Building a successful online store..
Someone on sitepoint recently asked for some advice on the costs of building a online store and if it was possible with $5k.
First off, building a website and thinking a your most of the way there is crazy.. like building a shop in the middle of the Sahara desert… it can be the best shop in the world but no one will find it. ecommerce is about marketing first and foremost… not the traditional marketing but pay-per-click and seo etc. (this may be obvious but i think it needs to be said.)
50% of time and money should be allocated to marketing at least.
Also, while dropshipping is a great option really you should buy stock if you have any confidence in selling your products.
Some possible steps to consider when building a online store with jshop for example (substitute oscommerce if you like)
Hosting & Domain Name Registration
JShop license and installation
Merchant account & Payment Gateway Setup
Training on how to use the administration area
Product and data entry
Design Website look and Feel
a. Logo Design
b. Site Look and feel
JShop Customisation and extras
a. URL Rewriting (SEO friendly urls)
b. Landing Pages
c. Banners
d. Payment gateway integration
e. Statistics and tracking
f. Blog Software
Add store to Price Comparison Directories (e.g. Froogle, Kelkoo, Pricerunner, etc)
Pay per click marketing campaign
SEO
a. Keyword Analysis
b. Competitor Analysis
c. On site keyword insertion
Link building
Maintenance.
This doesn’t include,
Accounting, purchasing stock and shipping products and more i haven’t thought of.
Time is a real cost as mentioned earlier.. while you may buy stock, build a website and market it for 5k you won’t do it without sacrificing a large proportion of your time…How much is your time worth?.. value it on an hour basis… lets assume you don’t value yourself very highly and you think your time is worth $20 an hour.
A store like this built right for 5k could take 3 months of your time almost completely. That’s 10k worth of your time. So in reality it cost you 15k. If you pay a consultant and they do half the work for you then isn’t it worth 5k to you? I’d imagine you could do other things in the mean time.
Its all about ROI(Return on Investment) and understanding time really is money no matter how you slice it.
The money & time required to market a store is directly proportionate to the competitiveness of the market. So if your trying to sell ipods then you’ll have to pay a hell of allot to attract attention. The demand then determines your potential revenue.
Naturally there are smarter ways of doing things which give you the advantage. The question you have to ask is do you have an advantage over anyone doing well in the market currently?
