Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Hi ZombieLion... :-) Welcome to the forums. I`d suggest you spend some time cruising the existing topics here, even though there are hundreds of them. This site has, I think, a majority of topics and questions, all of which are specific to the e-commerce idea of selling something online. All of your questions have been brought up and discussed at great length.

One thing to know right away is that you don`t need a license to sell things online any more than off-line (the brick-and-mortar world). So if you`re selling a pharmaceutical product, for example, and it requires a license if you have a store, then it`ll require a license online. But if you`re selling a package of duct-tape, which doesn`t need a license in the physical world, it doesn`t need one online.

Doing taxes is no different, it all rests on the way you capture sales and transaction data. Most e-commerce systems include a shopping cart that ought to report out all activities in various formats. You then can import those reports to a spreadsheet or QuickBooks, or whatever other system you`d use if you had a physical store.

The main advantage of selling online is that you increase your *potential* market access---your "neighborhood"---to now include the entire world of people who have computers, anywhere on Earth. A brick-and-mortar store mostly captures customer traffic from within maybe 100 mile diameter.

As Craig suggested, do some reading about creating online stores.  I also want to encourage you to research the differences between e-commerce and brick-and-mortar stores.  There are HUGE differences in everything from strategy and marketing to inventory and daily operations.  The idea of starting out with a website and later transitioning to a physical storefront is not a natural process.  This isn`t to say it cannot be done with a well thought out business plan but you`re talking apples and oranges - not apples to bigger apples.  I hope that makes sense.  But you`re asking good questions so do your research!

Check out Joomla.org. You can build your own website and do just about anything you would need for an online store absolutely free (except for hosting and a domain name). It is opensource so there are new plugins added almost daily. Something else to look into. I am going to start selling using a blog. If you install Wordpress on a server you can use an e-commerce plugin that is free and it comes with a shopping cart. Why a blog to sell products? If you use a standard website then you will need to do a lot of advertising in order to get started (been there and done that), however, if you use a blog you can get immediate results, plus, you will get a higher PR ranking if you use niche keywords to sell your products.

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Also check out Amazon.com`s webstore (google it). Be aware though, they are offering a free month offer but it is not a trial, you will be hooked in for 3 months at $59.99 per month. However, if you have something to sell this is the easy way to go.

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