Web Hosting for eCommerce

This is the web hosting part of my eCommerce hosting posts. Web hosting is an integral part of the internet. Most websites are built upon web hosting as it allow its users the most amount of control over its content and eCommerce is no different.

First of all, you'd need a web server provider. You could technically create your own server for use but it is highly impractical as you need to serve large amount of visitors and residential internet connections are not usually built for such load. Therefore you can Google for the many web server provider. The big ones are like GoDaddy.com or if you prefer local web server provider you could go with Server Freak. If you plan on serving mostly Malaysian customers it is wise if you take up a local web server provided as long as they host their server locally. You can email them and inquire regarding the location of their server.

If you sign up with Server Freak, make sure you take up a suitable package depending on your need. For starters, their RM 100 Linux cPanel package is adequate. However they don't include any free domain name in that package so you'll be required to purchase a domain name separately. After purchasing the domain and web hosting together, you should be able to log in once they have confirmed your transaction. Check your email for log in details. Usually you'd need to go to www.yourdomain.com/cpanel to log in. Use your username and password that you are given in your email to log in. There is an automatic first time set up for you to do. follow the instruction closely and you're set.

I suggest downloading an application called FileZilla. It is an FTP client. FTP is short for File Transfer Protocol which for layman means it allows you to remotely access your web server files. You need some server details to link FileZilla to your server which is provided in your email.

After that, open up your cPanel dashboard at www.yourdomain.com/cpanel and scroll down to a section that says Software and it should like Softaculous. Click on it and you'd be redirected to a web site with multiple softwares that you can install onto your server. Feel free to browse the section if you can find new things that might suit you.

After messing about, go to the eCommerce section in the Softaculous website. Here you are presented with eCommerce softwares for you to install onto your server. The big names are Open Cart and also Prestashop. I tested both and went for Prestashop due to their higher level of customization. Click on install and fill up some basic information like store name and description. Choose a strong password for your store and start installing.

Presto! You have your own eCommerce webstore. All you have to do now is log in into your Prestashop administration panel by typing something in the line of www.yourdomain.com/admin123 or whatever link was given to you after you have finished installing Prestashop.

Here you can do multiple things. Go to Preferences > Themes and upload your store logos, banner and so on. You can tweak a few settings here an there. There are many tutorial online for you to read if you want to do something and you could also go to the official Prestashop forum to ask specific questions. Usually they are very helpful and quick to help you out.

Lastly of course is to upload your products photo and description by clicking on the Catalog > Product tab. If you want a faster method to upload multiple product your can always use CSV Import. This way you would type out all the information you need in an Excel spreadsheet and upload that file. This will be processed by your server and automatically update all your products in one go. You can find tutorials online regarding CSV Import for Prestashop.

Hopefully this gives you an idea of how to use web hosting and Prestashop. If you need any help feel free to ask me in the comment section below!

Yours truly,

Izzudin Hafiz

eCommerce Hosting

One of the ways to get into eCommerce
without any real technical know-how

So I've explained about buying domains, which would have lead you to this post here or this other one. Let's get into eCommerce Hosting.

After I bought my www.phonecases.com.my domain, I proceeded to find a suitable eCommerce Hosting. I've actually tried a few from Shopify, Volusion to Magento Go. What they are basically is Facebook for merchant. You can use their service without any knowledge about web design at all and you'd be set. Register a free trial with them, log in and set some basic information regarding store name and description. After that upload your product photos and description along with their prices. Lastly set up a payment gateway to allow customers to pay you. 

You can also change their template to other pre-made templates or if you are more web design savvy, you could always start messing around with HTML and CSS.

Honestly, I tried them all and could not continue with them due to some limitations especially lack of support for Malaysian currency or even not having my preferred payment gateway. I finally landed on Goodsie which was really the best among the eCommerce Hosting provider. It was simple, supported Malaysian currency and also had competitive pricing. I took the one month trial and went with it. I uploaded all my products and description and made some change to the template to suit me. It was great.

Alas I was not happy enough as well. It did not have the level of customization that I required. Of course it came with the package. People with less technical know how would be overwhelmed with the option Goodsie allowed the users to customize. You could however continue using it if you feel it is enough for you to run your eCommerce store. 

EDIT: The Goodsie system has changed since the last time I have used it. They've changed their system extensively and also their pricing. At their current pricing level, I would suggest going to Shopify or Volusion instead. 

