Online businesses are booming due to the ubiquity of cheap technologies and changing consumer behaviours. Various traditional industries have been disrupted by online businesses as people find buying, hiring and using online services to be easier, cheaper, faster and saves them time.

When it comes to starting an online business, you may be lured by the prospect of lower start-up costs or fewer employees compared to starting a traditional business. However, be prepared for stiffer competition as the barriers to entry in some industries are low.

How do I build an online business?

Although there’s no single recipe to fit all types of online businesses, these basic steps will help you understand what it takes to build a viable business.

1. Sell a product or service people want
You must get this right from the word, “go”. Do your market research thoroughly, study your competitors, look at trends and keep abreast of regulations.

2. Brand your business right
People purchase more than a product or service. They decide based on the customer experience, the connection and trust they have in the brand. If you fully understand your target market, your brand will come to life naturally.

3. Design and develop your business space
Your business needs a home to live online. It could be a website, blog, online marketplace or just a simple social media page. You can choose to start small and trade on ecommerce markets or social media platforms, but you should be looking at a full-fledged website in the long term.

Furthermore, your online business space should be mobile friendly as most people browse from their phones, while some prefer mobile apps.

More importantly, your online business space must be part of your sales funnel. It must be integrated with your sales, marketing, and customer service processes for it to be successful.

Whichever online platform you choose to operate from, you will need:

•  Great copywriting and visuals that bring your brand to life and sell your products or services well
•  Analytics software that can track your prospects and customers
•  A well-designed user experience on your platform of choice
•  Integrated payment system if you take payments online
•  Ideally, a seamless connection with other business software such as ERP or CRM

4. Understand online regulations
Some of the areas you should be looking at are online data privacy, spam laws, intellectual property and returns and refunds regulations.

5. Market and advertise your online business
Take your pick from a variety of strategies such as email marketing, search engine marketing, social media marketing, influencer marketing, online ads and many other forms of marketing. Just make sure you are tracking the return on investment for each method in order to improve.

6. Implement great customer service
You need to give your customers a personal touch, even when there’s no human interaction online. You can implement this on your site with cookies, online chats using artificial intelligence, or integrated CRM.

Who do I need to hire for my team?
Apart from people in finance, human resource, customer service, logistics and product, an online business should expect to engage with these professionals:

•  Programmers 
•  Copywriters and writers
•  Designers
•  User experience professionals
•  I.T professionals
•  Online marketers and advertisers
•  Online business consultants, advisors or mentors
•  Ecommerce strategists for ecommerce businesses

What makes an online business great?

There are many factors that make an online business successful, but you’d be off to a good start if you focus on delivering a great end-to-end experience for your customers. This starts from the instant they are introduced to you, which may be through an online ad, social media page, website or other touch points. And the experience doesn’t end when they buy or use your service but continues as long as they are your customer.