Want to Start Selling Online without Breaking the Bank?
Still to this day businesses are trying to launch themselves online and get their piece of the internet market, which has plenty to go around. The issue that still plagues small-medium sized businesses and anyone else who is trying to sell online is finding a solution that won’t put them in the red from the get go. This can be a tough decision and doesn’t get any easier when you have to consider all of the factors.
Now before I go any further I want to just state that this article isn’t an article for you to get down on yourself. By end of this article I will show you how you can start selling online with a scalable solution that is perfect for any sized business. Plus you can get your store online with a simple click of the mouse, sound easy enough? Best yet is that it will save you alot of money.
Now any business or person for that matter selling online has to understand and deal with some key issues of internet business. Some areas that you are going to have to focus on and pay some attention to are:
(1)Domain name registration:
The ability to register your domain name for your business so that it speaks to your customers exactly what you are about. Picking a great domain for your business includes choosing a name that:
(a) Says what your business does.
(b) Is easy to remember. and
(c) Is unique to your business.
Just think of all the domains you’ve tried to remember. Which ones stuck in your head and which ones were tough to remember. An example of this is ABC.com is alot easier to remember then AXBYCZ.com. Simple and precise will give you the best results when picking a domain name.
(2)Hosting:
This is one of the most important part of your online stores and should not be overlooked. If you do not have a good and experienced hosting provider backing you then your online store may fail from the get go. This usually has to do with up time which means how often your site stays online. Alot of sites promise 99% up time, which sounds good, but if they do not keep to their word then you may need to find a new host.
Keeping your online store up and running is the same as keeping a brick and motor store doors open. If the doors aren’t opened or your store is accessible to internet visitors then you will be missing out on sales and this will mean the failure of your business. Who ever you pick for hosting watch their website and see if it goes down, if so how many times a day and for how often. Then contact them with this information and ask what happened. If they can’t keep their own site online how can they keep yours online.
(3)Site security:
This is a big issue on the internet today and is a subject that shouldn’t be overlooked. No matter what form of payment or information you are collecting you should have your online store protected by SSL. This will protect any information transmitted over the site and also protect your customers credit card information.
SSL can be tricky if you do not 100% understand it and it is good to find a eCommerce provider that will help you with this. Alot of providers leave it up to you to purchase and install an ssl certificate. There are some affordable solutions that include your own SSL certificate in their price plus will install it and set it up with their eCommerce packages. Finding the right company can really streamline the process of getting your store online..
(4)Shopping cart software:
Your shopping cart software is also a very important piece of how well you will do selling online. The features and tools located in this software, plus how it allows you to control and edit the store will really determine how successful you can be. Plus it can also either eat up alot of your time or actually give you the ability to do things right, do things quickly and have an abundance of time to focus on other areas of your business.
Some tools or features that you should look for in a shopping cart solution are:
-Affiliate program. Very important for building your sales team, saving your time and resources on advertising.
-No transaction or listing fees which allows you to save money and keep more of your profit.
-Accept credit card orders as well as person to person payments(such as paypal.com).
-Shipping and tax setup.
-SSL security.
-Sales report statistics.
-Easy product management.
(5)Setting up and integrating this all together:
Now alot of people or businesses who are looking to set up their online store aren’t tech pros. Using a service such as the one located at the bottom of this article, it will allow you to get a full featured online store, setup and integrated with ssl, plus hosting and a domain name as well as alot more.
You can easily keep your business out of the red, and if you compare the service above to getting your store setup by a programmer you know that this is a huge savings. Trust me when I say I’ve seen people pay $1000+ for ecommerce projects that only include half of what you need to sell online.
Basically when you contract out for your ecommerce store you are getting inflated prices on a solution that may not include everything you need(especially reliable hosting).
(6)Additional fees that alot of ecommerce providers charge you:
The next thing you must watch when choosing an ecommerce provider is are there any additional fees. Two of the worse additional fees out there are:
(1) Listing fees and
(2) Transaction fees.
Some ecommerce provider actually charge both of these. Why should you pay to list products in your own store and why should you pay when you sell something, because chances are you are already paying fees when a payment is made to you(such as through your merchant account or paypal account).
Just think if you list 2,000 items in your store and are charged even 0.10 cents per item that is an extra $200 right there that you have to spend out. Then you may be charged a 1.5 % transaction fee. Say you do $5,000 in sales a month, this alone would cost you an extra $75 a month for every month you sell $5,000 in sales. Now it is starting to get alot more expensive. But why you should be charged these extra fees?
When you look at some of the other ecommerce providers out there you start to see that the actual cost to get your store online may be more then you first thought. You shouldn’t have to pay extra fees if you are paying a monthly fee because they are double dipping into your profits. There are ecommerce providers out there that don’t charge any extra fees so do some searching.
Take this knowledge you have now gained and move forward knowing that you can make an educated decision when choosing what path to go to get your store online. Remember that the solution you use shouldn’t break the bank.
Anthony Jewell | Manager of ActiveCheckout.com which provides Ecommerce, Merchant Solutions and Hosting Services.
