Turnkey eCommerce sites Overview
Posted on June 25, 2007 by
Adie 
eCommerce 
8 Comments
You’ll find it hard to distinguish the difference between a merchant and or affiliate. To become successful with an eCommerce retail store amongst other things I had to become a good affiliate and merchant, having a general understanding of how an Affiliate works not only helps your revenue but enables you to be personable with your affiliates understanding their needs and working together to push your brand and profits. Recently Ash Wills emailed me and asked me to take a look at the following eCommerce turnkey websites.
Lets take a look at Shopster - When you join Shopster, you get a top of the line E-Commerce website complete with inventory.
Straight away I see some professionalism in the design and layout of the website. This automaticallly gives me confidence to start reading more about their service.
You choose the products you want to sell from the 700,000 products in our warehouse. When you make a sale, we ship the order directly to your customers anywhere in North America. You never have to deal with the inventory and you make the difference between the price you sold the product for and the wholesale price in the Shopster warehouse.
Although it all sounds very appealing you will definately lose the experience you would have gained by setting up an eCommerce store yourself. I’m sure some will love the fast entrance into eCommerce but by missing out on the fundementals you will naturally lose certain business experience that may help you in the future. It’s really just a very un-inspiring way into eCommerce.
With Shopster you get a business in a box for $329.99 a year, with an option to pay monthly. All they leave you to do is the marketing and determine the profits levels for your product(s). They cater for Entreprenuers/Webmasters/Dropshipping and Affiliates.
Set-Up:
- No plug-ins / programming
- Easy for beginner
- Full customization options for advanced users
- Web based administration
- Complete storefront system
- Sell any of over 700,000 products and growing
- Set your own prices and margins
- Free manual and help docs
- HTML knowledge not required
- Graphic design skills not required
- Logo creator included
In comparison to starting your own eCommerce store what they’re offering seems very appealing. If you’re looking to get in eCommerce without the sleepless nights it seems they have covered everything.
I think services like this can work well if you make sure to work with the company and maintain close contact making sure to check stock and customer satisfaction levels as these two are fundemental in ensuring the smooth running of your store. The only thing that will remain is your ability to generate traffic and price competitively, if you have need too (you may not if there is not much competition in your marketplace) depending on the type of product you choose.
Do your homework before signing up by researching the marketplace you’re interested in and make sure to choose a product that is in high demand (sounds simple but some miss this part) otherwise all else will go in vain if nobody wants to buy what you’re selling!
If you’re not going to enjoy the procedure of setting up your own eCommerce website, I would also seriously consider becoming a great Affiliate for a merchant through sites like Commission Junction or Affiliate Window. Sites like Shopster really take all the fun, pressures and overall satisfaction away from building your own eCommerce store. That said, I can see the attraction for this type of service and with the influx of people wanting out of the 9-5 an into the land of online with dreams of fortunes awaiting them. The likes of Shopster and CuttingEdgeProducts servicing these people should do well.
CuttingEdgeProducts works in much the same way but they only offer a Dropshipping service and you are limited to selling their only product line which is Home Security Products. If you feel you can go up against all the other users who sign-up their service then fine, I personally wouldn’t fancy it. I not a fan of the look of this site and it lacks in professionalism that I would normally look for although they state they have over 15 years experience in this industry. A bad looking site does not always mean there is a bad service behind it. I’m all about nice looking design as well as functionality because I’m fussy, so I would look to improve this which I think would benefit them and improve thier sales I’m sure.
With CuttingEdgeProducts you get a business in a box for $595.00 which covers their one time setup fee, they have other options which are costly if you compare it to Shopster pricing who include these extras in their monthly or one time fee. Again you’re going to be left you to do the marketing and determine the profits levels for your product(s). They cater for Dropshipping only.
If I had to choose between the two I would opt for Shopster as they give more options for inventory and the added extras seem to be very appealing for the cost. CuttingEdgeProducts only has one flaw and its that they are limited to one product range. If you feel you can compete do your market research and try to be different to all the other Security stores out there. If I really wanted to sell their goods I would contact them and ask them to dropship their products for me with a view to eithier build the store myself or get someone to build it for me. This will set you apart from 99% of their customers. This is just one thing I would look to do.
Update Shopster: After speaking with their live help I discovered they will only ship to Canada and the Continental US only. Make sure if you are going to use the likes of Adwords to set-up Audience targeting to US/CANADA only. That could be costly mistake. Also CuttingEdgeProducts offer a full 30 day money back guarantee whereas Shopster do not, something to think about.
One thing you cannot buy from these companies is the drive, determination and desire to run a successful eCommerce store. Add this to hard work and it’s this sort of attitude that will set you apart from your competition.
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Did a bit of googling for an hour….And it seems that theres quite a few bad comments about shopster…maybe things have changed since the comments were made (2006-2007). But some seem fairly recent (june 07). They seem to always mention the same thing: Very hard to be competitive with pricing, only capable of making 0.05-1$ per sale to remain competitive in whatever niche you choose, also the prices that shopster list are not true wholesale prices, which I have no clue how to confirm or not.
Looks like a neat program to me though and its most definately well made and alot of time has been put into it!, just need some researching before trying it out!
And you can make $60 for every person that you refer to Shopster!
Are you sure, Kumiko? I should check it out now! :) Since your are a money guru, I’ll believe in your information!
When you join shopster, you are basically an affiliate of THEM. They are not true wholesalers themselves. They use dropshippers throughout the internet. I browsed their inventory and several product categories included photos of suppliers that I know.
So basically they are retailers and they claim to be wholesalers so you will go and do the marketing. Plus they charge you a yearly fee so they have cashflow that way as well. Whats hosting cost nowadays? They probably have a hosting meter that costs them $50 to host as many sites as they like.
Bottom line, likely 90% of the sites will not make money. You can make money, as kumiko said, through their affiliate program. Whether or not this is good for the credibility of your site in the long run is debatable.
Indeed, I have used Shopster before and I can say it’s okay. There are better choices, but there are also worse choices.
Could you share your knowledge of these “better choices” ? Id like to check out all possibilities! thanks in advance
Hi,
Great article. I also make some decent money with mini-sites and domain parking and it is one of the thing I talk about when it comes to making money online.