1) Do I need ecommerce? This is important. Generally speaking,
consumers are comfortable making purchases online for under
$250. If your product or service costs more than that, then you
may be better served creating a "Lead Generation" web site and
an eSales team who are comfortable working with internet based
leads.

2) How much time do I have? Setting up an ecommerce store is
relatively easy for any experienced web designer and can be done
and out to market in a couple days, assuming you have a limited
number back end products in place and ready to be shipped. But,
if you are a newbie, then you face a substantial learning curve.
We encourage everyone to learn HTML, and to be entrepreneurial
in their endeavors, but it does take a large time commitment to
learn enough to succeed. Also, keep in mind, that the learning
is never done. There are always new technologies effecting the
Internet and the way people buy and sell online and you need to
keep up to date with them to succeed. Another thing to keep in
mind is internet marketing. If you plan on acquiring sales
through the search engines, then you need an seo strategy that
works. For starters read Serr.biz

3) What is your budget? Everyday you hear of people making
millions online by just having an ecommerce enabled web site
that they got for free. We would like to dispel this myth. It's
simply not true. There are technology costs associated with
operating an ecommerce site, not to mention the cost of
products, fulfillment, standard overhead costs, and marketing.
The old idiom of "It cost money to make money." is 100% true.
However, starting an ecommerce store is generally less expensive
than a traditional brick and mortar, especially if you have a
successful brick and mortar business already. However, the bare
bones start up costs associated with an ecommerce store is the
cost of your computer and ISP. This is possible, but not very
probable. In truth, you should expect to spend somewhere in the
range of $50-$1000 a month in technology costs alone. That does
not account for variables listed above.

If you have thought about the questions above and still want to
proceed, here is a quick check list of things you recommend you
have.

1) Product or service to sell. 2) Web site and hosting company
with email. 3) Shopping cart with a secure check out. 4)
Merchant account so you can accept credit cards. 5) Back end
technology and order fulfillment in place.

For more details about starting an ecommerce store visit this
link: href="http://www.121merchantaccount.com/ecommerce/index.html">1-2
-1 merchant account

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