Doing Research on what ecommerce solution to use? Let’s assume that you have a pretty good idea what products you want to sell and are ready and excited to build a e-commerce site for it. If so, congratulations! Most people never take action and end up dreaming and never doing. You are way ahead of those day-dreamers. Give yourself a pat on the back! And if you have done your homework and have a pretty good educated guess about the demand of your products, you are ready to select a shopping cart system!
Where to Get Your Products for Your Business
Drop Shipping
If you have decided to not stock anything, then you probably want to drop-ship products where you have an established warehouse/factory ship the products on your behalf. You would basically pick the products in their catalog(online/offline) you want to sell, and create those items in your site’s database. In a nutshell, when your customer makes the purchase on your site, you receive payment directly from them, and once you’ve verified payment, you then place an order with your drop-shipper (online or offline), and have them ship the order to your customer. You would basically pay the warehouse/factory your cost plus the shipping charges. The difference between your net sales amount minus what you have to pay them and what you charge your customer is your profit.
What to Sell on Your Ecommerce Site
Now that you have the big picture as to what is needed to start your ecommerce store, one of the first things you want to do is to decide what you want to sell.
So how does one decide what to sell? The conventional internet wisdom says to choose something you are passionate about. Well, that makes sense to some extent, and it would be nice if we really have something we are passionate about and would like to promote. In a perfect world, our area of interest would have good market demand, and have little competition.
Section - Ecommerce 101
Many people consider this the dream business, and sometimes even a bit unbelievable, and that is to open up a store online, drop-ship some line of products (or import them from China or wherever), do a little marketing, and quit their day job!
For those of us that have done it, we know it’s possible, and a reality. For those who have heard about it, some think of it as a nice pipe dream, while others believe it can actually be done but don’t know where to start, as all this web stuff seems all too complicated for them, and the learning curve might be too steep.
Ideas for Site Organization
Welcome to Meibz.com. The basic intent of this blog is to allow discussion of ecommerce businesses, various related strategies, tips, and just about anything that can help readers in starting, growing, and succeed in an ecommerce business.
Some initially brainstormed topics are:
- Ecommerce 101 / How to start an ecommerce business from scratch
- Marketing Tips - Offline an online
- Shopping cart options - Buy your own or use a subscription-based service
- Accounting and bookkeeping tips
- Home business tips
- Sourcing products to sell
- And more…