ecommerce web design

ecommerce web design

These days, more and more people are interested in building an online business. As the economy has soured, an increasing number of people have been looking for ways to replace or supplement their incomes, and doing that from home on the Internet is an attractive option for many of them.

But, how to do it properly? In this article, I'll show you some of the considerations for starting your own business. Please keep in mind that this is meant only to give you an overview and does not get into specific details.

Your First Concern: Business Licensing

First, you'll need to concern yourself with business licensing. This is something often overlooked by many, but it is an important part of starting your business. Also, if you get involved with wholesale merchants, many will require that you have a business license number to establish that you're a real business and not just someone looking to get a discount on items for personal use.

Business licensing varies from country to country. In the United States, for example, it will also vary from state to state and possibly city to city or county to county. For this reason, you'll need to speak with an accountant, a county auditor or other business professionals or government representatives that can give you information pertinent to your area. Also, you can try contacting your local chamber of commerce for guidance.

Also, whether you need a business license or not, don't forget that you'll more than likely need to report your online earnings as income on your tax filings. This is also something you should discuss with your accountant or tax professional.

Your Next Concern: Business Type

By business type, I do not mean the type of business entity (sole proprietorship, limited liability corporation, S-corp, corporation) you plan to have, which is something best discussed with your accountant, attorney or other professional.

Rather, I mean the the specific type of eCommerce business you want to run. Do you want something that's easy and largely "hands-off"-something you might be able to run anywhere in the world-or do you want something that is a little more hands-on?

If you are the type of person that wants to dig in and really get involved with your business, if you want to be able to touch and feel and inspect any products before you ship them to your customers, you want to be a direct seller of goods. You will stock the products in-house-where ever that may be, perhaps literally in your home or perhaps you'll rent a storage or office space-so that you can check everything out prior to shipment.

If you don't care to do that, if you want to take less of a "hands-on" approach by working with dropshipping or affiliate programs, neither of which require you to keep an inventory of your own.

Alternatively, you can also deal in digital products, such as eBooks, videos and other goods that can be delivered electronically, so that there is little or no "real" inventory to keep on hand.

Another option is to do a combination of methods. You could choose to stock popular products, which can boost your bottom line since, if you purchase in bulk, you can likely get better pricing than you do going through a dropshipper. Then, just use dropshippers to sell the less popular products-the ones that don't sell in sufficient volume to justify maintaining an inventory. You could also use affiliate programs to complement your offerings.

The Next Step: Choosing a Niche

If you ask about selecting a niche, many people will advise you to "follow your passion" while others will advise you to look for something highly profitable. Not all passions are profitable, so sometimes you may be stuck looking for something with higher profit potential. Still, it's best if you can find something you have an interest in-this will be something you'll need to stick with for a while, so don't choose something you'll be bored with after a couple weeks. It will take time and effort to build your traffic and sales to the point where you are making money, so be sure to choose a niche where you'll feel comfortable sticking it out for at least 3 to 6 months.

Mind you, you may see success in less (or more) time, but you should be prepared for the long haul. So, be sure to choose something that will hold your interest!

Another Step: Finding (or Creating) Products

Once you have selected a niche, you'll need to find or create products you can sell.

If you have decided to run an online business as an affiliate, you will need to find some online merchants with affiliate programs you can join. There are a couple ways to do this. First, you can surf the web and visit various merchants' sites. See if they have an affiliate link on their home page. If so, check it out. If not, you can send send them an inquiry by eMail. Some merchants may have affiliate programs but not list them on their home page. The other way to find affiliate programs is to join an affiliate network and browse their listings. Be aware that some may require you to already have an existing website-and some may have other requirements-so be sure you satisfy any requirements before applying to a program. Some will approve anyone; others will only approve certain sites. It will be helpful to have a quality, informative site built before joining affiliate programs.

If you have decided to run an online business as a reseller, you'll need to purchase products wholesale or make arrangements with a dropshipper. Keep in mind that there are different levels of wholesalers. There are manufacturers that will sell their products directly to resellers at wholesale prices. Others will only sell their products to distributors, who will then sell them to resellers. Others will sell their products to distributors or resellers who meet specific purchase requirements. There are also manufacturers that will sell to anyone, including individuals, who meet their minimum purchase requirements.

Some manufacturers base their purchase requirements on a dollar value while others base it on a specific quantity of units. Similarly, distributors may have their own minimums.

