Whether you’re an established business or just getting started, there are a number of things to consider when deciding if your business is right for online sales. Basically, there are five questions you have to ask yourself:
1 Is my product reasonable to ship?
Keep in mind that when you’re working with online sales, your product has to get to the customer. In the case of a digital item, such as a computer program or ebook, that makes online sales ideal — you simply email the product to the costumer. If you’re dealing with a physical item, you’ll want to look into shipping costs and methods before you start.
Also keep in mind whether your item is one that just doesn’t lend itself to shipping. Fragile and breakable items, while fine to ship, do take more care in packaging. If your business grows rapidly, you’re going to spend a lot of your time on shipping. And some items — especially large, bulky ones — just aren’t worth the cost of mailing them. So if you’re selling second hand washing machines, you might want to stick to a local market.
2 Can my services be reasonably provided outside of my regional area?
There are some services that cannot be provided to people that are physically located some distance from the provider. An example is a lawn mowing service. Other services can be provided to people across the country or even across the world.
3 Does my product appeal to a wide variety of people?
If you’re dealing with a service or product with limited appeal, then while you still may want a website, you’re probably not going to waste a lot of time or money on online advertising. If you’re selling products or services that only appeal to people in your city or county, the internet is not going to help you generate more sales.
4 Do you have information that you can sell?
There are many businesses that have information within their organization that people would actually be happy to pay for. If that information was written as a guide or produced as a video, it could be sold to a very wide audience. For example, a real estate agent knows how to increase the sale price of a home. If that information was put into a guide, people would be willing to pay for it.
5 How competitive is the market?
Go to Google (or any reliable search engine) and plug in the name of your product. For example, if you’ve created an ebook on how to survive losing your job, type in “survive losing job.” Once the search results come up take a look on the right hand of the screen. That’s where you’ll find the PPC advertisements that your potential competitors have purchased.
Spend some time browsing the competition and answer yourself honestly: do you have what it takes to stand out from the crowd?
On the other hand, NO competition isn’t always a good sign, either — it could mean that there’s simply no market for this sort of product.
Consider this your market research. It’s essential that before you embark on any online business venture you carefully consider these five questions!
This article is an extract from our free guide, “How To Increase Profits By Taking Your Business Online“.
Download the free guide in full at:
http://www.wiseinternetsolutions.com/html/website_design_free_guide.php
Calvin Close
President
Wise Internet Solutions