How many CS-Cart owners do this full time?

My wife manages our sales and I manage the site. For me its evening work after my full-time job but for her its a full-time job.



How many of you who have live online stores are making a living just running your store? Im curious if a lot of people are just part time store owners who have 2nd jobs.

I work at a sewer plant during the day and do this stuff at night. Of course my job isn’t too bad since I am actually at work right now and checking the forums.



Brandon

[quote name=‘Tirade’]My wife manages our sales and I manage the site. For me its evening work after my full-time job but for her its a full-time job.



How many of you who have live online stores are making a living just running your store? Im curious if a lot of people are just part time store owners who have 2nd jobs.[/quote]



It depends what they are selling. The next question is, if they have enough visitors and if the visitors are rather buyer as browser. If your traffic is not targetet, then you get a huge number of visits, but less sales.

[quote name=‘Tirade’]My wife manages our sales and I manage the site. For me its evening work after my full-time job but for her its a full-time job.



How many of you who have live online stores are making a living just running your store? Im curious if a lot of people are just part time store owners who have 2nd jobs.[/quote]



P.S. Very nice page!!!

Full time 2 shops. Keeps the two of us very busy. Besides minor issues, we are very happy with CS-CART. Lots of fun actually :slight_smile:

3 shops. keeps 2 persons busy full time :wink:

For me, finding out that a lot of people do this as part-time was a surprise. I would not have time to answer all e-mails, update products details, inserting new products, contact suppliers, do the shipping, etc. working part-time.

But, after all, I do not make a living out of my shop…yet… Just started 9 months ago and I have a husband to support all expenses :rolleyes:

So, I think that making it full time takes a lot of courage if you depend on it to live…

[quote name=‘indy0077’]It depends what they are selling. The next question is, if they have enough visitors and if the visitors are rather buyer as browser. If your traffic is not targetet, then you get a huge number of visits, but less sales.[/quote]



Hello Indy,



That’s mainly depends on the size of your niche market and the number of potential customers in your language.



Selling in an English-speaking country of 250 million people, familiarized with mail order since 100 years, and with the Internet since 15 years. Vs. Selling in a Slavic-speaking country of 2 million people, familiarized with mail order since 15 years, and with the Internet since 5 years.



Culturally speaking, your business potential is 125 times bigger in the first case. Our Slavic business owner will need a second, third, fourth… businesses, markets… or a second job.



Isn’t it, Indy?





Lee Li Pop

[quote name=‘Lee Li Pop’]Hello Indy,



That’s mainly depends on the size of your niche market and the number of potential customers in your language.



Selling in an English-speaking country of 250 million people, familiarized with mail order since 100 years, and with the Internet since 15 years. Vs. Selling in a Slavic-speaking country of 2 million people, familiarized with mail order since 15 years, and with the Internet since 5 years.



Culturally speaking, your business potential is 125 times bigger in the first case. Our Slavic business owner will need a second, third, fourth… businesses, markets… or a second job.



Isn’t it, Indy?





Lee Li Pop[/quote]



Hmmmm… :wink:

[quote name=‘E.Qi.Librium’]For me, finding out that a lot of people do this as part-time was a surprise. I would not have time to answer all e-mails, update products details, inserting new products, contact suppliers, do the shipping, etc. working part-time.

But, after all, I do not make a living out of my shop…yet… Just started 9 months ago and I have a husband to support all expenses :rolleyes:

So, I think that making it full time takes a lot of courage if you depend on it to live…[/quote]



Hello E.Qi.Librium,



From my experience over 10 years, I analyze on niche websites (e-commerce or not) very few are profitable.



Big websites are too powerful, smalls are disunited.



It seems e-commerce follows the same path as the bricks and mortar commerce: Dedicated to the hegemony of the giants.



