Start up cost for completely self running site?

Hi Chrysta, like yourself, I am pretty new to the internet business but about 18 months I joined a company that teaches you how to build your own website and I had one up and running within about an hour. I had heaps to learn and really focused on getting to grips with the whole idea of making money online before I spent too much money.

I totally understand what you are saying about wanting to start an e-commerce shop and that can definitely work (I think you can learn to do that through Shopify) or instead of having to hold or deliver stock you can just put affiliate links into the reviews and quality content that you write on your website and get paid a commission on any sales through that link.

If you want to do it as cheaply as possible there are a few great companies out there that provide training and hosting of your website. Do your research on training courses in creating a website. Read all the reviews and look up their pricing.

The problem is, paying a bunch of money for someone to create a "self-running site" is just going to be a waste of money. "If you build it they will come" only works for corn fields.

You're going to have to learn a lot about marketing, social networking, advertising and more and most of those require quite a bit of learning, a degree of "technical" that is on par with what you would have to learn to set up your own Shopify website and plain old time, effort and work.

Completely automating an eCommerce site that sells physical products is impossible, although certain aspects of it can be automated. Orders can be automatically sent to suppliers, for instance. That's seldom a wise choice because you are going to want to screen them for fraud, but sure, it can be done. What cannot be automated is customer service, handling questions, complaints, returns, etc.

LilyMunday's suggestion of setting up an affiliate website seems to be your only somewhat viable choice. That said, even after the website is created for you, you are going to have to learn to post articles, place affiliate links in those articles, find affiliate products that you want to promote and, of course, do a whole lot of writing. You'll still have to tackle marketing, advertising (perhaps), social networking, SEO and probably setting up some sort of automated email program.

So - are you making money? Are you paying monthly to 'belong to the company?" - are you at least making enough to pay for the membership?


In 18 months you should hav some results - that's why I'm curious.

There is no need for a "Site" there are "Sites" already built and that already get traffic... eBay. You can sell either of the 2 options you have listed. You list things, and when it sells you ship it.. it gets no easier. Might want to look a : https://www.warriorforum.com/warrior...days-ebay.html

Hope that helps!