Previously I had over ten domain names and associated web sites that were costing me around $5 - $10 a month to host. The average months hosting costs were around $50 - $60. Therefore, by setting up a reseller account and transferring my domains and web sites over to my reseller account I made an instant saving of $15 a month.

Now, another extension of this would be to start selling hosting to your friends, after all, you have a reseller account. So if you have ten friends, ask them if they would like web hosting on your server, maybe offer it free to them and ask them to recommend your services to their friends, these can then become "paying" customers. Now YOU can get people to pay for hosting and make back monthly reseller fee. Just sell ten accounts for $3 a month and you have instant income of $30 to offset $35 reseller fee you are paying. So you get hosting for $5 a month for as many domains and sites as you like.

So, with reseller account you have helped yourself, helped your friends, and possibly started making money as well.

Merchant Account This is a necessity of any ecommerce business, because you need to be able to take payment in your store. There are several different ways you can go here. You can either go with a 3rd party processor, or a true merchant account which is built into your shopping cart. The most well-known 3rd party processors are Paypal and 2CheckOut. If you are going with Paypal, I would strongly recommend you have another payment processor as well. There are many users who won't buy from someone who only accepts Paypal, but then again there are users who would only go with someone who accepted Paypal. Personally, I'd recommend using Paypal and a merchant account. A merchant account makes your store a lot more professional, and gives you more flexibility. There is a unique company that you can get a merchant account from called ProPay. You get a "virtual credit card terminal" and there are no monthly fees, just a low annual fee.

Web Host If you have a website, you need a web host! For most shopping carts, you will need PHP and MySQL, so make sure that you look for hosts that support technology that you need. If you go with a Yahoo Store, your hosting is taken care of by Yahoo. If you choose osCommerce, Miva Merchant Pro, or another shopping cart program, you will need to find a web host. If you plan on collecting credit cart numbers directly on your website, you will need a SSL certificate. To have a SSL certificate, you need a dedicated IP address. Most hosts will offer you a dedicated IP address for an extra monthly price. You can get a SSL certificate for $29.99 at GoDaddy (http://godaddy.com).