A successful ecommerce business owner requires a product or service to sell, traffic to a web site, and converting traffic into sales. Success can not exist if one of these three is missing. Step 1 is the easiest but steps 2 and 3 are where things can become hard because there are so many choices out there; it is extremely easy to get confused and frustrated with it all.  

But let’s break steps 2 and 3 down into a more manageable list of categories. You’ll need a domain name, a web site and web host with web hosting related services, a shopping cart, a merchant account, multiple marketing tools, traffic, training and support. You can see why things can become confusing for someone who is looking to become serious on the internet. All of these aspects will all come at a cost, if not just from your pocket but time too.

The three biggest issues are too many choices, logistics and costs.

Too many choices cause a headache right from the beginning. If you’ve ever tried to search for a decent and cost efficient web hosting service you’ll more than likely end up with no hair (sorry if you’re already bald!). The problem is that almost all web hosts that have been reviewed on public forums, have been because of a complaint and not the other way around. Unfortunately you will find this with all aspects of the ecommerce business world, from domain name registration services to merchant accounts; and so you run the risk of choosing the wrong ones. It can be a complete pain having to change an integral part of your ecommerce business.

Logistically speaking it can get very messy. Let’s say you approached a separate company for every single aspect of your ecommerce business because they focus on the specific aspect, for example domain name registration. You have to browse through their site to ensure you get what you want; you’ll have to create an account so you can use their service, and then learn how to use their online interface where your account is housed, and then get to know their support module because it is guaranteed you’ll need it, especially if you’re new. Now assume you have to do this for every aspect of an ecommerce business.

Then there are the costs. In actual fact the most taxing cost is time, however the financial costs increase the more services you use. You’ll also have the administrative hassle of having to know which time of the month each service is going to bill you.

Then there’s marketing, driving traffic and training. The list of marketing methods becoming available on the internet is increasing all the time. Many ecommerce business owners think they have to use them all, and what’s worse, learn them all. Internet marketing is about reach and automation; getting the most reach efficiently to attract traffic, and automating the process of dealing with this traffic. When you consider there’s pay per click, banner, newsletter, link and classified advertising, all with costs associated, how do you know which method is working the best?

When people visit your website you’ve got to convert them to sales. You’ve got to test headlines, graphics, colors, guarantees and sales copy. You need to determine the most wanted response, whether it is a direct sale, or to sign up to your email list. But once again, you need to test and automate the whole process, not to mention store the customer’s details – another service that will cost money.

Having affiliates sell your products and services is one of the greatest ways if not the best way to gain more reach but how do you manage them? You’ve got to track the traffic, clicks and sales they generate not to mention pay them. This requires another service you have to pay for.

In recent times some companies have become multi-service. The more of these services a company can offer the cheaper it becomes for you, not to mention the time saved logistically because of a shorter learning curve and support for all the services is in the one place. Imagine being able to build and operate a complete ecommerce business from the one service and the one bill?

Finding a solution to all of the above requires finding a company that offers domain registration, web hosting and web hosting related services including a web site builder; a shopping cart and merchant account to accept online payments; marketing tools including opt-ins, auto responders, email and newsletter list management, affiliate tracking and promotional services, ad tracking and customer interaction; and to top it off, have training materials by way of online videos, online user guides, a knowledge base and an expert support team experienced enough to deal with all aspects of running an ecommerce business including technical support. Find one of these and you have the most powerful partner possible to help you in operating your successful ecommerce business.

Dean Whittingham has built many Full Blown Internet Businesses Using One Ecommerce Shopping Cart Solution.

All you need is the product or service

A successful internet business needs the following; a domain name, a website, a product or service, shopping cart software, a merchant account, marketing tools, traffic and training. 1ShoppingCart.com provides all of this.

Whether you are starting from scratch, or you’ve been online for a short while and need to expand, every possible internet business tool is available at 1ShoppingCart.com. What’s more there are packages available so you can cater to your own business needs should you already have some of the above.

Let’s look at some of the features included:

1 Shopping Cart offers domain name registration, webhosting and other web hosting related services including a website builder.

