I was recently on a research trip to India. I was simply amazed by the progress those Indians are making. The other noticeable thing was trade density, I mean they're running businesses having annual turnovers of US$ 1mn from 6X6 shops/offices. ------ Okay, you got me wrong. I am telling you all this just because this brought me to a very nice idea. International exposure will be great for this traders. International exposure requires a key factor, i.e. a website. A website for all these trader (One website per trader OWPT) will be great thing for us, webmasters! So, I thought that if I don't develop high end websites, rather, if I develop, low end websites for the masses, let's say, a domain will cost $7, hosting of 5 pages will require 1 MB and designing is not a problem since we can always use Wordpress, I can make $50 websites for traders in developing countries. To start with, even if I get 1000 customers each year, which will be easy in countries like India, Brazil, China etc., what should be my market strategy ? Do you think this will work ?
Seems alright but might take some time to get enough people who were business minded, trusted you, etc. In China you would almost certainly need to know Chinese.
What I meant was I'll make some friends on the internet (I suppose loadsa guys would be ready :-x) to help me with this. Then I can pay them according to Chinese/Indian standards.
Wow! 1 Million dollars of revenue for a small shop is very impressive. What makes you think they'll hire you if they're earning that much money?
Im from India, and I have a lot free time on my hands. I would definitly be willing to help, so please PM me if you think you wanna try it out with me. =D
The thing is that these traders are not someone like the Google guys or Citibank bankers, they're still the guys running family businesses, so I guess....
As far as marketing goes, I think you should either talk to the store owners personally or create a professional brochure and send it out to them. You can also find forums within their country and advertise there.
India seems very cool! From what I've heard and seen, yes they are some busy ones... definitely the next generation in the business world for sure. I can't wait to get to go over there. I've also always thought of going to China and finding plenty of cheap wholesale products and selling them... So yeah definitely an interesting idea... I think as was mentioned above, you just need to find the correct people with the correct products that are marketable internationally (with the internet, most things can be sold IMO ) As well as meet some locals from countries that you plan on targeting... International Business is awesome. Much money to be made in the near future, especially on the internet side of things! And us webmasters of course
I am sure that this will work. You probably just need the right approach. I think it will be very difficult to do this by sitting in front of your computer and sending brochures. You are going to need someone from India to personally visit these places. Many companies like that want to speak to a live human and like the personal touch. So you will need a middleman. Once you get a few orders and your customers are happy with the service you will easily get referrals and your business will snowball.
To add, I suggest you read this other thread if you do intend to "compete" with the Indians who are already providing expert IT services for next to nothing. Good luck with your business!