Life has been very busy so blogging has been light. I am getting to the point where I can start blogging again. One thing I have been thinking about is the merits of niche marketing. Conventional wisdom, on the web, is that successful websites are targeted to a particular niche. I am thinking about pursuing a strategy of combining multiple niches in one site, effectively creating a “multi-niche” e-commerce site.

Today my e-commerce website, www.TenFootTable.com, is most successful in selling Celtic Sea Salt. Some of my plans are to expand the marketing of related items on this site. Salt, while a good seller, is a low-margin product. I want to create cross-sell opportunities for higher-margin sales. This fits well into the niche marketing concept.

It is appealing to add unrelated (to salt) items to sell on the same website. My main reason is that as a small operation it is time consuming to maintain multiple websites and the associated back-ends and/or business entities. Our business is also a family business. As a family, we have varied interests. Is it possible to market to many niches in one website? It will be interesting to find out.

One way to ease in to working from home is to leverage existing skills. This can be done by consulting on a contract basis. The internet makes it possible to work from almost anywhere. Because of this, there is a boom in contractors and consultants.

My areas of expertise are Project Management, Information Technology, Meeting Facilitation, Training, and Retail. I expect that I could leverage any or all of these into consulting engagements.

If you are just starting out, it helps to have a third party handle the payment details. RentACoder is a well-respected and established marketplace to connect buyers who need professional software develop to people with the skills to do it. Elance is a membership site that allows contractors and consultants to sell their services to interested buyers.

All that is needed is to “hit the pavement” and line up that first contract. This is a great option to continue doing what you’ve been doing and be able to work from home, at least part of the time.

One thing that I really like to do is write. It seems natural then for me to work out a way to make some money from my writing. I was inspired by an article I read about a blog called Dooce. You can browse over and read about it for yourself. The part that inspired me is that this family makes their living from their blog because of the traffic they generate for their advertisers.

I already had a blog, www.mikesmind.com. I had also started another blog, www.freetofarm.org. Finally, I have started this blog, www.daddyworkathome.com. These three blogs are the basis for my AdSense income. My efforts started by reading a great ebook called The Blogging Cash Machine by Danny Warner. Then I purchased AdSense Videos by Michael Cheney. Both of these resources helped me get started.

While I haven’t made any money on AdSense, yet, I believe that I am off to a good start. My basic blogging platform is WordPress. I chose WordPress because I became familiar with it through my blog, www.mikesmind.com. It is also a great platform because of all the themes and plugins that are available for it. The final benefit is that it is free software. This means that you can use it for free, you get the source code for free, and you are free to modify it to suit your needs (within the terms of the license agreement). They will even host your blog for free!

I have been writing content for my blogs. My goal is to become consistent in my posting. The next step is to build traffic to all three sites. I have been reading on the email lists of Jonathan Leger, Dr. Andy Williams, and John Reese, trying to learn as much as I can. Right now, traffic is mostly a trickle. Here are my stats (page views) for last month, September 2006:

www.mikesmind.com 2,583 pages

www.freetofarm.org 595 pages

www.daddyworkathome.com 3,767 pages

I am publishing these stats in order to establish a baseline before starting serious work in building traffic. As a reader of my blog, you will see my progress too and I will share what worked for me.

The next step after eBay for me was to open an online store. This provided new challenges, but also the promise of lower expenses and potentially a larger customer base. With this, I had to setup several things.

1. Domain Name - I get and manage my domains through the World’s Largest Registrar - GoDaddy.com. I have found their pricing and management options to be the best. I recommend that you do not buy your domain through a hosting company. This is one thing you don’t want to intermingle. You can read about my trouble with one domain, here.
2. Website Hosting - I host all my domains with AlphaOne Techonology. Once again, I like having my hosting all in one spot. It simplifies management of my websites. I have found their support to be responsive and effective. They also took care of setting up the secure certificate for my store. This is needed to ensure security and privacy for my customers.
3. Shopping Cart - I researched and tried a lot of different shopping carts and settled on X-Cart. It is a lot like OS-Commerce, but is supported by both Qualiteam (the software company), an active user’s forum, and third party vendors. Qualiteam is based in Russia, but I have found their support to be excellent.
4. Products - You will need to decide what products or services to sell online. Once that is done, setup agreements to purchase those products wholesale. You will then need to set your prices and enter product information into your shopping cart solution.
5. Business Formation - I recommend that you setup your online business entity in such a way that your personal assets are protected. I used Biz Filings to setup my corporation. I found their offering to be complete and their prices to be very competetive.
6. Credit Card Processing - No matter what you do online, you will need a way to accept payment. I use two avenues, PayPal and Echo. I used Echo. I use Echo to process Visa and Mastercard. They have an application process that they help you through. It is involved, but not difficult. When you are done, you will be able to accept credit cards on your website, including Yahoo Stores if you decide to go that route. PayPal is easier and quicker to get going. Accept Payments Online with PayPal. Fast, Easy & Secure. Sign Up Now!

That should get you going on the road to e-commerce success with an on-line store. If you are interested in checking out my store, you can go to www.tenfoottable.com.

One of the first ideas I tried, to establish a stream of income outside of my regular job, was selling items at auction on eBay. This proved to be a good way to make some money. It is important that you begin your selling efforts on eBay by educating yourself about this marketplace. I recommend that you start by reading an ebook or the online help that eBay provides. Here is an inexpensive ebook offer that is designed especially for people who are new to eBay! Once you have done your reading, purchase a few items on eBay to learn, first-hand, how the auction process works. This also helps you to build your feedback rating, as I recommend you have a feedback rating of at least 10 before you start selling.

Once you are ready to start selling, begin by looking around your home for things to sell. So many of us have accumulated stuff that we no longer need or use. This is a great source of items to sell. I can tell you for certain that you will get more for your stuff on eBay than you will in a garage sale. You will need a digital camera to take pictures of the items you are selling. Practice so you can get good pictures. The quality of the pictures you take of your auction items will greatly affect the selling price of that item.

After you have had success selling your own stuff, then you can go out and find other things to sell. I use several methods to find items to sell.

1. Buy Wholesale - As I mentioned in Part 1 of this series, I run an eBay store. In it I sell several items that I buy wholesale and then retail on eBay. This is easy to do, just contact the manufacturer or distributor of the products you want to sell, open up an account with them and purchase your products. Be sure to research actual selling prices on eBay so you are certain that you can retail your chosen products at a profit.
2. Garage Sales - My wife and children love to go to garage sales. I just tell them what kind of items I like to sell on eBay and they find me bargains while they are garage sailing! It works out really good. With this approach, I am selling other people’s stuff on eBay. As I mentioned in method #1, I can sell something on eBay for more than I can in a garage sale. This method of finding items has an automatic profit margin. Here is an ebook offer that will help you profit on eBay from garage sales.
3. Auctions and Estate Sales - I like to go to public auctions to find items to sell on eBay. These are usually advertised in the local want ads. When I go to an auction, I am looking for bargains. Here is where you need to be careful. You also need to understand your market. It is real easy to pay too much for something at an auction. I am looking for quality bargains. I especially like buying $1 boxes at the end of the auction. A lot of people have left already and quite often I find fantastic bargains hidden in a box that sells for one or two dollars.

With the information above, and by reading up on the subject, you should be ready to start selling on eBay!