Online Store for Website

[OhioDude]

Hello!

Here's what I want to do with our website:

People come to our site and order things like t-shirts and other merchandise. We don't want to have to touch a thing like shipping and handling. We want people to come to our site, make a purchase using PayPal/CC and the items are dropped shipped from a warehouse. Our merchandise is custom stuff reflecting our business. When they buy something the funds go right into our PayPal account.

I can't imagine this being too difficult. I'm sure there are thousands of companies who would do this for us. The problem is finding them and how much merchandise they require to set this all up. We are a small company and don't have a lot of capital.

Where do we start?

Thanks for any advice.

Scott

[GT Bulmer]

Hi, Scott:

Obviously, there is much more to starting up a business than my few short comments to follow, but the quick answer to your question is first, choose a domain name that properly reflects your business focus or your niche; create a website that will become your online store; research the Internet to find suppliers for the kinds of products you want to sell (during this research, identify the suppliers who will inventory all the product, and who have a billing system (checkout cart) in place, and who will process the orders from start to finish, while crediting you your commission for the sale); choose your suppliers, then add their product info to your website; and then begin marketing and promoting your website and product links ON your website like crazy!

GT

[OhioDude]

We already have an established website and everything else, just no store. Our business scope is not about selling products but it would be nice to incorporate that down the road to help spread the word about our company with various merchandise.

We are looking for an online store process where we can sell our items and not have to worry about shipping/handling. Users come to our site, order a t-shirt or other merchandise, pay for it and it's dropped shipped right to them with our business name.

My question is who can do that for us and how much inventory do they need? In an ideal world they can produce products on the fly where we wouldn't need to supply them with a ton of merchandise and being a small company that is the problem we've been encountering.

[smartcompanysoftware]

It sounds like you need a fulfilment company. They take the orders and organize for the goods to be delivered.

[smartcompanysoftware]

Just remembered, if you go onto itunes and search for automated business, there are a series of podcasts by two guys and one of them does something similar to what you want to do. They explain how to go about automating your business which sounds like just what you want to do.

[jennaentrust]

Hi, I would like to also comment to go along with what Ohio Dude said, how is paypal? I have used it as a customer to purchase things such as event tickets but do not know how I feel associating it with my business. Any opinions?

[OhioDude]

We've used it for our business since early 2011 and there have been no issues. All you do is create a PayPal account with your business email address, or make one up for you business, apply the business credit card info to it and get a shopping cart app and that's it. We don't keep a lot of money in our PayPal account though. Stay around $500 or less. I've heard stories where people had a ton of money in their PayPal account and could not get it out for some reason. So be careful. Use it only as a transfer process and you'll be fine.

[Emma Ames]

We don't keep a lot of money in our PayPal account though. Stay around $500 or less. I've heard stories where people had a ton of money in their PayPal account and could not get it out for some reason. So be careful. Use it only as a transfer process and you'll be fine.

Thanks for sharing this with us, OhioDude. We can never really be "that" safe when it comes to cash and funding when it's handled even by the most popular platforms.

Cheers,
Emma