posted on May 18, 2001 08:30:20 PM
I have been kicking around the idea of opening a website or online store. I have no clue about just how to go about this and would appreciate some advise. I wonder if someone who has opened their own site or opened a store in an online "mall" such as Tias, would mind sharing some information and what has worked for you? I would greatly appreciate advise that would point me into a direction I could then pursue.
posted on May 18, 2001 11:21:44 PM
good luck i am looking in to it myself
have you looked at http://www.freemerchant.com/
or geting your owne donmain if so
here are afew sites i have looked at for geting process credit cards here one i looked at http://www.netpay2k.com/
good luck i have not tryed them yet just leting you know about them maybe it will help
posted on May 20, 2001 07:03:49 PM
Thanks for your time and the information. I looked around it, and also need time to check it out. Since you are the only one that responded, leaves me to think perhaps it is information people don't like to share. If I find out anything I think you may also like to see, I will let you know.
posted on May 20, 2001 07:37:43 PM
That is exactly what I am doing. I got my own name www.computerstuffstore.com and got a freetailer account. Now I am in the process of playing with setting it up. When I have what I like I will move to a non free account to loose the advertising.
posted on May 21, 2001 01:42:25 AM
If you want to register your own domain name, godaddy.com is the cheapest place I found at $8.95/year or less to register .com, .net and .org (.aero, .biz, .info, .museum, .name and .pro become available this August, but it's not clear what the pricing will be for those domains). Godaddy will also host your 50mg website for $9.95/month if you don't have webspace elsewhere (you may have some free space with your ISP account), or you can direct your domain traffic to one of the free sites that puts banner ads on your webpage.
Many months ago I secured several names I wanted at BigStep, FreeMerchant and Freetailer, but the webdesign software was too limiting (there was no choice but to use their programs), so I never did anything with them.
I think a lot of sellers who've been putting off creating websites are "taking the plunge" now that Amazon and Yahoo killed their auctions, and eBay is sending out bad vibes.
posted on May 21, 2001 06:15:59 AM
I have 2 and, while I've been pleased with the results, I can assure you, they take a lot of attention.
Do your homework up front:
Webspace: try to get an idea of how much space you'll need. There are places which are free & places which charge. A lot of the "freebie" sites don't allow you to use your own domain name, so look at this carefully. Some of the sites that charge allow domain names but have restrictions.
Also, before you take the plunge, look at other people which may be using this provider & ask some basic questions about how many outages they have, what's the support for the space & how easy are the FTP procedures.
Domain names: can get them at most any price these days but be sure your webspace provider will allow the use of them.
Building the site: Are you going to build it yourself or have someone do it? It can get pricey (especially when you include shopping carts) if you have someone build it for you. Plus it might not be as easy for you to make changes.
If you are going to build it yourself, you need a GOOD working knowledge of HTML & also the code needed for shopping carts if you are going to have one. If you build it yourself, I highly recommend a professional HTML package. I use HotMetalPro out of Canada & it's excellent. I'm sure others can recommend packages they've found to be good for professional based sites.
Shopping Carts: There are plenty available out there at varying prices. How are your buyers going to pay for their items? Are you going to have a merchant account which allows them to use MC/VISA or are you going to use some other method? You can use PayPal and BillPoint for this but it involves at lot more work to make it happen.
Search Engines: It's a lot harder these days to get picked up. It used to be you could submit your site to them directly & you'd stand a good chance to get added. Now a number of the "bigs" are charging to get picked up. Keywords & Meta Tags can be a key, so another place you need to have knowledge of your HTML & tags.
Maintenance: If you are building the site yourself & you have a lot of an item, maintenance is fairly simple. But if you are selling one of a kind items, you could find yourself constantly in there revising your site when something sells. So keep that in mind when deciding to build it yourself versus paying someone. Of course, if something is selling..you're a happy camper anyway.
Remember, your site will be available 24/7, so you need to keep this in mind & be ready to support it. Your customer in Sri Lanka doesn't care it's Memorial Day weekend here, they just want to order their item. It's not like ebay where you can decide not to sell this week because you are on vacation, it can be a full time commitment.
I would also recommend getting an email address that you use strictly for your website (some places have emails that match your domain name). That let's you know when something comes in that it's for that site. It's a way to keep your website traffic identified from your personal or ebay email.
I hope I didn't make it sound too daunting. But doing some upfront work will save you a lot of grief (and rewrites) in the long run. I built mine myself, including adding the cart arrangements, so it can be done w/o paying for it. I'm also fortunate to have unlimited access to a server who allows my own domain names w/o charging for anything so I built mine pretty cheaply!
posted on May 21, 2001 07:02:55 AM
After an exhaustive search of services to support online stores I've set on two ideas.
