What is the Viability of an Online Business?

Searching high and low for a business that is

1. Viable?
2. Low in start-up costs?
3. Provides residual income?
4. Easy to manage?
5. A multi-million dollar business?

Conventional Business

Conventional or traditional business has been the backbone of an economy. These brick and mortar businesses date back to thousand of years. The method in running a conventional barely changed, however, marketing a product has revolutionized through better understanding of the market requirements.

Building a conventional business is quite easy and repetitive. Expanding a business is just replicating it in a different area with the same concept and choice of products and services. However, each replication would require a reinvestment which would be used to set up the trading area.

Setting up a conventional business can start with almost no costs. On the other hand it can also cost millions as well. For example, being a real estate agent you will earn a commission through the sales of a property. Or a unit trust agent where you recommend people to buy your unit trust funds. However, if you plan to expand your business, a further reinvestment is required - renting an office, extra costs in salary, utility bills, etc.

Doing Business the E-commerce way

Electronic Commerce or E-Commerce became a term that is used extensively by businesses, media and individuals. E-commerce is simply defined as doing business on-line, which means buying and selling products and services through the World Wide Web (Web).

Several key factors that made e-commerce rather attractive are:-

1. Low start-up costs
2. Provides residual income in the long run
3. Fairly easy to manage with current technology and software
4. Can grow into a huge organization
5. Very viable when all the above factors added up!

1. Low start-up costs

With the current software and technology available out there, starting an online business costs almost nothing. However, technology know-how is a must.