We all need cash. That is a simple statement of fact. Money makes the world go round. It puts food on the table and a roof over our heads. There are several things we can do to create extra cash if we think about it but the putting into action is the hardest part to do.
So often we are given snippets of info but never the whole story. Well to create an online store, which will enable us to earn some money when we get it advertised on up in the ranks of Google, is one of the things we can do. And the best thing of all is it need not cost us a fortune to do.

Several items are available which are totally free and can be used to create a really good site with good selling potential.

Let us see what you need to collect

You need to start with your theme and there is an extremely good one available free by the name of Crafty Cart.

This theme is aimed at selling on line. It includes all the basics that you require to set up your sales area. You will of course need to find your own products to sell but there are many drop shipping sites around that will enable you to do just that or you can sell products of your own making. I know someone who collected old vinyl records and sells those on line. He obviously has the chore of packing them up and shipping them out but it has proved very profitable. Vinyl’s have a sound all their own and are coming back into popularity.
The next item you will need is the WordPress ecommerce plug-in.
This you will need in order to accept payments on line via the likes of Paypal and Google Checkout. You will also need to set up accounts with both or either of those companies to enable you to use it their.  Be aware that does take a few days as your details require verification.

This plug-in also has the ability to be altered to suit your needs. For example if you want to give discount coupons or free shipping. These can be chosen as options. You can integrate it with real time shipping costs on things like UPS etc.
One of the great things is that you can zoom in on products for a closer look.
Besides being able to browse through the catalogue you can check availability and show your products in a grid format. There are several upgrades available should you want them including the drop ship option which costs $100 but requires you to have the Gold cart option as well. The Gold cart costs $40. You can see the drop ship option in action here.  What this option does is you click on the item you want to purchase and drag it into the box on the left and then carry on shopping. This makes for a visual view of what the buyer has chosen so far.

Get started on setting up your income stream

In the current economy it pays to set up an e commerce website.
Your costs need to be only nominal and you have little to no overheads.
It’s a far cry from a bricks and mortar shop where you have to hold inventory and have a physical address for people to come to. Your rental for your space is the cost of your monthly service fee.

The first thing you need to do is decide what you are going to sell. You will decide the domain name that depicts in some way what you are selling. This is important both to be found on Google as well as your Blog search engine.

Once you have your domain name which you can purchase from a number of places from 1 and 1 or Godaddy. You then need to move on and get hosting.

One of the best places for this is Hostgator as you can pay per month there.
This way you can spread the load as it were and pay out of your profits.

It’s important to start keeping you books immediately and get the necessary licenses for your state and for the taxes both federal and income. Every state has different laws, as has every country so you will need to find out what are applicable in your area. Be aware that you need to include California Online Privacy Protection Act Compliance on your site. This needs to be included wherever you are situated.

Another item you need to be aware of is the disability laws and making your site comply with them.
Ignorance of the law is no excuse and will never hold up in court.
Now that the legal issues are dealt with we can set up our site.
I would suggest you use WordPress as your basic tool mainly because of all the great themes that are available and all the Plug-ins that make it easy for anyone to get up and running very easily.

Under the extended tag up top and after you have down load the basic WordPress, you will find Themes. Here you can browse through to find the free theme of your choice. There are also paid themes available there. Find one that supports e commerce or download one from here. This is an integration tool as well to integrate your WordPress with ecommerce.
There are numerous shopping cart options on WordPress. Be aware that some of them do charge. Others like osCommerce which is an open source plug-in, are free. Set up your data base with all your products. Make sure you use WP- Super-Cache for faster loading, as well as WP-Spamfree to keep the bad guys at bay.

Another plug-in that is a must is Google site map generator.

Always include a FAQ section and to do that include your FAQ builder.
If you are stuck for your shop, you might try EShop from WordPress.

Creating a shop on WordPress can be both fun and rewarding. There are so many items one can sell and there is no need to stick to just one kind of thing. You can create a department store if you so desire.
Have fun.

In this day and age, we are or most of us are scratching for additional income. This is one of the reasons for putting up an e commerce website. To have an e-commerce website blog or social network presence to monetize yourself, you really need to seriously consider the various advantages some plug-ins and tools can give you. Sometimes we can search for hours for just such an item. We know we need it, but it can be like looking for a needle in a haystack.
Gourmet candles are users of this software, and the cart is easy to customize. The easiness of use was demonstrated when going on to Soigneur website.

Today we are going to take a look at some tools every commercial website really needs.

Get yourself a free shopping cart

Yes I did say free. It’s a shopping cart that can be added to any of your sites right down to your Facebook. It’s called Ecwid and its totally e-commerce ready, and you can integrate it anywhere. It’s a widget and because it is so user friendly and fast, it’s the one you should be using. You don’t have to confine yourself to one site you can integrate it on many and combine it to use it as one.

An alternate cart

This time it’s a plug-in. So you are using it directly from your blog. This option is called eShop. There is also a full instruction list available from Quirm. The difference with this eshop is that it uses the blog for the products. You can also use it for downloadable products. It has several options you can make use of like out of stock, and it has a number of shipping options as well as several payment options. The program can be used as a catalogue without sales as well. The joy of this eshop is that it produces stats for your product holdings.

The Big Brother

This shopping cart is a lot more involved and does a lot more than the previous two. This one is simply called WP e-commerce. This provides you with a full range of features besides the normal ones. You have the option of three types of Paypal and two on Google. It does have one lack that of being able to print an invoice. Several well known sites such as City surf and Icon Dock are using this shopping solution.

A paid option

The next you have to pay for and the price for Shopp is $55. The information during a transaction is encrypted for safety of both the buyer and the seller. Upgrades are included in the price so when they bring out a newer version you just download it.

Last option for the day

This is a shopping cart that uses php and is called phpurchase.com. This paid option is available at $49. With this cart, you can sell both digital and shipped goods. Shipping prices are available from ups, and it uses Paypal and several other methods of payment. The plug-in can be customized to suit your needs.

Should you want to create a membership site with recurring monthly fees this is the shopping cart you need. The support is great as well.