Ecommerce guidance

Hello,

I run a community based website within the travel industry.

We show the most unique things to do across the European continent.
Since our brand is all about 'unique things' we were thinking of adding a very small webshop to our website. This webshop would contain 10-50 unique items that are travel related (special bracelets, clothing, bags, gadgets). The visitors on our website are from all over the world, we would like to ship worldwide if possible.

I have zero experience regarding running a webshop (I've read about dropshipping, amazon trading, ..) and was wondering what would be a good solution to get our little business started. Our budget is rather low (maximum of $ 2.500) and we still need to start an official legal entity.

We would like to have a checkout on our website, instead of sending our visitor to a 3rd party website. Our current website uses a Wordpress theme – we have a team of freelancers that could implement any WooCommerce theme into our website.

I'd really appreciate if you could answer one or more of the questions below:

• What type of webshop should I start? Dropshipping? Storing the products ourselves?
• Which books can you recommend me to read?
• Any tips & tricks you could share? What are the common traps when setting up a webshop?

Best regards,
Dries

 

There is a online shopping site which will provide you electronic gadgets which you can take with you in your journey.
everythingseller.com is a site i recommend you to use. Everything seller provide the gadgets of your need like hands free, alkaline batteries, memory cards etc.

 

I spent roughly 1k on forming my LLC, but everything was done for me which was nice. I use Wordpress + Woocommerce for my ecommerce venture. The combination itself is free and would provide the perfect base for what you're looking to do. Since you seem to already have a website established I would suggest you use wordpress/woocommerce setup on a subdomain of your main website (e.g. shop.yourwebsite.com). The biggest issue you might have is matching your current websites design to a wordpress theme. You'd still have 1.5k left over after forming your LLC and I believe a designer would be able to achieve this for you at a price well under your remaining budget.

Let's talk CC processing!

Woocommerce has thousands of addons, one of them being multiple Authorize.net plugins. Authorize.net is a payment gateway that act's as the middle man between when your customer types in their credit card number and your merchant account. Authorize.net has specials now and then that offer free setup. Their monthly cost is $25.00.

Merchant Account:
In your situation I would talk to an Authorize.net representative that will be able to set you up with a Merchant account provider. A merchant account is necessary as they establish your accounts with Visa, Mastercard, and so on.

Each Merchant account provider has various fees for Qualified, Mid-Qualified, and non-qualified transactions. Make sure you consider multiple providers and look at each providers fees. Most ecommerce transactions will fall into the Mid-Qualified area.

If you need further information you're more than welcome to PM me and I'll be glad to provide insight into any questions you have.

 

Shopify will save you a ton of hassle getting your carts set up for multiple territories and tax systems. You are setting yourself up for a major headache if you try to do all of that yourself.

Shipping worldwide is probably the best way to start until you figure out demand for the products - but shipping costs will probably price them out of reach for many.

Hope that helps, Jeremy
www.indiebrandbuilder.com

 

f you are ok with owning a stand alone website that could be the better option. International shipping can help you to serve for your worldwide users. Try reading vast business blogs to tenure yourself. The common traps would be the right choice to design your website either like what type layout and what all and can be implemented like affiliates if possible, multivendor to hookup with similar merchant in your niche