YOUR ONLINE BUSINESS WILL SURELY FAIL! WHY?

This statement was said to my face by someone I thought was my very good friend. I looked back, left and right to see if I was really the one he was referring to, in the end it was me. I decided to ask him why he made such statement, he said he was only trying to explain something to me and not to discourage or bring me down. All he was trying to say was that many people to set out to establish themselves as online business men and women are bound to hit the rock if they fail to put certain factors in the right order.

See, you want to make money, I want to make money (badly), we all want to make money. The bitter truth is that, our wishes concerning money making will never come to reality if we are not working on the right track. 

Online businesses ranging from  E commerce, Website designing, Freelance writing, affiliate marketing and others will be a total failure if in the course of your business activities you refused to every negative factors that will be harmful to the business health.

In today’s post, I will be sharing with you some key factors that will serve as hindrances to your online business survival and success.

Reasons why your online business will fail

1. High Competition: I would like to point out to you that you are not the only one doing business on the Internet as we have millions of individual doing business at a very high competitive level. This is a major problem especially to small businesses as well as new ones. The bigger ones are not ready to come down but that is not an excuse for you as a ‘smaller’ one not to aim big.  You can overcome this problem by simply:Being clear on what you are offering: Look at what successful sites do and try to it better. Customers are searching through various sites looking for the best value for their money, you have to give them that.
2. Compete on your own terms: Work towards providing exceptional customer services instead of competing directly with bigger online businesses. Provide good quality products and services different from others in your niche and always keep your customers in mind.
3. Adding a little more personality: Glen Behan, owner of online home furnishings company,  Bruno and Bean says. “I think the best way to compete, particularly with large businesses, is to offer a reasonably broad range of products on your site and put lots of thought into that range”. Though your budgets may be smaller than that of larger online business companies, you should work towards grabbing customers who see what you do well in your niche and never letting them go.
4. No clue: Wait, did you just say you don’t have a clue? Why won’t your online business be a total sucker, out of a long list on niches you decided to pick one to venture into, knowing fully well you have no idea what it’s all about. That is very embarrassing, you went into the entertainment niche, but know nothing about it, you chose the technology business, yet you are not updated about new inventions in the technology market, the list continues. You are bound to fail my friend. But there is a solution and it’s very simple… Go back to your closet, make a list of your abilities, pick the best, get proper training and learn new things in that niche and then you can come back into business and viola, you are good to go.
5. Lack of Planning: Popular saying, “if you fail to plan, you plan to fail”. You should note that the Internet is changing and is changing very fast, making it difficult for you plan. So many businesses without a solid foundation fail to cope with this changes that is why you see them having planning problems and they wind up (sad). What I would suggest you do is:                                                                             
   
   Estimate your upfront costs.
   
   Be sure of where the money will come from
   
   Set a realistic time line for your business so that potential customers, investors and employees can know exactly what to expect.
   
   Be flexible in your planning i.e make plans for unforeseen contingencies.
   
   Evaluate your Business environment.  
    
   Plan for the people you need to work with you in terms of top soft ware engineers and quality content providers and how you will recruit them and hold on to them.
                 
6. Inability to understand the customer: Your inability to understand the basic needs of customers online could kill your chances of making reasonable sales which will consequently ruin your business. Browse social media, design surveys, meet them in person (your customers) and ask them what they expect in your niche. I don’t see anything bad asking, do you?
7. Lack of market awareness: You are online 24/7 trying to make sales through your site but you find out you are somehow outdated or better put, your services and product are no longer in vogue. Or a new product has been introduced into the online market, but you don’t even notice anything happening.  You are really killing your business. Internet changes from time to time, no products get released from time, new strategies are developed virtually every day. It’s imperative you keep up with the pace by carrying out researches into the online market, gather useful information and act accordingly.    
8. Poor Value Proposition: According to Peep Laja, Value proposition is the #1 thing that determines whether people will bother reading more about your product or hit the back button. It’s also the main thing you need to test – if you get it right, it will be a huge boost. Read More about Value Proposition here.

There are so many other cogent reasons for the sudden failure of online business which are not mentioned here but the main point of actions is for you as an individual to do everything possible to stand out.