How to start a small online business?

My friend and I are both college students with low incomes. With college, we don't have time to get a part time job so we started to talk about ways that we could make a little extra money to help out. We came up with the idea of making an website for an online business. We love photography and crafts so we thought about selling leather crafts such as belts and wallets and photographs of country landscapes in customized frames. Any advice on how to start this sort of business? What would be the best host to start a website with?(We need something very affordable) Would we need to get a business license? How would be go about sending out orders? Would we wait til we got the money or check before shipping the orders out? Please help us get started on this so that we can have some extra money to spend on supplies for the next semester and next year. Thanks!

The best routes to take are to research the process of starting a business as well as the industry you're interested in.

I recommend checking out the SBA, Entrepreneur, The Start Up Journal & Nolo. All 4 are great informational resources for the new/small business owner. I posted links for you in the source box.

Research, research, research 鈥?this cannot be stressed enough. Read as much as you can. Here are some book titles that are relevant:
Online Business For Dummies, 4th Edition by Greg Holden
* How to Start and Maintain A Successful Online Business by Kelly Thornton
* The Complete E-Commerce Book: Design, Build, and Maintain a Successful Web-Based Business by Janice Reynolds

There are plenty of free informational resources out there. Check the source box for links to articles.

Hope that helps! I wish you much success & happiness in all your ventures!

Hi, I am a college student as well and I work out of home. I would be more than happy to show you what I do and share this opportunity with you. It is my job to help people and I would love to help you. Please email me through the link in my profile to learn more.

Thank You

J.Reynolds
wellness-manager@hotmail.com

the way i know how to start a small bissness online is to check around for ideas frist on what you want to do for and example frist like if you want to own sites to have traffic and let everyone get on for free and play games and if you click on the google add that is how you make your money or you can smiple do art work and sell it on the internet or even ebay but that is how i know what to do couse i am trying to do the same thing

Go to your local county clerks office, or whatever they call it where you are, and get a DBA (Doing Business As) and use that notarized paperwork to open a bank account. Have you and your partner be equal cosigners on the account, this makes you partners. Use YAHOO or Register.com to get the Web address, a Web site and the professional looking emails. Get a PayPal account to transfer funds easier. This mostly covers it. Contact me if you need more info or assistance. I will sometimes take on small start-ups at no cost in advance as a sort of way to invest my time in start-ups.

Your biggest concern with selling products on the net will be sales tax. If you are selling things directly yourself you will need a sales tax license for the state you are in, and possibly a few others.

As for the host, these guys are the best. They will setup your shopping cart system and everything. Once you register for a free account you can call them 24/7 with questions. Nice service.
http://hosting.dugancom.com/

May I make a suggestion though? You might want to consider starting smaller. I'll tell you what I do online as an example.

I resell web hosting and domains on the internet. It's a very competitive market, but easy to promote. I currently make enough to support myself, wife and son comfortably.

Like anything else worthwhile though it takes time and a lot of work. You have to promote your business and keep at it.

Here's the link for the reseller program
http://reseller.dugancom.com/

And here's a link about web site promotion
http://websitepromotion.divinfo.com/

Don't expect immediate amazing results with any business you may start. If it sounds to good to be true it probably is. Web hosting and domain sales is as basic as you can get on the net and a great place to start. Good luck!