Attitude and Business plans that don't come together online If you happen to own a multi national company, which is planning to launch a web page to generate additional sales, it is advisable to have a business plan, marketing analysis and processes that will drive your launch. If you have or start a small business on the web, the only thing you can be sure of, is, that it is unreliable, and trends are next to impossible to make out - especially in the beginning. You can have the best month ever with growth of over 100% compared to the last month, and the month after it is a total disaster in sales. You can see trends, as soon as you have something like 10,000 visitors per day. My personal experience (with a page that has about 3,500 visitors per day) is, that only about 0.5% - 2.5% of the visitors to your site will go into your web shop. And from these 0.5% - 2.5% only 1% - 2% will actually make a purchase. So a realistic picture for a web shop (not page) is about 1 purchase per 500 - 1,000 visitors. Again: this is what I would consider realistic: No "trend" visible here, just what I can say from my own experience. In other words: there is no sense to make a business plan, unless you want to worry a lot. As I said: This is not for people who want to make a living from the web, and you will need time and endurance to make a decent supplementary income. In the beginning look at it as a hobby that can MAKE you some money, where most hobbies are only costing you some. Do what you like, like what you do - this will reflect in your web page and your shop, and it worked for me. But what ever you plan on selling, the first rule for your web site is: KISS - Keep It Simple and Stupid: A fancy design will get you loads of applause from your friends and family, but it will not get you any customers. Much more about this later….