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What would you do with this Site - New to Ecommerce

by Seelife
13 replies
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Hi Guys & Girls, I've never done an ecommerce site and need some hints and ideas on building a a small retirement income stream. I had this domain going rusty and put this site up to test ideas (Wpress with eStore theme.). www.2boots.com Now - I want to "automate" this as I dont have the time to devote to handling individual sales. Can someone be kind enough to feed ideas on how I can build this up. My first thoughts is EBay Partners, or maybe "partner" somehow with drop shippers... does that work for something like this?
Thanks Heaps
#dropship #ecommerce #selling #site
  • Profile picture of the author Shay S
    If you don't want to handle individual sales at all you could make an affiliate or amazon store, and all your product links will go directly to the affiliate... I recommend reading on how to cloak links on WP, that way you could easily track where you send traffic to.

    Regarding the website's structure, I recommend working on that too, you could hire someone at upwork that could help you finish it and make it look like a finished website, that will definitely help in the sales.
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    • Profile picture of the author Seelife
      Hi Shay, thanks for the hints, what do you mean by an affiliate store. Do you mean simply joining existing dropsellers and sellers affiliate programs. I started looking into that. Re the structure, its a bit dependant on the store theme and products (that what you mean?) - but I can work on posts.
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  • Profile picture of the author sweetcrabhoney18
    Ditto the other posting.

    If you want to automate a store the only way to do that is create an affiliate one. Search amazon affiliate store builder and you should have a good amount of resources. You can also make some for ebay I think.

    Why put money into a project you aren't ready to dedicate your full time to? From product placement to shipping to costumer service -- if you can't do those things step back and become an affiliate instead. Easier and can be just as profitable.

    Good luck!
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    keep moving forward

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    • Profile picture of the author Seelife
      Thanks SCH.
      My plan was to use the affiliate route. The Affiliate Store Builder and Amazon estore affliates lock into just the Amazon stream. Does anyone have any experience between Amazon and Ebay as being better for clothing type sales? My reading talks of Ebay affiliates being killed off, is that right? Im looking for the cheaper, "suck it and see" option and have found :
      Wordpress Affiliate store (my choice so far)
      or Fresh Affiliate store
      Any other suggestions - Appreciate the time folk are putting into this....
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      • Profile picture of the author Seelife
        Hi Folks, the start of a journey.
        OK for info, Wordpress Affiliate Store appears as if its off the radar, a review says it is not supported, Im not sure if that is so. But hard to pay for a theme or something that appears to not support new versions of WP.
        Latest test - Trying Content Egg and will look at Fresh Affiliate once I have a better handle.
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  • Profile picture of the author Splatterfox
    The idea behind dropshipping is that the whole business runs almost completely automated - you basically just have to submit each order to your supplier, this can be done with automated emails even. Yes, it will be more work than affiliate links, but the profit margins are usually higher and, come on, submitting a purchase is already a minimum effort thing. You can even outsource it to a VA (if you don't want to do it yourself).

    Be ready to put a nice chunk of money into advertising though. Hungry visitors don't fall from the sky
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    • Profile picture of the author Seelife
      Hi Splattetfox, hmm thanks for that. I have not got my head around drop shipping shoes and boots etc. I get it that this is better profit. If I can make headway with this then it probably makes sense to add it on to the site. Need to understand the process of marketing and running drop shipping tho.
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  • Profile picture of the author Seelife
    The latest in the Experiment.
    New Theme and New Amazon Plugins. I think it looks/feels better. I will now start adding in personalised blogs to mix it up. Any impressions on the site now?
    My feeling is that BigG will look more kindly on content mixed with AF stuff.
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  • Profile picture of the author Splatterfox
    Well it looks a little messy, and external ads (Adsense) in a shop is an absolute nogo.

    And yes, content is always a good idea, for SEO and for customer engagement.

    The biggest task will be putting it all together into a coherent brand or style, then advertising properly to your (relevant) target audience, as well as an overall consistent marketing plan. Many people underestimate the importance of a strategy when it comes to eCom.
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    • Profile picture of the author Seelife
      Hi Spatterfox, thanks. That makes sense re adsense. It leading people offsite, yes?
      Messy, probably, I am still trting out themes, the affiliate themes I looked both cost and looked boring. The shop theme I started with worked but was inflexible. I stay with this untill I get sorted but will tidy and demess. Strategy - you got me there : hints?
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  • Profile picture of the author ShopTrendZy
    site doesn't look very professional, look for a better theme on themeforest.net as there are lots of great ones on there
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  • Profile picture of the author BlozFu
    Hi,

    The type of affiliate store you would need to create would need to look more like an ecommerce store. Currently your Wordpress theme layout has a blog format. It just looks weird if you are selling physical products.

    To achieve what you want to do - You would need to use Affiliate data feeds from vendors like ebay, Amazon etc. Check-out sites like pricegrabber.com - This is basically one huge affiliate site. You need something like this but smaller of course, as you sell shoes. But picture a classic ecom layout where each item is served by a feed, when people click on the item they get directed to the parent site - ebay, Amazon, Sears, etc. Or they can select "more info" and go to a product description page which then leads to a Vendor site

    Hope this helps
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    • Profile picture of the author Seelife
      Thanks for the input - yep its a News/Blog theme fed by an AZ affiliate. That has been my dilemma personalise or go "bog standard" ecomm. I tried EStore but it was (in my view) wasted screen-space and limiting, others are badly maintained/updated and look like out of the 90's or... overpriced, I need some results before paying for someones lifestyle
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