Minimum purchases are important to keep in mind when choosing and ordering products. Some minimums may be more than you want or can afford to meet when starting out, in addition to the added risk of not knowing how they might sell. Keep reordering minimums in mind as well. You might sell out of one slow-moving product, but not want or be able to order more until you are ready to order more of your fast-moving products.

Of course, experience will be a big benefit here. And, since you may not have that much experience when starting out, you may wish to use dropshippers at first and then only begin to stock your own inventory once you have a better handle on what sells quickly, what sells slowly and what doesn't sell at all.

Don't forget that you can always try to unload your slow-moving products on eBay. Hopefully you might be able to at least recoup your costs!

As for finding these products, you'll need to go through a similar process that you do for finding affiliate products. First, you can try the search engines. However, be aware that some manufacturers may still not have good websites (or any at all) so they may be difficult to find this way. Also, you'll need to watch out for resellers and distributors who may advertise "wholesale" prices, but not actually be true wholesalers! You can also try contacting a manufacturer directly-they should be able to tell you whether they sell wholesale or who their distributors are. The third option is to subscribe to or join a wholesale directory. While some people may not like the idea of paying for information that is supposedly "free," wholesale directories provide a good service by saving you a lot of time in tracking them down yourself! Of course, you'll benefit by researching a specific directory before joining to make sure you're going to get a good value. And, if you just can't afford it, you can always continue to do the legwork yourself to find the products you want to sell.

Opening Your "Doors": Building Your Site

Your next step is to build your website. You have many options here. You can build a site through a third-party that offers proprietary site-building software and hosting all-in-one. There are many "stores" website services that allow you to do just that. Another option is using third-party software solutions with a standard hosting provider. There are many such solutions-some include templates to get you started while others are much more hands-on and customizable. If you're good with PHP or another web coding language, you may be able to roll your own custom solution as well.

Which route you go is also dependent on the type of site you will have. If you are running your business as an affiliate, you don't need a shopping cart or store or anything of that nature, so your site will likely be much easier to build than if you need a full-fledged eCommerce site, as you would if you are selling your own products.

As an affiliate, you may want to create a content-rich site so, rather than a shopping cart solution, you may need to look for a content management system (CMS) to make things easier than doing all your pages manually.

Turning On Your "Cash Machine": Accepting Payments

The next thing you'll need is a way to accept payments. If you are running a business as an affiliate, this is an area you need not concern yourself with, as the merchant's site will process the payments. But, if you are selling your own products, you'll need to accept payments.

You can, of course, allow your customers to mail in a check or money order. But, while that's a good option to have, you will lose a lot of sales if that is your sole method of payment.

You will want to accept credit cards. Doing so online can be difficult and expensive. There are shopping cart and payment scripts that are prebuilt to handle that for you-you just need to have a merchant account and a payment processor-but you'll have to make sure that whatever prebuilt solution you choose is compliant with the latest PCI Data Security Standards.

Once you've located or built a script that meets PCI DSS requirements, you'll need to shop for your own merchant account and a payment processor. Many services will handle both of those for you. In any case, be sure to research providers carefully and look for the best rates. Additionally, some of these services may have resellers, and those resellers may be more familiar with shopping cart or other payment solutions and provide you with better assistance in getting up and running.

It is important to know that there are big fines and penalties if you get caught processing credit cards and not meeting PCI DSS requirements. Not only could it cost you thousands of dollars in penalties and fines, but you would also likely lose your merchant account.

If you don't want to get into worrying about PCI DSS requirements when you just trying to get started, you can use a third party processing service. There are dozens of them, but the most well-known is perhaps PayPal.

Whether you choose to process credit card payments yourself or use a third-party processing service like PayPal, bear in mind that it may be advantageous to offer multiple methods of payment. For example, some people may prefer to use PayPal, while others may prefer not to use PayPal. So, giving a potential customer fewer excuses to not order by providing them multiple options to pay can help to increase your sales.

And make sure that shopping or payment solutions-whether you used a third party solution or built your own-will integrate with the payment processing services you decide to use.

Conclusion

That covers the bare essentials of getting your own eCommerce site up and running. While it may seem complicated, it's really not! Just take things one step at a time. If you find you can't do something yourself, odds are good you can find someone to help you out. You shouldn't let fear or trepidation hold you back. The important thing is taking that first step-don't put it off for another day!