Once you have your domain name and web hosting set up, let’s look at the Shopping Cart itself for your products and services.

1. Sell Unlimited Products – great if you sell physical goods or use dropshippers
2. eBooks & Digital Products – use their server and bandwidth to store your downloads including .exe, .pdf, .doc, .mp3 files and more; distributes usernames and passwords for secure products and memberships
3. Recurring/Residual Billing – for ongoing subscriptions
4. Collect Credit Card Payments – easy
5. Calculate Shipping/Sales Tax – Integrates with Fedex, DHL, Canada Post, UPS & USPS; state and country sales tax rates
6. Detailed Sales Reports – by date, clients, card type, product item, ad campaign, affiliates
7. Offer Discount Coupons – without having to change anything from the front-end
8. Upsell Other Products – simple: increase sales revenues by offering customers other products automatically every time they buy
9. Support Multiple Web Sites – if you have more than one business!
10. Customizable – give your shopping cart pages the same look and feel as your web site theme

Now that you have a web site selling products and services, let’s look at the Marketing Tools available.

1. Online Contact Database – Keep in touch with your customers 24/7
2. Online Newsletter Program – Create text, HTML or MIME email messages
3. Unlimited Email Marketing – Send email messages and sales letters to your customers, prospects, affiliates or your entire database of clients; unlimited broadcast emailing capabilities
4. Unlimited Autoresponders – create autoresponders and opt-in forms for many purposes
5. Customizable eZine forms – Easy to use Ezine/Newsletter management
6. Affiliate Program Included – unlimited affiliates; create multiple affiliate programs; associate different products to each program; pay affiliates by check or paypal; email affiliates 24/7; affiliates training and more!
7. Ad Tracker & Split Testers – test and track ads, links, email and affiliate ads; split-test campaigns to see which work best
8. Surveys & Questionnaires -Quesionnaire Wizard lets you easily generate web forms to ask customers, prospects and affiliates alike a number of key questions, helping you to make the sale or perform general or advanced market research.
9. Pop-Up Wizard – use it in conjunction with surveys, opt-in forms, sales to grab visitors attention

It’s up to you, but if you want to Accept Credit Cards using your own merchant account:

1. Accept Credit Cards & Online Checks - Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover with your own merchant account includes both gateway account and merchant account
2. Simple Fast Online Application – just 4 simple steps
3. 99% Approval Rate – and it takes just 3-5 business days
4. No Cancelletion Fees: Cancel Anytime! – that’s right, costs nothing to cancel
5. No Long Term Contracts – pay by the month
6. Lowest Prices on the Internet – just $26/month
7. No Software or Equipment Needed – 100% compatible with 1 Shopping Cart

Along with the features above, important things you also need in an ecommerce shopping cart solution is:

1. Reliability
2. Deliverability
3. Customer Service
4. Security

1 Shopping Cart is reliable having serviced thousands of top name companies, just check out their Featured Clients to see for yourself.

Deliverability is important with online businesses, 1 Shopping Cart being able to handle over 1 million messages per hour.

Their customer service is second to none, whether online, over the phone and even through their training materials and knowledge base.

Finally, security is a top priority at 1 Shopping Cart using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) technology to protect the security of your online order information, and is one of the only online shopping cart software solutions that’s fully Certified by Visa and Mastercard through their stringent PCI & CISP regulations.

As you can see, you may be starting from scratch with just a product or service, or selling other companies products; or you may need to expand your current business. 1 Shopping Cart has it all. I have been using 1 Shopping Cart for years and simply would not look anywhere else, but…

To see for yourself the advantages of using 1ShoppingCart, go to
1 Shopping Cart

or, you can check out another ecommerce shopping cart provider Quick Pay Pro – who boast many of the features as 1 shopping cart (but not all), and at a smaller monthly fee.

or, check out an even cheaper ecommerce shopping cart solution WAHMCART – who also boast many of the features at a smaller monthly fee.

Dean Whittingham
1 Shopping Cart
Quick Pay Pro
WAHMCART
 

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