Are you living off your OsC store?

[Guest]

I'm just curious about how many of you guys are making a living off the sales you make through your OsCommerce powered websites.

 

Do you collect any money at all or do you use it for marketing?

If the earnings does not cover all of your income, what else do you do?

 

Me, I have had the store up for a couple of years now.

The company has good economy and all income comes from the site.

We have yet to take out salary from the business as we are building fundings for expansion.

We have taken out stuff mostly, as salary so far.

 

What are your stories?

 

Zipper

[avoisin]

Just doing this on the side, I write firmware for Tektronix as my main job. I've done PHP/MySql for many years now, and it's just a fun hobby, but I'm not really ready to make it my main source of income.

[rommany]

Would like it to be more, i started this for my partner as she is carrying are second child and i would love her to give up full time work, we are starting to get more hits everyday and with that more sales.

 

We have also started running are own stall in a craft market at weekends and that is starting to take off but slowly..

 

Really the web site is just a bit of a dream, but who says dreams can't come true.....and even if nothing comes of it, i have learn't something new and had a great time chatting to you guys over the past 6mts or so..

 

Good luck ALL

 

Regards

[burt]

My 1 and only osCommerce Store creates around 20% of my monthly income. I have 1 other big (non osCommerce) site that creates around 50% and the other 30% is made up of other online earnings across multiple sites.

 

I don't have a "real" job.

[Jumping Rabbit]

My main osc shop generates enough income to cover all my monthly expenses and a bit more........ :D

[GraphicsGuy]

Our site has become over 90% of our business. It took a while, but our web store is now completely supporting us and still growing.

[rommany]

So how long did it take you guys before it started to pay off ?

 

Kind regards

[Mediajuggle]

it be nice to see a url of those sites that are generating most of your income. I think everyone could learn something by being able to view them and seeing what all successful sites have in common.

[GraphicsGuy]

So how long did it take you guys before it started to pay off ?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

We messed around with other carts and site designs for about 2 years doing it as a part time sideline. Then we got more serious about but still struggled with the design and carts that were more trouble than they were worth. Finally about a year ago, we got our osc site to the point we were happy with it and re-launched PPC campaigns to bring people to it. And that is when sales started seriously growing. The business has grown a loyal following of regular clientelle and word of mouth referrals. Now we have to turn off the advertising sometimes just to keep from exceeding current capacity.

 

it be nice to see a url of those sites that are generating most of your income. I think everyone could learn something by being able to view them and seeing what all successful sites have in common.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Mine is in my card information. We are proud of our site, but it isn't really anything incredibly special. We have had a lot of customer feedback about it being very easy to use, for which the credit must go the osc team and the authors of some very good contributions.

[rommany]

Hi Mike

 

Hope you do not mind but i could ask you a few questions

 

what contribution did you use ? and what kinds of set backs did you have at the start that you changed.

 

i too added ppc and started getting lots of accounts but most did not follow through, i think its because i have only paypal but i will be adding a merchant in the near future.

 

Kind regards

[GraphicsGuy]

what contributions did you use ? and what kinds of set backs did you have at the start that you changed.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It has been a while so I know I installed some that aren't on this list:

• Images as Options
  
• One of the additional images contribs (I think it was Ultimate Images)
  
• Quantity Price Breaks by Product
  
• Shop by Price
  
• GV Credit Class (for the coupon functionality)
  
• Purchase without Account
  
• Wishlist
  
• FAQ system
  
• Live Chat support (we use during peak seasons)
  
• Product based "Ask a Question" (link below product photo)
  
• Credit card infobox
  
• Cross Sell
  

Like I said, I know there were others but these are the ones that come to mind.

 

I can't really say that we had setbacks after getting osc up and running. But the other carts didn't really allow us to get all of this kind of functionality. Non-stock features were either difficult to accomplish, expensive to add or impossible to do. This is why I have praised the extensibility of osc in several threads over the last year. Because of the open code and extensive community support, you can make it do just about anything you need it to.

[rommany]

thanks Mike

[Guest]

I think the trouble, at least for us, is to shift the the project to become the main source of income. To do that we would have to expand the product range and with that, the amount of time spent on administrating the range. Things like that takes time, witch somtimes can be hard to find.

It's a vicious little circle.

 

So much to be done and so little time...

 

Btw, thanks for all the comments.

I thing discussing this subject can make us all learn alot from eachother and spring some new ideas.

 

Zipper

[ironMIKE]

The store I'm supporting the most at the moment

http://www.regi-shoes.com/

 

becomes more an more successful during the last 3 months.

 

It was setup in 2003 as a supporting site for a friends city-store.

After 6 months it generated 10 to 15% of the stores monthly income.

You can see the "old" shop here:

http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:regi-...worms.net&hl=de

 

This year the store's income dropped about 15% so I thought, now go and try full scope "E-Business".

