Posted by Pete.
After years on the web visiting forum after forum and reading tales of woe from people who had spent thousands of dollars for shopping carts and designer websites, only to have them produce little or no sales I decided to do what I could to help out these newbies to online retailing.
I had never given much thought to going into the web hosting business. It certainly wasn't something that was in my business plan. But the opportunity came up and I acted more by emotion than by strategic planning. I was involved with a group of people selling products from a particular dropshipper. The dropshipper also offered "e-commerce websites" in the range of $ 2000. (Plus healthy update fees.)
These were moms and pops and grandmas investing their savings and seeing them go down the drain. The products were good, I was selling tens of thousands of dollars worth of the products. It wasn't that the goods would not sell, it was that the people were basically told they could throw money out and sit back and reel in the profits from the net. (Bet you never heard that before.)
So, I got hooked up with a hosting provider as a "reseller". This particular server company offered "lifetime hosting" and "unlimited bandwidth" at very reasonable prices. So, I signed on. I started telling my forum mates that they could buy a good sized server space for $ 120 and own it forever. I even set up terms for those who wanted to pay as they go. Then I offered to build them shopping cart sites for from $ 25 to $ 100, depending on how much work I did and how much they did.
I had a couple of dozen sign up in short order. I was building sites for a month or more. Rolling right along. BUT, they weren't selling anything. Over a year later they are still not selling anything. Some will not average a sale a month. I still feel sorry for them. Many of the ones on the payment plan have just quit paying. Others pay each month, but hardly make any sales. They are still thinking about "put up a website and they will come."
They were trying both wholesale and retail type sites, some have a site for each. Don't get me wrong, a few have done well. And some are at least picking up some pocket change.
The same is true on this forum. Many members here have had me set them up with hosting. Some start selling within a few days. Others make the monthly payment of less than $ 6 and leave after a month, or two or three. Easily 25% give up within three or four months. I don't feel near as badly in these cases, because the initial investment is so low. But, even then I regret that they expect to "own a website" and have money coming in.
It just doesn't work that way. It's not the site, it's not the type of cart, it's not PayPal or anything else along those lines. It usually comes down to expecting the place to run itself. An online store requires time and devotion, just as any brick and mortar small business does. There are new items to add, promotions to run, prices to change. And where most fail - advertising to be done.
I didn't start this article to discuss search engine optimization, pay-per-click advertising or other ways to promote an online store. There are a number of ways to do it, but the bottom line is they must be done. Not just throwing money at it, either. Testing, shifting, trial and error all play a part. Of course, much of this can take some money. A lot more than paying $ 5.99 per month. And it can take a lot of time. Charting results, moving things around, re-wording text, spotlighting different products.
Of course, product and pricing do play a part. In the case of the first group I mentioned I had myself as a control. I knew I could sell the identical products from my websites and have a good income. So, I knew it was not the products themselves. And since the people with the sites are selling everywhere from full suggested retail to one-half off, it's not prices. They just are not getting Qualified Prospects to their online stores.
With forum members here, I can't say how their prices compare, they are selling a variety of products, so there is no real comparison. But I do know some are happy with the results coming from their shopping cart sites, while others are just languishing with just a couple of items added, with no promotional activity, just waiting for the world to find them. These last will soon cancel their hosting and move on to something else that doesn't work, either. (I wonder why?)
Why am I writing this? Why tell you that a quarter or more of the folks from this forum who have had me set up a cart for them have given up?
I'll tell you why! So many more of you don't do the same thing!
I love helping people get started in business. When I had my auto parts business for 20 years I had six of my employees leave to open their own businesses in competition to me. In the same towns. Trying to steal my customers. (I'd give them the ones who did not pay their bills or bounced checks.) Most of them I even helped out. So, simply helping people get started in their own business is high on my list of reasons.
But taking money for nothing is not something I'm comfortable doing. I'm sorry when someone pays me for several months hosting and their site looks the same as the day it was installed. It bothers me that they spend a few days adding inventory and feel that they have done all they can do and wait for the money to come rolling in.
Stop and think about owning a real shop. You've got to put up a sign, you've got to display your goods, you've got to have an attractive front window, you've got to sweep the floors, clean the glass. You must also shift your goods around, run specials on what's not moving, rearrange to suit the seasons and more. And hopefully, carry some money to the bank.
Well, it's the same with an online store. It's not "set it and forget it."
If you're not willing to make a commitment to really work at your online shop as you would a brick and mortar shop, don't bother trying. Whether you get a cart from me, some of the others here on the forum, Yahoo, whoever, if you are not planning on spending some steady, serious time working on that cart, you are just wasting your money from the start.
There definitely is some wealth to be made on the Internet, but it isn't coming to those sitting at the kitchen table in their underwear reading the daily paper. Or those with a "real job" who think adding some inventory to a cart one time and forgetting about it is going to let them quit that day job anytime soon.