In United States, small businesses account for one-third of the total exports. In fact, the market share of these small companies is gradually growing all over the world and of course Internet has played a major role in its growth. This is one the reasons why almost all the companies ranging from those dealing with gift and novelties to the industrial suppliers maintain an online presence. E-commerce can create an immediate impact on the sales and marketing efforts of these companies by providing a global market. Moreover, it not only helps you to reach unlimited number of potential customers, you can receive payments much faster with a mere click of button. Those who already have their online presence are well familiar with its procedures, for those who are yet to explore this arena can refer to the following tips.

Though it is not an arduous process, you must be passionate enough to start your online business. In fact there are certain factors that you need to consider before developing an e-commerce business. Firstly, you will need a well laid business plan. You must minutely study every aspect of your small business. Make sure it justifies the online presence. A bakery that has the capability of working only within its locality will hardly do any good with an e-commerce site. On the other hand, having such a site will prove beneficial if the person concerned is ready to provide the service beyond his/ her boundaries.

As a seller, you will also have to focus on your competitors. In fact, the competition within different industry segments has become severe with the advent of Internet. There are thousands of entrepreneurs/ sites that offer similar products/ services. Study their sites and see what are the services/ products that they are offering. Depending on that, you need to determine your pricing structures and other promotional offers. You must do something different from them to survive in this cut-throat competitive scenario.

While stepping into e-commerce business you must understand that the world of Internet never sleeps. Thereby, you must be able to provide round the clock service to your customers. Depending on your research you will have to determine the amount of resources you will need for going online. There are several web experts and professionals who can help you to e-commerce, online business, online small business,conduct the research as well as to build and maintain a site. You can even hire people who have experience in web management if you can support that. In addition, there are many professionals who work on contract basis. You can hire such professionals and bring them back from time to time to make major changes. They can even help you to train the existing employees so that they can conveniently continue with the maintenance part.

In case you are ready to explore the overseas market determine the shipping charges in advance. By tacking a huge shipping charge you will only lose your foreign customers. Thereby, it is better to calculate the shipping charge in advance to ensure whether or not your customers can afford that. The websites of most of the postal carriers will allow you to calculate the charge based on the weight of your products and the place where you want to export these. If used properly you can easily use this factor as one of your major competitive advantages.