For years, people have had their businesses within an online marketplace such as eBay. Of course, millionaires have been made, though they didn’t become millionaires overnight. You have to make sure that you understand the process of the marketplace that you use and that you keep up on what you’re doing. Keep in mind that you will run into some harsh customers as it’s going to be hard to please everyone you do business with. However, the payoffs to having your own online business can far outweigh the challenges. Read below to learn how to set up your first online business.

Read Up About Online Businesses
The first approach you want to do before even selling your first item is going to a few sites and reading up on how some people have went about in starting their online marketplace business. Try not to get so caught up in it that you start buying a ton of useless books. There are many free sources online that you can study from without having to pay a dime. Alternatively, you can go into the eBay community and read up on other people’s progress to starting their own business. That’s probably the best way to get yourself prepared in what you’re getting yourself into.

Learn more by watching videos
You can even educate yourself on video sharing sites such as You-Tube. You-Tube users may post tutorials or technique videos on their channel so that you can learn and benefit from what they’re doing. It’s a great way for you to also connect with more sellers and maybe you both can combine your businesses together. Tons of partnerships have happened this way alone and they continue to happen like this. Videos are a nice way to visually see how one goes about in the process of listing their items up and marketing themselves in order to get sales.

Start Small
Don’t start listing a lot of items on your eBay account at once when you first begin. You want to sell enough so you can gain enough feedback over time to make it easier to sell more later. You don’t want to overburden yourself by having to ship out more products than you can keep up with. Always start with at least five but no more than ten items. Rarely will they ever be sold all in the same day unless it happens to be some popular item that people want for the holiday season. Also, check for other online E-Commerce sites, or try online classifieds such as Craigslist.

Increase your sales
When you’ve made enough feedback so you don’t have any restrictions with your PayPal account, that’s when you can go ahead and increase the number of items that you list. Keep in mind that if they don’t sell, you don’t have to pay the listing price. If the buyer commits to buying but doesn’t pay immediately make sure you stay professional and remind the customer that if they don’t pay, you have no choice but to re-list the item. If you’re professional, you usually can get them to buy it and they’ll still end up leaving positive feedback. It also leaves your company with a good name in how you’ve handled things professionally and not have been nasty about it. Sometimes buyers can forget that they’ve committed to buying something, especially if they don’t stay on eBay that much.

The benefits to having your E-commerce business include working on your own time, making a great income and being in charge of what you make. If you can follow the simple steps listed above, you can start selling products in an online marketplace and start being in control of your own time and finances. Good luck and have fun!

Do you sell on eBay, Amazon, Play.com or even all three and more?

Struggling to cope with demand?

Looking for extra storage space?

Need to automate your stock management systems?

If you answered yes to any of the above questions then you may want to think about outsourcing to a fulfilment company.

As your business grows, so do your physical / system requirements and if those requirements aren’t met then you will lose control and your business will struggle and eventually fail.

One of the common issues many small businesses face as they start to grow is keeping up with the increasing demand of their customers. Starting off as sending out 8 or 9 parcels a week via the local post office may well triple in just a matter of months. Despatching goods in time, continuing to pack them to the same high standards and dealing with returns and enquiries can soon become a bridge too far. With extra storage space to also consider, finding a company to store your goods to in a secure and clean environment is of vital importance. Fulfilment companies can assist with most aspects of selling online including:

Pick and Pack

From 10 orders to 1000 orders per day or 1 to 10,000 SKU’s, order fulfilment companies can cater for most types of seller. Warehouse staff are trained to deal with most types of products from small, low value fragile items to large high value bulky goods. Fulfilment warehouses invest in the latest technology and have pre-planned layouts and picking strategies. This ensures that accuracy is high and deadlines are met with most offering a minimum 3PM cut off for same day despatch. Once the goods are picked, they are packed securely to customer’s specification. Some companies also provide a bespoke gift-wrapping service, which is ideal for fashion businesses or novelty goods companies. Orders are despatched according to their pre-stated delivery method and have unique consignment ID’s to enable full traceability right up the point of delivery. Having an outsourced fulfilment partner provides a real professional edge to your business that will set you apart from your competitors.

