How and When Do You SHOP for WSOs?

Hi Tiff,

I have asked someone who launched a number of WSO's about this and he told me that from his own personal experience in bumping his thread and the time when his banner ads get clicked most is around 10-11 A.M. EST.

He told me he thinks the reason for this is due to that being peak time for many looking to start their business for the day. I'm not sure if he's definitely right on this one but that's what I was told.

I tried bumping my thread a couple of times at that approximate time and you're right my thread went down page 1 very fast so it looks like others may feel the same way.

N.B. I've seen and benefited many times from your comments/posts and can't believe I haven't said Hi to you yet LOL!

Joel

Sometimes I click on the banner ads and end up in the WSO forum and - even now, despite knowing a whole lot better - sometimes I end up buying

Using the search box or even Google is a foreign concept to a lot of folks. It may sound like I am being sarcastic here, but I am not. One of the guys I personally mentored would constantly ask me questions about this or that. I would often respond with two words, "Google it." In the end, he thanked me. He said he was in the habit of asking people for answers, rather than searching for them. What he originally thought were rude responses, turned out to be helpful in changing his "relying on others" ways.

I don't browse the WSO forum. I shop from people's signatures that I like and respect in the forum, based on what I actually may need for my business at the time.

I am not really much of a "shopper" either.

Much like Suzanne, I have a very well-defined need in which I do searches for. If a WSO pops up in the search that looks like it will either (1.) make running my business easier or (2.) provide a new revenue source for my business, I will seriously consider purchasing it.

Otherwise, I am not interested.

I hope everyone (especially newbies) worrying about the best day and time reads this because it proves that you don't have to rely on a date and time. You can post a WSO at 3 AM on a Saturday night and if you:

- Create one that's relevant and needed
- Get people recommending it because it kicks ass
- Participate in the community

...it will get seen and hopefully do well for you. I'm not saying time has nothing to do with it. It's probably proven by others that a certain date/time rocks for them. But it's not ALL that your success relies on.

Most of my purchases come from recommendations - or as the others say which I forgot about, from seeing someone participate in a thread (who I respect) and checking out their sig file.

The reason I go into the WSO section is to procrastinate from the "action" part you sucessfull IM'ers talk about so much.

It is pretty easy to convince me that I am doing something productive when I am actually just avoiding work. WSO's are good entertainment and make my brain work on overdrive.

But I have learned a lot from the WSO's so it got some value. I am looking for ad-on methods to my existing websites to improve traffic and also to understand whats new in the IM field and how I should attack new traffic opportunities (these days im hooked on pinterest)

I don't shop for 'em. I've found most to be pretty bad lately. One exception, Geoff Shaw's Kindling. I'll occasionally click a banner but even that's a disappointment.

I never actively shop for WSOs and yet I end up buying too many. In this regard I'm a perfect example of email marketing at work and working.

I know I should only buy products that match my strategy, but the truth is I do sometimes end up buying something I don't really need. Kudos to the copywriters who worked on those products

Now. I'm not suggesting buying a WSO is always a bad idea. I have some product I purchased as WSOs that I refer to all the time. Those products were more than worth the dollar amount attached to them.

If I really wanted to focus I should stop buying WSOs. To do that I would have to unsub from every list promoting WSOs.

That's not going to happen. I consider those mails a good indicator of what's going on in IM at the moment (or at least on the Warrior Forum). Recently I've received a lot of mails about solo ads. Solo ads isn't something I would have considered on my own. It doesn't mean I'll switch my entire traffic strategy to solo ads either. Now that I'm aware of them I can do some research and make an educated decision about them. Right now they're not something I'll spend an awful lot of time on.

The point is I wouldn't even have considered solo ads had it not been for all those mails I received. The majority of those email promotions about solo ads were about WSOs. In this regard I find the WSO forum extremely valuable.

I just have to buy slightly less

Usually dressed as Lady Gaga and when nobody else is around of course.

i don't shop for WSO's , i used to, but not now, nothing catch me anymore

I take a quick look at headlines and see if anything that'd be useful (for review/purchase). Many of us have bought something and not used it ... important for warriors to think twice before buying any wso. $7 here and $10 there could add up to hundreds pretty quickly.

Hi Tiff,

Mike Lance with WSP Pro discussed this question from a vendor's perspective at a recent Warrior event and his basic message was it doesn't matter. Because as soon as 'someone' says the best time is X, then every WSO marketer will flood that time with launches and soon it won't be the best time. In various discussions that followed the consensus of the group was the best time to launch a WSO is NOW, or as soon as you;re ready. Always err on the side of action rather than inaction.

As for me - my habits have changed over the years. Now when I come to browse the forum I click the 'New Posts' menu item above, which gives me the latest 450 posts for me to review. So I don't miss out on any interesting posts (as long as the OP writes a compelling subject)!

These include posts not only in recent but past WSOs as well. But if I buy, as Suzanne indicated, its usually from a signature post or an email - its been a very long time since I've purchased a WSO by browsing.

As for this thread - I found it by reading your email ;-)

best,
--Jack

Like most everyone else, I never go in the WSO section to shop - I only ever buy from signature links, emails or if someone recommends something to me on Skype or something.

This explains why a lot of people who launch a WSO can then be found opening a thread wondering why their WSO has not sold much. Usually these are folks that haven't gotten any affiliates to promote for them or don't have enough exposure on the forum to make people want to buy from their sig link.

The truth is that a lot of people would be making just as much money on their WSO's if they simply put them on their own site or any other site that allows affiliates and did the work to get people to promote or to build relationships so that they could promote it themselves.

