etsy – Kirin3

Should you self host your eCommerce site or outsource it?

K. M. Christensen — Mon, 07 Sep 2015 21:55:48 +0000

Starting a business online involves a lot of decisions–the choice to self host or outsource eCommerce activities is one of your most critical. Read on for platform suggestions for both options, and the benefits and disadvantages of each.

Just starting out? Let somebody else help

For folks who are just beginning their foray into eCommerce, it’s probably best to stick with a pre-established platform. Consider your product first, then select a host who best suits your niche.

For example, if your goods are handmade: Etsy is perfect for you.

If you primarily sell digital publications, check out Gumroad.

Are you an author? Give Kindle Direct Publishing a try.

Selling a simple service? Have a look at Fiverr.

I’ve written about using these platforms to create passive income sources before, but read on for more on the nitty gritty of the benefits and disadvantages that come with your different options.

The perks of the package deal

When you look at your Etsy bill at the end of the month you might say: is this worth it? 20 cents per listing, 3.5% of every sale, and 3% plus .25 cents per “direct” payment adds up. For a $10 item bought via direct checkout (AKA a credit card sans Paypal), that’s $1.10 eating into your profit margin.

So what do you get for your $1.10?

In Etsy’s case, you get three things (primarily):

Payment gateway
User interface
SEO, user base, and organic/paid advertising

A payment gateway is always going to cost you (I talk more about that more below). 3% is a fairly standard rate. Building a UI that’s functional and attractive (which Etsy has, for the most part) is an expensive and complicated process. But the most valuable feature Etsy offers to you, particularly if you’re just starting out as a seller, is SEO (appearance in search results) and reputation building.

Buyers don’t have to worry as much about the sometimes harrowing experience of making a purchase online. Although they know essentially nothing about you or your business, potential customers recognize and trust the Etsy marketplace brand.

Moving up in the world? It might be time to go it alone

The biggest disadvantage of going with a platform is the cost. Every single option listed here takes some percentage or flat rate for hosting your products and allowing you to accept payment.

Hosting your own site and eCommerce system can help you skirt these fees, but there’s a lot of expenses involved here as well. You will need and/or want:

A reliable site host
An eCommerce platform
A security (SSL) certificate
A payment gateway

If you’re less than comfortable with technology, you may even need to hire someone to do most of this for you. Assuming, however, that you’re willing to make the investment of time and money there are a lot of advantages to doing things for yourself.

For one, integrating into an existing, well trafficked site is a great way to superpower your eCommerce launch. If you run a popular WordPress blog about recipes, for example, selling cookbooks or other goodies is a natural choice.

WooCommerce: free eCommerce for WordPress

Running a blog is a great way to get traffic to your eCommerce site–and it’s natural to think of WordPress as a content management system. Of course, WordPress can do so much more than just help you publish your blog.

WooCommerce by WooThemes is a powerful plugin that allows you to create a simple eCommerce platform, right on your site. The basic version is free and can integrate with Paypal classic for no additional fee (other than Paypal’s fees, of course).

If you’re looking to do more, WooCommerce can integrate other cool features:

But just as a note: these extra features are going to cost you.

WooCommerce is another in a long series of “freemium” services that, once you decide to upgrade, will ding you left and right with fees for additional extensions or capabilities.

That being said, it’s a powerful service, and you can happily use the basic version for free. (There are also a variety of 3rd party extensions that can save you some cash).

Don’t forget your payment process experience!

So you’ve finally decided whether you will self host or outsource eCommerce. You’ve chosen Etsy because it’s reputable or WooCommerce because it’s free. But you can’t forget to think about what the payment process is like!

Buying things is a process. Consider how you shop online yourself. There’s a lot to consider before even getting an item into your cart, much less progressing to checkout.

If the checkout process is tedious or seems insecure, potential customers will give up quickly.

For example, let’s compare the Etsy checkout process versus the Gumroad checkout process for an identical digital item.

Etsy checkout process

With Etsy, even though the item is digital, you can see I quickly get stuck creating a password to even continue the checkout process.

Gumroad checkout process

For Gumroad, I simply click “I want this” and am instantly transported to a secure payment gateway, lightbox style.

To be fair to the folks at Etsy, this is one of Gumroad’s founding principles. But, they also charge more per transaction–5% versus 3% with Etsy. However, there are no listing fees.

The 3 key principles for any eCommerce setup

As you’ve read so far, there’s no one size fits all solution when it comes to choosing to self host or outsource eCommerce. But I will close with a few key principles to keep in mind, no matter which option you go for.

