New here. Wanting to start an online shoe store and need help

**Kev Mc** · 12-19-2011 12:57 AM

Hey there! My names Kevin and I'm 26 yrs old. I'm new to YE and I was hoping maybe I could get some help on starting my business, as I've looked at other sites and have yet to find any real answers.

Ok so basically I'm wanting to start an online shoe store such as Eastbay.com. The reason for this is that my g/f's (of 3 yrs) dad has been selling shoes for many many years in a market and I have learned lots from him and I really love the business. I would just like to take this online as it opens up a lot more customers and such as opposed to just have a stand somewhere in a market.

I already have a wholesaler through him and I just need help on where to start in order for this to get off the ground. What would be the best free website builder, if any, too start an online store for this sort of thing? I do not have tons of money at the moment for pricey software and that would be a big help.

I'd say when it comes to webdesign I'm neither advanced, nor an expert. I mean, I know how to setup sites, I've used Dreamweaver and Frontpage, although I do not know too much HTML. I am very determined to get this going and any help and/or advice anyone could give me would really be appreciated. Thanks for your time.

**Mabu** · 12-19-2011 09:44 AM

I would suggest to purchase an online shopping cart (Cubecart, etc.) instead of designing or coding your own. Very hard to do and time consuming. I know of one that costs around $90 + software around $300. Here's a demo: http://www.cc5.flashmount.net/ or eCommerce Software | CubeCart to get a trial.

However, don't know if they're easy to manage.

**jchan24** · 12-20-2011 11:45 PM

Kevin,
You are in luck because I just read a WSJ article on storefront websites - Goodsie, Shopify, Storenvy and Weebly

Read it here at:
online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203413304577088902478632204.html?m od=small_business_newsreel

Good tip: Take high quality photos for customers to see the products

There are some free open source software available on SimpleScripts.com through BlueHost but open source can be buggy and you probably need to hire a designer to customize it for you, anyways.

An important question is what are you going to call your Company Brand? You probably can't compete with Eastbay on a national level, but Local stores usually have high name recognition from local customers - so you can use your Dad's Company name, since it is well known. If you get really big and profitable, you're probably going to have to hire custom programmers like what Eastbay uses to keep up with traffic.

**jacksters** · 12-21-2011 03:50 AM

For an online shopping cart I would advise Joomla's Virtual mart.

**Kev Mc** · 12-23-2011 10:57 PM

Any other suggestions on how to start this please? I am still clueless as where to begin or what to use to build the site and it sucks not being able to move forward.

**jchan24** · 12-24-2011 12:42 PM

What is wrong with my 4 suggestions?

Goodsie, Shopify, Storenvy and Weebly

Go to their sites and compare prices and features.

**Kev Mc** · 12-24-2011 02:15 PM

No I really do appreciate it. I'm just not sure if these are widely used and if people will buy from pages created by these. I'm just trying to learn as much as I can and open my options up more.

**jchan24** · 12-24-2011 03:36 PM

Originally Posted by Kev Mc

No I really do appreciate it. I'm just not sure if these are widely used and if people will buy from pages created by these. I'm just trying to learn as much as I can and open my options up more.

Kevin,
I will need to learn a little bit more before giving more specific advice. Have you looked into Ebay, tons of people sell stuff on eBay and set up online stores on their platform, there is tons of customer traffic.

My questions:
1-What is your niche of shoes - mens, womens, sports, kids, outdoors, everything, etc.
This will determine what kind of site you want to make to appeal to a specific audience. For instance, if you want to sell women's heels, then you will need to have a certain look and feel to appeal to women shoppers. Also, the problem with shoes is that it can be a potentially low-profit business. For instance, Zappos is very popular and offers great customer service, but it doesn't generate huge profits.
2-Are you able to take pictures of your products to put on your website? How are you going to ship the shoes, do you have your own storage space for shoes?
3-What is your company name and branding? This will effect your customer audience and marketing plans.

Since it seems like you are just starting out and have no idea what to do, I suggest starting out on Ebay and selling stuff. If you get high volume, it might make sense to start a separate online website.

**Kev Mc** · 12-24-2011 08:34 PM

Ok well the shoes are Men/Women and athletic. Stuff like Jordan, Nike, Puma, Asics, etc.

I currently don't have a shipper, but I will figure that out when I get to that road. I just want to focus on designing the site first and I will then do the rest after that which shouldn't be too much of a problem.

I really do not want to sell on Ebay as I don't think that I will profit as much as having my own stand alone site and store. Do you have any experience with Ebay? I just don't think they would sell that much. And that's just the thing. I CAN get high volume. My girlfriends dad sells tons of shoes in the market and has a good friend who has been his wholesaler for years.

**jchan24** · 12-24-2011 09:03 PM

If you are looking for a "free" software for you play with, it might give you more headaches and buggyness. Plus, you'll need to find a graphic designer to make it look nice. You can try using Wordpress and finding a shopping cart plug-in.

But basically if you are dirt poor now, you should try EBay out to make some money to re-invest in your software. You pay a portion to EBay because they set up the service for you and have the customer traffic. I haven't used eBay, but I hear its good.

Also, most mens shoes compete on price, so you won't be able to beat Zappos or EastBay. I think Womens shoes are more unique and customized so you can get customers on that niche.

If you are looking for a free solution and trust yourself enough to figure it out along with the headaches, then good luck, but I don't want to see you waste time and money you don't have, and launch a crappy website with no customers.

**Kev Mc** · 12-24-2011 09:36 PM

I never said I'm dirt cheap and I do not need a graphic designer. I am one. I studied it in college. I am just wanting free software for now until things take off. So what you're saying now is that I CAN'T sell mens shoes then? lol

**jchan24** · 12-25-2011 06:59 PM

Well, why didn't you say you were a designer? Having a good web design will often determine success or failure. Then I trust that you are familiar with Wordpress and some other open source (free) software.

Sign up for a BlueHost account and use SimpleScripts to download open source software, you can view the list at the SimpleScripts site and test whichever package you like the best.

I just see mens shoes as a very crowded field, I don't know the analysis but it will take some unique positioning to land customers, for instance, appealing to the urban/black crowd for Air Jordan's and selling limited edition Air Jordans. Or selling skateboarding shoes to hipsters. Or being some sort of shoe discount outlet.

But if your site looks cheap, then your get cheap customers.

**daveb1** · 12-26-2011 09:05 PM

Hi Kev,

Hope all is well and a shoe business sounds pretty cool. Just saw / read about all the craziness with the release of the Air Jordan Retro Concords. JCHan has given you some great advice so I would listen to much of what he has said. Here are a couple other shopping solutions you may want to have a peek at:

Ecommerce Software & Shopping Cart Software Solutions by BigCommerce
WooCommerce | WooThemes

One good thing about a lot of the site suggestions is that they have Free Trials so you do not have to pay anything to give most of the above suggestions a test drive. My best advice would just to be to get started and dive right in. One question I have is that if you do not have much money / inventory how do you coordinate / get the shoes? Do you have lines of credit with the distributor already and have your orders in? Where do you plan to store all the product? Have you ever thought about partnering with your girlfriends dad first? Keep us posted as this sounds like a great project with potential.

**jchan24** · 12-28-2011 04:34 PM

Kevin,
Since you are asking a technical question, it should be answered by technical people, so you should go on some webmaster forums like "digital point" and seek out other webmasters.

Since you are designing and installing and customizing the open-source code, then you will be knee deep in technical development. Be prepared to learn a lot and spend a lot of time fixing bugs.