Internet Marketing 4 Noobs

Did I regret taking out thousands paying for the StoresOnline package I brought a year ago?

Yes and No Why no?

Even though I did not earn a single cent out of my efforts, I learnt a lot.

Six months ago I made my first call to a distributor to ask if I can help to distribute their LCD products online. Back then I thought of selling LCD monitors and TVs, as I have some knowledge in this area. I just somehow like to follow computer hardware developments.

How did it turn out? I just made a fool of myself, and wasted the poor lady's time over the phone. LOL. I tried to sound knowledgeable, but instead she and another colleague taught me over the phone what are some of the logistical concerns of running a Internet retail store.

Several weeks later I came across numerous reports that the computer hardware industry is a cut throat place to compete in, and not a place for newbies. Most of the times retailers literally made profits of only a dollar or two for each sale made, and they have to sell in quantities to stay afloat. This is something which I do not have the experience, knowledge to achieve with the capital I had.

So I ditched the idea of selling computer hardware. I then found a forum frequent by users who also brought packages from StoresOnline. As I have posted earlier, its OnlineMerchantForum.

It is the most IMPORTANT find since I started this online venture. There, established moderators and site administrators using StoresOnline and who have successful online stores running since 2000 help and give lots of advice to newbies like me.

Throughout their well organized and moderated forums, stickies are made with good information which anyone new will benefit a lot from. I personally learn most of my first SEO knowledge from there. This is a definite place to go to for those who are thinking of setting up an online store.

Another important find I made is WorldWideBrands. This site specializes in finding manufacturers and distributors who are ready to work with online merchants and compile their information into a database which we can purchase and have access to for life. Their database is constantly updated too!

I personally purchased their Dropshipper directory, and from there I found my first supplier, who agreed to supply their products to my first site, KaiWorksOnline.

What I REALLY recommend there, especially those who are thinking of setting up an online store, is their free resources.

Here is a small list of MUST reads, to watch and to listen.

1) Chris Malta's (CEO of WorldWideBrands) free eBook "Starting Your Internet Business Right". Located to the right side of the site. MUST READ!!

2) Go to their Video Learning Center and watch "Top 5 Product Sourcing Tips"

3) Listen and read the radio podcasts at their "Product Sourcing Radio" and "EBiz Radio". These are located in the top menu under Free Stuff I REALLY learnt a lot from here other than OnlineMerchantForum. How to approach a supplier, how to source for warehousing space for your goods, how to find things to sell on eBay…etc.

It was from one of the shows I got to know of my supplier. I was listening to one of their radio podcasts and from the interview Chris Malta and Robin Cowie (President) conducted with the supplier, I thought the latter is a rarity in that he actually help to coach newbies to get their stores online, provided they are selling his stuff of course.

So, I emailed him, set up an account with him and proceed to work with him to get my site up. I have to say, he's a really patient and nice guy. He gave me lots of advice and help to review my site when I first published it. Learned a lot from him.

And when I got my site up, bad things started to set in (or was it just me?). I was browsing OnlineMerchantForum and found a post in which one of the moderators stated that she had worked with my supplier selling wooden toys before, but simply can't sell anything due to the high prices.

She was right. I visited her site and others and did notice the prices are indeed lower than what my supplier offered. It was at this point while I was looking at the prices of my competitors that it hit me what I am competing against. The top few sites selling wooden toys are like mini Amazon.coms, offering a really WIDE range of choices and variety of wooden toys.

And these sites have been around for several years now.

My site looked like a small grocery store sitting next to Walmart, if anyone can find my store in the first place. After looking at my competition, (3.8 million sites in Google) I realized I did not really understand the meaning of finding a niche to compete in when I decided to sell wooden toys.

I thought wooden toys is a niche, but I guess its not really deep enough. Another point to empathize the size of the competition is when my supplier emailed me stating that he have more than 70 online retailers using StoresOnline too, out of the 300 retailers he is working with.

Ouch… Lastly, I discovered than in my zeal to get my first store online, I neglected the part on building links to my website. I did made some search engine optimization on the site itself, such as Title tags, H1 tags and such.

But I forgot to do marketing of any sort…posting articles/forums which link back to my site, submitting to directories, put up ads in Google Adwords and such. I spent countless hours figuring out how to use the StoresOnline's interface to upload close to 200 different toys and spending weeks to key in all the details. Read lots of eBooks on how DHL or logistics in general work.

Emailed back and forth with Merchant Services International (MSI) Pte Ltd to understand how my eNets credit card processor works and found out it is way to expensive.

Basically put in some sweat into getting KaiWorksOnline up ASAP, hoping to get some sales from the Christmas rush only to realize

Internet Marketing, the most important component of a successful online business…and I forget all about it. Right now my site, which I spent 4 months getting it online, sits in a dark deserted street in cyberspace…

Argh really…these setbacks threw me off, and I started to look for part-time jobs. LOL

But now I found out about affiliate marketing. Online business, but WITHOUT the hassles of handling physical products! No logistics to worry about, no supplier to coordinate with and such.

WHY DIDN'T I KNOW ABOUT THIS BEFORE!!

Well, not too late now. At the very least I did learn something about what it is needed to start an online retail store. I should have learn and apply Internet Marketing techniques first, before spending thousands trying to get an online retail store up, but I sadly did things the other way round.

On the side note, I have to say StoresOnline does indeed have a good storebuilder software. Although setting up a online store is tedious, but it could have been worse if I have to do everything in HTML, which I have little experience in using. Their storebuilder really helps to get learning HTML out of the way and allow me to concentrate more on getting my site up online, rather than how. However, the disappointing thing is that it literally took me more than a month to know what their storebuilder is about, and not even yet understand how to use it. Being a storebuilder software designed for less knowledgeable people, it was unfortunately crippled by extremely limited customization. 

I even had trouble inserting a new header img of my own, and cannot adjust the size of the font on the navigation menu! 

But still…SGD$5000 and a monthly hosting fee of SGD$50 after the first year is way too much, especially for a newbie just starting out and not having the skills to turn a profit to cover the running costs.

Now I really understand the meaning of "Failure is the Mother of Success." Quite amusing, come to think of it. This quote has been drilled into my head since young, and only now I get to understand it (or have I yet?).

Now, my first stumble out of the way. My plans now?

Continue to learn Internet Marketing and to earn my first affiliate profits by end of this month. And also, continue building my Success University business so by year end I will have a steady residue income on top of my affiliate earnings.

Lastly…I have not given up on KaiWorksOnline yet.

Earn my first $5000 through affiliate programs, and I will be back working on my first baby.

MONEY MONEY, HERE I COME!!

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 10th, 2007 at 11:49 pm and is filed under Internet Marketing Headaches..., Internet Marketing Recommendations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.