Running an online retail store is harder then it looks

At first when you look at it it seems easy enough. But when you get right down to it there is a lot of work involved. When you get started you have to decide between building a site, renting a site or shopping cart by the month. Both require some time and work to find out what is best for you in the short term and long term. Once you have you decided and things are set up the real work starts.

Unless you have a limited product line there is going to be a lot of work put into getting product into your shopping cart. It is not just a matter of slapping a picture on and the products name and price. No each product is really a mini add and should be treated as such. What information you have in the description and title are what is going to be used by search engines to find your product. Then the description that shows up under your link is what people are going to use to decide to look at your product. The competition starts way before people see your product. You are competing with millions for each view. Please note that was view not buy. Just because you get someone to view your product does not mean they are going to buy from you.

The idea is to market your product online with a description and key words that will attract the people interested in your product. There is no point in using key words or descriptions that will bring lots of people to your site, but only a few of them are people interested in your product. You want to focus on your target market and attract them to your website or online store hoping that once they are there they will buy something. These means you have to think about what you put into the description and title of your products. What key words will your target market be using to find the product? Are they in your description or title? Once it come up in a search will your description stand out from all the others? Will it attract your target market to your site?

So now you put some time into reaching your target market and they click onto your product, what will get them to buy? There are a million and one other web site’s selling the same or similar items, why should they buy from you? What are they going to see first your product or home page? If they are searching for a product your link should open to the product. So how you have your shopping cart set up is going to give people their first impression of your company. How it looks is going to influence people to buy or not buy. Other things that will influence people to buy or not buy are your prices for the product, product image or picture, shipping costs, shipping options, return policies, where you are located, overall appearance of site; feed back from other customers, your home page, about us page and any other information you provide. How much information you provide or don’t provide will help people decide if they want to do business with you and not the other million sites.

At all points of contact with potential customers you need to be marketing your company, store and product. This is from the fist search people use to find you, to how easy it is to use the check out to buy and pay for your product and how the product was shipped. Even how the product was packaged can influence a repeat buy or not. Once you have a customer you need to do everything you can to keep them. Word of mouth is still the best marketing tool out there. Once you have a customer keep them happy and hope they tell everyone about you. But first you have to get that customer, and that is not always easy to do no matter how great your product, prices and company are. It is not just a matter of putting your product out and having it available to buy. You have to put a lot of time and some times money into marketing your product, store and company even after you start making sales. The marketing never ends because there are new online stores showing up and you have to compete with them and any local stores that can and will sell to your customers. In other words the work never ends if you want to keep brining in customers and making sales.

So if you are thinking about opening up an online store because it is easy money, think again. You only get out of it what you put into it. If you plan to put product out and sit back and wait for the sales to come in, save your money and find something else to do. There is no easy money to be found on the Internet anymore, it is a highly competitive market that is becoming more competitive everyday.

I went for a internet marketing conference, not a sales meeting

Today I spent almost three hours of what I consider my valuable time at what was supposed to be a conference on Internet marketing for retail websites. What I was actually at was a presentation focused on telling me I could make lots of money on the internet, but I need to use this companies store front that is included in their hosting package. Come on people, I could not believe what I was put through. The worst part was that if I wanted to get the actual course for marketing it was included in the package as part of a full day of how to be successful using their store front and hosting company, but I had to pay the one time fee of $25.00 right then and there (which is $199.00 any other time, don’t you know!)

They tried to pressure me by telling me that I must not being doing everything I need to do in marketing my web store Medieval Magic, because if I were I would be rolling in money and would not be there. Um, actually I was expecting to have spent my time learning about other methods of online marketing and had hoped to find some new ways or better ways. I am always looking for a way to positively market our product and web site. Only a fool thinks that they know everything and does not understand that there are new programs and methods developed all the time. I am not a fool and did not like being treated as one.

What I did find shocking is the number of people signing up and handing their $25 for their new website. They don’t even have an idea of what they want to sell or who their market is, but they have a web site. Next week they are going to this full day course on how to be successful with their stores. These are set up to hold them by the hand and show them what to do step by step, including giving them a list of drop shippers and some one-on-one time with someone who is going to help them do it all.

