|
.gif)
Starting An E-Commerce Business
|
By Danna Henderson
The development and expansion of the Internet has made business
opportunities, once only available to the wealthy, available to
nearly everyone. In the past, opening a business was a huge
commitment in terms of finances and risk. Traditional business
owners had to quit the their current jobs, obtain bank financing,
and sign leases before they even made a penny. It’s easy to see why
95% of them failed within five years. Today, business opportunities
are available to anyone willing to put in the time and effort to
learn about the world of e-commerce. Best of all, you can start an
e-commerce business with minimal funds and very little risk. This
guide will take you though the steps necessary to start your own
e-commerce business.
Find Your Niche
The first step to creating your own e-commerce business is to find
you niche. Examine your hobbies and interests for potential business
ideas. If you love soccer, consider selling soccer supplies or team
uniforms online. You may also consider opening a business that is
similar to your current job. For example, as a nurse you may know a
lot about medical supplies and how hospitals obtain them. You could
start a medical supply business. Your contacts and industry
knowledge could give you an advantage over a competitor who does not
know the inner-workings of hospitals the way you do.
Research The Demand
Now that you have a few business ideas, it’s time to research the
demand for your products or services. If you plan to sell to the
general public, you’ll want to find out how many people are looking
for your products or services. As a small business owner, you will
not have the marketing funds to create a demand for a product. The
products you sell, must already be in demand. A great way to
determine product demand is to see how many people are searching for
a specific product. Overture has a wonderful keyword tool (http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/)
that displays the number of searches for specific keywords. It will
give you a good idea of which products are popular and the specific
keywords you should target when building your website.
Scope Out Your Soon-To-Be Competitors
Before settling on a business idea, scope out your would-be
competitors. Visit their websites and compare the following:
· Professional Look & Feel
· Products and Services
· Search Engine Ranking
· Page Rank (Available on the Google Tool Bar)
· Keywords
· Back Links (how many sites link to them).
You’ll need to know your competitor’s websites inside and out. Spend
some time exploring each one. This will give you an idea of what
you’re up against. Keep in mind, that your website will need to be
equally as professional or better than theirs. Don’t worry if you
don’t think you have the technical skills necessary to create a
professional website. The use of professional website templates will
be explained later.
While you’re researching your competitors, check to see if the
products you intend to sell are sold at large department stores such
as Wal-Mart, Target, and Amazon.com. It is very difficult for a
small business to compete with these large companies because the
profit margins are extremely low. You’ll need to sell products that
are in demand, but aren’t sold by corporate giants.
Establish A Business Entity
In order to conduct business, you need to establish a business
entity. Fortunately this can be as easy as filing a “Doing Business
As” or “Fictitious Name” form with your local County Clerk’s office
to become a sole proprietor. When you arrive at the County Clerk’s
office, they will check their records to make sure your intended
business name is not already in use. If it’s available, you will
need to complete the appropriate forms and pay your filing fee. Each
state has different requirements. Check with your state for
requirements on becoming a sole proprietor.
You will also need a sales tax id. You will need to charge sales
taxes in the state where your business resides. Contact your county
office for details about sales tax ID’s and any other requirements
they may have.
Open A Business Bank Account
Now that you are a legitimate business owner, it’s time to open a
business bank account. Take your court documents to the bank and
open a business checking account. Most banks offer a variety of
business accounts. Choose the one the best meets your needs. It’s
usually best to start with their least expensive account because it
could be a while before you start earning revenue. You can always
upgrade in the future.
Some banks require a business owner to wait specified amount of
time, usually 90 days, after the court documents are filed before
opening a business bank account. These rules are in place to help
prevent fraud. Check with your bank to obtain waiting period
information.
Choose A Domain Name
While you wait to open a bank account, you can start building your
website. First, register a domain name. Names that end in “.com” are
best. If possible your, domain name should include one or more of
your target keywords. For example, if you are creating a yoga supply
business, you’ll want to choose a name with the word yoga, such as
yogacenter.com, yoga-supply.com, or yogastuff.com.
Create Your Website
One of the keys to successful e-commerce businesses is a
professional website. Your website is the first and often the only
impression your visitors will have of your business. A professional
website can be the difference between your visitors viewing you as a
home-based business operating out of your garage and a multi-million
dollar business with hundreds of employees. Fortunately, you don’t
need to be a web programmer to create a professional website. There
are companies that sell professional website templates. You can get
website templates for free, but it’s much better to pay for a highly
professional template. To find these templates, simply search for
“website templates”. You should expect to pay $50 – $150 for a good
template with multiple pages and professional images.
