Are you looking to start a new online business but detest the tedious process of creating a website?
We have a short guide that can help solve that problem for you. Turns out, you don’t need a website to have an online business!
Back in the old days, when internet access required a dialup connection, there was no other option for businesses but to sell their products and services through the traditional method – a website.
There was a time when you had to have a website if you wanted to have a successful online business. To make money, you had to probably hire a developer, designer and marketing professional to get your website in business mode or learn the truth yourself.
But times have changed.
Do I need a website for my online business?
No. Here’s why: A simple business can be setup with a product, seller, and a mode to receive payments. And there are easier way to do all that without a full fledged website.
Let’s say, you have a business idea. You enjoy making customised jewellery and your circle of friends want to buy some of your products.
What do you do? Of course, you set up a business. You visit a website developer and you hear new terms like web hosting, domain, server, SEO and other technical terms that scare you.
Browsing online proves only more problematic because you soon realise that creating your own website is an expensive affair. Also, websites require yearly maintenance, apart from your marketing and publicity costs.
Lots of businesses give up before setting up base simply because selling their products and services on an independent website is all they know. Luckily, there are other ways you can build your business.
Why are you not creating a website?
Before making a website, discover and seek out your online business niche. Track the problem you want to solve, find out the prospective audience and buyers for your products and services, and the best possible way to create a viable business. You don’t want to commit to a website until you’ve had a better chance to experiment with different ideas.
Creating a website should not be the first step in your online business. You need to save money in order to afford a good website later.
How to start an online business without a website?
Start selling on social media!
A study by PwC showed that over 45% of people are playing favourites with brands after seeing them on social media channels.
If your business does not have a website, you can use social media to sell your products and services. Recently, Instagram introduced “shoppable posts,” where shoppers can buy products on the app. Visitors click on the price tag placed on a product which leads them to a description page. From there they click to buy, using a payment gateway merchants have established. The Instagram updates trump the need for a website altogether. You can also sell your products on Facebook and Pinterest, or blogs if you are adventurous.
India has about 250 million social media users. Imagine the number of potential customers you can reach via an effective social media marketing plan.
Starting off a business is only the first step to the multitudes that follow. Engaging your customers with the latest you have to offer can go miles in promoting your business organically. With a large chunk of Indians going digital and now active on social media, it is now easier to attract more customers to your business.
Social media is an amazing tool to help reach potential customers and past customers coming back to you. Your business needs a social media presence and an even better social media marketing strategy.
How to start your online business on Instamojo:
You can start selling your products or services on Instamojo using two methods:
- The Instamojo online store
- The Instamojo Smart landing page builder
The online store is a one-stop e-commerce platform for your business to sell its products and services. You can sell any number of products on the Instamojo online store. Simply sign up and start adding your products to the store.
Instamojo lets you create a free web store in minutes with in-built payment options and a shopping cart to help customers buy multiple products in one go. Check out Instamojo’s online store features. Your online store comes with in-built payments and a shopping cart. You also get data-driven insights and a rich app store to grow your business.
You can create an online store on Instamojo in 3 simple steps, and use it to link on all your social media and digital marketing platforms.
Read more: How to rank your online store on Google
How businesses use Instamojo online store:
Leafy Affair, a curated luxury plant jewellery store, also makes use of the Instamojo free online store to sell their products.
What helped Supriya, the owner of Leafy affair, find the online store more preferable over a website? The low cost, the ease to create and add products and of course, linking the payments to the products with ease.
“Instamojo links are added to the bio of our Instagram page and ‘shop now’ button on FB. With this the buyer can further browse through the products that are available for sale as we do not repeat designs and every time there are different designs to choose from,” Supriya explains.
“Once the buyer selects the product they easily pay with their card details on Instamojo. We immediately receive an email from Instamojo with all the details of the order. We pack the products accordingly and dispatch it to the given address. Once dispatched we also send an SMS to our customers with the tracking ID,” Supriya adds.
You don’t need to start your online business with a full-fledged website. In 2 steps, you can start your business with one of our tools and start selling.
If you have just one product or service to sell, you probably won’t need a whole website to start. That’s when you can use Instamojo smart page builder to create a landing page for your business.
Building a business without a website is good for your brand when you are starting out. Once you bring in the followers, the revenue, generate sales and get the word of mouth going effortlessly, you can consider creating a website.
4 comments
thanks a lot to share this blog for making my business successful without website
In 2019, launching a website and ranking it is a long term process. Instead platform like Instamojo and social media platform is a good way to start online business.
Thanks for this awesome article.
Thank you for your feedback Rajib!
very nice info