Whether your online business is a hobby near and dear to your heart, a part-time business or a full time endeavor, there are many things you need to take into consideration when choosing a venue or venues that will be the right one for your business and the right environment through which to sell your products.

One of the first things you will want to do is carefully research both your market and your competition. Taking into consideration the products or services that you sell, you need to objectively evaluate what's going on with them in the marketplace.

Is the market flooded or very competitive? Are the products or services being offered at undervalued prices by the competition?

If this is the case, you need to do some special evaluating.

When a market is flooded for a particular range of products or services, that signals the need for you to evaluate what you do, how you do it, and what sets you apart from the competition.

Do you offer customizations, repairs, have exceptional service standards, offer a 100% no questions asked refund or exchange policy, offer outstanding customer service, state a willingness to go the extra mile for your customers?

Having the lowest price or greatest deals do not set you apart, except to the bargain hunter who will generally NOT develop a repeat buyer loyalty to you.

You need to offer something of quality that tells people they can depend on you now and for years to come. That sort of comfort sets you apart and generates repeat buyer loyalty. It also ensures your steady climb up the ladder from your competition.

It's been proven time and again that people will pay the price if they feel they can count on the merchant.

If your competition is undervaluing products or services in order to produce quick sales and you choose to research your items, applying a correct value to them, or are pricing your services for a proper and reasonable value of your time spent, you need to, especially in this case, carefully evaluate the venue on which you sell.

In any event, you need to research the need / wants for your products or services, both locally and nationally / internationally ~ however far reaching you expect your business to be, you need to do the demographic evaluation.

Do a search on any search engine you choose or several to get a wide range analysis. See what comes up in your field. Dig deeper and explore a few competitor websites. Look objectively at how they offer what they offer, how they market and how they price. Then dig even deeper on each competitor. Select 1-3 competitors, you won't need more than this to get a healthy overview of what's going on in your general market.

Next is the venue.

Determine your business budget ~ at least the bare bones basics listed below:

• How much are you willing to spend on the venue itself? There could be website hosting, monthly shopping cart fees, an outright purchase of a shopping cart, there could be listing fees if in a store / auction venue setting, there could be final selling fees. There may be monthly fees for merchandise that sits there month after month until it sells ~ or that might be negated to no fees if it's your own website.
• How much are you willing to spend on marketing? Or, are you willing to spend the time (which is an investment in it's own right) necessary to do the marketing yourself? There are a number of free marketing venues such as your own blog, some social networking venues, some social shopping venues and the like. Do you have the staying power for an aggressive and constant marketing campaign? If you doubt that, does "Promote, Promote, Promote" sound familiar?
• How will you obtain and stock your products? Do you need an online inventory utility in your venue to keep inventory straight? Do you create your own products after buying your components wholesale? Do you buy to resell? Do you work with a reputable drop-shipper? How much inventory can you afford to have and to hold until sales do we part?
• How much are you willing to spend on professional design or guidance? Even if you are a die-hard do-it-yourselfer, are you ready, willing and able to install, setup, design, customize, optimize all by yourself? Are you proficient in coding, technical modifications, other technical issues, graphics, branding, etc.? Do you possess a thorough understanding of search engines and how to make them work for you?
  
• Have you determined your anticipated timeframe for basic success? Does your venue work with you on this timeframe?
• How professional of an image do you want to project? Does your venue of choice provide you with custom document pages where you can display through quality content and pictures your expertise and knowledge about your product / service to your customers, establishing your credibility and professionalism? Does the venue provide your customers with friendly site navigation? Does the venue provide your customers with an easy and relatively painless checkout and payment solution? Is it secure?
• Does the venue provide you with a way of making contact between yourself and your customer and vice versa easy? Or are you able to modify it to do so? Are you willing to provide multiple ways for customers to contact you should there be a problem, or even place orders with you over the phone should they prefer? The more options you provide your customers the less likely they will abandon the cart and shop elsewhere.

These are only a few ~ however basic ~ things you need to get started on when evaluating what you sell, what your market is and what venue would be right for you. But it's enough to get the thought process going. Good Luck!