Forum Moderators: buckworks
as someone that has only ever made entertainment sites that rely upon advertising income to stay alive, I find the prospect of ecommerce quite appealing. I have been looking at it for quite some time now, but simply do not know where to begin.
How did you guys do it? Did you just select a product, invest money in the site creation and marketing and hope for the best?
If you were going to start up again, how exactly would you go about it?
Thanks for your time,
W.
Hope that helps....
- CompWorld
Look around, see what the hot sellers are (items that have a lot of bids) in a category you're familiar with, and then see if you can find a supplier that will let you sell at the same or lesser price.
Once you've used ebay to figure out what you want to sell and how much you can sell it for, start selling there yourself. Give a few away if you have to so you can get enough feedback to do "Buy it Now" auctions (10 I think?). Once you have the ability to do that, you can start testing various products and see how well they do. From there you could set up an "ebay store" and continue with that model, or you can do your own website - although if you DO set up your own site I would strongly encourage you to continue selling on ebay since it has worked so well for you. If you don't want to run an ebay store there are services that handle auction management for you and can automatically launch auctions on a regular basis.
You may find that the ebay model works so well that you never NEED to get your own website. If ebay can consistently sell your product for you, why bother setting up your own site and paying for advertising.
The only obstacle was finding the right products. What I have learnt is that however well your site looks, nothing is more important than the individual product and your price in generating conversions.
Although eBay is a good place to start and do research, the margins are usually razor thin. To make decent profit, you have really got to have your own website. Having said that, eBay is definitely the route I would recommend for beginners.
Since you have already got entertainment sites and I presume that you know quite a bit about getting traffic. I would recommend that you build you e-Commerce function into your existing sites. I presume that tney are established sites with a reasonable PR. That way, you should be able to get decent free traffic right quickly.
Otherwise, I would recommend spending a few hundred dollars on PPC and see how your product converts. You should set a well defined limit to cut your losses.
W.
I came across one firm selling phone covers for 75p as an end of line retail price £15.
Its cheap so you can all ways flog 'em on fleabay
1) Find a free source for bread, water and peanutbutter.
2) Go to hipnotist to make me believe that peanutbutter is steak, lobster and anything else I crave from day to day.
3) Find a day job (or two) with flexible hours that will pay the bills while you create your site and start to get inquiries. Save whatever you can ... you'll need it!
4) Find a number of compatable and complimentary lines which aren't already flogged to death by thousands of affiliate marketers.
The best way to do this is find a successful brick and mortar "specialty shop" which isn't doing well with their web site.
5) Approach them and ask if you can sell for them on straight commission.
6) Learn how to sell on the web, build a web site, optimize it as best you can and wait for the inquiries to come in.
7) BE THERE TO ANSWER YOUR INQUIRIES PROMPTLY!
8) KNOW YOUR PRODUCTS!
That's how I did my site and its working for me ... so far! :)
resist the temptation to over-advertise. Initially, advertising almost always NEVER pay off. Oh it's necessary, but remember that running an e-commerce site is a marathon and not a sprint.
dont' give up when things look bad - it takes most small businesses I know 3 years to mature & succeed.
