Make Money With A Retail Website

Selling goods online has been the route to success for many a small business that started on the kitchen table. The beauty of this money making idea is that you can start off as small as you like and build up as and when you have the funds to do so.

But don’t you have to have pots of cash to get started and you don’t need to clear out the spare room to make way for all the stock either. Read on to find out how it’s done from scratch.

So what would you like to sell? Whatever your interests are you can bet there are other people out there who want to buy items related to those interests, and those are the people you need to reach with your website.

To get your website in the first place you’ll need to either have one designed for you (the expensive option) or get a do it yourself kit (the cheap option). The do it yourself version is good enough to start with; once you’ve built up some sales and can afford a makeover then you can get a professional to design one for you. Just make sure your DIY version can handle a shopping cart and secure ordering.

Once you’ve got your website you need stock to sell from it. You can go for the easy option here and enrol with one or two dropshipping sites; all you need to do then is post details of each item on your site and pass the orders along to the dropshipper when you make a sale.

But in truth you will make the biggest profits selling your own stock, so start looking for wholesalers that sell the kind of items you are looking for. For the biggest success try and concentrate on a particular niche – for example you could sell pet accessories, toys, bedding, fishing equipment and so on. By picking one niche and choosing a domain name which fits with that niche the keywords in the item descriptions on your site will get you ranked higher in Google and entice more people to come and take a look at your site.

Promote your website wherever you can, and make sure you get orders dispatched quickly to keep your customers happy. Provide a packing note, a re-order form and details of some of your other products in with every order you send out to encourage further sales.

It’s best to stick with a small line of products to begin with, and then reinvest your profits into more stock as and when you start to grow. Don’t forget you will have web hosting to pay for each month, although this tends to be a fairly small amount.

By starting slowly and learning as you go along you will be far more likely to succeed in the long term, since you won’t grow too fast and run out of money as a result. And don’t give up – even the most successful websites had to start somewhere! It can take a while to build up your stock and your customer base, but once you have you’ll be well on the road towards regular profits.

Why not leave your comments below? And once you’ve done so, start thinking about what your own retail website could sell. You might be sitting on a lucrative idea…