Ask me anything about eCommerce (2012)

[AllenCrawley]

Really?

There is a book here... read this thread again, taking notes. That should be enough, no?

Or send me $500 and I will summarize this for you and send you step-by-step instructions. Deal?

Exactly. I had zero experience in ecommerce and this thread helped us to start our first online store.

 

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[Nicolas43]

HI Biophase,

What are your thoughts on content based websites? Is the market too saturated or can you
still carve out a comfortable niche.

Thanks!

Hey everyone, I've been getting alot of PMs lately about my ecommerce stores so I thought I'd just start a thread where you can post questions abouy anything ecommerce (suppliers, platforms, credit card processors, SEO, dropshipping, etc...) and I will try to answer them here.

 

[biophase]

Thank you for the abundance of info. I am considering opening an online store. I have a niche, I think. My question is, for a computer illiterate person like me, should I just charge ahead and open one or do it on ebay?

Also, what do you use for record keeping and tax? Is it ok to use my ssn as tax id?

I would do both. Ebay will give you instant traffic. A store will probably take you a little while to get set up if you are slow on computers.

The more important question is what are you selling and can you make money on it? If you can, it doesn't matter how you start.

I use Quickbooks and excel spreadsheets. You can use your SSN if your suppliers will let you.

 

[biophase]

No, honestly, I don't know where to start. I want to just do it! I want to get into the fast lane!
Can you recommend a book? What do you think of Steve Chou's ebook? It costs $500.

Hi Susan,

Ok, this is going to sound harsh and please don't take it personally because maybe people ask me if I can recommend a book on ecommerce to them. But if after you read this thread you feel that you need an additional book then maybe business is not for you. Requesting a book is basically asking... I need all the information put into one place and ordered so I can follow it step by step. All this info scattered everywhere isn't helping me because I only absorb bits of info and can't put it together myself.

To me, this means a couple things:

1) You are too lazy to organize the information yourself. Print it out and put it in your own chapters and order. This is how bloggers who post all their content for free still sell a shitload of books. People are lazy or unorganized.

2) You cannot organize your thoughts after getting all this information. If this is the case, business will be difficult for you because it is chaotic at times. Things happen everywhere and you will need to sift through everything and resolve it.

3) You are still afraid to start and need another source to validate the information that you already know. But ask yourself, if this is the case, will one more book actually do it for you? What if the book is different than this thread, now what?

You can find all the steps that Steve Chou did on his blog. But he know's that if he put's it in order and slaps a table of contents on it, he can charge $500. You are paying for only that. If that is fine with you and you feel you need it, then go ahead and pay $500.

You don't need to know everything before jumping in. If you jump in and spend $500 and mess up, you'll be at the same place as if you spent $500 on the ebook... But you will be alot smarter.

 

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[biophase]

HI Biophase,

What are your thoughts on content based websites? Is the market too saturated or can you
still carve out a comfortable niche.

Thanks!

I wouldn't do it. Is your business model to make money on ads? Is your content special?

 

[OsmanS]

Read this whole thread, thanks a lot for the info. Also read all the posts on livelearninvest,lots of good info there too

 

[stranger]

No, honestly, I don't know where to start. I want to just do it! I want to get into the fast lane!
Can you recommend a book? What do you think of Steve Chou's ebook? It costs $500.

Pay me $500 and I'll set up an online store and do SEO for you.
Honestly, I think people who buy same books are just waste their money out.
I'm from a country where paypal doesn't work even. However, I make for my living with online sales. Most of my customers are from the USA. I can just imagine how much i could earn if i were live in the USA.
Sorry for my pretty bad English.

 

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[andviv]

I'm from a country where paypal doesn't work even. However, I make for my living with online sales.

Really? I'm interested... care to share more?

Sorry for my pretty bad English.

Who cares if you have great, so so, or terrible English if you are making money?

 

[stranger]

Really? I'm interested... care to share more?



