Posts Tagged ‘small business’

How to Sell Online

April 9, 2009

Step 1: Find what you want to sell

The first thing you want to do is find out what you will be selling. Until you do this, you probably can not do anything else. As well, this may seem like a small step to some, but this is probably the biggest decision you can make when getting into ecommerce business. There are a wide variety of products that will not sell online for various reasons. Perhaps the market is too crowded, perhaps it would be too expensive to ship to online customers so they can get far better pricing at local retailers, or maybe it is not a product that people are going to look for. This is just a few things that could keep a product for selling. You need to be realistic with yourself and determine whether your product that you have in mind is a product that you would consider buying.

Step 2: Become a legal entity
This could really be something you do before step one or simultaneously, but I placed it here because most people will drop the idea of selling online before they ever complete their product research. So to save you money, I would encourage you to take your time with the research and really evaluate whether you want to sell online or not before making the leap to invest in becoming a legal entity. Generally, this can be done by simply retrieving a DBA from your state. If you are unsure of exactly where to go or how to do it, you might use a service such as legalzoom.com to obtain a sales tax ID. This sales tax ID is what allows you to work with real wholesalers for wholesale pricing. If they are not asking for a sales tax ID, then they probably are not truly a wholesaler. This is a good way to sort the bad ones from the good ones.

Step 3: Begin the development of your website

There are numerous ways to go about this, but below I have some smaller individual steps that might help you if you are unsure the route to go.

1. Obtain a domain name (example: something.com)

2. Evaluate other websites you like so you know what direction you want to go

3. Either find shopping cart software that you like, or find a developer to develop what you have in mind.

4. Ensure that your website is easy to manage before you have your website go live.
The presence and clarity of your website is going to be very important. You are a small business, but the great thing about being online is that you certainly do not have to portray yourself as such. Some of the most successful online websites today started out as one or maybe two people and grew, many still are that way. You would not know it because their website looks professional and it is easy to use. I would encourage you to read more about what makes a good website, or rely on a professional to give you advice. A good way to find out what you are looking for is to look at other websites and determine what you do and do not like about them. Make sure the developer(s) are aware of these to ensure you get exactly what you want.

Step 4: Market your website
This is going to be a key on whether you succeed or not. The life of internet websites is not a “build it and they will come” model. When your website is released, no one knows who you are. Even the search engines will be skeptical about sending traffic your way at first. You probably will not be at the top of Google if someone searches for the product you are selling. Marketing is the only way to change this and there are several avenues you can take. You can advertise on other websites that are related to yours. For example, if you are selling telephones for people who are hard of hearing, you might advertise your telephones on a website that deals with a loss of hearing in someway or another.

If you are marketing your website properly, you should be well on your way to several sales online and a successful business. Good luck!

Grow your online business with software web designers love: ecommerce shopping cart software, content management system software, and email marketing software by Interspire.

Effective Small Business Ecommerce Startup Guide

April 7, 2009

Most of the businesses today are introduced online. Due to the difficult economy people are facing today, some are planning to startup a small business through the internet. Small business ecommerce tenders opportunities for success with no necessity to contend with other counterparts.

Here are some guidelines to your startup small business ecommerce:

• If you have a business skill, then you can potentially market it online. If you don’t, you can at least list down 10 themes which you are engrossed with and can potentially write about. Discover the market for each theme and search for the niche which will help in increasing the traffic but will not overpower you with rivalries. Key in a few keywords through Google. Hit enter and observe the number of searches that will result in your particular theme. Place the keywords into quotes. When the count reaches up to 50,000 searches or below, you already acquire a niche market which you may explore. Programs like Google Adwords Keyword Tool and Wordtracker which you can utilize to further research about your niche market.

