Dear Harry Alain,
Let's start with basic facts. Few new businesses make money online -
Amazon.com did not yield major profits for a long period; and it is
notoriously known, that porn and gambling are the two major profiting
online markets. There are no easy ways of breaking into the market,
especially when you try to compete with giants such as Amazon.com.
Online malls, the topic of this question, are no different. Like most
businesses, they find it hard to break into the market, and unlike
real life, the chance that people will browse into a standard online
mall and buy things they didn't plan to buy is not big. Those who make
money in online malls are usually those who sell the space.
Moreover, online malls are problematic because of those "training"
programmes they offer for money - an article in enterpreneur.com
labels them as "controversial" and mentions that the FTC is
investigating the business practices of several online malls (See:
"Internet Malls: Should You Or Shouldn't You?"
http://www.entrepreneur.com/mag/article/0,1539,229410----6-,00.html).
As market analyst John Audette wrote back in 1998 "There's no shortage
of parking on the Internet; there's no strolling down the hallways to
see other people; there's no need to aggregate storefronts -- in the
non-linear space of the Internet everything is already located right
next to everything else. Internet malls are sold, not bought, and only
the mall operators are making any money" (Source: Sherk, Adam
"Internet Commerce Developments in 1998"
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=66his4%2413g%40spool.cs.wisc.edu&output=gplain).
Joe Foneborne, who built an online mall back in 2000, says that "I
built and own an on-line mall, without at this point the ability for
users to purchase from me. Sounds strange I know but our initial
thoughts were to offer an on-line mall that was more of a portal site.
The site looks good, but does not draw traffic, this is likely my
fault given the poor meta-tags. We have not made a single cent from
the site, even though we have enrolled in plenty of affiliate
programs. It appears that sites such as ours are not much of a draw
given what excite, yahoo and other well financed sites offer, however
we hope to change the scope of the site that should draw people back
on a regular basis." (Source: Joe Fonebone, "Re: Online Malls.... any
success stories?", http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=bS2H4.4108%24HG1.118311%40nnrp1.uunet.ca&output=gplain).
From a seller's perspective, it also doesn't look good. Kris Baker
wrote in 2001 that "I'm not sure that people use *any* of the online
malls unless they've tumbled into one that offers lots of their
specialties. [...] I don't know if any of the online malls can compete
[with eBay ...] most of my sales came from people who searched for
specific items via AltaVista or Yahoo - my page would pop up,
sometimes as a sole source. I didn't put up an index page in my
directory, so it was open to all the web crawlers. That was a lot more
exposure (for free) than I'd have gained through listing in just one
place" [i.e. - in one online mall] (Source: Kris Baker, "Re: Fixed
Price Online Antique Malls-question"
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=934mrj%243fuu%241%40newssvr05-en0.news.prodigy.com&output=gplain).
In order not to be a victim of scams, you should enquire about the
online mall before dealing with it. William T Lasley of "About.com"
has several good advices on the subject:
http://artsandcrafts.about.com/library/weekly/aa080300.htm
Paul Beakley has some general advices on building a web site: in his
article "Re: selling on the web?"
(http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=38b770cd.56873769%40news.primenet.com&output=gplain).
Personally, I'd recommend starting with an eBay shop: unlike the
"online malls" eBay has a (good) record in profitability and in
attracting shoppers. It is less expensive, and they also offer
tutorials - for free. (See for example, for an eBay Store -
http://pages.ebay.com/storefronts/seller-landing.html and
http://pages.ebay.com/sell/tools.html).
I hope that answered your question. Do not hesitate to contact me if
you need clarifications on this answer before you rate it. |
