We have pulled together a simple 10 Step Checklist to launch your new website on the right footing and begin the new year with the right approach. While we started this list with the recent store owners in mind.....this list is a GREAT way to launch a business at ANY time during the year and an excellent reminder for existing sellers to reassess your strategy during the holidays.

• Activate your Ecommerce Business

The first step to building your search rankings will be to connect your domain name to your ecommerce hosting account.
• Register a new domain name from a registrar like Godaddy.  Always protect the access to your domain name account.
• If you do not have an existing website, take advantage of the Inventory Source Hosted Site Special and get a new business today.
• Follow your Getting Started Guide and platform setup instructions to begin configuring the basic features of your site.
• Point your domain name to your site when ready.  This process can take 24-48 hours to complete.

• Keep Your Inventory Current

Do not miss a sale, avoid hurting your feed back with bad reviews, or delay the addition of hot new items from your product suppliers.
• Inventory Source Automation users can have this happen automatically every day so you only need to spend your time marketing your site and managing orders.
• Inventory Source Download File and Custom File Users can update their site in bulk each day.  If you have other external products on your site make sure you have enough time to also dedicate to these listings.
• The Inventory Source Wholesale Drop Ship Data Solutions can load thousands of products to your site as easily as managing one product with detailed titles, descriptions, categories, images, and more directly from your supplier sources.
  

• Build Consumer Confidence

Build trust and Reassure your customers that you are a credible business.
• Create a professional design
• Add clear return policy, shipping details and business contact information.
• Encourage product reviews or post testimonials from clients.  You can start this by writing your own product reviews for some key items and encourage your family and friends to add input.
• Review your category structure to assess its format, especially if you use more then one product source.  Inventory Source users can take advantage of the Custom Category Mapping Tool for automated management of this or you can submit mapping changes for your Custom Files.
• Think about what makes you shop at other online websites, and assess how well your ecommerce site matches those needs.

• Generate Customer Traffic

Drive more buyers to your ecommerce store and get it noticed in search engines.
• Submit your site to search engines and post the link on various sites, such as on forums and blogs.  These are FREE steps that you can take on your own!
• Add meta tags or a site map to help with natural search and indexing.
• Add content pages and talk about your categories, your brands, and your products.
• Start a paid search engine marketing campaign such as Google Ad Words.  Start with small daily budgets while you learn how to improve your advertisement's wording, keywords, and landing pages.  The more specific your add is to the landing page, such as connecting an add for a product model and linking to that product detail page rather then your website main page, the more effective your add will be for conversions.

• Design Your Price Strategy

You do not have to be the cheapest seller online and often the cheapest seller is not the top volume seller, but you do need to review online listings to make sure your prices are competitive.
• Create a promotional offer or consider offering Free shipping or lower your price settings and increase your shipping fees if you prefer.
• User your websites Sales or Specials functionality to discount and feature more of your items.  Retail chains do not have the same products on sale all year, so consider changing and updating your promotions.
• Offer Gift Cards or Voucher Codes for good customers to encourage more repeat business.
• As you generate traffic try adjusting your prices to find the correct balance between margin and volume.  With the Inventory Source Custom Price Setting tool for automation and custom file users these changes can be managed at the push of a button for any website platform or marketplace.
• Try adjusting your prices at least every three weeks over the first 5 months to have enough data to test your strategy fine tuning.

• Increase Your Conversion
  
• Promote your top selling products on key pages of your site like your homepage using your Specials or Featured modules or with a new main page graphic linking to the brand, category, or product.
• Use cross sell functions to help promote other products to your customers at checkout.
• Pick just 5 products a week and look at the title or description to see if you can add more details, technical specifications, or sales oriented content.  This will improve your natural search rank and help with sales conversions for people looking at your product listings.  Unless you are manufacturing your own products, this is a simple and small step, but an important step and helps you stand out from other resellers and even some of the larger ecommerce websites. 
• You are not the only one to a popular product, but be the only one to sell it your way.  You can add content about the brand or say why that model is better then others in the product line.  Who is the target for this product?  Is this product easier to use then similar items?  Does the existing content use the name or nickname commonly used and search on by most customers?  Just remember that the manufacture can make great products, the supplier can distribute great products, but as the retail store owner you can add the most value by thinking about what is needed to help an item be found and sell.  Use the season or holiday to help prioritize your product listing improvements.

