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Internet/Web / Your very own online store

Tips for starting an online store

If you produce a product consider another selling outlet through a website. Online sales are increasing enormously and with advances and ease in technology, you too can be part of the trend and develop another income stream. If you are considering an online shop, firstly buy products and assess the ease of shopping, customer service, return policies, order fulfillment and shipping processes.

Starting out

If you have a just a few products you can at a first stage open  a shop on ebay, Amazon.com market place, zshops, Google Base or a distributor on another online store.

Standard Template Stores

You can also opt for stores with standard templates which enable you to get started but don't give you a lot of design flexibility. Everything you do says something about you as a company.

Custom Designed Online Store

 Sometimes it’s better to wait an have a custom built and designed online store.  Most web designers don't have experience in setting up on line stores. It best to go to someone who has a ecommerce platform ( so they are no reinventing the wheel) and get them to add your design. Price wise this can work out the most cost effective.

4 Standard components of a an online store

1. Product catalogue – generally products are entered into a data base or spread sheet with details about the product. Products in multiple categories
2. Shopping cart – users place products into a cart which tracks the contents and allows shoppers to make changes
3. Check stand computes shipping and taxes
4. Secure Payment – offline is much less expensive than online

12 options for your online store

1. Password  if you want to sell whole sale
2. Zoom on products
3. Capacity to capture emails
4. Automated thank you after transaction completed
5. "What's New" category
6. Ability to change featured item
7. Specials
8. Email confirmation when order complete
9. Gift certificates
10. Ability to automatically compute different currencies
11. 2 clicks to make a purchase – make it easy to buy
12. Onsite product search engine

Your product selection and pricing are keys to your online success. Some items sell better on line other in stores. Consider what your polices are regarding retailers, Don't undercut your retailers by competing with them directly on price.

Remember:

Often people invest a lot of money in an online store and then upload very poor quality pictures of the products