anyone here have experience with running an E-commerce site?

[RottenWillow]

I'd really like to make contact with at least a few people with experience selling merchandise via the web.

I've been selling handmade fine jewelry for about a year now and am now making serious plans to begin selling via the web, but have zero experience doing that sort of thing.

any information or advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Razorguns]

pretty much every1 nowadays is making an ebay store. Why spend all that much money on advertising when you can have ebay do it for you. You can even list on amazon.com/half.com too.

 

[RottenWillow]

pretty much every1 nowadays is making an ebay store. Why spend all that much money on advertising when you can have ebay do it for you. You can even list on amazon.com/half.com too.

well the ebay store thing is something I've considered, but I've already bought my own domain name and have business cards with my name, my business name and now the domain name on them. do I just link my URL to ebay if I want to use them for the advertising? Plus wouldnt they take a bigger cut of my profits?

 

[jestros]

It looks more pro if you do it on your own site vs ebay. I haven't set one up but I've looked into it. You need: a merchant account, a secure server, and a shopping cart.
See what info your host has on setting those up.

 

[Judo Tom]

here are 2 simple low cost options that i advise my clients to use if they dont want to pay for a shopping cart

1 use paypal .. have your domain link to paypal after they select what they want

2 use forms to collect credit card info via the web and then process it manually.

most of my clients (im a web programmer) prefer 2 to keep more control

shopping carts are teh best but can cost a bit to set up and maintain..

good luck

 

[jestros]

here are 2 simple low cost options that i advise my clients to use if they dont want to pay for a shopping cart

1 use paypal .. have your domain link to paypal after they select what they want

2 use forms to collect credit card info via the web and then process it manually.

most of my clients (im a web programmer) prefer 2 to keep more control

shopping carts are teh best but can cost a bit to set up and maintain..

good luck

You've got to be kidding me, you are collecting cc info in a simple <form>?

 

[RottenWillow]

It looks more pro if you do it on your own site vs ebay. I haven't set one up but I've looked into it. You need: a merchant account, a secure server, and a shopping cart.
See what info your host has on setting those up.

so I get the merchant account and the secure server from the ISP? I bought my domain name from some place called dotearth or something like that....are they an ISP?

 

[BrandonXJ]

You've got to be kidding me, you are collecting cc info in a simple <form>?

It's not an issue if you've already established your SSL connection.

 

[RottenWillow]

here are 2 simple low cost options that i advise my clients to use if they dont want to pay for a shopping cart

1 use paypal .. have your domain link to paypal after they select what they want

I thought about paypal. They would obviate the need for the shopping cart thing, right?

 

[jestros]

so I get the merchant account and the secure server from the ISP? I bought my domain name from some place called dotearth or something like that....are they an ISP?

They might be. I meant your host, which is the place that hosts your files on their servers. ISP is internet service provider which is different than a host, and also different than a name registrar(sp?)
A merchant account is different than all three of those. You may want to just set up a paypal account. It's alot easier.

 

[jestros]

It's not an issue if you've already established your SSL connection.

It does if he's having the info go from the form to the customers email. I don't care if it's SSL or not.

 

[Razorguns]

The ebay store really isn't too difficult. Lotsa info from ebay on how to do it.

You can still have your own store and do whatever you want on your site.

The ebay option is there to save you big bucks on continual advertising expenses. The #1 expense for e-commerce sites, is building it -- and no one comes. You could spend $1,000 min. a month on just google ad searches. Expensive.

As for cc'ing. I'd use paypal if you have min. traffic. I personally love paypal and prefer sites i can buy with justa few extra clicks. You shoudl still have a 3rd party link to a CC site for those w/o paypal accounts. (ccbill.com?).

But definately have ti report to you somehow dynamically, so you can build up your own database of customers, orders, etc.

 

[RottenWillow]

They might be. I meant your host, which is the place that hosts your files on their servers. ISP is internet service provider which is different than a host, and also different than a name registrar(sp?)
A merchant account is different than all three of those. You may want to just set up a paypal account. It's alot easier.

I thought the people I bought the domain from was the place where I was going to upload my files?

So do I find an ISP first, then a host, which may or may not also be my ISP? And is the merchant account a type of service I buy from my ISP?

 

[ZKaudio]

check out the Success Wealth, Business, Marketing, and Enterpreneurship Board guys...
http://www.elitefitness.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=80

 

[jestros]

I thought the people I bought the domain from was the place where I was going to upload my files?

