In apologize if this isn't posted in the correct spot.. I've been looking into buying a webstore for a while, like this one caught my eye. From what I understand, you pay the monthly fee and they give you a URL for a shop with products you choose. And you can purchase a marketing plan for an added fee. But what I don't understand is if there are thousands of other people doing the same thing, how does anybody get their site noticed? Is it basically just trying to get your link all over the internet above anybody else's? Or can you market it locally? I'm sorry I just don't understand the entire concept of sites like that and would love to hear from someone with experience.
This is an interesting site. I'd really, really, really think hard before joining. Here's why: I'm a little skeptical because they're making you pay $19.95 a month. Affiliate programs are free to join. Then I thought it was a Multi Level Marketing Program (MLM) because MLMs require you to pay a fee, but unless I missed it, I didn't see anything on the site talking about making money off referrals you invite into the program. So I'm thinking it's probably a dropshipping site. This site is s little different because the shippers will handle the customer service themselves which is unusual. In most dropshipping businesses, YOU are the merchant. YOU handle the customer service even though they do the shipping. You buy into the retail program of this site, so your $19.95 pays their cost of shipping. But you still need to make a profit. In drop shipping, you are allowed to mark up the price of each item. You're paying $20 a month to cover the shipping cost, so you've got to make up that money somehow somewhere else. If the site doesn't allow you to mark up the price, then I'm beginning to wonder what kind of marketing methods they've got here. The site is probably legit, but I don't like the set up. It sounds like one of those co-op deals where new members pitch in money to have the company's professional marketers market for you. The cost is shared amongst the members. I've done one of those before for some travel membership club, and they are not worth the money, in my opinion. The company knows that you don't have marketing experience so they get you to buy into the program, then they ask, "You want us to market for you?" You think, "Yeah. That's a good idea." And you end up paying the extra money for them to market for you. So basically what you've done is pay a company YOUR money to market their products when they should be doing that with their OWN money. And any extra traffic you bring them on your own via email, Facebook or whatever, hey, they get that for free from you. Now, imagine the hundreds if not thousands of people they get to buy off on this. Instead of the company paying their marketers, you're paying their marketers...as long as you get a pitter pat of 40% in return in sales. That's nice, but you're paying for the convenience of them doing this for you, and you're making them rich with the commissions you bring in (rather the commissions they bring in if the do the marketing) in addition to the membership fee you pay to them month after month. So you're off-setting their costs, not your own. If you're cool with this, don't have the time to do any marketing, then, hey, have fun; knock yourself out. It's like hiring your own "back office" marketer to do the work for you. But if you're not... You're better off taking that $19.95 and investing in an internet marketing membership program that teaches YOU how to make money online by yourself. Now, if it was an affiliate program...then that's different. All affiliate programs are FREE to join. You should never have to pay a fee. Even though you cough up your own expense or time to do the promoting. In return, you get commissions for YOUR efforts. I wouldn't give away my money to a company that's using my money to to promote their own product. Even if you don't buy their marketing program, you're still paying a fee to THEM to make money with your own efforts. I don't think so. I'd choose another business model. But that's entirely up to you.
I would have to agree with Gina. That really is a high price. And getting your webshop noticed among thousands other is very very difficult. You need to know a lot about Search Engine Optimization, Keywords and other methods to drive traffic in order to make sales. I would recommend that you do try to make money online through another method.
I agree, don't waste your money buying a web store. Especially one that charges you many and is identical to many others. Making money online is not hard. Find a market (weight loss, make money, dog training, cooking,etc) Find a product. This can be one you make or an affiliate. Build a website. Drive traffic to it. (This can be hard to do) Convince your visitors to buy from you. (this is easier if you have your own product that is UNIQUE) Take your checks to the bank. It really is that simple. But it is not going to make you rich overnight. It will take a lot of hard work. Good luck JBP
You have some great advice here and I agree. I did pay to use the SBI system to build my site but I can market whatever I want on it. PLUS I learned all about keywords with their system so that I don't have to pay for advertising, either. With affiliate marketing, the way it SHOULD work, is that you get paid a slice of the pie for your marketing efforts... not you paying them to market their product, EVER! I am glad you asked as so many others are able to learn through your question as well. Thanks! That's what the forum is for.