Yours truly,

Izzudin Hafiz

Purchasing Domain and Hosting for eCommerce

The Internet is so huge and complicated
that I get confused so badly

I have talked about my plan to sell my products online, however this approach comes with several technical difficulties that needs to be resolved. The internet is so advance these days that I, who I will credit as having more than average knowledge of how it works, easily get confused as to how it's supposed to work.

First of all I had to decide on which mode of online store would I want to go to. Most local sellers opt for non-automated blogspot style website. This obviously came with two benefits, it was free and it is easy to set up. I however, did not like this approach as it looks unprofessional and I feel that customers lose confidence when attempting to purchase from online retailers who resort themselves to blog-styled websites. I will not touch on this approach for now (in this post at least) as I do not see the need for it nor have I any experience about it.

I prefer the other alternative, using web hosting and professional eCommerce store system like those used by bigger organizations such as eBay, Best Buy and Amazon. I was also confident that I had at least some ideas as how it works and should be able to sort things out. Oh how I was wrong. If you choose to use this method of eCommerce, be prepared to post on some forums and learn new things. It is tricky but not impossible for any layman to accomplish. Furthermore, the end product is more professional looking and more rewarding than a web blog.

There are two options for these professional looking websites. You could choose eCommerce hosting or Web Hosting. Here's an overview:

eCommerce Hosting:

• Examples are Shopify, Goodsie and Magento Go
• They provide a complete solution to eCommerce
• All you have to do is set some basic information such as store name, store URL and products details
• The interface is fairly easy to manage and straight forward
• The price range for competitive packages that is suitable for starters are usually in the range of MYR 40 to MYR 100 per month
• They have a lot of limitation and cannot be customized as extensively as Web Hosting
• However they usually permit a trial store that you can use for two  weeks to a month depending on the provider before you pay any money

Web Hosting

• This is more complicated, requiring you to purchase domain name and web hosting service not to mention some technical knowledge
• Usually they provide a control panel that comes installed with commonly used softwares
• It allows you to load eCommerce softwares of your choice and create a store with it
• Some common providers are Server Freak, GoDaddy and Exabytes
• Prices range from MYR 100 to MYR 500 per year for competitive packages suitable for starters
• They have virtually no limitations, allow you to customize the set up as you may and according to your level of technical knowledge
• They don't usually have a trial system, so you are stuck with a provider for a year
• You do require some knowledge in networking and web design, but not much

Posting both solutions on this one post would be counter productive to you readers, so I'll link them to their own posts so you may read their own set up requirements and pros and cons

Link to eCommerce Hosting post

Link to Web Hosting post

However for either of these options, you would probably need your own personal domain (i.e yourdomain.com). Domains are web URL or web address that you type in your internet browser such as www.google.com. Getting a personal domain allows people to type your domain name into the browser and go directly to your store. Personal domain price differs by their ending or the letters after the dot such as .com, .com.my, .net or .org. Prices for .com domains are usually in the MYR 40 neighbourhood while the cheapest .com.my domain provider charges MYR 80 for your own personal domain.

If you are getting a personal domain, I would highly suggest www.serverfreak.com as they have very friendly technical support and competitive pricing if you would want to purchase a Web Hosting package. 

I decided to register www.phonecases.com.my as my personal domain for my phone accessories store. It was available and easy to remember. At first, I bought the domain name only without any packages from Exabytes for MYR 80. Their service was lousy and I couldn't get it to link to what was then my temporary website. I then transferred to Server Freak which had great customer service and was very helpful. They replied to my emails which I sent in at two in the morning! So I highly recommend you visit them to get your own personal domain and web hosting. 

Essentially you need a website, which you can get either through eCommerce Hosting or Web Hosting. Then you would purchase a personal domain with which ever provider you prefer. Once done, you'd contact them to link your personal domain to your website. You can do it on your own but the procedure for that is beyond my knowledge regarding nameservers and networking. So just contact them once you've bought your personal domain and they'll guide you through it.

If you are using eCommerce Hosting, you can make do without a personal domain as you can use the providers domain which usually looks like this, www.yourstore.provider.com (i.e mystore.goodsie.com). If you are using Web Hosting, you would absolutely require your own personal domain.

