Start a business that you enjoy.
You are far more likely to succeed if you enjoy what you are doing. For instance if you have a hobby that you love then why not find products to sell that are related to it.
Who is your customer?
What is he or she specifically looking for? You must know their problems or desires. You must be in their shoes and find out what it is that want and need.
What is your offer?
Why should they buy from you? Why are you better than the rest? Why should they trust you? How will you create an irresistible offer so they beg you to sell it to them?
Research the market fully before doing anything.
See what your competition is doing. Find improvements and create your own unique selling points.
Source your supplier or suppliers. Shop around and take time to ensure that they can provide the goods you want to sell and that their terms of business are acceptable. Do they also supply photos, product descriptions etc?
Work out a business and marketing plan.
Ensure that your costings are correct and that you will make a reasonable profit. Take into account postage, advertising, payment fees, overheads and returns etc. Consider how the business administration is to be run and where you will stock the goods (if you use a dropshipper as a supplier then they will do this for you).
Online Credit card payment
If you intend to take payments online then you will need to open up an account with a “payment gateway” provider see eCommerce. We recommend “PayPal” as they are free and offer good terms.
Most importantly
ensure that you provide customers with what they want. No matter how good the price is people will not buy it if they do not want it. In other words buy right to sell right!
OK! Now you are ready to open your online web shop.
Contact us so that we can discuss your requirements and set it up for you. Once this is done you can then start to stock your web shop. This is called data input. It is the process of adding product details and photos to the shop by you.
Alternatively, you may wish to use one of our data input options.
In both cases Meta commands and site maps are automatically created during this process to ensure that your web shop is search engine friendly (SEO. search engine optimised).
It also makes sense that any products added to the site should be in stock and available for sale.
Once your web shop is open it is important to now get customers.
The simple fact is that no customers will come if they do not know you are open and what you have to offer them. Welcome to marketing. [Q] Did you allow for this in your business plan???
For some ideas on marketing see “How do I market my web site?” or contact us for a chat.