How to lose your money... what not to do Print
Here are some top mistakes business owners make when looking to start an e-commerce website.
  1. Underestimate your time investment
    • Growing and maintaining an e-commerce website is an extremely time consuming process.  Between shipping, customer service, employee training, advertising, budgeting, research, buying, updating, and tinkering - a website is no small chore.  Make sure to ask how much time the website will consume.
  2. Do your own research, then hire a developer to build or complete the system as you think it should be done.
    • A very common mistake.  There are literally millions of websites out to harvest your money for a substandard product.  You are also likely purchase a product that does not meet your needs (you might discover this immediately, or worse, later down the road).  You are then left to either hire an expensive custom developer to hack the software, or lose your investment all together.  Bottom line, don't spend your money until you know EXACTLY what you will be receiving, and KNOW that it meets your needs for today and tomorrow.
  3. Overpay for hosting.
    • We see many businesses paying $50 to $100 a month for an outdated host that should only cost from $10 to $20 per month.  We've seen some owners throwing away several hundred dollars a month and more.  More often than not, this spending is very wasteful, and could be easily cut.
  4. Have insufficient capital to build the business.
    • You don't go to a steak house with fifty cents in your pocket, and you can't build a business with no investment.  Websites are not magical money machines that deliver cash to your bank account; they are businesses like any other - they just happen to run much more efficiently if constructed properly.
  5. Expect a turn key system.
    • Developing a profitable e-commerce website demands very consistent communication and good working relationship between the webmaster and the owner.  The webmaster should recognize the business owner as the ultimate source of knowledge and expertise for the product.  Similarly, the business owner should recognize the webmaster as their ultimate source for practical application of ideas and systems.  Without the teamwork, you may as well be building a website to sell auto repair services in Antarctica - because the site simply will not work.  With that said, it is possible to drastically reduce your time investment by outsourcing your work or delegating authority to your employees.  This decision should be discussed with your webmaster.