how much should you invest to create a successful online business?

1.1K followers

4 years ago

There are different kinds of online businesses that you can create. So, how much should you invest to create a successful online business? well, it will depend on what you chose to do. But we are gonna see the 3 major ones. You may choose:

1. E-commerce:

E-commerce (electronic commerce) is the activity of electronically buying or selling products on online services or over the Internet. Electronic commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, Internet marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), inventory management systems, and automated data collection systems. E-commerce is in turn driven by the technological advances of the semiconductor industry and is the largest sector of the electronics industry.

Modern electronic commerce typically uses the World Wide Web for at least one part of the transaction's life cycle although it may also use other technologies such as e-mail. You can read more here.

We are talking about two types of e-commerce that are commonly used:

Dropshipping: Nowadays dropshipping is the most used kind of e-commerce. It is a supply chain management method. Here the seller does not keep any stock but he/she displays products on his/her website, does the online and social media marketing for the products. And in case of an order, he/she will receive it on his/her website and transfers it to the manufacturer or wholesaler, minus his/her profits. And the manufacturer will take care of the delivery. Here is a training that will give you more details on the matter, https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/training/the-art-of-dropshipping

Now, how much money do you need to start a dropshipping business? We have to list what you are going to need and their prices. I am going to illustrate with the cheapest tool that you can find in the market for dropshipping.

1. Website: you need a domain name and a hosting company.

You can get the best offer with alidropship, for $86 per year, they host a maximum of 10 websites for you and everything else that you will need is included, like email service or SSL certificate. And you will need a domain for at least $13.

2. A tool to get products from your suppliers and keep your inventory up to date. Because doing this manually is quite a challenge. You can get the alidropship plugin to help you for $89, a one-time payment. You will be able to use adequate themes for e-commerce, language changing ability, and many more.

3. You need a tool to process payment, to receive payments from your clients and make payment to your supplier. The payment processing tools are usually free to install. Because they only charge per transaction, you can get Paypal or stripe.

4. You need a marketing budget. Many successful people are saying that for you to guarantee a good return to your investment you need a minimum of $500 in Facebook ads. Because there may be a lot of testing and trials before you find your winning product.

In conclusion, you will need:

A website at $86 + 13

Tool at $89

Marketing $500

That is a total of $688

Start your store: For your store, you will have to take care of everything by yourself. From purchasing the inventory needed, to delivering to your clients. Investment and responsibility are way more important here. Unless you are producing your product, you will need to have a supplier or manufacturer to get an inventory.

Bu the best thing to do is to start with a small number of products with adequate quantity. Because as a new business, you do not want to be out of stock to establish your brand. So, what do you need to run your store?

1. A website: you can host at alidropship for $86 a year, get your domain name for as low as $13. And add a woocomerce plugin to help you set an e-commerce looking website. If you are not good at coding you may need to use their free themes.

2. An inventory: Find a local or international supplier. For as much as $1000 you can cover the price plus shipping cost for your initial inventory. Make sure to get the best prices and a good supplier that is serious and can deliver on time.

3. A payment processing tool: Again, you can stripe or PayPal to accept payment on your website, and to send invoices to your clients.

4. A delivery service: If you can not deliver by your means, you may want to pass an agreement with a package delivering services that are more established. Usually, you will be paying according to the volume of your transaction. And the good thing is that you can submit that cost to your clients.

5. A marketing budget: here you can try doing marketing on your own or contract a professional agency. But it can be risky or too expensive for you. There is the option of using influencers or micro-influencers to gain exposure and guarantee a good marketing result. But I will still go with a minimum of $500 for the marketing budget.

So in total, it's gonna be:

Website $86 + $13

Inventory $1000

Marketing $500

A sum of $1593

2. Blog:

Writing a blog started as something fun, like your journal that you could share online with your friends and family. Until it became something where you could share your knowledge about something and propose your reader a place where they can purchase it if they are interested. So, that is the kind of blog we are gonna talk about today.

The blog that you create as your affiliate marketing business. It requires you to propose content that can help your visitors solve a problem and you can make a commission when they click on your link and purchase from your supplier.

To realize affiliate marketing, you will need to learn how to create content, create a website, get the products to market according to your niche, marketing.

If you look around there are a lot of courses and coaching on affiliate marketing but most of them are very expensive and will require you to pay extra money to get a website.

But I would like to give you a simple solution, it is called wealthy affiliate.

What is wealthy affiliate?

Here is good answer

https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/cbaxley1/blog/wealthy-affilaite-learning-platform

It is a learning and hosting platform, for as much as $48, you will get a lesson on what kind of content you need to produce for a successful affiliate marketing. And how to market your content via free and paid advertisement.

Also included is the hosting of up to 10 websites, because blogging is more about sharing your passion, I am sure you have more than one center of interest in life. So, 10 websites can be enough to cover them all.

You will have a personal coach, that will be me and the founder of the platform is always ready to help. The community within the platform is awesome. We share our knowledge, success, and failure. This is the best way to grow together.

Within the platform, you also have an affiliate program place where you can choose products to advertise on your website. There are all the possible niches, you have travel, pet, fashion, cars, and many more. You just need to apply and start creating content to market the products you chose.

So how much does it cost to create your affiliate marketing business with a blog in Wealthy affiliate?

$48 only per month.

Yes, there is a free way of blogging as an affiliate marketer. You can freely start a blog on blogger. It is a great place to start but it is quite limited, you can get your domain and customize your theme. But there are so many features that you can get with a WordPress website that you will not be to get in blogger. At some point, you will have to switch to a WordPress or a more convenient website format.

Wealthy affiliate offers both types of online business:

The platform indeed teaches more about affiliate marketing (blog) than e-commerce. But there is still a tone of training on how to create an online store, dropshipping store and selling lessons or downloadables like an e-book on your website.

So, you will be the one to decide what you are gonna do with your 10 websites, will go entirely on affiliate marketing, or e-commerce, you may wanna do some of each.

I hope you will choose to join Wealthy Affiliate and take advantage of what you can get for only $48 per month!

Join Us today!