The idea of starting your own business can be very exciting. As an entrepreneur, you are your own boss, work more flexible hours, and have greater ability to dictate the direction of your future. Moreover, you can follow your passions and feel a sense of pride in your business’s growth and accomplishments. And for many people, online business poses a very attractive alternative to traditional offline business. Without costs like rent or utilities, online businesses are often much cheaper, and they can be open 24/7 for greater customer flow. Over the past few years, online commerce has become a very profitable market as well as more and more people turn to the internet to shop for both products and services. Moreover, there are many avenues you can take when deciding what kind of online business you want to start so you’ll be sure to find one that suits your interest and skills.
Entertainment
One option you can choose to take is the entertainment route. With the global connections the internet has established, it’s never been easier to reach such a large audience.
Blogs are one such option to consider. You may think they seem out-of-date or that the market is already saturated, but if you believe you have valuable information and love writing, blogs may be a fantastic business for you. Just look at your passions and hobbies and think about what you can share with others. All you need to start is a website, and this renders the start-up cost close to, if not, nothing. Blogs, however, aren’t an easy way to make money quickly. You have to be consistent in posting, post quality information, and interact with your readers. If you succeed in building up a sizeable following though, you can make quite a living through ad space, product sales, sponsored posts, etc. Vlogs provide a slightly more modern update to blogs, and you can similarly monetize your videos.
Alternatively, podcasts have also become a popular form of entertainment in recent years. As with blogging, start-up costs are low and allow you to focus your business around your interests, but growing your business enough to reap a sizable profit can require substantial time and effort.
寫部落格是不是過時了呢？
在2020的大家每天接觸大量社媒資訊，部落格好像和我們愈來愈遠。但部落格真的『過時』了嗎？還是它們換了個方式存在呢？讓Gobuddiers跟大家看一看吧！
部落格的吸引力⋯⋯？
互聯網有很多資訊，以文字、聲音、影片存在。部落格算是以文字為主、影音為輔的形式。它能讓讀者和作家有更深的認識和共感，增加長期影響力和互動。
有名的部落客們
他們都有個共通點—-部落格並不是他們唯一的媒體！他們把內容以不同形式放到網上，吸引不同類型的粉絲。所以如果你希望經營自媒體、或在社交媒體上宣傳你的品牌，不妨試試在不同媒介放上你的內容，找出最適合你的媒介！
或許部落格只是更多以不同形式存在，並不是完全過時呢。畢竟大家也是喜歡看真心的分享，也許文字是適合你的形式！
Products
If you’d rather stick with a more traditional form of business however, you may prefer to stick with selling a product.
One possibility is to run an e-commerce store store. Much like a physical store, simply sell products of your choice but just do so over the internet. Admittedly there is a large amount of competition for ecommerce and customers may be more comfortable buying from a large, established business like Amazon. However, you can do a few things to increase your odds of success. First, look for profitable markets where there is still room for growth. And second, make sure to consider all the costs associated with your product (like manufacturing and distribution costs) to make sure the revenue will be enough to offset them.
Another option is to try your hand at dropshipping. If you’re wary of the costs associated with creating and selling your own product, this business idea may suit you better. With dropshipping, you act as the middleman sending customer purchase orders to a third-party seller, taking a commission from each sale or setting the price on your site slightly higher than that of the third-party seller. Entry costs are lower than for e-commerce as you don’t have to pay to produce your own product, and you don’t have to worry about losing money if the product doesn’t sell.
如果您希望採用更傳統的業務形式，銷售產品可以是一種形式。
一種可能性是經營一家“電子商務商店”。就像實體商店一樣，只需出售您選擇的產品，而只需有互聯網即可。當然，電子商務存在大量競爭，客戶可能更願意從像Amazon這樣的老牌大型企業購買商品。但是，您可以用一些策略來增加成功的機會。
首先，尋找仍有增長空間的市場。
其次，確保考慮與產品相關的所有成本（例如製造和分銷成本），以確保收入足以抵消這些成本。（可以參考我們之前的創業成本帖文）
另一種選擇是嘗試“經銷”。如果您對與創建和銷售自己的產品沒有興趣，則此商業模式可能會更適合您。通過直接托運，您可以充當中間人，將客戶購買訂單發送給第三方賣方，從每次銷售中收取佣金，或者將您網站上的價格設置為略高於第三方賣方的價格。入門成本比電子商務要低，因為你不必為生產自己的產品而付費，並且不必擔心如果產品不賣就賠錢。
Services
Lastly, perhaps the most diverse category of online businesses is those centered around a service.
Digital courses are a booming market. Online classes give you the opportunity to monetize your knowledge and skills. There are already courses for a large range of both academic and nonacademic subjects, and during the recent Covid-19 pandemic, people have only become more creative in finding ways to teach new subjects and activities online as customers seek new ways to learn from home. In addition, you can also sell prepared materials or downloadable content that compliments the course.
Consulting is another way for you to turn your expertise and experience into profit. If you have a deep understanding of a subject and manage to build up a reputable name, people may be willing to pay a pretty penny for your advice. In fact, it can be one of the most profitable online businesses. From finance to business to social media consulting, the options are plentiful and you’ll be sure to find your niche.
Another popular online business option is marketing. Within marketing itself you have a few options, two of which are affiliate and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) marketing. With affiliate marketing, you promote someone else’s product for a commission with each purchase. Using advertising, social media, blogging, or other methods, affiliate marketers aim to draw customers to the producer’s store. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) marketing is a sought after service, however it does require a greater skill set than some other marketing types. SEO refers to the process of working a website so it appears higher up on search engine result pages. As the ease of finding a website can greatly impact an store’s success, other online businesses are eager to utilize these services and to pay handsomely for them. One thing to keep in mind though is that Google’s search algorithms are constantly changing so you will have to make sure to continually educate yourself on these changes and understand how they will affect SEO.
Web design and development are two more options for your online business. If you have the creative inclination and program knowledge and access to do so, web design simply consists of putting together an attractive and engaging website that will draw in readers. Web development has a slightly higher barrier to entry as you do need the coding knowledge of how to build a website from the ground up. But if you put in the time and make the effort to learn, the payoff can be well worth the cost, and the demand for such work is fairly consistent.
Yet another service your online business can provide is virtual assistantship. Such a service typically consists of completing basic administrative tasks like answering phone calls, responding to emails, and making travel plans, as well as others like entering data or conducting research. As you need only organizational and task management skills, the startup requirements are low.
Last on this list is SaaS (Software as a Service). With SaaS, you develop and sell a software on a subscription basis. Of the business ideas on this list, it is perhaps among those with the most potential for profit. It’s all digital so input costs are low, and as long customers find the software worth the price and keep their subscriptions, you have a steady source of revenue.
While this article already ecompasses several potential online business models, it is nowhere close to an entirely comprehensive list. The options for online business are nearly limitless, so make sure to thoroughly consider and think through your options before choosing the one that suits you best!
Copy blogger https://copyblogger.com/blog/
Gary Vaynerchuk
https://www.garyvaynerchuk.com/
Tim Ferris
GoBuddy Blog 