Why You Should Consider Becoming An Online Entrepreneur
Today, eCommerce and eBusiness have become integral parts of people’s purchasing activities. Here are top reasons why you should become an online entrepreneur.
People now tend to pay more attention to social distancing and shop online more. This caused eCommerce’s rapid growth in 2021. Thus, being an online entrepreneur has become a promising career. E-commerce allows new startups to enter the market with less cost and earn profit within a shorter period.
So why is an online business so potential, and how to start it? We will answer all your questions in this article. Scroll down to learn more!
What Does An Online Entrepreneur Do?
Entrepreneur: Definition
Online entrepreneur refers to business owners and managers who administer a business with an online business model.
Like any other traditional businessman, an online entrepreneur also bears the risks of money and time loss during operation.
What Does An Online Entrepreneur Do?
The work of online entrepreneurs is typically divided into two categories: daily work and irregular work. As follows:
Irregular work
These types of jobs will be more administrative. They don’t need to be done regularly, but the work results will be directional and long-term.
Specifically, often those jobs include planning (business plan, marketing plan, financial plan, etc.), analyzing, and reporting (financial report, business result, marketing report, etc.).
The planning stage lets you set the goals and directions for the future. These serve for the allocation of resources for your business.
Reporting activities help you regularly check your business’s health. Creating a marketing report provides valuable insights into your promotional strategies, enabling you to refine and optimize your approach for improved results. You can recognize if any problems arise. The analytics task then works to see the cause and find solutions. This is also the basis for you to plan for the new period and create online entrepreneur ideas.
Entrepreneur daily tasks
These are what you need to do daily to generate the revenue and profits that keep the business going.
The jobs vary depending on your business’s industry and products. However, they usually include the following activities:
- Product trade
- Email Activity
- Website and social media content update
- Customer care
Reasons To Be An Online Entrepreneur
Less investment – lower risk
This is an excellent strength of eCommerce that no one can deny. Thanks to this, the barrier to starting a business is much lower. Just see how hosting for ecommerce is much more accessible.
In the past, a business needed a store and/or an office to operate. However, today, a website can replace all those things.
In particular, rental properties are often costly. High-traffic areas can have extremely high prices. This is the main culprit of traditional stores’ prohibitive monthly operating costs, going up thousands of dollars.
The online store only requires about $100 a year for the domain name and hosting, much lower than a traditional one. Other benefits of running an e-commerce business are a wider customer base, an always-open store, less human resources.
Promising income
Brick-and-mortar stores in densely populated areas can only reach thousands of people a day despite high rental prices. On the contrary, with the right strategy, a website can reach tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of people through search engines and social media. As a result, the sales ability of online stores is tremendous.
Statistics show that an e-commerce store in the US can generate about 63,000$ monthly revenue after three months of establishment. In a competitive market like this, it is recommended to calculate your break-even regularly to obtain financial control and determine when your business starts making a profit.
That number could double to $127,000 a year later. After three years, it can hit $352,000 a month. In other words, eCommerce store revenue can multiply six times the first year and three times the second year.
eCommerce is rocketing
As mentioned, eCommerce is developing strongly. This growth is forecast to continue at a remarkable pace in the future.
According to eMarketer, online retail sales will reach $6.17 trillion by 2023 and $7.4 trillion by 2025. And eCommerce accounts for about 22.3%.
How To Become A Successful Online Entrepreneur?
So, eBusiness is less risky than a traditional business. However, you still need a clear and specific startup process to become a successful online entrepreneur.
Get a niche
This is the first step and also the most important one. It creates the foundation for your future activities.
Basically, a niche indicates a small market with a stable demand but few competitors. It’s considered promising for startups because the market entrance may be less challenging. However, the market should be broad enough if you want to expand your business in the future.
By choosing a good niche, reducing competitive costs will significantly support your business activities for a small business with little reputation and budget.
Do market research and find your product
After identifying the target market, check its potential.
There are many ways to do this. You can conduct in-depth interviews or distribute questionnaires directly to people around you. Check if they have any desire that is related to your niche.
Or, you can check the demand magnitude using Google. The giant search engine offers great insights into market demand, especially for online products.
After this process, you will also determine what products your markets typically cover and when your customers need them.
Make a list of potential products and the time to import them. Try to choose ones that experience stable demand and may not require too much investment at first.
Once you’ve done your research, don’t forget to check out your competitors to price your product accurately. You need to find a balance between setting an attractive price and making benefits.
Draw your customer persona
This is also a crucial activity. Thoroughly visualizing your target customer will help you accurately perform the following steps. This process also helps you weed out unsuitable goods you found in the previous step.
