With all these rampant dot com flops, you may be wondering, is it still viable to consider an online venture? The truth is that while the spectacular rise and fall of many dot coms has been over-hyped, sales over the Internet continue to increase by 20-25% each year. Even the economic recession of the last few years has not hampered this growth.

Consider this:

According to an annual study of Internet trends by the market research firm Ipsos, nearly two-thirds of Internet users in the United States have already purchased a product or service online. That’s a dramatic increase from just 36 percent of those surveyed in 2000. Studies show that more than 35.5 million US Internet users made shopping trips to web stores during the week ending 3 November 2002, which is about 14 million more than almost the same time period. in 2001.

While the hype about the new economy may be over, one thing is for sure: The Internet has revolutionized the way we do business and has positioned itself as one of the largest and most exclusive sales channels. Many companies have finally begun to realize that their very existence may be jeopardized if they are slow to integrate the Internet into their business model.

But the question remains: is there any effective method of doing business online?

Below I have outlined some crucial components for any online venture. While these may not be the only vital components of web-based businesses, understanding them correctly will significantly improve your chances of doing business online effectively.

Business plan

Business plans are like road maps. Imagine, you ended up in an unknown city and you have to find an address without a map! How would you feel? You definitely would have been much better off with a map of the town! The same goes for the business plan. Although many successful businesses may have been started without the benefit of a formal business plan, a good business plan improves your chances of success and helps you avoid many mistakes.

A recent AT&T study of successful entrepreneurs shows that businesses are more successful if they have a written business plan than those without. With a written business plan, you get a better picture of your planned venture. So before you start your online adventure, take some time and write down what you plan to do.

product or service

If you are a brick and mortar company that is simply trying to expand sales of your products or services on the Internet, your task is easier! At least you don’t have to ponder what to sell. But, what should an entrepreneur who decides to start a new venture sell on the Internet?

In reality, you can sell virtually any product or service over the Internet. You can say, “Wait a second, you can’t sell expensive items on the net, right?” Wrong! The auto and parts industries alone are forecast to generate $274 billion in revenue from online commerce by 2004. There are incidents of consumers buying corporate jets online!

If you really want to start an online business, finding a product or service that suits your needs shouldn’t be too difficult.

Knowledge base products such as e-books, how-to reports, and hard-to-find information and data sell quite well on the Internet.

Drop shipping items are abundant on the internet.

Thanks to the global reach of the Internet, finding manufacturers for any item you plan to import into or export from your country has become much easier.

If you have experience, online services similar to web design, travel organization, etc. they are also good sales.

Internet users are easily paying for various types of content online. The global market for online content will total as much as 50 billion US dollars in 2003. You can also consider this!

Website / webshop

Since your customers make their decision to do business with you or not based on what they see on your site, having a professional looking website with good related content is essential.

You can choose your website according to your needs from a wide range of options. Starting with a completely free website, you can shell out thousands of dollars for a decent ecommerce website. The choice is yours!

There are several quality portals that allow you to display products and services on a single page website for free. Many business-to-business portals offer this type of service. However, for real-time transactions, you will still need eCommerce web stores.

If you are not good at design or don’t want to spend a fortune on your web store, you should think about getting web enabler eCommerce stores like Yahoo, Bigstep, etc.

For a nominal monthly fee, you can have the necessary facilities to run a complete e-store and build it yourself from easy-to-use templates.

If you go for these types of services, shop around and see who has the most features for less. Some business-to-business portals together with your e-commerce web store will provide you with the necessary functions to carry out many important parts of the buying and selling processes over the Internet.

shopping carts

The integral part of e-commerce sites, which allows you to accept product purchase orders for multiple products or services, is called the shopping cart.

The term “shopping cart” is taken from real-life shopping terminology to help users understand the actions available to them. Just like in a supermarket, a user can add products to the shopping cart, remove products from the cart, or adjust the number of products based on requirements before checking out and paying.

While looking for shopping carts for your eCommerce store, you should consider the following aspects of a powerful and functional shopping cart:

Access to the shopping cart must be clearly visible. There should be multiple entry points to the cart.

Adding, removing, and adjusting the number of product features should be highlighted on the cart page.

The item name must have a link to the product description.

There should be a way to save items for future purchases.

Shipping and other costs must be clearly indicated before the checkout process begins.

Order forms should be simple and clear.

All payment options must be clearly explained.

The order process must be carried out through a secure server. You know you are on a secure server when your browser’s URL says “https:”. The s at the end of http means “secure”.

business account

90 percent of all online retail sales are made through credit card transactions. According to industry statistics, the average credit card sale is $40 versus just $9 for the average cash sale. To offer the credit card payment option to your online customers, you must set up a merchant account, an authorized bank account established by your business to receive the proceeds from credit card purchases.

Even if you already accept credit cards for your offline transactions, that may not be enough. Although you can take many precautions to reduce credit card fraud online, credit card companies still consider Internet transactions riskier than offline transactions. That’s why finding a suitable merchant account provider might be a bit trickier than you might think. Things could be even more complicated if your business is located outside of the United States.

There are many merchant account broker providers on the internet. Do some comparison shopping before signing up with any of them, as the terms they offer vary significantly.

While it’s definitely nice to have a merchant account, that doesn’t mean you can’t sell products or services without one! There are many other payment options available on the Internet. The most popular are paypal, e-gold, e-bullion, etc.

If you want to have an effective online business, remember that old values ​​still count. Proper planning, uncompromising customer service, integrity, hard work, and persistence will eventually make your business successful.