Shadnan Mahmud

Even just 6 months ago, our earth was so busy and lively. Every morning used to start in busyness. We were used to such a lifestyle that, we couldn’t even imagine that such days are waiting for us. But after the attack of Covid 19, the worst misfortune of the century, millions of people are captivated in their own house. Due to the outbreak of this virus, educational institutions are off for a long time. Other sectors are open to a limited extent.

In the captive state during lockdown, business men have suffered the most damage. For a middle income country like Bangladesh, the main source of annual income is the internal & international business market. Because of Coronavirus, most of the companies were shut down. Even though they are restarting everything, but because of this captive state they are not getting adequate customer. Let alone starting new business, many old business institute are in the face of threat.

In the middle of this stagnation and immobile state, online business can be a timely decision to overcome from the loss. It’s not like Bangladeshi people are not familiar with online business at all. But in this pandemic, online business has gain popularity in both sellers and buyers sectors. From this, we can easily say that online business can help the closed companies to make a comeback. Not only that, online business can even pave a way for the entrepreneurs as well.

It hasn’t been too much time that Bangladesh has entered into online business. At the beginning of this century, Bangladeshi people were introduced to internet at a massive rate and its availability rate was also increased. For the past ten years, many business companies have started online programs along with their official outlets. Along with this, there have been many independent online businesses since past ten years. Online business has become popular among the small scale traders of Bangladesh.

Before starting an online business, you need to have clear concept about some topics. First of all, you need to understand why do you want to start an online business? Is it only for this pandemic situation or you having a long term planning with this? The whole procedure and planning depends on this. Alongside, you need to know, how much you can invest into this business. Basically, you need to give a lot of time to online business. You need to start a business keeping some important topic in mind such as, promotion of your business, taking order and giving delivery timely. Other than this, you need to be certain about the range of your business and provider. By doing so, you won’t need to get in trouble with investment, man-power and other stuff.

Before coming into this business, having consultation with someone experienced in this field is must. Assume that, you want to start an online business of cosmetics. But you don’t have enough knowledge about cosmetic. If you don’t know from where you should buy your stuff, the targeted market of your product, how you would deliver your product to the customers then there is no chance of getting desired result in your business. You always need someone to help you in handling business complexity, management, communication. You can’t run into any business just like this. You need to keep taking instructions on every simple topic from someone who is experienced in this field.

Along with taking instructions, acquiring some practical skill will help you in having clear concept about your business. Before stepping into business, you can conduct some online courses about strategies of online business.

Now let’s come to the original planning. At first, you need to choose products or services that you want to offer. You need to be ensured about your service, target customers for your business, the demand or need of your product in the market. For this, you have to conduct a market analysis. You need to have a idea about the demand of your product in the market, which company is offering the same services and how, how can you stay ahead of your competitors with your services.

After considering all this points, you should plan your marketing policy. After planning the marketing policy, you need to have a written form of it. It’s not like all of them who are in online business keeps everything in written, but if you have a long term planning then it’s better to have it written. In fact, after finalizing your plan you can create Facebook Page, Facebook Group, YouTube Channel about your business. By doing so, you can inform people about your business even before starting it.

If you are planning to start a mega business with a lot of investment in it then you need to get your business registered. At the individual level, such registration is free of cost. Now it’s time to step into work with full incitement! As it’s an online business, other than only advertising it in Facebook you should open a website for your business.

Create such a website which will present your business neatly to the audience. It’s better to hire a host to create website, design logo, security check, update, backup etc. Even though you will need to spend some money on it, but to run your business firmly a website is very effective.

After creating a website, you can feed various data into it, such as the name of your product, description, how to contact with you. In such a way, you can keep your customers updated regularly. For advertisements, you can use Facebook groups or pages that you created earlier. Other than this, you can upload contents regularly; make videos of your products. Digital design or review videos can attract the audience.

Online business is not restricted to investment and selling products only. You need to keep many other things in mind while doing an online business. Taking order from your clients, giving delivery in time, trying to eliminate their complaints these are the things you need to take care of. Else you will need to face bad reviews, which will be detrimental for your business. You can even need to face legal complications because of this.

Compared to other businesses, online business has a specialty that, you can start a business with very low budget and you don’t even need high experience to start. This is the reason why, in this Covid time online business has gained so popularity. Other than sitting idly and wasting your time in this quarantine, you can start an online business. In fact, with gaining experience you can earn a little extra during this pandemic.