I read all I could about My-SQL, PHP Programming, performance Optimizing, Security and Search Engine Optimisation.

 

Then I rewrote 80% of the osC-Code to my custom needs and implemented support for RSS, froogle and keyword analyzis.

 

Last month the first real signs of success, about 200 new registered users (doubled the month before) and orders rising every day.

 

We had our highest user rate ever yesterday with 900 User in 24 hours from all over the world.

 

If the figures stay like this, the online store will provide 40% of total sales.

Lets see what happens when all our products are listed in the major search engines.

[Mediajuggle]

I'm really interested in your store ironMIKE. I've been watching Zappos and I'm interested in seeing if that success could be duplicated elsewhere. And from the looks of it, it seems that it could. I'd like to contact the guys at Pratical Eccommerce Magazine ( http://practicalecommerce.com/ ) about doing a site profile on you if you're interested.

 

 

The store I'm supporting the most at the moment

http://www.regi-shoes.com/

 

becomes more an more successful during the last 3 months.

 

It was setup in 2003 as a supporting site for a friends city-store.

After 6 months it generated 10 to 15% of the stores monthly income.

You can see the "old" shop here:

http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:regi-...worms.net&hl=de

 

This year the store's income dropped about 15% so I thought, now go and try full scope "E-Business".

I read all I could about My-SQL, PHP Programming, performance Optimizing, Security and Search Engine Optimisation.

 

Then I rewrote 80% of the osC-Code to my custom needs and implemented support for RSS, froogle and keyword analyzis.

 

Last month the first real signs of success, about 200 new registered users (doubled the month before) and orders rising every day.

 

We had our highest user rate ever yesterday with 900 User in 24 hours from all over the world.

 

If the figures stay like this, the online store will provide 40% of total sales.

Lets see what happens when all our products are listed in the major search engines.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[ironMIKE]

I'm really interested in your store ironMIKE. I've been watching Zappos and I'm interested in seeing if that success could be duplicated elsewhere. And from the looks of it, it seems that it could. I'd like to contact the guys at Pratical Eccommerce Magazine ( http://practicalecommerce.com/ ) about doing a site profile on you if you're interested.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Thank you for your reply!

Any form of free ;) publicity is always welcome.

 

But note that Zappos and other "Big Players" will never be in our reach. We're just trying to survive in "global business" because w/o the internet we'd have to close our city store within the next 3-5 years (in my opinion).

[Guest]

ironMIKE---->

The overall look of your store is very good.

Gongrats on your small success there.

Lets hope it will continue to grow as it has done so far.

How much of the webbased sales are to customers from outside Germany?

 

Zipper

[ironMIKE]

How much of the webbased sales are to customers from outside Germany?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

We had 45% orders from outside germany in July 05 when we received a limited amount of adidas Micropacers Nylon, 5 pairs of them alone where shipped to japan & australia so I don't know if we keep that ratio this month.

 

I think we'll have 1/3 orders as an average from outside germany, but who knows, "Impossible is Nothing" :)

[Jumping Rabbit]

We had 45% orders from outside germany in July 05 when we received a limited amount of adidas Micropacers Nylon, 5 pairs of them alone where shipped to japan & australia so I don't know if we keep that ratio this month.

 

I think we'll have 1/3 orders as an average from outside germany, but who knows, "Impossible is Nothing" :)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Nice shop you've got there, i especially like the search functionality....

 

My main shop has only about 6-7 months under its belt, so its quite fresh, but it has been doing quite good in sales and is fast growing...we have untill now delivered merchandise to customers in more than 30 different countries......

[Guest]

Jumping Rabbit---->

Congrats on the good start.

But two posts in this thread and no url posted.?

Come on. ;)

 

Zipper

[♥toyicebear]

Interesting and informative tread... B)

 

I wish i had more to say....but i do not currently have a oscommerce shop of my own..... :blush:

[ironMIKE]

But two posts in this thread and no url posted.?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I could not find an url to follow the rabbit either. Would be interesting, really!

I can't get enough inspiration.

[Jumping Rabbit]

I could not find an url to follow the rabbit either. Would be interesting, really!

I can't get enough inspiration.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

For those who are curious...just pm me.......

[Jud]

Our store was launched over 1 year ago, and it now makes over 60% of our revenue! The osCommerce team is great :thumbsup:

Jud

[Flotec]

I also launched my osc site 1 year ago. It now contributes to 50% of my sales. Since my company is still quite new I have yet to take out any money from it, but I hope this will soon change. I want to use the money to grow first.

Oscommerce is really a good program. I have worked a lot with the shop but I have still to improve the design. Please have a look at Flotec Marin

It's in swedish but I think you can understand what I do. I sell hydraulic steerings and autopilots for boats.