How To Setup An Ecommerce Internet Business Website?

by Tyrone on May 11, 2009 - 10 comments

ecommerce beginner Lately I’ve been reading through some e-commerce forums and I have noticed a lot of beginners asking the same questions. Just like myself, I once was a beginner in starting an e-commerce business and with time and experience I have gained a greater understanding of what is involved. In many ways I wish I had someone there who could show me a simple “how to” setup a successful e-commerce business, which would have saved a lot of the countless hours. Luckily for you, you won’t need to spend more time trying to search the information as I am going to give you a step by step guide on how to setup your own e-commerce website over a course spanning a few weeks. I will link everything back to this post when this course is finished.

Firstly, the assumption I am going to make is that you are looking to install an open source software. The one I recommend is Magento Commerce, which is an extremely powerful platform to use for any e-commerce business. If you want to see why I recommend this software, please read my review: Magento Commerce Review.

Here is an outline of what you will learn:

  1. Choosing your e-commerce business domain name
  2. Finding a reliable hosting service to host your e-commerce website
  3. Setup your domain name to redirect to your hosting provider
  4. Preparing your site for a pre-launch
  5. Uploading and installing Magento Commerce on the hosting server
  6. Setup your email servers using Gmail
  7. Configure Magento Commerce with SEO optimization add-on
  8. Which pages to include on your e-commerce website – about us, contact us, privacy policies, shipping and returns policy, etc.
  9. Uploading your products images and descriptions to appeal to your customers
  10. Launching your e-commerce website

By the end of this course you will be able to setup your own e-commerce website and start to see profits. If there is anything that I may not have covered, please leave your comments below and I’ll add it to this course. Any feedback is appreciated.

Tyrone Shum
E-commerce Resource Guide

10 Comments

  1. Lilly Adams

    Security is a very important aspect of Ecommerce Solutions When people are managing their accounts through your website, or even if they are just buying or selling commodities through their credit cards, you will need to ensure their privacy. Payvision efficiently and securely processes transactions. I have been so happy with their service. Check out their website http://www.payvision.com

  2. gas rebate cards

    I guess this picture states “so easy a baby could do it” haha…it’s really tough as a beginner though. Step by step guides are really nice. It is really important to at first establish a baseline… make sure your website is well off before you get ahead of yourself.

    -Randy

  3. TPPK

    I was wondering something. If someone comes to your blog site and posts a message with a website that is invalid, does it lower your blog page rank? Just curious.

    • Tyrone

      Hi TPPK,

      Thanks for your comment. In answering your question, I sought out some help from my friend Nicholas Prudhon. This was his response:

      It could possibly affect your overall ranking score as you would then link to an error page which is not good.

      One only will hardly affect anything but this should not become a habit. If possible discuss with the site owner as to correct the URL to a valid one, or simply disable the link itself.

      I hope this helps and answers your question.

      Thanks.

  4. Ecommerce Blog

    I think I have to agree with John, do not worry too much about promoting your eCommerce site. You need to think about first on how to properly set-up your site. Setting up an eCommerce is not an easy step, you need to put your mind into it. Once everything is up and running that’s the time to start thinking of promoting your site.

    • Tyrone

      Hi,

      Yes and you and John are both right. No point in promoting a website that doesn’t exist. Focus on creating a great website with good content and products before starting the journey of marketing your website. Make sure that there is value for any customer or visitor who comes. Good comment on what you said about focusing on the website before promoting!

  5. John

    Hi Tyrone,

    For promoting the E-Comm site, what strategy would you recommend?

    Once again, great post and very informational.

    Thanks,
    John

    • Tyrone

      Hi John,

      Thanks for your comment. There are numerous strategies I can recommend, which is what I will be talking about in the next few weeks. For now the most important thing for anyone starting a new e-commerce website is to setup their pre-launch. Start promoting and creating the buzz, without giving away too much of what is going to be on your website. Make sure there is a landing page with an opt-in form for them to subscribe and receive the launch date. That’s probably the first strategy to implement first for promoting your e-commerce site. That way you will create a “buzz” before launching your website.