Who cares if you have great, so so, or terrible English if you are making money?

Thanks.
I'm localated in Ukraine. Ukraine is in outskirts of Europe and my home city is in the outskirts of Ukraine.
I'd earn much, much more if my English were excellent. Quality communication is one of the most important aspects of any business, i think. I saw many times when sellers sold their overpriced goods just because they had a glib tongue.

 

[marc100]

How would you handle my shipping dillema:
Im creating a site where I will be selling my own products, but also allow other sellers to sell their products on my site.

I dont know how to handle calculating shipping costs.
Right now my software will calculate the shipping for them. But I thought that sellers would want to set their own prices on shipping.
But also I dont know how to calculate if someone orders 2 items or more.

For example if someone buys a book and the sellers wants $4 for shipping, does that mean if someone buys 2 books then it costs $8? to ship? That sounds too high.

Or is it best to just use the UPS/FEDEX/USPS api to calculate shipping and not allow the sellers to set their own price on fixed.

A "Free shipping" option will be allowed for everything

thanks!

 

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[BeingChewsie]

Ok, this is going to sound harsh and please don't take it personally because maybe people ask me if I can recommend a book on ecommerce to them. But if after you read this thread you feel that you need an additional book then maybe business is not for you.

It is not harsh it is true. Those were very similar words said to my spouse and myself in a phone call back in early 2009 from a very successful multimillionaire from this forum. In a nut shell he said: If you can't synthesize the information provided to you here, if you can't be bothered to train your "identify needs/opportunities" muscle, if you can't stand to take any risk and if you are focused on "not losing any money" or only on "making money", if you want step by step directions handed to you....forget it. You are either too lazy or just don't really want it bad enough to go learn and nobody here can fix that problem. I think I cried for 2 days...and then I set out to fix the problem. It was necessary tough love.

This thread alone is 25 pages long, add in the passive income thread, and the overseas package thread and how you source product thread and seriously, there is your book. Step-by-step directions are contained in those threads, it couldn't be any more laid out if you guys opened the store for them, ordered the products, and even shipped them. Sometimes people need to hear that there is no easy "1-2-3"...that only works with jello.

Sue

 

[AllenCrawley]

Ok, this is going to sound harsh and please don't take it personally because maybe people ask me if I can recommend a book on ecommerce to them. But if after you read this thread you feel that you need an additional book then maybe business is not for you. Requesting a book is basically asking... I need all the information put into one place and ordered so I can follow it step by step. All this info scattered everywhere isn't helping me because I only absorb bits of info and can't put it together myself.

It is not harsh it is true. Those were very similar words said to my spouse and myself in a phone call back in early 2009 from a very successful multimillionaire from this forum. In a nut shell he said: If you can't synthesize the information provided to you here, if you can't be bothered to train your "identify needs/opportunities" muscle, if you can't stand to take any risk and if you are focused on "not losing any money" or only on "making money", if you want step by step directions handed to you....forget it. You are either too lazy or just don't really want it bad enough to go learn and nobody here can fix that problem. I think I cried for 2 days...and then I set out to fix the problem. It was necessary tough love.

Great posts! Hitting the nail on the head! Speed++ to both of you.

 

[andviv]

Quality communication is one of the most important aspects of any business, i think. I saw many times when sellers sold their overpriced goods just because they had a glib tongue.

thanks a lot for sharing...

What line of products do you sell currently?

What are you doing to improve your English and communication skills?

 

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[stranger]

thanks a lot for sharing...

What line of products do you sell currently?

What are you doing to improve your English and communication skills?

Well, I sell different collectible items and cheap antique items. I buy old collections and separate specimens, and then I re-sell it at my online store, ebay, facebok and etc. Sometimes; I work as a mediator and get my commissions on deals. Really, I have many other ideas (not just selling collectables online), but I'm very limited in my actions.

