There is doubt in the fact that running an online business in the most difficult thing on earth. Most of us beleive that we will start getting huge business from the very first day but this is totally wrong. Besides having a practical plan, you need to make sure that you have added good quality images of the products and try to optimize your website as far as possible. regards shimul website design --- This message was edited to remove a commerical link, according to the Community discussion policies Message Edited by NicoleD on 01-12-2010 12:16 PM

In a word - Loyalty. Is your key!   This is what your online business needs most.   Out of the millions of children apparel stores online and offline, you really need your customers coming back. This is one big thing that I have noticed lacking from many sites. In a highly contested market such as CARS for instance, to compete everyone looks to be a niche site, tailors their site in branding to look like others in that niche, then the successful ones keep giving reasons why visitors will return. Look at the top search sites and see what it is that makes them popular ... most likely they have a loyal audience attracted to at least one major feature.   Even if a lot of the returning visitors are not buying from your site on each visit, you want them as raw numbers in the least so the search engine sees that your site is important and boosts your ranking. Ideally you are really giving the visitor something important to them, but for an apparel site, it could be something as simple as weekly news bulletins or articles or cool games that kids like to play (and they tell their mums about you).   Your challenge will be to find something that really connects with your potential customers and something that you can keep up in volume and quality. You don't want it to overshadow all your other work, but retaining customers is vital to any business. The longer they visit, the more they are likely to form a positive feeling to your site, buy things and recommend others to visit.

Before committing to any business, you have to do the research to ensure that there is a very good market and that money is being spent in that market. If you haven't yet done any training on website development and marketing, you will want to start there. There are some great training courses online, but don't go spending money on web site names until you know exactly what market you are going to target and what keywords they are using to find products online. If you already have your research completed and you know what kind of products you are going to market and where you are going to import them from, then you need to register your business. Website development is veyr important if you want to get as much free traffic as possible through the search engines, but don't forget to use other marketing avenues such as video and ebay. Building a business from scratch takes time and patience, but the benefits of having your own business are fantastic . Michelle Smith Bride Speeches --- This message was edited to remove a commerical link, according to the Community discussion policies Message Edited by NicoleD on 01-12-2010 12:15 PM

Divide the business on two parts.Starting from first part - create a site and a content in a site about children's clothes. SEO a site.Registering on the partner's programs of the the Internet of shops about the children's clothes. Take an experience  working as the partner.Continue the second part - the delivery of the goods