I set up one site, using the .net url of my company name 'New England Coin Co.' with the PayPal Shops service. I just brought this online using the Freeservers hosting service. Not too much action yet, but I just submitted it to the search sites last week and haven't marketed it much yet. Your welcome to have a look at it to get ideas.
Also, I'm still working on setting up my main website, with the .com url of my company name. I'm using Bizhosting, which is a service by the same company as Freeservers. It offers a decent shopping cart system, and I can use my merchant account.
The reason I've selected Freeservers/Bizhosting is because it's a fairly easy to use service. It's an ASP, so I can work on my websites from any workstation I happen to be working from, and their cost is relatively inexpensive. The website seems to come up pretty fast wherever I log in from, but I don't know how it would work under heavy use of bandwidth. These services also allow a maximum of flexibility. I can select from pre-set templates and not have to learn a bit of HTML. And there are good templates too, and a good selection. Or, I can set up a website from scratch, using my own HTML. Or, I can use a combination of the two.
Now, if I can just figure out what the best way to promote my website from my eBay listings, without violating eBay's new 'rules', I'll be all set!
posted on May 21, 2001 07:17:33 AM
We have multiple web sites, and as I know I have shared here before - they are WORK - and it takes time for them to pay off, and lots of promotion.
We do this full time and as a profession, although we have a large antique shop, we often have our on line sales equal or better the income of the shop, and with less hassle, etc. We do have two full time employees who pack. Both my husband and I work on the sites, updating, responding to e-mail, photographing, etc.
1ST we have 2 sites with FATCOW, which I think has the best package on the web, naturally you can find them at www.fatcow.com. Let me also say that FATCOW has great tech support 24/7; and a free 800 number. It also has a simple format to set up if you are a “newbie” you don’t have to have html experience to do a nice site, with your own domaine name, shopping cart, autoresponder, secure check out, endless e-mail addresses, lots of space, templates, etc. IF you are experienced, you can also add FrontPage extensions and really doll your site up .
We have other older sites not with FATCOW, but I may move them in the future to FATCOW. We have used Webcom for years, and they are great, but don’t offer a lot of perks, and don’t have a template format set up or a shopping cart system within their package.
2ND - we use SubmitWolf and Classif98 also by SubmitWolf for promoting to search engines, etc. We promote constantly, and I can always tell what has been promoted by the incoming sales. When I say we promote constantly, we promote everyday – and that is normally one site a day, every day – we have that many different sites so that our promotional programs are running most of the time.
3rd We track with thecounter.com because their free counters give us a vast array of information on the hits to the sites
4th Initially we didn’t have a cart system, and still don’t on a couple of sites, but on our FATCOW sites we do, and we feel it makes for more, faster, and cleaner sales, with less paper work.
5th Because we have our own Merchant Accounts, we were already set up to take credit cards and don’t have to process through an online service. We pick up the sales from a secure area and process ourselves. We also take PayPal on our sites, and promote it.
With our first site, which went up almost 3 years ago, it took a LONG time for it to really start getting visitors and sales, but we knew little to nothing about promotion when we first started.
The idea of “build it and they will come,” is a joke, a good site takes lots and lots of constant work when it is selling, and lots of promotion to keep it selling.
On the up side – after a couple of years of experience, work, etc., naturally we know much better how to handle sites, and put up a new one in February, which is already bringing in a vast amount of sales.
Combined our sites often out sell our actual large antique shop, and do it without our having to be present to do it. Personally, I foresee a time in the future where we will go totally virtual and close our actual retail shop as a relic of the past (but not yet).
Best of wishes, just remember it is lots of work and take lots of time.
posted on May 21, 2001 08:30:03 AM
Thank you!
I'm very grateful for everyone sharing their insights.
Could you be so kind as to further explain how you promote? Does that mean spam or sending email to people?
posted on May 22, 2001 11:41:00 AM
I've actually had good luck with a service called Shoporium -- www.shoporium.com -- it's pretty easy to move my auctions from ebay to this site which offers unlimited listings. My presence there isn't flashy, but it's easy and it works.
posted on May 26, 2001 07:44:55 PM
jwpc: 2ND "we use SubmitWolf and Classif98 also by SubmitWolf for promoting to search engines, etc. We promote constantly, and I can always tell what has been promoted by the incoming sales. When I say we promote constantly, we promote everyday – and that is normally one site a day, every day – we have that many different sites so that our promotional programs are running most of the time. "
Hi Can you tell me what you mean by promoting? Sorry if this seems like a dumb question. I just put my site online, but I know I need to do some search engine work. Someone mentioned the site www.top10positions.net as a good place to have your site added to search engines. Seems rather pricey at 90.00 a month for submissions.