I find that reading some books on copywriting is a good idea to improve your writing English. Furthermore, they teach you how to drive customers to your product with the right manner (of course, if you don't clon everything like step by step). I also like to get sale letters/e-mails from big companies, not because I'm going to purchase something from them, no. Simply, some of their letters contain sweet buying phrases, which could be adopting by me for my business.

P.S. Go ahead if you have an idea, and never put aside it for better times. I see how some of my good ideas work to other people. These ideas weren't stolen from me, oh, no. I had just put them aside for better times, which never came.

 

[stranger]

How would you handle my shipping dillema:
Im creating a site where I will be selling my own products, but also allow other sellers to sell their products on my site.

I dont know how to handle calculating shipping costs.
Right now my software will calculate the shipping for them. But I thought that sellers would want to set their own prices on shipping.
But also I dont know how to calculate if someone orders 2 items or more.

For example if someone buys a book and the sellers wants $4 for shipping, does that mean if someone buys 2 books then it costs $8? to ship? That sounds too high.

Or is it best to just use the UPS/FEDEX/USPS api to calculate shipping and not allow the sellers to set their own price on fixed.

A "Free shipping" option will be allowed for everything

thanks!

Try Open Cart.

 

[wade1mil]

Bio-

Have you noticed a difference between homepages with a grid of products (like Suit Clothing) vs an image (like Camo Advantage)? Any correlation with conversion rates?

 

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[Henny Bogan]

I would like to have a website built that allows users to query a database that is approximately 8 gigs. After querying and viewing the data, they will have the option of purchasing "slices" or the entire set of data. The user will have the option of purchasing a one time report or an ongoing monthly subscription. The data will be delivered electronically via FTP.

I do not have the technical skills to build this myself, thus I'm looking for an outsourced solution. My research has not yielded any off-the-shelf solutions that can provide the database querying capability AND the ecommerce data download. For example, Payloadz would allow me to sell the data downloads, but it does not have the ability to build a webform that would enable users to query my database of data.

Does anyone have any suggestions of who or how I can go about getting this site built? Thanks!

 

[susanyang]

Dear Biophase: you are not harsh at all, I do appreciate your honesty.

 

[Vigilante]

I want someone to just tell me what to do and I will do it.

Here's what you should do. Get a job. You need someone to tell you what to do.

There's no answer to the questions you have posed. If you can't do it yourself, you will never be successful.

Not everyone is meant for this. Get a job, work your way up through a company, and make money the old fashioned way.

Seriously. Not everyone is an entrepreneur.

 

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[Pixpax]

Dear Biophase: you are not harsh at all, I do appreciate your honesty. You are right, I am lazy and at times, I think I am incompetent. My ex-neighbor is 10 years ahead of me in terms of having passive income. They had e-commerce business before e-commerce was popular, and now they are top eBay seller making millions. They brand their own stuff and have a showroom. They were reluctant to answer my question when I asked about their business, and I don't blame them. Well, you know why they are my ex-neighbor... because now they can afford to buy a mansion up in the hill, driving BMWs and who knows what else they have since they are now the top 1% and we are not

You are right that I am having trouble organize my thoughts. My mind is wandering here and there. Should I sell on eBay, my own store, dropship?
What to do? I want someone to just tell me what to do and I will do it. I am selling some baby items on eBay and not making much at all. I imported them from China.

I signed up for resellers program for several large companies, and I found out I can buy the same thing from Alibaba for 10% of what they are selling to me as a reseller. The one from Alibaba will be without their branding, and I feel like I am buying a fake and thus feel uncomfortable doing that.

Thanks to everyone on this forum for being so open and truthful about their successes, I am so grateful. I will go back and re-read all the pages.

Also, sorry for the bad English and poor grammar. I am a US citizen but was born and raised in a third world country.

I can somewhat sympathise, however I've always been a doer - and looked for opportunities when other people look for safety or an instruction manual.

