What Should I Sell on my Site?Written by Chris Malta
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So let’s check out competition. We want to know how many other people are selling Fiskars products in Yahoo Shopping. So we search on “Fiskars”. Only 54 stores selling Fiskars products right now! That’s considerably better than 497 stores selling electronics we were considering. Are these store devoted to selling ONLY Fiskars products? Wow…not a single one! All top search returns are stores selling general merchandise. When we build a store, we like to specialize in one product line. There are many benefits to this; chiefly fact that customers feel more comfortable in a store that does one thing, and does it well. It’s also much easier to rank a single product line in major search engines than it is to rank a general store with lots of unrelated products. Ok, we have a product line that we feel will sell, and competition in Fiskars brand name itself is minimal and unfocused. However, when people search for garden tools, they’re going to use search words like “Trowel”, and “Pruning”. They’re not going to search on term “Fiskars” very often, unless they’re looking for scissors. So, we go back to Yahoo Shopping search engine. We search on “Gardening Tools”, and we find 113 stores carrying 324 products. Still not much competition. Even better, NONE of these stores are focused on just gardening tools. They are gift stores, general merchandise stores, etc., who just happen to have word “Gardening” somewhere in their product description. We know that we can put word “Gardening” in our very product names themselves (ex.- “Gardening Trowel, Steel, 9 Inch”), and we will show up right at TOP of a search on word “Gardening”. We search on word “Pruning”, and find 81 stores carrying 418 products. Still not a problem, since top returns are BOOKS on pruning, and rest are more unfocused sites. After a little more searching, we’re convinced that we’ve found a product line that will sell well for rest of Spring and Summer. Since it only costs us $100 a month to open another small Yahoo Store, we more than happy to do it. In Fall, sales will slack off, but we have other stores that are geared toward Fall and Winter merchandise. They are also small and focused, and no matter how many Yahoo Stores we open, we know that each one of them will easily cover it’s $100 a month cost, and turn a profit of some kind all year ‘round. Of course, now that I’ve opened my mouth and told everyone about Fiskars, we’re going to have to scrap that idea and go back to drawing board! That’s OK, though…we have nearly half a million others to choose from. (NOTE: The numbers mentioned regarding search results were at time of writing of this article, and will have changed. The point remains same!) Chris Malta WorldWide Brands, Inc. For more information, visit http://www.YouCanDropship.com.
Chris Malta is a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer. He has worked with computer Systems for 18 years. He's been involved in eCommerce systems, networking and site design for more than 6 years. He's taught college-level computer courses in Western NY. He developed The Drop Ship Source Directory, and he and his partners at Worldwide Brands, Inc., publish the Directory and run eCommerce sites of their own using Drop Shipping as their only business method.
| | Coaching CostsWritten by Chris Malta
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The Computers are useless unless they can connect to Internet, so you shell out more money for a High-Speed Business Internet Connection that can handle load when all your employees are working on Net at same time, which they almost always do. What happens if there's theft, or an accident? You are required to pay for Business Insurance to protect yourself against loss, and against someone being injured at your location. Of course, you need to pay for Alarm System installation and maintenance before you can even get Business Insurance. Then you have bills for Power, Water, and sometimes Natural Gas. You have to keep lights on and air conditioning running, or you're going nowhere fast. When that's all paid for, real costs begin! Whenever you employ people, you have large expenses associated with that employment. We provide a great Medical, Dental, Vision and Life Insurance Plan to our employees, as does anyone with a real business location. That costs us a lot, every month. Then there's Unemployment Insurance that we have to pay, and Workman's Compensation Insurance. There's Human Resources Outsourcing, Training Programs, Overtime, Bonuses, and occasional Group Lunch. And that doesn't even take Payroll into account! What it all boils down to is that placing a group of people in an Office environment costs a ton of money. Be glad that you are setting yourself up to work from home! We maintain our Staff and our Offices for sole purpose of researching and publishing The Drop Ship Source Directory, and doing that takes all of expenses and resources I've listed above, plus a lot more to operate our site and pay for research materials and advertising. When we work on our Directory, we are all working on same thing. All of attention of Owners and Employees of our company is focused on one thing, all time: Researching and Publishing our Directory and related information you see on our site. Now, imagine what it takes for a Coaching Company to put twenty or thirty people in an office setting, and then dedicate each one of those people to working with only a few of their clients for months at a time! Each one of those very costly employees can only work on just a small part of their business for them: maybe eight or ten clients that have signed up for Internet Business Coaching. That's only way they can truly provide quality service to their Coaching clients. So, when I see these companies charging $3,000 to $6,000 and more for several months of personal Coaching, I do understand why they need to do that! In order to provide quality One-on-One service to their Coaching clients, they have no choice but to charge that much. All that money does not go into their pockets. Most of it goes just to maintain business itself. That doesn't mean, however, that they are providing quality service. As I said, I'm still researching that. The three companies I have found look good so far, but I haven't gotten far enough in my research yet to recommend any of them personally. When I do, any recommendations I have will be posted in our Resource Center and sent out in our Newsletter. Once I form my opinion, I hope it will help you to form your own opinion. :o) Chris Malta WorldWide Brands, Inc. For more information, visit http://www.YouCanDropship.com
Chris Malta is a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer. He has worked with computer Systems for 18 years. He's been involved in eCommerce systems, networking and site design for more than 6 years. He developed The Drop Ship Source Directory, and he and his partners at Worldwide Brands, Inc., publish the Directory and run eCommerce sites of their own using Drop Shipping as their only business method.
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