Me and a girlfriend want to start a dot com business selling furniture,ect online. Where do we start?? We are not even in the first stages of it yet, as it is still just an idea. But we want to know what we need to do.
2007-03-26 06:29:12 · 10 answers · asked by LaLaLaBamba 2 in Business & Finance ➔ Small Business
Associations may be a good avenue to explore. These organizations will address many of the thoughts, questions and concerns you'll inevitably have as well as many you haven't anticipated yet. See the source box for some relevant links.
Research, research, research – this cannot be stressed enough. Read as much as you can about the industry. Here are some book titles that are relevant:
* Selling Online: How to Become a Successful E-Commerce Merchant by Jim Carroll, Rick Broadhead
* The Complete E-Commerce Book: Design, Build, and Maintain a Successful Web-Based Business by Janice Reynolds
* Intelligent Selling: The Art & Science of Selling Online by Ken Burke
* E-Commerce for Dummies by Don Jones
There are plenty of free informational resources out there. Check the source box for links to articles.
Hope that helps! I wish you much success & happiness in all your ventures!
2007-03-27 06:26:22 · answer #1 · answered by TM Express™ 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
You can start in a couple of ways. One of the most successful on line sales ppl I know simply uses ebay, another started that way and made enough to launch their own site. The advantages to ebay are that it is all right there including built in customer base and start up costs are almost nothing. They also p[equalify your customers for you .
If you want to do your own site I'd recommend wwwchristianwebhost.com which has a lot of business sites as well as faith oriented ones. They offer the full shopping cart etc set up and will register your domain name free. They have some simple site building programs and I would guestimate your web start costs would be $100 or less and you can pay that quarterly and so get started for under $30.
You need to know if you are selling new or used furniture and to have a good source list. The ideal thing is to find a place that will do what is called drop shipping for you. That means you send them the order info and they ship the goods to your customer which saves you waqrehouse space, double shipping costs, and a general pain in the neck. If you're making the furniture or getting 2nd hand things locally of course drop shipping is not for you.
Go to your library and get a couple of books on making a business plan. You may or may not want to do a formal plan but you do need to think aboutb the questions you would answer in a business plan and agree on the answers so at least an informal plan is important. If you end up borrowing start up $ a formal business plan is essential. So is an agreement between the two of you showing who invests what as far as time and money and effort, who does what, and how the profit is divided. A formal partmnership or incorporation is the best protection but at the very least you need an agreement on this noterized at your bank or some other place that has a free notery. You are on great terms now so keep it that way by eliminating possible misunderstandings on things like this. If you are ever on not so great terms an agreement like this or baetter still a partnership or incprporation done by a lawyer will help proptect each of you.
2007-03-26 07:49:28 · answer #2 · answered by A F 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
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2016-12-23 19:40:19 · answer #3 · answered by ? 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
First I'd advise you to write all of your ideas down on paper. This doesn't have to be a formal business plan just a rough draft of your plan to form your idea into a successful business. You will change and modify this many times as you mold your business so don't be afraid of change.
Next, it is probably wise to research your ideas to make sure there is a market for what you are doing. For example, look at other similar sites of perhaps competitors. Approx how much business do they get? How long did it take them to get there? When you type in "furniture business" into a search, do they come up in the first couple of pages? Find out as much as you can about that industry/niche so you can make sure there is a market for what you want to sell. Show people examples of what you want to sell and see if they would buy it.
If you decide there is a market for your idea and want to proceed with the business, you will probably want to begin to craft a formal business plan. There are plenty of resources online that can give you info on how to do this. There are even templates and examples done for you that you can base yours off of. This step is important for a couple of reasons. First, from what I understand, many lenders will not give you a startup loan without one. They want to know how you are going to use the money to make enough money to pay them back. Second, it is good for you to have a plan written down so you don't forget it and can visually see potential problems and modify those problems.
If you do need some startup money, I would recommend looking into some online lenders as well such as lendingtree.com. I am not sure of the details but I would like to think that somebody somewhere would have some lending programs for startups.
The rest of the process varies from startup to startup but I think that should get you started. Visit http://selfmade.eliotdill.com once in a while for advice and links to other useful sites and success stories about starting businesses online.
I hope this helps. Good luck.
2007-03-26 06:55:48 · answer #4 · answered by eli34 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I did mine on Yahoo and it actually gives you step by step instruction on how to's and different types of background types fonts and so on. I had not done a website before however feel free to look at mine to see. I believe Yahoo has the option to look at other sites that they host. Mine is www.ShabachArts.org. if you do not want to start with a paid site there are a few free sites out there. I did a search for free web hosting and came up with quite a few. Good luck with your business and remember the real reason that you guys start it. Write it down somewhere so that the original vision will be in your face and a constant reminder!
2007-03-26 06:39:30 · answer #5 · answered by ****Humbled***** 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
You would want to get a domain name first for your business (this would be your website address). Once you have that, you might consider getting a web host, and then perhaps a template for an e-commerce site, that allows you to take payments and orders via the net.
I did this as my senior project in college so if you want more info, send me an e-mail and I can get you ALL my documents on the process etc.
Good Luck
2007-03-26 06:33:45 · answer #6 · answered by Jen 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
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2017-03-08 21:23:05 · answer #7 · answered by Kiera 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
You can start at homestead.com they will give you the steps to create a web page, for 3months it under ten dollers start there.
2007-03-26 06:44:13 · answer #8 · answered by rosebud95@verizon.net 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I would suggest that you go to www.vicead.com they have a list of website which will help you in making your website. They are really good.
2007-03-26 09:15:55 · answer #9 · answered by compguy 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
"Me want to . . ."? How about "A girlfriend and I want to . . ."?
If you want to succeed in business, learn some grammar!
2007-03-26 06:51:19 · answer #10 · answered by artboy34 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