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Starting an Online Business Checklist: Things You Need [2022]

Whether you’re exploring turning your craft hobby into a side business or quitting your full-time job to be an ecommerce entrepreneur, you need this starting an online business checklist to ensure you think through everything.

Starting an online business can be much easier, faster, and cheaper than starting a traditional brick-and-mortar business. You can start an online business for a few hundred dollars instead of the thousands it costs to start a traditional business. Even though it’s less expensive and easier, there are still things you need to start a small business online. We’ve put together this online business startup checklist to outline everything you need to think about, do, or buy to turn your ideas into a successful business.

What To Think About

You need an online store business plan before you start a business. Creating a business plan helps you think through the details about what you need to start and run your company.

A business plan checklist for starting an online business includes:

Product or Service. What product or services will you provide? How will you make the products, or where will you buy them?
Target Market. What customers will you serve? Who is your ideal customer? What do you know about their spending, shopping, and internet habits?
Research. How can you learn more about competitors and the current market? Based on the product and market, what does your research tell you about how to price your offerings?
Budget. How much will you spend to operate your business on an ongoing basis? How much do you need to start? What income do you expect to come in at first?
Funding. How will you finance your startup expenses?
Marketing. What’s your plan for launching your business and getting your product in front of potential customers?

What To Do

After you make a plan, it’s time to leap into action. Use this checklist to include all the essential details on your to-do list.

Things you need to do to start a small business online include:

Decide on a Business Structure. Entrepreneurs can choose from various legal structures for their business, each with its own tax implications. You’ll need to decide on your business structure before registering your business with your state government.
Register Your Business. File your business incorporation paperwork with the appropriate state entity, the secretary of state, in most cases. You’ll need to officially register your business to open a bank account or apply for any permits you need.
Open a Bank Account. Open a business banking account to separate your business finances from your personal bank account.
Apply for Licenses and Permits. Depending on where you live and what type of business you start, you could need any number of state or local permits. See our post on how to get a business license for ecommerce for a step-by-step guide.
Set Up Your Website. You’ll need to set up your website with content, products, and a way to take payments.
Hire Staff. Planning on being a solopreneur? You can skip this step. But if you’re going to hire help, you’ll want to start the process early. It takes a few weeks between when you post a job and when someone can start.

What To Buy

Once you’ve made your business official and opened a bank account, you can start to buy the things you need to launch. This list is not exhaustive but does include the necessities for starting a small ecommerce business.

Things you need to buy to start an online business include:

Inventory. If you’re selling goods online, you’ll need to purchase inventory. To save money and space, you could consider using a drop shipping service instead of purchasing and storing your own inventory. With dropshipping, you select what products to list on your website and pass the order information to the dropshipping service that picks and ships the order. You only pay for what you sell instead of buying inventory upfront.
Supplies. You’ll also need basic supplies for shipping and other office needs. If you’re making products to sell online, you’ll need to purchase the raw materials.
URL. You can’t have an online business without a website. That starts with buying a domain name.
Hosting. You’ll need a hosting service to run your website if you’re using an open source ecommerce system. If you’re using a proprietary ecommerce platform like Shopify or BigCommerce, the platforms include hosting.
Advertising. You’ll also want to consider purchasing digital advertising to promote your new business. Unfortunately, “if you build it, they will come” doesn’t apply to ecommerce stores or small businesses. You have to advertise and give people a reason to visit your store.

How Hostdedi Can Help

The key to crossing off everything on your starting an online business checklist is finding cost-effective and innovative tools built for small business owners. StoreBuilder by Hostdedi eliminates the need to spend countless hours searching for the best web hosting and ecommerce platforms.

StoreBuilder includes Hostdedi premium hosting services and lets even technical novices build a WooCommerce-powered website in days, not months. WooCommerce is the most popular and powerful open source ecommerce platform.

With StoreBuilder, new business owners can have a functioning store in no time. All you need to do is start picking the colors and uploading products. Sign up today.

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How to Name Your Business: 5 Best Practices [2022]

What’s in a name?

Shakespeare once questioned its importance — but when it comes to a business, a lot of thought needs to be put into the name. After all, the name of your company can directly affect its success.

Before you start your ecommerce business, it is important to come up with a proper name for your company.

Ideally, it should sound catchy, represent what kind of business you want to run, and help customers differentiate you from your competitors.

Keep reading to learn how to name your business, and best practices for selecting a name.

What Makes a Good Name?

A good business name is distinctive and fits the products it serves. Tesla and Coursera are excellent examples of how a name can be associated with a company’s products. These names are unique and simple, which helps the brands be easily recognizable and memorable.

Still, one needs to be careful when naming a company, as it may produce an adverse effect on its image and reputation. There are many articles on the Internet that make fun of such names. At best, such a name becomes viral on the web, which results in a temporary sales boost. But the hard reality is that no one is likely to take your company seriously and do business with you.