To draw a specific customer profile, you should list based on the following factors: demographic (age, gender, occupation, marital status, geographical location, etc.), psychological (emotional, polite, liberal,…), and behavior (daily tasks, hobbies, etc.). There are online tools that allow you to create a simple buyer persona, such as Hubspot to Hootsuite.
Define your brand
Design your brand identities, such as brand color, image, voice, personality, and the like, from what you have planned for the business and envisioned for your customer.
Try to make it as relevant and friendly as possible for your customers.
For instance, if your target customers are male office workers, you cannot equip your brand pink with a cute voice.
Be very careful and thorough in this process because what you design will appear in the customer’s minds every time they remember you.
Get a website
This is the step to show off what you’ve just designed, so create a store that matches your brand positioning!
There are a number of platforms that allow one to build an eCommerce website by themself. Yet, if you aren’t technically savvy, we recommend hiring a reliable website development agency because an online store is the face of your brand. It determines customer experience, buying decision process, and brand recognition.
Even if you can design a beautiful website and showcase your brand ethos, if it doesn’t have high speed, smooth loading, and perfect UI, it is doubtful that customers will be patient enough to complete the buying process.
On the other hand, if you succeed in making your website perform well, but it doesn’t make customers remember your brand, they won’t come back again.
In short, to have a perfect, standard store to serve customers, you need to meet a lot of criteria. This is not easy, even for professional developers. Therefore, outsourcing is best to save time and achieve high results.
However, finding a reputable business is not an easy task. If you are also facing this headache, consider Tigren. It is a reputable and experienced web development business that can help you build your store from the scratch or migrate your available ones to Magento 2.
Advertise your business
After completing all the steps above, it’s time to promote your brand!
There are many ways to promote an online business. So, don’t wait for customers to come on their own, pull them to you.
You can implement typical strategies like search engine optimization with blog posts, product introductions, business portfolios, etc. You can also create social media accounts for your business to reach more customers. In addition, spending money on advertising with Google Adwords, Facebook Ads, and the like is also a profitable idea.
Bottom Line
Today, eCommerce and eBusiness have become integral parts of people’s purchasing activities. Therefore, the potential and profitability of this business model are immense. It can become a steady source of passive income once the business has grown big enough.
Above is all information about the online entrepreneur. We hope you find it helpful. Thanks for reading!
FAQ
What is an online entrepreneur? An online entrepreneur is someone who starts and manages a business primarily over the internet. This can include various types of businesses such as e-commerce stores, digital marketing services, online courses, or any enterprise that operates online.
What are the first steps to becoming an online entrepreneur? The first steps include identifying a market niche, conducting market research to understand customer needs, defining your business model, setting up a business plan, and establishing an online presence through a website or social media platforms.
What skills are essential for an online entrepreneur? Essential skills for an online entrepreneur include digital marketing, SEO, basic web design, content creation, financial literacy, and customer service. Strong communication and time management skills are also crucial.
How do online entrepreneurs make money? Online entrepreneurs can earn money through various channels such as selling products or services, affiliate marketing, advertising revenue, subscriptions, and providing online courses or consultations.
What are some common challenges faced by online entrepreneurs? Common challenges include high competition, digital marketing complexities, maintaining customer engagement, cybersecurity threats, and managing cash flow. Adapting to technology changes and customer preferences are also significant challenges.
How important is social media for online entrepreneurs? Social media is vital for online entrepreneurs as it helps build brand awareness, engage with customers, market products, and drive traffic to other online platforms. It’s a cost-effective way to reach a broad audience and test new ideas.
What tools do online entrepreneurs need? Essential tools include a robust website platform (like Shopify or WordPress), SEO tools (like SEMrush or Ahrefs), email marketing software (like Mailchimp), analytics tools (like Google Analytics), and customer management software.
Can online entrepreneurship be a side hustle? Yes, online entrepreneurship can start as a side hustle while maintaining a full-time job. Many online businesses begin this way, allowing entrepreneurs to build their business gradually and minimize financial risks.
What types of online businesses are most profitable? Profitable online businesses include those in e-commerce, affiliate marketing, digital courses, software as a service (SaaS), and specialized consultancy services. Niche markets with high demand and low competition are typically most profitable.
How can online entrepreneurs find their niche market? To find a niche market, analyze your interests and expertise, research potential customer problems, and identify gaps in the current market. Utilize tools like Google Trends and social media to gauge interest and competition levels.
What legal considerations should online entrepreneurs be aware of? Online entrepreneurs should be aware of legal requirements such as business registration, tax obligations, copyright and trademark laws, data privacy regulations, and e-commerce regulations specific to their industry and location.
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