Starting an Online Store

by RayW
18 replies
Suppose I wanna start an online store... how do I go about doing this? Where would I go for buying the inventory? Are there any legal documents I would have to complete? How would I outsource the shipping as I get more and more customers?
#online #starting #store
  • Profile picture of the author spennyc
    This is a little vague. It all depends on what you're selling. As far as getting your store built.. I'd recommend checking out the warriors for hire section. There are some good developers there.
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    • Profile picture of the author RayW
      Originally Posted by spennyc View Post

      This is a little vague. It all depends on what you're selling.
      Lets say I wanna sell DVDs, how would I find suppliers?
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      • Profile picture of the author EugeneA
        Originally Posted by raxr View Post

        Lets say I wanna sell DVDs, how would I find suppliers?

        Are you saying that you'd like to open an estore to sell your own products or other people's products and get a cut of the profit?
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        • Profile picture of the author RayW
          Originally Posted by EugeneA View Post

          Are you saying that you'd like to open an estore to sell your own products or other people's products and get a cut of the profit?
          I mean buying the dvds wholesale, and then reselling them for a profit. I'm not talking about affiliate marketing.
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          • Profile picture of the author BloggingPro
            Originally Posted by raxr View Post

            I mean buying the dvds wholesale, and then reselling them for a profit. I'm not talking about affiliate marketing.
            Get a webstore set up.
            Find wholesale providers of dvd's.
            Plant your middle finger firmly in Amazon.com's direction (if mainstream movies is what you are carrying that is).
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            • Profile picture of the author RayW
              Originally Posted by BloggingPro View Post

              Get a webstore set up.
              Find wholesale providers of dvd's.
              Plant your middle finger firmly in Amazon.com's direction (if mainstream movies is what you are carrying that is).
              How do I find wholesale providers of dvds? Anyone know of any specific ones?
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              • Profile picture of the author BloggingPro
                Originally Posted by raxr View Post

                How do I find wholesale providers of dvds? Anyone know of any specific ones?
                Not my niche, but Google can be your friend, however your probably not going to find that information for free.
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              • Profile picture of the author EugeneA
                Originally Posted by raxr View Post

                How do I find wholesale providers of dvds? Anyone know of any specific ones?
                I don't, but I have a feeling that you'll be doing a decent amount of

                research and telephone calls.

                I hope you find somthing that call help you out. Good Luck.
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      • Profile picture of the author seoguru1
        Originally Posted by raxr View Post

        Lets say I wanna sell DVDs, how would I find suppliers?
        you need to find and locate DVD wholesalers. Specifically try to find ones that offer dropshipping or cater to internet businesses. Many master distribution companies will require inventory investments, but if you look hard enough there is always someone in the industry catering to internet low to no inventory business models.

        You can start by contacting the dvd publication and distribution companies and start asking for their distribution channel contacts. Im not really sure about the dvd industry but for this information you probably have to get in touch with paramount, tristar or sony.
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        • Profile picture of the author Bill Farnham
          As an ex online CD/DVD/Cassette/Magazine/Book seller I can tell you that you will have an uphill battle trying to compete with the established big players. Could you do it? Well, anything is possible.

          Our sales plummeted when the marketplace went from buying full albums to single songs on the net.

          If you think you want to compete with Netflix on movies, be my guest.

          My advice? Pick another market.

          ~Bill
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          • Profile picture of the author seoguru1
            Originally Posted by Bill Farnham View Post

            As an ex online CD/DVD/Cassette/Magazine/Book seller I can tell you that you will have an uphill battle trying to compete with the established big players. Could you do it? Well, anything is possible.

            Our sales plummeted when the marketplace went from buying full albums to single songs on the net.

            If you think you want to compete with Netflix on movies, be my guest.

            My advice? Pick another market.

            ~Bill
            I think the brick and mortar of selling movies is probably an impossible battle, even blockbuster is dead, but I am pretty sure if you rank top 10 for any new DVD release you are going to sell copies of it. You will probably even sell copies of old releases if your ranked well enough.

            There is money to be made here, but only if you have to carry no stock and have easy access to a good supplier who can dropship. If not, you can always go the affiliate sales route for dvd movies and still make $1 to $2 a sale.
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  • Profile picture of the author seoguru1
    There is soo much to cover on this subject. I was thinking about publishing a how to on this subject, but have not got around to doing it yet.

    1. pick a niche
    2. contact suppliers
    3. setup account, negotiate pricing, setup dropshipping terms
    4. create ecommerce website, upload products
    5. create legal business documents, bank accounts, merchant account
    6. start marketing
    7. get orders
    8. fullfill orders
    9. customer service
    10. cross and upsell
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    • Profile picture of the author EugeneA
      As you probably know,

      Originally Posted by raxr View Post

      Suppose I wanna start an online store... how do I go about doing this? Where would I go for buying the inventory? Are there any legal documents I would have to complete? How would I outsource the shipping as I get more and more customers?

      And as you can see,

      Originally Posted by seoguru1 View Post

      There is soo much to cover on this subject. I was thinking about publishing a how to on this subject, but have not got around to doing it yet.

      1. pick a niche
      2. contact suppliers
      3. setup account, negotiate pricing, setup dropshipping terms
      4. create ecommerce website, upload products
      5. create legal business documents, bank accounts, merchant account
      6. start marketing
      7. get orders
      8. fullfill orders
      9. customer service
      10. cross and upsell
      this is a lot of work.

      Are you sure you want to go down this path?

      Selling other people's stuff would be sooo much easier.

      GoodLuck
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  • Profile picture of the author brianboyer
    You can also try starting an online store via affiliate program such as Amazon and sell their products which you will receive a % commission. You can find a few different types of store builders which are very customizable and work well. I have started quite a few and am having a lot of success with certain niches.

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  • Profile picture of the author Jermaine Tabor
    How about selling netflix subscriptions as an affiliate? Maybe create a user review site to give your site an extra edge.
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  • Profile picture of the author RayW
    I don't plan on selling general dvds, only a specific genre. I found an EMD available for a keyword that would be perfect not only for seo but also for building a brand. There are 2 big players in the industry and 2 smaller ones. I think with enough time, I would be able to compete with them.
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  • Profile picture of the author dave_hermansen
    Originally Posted by raxr View Post

    Suppose I wanna start an online store... how do I go about doing this? Where would I go for buying the inventory? Are there any legal documents I would have to complete? How would I outsource the shipping as I get more and more customers?
    I have created a free ecommerce training course that falls right inline with what you are wanting to do. Check it out at http://StoreCoach.com/

    The course is focused on running an ecommerce store using the dropship model. Something I have 8 years of experience doing (and ~50 successful ecomm stores). If you're wanting to be an affiliate then not all of it will apply to you, but a lot of it still will.
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  • Profile picture of the author stellajohnsonus
    Well if you want to create an online shopping cart then you should have clear ideas of the products you want to sell on that shopping website. Like i have my online store and i sell blu ray dvd player in the same manner prepare an inventory of the products you want to sell.
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