Let’s have a look at how to make money from the web by setting up your own online store. One option is to develop and manage your own online store with an e commerce shopping cart from Yahoo. Basically e commerce websites are solutions for people who want to sell online but who don’t have their own website. E commerce websites allow you to sell online by providing everything that you need to create your very own online store.
Before setting up your very own e commerce store, you need to decide on what you are going to sell. Will the products be items that you have made yourself or products that you have purchased from wholesalers? What will make your online store or product different to what is already on offer by your competitors? Is there a high demand for your products?
Will you target a specific market? For example will you sell specifically to students, travellers or families? You need to create a professional image for your products and this includes a store name. Where will you get the products that you will sell? Once you know what you want to sell, then it’s time to find suitable providers. Can you buy what you want direct from a manufacturer or will you need to find a distributor or importer if the products are made overseas. Start by contacting as many manufacturers and distributors as you can and see who is willing to sell to you and at what cost.
Once you have the products then it’s time to start setting up your e commerce turnkey website. A turnkey solution, such as the shopping cart from Yahoo which we are looking at here is basically a complete package that you can develop and manage yourself.
Once you have decided on your product and have started the process of setting up your e commerce store then here are a few important things that you need to think about;
Who will take the photographs of the products that you will sell online? Will you write your own copy or will you employ someone to do this for you? Don’t just copy and paste what the manufacturer has given to you because there will be a great many other sellers that have done exactly the same and without unique copy on your website store, the search engines won’t pick up on your site and it won’t rank as high as you will want it to in the search engine results.
Where will you store the products that you will sell online? Do you have garage or ample space in your own home? How will you deliver the products which have been ordered online? Will you charge a separate postage fee or will this be included in the price of the products? What about orders which come from overseas? Will you charge a supplement for overseas delivery? How will you manage any returns or complaints? For all of these issues, you need to have clear and concise guidelines.
Once your e commerce store is up and running, you need to get customers. To get visitors to your website, you will need to spend a considerable amount of time marketing your store and getting traffic. The first hurdle is to sell a product that people want to buy. Secondly read up on what search engines want and set your site up to what search engines want. Social media is a good way to get traffic to your store, as is search engine optimisation and offline promotions.
Once your e commerce store is up and running, it is important to track and measure the performance of your store. This allows you to spot where there are any shortfalls and make any relevant changes /improvements. Google Analytics is one piece of software that allows you measure your advertising ROI (Return on investment) as well as tracking your and social networking websites and applications.