If you are planning to start a new business in 2005, you should
seriously consider one of the many Internet based businesses
available today. The online businesses have numerous inherent
advantages in comparison to their brick and mortar counterparts.

Investment is relatively small The basic elements to start an
online business are the followings: a good product or service,
an online presence, and a good marketing plan. All these things
can be done on a shoe-string budget. You won't require more than
US$ 2000 to start any of the business described below. In most
of the cases, the investment can be even lower. Quick to launch
Once you know, what products or services you are going to sell,
you can, basically, start your business within three to four
weeks. Some of the online businesses don't even take more than
two to three days to start.

Large audience Internet is big and it's getting bigger! Whatever
business you prefer to start, Internet allows you to tap
instantly into a huge number of potential customers, which is,
virtually, impossible to do with a brick and mortar enterprise.

Huge growth potential With the Internet, sky is the limit! If
you have a good product, service or idea, you can create a dot
com behemoth over night! Smart guys are doing this! Internet
success examples are abound.

Work from home The best thing about online business is you can
take care of it even while you are on vacation. No office is
necessary; you work from home, if that is what you prefer.

Less paper work Since starting for your quotation and purchase
orders to the invoices and shipment tracking, everything is done
online; you hardly have to do any paper work. Check out an
example of how easy it is to manage your business processes
online at http://www.rusbiz.com/deal_manage.html

Flexible time schedule No longer have you had to work nine to
five! You set your own schedules. Although, with any new
business, initially, you have to work very hard, however, the
time flexibility allows you to do other important things
whenever it's necessary.

There is no limit to Internet business ideas. Savvy
entrepreneurs are constantly coming up with mind-boggling online
projects and striking rich in no time.

Here I have chosen several of the online businesses with great
upward potential with proven success history.

Selling information

If you are asked, what do you do on the Internet most of the
time? The answer, most probably, will be searching or retrieving
information. You are not alone! A survey conducted by Neilsen
Media Research shows that Books and Information Category tops
the highest selling product and service on the Internet with a
significant margin in comparison to other categories. This makes
information a natural product for sale on the Internet.
Information sells online in the formats of e-books, articles,
reports, data, whitepapers etc. If you have expertise in any
specific field, you may consider selling your ideas in one of
the mentioned format. Check out Clickbank's marketplace to get a
good idea what people are selling. You will be truly amazed by
the scope of ideas!

Resources

http://www.clickbank.com http://ezine.rusbiz.com/article/13.htm

Travel agency

According to Jupitar Research the U.S. online travel market has
grown at a fast pace over the last year, totaling $54 billion in
2004, or 23% of travel purchased. The online market is projected
to grow to $91 billion in 2009, or 33% of travel purchased.

Apart from being a soaring market, travel agency is also highly
rewarding and satisfactory business. The interesting thing about
this business is your own network of acquaintances is also your
potential customers.

The success of this business will depend on your target market
and product that you are going to sell. Choose a very niche
product and focus on a specific market segment. For example: Red
Sea Rivera of Egypt is increasingly becoming a primer
destination for many sun worshippers. Try working with several
of the hotels from this area. Create package deals and offer to
European customers.

Resources ASTA http://www.astanet.com/index.asp NACTA
http://www.nacta.com/ OSSN http://www.ossn.com/ ICTA
http://www.icta.com/

eBay store

eBay has grown into the largest online marketplace in the world.
Entrepreneurs are taking advantage of this. Opening a store on
the eBay is fairly easy. However, the competition is stiff!
There are nearly half a million stores are selling almost
anything you can think off. In order to be successful you have
to choose your products very carefully. The best selling items
on the auction marketplace are collectibles, books, computer
software and hardware, clothing, home and garden supplies,
business supplies, wholesale lots, DVDs, special events tickets
and even cars and real estates. If you don't have your own
products or you don't want to physically handle a product, you
can consider selling drop-ship items.

The main reason why you should mull over selling your products
through eBay is the sheer number of visitors eBay gets. By no
means, an average website can bring you so many customers.

If you find difficulties doing the auction sales yourself, you
can also concentrate on seeking out products and selling them
through eBay drop off stores. You can also come up with your own
drop off store.

Resources

http://www.entrepreneur.com/ebaycenter/0,6316,,00.html
http://www.i-soldit.com/ http://www.quikdrop.com/

Web service firm

Services required by the Internet users and online businesses
are increasing enormously. The Internet service industry is
evolving so fast that for their various requirements, many
companies, today, prefer outsourcing as oppose to doing things
by hiring employees.

Large and small companies started to realize that it's more
cost-effective and time-saving to outsource sophisticated
business related services, which are not their core business.
This has created a flourishing industry, part of which did not
even exist several years ago.

To be successful in this market you have to know what's the odds
are. A rush to provide complex solutions of vast range that fail
to provide benefits at reasonable costs for businesses will sure
take you out of business very fast.

The services that you can provide may include:

Website design Website promotion Online security consulting

Resources

http://ezine.rusbiz.com/topic/4.html http://www.hwg.org/
http://www.webreference.com/ http://www.guru.com/

Export Import Business

Thanks to the Internet, getting into import export business has
never been easier. As the nations are accumulating wealth, their
demand for foreign made products is also swelling. You can be a
part of this action too! Whether you are planning to import or
export, Internet resources can be of great help too you. The
trade leads site, B2B exchanges and various marketplaces have
made sourcing and selling products and services globally simple,
effective and inexpensive. You can also create your web store
with many of the B2B exchanges and run your business processes
solely online.

Resources http://www.itintl.com/
http://ezine.rusbiz.com/article/24.html http://www.alibaba.com
http://trade-leads.rusbiz.com http://marketplace.rusbiz.com
http://www.export.gov/