Ecommerce novice

[adone1956]

Hi everybody

I would appreciate if you could provide me links with information regarding how to build an ecommerce site without having the burden of keeping inventory and doing all the "dirty" work of shipping, managing suppliers, having to manage return orders, etc. I mean, I know for sure that many sites really sell for others, i.e. they only receive the orders but a "master" store is who fullfils the real order.
I am not sure if what I am looking for is affiliate programs, I think this is not the same.
In few words, I would like to be kind of "distributor" for other sites but giving the impression that client is buying from my website. I would also like to know if there are merchants out there that agree to issue invoices in the name of the intermediary (my company) as if sale would be made by he (my company).
Hope you understand what I mean and sorry if my English is quite a transliteration but it is not my mother tongue.

[247SiteAlert]

I would suggest you build your reseller ecommerce application using PHP and MySQL on a Linux server.

I have some other questions:

1. Can you program in PHP or will you have to hire someone for that part?

2. Do you have a website yet?

3. Do you have your domain name yet?

4. Do you have your business name yet?

[Corey Bryant]

An affiliate program might be useful. This is where you are advertising other products and you usually give customers an URL with a query at the end

http://www.example.com/affid.asp?1234

There are also dropshippers that might be useful, especially if you want to concentrate on one specific industry.

There are a few directories for people looking for merchants / dropshippers that you might find useful. Just be careful with the company you are going to do business with to make sure they are reliable, especially if you are going to get your own merchant account.

[adone1956]

FOR 247SiteAlert:

I do not plan to do very much programming. I bought a package named X-cart with a template and eventually I have a very good PHP programmer in order to customize the software if at all necessary.

My question really is not about technical matters but instead commercial ones and Corey Bryant gave me a very interesting hint. I really ignored the concept of "dropshipper" and I am googling it to learn more.

Any help on how to find reliable dropshippers and how to negotiate with them will be enormously appreciated.

Thank you very much

[JEccles]

Any help on how to find reliable dropshippers and how to negotiate with them will be enormously appreciated.

Thank you very much

What type of products are you looking for?

[adm1978]

You are definitely looking for a dropshipper that provides product feeds to the ecommerce solution of your choice. A search on drop shippers should bring up plenty of choices and lots of feedback from people who use them.

[adone1956]

I investigated this dropshipping business model.

One of the companies that caught my attention is usellcorp.com. This company offer turnkey solutions but apparently they do not allow sites with their own shopping cart to integrate products into their sites. I.e., or you sell the way they want or you don't.

Another one is Doba that for what I understood is more flexible and it allows to put their products in your online store.

Now, regardless what solution ultimately I'll choose, I would like to know if any of you know about ballpark sales/profit figures that one should expect from this type of business considering that I am not able to afford big spending in advertising/promoting but will use such gadgets like search engines submitting, maybe some pay per click advertising or some bulk emailing (opt in, etc).

I suppose that there are millions online stores out there that are doing the same so I need a frank and sincere advice/opinion before proceeding with the investment that this decision involves.

Thanks very much in advance.

[StarrHorne]

Hi there,

You really should investigate various affiliate programs. Even if you go with a drop shipper, you'll still have to handle billing, setting up product feeds, design, etc. That sounds like more than you'll want to do.