At Sellics, our mission is to help entrepreneurs optimize their success on the Amazon Marketplace. As we work with sellers from all over the globe, we thought it would be interesting to find out which cities around the world are the best for launching an online business. With the evolution of modern e-commerce solutions such as dropshipping, companies no longer require inventory to get their business off the ground, and millions are now taking the opportunity to make a living online.

Whether an individual is looking to quit their job and want to know how many months they should save for, or if they’ve just been laid off and want to know if it’s possible to start a new venture solely on unemployment benefits, this study highlights that the feasibility of launching a web business depends mostly on the affordability of the location.

The study begins by pinpointing cities* with a strong existing online business presence, as well as countries that are becoming increasingly popular with web entrepreneurs. We then split the research into two sections; the first section looks at the online venture infrastructure, and the second section looks at the cost of both living and launching a new business. The first section awards each city a score for five business factors, including access to financing and the popularity of online shopping, to determine an overall average score for the ‘Best City to Start an Online Business.’

The second section looks at practical elements including the cost of living, venture setup fees, and potential unemployment benefits. We then combined these two data sets to calculate how many months an individual would need to save in order to launch an online business, both with and without claiming unemployment benefits.

“It’s never been easier to start an online business, with new technologies giving us simple marketplace tools, and third-party seller opportunities enabling almost anyone to set up shop.” – Franz Jordan, CEO of Sellics.

“However, most digital businesses concentrate around big cities, whereas this study shows that smaller cities where the cost of living is cheaper offer entrepreneurs a much more affordable entry into online business. For example, someone in New York would have to save for over a year to amass the nearly $64,000 needed to launch an online venture, compared to 5 months in Detroit to save just over $31,000 – half the capital and almost half the time.”

Below you can find two results tables. The first table showcases the results for the American cities included in the study, and the second reveals the international overview.