So do I find an ISP first, then a host, which may or may not also be my ISP? And is the merchant account a type of service I buy from my ISP?

You may have bought a host with your name, but you probably didnt. Here's how I personally do it.
Buy a name through one place like www.namesecure.com.
Then buy a place to upload your files like www.apollohosting.com (expensive, but they've got all the options I like)
Then what you do is change the DNS(domain name server) through the control panel at the place you registered your name at. Your host will tell you what the DNS number should be.
Then when someone types in www.rottenwillow.com they will get transfered to your host.

 

[RottenWillow]

check out the Success Wealth, Business, Marketing, and Enterpreneurship Board guys...
http://www.elitefitness.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=80

LOL...damn I didnt even know EF had that forum. Thanks.

 

[RottenWillow]

You may have bought a host with your name, but you probably didnt. Here's how I personally do it.
Buy a name through one place like www.namesecure.com.
Then buy a place to upload your files like www.apollohosting.com (expensive, but they've got all the options I like)
Then what you do is change the DNS(domain name server) through the control panel at the place you registered your name at. Your host will tell you what the DNS number should be.
Then when someone types in www.rottenwillow.com they will get transfered to your host.

no, you're right I probably didnt. It was only like $25.

Ok all that least gives me a starting point, thanks. Keep this in your subscriptions if you dont mind since I may bump it again sometime in the future.

 

[Evil_Frisky]

Hey sugar... sent you a pm

 

[Sassy69]

Actually I just did too.

Here's some info:

http://thewhir.com/find/web-hosts/

 

[RottenWillow]

and replied to boof uv youens. Thanks for the info!

 

[the-short-one]

I'd really like to make contact with at least a few people with experience selling merchandise via the web.

I've been selling handmade fine jewelry for about a year now and am now making serious plans to begin selling via the web, but have zero experience doing that sort of thing.

any information or advice would be greatly appreciated.

I owned a Yahoo! Store for 8 years. Sold western jewelry, western home decor, clothing, etc. Did REALLY well. Sold it 2 years ago along with the domain name to a competitor.

In order to succeed on the web, you need to find a niche that is undersourced or hasn't yet been created. Ebay if flooded with jewelry - and the only things that really sell well are name brand items, diamonds & gold.

And - e-commerce is similar to brick-and-mortar stores. It takes at least a year before you start to see some good sales, and 3-5 years before things really take off. If you don't advertise, no one will know you're there.

I highly recommend Yahoo! Stores. It's the biggest portal, and once you get into their listings, Yahoo!'s search results will send you good traffic without having to pay for advertising.

 

[wutangnomo]

Your best bet when starting out is to simply go with a PayPal merchant account as Judo Tom already mentioned. PayPal is established and they handle the transaction for you, which allerviates the need for you to implement your own shopping cart. The best part is that you only incur fees when you make a transaction, wherein with other sites you generally pay a monthly fee. Since you don't have an established customer base as of yet, that isn't the smartest idea as you may not make enough transactions to warrant the monthly expense. Having your own shopping cart may look a bit more professional for your site, but as long as you have a method of paying for goods that's all that matters. Check out an e-commerce site of mine I just did using PayPal as my method of payment.

www.bodyfitnutricare.com

ALL EF'ers GET A 10% DISCOUNT!!! (expires end of January) hehe

 

[RottenWillow]

In order to succeed on the web, you need to find a niche that is undersourced or hasn't yet been created. Ebay if flooded with jewelry - and the only things that really sell well are name brand items, diamonds & gold.

And - e-commerce is similar to brick-and-mortar stores. It takes at least a year before you start to see some good sales, and 3-5 years before things really take off. If you don't advertise, no one will know you're there.

I highly recommend Yahoo! Stores. It's the biggest portal, and once you get into their listings, Yahoo!'s search results will send you good traffic without having to pay for advertising.

yeah I'm hearing some good stuff about Yahoo since I posted this.


I guess the niche I've found in my business this far could loosely be described as urban contemporary. I've found my market seems to be almost exclusively women under 30, and probably about 75% non white women. I'm Mestiza (latina) so I suppose I'm best at creating the stuff I like to wear.

thanks for the tips.

 

[TheProject]

We use oscommerce.com for our shopping cart. It's free, and fairly easy to work with, but there are some design elements that Spatts isn't real thrilled with.