Home: Message List - Building an online storefront - What are the best options?

Re: Building an online storefront - What are the best options?

envyeconomy — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 20:30:39 GMT

1. Yahoo Store- Its $40.00 a month (basic, more for unlimited) and transaction fees at about 1.5% or more depending on plan. The provide you the payment gateway and everything which can be worth it if you want more professional. I believe they offer paypal service and all other payments. Also they provide you with sitebuilder so you can add your buttons and cart system.

2. Paypal is good to have, its popular if you are thinking of step 3 which is ebay and they also provide carts. There is also google checkout.

3. Sell on ebay can be good because the web traffic is there for you, its tough marketing something new like a new site because you have to get listed and build recommendations.

4 and 5 can be difficult if you aren't a web developer. Like I said its hard to build from scratch to even though the website is finished marketing is the hardest part.

Re: Building an online storefront - What are the best options?

vnavguys — Sat, 09 May 2009 15:04:32 GMT

I have done this very thing with Yahoo with great success. Any time in the ecommerce journey you can switch vendors and storefront platforms. Yahoo is a great place to start because you can learn a ton of good long term strategies. If you only have 15 products, you might want to think about expanding your line by adding more. Remember Yahoo will not let you do any type of affilitate marketing that takes the customer off of your store. This is against their terms of service and is something to thing about for the long term.
Ken

Re: Building an online storefront - What are the best options?

vistasad — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 05:49:34 GMT

akgold, you know it is almost 2 years since you posted the orignal question.
Could you share your actions and learning with us.

http://www.vistasads.com

Re: Building an online storefront - What are the best options?

4Founders — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 19:20:51 GMT

If you're just getting started, I would suggest starting simple and going with a Yahoo! Store account. It's a well-established service that's reasonably priced, and will let you make your first foray into ecommerce without having to deal with the complications that come with running your own site and checkout service.

This will free up your time to focus on more important matters, such as learning about your customers, who they are and why they would want your products. You can always invest in a custom ecommerce site that better suits your clients once you've established a modest customer base and feel comfortable that your business can operate profitably.

________________________________________________________________
Fundamentals for Founders: The Practical Guide to Kick-Starting Your Business
http://www.fundamentals-for-founders.com

Re: Building an online storefront - What are the best options?

CARPAYDIEM — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 19:01:07 GMT

www.fastcommerce.com is the best plus the first 50 products are free it gives you everything you need even your ownback office even the option to give out coupons it's one of the best.

Re: Building an online storefront - What are the best options?

CW_USFSG — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 18:17:24 GMT

You might want to think about taking a look at this website. We offer a Multi Currency Pricing solution which would allow you to sell your products in 17 different currencies and in 36 different countries! The transactions settle in Cardholders Preferred Currency while your side of the transaction settles in US dollars in the same manner and time frame as your Domestic transactions!

www.usfsg.com

I hope this could be of some help!

Re: Building an online storefront - What are the best options?

vistasad — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 06:20:12 GMT

Doesn't ebay allow you to sell on their site as well as your own?

You could start with that then examine options mainly your own website and store.
Having your own website would give you more control in the sense of being able to expand or modify it considerably if need be.
Further you would get the advertisement revenues, whereas if you were selling from someone else's store it would mean sharing the revenue, which normally favors the store owner.
Of course running a website is a major exercise.

http://www.vistasads.com

Re: Building an online storefront - What are the best options?

CarenOnline — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 05:02:44 GMT

Can't tell you much about Yahoo and Ebay type stores but can tell you when we started out we looked to build our own retail site using Monster's shopping cart and hated it. Very difficult for us to work with (we're not "techies"). Switched to Volusion, set up and then customized one of their templates, launched and have been extremely happy with them ever since (we've been open about 18 months now). Thrilled with their SEO features and overall service. Hope this is helpful. Good luck!

Re: Building an online storefront - What are the best options?

Evan.Jones — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 15:13:41 GMT

These are the solutions I recommend to my clients:

Easiest to implement
Foxycart
Video: http://css-tricks.com/video-screencasts/45-using-foxycart-for-ecommerce/

Volusion
http://www.volusion.com/

Zen Cart
http://www.zen-cart.com/

Magento (free open source, big learning curve though)
Enterprise level (without the enterprise cost)
http://www.magentocommerce.com/

Any designer/developer you go with should be familiar with all of these e-commerce solutions. Don't let them nickel and dime you for stuff they didn't even build. Imo, go with the designer that seems most transparent and honest.

-Evan

Re: Building an online storefront - What are the best options?

amspcs — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 12:24:39 GMT

Pretty good advise from CEO. But, even though we sell merchant account services, we readily admit
Paypal is an excellent place for one to get started and off the ground. It certainy isn't a permanent solution,
nor a solution to provide dramatic growth, but until you 'get the bugs out' and establish some semblence of a following providing sufficient revenue to justify the costs of gateways, shopping carts, and all the aspects of
a real payment processing system, take it easy the first couple of months with Paypal. In other words, learn to walk before you run.

Bank of America a good place to get a merchant account. But far from the most cost effective and not necessarily the best, depending on where you are located, what you sell, how you sell it, and tons of other variables. No such thing as a 'one size fits all' processing solution or provider.

AMSPCS
amspcs@juno.com
www.MerchantServices-help.com