

Ask HN: Is e-commerce the easiest way to make money online?  - kevbam

Hi, 
I have been reading a lot about setting up an estore &#38; drop shipping since coming across this thread. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5377821<p>Just wondering, is ecommerce and drop shipping one of the surest and most direct ways to make money online?
I understand that it is unlikely that it will make you a billionaire, but it seems like with a bit of tech/SEO work and the right niche you could make a nice living for yourself.<p>Is this a fair assumption? I would be very interested in hearing from anyone who is running an ecommerce site or has tried and failed.<p>Thanks
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OafTobark
Bad assumption. Plenty of ways (too many to name) that can make money online.
Some harder than others and ecommerce, drop shipping, and the like comes with
its own set of challenges (big or small). It's more on how you execute
something than it is thinking something will be a sure or more sure way of
working

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kevbam
Thanks for your reply. I understand that building a business is never going to
be easy and that there will always be challenges. However, I guess the
question I am asking is whether or not e-commerce is a faster route to sure
profitability? For example, if I was to devote my time to building a social
network it could potentially be very very lucrative. However, the likelihood
of it being lucrative or ever even making money for that matter is a lot
smaller than if I devote my time to ecommerce. This makes me think ecommmerce
is a "surer" way of working(less risk).

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smartwater
The only way I know of speeding up the process is to get into a shady industry
or take advantage of a loophole. Years ago there were websites making a lot of
money simply by providing links to streaming movies & TV shows hosted on other
websites.

I know a guy who made a million dollars from it. A year after he got out, all
his competitors were getting sued and shutdown. But he was off the radar, got
to keep everything and never got in trouble. He found the niche, created the
website in a few days, made money for a year or two, and shut it down with
precision timing to maximize profits and minimize risk.

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kevbam
Thanks for your comment. That is an interesting story and something to think
about. What is the loophole at the moment? Not that I want to get involved in
anything shady. A lot of the time with start-ups there is a lot of risk with
the possibility of massive rewards, however there has to be safer
options(medium risk) without getting a corporate job or being a contractor.

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smartwater
Bittorent and Bitcoin make a millionaire every week, it's high risk though.
You could start a tracker like Demonoid and your only job would be to move the
servers around and cover your tracks (ie: pay with visa gift cards, use
chained proxies)

Another high risk option is becoming a vendor on Silk Road. Those guys are
getting more orders than they can handle. Even the guys who just
resell/repackage are making a killing.

You could even open your own Silk Road, which is lower risk than being a
vendor. Just collect your small fee off every transaction, while staying
completely anonymous.

Most of this stuff probably seems pretty shady to most people. But anyone with
10-20k, some balls and smarts can become a millionaire from it, very quickly.

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salahxanadu
Speaking from experience, there is very little margin in drop-shipping so you
need to do a lot of volume. To do a lot of volume you really need to be
spending on ppc ads. If you pour your heart into this and do about 1mm in
sales a year you can expect to clear 80-120K. Just to warn you, to get to this
level it might take 3 or 4 people working fulltime.

Making something and then selling it would be a better bet, but therein lies
the rub. Once you buy product you need to house it and eventually ship it.

~~~
kevbam
Thank you very much for this.

I have been reading ecommercefuel.com and Andrew(webmaster) says you can get
around the low margin by choosing a niche that requires a lot of additional
information,e.g something technical and then pricing yourself higher than
competitors. He argues customers will pay for the additional information and
good customer service. E.g. help installing etc.

As someone who has been there and done that, would you agree with this?

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dylanhassinger
Information marketing is easier than e-commerce. No physical products to ship

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kevbam
Is the web not saturated with ebooks about how to train your dog etc. Are
there other information products to sell?

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joeytom
Yes, I always think of information products as scams.Who really buys ebooks
about niche X or Y?

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dylanhassinger
lots of people

