Start your own E-Commerce Store: Follow my Progress

[JamesS88]

I'll show you mine if you show me yours

lol I'm kidding...

Yeah, I'm beginning to think its just too crowded. Part of me wants to pursue it anyway. I know I shouldn't throw good money at bad money, but I don't stand to lose much at this point and the upside is great. At the same time, I know I shouldn't fall in love with my niche, as Andrew would say.

Eh, I'll stew over it while I research some other aspects. I hope you find a solution for business licensing. Luckily, that wasn't difficult in my location but I've ran into other issues.

 

[Guest682]

I don't know, yet.

I imagine all I need is an address in the state. I'm researching it.

Hey Jason, love the thread!

Whats funny is we're about in the same phase of development on our sites and LLC's. I am actually using the same template as you after researching many I thought it was the best looking *guess we have similar taste*. We should share tips if we run into probs with the template. Also if you want to register i'd say do it in Delaware i'm also out of state and this is what I did all online and went to my local bank with the printed documents and was no problem.



1. Registered agent
Basically you need a mailbox in the state. These services will forward any legal documents to your mailbox specified. I went through Harvard Business Services it cost me $50.00 for the year. So when someone looks like my companies address it shows it listing in delaware. I'd be sure to include any physical location advertisements "Warehouse and appointment only" so people don't try to swing by.

For additional anonymity I also used a UPS Mailbox in my home state at $45 every quarter, the reason I do this is because I actually do not reside in a single location. Another benefit with using UPS is the way I can address things "Company Name Suite #1000" I think from the outside it just looks more legitimate.

2. File your certificate of formation & Cover Memo
http://corp.delaware.gov/llcform09.pdf
Division of Corporations - Expedited Services (allows your payment info and if you want expedited formation) I did the 24hour filing which only cost me an additional $50 plus the $90 for the actual formation.
Unfortunately you do need to fax these.
Heres the fee schedule http://corp.delaware.gov/Aug12Fee.pdf

3. Licensing & EIN (All online & Printable, which you can immediately take to the bank)
this is like a one stop application that will walk you through the licensing
https://onestop.delaware.gov/osbrlpublic/controller?JSPName=NEWREGISTRATION&op=continue
the EIN is free the copy of the Liscense is I believe $25.00

Even though you get a receipt from Delaware mailed to you for the name reservation and formation, the one stop service allows you to instantly print out the IRS document, and the Division of Revenue License. which you can then take to wells fargo or bank of your choosing to open your account and then get your credit card processor in order. Good Luck! Total cost for Delaware LLC / Incorporation & bank account $165.00

 

[Guest682]

How do you file LLC out of state? Will it be in Nevada? I am also in CA and pondering if I should do an LLC since the yearly cost is $800.

Where did you get a yearly cost @ $800??????

 

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[Guest682]

"The LLC will be taxed at the corporate tax rate of 8.84 percent and will be subject to a minimum tax of $800." from https://www.ftb.ca.gov/Businesses/bus_structures/LLCompany.shtml.

Then definitely don't register in california lmao. Also if i read correctly single member llc's are treated as sole props and are exempt from that tax rate? clearly I have a little more to learn about this tax bs, but I have time to figure it out.

 

[haosmark]

What company? And what are you running, Magento?

 

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[Rerun]

Subscribed. Keep it up!

 

[Matt J]

Great thread Jason! Just read the whole thing. Look forward to more updates

 

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[susanyang]

Good luck Jason!
Surprised will come our way! I just started dropshipping too, and I did a test order, and they sent the order with my competitor's info on it!!!

Thanks for the update!

 

[JAJT]

Why not consider out-of-state LLCs?

Hell, I'm in Canada and likely to setup a Wyoming LLC in the next week or so so I can appear American to certain suppliers (at least, that's the plan).

 

[JAJT]

Man. That sucks.

California is like the parent who checks the odometer when you say you just went up the street to a friend's place.

 

[susanyang]

This is really confusing. I called San Diego recorder office and they said DBAs are not necessary. But when I went to the bank yesterday, the banker said I have to have a DBA. So, let's say on my business license is shop123.com, but I want to branch out and sell pet supplies under pets123.com, and then books at books123. Do I just set up shop123.com DBA pets123 and books123?

Jason, it's good that you have computer programming skills. I am so lost as to how to import product feed to my site. I have been watching youtube tutorials and read a ton...... I might need to hire someone to do it for me.

 

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[susanyang]

Jason, ready to share your niche??? The suspense is killing me!

