hi all,

As a homesteader, I believe a mail-order/product business could be one venture (of many) to keep it all going, while other ventures are in the works. Started a web site to sell my home-grown/made products, but need some input as to how to get people to actually buy online. I have bought products online, how about you? I guess brick n' mortar is still the way to go, but has anyone had any success selling products/services online? If so, what did you do, not do? Do you have a retail store in town? For me, it's too soon to tell, but I am committed to the business! And love it! Thanks for any/all input! Striving to make it better! www.mistymountainview.com

-- Gloria J. Geary (mistymt@theofficenet.com), August 29, 2000

Answers

Gonna be hard with "craftsy stuff". You may do better at flea markets or swap meets. Your local bookstore should carry a copy of an up todate directory for about $5.

-- Jay Blair (jayblair678@yahoo.com), August 29, 2000.

That is the one problem I also have. My site is www.homesteadjournals.com I've been checking around and it appears that if you sign up with yahoo, than they can help you with alot of other things as well - for a price of course. What we need are links to our site and something about key words they use. For instance, it's about 12 words that specifically describe your products and when someone searches for a certain item that you carry, then your web site would be an option for them to look into. When you find out how to get this solved, let me know. GOOD LUCK !

-- Pat (pmikul@pcpros.net), August 29, 2000.

During my studies on direct marketing, it was presented that tradional mail order has a response of 1% to 2%, e-based was rated at 3% to 5% (this was before spam control). The trouble with using a web based operation, unless you go to a site as ebay is getting the customer response and site reconigtion. In my previous post I suggested using the flea markets and swap meets as these assist the vendor in that the customers at these will be driven past a vending location as cattle in a drive. Also potential customers for hand crafted product generally frequent these, thereby increasing your product reconition factor. No matter which sales media you elect to use, studies show it is best to identify a potential market then work back to produce a product to fill that market. Many people who like the product they are trying to market never do potential market research and dry testing and realize too late that they cannot operate profitably due to the lack of market. A good basic marketing guide is The Guerrilla Marketing Handbook by Levinson & Godin ISBN 0-395-70013-2. The copy that I have does not cover using the internet, newer revisions may, however, the research techniques are well suited to smaller marketing concerns.

-- Jay Blair (jayblair678@yahoo.com), August 30, 2000.

I would suggest that you search the web for sites that have products that are similar to what you offer. Then see what search engines they are attached to. They are usually advertsied in a block on the person's site. One of the places we are considering selling our products when we are ready to do so is to sign on for a business site at geocities. The cost is very reasonable and for their lowest priced program you can feature like 25 items. I looked this up a few months ago so I don't remember the details but geocities is a well known host site because a lot of people have their non-commercial sites with them which are free. We have our great danes webpage with them already. They are also connected to yahoo so that brings a lot of people to your site. I can tell you that as far as receiving contacts from people interested in buying great dane puppies from us we get several inquiries a day and we are not even advertising that we have puppies, which we don't this year anyway nor do we expect to have any available next year. But that tells me that the site is getting a lot of exposure and people interested in great danes is certainly a very limited audience so I expect if we had a site about farm products available for sale we would get a lot more interest. I expect that we won't be signing on for our farm stuff until sometime next year but I'll let you know. If you are selling big ticket items, you could do so on the e-bay site if you didn't make it sound as if you are a business. Just a thought. This wouldn't work if you had little priced items because it would be obvious you are a business because of the multiples you would be offering for sale. As an example, my hubby is going to take stained glass lessons this fall and given his artistic and mechanical abilities I expect he will create some wonderful items. He plans to offer them for sale on the internet. But obviously large stained glass work can be expensive so we won't have to sell very many to bring in some substantial bucks. We plan to try e-bay initially to see the interest and then we may convert to their commercial side. I have been told that e-bay does have a commercial side but I don't know the rates. Like any kind of selling. You have to spend money to make money. Good luck and let us know what you find out.

-- Colleen (pyramidgreatdanes@erols.com), August 30, 2000.

One thing that might help is an 800 number. I didn't see one on your site. Another is being able to take the credit cards over the net which means you need a "secure site" to transact through. I believe yahoo and/or MSN can give you these, of course there is a fee involved. Other than that get your site registered with all the major search engines, this is an absolute must. If they can't find you they can't buy from you. There are on line stores that can be set up for little or no fee also. Have to do a search for them though, I've seen them but can't remember the url's at the moment. If I find them I'll post them on here. Good Luck with your venture.

-- Bob Johnson (backwoods_bob_2000@yahoo.com), September 04, 2000.

Ooooooops! I see you do have a secure ordering site on there! I scanned your site quickly and missed it. One thing I would suggest is that you shrink the shipping time considerably if possible. This society, in general, doesn't want to wait 3 - 4 weeks to get something!! Any more than a week waiting time and most folks will pass you by no matter how great the product. I know when they started getting things to me in a day or two I ordered a lot more and a lot more often!!! In many cases things were the same price or less than local stores when taxes were figured in plus all you had to do was pick up the phone and dial the 800 number.

-- Bob Johnson (backwoods_bob_2000@yahoo.com), September 04, 2000.