I thought you just had to submit once, but looks like they are saying you have to do all the time??
posted on May 26, 2001 07:52:10 PM
I got my site up and running with www.valueweb.com it cost me $150 initially and then the next month another $150, now I am just paying $49.95 a month. You get a Miva Shopping Cart with your site, this cart will run you about $500 if you purchase it alone. I got my Equifax Secure Certificate with it and several other things. My site is set up to accept payments via Paypal and credit card, I just process the card payments through propay.com. I will leave my site link up for a few minutes if you want to look at it. It is
I had someone design my site for me, didn't cost me much since it was family, and I bought my graphics set from a great place online.
[ edited by hcross on May 26, 2001 08:17 PM ]
posted on May 26, 2001 09:07:18 PM
I think that was directed at me mildreds? Yes, I do very well, the only problem is it takes forever to get listed in a good spot in the search engines.
jwpc: Do you find that Submit Wolf helps you get a higher ranking in the engines? Heather
posted on May 27, 2001 06:53:30 AM
eternallythankful: When you post your reply and scroll down, above the blue post button, click your mouse on the square that says Email Notification. Works great to follow a thread.
posted on May 27, 2001 07:43:56 AM
Also glad to see these helpful posts! Turning on my email and leaving post so I don't miss anything! Love ya all for all the helpful info I have gotten on AW
Put your URL and other detail about your store in the sig file in all your email.
Submit the site to search engines and spiders about every three months.
submit your site to as many Free classfide sites as you can weekly yahoo is one of the bigest and best.
add your Store URL daily to as many free link pages as you can.
Make your self one or more banners 468 X 60 and 125 X 125 the pay banner promotions work best and many websites prices are fairly resonable but one to too free banner exchanges cant hurt either.
submit your store to as many auction and bussiness News groups as you can.
Write a press release on your website and submit it to as many free new letter about online auction and on line store as you can.
Lets not for get bussiness cards that advertize your store send these with all auction item and payment you mail out hand them out to everyone you meet put them up on bulletin board in your local store many have these in the front of there store free for all to put ads on.
search around the internet become a part of a large webring and add this ring to your website or store webrings can send many many visitors to your site who mayt never have found it other wise.
most Magzines have classfide ads in the back of them the rates are very resonable and many times you will find for one small price your ad will be in up to 300 magazines for the month .
Make up an apealing about me page on all the auction sites you sell on adding your website or store URL.
Lets not forget more local advertizeing if there is a local new paper in your area with a weekly computer section send your press release to the editor usually they will run these for free.
if your area has a local weekly advertizer mailed out free weekly make sure your ad is in that paper with all the other local merchants.
Try and find free services to offer on your website as well nothing draws people to a website better then a free offer as we all know like free web based mail one place to check that allow you to offer this service is www.i-p.com this make your website sticky meaning gives people a reason to return daily.
offer other services like domain name registration there are many compainies out there that will allow cobranding you buy from them at like $10 and resell at your price good way to make a few extra $$ as well.
Rather then rush out and paying to lease webspace that charges you for some feature you more then likely will never use look for a web host that allows you to resell there webhosting packages or offer to let you become a webhosting company and offer free or pay webspace.
UP date your website regularly daily weekly and monthly and if you have the time make small changes daily dont let the site get stale this incourages and gives visitor a reason to return no one will come to see the same things no changes.
all website promoteing is done in three to five steps Daily like the free links pages ,weekly like the classifide advertize and monthly search engine submitions and banner advertizeing local advertizeing.
some thing are done quarterly or semi anually like press releases magazine ads.
never stop thinking always be thinking of what your next hot and new Idea for you website will be.
The more free thing you can offer the better then you can be listed in the free link search sites these site bring hundereds and thousand of hits to websites daily.
also lets not forget the other services that bring people in and keep them comeing back Comunity is important message boards chat rooms email services web hosting.
Edeal allows you to have your own online auction people can register to buy and sell at this to draws visitors.
