So my Mom’s friend sends me this email:
I guess you know I’m still working on my book and paintings. . .I’ve been advised that I NEED a website so I thought of you. Of course, I would pay you to design a site for me. I will do a short outline of what I think should go on it, but leave most of the creativity to you. Interested???
Now it’s way nifty that she’s taking the next step with selling her work, that she thought of me, that she expects to pay me, and that she’d allow me some creative wiggle room. She’d probably send a written thank you note when it was finished, too. She’s cool people like that.
But I’m not gonna do it. Here’s why—
She doesn’t need a website to make money online
Sure, it would be nice to have a website of her very own, but she doesn’t need one. And she doesn’t need to pay for a domain name or website hosting or a website designer/developer. She doesn’t need to know how to install or setup WordPress, add posts and pages, or configure and insert PayPal Buy Now buttons.
Why bother with all that when there’s…
Etsy
If you make things by hand (which she does), you can build a portfolio storefront at Etsy in an afternoon. That’s with PayPal buttons, inventory management, shipping options, etc. All the necessities, but none of the hassles. For a reasonably competent computer user (which she is), it’s easy to setup, easier to maintain, and looks swell.
Best bits: Free to register, only 20¢ to list an item for 4 months. Both Etsy and PayPal have small transaction fees, but she’ll only pay those fees when she sells something. Nice.
So she has something like 8 products. It may be best to stock just a few of each to start, and then see how things go. If she stocked 3 of each product, her initial costs would be $4.80…half the price of a GoDaddy domain and with a helluvalot more to show for the expense.
No waiting. No worries. No website.
But wait, there’s more…
But Etsy is only for people who make stuff. Or make supplies for people who make stuff. Or sell vintage stuff.
Luckily, for the rest of us, there’s—
- oDesk. Any service occupation, from virtual assistant to project manager to Drupal developer.
- eBay. Sell (almost) anything: bidding or fixed price, auctions or storefront, from kitsch to cars.
- PayPal. PayPal isn’t a hosted storefront, but you can put Buy buttons in emails…no website required.
- Zazzle and CafePress. You create the image and pick the product, theyll take care of the rest: payment processing, fulfillment, etc.
- Qoop and Lulu. Got a book? Upload a PDF and they’ll do the printing, payment processing, fulfillment, customer service, yadda yadda.
And there are power tools like e-junkie that can apparently transform Craigslist, YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, and Flickr into storefronts just by pasting a link.
Summing up…
There are heaps more websites whose sole purpose is to facilitate others making money online. Clearly, it’s not charity. The sites usually get you coming and going: a small fee when you list something and a small percentage when you sell something. And the payment processor gets a little piece, too.
But the seller always gets the lion’s share…and doesn’t have to worry a whit about a website.
.
Et tu? What are your thoughts about these hosted storefronts? Have you seen or used any that I missed?
