95% of websites make less then $1,000.00 [Archive]

Sualdam

09-13-2003, 07:57 PM

Strangely, I recently read that the average sale from an e-commerce site is less than $100 (I think it was $98 something).

This came up in the spam thread in the E-mail Marketing forum.

I just found out yesterday that an e-commerce site I built and maintain (though the income isn't mine) made £350,000 sales (around $510,000) this last year - double what it made the previous year.

httpman

09-13-2003, 08:00 PM

Janeth,

You should clarify. Do you mean :

* how many websites make less than 1.000 $ online revenues / month (revenues coming from online sales, thanks to the website online payment)

* or : how many companies have a website and make less than 1.000 $ / month ?

I have set-up my company 8 months ago, and now make more or less a rough 1.200 euros (~1.400 $) / month. Not enough to live, but close to. Taxes are so high in france ! I just work half time on that business, I have an additional salaried job in the afternoon. But I'm alone in my company (!), that makes me feel not so bad.

That's a first stone.

Jean-Pierre

janeth

09-13-2003, 08:36 PM

httpman
I want to know how much income you can make in a month US $. If you decided to work full time online today do you think you could make it. Do you think in the years to come it will get easer are harder to make it online. Both the business httpman and Sualdam are talking about sound very good and make me feel better.
I think if a lot of people try to make it on line and can not it will cause more poeple to decide not to try.

httpman

09-13-2003, 09:15 PM

Janeth,

Speaking about money is not so easy in france, money is some kind of a taboo.

I've made a lot more money by the past 3 or 4 years, but at that time the web business was insane. Now, to make money we web designers have to create a true added value for our customers : difficult, regarding all what they see on the web.

When I had employees, the right "revenue / employee" ratio was, here in france - but so many taxes there - around 3.500 USD / month / employee, VAT excluded. That's a lot, not ? I guess this ratio is even worth by now.

So now ? An answer to your untold question is : I can easily live with half of that, alone, because *I'm alone*. I prefered to take an additionnal job, instead of trying to live only from that job, cause it brings me a better stability. More stability for me = more creativity, which is what I sell.

This webdesign job is like running to the horizon : always further, AS FAR AS YOU MOVE. But if you don't move, it will seemingly not move. *We are the engine.*

Anyone here thinking to start up must believe that WE NEED PEOPLE LIKE YOU]. That job is the best one can find IF] you are creative, and ready to please you customers.

What could be the future of that business ? Better each day, no doubt about that. Better each day, but not for anyone. Only the strong etc.

(Just my two cents worth)

____________________________________________

For Janeth : and if you new webdesigner have a site to design for women, just put pink pictures & a true moody blues music (IE : night in white satins), that's OK for them !

JP

carju1

09-14-2003, 06:39 AM

Janeth Said - I read some where that 95% of all websites make less then $1,000.00 a month.

Sualdam Said - I recently read that the average sale from an e-commerce site is less than $100

The problem here is all about statistics and definitions. What is an e-commerce site? A friend of mine has a web site which is information based but also he sells his book from the site (via payPal) and he's happy if he makes 1 book sale a month (About $20). Whilst because he sells on the site it is by definition an e-commerce site its main purpose is to provide information to people (who hopefully then contact him for professional help).

If you want to sell from a brick and morter building, you need capital, business plans for the bank, huge amounts of stock and work at least 10 hours a day to try to make a living. Still shops are always closing down and going broke in every town. However any 'idiot' can bang up a e-commerce site with little thought in less than 24 hours and then work on it less than 1 hour a day. Not surprising then that the majority sell less than $100 a month.

Regards
Julian

Sualdam

09-14-2003, 07:02 AM

That's right.

And the £350,000 sales I referred to were 'sales' - not profit. And leading on from that, those sales give no indication of the overall balance sheet for the company concerned.

