I know, I know, it seems like every man and his dog are trying to start an Internet business. At every online turn, there is someone punting their new website. With so many people trying to crack Internet marketing game, are there any real opportunities left online?

This is a common question and one which I am asked on a regular basis but truth is that there is still an absolute world of opportunity out there. Although it might seem like 'everyone' is trying to make it with their own online business, fact is that only a very small fraction of population have any idea that it is possible to earn money online and an even smaller number have any idea just how much money can be earned in this way.

By way of illustration of this point, I found myself in situation this week of having to try and explain to someone what I did for a living. Even after having had several years of practice this task is not getting any easier! I was at a local car dealership and I got chatting to owner and he asked me what I did as a job (a perfectly reasonable question given that he was hoping to sell me a car and clearly wanted a rough idea about how much money he thought I had to spend!). I had to pause for a second before answering because I am now used to fact that whatever I said in reply to this question, response would almost certainly be a blank look. The conversation went something like this:

Salesman: So what do you do for a living?

Me: ***Pause*** Erm, well, I suppose you would call me an Internet publisher or Internet marketer.

Salesman: ***Silence***

Me: I run a business on Internet - I own a portfolio of websites.

Salesman: Ah, so you are a website designer?

Me: Well, yes, I do design websites but only for my own use, I don't design for other people.

Salesman: Oh...... but how can that earn you any money?

Me: Lots of different ways - people buy information that I have available and other businesses advertise on my sites. I also make money by selling products that other people have developed and taking a commission.

Salesman: Mmm, I thought only way to make money from Internet was with porn?

Me: ***Sigh*** That's one way but it isn't what I do :-)

So you want to succeed at eCommerce? Welcome to a very large group. First off, let’s be clear that there are a lot of ways to do business on internet - and a lot of ways to both make and lose money. No way can I cover all of them in a few fairly short articles.

This article is going to assume that you have some of fundamentals, that you understand language and that you are serious. I’m not going to tell you how to set up a web site or get a decent hosting account. We’re a bit beyond those basics. The basics here have to do with factors which will influence success (or failure) and degree of success an eCommerce web site experiences.

First and foremost, you need to provide value for your customers. Absurd as it seems to have to repeat that, a lot of so-called eCommerce sites provide no or very little value for their visitors. Pretending to offer value is not same thing as providing value. Promoting miserably written, hackneyed, cloned ebooks filled with questionably useful and/or outdated content doesn’t make for a high value site. Sure you can make some money. Once. And you’ll likely have a high refund rate. Essentially you'd be taking advantage of inexperience of your customers and abusing their willingness to trust you. Not a good path to a long-term business with steady repeat customers.

Value on net is not very different from any kind of off-line retail sales -- a quality product line that will attract potential customers and a competitive price that will lead to purchases. An honest, quality product that will meet expectations you’ve created in your buyers. Hyped junk won’t do it.

Next, you’ve got to have a smooth, user-friendly, easy to follow process all way to your thank you page. The simpler, cleaner and clearer you can make process, better. Where it makes sense you can augment this user-responsive site profile by adding live-response chat.

If you do use call-in or live chat, it’s imperative that your operators be well-trained, understand your products and your system and BE customer friendly. This can be a difficult job if you outsource. The less expensive out-source alternatives can be a bad investment. You’ll need to check very carefully and be certain operators do actually speak and understand primary languages(s) of your targeted customer group. You’ll need to provide extensive background information and highly flexible, well-written scripts. You should also collect customer evaluations of these services - separately, and carefully monitor your results to be sure you are getting a decent return on investment.