BusinessHABOnline Chemicals Supply Business: If you’re ready to be in charge of your own destiny.
But don’t have the capital to buy a franchise or open up a storefront.
Consider starting an online business.
When your store is online.
You can reach millions of customers instead of whoever happens to wander in – plus.
You don’t have to pay for retail space.
However, like with any business.
You’ll need an excellent product and a solid marketing plan.
See Step to learn what it takes to start your business online.
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Online Chemicals Supply Business
1. Define your product or service.
Starting an online business gives you the benefit of having access to millions of customers.
But you also have a lot more competition.
No matter what you’re trying to sell.
You can bet that hundreds more online retailers have a similar idea.
What differentiates your product from other similar products?
To help your product stand apart from the rest, you’ll need to find a niche.
Online Chemicals Supply Business
- Let’s say you make jewelry—but so do a few million other people.
- What makes yours different? If one-of-a-kind jewelry (or another product) is your gig.
- Make sure it’s truly original.
- Offer expertise in an area.
- Even if the product itself isn’t very unique, your expertise might be a strong selling point.
- If you’re selling a line of skincare products, for example.
- It helps if you have a degree in a field related to skin health.
- Check into the competition.
- Figure out what isn’t already being offered, and find a way to fill the hole with your product.
Read also: 37 Online Beauty/Personal Care Promotion Tips
Online Chemicals Supply Business
2. Register your business.
Your business needs to be registered according to your state’s laws.
Choose an official business name and fill out the appropriate paperwork to make your business official.
- Before you register your business, it can help to have a business plan laid out.
- Consider your production costs, shipping costs, taxes, and web hosting fees.
- Know the business regulations in your state.
- And be sure to comply when you get things up and running.
Online Chemicals Supply Business
3. Register a domain name.
Like the name of any other business.
Go for something short and catchy that will be easy for people to remember.
Visit the website of a domain registration company.
And test out some of the names you’re interested in to determine whether they’re available.
Once you land on a good name, go ahead and register it.
Read on: Top 12 Partisan Business Marketing Tips
Online Chemicals Supply Business
4. Get a web hosting service.
There are free hosting services to be found.
But if you’re serious about running an online business long-term.
Consider paying for one that offers all the services you need.
You’ll be less likely to run into problems when your business starts to take off.
Choose a hosting service that allows for growth.
- Some hosting services are highly structured.
- Allowing you to choose from among different templates to create a website quite easily.
- Others allow you to do your own programming, giving you greater flexibility.
See also: 18 Tips to Open Handmade Shoe Cottage Company
Online Chemicals Supply Business
5. Create a stylish and functional website.
Elegant or funky, classical or hipster, your online store should reflect what you’re selling.
No matter what your style is, it’s important to give off a professional air.
Since you won’t be able to earn people’s trust in a person.
Your website will have to do the selling for you.
Your site should be engaging, and most importantly.
Easy for customers to use when they’re ready to make a purchase.
Online Chemicals Supply Business
- Make sure your site design matches your product.
- For example, if you make traditionally styled diamond jewelry.
- Having a website that looks like shredded cardboard.
- With edgy fonts and images taped.
- To the cardboard would tend to drive away your potential customers.
- Consider setting up an online portfolio.
- Whether you are a programmer who specializes in Javascript.
- A graphic designer who works on commissions.
- A plumber who is on call 24/7, or a copywriter who will write about anything at all.
- Having an exemplary website where potential clients can evaluate your work is crucial to your online business success.
Online Chemicals Supply Business
- You don’t have to design the website yourself—there are professional designers who are more than up to the task, plus eCommerce websites will offer dozens of appropriate templates for you. If you know in advance what you want, you’ll make selecting a designer or a template that much easier.
- When designing your site you need to remember to focus on what is important. Your ultimate goal is to make your site simple and easy to use.
- Your customers should have to make no more than 2 clicks in order to land on the page where they can make a purchase.
- The top of every page should have a link to your shopping cart if its an eCommerce store
- Buttons should be large and clear to read and input boxes should be large and easy to enter your information
- Less is more. Don’t be wordy when you don’t need to on payment pages
- Make sure your logo at the top of the page always links to the homepage
- If you have dark backgrounds use light text and vice versa.
Online Chemicals Supply Business
6. Get eCommerce software.
You’ll need this so your customers can view your products.
Enter their information and make a secure purchase.
The software safely stores customer information.
Don’t skimp in this area.
