Local retailer looking for advice on how to start an internet business

Great question. It depends on a lot of things like budget, whether or not you already have a site, the price of your items, how niche they are, etc.

If you don't already have a Web site, you should definitely get one since people are going to be out there looking for you on the net anyway. There are a lot of really inexpensive options for basic sites nowadays.

Then you need to look at how you're going to drive traffic to the site. People aren't going to show up automatically. What is the cost of that traffic going to be, what conversion rate do you expect, and what is your profit margin per product?

Selling online can be a very profitable thing, but you want to make sure you do your due dilligence first to make sure you're not just throwing money down the drain. You also should commit to making it work, so after doing all your research, figure out the budget and time frame you can commit to the project. Depending on how you're choosing to drive traffic, you probably wan to give it at least 6-12 months to determine whether it can be successful for you or not.

Hope this helps give you some things to think about as you make your decision. Best of luck!

Lisa -

Many small businesses find the jump from traditional retail to an online store to be very intimidating. The first step to take would be to start getting the email addresses of your in-store customers. This will help two-fold. One, it builds your much needed email list and two, you can send out emails announcing your new site once it is up.

In order to advise you correctly when it comes to your website, I would like to know a few more things. How many products are you selling? How often do your products change? Are you planning on creating the site yourself? Or hiring it out? Do you have a budget?

If you are planning on tackling it solo, and you have no programming experience I would look into two options. One is using a hosting provider's e-commerce set up. For instance, 1and1.com provides monthly hosting plus an e-commerce package. Another option would be to use a Wordpress e-commerce premium template. These normally cost under $100 and you will need to do some minimal programming. You will also need to have a monthly hosting package with Wordpress.

If the thought of setting the site up yourself is overwhelming, feel free to contact me. I help start-ups and small businesses create their online presence. This can be anything from creating a custom Wordpress site to a fully custom designed and programmed e-commerce site. There are many options out there, it really depends on the needs of your business.

Two other things you should start now are a Facebook Fan page and a Twitter account. Those two, along with your e-mail newsletter site will help drive traffic to your site once it is up. Also, make sure your web site, Email newsletter, Facebook Fan page and Twitter account are all branded with the same look as your retail store.

Once you have the site up, make sure you add Google Analytics (it's free) to keep track of where your traffic is coming from, what pages they enter on, exit on and much more.

Other revenues to drive traffic to your site that can be an additional expenses: ads on Facebook and Google Adwords. You can pay as little as $1 per day.

Let me know if you have any questions about any of the things I mentioned and good luck!

Lisa -

All of the answers given to you previously are quite good. Since you did not mention how Internet savvy you or your family might be, let's start with a few basics. What is your current and prospective market? Is is strictly local? US national? North America? worldwide? That makes a difference in how you characterize your messages and how you promote your site. Next, do you have a domain name (or know what that is) that you might want to use for your on-line store? You might want to give some thought as to what might work for you. Keep in mind that most specific names or subjects are probably long since taken, such as babyspeciality.com. On the other hand, smithsbabyspecialty.com likely has not been taken. After you have created a list of possible domain names that might work for you, you can check out godaddy.com or others to see if those names are available. If they are, you can buy them quite inexpensively. Go Daddy also has web hosting and storefronts available as well, but you certainly should check out a few others for cost and features before you decide to try someone.

This may seem like an intimidating step, but there are some good vendors out there that will guide you through the process and bend over backwards to keep you happy. After all, they only continue to make money if you are happy and stay with them!

I have used a few of these for my own company and also have quite a few clients that have used them successfully as well.

Best of luck.

Joel

One more thing you need to be careful of is this, are you driving traffic away from your existing business to the Internet?

If so, how do you protect your margins in this instance?

Because people generally expect to pay less online with delivery included, than they do face-to-face.

E-bay is a good way to start, it's an almost no cost way to test the market place, you can start with a few posters in store, with "as seen on E-bay" to promote, and gauge demand accordingly.

In the long run, I'd happilly recommend oneandone.com for hosting too, when I ran a web based business or two they were my preferred supplier and very reasonable too.

I own and operate http://www.apelgear.com. I setup this website through a company called HitWebDesign, and after paying about $6K I got a really good, and functional website. I am an active duty U.S. Army Cavalry Scout on a very tight budget, and this company did a great job building my site.