So, ladies and gentlemen, there will always, and perhaps increasingly, of small business owners with a second job whom will try to survive in the shadow of giants…





Lee Li Pop

Hi Lee,



I really had no idea of that. Always thought that opening an online business would almost every time be proffitable, if you sell a good product of course.



This way of seeing things that you describe is very discouraging because nowadays, regular merchants look at internet like the last chance to succed, considering the fact that little street shops really can’t compeet against the giants.



All of this theory lies on what you sell of course, if you represent a unique brand or have an original product, maybe there is your window of oportunity, at least I hope so.

May I ask what template you used for your site or who may have reskinned it please…

Thanks in advance…

Hello E.Qi.Librium,





What means for you “unique brand” or “original product” in a world of competition?



What if a giant wants sell your “unique brand” or “original product”?



With its buying and selling power?



What will be your revenue of your niche market?



Bigger or thinner than today?



I write it before: I don’t beleive anymore to Santa Claus.



Let’s use the non-presence of giants in our own niches. Tomorrow this might change… As quickly as Internet goes.





Lee Li Pop

I think there are too many variables to just group everything into it will work or it won’t.



I personally sell aquariums and supplies online. I don’t have a brick and mortar store front. Also all my items are dropshipped so I never have to touch anything. My little store makes a few bucks, but far, far from enough to make this my only job.



My “real” job supports my family and pays my bills. I have a healthy kids, nice home, decent cars, and am able to do things here and there. While my job gives me all this, it still doesn’t allow me to have the extra money to do things like take vacations, fix what’s causing my engine light to go on, or just the extra stuff. So I thought I would open up an online store. By opening the store it has already helped me out. I’m still not going on vacation anytime soon, but it has still helped me.



Now of course my real job does take away from what I need to do with my online store. Besides having to work from 8 - 4:30 daily, when I come home I can’t just plop in front of the computer and do just internet stuff. I also have to spend time with my wife and kids. So I don’t get to add as many products online as I should and I also don’t do the “advertising” like I should.



Of course if you combine my work schedule, family life, and ****ing off, it is amazing I get anything done online.



So, I guess my point is that everyone’s situation is different. I would be willing to bet that a lot of people on here are like me. They have a job, but just want to make more. Plus I am sure that a lot, like me, dream that one day they only will have to do the online stuff.



Like I said I’m along way from just being online, but one day.



Brandon

I think Im right there with you Brandon.



This site is run by my wife and its easily manageable (on most days). Id like to take the plunge and go full-time with it as well but there is always that fear of not having a backup income.



In my case we sell furniture, normal products have a less than 10% conversion rate and furniture is less than .01%



Its a tough market, so rather than compete with everyone we focus on modern and contemporary furniture. Even so the competition is tough.



Also regarding the schedule, Im also an 8-5, then wife/kids dinner at 6-7 then working on our sites from 7-1am… I was once told that “A dream is not what you see when you sleep, its what keeps you from sleeping”. Very true indeed.

all i have is the online store and right now its not producing enough sales to survive



cannot even afford to go down the street cause aint got the gas money to go



that is how business is right now



i wish some cs users will order some products from me and help me out some

[quote name=‘Tirade’]My wife manages our sales and I manage the site. For me its evening work after my full-time job but for her its a full-time job.



How many of you who have live online stores are making a living just running your store? Im curious if a lot of people are just part time store owners who have 2nd jobs.[/QUOTE]



Wife runs the business full time with the online store and ebay and I work a full time job and design all the work and help out when I get home. The online store has only been open for a year now. Not busy enough yet for me to do it full time.



Also who did your skin? We are looking for a new clean design like this.

This is an interesting question…



I started playing with websites somewhere around 1994 - in between GOPHER hunts, FINGERing friends at other universities and relay chat sessions, I made the plunge into web design shortly after netscape gray was no longer the required background color of all web pages and you had this cool new feature called a GIF that allowed transparent pixels. WOW!