The time of day you launch might get you a few more sales but I doubt it makes a huge difference.

Well, it looks like I'm in good company.

I don't browse the WSO section, but do buy WSOs every now and then--either through a sig link or recommendation from a friend.

That's why I'm always telling people the best way to sell WSOs is to be a contributing member of the forum. The other members need to know who you are and what kind of person you are before they will feel comfortable buying from you.

All the best,
Michael

I think the responses in this thread are not typical of this community. Most are coming from senior members who realize the WSO section is a circus primarily for males aged 18 - 35 looking for fast-buck solutions that don't actually exist.

For a goof I sometimes go to the main page of the forum where all the members online are showing. I'll click on the names at random and three out of four (give or take) are viewing a WSO. I've clicked on many profiles where the only posts they have are in the WSO forum. This place has morphed from a discussion community to a marketplace in the past couple of years.

"Shopping" For WSOs is not the best idea

I buy WSOs when I find something that might improve my skills as a marketer or help my existing business. I have bought many many WSOs and finally figured out that most of it is all 'theory'. With that said there are still making great WSOs with sound business models it just takes a lot of research ( ignoring WSO titles) which are meant to get newbies to buy.

yea I don't just browse the WSO section either. The reason being is I know myself and my habits too well. I know I will spend money on things that are not necessarily needed so I don't tempt myself, lol.


The last WSO I bought was last year in October. But this is because I have been busy working on my business and just came back to this forum in the past month.

I will however, click on sig links of someone who I have been following and they have proven knowledgable in that specific area, or click on links in emails that I have received again from people who have proven to me that they are knowledgable in that area.

I would only buy something if it is related to a goal for my business. I wouldn't buy say a facebook fanpages WSO just because that's what's currently popular and what is being hyped up as the next best thing.

It has to be related to what my goals are for my business and where I want it to go, or what I am currently trying to solve.

I haven't shopped for WSO for years and don't even visit the folder. I was shopping WSO before when I needed some special SEO strategies... I think there is no more updated better guide. Once you beat Google, no need for m ore additional SEO books.

I don't really just click into that forum- when I buy a WSO, it's because someone recommended it.

...or that freakin huge banner caught my eye....

I periodically just go into the WSO forum just to browse. Not too often though. I also sometimes get emails from people telling me "this product is great" etc. So I'll hop on over and see what it's about.

I've only purchase a few WSOs and I only buy something if it's really a direction I want to go (or a direction I'm already heading in).

Hi Tiff!
As far as the "time" thing goes, what I've read is that most of those legends got started when there were a couple of hundred people an hour viewing the forum, rather than a couple of thousand. With those new stats, and the number of WSO's being posted by hopefuls in all time zones, foot traffic thru the forum list doesn't count for much- the last stats I saw had forum foot traffic responsible for less than two percent of sales.
I mostly get my choices 'curated'. Folks like you, HP Jeschke, Brad "Simple" Spencer, Shelle Kind, Sue LaPointe, and a dozen others are sorting thru the duds for me - each is respected in their niche, and most of them have criteria other than "130 percent commission and an EPC of 99 dollars"(grin)
Then if the WSO is on target for my various niches (graphics, writing tips, site tweaks, etc.) and kinda cheap (when I get more money, I'll RISK more money LOL) - there's a pretty good chance they'll hook me - and I'll tell others.
Basically I mostly buy from my friends now; anyone else needs to impress one of them first .

Just a thought here, I notice that many of the people posting are the people who are not "the types" to browse the WSO forum on a regular basis. A lot of your business models are WSO proof so to speak. For example Alexa's involved with article syndication amongst other things, Terra into voice overs and ghost writing etc.

It's worth bearing in mind that there are thousands of people on the WSO section at any one time and is one of the most popular areas of the forum for sure. I can equally say that many of the people in the WSO section browsing will never see this thread or many others in this section of the forum as a lot of people there only go to that section looking out for offers.

Thus, going back to the OP based on my limited experience and from what i've been told around 10-11 A.M. EST seems to get optimum traffic levels and it's no concidence like you say Tiff that people's threads fall down there fast at that time. I have also experimented with bumping my thread at odd times of the day but there's much less traffic going to my thread although it stays up for longer.

Joel

I always check for reviews and similar products first. Also third party sites like wsoreviews is a good resource. I then PM the authors to get a good feel of how willing they're able to help customers etc.

I don't follow a particular time when I shop for WSOs, I look for positive feedback, and I linger around for a few days up to a few weeks checking out the best deals that make the make the most sense. Plenty of stuff there doesn't really work anymore, but there's the occasional gold nugget that comes along once in a while. You just have to do your due diligence, lest you end up getting burned.

I only go the wariorforum when they send out an email wich interests me...(from a person that i trust though) A lot of wso's are bs, with some golden nuggets between...;-) YOU just have to find them!

I don't normally browse the WSO forum but I have a bad habit of clicking on emails and buying WSOs late evening GMT when earlier in the day I delete emails without opening. If I'm wanting something specific like software or PLR I do a search.

Review the daily WSO's on warriorplus to see if there's anything my list of beginners may be interested in.
I also keep watch, for products and services that may fulfill my needs, or help to better automate my business.

I actually am very intermittent in my time on the forum. I tend to buy WSOs in bunches - often for research purposes or when I want to learn something new. Then I'll disappear for a while.

I usually find the products/WSOs I'm interested in through the emails or signatures of people I follow, or occasionally from blogs (like Tiff's) or reviews I read.