By Kendra Leah, @Writing2Day

Before we get started I suggest you grab a notebook or open up a new Word document on your computer. We are going to be doing some brainstorming and then focus in further on those ideas. These answers will become part of the basis for your business plan (don’t groan, yes you need one) which we will delve into in the next chapter.

One of the most important decisions you will make before starting your Internet business is, “What product or service am I going to sell?” You want to choose a product that you are familiar with. Think about your hobbies and interests. What excites you? You are in this for the long haul and you don’t want to become bored with what you are selling after six months.

Perhaps you have a professional skill that you would like to market online. If you’ve already been utilizing this particular skill for many years ask yourself if you still have enthusiasm for providing this service. If you are already feeling burnt out in your present career I wouldn’t recommend going into business with it. The only difference will be that you are now your own boss doing something you really don’t love anymore. Is there a sideline or niche within your professional that does excite you? Then by all means explore those different options.

Take out your notebook and spend some time brainstorming the different products or services you are qualified to offer. You don’t have to do this at one sitting or even in one day. Think about it as you go throughout your day or week and jot the ideas down as they come to you. Put a check mark next to the ideas that you find the most interesting.

Now that you’ve identified the ideas that you have the most enthusiasm for, I want you to start narrowing your focus. For each of the ideas you have written down start listing subcategories within the main idea. You are trying to find your online niche.

Once you go live with your business on the Internet, you will be competing on a local, national, and international level if you so desire. If your business idea is too common or too broad, you will be competing with millions of other businesses and may not even manage to get found by your potential customers online. The better you can pinpoint an area or niche within the broader market, the more competition you will eliminate.

To see this in action, type one of your main ideas into a search engine. Let’s say I want to sell skin care products online. If I type “skin care products” into Google, it returns 158,000,000 results. When I narrow the focus down to “soy skin care products,” it only returns 5,460,000 results. I just knocked out 97% of the competition in this area by focusing on a niche in the market.

Next time we’ll talk about more research you should do on your product and suppliers before you make your final decision on what you’re going to sell.

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#ecommerce #productresearch #newbusiness #businessstartup

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 26th, 2012 at 6:09 am and is filed under 1. Getting Started. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.