The internet is increasingly filled with people looking to buy things.  I guess you could say it's kind of morphed into a global shopping mall with a really great selection.  If you want to capitalize on the net and get a piece of the pie, places like eBay or business models like affiliate marketing are the way to go.  In the case of affiliate marketing you don’t have to warehouse any stock or process any orders. You simply facilitate a sale and get a piece of the profit.

Being profitable online is about connecting interested shoppers together with products they’re interested in and because you’re taking and leading them by the hand, so to speak, your reward can be a healthy commission rate for very little effort. 

Choices for Setting Up Your Own Store

Contrary to popular belief, you don’t need to be a web guru to do your own online store and you can find many programs that will help you from start to finish in terms of getting a store set up.  This article explores three quality options for building your own online store and will provide you with helpful tips to make the process a smooth one regardless of the path you decide to take.

There are free open source solutions like OS Commerce that you can mold and play with on your own and there are solutions like the SiteBuildIt suite of tools or a BANS (Build a Niche Store) product that you can purchase and use to help you get a store set up so you don’t have to fuss with all the technical details.  Let’s have a closer look at these three options so you can decide which might be right for you.     

Before you get started and regardless of whether you are building a site from scratch or buying an out-of-the-box solution, you’ll want to start with a product niche and select a domain name. You’ll also want to spend a bit of time researching and executing a plan that will help you to not only get the store successfully off the ground but also help you get the most traffic which will mean more sales and more money in your pocket.

Once you’ve decided what product you’d like to sell (there are unlimited possibilities!) you should register a domain name. If possible, register a name that’s easy to remember and that pertains to your niche in some way. This will help you with search engine optimization so that the search engines can direct people to your store and it will help you have a memorable name that people are more likely to remember for future purchases as well.  In terms of your solutions, in my opinion, there are good, better and best options.

Good – Open Source OS Commerce

OS Commerce is a product you can use for free. It has a general public license so anyone can use it. The caveat is that you need a bit of technical savvy and skills because you’ll be building your store from scratch instead of getting a turnkey solution. 

The good thing about this beyond it being free is that it has a strong user community of people willing to help one another with challenges. Not as convenient as 24/7 tech support but if you like to dabble and program this could be a great way to build a niche internet store.

Better – Site Building Software

There are tools for building your website that include things like web hosting and even domain registration as part of the fee. One such tool SiteBuildit which is one of the more popular products in this category. These types of tools can be great for any type of website you want to create. They can help you get a site up and running quickly because the tools are easy to use and the training and support is some of the best.

With this type of a solution, you’ll build a site and then go out and decide on which affiliate products you want to promote and build those links and banners into your site.

Best – BANS, Build a Niche Store

Build a Niche Store is my current favorite choice for a great way to get started that encompasses everything you need to get a niche online store off the ground quickly. This product helps you make affiliate income through eBay.

With the huge amount of traffic that is drawn to eBay each and every day it's the perfect way to easily get in on your share of the amazing sales potential. But the real beauty of this type of software is you can also customize and monetize your BANS site further with other affiliate programs or your own products and content as well. 

You will still need your own domain and site hosting but you can choose to use this program and take advantage of the many options for eBay affiliates in terms of setting up specific products to sell on your site or feeding a variety of products as well.

Once you’ve chosen your niche and put your customized website together, it’s very easy to point and click and get a store up and running quickly. Like a site building software tool, your store will be unique based on many template and custom choices.  Another benefit here is the individual support and support of a large user community as well. 

After your store is created you can build upon it just as you would with any other site to enhance it and optimize for search engines so that you can increase your traffic and your conversion rates steadily.

In conclusion, there are many opportunities available for you to get started online and once you’ve built your first site and the cash starts rolling in you can go out and do it again and again with your newfound knowledge. Before you know it you could be raking in multiple streams of income over and over again.