8 Steps to Start an Online Business Successfully

Starting an online business is surely no longer unfamiliar to young people today, especially as we live in the age of technology 4.0. In fact, an online startup is a great idea for anyone who is passionate about making money and has plenty of spare time. However, not everyone understands this kind of business well, or what it takes to make it work. To answer the question "How do you start an online business successfully?", join us as we MONA Media explore it in the article below.

What is online business?

Online business means doing business over the internet through online channels and social networks such as a sales website, Facebook selling, TikTok marketing and Zalo, to advertise, display and sell products. You save a lot of cost because you do not need to rent premises or hire staff. Before the internet, people traded and exchanged goods in the traditional way, through shops, markets and supermarkets. You could compare and choose in person, but time and space were heavily limited.

Thanks to modern technology, people's shopping needs keep growing, along with the wish to save time and effort choosing goods. That is how fast, modern ways of buying and selling appeared. With just a mouse click, a product is delivered to your door, and that is what we call online business.

In addition, large e-commerce marketplaces have grown strongly and are places where sellers can easily register a shop and do business online. You can look at these well-known marketplaces:

• International: Amazon, Taobao, Alibaba,…
• Vietnam: Shopee, Lazada, Tiki,…

Starting a business on an e-commerce marketplace such as Shopee is an idea worth considering. Shopee is currently a leading online selling platform where startups can begin easily and reach millions of potential customers.

TRolling out a solution: Shopee store design service together with our team MONA Media will help you build a professional sales foundation from the start. It also improves your brand image and raises your chances of closing orders. Contact us HOTLINE 1900 636 648 for detailed advice on setting up the service.

The video below shares effective ways to overcome procrastination, from investing in equipment and hiring a professional team to building a long-term plan. These are practical lessons to help you optimize your business and make good use of every resource.

Why is starting an online business a top choice?

Among the many modern startup ideas, selling online is always a favorite for a lot of people. The reason is that starting an online business has certain clear advantages over other kinds of startups. Specifically:

• Starting an internet business with "tiny" capital: It sounds unreasonable, but it can be shown to be true. You need a fairly large sum if you open a traditional shop, because you have to rent premises, and not everyone has big capital to startup. For small startups with tight capital, online business is the most reasonable choice.
• Consumers' trend toward convenient online shopping: especially since the pandemic spread everywhere. E-commerce sites such as Shopee, Lazada and Tiki, and social media such as Facebook and Zalo, are the tools that meet consumers' shopping needs. That is why starting out by selling online has become a more popular trend in recent years.
• Online business can move flexibly: Choosing a location for a traditional store takes careful thought to reach the right customers and a favorable business environment. You face limits such as customers coming in person to see and buy, but the number of customers is bound by that geographic area. When you sell online, your customers can be anywhere in the country and still buy your products.
• Selling products online creates financial independence: An online sales channel can be a stable source of income and run almost automatically if you build it well and systematically. This is surely what many people hope for when they want to own an internet startup.
• Making use of your own time: Starting an online business from home lets you use spare time. You can work in the evenings, on weekends or in other free moments. This helps you use your time well and makes your product-selling startup more productive.

For the first time, Mr. Hùng, CEO and Founder of The MONA, tells the story of his "startup journey", and this is the only startup video you need to watch because it comes from a real person doing real business.

Click the video to watch.

The market potential of online business today

According to a recent statistic, Vietnam has 70 million internet users (over 70% of the population). Of those, nearly 50 million have shopped on online shopping sites.

If we briefly look at some of the biggest e-commerce marketplaces in Vietnam today, such as Shopee, Lazada, TikTok and Tiki, we see a very large monthly traffic from Vietnamese users.

• Of these, Shopee, the largest selling platform in Vietnam today, gets around 85 million visits a month. Lazada, despite some decline, still gets more than 20 million visits a month. 
• TikTok Shop is still a new marketplace, but with its user base growing (more than 13 million Vietnamese users are active on TikTok each month), it is shaping up as one of the marketplaces worth selling on.

Beyond that, the market Elearning is also becoming a popular trend in education business . An e-learning course model brings flexibility and initiative to both teachers and learners. Thanks to e-learning website design , learners can easily rewatch lecture videos, while teachers have more time to focus on updating and improving quality.

They are:

• Market EdTech in Vietnam is expected to reach 364.7 million USD in 2024, with a CAGR of 13.5% through 2032.
• The e-learning market segment is projected to reach 228.7 million USD, with a user penetration rate of 8.6%.

This shows that the bán khóa học trực tuyến (selling courses online) business in Vietnam is showing very positive signs of growth, as education gradually goes digital and online classes increasingly supplement traditional ones.

From these figures, we can say that the online business market still has great potential. It is also a chance for you to carry out online startup ideas with a higher success rate. 

