Hosting
I’ve been using InMotion Hosting for 5 years now and I cannot recommend them enough. When you start a business online you may have a small budget to start with. InMotion has some affordable plans for any budget which is very useful when your website is still in the incipient phases. Downtime is very low and customer service is great. You can host multiple websites on the same account.
Domain Name
Getting the right domain name for your website is a very important step in starting your own website. I was very excited to name my websites in many ways when I soon came to find out that…..pretty much all names I was thinking of were taken. Since I wanted a .com name I ended up looking at abstract names, following the example of successful websites like Zappos, 6PM or Nordstrom. I also came to find out that building and authority for a domain name is a long, long process but there is a trick that many don’t tell you about. There are expired domains with authority, backlinks and traffic that you can get for the price of a new domain and they can get you visitors from day one! I used a service named FreshDrop to find expired domains in my niche I was very happy to get a boost for my traffic from the first day and not start from zero.
WordPress Theme
When I started my first eCommerce website finding a good theme was a daunting task. Many themes looked great at first but after I purchased them I came across many issues to customize them the way I wanted. After spending a couple of hundred dollars I finally discovered Avada theme made by Theme Fusion. I also noticed that is one of the best selling themes online in the past couple of years. Soon I found out why; all my customizations were now a breeze to make. For a price that is lower than most of the themes of its kind, Avada has an enormous array of options. The support is top notch, you will get a response within 12 hours or faster and there is a huge amount of customization data available in their support forum. They have a Fusion builder on each page so you can build all sorts of layouts within minutes. For an eCommerce website this is a must have in my opinion. Not to mention that is build for speed.
Market research
There are very few affordable tools out there that give you an insight of the niche you want to get involved with. As a seller on eBay and Amazon Terapeak has done wonders for me. It helped me to better understand the market, know my competition and beat them at their own game. I found it very useful even for the eCommerce in general, not only for the 2 platforms mentioned above. You can read my full Terapeak review here. Give them a try, they have a free trial.
Products To Sell
Finding a supplier to sell goods online can be a long, hard trip. I joined Salehoo in my first years on eBay and I never looked back. They give you access to a huge (over 80 000) directory of wholesalers and dropshippers; of course they are not all good but you also have access to their community forum where you can discuss with other entrepreneurs like you, get advice and verify suppliers. The fact that is a close circuit site with membership makes it more valuable, there no scammers and all suppliers are verified.