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Online Ecommerce Business and How to Get Started

 

What is an Online Ecommerce Business?

For those who have never heard the term, an online ecommerce business, is a business that is operated entirely from a website that sells products, usually physical products, from a digital shopping cart, that are shipped to customers homes.  Starting or running an online ecommerce business is one of the first forms of revenue that was used to make money on the Internet.

According to the US Census Bureau, in 2009 145 Billion Dollars was made in the world of ecommerce.  Many questions need to be asked when considering running an online ecommerce business.  What is your niche store going to be about?  Are you going to be keeping the product inventory in your home, or use a warehouse?  Would a drop shipping model work better for you?  In the following article were going to explore these questions and more, as we introduce the principles of starting a successful online ecommerce business.

Is an Online Ecommerce Business Right for You?

If someone were to come up to me on the street and ask if an online ecommerce business is right for them, I would ask them two basic questions.  1.  Are you willing to work hard with a good attitude?  2.  Are you willing to learn new things? If you can honestly say yes to these two questions then I think that you have the ability to start a new online ecommerce business.

Notice that I didn’t say that you had to be a computer geek with tons of computer experience.  An online ecommerce business is a good business option for people that are good at making their own products such as craft items, wood shop items, or children’s clothing.  If your more interested in selling products electronics such as Professional Panasonic Camcorders, then there are other better business models to adopt.  By making your own products, you have complete control over the manufacturing process and you know how quickly you can purchase supplies and make your product.

If it takes you 2 minutes to take an order for your product over the phone, and orders are processed in about 2 seconds using an ecommerce shopping cart, and you multiply the that time out over the course of the day, then you could save 98% of your time on order fulfillment.  Imagine working for 8 hours per day, which results in more time to manufacture goods, more sales, and more profits.

Using Drop Shipping for your Online Ecommerce Business

The second most popular way that online ecommerce businesses is conducted online is using a process called drop shipping.  Drop shipping is the process of using a  product wholesale company such as doba.com that will ship products directly to a customer, so you never have to carry an inventory of products in your house.  When your customer purchases a product, the product is shipped directly from the manufacturer to the customer’s location.

Drop shipping is a nice option to choose if you don’t want to spend a lot of your time boxing and taping up items, and making frequent trips to the post office or UPS store.  It also is considerably less risky because you don’t  have to buy a product from a wholesaler until a customer buys one from you.

Testing the e-commerce waters with Amazon and eBay

Before diving into the world of staring an online ecommerce business, I suggest that you test the waters by selling some products around your home, using Amazon.com seller services.  Amazon is one of the largest online retailers of goods and services on the Internet today.  In 2011 Amazon had a net profit of over 48 billion dollars, and was ranked the #1 internet retailer by Internet Retailer Magazine.  To get started selling your products on Amazon, the first step you need to do is to go here and set up an Amazon Seller’s Account.

The site will guide you through a few basic steps such as collecting your name, address, and phone number, as well as how you wish to be paid, via check, or direct deposit.  Once your details are in place, then you can begin adding products to your inventory, adding customized pictures of your products, descriptions, and setting your product prices.

Try adding 10 books to your account, check the going rate for those books currently on amazon, then sell yours for slightly less.  This process won’t make you a ton of money, but it will help you get your feet wet in the online ecommerce business world, and you can get an idea of how to effectively sell your products and services online.  Amazon is free to sign up for, and there are no monthly fees, so there really is no risk for trying it out and getting started.

Another website to try is e-bay.  E-bay is the world’s largest online auction site, where people have the option to bid on products and potentially buy them at much lower prices, as well as sell products that they have around the house for a profit.  General Motors made a recent announcement to begin to sell their products directly on e-bay.  If that’s not a statement for the power of e-bay, I don’t know what is.

Visit ebay.com to sign up for an account and to get started.  E-bay is slightly more risky than amazon because if you post an item for sale and it doesn’t sell, then you still have to pay the fee from e-bay / paypal for posting the item.  Most posting fees are just a few dollars, but this can add up if you doing a lot of sales with no profits when getting started.

Despite the enormous popularity of Amazon and other ecommerce sites, ecommerce represents only about 4% of all retail goods and services sold, according to the US Census Bureau, so realize that this entire world is still in it’s infancy, and that there are still many opportunities for new businesses to get involved in this new form of business.
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Chris Wensink is an Information Technology Professional, offering advice about hardware such as the Panasonic HMC40 Camcorder, and the professional computers for editing such as the Quad Core I7 Macbook Pro Computer.  For more information on professional camcorder and computer solutions visit avchdprosolutions.com.

Hanson

Hanson is an internet professional with a strong focus in the hosting industry. Her experience includes everything from running her own hosting company to building websites. Connect with Hanson on Twitter and Google+.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 21st, 2012 at 11:59 pm and is filed under Best Web Hosts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

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