27 November 2008
Posted in D.I.Y. Ecommerce - Planning & theory of how to make money online

The first topic will help you choose and find what to sell. You might have already decided on your product range. If you have or not, give this section a read because it covers a few things, like product suitability and profitability.

Choosing home or live development and self or pro hosting is an important choice. DIY E-commerce will talk you through all options. Not only that but if you don't want the expense of professional hosting, I will explain how to host your own store from home. Here is a summary of the pros and cons of the different options.

Develop at home and self host. Zero cost!! You really can have a cool, functioning store, with credit card payment processing and other features, without spending a penny! The downside is you miss out on the benefits of pro hosting explained below. You might choose this option if you want to keep things really cheap and didn't need the benefits of pro hosting. Perhaps you are setting up on behalf of a school, charity or other small organisation.

Develop at home and host on professional host. You can take your time to build and customise your store. Get it just how you want it, knowing that there is no possibility of it being visited until you decide. The downside is the extra stage of setting up the home environment means a bit of extra work. Then when your happy with your store you can put it on line and get the benefits of pro hosting. You might choose this option if you know that your store is going to be extensive and require lot's of customisation or you were not sure if you definitely wanted to proceed with your idea.

Develop and host with professional host. This is the route I usually take. It is the quickest way to realise a profit and get up and running. It takes away the additional stages of home development. The benefits of pro hosting compared to self hosting are significant. Your site is available 24/7. The web hosts I will help you set up on, offer a 99.9% uptime guarantee. The speed of a pro host means your customers get a much more professional and faster shopping experience. This will probably mean more sales. Also you can choose from a much wider and more personalised range of domain names, compared to self hosting. The downside of course is that professional hosting is not free. At time of writing 1&1 charge about £70 for six months hosting on the business package I will help you set up. You might choose this option if you just want to 'get on with' it and realise a functioning business ASAP.

Why not skip ahead and look at the sections of the DIY E-commerce guide on setting up hosting. Both at home and professionally.

Develop at home and self host     Develop and host with professional host

Choosing a domain name is next. Some simple advice to decide upon a killer domain name, that is actually available and appropriate for your business.

Set up what is known as a satellite site. Having a regular web site to promote your company and introduce your store has a number of benefits. Not least that if you are new to all this, it gives a gentle introduction to the nuts and bolts of making web sites. However it is completely optional and if you just want to get on with the meat of the project, you can skip this.

At last we can talk about your store. But which store is best for you? All is explained, so you can make the appropriate software choice. And when you have decided which option is best for you I give a detailed guide on how to set up your preferred option.Including, but not limited to installation, graphics & customisation.

Then we take a closer look at the different payment handling options. It introduces some of the companies who can handle payments for you and discusses where and how to get free accounts with them. I help you decide on the best option for you and then show you how to set it up in your chosen stores software.

Next up is the essential subject of backing up your business in case of an accident or malicious attack. And what to do if the unthinkable actually occurs.

Now we will look at all aspects of securing your store, your business and your customers sensitive details. A full account of e-commerce security issues and practical implementation.

At last putting your new baby, live and on line. Preparing for and handling your first of many customers.

It is worth mentioning that at this point your business in one sense is done. You could move on to other ideas at this point. You can realise the real beauty of an e-commerce shop over a regular business. That is; once it is set up you don't actually have to be there for it to take money!

The flow chart from this point onwards provides an arrow linking back to the start of the plan. You could start another store at this point, while continuing to revisit the later topics to develop your first store further.

The later topics however are the key to a really successful shop and they start with statistics and monitoring. How to set up professional systems for monitoring and measuring progress.

The above topic wouldn't be worthwhile without the next two. How to optimise your store for selling efficiently to humans as well as enticing more visitors from the search engines and other sources as well. These topics are probably the most time consuming and will almost certainly require cyclical development. That is I advise you set aside a set amount of time each week or month to develop these areas while continuing with other parts of your business.

Next up I will explain the benefits and show you how to set up blogs, affiliate programs and forums. These are all highly beneficial but entirely optional. Also a few sections on making your sites more profitable by allowing different forms of advertising.

The Big Secret is essential reading. If you haven't skipped ahead to it already why not do it now?

Next is a diverse range of topics including, accounting, strategies and more.

There is no right or wrong way to use this guide. As long as it's planned and it suits you, then it's right!

Have a look at a flow chart of the plan.