Is Online Selling worth it for a startup?

For someone looking to choose a startup business, online business seems to be a desirable choice. What about having products? As a new startup, selling online can have its issues.

For example, if your startup is making a product and selling it, it is worth it to sell online. That is, for most products. Cumbersome products that would carry a hefty shipping cost might not be the best for online sales.

If one has a business idea of starting a business and using a buy and sell strategy, there is no better place than online.

So, is online selling worth it for a startup? 

Online selling is worth it for a startup businesses. Due to the vast potential it has to reach clients directly online, there is no better place to market wares and services. Additionally, the cost to set up and maintain a virtual store is a fraction of what it would cost to establish a physical store location.

There are several places that one can dip their feet into the pool of online selling, before committing to an entire online store, if that is one’s goal. Setting up a resale business, for example, and using sites like SHEEPBUY are easy and cheap ways to get started with selling online.

Learn more about: How to use Sheepbuy.

When you’re done, check out this article explaining how long it will take to sell an item on my online store.

How Profitable Can Online Selling Be For A Startup?

When it comes to online selling, there is no magic formula that makes you productive. However, some fundamental principles help us understand the numbers and how we can angle ourselves for success.

Selling online is a numbers game. If one were to purchase a product A, sell the product for B, at the expense of C, then we have the basics of a sale. If the cost of A plus C is less than B, there is profit gained.

Now, assuming the numbers are right for the first equation, we dive into the internet equation of sales. Let me explain.

Startup company we will call Acme sells a widget for $20. They have a cost of $12 for each widget. That means their profit is $8. But they want to sell online.

Acme starts advertising the product, and they spend $1000 to get advertising in front of 10,000 potential buyers. Now let’s assume they get a 2% purchase rate from the ads. That is 200 buyers. If the base profit from each sale is $8, and 200 units sold, the amount is $1600. But if we deduct the cost of advertising, then there is a profit of $600.

It is the basics of how online selling along with advertising works. As long as you can sell a product for less than the cost, you can be profitable.

Given the internet reaches billions of people, there is a massive potential to make sales. So, how profitable can selling online be for a startup? The answer is that a business can be extremely lucrative, as long as one follows the math.

Click here to learn if reselling is worth it?

What Kind of Online Business Sales Should I Have?

When you’re looking for things to sell online, there are a nearly infinite number of products and categories that upon which one could focus.

What interests you should be a part of your focus when you first start with online sales. It is essential to help you get initial purchases, you should be selling something you believe. Trying to sell something that you have no faith in (but has a right profit margin) is not how to get started with online selling.

It is imperative to focus on working with a niche that you enjoy and are inspired. For example, if you are looking at starting an online shoe enterprise but have no interest in shoes, it will be a tough sell. People won’t believe you’re interested and won’t buy into your sales pitch.

The only way this can work online is by either a)having inspiration for the product and doing the marketing and design yourself, showing that inspiration, or b)hiring others to do the writing and design for you to sell the product.

Option B is the easiest and less time-consuming method for most businesses but sometimes requires a lot of money upfront to get things started.

For a small startup low on capital, an excellent method is to get started with a buy and sell model. For example, if you like shoes and want to have an online shoe store selling new shoes eventually, you could start by finding rare sneakers or shoes, or vintage shoes and reselling them for a profit using a site such as Sheepbuy.

How Much Does It Cost To Start Selling Online?

The great thing about starting to sell online is that you can start selling for free. There are many places online where you can start selling that it outnumbers the possibilities a person could do physically in a day with sales. That’s why selling online is such an excellent way for a startup to get things moving. But there’s got to be a catch. How much does it cost to start?

The answer is that it costs time and effort. Using a platform like SHEEPBUY’s free Basic plan is a great way to get started. And with a fully integrated payment partner with PayPal, you can count on receiving payments securely and quickly.

As far as the time and effort go, you can use a few methods to get the sales moving. Setting and forgetting is a common tactic people use. They place an item for sale on a platform and expect the platform to do the heavy lifting. But there might be a better way than just putting an item out for display. Spending a few minutes several times a day to promote the product is a great way to get customers in front of that item you’ve put on display.

Social media and other free sites are great ways to drop a line and hook into the water and see if any fish are willing to bite. If your startup is trying to get sales rolling, social media is a great place to start creating a buzz about its products.

To sum up, it doesn’t cost anything but your time and effort to get started.

How Do I Make My Online Store Successful?

When you’re launching a startup, there are a million things that need consideration. As an entrepreneur, your mind is already going at Mach 1, just trying to piece it all together. Knowing how to make your online store successful would be a significant weight lifted, wouldn’t it?

With success, like many things in life, there is only one formula that can come close to making a guarantee that it will work. And that is plain hard work. That is, plain hard work repeatedly will give you the best odds of success.

What if you could increase your odds of success by taking that hard work that must be done and streamlining it into an automated process? Then you could spend the same amount of time performing other duties for the business, which could help to launch the business even further forward.

It is the concept of a successful online venture. And your online success with your startup can follow a similar philosophy. Use the technology available to you to streamline the process of progress by automating parts of the process to eliminate time waste.

One thing that many different successful people have pointed out is that time management is essential to success.

The other more broad concept that has been proven by self-made millionaires time and time again is the idea that if you work hard and stick to your principles, that you will be successful.

Now, combine rational time management strategies with hard work, and the sky is no longer the limit for what you can achieve.

So, how does one make their online store successful? The highest chances of success will come to those who learn, implement, adapt, manage, and automate. And in that order, preferably.

Learn about your market, your target audience, find their need. The best way to succeed is to find a requirement that everyone has and offer a solution for the obligation. But, it would be best if you learned everything you can first.

Implement your solution. You’ve learned what your target market wants and needs, now provide it in a comfortable way that entices them to commit to your answers.

Adapt your presentation and solutions to fit your target market better, now that you’ve had some time to learn more deeply about what they want and need.

Manage your solutions and streamline them. Find ways to automate things to speed up the process, make it easier for your clients, and take less of your time.

These five principles won’t guarantee any success, but they sure do help you achieve your goals. In the end, it’s all up to you.

Learn more about selling online: Top 50 products you need to sell online from home.

Recommended Blog Posts:

• How to use Sheepbuy?
• What is the best platform for buyers and sellers?
• Advantages of online marketplaces versus classified sites.

Sources

1. Santos, Barbara, “Is creating an online store still worth it?” hotmart, https://blog.hotmart.com/en/worth-it-creating-an-online-store/, Accessed June 29, 2020.
2. “What are the 6 best-selling products on the internet? Can you enter those markets?“ doofinder, https://www.doofinder.com/en/blog/best-selling-products-on-the-internet, Accessed June 29, 2020.
3. Bhalla, Puneet, “Steps To Start An Online Business Without Money” Shiprocket 360, https://360.shiprocket.in/blog/start-online-retail-business-no-money/, Accessed June 29, 2020.