Storage

A lack of storage space and security is a major concern for lots of online sellers. Not only is it important to have enough space to house your goods, but they also need to be in the correct conditions and secure. Fulfilment companies provide many different types of storage, each for their varying stock sizes. Bin Storage is suited to smaller components, whilst shelving type storage is ideal for larger item and also companies seeking secure document storage. Racked storage accommodates larger pallet quantities whilst bulk storage enables heavy stock to be stacked, making the most of the square footage allocated. Stock can either be stored in a Single-User warehouse (dedicated facilities for large Blue Chip companies) or a Multi-User warehouse.

Outsourced warehouse storage can also cater for peak demand and can often provide Customs warehousing for Bonded Goods for the storage of dutiable goods. Whatever your storage requirements, fulfilment companies have the space and conditions to accommodate this so you can rest assured that your goods are being looked after in the best possible way.

Stock Management

As your stock grows, you will need a more sophisticated and accurate system to control your stock. Fulfilment companies provide stock rotation, status and batch control, cyclical counting and year-end stock takes. These procedures ensure that you have a real-time angle on your stock balances.

Delivery

Most fulfilment companies can also offer a variety of delivery methods, from UK Next Day and Timed Deliveries to Global services and Same Day Couriers. Providing your customers with a variety of delivery options is important to the success and growth of your business. You no longer need to worry about making your way to the Post Office or queuing up to post out your goods, nor do you need to be concerned about whether or not your goods will get to a customer on time. Outsourcing also allows you tap into the preferential buying rates fulfilment companies receive and can often result in savings on your delivery costs.

In Summarising

Outsourcing to an order fulfilment company can prove an invaluable step for a growing business. Once a business has reached a ‘critical point’ when they know they need to adapt to accommodate new growth, outsourcing is a fantastic solution. With the right partner on board it provides security, efficiency, flexibility and above all it can improve the bottom line profitability.

Jo Cogan is a creative designer hailing from the UK with experience in digital, print and illustration. Her clients range from schools and restaurants to music companies and fashion designers. She currently works for an Ecommerce agency who design, build, market and host websites using the Magento platform. Her role at the company includes creating the look and feel of websites, branding, marketing and copywriting.

One thing that goes without saying in today’s business world, is that regardless of the nature of your home based business, a website is an absolute MUST. Whether you have a product or service to sell, whether local or global, your business will go nowhere fast if you don’t have an online presence. If you need internet marketing help, you’ve landed on the right article. I’ll give you some home based business marketing ideas that will help you promote your business successfully.

The first step is choosing a domain name and getting it registered. You can build your own website (if you have the time) and host it yourself or you can have everything done by another company (if you have the money). Either way, you have many options and tools at your disposal that can align with your business plan and budget. Also note that you can still start your own home based business even if you don’t have a product or service to sell. There are thousands of individuals and companies that have products you can sell for them while earning a commission, called affiliate marketing.

Of the many business marketing strategies known to man, internet marketing is, hands down, the best strategy to use for promoting a home based business as it is the cheapest method and has the potential for reaching millions of people all over the globe. Driving traffic to your site through online resources is like killing two birds with one stone. You can tackle print advertising by writing articles and publishing them to directories and ezines and by submitting ads to the many available (and most of them free) classified ad sites. Online media advertising encompasses writing press releases and distributing them to press release sites. One of the biggest and most popular online advertising trends today is via social media advertising through sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn where you build relationships with your customers. Forums and communities are also great ways to build relationships which helps promote your home based business in the long run. Simply Google your market or industry with the word ‘forum’ or ‘community’ behind it and search for one or two that seem to be the best fit for you.

All of these methods of online advertising contribute to search engine optimization (SEO), which is to say improving your online visibility and escalating in the search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing. Your goal is to claim the #1 spot in the organic search results (the results on the left, not the right side which are paid ads). This is where your traffic will come from. If you are 800 in the list of search results, no one is ever going to see your site because very few people have the time or patience to scroll through 800 search results. Research shows that people typically won’t even scroll past 4 or 5 search results, let alone 800.

Can you grasp the importance of internet marketing for any business? If you are new to the internet marketing phenomenon and don’t know exactly where to start, there are many great programs or systems online that walk you through every aspect of marketing your online business. A lot of these systems were created by online entrepreneurs who have spent thousands of their own dollars trying to figure it all out over the years and finally DID. Their sacrifices have made it easier for newbies to become successful at their own online home based business. If you are new to running your own home based business, I recommend you find a great system (do your research, read reviews, ask questions in forums) and start marketing your home business from there. Don’t waste the time and money that so many of us have in going it alone, without a proven system, as it will just set you back further and hinder your progress.