E-Commerce: Lesson One

So, you want to open your very own eshop do you? Well, it’s very, very true that anyone can open an eshop. All it takes, really, is a URL and an Internet connection. The flip side is that not every eshop is a successful eshop.

After what I thought was a successful launch, my own eshop quickly crashed and burned. I know it’s unusual to admit and talk about mistakes, but how else do we learn, hmmm? As Thomas Edison said, I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.

Perhaps my frankness can spare you from making the same mistakes I made … and increase your eshop’s odds of success.

So, without further ado let me start here with …

Lesson 1: The Website

How-to set up the website really isn’t your first obstacle.

No, no. Before opening any shop, you should give careful consideration to what you plan to sell and how you plan to sell it. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Well it’s not as easy as you may think. More on that in a future lesson.

For now, I want to highlight the mistakes I made in setting up my website.

A Free Shopping Cart

When I discovered Zencart –a free shopping cart system, I thought I could do it all myself at NO cost.

I was on a tiny, tiny shoe string budget. I had graphic design experience, I knew what I wanted the eshop to look like, and I told myself that I could just learn the coding necessary to change backgrounds and fonts. And, I’m happy to say that I did learn how to do simple design coding.

I wished I’d taken a few screen shots before deleting the eshop, because it looked good … really really good. Professional even. I was very, very proud of myself.

Trouble In Paradise

Yes, my eshop looked good and glossy. Never mind that it took months and months to get the site up and running. As they say in MBA school, time is money. I wasted a lot time and therefore I wasted a lot of money learning design coding.

However, design isn’t all there is to an eshop. There are also the all important unseen functions that make shopping carts work — that back end coding of which I had NO CLUE where to start … and which would be my downfall.

Sure enough, the BACK END of my shopping cart didn’t function properly. Worse is that I didn’t even know that it didn’t work!

Some customers would attempt to set up an account and the software would kick them back to the home page. It wasn’t every customer, but I suspect more than half who wanted to buy something, couldn’t!

OMG!!!! I had people begging to buy and I wouldn’t let them!

By the time I learned of this revenue crushing technical issue and realized that I COULD NOT do this all by myself, I was out money. The business was broke, and I couldn’t afford to hire a technical person to fix it. My eshop went out of business.

Don’t let this happen to you!

Zencart is indeed free. The advice and assistance on Zencart forums are also free. Have you heard the old adage “you get what you pay for”? Well, in this case it’s very, very true.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t for a moment disparage the posters on Zencart. They were helpful … but they are unpaid volunteers. They can’t earn a living hanging out on a forum waiting to answer questions from frantic emerchants. It’s not surprising then that I waited days, weeks sometimes, to get valid answers to my questions. Let me repeat again that time is money.

Lesson Learned

My advice to you, dear reader, is to budget professional technical help from the get-go.

You may also want to look into services like Pappashop. NO, I’m not recommending Pappashop, specifically. I’ve never used them. I AM recommending that you check them out along with similar services that combine URL hosting with shopping cart support.

Trust me, you’re going to need someone on call 24/7 who will drop everything to fix catastrophic IT issues — like turning customers away! If your eshop isn’t working, you’re not making any money.

Also, there are other issues with eshops on which you must educate yourself. For instance, SSL certificates are a MUST for any eshop. You’ve likely seen those little lock icons in your browser bar when visiting a secure site. Most shoppers aren’t willing to input their financial data into an unsecured site. SSL certificates aren’t free, and don’t set themselves up, either. Payment gateways, merchant accounts, shipping calculators — there are so many details that can bog down a DIY emerchant trying to do everything herself. For the third time, time is money!

So, yeah. Anyone can open an eshop. Remember though that reserving the URL and choosing font styles are just the tip of the iceberg when launching an eshop. Do yourself a favor. Include in your start up budget funds for shopping cart software and PAID professional technical help.

You will thank me in the long run. And please do come back to thank me … and tell me how you’re doing. I really need to know that the time I take to bare my failures in public is helpful to SOMEONE out there