Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with ecommerce and internet

ass gas or grass?

Anonymous — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 21:53:01 -0800

What are some examples of Medium-High Traffic websites that have successfully started to make money and how did they do it? It's been 5 years since This Question and many things have happened on the web. I help to run a pretty high traffic (~150k visitors a month) site in a specific demographic. I have some ideas about how to make money off of it without driving away our users, but some examples of others that went from labor of love to money-making without a lot of fuss or being sold would be helpful, but I can only think of giant ones, or Metafilter, obviously. Unique details would help a lot.

Thanks!

What should I sell online?

Elminster24 — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 23:02:05 -0800

Help me find something to sell online. My current site was de-indexed and while I'm working on getting that back in the rankings I'm looking for something else to sell and would like to experiment with sourcing a product myself versus going the affiliate route. I've dabbled in affiliate marketing and had a halfway successful eBay Partner Network based site that was bringing in about $400-$600/mo on average and growing. Unfortunately Google de-indexed it for reasons I'm still uncertain of. I'm working on relaunching the site with new content and hopefully that will help but this has made me realize I can't put all my eggs in one basket.

This is where you guys come in. I'm trying to think of unique product ideas to sell online. I know how to get a site designed and rather than a site that sells MANY products, I'm looking for a site that can sell just one or two specific ones. I'd love to be able to source my own products to make them unique but I really have no clue where to even begin with that. Aside from shady dropshipping scammers, can you guys recommend some good resources for determining how to source a product (preferably within the US), find suppliers, etc.?

Also, any suggestions on where I can get inspiration for a product to sell in my store would be appreciated.

I'm not looking for THE idea...just some resources to gain inspiration. Are there any matchmaking sites for people who want to sell their products online and are looking for partners (NOT affiliates)?

I have an idea for a unique information product but it is based on World of Warcraft and I don't have much hardcore knowledge of the details of that game so I don't know how to go about finding a writer for that sort of thing...

Show me the money.

Esoquo — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 21:01:27 -0800

How much money will change hands over the internet this year? Where could I find figures projecting the amount of money exchanged via e-commerce over the coming year, or figures tracking that same amount over the past year?

Who did Office Depot go to set up an online storefront?

cha4 — Tue, 13 May 2008 08:40:00 -0800

I've been tasked with finding an e-commerce consulting company to help guide us (we are a wing of a fortune 500 company) through the entire e-commerce process. Not so much creating it necessarily, but more guidance/consulting. My google-fu is yielding all fluff. Ideally, looking for "Company X helped Barnes & Noble switch to an online storefront" type of info, so I can back up any suggestions I might be able to make.

Software recommendations for creating an affiliate program?

jxpx777 — Mon, 09 Oct 2006 12:55:38 -0800

Greetings, hive mind. I want to start an affiliate program for my web design and hosting business for folks to refer others for hosting. What software is good for tracking referrals? For clarification, this is not a request for what affiliate program is best (Commission Junction, LinkShare, whatever) but a question about what software to use to set up an affiliate program like they have.

How can I take online credit card payments without using a third party payment service provider?

Hartster — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 08:51:26 -0800

How can I take online credit card payments without using a third party payment service provider? Our ecommerce website (which uses a home made shopping cart) currently processes credit card payments via a third party company.

At the moment, using a third party costs us around £1500 a year in monthly and per transaction payments to them.

In the near future we'll be rebuilding our site; one thing we want to include is user accounts to store shipping and billing addresses, order and credit card information etc. What do we need to do to process and store credit cards ourselves, rather than use a third party? What are the costs and pros and cons?

We have our own dedicated server plus a internet merchant account.

Need ASP ecommerce solution.

letterneversent — Fri, 29 Jul 2005 12:00:48 -0800

I need a good, cheap (free) ASP shopping cart application for Windows 2003 / IIS for a client website. Normally, I would use osCommerce, but for some reason they want everything ASP, etc. Any suggestions? Your help is fantastically appreciated. A search reveals a previous inquiry with the suggestion of OrangeCart. I would like to have other options as I was not altogether impressed with OC.