Here are a couple of considerations to make if you want to move away from relying on an online-only business as your main source of income.
When we think about businesses that we can operate from home, we often think of online-only businesses that don’t have a physical storefront or even much equipment. For instance, you might think about monetizing a blog with affiliate programs and advertising, you might consider selling your creative services, or you may even start your own SEO services.
Whatever the case may be, making your fortune online has become a viable business strategy for entrepreneurs that want to work from home and it’s easy to see why after considering the advantages. Since you don’t need physical equipment or even an office, you drastically cut down the costs of things like renovation and maintenance, and you don’t need to rent an office either. You get to spend more time with your family, you get to work in the comfort of your own home, and you can always hire freelancers if you need an extra hand.
Here are a couple of considerations to make if you want to move away from relying on the internet as your main source of income.Click To Tweet
However, while online-only businesses can thrive and make you a fortune, it’s also a gamble due to the inherent nature of online businesses. For starters, your entire workflow depends on outsourcing and working remotely, so any hiccups you encounter will generally be out of your control. It could be miscommunication between you and your supplier or it could be a freelancer that produces low-quality work.
While online-only businesses are a common choice among home-based entrepreneurs, you can do a lot more by upgrading your workplace and embracing traditional business values such as making your own products or using traditional advertising channels. To give you a hand, here are a couple of considerations to make if you want to move away from relying on the internet as your main source of income.
Building a local community
The reason why many small stores in rural areas can survive is because they build up a local community. For instance, if you’re the only supermarket in a remote area, then chances are you’re going to get a lot of business and you won’t have many competitors. This kind of thinking can be applied to your business as well.
If you want to create a long-lasting business, then you have to take your community into consideration. If your online business has a lot of customers and you’re shipping products all across the world, then that also counts as a community. But if another online competitor comes along offering better products or lower prices, it won’t take long until your community splits. When you create a local business and start up a store, the chances of a competitor appearing are much lower since you’re only competing within your area, and the chances are further reduced if you specialize in a niche.
For instance, if you operate an arts and crafts store that sells supplies, then you have the entire internet to compete with if you’re an online-only business. However, if you start a physical store in an area that doesn’t have much competition, then you’ll draw in the local community, build solid customer relationships and provide locals with something. This builds up a sense of community around your business, potentially making it a long-lasting business that draws in a local audience as well as an online audience.
Putting production into your own hands
One of the best ways to reduce manufacturing defects in your products is to take as much of the production process as possible into your own hands. For instance, if you’re hand-crafting small toys and gifts to sell, then you might be getting your products pre-made on a manufacturing line. However, everything that you add to the production process is going to add to the end cost. For instance, if you want to sell different colored variations of the same product, it will add a significant amount of money to your production costs.
To counteract a problem like this, you can invest in getting a great coating oven to color all of your products yourself. This means you can make products to order, giving your customers more selection and choice without worrying about a specific color being sold out. This also reduces manufacturing costs since you’re getting a blank product instead of a fully-finished one with color and it ultimately gives you more control over the production process.
