Living in today’s world keeps getting more and more expensive. With the slow growth of minimum wage and the rising cost of living, it’s no wonder it’s so difficult to make a living these days. That’s why it’s essential to diversify your sources of income and figure out a way to make money from something other than your job. Why not take advantage of the free platform and start an online business on social media?
But how do you go about starting a business online? It can definitely seem daunting at first, especially if you’ve never tried anything similar before. But don’t fret, it’s not as hard as you think.
Do Your Research
The first thing you’ll need to figure out when starting a business is what you want to sell. Businesses can provide services or products, and figuring out what you can offer is vital. Maybe you know someone who has a business you can buy stock from in bulk for cheap? Or perhaps you have marketable skills that you can use to create products you think people will want to buy. Don’t be afraid to poke around in Facebook groups and do some research to see how viable the market is for your product.
Establish Supply Lines
Now that you know what you can offer, it’s time to start bringing in stock to sell. When buying stock to sell, it’s important that you buy at the lowest price to maximize your profits. If you’re going to be selling something like makeup, it won’t make any sense to buy your stock from a third party seller since they’ve already marked up the price of their products. So cut out the middleman and try to buy from the cosmetic manufacturers themselves to get the lowest possible prices.
Know Your Customers
Once you’ve figured out what you can offer, now you need to figure who is your target market. Not everyone wants to buy the same things, so generalized marketing isn’t going to work as well as a targeted advertisement. If for instance, you’re able to buy something like key caps for mechanical keyboards in bulk at a low price, it would make sense to direct your marketing toward the surprisingly voracious mechanical keyboard community. After all, the average person doesn’t care about keyboards, and you’re selling a specialized product.
Be Specific and Look Good
You’ve got stock, you’ve got a market, and you’ve got a platform, now all you need to do is sell your products. It would be best if you came up with a marketing plan to appeal to your customers and get them to buy what you’re selling. The more specific your marketing is, the better. After all, if your product is something like a gaming mouse, it wouldn’t make sense to sell it as a just a mouse. But if you advertise its features and how well it performs at a specific task like gaming, then it’s more likely you’ll sell your products to people looking for this niche product.
Don’t be afraid to come up with promos or deals that can help your products look more enticing. If you’re selling related products, try to bundle them together. Computer peripherals like headsets and keyboards can be sold at a reduced, but still profitable price, and that helps the customer feel like they’re getting a great deal from you.
Observe and Adapt
Once you’ve started selling and you’ve got a good number of sales under your belt, closely monitor what’s getting sold and why. There are many factors that can affect how well a particular product can sell, and some of them are difficult to spot if you aren’t a member of the community.
Controversy, intrigue, and community hype can all increase the demand for your product. Once you figure out what sells well and why it does, you could buy supplies and stock them based on your data.
For example, if a famous Youtuber recommends a particular model of CPU for building computers, it’s likely that the people who watch their videos will buy that specific model because of their recommendation. Then it would make sense to stock up on that CPU since the demand for it isn’t likely to go away since it’s a solid product.
But if the demand is coming from something like community controversy, it’s likely that demand will slowly build until the release of the product and then quickly fade once the product is thoroughly scrutinized and the controversy is settled. In this case, it’s a good idea to stock the product for a short time, and then gradually reduce how much you have in storage depending on how your customers have judged the product. After all, no one wants to have products in stock that their customer base thinks didn’t live up to their expectations.