Have you ever thought about generating some extra income on the internet?  Today it is easier than you would think.  You don’t have to be a web programmer or even a web designer to have a great looking fully functional store online. The only thing you really need is a decent web host and source for products.

In this article series I am going to take you through the steps to create an online e-Commerce business. Some of the things we will go over are:

1. Writing a business Plan
2. Sourcing suppliers
3. Creating a merchant account
4. Purchasing Web Hosting
5. Installing your shopping cart
6. Setting up your shopping cart
7. Adding Products to your Shopping Cart
8. Signing up for an Ebay account
9. Advertise and list your products on Ebay
10. Creating product feeds for Google base/ shopzilla
11. Submitting your product feeds
12. Other Cheap/Free Marketing

Getting Started

When you are planning your new venture you should take the time to draft a blueprint or business plan so that you can keep track of your ideas, structure your business, map out your finances and marketing campaigns.

There are many resources on writing a business plan, but the most definitive guide I have found is at sba.gov. In the Small Business Planner section you will find a detailed blueprint on everything you need to make your business legal and write your business plan. A good business plan is not written overnight and should be constantly revised. This is the time when you should think about what products you are interested in selling.

Now that you have your business plan started you can move on to making your company legal and choosing a name.  I would suggest a name that describes the products you want to sell. If you want to sell computers a name like “Mike’s Computers ” would be more personal than “Super Computer Blaster Deals”.  You also have to take into account the domain name you will be purchasing to tie to your store.  There is an art to choosing a domain name and finding one that is still available.  Check out this blog post on chosing the right domain name.

The next step is to get your resellers permit and a DBA if your are going to use a name other than your own personal name. You can find the forms on your local and state government websites.  Here in ohio both can be registered for $75.00. For the Ohio DBA you can follow this link. OH DBA For the Ohio reseller license you can follow this link: Reseller License OH

This is the end of part 1.  I think I have given you a big chunk to chew on until part 2 is compete.  I hope you enjoyed this article and I hope you will come back and read the next part.