#1 – Make yourself and your product look good

#2 – Emphasize security and reputation

#2 – Make checkout and payment as easy as possible

If you stick to these points, you should have a successful eCommerce setup in no time!

Creators: 5 low tech ways to build passive income sources

K. M. Christensen — Mon, 17 Aug 2015 20:03:24 +0000

Heads up, content creators, you don’t have to go to coding bootcamp or work your fingers to the bone to boost your creation-based revenue each month! Read on to learn more about these low barrier methods for building passive income sources.

The real name of the game for passive income sources is “scaleability”.

Sure, doing commissions and taking on freelance projects is a great way to earn, but you’re only human–and you shouldn’t have to work yourself to death to make money doing what you love.

The answer? Digital products.

Digital products are infinitely scaleable!

Etsy

I know what you’re thinking: Etsy, really? I’m already on Etsy, and if I have to take one more trip to the post office–

Stop!

Etsy is more than just handmade goods! Think of the items you create: now take one step backward. What were they before you put on the finishing touches? A pattern, a print file, a pile of found materials?

Offering up a digital version of your original sewing/knitting/crochet pattern, the photo print you were about to make, or a PDF guide on how to create something awesome with the items in your junk drawer is an excellent way to add more volume to your Etsy business without adding more work for yourself–AKA passive income sources!

Learn more about listing digital items on Etsy here.

Gumroad

Speaking of creating PDFs, Gumroad is another great spot for selling digital goodies. When I first started out there, you could really only sell digital books and the like, but now they offer a wide range of services. You can even create subscription services through their interface! My favourite thing about Gumroad is how clean their checkout process is. You don’t have to click through endless pages or unnecessarily enter your billing/shipping address.

You can now even directly embed your products into your page and sell them through the Gumroad interface without needing a SSL (security certificate–the thing that makes your URL bar turn green!) It can look like this:

Buy my product using Gumroad

Or you can embed the entire product page and folks can checkout inline. And all you have to do is click a few buttons and copy and paste the code–low tech, as promised! It’s an awesome tool and I highly recommend it to build passive income sources.

RedBubble

If you create any kind of illustration, design, or photography, you can use RedBubble to put it on all sorts of fun products. The best part? RedBubble does all of the legwork for you. I setup my RedBubble shop on a whim, and now it’s one of my most consistent and totally hands off passive income sources. I’ve sold 43 of these Oh Kale Yeah stickers alone:

There’s a lot of room for experimentation, and it’s totally okay to fail! It’s hard to know what consumers want sometimes, but with interfaces like RedBubble, where all items are made to order, you don’t have to worry about sitting on 100 t-shirts you’ll never sell. RedBubble is constantly adding new products to their lineup of things you can customize with your designs–everything from leggings to pillow cases to laptop sleeves.

Amazon Associates

When it comes to time commitments, this one is the lowest of the low. You already know products you love as a creator: if they’re on Amazon, you can get your share of the profits for recommending them. How it works:

>You share a link of a product you think is awesome

>Someone clicks that link, it takes them to Amazon, and they buy anything

>You get a small percentage of the profit

Yes, you read that correctly: it doesn’t matter if the person who clicked your link doesn’t buy the exact item you shared. There’s one small catch: you do have to remember to get your custom Associates link for the item you want to recommend. Want to make this even simpler?

For those of you with a WordPress based site: A developer called GeoRiot has a WordPress plugin called Amazon Link Engine that simplifies the process for you even further. You copy and paste any old link from Amazon, and GeoRiot automatically customizes it for your Associates account AND serves the correct regional link based on where the user is surfing from. Basically, folks surfing the net in the UK get directed to Amazon’s UK site even if you got your link from the US Amazon site. It doesn’t get much easier than that when it comes to passive income sources!

Skillshare

Skillshare is a subscription based eLearning platform where folks pay a small monthly fee to access a wide variety of classes taught by all kinds of creators. And yes, one of those creators could be you! As their teaching page states, everyone can teach.

If you’ve ever taught a class or workshop before, you’ll know that this one involves quite a bit of work up front. However, once you’ve got your lesson plans in place, teaching a course on Skillshare can be a great low commitment way to generate more income.

The bottom line is: your skills are valuable.

Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise!

Monetizing can be difficult (as I’m sure you already know) and it often does involve a lot of work. However, something doesn’t have to be hard to be profitable.