Since the eCommerce software you choose will make a big difference.
In how easy it is for customers to feel secure buying something from your store.
- You can also use an all-inclusive ecommerce web service.
- Sites such as Shopify and Volusion offer competitive packages.
- With free templates, custom packages, credit card processing, and more.
- Ecommerce web services makes it easy to sell your products on the web, without a lot of overhead.
- There are no custom interfaces or templates to work with.
- You simply create an online store within the framework of the service.
Online Chemicals Supply Business
7. Set up a merchant account.
Service businesses in the past had to generally rely on cash or check.
Setting up an entire credit card processing system was a thankless, expensive task at best.
Using a service such as PayPal makes it possible to accept virtually any form of credit or debit card.
For your services, and includes dispute resolution should the need arise (and it will arise).
See also: 18 Tips to Manufacture Flip-Flops
Online Chemicals Supply Business
8. Add catchy content to your site.
Focus on your key areas of expertise, and display them professionally.
Much like you would do when having potential employers contact references.
Put your best foot forward for potential clients.
Include descriptions, where appropriate or necessary.
- Don’t use jargon. If you are offering technical expertise.
- Include descriptions that appeal to your client base, not your peers.
- For example, if you are showing that you can code with PHP and AJAX.
- Don’t say “in this case, if the input field is empty (str.length==0).
- The function clears the content of the txtHint placeholder and exits the function.”
- The person who needs you to work on their site will just scratch their head and say “huh?” Say, instead, “Start entering text into this field, and it will auto-complete.”
Online Chemicals Supply Business
9. Be social.
Whatever your business, whatever your venue, keeping your name in the air is key to internet success.
Have a business account on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
If your business is graphically oriented, have accounts on Flickr and Tumblr as well.
Whenever there is news of any kind—a new contract, a new page, a new entry, a new photo—cross-post it to all your social media sites.
Also make sure those sites link back to your main website, and that your website has links to all of them.
Read on: 9 Tips to Become UTV Dealer
Online Chemicals Supply Business
10. Become an affiliate marketer.
There are many companies and webmasters who use affiliate programs to boost their online sales.
And most of these affiliate programs are free to join.
When you sign up for an affiliate program, an affiliate link with a unique affiliate ID will be assigned to you.
The affiliate link is used for marketing the products of your merchant.
When a visitor buys an item through your affiliate link, you earn an affiliate commission.
- For example, if you are an affiliate marketer for Musician’s Friend.
- An online musical instrument retailer, you can advertise their products on your site.
- If a person visits your site, and clicks on the link that takes them to the Musician’s Friend website, and they purchase an instrument within a certain amount of time (24 hours or more, typically), you get a commission on the sale.
Online Chemicals Supply Business
11. Add Google AdSense advertisements to your blog or website.
12. Get together the right team.
You will need a good mix of capable salesmen.
Technical support for chemicals and someone with know-how the ability.
To learn how the paperwork on exports and imports operates.
Read also: 15 Tips to Become Scientific Equipment Sole Proprietor
13. Do you your homework.
You can’t just jump in and start trading.
As most buyers already have set contracts to purchase.
So it’s not just a case of offering the lowest price for a product.
Other buyers will have agreed a fixed supply chain with a large multi-national.
Which can make your chances of cutting in to the business much harder.
So choose your market wisely.
With this in mind, many start up traders focus on base chemicals.
As they have a wider usage, giving you more potential customers.
You can start out in speciality chemicals.
But they do require a better understanding of the market and product.
They also might need special licensing and paperwork that can be difficult and time consuming to navigate if you are new to the industry.
Online Chemicals Supply Business
14. Know your chemicals trading jargon.
As Low Jia Wee of Trade Asia International Ltd makes clear.
Be familiar of terminologies like incoterms, payment terms, port of loading and port of discharge.
Incoterms include FOB (Freight on Board), CIF (Cost Insurance Freight).
And CFR (Cost and Freight). Payment terms include DP (Direct Payment) and TT (Telegraphic Transfer).”
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15. Work out your numbers.
Profit margins can be small (typically as low as 5%).
This makes it important to understand your logistics trail.
Effective packing and trade routes are vital to success.
That is why as a chemicals trader it is important to constantly consider, TLC (total landed cost).
16. Find the best suppliers.
This will involve one (or more) of the following methods;
- Online networking. Take part in one of the numerous trade discussion groups.
- Such as those found on LinkedIn to make contacts and gain an insight into the industry.
