The problem with most traditional businesses, regardless of the product or staffing level is that a lot of your money is tied up in stock. The profit margins are often not that great, and so you have to rely on selling quite a lot of items.

In his book, Multiple Streams of Income, Robert G. Allen cited the Internet as one of the four Ocean of Infinite Prosperity:

• Real Estate
• Investment
• Marketing
• Internet

With the advent and maturity of the Internet, this is why many people decide to work from home. At least this cuts out the rental of premises, commute time, and the need for hiring staff (until you get big enough. But that’s a happy problem, isn’t it?)

Why do you want an Internet Business

The Internet allows anyone to start a business with the minimum of capital and risk. Here are some of the reasons why you WANT to do business on the Internet:

• Work when you want
• Wake when you want
• No staff to pay
• No premises to rent
• No ties that keep you behind the desk — your business can be almost 100% fully automatable
• Create as many businesses as you want
• Beginners can do it
• Doesn’t have to involve in any scams
• Lots of money to be made
• Virtually no capital outlay
• Virtually no capital risk
• Unlimited world wide market
• HUGE profit margins
• No shipping costs
• Advertising is cheap – if not completely free

But probably the BIGGEST reason you want to do business on the Internet is …

Astronomical Market!

According to ClickZ Network’s Trend & Statistics (Apr 2006), here’s some staggering numbers:

• USA — 203.82 million users online. 68% of population
• UK — 37.8 million users online. 62% of population
• Singapore — 2.42 million online users. That’s 54% of population
• Malaysia — 10.04 million online users. 40% of population

And the emerging giants:

• China — 111 million users online. 8.5% of 1.3 billion population!
• India — 50.6 million users online. 4.6% of 1.1 billion population!

The world is your marketplace!

What is an Internet Business … What does it consist of?

In a nutshell, internet business consists of the following components:

• Product
• Website
• Traffic

Product

Every business has a single, sole purpose — other than claiming to help you live life better with their products — that is to make profits. The most obvious method is the direct trading of goods and services. You pay for what you want.

However, there exists many different methods to make money, some requiring creative thinking. That’s where marketing comes into action. Internet Marketing, or online marketing.

Website

This would be your shop front — minus the expensive rentals! With an affiliate program, the websites are provided for.

Traffic

This is the life blood of your business. The potential customers that walk pass, in & out of your shop. On the internet, it is the number of visitors to your website.

How do you know how much traffic your website is getting?

Here’s a quick test. Go to Alexa.com, enter your URL to get the traffic details. You’ll see the Traffic Rank for your website.

As a general rule of thumb, if your traffic ranking isn’t within the 1st Million globally, then you have a lot to do to get your website “in shape”.

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