Online store update : Starting an online business.

I have now sold several items on eBay. I have made a little money and had a lot of fun. I have learned what will sell and at what price. Please ask if you want my opinion about selling a particular item on eBay. I have learned that you do NOT want an eBay store. Why? Ebayers buy things that are in perfect condition and want to pay $.01.
So, I decided to open my own eStore. So far, I have purchased a domain name, selected a hosting service, bought an SSL certificate, transferred my domain to the hosting site (did my SSL transfer, too?), decided on a shopping cart storefront, looked at many templates and decided to go with a free one, and looked at hundreds of stock photos. My friends on Facebook look better. However, what I have spent countless hours doing is RESEARCH. I want to know as much as possible about my niche product, Wholesalers, marketing, credit card processing merchants, and much more. Oh, I even bit the bullet and ordered $600 worth of merchandise to sell in my eStore. That was the scary part. A good place to start is with the free ebook offered by Steve Chou at www.mywifequitherjob.com. He gives you 5 easy steps to opening sn online store. Everything he has said has been true. However, you must realize you will spend closer to $1000 than $500 to get your store up. Still, if you can afford to lose $1000 for the learning experience and potential profits, go for it! My next steps are building my website from the boring template, finding photos to use on my site, selecting a credit card processing
merchant, figuring out how to take professional looking photos of my product, learning how to use GIMP (unlike Photoshop, it is free), deciding how I am going to do bookkeeping, deciding how to price my items, and a lot more. This us a lot of fun. I just hope one day to net at least $1 more than my investment. Honestly, my goal is higher but I realize I'm a Newbie. I have a lot to learn. It'll be a blast!

Racial Insensitivity

I hears that some people who are African American do not like Sanford and Son because it portrays an African American man as living sloppily. I will probably delete this blog but wanted some opinions on this.

Fwd: Look at this on eBay

Sent from my iPhone

Begin forwarded message:

From: Page <pagehenderson@yahoo.com>
Date: September 4, 2010 5:22:26 AM EDT
To: Post To Simultaneous Dream <chelseysloft.postthis@blogger.com>
Subject: Look at this on eBay

Check out this trendy handbag and my other items on eBay. Lots of cool stuff to come. Pinup, punk, retro, goth, emo, and girl next door clothes to be featured.

iPhone URL:
Giraffe Print Large Handbag Designer-look Trendy 2-way

Browser URL:
Giraffe Print Large Handbag Designer-look Trendy 2-way

Download eBay Selling

Sent from my iPhone

eBay Selling App Discovery

The eBay selling app for iPhone will allow you to respond to a received email ONE time. If you need to send follow-up emails to a buyer, you must go to eBay's full site. If you go to www.eBay.com, the mobile site comes up. After some experimentation, I found that you can get into the full site by going to www.my.eBay.com. Happy selling.

I had run into this problem because I sent a courtesy email to a potential buyer from whom I had received a question about measurements. I did so because I was unable to get
the measurements right away. If you were a buyer, would you appreciate a courtesy email from the seller or would you prefer not to hear from the seller until they have the info requested. Please comment! Thank you.

Link to eBay item:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=180552343801#ht_500wt_920