I recently came across this gem of an article written by the guys over at Get Elastic about how much of an impact a button can have on a potential customer of an e-commerce website. Obviously with e-commerce, building trust is extremely important and therefore consistency and simplicity are your friend. This article gives you some tips and pointers on what kind of buttons to use for your website in terms of colours, design and text formatting. If you are planning to start your own web business I would highly recommend you think long and hard about what colours you are going to use and make sure that they are consistent with your company image or branding. Check out the full article here: 107 Add to Cart Buttons of the Top Online Retailers

Now that you understand the importance of a hosting company for your e-commerce store (covered in Part 1) , we can move on to the actual software to be used. A decade ago there were very few e-commerce software packages that wouldn’t cost you an arm and a leg. Today, however, there are literally hundreds of different options, including a number of absolutely free ones. 

I have decided to describe a few of the most popular packages in use today. These software options are used by millions of stores around the world. When considering a shopping cart (as they are commonly called) you need to consider the language (code) that they are written in as well as the database which it supports. This is very important because it will influence which hosting provider you select to host your website.

osCommerce

This is an open source software package, it is totally free to use and modify. It comes with a number of useful features that are quite easy to use and configure. The site can have an almost unlimited number of products which can be organized into categories. You can also set various discount and promotions. The site allows you to accept most popular payments methods (PayPal, credit cards, cheques,etc). 

Zen Cart

This is an e-commerce solution that has been developed by a number shop owners, programmers, designers and fanatics who have a lot of experience with e-commerce stores. It is a free open source solution with a user-friendly design.

CS-Cart

This is a high quality paid software solution that costs $195 but comes with a 1 month technical assistance package. It is written in PHP and MySql. Installation is very easy with an automated setup. The admin area is very user friendly and easy to understand. The cart has been integrated with more than 35 popular payment gateways such as PayPal, 2CheckOut, GoogleCheckOut, WorldPay, etc. It includes 5 professional templates.It has also an advanced Order management tool, Affilate add-on, Product configurator, Feature comparison and Gift Registry modules.

CubeCart

This is an eCommerce package written in PHP & MySQL. You can setup a powerful online store as long as you have hosting supporting PHP and one MySQL database. CubeCart is very powerful and easy to connect to various payment gateways.

Virtuemart (formerly known as php-Shop)

This is an independent open-source shopping cart solution. However, it is better known as an e-commerce component for Mambo or Joomla! CMS.

Those are just a few of the options available to you. If you haven’t read the first part in this series please see Part 1.

Useful link:

Opening a Web Shop with E-Commerce Software.

This is the first post in a series of posts dealing with the setup of an e-business.

For those who don’t know, hosting is an absolutely vital part of your e-commerce success. It is extremely difficult to get your business online if you don’t have an adequate hosting company. Many large online businesses host their own websites, but for a small startup, this is out of the question. Your host will handle all the necessary technical issues that relate to keeping your site on the internet.

Choosing a hosting company can be daunting task, especially if you have no understanding or no interest in understanding the ins and outs of this technology. So, where do you begin? Firstly let me say that you have a couple of options, you can host locally or internationally, you can also host on a Linux server or you can host on a windows server.

Hosting locally has many benefits, some of which I’m sure you guessed. Let me list a few of these advantages: Local support, faster loading websites for local users and no downtime related to the international link being down. The major disadvantage for local hosting, however, is simply the cost of bandwidth. Once your site begins growing and gets more and more traffic, it’s going to be using more and more bandwidth and you are going to be charged heavily for that bandwidth.

Hosting internationally can work out a lot cheaper, but there are also some difficulties. As mentioned above, when the international connection goes down you site will be unavailable to local users. Your site will load quite a lot slower than a locally hosted site. Overall it’s a good idea to do a lot of research into exactly what your needs will be.

In terms of choosing whether or not to host on a Linux server or a Windows server you need to consider your e-commerce software needs which will be discussed in a future post of this series. In short, most e-commerce software has certain requirements and most often can only be hosted on a Linux server.

Useful links:

WordPress on Speed: 17 Tweaks to Accelerate your WP

Top 50 Guides for Beginning Web Developers

I was reading this post and I totally agree that there is absolutely nothing to stop anyone from starting their own little business, even if it is part-time. I strongly believe that with enough perseverance and hard work, any business venture can be successful.

If you have a dream to be financially independent and really want it bad enough… then to my mind there is nothing standing in your way to making that dream a reality. One of the main purposes of my blog is to help you to reach that dream. I’m passionate about helping others to become successful and I believe that business is not always about competition. We can collaborate to create new vale for ourselves as well as others.

The internet is the perfect medium to achieve your financial goals because of the pure scope that can be achieved! You can create a global business that has the potential to reach millions of people and you can do that in minutes. Now, that doesn’t mean that your success is going to be immediate! It is going to take time and some seriously hard work… That to me is the biggest misconception that people have about the internet. Let me just say this right now…get rich quick doesn’t exist!