• Tap Into Your Existing Customers

Generate repeat business from your existing customers.   
• Send a promotional email to your customers.   
• Add an opt-in form to collect visitor emails.   
• Encourage customers to write product reviews for the products they order.   
• You want to find ways to balance "spamming" your clients with value adding service.  Do not just send a common update to everyone.  Look at ways to send a targeted mailing based on their order history.  Did someone buy an HD DVD Player?  Thank them for their purchase and recommend HD cables or DVD's.  Did someone order a large multi-person tent? Recommend other family oriented camping gear and sale items.  If another customer ordered a high-end single or double occupancy tent the same product recommendations might not be best?  Focus the recommendation on other high-end brand name camping items.

• Market Your Products

Drive new  revenues by marketing your products.   
• Get listed on various shopping portals   
• List your ecommerce business on complementary sites and deal sites   
• Take advantage of Inventory Source Custom File Services for sites like Amazon, eBay, PriceGrabber, Shopzilla, Jellyfish, Nextag, and more.
• There are many market places where you can list your products, but Google Base is one of the simplest options and it is free to list your product data with a Google Base account.

• Focus On The Holidays

Motivate customers with holiday appeal....and do not forget that there is a holiday or two every month to use for marketing your site.   
• Add holiday promotions.   
• Highlight holiday-based products and suggest holiday gift ideas.   
• Offer free or discounted shipping, especially with multi-product orders.   
• Clearly define your delivery and return dates and confirm this status with your suppliers. It is not uncommon for wholesale distributors to make changes to the order process or delivery options, especially during peek sales holidays.

• Offer Great Customer Service

Yes we know this is Number 10 for this list...but it is so important that after your site is setup we want you to think of this as your new Number 1 goal. This might seem obvious, but make it easy for your customers to shop and avoid the stress of holiday shopping.

• Respond to customer questions on your site or products quickly and professionally by phone or email.  If you have problems managing your call volume during holiday sales consider alerting them on your voice mail message to use email support during peek shopping days for a quicker response.
• Process your orders promptly....this can be hard to balance with your own holiday planning and your business but with focus and good planning your can meet your objectives.

Inventory Source offers the simplest and most trusted solution for not only finding the best wholesale products to sell on eBay, but also for uploading and updating your eBay listings.  Inventory Source offers an unlimited term on its free account level access for finding and researching the Inventory Source verified network of wholesale distributors.

Inventory Source knows that it takes more then 7 days to plan and research something as important as your product sources, so there is no need to make any hasty decisions when it comes to planning your ecommerce business and using the Inventory Source membership account.

With the free account access you will be able to review over 500,000 wholesale products that are ready to drop ship. Moreover, you will have a summary of the real supplier sources behind these products to help you get your accounts started with them more quickly.  Of course, if you are an experienced product seller and you currently sell from some of the larger product distributors, you might find that you all ready have an account with some of the programs in the Inventory Source Integrated Supplier Network.  This would allow you to instantly take advantage of the support, tools, features and data services offered through InventorySource.com

Whether you're starting a new home based eBay business or seeking a way to boost revenue for your current eBay business, you need products to sell AND a way to effectively manage these products and your online listings.  Inventory Source has done the exhaustive work of finding you quality wholesale suppliers that you can work with directly, and has aggregated their product catalogs into a single source data base to simplify your multi-product inventory management.

Everyone that sells products on eBay needs to ask two questions:

1) What should I sell and where can I get these products?

2) How can I effectively manage my listings and inventory changes to provide the best customer experience?

Inventory Source, a leading data solution provider for eBay sellers, has the solutions that you need to respond to both of these questions.  If you are an eBay seller, you know how difficult and time consuming purchasing, warehousing, packaging, and shipping the products that you sell through eBay can be each day.  Like most business, you did not get into eBay selling and ecommerce to turn your home into a warehouse or spend time with invoices, pick slips, and checking inventory levels.  You need products to sell, but you also need the tools to effectively list and update your listings on eBay, so that you can get back to the real reasons why you are running an eBay business: to make more money and have more time for the things you enjoy.  By using drop shippers, you let someone else shoulder the burden of purchasing and storing your inventory. You avoid the need for upfront stock purchases until AFTER you have been paid by your customer.  When you sell your product on eBay, the supplier will ship the products directly to the customers.

