Do you need organic traffic to make e-commerce work?

Do you need organic traffic to make an e-commerce business highly profitable?

I've seen e-commerce sites for sale on Flippa from time-to-time claiming to make huge profits and claiming that all of their traffic comes from things like Facebook Ads.

But all of my Facebook Ad attempts with e-commerce have, at best, broken even or made a small profit that wasn't worth the time and expense. That said, I'm far from a Facebook Ads expert.

Is it possible to run a highly profitable e-commerce business with only paid traffic? Or do you need at least some organic search traffic to make it work?

Ecommerce depends on branding. if you're just new, it's hard for people to trust an ad and go buy your stuff. You gotta create some competition, viral content, endorsements, engaging posts and sales so people realize you're not just trying to make a quick buck and disappear.

Unless you have something that nobody else has, it's going to need some organic traffic/growth.

yes a business needs 30% organic 30% paid 30% word of mouth

rlettuce said:

yes a business needs 30% organic 30% paid 30% word of mouth

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Yes because that is how you will get leads!

Yes it can work with only paid traffic.Yes it can work with only organic traffic.Yes it can work with a mix of organic and paid. This sites for sale are probably sites whose owner ran some Facebook ads probably lost money and now want to change niches so are selling it off.

pitbully said:

Is it possible to run a highly profitable e-commerce business with only paid traffic? Or do you need at least some organic search traffic to make it work?

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It will be tough for a business to sustain with the sales from only paid traffic. Organic traffic will make any business more profitable as you don't need to pay for any click or conversion, and so will reduce your cost and it will also not turn off as your budget exhaust. So if you want to stick with the particular ecommerce website for a long term then don't ignore organic traffic. If you want to work for short term like making any seasonal sales etc. then you can rely on paid advertisements only.