What makes a good online store?

Originally Posted by RedLetterDay

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What do you mean by the cost? It's just code on the website that allows online-ordering, it shouldn't cost anything, you just have to write it. I guess you would use slightly more bandwidth but it would probably be negligible in the grand scheme of things.

You cannot be serious.
Costs?
Authorize.net (hundreds of dollars)
Web Credit Card Validation (hundreds of dollars)
Verisign ($400 a year) (Required by most CC Processors)
Merchant Services for Online Store (between $50 and $500 a month)
Somebody to build you a decent online store (between $500 and $25,000)

You want to slap together an eBay shop, then yeah.. that's near free, a real online store costs quite a bit of money in just the basic monthly fees alone.

Originally Posted by bluemagic

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I'm curious about why DenimBar/Farinelli's have manual ordering through e-mail, with inventory listed periodically on here or on the blog, instead of an online checkout process. Is it not worth the cost below a certain volume threshold?

Mauro's store will be up hopefully within the next month or so. He has been promising me for a while. But... yeah, webstores are expensive to develop - and working with a developer to get something you are satisfied with you is not at all easy. It is a painstaking and time-draining effort. And the monthly charges are non-trivial as well. On the other hand, a properly maintained, well managed webstore backed by high quality customer service can be a real revenue generator.

Originally Posted by kiya

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You cannot be serious.
Costs?
Authorize.net (hundreds of dollars)
Web Credit Card Validation (hundreds of dollars)
Verisign ($400 a year) (Required by most CC Processors)
Merchant Services for Online Store (between $50 and $500 a month)
Somebody to build you a decent online store (between $500 and $25,000)

You want to slap together an eBay shop, then yeah.. that's near free, a real online store costs quite a bit of money in just the basic monthly fees alone.

Thanks for all the info and insight you've provided in this thread. Who designed your site, did you do it in-house or hire someone?

Originally Posted by kiya

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You cannot be serious. Costs? Authorize.net (hundreds of dollars) Web Credit Card Validation (hundreds of dollars) Verisign ($400 a year) (Required by most CC Processors) Merchant Services for Online Store (between $50 and $500 a month) Somebody to build you a decent online store (between $500 and $25,000) You want to slap together an eBay shop, then yeah.. that's near free, a real online store costs quite a bit of money in just the basic monthly fees alone.
+10 The last online store I assembled cost me $18,000 in development costs, $150 a month in hosting, and the company I used to process credit cards charged a full percentage more to process cards online rather than in person / over the phone. This alone would be enough barrier to entry for some. Additionally, it's a full time job to maintain a website. Those pictures don't take themselves. Those emails don't answer themselves. Those boxes don't get packed by themselves. Inventory doesn't get updated by itself. I'm assuming that for a brick and mortar, who have all the costs of a brick and mortar (check out what a store front in a popular urban area costs vs. a warehouse in the ghetto / Indiana costs), to then throw on top of it all of the costs of running a webstore, you're talking about a serious financial investment. I think we should all be thankful that places like Farinelli's and Drinkwater's are kind enough to keep us all posted on stock and take email / phone orders rather than complaining that it's STILL not efficient enough for you. I'm sure they would still do just as well selling to their local customers.

Originally Posted by Lysol

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The last online store I assembled cost me $18,000 in development costs, $150 a month in hosting, and the company I used to process credit cards charged a full percentage more to process cards online rather than in person / over the phone. This alone would be enough barrier to entry for some.

Additionally, it's a full time job to maintain a website. Those pictures don't take themselves. Those emails don't answer themselves. Those boxes don't get packed by themselves. Inventory doesn't get updated by itself. I'm assuming that for a brick and mortar, who have all the costs of a brick and mortar (check out what a store front in a popular urban area costs vs. a warehouse in the ghetto / Indiana costs), to then throw on top of it all of the costs of running a webstore, you're talking about a serious financial investment.

I think we should all be thankful that places like Farinelli's and Drinkwater's are kind enough to keep us all posted on stock and take email / phone orders rather than complaining that it's STILL not efficient enough for you. I'm sure they would still do just as well selling to their local customers.

How do costs scale?

