E-commerce business

[cooleo]

Recently a frd came up to me and wanted me to invest in an E-commerce business- website selling gadgets. Not sure if it is worth my pennies (not penis hor) though.

How come e-commerce ideas so limited in Sinkapore? Most are half-fuck blogshops selling women clothings (although i understand that some of these char bor clothing e-stores are selling like hotcakes).

If u have a website, what will u sell? Of course, beside the typically illegal ones like pimping (i.e. Tonychat) la.

 

[krafty]

there used to be a singapore website that sell electronic gadgets few years ago, it's gone already. They sell things from USB gadgets to graphic cards. I still think it's workable if you have the resources to sell interesting and innovative gadgets from China. Check out Alibaba.com for the stuff that you want to sell. I heard in Sim Lim Sq,the shops will all pool their items in one container and ship to Singapore.

Recently a frd came up to me and wanted me to invest in an E-commerce business- website selling gadgets. Not sure if it is worth my pennies (not penis hor) though.

How come e-commerce ideas so limited in Sinkapore? Most are half-fuck blogshops selling women clothings (although i understand that some of these char bor clothing e-stores are selling like hotcakes).

If u have a website, what will u sell? Of course, beside the typically illegal ones like pimping (i.e. Tonychat) la.

 

[johnny333]

Some problems with doing e-commerce from Spore:

Local market is too small if you're limited to Spore only.
Slow performance in real world connection speeds.
Difficulty & expense of processing credit card payments
Cost of handling & shipping of products from Spore.
Fraud . Mustaffa stopped doing e-commerce because of fraud

 

[krafty]

Mustafa didn't do it correctly,you see other sites like amazon are doing well.

Some problems with doing e-commerce from Spore:

Local market is too small if you're limited to Spore only.
Slow performance in real world connection speeds.
Difficulty & expense of processing credit card payments
Cost of handling & shipping of products from Spore.
Fraud . Mustaffa stopped doing e-commerce because of fraud

 

[cooleo]

Mustafa didn't do it correctly,you see other sites like amazon are doing well.

Amazon is a totally different ball game if you compare against small e-stores la. They have economies of scale by ordering in bulk from their suppliers ma.

But what i am thinking is whether it is feasible to have a small scale e-store with a good business proposition. When i see e-commerce in Singapore, all selling the same things, heck those char bor clothing stores even use the same model at times!

What i am looking at will be competitive advantages. Example: e-store no rental or staff costs, so could potentially be cheaper. Or if you are selling something unique - like you manufacture or design yourself.

 

[johnny333]

Mustafa didn't do it correctly,you see other sites like amazon are doing well.

Mustaffa probably didn't think it was worth their $$$ to take all the necessary steps to avoid fraud.

Some US companies refuse to ship to Asia

Some US companies refuse to ship to some Asian countries

I've had to fax copies of my credit card & passport to one US company before they would accept my order

Amazon US only ship books worldwaide. There are a few exceptions like software, music,... They don't ship electronic products internationally :(
There are other products sold through Amazon but handled by various merchants, the policy on international sales is dependant on the policy of these merchants.

 

[Rogue Trader]

if you plan to only import and export/sell locally, and don't intend to build your own brand, then just go thru e-bay. Setting up and running a portal costs alot of money.

 

[Leongsam]

Recently a frd came up to me and wanted me to invest in an E-commerce business- website selling gadgets. Not sure if it is worth my pennies (not penis hor) though.

How are you going to attract sufficient traffic to reach a critical mass capable of making a profit?

Websites pay their way by converting traffic to revenue. Conversion rates are generally low and a huge volume of traffic is required before the site can become a viable business entity. You'll need to spend a considerable amount on advertising and publicity campaigns before you have a hope in hell. Deep pockets are a must in this game.

