Comprehensive Tutorial : Setup an Amazon type store

Since a long time I was planning to write an in depth tutorial on creating an Amazon type store. This tutorial is for those people who are serious about online business and don’t want to waste time on pony moneymaking schemes.


How to create an online store

Creating an online store is not as easy as most people think. It’s a damn long process. But once your store will be established, it would pay for your hard work. Before creating a store, you must have idea what kind of system you want. In the following example, I suppose you want Amazon type shopping mall. So let’s start the store creation process

Store Software

Choosing right software for your store is an important task. Currently there is plenty of online shopping mall software available; however, I prefer to use OSCOMMERCE. It’s a free, open source and very easy to customize.

Download Address : http://www.oscommerce.org
Estimated Price: 0$

Store Customization

Nothing is perfect in this world so does this store. You need to customize it according to your own needs and business model. You may need following extra features in your store

1. Affiliate Program

Affiliate program is must have marketing tool for every store. There is already an affiliate program add-on available for Oscommerce but this add-on has not perfect yet so avoid using it.

2. Merchant Account Support

Just like Amazon, this feature will allow other people to open an account on your store and sell their products. It’s the best way to expand your product range.

DHL Shipping Quotes

Its optional thing depends on you whether you want DHL shipping quotes calculation in real time or not.

Store Appearance and navigation

Default template of Oscommerce isn’t very attractive so you must have to change it. Believe it or not, store design plays an important part in generating sales. My suggestion is to use Amazon type style. Don’t just copy it but prefer to use that kind of structure it’s the perfect for online store however, you can look for other shopping sites such as Wall Mart or net market.

Who will do the customization?

This customization process is very complicated and involves plenty of php programming. If you can do it yourself it may save good money otherwise look for a freelancer or a company which does Oscommerce customization. Please note companies charge more for Oscommerce customization rather than individuals. You can find freelancers at following websites.

http://forums.oscommerce.org

You must select the following criteria to hire a freelancer.

Minimum Oscommerce Customization Experience: 1 year
Minimum Php Programming Experience: 1 year +
Check previous clients history (If possible send them an email to ask about freelancer’s performance)

Estimated Cost: 250$-450$

Web Hosting

There are plenty of web hosting companies therefore it is difficult for me to recommend one. You hosting company must provide following facilities

Minimum disk space: 2GB
Minimum monthly bandwidth: 15GB
Mysql databases: unlimited
Sub domains: unlimited
Cpanel or Plesk control panel
Php support
Email accounts: unlimited

There are plenty of good web hosting companies

www.nathosting.com (Recommended)
www.godaddy.com

Estimated cost: 12$ / 6 months


Domain Name

I don’t think so I need to write anything about it. Choose your favorite domain registrar and register a suitable domain for your store. Some domain registrars are as follows

http://www.godaddy.com
http://www.domainsite.com

Estimated Cost: 8$

Caution: Some web hosting companies provides domain name along with a hosting account. Make sure you register domain name separately and you have complete over it. It’s your business asset take care of it.

SSL Certificate

SSL certificate protects customer’s personal and credit card information from stealing. It is a guaranteed way to secure online transactions. Visit following website to get more info about SSL certificate

http://www.rapidssl.com/ssl-certificate-support/ssl-faq.htm

You can get SSL certificate from many websites, interestingly there is a huge variation in price. Again, it depends on you how much you want to spend on it. You can obtain SSL certificate from these websites

http://www.litessl.com 15$
http://www.rapidssl.com 69$
http://www.godaddy.com 29.95$ Recommended
http:///www.geocert.com
http://www.verisign.com (Most Expenses)

Imporant: No one will buy anything from your website if you don’t have a SSL certificate.

Estimated Cost: 29.95$

Credit Card Processing

Credit card processing is a very serious issue. Before selecting, a credit card processing company you must make sure that it is compatible with Oscommerce. If it doesn’t you will need an extra module (Freelancer will develop it) to embed payment processing facility in Oscommerce. By default, following payment processors are compatible with Oscommerce

Visit this website for info

Paypal

Paypal is the least expensive but it’s not universal. It supports only few countries; it’s a good idea to use it as your secondary payment processor not primary.

2checkout.com

2checkout.com is very easy to use and only cost one time 50$ fee. However, its customer service is disgusting.

Remaining payment processors are expensive and may not suitable for a beginner. My suggestion is to use either

2checkout.com or

Authorize.net

Estimated Cost: 50$-150$

Customer Service

Customer service is a major part of business. You can provide customer service by using phone and email. Email is preferable solution in most cases. To setup a customer service center you may either use help desk software or simply use email. Help desk is a much more professional way to communicate with customers besides it makes communication lot easier.

