Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Here`s someting I was pondering, and maybe your insight will help me.

My job is to get catalogs and websites to sell our products. In the last year, it`s almost been like shooting fish in a bucket, since it`s become easier and easier for Joe Anybody to build an e-commerce website.

In fact, last year I build one myself, to see if I could do it.
Building it wasn`t a problem...getting traffic was. But I digress...

I often think about building a new e-commerce site with my wife, so she can work from home instead of going out to get a job. (It`s her desire to work from home if possible.)

But my concern is this - now that it IS so easy to build a site...and everyone has one or has an eBay Store (or both)...is the market somewhat saturated?

It used to be that you were instructed to add content like articles, blogs, polls and cross-links to keep the customers interested and coming back. But now, that`s the norm. Is it possible to offer a site, today, that is unique enough to `stand out`.

All of Seth Godin`s books about being remarkable and standing out...have the principles become common, or do they still apply? Is it still possible to be different and exciting without inventing an altogether new product/service/technology?

It`s very possible that I`ve just become a little jaded becasue I`ve seen so many `template` websites in the last 2 years. But if you have seen relatively new sites that are fresh...exciting..but still appear to be e-commerce driven (as opposed to content sites that have a few items on for sale since the audience is already captured)...I`d like to know about them. I`d like to know your feelings about the currrent/next generation of e-commerce sites in general, too.

I`d like to stop babbling and let you talk now...

Is every idea come and gone? No.

The point of Seth Godin`s stuff is that you have to NOT be like everyone else. Everyone else is making some templated web site? Don`t. Make something original. Do something different. Have a business plan that takes some risks and goes into a new direction. Facebook isn`t reinventing the wheel right now ... they are just gaining some serious speed because they are doing it better than MySpace.

Hi. Thanks for the feedback. I appreciate your time.

Have you recently `seen` such sites you are talking about? I know the broad terms of what Seth is saying, as I`ve read most of his books and `understand` them well. What I am asking is what is your recent experience. What have you seen in way of e-commerce sites that is different, fresh and stands out from the norm?

Try the demo over here:
MyStoreSpace

I think a move to this sort of thing is going to revolutionize how we shop.

Imagine going to Amazon and just dragging items into your cart instead of clicking on them ...

There are small movers and big movers. Design changes. Shopping pattern changes. Marketing changes.

There are many ways to jump ahead of the pack.

1) Have your own shopping experience. Create a custom interface that is eye-catching.
2) Do something new and web-2.0-y in your functionality.
3) Change the way you market your goods. Put YouTube videos out showing ways to use your product. Have contests for people to make their own videos using your product.
4) Make a highly customizable product like chumby and you`ll create an insanely loyal customer base.

You don`t necessarily revolutionary. You can also just do the revolution better. Plenty of inventors don`t reinvent the wheel ... they just make it roll better.

NOW you`re talkin`!

GREAT stuff here! Thanks for sharing!

This was EXACTLY the kind of inspiration I was looking for!

 

Everyone`s background is different, and can offer a different service based on experience. No online store is the same because how they operate based on personality. Sometimes you can do some research, and find all the negatives about a successful site, and come up with a different concept.

Nikole nailed it! :-) Although it may "look like" we`re in a totally new world, with never-before-seen-in-history events taking place, we`re not.

Yes, the Web is unique. We`ve never before had nearly instant access to the world`s information. But that`s nothing to do with whether or not the world is saturated with products, ideas, information, or new-ness.

Seth GODIN (note the missing "R") and his books talk about the global *concept* of selling, marketing, being, and producing.

Books in general have been around for hundreds of years.

Because Seth Godin has a book, does that mean what it contains is over-saturated? No.....of course not!

Suppose you lived in Egypt, circa 8,000 A.D., and you sell cotton fabric. You`d still have had transportation problems, getting to market up the Nile. You`d still have manufacturing problems, labor disputes, raw material acquisition, and pricing issues.

When you got to the centra market place, you`d still be competing with who kows how many other cotton fabric vendors. Sure, you`d be shouting out loud without a microphone or speakers, and there`d be no television. So? Everyone else would be in the same situation. Would you go home and grumble that "the damn market is filling up so fast....there`s no room for anyone anymore...it`s a saturated market!" :-)

What`s fundamentally changed is only the *size* of the market. Where you used to be able to stand out in a 10-mile radius from your home (or factory), now you have to stand out on the entire planet Earth! Instead of competing with the best of a limited area, you now have to compete with the best in the entire world!

No, the market isn`t saturated for ideas and products. It`s saturated for the ho-hum knock-offs and copies. It`s saturated with people trying to make a quick buck selling nothing or selling other people`s stuff. It`s saturated with "tricks" and "gimmicks" designed to make you a millionaire without ever having an original thought.

But it`s not saturated for something new, different, better, interesting, useful, or just plain fun. :-)

Craig -

That`s really good stuff you are sharing here, although I`m a little concerned about preaching to the choir so to speak.

I`m already on board with the idea that there new ideas are what will make a site valuable and therefore successful. (I even spelled Godin right in my original post! LOL!) My goal for this thread is to find and discuss such ideas.

In other words, rather than talk about the THEORY of what would stand out and what would not...I`d like to talk about what you have seen, specifcally, that works.  If there are 100 widget knock offs out there, have you found a  Woodgit?

How about a Tegdiw? (a reverse widgit, naturally!)

Nikole definately did nail it, and I couldn`t be more grateful. If anyone else can share that kind of specific example / experience, I`d like to know about it.

(PS - Nikole, you did not waste her time! I e-mailed the people at MyOfficeWorks and hope to do something with them later in the year!)

 

 

There are a lot of good companies that are changing the way we do things, just going in new directions. I wrote a post today on Backpack, as a matter of fact. The concept of having a PIM isn`t revolutionary ... it`s just the simplicity and platform that makes it something new and fresh. 37 Signals makes a lot of good products that are just well-design and easy to use ... seems simple, but it`s refreshing!

This isn`t a discussion of theory, per se. Yes, we`re at the theoretical stage for the moment, but that`s because you`ve said nothing about what you can do, other than you have some technical background.

If anyone is going to go anywhere on a pathway, they first have to know that they can move---either by themselves or via some outside locomotion. They then have to know if it`s only one path or are there many. Then, if many, they have to choose which path. Then there`s the direction, and know how to know which direction is "forward," and which is "backward."

In other words, lots of people casually dismiss "theory" when they really haven`t paid it much attention. Unfortunately, a whole lot of things in life require having a theory before acting. Otherwise it`s just whimsical action, right?