The osCommerce cafe
Lately I've been on a tear about the commercial web and the question of how broad it is. We know that some big names have made a lot of money, mainly by turning the web into a platform for advertising. But how can we little names turn the web into the interactive place it is supposed to be, and make a little money at the same time. Must the money always flow to the big boys, or can the web change all that.
The problem for a little guy using the web commercially is that the start-up costs are still significant. Sure, they are nothing compared to the $100-$200K dollars that might be needed to start a physical store, but they are not insignificant. The dollars necessary to procure product, promote that product, establish relationships to process payments, etc., are significant. I have a buddy who started a successful business on Ebay--but spent $30K before making a dime of product. $30K is not a lot of money to Google but (I think I can admit it to you all) it is a lot of money to me.
Lately I've been visiting sites that aim to change this, such as
the osCommerce cafe. This site offers memberships during which members are allowed to download osCommerce templates from a menu of nearly 100 offerings. These templates cut the time and money necessary for site creation and maintenance (whose costs can easily top $10K). The memberships start at around $90 and allow download of multiple designs. Meanwhile, at other sites (easily found on Google), individual designs can run close to $200.
I imagine that the ideal customer for this site is a serial entrepeneur with multiple ideas. With access to the osCommerce templates, an entrepeneur could establish and test dozens of business ideas over the course of months. In fact, to take the idea a bit further, one could test several templates simultaneously and monitor the effect of using different templates on sales of different products. The best design could then be chosen to maximize profit. I imagine that this sort of optimization, which is similar to that practiced by AdSense, could easily top the cost of membership rather quickly.
Link: The osCommerce cafe
The problem for a little guy using the web commercially is that the start-up costs are still significant. Sure, they are nothing compared to the $100-$200K dollars that might be needed to start a physical store, but they are not insignificant. The dollars necessary to procure product, promote that product, establish relationships to process payments, etc., are significant. I have a buddy who started a successful business on Ebay--but spent $30K before making a dime of product. $30K is not a lot of money to Google but (I think I can admit it to you all) it is a lot of money to me.
Lately I've been visiting sites that aim to change this, such as
the osCommerce cafe. This site offers memberships during which members are allowed to download osCommerce templates from a menu of nearly 100 offerings. These templates cut the time and money necessary for site creation and maintenance (whose costs can easily top $10K). The memberships start at around $90 and allow download of multiple designs. Meanwhile, at other sites (easily found on Google), individual designs can run close to $200.
I imagine that the ideal customer for this site is a serial entrepeneur with multiple ideas. With access to the osCommerce templates, an entrepeneur could establish and test dozens of business ideas over the course of months. In fact, to take the idea a bit further, one could test several templates simultaneously and monitor the effect of using different templates on sales of different products. The best design could then be chosen to maximize profit. I imagine that this sort of optimization, which is similar to that practiced by AdSense, could easily top the cost of membership rather quickly.
Link: The osCommerce cafe
posted by jerry at 10:08 AM
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