Today I was researching some product prices online. The thing to do when there is so much competition for Christmas. This is the time every marketing strategy is tried, every possible option checked out, and alot of money spent on advertising.

I went to several different sites and tried to purchase some things. When I clicked on them I received the message "this product no longer available". I just spent a few hours searching for the specific product only to receive that message. I was rather annoyed. So I searched some more, found something else, only to find that it was no longer available either.

One of the biggest crucial things for survival in this overly competitive time of the season is to make sure you have enough products available. If you get quite a few sales a day, you should make sure you have hundreds of products available.
Make sure that you keep an updated inventory list at all times, and make sure you only allow yourself to get down to a certain amount of product availability.

This brings me to another thought I had today as I was scanning around. Overall presentation of your site. There are so many more shopping sites online now. What makes you decide to buy from one place over the other even when they may have the same products for the same price? Does one site appear more professional than the other site? Does it look like it has been around longer? Does it look like it is a more trustworthy site? What kinds of questions run through your head before you make that final choice?

The bigger name stores like Walmart, Toys R Us, Macy's, Big Alots, and others can afford much more leeway in certain things than the smaller businesses. But does that mean they deserve all of the business then?

That is where the creative thinking/marketing comes into play. You need to find something unique to offer. Free shipping is a big one. If you can't afford free shipping because you are working with a dropshipper who doesn't offer it, can you find a cheap product that people may like and want to add for free? Free gift wrapping? I have a company I deal with that doesn't offer free gift wrapping, but it is cheap so it is worth it to tell your customers it is free and you pay the little bit of difference. If it means the difference in sales or not for only a few dollars, it is worth it.

In these times as everyone surfs around looking for gifts online, it may get discouraging to the young new shop keeper trying to make a name for himself. They may feel like they really can't compete. But Rome was not built in a day and neither was any other business. You need to keep perservering. Keep learning and practising something new in regards to advertising and marketing every day, don't allow yourself to have any negative thoughts, and just believe in what you have set out to do. Take out your mission statement. Read over again what you had planned for your 5 and 10 year terms. Remind yourself that you are still on track, and will remain that way providing you keep going as planned. Something is only a dream without a reality if you have not properly prepared for it, and envisioned it as such. This is not a dream like winning the lottery. This dream is a future you have planned and prepared to work for long and hard no matter how it may seem from one day to the next.

So take care. Keep your ideas going. Don't be afraid to try something new. If anyone has any questions don't be afraid to post a comment. I'd love to share ideas and concerns.

There is alot of stock put in domain names and proper web hosting when starting up your online business. There can also be alot of confusion and indecision when trying to decide on what to do.

When I started out my online virtual assistant site a few years ago, the domain name was pretty simple. I chose my business name.com. That seemed like the logical choice since I knew the name would be available as well as it would state what kind of services I provided all in one, which is the key objective.

When I started out my new online store 5 months ago, I was a little more unsure of what to name my domain.
I knew I wanted to sell children's products at discount prices, so I chose http://bargainbin4kids.com. As time went by though, and my resources for products began to get wider, I realized I needed more of a niche, so I decided on cartoon merchandise. Changing the name of my website was easy enough, but now I was in a dilemma. I had been using the domain name I registered, and all my visitors/customers where aware of that name. If I changed it now, I would have to start my marketing all over. What to do? As of today, I have still kept my domain name.

Choosing a domain name that describes your website mission is important. Choose wisely. Make sure you are positive of what your mission is before you choose. Otherwise you may waste valuable time and money investing in the wrong thing. These are the lessons we learn along the way.

Now for web hosting. There are many sites out there that offer web hosting at prices that range from free to $100 a month depending on what you want to do.
Free sites are alright to start your business if you do not have that many products to sell and would just like to get the feel for setting up and maintaining a website.
I chose to use http://vstore.ca for mine. I liked it because it has a great shopping cart that is easy to use. It offers a free web hosting service to start with the option to upgrade to premium at anytime for $20 a month.

I used the free store for my online gift shop with miscellaneous products that only ship to American customers.
The free option is not good for certain things though. Sometimes you are not able to view the site when surfing. Bad for business! It hasn't happened very often, but enough to notice and be a concern.

You can not make any extra money by posting affiliate links you want to promote, or Google adsense. Any advertising income is earned by Vstore only.
You can't upgrade or specialize your web template to make it more uniquely yours, only the 10 standard templates are available.And you can't sell downloadable products like ebooks, which is available in the premium paid subscription.

Then there is another site I tried that is free called http://1freecart.com. That seems to be a good site. They use different layout templates. You have more options on how you would like your products viewed. There is a new option now that they have merged with http://sharesale.com which is one of the affiliate sites I use. So now you can upload and post your affiliate programs on there. You still can't benefit from Google adsense, but it is nice to know they allow the affiliate links. I need to review more on that aspect as I have just found out they added that feature.

The last free webs hosting service I would recommend for beginners, is called http://freewebs.com. They have templates that are more graphical in nature. I checked into this website option to set up a website for my daughter who sells her original impressionist artwork. The templates were a good match for her. This site is cool because it has a community you can meet people in. You can create your own blog, you can create a photo album page,and numerous other pages that the other sites don't offer. It does have the option to post products but it is done with a different system. The other sites have integrated shopping carts. This one you add the pic and the product info and then a link to add a paypal button, which then allows a connection to go to your Paypal account to pay for the merchandise.

As for paid web hosting sites, other than the upgrade for vstore, I would recommend http://netfirms.comThey are pretty affordable. I used them a few years ago for my business services website. They do have an ecommerce package as well for more money than their regular hosting package, but I have never actually tried it out personally. The thing I enjoyed the most was the amount of Stats you could keep track of for your website. You also could get multiple domain names, and 100 email adressess all included.

Check around and see what you decide. The free web hosting options are good to start with though. When you feel comfortable then you can upgrade.The free sites still have an option for you to buy your own domain name and point it towards the site for a more professional look. They still provide Stats for you to keep track of visitors. And most of them offer discount deals for marketing your site as well. 1freecart has some good offers.

Take care. Next week we will discuss more about Sharesale and other affiliate membership sites.