Build A Niche Store - Setup A Storefront In Minutes
It’s that time of year when people blow their wads on online shopping. It’s also the time of year that affiliates can really bank hardcore… but many lack the skills to build a nice oriented store. I was checking out some of these “instant” storefronts and thought I would give building a niche store a go….
When I first went to the site I wasn’t really that impressed… I also had a hard time finding the purchase button. I did manage to find it though. $97.00 Paypal and a redirect later I was able to download the store files.
So I thought if I am going to do this…I better do it right ;). I registered shoemoneyshoes.com with godaddy and waited for the dns to take effect… (I tried not to use any of our own resources that any of my readers would not have available). Uploaded the files through FTP and proceeded to follow the step my step instructions.
So I put in the basic database information about my host (username,password,database name) the normal stuff then I am presented with the admin control panel:
Pretty smooth so far… so I go through all the options… first changing my password and username then hitting the settings. I am presented some basic setting options like store name and keywords… category… put in your ebay affiliate id etc..
Obviously I chose some shoe categories.
Then I choose which template I wanted (I went with a 3 column)
Then in the ads section you can put in advertising code… you can put in pretty much anything you want.. Adsense or whatever… In my case I put in Zappos affiliate banners (Zappos is by far the best for shoes).
The ONLY thing I custom edited was the header. I had an old image a friend of mine made that I just added the words Shoemoney shoe store to.
Literally 10 minutes start to finish I have a great looking working storefront on Shoemoney Shoe Store
This is of course showing live items on eBay and also advertisements from zappos for shoes. 2 of the best paying affiliate programs on the market.
Build A Niche store is some really SWEET software. If you are looking at firing up a niche store I highly recommend it. I did not need it but they have a very busy support forum with people available 24/7 to answer any questions or just to talk about how stuff works.
They also have a really nice affiliate program which pays out $44 per sale (%50) commission.
I think this software is pretty amazing for as cheap as it is…. even for those who do know what they are doing there is some great code in there you can learn a lot from (if you are thinking about doing your own thing).
So where’s the Shoemoney Tshirts (deliverable to Australia ???)
AND the hats ??
Setting the store up looks easy and simple… but how do you get people to actually GO there and BUY something?
Umm, all the links go to eBay.
I think she meant how do they get the store… and the answer is by linking to it from shoemoney.
And a heck load of SEO (luckily out of the box BANS does this quite well).
~ Dave
that’s called online marketing, Shirley. Isn’t that why you’re here?
Now if I can just figure out how to attach a Wordpress blog to it too I can do some niche Social marketing just in time for the holidays. As if I had time, right?
by promoting your store on websites. Adwords, buying banners, text links etc.
Thanks for that. I need something simple to use. I’m always afraid to spend money on this sort of service b/c I don’t know what I’m getting.
another bookmark
that is why you learn - and read
the best part of doing something is not knowing what you are getting in to
You either learn or you pay someone to learn
hey thanx for the info Shoe. By the way whats up with listing all the shoes thats over 2000 dollars. Big checks in commission eh?
Yeah I just started using BANS a few weeks ago. I have 4 sites so far. I’m using adwords to drive traffic to the individual pages. Here’s my first site onemanknifefight.net
Sweet site. The image at the top is awesome. Did you use photoshop to create or something else? Details would be great……
It’s a stock photo that I cropped and added text to it in Photoshop. I’m sure any free image editor could do it.
Did you have to buy a copy for each domain, Christine?
You buy the sofware once and you can use it for as many sites as you want.
Nope. Buy it through your Clickbank id for $47 and you use for an infinite number of install.s
that’s $97 not $47
I believe its an unlimited license, so you can use it on as many sites as you like
http://www.onemanknifefight.net ?
One of the basic lessons I learnt about driving traffic is to always buy the .com (even if you want to use the .net, .co.uk or dot whatever ) . Why get the .net if the .com is already taken?
that’s hog wash, if you brand it right.
Yep… look at all those low traffic sites like botw.org, wordpress.org, php.net, wikipedia.org, etc…
It was an expired domain with a PR of 3 so I snapped it up.
I agree to the extent its easier to brand a .com - but you can do just as well with a .org or a .net. I dont like .info personally, and never bought one.
The trick is simple - If you buy a .net/.org that directly competes with a .com of the same name, then consumer confusion will ensue… And that .com might get business that was meant for you.
But, if the only similarity is the name, then worst case, you’ll lose a percentage of browsers who are too lazy to hit google once their first attempt fails.
But the others are right - especially for any kind of indirect traffic (search engines, referrals), it’s a non-issue. The only thing you’re jeopardizing by not getting the .com is someone typing the URL in directly (because we’ve all been trained to type .com).
Just make the best site you can, with the best domain name, and don’t stress over the TLD too much - but, you know, make sure every .net you own outranks the equivalent .com - push that bastard off the first results page if you can.
Christine,
Can you give us a sense of your return with your sites? Have you covered your investment through sales already?
