Forum Moderators: buckworks
This got me thinking about why I couldn't resist coming back for more...
For me, I think that it's a combination of factors:
1) I love being able to work from home.
2) I enjoy a good challenge. SEO, PPC, Competitors.
3) It's pretty darn lucrative. $$$
4) I feel respected. Pretty shallow, but comped event tickets are nice!
5) I still get a rush when every single order comes through, and this is after thousands of orders!
So what is it that you love about Ecommerce? What keeps you coming back and logging in to check your stats every morning?
1) Its always a 'work in progress'
2) Watching the orders come in. (this is not just about money. I like that people find my sites and products worthwhile)
As far as "motivated" goes... It's getting difficult. I left the corporate ranks for self-employment/ecommerce 7 years ago. It was more fun and I had more enthusiasm in the beginning -- even when I made a lot less money. When you can stay in bed and make as much $ as if you work your @ss off, it's difficult to be energetic.
If anyone has suggestions on how to overcome this, I'm all ears.
Making money while I'm out having dinner, sleeping, etc
Yep, as a B/M guy, it's a hoot to get online orders on holidays when stores are closed.
Seems everyone gets a kick out of incoming orders. For us, each new one triggers a sound file of the 1930s song "We're in the Money!" GAWD HOW I LOVE THAT TUNE!
Wonder what years of that will do to my mind. I'm being conditioned psychologically to get excited every time I hear it.
Few years down the road, one thing stands out bold.
The weekly transfer of money to my account.
I enjoy talking to customers on the phone and learning about different cultures. For example, the slow talkers in Arkansas (just want to rip the words out of their mouth they talk so slow). For example, the fast talkers in New Jersey (they are in such a hurry, can hardly understand what they are saying).
I enjoy harnessing the power of our global economy.
Waking up and having the orders downloaded to phone, so I dont have to get out of bed to see how much Ive made in my sleep.
Its very cheap to start a new business, you cant do that in B&M world.
The money coming in on a Tuesday of every week.
One of my sites is historical in theme - I receive many emails from school kids asking about this and that, I always offer to send some free product sample to them, they seem to like that and are the only ones to thank me.
Waking up and having the orders downloaded to phone, so I dont have to get out of bed to see how much Ive made in my sleep.
now thats success...
To create a system that generates revenue while you are riding (snowboarding) the Colorado back country after 2 feet of fresh, while your peers go to their office to make less then you.
the scalability of your own creativity.
What I mean is: We follow both tracks: direct sales in our local store and sending packages, the latter amounting to almost 60% meanwhile. Many people talk about the "service-desert" over here in Germany: In many,many shops you won't find a single employee, except those at the checkers. As a customer, you get really frustrated over time. This is a very fundamental underlying experience everyone makes here, and the consequence is: If, as a customer, you finally do find an employee in a more service-oriented shop (like mine) this employee becomes the final target for all that accumulated frustration.
This is very annoying. I always tried to do things really well, always tried to keep friendly, always have at least two of my employees at work, and then you have this one single customer in your shop, asking thousands of questions, mocking on everything he sees, and finally leaving the shop without buying anything. He doesn't even notice that he kept my employees from doing the packaging.
So my primary motivation from ecommerce was something like: Just give me a few more years, you arsehole, then I won't need people like you as customers any more.
Do I really have to say that we receive hardly any complaint from our ecommerce-customers?
It would be better if these customers could order online, pay just $3.95 shipping, and because of their proximity to the shipping location, receive their order the next day. It will take just a few minutes to pack and ship the order during a daily batch of shipping rather than half an hour of interrupted work.
This last Friday we had a customer call to ask if he can come by to pick up a couple products. "Sure, come on by. We'll be here 'til five". Customer comes by at around 3:00 pm. I guess Employee 1 was on the phone with a customer, Employee 2 was deep into some PHP code, rocking out with his headphones. I was at home twiddling my thumbs. No one heard the doorbell, and so the customer sat outside for half and hour. Assuming no one was there, he finally went home in a fury. He finally got a hold of me and I told him there was someone there the whole time. He decided to drive 30 minutes again and get there by 5:00 pm.
Ultimately, it would have been better and saved us all a bunch of hassle, if we would have shipped the products with UPS - even if it is only 30 minutes away.
So, I've decided to not allow local sales anymore!
Put this notice up on the site:
Unfortunately our warehouse is closed to the public. We cannot accept walk-in customers nor local pick-ups. All sales must be made online (or phone).
In the future we may have a local "brick and mortar" presence with traditional retail sales. Right now we don't have the resources to maintain our high standards for a local retail outlet. So rather than fall short, we operate strictly online.
Local customers are, however, lucky to take advantage of next-day delivery for a flat shipping cost of only $3.95!
Thank you for understanding...
Johnny Rotten once said: "Anger is an energy..." I think this is really an interesting additional motivation, additional to the money already floating in.
philbish, most of the time I really wish I was as far as you, but for the time being I do not want to miss our local revenue. On the other hand, I have read so many complaints from webmasters being thrown out of google, I really hesitate to throw all eggs in one basket.
