A How-to on Starting in E-commerce for Free

Starting Your Own Internet Based Webshop May Not Be as Hard as You Think

By Christopher Pendergraft, published Mar 23, 2007
Published Content: 29  Total Views: 10,761  Favorited By: 4 CPs
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When thinking of the American Dream, owning a business is nearly always at the top. With owning a physical business, there comes a lot of responsibility to both yourself and the government. It takes a lot of time and even more capital to open even the cheapest of storefronts. With the advent of the internet, it is becoming exceedingly cheaper to start a web based business. Major companies such as Yahoo and Google are now catering toward cheap ways to get your business online. This guide serves as a primer to show you the basic ins and outs of e-commerce.

The first thing you must decide on is what exactly it is you will be selling. If you need help or don't know where to start, a very popular website is OneSource from WorldWide Brands. OneSource is regarded as the holy grail of product sourcing. They offer a lifetime membership to giant directories of true wholesalers from all around the world. The WorldWide Brands staff personally hand picks the companies to make sure that they are not middlemen (companies masquerading as a wholesaler) and that there are no outrageous fees to begin selling. They even have a dropship directory for those that choose to go that avenue. You can even call the toll free number and converse with the owner himself, Chris Malta.

Takeaways
  • For the novice computer user, Yahoo Small Business is an attractive and cheap option.
  • osCommerce is a completely free and powerful software package for experienced users.
  • OneSource offers a huge database of wholesalers and dropshippers.
Did You Know?
Amazon.Com started as an online bookstore before expanding into music, DVDs, software, video games, movies, clothing and more. In 2005, the net profit of Amazon.Com was $359 million.
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