Let me add before you start promoteing your website get a email address just for this as even submiteing to search engine will bring spam ads if you promote as you should the email address will draw from 700 to 2000 emails daily to the address you use .
posted on May 27, 2001 09:24:35 AM
Another free services website and stores can offer that will draw new people to your site is virtual postcards.
since you will have you own pay webhost you will more then likely have your own CGI-bin
cyber greet offer a cd with the programing to run your own virual postcard or virtual flowers type service you will be able to offer this service for free or for a small fee to other with websites as well the people who receive the virtaul greeting world wide will be directed to your website to pick up the greetings that are sent to them by others.
also on top of the people who register to use your posts hosting on there home page your banner will be on the top of there postcard page.
Free personnel website is one thing you make a page about your self and forget it but when you paying monthly for space and yearly for your domain name its work lots of it and I dont recommend anyone put out the dollars for this if they really are not interested in learning all the terminology and programing.
I dont really recommend the ready made store front or malls companies offer for free or even if you pay as these site just serve to promote there service and sales.
this is not recommended for anyone not willing to invest 6 to 8 hours a days just updateing and promoteing and learning new tricks that is on top of the time it takes to keep your store items freash and up to date track who is paying for what packing shipping and everything else that goes with running a bussiness.
also putting to geather a news letter to send out to past buyer and other who sign up is is a must.
OFr all who find a great deal on web hosting but the service dont offer the secure link of the shopping cart CCNOW offer a shopping cart they do charge a fee for credit card use but the shopping cart feature is well worth the fees.
posted on May 27, 2001 10:41:09 AM
I am in the process of building my website now. One of the things I learned quickly was to go with a host that really gives you a lot of control over your site, where YOU can add your own subdomains, email addresses, databases (if you ned them). Having to email tech suppport and ask for email addresses can get to be pretty tedious.
Even though the inclination is towards something free, if you plan to make money with your website, plunk down the money and pay for a decent host, because many of the free ones are terribly limiting. A few good ones are communitech.net, hostway.com, pair.com. and burlee.com. also check out tophosts.com for ratings.
Telephone support can be priceless. Also, there are pros and cons of going with a reseller. Some resellers just host and could not give you the slightest help with using any of the services/ software that comes with their packages.
Also, there are a lot of really, really good, free, open source shopping carts out there. Hotscripts.com is a good place to start looking. Most require some level of technical skill to set up and administer, but some are fairly easy.
And like everyone else has said, promotion is key.
And you can't take the same approach with a website as you do with eBay. I've seen a lot of sellers with restrictive, long, TOS repeat the same stuff on their site. Okay, THAT makes me want to buy...
posted on May 27, 2001 10:13:19 PMjwpc merchant account, in the shop I have never had a charge back, on the net I use to get several a month, as much as I don't care for PayPal I do have to say that I have never had a charge back and I had far more PayPal transactions(when we used them) than I processed myself. I even had our 800 number on the account and it was printed on the customers statements, do you think they could call to ask what the charge was for? no. anyway just wonder which is easier and have you had the same problems?
the hardest thing that I have had problems with is finding software that will help to build and manage a site. I've done some of the free ones, freemerchant(not free as of 05/31, paymerchant) bigstep(more like a little step), econgo(what was I thinking), and a few others.
I've found a few companies that offer packages for the village idiot and will only let you use their wizards and templates so you can't personalize the site very easily if at all. they are fine if your looking for a cookie cutter site but most look like a home page rather than a amazon or say the dear departed etoys. I've even looked at a few that cost around 2,000.00 that don't even have a site search engine built in, gotta wonder how hard it would be to add that and what they would want to charge for it.
it seems like a few of you may have been down this path already any ideas or pointers?
I'm now looking at visual studio, webgain, and another Java based "studio" that I can't remember right now and the info is at the office. I've looked at a few that are ok but you have to run the site on their servers, not the best plan if you want to be around for awhile and I don't really care to have someone have me by the throat like freemerchant or the likes.
posted on May 28, 2001 07:45:47 AM
I use shopfactory software. I also have their database wizard software that allows me to take almost any file including a text file and convert it for a mass upload to my online store built using shopfactory.
It is fairly easy to customize and integrate into frontpage or netobjects fusion (which I use). I have not yet added images but will in the near future and will also customize it more.
I have not yet promoted my online store but will soon. I've already had some orders. I have my own merchant account through my local bank.
I've also used freemerchant and many others in the past but prefer my own "shop" on my own server. I presently host with communitech dot net and have had good service for over a year there.
I also sell my used and rare books on ebay, amazon.com marketplace and zshops, abe, alibris, and many other sites.
Donny B. Seagraves
Junebug Books
www.junebugbooks.com
