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How to open an online store
 

Can someone please tell me the process of opening an online store and how to get traffic directed toward it. I would like to spread my sales so thats why I want to open a online store.
Thanks for the help :)

HI:
I dont know if you are referring to your own website, or just an ebay store?
I have the anchor store, as well as the pro stores, it makes auto relist very simple, and since theyve cancelled the ad words programs, they have the best match now..

I was reffering to my own website.

But I was just thinking about opening an ebay store as well. Can you please tell me the benefits of having one?

So can anybody point me to the right direction?
I'm struggling here :( I don't even know what I'm reading on the net. The easiset solution seems to be to open a pre created website but then people say those are not good. I don't know what I'm doing :confused:

I know I can buy a domain from godaddy.com and then host the site on hostgator but don't know anything in between.

Is volusion.com any good?
Are there any cheap ways of getting a online store up and running?

Recommend you send pms to The _Cynic and Sammixxx, two users who has posted here about websites. There will be costs involved to create a site. But spending money makes money:rolleyes:

For a complete and total noob, I would suggest 2 things.

1st, the easiest, ( for about 10 different items)

--A. set up a free account on one of the blogging platforms. Live journal, blogger, etc..
-- very easy to do, they have prefilled templates, just type in your info, and type whatever you want for a first post.

--B Get Flogd, It's free, and you just plug your paypal acount to it, and then load items. https://www.flogd.com/ They give you a snippet of code that you can put into any page you control and your store will pop up.

see this, I set up as a test, it took me 15 minutes to set this up.
ourcynic

For a set up like that, total time 1 hour, cost $0.00 and you put the flogd store into any other blog account you may sign up for



After you get your feet wet with something like that, you may want to try paying up for something better.

options, premade store sites
---- Webstore by amazon (also get your stuff on Amazon) Yahoo stores and Ebay prostores

These are quick and easy to set up but you pay monthly fees and commisions.


Other option,


Go your own way,

Get a domain and buy hosting, then download wordpress and use that to set up your site. ( Not that hard at all)

For a shopping cart, I recommend mercantec, they are free and work with google checkout, paypal and Amazon payments.


Hope that helps.

Cheers!

Can you explain your "own way option" more in detail please.
Ive been reading the SEO on those premade online stores are not good.

I had a webstore by amazon and it sucked, I could not set up the pages the way I wanted and the seo was awful.

Go your own means build your site

I suggest you find a site that is similar to what you want and copy it or email the site owner and ask about it.

There are 1000's of free wordpress templates too.

check here,

Free WordPress templates and themes


and here

Download free CSS templates - Free CSS Templates




Just cruise a few these and pick out the site you like. Then get to building it.

Well modee can you give any suggestions on this matter please?

BTW what do you guys think about homestead.com?

I dont think I'll be able to create a website from scratch. I know I have to get a domain name, host it, and then I dont know how to stock up the website.

I think a pre made website will be best for me at the moment. I dont know how the pre made stores dont get that much visibility so if anybody want to fill me in on that that would be peachy :)

Good tips!

Check out Build a website - Create your own web site - Website builder - Hosting - you don't need to know anything about creating a website. The user interface is really easy to use too...you will have a website up and ready in no time....prostores is a waste of time...