How to Start An Online Store

An online store allows you to sell from the comfort of home.

There are many benefits to online retailing, including relatively low entry cost, the ability to get the enterprise started in your free time if you have a regular job, the abundance of inexpensive technical tools and specialized services that can make your marketing and operations efficient and effective without the need to hire staff. On the other hand, many people start online stores that seem to sit undiscovered and eventually disappear. The key is putting your startup funds behind things that will help you draw visitors and bring them back again and again. Visitors first and inventory second is a good rule to follow.

Difficulty:

Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need

• Creativity
• Determination
• Patience

1. Research the feasibility of your ideas. This involves identifying and quantifying the niche you intend to occupy in the retail or wholesale marketplace. Establish the price range and consumer buying habits you will target. Find suppliers that can drop ship for you or supply even small amounts of product to your shipping facilities on a quick turn-around basis.

2. Profile your target customer and use this to establish your marketing strategy. Research Facebook and other social media marketing, search engine optimization (SEO) and discount providers such as Groupon. If you have money to spend, marketing is where to spend it to get the best return on your investment.

3. Write your business plan to include your target customer assumptions, product offering assumptions, supplier and fulfillment assumptions. Have all these in hand before you begin work on your website.

4. Plan your website and online marketing to reflect a solid brand image. Again, this is another place to invest money. Online branding and marketing is a science and doing it yourself, unless you are knowledgeable, can be a big mistake. Make use of domain and website-hosting companies and the tools they offer to build and update your site, provide a shopping cart and visitor tracking.

5. Contact the Office of the Secretary of State in your state to establish the legalities you must follow. Set up an LLC or corporation for your enterprise, and take out any state and local licenses you may need.

6. Apply your marketing strategy to launch your site with the biggest fanfare possible. One way to attract visitors is to offer useful information; for example, if you are going to sell amateur gold mining supplies, have articles on good places to search for gold, sluicing and panning techniques. Offer free or deeply discounted products to attract visitors to open accounts. Definitely collect email addresses and mail out a weekly newsletter highlighting products and describing their best use.

Tips & Warnings

• Start small and expand slowly. Keep emphasis on quality and service. Expand your product line when you are sure your marketing is effective. The first few months of your online store should be focused on experimentation to find what works best. Use your visitor statistics to discover whether you are appealing to local, national or international shoppers and use this information to analyze and adjust your marketing and product line strategies.

• Your website works to sell products while you are asleep, but that doesn’t mean you can ignore customer service during your off-hours. The Internet makes it possible for people all over the world to buy from your site, and no matter where they are, they will have questions and problems. The solution to 24-hour customer service needs is outsourcing your customer service to the Phillippines or some other country where a large portion of the public speaks English, such as India. It is surprisingly inexpensive and may save you headaches and sales losses.

References

• How to Start an Online Store: How To Start An Online Store
• Entrepreneur: Exploring E-Commerce
• Entrepreneur: How to Get Your Landing Page to Land More Sales