New online business idea requires help

sammyk100

Hi my names Sam

I have come up with an online business idea which is for another online selling website more like gum tree than ebay but will be for a specific items and I have spoken to family members who believe it will be a good idea. This is where I get stuck becauce I know if I set it up like gum tree obviously you don't earn anthing off people selling their items so realise the way to make money is through selling advertising space on the web site does anyone have any idea's how you go about doing doing this?

The reason I didn't want to charge people for a percentage of what they sell is because it carries to my legal stuff with it I have thought maybe just charging people like £0.05p for uploading photos just to get a little income from them advertising but thats it.

People tell me it's easy to set up website and I know I'd have to register company name etc but any other business advice anyone can give would be much appreciated?

Thanks in advance

Sam x

Suarez

Setting up the website IS easy..

Getting people to visit it is the hardest thing.

Your best bet would be google adsense or other affiliates but you would need quite a lot of traffic to make decent money.

mizzbiz

Added to that that there are loads of classifieds sites now - most of them having very few listings as people don't know about them. In order to earn advertising revenue you need to drive traffic and this is the hard part. Look at vista street, oodle etc, all struggling ot compete with Gumtree.

Not saying you can't do it but you will need to do a lot of research, have a solid busines splan of how you are going to get traffic/make your name well known etc etc. I think it's a hard business to get into tbh.

stephenni1971

Sam

How much money have you to invest in the business?

soolin

Also what will you offer people that gumtree does not?

Guntree is another ebay company and has a lot of money behind it, have you got lots of money to throw at this project?

steve1980

sammyk100 wrote: »

Hi my names Sam

I have come up with an online business idea which is for another online selling website more like gum tree than ebay but will be for a specific items and I have spoken to family members who believe it will be a good idea.

This is the thing with family, they will tell you it's a good idea, get an independent view on it from MSE. My personal view is that it's a waste of time.

This is where I get stuck becauce I know if I set it up like gum tree obviously you don't earn anthing off people selling their items so realise the way to make money is through selling advertising space on the web site does anyone have any idea's how you go about doing doing this?

The market is saturated with sites offering selling services. Ebay, Gumtree and Amazon just for starters.

The reason I didn't want to charge people for a percentage of what they sell is because it carries to my legal stuff with it I have thought maybe just charging people like £0.05p for uploading photos just to get a little income from them advertising but thats it.

Again, see above, Amazon do not charge an insertion fee or picture upload fee, just a fee if/when it sells.

People tell me it's easy to set up website and I know I'd have to register company name etc but any other business advice anyone can give would be much appreciated?

You don't register the company name, YOU register as a sole trader or a limited company with HMRC.

Thanks in advance

Sam x

Out of interest, how much capital have you got to start this. The website alone will cost you anything from £1000 upwards (And that's just absolutely basic)

Pennywise

An associate of mine spent £50k on design and hosting a website which was a brilliant and unique concept at the time, but relied on it achieving a critical mass of users to make it work. He didn't get the users and it failed. His problem was completely misunderstanding how difficult it would be to get users to visit his website. He spent thousands on advertising & marketing, but got little more than a trickle of visitors. With hindsight, he should have invested far more in something like a major TV advert campaign (like Moonpig and gocompare etc) but he'd run out of money by the time he realised, as he'd spent it all on making the website operate perfectly which was a waste because no-one visited it.

Don't underestimate how much marketing you're going to have to do.

Also, realise that the search engines only work if the user knows what they're looking for. If it's a new concept, they won't know it exists and won't know to search for it!

You may be far better investing in an expert in the new social media such as U tube, facebook, apps, etc., so that you can spread the word far quicker. You really need thousands of users from day 1 otherwise there'll be nothing there for people to look at and you'd have wasted your efforts driving people to the site. You're not going to achieve that by using traditional media nor simple search engine optimisation techniques etc. You need some way of achieving a blitz.

paddyrg

Don't do it!! You need a critical mass of users before you can even attract new advertisers. Remember Amazon made a deliberate LOSS on every sale for 5+ years to get market penetration, and they had a very clear market to conquer.

mitch161

not worth it.

main stream websites already exist. they sell everything in their own nice categories.

you only want to advertise certain items which limits your customer base.

also only charging 5p per upload etc requires a payment system. if you used paypal or a online merchant to get these payments they charge 20p-35p per transaction on debit cards. so more reasons it will fail.

being an advertiser site involves spending alot of money up front gaining the publicity /viewers for the customers to then want to advertise. most people that would come across a fresh new website would not advertise if they dont see many others using the system.

if anything i would suggest starting out as a free-ads website for a few years until you get enough viewers and then as you add more features to the site then start charging.

you wont become a wealthy person overnight on this idea. itll take years and alot of time and money.

ebay are only managing as they take money off both the advertisers and the customers. and with payment charges being 20p+ from banks, 1-2% credit card asking for 5p wont get you far.

sorry but think of something different, goodluck

if its a small project for a local town population or school to advertise its brick-a-brack you will make more money buying a pin board and charging people 5p to pin a piece of paper to the board at the local school-community hall.

sorry but since the invention of ebay millions have attempted to copy ebay, no big successes have been achieved by individuals

dnalsrammaj

this late in the game you would surely be better creating an item specific classifieds.. like fishing gear or photographic equipment. gumtree have got to the stage where they are advertising on the telly, you have to really stand out to compete with that!