posted on January 2, 2001 10:55:49 AM new
The threads on "is it worth it?" and "where should I have a site?" prompted me to add this question.
I looked at starting a site with my strong belief that we must have alternatives to just eBay.
I'm using YAHOO and occasionally Amazon but a site that tied it all together and made a more personal statement to attract repeat customers makes sense.
I have not had a theme among my items as I often make purchases where and when an opportunity arises resulting in a little of everything.
I do intend to expand in a few specific categories this year which would better lend themselves to attracting potential customers from an auction listing and them finding similar items at my site.
The actual seting up a site seems to have been made fairly easy at several hosting locations.
What concerns me is making the best choices among all the options and then marketing and maintaining the site.
I would be willing to pay a per hour consulting fee and a monthly management fee if I could join with other sellers in a combined effort.
Let me suggest what I would like someone to offer.
Manage the design, set-up and promotion of a site at, at least initially, one location.
Keep it simple and standardized to lower cost. Let us do what we can ourselves and charge, per hour, when we want/need help.
A checklist of each step along the way would let me reach out for assistance. For example, I'm OK with an image hosting site but I would want help with designing a Logo and the general appearence.
Once the site is up and running I would add items and handle sales.
Manager would keep abrest of industry changes and include me in email messages about general topics. They would promote the group of sites and offer standarized links we could use in listings, EOAs, emails and with shipments.
I would be willing to promote my site and that it was part of a "community" of sites. We might promote a service standard or membership in OAUA.
I see this as identical to what RL businesses are presently doing by joining together within an industary or geographical area to promote their common interest most effectively.
Some people can and are doimg all of this themselves. Other can but would be willing to pay a small fee for hiring someone that did it for everyone. Other like myself, clearly need help.
Don't mean to set rates for someone else but as a consumer I would be comfortable with something like $25. per hour plus $10. per month. Given enough customers that might create sufficient income for a home based business.
The two things that make this approach attractive to me are 1) Initial help with ongoing oversight 2)Combined promotion.