The basic idea is that they are getting an out of the box web site, a list of drop shippers and instructions on how to market the web site. As this wonderful company pointed out, if these people are not making money they will not keep their website up and they will not get their $24.99 a month. They want people to succeed. They also want people to have multiple web sites as diverse income streams. All good ideas, except I feel it has more to do with the $24.99 they get each month for each site you have. The more sites you have reaching out to different markets, or using different branding strategies the more money they make off of you.

I may or may not be going as a guest with one of the people who signed up. It depends on them right now. For me it is just to make sure they don’t get pulled into the, "oh by the way to be successful you need to add these add-on’s to the original shopping cart." The company has already indicated that you need $5,000 of add-ons but they are selling them for $3,000 but they are willing to give you a deal on the day of your training. The sad part is that up until I heard about the add-ons I was actually comparing their price and service favorably to other companies I did research on when we were looking for a new shopping cart. I don’t like any company that said here is a web site and hosting fee, oh but your going to need to buy all this other stuff to succeed. I don’t think they are going to have much to add to my online marketing strategies, or at least not ones I am willing to use. It will be interesting to see what they have to say if I end up going, but I would not be upset if I don’t go.

How to avoid sabotaging your career

There is nothing like the fear of success. So how do you avoid sabotaging your career? There are a lot of ways to sabotage a career. Don’t think that just because you have the job that’s it. You still have to keep the job, work with others and survive the politics. Being able to do the job, and doing it well is not enough.

There is nothing that destroys a career faster then alienating your co-workers. Trust me, management notices when some one does not fit in, or work well with others. No one likes some one who is disruptive to the harmony of the work place. If you don’t fit in will anyone recommend you for a better position, or more responsibility? You may even find yourself with out a job. Working as part of a team toward a common goal looks much better.

Take all jobs seriously. Doing poorly at one job can have a long-term affect. If you are looking for a job would you be able to use that job as a reference? Even if you'r boss gives you what looks like a make work job still do the work to the best of your abilities. If you don’t then how will that look, will they trust you with other jobs, more important ones if you slack off on this one.

Follow through. If you commit to doing some thing, do it, even if it is just picking up coffee. Other wise you are just full of empty promises and are not to be trusted. Not following through means you are not dependable or reliable.

Be truthful. Take responsibility for when you make a mistake. If you don’t know some thing then be honest about it and ask for help. Don’t hid it, dishonesty in any way will always come back to haunt you.

Be on time, both getting to work and completing your work. It is a sign of disrespect when you do not show up on time. Not showing up for work on time means you do not care about the job. Not getting your work done on time can be seen as you are unable to do your job.

Dress appropriately. Appearance does affect how people perceive you. If you dress like a slob, or like you don’t care it does not create a feeling of confidence in you or your abilities. If you don’t show that your respect yourself, why should others respect you?

Don’t make work your place to socialize or over share you life. There are times and places to make friends, and share what ever you want with them. Work is not that place. It is not professional for one; you are there to work. Being friends with your co-workers is fine, but do your socializing and chatting outside of work. Never say bad things about co-workers and keep your personal life private. You never know when you tell some one some thing if it can be used against you. It is office/work place politics, never give people ammunition.

Treat others with respect even if you don’t like them. You never know how you deal with some one is going affect how people see you. If you blow up at some one then you are a hothead, unstable and untrustworthy. If you keep your head, be polite, use your inside voice for what you are really thinking, it looks like you are diplomatic, a team player, and dependable.

Don’t take a job just because it is offered; make sure it fits your needs. There is nothing like a bad fit. If there are no growth options then how are you going to move your career up the next step? You are going to have to look out side of that company or be stuck in the same position. So you have to spend your time doing the job searching, find the right job, and establish yourself all over again.

Most of this is common sense. When you are stressed, or unhappy at work or with work it is easy to forget how this job can affect your long-term career. How what you do and say today can haunt you or help you. You never know when some one in your past can be part of your future, or how they can affect your career.

