Tips for Your Business

Register Online First
By January 8, 2014 0 Comments Read More →

Register Online First

If you’re going to own a web store, you’ll need a web address (often called a “root domain“) that will appear online in visitors’ search results, or when they type the name into their browser address bar. As discussed in my article about getting the right company name, your choice of web address is critical […]

Set Up Your Bank Accounts
By December 21, 2013 0 Comments Read More →

Set Up Your Bank Accounts

Your choice of where to set up the bank and payment card accounts for your new business could have a big impact on daily convenience. You should choose carefully, since it could become difficult to move accounts as your business grows. It’s often easiest to create separate, linked business accounts at your current bank. But […]

Website Legal Stuff
By November 24, 2013 0 Comments Read More →

Website Legal Stuff

Once you’ve decided how to set up your website, it’s a good idea to follow a few basic legal rules to help keep your business trouble-free. Most of these rules are based on common sense and good ethics – and there can be big financial reasons to follow these guidelines, too. The list below is by […]

Shipping Your Products
By October 19, 2013 0 Comments Read More →

Shipping Your Products

If you sell physical products online (as opposed to electronic downloads), the choice of shipping options presented to your customers and the way that shipping fees are calculated will both be determined by your shopping cart. Very basic shopping carts (like PayPal Standard) usually calculate shipping fees based on weights that you configure and order quantities, in […]

Make Your Website Visible
By October 10, 2013 0 Comments Read More →

Make Your Website Visible

Now that you’re ready to start selling online, it’s time to make your website visible to search engines like Google, Bing and the others. You can make your website visible through a combination of basic setup steps that announce your presence to the search engines, and search engine optimization (SEO) practices to follow each time […]

Steve’s First Rule of Money
By September 19, 2013 0 Comments Read More →

Steve’s First Rule of Money

Steve’s Marketing Rule, discussed in the previous story, is really just a corollary to a general rule that I’ve always found to be true. While this general rule doesn’t have much to do with selling online, I think it’s worth sharing. Steve’s First Rule of Money: Never trust anyone who tries to sell you anything with a […]

Amazon Is No Friend
By September 13, 2013 0 Comments Read More →

Amazon Is No Friend

As a consumer it’s hard to imagine a better online shopping experience than you get with Amazon. The company does an outstanding job selling and delivering products, while also promoting items that are shipped to you by other retailers. I’ve always found transactions on Amazon to be fast and trouble-free, and I’ve been satisfied with their […]

Email Is Dangerous
By August 17, 2013 0 Comments Read More →

Email Is Dangerous

Even though our online store publishes a toll-free number on every page of our website, we still find that most people prefer to communicate by email before and after a sale. Email definitely has advantages, but we’ve found that it can present so many potential problems that you need to use special care with your messages […]

Grow Your Business
By July 12, 2013 0 Comments Read More →

Grow Your Business

Once you start to sell online and prove your product idea, you can help your business grow by following some simple advice from a really smart CEO at a company where I once worked. This CEO is unusual because he shares so much information about running a company with his workers. It’s no coincidence that so many […]

QuickBooks Hell
By May 19, 2013 0 Comments Read More →

QuickBooks Hell

As your business grows – and especially once you start to work with outside suppliers – you’ll likely need an accounting software package. For most businesses QuickBooks is the unavoidable choice. If you want to get help from an accountant or eventually hire a bookkeeper QuickBooks is practically mandatory. QuickBooks has the potential to make […]