How To Build An Online Store
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David
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February 20th, 2012
In this section I'm going to cover some basics regarding making an online store. You'll find that I've broken it down into a group of sections that I feel are the most important aspects when you want to make an online store.
Most of the sections actually require a dedicated page so you'll find a link at the end of each area that leads to a page with detailed information about that specific topic. If you already have a grasp of what you'd like to sell and understand the ins and out of online stores you can visit our page on shopping cart software.
Some Top Shopping Cart Providers
Having A Product To Sell
I'm going to assume that you already have an idea of what you'd like to sell but for those who don't I'm going to cover some of the basic details of finding a product to sell. Determining what to sell is a very important part of building an online store. When you're starting your first website it's most likely that money is tight so you don't have the funds to go out and buy a large inventory of goods to sell. A very good solution to this is drop shipping, this allows you to sell other people's products without having to carry inventory. If you're not familiar with it I've created a page specifically for drop shipping.
One thing to consider when you're choosing a product to sell you really need to do your research on your competition. Making your first website and trying to sell cell phones would be nearly impossible. With that said you may find a niche within the cell phone market that you could do very well in. This brings me to my next topic, niche markets.
Niche Marketing
Niche markets are going to allow you to complete in competitive areas, or not so competitive areas, where you normally wouldn't have a chance to compete. Sticking with the cell phone market, it would be nearly impossible to compete with Sprint and Verizon in the cell phone market but you may consider focusing on a specific brand. Even better you may consider just focusing on a specific accessory for cell phones such as cases or another type of accessory.
A great source for finding niche markets and determining whether the market is worth the effort is a tool called Wordtracker. I use it almost daily when I research new products or even when I'm naming the pages for a specific website. Wordtracker works by providing search numbers on a specific keyword into the software. Then based on those numbers you can determine if there are enough people searching for a specific niche product. You can see it for yourself for free by clicking here.
Here's a great example of how I used Wordtracker to find a niche market. I was searching for Christmas related domain name and ran across the domain ChristmasToiletPaper.com. I jumped into Wordtracker and typed in the keywords 'Christmas toilet paper' and sure enough there was quite a demand for it during the Christmas season. I registered the domain name, found a wholesale provider and now I'm in the Christmas toilet paper business.
The great thing is that I rank number 1 on majority of the search engines including Google for the keywords 'Christmas toilet paper' because it's a niche market and there is virtually no competition. Heed these words, you can sell just about anything on the internet.
Shopping Cart Software
Once you've found that great product that you want to sell you'll need to determine what shopping cart software you'll use. Shopping cart software is going to be the way that visitors can view your products and descriptions, ultimately completing a purchase once they've entered the billing and shipping details.
There are 100's of options in regards to shopping cart software so please take the time to read through my shopping cart software page. You'll find that there are free options that come with your basic web hosting account or licensed versions that have all the capabilities you would ever need. Again, take a look at my Pay Pal. There is no monthly fee associated with Pay Pal and you only pay if you make a sale. A true merchant account that accepts credit cards have monthly fees associated with them even if you don't sell a thing so this is something that you'll probably want to consider once you've established your website and are seeing a decent amount of sales.
My detailed page on accepting credit cards online gets more in depth as to the advantages and disadvantages of both Pay Pal and merchant accounts so it's important that you take the time to read through it.
Pay Pal Merchant Account
An affordable way to start accepting payments online is via Pay Pal. There is no fee to setup an account plus you don't pay a monthly fee. The only time you are charged anything is when you make a sale.
Pay Pal can even allow you to accept credit cards online. Their per charge fee is a bit higher than a traditional merchant account but if you're sales are limited at the beginning it's definitely worth not having to pay the monthly fees that come with a traditional merchant account.
Read more on Pay Pal merchant accounts.
Ecommerce Hosting Solutions
The last thing that I'm going to cover is going to be ecommerce hosting solutions. You're going to need to use a hosting company that is capable of handling ecommerce. These days I couldn't name a single hosting company that couldn't but I'm sure that they are out there. The reason that I mention this is because you'll need to have a dedicated IP address. A dedicated IP address is used simply by your website and is required for an SSL, secure certificate. An SSL certificate is required to accept credit cards because it's what encrypts a customer's credit card information so that a hacker can't intercept it and use it.
The other thing to consider since you're most likely on a shoestring budget is that majority of the hosting companies out there offer a free shopping cart with their hosting plans. The problem is that they are limited with their capabilities but it's a shopping cart all the same. Just so you have the information, probably the most popular free shopping cart you'll find with an ecommerce hosting solutions is osCommerce.
Webmaster Forum
I invite you to visit my webmaster forum, it's a great place to discuss websites and ask questions to fellow webmasters regarding topics that you may still have questions on.