Considerations for Naming Your Business

Imagine you have come up with a creative company name. Now’s a good time to conduct some research before registering it legally. Here are a few points that need to be checked to prevent possible far-reaching issues in the future.

Preferred Name Is Similar/Identical to Existing Businesses

It is not advisable to use names similar to ones already being used by other businesses in your industry, especially if your competitors are based in the same country or region. This will have an unfavorable impact on the image of your business. Additionally, it will confuse customers who want to contact you but accidentally end up speaking with your competitor.

Related reading: How To Make Your Ecommerce Site Stand Out >>

The only situation where it can be acceptable is if another company using this name serves a completely different product. It’s even safer if it is in a different state or country. For example, you sell baby clothes in the USA while the other company sells digital products like downloadable posters in India.

In the worst-case scenario, you can find yourself fighting a trademark infringement lawsuit. Not only will you lose money and time, but it also may force you to rebrand your business completely.

Preferred Name Is Already in Use

Finding out that your ideal business name is already taken might be discouraging. However, it is still possible to find a way out.

Shortened Variant — If you failed to register a company named “Delta Design-Build Constructions,” try to abbreviate it to “Delta DBC.”
Contacting the Owner Of the Company Holding the Desired Name — Possibly, the name was registered but not used. In that case, the owner can transfer the name to you. Chances are it is not going to be free. Another possible scenario is that your preferred company name was registered, only to be sold later — which is akin to domain name squatting. If that is the case, the only way out is to pay the squatter to get the desired company name.
Brainstorm a New Name — Take a step back and see if you can come up with a few new options. Who knows, maybe you will be able to generate a better name for your business.

Domain Registration

Online presence is vital for any business. Before you make a final decision on your company name, make sure the domain name is available. According to statistics, US residents trust the .com domain names the most. However, if you primarily serve products to non-US customers, then you can go with a country code top-level domain (also known as ccTLD) name such as .de or .fr.

You may also want to explore the possibility of using a domain hack — a domain where the company name and top-level domain comprise a single word together. For example, “youtu.be” or “taekwon.do”. On the plus side, it looks creative, shortens the URL, and helps customers memorize it. A drawback is that it may be difficult to come up with a name that can take advantage of this trick.

Given the fact that domain registrations are made for at least 1 year, it might be a good idea to register beforehand to make sure you can still use it when you are ready to launch your business.

Best Practices on How to Name Your Business

The name of your business will determine how it will be perceived by your potential customers and partners. A perfect name is easy to remember, makes it clear what your business is about, and makes your company stand out from the crowd.

Below are a few suggestions that will help guide you on how to name your business,

Be Careful With Spelling and Acronyms

When you speak to a customer over the phone and ask them to visit your site, it is great to have a business name that is spelled the same as it sounds to avoid confusion. You will know you got it right if your company name can be easily recognized by virtual assistants such as Alexa or Siri.

Additionally, pronounce the company name you came up with to make sure it sounds appropriate. Acronyms can sound awkward as well, especially if they are longer than three or four letters. And if you happen to match the acronym of another business entity, that can create issues with search engine results and rankings.

Envisage Expanding in the Future

If you launch, say, an optics business, and sell only telescopes at the start, it does not mean you will not be able to expand the range of products to binoculars, riflescopes, microscopes, or even photography gear. That being said, it is better to pick a company name that is related to your industry, not some particular product you sell.

The same principle applies to the geographical aspect. Starting in Miami, Florida, but looking to work your way up across the entire country to Seattle, Washington? Do not limit your business name to the place where it originated.

Think Twice Before Using Your Own Name

Using your name to create a new brand can be challenging. While you are not widely known, such company names will not mean anything to your potential customers. Also, if you decide to sell your business at a point, you might find it difficult to do so because of the name.

In certain situations, it is possible to make a catchy business name out of your personal name. For example, Adidas was named after the founder Adolf Dassler who had the nickname “Adi.” Adi Dassler eventually turned into Adidas. Or, consider Automattic, which was named after its founder Matt Mullenweg.

Now That You’ve Got A Name…

Now that you know how to name your business, what’s next? Learning the best practices for naming a business is a crucial step in setting up your business. Creating your online brand can sound like a tough job, but there are solutions and experts ready to cover your back.

Here at Hostdedi, we offer a truly unique ecommerce solution — StoreBuilder. WooCommerce optimized hosting teamed up with premium plugins will help you create your own, one-of-a-kind ecommerce website. This solution does the heavy lifting of developing your store from scratch without you having to write a single line of code.

Hostdedi manages every aspect of your store, allowing you to focus on growing your business and generating revenue.

Get started with StoreBuilder risk-free for 30 days.

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