Robust servers are a prerequisite too. You're not going get by with a $19.95 per month virtual host. You'll need a dedicated server. This forum costs USD250 per month to host and it's already running out of puff with only 500 to 600 simultaneous connections. I'll need to invest an additional USD200 per month in the not too distant future just to keep up.

Do the math and ask the hard questions before your so called "friend" sends your money down the gurgler.

 

[Rogue Trader]

I'll need to invest an additional USD200 per month in the not too distant future just to keep up.

good to know you are finally going to upgrade your donkey cart.

 

[cooleo]

How are you going to attract sufficient traffic to reach a critical mass capable of making a profit?

Websites pay their way by converting traffic to revenue. Conversion rates are generally low and a huge volume of traffic is required before the site can become a viable business entity. You'll need to spend a considerable amount on advertising and publicity campaigns before you have a hope in hell. Deep pockets are a must in this game.

Robust servers are a prerequisite too. You're not going get by with a $19.95 per month virtual host. You'll need a dedicated server. This forum costs USD250 per month to host and it's already running out of puff with only 500 to 600 simultaneous connections. I'll need to invest an additional USD200 per month in the not too distant future just to keep up.

Do the math and ask the hard questions before your so called "friend" sends your money down the gurgler.

Your website is practically crawling at times. Either it's on your hosting end or you need to upgrade your servers.

Hosting is relatively cheap. I doubt you need to pay US$250/mth to host.

 

[Leongsam]

good to know you are finally going to upgrade your donkey cart.

Why ride a donkey cart in the first place? It isn't compulsory.

 

[Leongsam]

Your website is practically crawling at times. Either it's on your hosting end or you need to upgrade your servers.

Hosting is relatively cheap. I doubt you need to pay US$250/mth to host.

You get what you pay for. I need one more of these http://www.hostican.com/hosting/dedicated-servers.php

It's USD239.95 plus because I run vbulletin, I need extra memory and faster drives so it all adds up.

I'll tell what is relatively cheap though.... bullshit!... and there's heaps of it in this forum.

 

[Rogue Trader]

Why ride a donkey cart in the first place? It isn't compulsory.

I'm in no hurry. I just derive pleasure from whipping the donkey to make it run faster.

 

[Leongsam]

I'm in no hurry. I just derive pleasure from whipping the donkey to make it run faster.

Thanks for your help. I guess I can save the money then. I'll leave it to you to extract more speed out of the current setup.

 

[Rogue Trader]

Aiyooo. why the spite? you should be happy that the traffic in this forum has bulged to the current level that the original set up can no longer support it.
Don't blame me for complaining. Blame your own superior foresight and visionary business acumen.

 

[Leongsam]

Aiyooo. why the spite? you should be happy that the traffic in this forum has bulged to the current level that the original set up can no longer support it.
Don't blame me for complaining. Blame your own superior foresight and visionary business acumen.

This isn't a commercial site you twit. If I ran it as a business, it would have shut up shop many years ago.

This site is a community service for the downtrodden masses. Always has been... always will be.

 

[elephanto]

This isn't a commercial site you twit. If I ran it as a business, it would have shut up shop many years ago.

This site is a community service for the downtrodden masses. Always has been... always will be.

I am moved.

When you die, I will lobby geylang okts to give you official wake for 49days okie

 

[cooleo]

This isn't a commercial site you twit. If I ran it as a business, it would have shut up shop many years ago.

This site is a community service for the downtrodden masses. Always has been... always will be.

Not a commercial site? Well u are still peddling ad banners right?

 

[Leongsam]

Not a commercial site? Well u are still peddling ad banners right?

I take what I can get but it still doesn't cover the overheads by a long shot.

 

[Rogue Trader]

This isn't a commercial site you twit. If I ran it as a business, it would have shut up shop many years ago.

This site is a community service for the downtrodden masses. Always has been... always will be.

From reading all our posts you must be well aware of the increasing clout of downtrodden losers like myself on this site.
So more bandwidth => more losers => more traffic => more revenue => self-sustainability.