E-Commerce Retail Sales

The Great Retail Opportunity!

E-Commerce Retail Sales
From A Merchants Point of View
(or how to turn $6,000 into a very nice business)

The Internet is the greatest retail opportunity available to the average person in at least the last fifty years. You can start or expand a business from almost anywhere, sell to the world, and do it for less money then ever before. The Internet is a business persons dream come true. The web is the great equalizer, regardless of who you are, your age, where you live or the size of your company. None of it will have much affect on your business. Of course a large well-funded company can do things a small company cannot, but a small company has advantages too. Your biggest advantage will be you and the personal attention only you can provide.

This Topic is not about how to use E-commerce software or about E-commerce in general. These topics have been well covered in the press and in books. Instead we will cover, How to decide what to sell? Where to find the merchandise? Why customers visit your web site? How to help them find your web site? How to motivate customers to buy from you?

$2,150,000.00 + in sales:

Our on line stores (www.patiostore.com) combined, will sell over two million dollars on line, this year. We are going to tell you what we do to get orders, key concepts used to build the sites, and how you can do this too. By using these principals you can save thousands of dollars and months of trial and error.

The ultimate success of your web venture will be determined by you, your efforts, your determination, and the time and money you put in it. Our goal here and hopefully yours is to improve your chances of success and speed up the process. We are going to show you how to attract serious buyers to your web site and how to motivate them to buy at a profit to you. Some of the things we are going to show you will fly in the face of conventional Internet wisdom. Just remember this, we will sell over $2,100,000 (at a profit) on line this year and a lot of the companies that followed conventional wisdom are now bankrupt.

Here is the reason we think so many of the dot-coms fail!

The customer did not change, only the methods of interaction between seller and buyer changed, you still have to follow good retail practices. Too many web sites forgot that.Â

Breaking down barriers.

The Internet simply breaks down the barriers to entry into the retail world, it does not change the customers motivation to buy or not to buy. What the Internet does do, is to allow you to compete with anyone, anywhere. This is because you can get the information about the products you have to offer, to the customer at a reasonable cost.

The correct question to ask is, "How do I offer the customer, more for less?" and the next question is "What is meant by more?"

Now that I have you thinking, it is time to get into the details of what you will need to do if you have chosen Internet sales as your road Towards Wealth. A word of caution! I have been a merchant selling products to people for thirty five years, I know, that of which I speak and the information provided here is time tested, Internet tested and it works. So, before you change the formula with your faster, cheaper, easier, better idea, check with people who are actually using what ever you think will be better and be sure it works.

What you personally think, like and want, does not matter, only what the customer thinks, likes and, matters.

How Much Money Will You Need?

I do not know of any other business you can start with so little money and make so much.

You will need about $6,000. To start your business and a computer, printer, scanner, telephone; fax line, Internet connection, and six to eighteen months. You can start your business with less money; it will just be harder and take longer. The money you will need is spread out over several months, so you do not need it all up front.

As you read through this section on e-commerce, make a list of estimated expenses. This will form your budget. For example, when you read that you will need an Internet connection and your estimated monthly cost is $39, multiply $39 times 18 months. By the time you are done reading you will have the start of a budget. Inventory is not part of your budget, as I am presuming that you will began by offering for sale only items the manufacturers will drop ship.

How long all this will take is depended on your commitment of time and money, as well as the realities of the marketplace. You have to locate suppliers, build the web site, set up the
E-commerce store infrastructure and get good search engine placement. I recommend you allow 12 to 18 months.

Step By Step

There are many steps that you have to go through to set up your online business and get it operational. It will at first seem overwhelming, just pick a place and get started, it will all have to be done anyway. At times it will seem confusing and disorganized, stay at it and it will all come together. Remember that it is you who has to make the decisions, no one else can decide for you or make the commitment. Get started and your adventure in to the new world of online retailing will soon take on a momentum of its own.

Basic Steps

Each of these steps is discussed in detail

1. Decide what business you are in.
2. Decide what product category to sell.
3. Find a domain name/business name
4. Contact Suppliers.
5. Set up the business as a business.
6. Decide what software (s) you will use.
7. Choose the items to sell.
8. Design your logo/name header.
9. Start building web pages
10. Choose an ISP
11. Test the pages.
12. Post your web site.
13. Promote the web site.
14. Take orders.

Before you do anything else.

The first thing new Internet merchants want to do is decide what they are going to sell.

That is the wrong thing to do! You should first decide if you want to be in the business of selling products at retail on the Internet? Once you have made that decision, read all the information presented here, then decide what product to sell. If you pick the right product lines to sell you increase your chances for success and greatly reduce your advertising cost, and reduce customer returns.

The reason for this true is that people have to find your web site and order from you if you are going to make money. Your web site will need to stand out amongst the millions of web sites out there. The product categories that you choose, the manufacturers that you choose to represent, the how you go about setting up your web site, and promoting it, are all inter linked. You have to choose products the customer is looking for (before they even know they are looking for it) and present the products in a way the customer expects to find them. It is these two things that will help the customer find you amongst all the other web sites on the World Wide Web. Sounds crazy doesn't it? "You have to know what the customer is looking for before they know it." This web site is about helping you do just that.

Most web sites owners fail because they pick a product they want to sell, put it on the Internet and hope for orders.

Often the new web merchant forgets to bring the customer in to the sales mix. It does not matter what you want to sell, it matters what the customer wants to buy, and why, and how those customers use the web. So, after you read this you will have a better understanding of how to attract people who already know what they are going to buy and how those buyers will search the web. You then will be able to choose a category of merchandise that fits the Internet customer's buying patterns. With the information provided here you could avoid the number one mistake most beginners make, choosing a product before they know what web sales are really all about.

I just finished reading a five hundred-page book on web site promotion (101 ways to promote your web site) and I must say it was a pretty good book with some ideas we plan on implementing. I do recommend you invest in books on e-commerce and web site marketing. But for a more successful web site, combine the new information you find in the books with the tried and tested retail practices we provide here for your consideration.

Who Should Build Your Web Site?

You should build your own web site! or an employee who works closely with you should do it. Like most business ventures you will get out of it, what you put in. If you build the web site yourself, you will work out any problems that arise, you will gain a better understanding of what an e-commerce web site is all about, you will learn how long it takes to do the various tasks. You will better appreciate the value of the accomplishment and the cost involved, and you will be forced to think through all the subjects covered in this section concerning your new business venture.

As you build the web site and add products to it you will learn all about the products features and benefits. All of this will save you money and improve your chance of success. I am sure if you owned a real world retail store you would not subcontract out its daily operation. You would hire employees to work under your control and supervision. The same is true for a web based retail store.

If you plan to hire an outside firm to build and maintain your web site, I believe you will greatly reduce your chances for success. If your decision is to use an outside contractor, you will need to deal with the following problems. Who will update the store? Who will make the changes, which occur weekly in a retail environment? How fast will the contractor be able to make corrections to errors in pricing? What will the cost be? Who will promote the web site?

There is nothing wrong with subcontracting out web sites that do not require frequent changes. If all you need is an online brochure, subcontracting may be a cheaper way.

What is next?

The pages to this Topic (book) are numbered so you can follow them in logical order.

"Make a firm resolution, that obstacles will be surmounted" Jim Glasgow