Dragonstore.com (was) a profitable Yahoo! Store that I used to own (JUST SOLD 9/2001!) and sold thousands and thousands of dollars of cool dragon merchandise.
I built it with the help of my retail chain's General Manager. Since it's my site, I don't worry about "giving away the store.." and can tell you things that a client wouldn't want out in the open!
I'm going to use the design process on Dragonstore.com to help you see the steps that we go through when we build your webstore.
Your PRODUCT SELECTION is the most important aspect of
starting a webstore. You must be selling a product that people want and that you can make money on. Ease of use would be a close second, and Yahoo! Store excels here.
Allen had the idea of making a specialized site focusing on two manufacturers' product lines. He picked out 50 pewter dragons and t-shirts and made an excel file which is the skeleton of the site. He then scanned graphics for all 50 items from his distributors catalog.