Originally Posted by kiya

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Somebody to build you a decent online store (between $500 and $25,000)
Anyone with any sort of knowledge of coding and the ability to use Google can set up an online store in a matter of days or maybe a week. Or you can use one of the hundreds of websites that offer shopping cart services for anywhere between $200-$500 per year.I'm sorry but if you or someone you know spent tens of thousands of dollars for someone to design them one, they most likely got ripped off. And on the other end if your company is making so much money that this is cost isn't important, the other associated costs you listed wouldn't be either. Maybe I mis-worded my original post and implied that it wouldn't cost anything to set it up, but for someone running a business, no, it does not cost a lot of money considering the obvious benefits. I'll try to find some data or statistics but I would venture a guess that a company using online shopping as opposed to phone-to-order has at least twice as much profit in sales.

Originally Posted by RedLetterDay

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Anyone with any sort of knowledge of coding and the ability to use Google can set up an online store in a matter of days or maybe a week. Or you can use one of the hundreds of websites that offer shopping cart services for anywhere between $200-$500 per year.I'm sorry but if you or someone you know spent tens of thousands of dollars for someone to design them one, they most likely got ripped off. And on the other end if your company is making so much money that this is cost isn't important, the other associated costs you listed wouldn't be either. Maybe I mis-worded my original post and implied that it wouldn't cost anything to set it up, but for someone running a business, no, it does not cost a lot of money considering the obvious benefits. I'll try to find some data or statistics but I would venture a guess that a company using online shopping as opposed to phone-to-order has at least twice as much profit in sales.
You're backtracking. There's a huge difference between what i listed, and what you said below. If you've got VC funding or investors, which many stores do have, it's one thing. But if you do the entire thing funded personally (like I did) then it's an entirely other story unless you START wealthy. Read what you originally wrote:

Originally Posted by RedLetterDay

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What do you mean by the cost? It's just code on the website that allows online-ordering, it shouldn't cost anything, you just have to write it. I guess you would use slightly more bandwidth but it would probably be negligible in the grand scheme of things.

Originally Posted by kiya

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You're backtracking. There's a huge difference between what i listed, and what you said below. If you've got VC funding or investors, which many stores do have, it's one thing. But if you do the entire thing funded personally (like I did) then it's an entirely other story unless you START wealthy.
Read what you originally wrote:

Alright looking back my 1st post was worded very poorly so I apologize for that. The point I was trying to make is that I cannot think of any instance where, for a business, setting up an online store would be declined because of costs. You would (should) be making substantially more money if you had one so I don't see how costs are a valid reason to not make one.

Originally Posted by RedLetterDay

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Anyone with any sort of knowledge of coding and the ability to use Google can set up an online store in a matter of days or maybe a week. Or you can use one of the hundreds of websites that offer shopping cart services for anywhere between $200-$500 per year.I'm sorry but if you or someone you know spent tens of thousands of dollars for someone to design them one, they most likely got ripped off. And on the other end if your company is making so much money that this is cost isn't important, the other associated costs you listed wouldn't be either. Maybe I mis-worded my original post and implied that it wouldn't cost anything to set it up, but for someone running a business, no, it does not cost a lot of money considering the obvious benefits. I'll try to find some data or statistics but I would venture a guess that a company using online shopping as opposed to phone-to-order has at least twice as much profit in sales.
This is a really over-simplified understanding of e-commerce and business in general. Turn-key webstores? Google checkout? We're not talking about starting a punk label and selling your friend's 7" out of your mom's basement. There needs to be an air of professionalism if you're trying to get someone to part with high ticket items. To put it in terms that everyone here can understand, $40 for a pair of Levi's or $300 for a pair of PBJ's? They're both just pants, right? I don't think anyone is saying that internet business isn't profitable. Of course it's profitable but you're completely naive if you don't think that there are any start up costs involved and for some those costs are prohibitive or they just feel they aren't worth it. Having an idea is just part of business. Having the time and money to execute it is the second and much bigger part. If it was as easy as just saying "Hey, lets sell **** on the internet" why aren't we all in business? Kiya, please stop me if I'm assuming to much, but to use Self Edge as an example, did you just wake up one day and say "I want a website" or was there just as much time, planning and most of all MONEY involved as there was in opening up your brick and mortar store?