Kayako eSuite (http://www.kyako.com) 29.95$/month

Kayako esuite is impressive help desk software. You can also integrate it with Oscommerce.

Desklance 9.95$/month

It’s a good alternative of Kyako eSuite. I check out the demo and it’s simply amazing.
Many other help desk softwares are also available at

http://www.hotscripts.com/PHP/Scripts_and_Programs/Customer_Support/Help_Desk/index.html


Estimated Cost: 10$

A review of total cost

Its time to review the total cost to get an idea how much investment you need to start an online store. Here is cost analyzer



The above figure of 510$ isn’t final. If you are a good negotiator you can save plenty of money in Oscommerce, customization besides usage of 2checout.com may also save 50$.

Team

It doesn’t matter how much expert you are, you still need at least a team of two people to start this business. Family members and friends should be your first choice because close relationships are always much more supportive than a stranger. For instance, if your wife is working with you, there will be no negotiation and stress to pay her exactly after a month. You will need people to

Expand Product Range On Store
Website Maintenance
Offline and Online Marketing

Finance Management

Finance management is an irreplaceable part of business. Unfortunately, most people don’t care about it. You must track your income and expenses in order to run a successful business. Microsoft Money small business edition is the best software for finance management purpose. You can but it for only 85$. However if you don’t want to spend money on it there is another way to track your business activity. This technique is very basic but it works. Moreover, you only need a pen and paper for this method.




At the ends of the month balance above account. If balancing figure is on left hand side, there is profit, if it is on right side its loss. You can also use the following equation instead of balancing above account

Net Profit = Total Income – Total Expenses

Business Model

You spend 500$ on store but what will you sale. To obtain products you may use following strategies

• Make deals with dropshippers (such as http://www.idropshipper.com/)

Dropshippers Directory

• Amazon type merchant account will allow other people to sell their products on your store.


Marketing

This time I won’t go into details. There is detailed info about marketing at the end of this tutorial. Keep in mind the following checklist for your store promotion

Google Adwords
Advertisement in local newspaper
Advertisement in magazines
Partnership with other stores
Specially target women (using women magazines and websites)
Design attractive ads (Don’t forget the philosophy of “seduction” if your target market is men.


What to sell and target market

What you should sell on your store is a serious question. There are few must have product categories take a look at following list

• Spy Equipment/Gadgets
• Electronics / Robotics Kits
• Adult Movies (If you have no problem with it)
• DVD
• Books
• Music
• Electronics
• Kids and baby stuff
• Second hand Products (Laptops, Cameras, Xbox etc…)


Spy Gadgets

Most stores don’t sell these products and you should make the best out of it. Word “spy” has its own attractions. There are large number of teens and adults who are in love with spy equipment. Besides, the James Bond culture made this whole thing pretty exiting. You may advertise your website in local magazines just like this

“We have everything which would make you 21st century James Bond
Visit yourstore.com”

“Do you want to be James Bond?”

“If you are James Bond visit our website yourstore.com, we have something special for you”

Electronics / Robotics Kits

This is high tech stuff. The only advantage of having it may put a label on your store that you sell everything. Moreover, you will have the ability to cover the huge market. Check out the advertisement, which you can use

“Three laws of robotics are wrong, prove it your self”


Adult Movies

Porn movies generate billions of dollars each year and if you want your piece of pie, you have to sell these movies on your store. Do not start selling these movies just because you have read in this article. Ask yourself this question “am I ok with this kind of stuff?” Make sure you are comfortable with this idea. If you don’t feel good, forget the thought of selling adult movies and stick to normal business.

The adult stuff must be located within a restricted area to avoid possible child exposure.

How to sell

After completing the tedious store creation process, we are again on basic question “how you will sell your products?” There is no clear answer of this question. Business owners design their sale model depending on their particular circumstances. However, as a newbie you may engage following strategies

• Start affiliate program

• In the beginning offer huge discounts.

• Start some kind of customer reward program.

The Final Step....

Congrats, finally you step your own branded shopping mall. But here is an important issue, how many people know about your store. Now its time to advertise your store on global level. You don't need millions of dollars to do this, you just only need creativity.


Don't forget to post your comments


All rights reserved. Unauthorized distribution or reproduction of this article or any portion of it,is strictly prohibited. Please contact me in advance if you want to use this tutorial on your website.

This article is intended for information purpose only. The author does not imply any results to those using this tutorial, nor is he responsible for the results brought about by the usage of the information contained herein.