Hey, guys, it's Ginny Silver.
And today I want to talk to those of you who want to start
an online shop quickly, easily, and most importantly, it
cost effectively.
for any business is going to make sure that you register
your business legally.
For those of you in the state of California, you are going
to start by heading over to my sole proprietor video.
That video walks you through all the steps in the process.
So if you have not seen it yet, click the link in the video
description down below.
Next, you're going to go to Cal Gold.
Cal Gold is a website for the state of California where you
can locate all of these steps, licenses, fees, etc that you
need specific to your own unique county, city and industry.
Cal Gold is going to be able to show you exactly where you
can apply for the permits and fees that you need.
The first thing you're going to need to do in order to set
up your business is going to be to apply for your business
license, which is also often known as a business tax certificate
or a business tax asset.
David, in order to do this, you are going to visit Cal Gold
look up specifically for your city, county, and industry
where to obtain your licenses, fees and permits.
Registering for a business license is relatively low cost.
The cost is going to vary depending on where you're located
and what type of business you are registering.
In general, this is going to be a fee somewhere between $15
and $35, with some cities charging a bit more.
Next is going to be to apply for a seller's permit if you
need to do so.
The website that I am going to be teaching you how to set
up your online shop.
Using today does not require you to file a seller's permit.
Why?
Because I'm gonna be showing you how to use big cartel.
Big cartel falls under the Marketplace Facilitators Act.
A marketplace Facilitator is an overall marketplace that
the platform itself collects and remits the sales tax for
you and they send it over on their own to the CDTFA.
If the platform that you're using automatically collects
and remiss the sales tax to the CDTFA on their own, then
you are not required to hold a seller's permit unless you
are conducting sales elsewhere, such as in person or on a
different platform.
I have a full video that delves into the topic of sellers
permits, what they are, who needs one, and how to get one
linked in the video description down below.
Next, you're going to need to decide if you need to file
a doing business as a DBA, also known as a fictitious business
name. First, start making sales and collecting payments from
customers without registering your businesses any other type
of entity.
You are automatically defaulted to a sole proprietor.
That means that you and your business are one and the same
as such.
You can operate your business using your first and last legal
name without needing to file a DBA.
But if you add anything, remove anything to your name, or
if you operate under a completely different shop name, then
you must file a DBA.
I have a video that shows you exactly how to obtain your
DBA and it is linked in the video description down below.
Next you're going to be choosing a platform to host your
online shop.
I want to show you a free platform that you can use to create
an ecommerce site.
Big Cartel allows you to create a free shop.
They do not charge a cut or Commission out of your sales,
and they do not charge you a fee for hosting your shop.
Now, you may want to add more features later on.
As you go, you may need to add in more products.
You may need more features in order to promote or maintain
your shop, or switch over to a different platform such as
Shopify or Wix, in order to expand on your shop later on.
But to start, Big Cartel is free.
They do not charge a Commission on your sales.
They do not charge you any monthly fees as long as you have
less than five products.
Now, if you need to create materials in order to enhance
your shop, such as a shop banner, a logo, or if you want
to create mockups of your products using stock photos, then
you can go over to canvas.
Now Canva is free to use.
You can upgrade to a paid account, which has several higher
level features, which I personally love, but start with the
free version.
This will allow you to create a logo, a shop banner, and
many other materials.
Now, once you have built your ecommerce site, you.
Next, we'll need to make sure that you have a plan for shipping
your packages.
You will need to buy a postage scale in order to make sure
that you're shipping things properly.
And then once you have that at home, then you will be able
to go to USPS, com print labels online, and you can even
schedule free pickups directly from your home address.
Now, once you have taken care of the legal registration of
your business, once you have built your shop online, next,
you're going to need to figure out a way to get customers
to find it.
Do not simply build a shop online and expect customers to
find it.
In most cases, you will not get customers simply by creating
an ecommerce site.
You need to have a way for those customers to locate you
online and then be directed to your website.
Now, if you want to start up a low cost marketing plan, I
recommend that you first start by clicking Creating a Blog.
You can create a blog using one of these free sites, and
what you're going to do next is you're going to take pictures
of your items.
Create blog posts talking about those items linking to the
sales page, et cetera.
Make sure that the title of your blog post, the descriptive
text in your blog post, the keywords and titles of the photos,
as well as the keywords and Tags of the blog page itself,
are all including target clients keywords that you know that
your customers will be searching for when they look for this
type of a product.
Online blog posts will help customers to find you because
when they type in the search terms in Google, it will be
more likely that they are led to your site and your blog.
The images will be tagged with it.
It will be embedded in the blog post itself in the title
in the Tags, et cetera.
So it will therefore drive more customers to locate your
blog and then be led over to your ecommerce site.
Next, I want you to create a Pinterest account.
You are going to create a Pinterest account and then you
are going to create pins every week for your blog posts and
for your shop.
Create boards that are based on what your target client is
going to be searching for online and post to those boards
every single week.
Do not simply create one pin to your product and then leave
it alone every single week.
You must pin many different images from your ecommerce site
and from your blog.
You can use Canva to create different visuals to upload to
interest, which will link to the same content.
Next, I want you to choose one to two social media sites
to commit to.
Doing all of them is going to stretch yourself too thin and
you won't do any one of them particularly well.
There's a lot to choose from, so I want you to choose one
to two social media sites and repurpose your content that
you create for your blog to use over on social media to advertise
your products and link back to your shop page.
Hopefully I want you to create a mailing list.
The best way to build an online mailing list is by some sort
of incentivized opt in.
That means that you're giving away some sort of piece of
free content for your customers that they want to have.
They see the link for this content, they click the link and
then they submit their email address that then joins them
to your mailing list and in exchange, they receive that digital
products sent to them.
Now, while you might not be selling digital products in your
online shop, you can create something that is a digital product
for your optin that is still appealing as a free download
to your potential customers.
This can include something such as a guide, suggestions on
how to use your products in ebook, a video tutorial, etc.
It can be anything that is somewhat related to your shop
that your target customers will want.
Use Canva to create this quickly and easily.
Next, you're going to join MailChimp.
Mailchimp is a free online mailing list platform.
Once again, then yes, you can upgrade your MailChimp account
to a paid account, but the free account has many great features.
You'll be able to start building your email list by having
folks opt into that free digital download or from taking
your customers and taking their email address and adding
it in as well.
Once you have a mailing list, then you can start to send
them updates, helpful information as well as try to sell
to them.
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Text and links back to your shop can be found through Groups
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