Open For Business
- By Brandon Palmer
Part Two:
Most major companies want nothing to do with adult-oriented sites, but there are several adult-friendly Web hosts with comparable resources, such as Wild Web Sites (WildWebSites.com), XXXWebHosting (XXXWebHosting.com), and Cyber Wurx (CPCyberWurx.com). Companies such as these can take care of all of the technical elements for you, from processing your sales, to helping you set up a Merchant Account. It will take the trial-and-error out of your Internet business, leaving you to focus on the more creative (i.e. more fun) aspects of your site.
You may find, however, that you need more help on your site than merely handling the credit card transactions. Running a storefront, after all, is not just about order forms and sales receipts. Somewhere along the line, your customers will actually expect to receive their products.
Being your own retailer may sound more appealing, and certainly the profit margins are substantially higher. But the physical demands are more than you might have anticipated. Shipping duties alone can easily become a full-time job. And, unless you have an empty factory at your disposal, there's the question of where you reasonably expect to stock enough products to meet the demand. With the time commitment involved, the day-to-day requirements of running a storefront can quickly interfere with your main site. And if you fail to keep up the quality of your main site - the place that attracted your customers in the first place - you might say that you're cutting off your nose to spite your face.
A wiser alternative is to work with an affiliate program. Simply put, you add a banner or text link to your site that directs traffic to an Internet store (completely run by another company) and you collect a commission based on how many sales your link generates. Although affiliates can make your life substantially easier, there are some glaring cons to consider.
"The problem (with an affiliate program) arises when you send people to buy a product that's not offered on your site," says JT Smith. "They get confused. They're not sure where they are. Are they still on your site? Have they gone elsewhere? Are they going to get a bunch of pop-ups if they click the back button?"
Smith recommends that webmasters opt for V-Shops instead. A V-shop (such as the kind his company distributes at www.adultdvdempire.com) allows you to upload a storefront directly to your server, making it appear to be owned and operated solely by your adult site. You'll also be able to take a more active role in determining the store's content.
"You choose the items to be listed and your markup, and let them take care of the orders," says JohnD of TheBaron.net, a highly successful DVD Web store. "You are paid based on your pre-set commission, and you never have to buy a single product."
Though V-shops certainly involve less hassle, there are a few drawbacks. Be wary of adding too many products to your store at one time, as it can put a considerable load on your server and eat up valuable bandwidth, and when choosing the exact pricing of your products, avoid the temptation to price yourself out of the market.
Commissions may be frustrating, as an ambitious webmaster will undoubtedly crave a bigger piece of the pie. With most commission agreements, you can expect to receive roughly 30% of the sale. In other words, for every $50 purchased by a customer, you'll get $15. That may not seem like much, but keep in mind that all sales come at absolutely no risk to you. It's rare when a storefront can operate without suffering huge losses, due to credit card fraud, shipping costs and, of course, overstocked products that just won't sell. When you consider that you're reaping all of the rewards without encountering any financial pitfalls, there really is no better way for an enterprising webmaster to launch his first storefront... and still sleep soundly at night.
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