OPENING AN ONLINE RETAIL STORE

Some advantages that come with having an online retail store are the cheap overhead and ease of management. In fact, the rates of profits accrued from online retail stores have doubled over the past years. Customers say that the low prices, the convenience and multiple choices and options are the main catches that make this venture as blooming as it has become. If you are interested in opening your own retail store, here are the basics:

What you Should have:
Digital Photos of domain name hosting account payment processor e.g. PayPal or merchant accounts.

Now, the basics:

PROCEDURE 1:
Make your business become a business. In other words, acquire the basic documents that make your business accredited. These include: state licensing and tax identification numbers. Some of them may be important for you to get wholesale pricing. If you are not sure of what you might need, you might want to contact you area’s Small Business Association.

PROCEDURE 2:
Draw out and strategize your business goals. This will help you have an idea of the developmental aims you hope to achieve, as well as to monitor growth. It will also be useful to bankers and to your financial supporters, if any, if they are considering venture capital.

PROCEDURE 3:
Apply for business savings and checking accounts. You should also get a payment processor for online payments like Google checkout or PayPal. Although some banks offer merchant accounts for credit card processing, it could cost a lot of money by way of sign-up cost and monthly fees. It is best to research thoroughly before embarking on any of these options. One of the good things about online retail stores is the variety that comes with the payment options – you could provide various means of payment. Check the fees first, though.

PROCEDURE 5:
Buy out a domain name for your business. The best domain name to buy will be a “dot com” website. However, some problems may arise when the domain name of your choice may already have been taken. Here, you would have to allow for a little flexibility and settle to a name closest in form to your original domain name. For example, www.justinbooksonline.com may be your preferred domain, but it may already have been taken. Then you could settle with a domain like www.justinbooks.com. The key is selecting a domain name easy for customers to remember and access.

PROCEDURE 6:
Define whether you want to host your store or whether you want a hosted store. Hosting sites like Yahoo! Stores offer excellent hosting services which are favorable for first-timers. However, they charge a hosting fee of $39.99 plus a percentage of sales. This might put the merchant in deficit even before he has embarked on business.
Another alternative is the free shopping cart option. It may not be ideal for those with limited programming knowledge, but for those who have the knack for it, it will go a long way. The top shopping carts are OS commerce and Zen cart. To use this option, a hosting account is required.

PROCEDURE 6:
Select a host for your store. In selecting a host, ensure that it is one that works with Linux hosting. Most top shopping carts run on Linux programming. For a new merchant, it may not be too necessary to get a lot of bandwidth. Websites like www.GoDaddy.com offer services to first-time retail stores, and even offer automatic uploading of their shopping carts.
When getting hosting, ensure that you buy a secure socket layer (SSL) certificate that will run credit cards through a secure and encrypted server to verify the trustworthiness of the online merchants. A lot of clients will not like to do business with a merchant who collects their data without encrypting it first. So the $20 cost of getting the certificate may well be worth it.

PROCEDURE 7:
Now you are through, it is time to start uploading your products online. Take your own photos and upload the digital photos online. It might also be convenient to have descriptions of your product in a spreadsheet, but this will not improve your search engine ranking. Write your own copy, or pay someone to do the deed.

PROCEDURE 8:
Next, you affix prices to your products competitively, knowing that there are others online that are selling the same products as you. You might want to compare the prices of other merchants, as well as other incentives and discounts. In pricing your products, make sure you include gateway charges, processor fees as well as other overheads in calculating how much you’ll charge.

PROCEDURE 9:
Have a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page showing answers to troubling questions, showing shipping details as well as contact information. This makes you seem more ready to serve, and puts customers at ease. Most customers tend to fear the risk of fraud where shipping matters are concerned. It is therefore important for you to clarify matters for your clients.

PROCEDURE 10:
Increase your information worth by buying guides, reading reviews and blogs. This will help make your business more humane, as well as optimize your search engine visibility, which is what will actually get you those customers in the first place.