Page - 288 - in Digital Entrepreneurship - Impact on Business and Society

her judgment. She tries to avoid disappointing people’s expectations of anything shepromotes and sells for thiswould affect her self-esteemas an entrepreneur. She says, “that’s why I took the time to reallywork on this brand.” During theprocessofbuildingcustomer-brand trust, acrucial step is tobeable to experience aproduct “handson”; thus, customers use their senses to assess quality. Lynn says, “in the onlineworld, and especially in themakeupbusiness, customers want to see, smell, and touch the product for themselves.”Another challenge for Lynnhasbeen thewillingnessof customers topaydelivery fees.Sheexpresses that duetoLebanon’sunemploymentcrisis,weakeconomy,andcorruption,citizens tend tofinddelivery charges inconvenient (Shecharges$5 fordelivery and freedelivery if apurchaseexceeds$75).Lynnmentions thatachallengeshe facedat thestartwas her lack of contacts and know-how to go about things. 4. Role ofWeakDigital Infrastructure andRisk: According toLynn, thepaymentprocesshascausedher somehurdles:“inLebanon, it’s very difficult to have online money transactions like PayPal; so, I’m using a cash-on delivery system,which slows the process.” Lynnalso expresses that as someparts of her entrepreneurial journeygot easier, such as getting accustomed to the process of it all (logistics, new-itemnegotiation, delivery, relationshipwith supplier, etc.), other areas like customer satisfaction got more challenging, for she had to perform analysis on customer demand. When it comes to riskmanagement, Lynn says that atfirst, the risks facing the success of her business were high, but they decreased since she started selling in small quantities,which comewith lowcost of loss.Moreover,Lebanonhas aweak infrastructure and is continuously hurdled with uncertainty and disruption. All of theseareobstacles toLebanesecitizens’creativitybecause theyare toopreoccupied with suchproblems that restrict themfromdevoting theirmental energy to innovate ideas and from tackling their creative sides. As Lynn further explains, “an obser- vation for this could be that that Lebanese citizens who immigrate to another country end up being entrepreneurs or innovators and excel in their fields.” Moreover, there aren’t anybank-loanoffers for entrepreneurs to start their business and borrow money from banks as their initial capital. Lynn says, “banks don’t support entrepreneurs or digital entrepreneurs. And even if some do, they have really high interest rates. So, it’s basically just advertising. Nothingmore.” Despite thementioned impedances, Lynn states that an online business is por- table: “the advantage of having an online business is that it can be run from anywhere around theworld; so, when I travel, I can take theWeb site and online shopwithme and simply changemy target market and/or language.” 5. Role of Financial Capital: Lynn said that she saved up a bit to gather the necessary financial capital. Fur- thermore, she states that shedidn’t needa lot ofmoneyas investment for she found that with her digital business, the majority of her costs weren’t monetary, rather, Challenges andOpportunities for Digital Entrepreneurship… 297