What is the best way to start earning money online?

OK, so you have been thinking about how nice it would be to earn a little money online, but you wonder - “how do I start?”  Right?  Well, let’s talk about that.  Let me look at how I first got started.

It was back in 1998 or so (maybe it was ‘97) when I made my first dollars online.  How?  I did it on eBay!

While my days of selling on eBay have long since passed, I do believe that it is a great place to get started and learn the ins and outs of online selling.  Even for advanced sellers, eBay is a great choice.  A lot of people earn millions of dollars on eBay, believe me.  I started out when eBay was still young, and I made a few extra thousand dollars per month, but by the time I quit selling on eBay, I was earning well into the 6 figures per year.  When you are doing that kind of volume, it is not an easy job, though.  It takes work, it takes patience, and it takes an ethic to do the job right.  If you can’t commit to that, you won’t make it to the very top levels of eBay selling.  I finally quit because I was just doing it for too long, working too hard, etc.  On an average day, I would deal with 500 to 1000 e-mails having to do with my eBay business.  By that time, also, I had my own websites that were doing very well, and I elected to sell on my own, without eBay.

So, over the next week or so, I will be covering eBay, with some stories of things I did on eBay, etc.  I will also be happy to answer questions for anybody that wants to ask!  Just leave a comment with your question, and I’ll do my best to give you a straight answer!

Is e-commerce going into decline?

According to a recent article in the New York Times, e-Commerce is entering a period of stagnant sales, or even decline until the end of the decade.

Has online retailing entered the Dot Calm era?

Since the inception of the Web, online commerce has enjoyed hypergrowth, with annual sales increasing more than 25 percent over all, and far more rapidly in many categories. But in the last year, growth has slowed sharply in major sectors like books, tickets and office supplies.

Growth in online sales has also dropped dramatically in diverse categories like health and beauty products, computer peripherals and pet supplies. Analysts say it is a turning point and growth will continue to slow through the decade.

The reaction to the trend is apparent at Dell, which many had regarded as having mastered the science of selling computers online, but is now putting its PCs in Wal-Mart stores. Expedia has almost tripled the number of travel ticketing kiosks it puts in hotel lobbies and other places that attract tourists.

The slowdown is a result of several forces. Sales on the Internet are expected to reach $116 billion this year, or 5 percent of all retail sales, making it harder to maintain the same high growth rates. At the same time, consumers seem to be experiencing Internet fatigue and are changing their buying habits.

Frankly, I wonder if this isn’t mostly affecting the big stores online.  I operate a number of small e-Commerce sites, and I have seen no stagnation or decline in sales.  In fact, so far this has been a record year for my businesses.  So, I have to wonder - am I the exception, or is this mostly the big guys that are experiencing this.

For me, I feel that if you find a good niche market that others can’t fill easily, you are in good shape.  No matter what the trend is, if you have a niche that is difficult to find elsewhere, you will do well.  That is how my various businesses online are, there are only limited places where you can get the things that I sell.  I feel confident that my businesses will continue to flourish.

What about you?  If you already have an online business, how are sales for you?  If you don’t have an online business yet, does this scare you away from having one?

To sell online, you need a shopping cart!

When I visit any of several e-commerce forums that I check out from time to time, one of the hottest topics is always about shopping carts.  I am not talking about the physical carts that you see at your grocery store or the hardware store down the street.  I am talking about software that you will need to install on your website if you want to sell items.  Basically, the software version of a shopping cart is just the same as a physical shopping cart, hence the name.  One is just “virtual” and not physical.  But, it serves the same purpose - it allows customers to purchase a number of items all at the same time, then take them all up to the checkout to pay.  It’s that simple.

Now, there are literally hundreds of different shopping carts to choose from.  How will you know which is best for you?  Well, trial and error will play a big role.  Try a few carts out and see which you like.

I have a few tips, based on my 7 years in the e-commerce business, so let’s have a look:

• If you are selling just a few items in your store, your payment processor will probably offer a simple solution that you could take advantage of.  If you use Paypal to process payments, they have their own shopping cart, and it works OK for a small store.  I use a company called 2Checkout to process credit card payments, and they also offer a cart that works well for stores with only a few items.  For larger stores with hundreds of items to choose from, I do not recommend these simple shopping carts.
•  For stores from small to medium sized, there is a service online called “Mal’s e-Commerce” which is a shopping cart software.  This service (often called “Mal’s E”) is a good alternative.  I used it for a while in the past.  If you get too big, though, I recommend going with your own, self-hosted shopping cart.
• You can purchase shopping cart software from a multitude of suppliers.  I have seen shopping cart software ranging from $100 to $5,000, and they do all kinds of cool things.
• You can choose a free shopping cart that is competitive to the “for sale” ones mentioned in the last point.

For me, after many years in the business, I have settled on a shopping cart software called “OS-Commerce.”  OS-Commerce is a very robust solution, and I value it greatly.  I will warn you, though - the learning curve for OS-Commerce is very steep.  You can learn it, though, if you are willing to invest the time required.  One of the great things about OS-Commerce is that it is free, no cost, nothing, nada!  You can download it directly from the Internet and install it to your web server and start using it immediately.  OS-Commerce is a widely used shopping cart system, so if you need help it won’t be hard to find somebody who you can hire to help get it going.

One of the things that I love about OS-Commerce is that it is open source software.  You can go in and tinker with it, and customize it to do things that you want it to do.  It is community supported, and when one person tinkers around with it and adds a new feature, they will often offer that enhancement free to the community as a contribution so that everybody can take advantage of the new feature, if they choose.  I have been using OS-Commerce for 3 years now, and I have been very impressed with it.

When you are ready to add a shopping cart to your website and start selling things to make some money online, you should shop around.  Find out what shopping cart will best fit your needs.  And, even after your store is open for business, always remember that as you grow, your needs will change.  I upgraded to different shopping carts a number of times while my businesses grew.  Now, with OS-Commerce, I don’t think I will ever need to change again, as OSC can be customized to do anything that I may need.