Most of the time we are very eager to start off full speed ahead and get everything done "yesterday" when it comes to our online business.  We have invested money and we are ready to make it back, right?  Often times when we move to quickly when it comes to our internet business and we don't establish the things that need to be established it can cost us more time and for sure more money.

I have created a list of 5 things that you must do before investing any effort (including money and time) into things like purchasing domain names, building the website, logos, branding etc.

1. Find your Passion - I know, it almost pains me to say it too.  But the fact of the matter is that you need to be venturing into something that you know even just a little about and can be happy (and willing) putting your all into it.  Most of the time you will find it very difficult to talk about products, and come across as an expert to those viewing your online store if you know nothing about what you are getting into.
   
2. Research your Passion and narrow down a "niche" - Once you have figured out what your passion is, then you must spend some time researching out the products you are going to be selling and narrowing down a niche.  For example, do not say "I am going to sell "kitchen appliances" because I love to cook.  Doing that puts way to much competition in front of you.  Narrow it down for starters and go with say toasters, or mixers.  Rather then you going up against everyone selling all kitchen appliances, you have cornered your little "niche" in the market by being very specific with the products you will start with.  It will also be much easier to get rankings in the search engines for more targeted niche words then it would for genral words.
   
3. Research your "niche" - Isn't this the same thing as above?  Well really its not.  Heres how:  Now that you have a niche, you need to research out the way that  customers will find you, and you do that through keyword research and analysis.  Yahoo! has a neat little tool that will show us the ammount of searches done for keywords on a monthly basis called the keyword selector tool.  Making sure you find keywords that don't bring back millions of searches, but at the same time don't bring back just one or two searches a month.  You want to make sure enough people are looking for it, but not to many.  I generally try to look for very specific words within my niche that bring back anywhere from 500-5000/month.
   
4. Make sure you can find suppliers - A huge mistake I see most internet business owners make when getting started is putting the cart before the horse (so to speak.)  You need to make sure before you go all crazy on website design, logos, branding and everything else that you have actually found a supplier for the goods you want to sell online.  How would you feel if you spend over $3000 for everything only to find out that you didn't have any suppliers lined up once you started looking for them.  So make sure you get access to our dropshipping directory list and make sure that product suppliers, product manufacturers and wholesale suppliers exist first!  You will save so much more money in the long run by investing in the tools to help you do this right from the start!
   
5. Research out your suppliers - Even just making sure the suppliers are there is not enough.  You need to take it a step further.  You must research out the competition and see what prices they are selling for on places like the web, Ebay, shopping sites such as GoogleBase, Shopzilla, Shopping.com, and become.com (just to name a few).  The reason this is critical is you may find a supplier, but if they are unwilling to give you a price you can compete with, or maybe they are not really a "true wholeseller" and just a middle-man then you will not be able to sell product online.  Knowing the price of retail and what the competition is doing is so important, so when you get that pricing list from your supplier then you can feel confident in the prices you have, or know that you need to keep looking around for a better supplier.

These things are basic I know, but I feel its good to cover them again from time to time to remind those "newbies" and help them avoid the mistakes alot of us have made, so that they can learn from our experience.