The pitfalls of telecommuting jobs

I work from my home, or I should say I have a home business. How much work that actually gets done depends on the day. There are a lot of pitfalls with telecommuting jobs and I fall into every one. The great plus about working at home is the flexibility. Unfortunately that is also the biggest pitfall out there. It is too flexible, you ether do nothing but work all the time or never get any work done. You’re never away from your work; it is always in your home waiting to be done. It is easy to get caught up in what you are doing and loose track of every thing else. Or you get every thing else done because you can always do your work later and nothing gets done. You want to sleep in, go ahead, you can just work latter. You can fit appointments in any time, but then you find your day is full of nothing but appointments.

Working from home can be very rewarding or the most frustrating experience ever, or both at the same time. To be able to work at home you have to be a self-motivator, police your self, be very organized and get the work done. There is no one to help you when you have problems; you have to rely on yourself. Sick days, what are those? People also expect you to be working all the time. So its 6 pm your at home so it is ok for me to call you about a job or to give you more work. What do you mean you have a life out side of work, other commitments? You work from home you should be available all the time.

People do not treat you with the same respect as they do people they see as having real jobs. You know, ones you have to leave the house for. It does not matter how successful you are or busy, you stay at home so you don’t have a real job. Friends or family call or drop in any time, they know you are going to be home. Do they respect the fact that you are working? No, you can make time for them. It is not like you have a real job where you have to go to work. If your kid is sick, you end up taking care of them at home. Why, well you were going to be home any way. How hard can it be to get your work done at the same time as taking care of your child? So what if you have a deadline or have to run around to get some things done. You work at home, so work around having to take care of your child.

For me I am lucky in that both my husband and I work on the business together. How well the business does is up to us. We help motivate each other, and help each other from falling into the pitfalls. It took some time because when we first started it was too easy to find the day gone and no work done, or we just worked 12 hrs non-stop. But we learned that we had to have an area that was just for work. It keeps our work life apart from our home life. Our commute may only be to the basement but it is still a commute. If I don’t make jewellery we don’t have any to sell. If we don’t put the items on our e-store we cannot sell it. If we don’t ship ASAP our customers are not happy and we lose sales. We control what we do and how we do it. We don’t have to answer to any one but our customers. We love what we do so the work gets done. That all said and done, I have to get back to work.

Making money on the Internet by writing a blog, truth or fiction?

People kept telling me that I could make money online, that there is contract work available for people who write blogs. I was quite sceptical about it; I could get paid to blog, right. I had to many of the get rich working from your home spam emails. I had one person telling me, on a forum, about how he was making so much money by writing web site reviews. I thought sure, and when are you going to ask me to sign up and give you all my information. Well strangely enough he never did. What he did was answer my questions honestly.

He had been writing a computer technical blog for years and one about software, coding and programming. The blogs built up a huge readership over the years. He had been approached about doing reviews for different companies, everything from the technical side to reviewing games, and programs. They would pay him to write about their product with a link back to their website. He started small and now gets paid any where from about $100 to $500 per article he is contracted to write. So of course everyone was asking were to sign up to do this. He explained that at this point he is usually contacted by the company directly to review their products or sites but that there are quit a few different companies out there that act as a middleman. They have bloggers register with them, and then will either offer them a job to write an article at a specific price or will let them bid on jobs and let the companies pick who they want to write the blog.

I was expecting him to tell us to all sign up to one company, as some companies will pay for everyone who registers under you. He actually told us to look on the Internet and find ones for ourselves. I liked that. He gave us the information we needed and then told us to do the work. I spent some time looking at some of the different sites that I could get paid to blog. I signed up for several to see how they worked. So far Smorty has offered me assignments that actually fits with my blogs. I have found Smorty easy to navigate and I don’t feel any pressure to take an assignment. I don’t think that I am going to make large amounts of money doing advertising blogs or website reviews. I do think that I can make a little money writing about things that interest me and I would probably have written an article anyway. Mind you I am only willing to write about things of interest to me no matter if someone wants to pay me or not.