With that said, if you focus on filling a need and providing value in everything you do, whether it is value for yourself (enjoying what you do) or value for the client (providing a great product or service), you will succeed! Why? Because people are smart….they can tell when you are sincere and not out to just make a quick buck.

I hope that these few words of advice are helpful and that maybe you become motivated to get up and go start something…Change the world!

(Image by Vladimir)

Today I have the privilege of interviewing the founder of the MyGenius community, John Raath. MyGenius has just reached ten thousand users in the last week and I thought it would be great to hear from its founder about what MyGenius means to him and where it came from. I myself am I member and have found it very useful as well as practical. So, with that said,on to the interview…

Q: Firstly, what was life like before MyGenius? What was your occupation?

A: I’ve been an entrepreneur for many years, both in SA and abroad and I always encouraged people - I just love to see people progress in their chosen paths. When I returned from the UK in 2004, I wanted to find a way to enable thousands of people to be inspired by their own genius and their own sense of what was possible. And of course, by being embedded in the MyGenius community, I feel inspired every day…encouraged by seeing such hugely talented individuals making real progress.

Q: How would you define MyGenius? Is it a “business social networking website”?

A: It’s a niche community for business owners. It operates both online as a social networking website, and offline - as members engage with one another, do deals, learn from one another and get clarity from one another about their unique business challenges.

Q: Where did the MyGenius concept come from? In other words, what inspired you to create the website?

A: In my heart I knew that as most people now work for themselves they are faced with two challenges - how do they find more clients and how do they get fresh thinking applied to the direction of their businesses. In both these cases, we need other people…we need fresh thinking, we need encouragement and we need people to open doors to new business and to new opportunities. I was inspired to create an open, authentic and really helpful platform where members would be able to create their own breakthroughs….

The current format is the result of input and shaping by partners and by the community itself….it’s been a huge learning process for all of us at MyGenius.

Q: What benefit do the users derive from using MyGenius?

A: They are inspired to vastly improve their businesses through collaborating with other members, by seeing new opportunities, by receiving new ideas about their businesses, by finding new clients and by belonging to a supportive community.

Q: Why did you choose the name MyGenius?

A: We can only make progress in our ventures when we understand our own true genius…our specific calling. We need to understand what we can do brilliantly well and learn how to find and engage with other individuals who are geniuses in their own right….it’s only when we connect and work and collaborate with other geniuses that we can create real magic. I’ve seen ordinary, small businesses become brilliant successes simply because the right people came together. And it all starts with knowing your unique Genius - hence the name.

Q: Was success immediate? If not, what kept you going?

A: Today we reached 10000 members. We expected to get there much earlier but I guess we needed to learn how to deliver real value before so many joined. We’ve invested heavily into this venture and it’s not been easy….but we always knew we were on the right track….so we never even thought of giving up.

Q: MyGenius is free to use, with various membership levels that the user reaches based on certain requirements, what was the thinking behind creating the membership levels?

A: The idea is for individuals to build their own networks and so part of the obligation is for members to recruit their own friends and associates. We are moving to a situation where members will pay…after allowing enough time for members to experience the power of MyGenius for free. We are convinced that a modest monthly fee will be a fraction of the value that members derive. It’s vital that MyGenius is commercially viable so that we can go on developing new, added value services. We’ve got an 18 month development pipeline and we can’t wait to get all these new ideas rolling.

Q: MyGenius has reached ten thousand users in a very short amount of time, what do you attribute this phenomenal growth to?

A: Business people need to connect, they need to vastly improve on what they’re doing. And times are getting tough for many people….so the only way to guarantee their futures is to build their networks, their prospects and their income.  MyGenius delivers that and I suppose that’s why we’ve attracted 10000 people. By the way, we believe we will have a million members in 24 months’ time. In June, we’re launching DiscoverMyGenius.com, a free online toolkit to help individuals to discover their unique calling….that will get the MyGenius message out there to a vast market. And of course the bigger MyGenius gets the more value for every member because that means more clients, more opportunities and more scope to build one’s brand.

Q:  You recently introduced Genius Ads, how does one go about placing an ad?

A: It’s the easiest thing in the world….you simply create an image, a header and a byline…and then we give you the stats relating to your ads…so a MyGenius member can control their own marketing campaign.  It’s about empowering individuals to do their own thing - and it really works. By putting your own name behind your ad is really authentic business.

Q: What is your vision for MyGenius in the future?

A: It’s going to grow enormously. But our vision is that every member experiences real breakthroughs in their businesses for themselves. I come across people everyday seeing new possibilities for their businesses and I see them taking bold steps forward….we want everyone to experience that!

Well, I hope you found that interesting. Please feel free to post your comments below.