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I have read up on everything i list here but information is different depending on where you look to access it from.
I would like to keep my costs as low as possible to see if it is financially viable initially and still be able to expand if it happens to be profitable.
I thank everyone in advance for their time and look forward to reading any relevant information
~ dj nitro
Hello and hope the injury is improving for you but good to see you are filling in the time.
There is great information at http://www.digitalbusiness.gov.au it contains lots of practical information that is pretty accurate.
We did a presentation on building a business plan for ecommerce which you can find on Slide Share it is a couple of years old but still accurate – http://www.slideshare.net/ecorner/e-corner-ecommercestrategy2013. The issues of costs and some example information can be found from around slide 26.
It is important to have a budget and to manage it but looking for the cheapest alternative won’t always provide a workable solution.
There is always maintenance required on a website or online store and the really cheap or free options very often need the most maintenance.
If you use open source and build it yourself then you will need to make sure you keep up with patching and vulnerability issues. You will also need to manage your own hosting.
If you go with a hosted solution where everything is included then the monthly costs might be higher but the service provider is responsible for the technical maintenance and security.
You, of course, have to maintain your content and keep the website up to date. That will take time and you need to allocate a few hours every day to the website. If it is successful that might end up being many hours a day.
Monthly costs include:
- Website hosting or hosted package
- PayPal fees (or payment gateway fees if you accept credit cards etc).
- Shipping costs via Australia post
- Marketing costs (buyers won’t just find your website you have to promote it)
- Maintenance
- Your time
- Packaging costs
- Your product costs (cost of good sold)
If you are selling a $100 collectable on eBay you can expect to pay around $11 – $14 dollars (without a eBay store).
You can find a eBay fees calculator at http://www.fees.ebay.com.au/feeweb/feecalculator. You should do some basic calculations to determine what your costs will be for a month with eBay based on different scenarios.
So lets say you sell 10 products a month average price $100 then it will cost you $110 – $130 (excluding shipping cost and PayPal fees). Total cost including Paypal fees and Shipping $227 – $247 / month.
Hosted online store packages start from $50 – $100 / month. If you sell the same 10 products your PayPal fees would be around $27 and shipping say around $90 (i.e. $9 / package). Total cost per month $167 – $217.
Of course there are lots of other variables but the main issue is marketing costs. These can blow up pretty quick and far exceed the cost of the website.
Often you hear that eBay does the marketing and to a degree that is true however successful eBay sellers still spend on marketing.
Hope that gives you more ideas to chew on.
John