It is an unquestionable fact that the most profitable kind of on line sales is to sell goods in on line stores. There are a lot of examples of that. There is a huge number of trade lands where millions various goods are being sold. The turnover of this kind of business is billions of US dollars all over the world.

But many people think that on line stores bring only headache to their owners and off line stores are much more profitable. So, on line stores. Do they really bring super profits or only headache?

Let’s try to find an answer on this question. Let’s compare expenses for creation and keeping an average store in an average town, to the expenses for an on line store that sells the same goods with the off line store.

We all understand that prices are different everywhere, so the prices which we are going to operate will be invented and approximate.

So, an average off line store.

1. Accommodation. If you are going to purchase an accommodation, the price will be different depending on the location, the state of the accommodating and so on. Ok, let’s imagine that the accommodation will cost you about 160.000 US dollars, if you decide to rent the accommodation this will cost you about 50 US dollars per each square meter every month.
2. Staff (Shop assistants). You need to hire at least two shop assistants and the salary is about 2000 US dollars a month.
3. Trade equipment. A lot depends on the specific character of the goods. Let’s imagine you are going to sell manufactured goods, then I think you will have to spend about 8 000 US dollars for the equipment.
4. Advertisement. This point is very painful and expensive. At first no one knows about your store yet, so the advertising campaign must be very professional and “powerful”, i.e. you will have to spend about 5 000 US dollars a month.
5. Goods. Everything mentioned above is nothing compared with what is to come! Goods are real expenses. The only one thing makes you glad: if your store is promoted well, these expenses will be repayable. I.e. these are your working assets.
6. There is a large number of various small expenses, and I am not going to list them all, but generally speaking you will spend about 3 000 US dollars a month for these expenses.

Haven’t I missed anything? But even if I have, you understand that you need to have a lot of money to open an average off line store.

And now let’s talk about the same things for an on line store.

1. Accommodation (hosting). Personally I pay 100 US dollars a year! Or 8 US dollars a month.
2. Staff. Shop assistants? You do not need shop assistants at all, so there is no this part of expenses.
3. Trade equipment. I will allow myself to take into account the cost of the web site of the on line store. If you order the web site in a web design studio, then it will cost you from 5 000 US dollars and more depending on the ambitions of a web design studio that you turn to. But you can try to create a web site by your own, or to find some web sites that will teach you how to create good and qualitative web sites.
4. Advertisement. Yes, you can not work in Internet without advertisement. At first it would be enough to spend about 1000 US dollars a month in order to get a god number of visitors your potential clients.
5. Goods. Actually this point is the same with the previous example. You must have goods and they cost money. But you may find ways to make these expenses lower and even not to spend anything almost.
6. Other expenses. An owner of an on line store has them too. For example, expenses for Internet connection…It is rather difficult to determine this sum. I pay about 30-35 US dollars a month.

Are you impressed?

And what now do you think? What brings profit and what brings headache?

These days the web technologies are very popular. The web network is not only a place to entertain but also a spot to make money. In spite of the reason, to be presented in the Internet one needs a site. And it is the time when the question how to plan a website arises. Those who are looking for info on how to build a website, are advised to refer to the Web itself. It is full of guides on how to plan a website and related topics.

In any way, it wouldn’t be wise not to take advantage of this opportunity provided to us by digital technologies. Google and other search engines, social networks and forums, blogs – all of them could help to find information on “business plan for websites” and similar topics.