 

[susanyang]

Also - I have 6k products to load. It's going to take me f-o-r-e-v-er. I don't know what to load first (although Google's KW tool will work). I'm beginning to think I should have chosen a smaller niche.

Do you really need to load 6K of products? Maybe choose a few hundred best sellers to start off? My supplier's product list has 4K products, and I plan to choose the one with free shipping only, so that narrows it down to a few hundreds. More manageable for me because I am a fairly disorganized person. :nono:

BTW, I am in a rut right now. I started off all excited about e-commerce but now I am unsure about my niche. I think it's saturated, very, very saturated. But in mind, I am thinking yes, this most likely won't be my fastlane, but at least I will gain knowledge about how e-commerce work and keep searching for the one niche.

DBA is done and is being published as we speak. $15 for 4 weeks, not bad. I was going with Opencart, but now I am leaning towards Big Commerce. I haven't open a bank account yet. I am moving very s l o w l y. I hope I can open my store before you, JasonR!

 

[Hassassin]

interesting thread.
im 16 from the uk and i want to get on thefastlane asap . but i dnw ifi shud drop outa college or not and how to make income through ecommerce any tips advice would be appreciated thanks

 

[theag]

interesting thread.
im 16 from the uk and i want to get on thefastlane asap . but i dnw ifi shud drop outa college or not and how to make income through ecommerce any tips advice would be appreciated thanks

What questions do you have that are not answered in this or other ecommerce threads here?

 

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[pdog]

Hey Jason thanks for the cool thread and good to see you taking serious action.

Just wanted to suggest you add google analytics to your site, so when that first sale comes in (and it will!) you'll know where it came from - e.g. what kw they searched etc.

Carry on,
Peter

 

[theag]

Depending on what you plan on doing in regards to seo, you should quickly disconnect your site from all google tools, e.g. Webmaster tools and analytics, and use independent alternatives. There are a lot of articles on this and while there is no proof, many people suggest it can have a negative effect on your efforts.

 

[theag]

Love this quote

They didn't spend billions to get urchin (analytics) just so they can show webmasters pretty pie charts for free. People look for proof and case studies but using common sense draws a clear enough picture: if I am making money from voyeuristic pornography and am somehow able to make people use transparent walls for their houses... would I use it to make more money or would I let all this cash slip away because of my motto 'don't do evil'?

 

[PatrickP]

Just one person's experience.

I put google analytics on my site on day one. 1 week after making the site it was ranked # 16,000,000 according to Alexa. 2 months later it was ranked 2,250,000 according Alexa with 1 incoming link. I have zero idea if this is good or not, or if it even relates to what you guys are talking about SEO. Or is Alexa is a reputable source for this info.

Just one sites results.

 

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[theag]

I dont see whats wrong about bhw. Theres a lot of great whitehat knowledge there. And by googles definition ALL seo tactics are questionable and "blackhat", not just cloaking, link spam and other pure bh stuff.

 

[Zen Focus]

Dear Jason,

You'd better believe your thread is providing value to a lot of people.

I am one of them who is constantly hoping to hear for your updates.

Currently I'm beginning on an Ecommerce store as well, and had outsourced website design/development to freelancers on oDesk. I chose OpenCart as my platform, because it seems much easier to maintain on my own. Secretly though I hope to be able to run on Magento but am afraid that as a one man team I can't run it independently.

As you said right now I'm also facing the hurdle of marketing the Ecommerce store. I've made sure to give it a theme, an attraction hook or reason for people to see my store as the go-to place even though I couldn't reduce pricing down from the standard drop ship value. However, somewhere at the back of my brain says the most important part is yet to come as contents and SEO take their place to star the show.

I'm hoping that with pure hard work in writing/offering as much quality contents there'll be results eventually.

I haven't been able to learn how to import products as data feeds to my Ecommerce store yet on OpenCart. Will have to learn that as well. Had established contact with several manufacturers and created several accounts enough to pack my store with lots of products. If I was asked on whether I know inside and out how I would go about listing the products (e.g. ship internationally or only within US, pricing shipping, putting up notices on which products can be shipped Internationally or which can't) with their necessary key purchase information I'd say I'm completely clueless for now.

But I guess to qualify ourselves as Fastlaners, we'll have to keep pushing on anyway regardless of whether we 100% understand how to do something as we continue to learn, strategize and act on our plans on the same path.

One thing I've learned from a book I've read recently about Ecommerce in terms of perception, is that we have to really think of it almost as a brick-and-mortar business. In local retailers they are able to reach to the local community of customers. Online, or as an Ecommerce, we are appealing to the world/whole of US customers at the least. Naturally, this means we must, must work a lot harder and imagine it as a brick-and-mortar retail store instead of a venture that promises a dream future fast.

