online business
 

I want to start my own online buisness, like the stealthman, but I dont know the first step in designing such a site, this would be mostly for the military personel stationed over seas that have problem getting parts ship to them, because no one will go to the post office to ship, or tripple charged us for shipping.

so I would basically be a middle man in provinding these parts, also service.
I would want a site that I can have links in and will be recognised on the search.

please help or show me the way. not looking to pay a monthly fee

Re: online business
 

not paying a monthly fee means your site is gonna suck

Re: online business
 

Not true. I pay $45 a year for hosting.

I'm wondering how you are going to work around the shipping? So, alot of people won't ship? And alot of places over price the shipping? Aren't you oversea's now?

Re: online business
 

I can make you any graphics or logos you need for a small charge. you could just use a paypal shop or somthing to host the site on. the paypal fees are going to suck after awhile. theres allot of places on the interent offering vendor websites though. Theres a few comapanys offering online credit card and payment processing If you want to go about hosting the website on your own with out a parent merchant website. if you can get the parts and ---- i say go for it.

Re: online business
 

Paypal is the most convenient way to pay for 98% of all my customers. The fee's are shitty, but that's the cost of doing business. That cost, just like any other cost, is passed on to the customer. Trying to go around the paypal fees by using another payment program will be a waste of time.

Make it easy for the customers to buy, and they will.

Re: online business
 

i can show you how to setup a basic server from your home computer if your on cable+
also can get you pretty cheap hosting if you like

Re: online business
 

yea i just figured he didnt want to pay at all from what he wrote

Re: online business
 

I pay like $9 a month for my web store. I bought the shopping cart to just show what I make, not really to sell through. I haven't bought a banner here so I can't advertise here, but to see what you get for like $9 a month my site is here. www.FantomFabrications.com I bought the domain and site from the same site. I AM NOT TRYING TO SELL ANYTHING. Just giving you an example. Thats why all my products say back ordered. Its very easy with the templates they provided.

Re: online business
 

If you want to have an online store, and offer numerous products, you need to invest in an online store service. Although there are plenty of guys who will build you a website, you need a solution that you can manage yourself, without having to rely on someone else. The first time you need to change something in the store, or add products, and you cannot contact so and so who wrote the site, you're stuck and at their mercy. If you cannot write your own code, you need to considered a packaged solution. Something like Vendio.com or similar. We started with Vendio a few years ago, and it served us well. Once we got bigger, we wanted FedEx and credit card integration, so moved on to another store package provider.

Shipping USPS Overseas is a huge PITA. You must take every package to the Post Office, and fill out all kinds of customs forms. Half of the employees will disagree with the other half about which forms you need to complete, and 90% of the time, you have filled out the wrong one. Insuring a package requires different customs forms. No shipping on government holidays, understaffed, and bad attitudes half the time. Then you have to consider that the only economical way of shipping overseas, does not offer tracking services. (Do I sound bitter?) When you take all of the extra effort into account, for all the hassle you have to deal with, you may take a different attitude about charging extra to ship USPS. We still do ship something USPS, but stay completly away from it when we can. FedEx now picks up daily from our location, and we never have to leave the shop for it.

When we first started, USPS Priority mail was the way to go, you could even get a piackup at your house for US addressed shipments, not for overseas. It didn't take too long to say Screw It to USPS, and switch to FedEX.

If you have the free hours required, and have the patience of Job, and can deal with grumpy government employees, and don't mind customers constantly asking you to lie on customs forms, then shipping via USPS may be the way for you to go.

Sorry to kind of rant about it. But I wanted you to have the perspective of someone who has first hand experience, and has been doing this for a while now.

Craig


CSAddict - Solid advice and a nice site you have there. $9 is totally reasonable!

Re: online business
 

yea thats about the price and package i can get him from a friend, i think he offers a management program also