Starting your own ecommerce store is a natural step once you've been selling on online marketplaces sites for a while. Although online marketplaces and auction sites are a great way to get started, most sellers eventually find that the fees and all the rules and regulations start to hold them back. There's also that old and very wise saying "Don't put all your eggs in one basket" to consider. Selling on a few different auction sites, plus having your own ecommerce store helps you create a business that is more sustainable - your entire business isn't at the mercy of an auction site's whims!
Luckily, there are tons of easy ways to set up your own ecommerce store these days - yes it's actually possible to get your own ecommerce site up in just 2 hours! - and right now, we're about to take you through the essentials of setting up your own store.
The Benefits and Drawbacks of Setting Up Your Own Store
There are LOTS of benefits to starting your own online store, including eliminating paying fees to auction sites, wider marketing opportunities, and most importantly, your products will be available to buyers 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year.
Above all, when you have your own store you are building yourself an asset with every sale that you make. Your store can continue to grow for years and years to come, or you can resell it to another trader when you are ready to move on!
The most challenging thing about setting up your own store is getting visitors. When you sell your items on other auction sites, they do the majority of the marketing, and customers are literally delivered to you. But when it's your own store, all the marketing comes down to you - and the difficulty of competing against millions of other sites on the web shouldn't be underestimated.
Before you start your store, it's essential to start brushing up on SEO (search engine optimization), PPC (pay per click advertising) and other marketing strategies so you have some marketing strategies in place when you open shop.
Something else that you will have to consider is that you are essentially on your own if and when you run into technical or other problems. However, this can be alleviated in part by using one of the online store builders we recommend below, as they usually provide a lot of customer support and user forums.
How To Build An Ecommerce Site
There are several ways in which you can go about building a website:
Doing it yourself: It's possible to make your own ecommerce site and there are some excellent tools on the web that will help you. This is by far the most economical option money-wise, but it's time consuming and not especially easy. It's definitely not ideal for people who are not experienced in learning new software. When it comes to overall design and layout, this is best left to a professional graphic or web designer unless you are familiar with design principles and software development.
Online store builders: There are a number of store builders available and some are even free to use! The main benefit of using a store builder is that they have been designed especially for selling products online and been tried and tested by hundreds of people all selling stuff online. The other attraction is that they are very simply to use. You don't need to go playing around with code and graphic design - that's all been taken care of. Everything is designed to be ultra user-friendly for even the most technologically challenged of us!
Call us biased, but we believe that SaleHoo Stores is the best option if you want to break free from marketplace fees and the confines of selling on a marketplace or auction site.
SaleHoo Stores offers an easy and affordable solution to starting up an ecommerce site. We have everything a newbie with minimal technological knowledge needs to successfully create their own attractive site.
Just one of the areas where SaleHoo Stores excel above other ecommerce options available is our store design. People have different ideas about what an attractive website is, but the most important thing is to make sure that it is easy for users to navigate. This will prevent visitors from becoming overwhelmed or distracted by your deign layout. SaleHoo Stores have been designed by experienced UX (user experience) designers. User experience designers specialise in studying how website users behave when they are on a website, then designing sites that mimic this behaviour. The result is an intuitive, easy to use website that is enjoyable for users to be on which results in them staying on the website longer and making more purchases.
SaleHoo Stores basic plans start at US$27 per month which will get you everything you need to get started including a customized URL, list up to 200 items, an email account, Google Analytics to keep an eye on where your buyers are coming from, plus much more!
We also offer comprehensive support including telephone support.
To sign up, visit SaleHoo Stores and select a pricing plan to suit your business. You can try any plan with no risk because they all come with a 60 day money back guarantee.
Yahoo! Site Builder helps you build your own free web store. To get started, you must download their site building software here. They have over 380 templates you can choose from to make sure your site matches your businesses brand.
The only downsides here is that your Yahoo! Site has limited options compared with paid subscription websites such as less techinical support.. If you sometimes struggle with the techincal side of things, the Yahoo! SiteBuilder is probably not for you.
Using web-based design firms: There are a number of web-based design firms online which you can contract to build your website. These may be local companies or ones from as far away as India and China. Offshore designers tend to be the most affordable option, with the only downfall being the lack of input you can have on the site, particularly when outsourcing to overseas firms. We don't recommend that you use an off-shore designer to build you an ecommerce site, but they can be good for customizing an existing site or creating a new design template for you.
Doing it locally: Some sellers prefer to get their ecommerce site made by local web designers to make their sites as it gives them greater control over the development of the site as well as one-on-one contact with their designer, giving you a website which is truly your own.
This isn't a cheap option though, costing anywhere from $2,000-$30,000+! It's something that only fulltime sellers wishing to make a serious investment in their business should consider.
Finding the right designer can be time-consuming, but it is worth taking the time to find one who understands your vision and can fulfill your needs.
Marketing Your Ecommerce Store
Don't even think about opening an e-store until you have outlined a marketing plan. Among other things, your marketing plan should consider what your competitors are doing, and how you can create a strong and positive point of difference between your business and theirs. Marketing is arguably the single most important part of your store. Without it, you are highly unlikely to get traffic to your site.
Most people use a combination of some or all of the following marketing strategies to get people to their ecommerce site:
- Keyword optimize your product titles and descriptions to make sure they use words people search for.
- Submit your product listings to Google Base (fast and free way to get more traffic)
- Optimize your site for the search engines. Traffic Travis a good free tool to help you do this http://www.traffictravis.com/
- Set up a blog on your site and create some unique and interesting content. This is also an important part of search engine optimization.
- Leverage traffic from eBay, Amazon or other auction sites. Set up an account with the username the same as your business name and list a few items at attractive prices. Put your website URL in your email signature tags and insert into template eBay emails. Set up an About Me page with photos of your business, yourself and of course, your URL.
- Use PPC - PPC is a very effective way of driving traffic to your store, but it can be expensive while you get the hang of it. Don't try this until your marketing budget can take a knock of $500-1000.
- Set up an email newsletter on your website. Keeping in touch with existing customers encourages repeat sales.
Set up an affiliate program.
Keeping Your Site Updated
Keeping your site updated is important for encouraging customers to return, and for showcasing your new products. Make sure you are adding new products every week and that you don't ever let your store run down to no listings at all! It's also a great idea to send out an email to your customers every week telling them what's new.
Quick Recap:
The top 3 benefits of having your own store are:
- No listing and final value fees
- You have complete freedom on your product range and how you market your items
- Building your own ecommerce store is creating an investment - similar to buying a house - that will increase in value over time and can be sold for profit.
The biggest challenge of opening your own store is getting traffic to your site, so make sure you prepare by reading up on the marketing techniques listed above. There are lots of ways to get a store of your own. For newbies, we recommend SaleHoo Stores
If you are new to online selling, then there's no need to rush into opening a store. We recommend that you continue selling on your current platform and gradually work on building a store as you have time to do so. It can take time to build up traffic, so continuing to make sales on your current platform will help maintain your cash flow as you gradually move towards using your new site as your primary selling platform.
Next time, we will be delving into the question of deciding what to sell! This newsletter is essential reading and takes you step-by-step through the process of brainstorming ideas for potential products to sell.
We will also be talking about the importance of niche markets: What are niches? Why are they so important? Find out how and where to find niche markets and how to test them out. Don't miss it!