Hi helloeverybody'   You are at the start of a very short or long journey. A 'how long is a piece of string' kind of question.   You have had some very good technical and practical advice so far. So please let me give you some 'obvious' heads up on marketing and SEO (Search Engine Optimization).   Like others have said, you are looking to launch into a very competitive industry. It sounds like you are importing because of cheap labour, but you will also want to avoid cheap quality (too many competitors). You are probably choosing Hong Kong rather than China because quality may be better, and the factory may be less likely to close over night (after you have paid an advance).   In the least may I suggest that you have a strong love for your product and already some key skills associated with children's apparel (ie tested taste in colours or fashion), marketing/ branding, contacts for distribution etc. This last one can be important as being online only can be a risky strategy, should you not be able to optimise your site for search engine ranking as fast as you would like, or that you suddenly get delisted by a major site or beaten by your competitors when there is an algorithm change to how they rank sites.   It is true that I have NO experience in children's apparel (that is your domain), but I have been around a few online start ups (written their SEO strategy and performed it). Yes you need to know import processes, tax laws etc, however once you are registered the following online info will particularly apply to you:   You have modelled your site to reflect your brand, you have made it search engine friendly and easy to edit. You are ready to launch ... but what makes you different from every other children's apparel store in America? How will you beat Wallmart, Kmart, Target, and all mid to high end stores and brands? What is your NICHE? Why will they spend with you (a good mix of product and high service). Volume times margin will equal your gross profits, but what is your brand saying and will people see the connection. Colours, type of site design, ease of use, refund policies (both the site and the clothes)... OMG! Much heavy weather is heading your way ... but I digress.   The success of your online store, assuming you have all these fundamental marketing and pricing (the third p) handled, is getting your site listed with search engines and picked up high in the rankings.Lesson 101 in the Seo Dummies handbook is keywords. If you know your business niche, this should be easy. Unless you have huge resources you will probably be looking at the long tail of keywords. Picking two or three phrases that rank well enough in volumes (Google provides a free keyword tool that gives approx volumes) to describe your business and bring in the customers. You are unlikely to want or be able to commit the resources to compete with the major players on the major keywords, so stay will a comfortable contestable niche! At least until you prove your site ranks well, then you can always build another one to compete on higher keyword volumes etc.   Other SEO forums or basic SEO books will guide you on these things. I can tell you that I have created the on page and off page SEO for several start up sites and gotten them to page one of Google for major category keywords as well as some for long tail keywords only (ie sans links!). The difference in volume is in the time and money you have willing to defend these keywords. There are only ten sites usually ranked organically on Page ONE (unless you want to pay for adwords), Note some people recommend you pay for advertising until your site starts ranking - but that's a whole different post. Once your keyword density and landing pages are sorted out and you have submitted the site to directories and gotten a few links (no black hat stuff) - you will now need to maintain regular maintenance on your site.   There are always new tricks to increase ranking, but the two ongoing main ones to maintaining a sites high ranking for you are likely to be article submission / PR (for site content and link baiting) campaign, and general linking. Relentlessly you have to stay ahead of the competition (especially if you are online only) and if you can't afford to pay someone to do it, you need a young responsible family member or yourself to keep on top of it. Using 'Google analytics' is a nice piece of comprehensive free software that you can use to measure and adjust your effectiveness.   Yes this is a long reply, but short enough not to be completely comprehensive. I just thought it worthwhile to alert you to how the work on your site may be just as time consuming as the part of the business involved in selecting and managing the physical clothing flow and working on customer satisfaction.   If you love your product and believe that you have found a niche that you can compete and defend (across America or the world depending if you try a local campaign) then you are heading in the right direction. Then comes the real fun! You have the product, you have a high ranking site (top five is ideal so you are above the fold) now you just need to work on converting visitors to sales and adjusting your pages and marketing mix until your conversion rate is satisfactory.   I am an analyst and a SEO person, I am still waiting to make the transition from corporate and contractor to fully self employed. In the least the freedom and feeling of accomplishment working for yourself will be great rewards in themselves. I wish you the best of luck and prosperity ... Message Edited by ChristineL on 01-11-2010 12:07 PM Message Edited by Goleft on 01-11-2010 07:16 PM

Hi,   Selling products online is very easy as it will reduce lots of cost for advertisements and other hidden cost than compared to offline business. But this is possible only few place, where internet is know( for example in india only few few people can buy the products online that to electronic items, but not clothes).   In order to sell the products online, you need to have website (choose good url - means your keyword should be there in the url ex:www.baby-clothes.com) and you need to host the website.   Next step will be doing keyword analysis and writing the content basing on the keyword you finalized. After that promoting your website (off page SEO) in such way that to gain top positions in major search engines as it will take time to get it based on the competition of your keywords.     Regards, Cornell. Message Edited by cornell on 01-12-2010 07:26 AM Message Edited by cornell on 01-12-2010 07:27 AM

To start an online business on children apparel, you have to know two things. 1. For you to succed, you need a nice website 2. You just don't need website, you also need organic traffic from search engines like google. So I will advice you start learing how to to search engine optimization for your site. For instance, I want to develop an Online Engagement Rings Store that will help me sell Expensive and engagement rings online. I started by learing SEO for the site. It is not easy but it really pays. so as you prepare for other stuffs, I will encourage you to start learing SEO. --- This post has been unlinked. Read about our linking policy and Do's and Dont's here. Message Edited by ChristineL on 01-12-2010 10:36 AM

Hi rattlecake- I'm glad that you liked Goleft's post! In the future, you can just give in kudos on the post itself and write your comments. Thanks!

First you need to book a domain name for your business. Select a name that describes your business vert effectively. Use short name as it easy to remember and easily get noticed. Next step you need a website. In your case, e-commerce is the good option as must be having many pages on the site to sell clothes. When your website si ready run an PPC campaign your website to know what keywords brings you traffic and conversion. Run this campaign for atleast a month and after the month you will know what keywords to target for your website. Start SEO for your website by targeting keywords on individual keywords. And Yes, you can sell your products worldwide. Just insure to investigate about shipping to another country.