Hi, I have decided to start a online shop for computer peripherals and came here that you guys will help me with your suggestion. I bought a domain which is a (computermall. co.in) extension what you think ? do people outside india(co.in) prefer going through site to purchase products? What is your best suggestion about the Free Shopping cart script available ? At the start im going to completely rely on Affiliate sales since i dont have my own stock to sell, but may be based on the sales i will surely consider having my own stocks for selling with some inter banking options in the site so its preferable if the script having Affiliate + Interbanking feature. SEO ? Im considering having a well explained content for each item like a blog posts so the script must allow to add sufficient content best to support onsite seo. Any other suggestion would also be welcome
Prestashop is your easiest and likely most sound solution. Its quite easy to use and provides the ability for SEO friendly urls. If you know some php Magento is clearly the best open source solution available. http://www.prestashop.com/ http://www.magentocommerce.com/ (this stuff is tits!) hope that helps, Nigel
Hi Nigel, Thanks for your wonderful suggestion, my mind is all set with prestashop and a bunch of thanks for you to taking it into my attention. It looks cool and feature rich both at the front end and back end. but i cant find a affiliate module at the back end ? Can we add the affiliate link of the products for which we dont want to sell directly from our stock? or is that possible only on magento, i know php but i doubt i hardly have time to do coding stuffs.
Hi, I am not exactly sure as I have not had to use it(usually developing stuff for folks with actual products) but there is a bit of banter about it on their forum. It is apparently part of the app now. I am not sure if you can dump in an affiliate feed yet but it looks like you can do it at the product level. http://www.prestashop.com/forums/viewthread/23948/ oh, wait. I misread that last question. I will see if I can dig up an answer for you. Nigel
Yea Neigel that option for providing affiliate services from our site, but i need to be an affiliate and run my shop for other sites.
Hi... Regarding Affiliate Feeds in a Free Shopping Cart: Perhaps ZenCart maybe something for you? Magento may be easier to use. While any Shopping Cart would require effort in setting up the business, paypal, inventory and Zen Cart may not be the easiest out there, but there are at least some 'paid' options for adding third party affiliate feeds in Zen Cart. Zen Cart itself is free, and if you have cPanel Hosting, there is a good chance that you have a one-click install option for it. Regarding a country specific domain for a potential global audience: And if I understood your question correctly, regarding whether non-Indian customers would want to buy from a co.in domain... the answer is probably no... Just as a non-UK customer would hesistate to buy from a co.uk site. Its not just the 'trust' issues, which may be none... but also the 'perception' of it being overall more hassle than buying from a clearly local site. If you are planning on a non-Indian audience, or any non-country specific audience.. go for a .com... You can still use computermall.co.in if you want to redirect Indian customers to a country specific site, one that quotes in rupees. PhilD
Thanks Phil that really helped, now my mind is set with targeting more on Indian based customers but the problem is they don't use CC to buy products online, they prefer Bank payment integration and i don't know how much it is possible. Any way now my question is how to get merchant accounts from Visa, Master card and how to integrate it with prestashop ?
Simply SEO, I've worked with Indian clients before and found CCAvenue to be a good option for starting websites. They handle most of the payment methods used by Indian consumers, including direct debit from the customer's bank account. And I would be overly concerned about (only slightly ) about customer's who don't have credit cards in India. There are more than plenty that do... and your target audience, people who are looking for computer parts, will MOST LIKELY have some mode of electronic payment available.
Dear Phil, i really appreciate your guidings, First of all i thought about having a fully affiliate shopping site that eliminates the need for merchant accounts, shippings bla bla. But later i changed my mind to do drop shipping and to be honest im not aware about all the steps that need to be taken for dropshipping sites. I checked CCAvenue, looks promising. my question is do i need to pay them for integrating their payment system into my site ? or i need to pay them only for each sales i do ? im really confused about drop shipping and all these stuffs, can you please tell this a bit detail ? it would be really appreciative. My aim is to showcase products over my site, get the customers to check out, receive payment information(CC,Debit cards,paypal whatever), forward the details to original manufacturer,get commission for each sales.
There is a lot to say about dropshipping... and DP does have some good threads on it... but primarily there are two things you need to keep in mind: 1. There will usually be a significant delay between the time the customer places the order and the time they actually receive it. This is usually shorter for electronic goods, which do not have as much personalizing to do for each customer. But your challenge is to let your customer know beforehand that it will take a longer time than through a major retailer, but that it is still worth ordering through you. 2. There is always the risk that the drop-shipper will not be able to fulfill your order... Regarding CCAvenue: Have you checked out their FAQ and "How it works" pages? I think it may even answer questions you haven't thought of yet... And remember... you need to do LOTS of research for dropshipping (or any other long term business venture). And after doing it all, you may find that dropshipping is not for you.. and that's fine... You may even go back to reconsidering affiliate marketing, which involves MUCH MUCH less (almost zero) customer service... Just keep at it, there is always opportunity somewhere.
Try to check AlgoZone. The site offers osCommerce, Magento, ZenCart, and CRE Loaded. There are a wide array of shopping cart templates to choose from. http://www.algozone.com