Pros & Cons of having online store?
345138
Pros\n\n- Allows you to establish your own "real estate" on the Web;\n- Allows you to attract a bigger audience not limited to marketplace such as eBay buyers (not everyone buys on eBay and the target audience you want may not be those who wants the cheapest prices that shops on ebay)\n- Scaleable as it allows your business to grow; \n- Allows you to give more information about your business to your visitors and give them reasons to trust you as you can put as many supplemental pages you want (from About Us to Contact Us pages)\n- Allows you to give more information about the product, play around with factors that can increase conversion\n- Gives you a more professional look \n- Makes you look like a "big" business \n- You can put in as many items you want without paying listing fees\n- You can sell as many items as you can without paying value added fees\n- Less restrictions than eBay (you are more free to write your sales copy)\n- Easier to market on the Web as you can play with search optimization factors from your metatags to keyword density\n\nCons:\n- Requires technical knowhow to create a website (or money to pay someone to do it for you) and make all elements work from shopping cart to payment gateway to SSL certificates to your sales admin panels\n- Fixed price (price you set is what you get)\n- Higher risk of hacking and security being compromised
154755
There are pros and cons both ways. I'll tell you my position below.\nFor a small business (large businesses are too sophisticated to need internet storage) this can provide essential "off-site" backup storage for critical files. Too often the small businessman concientiously backs up his files to a CD and then puts the CD in his disk which is 3 feet away from the computer! What happens when there is a fire in the office!However, if he takes the backups home each night this kills the argument for off-site storage!\nNext, what about the private or work-at-home user? When you are working and living in the same space (home) and have REALLY critical files you'll have to find another place to put them or use on-line storage places. Also, for this category, even if it's just a private person with his single PC at home, think about the consequences of fire, natural disaster, etc. to his ORIGINAL installation disks of such programs as the OS (XP, W2K, ME, 98, Windows Office Suite etc.). Think of the problems if they were destroyed. Personally, I keep mine (at home, unfortunately) BUT in a fire-resistant (3 hour UL listed file cabinet that I picked up at a garage sale for 10 bucks. (took four of us to move it to my basement).\nOf course, the one big disadvantage to on-line storage is the cost for a truly reputable storage location. Typically you pay for the amount of storage space you rent. And, speaking of rent, your typical neighborhood bank rents safety deposit boxes in their vaults that you may consider.\nThe whole notion of internet file storage is for either safety and security OR because you are out of storage space on your own computer (I would buy a larger hard drive or install a secondary hard drive.\nBottom line for me (as a private user) is CONTROL. I'm nervous about giving anyone control over my most critical files and disks.
353283
My cousin has been running an online ebay store for several months now and he loves it !\n\nHe has the freedom to spend all day in his house clothes,  adding stuff to the store, editing his pages. When people buy something he gets a pop up that tells him what just sold !\n\nHe might go out several times a day to mail out packages, sometimes he'll go out just once.\n\nHe loves having his own business and making his own hours.\n\nMy only suggestion is to start out small and build your way up gradually.\n\nThere are plenty of mistakes to be made and you want to make them when your small and have small amounts of money and time invested.\n\nAlso buy some of those books from those ebay Power Sellers, it's not easy to become and stay a power seller, got to realy know what your doin, those people realy know how to make an ebay business work well and will have tons of sound advice.\n\nI realy can't think of any cons, just do alot of research before and during, thats Key !
632882
advantage is size and one-stop shopping... disadvantage is competivity pricing on some of thier products
290699
You should really read up on the ways to keep yourself out of trouble before you start a small business on there. But i would definally suggest it for someone interested in a little money in less time. Search for wholesalers with items youd like to sell and list them on ebay. Youll make a good profit and a good amount of pocket cash
888570
Advantages\n# Profit from your passion, hobby or area of expertise...\n# Work from anywhere...\n# Start Easily...\n# Start Cheaply\n# Enjoy Huge Profit Margins..\n# Your Business is automated, no worries of inventory or late delivery\n\nDisadvantages :\n# People don't treat you right.. they think you are either one of those scammers or have porn sites :D\n# Because the investment is low.. there is too much competition. If you want to jump into this field, stick to it, it'll make money...\n# you become TOO lazy
225295
You can do it two ways:\n\n1. Do it yourself - get a domain name, you create a webpage, choose a webhost, get an online merchant account, get an online processing gateway to accept credit cards payment, find and install a shopping cart, take pictures of your products and write sales copy, get an SSL certificate from Verisign or Thawte for secure processing, integrate shipping tracking information from UPS or DHL. \n\nIf you do it by yourself, you'll have the flexibility to choose the best element for you with the features you need. The disadvantage is that you have to do it yourself and if you do not have the skills to setup the applications such as shopping cart, then it can be quite a challenge.\n\n2. Get a complete package - example is Yahoo store where they basically provide you with everything an online store needs (from web hosting to online processing to order management systems to shopping carts). All you need to provide are your web pages (sales copy and products), merchant account and the monthly fees.\n\nThe disadvantage is you are limited to whatever features they offer and customization options are almost nil.
