There are plenty of reasons for starting an online business:
Now those look appealing to you right? Well now you have a choice of 2 main ways to start.
You can either create your business through Ebay Store or Yahoo! Merchant Solutions.
Each one has their strengths and weaknesses:
Ebay Store
- Basically free advertising because you are part of Ebay, people don't have to find your site, they can get to your store through Ebay
- Excellent Administrator tools and statistics
- Great Customer Support
- Somewhat limited because not your own domain and limited through the design (Ebay limits you)
Yahoo Merchant Solutions
- Sets up the credit card process
- Templates to choose from
- More flexibility
- Free Domain with a Merchant Solutions Account
- Great customer Support
- Have to advertise your site yourself, won't have help from the convenience of using Ebay.
Both programs are good and are the top choices for starting a online store, there are many others out there, but none as good. As for choosing one?... Honestly I would choose both. You can get people buying products from you through ebay, and people buying through your domain from Yahoo! . This way you will broaden your business and reach a wider audience!
Advertising through PPC
Advertising through PPC is the act of paying companies to advertise your link for the cost of a number of clicks. Say you want to advertise through Google Adwords, for the keywords Cheap Skateboards. First, you would bid a price, the higher the bid, the more likely it would be shown, the lower the bid the less chances your link will be shown.
Tip: The bids don't really matter much for non competitive keywords, say you are going to go for the keywords Rodent Racing, you would just pay the minimum bid to Google as it is not competitive. On the other hand, if you were going for Making Money Online, there is a lot of competition from other people, so you would try to put your bid around the Mid range.
Using PPC is risky and it usually depends on the type of company you have and what your sale rate is.
Say your sale rate is 1/100 of the people that visit your site. Say you are paying .50 per click to your site. That means 100 clicks would cost you 50 dollars, now think if that would be worth it to you. Remember that it all depends on the product you are trying to sell. If you are selling diamonds and your profit per sale is anywhere from $50 or more it would be worth it, say you were selling sugar and your profit was $2 then it would definitely not be worth it!
Basically for Google Adwords, you just have to play around with it, it can work if you have a High CTR or a high profit per sale, or would work even better if you had both.
Having an online business and store is a learning experience and some people don't do well, but if you are determined and start to have a successful business the rewards can be prosperous!
For further reading on Starting an Online Business with Ebay and Yahoo you can read:
How to Make Money Online with eBay, Yahoo!, and Google