Benefits of starting an online business

Starting an online business brings many benefits to individuals and companies alike. Here are some key benefits of starting to sell online:

• Cost-efficient: Starting a business this way helps you save as much cost as possible. You do not need to rent premises, decorate a shop, or pay some other costs, which lowers your starting cost. Prices of online goods are also generally stable and do not rise, so customers buy more and profit is higher.
• Optimizing the customer experience: Online startups today have added many flexible payment and shipping options. This gives your customers the best shopping experience.
• Reach a wide market: Selling online has no geographic limits. Your customers can be spread across the whole country, and you can sell anytime, anywhere, 24/7. This makes it easier for sellers and customers to contact and transact than in traditional business.
• Easy to track and evaluate: Starting by selling products online lets you track and evaluate business performance easily. You can use analytics tools to follow organic, customer interactions, sales, and other important metrics. This helps you understand your business better and adjust your strategy for better results.
• Potential for growth and expansion: With an internet business model, you can easily scale up. You can add new products, widen your range of services, or reach a new group of customers.

Steps to start a business online customers successfully

As mentioned above, even with little capital, as long as you go about starting an online business the right way, you can still succeed. The experience of "old hands" in starting to sell online is that you need to prepare carefully, analyze accurately and meet all the conditions before you "get started" building your "online business".

Plan your online business startup

This is the starting point of any business activity. You need to know your target market, your competitors, how to raise capital, how to secure resources, how to build brand trust with consumers, and how to ally with strategic partners to attract customers most effectively.

-> Learn more:

• Home business ideas to increase income
• What is a kick-off? Tips for a successful kick-off meeting

Market research and analysis

Selling online is always one of the most fiercely competitive kinds of business. If you want to start an internet business, you first have to invest in knowledge of the online selling market.

What products do you plan to sell? Do you already have a source of goods? How competitive are those products? Find answers to these questions first. You need to build the best possible base of knowledge before you can succeed.

In addition, to start an online business effectively, you also need to analyze the supply and demand for the product you are about to sell. For example, demand for online fashion is currently the largest because of the product's nature and attractive "customer-pulling" features, such as watching livestream sales, interacting directly with sellers, clear product photos and varied designs.

Even with high demand, what matters is whether your suppliers can meet the criteria for quality, design and price. So before you decide to do business online, you need to analyze carefully and weigh up all these factors.

Identify your source of goods for selling online

Finding a good source of goods at a reasonable price will give you a competitive edge. The market now has many suppliers with good wholesale prices. You just need to search a bit harder, or better, learn from experienced people. There are many ways to find wholesale sources: you can search on social networks like Facebook, on Google, on wholesale sites, or through manufacturers.

Find online sales channels

Nowadays online business has become much easier. You do not have to own a shop to display products; you just need to use online sales channels effectively.

Doing business on social networks is a new popular trend, as long as you have a product or service to sell. These sales channels are also completely free, and if you want to reach customers faster, you can run ad campaigns at a wide range of price levels.

Selling online on the biggest e-commerce marketplaces has seen its user base grow quickly in recent years. It is an effective sales channel that puts you in front of a large audience fast. Sellers do have to pay commission fees to the e-commerce marketplaces, though.

Prepare the capital to start an online business

Capital is something you cannot overlook from the very start of an online business. Work out how much money you have, or where you could borrow it, to carry out your business idea.

The safest way to limit risk is to start with a small amount and grow your investment and cash flow step by step. If you sell physical products, expect to need more capital for stock, warehousing and so on. Calculate every cost of running an online business carefully.

Build an online store website

When you start an online business, you should make it a priority to build e-commerce web design of your own. Your website is your storefront: it lets you post, present and update everything you sell for customers to see.

A website is more than a place to display goods. It also comes with tools that make buying and selling payment gateway faster and easier than ever.

Build a professional websitewith an attractive design also draws customers in. It connects you with more potential customers, makes your advertising work better, builds and protects your brand reputation, and is one of the best ways to look after customers.

Once the website is finished, you have a tool for promoting your brand and selling. But you still have no traffic or visitors. So how do you get customers? They will not find you by themselves. They search for what they need on search engines, above all Google. To be known, your website has to show up in those search results.

SEO is the key job that moves your website up the search results and closer to customers. There are many ways to do SEO for your website, depending on your goal and budget. SEO services Full-scope SEO from MONA is an effective solution for your marketing strategy, speeding up growth so you reach customers more easily. MONA Media has established itself as one of the a trusted SEO provider leading providers today.

Take a look at our case studies of MONA's SEO projects below.

