Hi all, I wanted to say Thanks to all the people on here for their advice and experience regarding these 'pre-loaded' sites. I see that overwhelmingly, people are against them and think they are not good. I respect that. But I would like to delve into it a little more, and get to the root of the problem.
A little more about myself first, I had a website business in my spare time a couple years ago. In a way, it was one of these 'cookie-cutter' sites (but not a pre-loaded one). I spent alot of hourse loading products, descriptions,photos,etc, and it was very time consuming. I only sold a handful of products a month, and after 6 months grew tired of all the work (and also my resellers running out of products that I sold).
First off, I think a big part of the problem was that I was not skilled or versed in the pros and positives regarding search engine optimization. With no real way to get traffic,I still managed to get some buyers. But again, all in all,it was time consuming and with a full time job,a new baby, etc,I had to give it up.
Flash forward to now. I have decided to take another shot on selling on the net. But, this time around, I do NOT have the time needed to do all the work myself,and am seriously considering a pre-loaded store. Based on what I have read from people here, what I hear over and over again is, the sites dont work, you dont sell anything, the profit margin is too low,etc,etc. This is where I would like to examine these things closer, and see why they dont work:
* "you dont sell anything". The people that did not sell anything, did they properly market it with strong search engine optimzation,backlinks,blogs,etc,etc? Just because you put up a site. does not mean people will find it without marketing and SEO tools
* "the profit margins are not high". I can only speak for myself, but one of the rseller accounts I had DID HAVE a very good profit margin. The killer was, not being able to keep live updates of stock,inventory,etc I would sell something,only to find out they were out of stock (which is why I have interest in pre-loaded sites"
I dont have enough computer skills,and tech skills to know if this is true or not, but what I have heard is that these 'cookie cutter' sites get unfavorable standings in google search engines,etc. Part of this is especially true if the name of your domain includes 'MYSHOPKART' or 'DEPOTNET', etc. If I understand correctly, using your own domain name can eliminate some of the negatives that adversely effect your search engine results. Strong SEO campaigns, backlinks,advertising,blogging,etc can also get your name out there, and give you a presence on the net. In addition, selling 'niche' products may be better than selling stuff that a million other people are selling as there is less competition.
I intend to invest in one of these cookiecutter sites (depotnet most likely),and give it 6 months to see what it does. The costs involved in the site itself thru them is about $70 a month. In 6 months,I will have spent about $420 thru them(not counting any other SEO optimization,ads,etc). I will NOT be making my living from this venture, and merely would like to turn a profit every month of a few hundred bucks when the dust settles. I do not have the time needed to do my own site setup,load my own products, check inventories,etc,. I need a site like this that does the work for me, and keeps proper inventories, etc. I have the time to check for orders everyday,and process any that come along.
If my sole purpose is to earn a few hundred dollars in profit a month,and eliminate the time and work involved to do it all on my own, does anybody think that my assesments above may be true or correct for the most part? Why or why not?
Can a strong marketing campaign and SEO tools generate enough traffic to my site to overcome some of the negatives of these 'cookie cutter sites'? Again, I only want to turn a profit of $300-$500 a month, and I know that one of the product suppliers on DEPOTNET, is one that I was a reseller with,and the profit margins were pretty strong.
Again, I know that overwhelmingly, people here do not favor or support the pre-loaded site system,but since i am not trying to make a full living from it, maybe somebody like myself could benefit from it more. I am open to hearing input and ideas from the bright people here. Thanks in advance