Horses for courses, as they say.

janeth

09-14-2003, 08:42 AM

Julian,
I do agree maybe when we look at stats the reason they look so bad is because there are a lot of people they do spend 12 hours throwing a site together and an hour a month working with it.
After reading this I once again feel like anyone can make it online if your willing to put the time and effort into making it work.
It is all the people that start a website and do nothing but sit and wait that makes the stats look so bad.

kjohnson5576

09-15-2003, 01:34 PM

My experience is: It has taken roughly seven months, but my website is now producing over $4K in sales per month. Profit not enough to live on yet, but my traffic increases every month as does my sales. I work on the site all the time though. I advertise on a few sites, I have Google Adwords, I have a few PPC sites I work with, plus I continue to add links and place my site into directories. Also, I scout my competitors to see how competitive I am as well as where they are linking, advertising, etc.

Most important, I don't work on the site just an hour a day. I truly feel that Service on the web should be as good or better than in a store. So when people ask a question, I like to respond within minutes if possible. Believe me, this makes a good impression and brings loyalty. Loyalty is also another word for word of mouth or in web speak, viral marketing. So let's say I'm working about 10 hours a day. It's not stressful work but when I worked for a company it was stressful and often times was more than 10 hours/day with staff bickering, internal politics, weekend and evening meetings, etc.

So I think most hit the nail on the head. Web Enterprises often spend the first 40 hours making a site, then kick back and expect the dough to roll in. Just like any other business, it takes work to make it happen, and work equals hours. It also takes some risk, calculated of course. No Guts, No Glory.

But I think that yes, most people on the web sell less than $1K a month and I think a good share are sucked into scams that will never get them anywhere. Affiliate programs sound nice, but really do they pay unless you have a strong information site and LOTS of visitors? It goes back to having a plan and executing it, plus taking advice along the way (like from this forum) and reshaping your site, goals and ideas accordingly. A living can be made from the web, it's just not easy. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it.

barblu

09-15-2003, 02:48 PM

I'm not selling anything from my website at present but the 4 preceeding years were very good to me. It fell off in February of this year and has been lean to nothing since. I'm getting close to 800 unique visitors per week (far more than last year) so I can't help but wonder what happened. I sell a "luxury" item so I suspect that the economy is playing a large part. When you have limited funds and have to buy school clothes for the kids, buying something pretty for your home is not an everyday option. I'm in second place on Google for "decanter sets" so I should be targeting people who are looking for that kind of thing but they come, look and leave. Previous years, they came, looked and bought!! Fortunately, my livlihood doesn't depend on the sales from my site or I would definitely be starving about now. My sales have NEVER been extrordinary, nor did I want them to be due to the time involved in creating each piece for each customer to meet their preferences, but NOTHING, NADA, NO SALES has me slightly baffled. Wish I knew the answer.

barblu

09-15-2003, 02:55 PM

Sorry - little glitch - didn't mean to post that twice.

red

09-15-2003, 08:42 PM

Hi Janeth,
My website fortunately makes (nets) between 12-15X per month. I may be in the minority so here's my story...
Until a couple of years ago I played around on eBay and Half.com and made an extra 2K per month...but I had a full time job. An injury at work forced me (at 39 years old) to go back to school and learn a whole new gig. Fortunately I had a background in sales, marketing and merchandising and had been self employed in the past. Without those skills married to the new skills I learned I would have been out on the curb a long time ago. It has taken me the FULL 2 years to make the website a success.

It used to be that folks thought if they put their wares on the www they'd make millions...because that's what tv and radio and print advertising lead them to believe.

I'm here to tell you that without a full 10 hours of work per day and wearing ALL the hats that go along with having a small business I'd be collecting unemployment.

I'll probably never get rich but I'm a lot further ahead then when I started...and a lot less naive too (: I love working in my pajamas with my little dog Lola under my desk all day. It's not a bad way to earn a living, this ecommerce thing!

All the best to you and other forum members.
You CAN do it!

