Online Stores for Gift Baskets
Have you been debating about opening an online store to sell your gift baskets? If you don’t already have an internet site, now is the time to act! According to an article I read in Yahoo Finance, consumers are increasingly going online to research products they intend to buy.
According to a survey of U.S. consumers. consumers go to the internet before they go to a store to make their purchases. They use the internet to look at product features and compare prices. The internet has become “an extension of consumers’ in-store shopping experience”. Moreover, consumers report that “the most powerful influencers of their purchase decisions are word-of-mouth, followed by advertising and online information”.
So how do you build an online store? A logical place to start might be to search the internet for information! But if you do a search on Google for “building an online store”, approximately 1 million results are displayed and that of course, is overwhelming.
My suggestion is to start looking close to home. If you know someone who has an online store, ask them how they got started. Look in your local Yellow Pages for businesses that build internet sites. Call your local Chamber of Commerce and ask if they have any resources for you. Then, go to the library and find a book. “Starting an Online Business for Dummies” is a great place to start.
I can also recommend Yahoo as a great resource for building an online store. Our ecommerce store, Apex Gift Foods, is part of the Yahoo Store “chain”. Yahoo offers a very affordable program for starting an online business. Go to Yahoo for a complete explanation of the features and benefits of the Yahoo store programs. In addition to great service and support, Yahoo offers a wealth of free information to Yahoo store owners about managing and growing your ecommerce store. Then of course, you can read “Starting a Yahoo Store for Dummies” (I refer to it on a daily basis).
4 comments April 28th, 2007
