How To Start An Online Store 1-2-3.

If you are just starting out as an entrepreneur, an online store can be a great place to start. You can launch an online store for very little cost, and virtually no experience is required. There are several turn-key online store opportunities, and you can work with drop shippers, so that you sell products without having to ever develop, inventory or ship them.

The downside to starting an online store is that there is a lot of competition. You have got make your store stand out from the crowd to get any sort of website traffic, or your store will never survive.

With all of that said, you want to start by doing some brainstorming. If you can find a small niche market that is not being serviced, you can do very well with an online store - and avoid lots of competition. List the areas where you have experience, skills or interest. This could be a previous line of work, a hobby, a weekend activity or even something you frequently read about. The important thing is that you ENJOY it.

Considering the list you have just made, make another list of products and services that would serve those markets. Be specific. Ideally, the item would solve a problem and would not be easily found both online and in your local retail store. You want to avoid truckloads of competitors while still entering a high-demand market.

Now that you have got some ideas to work with, you can look online for wholesalers and drop shippers who can supply the inventory for your store. Shop around to get the best deal. You can use a wholesale search engine like Go Wholesale to find wholesalers quickly online. You can also work with multiple vendors and carry a unique combination of products at your store.

Once you have got some products in mind, you can start setting up your store. This may be easier than you think. Many web hosting companies want you to purchase their service, so they will make their websites extremely easy to use, so you will buy from them. Web hosting companies like Pro Stores and Homestead are popular choices for low cost, reliable online stores.

With web design templates and shopping carts already installed, store set-up becomes fairly easy. You can even integrate a merchant account service like Pay Pal into your site without any up front costs. As many web page templates can look generic, it is worth the money to have a logo designed, or design one yourself. There are logo design tools online like Logo Maker or Logo Yes that you can use to create a professional logo that are easy and cheap.

Now to find customers. There are many ways you can advertise your store. For immediate traffic, you can advertise in search engines with pay-per-click advertising, where you only pay when a potential customer visits your site. If you have selected a specific niche market and have a unique product offering, you can keep your costs low with pay-per-click advertising, as you will have few advertising competitors to drive the ad price up.

Another way you can quickly get customers to your store is with a press release. You can submit a press release online or to your local newspaper, depending on where your market is. Hold a grand opening event, sale or share your unique story about how your business started - make it interesting so that editors will want to publish it and people will want to read it.

You can pay a service to write a press release for you or learn to write one yourself. With a good press release, you can get lots of traffic to your store, and pay less than $100.

For step-by-step information on how to start your own online store, go to: Start Your Own Online Store.

Sue Barrett has been the Director of Business Solutions at Home Business Center, Inc. since 1997.

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