About Nick L Expertise In the subject of e-commerce I can answer questions related to shopping carts, credit card processing, SEO & SEM, and general issues related to setting up an online business.
Experience I have owned and maintained two e-commerce sites (northcedar.com) and (outdoorfurnitureplus.com), for the past 4 years. I have also designed two e-commerce sites for other people. Both on the Miva platform. I have written a customer service column for Practical Ecommerce since it was founded last July.
During the past four years I have fine-tuned my skills in SEO and SEM. Reading several books on the subject, and by experimenting with my own strategies. I have always been successful in achieving good rankings for my sites in key search terms.
Publications I have written a customer service column for Practical Ecommerce since it was founded last July.
Education/Credentials B.A. Communications
Awards and Honors OutdoorFurniturePlus.com was featured on the Miva Merchant monthly gallery feature.
Thanks for you quick response, I have one more question : is it a good idea to set up an account with " yahoo store "? and one more thing I'm located in Canada and all the potential buyers I found are located in the states, do you think that would be a problem ?
Thanks
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The text above is a follow-up to ...
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Hi Nick,
I would like to set up an online store to sell dog furniture . I did my research and found a manufacturer who does drop shipping . I want to start buy selling this product first and then expand . I did my research on pet related forums and i have already a list of about 50 people who want to order the products i want to sell . The question is I don't know how to start .
Thanks,
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Hello,
It sounds like you have products that have a good selling potential. If you want the business to be successful and grow than I would recommend building a web store. Your costs will be in the thousands for a full merchant system with design and setup, but it sounds to me like you already have good potential, so you should easily make that money back. You can also setup a simple website with a simple "Buy Now" button from PayPal (payment service), that would keep your expenses really low, while offering exposure to the net.
Good luck, and let me know if you have any other questions.
Nick
Answer Hello,
I don't see any problem with you selling from Canada, many merchants do that. I would just make sure you are up-n-up on your tax regulations for both the US and Canada.
Yahoo store is a good entry level platform, I started on that. In my opinion it is far inferior to other platforms like Miva, which does NOT charge you a percentage of sales. I personally have been using miva for four years and I find it easy, and much more flexible than Yahoo. It's not expensive either.