• If you have the ability to browse online and send email then you can begin your online business. All that matters is your enthusiasm to study some fundamental tricks. Begin by registering to social networking site for an account. Establish your profile, download pictures and pack your profile information including any interest that you possibly have. If you wish to study about blogging, you may search from the groups provided. Join groups that you are comfortable to be with and will assist you to acquire information that you require. Search for individuals who possess huge number of contacts. Too many ideas may come up to your mind and become overwhelming; mentors will eventually arise supplying you with essential business concepts.

• Think about direct sales or some network marketing industry. This business type is established for you and ready to run for a minimum startup price. Several of them are quite popular already and you are able to trade products such as cosmetics and jewelries. You may do your business online and offline. Reputable direct sales industries provide training for their sales reps and most often they are for free. You will acquire a business replicated site to market your industry; you may increase your success from the benefits of blogging and social networking.

• Affiliate marketing is another great method to expend for the online advertising prices. If you create blogs for your merchandise, you may include complimentary affiliate items as ads for your blog. When visitors clicked the ads, ordered anything, you will acquire a commission for it. A lot of online industries provide affiliate applications. Before you advertise an affiliate, try to purchase a product from them first. Provide a section on your blog recommending the item and include a link for the visitors to click on.

• Search for other individuals online to support your endeavor. Work-from-home is truly isolating but with peers online, you will feel surrounded.

With today’s advanced technology, there is an entire new world within your computer and ecommerce is your medium to reach your goals.

Grow your online business with software web designers love: ecommerce shopping cart software, content management system software, and email marketing software by Interspire.

Small Business Ecommerce Starting up Guide

April 7, 2009

E-commerce, as defined, or otherwise known as “electronic commerce”, is any trade deals whose price is or was bargained, settled or agreed upon, over an online system such as an Internet, Electronic Data Interchange, or email system.

Start small, grow physically and geologically, steer clear of VC funding, otherwise known as “Venture funding”, and a ‘one and only’ digital product that a lot of people can commend to their friends. After all, word by mouth is actually the best “salesperson” you can have for any type of product.
Should you have a software product that can be downloaded, which means having to avoid the hassle of renting warehouse space and additional payment for shipment, that would definitely make your online money-making efforts a success.

The features for a company to succeed are to have enough resources, creativity and skills. Some people think that “any kind of secret sauce”, or patents that require full non-disclosure, working on developing a cosmological, easy-to-use software products, making sure we hire indispensable employees, and setting up business partnerships with thousands of Web sites are key features in having a successful ecommerce business.

The best advise to growing e-commerce business for people who seem bent on having this kind of business, is to focus on maximizing the worth of the input you make to all participants in the business — customers, employees, business partners — and most especially, to yourself. Once your business sets off, try to get control and foothold, and continue on to develop and expand, hopefully, you’ve developed an asset that can function with or without you around.

One of the things that could be avoided and could probably be considered a big mistake would be about employment. Delay the hiring qualified people to fill important roles in the company is really something that needs to be attended to. Business managers who focus on the company’s growth and development are very much useful to a developing company, having to go out there and systematically generating flow of each deal— it could happen that business coming in would be from people who would accidentally come across your site or who would read about your site somewhere. It is quite important to know that people rely on you, so don’t let the fear of holding on to money stay too long, and see people- people who you feel have the right qualities to making your company grow, go by.

Ecommerce is more than a web-based commerce. You have to remember that It involves all types of communications technology, this includes the net, your ever reliable email, and intranets and extranets. All forms of technology to connect to people, which means email, sending a text message, television, fax, cell phone and landline phones.

Ecommerce is more than trading and doing business stuff online, over the net, it is using online means and equipment to do business better—more resourcefully, possibly, economically, and for sure, more productively. It’s about producing and saving money, at the same time…but being done online.
Ecommerce works for any commerce because the whole business cycle in itself, from the construction and creation, to procurement, allocation, deals, payment and billing, all the way to marketing. It’s about associations and dealings with different types of consumers, employees, suppliers, and distributors. It involves the support services like banks, lawyers, accountants, and government agencies.

Grow your online business with software web designers love: ecommerce shopping cart software, content management system software, and email marketing software by Interspire.