You are no longer limited by the geographical location to expand your market. And unlike a brick-and-mortar business, online business requires less startup costs. Some of those minimal startup fees are related to your web site design, shopping cart setup, domain name registration and web hosting.

Thanks to the power of automation you can setup a shop that does not require your physical presence at all time. The possibilities are endless, the market is huge and your online store stays open 24/7 with no overtime to pay to any employee.

So how do one go about starting an e-commerce?

1. Pick a niche you would like to venture in
2. Determine whether there is already a substantial market of potential buyers for your products/services
3. Build a website with all the features required
4. Advertise your web site using various online channels to reach your target audience
5. Put in place a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) to help you get repeated business from your customers
6. Offer more products and improve existing ones
7. Improve processes that are working and get rid what’s not.

In the upcoming posts, we’ll break down each point underlined above to give you more insights into starting an e-commerce.

True, the online market is huge but the competition is also proportionally tougher. So be prepared to roll-up your sleeves and work hard before you reap a bountiful harvest.

Once you have a clear picture about the services or products you are going to offer through your web site, you should then register a domain name for your e-business before someone else snatches it away from you.

For those of you who already started doing business offline, the right domain name is your current business’ name. If your business is named “XYX Widgets”, it makes more sense to get the domain name “xyz-widgets.com” or “xyzwidgets.com”. That helps you consolidate and preserve your business identity both offline and online. Besides your current customers might have already typed xyzwidgets.com or xyz-widgets.com in their web browser address bar to locate your web site.

For the rest of us who are just starting out and do not yet choose a name for our new venture, now is the time to do so.
In order to register a domain name, you need to make sure it is not already taken.

The best place to start is at Godaddy.com.
You can check your domain name availability for free. The best part is, Godaddy will actually give you suggestions for other domain names related to the domain name you are looking for. In my opinion, that Godaddy.com is the grand-daddy of domain name registation.

What should you consider when registering a domain name?
The whole purpose of a domain name is to identify your website and branding your e-business. So choosing a domain name is one more wise business decision you would have to make.
Here are a few pointers when choosing a domain name:

1. Domain named after your current business
2. Domain name related to your products and services
3. Domain name must be short (less than 64 characters)
4. Domain name easy to remember
5. Domain name easy to type in the web browser address box

Do you have to register your domain name and host your website with the same company?
Not necessarily!
I for one, do not like to “keep my eggs in the same basket” should anything unfortunate happens!
You can register your domain name with Godaddy.com then rent a web hosting space with BlueHost.com, Hostmonster.com, JustHost.com or any other web hosting company that matches your e-business needs.

The only advantage of having a domain name and web hosting on the same spot is not having to manually setup the Domain Name Servers (DNS) for your website. It is automatically done on your behalf once you register your domain name.