Online store...worth it?

Im thinking of opening up a online store selling products in a certain niche. The only thing I want to do is have a wholesale company do all the shipping and such.

How hard is this type of business to get into? Is it worth it?

I know a buddy of mine in another country who does nothing and is making 10-15G/day and has his partners handle everything. He promotes laptops, computer chairs, etc. and promotes his business on classified ads websites.

Will be watching this thread, I am very interested in this as well.

Without a doubt it's worth it. I'm not making much right now (~$100 a month) but it has a lot of potential. I would recommend shipping the products yourself in the beginning. I don't like relying on someone to ship my products and potential ruin my business. My products are easy to ship and cheap. I don't plan to outsource the fulfillment until my sales increase...a lot.

Also, you said your friend gets traffic from classified ad sites, which ones? I'm always looking for new traffic sources.

awtprod: Congrats on the 100/month. Scale it up!

How are you getting your traffic? Is your website niche targeted? How do you obtain your products?

Anyone else?

The competition tied with niches is much more fierce than targeting a specific product so if you're looking to bring in sales through SEM then it's not easily doable and it will take you a while to break-even.
A while ago I tried dropshipping accessories for a hot product and I had hard time making sales, imagine selling the product itself.
Why not selling digital products? Much less hassle and probably more profitable, I'm thinking of trying out a such thing when I'm done with the current work I have.

jerzydawg said:

Im thinking of opening up a online store selling products in a certain niche. The only thing I want to do is have a wholesale company do all the shipping and such.

How hard is this type of business to get into? Is it worth it?

I know a buddy of mine in another country who does nothing and is making 10-15G/day and has his partners handle everything. He promotes laptops, computer chairs, etc. and promotes his business on classified ads websites.

Click to expand...

ABSOLUTELY YES!!!

I have multiple niche stores that bring in some serious revenue per month.

Scale it up and be sure to always be expanding your resources of who you deal with, so that you prevent one dealer going out of business and leaving you holding the bag with the clients.

Hang in there with it, as online storefronts work as virtual versions of traditional storefronts and take time and effort to build a customer/client base of value through customer awareness, experience and trust being built.

Yes it is as long as you do thorough research and scope out the compo on whatever niche you choose to jump into, also gotta check if it will make you anything first.. Depending on where you are located, try and stay away from electronics and such.. Of course unique products and larger items sell the best.. For example "someone will run down to their local Walmart to buy a vacuum or buy/test a laptop before they go online to order one and get it shipped" in most cases that is true. Not saying you cant make money of that niche...

I have a large niche e-comm store and a few smaller sites as well to sell some unique digital products (e-books mainly) all in completely untapped niches, and starting a few new project sometime this week... Also if your plan on putting a large site together or want it to work out for the long haul get yourself a reliable small team of workers as well.. Dealing with shopping carts/e-comm platforms can be very tedious work

Well, i do open an online store. It's about a clothes. I build the online store for my uncle. he own the factory but didn't have online store yet. so i build it. because i build it by myself, i must handle it full by my self for marketing and shipping. i just take a picture of a product, upload it, and spread it using social media.

About the price, i increase the price to 100% of what my uncle give to me.

The shipping fee is covered by buyer, not me as a seller. i can do it but it's costly as my country is archipelago country. but you can do cooperation with the shipping business like fedex or anything that they must pick your product to your office and deliver it to the customer on time. if you have big customer, they will give a discount rate for shipping.

If you plan to build it, you should. the traditional habit of people for buying something will change from coming to the store to just sit down in front of pc and buy the product in the site.

jerzydawg said:

Im thinking of opening up a online store selling products in a certain niche. The only thing I want to do is have a wholesale company do all the shipping and such.

How hard is this type of business to get into? Is it worth it?

I know a buddy of mine in another country who does nothing and is making 10-15G/day and has his partners handle everything. He promotes laptops, computer chairs, etc. and promotes his business on classified ads websites.

Click to expand...

I would map out my approach to this challenge.

Figure out how big is my niche? Is my e-commerce website have a blog that allows me to rank faster.

Technical side: Cost of product "niche product" or what your trying to sell.
Technical side: Figuring out a good supplier that are legit. I would avoid alibaba.com due to horror stories of scammers getting away with being a gold supplier. Network and find these sources in person, if you have time.
Payment form: Always escrow.com not paypal for when you are purchasing these units.

Website technical side: logo creation, google analytic, submit to crawl, etc

Your only problem I can think of: Is there other websites that have a blog on you can write for that is associate to what you are promoting.

jerzydawg Id like to send you a PM, but your inbox is full.

A few people I know tried and failed. Although the potential can be strong, it seems harder to break in than some other ways of making money. On the plus side, IF you succeed, you'll be set for life. Good luck!

jerzydawg said:

Im thinking of opening up a online store selling products in a certain niche. The only thing I want to do is have a wholesale company do all the shipping and such.

How hard is this type of business to get into? Is it worth it?

I know a buddy of mine in another country who does nothing and is making 10-15G/day and has his partners handle everything. He promotes laptops, computer chairs, etc. and promotes his business on classified ads websites.

Click to expand...

Depends if you know what your doing and how much time you commit