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1. • CommentAuthornetdiva
   • CommentTimeJan 18th 2007

    
   I have started going through your ecommerce book, and I'm stuck in the very first chapter... on step 1, as a matter of fact.
   
   I market a weight loss program that I used myself. I successfully lost 67 pounds on this program. It's the one and only program that ever worked for me, and I'm transformed. (Yes, I'm passionate about it!) I know weight loss is a very lucrative online market. It also seems obvious to me that it's way too broad for me to break into right away. OK, so I have to define my niche market.
   
   How? What do you suggest?
   
   One idea I have is to target people in my general demographic category - i.e., age range, gender, education level, etc. How do I go about researching this?
   
   I'm stuck, and I appreciate your advice!
   
   Thank you.
2. •  
     CommentAuthormike
   • CommentTimeJan 18th 2007

    
   There is many ways you can go. Here is a few suggested ideas:
   
   1) You could start a blog focused on weight loss and document your experience and what helped you along the way and what kept you motivated. If you have truly exceptional content and are passionate about this, then your blog could start to attract a lot of readers over time. We get a bulk of our business by now from our blog.
   
   2) I don't know what product you used, how it is offered and sold but you need to find out if it is possible to market it in a profitable way online. Just start studying the market, the competitors and think of opportunities. You used to be a customers so think of what you would have liked to find online and if you cannot find it, then you might discover an opportunity that might be worth pursuing.
3. • CommentAuthorAnieko
   • CommentTimeNov 8th 2007

    
   I am having my website designed. My e-commerce site is a wholesale catalog where I will markup the wholesale prices. I would like to market all of the products. Is this feasible or should I concentrate on particular items in the catalog?
4. • CommentAuthorjoyously
   • CommentTimeNov 10th 2007 edited

    
   When you say "market all of the products" what do you mean exactly? (It takes time and effort to market anything.)
   A website that is just a catalog of products doesn't get very far because it has no free traffic and has to compete with the likes of Wal-mart and Amazon. You won't win that battle.
   You have to have a unique selling proposition. If it's "lowest price", you're in for a lot of work for very little payoff. If you don't have some sort of content to attract visitors, you'll always have to pay for the traffic, and then they'll usually only buy because of the low price. It works better to have a reason for them to come to your site and you generate trust and credibility through your content, and then that's why they buy from you (so then you can change the prices upward and they still buy). See http://myrelated.info/on/hardgoods/
   And if you don't focus your website, you don't get the search rankings as easily. You can't be everything to everybody, so don't even go down that road.
5. • CommentAuthorAnieko
   • CommentTimeNov 11th 2007

    
   Thank you for the information. I love to cook so I have narrowed my website to cookware and flatware. The wholesale company will drop ship the merchandise. Do you think it matters whether I decide to sell wholesale or retail? Should I have an information page on the importance of quality cookware? I visited http://myrelated.info/on/hardgoods/, and learned a lot. Thank you for directing me in the right direction. I have never had an e-commerce site and am excited to have one that is going to produce revenue.
6. • CommentAuthorjoyously
   • CommentTimeNov 13th 2007

    
   You're still assuming that just having a website will make you money. If you don't have a good way to get traffic, you'll always be buying it. That affects the profit you can make on your sales.
   
   Wholesale or retail? How often do you suppose wholesale buyers search for cookware and flatware on the internet? How about retail? Seems like it would be a big difference to me. But you could accommodate both fairly easily, I would think.
   
   You should have LOTS of information pages, about all sorts of angles related to your products. This is where you have to define your unique selling proposition. You could talk about the products and how they are made or how to use them (cooking!). You decide what interests you and your customers and write pages so the search engines find you. That way you don't have to buy traffic.