Looking for Advice jumping current site into Ecommerce

memaggiem · #1 (**permalink**) 06-30-2006, 09:10 PM

Hi all, I'm looking to try and leverage the popularity of my website to help me establish some sort of Ecommerce site. I'm not sure what kind of Ecommerce site though it will be related to my website content of course :-)

My question is this: Is my current site "worthy" of being a jump off point into actually purchasing some products? Hmm....I hope that makes sense! I'd love your thoughts

P.S. as you will be able to see, i have done all the design, graphic and content work - LOL I hope it does not show too negatively!

Thanks for your time!
Maggie

http://www.wholesomebabyfood.com

MattE · #2 (**permalink**) 07-01-2006, 12:43 AM

Hi Maggie
I found your main page was really slow to load. That is something you might like to look at.

As for the jump into ecommerce, it is a little unclear as to what you actually mean.

I see you have a couple of affiliate links already. To me given the great content of your site, would be the way to go - affiliate links. This removes all the product handling etc and leaves you teh time to make best use of integration etc of releveant affiliate content (including deep linking to specific products).

To be handling stocks yourself is fraught with hazards, not least of which is cashflow and stock that does not sell.

My advise is join 2-3 affiliate networks, pick the eyes out of the merchants that stock products related to each page and go contextual selling full bore.

You could make a handsome living that way.

weslinda · #3 (**permalink**) 07-01-2006, 01:23 AM

You're site is definately at a point that you could jump into E-commerce. Information is very critical to new parents and your site is filled with it.

If it is a concern to spend the money to get up and running with your own company, perhaps you could try partnering with one company that is already selling the products you are thinking about. Setup something where you sell the products for them, or you push people his way and get $$ for each referred sale.

If you have the funds and interest into starting your own business, I think you are definately in a niche market that will really start growing soon.

memaggiem · #4 (**permalink**) 07-01-2006, 01:28 AM

Thanks so much for taking the time to reply!

The main page seems to load very very slowly at night I have found. It loads within 2 secs. during the daytime - rather odd! (is 2 secs slow?) I'm not sure if it's the Hosting Co. or if the graphics are too large. I've been contemplating taking the graphics out and just using coloured tables...

I do have a lot of Affiliate stuff but I don't like the look of all the ads really. I guess I'm torn between making more $$$ with more ads/products and trying to keep a (mostly) readable website going that's not filled with extraneous "stuff".

I guess I was thinking about a site selling related products, independant of the main website yet conjoined too. I've been working on an "affiliate" product "mall" type site but I really don't like those things myself!

I was hoping that the "main" website might be good enough to entice my visitors over to a highly targeted content related "mall". - So I guess that's really my main question :-)

You are right about having to actually carry inventory and worry about the stuff that goes along with it.

Thanks again for your feedback! I really appreciate it!
Maggie

MattE · #5 (**permalink**) 07-01-2006, 01:35 AM

affiliate stuff does not have to look like ads...that is where the stupid merchants don't help - they think banner is all that is needed.

Try thinking along the line of product recommendations, maybe even reviews. The the links are text links within your page or even recommended products in the sidebar. You can integrate it really well by linking to the specific product (called deep linking). This is THE way to make affiliate sales and your site is perferct!! for it.

You could even ask the affiliated merchants for samples for reviews.

As for the slow loading - it took over 30 seconds for me of 256k downoad speed.