Reece

09-18-2003, 05:53 AM

I know where I live the market is saturated, it is very competitive. If you are serious about it, and promote yourself, and make the connections, you can do okay…..not fabulously wealthy, but okay….

jhilgeman

09-18-2003, 10:18 PM

Julian (carju1) is on the right track. There are many, many web applications out there that automate the creation of a web store. I personally built one of those engines and I know it had built several thousand automated stores by the time I left that company. Nearly everything about the store was automated - users could customize their colors and logo, but everything else, including what products to sell, was controlled by another, central company.

Most of those stores probably didn't make a dime because people didn't invest anything into marketing. They were well-done stores - very attractive and everything worked fine, but the people wanted to sit back and rake in money without moving a muscle.

So I'm fairly certain a good 90% of that 95% is probably made up of lazy people that buy a pre-built store for $100 and don't do anything else and expect to make money.

You also have to consider that larger, money-making stores are probably not going to want to invest time into taking a survey about how much money they make per month, so you're going to end up with unbalanced results, as well. :)

- Jonathan

janeth

09-18-2003, 11:19 PM

We have been lucky and started making money our second month online. We work about 15 to 20 hours a day and spend the rest of the time sleeping. The business seems to grow every month. But when I saw that I thought two things.
1. I had just gotten lucky and it could end at any time.
2. As soon as everyone found out that there was no money to make online they would stop trying.
But now I see that you can make money online, but it is just like anything else. You have to work to make it work.

red

09-18-2003, 11:32 PM

Janeth:"But now I see that you can make money online, but it is just like anything else. You have to work to make it work."

jhilgeman:"So I'm fairly certain a good 90% of that 95% is probably made up of lazy people that buy a pre-built store for $100 and don't do anything else and expect to make money."

Amen to that!
I think a lot of people (Americans specifically)are so accustomed to shortcuts and convienence in our everyday lives that sometimes it doesn't occur to us that there may not be a quick way to accomplish EVERYTHING
My son doesn't even remember life without a remote control or a microwave.
He also thinks that a job is going to come knocking on his bedroom door someday...but I digress.

You've hit the nail on the head Janeth & jhilgeman. Your hard work is obviously paying off. Others (like my son) should take your lead.
Red

jhilgeman

09-19-2003, 04:09 AM

Just thought I'd add another 2 cents. Although it takes work to make money, keep in mind that money and career are not the most important things in life. They might keep you busy during the day, but it's good to set aside time for important things like family and yourself.

Janeth, I simply brought this up because working 15-20 hours a day reminded me of other situations I've been in. Yes, the business will grow from the extra hours, but it's usually just not worth it. Even if you don't have or want to have a social life, it's good to stop working and just relax for a few hours. Health is an important thing. :)

If you do have family, it's all the more important to spend time with them. I've worked in a few small businesses before and I've seen the poor quality of family relationships that my bosses have had. They made money, but they weren't happy and neither was their family.

I work hard at my job, but I do it from 8 to 5, even if those hours are self-imposed. I've found that I can accomplish just about as much in 9 hours as I can in 12, 15, or more, just as long as I focus on my work. If absolutely necessary, I'll put in a couple of hours, but I make sure that it doesn't happen more than necessary. Apologize to your client if you need to, but don't overwork yourself at any cost. Again, it's just not worth it.

- Jonathan

thusmann

09-19-2003, 03:15 PM

When I started Http://www.iBuilt.net, I was laid off of a $40k/yr salaried Network Admin position. The State of Washington granted me 8 months of unemployment, so I had to figure something out. That was in July of 2002, it is now a little over 1 year later and my site brings in over $5000 per month. Maybe not so impressive at first, but I have to mention that I spent only $3000 in development and now have top 10 placement at google for many very popular keyphrases like create a website or how to create a website. Our subscription base has been growing steadily every month and I am planning to retire in comfort within 4 years...

All it took was a good idea, and a lot of work. For the first 6 months of link popularity campaigning, it was hard to keep going, as results were not immediate. The day after Christmas 2002, iBuilt.net jumped to the top of the results, and customers started pouring in! Now our site is mentioned in a couple of web design training courses, home school courses, and even college curriculum.

