Zen Cart Search Engine Optimization

zen cart search engine optimization

E-commerce on a Shoe-string Budget

E-Commerce works better than brick and mortar in certain situations. A Monopoly store, for example, on Main Street would never survive. Monopoly has literally hundreds (thousands?) of different board themes including most universities and many big cities. A University of Washington Monopoly game wouldn’t sell in Miami, which is where an online store can thrive whereas a physical store would fail.

For the same reason that a Monopoly store wouldn’t work in one location, an NCAA collegiate store wouldn’t work either. A store that sells just collegiate fan wear and collectibles will only be able to sell to the nearest school population. On the other hand, a person could have a collection of Washington State University products for sale from a warehouse in New York, for example. For a good example of this kind of store you can visit NCAALand.com. This sort of eCommerce that works best over the internet could also work in the area of geographic-specific wall prints PhotoKitty.com. A postcard store would fall into this category as well.

Besides the subject content of the store, other reasons exist for preferring an online retail presence over a brick and mortar situation. Overhead costs can be reduced substantially by removing the rent, heat, insurance, theft, and protection of the physical location. You might pay more for database managers or webmasters but you will not have to hire as people as you would with a box store.

While rent for space is not going down, prices for hosting space is and computers are at their lowest prices ever. The ability to be open 24 hours a day is a major advantage that online retailers have over their physical counterparts. The upfront cost of an online shop can be very cheap, if not near free. Online retailers have the option of drop shipping, which allows the store to be free of any inventory or shipping duties. Also, there is no need to deal with cash, which can be problematic in several ways including making change, dealing with big bills, security, cash merchant accounts and inventory.

I have a directory of online retail shops located at BONShops.com and have been in the business as owner and operator for six months. For one store the going rate currently, not including labor, is as follows. URL registration every year is $10 or near free if you buy hosting with it. Hosting is about $7 a month, which can give you ample space and in some cases unlimited space. The merchant account is anywhere from $20 to $40 a month and the SSL certificate is usually $30 a year. Software such as Zen-Cart is free but the nice looking templates will cost nearly $150.

Because URLs are not visible from the road (the way physical stores are) you may need to do some search engine optimization and advertising. Amazon Marketplace is a great way to get customers if you can handle the 15% margin they take. A lot of stores have had luck with pay-per-click sites such MSN Shopping or PriceGrabber.

When first starting your online store you will need to be patient as Google won’t even give you a page rank unless the URL you are using has been owned by you for a year or so. It is also good to have an understanding and or interest in the products you sell. Online stores that service a niche market tend to do better than general stores. Keep seeking advice from those who know the business.

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