Question about Mail List strategy

Hey, I've been reading around here and I had an idea and a few basic questions. Please stick with me, I'm new, but open minded and willing to learn. So a friend and I are in the process of creating a website to sell a variety of products to a very limited niche. Before we get the website up and running we were considering having a basic page pretty much saying:
"Our site is in the development stage! We can keep you posted on our progress and our products!"
This is where the potential customer would include their email, gender, and location. (to have more detail in our list)

HERE'S THE CATCH:
I was thinking that we should include check boxes where the user can choose
-Agree to our terms of service & allow (insert my website name here) to keep you up to date on products and progress.
-Allow our sponsors and partners to send you offers on more great deals! *****This is where I'd make money from some of the monetizing methods I've read about on here(like promoting products and keeping a percent of the revenue, or using some PPC)*****

I need this to be 100% legal and productive. Does this seem like a logical idea? Keep in mind that I don't want to turn these customers away because I want them to stick around until my site is up and running.

Any advice and info is appreciated!
Thanks in advance!

I was just thinking, rather than adding that extra check box for my "partners and sponsors" maybe my e-mails can go something like: Hey! The site is almost up and running! In the meantime check out _____. Would this work better?
HELP ME! lol

IMHO if you're considering selling to a niche, you need to "baby" it or "nurture" the list. Some questions you should consider before even considering the rest,

1. How are you going to gain traffic?
2. Do you have products that you'll sell?
3. Are you drop shipping? Or are these services?

If you're planning on selling physical products, I would suggest starting off on Amazon. As I'm sure you've heard and seen here, people buy from Amazon because they trust the site. Are you sure your new site can compete with Amazon? Why not start selling on Amazon and testing all the price points/seeing your competitors, then once you've gotten a grasp on your niche and made some money, you can create your site even having an aStore along with it.

Just my 2 cents, let me know if you have questions.

el_capitan said:

IMHO if you're considering selling to a niche, you need to "baby" it or "nurture" the list. Some questions you should consider before even considering the rest,

1. How are you going to gain traffic?
2. Do you have products that you'll sell?
3. Are you drop shipping? Or are these services?

If you're planning on selling physical products, I would suggest starting off on Amazon. As I'm sure you've heard and seen here, people buy from Amazon because they trust the site. Are you sure your new site can compete with Amazon? Why not start selling on Amazon and testing all the price points/seeing your competitors, then once you've gotten a grasp on your niche and made some money, you can create your site even having an aStore along with it.

Just my 2 cents, let me know if you have questions.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply.
1. That's a good question. We're still in the idea phase of everything (we have a website but have been sitting on it) I've just been looking around and figured that while we're sitting on this site and getting everything ready we can be compiling a list. The niche we're targeting can be most easily accessed offline (leaving cards and fliers at neighborhood stores) The traffic wasn't my main concern, but you've made me realize that it should be, so thank you.

2&3. Those are more of my partner's concerns. I pretty much just pitched this idea of compiling a mailing list to a friend of mine who mentioned this site to me. It will be physical product, some of which we will have to produce on our own. I will definitely look into how to incorporate Amazon into the idea (since we already have a cleverly named domain and stuff lol)

You've been a great help, but my main question is if I should attempt to compile this list with an opt-in e-mail just to see how many people are interested in the website while it's being developed. That was the main purpose of the list, to gather information on potential customers BEFORE we put ourselves out there. My secondary concern was the potential money to be made from this list, and how harmful it could be to me. (I don't wanna get a reputation for spamming before I even start selling!)

Any more advice?

MohdNishat said:

tHX....

Click to expand...

what?

Use that page to get user's email but don't send them anything..you don't want to drive them away. Wait till your website is up and then send them email inviting them to use your website..then send emails from your website email address for products or cpa offers

IMHO, if I want to buy something, I want to buy it now. I don't want to be notified of availability at some unknown, future date. Unless you're offfering something that can't be found elsewhere, I really can't see many people waiting till you get a site built.