eCommerce Tycoon

**dominic95** · 08:13 PM

Hi I am really interested in ecommernce and I was wondering if anyone could help me with ideas of a company and stuff.

**ADAM Web Design** · 10-05-2007, 01:06 AM

Yeah, Dominic: "you can".

What are you interested in?
What do you want to sell?
What can you get a hold of at a reasonably competitive price?
Are you willing to negotiate deals with shipping companies?
Have you covered all your legal bases?

If you're looking to put up a site to sell stuff and expect it to work, don't bother. You're a kid...gotta love the interest for a kid. But you need to learn a lesson most adults never do, either: e-commerce is not all that different from traditional brick and mortar.

**CSS4Life** · 12:37 PM

Hey Adam - I'm still a "kid", well sorta.

I'll admit that e-commerce and any internet business is difficult and I hate the tax stuff too. But if you've got the basic knowledge and you're really keen, you can go somewhere.

I've learned a huge amount from these forums and I'm now doing a complete redesign of my site by hand - something I would have never attempted a couple of months ago.

**ADAM Web Design** · 10-05-2007, 11:42 AM

That's true, Daniel, but you also had an idea of what type of business you wanted to get into and you're also aware of the risks and rewards.

This other guy doesn't seem to be. His basic question was "I want to get into e-commerce, how do I do it?" That's far too vague and general a question to answer, and one that people who are destined to fail usually ask.

**CSS4Life** · 10-05-2007, 12:39 PM

Yeh I would agree with that.

By the way, I made a crucial spelling mistake in the last post (since edited) - I put "I'm not doing a redesign blah blah blah..." when I meant to put "I'm NOW doing a redesign...."

I was actually wondering if you'd like to have a say on that:

http://www.webmaster-talk.com/websit...velopment.html

Thanks,
Dan

**dominic95** · 10-05-2007, 02:36 PM

Last time I had a domain it did not work and company never responded so I gave up on domains and my dad said never agian because none of them worked for me.

**CSS4Life** · 10-05-2007, 02:53 PM

How do you mean? You bought a domain and the company never responded? Which company?

I've started several e-commerce sites that failed miserably, but now I've got a fairly clear vision about what I want to do and that is web design. I think you really need a good knowledge and plenty of ambition to get where you want.

What area do you want to work in? What did you do before?

**dominic95** · 10-06-2007, 06:28 PM

Well I am to young to work in the main area I want to work at which is being a Live Support operator. And I just need help making my mind up thats all.

**CSS4Life** · 10-06-2007, 06:43 PM

OK well if you want to do this, you'll have to have a reasonable subject knowledge before you begin. I'm not sure about the tax sort of stuff for all of that - I'm guessing that you were born in 1995 due to your username, making you 12, or possibly 13, which is generally too young.

Firstly, decide what aspect of live support you want to work in - i.e. hosting, web design/development, support for a software design company (last being very complicated).

Once you've done a bit of research on this, you'll need to gain lots of knowledge in the subject area. I'd recommend joining a related internet forum and contribute to it when you can as well as running a small project of your own - i.e. if you want to do web design, join a web design forum (you're here already

) and then start coding a web site - there are numerous free hosts out there.

When you've done all this and you've gained reasonable subject knowledge, you could approach a company on the subject - many however will simply turn you away because of your age either through discrimination/prejudice or simply because of the complicated paperwork/regulations. You could alternatively try starting up a small business of your own - that again gets complicated.

My main emphasis would be on deciding what area of work you'd like to do online and then gaining plenty of experience and knowledge about this.

**dominic95** · 10-06-2007, 06:49 PM

I knew it was going to turn out like this I knew it would be a big problem because of my age I should be playing some stupid looney toon game or something instead of being myself (Mature). Well oh well atleast I tried though but if anyone know any good kid games tell me so I can go feel imature.

**CSS4Life** · 10-06-2007, 07:06 PM

Hey dude don't sweat it. I've had that feeling before myself when I was a little younger.

I don't want to be patronising at all - I've been in the same situation as you.

I'm saying that generally, a lot of companies won't be interested in you YET - that doesn't mean you have to go an play a looney tunes game!

Do lots of research and get a good knowledge of the area you're looking at - anyone at any age must have this before applying for any technical job. I can't recommend highly enough these forums - I've been a regular on here for the past 3 or 4 months and I've learned a huge amount since then about SEO, web design, hosting and lots more.

Don't be hard on yourself - some people are way more mature than their peers but get discriminated against simply because of their age. By having an in depth knowledge of the subject area, you can prove them wrong!

