Small Business Opportunities
So you’ve arrived at this site either because you are seeking small business opportunities or you already have a small business and either want to grow it, or, need some advice on furthering your small business opportunities.
Well let’s say firstly that at the present time you would like to go into business for yourself because you’ve had enough. You’ve had enough of your boss, or, you see your boss getting rich while you’re doing all the drudgery to make him rich while he’s off playing golf and you know that you can do better than him – right?
What small business opportunities can you look for?
Well the answer to this is literally thousands. If you’ve made up your mind that you want to take the next step and step out on your own but you don’t have any idea of what to do next – my advice is unless you have quite a lot of capital squirreled away and you are only mildly unhappy at work, don’t take this step until you’ve got a small business plan to work towards.
However, if you have got an idea of what small business opportunity you would like to establish then after you’ve formulated a plan – go for it, but just make sure you’ve crossed all your T’s first. It’s a big step to take and every step is going to cost you money so just don’t rush into it and make mistakes that can be avoided.
So what small business opportunities can you look for? Depends on what your interests are, how competitive these interests can be and if they are profitable.
Different small business opportunity niches:
Okay, here’s some examples:
Online marketing:
You can start fairly cheaply an online business. What costs are involved here? Well, with an online shop you’ve just beaten the commercial property owner in charging you a pile of rent for his store, but, unless you can do it yourself, you are going to have to have a website developed. These days they are a lot cheaper than they were ten years ago but if you can’t do one yourself expect to still pay anywhere between $1500 to $10,000 depending on how complex you want it.
(Check out the article on this site – Small business websites – which goes into this more deeply and shows you tools on how you can create a website with next to no skills).
Wholesale:
You set up a business wholesaling to retailers. You source some products either locally or importing from China or India (Have a look at a later article on this site called Small Business Ideas and Products – to give you greater information on reliable sources on the internet to find exporters of wholesale goods in different countries). Advantages to wholesaling are that you can sell and service a lot of retail stores. You can trial new products and you don’t necessarily have to be chained to one place. You can start off by operating in a cheap area like your garage. You can combine wholesaling with your own online store.
Disadvantages can be that you may have to stock a lot of product. Profit can be lower than retail say 20 -35% depending on your competition. You have to be careful that your stored product doesn’t lose its edge because it’s no longer trendy or as been superseded by a better product.
Retail:
Advantages of setting up a retail store is that as long as you are stocking a low competition product or something totally unique, the people will stampede through your door with wallets in hand. Also, if you have one of these two advantages you can charge a premium for your product of plus 100% mark up.
Disadvantages though is that you generally have to find a location where there’s lots of street pedestrian traffic and that can be very expensive to rent. Also, unless you don’t eat or need to go to a bathroom all day, you are going to have to hire staff to assist you and that can be expensive.
Summary of small business opportunities:
You’ve got a lot of choose out there for small business opportunities but first clarify what you want to target. Online, wholesale or retail, or a combination of all of them.
This is just a brief summary so dig deeper down the articles where we give you advice on how to do a business plan, how to find products, how to do market research, how to get a business loan. Generally what to do next, step by step.