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Sunday, March 15, 2009

How to Start an Internet Business

By Stephen Grisham Jr.

Earning cash online seems to be the fastest way to earn some extra money. eCommerce can even become your career if you are willing to follow the steps necessary to run a successful online store.

The first step is to think about what you would like to offer your customers. Will you be carrying a large variety of products? Will your products serve a specific niche? The amount of start-up money you'll need for your eCommerce site depends on this. You'll never manage to make a profit selling items on your eCommerce site if you pay too much for them in the first place.

The next step is to give your new eCommerce business a domain name. It's important that your name is short and memorable. People should be able to recall the name without any trouble, allowing them to revisit your site and share it with others.

The next part is crucial to drawing in and keeping customers. Your site should look professional and be easy to navigate, so that your customers are helped rather than confused. Buyers often won't trust an unprofessional-looking web page, so professional design is key to making a sale.

You will have to install a shopping cart system on your website so that customers can purchase your products. The online shopping cart allows people to pay using PayPal, 2Checkout, Authorize.net, or similar companies. The kind of payment methods you should take will depend on your unique situation. If you decide on options like 2Checkout or Authorize.net, it is necessary to have a "merchant account", which most banks can furnish, in order to accept credit card orders. It is not a requirement that you have a merchant account with PayPal, but you will have to pay slightly more for the service. You will need a secure sever (SSL certificate and dedicated IP address) from your web hosting company if you are going to use Authorize.net or one like it. 2Checkout handles payments on a separate secure server.

There is a wide range of online shopping cart systems to choose from, running the gambit from open source software to commercial offerings. The major benefit with open source software products is that the leading ones provide good support along with a helpful community, plus the software has already been used and tested by many people. You may wish to investigate osCommerce or ZenCart, both are good shopping cart systems. - 16655

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