Starting a business while you are still in college can help you earn money even before you graduate. This can help you be a self-supporting student or pay your student loan afterward.
If you are wondering what kind of business you can start while still in college, we suggest that you dive into e-commerce. Here’s why:
- It gives you the potential to earn while you sleep.
- It does not cost much to create your own e-commerce site.
- It has the potential to grow exponentially.
If you are interested in opening your online store, here are six tips you should keep in mind:
Define Your Market
The key to having a successful business is to ensure that people will be willing to buy your products. As such, you must define who your target market is.
Luckily, your college can be an excellent starting point. Observe the trends in your school or figure out their common dilemma. From there, you can niche down.
For instance, you notice that your schoolmates rely too much on processed food. What could be the reason behind it? And how do you intend to respond to it?
Find a Product to Sell
Once you have determined your target market, what you need to do next is to figure out what you can sell to them.
Using our previous example, there are two ways you can cater to the student’s need for a nutritious meal:
- You can sell homemade nutrition bars. It is cost-effective and easy to do on your part, while it gives your schoolmates an option for a healthy snack.
- You can dropship healthy, ready-to-cook meals. It eliminates your need to produce the product and manage your inventory. Plus, you can have a high profit margin.
These are just two examples of an online business model. You can come up with your own, depending on the resources that you have.
Name Your Online Store
After determining your target market, the product you will sell, and how you will sell it, the next step is to turn your business idea into reality. You start by naming your online store.
Here are some quick tips you can keep in mind:
● Make it short and simple so that people can easily remember it.
● Consider incorporating your target keyword (more on that later).
Set Up Your E-commerce Website
Here’s why you need a short and simple name for your e-commerce business: It’s because it will also serve as the domain name of your website.
To set up your online store, you will need a domain name and an e-commerce website builder like Shopify or WooCommerce. From there, you can choose a web design theme that you can tweak a bit before you begin.
Your website does not have to be perfect. But it should be functional.
And while this is the part where you will need to spend some money, setting up your e-commerce website should not cost much.
Understand SEO
Search Engine Optimization is ensuring that your e-commerce website will appear on search engines.
So, if you are selling nutrition bars online and one of your schoolmates typed in “affordable nutrition bar” on Google, your online store should be one of the search results.
Although you need to consider various factors in ranking a website for a specific keyword, we suggest learning SEO basics first. That way, you would know the fundamentals you need to apply on your e-commerce site for launch with a bang.
Leverage Social Media
Social media is an excellent way to market your business. More so, if your school has various Facebook Groups where you can join and sell your products.
You can also make a dedicated page for your online business to expand your market reach. What’s important is that you follow each platform’s guidelines.
It may sound like a lot of work, but starting an e-commerce business while still in college can benefit you. And when you follow the tips listed above, you can launch and grow your online store without hassle.
