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Small Business
E-Commerce Overview
The most convenient way to start selling your product or
service on the internet is through the already established online
marketplaces such as auction sites and popular internet hyper
stores or malls. It is also the best way to try out whether ecommerce
will work for you.
Marketplaces
offer relatively complete ecommerce package including wide range
of categories of items, tools to list your items, tools to bid
or purchase those items, various options of payment methods and
secure payment processing systems. But more importantly
they provide ready buyers and browsers or "would be buyers" ranging
from hundreds to hundreds of thousands at any given time.
There are some limitations or drawbacks to selling on e-marketplace
as well. But generally, it is an excellent place to start selling
online with limited resources and experience. Furthermore,
it is a great training ground for newbies learning to deal with
customers, and various aspects of ecommerce.
Click here to read our review on online marketplace in general
or we call it the Ecommerce
Package and Solutions section. We review selected popular
marketplaces as well as the best ecommerce solution providers.
However,
if you decide or prefer to build your own ecommerce site, considering
the limitations of online
marketplaces, you might want to review the following sections
of our site.
Basically,
you will need:-
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Shopping
Cart - if you'll be selling a lot of items. You'll not need
a shopping cart if you are selling just one or two items. This
will keep your site simple and the budget down. Conversely,
if you sell 15 items or more, shopping cart may be necessary.
Not only will it help your customers to have orderly and enjoyable
shopping experience, but also conveniently help you to do product's
promotions, editing and updating. Here we review the guidelines
in finding the best shopping cart for your needs and the recommendations.
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Payment
Processing Solution - to accept payment through credit cards
and e-check. Online retail transactions excluding service transactions
in the US alone valued at USD$55 billions in 2003 and projected
double digits growth for the next five years. The inability
to accept credit card payments online will critically reduce
your possible sales significantly. We discuss the advantages
of both, a third party payment processor and an own merchant
account and when to choose one over the other and provide our
recommendations.
We
also discuss other important aspects of having an online business.
This includes :-
DropShip
Warehouse Review.
We review online drop ship business and potential products sourcing.
It is very important to be focused, specialized or in niche market
in order to succeed doing business through drop shipping your items
directly from the suppliers.
Marketing
an Online Business Effectively
Building and developing a fully functional ecommerce website is
only half of the work. The other half is effectively market your
website and products to your targeted audiences.
Basically, we cannot be everything to everybody. What it means is
no matter how good our product is, it will never satisfy the needs
of everybody. Human beings have different tastes and preferences
and they will continue to be that way.
It is best that we define our target market clearly and focus our
marketing efforts (that include time, money, as well as energy we
put in) to cater to these targeted audiences. We review some of
the basic but important and commonly used methods of marketing on
the internet.
Recommended
Resources
Finally, we compile selected and highly recommended reading materials,
marketing courses, software and tools that are very useful in building,
developing, marketing and running ecommerce sites for beginners
and even for the more experienced online entrepreneurs.
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