Having an e-store allows you to avoid numerous costs. You can present your products on a blog or a site, adding prices and shipping rates, and get paid via PayPal or cash on delivery. If you don't feel ready to open a personal page yet, give it a try on eBay.
Steps
Step 1. Decide what you will sell
Only in this way can you start organizing yourself:
- Is it a physical product that you will have to send by post or courier or a digital product, to be sent on the internet?
- Will you have an inventory for each product or will each product be unique (for example, vintage or craft items)?
- Will you sell a wide variety of products or will you specialize in just one type (t-shirt or books)?
- Do you have a genuine interest and passion for a specific product? In this case, you will be able to deal with a specific market niche and have a competitive advantage over the competition that, perhaps, has a more generic coverage. By choosing a category that you are passionate about, you will have a better chance of having fun managing the online store, which, in fact, requires a lot of patience and the ability to overcome adversity. In a certain sense, opening an e-store dedicated to your hobby allows you to productively reallocate the time that you would dedicate to this activity anyway.
Step 2. Examine the competition, analyzing their sites, strategies and advertising techniques
Step 3. Test the ground by selling your product on a small scale
In the real world, it is always wiser to try to sell the product through flea markets and craft fairs before opening a proper shop. The same happens with e-stores. Submit your items individually on eBay to understand:
- Who buys the product? Offer a coupon or gift if the customer responds to a short market research. Try to understand what else people interested in your items buy.
- How much are you willing to pay? Experiment with different prices.
- Is the customer satisfied? Are you using good packaging? Is the shipping method reliable? Did you describe the product well?
Step 4. Consider your options
If you have a good budget, you can hire someone to take care of everything. In case you are starting from scratch, like most of us, you need to know that there are many options that could come in handy. If your store isn't specialized, compare generic ecommerce service providers:
- Generic ecommerce service providers will allow you to give the store a professional look. Among the generic e-commerce sites, Flying Cart and Yahoo!
- Hosted e-commerce solutions. These services take care of shop window design, payment security, mailing lists, sales statistics and customer support. This is a great choice for those unfamiliar with programming. Some examples: Miscake Stores, Volusion, Shopify, Amazon Webstore.
- Affiliate services, such as Amazon eStores or Zilo. The latter allows you to resell products imported from buy.com and other merchants by writing reviews and focusing on an issue that makes life easier for consumers. Amazon eStores and Zilo stores give you the ability to jump right in but don't allow you to have your own physical inventory.
- Sell on eBay. If you already have experience with this tool, you can open your own eBay store to save money on listing fees. However, your customers will need to be familiar with eBay. Remember that the site tends to appeal to those looking for bargains and unique items (and, often, both).
- Notemote, an online marketplace where you can publish an object for free or create an entire catalog. All you have to do is upload some photos, describe the products and enter the sale price. Posting assets for months without having to update the list is free. If you sell an item that costs less than $ 35, you will have to pay a 5% commission. If the product costs more than $ 35, the commission will be 3%. You can also add videos, blog about your products and services and connect your Twitter account to the site for free.
- CafePress is a service to consider if you sell t-shirts and other items that can be printed on (mugs, stickers, pins). Customers browse your store and order what they want, while CafePress takes care of the orders and items for you. You can start a basic shop for free and pay a monthly subscription fee to add more features.
- Sell crafts on Etsy, a popular option for those who sell what they do with their own hands. There is a 20 cent fee for each listed item, and if the product is sold, Etsy keeps 3.5% of the total sale price. Then you will have to take care of the shipment. Commissions are paid to Etsy once a month.
Step 5. Promote your shop
You don't need a good shop that no one knows about. Having an intuitive store is important, but what matters most is the marketing, offering good products and the quality of customer service.
Step 6. Maximize your profits
Once you understand what works, act accordingly. Split market tests will help you make the right decision.
