by Christopher Butler
Imagine you decide to quit your job, move to a cozy, small town, and set up a shop of your own. It'd be great. Nothing flashy, of course; something nice, like a fine hats shop. Yeah, that's the ticket. You've always liked hats, and really, there aren't enough hat shops out there. Your new community will thank you for bringing hats back, not to mention a little slice of the good old-fashioned American dream. Of course, you'll make new friends. They'll stop by your shop to shoot the breeze over coffee around the hat counter and you'll join them for weekend picnics in their back yards. Hats all around, of course. That'd be the life...
That is, after you wrote up a plan, registered your business, opened a merchant account, secured funding of some kind—whether that means draining your saving or convincing some other hat-enthusiast to invest—found a location, signed a lease, found and purchased furniture, storage, shelving, counters, a cash register, and all kinds of other materials, picked up inventory, worked out your schedule, hired some help, did some advertising, and then, you know, sold some hats. Phew! By then, if you still could stand the sight of a hat, you would certainly know you made the right decision.
Ok, so maybe you'll start small. Something online. That would definitely be easier, right?
Wrong. It turns out that setting up an online business can be just as complicated as setting up a traditional bricks-and-mortar store. There sure are just as many details, and since many of them are technical, they're often misunderstood—which, of course, leads to the misconception that ecommerce is easy. Well, that's what this article is all about. I'd like to give you a survey of ecommerce, from the details—the checkout process, data security, calculating sales tax and shipping, discount codes, etc.—to the big picture. Let's get started...
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Imagine you decide to quit your job, move to a cozy, small town, and set up a shop of your own. It'd be great. Nothing flashy, of course; something nice, like a fine hats shop. Yeah, that's the ticket. You've always liked hats, and really, there aren't enough hat shops out there. Your new community will thank you for bringing hats back, not to mention a little slice of the good old-fashioned American dream. Of course, you'll make new friends. They'll stop by your shop to shoot the breeze over coffee around the hat counter and you'll join them for weekend picnics in their back yards. Hats all around, of course. That'd be the life...
That is, after you wrote up a plan, registered your business, opened a merchant account, secured funding of some kind—whether that means draining your saving or convincing some other hat-enthusiast to invest—found a location, signed a lease, found and purchased furniture, storage, shelving, counters, a cash register, and all kinds of other materials, picked up inventory, worked out your schedule, hired some help, did some advertising, and then, you know, sold some hats. Phew! By then, if you still could stand the sight of a hat, you would certainly know you made the right decision.Ok, so maybe you'll start small. Something online. That would definitely be easier, right?
Wrong. It turns out that setting up an online business can be just as complicated as setting up a traditional bricks-and-mortar store. There sure are just as many details, and since many of them are technical, they're often misunderstood—which, of course, leads to the misconception that ecommerce is easy. Well, that's what this article is all about. I'd like to give you a survey of ecommerce, from the details—the checkout process, data security, calculating sales tax and shipping, discount codes, etc.—to the big picture. Let's get started...
Read more:
