follow the steps I have used (research jobs may help you to think of certain idea that fit you the most)
Do not hesitate to ask for help from experienced and reliable mentor in your field.