Tecumseh
Footballguy
This post might be all over the place, but I'm looking at trying to create a second income stream, and I'm looking for input from those who have started their own e-commerce site, as well as anyone who has purchased a site on flippa or a similar marketplace. I've got a few ideas if I were to build my own, but I'd like to know what all is involved? I briefly created a shopify store last year, but didn't really put any effort into it, and ended up letting it go due to lack of traffic. I guess I'll break my questions and thoughts down as build vs buy:
Build:
- I'm familiar with the validation process as laid out by Noah Kagan and Tim Ferris, and would be validating before I do anything.
- I have basically zero site-building experience beyond the shopify store mentioned above
- Startup costs are a consideration-
-How do you improve google rankings? I'm vaguely familiar with backlinks, and that they can be purchased on fiverr, but does that really work?
Buy:
- Flippa seems to be all over the place as far as valuation. I know the common idea is to sell for 24x monthly profit (not revenue), but that does not seem to be consistent. Ideally, I'd like to be closer to the 12x level. My thought here is to buy a site with a credit card that has an intro 0% interest. I would use the monthly revenue from the site to pay off the credit card. After a year, the site would be just profit. Rinse and repeat. (I do understand the risk involved here. I would not take on more debt than I could handle if the site ended up making $0)
- Shopify also has a marketplace, but it seems like they do not offer very many mature, proven sites. How do you know the income is a) Legit, and b) sustainable?
- This is an interesting site to me: https://business.flippa.com/businesses/329/didn-t-know-i-wanted-that-e-commerce-internet (I'm not ready to pull the trigger. This is just one that caught my eye)
I'm not necessarily looking at one site that is going to make me a bunch of money. I would envision eventually running a few sites, each earning less than $1000/mo, but producing consistently.
This post is a brain dump as much as anything, but if anyone has any experience in this, I'd appreciate the insight. I'm going to continue editing this post as more stuff pops in my head.
Build:
- I'm familiar with the validation process as laid out by Noah Kagan and Tim Ferris, and would be validating before I do anything.
- I have basically zero site-building experience beyond the shopify store mentioned above
- Startup costs are a consideration-
- A shopify store store has minimal startup cost. The downside is how to handle inventory- do you go with a dropshipping model? That's fine, but I think most dropshippers are found in China, so you're looking at 3-4 week delivery times.
- Does anyone know of an aggregating site like Aliexpress that has US based dropshippers?
- An FBA /warehouse model is possible, as that eliminates the long delivery schedule, but then you have to pay for inventory upfront
- An affiliate site works here too, but then you need pretty significant volume to make any money, since you're getting a tiny percentage
-How do you improve google rankings? I'm vaguely familiar with backlinks, and that they can be purchased on fiverr, but does that really work?
Buy:
- Flippa seems to be all over the place as far as valuation. I know the common idea is to sell for 24x monthly profit (not revenue), but that does not seem to be consistent. Ideally, I'd like to be closer to the 12x level. My thought here is to buy a site with a credit card that has an intro 0% interest. I would use the monthly revenue from the site to pay off the credit card. After a year, the site would be just profit. Rinse and repeat. (I do understand the risk involved here. I would not take on more debt than I could handle if the site ended up making $0)
- Shopify also has a marketplace, but it seems like they do not offer very many mature, proven sites. How do you know the income is a) Legit, and b) sustainable?
- This is an interesting site to me: https://business.flippa.com/businesses/329/didn-t-know-i-wanted-that-e-commerce-internet (I'm not ready to pull the trigger. This is just one that caught my eye)
- It would be 27mths ROI, which is outside my preferred range, however that's likely negotiable
- It's more mature than alot of the other listings
- It already has a small social media following
- Monthly expenses seem high
I'm not necessarily looking at one site that is going to make me a bunch of money. I would envision eventually running a few sites, each earning less than $1000/mo, but producing consistently.
This post is a brain dump as much as anything, but if anyone has any experience in this, I'd appreciate the insight. I'm going to continue editing this post as more stuff pops in my head.
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