That's it from me for now, I'll write up the two posts on different professional eCommerce website and link them in this post. Leave a comment if you need any advice or have any opinion on different platforms to host your eCommerce website.

Yours truly,

Young and Gunning

Getting Suppliers

Business Supplies
and not the pen and papers sort

Finished registering a business? Great. Just like me, you'd have to find some suppliers to get your running. I did this a couple of weeks ago and it was really difficult for us entrepreneurs in Malaysia since there isn't any real directory or listing to help us find suppliers.

I can guide you with what I did for my business, but you would need to apply it to your business sector.

First of all was getting an idea of where can you find suppliers. A great resource is actually alibaba.com which has suppliers from everywhere in the world with every kind of products imaginable. You just have to search hard for it. I searched a for a few local suppliers as I was new in the business and getting foreign suppliers would be counter productive. Although China could supply me with cheaper products the cost of transporting it here would be too expensive. I looked up for the local suppliers contact and called or emailed them regarding getting them to be my supplier. However most of them was uncooperative or had very terrible product selection. I had to abandon my online search for suppliers.

I turned to another idea, as I was involved in the retailing of phone accessories, why don't I head to the number one place in Malaysia to get phone related items. Low Yat. I chose a weekday morning where there will be the fewest number of people bustling around in Low Yat and went around asking shops if they supplied phone cases in bulk. I found a few at the back of the shopping areas. Usually they don't have fancy signs or any resemblance to a nice shop but they do have shelves filled to the brim with items you need. You can always go to an area that specializes in selling your items. Maybe for fashion items you can always head to Chow Kit areas. I've helped my friends find some suppliers there once or twice. 

Anyhow, I went to the few suppliers at Low Yat to get a baseline price for phone accessories and I was happy to find out that these items are supplied at way below the price of people selling it at stores. Like way way below. So I chose one shop that had a decent selection of items and registered my business with them. For the first time purchase I have to spend a minimum of RM 300 and any subsequent purchases need only be RM 100 minimum. RM 300 netted me roughly 50 items, mostly phone cases. I paid for the stuffs and went back. 

Now I had a decent suppliers and also more importantly I had the stuffs for me to sell. I sat down and catalogued my items in Excel. Naming them and giving them their sales price. I priced them at roughly double my cost price. I know this may seem like too much to some people, but doubling my cost price doesn't mean I'll receive 50% profit. I do have other cost to cover. 

Then I had the task of photographing them since by now I've decided to sell them online. Of course I needed photos of them. I browsed through the internet for people who sells these things and found that most of em just placed the items on their beds and take picture with their phones. Terrible lighting and photo quality. I decided I wanted it too look pleasing at the very least. However the process of doing so was quite lengthy and demands it's own post which I will diligently do so in the future.

In conclusion, suppliers are essential to your business success. If you can't get the best suppliers, you can't get the best things. This will affect you down the road. Search hard and research hard. Make sure they're trustworthy and cooperative in doing business with you!

Thats all from me now, I'll post up my online store obstacles next. Give me a comment about your tries on getting suppliers or if you have any question!

Yours truly,
Young and Gunning

Registering a Business In Malaysia

Nowadays everything needs to be registered
and a business is no exception

There's a summary of business registration process at the bottom of this post. If you are not interested in the long post, just scroll down to it.

To do business in Malaysia you would need to be registered with Suruhanjaya Syarikat Malaysia (SSM). There is two type of registration, Registration of Business (ROB) and Registration of Company (ROC). ROB is what most of you would normally have to do. ROC requires company secretary and a lot of money to register. In short, ROB is for businesses and ROC is for companies (organization that employs lots of people).

To register a business here in Malaysia, you have two option. Do it Online or by going directly to SSM offices located throughout Malaysia.

I'll be honest, I was happy to know that SSM allowed business registration to be done online. That means I can save all the hassle of going to SSM and queuing up. Alas as it is a Government service it was beyond terrible. My suggestion to you is to direct yourself to the nearest SSM office. I tried to do it online but I could not get the web application to run properly. I had to dig up my Internet Explorer which did not solve the problem. I downloaded Firefox which got me a little further down the web application, but not very much. I tried it on two different computers and called a friend to try and do it on his. All with one big disappointing conclusion, IT WILL TAKE FOREVER TO WORK.

