How can you possibly compete with Amazon?

[MSB]

First time poster, and reader of the fastlane. I see that a lot of you create ecommerce stores in niche markets and I am planning on trying this out. My question is that in this day and age amazon sells pretty much everything. Am I getting on this train too late (is small time ecommerce a thing of the past) or is this still a thriving market. I know there is no hard answer on this and there will always be sales to be made somewhere but wanted to get some discussion on the future of small time ecommerce websites. Some background on me, I am a graphic designer, mobile/web developer. I had a lot of ideas for making websites similar in style to FMyLife.com textsfromlastnight.com and things like that, but realize that if you are selling a product there will probably be more money to be made than just getting pageviews and ads/sponsors (and the sites in that humor market are extremely flooded). If there are any other good starting avenues with relatively minimal startup costs to consider besides ecommerce I would love to hear about them as well.

 

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[PatrickP]

You mean reselling other people's products?

I would suggest you make your own products, sell them via resellers as well as Amazon.

Use the power of Amazon as opposed to fighting the.

Bonus is once your product is on Amazon there is a good chance your product will show up on the first page of Google without you having to do SEO etc BUT you need a great product that actually sells.

 

[PatrickP]

Or if you mean reselling another companies products you can still list it on Amazon and sell it.

right?

 

[MSB]

I mean how are all these people who are setting up ecommerce stores and doing dropshipping competing with Amazons prices/customer service/reputation/trust since amazon sells just about everything. Is the niche ecommerce dropshipping business model on its way out?

 

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[PatrickP]

That is like asking how are the mom and pop pizza places competing with Dominos or Poppa Johns.

There are a thousand answers.

Do YOU want to compete with Amazon?

I would focus your thought, actions and questions on what YOU think would fill a need and create a business for yourself.