I set up this site http://www.usgoldcoinauctions.com/ 2 months ago. I made $100 on Sunday in eBay commissions and I’ve made nearly $500 so far this month with this one site. I have 6 stores. I have definitely covered my $97 investment.
I set up this store http://www.usgoldcoinauctions.com/ two months ago and made $100 on Sunday in eBay commissions. I have 6 stores. I have also sold 6 copies through their affiliate program. I have definitely earned back my investment many times over.
Yes it sure did. I earned $50 in the first week. That was from 2 new ebay signups. I use Adwords to drive traffic to each page. The CTR is always very good due to each page on the site has it’s own ad group. I pay .01 per click on the content network and .08 and less for the search network. There are lots of ideas on how to get traffic in the BANS forum.
There are at least 2 people that I know of that make over 1k a month with their BANS sites. One guy did over 5k last month with 13 sites. He does work on getting traffic though from free sources. About 5 to 6 hours a day he works on it.
Let us know how it does man
It will be interesting to know how it works out. I’ll be following it with interest.
seems interesting. let us know if it gets any business…
Great post and very educational.
It looks great and definitely beats the time and effort building your own site linked to Ebay. Thanks for the resource.
you made that look so easy…I think I am going to set up something. I will keep you updated. How do you find affiliates for products in a niche, like auto parts or hair products? do I just google it, or is there a better way?
Looks great might give it a try. The layout is a bit messed up in IE6, the right column drops down below the content.
Great, here comes the competition……
just make your BANS not look like a BANS - I edited the layout a bit to suite my needs and not make it look like a BANS store - there really is not competition for uniqueness
Competition as in affiliate.
The problem with BANS is that it is not as SEO-friendly as niche stores designed in Wordpress (of course, after a bit of work and some plugins, including the eBay plugin). On the other hand, a niche store in Wordpress requires a bit more time than 10 minutes
I reckon the SEO is done pretty well. Wordpress is just superior in every way SEO-wise to everything though.
~ Dave
I’ve been using BANS for a while and is great! Is really easy to use and very well written. I higly recommend it. Check it out http://www.nikonmarket.com
I like your site. Nice and clean. Are you having any luck yet organically, or are you just doing PPC now?
My wife used Nikons for film. She went Cannon when she jumped to digital.
Fabian,
Similar question I asked Christine. Have you covered you investment with this site?
Are all these “stores” just eBay filters?
That’s what I wonder too Jim
Pretty much, but the best ones utilize other affiliate programs, and provide unique content. It’s all about the content as usual.
~ Dave
Very good idea and nice site.
BANS rocks! I use it on several sites.
Click on my name if you wanna buy it
(but not here)
This really sounds like a great tool. I’m tempted to start up my own store!
Yes, Build A Niche Store rocks! I’ve been using it for 3 or 4 months now and I’ve made about $1,000 with it through the eBay affiliate program. Probably the best thing I’ve ever spent my money on businesswise.
Perhaps you could write an ebook about how you achieved this (drove traffic)
I am working on an ebook, well just beginning, but article marketing works wonders and I wrote a review for BANS that they published on their site. Getting incoming links works wonders.
Incoming links! That’s the key!
It’s all in the marketing of it. It’s easy to setup the store with lots of links and products.
Who going to find the store is the big question.
Or how are you going to drive traffic to it.
Ken - that’s always the question. How to get traffic? With enough traffic even Adsense is highly profitable.
I have BANs and it works great.
It has brought some great returns! hehe
I hate Zappos because I used to be an affiliate and had a shoe site that was going nowhere. I pretty much abandoned the site for a few years. Then I decided to work on it and now rank very high in google for many shoe related KWs. Because it was inactive my CJ account got deleted. I signed back up and Zappos declined my app. So now I have a shoe site with traffic and sales but all for low paying junk.
I mean, I don’t hate Zappos. I actually BUY my own shoes there- every shoe I have bought for the last 4 years. But it sucks they wont let me sell for them.
Why don’t you contact them directly? They might want to reconsider their decision..
Unfortunately it does not support Italian.
I will be open to collaboration if they need!
Awesome software though!
Francesco
Super Sweet Post ShoeMan.
Muchas Gracias.
I started using BANS earlier this year. I actually haven’t tried out the new version with the admin bits - the old version was a lot easier to use if you like making your own templates and plugging it into it. I’m not sure what the new version is like with its query strings, but one thing you can do with the older version is make nice landing pages by refining the search query on the page.
It’s ideal for adwords as you then have a page with with unique content and it also means you’re able to filter out rubbish items by the query string. I don’t know how easy it is with the new version.
Found a great way you can promote these using google local pretty easily. There’s a guy doing it with payday loans which is very tough niche. But things like stereo + store would be easy to make this work for.
I wrote a post on it on my blog, check it out and let me know what you think.
http://www.oooff.com/php-affiliate-seo-blog/affiliate-marketing/making-big-easy-money-with-google-local-search/
Hello,
BANS is with eBay products, Zlio.com is with 110 merchants (apple, buy, zappos, …). I tried both, and believe me you make more money with Zlio, and the software is neat!!
