Your Questions About Business Online

Jere answers:

If you are just selling a few candles a day (like you make a few), then you can consider selling your candles on www.etsy.com too along with ebay. If you want to go for your own website, then you can sign up with a web host. They will give you free sitebuilders that you can use to build professional looking websites. You can integrate a shopping cart and paypal/credit card on your website so people can buy. Don’t forget to spread the word about your website so people can actually find it.

If you want to know how to setup your own website, have a look at:
http://hosting4beginners.webnode.com/how-to-host-a-website/

There are step by step instructions on it for that. You can sign up with any of the recommended hosts there (look at the prices etc).. You’ll definitely need limited speed, so what they offer should be 10 times more than what you’d need. Chat with the web host (I’d suggest Arvix/Inmotion – around $6 a month) and see if they will help you set up a shopping cart website – but mostly you can do it yourself once you spend the time with the sitebuilders.

Good luck! Happy candle-making! (and selling ;))

Jere answers:

Here is a rsource for you:
http://www.export-expert.net

Jere answers:

Using google adwords search engine marketing (SEM) is a very effective way to promote your business online. There are lots of useful information directly on google site where you can get started.
Http://support.google.com/adwords/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2497976&ctx=welcome-2642398

However, if you have a small budget and limited time; a knowledgeable SEM manager can optimize your existing campaigns at affordable prices. You can do Pay Per click advertising with any budget and there are many methods to run effective campaigns to produce the best return on investment (ROI). Be careful to make sure the campaigns you run are relevant to what potential leads are searching for, otherwise you can lose a lot of money.

Bottom line its best to consult a reliable SEM management companies and ask one of the SEM managers to look over your existing campaigns and give a free estimate of their rates.

Jere answers:

This idea isn’t going to work.

You need web traffic first in order to charge people money for listing otherwise no one will visit your site and the advertisers will get angry they didn’t get leads especially if you are charging x amount if you are reasonable it can be on a base to base case I guess you win or lose.

The model needs to be planned out on what exactly it is you want to achieve, many fail because they don’t understand what they need to do in a website.

Good luck, the hardest part is web traffic and marketing.

Jere answers:

Your website will need to comply with Distance Selling Regulations which set out clear terms about returns, refunds and cooling off periods.

It will be important to make sure that your site ranks well with the Search Engines so that people looking for designer handbags can find you. Choose your keywords carefully so that they reflect what people are searching for. Include colours in your keywords so that it narrows down the search.

What payment gateway will you use? If you’re using Paypal, make sure you register it as a business account, do all the verification steps and then you’ll be able to transfer the money to your business bank account easily.

Make sure that you can fulfil orders within the period you say on your site. This includes having good stock control and being able to acquire more stock quickly if you have a run on orders. You also need to strike a balance between carrying too much stock that doesn’t sell and not having enough to satisfy orders.

Good luck!