5 Reasons to Start an Online Business in 2020

1. Consumption of Online Content is Higher Than Ever

Everyone is online for absolutely everything. Whether it’s for educational purposes, social interaction via social media, shopping for clothes or furniture, accessing health services from a physician or therapist, or ordering dinner and groceries, the web is rich with content and opportunities that directly shape human behaviors, opinions, and actions such as making purchases.  

The growth of online content demand has created more engagement opportunities for business. Your ideal customer is more likely than not, searching for answers and products in your niche online especially since an increasing number of people are finding online shopping and interactions more convenient and safer now than ever before. Online marketing has become a lot easier and if you have a social media following, free. Between email funnels, social media ads and strategies such as hashtag usage, influencers, and collaborations, getting your business in front of prospective customers is much more attainable.

2. Flexibility and Financial Freedom

Obviously, with your own online business you can customize your schedule. You can live a true laptop lifestyle and work from anywhere. Who doesn’t want to work poolside or on a long flight to a dream vacation? Having the ability to control your income goals are also a great reason to start your own online business. You can manipulate your schedule and product prices to accommodate your goals…work more to make more or offer premium products at a higher price.

3. Quicker Scalability

The scalability for an online business is endless. You can start marketing to a large population of prospective buyers immediately. Most brick and mortars initially market to the city their business is in and surrounding areas and some eventually expand to online, but in time. With social media, web search engines, and email marketing, you can expand your reach to more prospective clients fairly quickly.  

With an online business, expanding your product suite is much easier as well. You can launch with one product or service and easily add news ones simply by adding them to the marketing plan you already have. Once you build that following and position yourself as an expert in your niche, individuals will look to you for new, innovative solutions to their problems.

4. Cost Effective

When you think about starting a business, the overhead and start-up costs are definitely something to consider. Start-up costs can often times be the thing that’s holding someone back from getting started. Depending on the business, starting an online business has very small startup costs in comparison to the alternative. If you want to grow quicker, you will spend money on marketing and invest in a coach. If you are more of a DIY person you can file for your LLC on your own and pay the $300+ fee, build your own website and just pay for hosting which can run anywhere from $12-$40 per month, create a free business email account and start free business profiles on social media. All of these things along with other costs specific to your business are still well under the cost of maintaining a physical space.  

5. Dependability, Security

Security is one of the main reasons why online entrepreneurship is so popular in 2020. The coronavirus pandemic has caused many people to lose their jobs, some without warning. Going from working a career for years to not knowing what’s next is scary and eye opening. Many have used this as motivation to finally start that business they have been thinking about. Creating your own online business gives you control over your future. No matter what happens, you will be in-the-know.

In the age of fast payments, online businesses have faster and more secure online payments than in-person cash exchange. There are so many payment platforms out now such as square, stripe, paypal business, and apple pay that protect the consumer as well as the business from fraud and enables easy, quick transactions for both parties.