If you want to sell some books online, what are the best ways to do it? Lets say you want to create an online store that advertises the books that you sell, the prices you sell them at, and handles collecting payment and shipping information for the books. This page will survey some of the available options.
Online eCommerce Web Stores
Amazon
Some choices include:
- Marketplace (Sell Your Stuff, or Selling on Amazon)
- Pro Merchant
- Fullfillment by Amazon
- Webstore by Amazon
- Advantage
Marketplace
Lets you list items on the "Buy it new and used" listing.
| Fees |
|
| Payment |
Amazon collects payment and deposits it to your checking account |
| Fullfillment |
You send the items out to the customers within a certain period of time. |
Several shipping options:
- Domestic Standard - Should be received by your buyer within 4-14 business days (up to 21 days in some cases).
- Domestic Expedited - Should be received by your buyer within 2-6 business days.
- International shipments - Should arrive within 3-6 weeks after the order date, though it may take orders up to 8-12 weeks to arrive depending on customs delays.
Webstore by Amazon
Branded custom online store.
- Allows multiple webstores within an account.
- You can also include amazon items, and you earn a commission on sales of the amazon items the same as being in the Amazon Associates program.
- No need for additional merchant gateway
- 1 month free with signup
- Can point your own domain to the store.
| Fees |
$60 monthly + 7% per month |
| Payment |
Amazon handles credit card processing. |
http://webstore.amazon.com/Start-Online-Business/
eBay
http://stores.ebay.com
| Fees |
Basic - $15.95 /mo. |
Suggested for 10 items or $100 / mo. |
5 cudtom pages |
| |
Premium Store - $49.95 /mo. |
Suggested for 50 or more items, $500/mo. |
10 custom pages |
| |
Anchor Store - $299.99/mo. |
Selling 500 items+, or $5,000+ / mo. |
15 custom pages |
| Also |
All stores must also pay Listing and Final Value Fees. |
| |
Must also pay insertion fees: $0.05 per item per 30 days |
Url: www.stores.ebay.com/yourstorename
Requirements:
- Feedback score of 20 or higher, or
- ID Verified ($5 charge), or
- PayPal
account in good standing
You must also process your payments, either through paypal, which involves additional percentages, or through your own merchant account.
Yahoo
- $39.95/month
- 1.5% transaction fee
- $50 setup fee
- Includes domain name
- Payment processing:
- Paypal Website Payments Pro (fees to paypal)
- Existing FDMS compatible merchant account (fees to merchant account: monthly minimum, discount fees)
- PayPal express checkout - no monthly or annual fees
- No extra cost for secure payment gateway
www.volusion.com
Several entry levels:
| Name |
Setup Fee |
Cost |
Products |
| Steel |
$99 |
19.95/mo. / $29.95 |
20 products |
| Bronze |
$129 |
39.95/mo. / 49.95 |
100 products |
- 14 day free trials
- No percentage of sales
- Hosted at rackspace
- Integrates with Quickbooks
- 50 ready to go store designs
www.1and1.com
Starting at $9.99 / mo.
- Integrates with ebay
- No percentage
| $9.95 |
50 products |
5 categories |
|
| $24.95 |
200 products |
20 categories |
|
| $49.95 |
20,000 products |
1000 categories |
Includes cross selling |
Not on the visa CISP complaint list
But claims it is PCI compliant (Card details are neither stored or processed directly by the shop.)
getshops.com
- $59.99 per month, 30 days free.
- Sell up to 10,000 products
Payment options:
- Accept real-time credit cards
- Offline credit card processing
- Accept payment in any currency
- Checks, phone orders, and P.O.
Prostores.com
| Starter |
$9.95 /mo. |
1.5% transaction |
20 skus |
| Business |
$29.95 /mo. |
0.5% transaction |
thousands of skus |
Of course any host your own store solution means you also need:
- SSL certificate so that you can say your shopping experience is "Secure"
- Ability to install the SSL certificate in your web hosting account
- Webhosting account that can run a shopping cart program
- Merchant account for processing credit card payments
- Gateway fees to connect your online store to your merchant account
Important: All shopping carts and payment solutions must be CISP compliant: http://usa.visa.com/download/merchants/cisp_list_of_cisp_compliant_service_providers.pdf
According to Volusion, non-PCI compliant merchants may face:
- Revocation of merchant status
- $10,000 per month fines
- Class-action lawsuits
- $500,000 in fines per incident
OSCommerce
Zencart
Payment processing
Paypal
This is a credit card and payment acceptance solution. They don't supply a shopping cart