Look at my ZlioShop: http://iloveny.zlio.com. You have different skins to customize your shop, can pick products from 7M items, and Zlio is providing you a lot of ways to promote your store… I made my choice!
Reading their site, it looks like a good starter system. They provide the hosting for you, so there is already some sort of existing traffic for you to pull from. I might try it tonight. Thanks iLan.
Thanks for bringing up Zlio, I didn’t realize BANS was ebay only, thanks iLan.
Jeremy I have been looking at this for some time now. Tossed it around when I had time. Thanks for the review. I will pick a copy up.
MY question is how does it do for SEO?
I had the same question. A lot of the out of the box tools are in bloated code (xcart, monstercommerce, etc.)
This is a great way to make some quick money for the holidays
-Mike
Looks real nice I have to agree with you. I have heard only good things about BANS.
how much are you making using bans and where is the majority of your traffic comming from ?
he just launched it .. give it some time ..
I read about this on a forum. I’m going to get it tonight!
I totally did a blog about this last night at 2am..LOL I think IM starting to be shoemonized in my way of thinking that I could sense where your blog was headed!
That bans store has zero chance of front page rankings naturaly, there isn’t any unique content, so prepare to shell out some money on ppc campaigns if you don’t have a mega blog like shoemoney to promote it with! If you expect free traffic with insta site scripts you’re out of luck, otherwise, great product!
Great point. Building a site is one thing. Getting traffic to it is something else completely.
Right, you need to add unique content on each page. But there are many ways to get traffic for free not dependent on organic search traffic.
is it hard to add ? or its like wordpress u just choose the category and it will be added ?
Agree that it’s going to take some unique content to get it moving. If you buy BANS and don’t do any extra work, then you’ve wasted your money. Unless you have an awesome bog to link to it like Shoe does, then you’ve got a pretty awesome chance!
Damn, Now everyone is going to be playing in my sandbox… lol
It really is a good piece of software but you will need to also be a marketer. It is not a put the site up and not touch it tool.
I will be trying this out as I have spent some time this last working on what I want to promote with Ebay.
Anyone here ever had an luck with using the data from Terapeak to get ideas on hot selling products on ebay. I think the interface is terrible and slow but seems like you can extract some data.
shoe your site is ok - site template is the same as everyone else - I too bought it and I implememted and fixed the script a lot and even removed some of the dumb qwerks, you can take alook at mine, click on name
I even blogged about my 2 days of creating the BANS store
http://www.ianfernando.com/2007/build-a-pos-store-update/
I wanted to to be different and I have market it over the weekend with ok results so far - let me know what y ou think about my new BANS store!
hmmm nichestores…. shameless plug…. a concept that I had an attempt at a while back
I have been using BANS successfully for about a year and, like many others, am absolutely ADDICTED to BANS! This is my lastest store, something FUN for the holidays that my husband and I do each year. The BANS store is integrated into the site. You’ll find it just under GIFT IDEAS.
As for ideas on finding niches, there is some great advice and marketing help availabe at http://www.TheNicheStoreBuilder.com. Follow those suggestions and you will have a winner site!
And be sure to let me know once you are http://www.BANSaddicted.com!!
Oops, forgot the site. “This is my lastest store, something FUN for the holidays that my husband and I do each year. The BANS store is integrated into the site. You’ll find it just under GIFT IDEAS. ” http://www.Jolly-Holiday-Letters.com
It seems like BANS stinks for SEO. If you look at a lot of sites in Google that use BANS they don’t get a lot of content or pages crawled. The only other pages that seem to get crawled are the category pages and they don’t seem to have very good meta tags.
You can customize the tags on every page of your site and I haven’t had any trouble getting my site indexed. I’ve had BANS for 2 months and made over $500 with it so far. It’s working pretty darn good for me.
You still can integrate it into your existing site , no ?
do you really need a new site … ?
You don’t really need a new site as long as you are on UNIX hosting. I have a couple of sites where I just installed BANS in a new directory.
I use BANs too and I customized everything on there - the horrible gay 3 column layouts to the internal tables for the ebay layouts - I just didn’t like it too much - I even wrote about it on my blog on how annoying it was - BTW my name is my BANS store
The thing I don’t like about Ebay is that it is more difficult to do international transactions.
I’m REALLY looking like a dumass trying to slip in my affilaite link
Learned from the best shoe. It was a worthy link too, I copied and pasted it in no time flat. An affiliate link on a thread promoting internet spam.. err… affiliate sites = bad. Got it.
How long before the rush of a trillion BANS get slapped by the Google Gods?
why would they be slapped?
How long before a trillion new BANS get slapped by the Google Gods of Nor Cal?
Really smooth integration with this program. However I use a WP derivative for all of my own ebay specific niche products at my site.
I clicked on the Buildanichestore link and I got antivirus spam pages.
What company runs the eBay affiliate program? CJ.com?
Yes - cj.com