Posted July 26th, 2010
The Realities Of Building An Online Store
One way of engaging in eCommerce is to open an online store. Since anything under the sun can be sold online, you only have two questions to consider: how much is it going to cost and what do you intend to sell.
You probably don’t even have to answer the question, ‘What do you want to sell?’ If you want to start an online retail outlet, you no doubt already have a product line in mind. If your passion is books, the news is good. The big book distributors have already done all the hard work for you. All you have to do is sign up for their affiliate program. You will be given access to easy to install widgets that will set up your shop for you at no cost at all. This is also trued of many boutique publishing companies.
If you want to open a shop of your own, it is going to cost much more. There is a lot of backend technology that needs to be implemented as well as a good ecommerce website that must be designed. Even if you have all the required technical knowledge, if you tried to do it yourself, it would take months.
If you want to sell bedding in your shop, for instance, you are going to have to start with an easily navigable homepage. If your customer is looking for a king quilt, he or she is going to have to be able to find it fast. He is also going to have a large selection of quilts to choose from.
Think of another product range – women’s fashion, for example. Just one brand will have dozens of categories, from girls shirts to skirts, dresses, shorts and many more. Then they will have dozens of styles to choose from. When you add them all up, you can see that building even a boutique women’s shop can be and organizational nightmare.
What would the budget for such an undertaking be? Start-up costs alone can run into ten thousand dollars or even much more. You need web developers, graphic designers, website designers and many more. Who is going to write all of your content? You can’t afford to hire cheap outsourced writers. Nothing says ‘amateur’ more than spelling and grammatical errors. If the homepage of your jewelry site says ‘men wedding bands‘ instead of saying ‘men’s, ‘ it makes you look bad.
None of this is meant to discourage you in your ambitions. If an online store is what you want, then go for it. Just bear in mind the costs involved and the commitment in time. Stick with it, though, and you could end up earning money while you lie on a tropical beach in the sun.
Tags: internet business, online stores, shopping online
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