Tag Archives: ecommerce

27Jan/15

How To Building An Online Storefront

How To Build An Online Storefront

Only a few years ago building an online storefront was a daunting, time consuming, and expensive task. You had to be a good programmer or know one. Just any programmer would not do. You needed one that specialized in online transactions. Unless you were expecting millions of dollars of sales it was not for the small business person or entrepreneur.

Today there are many ways to get your products online quickly and without great expense. If you want to be in the bookstore business, for example, take a look at what 30fold has to offer in the way of turnkey bookstore business sites. In just a short time they can have you up and running with over 250,000 Christian products, or if you need a general bookstore, 2 million titles. You need not order, stock, or ship any product. You do not have to worry about transactions either. That is all built in. The only thing you bring to the table is your ready market.

Let’s say for example, you run a non-profit organization, a school, or fundraising group. It could be anything, honestly. If you have people who already subscribe to your cause who would be willing to buy their books from you to support your cause rather than from one of the big box stores or popular online bookstores, then you have a perfect scenario for having a 30fold store. These stores are brandable. You can even list your own product in them, and feature those products on your front page.

Here’s an example of their “secular” store – http://www.30foldbooks.com. And you can see a Christian store here: http://www.MountaintopChristian.com. You choose templates and colors from easy online forms, so administering your store does not require any rocket science like HTML.

If a bookstore is not what you are after – maybe you want to sell products that you contract to ship or manufacture, then our Quick Shopping Cart might be the perfect match. Similar to the 30fold stores mentioned above, administration is form based. Choose a template and colors you like, add branding with your logo, add your products and prices, use PayPal or set up a merchant account that plugs into your store, and publish. Presto, you are in business. Your doors are open, and ready for customers. We have expert staff on hand to help you through any of the details as well – 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Sign up for PayPal and start accepting credit card payments instantly.

Do you need more flexibility? Do you have some programming and HTML expertise? Want to remove the training wheels? Then perhaps all you need is one of our standard hosting programs which allow you to install great eCommerce packages like nopCommerce, osCommerce, or ZenCart. You are now the supreme commander of your eCommerce universe with access to the many templates, designs, and more that are offered for these dynamic open source products. Just keep in mind that using an open source product, while increasing your store’s flexibility, also requires much more of you.

Or, maybe you realize, “I have a business to run. I don’t have time to fool with programming. Give me a professional who can do this for me.” Then our {dream website} team can go to work for you. They will start with your ideas, budget, and dreams, and design and build a customized, scalable eCommerce website that suits your needs and that can grow with your business.