I think that if you are already writing a blog then doing blog advertisements that fit with your blog then it is not a bad thing, as long as your writing the truth and just give your opinion on the site. If you are writing about some thing that is of interest to your readers, with a link to a site that has more information or might be useful then that is actually a good article, even if you were paid for it. However if you are thinking about starting a blog just to write blogs for money it is not going to work. People are not interested in reading ads about anything and everything, no matter how well written. Like every other business decision you have to do your research and don’t do something because someone told you that there was a lot of money to be made. The reality is that if you are writing blogs to make money you have to put time into it and the payout is not going to be the big bucks for a very long time, if ever.

Benefits and risks or running an online business

So you see all these work at home, start your own online business ads. You think, "Hey there must be some thing to this. I would like to stay at home and make lots of money just like all these ads say I can." Before you leap you need to find out what are the benefits and risks of running an online business.

There are a lot of benefits for running an online business.

You are your own boss. This way you control what you do, how you do it, and when. So if you are a stay at home parent, you can work around your kids. If this is a second source of income, then you can work around your regular job. I like being able to spend time with my kids and work when they are asleep.

There are a lot of different types of online businesses you can get into. It is easy to diversify by having several different online businesses at the same time. It is quite possible to have multiple streams of income with the same business.

The potential income is often only limited by the time and money you choose to invest. Once you have your online business set up most of your time and money is going to be spent on getting people to find your site, also known as online marketing. This will be done through a high rank on search engines, links, ads, word of mouth and any other way you can think of. How well you did your work setting up your site will determine if they buy from you, or sign up or click what every ad system your using. When your site is successful you may be busy shipping, restocking and putting new product on the site. However, no matter what you will always need to invest in bringing new, and old customers back to your site. You never stop your online marketing.

There are online businesses that are almost self-sustaining with only a little work or money from you. You set up the site, maintain it, and keep it online, and away you go. A lot of this type of business is in partnership with drop-shippers, some who will even set up the site and maintain it for you. There are always already established online businesses up for sale. You just have to get people to go to it. The real work of anyone with an online business is getting people to come to their site.

There are a lot of risks to running an online business.

Getting scammed is a big risk for those who do not do their research or go for the get rich quick schemes. There are a lot of online businesses out there that only make the seller rich.

Not cost effective. You invest your money and time and make a little money but nothing like you expect. The competition online is great. It is not like you are the only supplier of product "widget" in a small town. Your competition can already be well-established selling "Widgets", "Wedgets" and any other type of "ets". It’s an uphill battle getting people to find you and then buy from you instead of company ABC or XYZ. You could have the greatest product, best price and service but if people don’t know you are out there, they are not going to be looking for you. How much do you have to spend in time and money to become established and get the sales you need to break even? Is it cost effective in the long run, or throwing good money after bad. You can be doing every thing right and still not succeed.

It always cost more then expected, in money and time. You may find yourself spending all your time on click exchanges trying to build up hits in the hopes of making some money.

Your email and web site becomes a prime target for spammers. You end up with 100’s of spam emails a day if not more. Most of them seem to want to sell you an online business or get you to pay them to do online marketing for you.

Having to spend lots of money to keep your computer system upto speed with the needs of the anti virus programs. The anti virus programs out there are not going to be compatible with older systems soon. Can you afford to upgrade your computer system to the newest technology so your system can support the newest anti virus programs? Can you leave your computer system vulnerable with out the most up to date anti virus programs?

I have an online business; it is an extension of our already existing business. Online businesses are completely different then off line businesses. I like what I do, but it has been hard and I had to learn a lot, and am still learning. We have a retail site and we don’t use drop-shippers so we have been able to avoid a lot of the pitfalls of running a retail site. But the amount of established competition can be very daunting at times. And new sites show up every day. I some times have to question our expectations for our web site and the time lines we have set for it to be cost effective. I think it is going to take more time and money then we first thought simply because marketing online is very different then marketing offline. An online business can be great and successful, but only if you go into with your eyes open. As with any and all business ventures do your research.