Entrepreneurs- How to Start-Up an E-Commerce Business on a Budget

Many entrepreneurs start e-commerce businesses due to the low initial costs involved. No store lease to pay for, good quality web designers will work for very reasonable fees and you can target your specific demographic will relative ease. Most e-commerce start-up entrepreneurs still need a steady income, but they lack start-up funds, and have little to no retail experience or technical expertise.  

According to Ariel Lepor, owner of GreanLeaf Imagining, having a large amount of start-up capital isn't mandatory for an e-commerce internet entrepreneur to succeed. Explains Lepor, "Potential e-commerce entrepreneurs have a plethora of low cost services to choose from to get them from start-up to fully operational in a very short time frame. Designing the website, creating content and setting up the shopping cart use to require a tremendous amount of effort just a few years ago but now can be done and tested in a few weeks to a month."   

Many types of merchant services are available now also for very reasonable costs. Set up and operation has also been simplified. The traditional route of utilizing your banks merchant services has gotten much easier. PayPal, the leader in online merchant transactions has automated checkout systems along many newly added merchant services, all with reasonable fees, a solution for every situation along with general acceptance with online shoppers. Being able to offer PayPal on your site even gives entrepreneurs additional credibility further enhancing their online reputations and consumer confidence. Visit PayPal to explore the available custom tailored merchant payment solutions.

To summarize, if you're considering coming online, but know nothing about e-commerce and can't afford to lose any money, Lepor shares several tips to help alleviate the stress in your transition into online sales:

1.  Consider starting out with a storefront on a reputable selling venue, such as Yahoo! or eBay. They're easy to set up, even without a proficiency in coding. You can easily get started selling without hiring a web designer, programmer, or SEO consultant - much more easily than with an independent web site.

2.  Drop shipping is an ideal product sourcing model when you begin retailing online. Whenever your customers place their orders with you, you turn around and place those orders with your drop ship supplier. Your supplier then sends those products from their warehouse directly to your customers' homes. You only pay your drop shipper when your customers pay you, so you don't have to invest money you don't have into inventory that might not sell. Thus lowering the barrier to entry and allowing the entrepreneur a vast array of products to sell. 

3.  You may not have a great deal of money to spend on search engine optimization, but you can still do well in the natural rankings if you concentrate on giving the search engines what they really want: original, quality content. If writing content is not your forte a professional firm can be hired or to save even more put an ad on craigslist to find a free lancer. Make sure to request samples of their work and check references.  

4.  New e-commerce entrepreneurs often make the mistake of posting the template product descriptions their suppliers provide. But if a hundred sellers use the same product description, the search engines will see a hundred identical listings and only bring back one of those stores in the results. That's why each of your products needs its own unique copy.  

5.  Even if you have hundreds of products, you can work on a set number a day until you've written a fresh, unique description for every item. All this requires is time on your part or start with a select few products and add more along the way as customer demand dictates.

6.  While you wait for your SEO efforts to pay off, you may have to invest in some Pay Per Click ads to bring customers into your store. Lepor recommends advertising on a shopping search engine, rather than a traditional search engine. Typically, the cost is lower, and the conversion is higher.  

7.  Your Google ad may bring in ten times more clicks per day than your ad on a shopping search engine, but you're going to see about the same number of sales resulting from those clicks. And with the shopping engine, you're only paying for one-tenth of the clicks. Your return on investment (ROI) may be more substantial than with just using Google.

Walking the walk. Opening an E-Biz isn't a magic bullet, or a quick fix for all your financial woes, but it is a low-risk, low-investment opportunity for anyone willing to do the work. The key is to set realistic goals and take practical steps to make them happen. As Lepor points out, "It takes consistency and it takes time, but it can be done. If someone is prepared to study, to apply the things they learn, and, most of all, to stick to it, they can build an online business and be very successful with it." 

Don't forget customer service. Customer service is just as important, if not more so as with a bricks and mortar retail store. Friendly, prompt responses to customer inquires along with addressing the concerns of your clientele will go a long way to creating a positive online reputation for your business.  

I've seen many e-commerce entrepreneurs do everything right only to drop the ball with customer services to not only lose customers but to than have those same dissatisfied customers post their poor experience online further hurting a company's reputation.  

Years ago an unhappy customer might share their poor experience with a few friends and family member. Now, with the proliferation of consumer centric forums, message boards and company review websites an unhappy customer can share their poor experience with hundreds if not thousands of online shoppers. The old adage: "the customer is always right", applies now more than ever.  

In summary, as with any start-up or growth stage business seek out an affordable reputable business mentor, who has the applicable experience, to offer guidance and steer you around any potential pit falls you may encounter. Most professional mentors and business consultants can also draw from their own rolodex of trusted service providers to assist you thus saving you time, headaches and frustration along with valuable capital in the process.