Getting an ecommerce website up for someone who has never done online business may seem like a huge task. Really, it is not all that difficult and it does not have to be real expensive. I will tell you the steps that you should take in order to get started with your ecommerce store!
Step 1: Business Plan
Obviously, before you can build a website you need to know what you want on it. A business plan does not need to have an official look or be anything special. Simply opening up notepad and writing down your thoughts will be very beneficial later on down the road in the setup process. This is the stage to determine what products you will want to sell and if you want to have any unique or special features on your website. Write down everything you can think of and organize it in some way.
Step 2: Website Design
Now that you know the direction you want your website to go, it is time to talk to a designer. Chances are, local designers will be fairly expensive, but probably more reliable in terms of completing the job. I personally prefer to use online contacts to get website designs completed. Websites like rentacoder.com and getafreelancer.com are great places to find a very affordable website design. You can also do a search on your favorite search engine to find great webmaster forums where all sorts of talented people are wanting your business.
The biggest thing you will want to see from a designer is their portfolio. All designers have different styles and talents and you will want to find one that has the same type of style that you have envisioned in your mind. Your designer will need to know what you have in your business plan. Those special features and ideas should be brought up to him so that if they need to be incorporated then they will be. Most good designers can probably complete this process for $ 50.00 to $ 150.00.
Step 3: Website Coding
In terms of website coding, I would say this is where you want to spend the major of your money. Technically, you could break this step into two steps where you hire a XHTML / CSS coder and then a PHP coder. This can sometimes be a daunting way of doing things though and you should probably just try to find one person who can do it all. Just like the website designer, the coder will need to know what features you expect to see on the end result. You need to be extremely descriptive to ensure you get what you are looking for.
At this point, you should now have a working website. You will need to find a good web hosting company that will be used to keep your website online 24 hours a day and hopefully point you in the right direction in how to bring in potential customers.
