Chapter 1
Opening Your Own Online Business in Ten Easy Steps
In This Chapter
Finding a unique niche for your business
Identifying a need and targeting your customers
Turning your website into an indispensable resource
Exploring innovative ways to market your business
Evaluating your success and revising your site
Buying goods and services online is everyday practice in modern Britain – many people don’t think twice these days about using the Internet to purchase groceries, clothes or music; and booking flights and hotels online is just what people do. Meanwhile, online marketplaces like eBay continue to thrive.
That’s why starting up an online business is no longer a novelty. It’s a fact of life for individuals and established companies alike.
E-commerce – the practice of selling goods and services through a website – is here to stay. Every year it becomes easier to conduct commerce online. Even if you have no business experience, ordinary people like you and us can take advantage of constantly updated software and services that make creating and maintaining web pages and transacting online business easier. Marketing your business is also within easy reach of individuals on a budget, with excellent tools available to help you compete with the big guys and attract the punters.
All you need is a good idea, a bit of startup cash, computer equipment, and a little help from your friends.
One of our goals in this book is to be friends who provide you with the right advice and support to get your business off the ground and turn it into a big success. In this chapter, we give you a step-by-step overview of the entire process of coming up with and launching your business.
Realising That Online Business Is the Norm
Now is the perfect time to start your online business. Did you know that the UK has the world’s biggest online economy per capita, worth a breathtaking £100 billion a year? That’s according to a 2010 survey by the Boston Consulting Group commissioned by Google (for more cool stats, see www.connectedkingdom.co.uk). Separate the online economy into an industry and it would be the UK’s fifth biggest – outweighing the hefty transport, construction and utility sectors.
Nowadays having an online presence is essential, even if your business operates mainly in the ‘real world’. In recent years, we’ve felt the pain of the credit crunch – but the online economy has stayed afloat. More people have turned to the web to streamline their businesses and cut down on costly shop front rentals and other overheads. Apart from operating your own website, eBay is the place to set up shop, and we dedicate a whole chapter to getting your business on there.
Other well-known web-based service providers like Google, Microsoft, PayPal and Amazon are helping small entrepreneurs to energise their businesses. Bloggers continue to rule Internet culture, and every business seems to have a Twitter account or Facebook page from which to promote their special deals. Ordinary people who create popular YouTube videos can make money from advertising revenue generated through the site or use it as a platform to publicise their businesses.
Broadband is commonplace and customers no longer have an age to wait for websites to load quickly; so these days you can be comfortable with delivering more snazzy content to your customers such as video and audio offerings (although our attention spans seem to be shorter than ever, so making it straightforward for people to find what they’re after is still a good idea!).
Anything is possible, but you may have concerns about the future of e-commerce. We promise your fears will quickly evaporate when you read this book’s case studies of our friends and colleagues who do business online. They’re either thriving or at least treading water, and they enthusiastically encourage others to take the plunge.
It’s still a great time to start an online business. Simply put, consumers and businesses are smarter than they were a decade ago. Sarah-Lou Reekie, an online entrepreneur, says:
There are more experts in the field so that it is easier to make things happen. The world is far more au fait and switched on to the web. The number of people able to access the web and order products and services is far higher. People aren’t as nervous as they were to put through credit cards. After an amazingly short time, the web has changed from an unknown and somewhat scary medium to something as easy as ABC.
Step 1: Identify a Need
The fact is, no matter how good you are, you always have room for improvement. Even those at the top of their business game, like Tesco, Topshop and Innocent Smoothies, are always looking over their shoulder at the competition. But the chances are that someday someone else will come along and do what you do either cheaper or better or both. The same goes for the web, and it’s this fact that you should keep in mind when you’re coming up with your business ideas.
