Before starting any business you must research the potential for it's success. The research will lead you to develop your Internet Flower Business Plan,
Before opening a shop in the physical world you research the demographics, location, parking, traffic, competition and so forth.
The rent will vary from location to location.
In the physical world you can easily spend $50,000 to over $100,000 to open your dream flower shop. Many have tried and most failed.
On the Internet the failure rate is as high as in the real world, with minor financial losses in most cases, and wasting precious time. The failed hope and expectations are worse then losing money alone.
Therefore, before opening an Internet Flower business you must:
To Deeply understand success on the Net, a must read is: "The Long Tail: Why the Future Is Selling Less of More" by Chris Anderson.
The Long Tail Theory proposed by Chris Anderson executive editor of WIRED magazine ” is the new Economic Law impacting our world.
If you understand The Long Tail, you understand the future of small business, how you fit in, and how to capitalize upon it.
So it’s really important to understand it. If you skip understanding this concept, you do yourself and your small business a disservice.
The capsule summary…In the physical world, there isn’t enough shelf space to carry everything for everyone. As a result, the industrial business era has been mostly about a small number of mass-produced-and-sold products, the “head of the long tail” (red part of the graph).
The digital era turns the tables on traditional thinking about supply and demand. We’ve moved into the (yellow) long tail of the curve. That is the world of infinite niches.
As a small business person, it is your world. You both live in it and you market to it.The Long Tail describes the “three driving forces” that you must understand to master it…Long Tail Essentials
Tools Of Production: Hardware and software put product creation into the hands of everyone. For example, flip-cams and smart phones enable millions of budding Tarentinos. Software empowers people to share their knowledge in the form of Web sites and blogs. The result? An exponential explosion in niche products.
The Internet Aggregators Aggregators pull “products” together, one offer all in one spot. For example, iTunes aggregates music, one offer to consumers. Google AdSense pulls publishers together, on offer to advertisers — in this case, the product is the Web site.
Advertisers from General Motors to Stan’s Local Body Shop can filter through Google’s aggregation of publishers and place ads across a wide variety of sites related to what they want to sell.
Filtering Software That Connects Supply And Demand This enables consumers to find those high-quality, produced(#1)-and-aggregated(#2) niche products. For example, are you planning a vacation to Anguilla? Do a Google search to find great sites about Anguilla. See the ads on those sites? Click! Your interest earns income for both Google and the site-publisher.
Use the three drivers to reach niche audiences that were invisible 15 years ago.
Easy access to your globally dispersed “one-of” customers, together with free storage and near-free distribution, opens a world of opportunity.
In the words of the author…Long Tail marketing treats consumers as individuals with unique interests and needs.
The long tail (in yellow) indicates smaller and smaller volumes of each product sold (the y axis) for an ever increasing number of “nichier” products (as you move farther to the right).
Small business thrives in the long tail. You only need a few thousand people in the entire world to be interested in what you offer.
Want to video-blog? NBC or FOX requires an audience of millions to be profitable. You, though, can profitably blog to a passionate audience of “one-sies and two-sies” (to paraphrase Mr. Anderson).
So grab the stage. Compete! Markets are fragmenting into near-infinite niches. Even the niches have niches…Yes, each niche has its own long tail… a “mini-tail,” the author calls this, “each of which is its own little world.” This has major implications for your small business. In case this sounds like business nirvana, there is a catch.
Neither the Internet nor the long tail suspends the basic laws of sound business practice.Consider these sample truisms.
Principles like these are amplified 1,000-fold. Why? Because customer power is amplified 1,000-fold. Conduct yourself badly and “Long Tail Driver #3” will filter you out… and fast.
While Driver #1 makes it easier than ever to create and produce, it is not enough. You must produce a high-quality product. Once you achieve that, you must “convince” Driver #3 (the “filters”) to send demand down that long tail to find you.
What about Driver #2? Get aggregated. For example, Google aggregates your passionate site about container gardening with others about gardens and plants (broader).It then offers your “product” (through AdSense Ads on your site) to gardening store advertisers.But be more than an “aggregatee.”
Become an aggregator. Garden lovers find your site through thousands of search terms — yes, thousands, each looking for a specific gardening related topic.
They are your long tail. When you become an aggregator, you own your business in powerful new ways.Master all three “Long Tail Drivers” to succeed online…
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