Building a successful Internet business requires a professional appearance and a diligent marketing effort. People are already skeptical about making purchases online, so they must be able trust you and your company within the first 15-30 seconds of exposure to your website. Not only that, but they also need to know that there is a real person behind the scenes who is available if they have questions.

A Website is not a vending machine, it more easily compared to a receptionist or perhaps a junior salesman.

janeth

09-21-2003, 02:36 PM

Hi Jonathan,
Yes I agree 100% my plan is to work hard for about two years and then cut back to a normal 8 hour work day. We keep hiring people to make the work easer but it seems for every one person we hire I have to work 20% harder. lol

Hi Thomas Husmann,
It was great to read your post. It was very reassuring and I have herd of your business many time over. You have a great company.

vfaulkner

09-24-2003, 12:12 PM

Strictly speaking, as I/We offer free or low cost resources and graphics, the website usual costs more than it earns.
It is the non-site or off-line stuff( auctions, print media design, search,etc.) that help make up the difference.
I can't quit my day job(and continue to eat) yet!

xai

09-26-2003, 02:29 PM

that´s according to my idea not untrough.
xai

minstrel

09-28-2003, 12:07 PM

The problem here is all about statistics and definitions. What is an e-commerce site? A friend of mine has a web site which is information based but also he sells his book from the site (via payPal) and he's happy if he makes 1 book sale a month (About $20). Because he sells on the site it is by definition an e-commerce site its main purpose is to provide information to people (who hopefully then contact him for professional help).

Exactly. More generally, I think it's important to understand that often individuals or organizations are on-line not to sell something directly but for marketing purposes, to raise the profile of that organization or service. Like any form of advertising, it can be difficult to calculate the return on investment in the short term but if over the long haul your name/brand becomes better known then the cost of being on the web is recovered via increased revenues.

janeth

09-28-2003, 02:00 PM

minstrel

09-28-2003, 04:42 PM

Hi minstrel,
That sounds good to me but then we have the stats that say 95% ( or something like that ) of all online business will go out of business with in five years. If people are building websites only to help with there off line stores then why do so many go out of business. Also as the internet gets older do you think those stats will drop? Does anyone know what the percent of off line business go out of business in five years?

I don't know the stats but it wouldn't surprise me if they were high. On the other hand, there are lots of plausible reasons why that should be so, including the fact that there are probably more bad and/or downright annoying websites than good ones and the fact that I think a lot of people who create a website do so under the illusion that all they have to do is put it out there and sit back and wait for the money to roll in -- when that doesn't happen, they decide it's a waste of time and money and fold.

But part of what I was trying to say is that a website (or a workshop or other marketing strategy) can be valuable even if it doesn't directly or immediately make money. People can purchase books on my site, for example, but my income from that doesn't even cover the hosting fees most months, let alone the costs of maintaining, updating, and promoting the site. However, I do get referrals for my services that come because people have found out about me on my website -- I've never stopped to calculate how many but it doesn't matter. If they find out about me and my group on the web, or in the Yellow Pages, or in a TV or newspaper interview, or by participating in a workshop -- all of this raises the profile and public awareness of our professional group and my (possibly delusional) belief is that this over the long term pays off in actual revenues.

janeth

09-28-2003, 06:10 PM

Hi David,
I have been playing around on your website and now I know why your here. Your looking for new patience and I have seen a couple that could use your help. I think your in the right place. lol
I understand what your saying and yes I agree that every business should have a website. It is like being in the phone book or I think as important if not more.
Every time I turn around there is another web design company opening up. But what I was trying to figure out is how many websites make money with out the help from an off line store.
I think from what I have herd it is pretty much the same as an off line store it just takes a lot of hard work.

minstrel

09-28-2003, 06:18 PM

Hi David,
I have been playing around on your website and now I know why your here. Your looking for new patients and I have seen a couple that could use your help. I think your in the right place. lol

That might be the reason for my website but actually the reason I'm here is probably more to take a break from current patients than to find new ones :-)

I understand what your saying and yes I agree that every business should have a website. It is like being in the phone book or I think as important if not more.

