Things you must know before starting business on internet.

It is easy to assume that everyone read this article knows the business potential of internet. Some of you are searching for marketing opportunity to start your entrepreneurship on internet. This article will discuss what you need to aware and prepare before start entrepreneurship on internet.

I have some experience on working with internet associated company. This discussion represents my personal opinion of business on internet on the basis of my related experience. Probably, you have already learnt a lot about the advantage of business on internet. But you may not know that starting up a business on internet, to a certain extent, is more difficult than an offline business.

The advantages of your competitors are your disadvantages. When you sell your product on platform like amazon.com, the other sellers there can sell the same/similar products to the same targets. Unlike the competition among local offline business where companies compete against their neighbours, business on internet will face the competition of the entire country or even the entire world. In comparison, you may not have any advantage against other competitors. But this does not necessary mean that your business will fail.

Competition on internet is rather on the promotion site than the product site. You can have products as common as rocks. But you can make product description and images more attractive than any of competitors. You can also have the most exceptional products among your competitor and make product description and images as common as notification on the school wall. No matter how wonderful your product is, your customers cannot see it in person. All they can see is your images and description. So, my first advice to start business on internet is to establish a competent IT (information technology) teams to present your website and products in the most attractive way.

When you are ready to show your fantastic website and product page, your next challenge is to reach your targeted group. Your marketing material can be accessible to a great number of targets, while each of them is occupied with a great number of marketing material all over the world. Few people will learn your business without promotion. Promotion is one of the most difficult part of business on internet, regarding to the overwhelming marketing information there. You will need an advertisement budget much higher than offline business. Putting your ad on searching engine, social media, and the platform of your web store where your customer usually go is essential to your business.

Communication on internet is limited that your customers may not comprehend your product description and images the way you do. Consequently, you may receive a lot of complaint from your customers who purchased your products and misinterpreted the information on your website. There are three things you need to prepare for the customer complaints. First, trying not to make your customer unhappy even you need to loss some money on it. A negative comment can spread much faster on internet than in the physical world. And it will hurt your business in long term. Refund on business on internet is usually more expensive due to logistic issue, product damage and possible international payment. So the second thing you need is a customer service team to prevent misinterpretation, increase customer satisfaction and reduce refund amount. The third thing you need is a high gross profit margin. More refund request and higher refund costs is inevitable for business on internet than offline business. When you comparing your price with your competitors’ during marketing planning, take into account of the high refund costs.

The competition of business on internet is intensive. If your business lack of core values, it is almost certain that your business will be doomed. Internet offers your targeted customers a great number of options to acquire what you need. You need to think about why your customers choose your product if you were one of them. The core value of business refer to the value a business can provide which few of the competitors can provide. It can be the lower product total costs, higher product quality, unique product feature, authorized popular branded product distribution, more attractive product presentation and so on. Therefore, if you can gain a small ground for your business on internet, do not wait for you customers to try the better products. Developing and maintaining your core value to stay in the competitive status.