There is no instruction manual to make a success of business, if there was, capitalism wouldnt work - everyone on your street would read it and they can't all drive BMWs and live in a mansion. The whole system works because they arent able to do that.


I'll give you an awesome tip, that may not be of much use to you as you may not be able to implement it or have the ability to understand it. But I make a lot of money by looking at (small) successful online businesses that are making money in the USA and then replicate them in my own country.

People are ultimately the same, Europeans and Americans are extremely similar really, so if a business works in the US. Copy it in your own market. You are in the US so do the reverse.

Billions have been made by doing this. For example Studiviz.de was setup in Germany before Facebook became global, they saw it working in the states - realised they could do it in Germany and have no competition. They sold it for 100 million Euros.

Zipcar in the states was copied by Streetcar in London when there was no local similar business, they saw it working over there, why not do it here? They sold for £40 million.

Vue Cinemas was setup when the founder looked at the cinema per square mile figure of the USA, compared it to the UK and saw that there was a really low density of cinemas in the UK. Its now a 100 million pound+ company.

Ive done this on a smaller scale and it works, its the closest you will get to a "blueprint" for success.

 

[Amail]

What to do? I want someone to just tell me what to do and I will do it.

This mentality is your first problem. :eusa_naughty:
You will never build on what you know if you do only what someone tells you. You are at the mercy of their judgement.

Never the less, I'm going to tell you what to do in a minute.

You bought baby items from China and are trying to sell on eBay. That's a lot farther than most people ever get, so be encouraged. Now, build on your experience. What lessons have you learned? What's holding you back now? You're "not making much". Is that because you aren't selling much? Figure out how to increase sales. Are you not making enough profit on each sale? Figure out how to cut your costs on your next purchase. Did you enter a really competitive arena? Look for something you can compete in. If selling these baby items is not panning out you always have the option to dump them and do something else.

This is the part where I tell you what to do: Fall in love with figuring this stuff out.

This part, right here, is what you need to embrace. The more familiar you get with every aspect of this, the more valuable you will be to yourself. Focus on one thing and learn it inside and out. It doesn't really matter what that thing is, whether selling on eBay, opening an ecommerce store, dropshipping, affiliate marketing, real estate flipping, forex trading, or any of a thousand different options. Get fluent - become an expert. Be comfortable advising people how to do it. You've got a great foundation with buying abroad and selling on eBay, so I'd continue on that path. When you've mastered that, add to your skillset. Learn all about selling on Amazon, or an ecommerce store. After that, learn how to negotiate more favorable terms from your suppliers.

Build your business skillset and you can write your own ticket. You are teaching yourself how to build a money machine. Once you're good at it, you can build as many as you want. It will come.

 

[susanyang]

Amail: thanks for the advice. I agree with everything you wrote!

 

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[andviv]

You bought baby items from China and are trying to sell on eBay. That's a lot farther than most people ever get, so be encouraged

Agreed 100%

Now, build on your experience. What lessons have you learned? What's holding you back now?

Great questions...

This is the part where I tell you what to do: Fall in love with figuring this stuff out.

Great advice.

Wow.

Rep++ Amail

This is a great post.

I can't get a job because I have three kiddos at home. I am a full time homemaker.

Susan, how much time do you REALLY have each day to work on this?

What TV shows are you going to give up so you can dedicate that time to make this happen?

What other activities will get removed from your daily schedule so you can do this?

How much money are you willing to invest to make this happen? (obviously you can devote $1,000 otherwise you wouldn't have even thought of paying $500 for a book and then invest more to buy products).

 

[PatrickP]

Biophase: I don't think you meant to make a woman cry but you just did. I can't get a job because I have three kiddos at home. I am a full time homemaker. I want to be the driver of the fast lane too, working 9-5 won't get me there... !!!

Amail: thanks for the advice. I agree with everything you wrote!

anddddddddddddd have you placed an ad on craig's list and fivver?

What about registering at odesk, elance etc and looking for jobs you can do from home?

