Business Resources for Entrepreneurs
In: Technology
10 Jan 2009Finding the best ecommerce solution can be a very daunting task. You literally can spend hour researching the different ecommerce solutions only to walk away feeling even more lost.
Start with a check list. One list of of non-negotiable features and a list of features you would like. Just to give you a starting place, here is a partial list I would use.
Non-negotiable Ecommerce Features
Ecommerce Features I Would Like
When looking at solutions, focus on your non-negotiable list and try to weed out the solutions. Intead of farting around and looking at screen shots, demos, etc. go right to the features list and starting making sure they have everything on your non-negotiable list. As soon as you find a feature they do not have, make a note of it and move on. Don’t waste another second looking at a solution that is not right for you and your company.
Good luck!
In: Blogs
8 Jan 2009Some blogs are just worth following. I will include a list of blogs that are worth following. I will come back time to time to update this list.
Google’s Blog – No surprises here, right?
Selecting the right domain name for your business is extremely important. It also proves to be very difficult to find a good domain name that is not take. It seems that the obvious good domain names have already been taken, either by existing businesses, soon to be businesses or by people hoping that the domain name may have some future monetary value.
So where can you buy domain names? What should you look for in a domain name registrar? My suggestion is to go with a reputable company with an established track record. I would also buy all of your domains with 1 company. It is much easier to manage your domain from 1 interface that you are familiar with instead of using a few different registrars.
Tips on Buying the right domain name:
1. keep it as short as possible
2. pick a .com
3. be creative
4. put 2 words togethers
Here are some companies to use:
GoDaddy.com – A very popular company. They do a lot more than just register domain names.
Google Domain Registration – I don’t have experience with their service. It seems like Google always does things right.
Network Solutions – I don’t have experience using their service.
In: Internet
4 Jan 2009Managing your DNS information can seem overwhelming to newbies. If you are serious about building websites, managing online stores, or creating blogs, it is important you understand the basics of DNS.
You can manage your sites DNS settings with a service from DNSMadeEasy.com. It costs only about $60/year. I say only because I was paying over $500 / month for the same service form Ultra DNs. I just happen to be talking to one of our vendors one day and he mentioned how he used DNSMadeEasy to manage their DNS settings.
I was leary at first going from a $6,000/year service to a $60/year service. At this point, and I am knocking on wood, there have been zero problems. In fact, they also will ping our sites to make sure they are up and running. Within a minute or two of any of our sites going down, emails and text messages are being sent alerting us the site is down.
I will be adding to this post in the future to talk about DNS settings.
In: Email Marketing
4 Jan 2009Marketing your business via email to your existing customers and new prospects is key to building a successful business. Here is a list of companies that offer email / newsletter management.
Net Atlantic – Provider offering premier email marketing solutions and dedicated managed email servers. I have used this service. You would be using the Lyris software to manage your compaigns. It is not the must user friendly interface, but it has lots of great options. Typically, to have access to these options you would need to spend a lot of money. So, if you are looking for a lot of bells and whistles and are on a budget, this is a great company to go with. A will admit there were some rocky times where they were having trouble with keeping their mail servers online. I believe this is in the past because the past few months have been practily flawless. This is a more of do-it-yourself type of solution. You pay based on how many emails you have in your account.
ERoi – This company will help you do everything! It is a great service for people that have little time (and or knowledge) and have the funds to invest in their email marketing. The staff I have dealt with seemed very knowledgeable and was eager to help reach our email marketing objective. The cost of there service is much higher than Net Atlantic. It is easily justifiable for people that need help with their email marketing. You pay based on how many email you send.
IContact - This is a very inexpensive email marketing company. Prices start at $9.95 and you can try it out for free. This is more of a do-it-yourself type of option without all of the bells and whistles that you will find with Net Atlantic. If you don’t need a lot of options, you might be best just going with a solution that is more user friendly to use. You pay based on how many emails are in your account.
I have some more companies I will add to this list in the future. Please feel free to add your own experience by posting a comment to this post. Remember, we are all here to help one another and any advice you have may help another fellow entrepreneur.
So, are you thinking about starting a t-shirt business? Here is a list of vendors that sell t-shirts at wholesale. You can buy the t-shirts in bulk, or your can work with a company that will print the t-shirts on demand.
On demand is a great solution to start your business with little or no money. There is no inventory to buy as your supplier will only print the products your customers buy.
PrintMojo.com - They make it easy to offer retail quality products in your own online store! We offer high quality custom screen printing and embroidery, relabeling, ecommerce, payment processing, warehousing and fulfillment services.
SpreadShirt.com – This is a print on demand solution. They will make up your clothing as you sell your merchandise.
SonicShack - Design your own t-shirts and sell them on your website.
This blog is simply my way of sharing some of my insights with you. It is my hope that this blog will help other entrepreneurs and business people.