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How to start an online store
 

I was just getting started at selling fashionable young women's clothing on Ebay - Forever 21-looking stuff geared mainly for teens and twentys. Dresses, tops, bikinis, etc.

I was just getting started and doing VERY well - found some great suppliers and built up a nice inventory.

Then BAM, suspended.

Now I am in the process of starting up new accounts, and crossing my fingers maybe they will even reinstate my old account (maybe..) but I would really like to get away from Ebay as much as possible and just use it as a source of traffic for an ultimate online clothing store.

Really, I am clueless as to where to start. Any programs/software or sites that you have used to build a site that accepts cc/dc's as a form of payment?

My main concern is bringing traffic to the site. What is the best way to do that?

Any info would be appreciated, as I am just getting my feet wet!

From what I have seen, Google Adwords is a good way to get traffic to your site.

Hmm, maybe I should make a 'start your own online website' guide. :)

It's pretty easy actually. If you already have a product, you're making a good profit from, it should be easy for you.

First off you need a domain name, go to godaddy.com to buy one. Then you need hosting, go to hostgator.com for that. Then change your domain DNS to match what hostgator gives you to have your website on the internet. Your website should be live now, you can go to it's domain and see a default page from hostgator.

Then you use an ftp program, I recommend CuteFTP to manage your website files.

Then you need a shopping cart for your website. It's good to do a lot of research on Online Shopping carts. ONe I like is cs-cart.com

Once you pick out your shopping cart, follow it's instructions and it install it on your website.

Once you have it installed, all you need to do is add your products to it, and configure your payment gateway.

Once you have all that done, and you like the look of your site all you need now is traffic.

The best place for fast targeted traffic is Google Adwords.

Signup for an account at adwords.google.com and create some ads for your site.

Start off slowly with maybe $20 a day in pay per click ads and increase as sales increase.

It'll take you maybe a month to setup everything, but it's really worth it.

Good luck!

Wow, what great information. Thank you so much.. it's so surprising, and refreshing that people are so gracious with sharing the information they have learned!

I'd love to see a "make your own web page" guide!

So far I have been looking at activewebhosting.com. I actually used them once before about 8 or so years ago for a teen blog site..ha! No problems at all.

Time to get to work! This is going to take some experimenting but the more I learn the more it is looking to not be so bad. Thanks again.

aspkin...make an ebook about making a webpage...im sure you could make some money on that!

How does this Adwords thing increase traffic? I guess I just dont understand what adwords is. I have a webpage, but how to I get my page to come up on search results if someone types in one of my products? I dont want to be way down on like page 10 or 20, more like 4 or 5 or better.

adwords are the little ads on the right side when you search google. Everytime someone clicks on your ad it costs money to you. If no one clicks on your ad, then you don't pay a dime. It is a very easy way to get traffic on your site.

Oh ok, gotcha.

Does this really work?

yeah it does work. Give it a shot.

i definiately will. The profits from my next sell are going 100% to this marketing strategy.

You can even set a budget on how much you want to spend on advertising with adwords. I think the increments are $50...so you have do like $50, $100, $150, etc...so its very nice and easy to work with.

There is a program cre-loaded or something like that manages your stock and has a shopping cart built in. It's free or used to be, and you can manage everything in the admin panel.