The last 24 months have seen us investing a lot of time and resources in the Ecommerce space, and what I mean by that, is selling stuff (a lot of stuff) online.

Ecommerce is vastly different to any other business model, but as an affiliate marketer, and specifically anyone who's following the Consumer Wealth System process, needs to be aware of it.

It's my opinion, that for a few people, Ecommerce is going to hold the key to not just making a full time living online, but to building wealth, something that will make you in excess of $100,000 a month, something that you can sell for hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars, in 3-5 years.

Why do you need to be aware of it if you're an affiliate marketer?

Because if you're promoting physical products as an affiliate marketer, through a review style website (like the Consumer Wealth System teaches), it's very easy to take that site, and convert it into an Ecommerce store, and dramatically boost what you are making.

But let's take a step back for a minute, and look at the Ecommerce model.

Why Ecommerce?

Well, in the second quarter of 2011, Ecommerce (in the US) accounted for $47.5 Billion, a 3% increase over the previous quarter (reference - census.gov)

And it isn't slowing down, since 2002, it's gone from around 1.3% to the now, 4.6% of total money spent in retail.

Those numbers may seem small, but remember, that 4.6% means $47,500,000,000 transacted in 3 months.

"Them thar are a lot of zeros!!!"

You're damn right it is, and taking a slice of the pie, is actually easier than you think.

It used to be that getting an Ecommerce store that was WELL BUILT (notice the emphasis on well built) was costly.

If you had contacts, and knew what you were doing, you could get away with it being built for $3,000-$5,000, if you didn't, and you wanted something custom built, you could pay as much as, if not more than $2,000,000.  Yes, $2 Million (I know this because a friend of mine who does a lot on Ecommerce, paid slightly over this to have his system built).

But even with those high costs, if you could get traffic, it was worth it.

Why?

Because of the value of the visitor for Ecommerce stores.

A few weeks back I posted on the topic of Affiliate Marketing Metrics.

In this, I went through an example scenario of an affiliate site that was doing 10,000 uniques per month, that was making $660 in sales.

Not bad (but not great) for an affiliate site.

So here's the thing, with an Ecommerce store, that is doing 10,000 uniques a month, let me show you what the numbers look like.

Now, these numbers are close (actually a little lower) to one of our ecommerce stores that we have running.

The effort to setup the site is slightly more difficult, don't get me wrong, but for the same traffic, here is a site that is making almost 8 TIMES the amount of money.

But here's the thing, Ecommerce isn't for everyone.

Going from a successful affiliate marketer, to a success ecommerce store owner, is a big shift in mindset.

You see, affiliate sites can be run, nearly on autopilot.

You get traffic, you recommend products, you make sales, job done right?

Well with Ecommerce, while you can have most of it run on autopilot, it requires a far higher degree of responsibility.

You are accountable, and responsible for people's money.

They purchase something through you, you better be well prepared to take care of them, they are your customer, and they will very quickly tell you if you have let them down.

 

It's part of the game.

But if you can handle that, if you can bear that responsibility with pride, then Ecommerce will likely be a viable avenue for you to make, not just a full time income online, but a serious business that will create wealth for you and your family.

Sincerely,

Daniel Turner