How to Start Selling Products Online

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Looking for the Best, Easiest Way to Sell Your Products Online?

So you've got a great product, you know that people are going to love it, and now you are just stuck figuring out the best way to sell your product online. Setting up an online store can seem like an intimidating and overwhelming task if you have never done it before.

You may think that you need to hire a web programmer or get a custom solution built for your online store. Or if you don't have the budget for a full-blown design team, you may think that you need to spend months learning how to set up an online store yourself.

Fortunately, that's not the case. In today's online world, there are many new products and ecommerce solutions available that allow you to quickly and easily set up your own store and start selling products online without needing to have any knowledge of web design or programming.

With almost all of these solutions you can manage every aspect of your online store directly through your browser, which makes maintenance, order processing, shipping, and customer service a breeze. Most of these products also come with a merchant account already included, which means that you can start taking credit cards through your online store right away.

For the first step in helping you decide how to start selling your products online, let's look at some of the features you should look for in a good online store solution.

Features to Look for in a Good Online Store Package 

Your ultimate goal with setting up your online store should be to find an ecommerce solution that doesn't require a programmer or "techie" to help you set it up or maintain it. Anytime you have to hire help (especially technical help) you are going to dramatically increase your costs which cuts into your profits.

For most people, this means that it is better to choose a full package deal that has a browser-based control panel rather than choosing to go with a custom shopping cart and seperate merchant account.

Another benefit of going with a full package solution is that they include everything you need to get started. With a good online store package you will get a website, domain name, web hosting, merchant account, control panel, shipping center, customer service center, stats & reporting, & email all in one place.

That makes it easier to handle all aspects of your business since everything is together instead of being spread around between a bunch of different companies.

Here's a list of some of the things you should look for when choosing an online store and considering how to sell your products online:

A merchant account to accept credit cards
The ability to accept additional payment forms besides credit cards
You own domain name
Web site hosting
Email address for your company
Ample support to add as many products as you need to your store
Browser-based store administration
Automatic notification to customers regarding their orders
Easy browser-based customer service options
Search engine friendly pages so that the search engines can find your site
The ability to customize the look and feel of your store to match your business
An easy to use shopping cart that your customers will understand
The ability to cross sell or upsell during checkout (get more sales!)
Integrated shipping calculations so customers know exactly how much they will be paying for shipping before placing their order
The ability to print shipping labels & invoices right from the control panel
High quality statistics and reporting so you can track which of your advertising efforts are earning you money & which are losers
Excellent support & customer service
A recognized name in the industry

If you can find a solution with everything on this list you will be well on your way to opening a successful online store where you can easily & affordably sell your products.

My Personal Top Pick for Best Online Store Solution 


My top pick for an online store package is the Yahoo! Merchant Solutions Package. It's affordable, & includes absolutely everything you need to get started, plus great additional features that you won't find in other online store packages.

Here are just some of the things that a Yahoo! store will help you to do:

Make a professional site with an easy wizard
Have search engine-friendly pages
Manage up to 50,000 products for sale
Customize your page layout
Automatically calculate tax and shipping
Offer extra services like gift wrapping
Get a free Yahoo! Local listing
Get credit with Google Adwords, Shopping.com & Shopzilla to start promoting your store
Upsell and cross-sell during checkout
Offer coupons and gift certificates to your customers
Set up discount & volume pricing
Accept credit, debit, and PayPal payments (No extra fees to use their payment gateway)
Prevent fraud with CC verification
Process credit cards offline too
Use an easy interface to process orders
View new orders by email, online or by fax
Automatically email customers
Print invoices & shipping labels
Offer shipping through UPS, FedEx & USPS, or offer free shipping
Calculate shipping by weight, price, location & more
Calculate tax rates
Sell and ship internationally
Get 40+ reports with sales, customer paths, referring sites, frequent searches & more
And a whole lot more...

The Yahoo! Merchant Solutions Package has it all and then some. Plus, Yahoo! is a well known name with great customer support. The stores are very easy to use, so you can spend your time building your business instead of your website.

It is the most complete solution you will find for the money & is a great value. To learn more or see sample sites created with Yahoo!, you can do so with the link below.

Want to start an online store? Yahoo! makes it easy - 35% off for a limited time!

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