My daughter-in-law does customer service form home. Oh and she too has 3 children at home with her.

 

[leono]

I'm going to disagree wtih what some people are saying on here. I don't believe in "tough love," tough love is utter crap. I don't know you Susan, but I think your problem right now is you don't have the right mindset to be in business. I would take a step back and work on getting my mind in the right place, then start to build a business. Fix your mindset (and habits), and you'll find yourself excited to start working on a business instead of struggling/forcing yourself to do this.

Susan, how much time do you REALLY have each day to work on this?

What TV shows are you going to give up so you can dedicate that time to make this happen?

What other activities will get removed from your daily schedule so you can do this?

You know this strategy never worked for me. Subtracting things from my life only ended with me picking up other detrimental habits. What I found more effective was to live my life "as is": continue watching tv, surfing the web, and wasting time. BUT, slowly work on changing my habits 1 habit at a time, starting off small and simple, and building on them. I still allow myself to watch tv/surf the web, but honestly usually don't because it just feels wrong, and it's not guilt but like I just need to go do something else, something others would call "productive," but these days is just fun to me.

 

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[andviv]

You know this strategy never worked for me. Subtracting things from my life only ended with me picking up other detrimental habits.

Interesting...

What I found more effective was to live my life "as is": continue watching tv, surfing the web, and wasting time. BUT, slowly work on changing my habits 1 habit at a time, starting off small and simple, and building on them.

Great idea... gradual change...

I still allow myself to watch tv/surf the web, but honestly usually don't because it just feels wrong, and it's not guilt but like I just need to go do something else, something others would call "productive," but these days is just fun to me.

Great to know you are enjoying it.

Please do tell us, how is this method improving your financials?

Did you go from $xx to $x,xxx per month? What type of results has this given you?

 

[JasonR]

I can somewhat sympathise, however I've always been a doer - and looked for opportunities when other people look for safety or an instruction manual.

There is no instruction manual to make a success of business, if there was, capitalism wouldnt work - everyone on your street would read it and they can't all drive BMWs and live in a mansion. The whole system works because they arent able to do that

....

Solid advice. Repped!

Pixpax: one question for you...do you have a good way of sourcing / researching small business trends over in the UK (or in any foreign country)?

 

[leono]

Please do tell us, how is this method improving your financials?

Did you go from $xx to $x,xxx per month? What type of results has this given you?

No, it hasn't, but then again it's not what I have been focusing on. I've been working on my "anxieties" and "deprogramming" myself if you will. It's been kind of weird because I don't feel like I'm doing anything, and yet so much is happening. I look around at the people in my life, and it's just so astonishing to notice the difference between myself and them.

Also, so far, focusing on the money just doesn't seem to work for me either. Whenever I start focusing on the money and setting an earn XX amount this week/month goal, I end up with less money, more stressed, and miserable. Instead I've just been focusing on treating people well, and so far it's working.

 

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[Yussef]

I've found WWB to be decent but it's better to just directly contact companies. If you have a niche, then you have no need for WWB. In fact, I don't dropship anymore so I would rather find companies that don't dropship.

Do you still feel that dropshipping is effective when you starting out and building your nest-egg for future inventory?

 

[susanyang]

Susan, how much time do you REALLY have each day to work on this?

What TV shows are you going to give up so you can dedicate that time to make this happen?

What other activities will get removed from your daily schedule so you can do this?

How much money are you willing to invest to make this happen? (obviously you can devote $1,000 otherwise you wouldn't have even thought of paying $500 for a book and then invest more to buy products).

Even though I am a stay-at-home mom, I don't sit around watching TV and eating bonbons. I have been looking for business opp and found this board to be so valuable. I am also a realtor, and I do BPOs (mini appraisal) for banks and I don't enjoy doing them.

Amail, you are so great! I can't believe how much you have progressed! We joined this forum around the same time! How do I rep you?