E-commerce, Bird Cages and $100K..Anyone noticed this new trend lately?

1) How- When enough people make it a big deal enough to attract others to make it a big deal for more people who will then make a bigger deal.

2) Why- Figures will show. People are earning $$$!

3) It starts from a small group of people, then to hundreds, thousands, and beyond!

I agree misako. I feel it's gonna be really big.

I meant as in the e-commerce niche..compared to other forms of IM (Blogging, CPA, MLM, etc.)..E-commerce seems to have taken a back seat since the emergence of different marketing techniques..But it is slowly making a front run again..thats what i actually meant..

Well if you're talking about running an ecommerce retail site then..


1) I think it's 'easier' for the smaller guy to start yp and run a marketing business vs an ecommerce business.. shipping..inventory..customer service and everything in between.. it's not simple.

2) I think it prolly is making a come back, like another poster said.. business are looking for other avenues to run their retail business, there is a lot less overhead online then offline.

I agree this year should see an increasing popularity. I think one reaso is the economy and people shopping harder for the lowest prices. One problem, to me, with the this business model is that you are now in the commodity business and there is ALWAYS someone else out there who will beat your price.

Haha! i forgot to mention..i got an email pitching me about some product launch, related to e-commerce..The product creator claims people have made 100K selling bird cages alone..I think it was 170K in fact..i thought many would have received those kind of emails?

Just got one from Mike Filsaime now.

I come from an e-commerce background selling PDA accessories and it has always been my belief that e-commerce is among the quickest route by which a newbie can earn a full-time income. However, it is not as rosy as it seems as it is probably the toughest dicipline in IM.

With an e-commerce setup, you have to know almost everything including webdesign, SSL certs, SEO, PPC, affilate marketing, mailing lists, coupon codes and media advertising. But there are also tougher aspects to cover e.g.

1. Screenng for credit card fraud - this is actually extremely tough and virtually every merchant had been scammed badly. It is basically a baptism by fire.

2. Shipping and packaging - what is the optimum way to pack items and which service to use. For example, we were able to save up to $2000 in postage costs just by using ordinary air mail instead of registered air mail. The actual lost package rate was very low and our customers were surprisingly honest.

3. Returns - returns are a fact of life and they could adversely affect your margins.

4. Chargebacks - this is what aggravate merchants the most. Basically, it is almost impossible for a merchant to win even if there is proof that the product had been delivered to the customer's address.

5. Customer service - this is the major headache if there are large number of products are involved. In addition to e-mail and a contact box, we also provided a freephone no. through which customers in the US can contact us in Hong Kong directly.

Not only that, as the shop becomes successful, the workload increases exponetially and you are forced to employ staff. At its height my shop employed 5 full-timers including my wife, a webdesigner, customer service clerk, shipping clerk and an office attendant. Sometime, we also had two part-timers coming in.

In the end, we closed the shop because our niche was dying and also that we had a lot of personnel problems. Basically running such an operation is almost as bad as a 9 to 5 full-time job.

Now, I am able to earn as much as the shop working on my own entirely with part-time hours. Unless forced to, I will not go back to e-commerce again. But if you really want something that could give you a full-time income within a few months, then e-commerce would be a good option if you do not mind the hard work and the very steep learning curve.


Derek