Prosper Newsletter: February 2006 > Ecommerce

You understand that the following information is educational in nature and is not intended to be legal, accounting, or tax advice. You are responsible for your own financial decisions and should consult your own legal, accounting, and tax advisors before making ecommerce/financial decisions.

I remember when I first started my website; I only had a vague idea of what I wanted to do and what I wanted to sell. My first idea (which I was willing to go into blindly because I enjoyed it) was body building and nutrition supplements. When I told my coach that, he told me that it was a bit of an oversaturated market and would be difficult to compete in. He then took the time to go over some things that WOULD be profitable that were in my interests. I did the remainder of the research and built off that idea which lead to what I really enjoy, which is after-market performance for cars and trucks. It was an area that I enjoyed and studied on frequently since I had previously sold cars, but the after-market perspective was something that I needed to gather more info on. It was that interest in studying that made me want to know more and also gave me the drive to learn more and finish the site. It was difficult at first with there being so many products to load, but I kept at it and at the same time, started testing the waters of EBay with the techniques that my coach had taught me. I'd been selling odds and ends on EBay for several years before this, but the techniques that my coach taught me enabled me to make more of a profit and bring more traffic to my site at the same time. I tried a few things on EBay and found the one product that works very well on it and also gave me some great profit from. I would continue running auctions every week and found that I would answer e-mails continuously throughout the day about what I had to offer and if I carried that particular part in a different model. It was almost a full-time job! It was definitely worth it, though. On average, after fees and other costs, I was bringing in about $500 profit a week and selling several thousands of dollars worth of product. One week where I decided to spend a little more money to advertise my products on EBay's homepage (about $40 for a 5-day auction) I had several people come to both my auctions and my site. In two weeks, I sold over $3000 worth of products on my site and depleted my entire inventory from my auctions, which made me a very nice profit of almost $2000 for myself. I have since been keeping up on my site working on other marketing techniques, both online and offline, to bring more individuals to my site. I am working on building a forum of my own for automotive performance talk and further promotion of my site. I've found that just general talk about cars and performance on these forums (with a link to my site on my signature) has brought many visitors to my site as well as several group sales on particular items and have even received some e-mails about drop-shipping to others to get their sites up and running, which I look forward to.

I know it was the focus on one-on-one coaching that got me the success rate that I am at and know that I will continue to build upon what I've created to make new and profitable for others and myself.

-Vince B.
Pleasant Grove, UT

Targeted SEO training sessions

In this course, you will learn how to create an effective search engine optimization campaign for your website.  You will learn important tips and tricks to successfully rank your website for keywords within the top listings on the major search engines.

• 4 Proactive Coaching Sessions
• 30-40 Minutes

• How search engines evaluate your content
• How spiders work
• Keyword analysis and development
• Maximizing your page rank
• Managing your content to be search engine friendly