Most website templates can be customized with common HTML editors
and a simple graphics program. Templates can be edited without
having to invest a lot of time and energy into learning how to code
web pages.
You’ll want your website content to target specific keywords. This
can be achieved by creating articles, product reviews, product
comparisons and detailed description of your products. Avoid
repeating the keywords so often that the text becomes difficult to
read. There is a fine line between good copy text and spam text.
Spam text is designed to increase your site’s listing in the search
engines, but often backfires when penalties are issued and your
website is dropped from the listing.
Host Your Website
Now that your website has been created, it’s time to find a company
to host your website on their servers. You should be able to find a
good hosting company for around $10 per month. This fee should
include technical support and email accounts with your domain name.
Domain name-specific email accounts are important for a professional
image.
Your website files can be uploaded with a simple FTP program. The
hosting company’s technical support personnel can walk you through
the steps to upload your files and launch your website.
Implement A Shopping Cart
No e-commerce website is complete without a secure shopping cart.
There are many shopping cart options. Many e-commerce business
owners make the mistake of using Pay Pal to accept payments, which
immediately tells visitors that their company is very small and not
professional.
A good alternative to Pay Pal is a remotely hosted shopping cart.
Remote shopping carts take the burden of maintaining security and
credit card numbers off your shoulder and places the responsibility
on another company. Remote shopping carts can usually be configured
to look similar to your website. In fact, your customers may not
realize that they have left your website to place an order. The
remote shopping cart provider will give you the HTML to add to your
website. When your potential customer clicks on the Buy Now button,
he or she is taken to the remote shopping cart to enter the personal
information and payment details.
Depending on your choice of a shopping cart, you may or may not need
a merchant account to process transactions. Some shopping cart
services allow you to use their merchant accounts for a slightly
higher fee.
Stock Your Inventory
Now that your website has been created, it’s time to stock your
inventory. The first step is to find the manufacturers of the
products you wish to sell. You can find this information by
reviewing your competitor’s websites. Some of them may list the
manufacturer with the product name or description. Once you have the
name, you can search for the manufacturer online.
Contact the manufacturer and tell them that you are interested in
becoming a distributor. Ask for a wholesale price list and an
application. The price list will help you determine if the profit
margins are high enough to justify selling their product.
You’ll want to ask the manufacturer the following questions:
· What is the MSRP (Manufacturer Suggested Retail Price) for the
item?
· Am I required to sell the item at MSRP?
· What is your minimum order quantity/amount?
Some manufacturers will not sell to e-commerce businesses that do
not have a brick and mortar retail location. If this is the case,
you’ll simply have to find a company that manufactures a similar
product and is willing to sell to an e-commerce business.
Promote Your Business
Now that your website is live and you’re open for business, it’s
time to promote your website. If no one knows that it exists, you
will not receive any sales. Most website visitors originate from
search engines. Before search engines can list your website, they
have to know that it exists. You’ll need to submit your website to
search engines and directories such as Yahoo!, DMOZ, Excite, and
others. Search engine submission programs and services are
available, but they not effective. Most good search engines require
websites to be manually submitted. They enforce this by displaying
an image with a series of letters or numbers that automated programs
cannot read. The code embedded in the image is required to submit
your website.
Search engine algorithms are extremely complex. The ranking of a
website in their search results depends on a number of factors,
including keywords, density, back links, page rank, and other
factors. After submitting your website to the major directories and
search engines, the next step is to establish back links. When
search engines crawl the web and find a link to your site, they
count the link as a vote for your site. The more votes you have, the
higher your site will rank (assuming other criteria has also been
met). You can acquire back links by sending emails to other website
owners and offering to exchange links. It’s very difficult for new
websites to acquire back links. Most people prefer to exchange links
with established websites. In a way, it’s a catch-22, but it can be
done and the results are worth it.
Starting your own e-commerce business is a lot of work. Making it
successful is even more work, but the pay-offs can be rewarding.
Thanks to the explosion of the Internet age, e-commerce business
opportunities are now available to anyone with a computer, a few
hundred dollars for start-up costs, some spare time and the desire
to create a business.
Copyright 2004 ZIP Baby. All Rights Reserved.
About The Author
Danna Henderson started ZIP Baby in order to provide parents with
comprehensive potty training information as well as a large
selection of potty training products. For more information about potty training, or to browse the potty training store, visit the Toilet Time Targets for Potty Training.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Danna_Henderson
|
  |
|