**swiftmed** · 10-07-2007, 12:03 PM

as long as you can get hold of products at a good price and can negotiate deals with suppliers, shipping companies etc, you can do quite well. get a ecommerce site online using something like oscommerce, and simply add your products too it.

getting in contact with suppliers and making deals can be quite daunting, but get in contact with them, no need to tell them your age, as long as your able to pay for the goods your ordering, they will be very happy to help

and ofcourse if you need advice, we are here to help

**dominic95** · 10-07-2007, 03:00 PM

You are right I am being hard on myself and thats really not going to help me at all. And bout the oscommerence I have used it before but I get frushtrated easily and give up and thats not good but I gave up on using oscommerence. I been signing up for free host that has vista panel and I can't figure out how to make the website look like a normal website. And today I made a website and i'm selling services but it will fail because its a subdomain im not saying all subdoamins fail because they dont but mine do. So if anyone want to take a look at it and maybe tell me what I should add, edit or delete that would be very helpful. I have a lot of live support software but now i'm looking for ticket support helpdesk and most of them are based on php & mysql. And the type of website I want to add it to don't contain mysql database. And I really am tired of downloading stuff not good for my laptop so basicly im looking for a support ticket that is on a website.

Sorry if some of they sound stupid.

**ADAM Web Design** · 10-07-2007, 03:28 PM

Dude, look at it this way...if you're going to use OSCommerce, you've got to have some products that you'll have to ship to people, which means stocking stuff, dealing with customs possibly, fighting with companies like Fedex, etc. Most adults don't want that stress, never mind most youths.

You're 12-13. Be 12-13. Seriously. There will be plenty of time in life to deal with that crap when you're older, and then you'll wish you were 12-13 again so that you could be a kid again. (Of course, there are those of us out there who never quite grew up, so that's always an option too!)

If you want to mess with websites, that's cool. Good on you. But you're picking the wrong types of things to screw with.

Why don't you write a blog or omething? Or, if you're going to do anything mature, take a page out of the book of http://www.lissaexplains.com and offer advice for people your age in your boat? You don't have to sell anything. You can buy a domain and hosting if you want, but you don't have to (http://www.wordpress.com will give you free subdomain hosting for your blog). And if it fails, it doesn't cost you much (if anything).

Take a small chunk first. Figure that out. Then take a bigger chunk as you learn. You've got some steps to take first.

**Gallastico** · 10-07-2007, 03:34 PM

Hey Dominic,

I'm quite young too (just sixteen) and have started dabbling in the various online aspects. No age is too young; as long as you have the knowledge you can bring it the money. To start off, I'd suggest that you start up a blog writing about something you love and install Adsense (use a blogspot standard blog if you don't want to pay), you can eventually make a few hundred from that.

By the way, my parents also did not like me spending my own money, however I got around this by getting a Paypal account and working to earn some part time cash. If you do article writing, you should get minimum $0.01 a word, probably more, meaning you can earn $10 for two relatively simple (depending on topic) jobs. Once there, you can purchase domains and hosting using your own money, I doubt your parents would mind too much then. If you want cheap, reliable hosting go to DreamHost, they have an offer for their tenth year anniversary where you get a free domain name + hosting for one year @ $10, a great start up pack. I've used that for my second site and it's fairly easy to navigate, if you have any problems ask me.

Hope that helped

**ADAM Web Design** · 10-07-2007, 03:37 PM

Hold up there, Gallastico. That's very good advice, except for the domain + hosting part. DreamHost has been around for a while, so I doubt that they'd do this, but most hosts that double as domain registrars are noted for holding domain names hostage when users attempt to switch hosts for whatever reason.

Are you the admin contact for your domain, with your own admin email showing? Or are they? Do a WHOIS lookup and find out now before you have problems.

**Gallastico** · 10-07-2007, 03:53 PM

I'm not sure about all that to be honest mate, I've taken it on a year's basis (normal cost $120) with the assumption that if it doesn't make money, I won't renew; if it does, will have no problem doing so, so this is like a year's period on trial

.

**ForrestCroce** · 10-07-2007, 04:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by whym

I'm saying that generally, a lot of companies won't be interested in you YET - that doesn't mean you have to go an play a looney tunes game!

Spend half of that yet honing your skills, because when time does its part and you come of age, or at least the age where clients will take you seriously, knowing your stuff will be a competitive advantage. Seriously, the company I work for is trying to hire a few people, and at twice what they're worth, we just can't find a qualified person. Everyone looks great on paper, but when you start asking questions, too many people don't know what they should. If you don't fall under that category, it's a huge competitive advantage.

Take Adam's advice, and spend the other half your time enjoying your age. I'm pushing 30, and every now and then I'll get irresponsible and take a few months off work to enjoy life. Along with getting to choose what you have for dinner comes worrying about paying the rent and saving for retirement. Don't forget to enjoy being able to relax and do immature things that make you happy. Otherwise, you wind up never growing up, like me and Adam.

Oh, and it's good to be hard on yourself if that pushes you do do better, but when you're talking to potential clients, you need to exude confidence.

**nickharper** · 10-08-2007, 05:11 AM

I remember when I was that age I made an N64 Roms website ha!

The best thing to do is just practice webdesign. If you start now playing about with websites by the time you get to 19-20 you will know a fair bit about things like SEO which will help.

**dominic95** · 10-08-2007, 04:26 PM

Oh my ****ing gosh no one ever belives in me I don't care anymore ban me idc im am leaving im tired of this **** my bad for being mature god