Having a successful ecommerce website from which to sell goods globally is the dream of many people. It would allow them to work from home or have a second job that could be done from home while they still keep their day job. Some people have become so successful that they were able to give up their day job altogether.
If you dream about doing that, it’s a good idea to put some thought and research into it first, so here are 3 steps to help you.
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- Choose the product. It may take some time to work out what is best for you. It needs to be something you are interested in or even passionate about, that is also a popular product in the market. There is no point in trying to sell stuff that no one wants. Choose a product by (a) the selling price – it needs to be enough to give you a good return over your investment (ROI). So make sure your cut on the sale is enough to make you a nice profit. (b) Make sure the product is not available in locally. If people can’t get it locally they have to go online to shop. (c) Make sure the product is not too big and heavy, or shipping costs will be very expensive. It should not be breakable either so less packing will be needed.
- Where do you find these goods? You can find suppliers by typing details into the Google Shopping search engine and online directories. You will need to contact the manufacturers to find out the details of who and how they are willing to supply. You might consider drop shipping so you don’t have to store stock at your home. With drop shipping you send your orders through to the supplier and they send directly to your customers while you get a percentage of the price. Often you can set your own price.
- Once you’ve got the manufactures/suppliers lined up it’s time to set up your website. This may seem back to front, but often it is more difficult to get manufacturers when you have a website with no other products on it. But if you have one ‘about to launch’ it seems easier. Besides, you really need to know what you are going to sell so you can choose the best kind of website design to suit it and the best shopping cart and merchant account. If you’ve had no experience in setting up a website then you can easily get professional help. While there is a cost attached, it doesn’t have to be all that much if you choose carefully. For a website you’ll need the domain name and hosting and these are not free, but they don’t need to cost heaps either. There are plenty of cheap but robust hosts around.