Granted there are many e-commerce website products available online, I gave myself an interesting goal: To create an online store that was free of Web hosts, where I would have a fixed cost of purchasing my domain name. Beyond that, the store would bring in a cash flow, look professional and be secure for customers who used it.
There are many online sales programs, put out by the Internet giants, that help to prepare retail sites for the reseller at no extra cost, but they do a mediocre job with their platform. The lack of creativity can give an amateurish look to the website and kill first impressions. This would hardly help to draw customers into the business, and keep those customers returning.
In the end my choice was aStore, which is an affiliate tool created by Amazon. The documentation suggested embedding the aStore in a frame of a website. This approach did not appeal to me on many fronts, one of which is the ability to have a flexible page size based on content. Regardless, the project was now in action and I was ready to move on to the next task.
The next step was to find a proxy server that could present the aStore as an independent website, without using frames or embedding. There were not a lot of options for this type of service, and offerings ranged from free to paid and hosted to self-hosted. I chose a service called StoreBrander as they provided a free, hosted solution, with a single Google ad as the provision for service. The vendor also specialized in supporting Amazon products.
Building an online store without a Web host did test my skills, but it was still in the realm of the possible. The layout of the virtual website required thinking outside the box as a designer, and I pursued many avenues of experimentation with images and layouts. This process concluded with a presentation I believed could attract and hold an Internet audience.
To finish the process, all that was required was something to sell. Given the fact that aStore is an Amazon tool, the choices for type of goods sold were abundant. Taking into consideration items that have traditionally sold well on the Internet, I created multiple categories for the sale of Blu-ray DVDs. After securing an appropriate domain name, I applied finishing touches to the virtual store. This was followed by SEO efforts to let the Internet world know that the site existed.
It took a few weeks, but the first transaction on the site was greeted with child-like celebration. The revenue was quite small, but the sale provided a bookend to a project which stretched my knowledge of the Internet. The reality of creating an e-commerce site with nothing more than a domain created a new benchmark for low start-up costs. Though the process might be a little impractical, it was a worthy pursuit nonetheless.
There are many online sales programs, put out by the Internet giants, that help to prepare retail sites for the reseller at no extra cost, but they do a mediocre job with their platform. The lack of creativity can give an amateurish look to the website and kill first impressions. This would hardly help to draw customers into the business, and keep those customers returning.
In the end my choice was aStore, which is an affiliate tool created by Amazon. The documentation suggested embedding the aStore in a frame of a website. This approach did not appeal to me on many fronts, one of which is the ability to have a flexible page size based on content. Regardless, the project was now in action and I was ready to move on to the next task.
The next step was to find a proxy server that could present the aStore as an independent website, without using frames or embedding. There were not a lot of options for this type of service, and offerings ranged from free to paid and hosted to self-hosted. I chose a service called StoreBrander as they provided a free, hosted solution, with a single Google ad as the provision for service. The vendor also specialized in supporting Amazon products.
Building an online store without a Web host did test my skills, but it was still in the realm of the possible. The layout of the virtual website required thinking outside the box as a designer, and I pursued many avenues of experimentation with images and layouts. This process concluded with a presentation I believed could attract and hold an Internet audience.
To finish the process, all that was required was something to sell. Given the fact that aStore is an Amazon tool, the choices for type of goods sold were abundant. Taking into consideration items that have traditionally sold well on the Internet, I created multiple categories for the sale of Blu-ray DVDs. After securing an appropriate domain name, I applied finishing touches to the virtual store. This was followed by SEO efforts to let the Internet world know that the site existed.
It took a few weeks, but the first transaction on the site was greeted with child-like celebration. The revenue was quite small, but the sale provided a bookend to a project which stretched my knowledge of the Internet. The reality of creating an e-commerce site with nothing more than a domain created a new benchmark for low start-up costs. Though the process might be a little impractical, it was a worthy pursuit nonetheless.
About the Author:
Robert Mann is a Dad, coffee drinker, and Web designer. His latest "host-less" online stores include sites for finding the correct cell phone battery and laptop battery.. Free reprint available from: Building a Host-less Online Store.
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