There are several different types of people and business that want to sell on the Internet, and how they do it is very different, depending on the products that are being sold. The most common, is someone who is already in business and trading somehow. For example, they could either run a retail store, or run a service related business.
Retailer/wholesaler: ranging from a stall at the local market to an established chain of retail outlets, or an international warehousing and wholesale operation. You want to expand your reach beyond the local area that you currently service. Great! But how? This type of business lends itself exceptionally well to moving online, as most of the systems are in place already, all you have to do - and I say that like its easy - is get orders coming in, process the payment, then post off the items. Easy - NOT! But this is certainly very close to being able to sell online.
Service Provider: This depends on how your service is delivered. If you attend the client in person, it will be hard to expand your reach further afield. However, it is possible to sell your service on the Internet to generate more business from the local area. If it is irrelevant where your services are performed, that is ideal. For example, my accountant is located in another city (I used to live there and then moved, but kept the accountant because they did a good job). So a tax accountant could potentially find business online and then deliver it's services. On the other hand, a garden maintenance business could find business via the Internet, but could not not deliver its product.
OK, so lets say you own a physical goods business of some sort. You have a premises, stock, and the facility to make a sale somehow. How do you move this operation online? Well selling online is basically a fancy way of doing mailorder. Whereas mailorder is "analog", ie it relies on customers to select items from a catalog, fill in a paper form, and then either mail in a cheque or or fax in their order with a credit card number, that then needs to be manually banked or as with credit cards, keyed into an eftpos machine, in order to receive payment.
Selling on the Internet is the digital version of this. ie there is a catalog - but it is presented online, and if it is going to be effective it needs to have lots of information, product specs, good quality pictures. There are forms to fill in, but they are online, and customers type in their details, and then there is the payment, usually either a credit card or PayPal (or something similar), the payment is then processed immediately and payment is deposited into the merchants account automatically. Then with digital goods, the product is made available to the buyer straight away. For physical goods the order is received by the merchant, who then packages up the goods ready for shipment.
Selling on the Internet is the digital version of this. ie there is a catalog - but it is presented online, and if it is going to be effective it needs to have lots of information, product specs, good quality pictures. There are forms to fill in, but they are online, and customers type in their details, and then there is the payment, usually either a credit card or PayPal (or something similar), the payment is then processed immediately and payment is deposited into the merchants account automatically. Then with digital goods, the product is made available to the buyer straight away. For physical goods the order is received by the merchant, who then packages up the goods ready for shipment.
What I do, via my website, is provide you the ability to sell online - easily. In fact, membership to the site effectively covers 4 out of the 5 things that you need in order to sell online. The only thing that it doesnt cover is the product, which I presume you already have.
