If you have a business that sells physical goods and that business does not yet have an active internet presence, consider this. In 2008, online retail trade turnover in the US measured somewhere around $230 billion, which represented some 10% of total US retail sales!

Even with the recent economic downturn, the percentage of retail trade that is transacted online is set to keep growing throughout the commercialized world as the internet becomes more sophisticated and efficient, while ‘high street’ businesses are constantly on the lookout to expand their customer base still further.

In fact, if you have a real world, ‘bricks and mortar’ business that is not represented online, there has never been a better time to get your business online. Even if you already have a web site, unless you keep abreast of the latest online business trends and thinking – and you are probably too busy running a business for that – the chances are that your site is not doing what it should do.

What if you are thinking about starting a business that supplies physical goods, but you have not yet done so? Once again, there could be no better time to think about doing so (and therefore no better time to be reading this book) because despite the phenomenal growth of online business over the past few years, we are only scratching the e-commerce surface at the moment.
There seems little doubt that in the next few years, there is likely to be a global explosion in e-commerce as potential consumers become more accustomed and comfortable transacting business online.

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Here is my short guide to help you understand how it’s done – building an online store .

1. Decide on a name for your store and check if the domain is available for registration. if it does you can register it at godaddy or any other registrar

2. Decide if you want to pay for an online store package or build one yourself, in case you have decided go for an online store package order one – check that it includes hosting. if you want to build one yourself there are some free scripts like oscommerce etc..

You can pay for an store script that you can install by yourself. i like Interspire cart – its great don’t forget that for the second choice you need to order hosting – you can do it at hostgator or godaddy – I prefer hostgator – their GUI is faster.

3. After you finished building your store you need to choose how you are going to get buyers – traffic

• PPC traffic – paid traffic by adwords etc…

• SEO traffic – free traffic by optimizing your store for search engines

• pay someone reliable to do it for you – find a professional to help you get traffic to your site

I hope it helps.

good luck!

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Drop shipping is when the product distributor takes care of all the shipping for you. Rather than ordering stock in bulk, the stock remains with the distributor. Then, when you make a sale, you send an email to the distributor and they pack up the item and send it straight to the customer with your company label on the box.
Drop shipping is a very popular option with sellers because it takes a lot of the grunt work out of selling on eBay. However, there are some major downsides to drop shipping – especially for new sellers.

Here’s a list of the pros and cons of drop shipping so that you can make the right decision for your business.

Drop shipping Pros

1. No storage room required
   You don’t have to fill up your living room with stock and packing materials! This is particularly useful if you are selling large items such as kit-sets, furniture, sporting goods, and so on.
2. No shipping costs getting stock delivered from the distributor
   Drop shipping means you don’t have to pay a carrier to bring stock from the distributor to your own storage area, which can mean big savings in the long term.
3. Spend more time on other areas of your business
   You don’t have to organize the packing and postage system, nor do you have to drive to the post shop each day to post your packages. This gives you a significant increase in time to spend on other tasks such as marketing and communicating with customers.
4. No packaging required
   You save money by not having to order and store packaging materials.

Drop shipping Cons

1. Can be Costly
   You have to pay for the cost of the labor and materials involved in drop shipping. Generally this is between $2 and $5 per item. Many new sellers find that the additional costs of drop shipping greatly reduce their profit margins and sometimes nullify the whole operation. This is the main reason why drop shipping is not a viable option for some sellers.
2. You are still responsible for any shipping problems
   So the item arrived damaged? Was there a shipping delay? You’ll get the flak for anything that goes wrong with the shipping even though it is technically out of your control.
3. Hard to find a distributor who will do it and do it well
   Many distributors will not drop ship because of the extra paperwork involved. Then there is the matter of checking up on quality standards to make sure your items are being packed correctly.
4. Low stock levels may cause unhappy customers
   Your drop shipper won’t necessarily tell you when they are running low on stock. If they run out and have to do a back order, you may end up spending a great deal of time placating a bunch of unhappy and impatient customers.

Drop shipping is a very appealing prospect for many sellers; however it is not always a realistic one. Despite the hassle, ‘doing it yourself’ can often be a more sensible option financially, especially for new businesses.

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