I currently have my own start-up e-commerce company. Here are some answers to your questions on what I did to start.
1. As for platform I got someone to design my niche-product website on Wordpress, which is of course free, and I'm selling my product on amazon so the buy button on my website is linked to the amazon listing. But you can also get a shopping cart plugin if you want to sell from you website.
However once my business takes off and I can afford a better platform I think i may go to Shopify.com I have heard from others its better than Big commerce.
2. Don't have a lot of experience with droppshipping, but i'm looking into it.
3. I actually did use Google to search for manufacturers/wholesalers all you simply do is search: *product name* wholesaler, *product name* manufacturer, and *product name* white label. This should get you to the suppliers which are horrible at advertising so you have to search for them. You should browse the first 3 pages on Google and contact at least 3-5 suppliers to find the best price or get them in a bidding war for you business (game works everywhere).
Also you can use sites like Alibaba.com or Aliexpress to find suppliers of different manufactured goods. Just know that most, not all, of their manufacturers are in china so their english will not be the best, sometimes it will sometimes it won't. And you should also explicitly express you want "high quality items" and nothing less because it is there custom to save you money so if they have an item that is of lower quality and lower price they will give you that instead of the higher quality one. In america we see this as being screwed by a sleazy manufacture but they see it as saving you money (you have accept our business cultures are different, but as long as you make clear to them exactly what you want you should be fine-treat them like children you have to be crystal clear and consistent in you orders)
4. For SEO I buy gigs on Fiverr for "backlinking" and "keyword research" simply because i don't have the time or the knowledge on how to do that. Of course, you can also use Elance pending on your budget. The quality though is about the same (from my experience thus far). You should have a blog on your website because the google algorithm will rank sites higher that have regular activity (SEO trick so you don't have to constanly spen money on beating the Google algo bot, which i hear can be time consuming and expensive since most businesses use an SEO company).
These are things that I am currently doing you can give em a try. I hope I helped you.
P.S if you product is something that goes on or in the body (e.g. skin creams or supplements) then it must be sourced from the U.S.
1. As for platform I got someone to design my niche-product website on Wordpress, which is of course free, and I'm selling my product on amazon so the buy button on my website is linked to the amazon listing. But you can also get a shopping cart plugin if you want to sell from you website.
However once my business takes off and I can afford a better platform I think i may go to Shopify.com I have heard from others its better than Big commerce.
2. Don't have a lot of experience with droppshipping, but i'm looking into it.
3. I actually did use Google to search for manufacturers/wholesalers all you simply do is search: *product name* wholesaler, *product name* manufacturer, and *product name* white label. This should get you to the suppliers which are horrible at advertising so you have to search for them. You should browse the first 3 pages on Google and contact at least 3-5 suppliers to find the best price or get them in a bidding war for you business (game works everywhere).
Also you can use sites like Alibaba.com or Aliexpress to find suppliers of different manufactured goods. Just know that most, not all, of their manufacturers are in china so their english will not be the best, sometimes it will sometimes it won't. And you should also explicitly express you want "high quality items" and nothing less because it is there custom to save you money so if they have an item that is of lower quality and lower price they will give you that instead of the higher quality one. In america we see this as being screwed by a sleazy manufacture but they see it as saving you money (you have accept our business cultures are different, but as long as you make clear to them exactly what you want you should be fine-treat them like children you have to be crystal clear and consistent in you orders)
4. For SEO I buy gigs on Fiverr for "backlinking" and "keyword research" simply because i don't have the time or the knowledge on how to do that. Of course, you can also use Elance pending on your budget. The quality though is about the same (from my experience thus far). You should have a blog on your website because the google algorithm will rank sites higher that have regular activity (SEO trick so you don't have to constanly spen money on beating the Google algo bot, which i hear can be time consuming and expensive since most businesses use an SEO company).
These are things that I am currently doing you can give em a try. I hope I helped you.
P.S if you product is something that goes on or in the body (e.g. skin creams or supplements) then it must be sourced from the U.S.