The book says that we can consider giving a timeframe of 3-6 months of hard work to begin seeing results, and 1 year minimum before we expect any solid kinds of success. Keeping that in mind helps me work on it with more patience and commitment - hope this may help others on the same path as well to keep pushing on and don't quit too early.

 

[susanyang]

Very exciting to hear about your update, Jason! You bet you are helping a lot of us newbies. Hope your personal issues got sorted out soon!
I might PM you about importing products later on.

 

[ewH]

Hi Jason, thanks for posting about your progress. Can you explain a little more on the process you went through to find and select your suppliers?

 

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[ewH]

Thanks Jason, I am looking forward to hearing more about your road to success. Best of luck!

 

[DEMARAY07]

Jason,

I love the thread, but I was wondering if you ever solved your problem with putting together your main "widgets"? In my niche there are many technical issues similar to that. However, product reps and distributors are an amazing recourse for me. Most reps that I have encountered are willing to come and meet with me and walk me through the process putting together a new products, how the product works and troubleshooting (this can come in handy for selling product that will fix the main "widgets" issue. This adds benefit to you because if you know when the product will begin to have issues, you know when you can start a marketing campaign--via email or otherwise--promoting products that can fix "widget" issues)


Good luck! Keep posting!

 

[Bruce]

If I transferred much of this information, and wrote articles weekly / biweekly, would you guys be interested in following a blog dedicated to e-commerce, e-commerce business ventures, and so forth?

I would later on when you make a lot of sales and have huge success, it'd be nice to read up on how you did it and your hugest mistakes etc. But for now I think a progress thread is good enough.

Also after reading this thread I'm pretty excited to start my own eCommerce website. I've just contacted a few suppliers and hopefully I can get there response tomorrow morning and set-up my store (hopefully Magneto).

 

[MMatt]

How much does it cost to run magneto? I just did a little demo with it and it seems they have the greatest amount of successful users and I can now see what you mean by most customizable. Although I lack the knowledge to utilize all of its features; maybe it would be a good idea to start with them from the get-go.

 

[Burko]

Awesome thread Jason.

It is great to see the process you are going through. You have made very good progress with your site and I wish you luck (The kind you are making yourself).

Keep up the great work.

 

[stranger]

Setting up my Site Structure (SEO)

Most of you probably know that the structure of your site and SEO friendly URLs factor into search engine rankings. Here's how I'll be setting up my site and why.

My root url, as discussed, will be "www.mystore.com"

All CMS/content pages will be "www.mystore.com/content-page.html"
All product pages will be "www.mystore.com/product-page.html"
All category pages will be "www.mystore.com/category/"
All brand pages will be "www.mystore.com/brand/"

Pretty simple! The reason I have set the product pages up WITHOUT the category URL is simple, yet important. So what happens when you move a product page that resides in "www.mystore.com/category/product.html"? You now have to 301 redirect the old page, and, honestly, the extra keyword or two in the product URL isn't going to significantly impact your rankings. Also, what happens when you have a product in multiple categories when you have the category in your product URL page? Which category do you use? That's why I recommend not using product page URLs like "www.mystore.com/category/product.html."

The only thing I'm considering is possibly using ".html" instead of "/" for my category and brand pages (to keep things consistent). However, Google doesn't care if you're using a "/" ".html" ".asp" ".php" at the end of your URLs.

Also, I will make sure to block specific pages (the cart page, check out pages, login pages, etc.) from the search engine indexes by blocking them in the robots.txt file. The robots.txt file is very important, so learn to edit and modify this file as needed (it's very easy). I can post a couple links to articles on the subject.

I hope all of this makes sense. If not, you haven't read and don't understand the Beginners guide to SEO that I posted.

Hi Jason,
Hope your store runs ok.
Probably, you know the answer on my question. Google has indexed some pages of my store that shouldn't be to index. And one of these pages got pr 2 even. So, how to delete and block them from indexing? Hope you or someone else will answer me. I can pm your the links which i'm saying about. I don't want to put they here because they will be found by spiders/bots again.

 

[Burko]

Hi Jason,
Have you managed to get a dev environment up and going yet? I have just discovered Amazon Web Services where you can set up the server of your choice in the cloud for free for the first year. You have the ability to snapshot your site prior to any upgrades for quick restoration. You are given full root access to the server and full control of the configuration.

There are many free prebuilt server configs to get you started quickly, not sure if there are any with magento.

You could easily upload a copy of your site and database and be up and running with a full dev environment in less than a day.

Keep up the great work.

 

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