While many types of ecommerce enterprises can be intimidating to new online marketers, starting an ecommerce business from scratch without much investment capital isn’t as scary as you may think. For a start it doesn’t have to be nearly as difficult or as costly as you might expect.
It is true that although plenty of new online marketers soon realise the benefits of offering products online that can be instantly purchased and processed by means of an efficient shopping cart system such as Zen Cart, many can find the whole process of establishing efficient ecommerce systems complex, expensive and technically overwhelming.
Of course it is totally understandable that these factors alone drive many new online entrepreneurs away from taking the plunge and implementing ecommerce software that is easily affordable and could bolster their existing income or even take them into the realms of huge financial success.
All it takes is some intelligent research to find the best online shopping software and, if you can’t do it yourself, someone to help you set everything up ready to start making money. A simple ecommerce enabled website doesn’t have to involve lots laborious activity and costly start up investments. If you can’t afford a professional web designer you could always advertise for a clever web savvy teenager or college student to help – they should charge very little as they are usually glad to have the chance to earn a few bob.
One way that some people add value to their website is to find an ecommerce solution that is “pre-designed” and pre-populated with items that suit your existing content. These special ecommerce systems can be plugged into your web site and most don’t require huge technical skills. Many offer site owners the ability to customise content and design and have product categories with design features and products that easily slip into your current web scheme immediately adding value to your existing content and offerings.
The low start up costs of this option to commercially enable your website is a huge advantage if you want to find out the feasibility of ecommerce without spending huge sums of money. It is also quick to set up with very minor technical challenges and a reduction of typical problems associated with design, development and deployment of a large complicated site
Pre-designed ecommerce solutions can totally eliminate fear and worry and allow you to test your ecommerce ideas especially if it involves a particular niche or if you are not sure whether your web site lends itself to ecommerce activities. Any pre-designed, plug and play ecommerce web site allows you to test additional potential revenue streams that can upgrade your existing web properties.
One of the biggest advantages when setting out with low start up costs is that it will allow you to test your ideas, offer targeted product lines for your visitors and evaluate the feasibility of expanding your ecommerce offerings without the fear of spending too much of money in the process. A well know and simple option is an Amazon Store and while you won’t make a fortune it is a good way of taking your first dip in the ecommerce pool.
Normally, testing any form of ecommerce system could be very expensive. Pre-designed ecommerce solutions eliminate this hurdle and allow you to accomplish this with very little effort, design cost and “back-end” administration cost. In most cases the products offered by these types of ecommerce systems are direct shipped to your customers and you never even have to become involved with the fulfillment process. It simply couldn’t be any easier than that!
Once you are happy about the feasibility of running an ecommerce site you can migrate to a much more sophisticated platform such as Zen Cart which allows more flexibility and therefore vastly increased profit margins. This can be set up after a month or two of testing when satisfactory results have been observed.
Finally recent statistics show that online shoppers are steadily increasing so never allow the fear of failure to prevent you setting up an ecommerce site or even of adding ecommerce enabled functionality to your existing web. There is always a simple and painless way to do what you need. Certainly cost, administration factors and everyday management are all challenges to content with but all of these issues can be easily addressed with solutions that are straightforward to implement. All that is require is a little research, testing and of course some creative input.
