When entering the world of e-commerce, there is quite alot to think about before taking the plunge.

We at work from home resources, can provide you with a fully stocked website, stocked with the products you want, and a website that is set up for you to start trading straight away, but there is a lot you need to be aware of before you begin.

First off, the legalities.
If you start trading online, you need to register yourself as self employed, sole trader status is all that is required. This is quite straight forward. You have three months from the date you first start trading to register yourself as self employed, although you will need to declare all earnings from the very first day you begin trading.
Click here to read more about registering as self employed.

Bank account.
You will need a business bank account, this is a simple thing to arrange.
We would recommend using Alliance & Leicester Business Banking.
Very quick set up, and only costs you £5 a month if you don’t turn over £1000 a month.
No need to put forward a business plan to the bank when signing up, but we would always recommend that you do write a business plan for your own use.
Click here to visit the Alliance & Leicester Business Banking website

Paypal, and payment methods.
The websites we sell are ready to take payment via paypal, and take credit card payments using paypals secure payment method, your customers do not require a paypal account to buy from your website.
It is a straight forward process linking your bank account to your paypal account, giving you the ability to transfer funds to and from your bank.
Paypal will take a fee from every transaction that takes place on your site, this is not a lot, and there are no other fees involved when using paypal.
You can set up other payment methods on your website like, nochex, sagepay, google check out and more, there are modules installed on the sites we sell to allow you to take payment via these methods and more. Cheque and postal order payments are possible to arrange via the sites we sell too.

Business plan.
We feel this is an essential part of your planning for the future of your business.
You might feel that its only a website, how much planning do I need? Surely I will get sales and that is all that matters.
Well, no.
How will you get your sales? Who will your customers be? How will your customers find your site? How will you let people know your site exists? Who is your competition and how will you be able to compete?
How much will you need to sell to break even? How many sales will you need to make to turn a profit? How much profit do you intend to make? How will you make this profit?
A business plan will help you figure all these questions out, giving you a clear idea of what you need to research, and help you formulate a plan for your business.

Advertising.
This is where you need to put a lot of thought, time and effort in.
You will need to draw in customers, how will you do this?
There are plenty of ways to do this, and a lot of these are free.
EBay is a useful tool for advertising, these days its isn’t really a place to make money, but it can be a perfect place to get your products and your business name noticed. Having a constant presence on eBay is a useful thing, but make sure you at least break even with your eBay sales. Take your time, research your costs properly, eBay fees, paypal fees, final value fee, the costs can be a lot higher than you would expect.
Free ad websites. These type of sites can be very useful. Gumtree, vivastreet etc, place ads everywhere you can, make sure you link back to your website from sites that let you. Hotfrog and BT Tradespace are also handy places to advertise your business. All of these examples are free, and there are countless free ad websites around, and lots of business directories that you can use to advertise your site.
Social networking can have an excellent effect, facebook, create a page for your business, linking back to your site, facebook now have a shop front feature that allows you to sell products directly from your facebook page. Twitter is another useful tool, we would suggest using as many social networking sites as you can, given the time you have to spend networking.
Then there are paid adverts, use these carefully, as they can cost you more than you get back in sales.
Google pay per click advertising is quite hit and miss, we would suggest planning your advertising carefully, choose your keywords carefully, allow a small budget as a test and stick to it.
Local newspapers are worth thinking about, as well as old fashioned shop window flyer’s in your local newsagents etc.
Friends and family, they can provide you with valuable word of mouth advertising. Getting some business cards printed and handing them out to everyone you can is a must. Vista Print offer free business cards, and have plenty of offers that you could take advantage of, from T shirts with your business name on, to car magnets to advertise your business as you drive around.
Advertising is something you have to think very seriously about, as no-one will find your business if they don’t know you exist.
The websites we sell are Search Engine Optimised, but you can’t rely on search results alone to drive business your way.

If you make clear plans regarding what you want to achieve and research every aspect of your business, you will find entering the world of e-commerce will be a straight forward and enjoyable experience, but I must stress, research is key, and not to be overlooked.