eCommerce startup

It's going to be in USA and I'm trying to sell woman clothings and accessories.
If you give me more details about skills/resources I'll appreciate it.
How about ebay ?
Can I connect ebay and my site together ?

Thanks in advance

You can do that.  I was talking to one person though who is switching over to a merchant account because he sells about $40K a month & it costs him $2k a month in fees.  He will still post some on there to get hits, but he wants his own site where people can come to to buy things.  

Yahoo is good for some companies, a little pricey.  We have a few people who use them & they are very happy with them.  Easy to set up.  Their gateway costs are a little expensive - .5&-1.5% over your CC processing fees.  

You first need to ask yourself - do you want a hosted solution or do you want a little more?.  Most people like the hosted solution, very easy but when they grow they realize they are stuck with what they have.   For example, a lot of people use Monster Commerce.  One of our clients said that they called Monster to complain.  They said for $700, they fix it.  And even then, the store would not do everything they desired.  So, she got her own cart built.  There are also some pre-made carts out there that are very good.  if you like ASP, check out www.vpasp.com or www.spidersales.com.  We have been very pleased with Spider Sales.  I also have a basic ASP shopping cart that has sizes / colors on it - if you would like to me to e-mail it to you - let me know.  For PHP, check out www.oscommerce.com

-Corey

hi Jason,

Since this is an online marketing forum I am going to take the point of view of a marketer (since this is what I am anyway).

I would start with the question I ask all my clients who say I want to sell online. Before you hire anyone, buy into a hosted store or buy any off the shelf package ask yourself "how do I plan on marketing my site?"

If eBay is your plan for a sales channel then you really do not need a website. Just create an eBay store and sell away. All the transactions are taken care of through a variety of payment solutions. eBay has tools for creating an eBay store and tools for creating somewhat attractive auction listings. All part of selling on their site.

Now if you really want to get into the ecommerce business and sell direct through a website then your biggest question is still not what shopping cart and what technology do I need to develop my site. I would ask again, how do you plan on marketing your site.  

As an example, do you have a limited marketing budget? If you have a limited budget then I would recommend you find a developer who understand how to design a site which is search engine friendly and will help get you listed in the organic search results (I would recommend this even with a large budget). This will be important when you decide on a development platform. Cookies vs no-cookies. Passing a Session ID in the URL or not. File naming, folder naming, keyword selection. All things need to be considered.

To be successful in your ecommerce initiative you need to think about your marketing first.

Hope this helps.

- Michael

jasonkk -

You are getting some good advice here and there isn't much to add except to say that I agree strongly with mblevine
that "To be successful in your ecommerce initiative you need to think about your marketing first".

- duz

The best place to learn the ropes is to sell some old junk from the attick on ebay and perhaps follow it up with selling some of your products.  It's not great for your only income stream but it is perfect for getting a feel for it all.