Tip #1 Use full contact details on your website. Potential customers will fee much more comfortable when they are dealing with a real person. Use your full business address on your website, not a P.O. Box. People like to know that you will respond to their requests for help, so put their minds at rest by also including your business, and mobile phone numbers. I would also advise getting a toll free number. A no frills number is not expensive and will serve you well in presenting you in a more professional manner. If you can afford it, engage an answering service to answer the phone when you can't.
Tip #2 Before going into business form a plan for inventory management. This means working out the supply and delivery lines in advance of going into business. Even if you are just a one-person e-tail store working out of a bedroom, it is still important that you take the time to be sure of your supply channels and suppliers. If you drop ship, you will not be stocking inventory on site. If possible, work with as many reliable drop shippers as is feasibly possible. This is important because you never want to be without a source of inventory. Also consider using both drop shippers and wholesalers and keeping a limited inventory on site.
Tip #3 Reputable, online wholesale directories can also be a reliable source of product suppliers, both wholesale and drop ship. However, it is important to be confident that the online directory really does do the research necessary to verify that listed suppliers are legitimate and deliver what they promise. Basically, what the directory does is to attend trade shows, conduct interviews, and purchase small samples of a source's goods to test quality and make sure that shipping handling are done professionally. Such online directories should also identify which suppliers are wholesale and which are not. In theory, a good online wholesale directory should be able to save you money by identifying the legitimate suppliers in your area.
Tip #4 When searching for product suppliers online, add the following words as a prefix or suffix to your product name: drop shipping, distributor, wholesale distributor, wholesale. I also suggest that you check forums that specialize in wholesale and drop ship ecommerce and check for advice there. Again, search for forums, memberships, and blogs using the search terms mentioned above. Another tip is to search the DMOZ directory. One of the most valuable tips I can give for locating reliable suppliers is to attend trade shows. This is not Internet based, but I cannot emphasize enough how valuable this is.
Tip #5 The principle means of positioning your keywords and phrases is accomplished through your site's content. This would include all the words, phrases, and text used to inform visitors and potential customers about your products, business, news, and anything else that could be of interest to your targeted customer population. In other words, the content comprises the articles, product descriptions, advertising, blog posts, RSS feeds and anything else you publish on your site. This allows you to show case specific key words so that it catches both the attention of the search engines and the human visitors you want to draw to your ecommerce site. The art of "show casing" specific words and phrases is the practice crafting content so that it both addresses the needs of your targeted Audience and also acts as search engine bait through skilled use of the language and choice of words.
Tip #6 The content on your site is important not just because it is the key means by which search engines and visitors find you site and products, but because your content sells your products. Content also includes images and other media to make it more real to potential customers. However, don't get carried away with images to the point you exclude text. At the end of the day it is the text that sells your products. There is a learning curve to learning how to maximize the selling potential of text, and you can't expect to become an expert all at once. What you can do, however, is make your content unique and honest.
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