Hence I decided to register directly at an SSM office. I chose the one at Menara SSM @ Sentral as it was close and since it was the headquarters of SSM, it should also be the best place.  Surprisingly the process was exceptionally quick. It took me 40 minutes from parking to getting back to the parking area. By the way, Registration of Business is located on the 14th floor (as of the time of this writing).

Once you get there, go directly to the form counter and ask the person there that you would like to register a business. He/she would give you two forms that are stapled together. To the right of that counter is a place for you to fill in that form. It has pens and also up on the walls are examples of forms that have been filled up. Just look up for your form and follow as the examples are, except of course with your details. That's pretty much it.

Do keep in mind, you can include three business name that you'd want to register. They will take the first one if it's available and if it's not, they'll take the following ones. So make sure your preferred choice is on top and your next preferred is in the following choices. Regarding the name, make sure you choose names that are unique. I made a mistake of wanting "Phone Accessories Solution". The problem with that was that it is too general. You need a defining name. I finally sorted out with Luminar Technology. I had a fancy for lights related name. and Luminar was close to lumiere which was light in Italian. Or was it French?

Anyhow, after filling in your forms, proceed to take a number at the number counter and wait for your number to be called up. I only had one person in front of me in the number queue. 

Once your number is called up, go to the counter and pass your forms along with your Identification Card (IC). They'll check for the business name and see if it is available or not. If it is not available as it was on my case at first, you'd have to get the front page of the form again from the form counter. Filled that up with the new names and get a new number for the queue. So make sure you get unique names on the first go. Or else you'll end up lining up again. 

If the business name is available, they'll proceed with registration and you are required to pay the registration fees. There are two fees tier:

1. RM 40 for registration of business name using your name (i.e. Ali Bin Abu Enterprise)
2. RM 70 for registration of business name using a trade name (i.e. ABC Enterprise)

As I chose to register under a trade name, I paid the RM 70. After that they'll issue you a receipt and you can sit down while waiting for them to issue your business registration certificate. I waited for roughly 5 minutes before they called my name and issued my business registration certificate. 

AND YOU'RE DONE!

The process was quick really and not quite a hassle as I thought it would be at first. Registering online was worse and I could never get it to work. Therefore I suggest you to register directly at the counter.

As a summary for you people who wouldn't read a long winded post on how to register a business, here's a bullet list of what to do:

• Bring along your IC to the SSM office
• Once there, proceed to take the Registration of Business Form from the form counter
• Fill it up. There are examples of filled up form hung up on the wall
• Take a queue number
• Once your number is called, proceed to the counter and give your completed form
• If your business name is available, you'll have to pay the registration fees
• If not, you have to request a new front page of your form from the form counter and take a new queue number
• Wait for them to issue the business registration certificate
• DONE!

That's all from me for now, I'll post up on my supplier hunt on my next post. Leave me a comment if you have any questions!

Yours truly,

Young and Gunning

Starting Up a Business

Starting up is always unnerving
and mine was sort of scary

I've told you my introduction. Which is really just telling you what I am trying to do. Now for the "What needs to be done" part.

Any sane minded person let alone a businessman would sit down and plan any endeavour he/she plans to undertake. No exception here. Here's what to plan and what I've planned for my business.

First thing that I came to mind when I wanted to plan was, what is my goal? Am I doing this for my holiday or am I doing this for real? I decided that I want to push this idea to be a long term plan be a major part of my life. I wanted it to be BIG. 

But then again, everything must start small, so I went to the next item on my list, what is it that I want to sell or provide service? I sat down for quite some time regarding this. I need something that I know, that I can sell and that people will buy. I wrestled long about this part. It was amazingly difficult. It is in fact mightily difficult that I have not settled down on one right now but I wanted to get going! I knew if I did something it might come to me. So I did. For now, I'll sell phone accessories. How about that? I knew the stuff, I somewhat knew the market and people liked to buy them. Plus they were kind of expensive out in the open market.

Next up, who am I? Not literally me. I mean who is the business? Is the business serious or community driven? Catered to the young or the old? I needed a business identity. Getting a name was also quite difficult. I wanted something I can brand as mine but also explained my products - phone accessories in this case. It took a while but then I decided. Well no, I don't have the customer base, lets get something going that's generic and understandable. Let's be serious. Let's use Google Keyword Tool to best figure out the most searched item on Google relating to phone accessories. Phone cases. Well, I'll name it Phone Cases Something then. What should this Something be. What will drive most people from Google to me? I'll narrow down the search to Malaysian geography. Okay people like to know where to buy phone cases here in Malaysia. That makes sense. Okay I'll name it Phone Cases Malaysia. How about that? Yeah, most suitable name for Google to index and people will understand it the moment they see it.