Roll out your marketing strategy

Marketing is where most online businesses make mistakes. Too many people focus only on developing the product or service and forget or skip marketing. Then how will customers find you, however good your product or service is 

• and campaigns email marketing services, for example by emailing customers with details about your website. Joining chat rooms and discussion forums is also a good way to let people know your brand exists.
• Search engine optimization (SEO) so your website can rank near the top of search results and you can reach potential customers as effectively as possible.

Track and evaluate how your online business is doing

Track and review your sales figures regularly, such as revenue, orders, inventory, costs and profit. This shows you how the business is really doing, lets you spot hidden or stubborn problems, and helps you find ways to fix them.

Another thing you cannot skip is customer feedback. Keep interacting with customers and take in all feedback, positive or negative, to improve your products and services. Sometimes your customers are the best advisors on what you need to do to make the business work better.

When you start an online business, the right business mindset matters enormously. Yet many people are still wary of talking about business and fall into common misconceptions. Watch the video below to better understand business thinking in Vietnamese society and the right way to build a successful company.

Sales and business management tools at MONA Media

MONA Media is a company that provides business solutions in Digital Marketing. Among them, sales management software – MONA Ecommerce from MONA Media was developed to help manage every part of a business, from inventory, products, agents and suppliers to security, reports and remarketing.

So what can the MONA Ecommerce sales software do? 

• Inventory management: A tool that lets managers see stock levels, goods in and out, and detailed information on time, quantity and location.
• Product management: Upload product images, descriptions, colors, quantities, sizes, remaining stock, original price, discounted price and more.
• Product review management: Collect customer reviews from star ratings, written comments, images and videos.
• Purchase management: The quantity of products bought and when they were bought.
• Income and expense management: Total money received compared with the value of goods shipped out. At the end of
• Staff management: Cashiers, staff logins, working hours and hours spent at the checkout counter.
• Customer management and care: Through loyalty cards, loyalty phone numbers, membership tiers and more.
• Supplier management: Supplier information, supply plans, prices and the discounts applied when you order goods.

MONA's sales management tool is an effective digital solution for controlling every part of your sales operation. So why wait? Get in touch with CONTACT US MONA Media through the details below:

• Address: 1073/23 Cach Mang Thang Tam, Ward 7, Tan Binh District, Ho Chi Minh City
• Hotline: 1900 636 648
• Email: info@themona.global

Many small businesses think marketing has to be as cheap as possible to be safe. In reality, some channels lose you money when you spend below a certain threshold. Watch this video to hear Hùng share how much MONA has actually spent on marketing.

Frequently asked questions

1. How do you come up with a good idea for an online startup?

To come up with a product or service idea for your startup, answer these questions:

• Is the product or service you picked already common in the market?
• What are the characteristics and behaviors of your target customers?
• What is the demand for that product or service?
• How is your business different from your competitors?

The best business idea is one where you are a pioneer in the field, or where you give customers added value that is useful to them.

2. Does the name of your store really matter when starting an online business?

Whether you sell on Facebook, Zalo, Instagram, TikTok, Shopee or any other platform, your store name is one of the most important factors. A name that is distinctive, original and short but still meaningful makes your store easier to show up in suggestions and search results.

After some time as an online shop, you may well grow into a company. Choosing the right name from the start saves you a lot of effort rebranding later.

To choose a name, list all your candidates in order of priority, from highest to lowest. Then search each name on the platforms you plan to sell on. If it returns too many suggestions and results, consider moving on to the next name.

3. Do you need brand colors and a brand identity?

A distinctive brand color and identity is key to being remembered. In practice, one way to attract the public and your target customers when selling on social networks like Facebook and Instagram is seeding or posting brand content. Many big companies, such as CGV, Grab and Be, use these same methods to spread their brand and attract customers.

One suggestion from MONA Media is to choose a signature color such as yellow, orange, green or lipstick pink as your brand identity color. The store's profile image should use plenty of color with a minimal pattern. This makes it easy for people online to recognize, remember and form an impression of your store on social media.

4. Is it really important to learn the online selling rules of each platform?

Learning each platform's selling rules carefully is very important. This knowledge can be the most accurate and effective guide for getting your store pages and sales posts in front of more people.

You have probably heard the Vietnamese saying that local custom beats the king's law. It means that wherever you go, you follow the customs of that place. The same applies when you start an online business and sell on Shopee, TikTok, Google and so on: you must understand each platform's rules to avoid having your reach limited.

5. What do you do when goods reach the customer with a problem?

First, ask for photos or video of the unboxing. Next, follow your complaint and compensation policy to explain how it will be resolved. If the customer does not agree, discuss the case with someone who has the authority to decide.

Never argue with a customer. Any message or remark that goes beyond your professional standards can turn into a public relations crisis on the internet.

This article has shared with you experience for starting an online business. If you are planning a startup, research it thoroughly to get the best business results. We hope these tips on starting an online business from MONA give you the know-how to get ready and succeed.