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How do I start my own online business?

How to start an online retail business in Sri Lanka?

  • I think all of you know that there is a huge untapped eCommerce market in the South Asian region. I am a South Asian techie from Sri Lanka. So there isn't any major online retailer right now in Sri Lanka, but there is a huge growth in Sri Lankan eCommerce usage since 2009 (hence the potential exists). On my question above, I am looking for specific answers to sub-questions below: How can I start an online retail business for Sri Lanka? Should I have hand on products? How can I find products to sell? I would like to be able to sell my products to US and rest of the world. There are good online retailers in India like http://flipkart.com and http://infibeam.com How do they find product to sell? They sell thousands of Worldwide Brands, Do they store all these brands in their warehouses?

  • Answer:

    How can I start an online retail business for Sri Lanka? Hire a programmer or partner with business developer companies to create your business (e-commerce) site Hire a PR manager if you are clueless on how to reach out target market Depending on what you are selling, a website optimizer might also help in directing organic search Should I have hand on products? If the product delivery would take 2 or more days to reach your doorstep, then yes, do stock on some items.  Customers appreciate prompt delivery of their orders. How can I find products to sell? I believe this is the most crucial and important part.  The idea of what to sell takes research and luck.  Find out the demands in Sri Lanka, trend or bring in new products from where you're from inside the country.  I would like to be able to sell my products to US and rest of the world. The beauty of putting up business online is that you are able to reach out to wide market range.  Just make your website customer friendly.  Like what Nishadha shared, earning customer's trust is very important.  A secured payment system like Blue Snap - http://www.bluesnap.com/ecommerce/ is a good start.  It also offers different currencies in payments options, suitable for world wide market. I believe those 2 websites you cited are partnered with retail brick stores where they can buy products in bulk for a lower price.  It is also possible to partner with companies in return for advertising their 'brand' if your online store is already popular and gets hundreds to thousands of views a day.

Daryl Serrano at Quora Visit the source

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Other answers

I think the biggest problem you will have is convincing people to give their credit card details. Unless you build some brand reputation it isn't easy to sell anything online. You need a website with a shopping cart system, this isn't that hard to implement You don't necessarily needs products at hand, it depends on the nature of your business, for example you can ask people to order and deliver later, I know of some who does this for high end equipment like laptops and cameras You need to do some research and find out user needs

Nishadha Silva

eCommerce: I believe that market differs with each country. I hope SriLanka is similar to India in terms of consumption. In India, we have distributors for all the brands that you see in online websites. That makes it easy for us to setup the back end. But, that doesn't mean that we work on 'Just in Time' process. Most of the big eCommerce companies have their warehouses across India in major cities and towns to enable faster deliveries. Delivery and Payment: India has a varied economy and consumption behaviour. We are still an economy which prefers to use Cash to buy stuff. This led to a mode of payment called Cash on Delivery. This has evolved and we have companies like Gharpay offering to collect money for eCommerce ventures which would stop some of the negatives from Cash on Delivery. You just have to figure out the market and resources that you have in SriLanka before starting an eCommerce website.

Gokulraj G Kanagaraj

This link will tell you exactly how to start an online business. It will teach you step by step and it’s free. I used it and make over $1,000 a day just one way alone. It is called http://clikpms.com/click.ashx?CID=319947&AFID=405027. Just click on the words http://clikpms.com/click.ashx?CID=319947&AFID=405027 and it will take you to the site. You can do this in any country. Good luck!

Logan Masly

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