e-commerce|Article information

Out of the box ideasThe Internet is limitless. No one can possibly measure how vast or deep it is anymore. And what all it is being used for by people. Which also means you can use it your advantage in ways limited by only your imagination and hard work.

Given here are some out of the box ideas for you to pursue. You can take them at face value, tweak them as you like or get them to trigger off some really new ideas – all designed to help you make money from home.

E-COMMERCE

There is nothing like the jingle of the cash register in an old-fashioned shop to make one feel good about money. Brick and mortar may never go away, but e-commerce is here to stay. Time you opened an e-shop for yourself. No idea how to go about it? Here goes:

The questions to ask

Like for anything else you do, start by asking yourself some questions and seeking honest answers: What will you sell? Will customers find value in buying from you? Is it cheaper, or unique or makes the purchase process easier? Who is your target market? Will they buy what you have to sell? Even if it I something people are not used to buying, can you create a market for yourself? What will it cost to set up? How much time will it require daily or weekly?

If the answers you get make a business case for what you are setting out to do, go for it. Sometimes it may not but your intuition or gut feel tells you otherwise. Don’t ignore it. If market research always gave the right answers, some of our favourite products might never have seen the light of the day.

What do you sell?

Anything you make or distribute yourself. If you don’t have anything of this sort, tie up with someone who can supply the same. And you act only as the seller. For example, you could start selling books and list them on your site. When you receive an order, pick up the copy from the distributor and ship it.

No inventories to carry. Or go a little niche. Pick on products tough to find. Where would you buy movie posters for example? After some snooping around you could find yourself a vendor. But most others might not be able to. Tie up with this vendor to sell for him, keeping a mark-up for yourself.

Where is your market?

In theory , the world is your market. And it can be in practice too. The Internet allows you to reach out to every connected human globally and service them. Of course, no one has something to sell for everyone. Segment your market well and address it well. It could just be your office colleagues or your local community. It may not be feasible to always capture markets even when they exist. A table costing five thousand rupees may be easy to deliver in Delhi where you live but not in Brazil. Or even Mumbai for that matter.

Setting up the site

Many a software company has grown rich developing applications for early days e-commerce clients. Projects ran into tens of thousands to even millions of dollars in billing. You don’t need to spend that kind of money anymore. There are enough boxed solutions, do-it-yourself websites and software-as-a-service models going around to get you going provided you don’t have anything as elaborate as Amazon planned out. You could even set these up in a matter of hours.

Receiving payments is also no longer as difficult as it used to be. PayPal and other companies allow you to process credit card payments from clients globally. Customers are increasingly getting more comfortable using their cards online. You can always ask for cheques or bank transfers when cards are not an option. It may be slower, but you save on the hefty transaction fee when processing credit card payments.

Once the money is flowing in, you can always pay a developer to make a state of the art site for you. Remember, focus on your product and marketing initially rather than investing too much in the site.




Is there any other way to set up shop?

Yes, there is. Ebay, including its Indian operations, and Amazon are some of the leading platforms who allows you to set up your own virtual store for a small fee. It is all an automated process, you can do your own branding, and they make it easy to receive payments. Contrary to popular perception, Ebay is not just a marketplace for used goods. There is a high percentage of fresh stock being bought and sold too. There are hundreds of people who have made full time professions out of trading on Ebay. Nothing stops you from doing so yourself. You enjoy the advantages of not getting into the hassle of setting up the shop yourself – and of being in the market with its own captive audience you can never hope to get on your own.

Promoting your shop

Right, your shop is open for business but how do you get the footfalls? Use social media and blogs again. You can read it up in a later section, but here are some ideas that work best for an e-commerce site:

Have a blog where you talk of your products, customer service, testimonials, new launches etc.Social Media: Set up groups and fan pages on sites like Facebook and LinkedIn depending where your target audience is.
Search Engine Optimisation: Get a professional to optimize your site so it appears high on search engine ranking.

Advertise online wherever your target customers could be. You can always put a cap on your budget, being as low as a few hundred rupees a day, and decide where and when the ads should appear for effective targeting.
Use free advertising spots like your email signature, visiting cards, letterheads, bumper stickers, emailers etc.




OFFLINE BUSINESS OUT OF ONLINE CLASSIFIEDS

Which sites have proven to be the most successful commercially in India? Jobs, property and matrimonials top the charts and have already knocked the wind out of many a newspaper who relied on these segments as the mainstay of their revenues.

Where do you come in here? You can leverage these to service a client base not comfortable or knowledgeable about the net. And in India there is a sizeable population of this kind. And that is why you still have offline service providers for these segments despite the popularity of the sites. Here are some specific services you can provide:


Property: Indians are still vary, with justification, of property deals. They prefer dealing with real persons as middlemen and the person could be you. Sites like Magicbricks and IndiaProperties are rich with a database of both prospective tenants and buyers as well as properties on offer. You can tap into these and offer your services. There is no longer a need to send someone scouting all over town looking for vacant properties up for letting or sale. Your net connection and telephone can do most of the work, with visits scheduled once talks make headway.


Matrimonials: You could help people post on matrimonial sites and collect responses on their behalf – even providing print-outs of ‘matrimonial resumes.’ All for a fee. And commission from the site if they have such a facility.

Jobs: Start you own part-time placement consultancy. Again, like for properties, candidates and employers are all there. Use your social media networks to further tap into a global talent pool. And earn a fee every time you help place someone.

MARKET RESEARCH

Ever wondered how the likes of IMRB and Nielsen carry out market research and polls on behalf of companies? They usually design suitable forms and send out people to gather responses from people. And then charge clients a hefty fee after they have processed and analysed the same.

You could do something similar for a much smaller fee. The consumer demographic these companies seek are usually to be found on communities like Facebook, Orkut, Ryze and LinkedIn. You can tap into these with online polls, surveys or even focus group interactions. Many of these sites offer easy to use polling tools, or you can use services like Zoomerang, SurveyMonkey and ConstantContact. These are mostly free for at least the basic functionalities, and charge a small fee beyond that.

The results may not be as scientific as what some of the bigger agencies, but they can still offer some valuable market insights for companies. And the turnaround time can be very low. Clients can always follow it up with more detailed surveys if need be.

You could go a step further and start generating industry specific surveys and selling these for a fee. They may not have been commissioned by a single client, but you could earn some good money even if you succeed in selling these to enough organizations.

TUTOR ONLINE

One of the lesser known success stories in the Indian outsourcing industry is online tutoring. Companies are facilitating the coming together of teachers from India to take lessons for students from all over the world. One such service WizIQ.com has created such a marketplace where tutors and learners register and find each other. There are others who do the hard part of finding students and then connect them with tutors, everyone getting paid in the process.

Likewise, there are opportunities to take online classes for American universities but this is yet to catch on in a bigger way due to certification and other qualifying criteria. But a few Indians have already been making money pursuing this option for many years. This works particularly well for those with American degrees.

Again, this is something that can be done in one’s spare time. It is most lucrative when catering to western students. Not only do they have a much higher paying capacity but they can be taught after work hours in India due to time zone differences.