jbpatlanta: I agree, don't waste your money buying a web store. Especially one that charges you many and is identical to many others. Making money online is not hard. Find a market (weight loss, make money, dog training, cooking,etc) Find a product. This can be one you make or an affiliate. Build a website. Drive traffic to it. (This can be hard to do) Convince your visitors to buy from you. (this is easier if you have your own product that is UNIQUE) Take your checks to the bank. It really is that simple. But it is not going to make you rich overnight. It will take a lot of hard work. Good luck JBP That's pretty much all to it. Some people make it so darn hard and complicated. In apologize if this isn't posted in the correct spot.. For the company that charges you $19.95 per month, it seems that these guys are setting you up with a store of your own. You should not mind if you have to pay a ONE time fee but a monthly fee, I am not too sure.
Another problem here is that you can't tweak the site or the products or even the price. You are basically marketing them as stated before. You're a salesman working for commission and making the CEO up top rich! Can you make money with this? Probably. But I would keep walking and find an online marketing mentoring program so that you can market anything - whether its MLM or a webstore. If you wanna go the webstore route, I would go the harder way and build your own site, with dropshippers and that way you control the price and the products. If a product isn't selling - you kill it and replace it with something else! You can also look for an MLM program that offers coaching by your upline...I'm sure those are out there too. But key for you would be to really learn online marketing... Goodluck!
mountainmom5 Quick question related to SBI and dropshipping. Several members mention here using a website and dropshiping products. Would SBI be a good platform to market dropship products? I'm not familiar with developing my own website and was looking for a way to market dropship products? And, does SBI give you flexiability to change products if you find that one doesn't sell well? Thanks for any advice that can be provided.
Hi Jim, Mountainmom5 probably hasn't seen your post, but I also use SBI, so perhaps I can answer your question. There are different forms of dropshipping and different methods of dropshipping. It's hard to give a cut and dried answer without knowing more specifics of what you had in mind, but generally speaking, yes you can dropship from an SBI site. SBI is designed to help you build a site about a particular niche or topic. You don't necessarily build a site around a particular product (although you can if you want). You build a good site by providing content/information about a subject and then you can monetize the site in any way you want with related products and services. For instance, my first site is about the subject of chocolate candy. I did keyword research to determine what information people were looking for. I then built pages providing that information according the exact pattern taught in the SBI program. Once I started getting traffic, I began to recommend particular related products. Example: For custom candy bar wrappers I let my visitors know where they can buy personalized custom candy bar wrappers ready-made and where they can buy the software to make the wrappers themselves if they like. In that case, those are affiliate products, so I earn a commission on referal sales. There are dozens of different companies I recommend throughout the site depending on the specific page content. I can drop or change the product recommendations any time I like if I find one doesn't sell well or I find something better to offer. But you wouldn't be changing your actual theme/niche topic. If you wanted to target another subject/niche, you would build another site around that topic. I have 5 different SBI sites, each focusing on a different main topic. I only dropship from one of those sites (my health related site). In my case I dropship through a nutritional health supplement company. But I also recommend affiliate products on that same site. So there is a lot of flexibility. One thing I should mention is that if you want to set up an actual "store" on an SBI site, your best option is to host the store separately on something like Bluehost and then attach it to your site via a subdomain (they have directions for doing that). Not sure if that answers your question adequately or not, but feel free to ask for more specific clarification if needed. The bottom line is, if you want to build a successful online business, I can't recommend anything higher than SBI. It's been a great help and blessing to me. Kindest regards, Angie
happywife Thanks Angie for the details. That answers my question related to dropship products from a SBI site. I've been doing a little research into what I may would promote on a SBI site. I realize that comes later the SBI development process, but I was just trying to grasp how it may work for me. I like the idea of a theme/niche and being flexible to have many offers. A dropship product would/could be just one option. I think the SBI process looks like a good way to develop an understanding of how to develop a website and being able to monetize it. You having five SBI sites must be a testament for the process working (as long as you work the process). That's very encouraging. Thanks, Jim
You're quite welcome. It definitely works if you put in the effort. I wish you all the best. Let me know if I can be of further help as you go along. Blessings, Angie
monthly fee of $19 is lot esp if new online where u are starting. there could be alot of information load up, to many distraction and before you know it you got to pay for fee.
