How can I start up an eCommerce site?

Hey,

There are many platforms you can choose of when it comes to building online store. I would suggest to start as simple as possible. Opencart offerse great platform with everything needed for basic online store, You can buy theme for few bucks and modify it as you wish.
I have learned that keyword research is MUST, I never did correct one and now struggeling hard-time to get pagerank or any traffic from search engines.
Take a look at this forum, theres much valuable information laying around.
Wish You best luck and successful future, if need any more information just let me know!

Kind Regards,
Kaur

Yes. Start small. And just start to market your site. After starting some good earnings from your site , make it more attractive and fast loading. Also give customers the best service you can provide.

WordPress theme designs describes the appearance of your business site and provides a search engine friendly structure too. for more details , check Customized WordPress Website Development

Woocommerce net let me down. Build 3 successful shops with woocommerce and there are allot of plugins that can help you setup any type of shop.

Set up your e-commerce shop in minutes. Get access to an online learning center. Take a comprehensive e-commerce course. Participate in a live dropshipping forum. Talk to friendly support staff. Read the latest ecommerce news in the online sales and drop shipping blog. Get secure ecommerce website hosting that sells from day one. Don’t spend hours finding wholesale suppliers. Find all relevant companies that dropship merchandise in one easy-to-access, categorized, up-to-date online business directory. Don’t waste time on ecommerce development. No programming or configuring shopping cart software..
Business Planning Gold Coast

Hi xkakashi.
I have been looking for the same thing and have found few e-commerce platforms in the market. U have to do some research which is best suit for you. Most of the ecommerce platform in the market are based on 2 categories; a) one time fee; and b) recurring fee. Prestashop, Joomla based Virtuecart, Wordpress based Woocommerce are among the top player. Prestashop and X-Cart are one time fee platform with few modules u can use as an addon for a better suit your requirement while platform like shopify, sitegiant and LemonStand are on recurring fee basis.

Personally I am looking into few other platform like CATALooK.netStore Pro v.6.7.5 - eCommerce solution where one feature that stood up is donation ability.

If you are not in hurry, joomla wordpress can be a good platform with a lot of modules (addon) for you to customised and getting more than what other specific ecommerce like prestashop. The best thing with joomla and wordpress, you can have a cms features if you need.

Kindly look at what features they provide and one of the most important is loyalty program. To me this feature are my top priority because more and more online store presence in the market, we need a powerful customer service feature.

I am sure that there are worrior member out there are expert in customising all these platforms and if not, you can try elance, odesk and freelance to post your project and a lot of freelancers can bid your customisation e-commerce.

Starting out, use a hosted ecommerce solution like Shopify or BigCommerce. It will be far easier than self-hosting and you can focus on the business of retail. Once you grow, you can make the switch to your own platform.

Looks for a hosted ecommerce solution is best way to go. Setup own eCommerce site with no experience is big no-no if you are serious.

With a product, I think it is better to sell on market place such as ebay, amazon or ioffer than open a e com site.

Oh xkakashi, that's such a simple question, but such a complicated answer ...


Tip 1) Keyword research is complicated. Avoid it. Ask humans first.

I'll probably get shot down for this but keyword research is relatively complicated, and moreso if you're diving into a highly competitive niche. It's essential if you're selling 'nike shoes' or something that everyone else sells too. (We call these 'barcode products'.)

However, if your idea is something you've made yourself. Or you will be manufacturing and it's totally unique then I would suggest that you conduct your research by talking to lots of people.

Literally. Just go and talk to a whole bunch of people. Everyone you know. Ask them if they'll buy your product.

If the majority of people put their hand in their pocket and take out their wallet then you've got a good idea. If not, then try to find out their objections. This will help you before you even get to the keyword research phase.

Just by talking to people you'll start to learn what "keyword phrases" they would use if they were to search for your product online.

This can then be a starting point for real keyword research if you think your product has mass-appeal.


Tip 2) Sell via a marketplace first.

If your product has mass-appeal then start selling it on eBay.
If your product is home-made or vintage then sell it on etsy.

Use these marketplaces to learn how to sell online as they have a ready-made customer base. Even though it will be competitive you'll learn without spending any money on development, marketing or PPC.

You will be able to learn what your customers like, build rapport (and an email list) and discover whether there is enough demand for your product. You'll be able to hone your product titles, descriptions, prices and overall offering - all without spending anything upfront.

Then ... if you make it over that hurdle ... set up either Shopify (good for pretty looking products) or Bigcommerce (good for mass-appeal products because of its SEO).

Do not set up a Joomla, Magento, via Wordpress or any other type of store that requires a web developer to get involved. Having your own online store is no guarantee of success. It's better to start with someone else's market.


Tip 3) Then, learn from others.

There is a relatively new community over at eCommerce Fuel who discuss eCommerce. It's a good place to go if you want to discuss more advanced tactics with store owners.

And if you want a list of all the steps you'll need in order to run your own store then have a look at this page - https://sites.google.com/site/ecomme...ing-procedures

There's a lot there, but it is possible. Just have to eat it one bite at a time!

As others have said, start with a hosted cart i.e Shopify or BigCommerce. That way, you can focus on the mundane but crucial stuff i.e inventory, shipping, customer service etc.

Add me in skype : sathish5566 we will discuss

Honestly, if you want to start an ecommerce site, you'll need to find out your whole market segmentation. Like the demographics of your buyers...

What do they like?

What makes them tick?

IF the targeted audience is large enough?

After that, then you'll need to find the relevant marketing channels you wanna hit.

Not just search engines, learn to build a community.. buyers who will come back again. Use some inbound marketing with your blog and loyalty programs. If you can use that with Wordpress sure thing, but just make sure that your customer data is secure and YOU MUST COLLECT the data. Learn to build your brand too! not just one off sales

Hope this helps!!

Hi xkakashi ,
I have been tracking eCommerce in Australia and its really good place to launch an Online store.
If you have the right product to sell, surely you can develop a good store to market

Good luck