- Traditional networking. Attend one of the many conferences that are held by groups such as ICIS (the Independent Chemical Information Service).
- The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) and the American Chemistry Society (ACS).
- There are also many trade directories with listings of the thousands of potential customers, business partners and competitors to leaf through.
- The lazy/easy way is to use an online chemical marketplace or matching service, that way you can simply browse through the available offers, much like using E-bay. Alternatively, some sites allow you to post a request to buy a certain amount of a product and wait for the sellers to find you. Businesses like these are still relatively new to the chemical trade, but can save you a lot of time and effort, allowing you to search for specific products any time of day from your office or home. The services offered do vary slightly, but some popular sites include panjiva.com, kemcore.com, spotchemi.eu (who sponsor this blog) and of course, Alibaba.
17. Think East.
The last decade or two, has seen a seismic shift in where chemicals are sourced and traded, as the traditionally strong European and North American markets have experienced stagnation in recent years.
Increasingly, today’s industry chemicals industry is centred on the Asia-pacific region. You will likely need contacts there if you are to succeed. As Calisto Radithipa, who has more than a decade of experience in trading chemicals and is now co-founder of the chemicals trading business, Kemcore, states, “Consider importing chemicals from China. China is now among the top 3 producers of base chemicals, with production of some chemicals now exclusive to China.”
See also: 30 Tips to Open Biological Apparatus & Material Shop
Online Chemicals Supply Business
18. Consider sourcing from multiple producers.
By doing this you may be able to mix and blend certain chemicals to create a new product. With a broader product base, it may be possible to branch out into speciality chemicals, but be aware that customers in this sector may require more technical support. So improved product knowledge and understanding of the necessary documentation will be important, if taking this route.
Online Chemicals Supply Business
19. Be flexible with your business plan.
It can also be useful to have an understanding of risk management techniques, as chemical prices can fluctuate quite wildly. Are you prepared for a drop in a commodity’s price at any time? How will you react if it happens?
Of course, this list is inexhaustible, and you must add to it many basic business strategies. For example, it is important to ensure that your product arrives on time and in place, especially as many contracts impose penalties for failure to provide. Product quality is also an imperative as, like in many other industries, it is a core part of establishing long-term business partnerships.
But when all is said and done, there are a great many reasons to start a business trading in chemicals. In fact, there has probably never been a better time, with some regions (Asia Pacific, the Middle East and South America) on the verge of experiencing incredible growth rates.
On the other hand, it can be an unpredictable business, with large price fluctuations, large amounts of paperwork and small margins. Huge multi-nationals control large sections and the logistics can be a nightmare.
These tips may help you start out on the path to successful trading, but perhaps the final ingredient to a profitable chemicals trading company is a healthy dose of common sense, because without that, no business venture is likely to go far.
Read on: 21 Tips to Open Anatomical Charts Business
Online Chemicals Supply Business
20. More tips
- Putting up an online business may be easy or hard, depending upon whether you did your research well and laid down all the groundwork before you began. You can make money out of an online business if you execute the necessary steps and do not miss out on some of the essentials that are needed for an online business to succeed.
- Most hosted ecommerce shopping cart providers offer free trial periods which you could use make use of to build your webstore and learn how to run it.
- Find a business system that has been proven successful.
- A thing that needs to be ironed out for your online business is your billing service. While there are businesses that may bill their clients directly after a contract has been agreed upon and signed and these bills are paid for through checks that are deposited into the service provider’s bank account, there are some clients who require a certain online billing system for them to pay for the services they have contracted. You may need to register with a billing system like PayPal for your online business to make billing and payment easier and less of a hassle to you and your clients.
- Be interactive with the customer. Ask them about the products, offer them post sale service. Wish them on the occasions like Birthday, Marriage Anniversary, and others. Offer them discount as returning visitors.
- Check the products and services offered are in demand or not in the area where the business is going to target
- After 2014 Google’s algorithms changed to give priority to rich content, consider writing creative and write content that keeps users intrigued to ultimately sell your product without much effort
Conclusion:
PayPal is limited as a payment processor because when people use their debit/credit cards through them they lose the ability to get refunds directly.
Keep in mind that it is a business. Learn from your failures but also the success of others. Be a willing and eager student.
Never give out your money to anyone to show you how to make money. Please be very cautious before spending a penny.
Watch out for website hosting and building services that do not handhold you through the process of building an e-commerce website.
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