Creating an online business can be cheaper than opening a brick-and-mortar store, but that does not make it any easier. When you know where to focus your efforts, and how to make the most of that focus, you can go from idea to launch to success in five steps.

Find a Product

You need to know what you want to sell and who you want to sell it to before you start on the other planning steps. This means deciding what you can offer, how well it will sell and what your costs will be. Not every online business makes the inventory they sell, you can also work with manufacturers to cultivate a unique set of products from various sources like www.smokingthings.com and other specialty shops.

Research a Business Plan

Once you have a product and supplier, it is time to research the rest of your business plan. This means choosing a name and URL, researching the competition and coming up with a budget. Your business plan is a roadmap for the first few years of business, and you can find online tools to help you build one for your desired company model and industry.

Set It Up

The setup phase includes protecting your intellectual property through trademarks, copyrights and patents as well as choosing a web host and developer. It is important to set up the right shopping software and platform to ensure that transactions are secure for multiple payment methods, but it is also important to build each page for user experience and readability so customers do not click away.

Prep for Launch

Preparing for your store launch means testing out aspects of the shop, your supply and shipping chains as well as studying how to optimize your site for users, search engines and graphics. It is better to take your time and be thorough than to rush the launch of your online business, so you do not have to take it down for troubleshooting later.

Market Your Company

Knowing key marketing concepts such as how to use social media as a business, how to design and implement advertisement campaigns and even how to use customers as brand ambassadors can help you bring in more traffic and make more sales conversions. You already know who your target audience is from the first step, now it is time to find where they are online and direct your marketing to those places.

The steps involved in making an online business are much the same as the ones involved in making a brick-and-mortar one. You need to find a product, research a business plan and market your company as well as set everything up and prepare for your company launch.