388058
You can start at Yahoo Shopping. I guess you can set up a small online store there with minimum effort. Once your business grows, you may move it your own site and buy some custom built website.
849526
Hello I have run my own small business in the past so I can sympathise with you. My guess is the one thing your NOT looking closely enough at is your competitors? do you know who your competitors are? where are they? who is taking your previous customers away from you? what are your competitors doing that your NOT? Ask yourself what you can do inorder to match or atleast challenge your compeitors?\n\n**Do you know what your competitors are charging for a standard item you, yourselves might sell :- for example take something simple like a gold ring or chain?\n\n**Dont be shy go into your competitors shops/premises have a good look around see how they operate, see what they offer that you dont?\n\n**Do you have an online shop/store. If you dont then you need a good kick because you cannot afford NOT to offer online sales. Even if its only a web presence, you must offer an online sales channel it could make all the difference to your cash flow. Try it you wont know until you do it.\n\nBest Regards to you.
272139
I suggest www.netfirms.com . They offer all the tools you'll need, and they are very cheap, about 10 bucks a month. Very good service, and no downtime. They offer web authering tools, shopping carts, data bases, and plenty of webspace. I've used them for 5 years, and I've never had any problems.
300786
Well, depends on what kind of audience you want to target and what locations you are targeting. If you're opening a brick and mortar store, a website might not benefit you much, other than serving as a basic ad telling local people where you are located. Unless you're thinking shipping nationwide, then a website would be a good idea.
444781
People typically want instant gratification ...... get their new computer as soon as they decide they are going to buy one.  Also while not impossible it is hard to beat the prices of the "big box" stores.  The way i see it is the biggest advantage of a small shop is that there is a lot more customer service, that makes owner personality a huge factor.\nRather than incurring all the expenses of opening a shop why not try making them out of your garage/house/apartment whatever and then provide installation/repairs at peoples homes.  People love the convenience and the good customer service.  Hard part is getting your name out but expenses are soooooooo much lower and it can always be done part-time as a side business
335763
I would always rather go to the store.  I have ended up with so much merchandise of , ahem, questionable quality when purchasing online or out of a catalogues that I don't bother anymore.  The one exception is my dog treats.  I have an allergy dog, and have only found one place to get her treats that she can eat.  They are more than a thousand miles from my home, so I do make that purchase online.
1147914
Well, there's CafePress (http://www.cafepress.com/), which is a store you can set up and put your logos on products so people can buy them. The downside is that you don't physically have the products, and may never touch them unless you buy one for yourself.\n\nFor your situation, I would recommend the PayPal shopping cart. Just get an account, and go to this page (https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_cart-factory). It's like a shopping cart generator that is actually quite versatile. Just create your item and you'll get an HTML code.\n\nThis is perfect for when you don't want to deal with a whole lot of PHP coding in a big e-commerce solution. This shopping cart is really simple and easy to use; it helps people checkout in a separate window. Because it is a small HTML code no bigger than this paragraph, it is easy to integrate into an existing webpage.\n\nOnly downside is it only runs on PayPal, but it is definitely worth it.
238436
It depends on the products, your overall goals and how you want to brand your products. There's not really one best way - even big companies use multiple distribution channels online for their products. \n\n\n\nCREATING YOUR OWN WEBSITE\n\nPros\n- allows you to establish your own "real estate" on the Web;\n- allows you to attract a bigger audience; not limited to eBay buyers (not everyone buys on eBay)\n- scaleable as it allows your business to grow; \n- allows you to give more information about your business to your visitors and give them reasons to trust you\n- alliws you to give more information about the product, play around with factors that can increase conversion\n- gives you a more professional look \n- makes you look like a "big" business (an e-commerce seller that also sells on ebay "looks" so much bigger than a purely ebay seller)\n- you can put in as many items you want without paying listing fees\n- you can sell as many items as you can without paying value added fees\n- less restrictions than eBay (you are more free to write your sales copy)\n- easier to market on the Web\n\nCons:\n- requires technical knowhow to create a website (or money to pay someone to do it for you)\n- fixed price (price you set is what you get)\n\n\nSELLING ON EBAY\n\nPros\n- auction format; prices can go up higher than you originally set it for\n- eBay's brand and size of its market \n\nCons\n- listing and final value fees\n- lots of restrictions \n- harder to get onto search engines\n- link exchanges are more difficult \n- increasing competition (it is not as easy to sell now on eBay compared to others)\n\nI would say it depends on what you want with your business. If you have a steady supply of product to sell (not just based on what you can find in your attic), I would go create a website - and THEN use eBay as an additional sales channel. You just have more room to operate and grow your business with having your own store.
27411
if you also have an actual storefront you might want to checkout http://www.merchantcircle.com\n\nThey're an online community whose sole purpose is to help small business grow.  They offer all sorts of tools (newsletters and coupons)to help build relationships online.\n\nthey're also FREE, so it's not gonna hurt :)\n\ncheck them out they're new
256572
Where do you live, if you go online you can almost get anything you want, but it is no fun.  Instead i personally would suggest that you will go out and find a outlet store far away from your home.