At that time, we had a lot of fun trying to find companies on the web. It was exciting to be able to just type in different corporate names, trying to figure out who was online already and who wasn’t. Some of my classmates got their first jobs that way - noticing that a company was NOT on the web and offering their services.



Up until that point, you had really only one commercial avenue that enabled customers to easily find you, and the was the AOL Keyword. Everyone else basically had to rely on their established communications networks to take advantage of the new medium.



The internet was not a useful advertising platform at that time - it was a means of communication that was incredibly cheap and a real asset for businesses that were already out there marketing but now suddenly had the ability to share corporate information without printing and mailing costs. You still had to do the legwork - get out there, promote - showcase products, etc. But instead of adding them to your mailing list and go through the expense of catalogs, etc. - you could direct people to your website.



First came portals modeled after AOL. Lots of portals became what they are today thanks to corporate sponsorship from companies who couldn’t afford to be part of AOL’s lineup. Yahoo! comes to mind.

Then came web rings built around topics - probably the best form of cooperative business there ever was - because it was topic based, human tailored, quality controlled and cheap - the first true social network.

Then came online website resource directories - also cheap.

Then came webcrawler and altavista - the intelligent self-building searchable web directories.

As the internet became more self-regulating, it became less personal and less relevant. It was both simpler yet harder to find what you were looking for. Simpler because everything came to one place, harder because of information overload.



From the perspective of business and marketing, the innovation of social networking is not new at all… it is an attempt to return to the pre-search engine world of persistently monitored and human graded content. Quality content through having a set of human eyes make conscious decisions about what is worth seeing and what isn’t.



Just a bit of perspective for folks who are struggling and are trying to figure out how to make their web stores grow - the internet reduces the cost of sharing material with prospective customers. That’s it really - you still need to do the introductions and the legwork. One of the primary rules of business is to go where the work is - even if you have a rockstar idea, no one will engage your site until you do the physical legwork. Otherwise your site is the aloof guest at a party where no one knows him and he’s got no friends. Before your site can sell products, you have to sell your site.



So where is the ‘party’? Physically and on the web? Do the legwork or drop a few bills at an agency that knows the city really well and let them help you out. The local chamber of commerce at the very least should be your first stop. You can order demographic studies of the city you live in - median incomes, ethnicity, population density, etc. Find the highest traffic spots and find every free advertising opportunity available in or near those spots.



Web sales from cold visitors are some of the toughest sales to make in the first place - never mind the economy we are in which makes even high pressure, slick helpful, up-selling and cross-selling pros worry about their jobs.



The sales are out there, but website or not, you will always have to go get 'em.

(Dizzimother: I customized my own skin)



As for succeding in e-commerce business, as for anything else, you count a lot on hard work,inteligence and hoppefully, a little luck.



I know a guy in my home town that sells waches in e-bay and his sales got so big that he had to quit is day job! His secret is the price of course and a lot of good luck I expect!



I see a lot of droppshipping being used to build online businesses, in my modest opinion, this will never be a fully successfull business, it as it’s earnings, but I doubt that it will make someone rich…



But I am an idealist, and so being, I think that with a good or original idea for a shop, pacience, hard work and time on your hands, you will go far, and maybe, just maybe, some day you can be a little giant.



Just keep hope alive. :wink:

[quote name=‘Lee Li Pop’]Hello E.Qi.Librium,



From my experience over 10 years, I analyze on niche websites (e-commerce or not) very few are profitable.



Big websites are too powerful, smalls are disunited.



It seems e-commerce follows the same path as the bricks and mortar commerce: Dedicated to the hegemony of the giants.



So, ladies and gentlemen, there will always, and perhaps increasingly, of small business owners with a second job whom will try to survive in the shadow of giants…





Lee Li Pop[/QUOTE]



Well, this is our full-time business - for me and my partner - and yes, it’s profitable. The “giants” aren’t always a bad thing, for example, we happily sell our designs on Amazon and they’re a good outlet for us.



There is such a thing as a niche global brand.