Here Are Steps on How to Establish an Online Business in Hong Kong
Many people, especially beginners tend to confuse the concept of running an online business. You need to understand that an online business isn’t very different from traditional commerce. The internet is just a platform. Which means doing online business, most of the time you use the internet to sell things that could also be sold physically. Thus, an online business isn’t a whole unknown world in the middle of the world; it is just a medium to make selling and buying things easier. This mindset will take you through the right way if you are asking how to start an online business.
Brainstorm
So, the first step to starting an online business is brainstorming, just like you would do in any other business. Or in more common sense, let’s say finding the niche. Online business is similar to traditional business in the sense that you don’t sell everything under the sun. You need to find a specific thing to sell and build yourself upon that. While doing this, make sure that you pick the niche that you already know about; never expect to put your hands into something unknown and learn about it through the way. Well, yes, learning is one thing and it is good, but here you are actually starting a business. Mastering the advanced thing without knowing the basics is impractical.
Determine Your Product or Service
The next step to starting an online business is finding the items you want to sell. For this, you need to analyze the market well. Make sure that what you sell will help solve a particular problem of the people. Assure that you become very particular about the product/service and review it a lot of times before you finalize it. We are not telling you to sell only one thing, but saying that you stick to one category, just like the stores that you see while you are out on the market.
While deciding on something, also make sure that the competition isn’t very fierce such that you can’t survive. The best bet for you is to become unique than everyone else, but even if you can’t be very different from everyone, make sure that the market isn’t already occupied by someone else’s product.
Choose Your Business Platform
Now, this could be pretty tricky considering what we told you earlier. For ones asking how to start an online business, we told that the internet is a platform. Now, it is up to you to decide how you want to use the platform to make sales. It depends on your interest and available funds.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is the most popular ways of doing business for internet marketers in Hong Kong. Doing affiliate marketing, you advertise and sell someone else’s products and get a commission for every time you convince someone to buy. Some additional knowledge and skill, for example, blog writing or video editing will help a lot for those who want to indulge in affiliate marketing. After all, you will need to build a following, who are the ones you expect to buy your products.
Drop Shipping
Drop shipping is another way of online business which is becoming popular in Hong Kong these days. Drop shipping also means selling someone’s other’s things, but this time you sell it directly. Meaning that you set up an online commerce website and put things for sale. But in the truth, you don’t own or have these things, and when someone makes a purchase through your website, the supplier ships the product directly to your customer. Of course, your customer won’t have any idea that it is not you who are selling the thing to them. Drop shipping is the way to go for many asking how to start an online business, as it is a great way of making amazing money with commission alone. Talk about not having to have an inventory and sell everything you like.
Other Services
If you are frequently asking how to start a small online business, we want to ask you something. Do you have the skill to sell, or are you inspired to do something that many people don’t do? Whatever you do online to make money can be considered as an online business. For example, say that you are freelancing. Freelancing is an online business, as you are selling your skillset for money. Or say that you are making youtube videos or simply blogging. You could make money with Google ad sense or selling your own products through the blog. Whatever it is, the internet provides you with countless opportunities to make money. You just need to recognize them and take actions.
Start A Website
This doesn’t have to be explained. You could either hire someone to build a website for you, or you could start your own website. Starting your own website isn’t actually a hassle if you try a little, and programs like Wordpress make it very simple to create a website. Anyway, remember that you need to register your domain name (the name for your website) and buy hosting (storage on an internet computer to store things that are kept on your website).
Register the Company
Many asking how to start an online business in Hong Kong are also found to be confused if they need to register a company for online business. Actually, we can’t be very specific about this. Depending on what you are doing, you might need to incorporate a company. Well, registering a company in Hong Kong is not big of a deal and you can easily do so considering that we at 3E Accounting ourselves provide company registration services and can help you to incorporate a company in Hong Kong. You can contact us for that, and you can also contact us if you are not sure if you need to register a business, we will assist you with the required information.
File for Taxes
It might be true that Hong Kong has a very convenient tax system for commerce, but you need to make sure that you file for taxes. The tax rate and rule assessment for an online business is similar to that of traditional hand to hand commerce. Contact 3E Accounting for more information.
Conclusion
The answer to how to start an online business is to understand what online business means in the first place. It is similar to any other business and will be successful if you can find things to sell and devise an idea. We hope this article has helped you.