Online Shops

trudij

trudij

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Sep 15, 2003
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HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!


I might be working for a friend of mine come September/October - shes setting up an online shop selling saddlery etc to run alongside her ever growing rug cleaning/mending business. Im going to be helping with the online stuff, as well as a bit of machining,delivering and basically a bit of everything - but i dont have teh first clue about runnign an online shop....

Anyone know of any good books or courses? Ive had a look at my local adult education stuff - but thats not geared to running a business online ( though there is a day course teaching you how to shop online :brows: ) and it would help if I had a bit of an idea waht goes on before we set it all up!!


( and I am aware that I need to make friends with spellcheck :laughing: )

Surely someone on here has experienced similar??

Thankyou :)
 
La, Phil, you are a one.

Trudi you must open a Paypal account for the business or some such means of money being held securely between the parties whilst goods are delivered.

Also get a separate email [I can offer you a G-mail - google mail - intro if you pm me, you can have as many of those as you like for free] for sole use with the business. That way you can give out your email to prosepctive buyers to answer queries etc without incoming mail getting muddled with your ususal mail. If you and your friend have similar ones, eg yourname+businessname@googlemail.com, that would be best

My only forays into online shopping [buying not selling] have been disastrous, so I can only advise you what NOT to do. Make sure your goods descriptions are accurate, in no way misleading, and that the goods are approriate for the purpose they are required, as exchanging things is fraught with problems and expensive. And make sure you deliver goods quickly once ordered and paid for via Paypal or however you do it.

Both I and esp my aunt's carer have ordered stuff online in the last few months which either failed to arrive or arrived months late. In the worst case - Argos - she ordered two little suitcases for her grandchildren with their names on, for Xmas, last November - they have just arrived :ph34r:
 
Are you talking about having a software-house design a bespoke shop for you and you run it? Or are you talking about doing the whole-shebang yourself?

If the latter then I would strongly recommend having a good read around Ebay stores. Not only can they be set up and managed with only very basic technical knowledge, but they provide a tried and more importantly trusted method of payment handling, some excellent stock control/marketing software but perhaps crucially (depending on your market) the ebay search tool will dump a load of prospective customers on your door step.

There is lots of material on their own website that I would recommend reading, but I guess the go/no go decision will be based around the cost and specifically the volume of sales that your are likely to achieve.

If you are set on having your own website too, then you can cross market your products using the ebay store.
 
well first of all do not use a free email address

get a domain and hosting, for the likely traffic you will get in the first year it won't cost much, and that way you get email addresses such as sales@online shop selling saddlery.com rather than the rubbish looking online shop selling saddlery@hotmail.com.

People do not trust free email addresses, and think (rightly so) if you can't afford less than a tenner a year for a proper one, how bad will the business be.

Secondly I presume you will want to accept payments online? Does she already have a merchant account? If so then its quite easy to set up if not then maybe look at paypal (if selling on ebay you want paypal anyway). Paypal isn't ideal but without it on ebay you will lose a lot of sales.

Thirdly designing a full e-commerce site is expensive. I would recommend to start by using a free e-commerce solution like oscommerce, I have 2 shops online at the moment http://www.remoteunlocker.com and also http://www.vodafone-unlock-codes.info . Both use free e-commerce software and theres a lot you can do wth them with a little php coding skills, or get one designed fairly cheaply so it stands out from the rest. Bear in mind mine are pretty basic as they are mainly there to attract trade customers, rather than getting normal customers.

more info at http://demo.oscommerce.com/

there are loads of live shops here

http://shops.oscommerce.com/

for you to have a look around and see what can be done!

Also invest in a decent camera for photo's if you can't use manufacturers stock photos, and make sure the descriptions are as full as possible.
 
Excellent advice from those who know what they are talking about!

Re descriptions, think in terms of keywords: ie use EVERY word which people might put into a search box when looking for and item you are selling
 
I'm sure your friend has covered this already but she should make sure she has a proper business plan and realistic first year targets in terms of sales, revenue, costing etc.
 
Shes fine on that count Martin - I first met her when she was operating out of her garden shed - in 8 years she now has a workforce of 8,her hubby has left his job and retrained as a master saddler,the now have the contracts for all the yards in teh local area and they have a big unit on a trading estate!!(Hence why the online shop - shes not allowed to run a retail store from the units)

Im only really moseying things about - if she isnt allowed the unit next door its unlikely to happen this year - i know she hates office work - shed much rather be making,designing and mending rugs and stuff - but she knows without the office there wouldnt be a business! I was just thinking that if I can learn a bit about it, it would be a) another string to my bow and b) another incentive to have me, cos we can share the whole thing!!

Thankyou everyone - hopefully Ive started thinking about this early enough to get a good idea of what to do. I would have thought shed get a real web designer in to do the building of the site - youd be a bit daft not to IMO - but shes pretty clever and Im not half as thick as people think I am, so between us all we could be ok.I sell stuff on Ebay a lot, so Im familiar with paypal - and we both do a lot of shopping ( well - we are girlies!) online, so we have an idea of what works for us and what doesnt....


I hope!!

First things first though - Ive got to hope shes allowed to take on teh second unit first!! :laughing:
 
Good Luck, Trudi. Like you say, it would be great for you and your CV, great experience and you never know where this may lead to.

I have met you and I know you are not thick, infact far from it.
 
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