Now what would I sell? This was not as difficult because by this time the business name has already told me what to sell. Phone cases, mainly. What type of phone cases? Let's use Google Keyword Tool again. Most searched phone cases on the web? iPhones, Samsung Galaxy S3 and the S4. Very little searches for other phones. Then it's settled. I'll sell phone cases and accessories for the iPhone and the Samsung Galaxy S3 and S4 for now!

How would I sell these things? I was contemplating on opening a physical store but I could not wrap my head around the difficulties in doing so. Having to pay for rent, set up shop and wait there. No no no. That was not for me. I live in 2013. Everything is online and social nowadays. So I decided to sell it online but now I had to decide a market place for it. There's plentiful of option to choose from including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and also good old Website. I told my self why not sell on all of them. It can't hurt. Each channel can gain me new customers and any failed channel can be closed down. So hey. Let's open a Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and a Website for my business. I was fine with the first three, but the last one had me scratching. I knew quite a lot about technology and some idea about programming, however web design and hosting was never my back alley. This was a very interesting challenge in itself which I will write a post about extensively in the future, so be prepared for it!

The last part was also doubly important. Where to get my capital? I needed money to run my business and I needed quite a few. I went through my bank book which became a dead end. It doesn't have enough for me to get moving. I'm starting to get disappointed but then I remembered I had invested some sum of money in mutual funds. It took me a couple of hours to sort out how much money I could take out. It seems my luck (and all that investing)  was good because I had enough for the business and slightly more if things go south. I'll be withdrawing that in the near future. Let's hope this is a better investment that mutual funds.

So to recap and summarise for people who don't like to read long posts:

1. What is your goal? Long term business or short
2. What is it that you want to sell? Think it through but don't be afraid to start off with anything
3. What will the business identity be? Is it serious or is it fun and social. A business name is important too
4. What exactly will be your products? You need to narrow it down a little
5. How would you sell it? Physical store, online or even casual selling can be an option
6. How would you get your capital? You need money to make money, don't be afraid to put money in because every experience you gain is worth more than the money you might lose.

That's all from me now. I'll follow up with me registering my business and procedures for doing so.

Yours truly,

Young and Gunning

Introduction

Any story needs an introduction
and here's mine

I'm starting this blog as a online diary to catalogue my journey through entrepreneurship. It's really nothing more, although I am hoping it can at least help a few other people out there get their feet up and running if they want to start down the path that I have taken.

I'll start with who I am. I am an average Malaysian guy in his late teens. I have just finished my A-Levels and have a lot of waiting to do before I can continue on my studies. I took Economics then, which is really helpful now in my pursuit to business success. If I have decided to take up Further Mathematics instead, this pursuit of mine will never get going. It kind of gave me the scaffolding to start building upon my business. Enough of me, let's get the story going.

Recently, actually about a month ago I was out with a very good friend of mine. Being bored with our hanging out, we flipped out our phone and browsed through eBay. Just for the fun of it we went through the eBay deals. We found some items selling at superbly low price! We decided, let's order it and not think twice. We can sell it to some people and worse come to worse, we'd just sell it at cost price. No risk there. So we did. We bought two and sold both for a very healthy profit. The very surprising part about our sale is that our two customers claimed that our price is very cheap! 

We then decided from there on, let's make a difference. Let's buy things that everybody else sells but lets just sell it with very slim margins. Not to undercut the competition but to let everyone enjoy a fair price. We win and they win!

It was not that simple to get a business running mind you. We had a lot of items on our check list and it was growing instead of shrinking. More or less we had to get registered, search for suppliers and set up a store. It was simple on paper but the process was tiring and sometimes very demotivating. This is no discouragement to anyone out there feeling to tread on our paths, just be careful about what you think is simple could just be the most difficult part.

But this is an introduction, I don't want to be telling long stories and procedures to get our stuff on. Hence I'll just end here and post up some new posts more or less in chronological order. 

Have fun following our journey.

Yours truly,

Young and Gunning