The Basics of setting up your Online Business
If you were setting up to sell before the Internet you would need a store, stand, booth or go door to door to sell your product or service. A building, space or shelf to house your goods or services cost the price of the building, or rent, likely thousands of dollars. Even door to door cost rent and car expenses. The internet is thousands less than that so you can see why the much lower financial cost of entry is so attractive.
To set up online you need 4 beginning basics. 1.)Your Name, called a domain name, 2). Software technology, essentially the code the internet is made up of, 3). A place to host that code and 4). A professional email connected to you domain name.
In this article we will deal with the name and place —the domain and hosting.
The cost of getting a domain name aka “www” name Http://www.yourdomain.com can range from a couple of dollars to thousands of dollars. Typically its .com that’s available now is pewee $12-25 per year. You can buy one at Godaddy.com, Name.com or name cheap.com
Next you will need a place to host that domain name your close and display content you want to show the world via the software technology you choose. That cost varies as well. There are companies that specialize and do only hosting- they have to maintain the software and protect against viruses and make sure your site is up and working 24/7. They have computer hardware server farms to maintain and keep running that hosting. The software so the world can keep seeing your website. It costs electricity, maintenance, salaries etc to keep everything running. So typically they charge a Hosting Fee per month you can pay a months or even years in advance to save money.
It’s a typical cost of doing business.
Just like no one would expect the landlord to pay their electricity & gas for their apartment and house. Hosting is a typical fee that runs the Internet.
Blog and website Software technology like WordPress is free but it requires a place to host it on. That Hosting can be as low as a few dollars a month when you pay for a one, two or three years or more in advance.
There are other services that combine their own proprietary user friendly software technology to make it much easier for you get up a website, maintain and design it. Solutions like Wix, Weebly, Squarespace or Strikingly. Typical costs $20-35 per month.
They maintain the security, setup and software updates for your website and provide a user friendly interface.
The last thing you will need is an business email. Sometimes your domain provider will sell this also (as well as hosting).
It used to be a business email wasn’t necessarily a requirement. But with the GDPR European laws which require protection of information.
This is your unique email address connected to your business domain name for example: John@yourdomian.com a company host all your email and services and gives you access to it. It is typical $6 per month to do this through GSuite or Microsoft Outlook or through your domain host provider.
These are the 4 things you will need to have your store open on a website. So the total typical beginning costs of doing business on the World Wide Web.
1. $12-24 Domain name /year
2. $20-35 Software/Hosting/per month
3. $6 /mo
On Aug $32 /month
Or $384/year
This are costs of doing business and if you are selling anything that is doing business & the Internet is no exception. Compared to a Brick and Mortar store Rent cost is extremely low. Nevertheless less there is a cost. Which should be compared to your potential of profit.
See what you can make on the internet to see if after receiving money for a product or service and paying your costs of doing business, advertising & shipping & handling the money left over is your profit to spend. Hopefully at the very least break-even. Or you may find out you lost money. At least now you know and information to do better on the next deal.
Of course there is a whole lot of other expenses to consider depending on your business and what you need. A google spreadsheet may be helpful to figure out some of your costs and potential profit when considering selling product or services on the world wide web. The very best to you brave and courageous one!
Hi, My name is Anita Johnson and I am Founder, creative director and digital marketing strategist at 2INSPIRU, a boutique web design and digital strategy agency for visionary leaders and new entrepreneurs. I created Let's Launch Online Fast because I know small businesses today need more than a pretty website. It also needs a web design and strategy experience a complete system from sales to follow up, the ability to have it done for you until you can do it yourself (dyi) and incorporating automation that saves time.