Exactly... I don't think I get more than 2 or 3 new referrals a year from the Yellow Pages but I still need to advertise there, even if it's only for previous clients to locate me when they've lost my card or URL.

Every time I turn around there is another web design company opening up. But what I was trying to figure out is how many websites make money with out the help from an off line store. I think from what I have heard it is pretty much the same as an off line store it just takes a lot of hard work.

I think that's true. And I think that's why the attrition rate on the web is so high: people expect to become overnight successes. Most self-employed people (at least in Canada -- your mileage may vary) will tell you when starting up a new business that you should expect to wait 3 years before you're amking any real profits. How many web storefronts wait that long?

janeth

09-28-2003, 06:37 PM

David wrote
will tell you when starting up a new business that you should expect to wait 3 years before you're making any real profits. How many web storefronts wait that long?

I agree 100% I tell people two years. The problem is you have a thousand people telling them they can start making $10,000.00 a week starting this week. People would rather hear the lie then the truth.

I have even had customers go to a different company just because I told them the truth. That was the reason for the post to find out how long it takes and how much money you can expect to make online.

favedave

10-08-2003, 02:55 AM

We've had our web site up for only a week, but we're getting 300 visitors a day because we have funny video clips.

It's a Jackass type movie called "Bar Fighter" aimed at the 18-25 year old male market.

But we haven't gotten one sale yet!

Maybe I'm too optimistic but I thought with that many visitors downloading all our clips we'd sell something.

Our cast will be appearing on some national radio talk shows and there will be some articles in print magazine about us, but that's months away.

Am I too eager? I thought the clips would sell the movie.

If you guys want, check it out at http://www.barfighter.com

WARNING: There is adult language and it's kind of crude (like Jackass the movie) so if that offends you, don't look at it. Nothing terribly shocking, though, and it's not obscene or anything. Just immature humor.

Do you think I have too much content? Is it a good site? There's a little bit of flash on the index page, but that's it. Flash is evil, but entertainment sites need a little bit.

I hope it's ok to post the site.

Let me know what you think. This is my first internet business.

David

minstrel

10-08-2003, 09:58 AM

We've had our web site up for only a week, but we're getting 300 visitors a day because we have funny video clips. It's a Jackass type movie called "Bar Fighter" aimed at the 18-25 year old male market. But we haven't gotten one sale yet!

A couple of observations:

First, a week is only a few seconds in terms of a business start-up so I wouldn't draw any conclusions about viability quite yet.

Second, you're aiming at a young audience (perhaps even younger than you think, e.g., 13-18 rather than 18-25? In my house, that was the age group that found Jackass amusing). This age group is more likely to download free stuff than to buy stuff (who do you think powers Kazaa?) and even if they want to buy it they don't have credit cards (I didn't really explore your site beyond page 1 but I assume they would need one to order the movie).

Markll

10-13-2003, 04:27 PM

They tell me on TV that I could buy this Internet Toolbox and make thousands.

A tribute to how gullable people can be.

janeth

10-13-2003, 04:41 PM

Hi computermark,
I do think it is sad how many people believe that junk. I also think that it is sad people will tell other people things they know are not true. I get an email every day from some guy or lady I do not know that wants to send me a billion dollars to help them get out of the country.

sshows

10-14-2003, 03:25 PM

Hey Janeth,
You have started a great topic. I am pretty new to the WebProWorld forums and am very appreciative of the information here. Anyway, I have had a site up since Sept. 1st of this year. We sell Christian clothing, and in our 1st month we did $1400. That was way more than I expected and we are on track to double that this month. Who knows what Christmas will bring. Having said all of that, I have worked my bu-- off tring to optimize, provide customer service, keep the site content current etc. I work full time in the day and spend a lot of late night hours after the family has all gone to bed, working on our web site. It is like anything, you have to constantly work at it and evolve to be successful, and you can never learn too much.

sshows
http://www.sonwear.com