Opening a wholesale account with a supplier on your own is a simple process, and well worth the 10 minutes that you might spend to complete their reseller application.  Inventory Source simplifies this process, by giving you the direct links to the account creation process and contact details for all of the suppliers in the Inventory Source Integrated Supplier Network.  Once you have the products to sell and your supplier relationships established, you need to convert their data into the listing format for eBay; you need to change the prices to get your profit margins; and you need to upload your data.  This can take days to complete for thousands of products, and by the time you are done with one day’s listings, it is time to recheck your price changes and quantity levels and review any other product details. 

Inventory Source is able to help you avoid all of these issues with their eBay specific solutions.  As a data solution provider for eBay and a member of the eBay Development Team, Inventory Source puts the tools you need in your control.  Inventory Source can convert your supplier data into any format, such as eBay File Exchange, eBay Turbo Lister, and more to manage your auction listings.  Inventory Source is also FULLY integrated with eBay ProStores, so feel free to checkout our listing in the eBay ProStores Solution Directory.  With our eBay services, the data is not just formatted for instant upload, but also updated everyday with the latest details from your wholesale supplier sources.  It is as if you have added a huge IT Department to help manage your eBay business!

Charlotte, North Carolina- InventorySource.com and Amazon.com are two of the largest and most trusted names in the world of ecommerce, and November marks the first anniversary of Inventory Source’s formal inclusion in the Amazon Web Services Network. “Our services have been compatible with Amazon Marketplace and Amazon Seller Central for years, but any time you reach a formal anniversary, especially for being recognized as a solution provider for something as popular as the Amazon selling platforms, it still makes you look back at your accomplishments and efforts.”, said Andrew Ruppar, of the Business Development and Operations Team for Inventory Source.

According to latest news from Forrester Research, there will be 1.8 billion Internet users by 2008, and e-commerce revenues are projected to exceed $500 billion. Today, non-store retailers account for 75% of this on-line market.

The recent boom in the popularity of e-commerce has caused many people to research ways to start an Internet business to generate additional income or start a new career. “Besides providing our members with the research tools that they need, we help them to establish a trusted online brand by managing their virtual inventory for their Amazon listings”, said Andrew. “If one large volume Amazon Marketplace seller has no way of knowing which products are in-stock or which products have price changes from week to week, but the other Amazon seller has their inventory data managed directly across all of their listings each day, which seller do you think will win the repeat business?”

Amazon has a huge number of users looking to purchase products. The more products listed by a merchant, the more they are able to take advantage of the Amazon traffic volume. However, the more product inventory listed by an Amazon merchant, the harder it is for them to remain in control of their supply chain. With Inventory Source Data Services for Amazon Merchants, sellers are able to mange their listings and product details for thousands of products as easily as managing a single item. “Some wholesale product resellers describe navigating the issues of drop ship data management as if it is an untamable jungle.”, said Andrew. And, when users are trying to sell to such a vast and demanding user market as those on Amazon, “jungle” is an appropriate word. ”However, with the tools, features, support, and data services that we have been able to provide as a member of the Amazon Web Services Network, we are providing real value adding solutions to our members. We make selling simple.”

The Inventory Source Amazon Data Service Solutions are applicable to major sellers of wholesale drop ship products as well as novice home-based businesses. It will be interesting to see what another year brings for the InventorySource.com and Amazon.com web services and solutions.

About Amazon.com:
Amazon.com, Inc., a Fortune 500 company based in Seattle, opened on the World Wide Web in July 1995 and today offers Earth's Biggest Selection. Amazon.com seeks to be Earth's most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the lowest possible prices. Amazon.com and other sellers offer millions of unique new, refurbished and used items in categories such as beauty, health and personal care, jewelry and watches, gourmet food, sports and outdoors, apparel and accessories, books, music, DVDs, electronics and office, toys and baby, and home and garden.

Amazon.com and its affiliates operate seven retail Web sites: www.amazon.com, www.amazon.co.uk, www.amazon.de, www.amazon.fr, www.amazon.co.jp, www.amazon.ca, and www.joyo.com.

About Inventory Source:
A leader in product-sourcing and custom data solutions for wholesale drop ship resellers, Inventory Source streamlines product sourcing for the emerging market of web-based entrepreneurs starting and growing a retail business. Through an exclusive web-based platform, Inventory Source empowers entrepreneurs to find and sell products and connect directly to the product sources. By aggregating product data distribution through a single connection point, Inventory Source helps drops ship resellers manage a multi-supplier and multi-channel supply chain. Inventory Source offers a wide variety of support tools, educational materials, features, and fully customizable data services that enable members to sell products online quickly and conveniently, and has services compatible with every major shopping cart platform and product listing service.