Originally Posted by Lysol

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Kiya, please stop me if I'm assuming to much, but to use Self Edge as an example, did you just wake up one day and say "I want a website" or was there just as much time, planning and most of all MONEY involved as there was in opening up your brick and mortar store?
I will say this, Self Edge is my third retail store (the other two stores are still open and have been around for 4 and 5 years)... I've also helped open restaurants (from my wife's family's business side).. And the most difficult and annoying and frustrating thing i've ever tried to tackle was opening an online store for Self Edge. Still to this day when i think about opening a fourth retail store i'm calm about it, and think "hey, sure why not, it'll be fun.", but i'd start loosing sleep at night if i were to really start to think about taking another one of my stores "online". A lot of that is probably rooted in my long term hatred for online businesses, and how cold and impersonal it can be, which is why my goal for selfedge.com was that i would treat it like a brick and mortar store as much as i could with the information provided and the personal customer service. But at the end of the day it's a work of insanity once you're online store takes off.

Originally Posted by bluemagic

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How do costs scale?

It's all relative. If you take on the added costs of running an internet business on top of a brick and mortar store, you're likely to see more revenue as well, but it is an investment and anyone who doesn't think it is an investment is out of their mind.

Fabric details, and it'd be really nice to be able to see clothes under different lighting for once.

Originally Posted by Lysol

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This is a really over-simplified understanding of e-commerce and business in general. Turn-key webstores? Google checkout? We're not talking about starting a punk label and selling your friend's 7" out of your mom's basement. There needs to be an air of professionalism if you're trying to get someone to part with high ticket items.
I'm not talking about using Google Checkout & PayPal, what I was referring to is the ability to use Google as a search-engine to figure out how to do certain things. I have no idea what you are talking about as far as professionalism. Again using Self Edge as an example (which I think has a very professional looking and easy-to-navigate online-store), from a design and coding standpoint, there is nothing that a normal person with some a little coding experience couldn't do himself with the help of a little research and trial & error. I'm not a coder or web-developer, my degree is in animation, but I would not have more than a week or two of trouble to set up a store in style of layout, and I don't think anyone who regularly uses computers would either. As I said several times now my first comment implied that there are no costs at all, and that was misguided. Yes you have credit card and merchant costs, my point was that setting up an online/store/layout/etc., meaning the actual coding on your website so that people can navigate around and add things to a shopping cart, should not cost you anything. It has been around for over a decade now and writing the code is incredibly simple.

Originally Posted by RedLetterDay

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I have no idea what you are talking about as far as professionalism. Again using Self Edge as an example (which I think has a very professional looking and easy-to-navigate online-store), from a design and coding standpoint, there is nothing that a normal person with some a little coding experience couldn't do himself with the help of a little research and trial & error. I'm not a coder or web-developer, my degree is in animation, but I would not have more than a week or two of trouble to set up a store in style of layout, and I don't think anyone who regularly uses computers would either.

As I said several times now my first comment implied that there are no costs at all, and that was misguided. Yes you have credit card and merchant costs, my point was that setting up an online/store/layout/etc., meaning the actual coding on your website so that people can navigate around and add things to a shopping cart, should not cost you anything. It has been around for over a decade now and writing the code is incredibly simple.

Again, this is oversimplified and you're speaking to these hypothetical terms that may make complete sense to you because you have some experience with it but you can't possibly expect to translate to everyone else. Are there plenty of people that can very easily create a website like Self Edge's in minimal time? Yes. Do these people work for free? Does everyone have a 'hook up'? I sell websites for a living these days and I've charged people $5,000 - $45,000 for things that take my developers a day or two at most to complete. It being simple or technology that's been around "for over a decade" has nothing to do with it. Developers can do things that others can't which is why they get paid for it and they like to get paid well.

My father-in-law just installed a kitchen island and new counter tops in my house for a case of beer and dinner. I'm lucky that I have that hook up. Most people would've had to have to shell out at least a few hundred bucks if not a few grand for that. It doesn't mean that my neighbors should tell their contractors that the price of kitchen work is now Miller High Life.

Originally Posted by RedLetterDay

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Ifrom a design and coding standpoint, there is nothing that a normal person with some a little coding experience couldn't do himself with the help of a little research and trial & error.

And that is why software projects come in way late and way over budget. In the mind of the coders, once the code is written the project is nearly over, when in practice there is an enormous task ahead of debugging, making robust, and in the long run, maintaining.