Parents, who are new to the concept of parenting, go through a lot of difficulties while making decisions related to raising their child. To search different things related to parenting, such as finding best activities in city, buying clothes, discuss parenting problems, and more, they go through multiple websites such as parenting forums where you can ask your doubts, kids clothing websites to buy clothes for their kids, kids portals to search for local fun activities for their kids, and more. Wouldn’t it be great if all their queries can be answered at a single place? Opening such an online portal for kids as well as parents is one of the best online business ideas of recent times. The annual sale of kid clothing products alone is predicted to grow multiple folds every year, so why not bank upon this growing segment of eCommerce? There are many small players in this segment that focus specifically on the following services:
One notable thing is that there are businesses that focus on any one of the above mentioned services, but only a handful of businesses focus on more than one service. However, aspiring entrepreneurs looking forward to start their own kids’ portal have the option to implement individual sections as well. At FATbit, we understand the importance of the profitability and uniqueness of an online business idea, which is why our experts went on analyzing few of portals for kids and parents that are currently running in few countries.
The online portal for kids usually has various sub sections made to let users find the required product/service easily and buy it accordingly. This ecommerce nature of the business is the major reason a payment gateway is the epicenter of the entire portal. When a user registers with the portal, he or she can be given credits, which can be used to avail the services offered by the portal. Once the user spends all the credits, more credits can be purchased by paying a nominal fee. Upon signing in, the user will be shown various sub sections of the portal such as clothing store for kids, forum section, education and fun section, and local activities section. To understand how ecommerce transactions will take place in each section, let us look at the working of each section in detail.
Any registered-member/website-visitor of the store can browse through various categories present in the clothing section. After selecting a product, the user will be guided through the checkout process. If an unregistered user selects a product to buy, then the user will have to register first before buying the product. In case, a user wishes to sell in the clothing section, then he or she can do so by selecting the option to sell, which is present within the clothing section. The selling option will show all the relevant functionalities required to update and maintain the list of products, which visitors and registered users of the portal can buy.
In this section, members as well as visitors of the portal can browse the local activities using the search feature. They can also check the reviews left by other people, who participated in those activities. After the decision has been made to select a certain activity, then members can use credits to take part in that activity.
Also Read: Ideal Features and Business Analysis to Create Local Services Marketplace
In the forum section, members and non-members can view the discussions. Registered members can participate in the ongoing discussions to ask for a solution or put a question for others to answer. This section can also have free as well as featured section for online seminars, where members can participate in the discussion and get their queries answered by experts. For featured seminars, certain number of credits will be deducted from the account of the member.
In the education section, some online educational videos and games will be available to public. However, this section will also have featured content, which can easily be accessed by using the credit points. The educational content can be provided by members, who can make their content available for free or as featured.
Credits: In the online portal for kids, the primary source of revenue is the credit system. Upon registration, the user will have the option of becoming a member on a monthly as well as annual basis. A discount can also be availed if the user decides to become a member on annual basis. Once, the user becomes a member, a certain number of credits will be added to the user’s account, which can be utilized for participating in the activities, enrolling kids for educational classes, and more. If a user has drained all the credits, then more credits can be purchased. Online Advertisements: Online advertisements serve as the secondary source of revenue. The owner of the portal can either signup with a pay per click advertising network such as Google Adwords or can publish his/her own online advertisements by offering other businesses the space for showing advertisement on a monthly, 3 monthly, 6 monthly or yearly basis. 
Let Your Online Business Earn For You
The homepage of a kid’s portal should contain all the necessary sections that educate visitors and keep them glued to the website. The information on the homepage should be relevant and focus on the target audience i.e. parents. Additionally, use of light color scheme is advised to be used throughout the website as light colors often go well with the theme of parenting or kid based activity. In the header section, there should be signup and sign in buttons. The footer section should enlist all the essential links to the kids’ portal such as, FAQ section, terms and conditions, blog, and links to all the sub-sections contained in the portal.
Top corner is the ideal place for the signup and sign feature. Another feature worth implementing is the social media login convenience as there is a vast number of people present on social media websites, who are already a part of communities, where discussions about parenting and nearby kids’ activities take place. Additionally, a hero image coupled with strategic call-to-action and signup functionality can boost your chances of conversions.
Also Read: 9 Homepage Design Practices to Improve Usability and UX
By becoming a member, a user can get access to complete website including all sub-sections and featured content, such as:
My account page is the main page, which the members see after signing in. An online portal for kids, which offers several sub-sections, such as kids clothing, local activities, forum, and education sub-section, can confuse the visitor with the amount of information being showed. It is advised to give separate tab for each section to make the information easy to understand.
A blogging platform should be integrated to post news about the portal. Additionally, members should be allowed to voice their opinion through blog posts. This not only helps in building a better community but also attracts potential customers.
In this section, parents can buy dresses and accessories for kids. This section is similar to any other online clothing ecommerce store, but offers clothing for kids between 1 – 12 years of age. The store can also offer maternity clothes for mothers to help nurture their motherhood. The clothing section should contain the following functionality:
It’s Quick, Painless & Inexpensive To Start an Online Multivendor Store
This section can list nearby activities for kids in two ways: 1. Normal listing 2. Using Google Maps API The latter is preferred by a majority of people as it provides an interactive way for parents to know different activities for their children in a fun way. In addition to this, the local activity section should consist of the following:
Parents across the world face lots of problems while raising their children, which is why a forum section serves the purpose of connecting parents with other parents, who have already gone through various stages of raising children. To implement a forum section, make sure it has the following:
The education section for kids can have numerous educational games, which can offer academic lessons in mathematics, science, history, geography, and more. Moreover, this section can have fun games, which can make children learn important life lessons like team work and more. The educational games section for kids should contain the following:
Payment gateway lies at the heart of an ecommerce store. For kids portal, it is essential to have a mechanism with which members and non-members can buy products from the store. It is an essential part of the kids’ portal to enable a visitor pay for the membership fee, buy from the clothing section, make purchases for featured content such as featured seminars, games, and more.
A frequently asked questions (FAQ) section will not only answer a broad range of queries from the users, but it will also help a potential customer in making an educated decision. There are many benefits of implementing a FAQ section, such as:
Online business ideas such as portal for kids have a huge potential as this industry segment is not yet fully explored. Implementing a portal dedicated to children and their parents is a profitable idea as well as unique one. However, one should not fall for scripts that offer such functionality, but instead, join hands with experienced web designers and programmers to implement this profitable idea. At the end, check this business model canvas to get a comprehensive view about the online kids portal. 
We create future-focused content to help you stay updated. Follow us on Twitter to get notified about latest tips, trends and product updates.
Disclaimer: The Blog has been created with consideration and care. We strive to ensure that all information is as complete, correct, comprehensible, accurate and up-to-date as possible. Despite our continuing efforts, we cannot guarantee that the information made available is complete, correct, accurate or up-to-date. We advise - the readers should not take decisions completely based on the information and views shared by FATbit on its blog, readers should do their own research to further assure themselves before taking any commercial decision. The 3rd party trademarks, logos and screenshots of the websites and mobile applications are property of their respective owners, we are not directly associated with most of them.
FATbit Chef is the official broadcaster of everything that happens inside FATbit. Count on the invisible reporter for detailed analysis based posts, new service additions, and other brand related updates.
