Over the last few weeks I've been playing with various e-commerce concepts for Eddie Yeary's new online presense INFINITY COLORWORKS. His concept is to sell his range of hand-crafted tattoo inks direct to tattoo artists world-wide: offering a big savings to other tattooists by cutting out the middle man.

Eddie Yeary has been mixing and refining tattoo pigments for decades and has been selling the Phat Cat Color range through third party tattoo vendors. Obviously they add a $markup and while he was laying down my latest piece of skin-art earlier this year, we discussed taking him to the next level.

Co-inciding with the release of this newly branded Alchemy (UV/Blacklight) Ink range, and soon-to-be-announced Infinity Color range (shhh its a secret) his new website is now online at http://www.infinitycolorworks.com

Yes - you did read that right. For those of you who are not in the skin-ink club, Alchemy Tattoo Inks glow in UV light. I've seen some of the UV tattoos he has laid down over the last few years and they are simply amazing.

Anyway, I digress, after selecting Drupal Ubercart for ecommerce of Infinity's Tattoo Ink range I thought I would quickly mention the noteable contenders: ZenCart (very simple to use but just wasnt flexible enough) Joomla (very neat CMS and Drupal only edged it because of its bigger list of available bolt-on modules) and the simple Google Checkout Stores.

Google Stores are the new kid on the block and if you're trying to build a website that feels professional, secure and still has the user-friendliness that customers need to order online - then look at Google. I very nearly selected it but stuck with uBercart for a some other secret (shhhhh) reasons.

A little blurb about Google Checkout Stores

As usual Google have come up with the goods. Setting up a Google Store really couldnt be easier and using the Google Checkout store gadget and allows you to use Google Checkout and Google Docs to setup an online shop in a matter of minutes. What I especially like about this is that it can be driven by a Google Docs spreadsheet, Eddie loves this because he can keep product inventory and control what inks he is mixing depending on demand and simply update his stock levels using a spreadsheet. No complicated software and its easily acceissbly by other people (like me) from anywhere int he country as long as the internet is turned on  ;)

To install the gadget on your site or blog, Google outlines three simple steps.

The Google Checkout store gadget allows you to quickly and easily create an online store using a Google Docs spreadsheet. No complicated coding or technical tasks are required. You can get your first online store up-and-running in under five minutes.

1. Sign up for Google Checkout

2. List products in a spreadsheet

Manage inventory in Google Docs.

3. Embed the gadget anywhere

Use with Blogger, Google Sites, and websites.

This is a fantastic new tool from the boys and girls at Google, especially if you’re one of the many small business owner who would like to setup an online shop but are daunted by the complexity of doing it yourself or the dent in your wallet if you ask someone else.

Thanks to Google, you don’t have to worry about any of the technical aspects of website hosting, setting up the webstore, it looks after inventory for you, and handles safe/secure payments, etc.

I dont think this will have eBay or Paypal quaking in their boots but it will certainly have them looking, secretly, in this direction to see whats going on.

If you have a small manageable inventory and want to get on line swiftly, simply and most importantly securely then check it out.