After losing my job over a year ago and after spending months getting turned down by employer after employer, I decided to make a big leap into something I knew nothing about - making money on the Internet. Now I had used the Internet actively and knew how the popular sites worked, but by no means was I an expert in Facebook or Twitter or all these other crazy sites.
What I did know, however, was that real people do buy real things online. I knew that sites like eBay and Amazon make a killing by selling goods to regular people through their e-commerce sites. E-commerce! That was it! I knew I wanted to get involved in e-commerce - but how to do it?
Well, after a year going at it, I’ve tried many different approaches to creating various e-commerce stores - some have failed and a couple have done OK. Here’s what I tried and learned:
Starting on online pet store: Really? Yes, really. Many people are actually making anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand bucks a month running their own niche online pet stores. What many don’t realize is that the pet supply industry is worth over $40 billion in the US alone - it’s a huge industry since 7 in 10 households have a pet, and we all know there is no shortage of pet supplies we need to buy our little doggies and kitties each month. I think that running on online pet store is a golden opportunity right now given it’s not yet saturated - people are starting to catch on to this trend, but its still relatively early in this market. There are various starter packages which enable the non-tech-savvy among us to build a basic web pet store and get started building traffic and sales while we learn to add additional features like personalized stores and pet communities. I Love Pets is the leading package out there - I think that’s because the package is geared towards web novices. It’s easy to get started and the sites that you can create are very user-friendly. Here’s an example of an online pet store built using this I Love Pets.
Starting a kids store: This idea is related to the previous one. If you think pets are a big market, wait till you see how much we spend on our kids! Parents spend over $200 billion annually for good related to their kids - and while there are many stores out there for buying kids stuff, there are many opportunities to create a niche - like specific age groups, interest-related, or by product type - that this area of e-commerce is a big opportunity. I’d recommend starting with a similar package that gives you an all-in-one starter website (I’d recommend iKidsPlace as the best option for web novices), and then build on it from there. The key part is coming up with your niche strategy. Think about a specific target type of parent who needs a certain type of product or store experience for their kids - be it ethnic, by school subject matter, by sports, even things like band instruments. There are many different types of kids stores you can create.
eBay: OK - I know selling on eBay is nothing new - but it is a great place these days to get started in e-commerce. Why? Well its one of the biggest e-commerce sites and its built for people like ourselves to join to become "merchants" as they call them - people who sell stuff on the eBay store. I’ve heard of these "Power Sellers" who literally makes millions in eBay sales - so I was curious how they did it. Well, the one thing I can say is that it takes A LOT of work to make money on eBay. That’ not to say it’s impossible, but the landscape is very competitive, so you have to work at it and learn the ins and outs of what works. I would recommend using a combination of trial and error, trying things yourself, while also reading up on some of the literature and cheat sheets out there which tell you some of the basics. Here’s the eBay starter package I’d recommend, it’s five books (which is a lot of reading) but covers all the bases and offers lots of real life examples and tips from people who’ve been doing this for years. Overall, my assessment is that eBay is a place where the potential payoff is highest, for those who really do their homework and invest the time and energy to learn the tricks to becoming a top seller.
The world of e-commerce is a great place where you can get your feet wet making money online. With some good work ethic and a good idea - I believe anyone can succeed - it just takes initiative! Best of luck in your online ventures - may we all build great websites and earn profits!
