My personal trainers at Best Practice, Anthony and Jeames, are both as passionate about e-commerce (or “online business”) as I am so we have a lot to talk about once they’ve put me through my paces on a Tuesday and Friday morning.

Anthony and I have been talking, for a while, about how to answer the question, “What do you do?”  Up until recently my uninspiring answer has been, “I make websites.”

While it is a concise description of the end-product of a typical project here at Webnerd, it does nothing to explain how we differ from every other Joe who makes websites, nor does it inspire any further discussion on the topic.

So Anthony and I have given it some thought and come up with the following response:

“I help businesses to understand and then implement the power of the Internet to increase their profits.”

You then, almost breathlessly, ask, “How do you do this, James?”

And from there a conversation may bloom.

Well, hopefully!  I’ll give it a go and make tweaks as necessary.

How do you reply when someone asks you, “What do you do?”  Is it compelling and does it inspire conversation?

Let me ask you something else:  is the answer to this question conveyed in a concise and compelling way on the front page of your website?

Go ahead and check right now

Wishing you happiness and success in your online and offline endeavours

The following is a list of ten of the coolest E-Commerce sites that I’ve seen, some have been introduced to me just this year by some of my students. In sharing these with you I imagine that perhaps you will discover something new that is useful to you and/or something that will spark some thinking about what you could do to leverage the Web to streamline your business processes and/or to make more money!

Animoto (animoto.com)

Upload photos, select one of the songs from the library (or upload your own) and hit the button. It will do the rest. Using some clever analysis and randomising algorithms it will create a video clip using your photos and the music selected.

How they make money: You can play with Animoto for free and produce 15 second video clips. To get full-length video clips you have to pay a small annual membership fee. DVD quality costs a little more again. Commercial usage requires purchasing a commercial license.

Basecamp (basecamphq.com)

Basecamp is an online project management and collaboration tool. The company that created it, 37 Signals, has a philosophy of keeping software and interfaces as simple as possible.

How they make money: There is a free 30-day trial that will allow you a taste of the service. After that you can choose from three different monthly plans.

Blurb (blurb.com)

Download Blurb’s book-designing software and you’ll be designing your first photography/keep-sake book in minutes

How they make money: Once you’ve designed your book you can submit it to them, select your book finishing options, and they’ll create and ship the book to you.

Click Business Cards (clickbusinesscards.com.au)

A fully Do-It-Yourself online business card design and ordering system. Use one of their templates or upload your own design. Choose the finishing and quantity and you’re done. The results are high-quality and the pricing is extremely competitive.

How they make money: They print and ship your business cards to you after you’ve ordered and paid online.

Etsy (etsy.com)

Etsy is a massive collaborative shopping community where users can buy and sell all things handmade.

How they make money: Etsy allows anyone to set up a shop for free. The shop owner will then pay $0.20 to list an item and 3.5% of the sale price once it has sold.

Facebook (facebook.com)

Well over 100 million users actively use Facebook with half visiting on a daily basis and spending, on average, 20 minutes catching up with friends, updating their profile and sharing media. Facebook overtook Myspace in popularity in April of this year (see Alexa graph) as the most trafficked social media site in the world.

How they make money: Facebook makes its money from on-site advertising. Leveraging all the information Facebook has about its 6 million+ users, advertisers can target very specific groups.

Freshbooks (freshbooks.com)

“FreshBooks is an online invoicing and time tracking service that saves you time and makes you look professional!”

How they make money: Freshbook is an online service that has a number of different monthly membership levels depending upon your needs. There is a free membership level.

iStockPhoto (istockphoto.com)

“iStockphoto is the internet’s original member-generated image and design community. Find your inspiration on the world’s leading royalty-free stock destination. Search for over 3 million photographs, vector illustrations, video footage and Flash files. Buy stock or sell stock — or both.”

How they make money: In return for helping photographers, illustrators, Flash designers and videographers sell their stock media, iStockPhoto takes a commission of every sale. iStockPhoto is one of the Internet’s first successful example of a micro payment site – wherein users purchase credit and use it to buy items that are priced quite low.

Pistol Clothing (pistolclothing.com.au)

Pistol Clothing provides a means for users to design their own personalised t-shirts, hoodies and singlets via its online, easy-to-use clothing designer. All garments are printed on high-quality clothing.

How they make money: Just like Blurb and Click Business Cards, above, Pistol Clothing print and ship what you order.

WhereIs (whereis.com.au)

Just in case anyone hasn’t discovered this yet, WhereIs is a fantastic online map service that allows you to look up street addresses and view them on a map that can be zoomed and panned. The most useful feature of this site, however, is the ability to get directions between two or more locations. I must use this service every week.

How they make money: Banner advertising on the side of the screen and advertising on the map itself.

Wishing you happiness and success in all your offline and online endeavours.

Have you ever thought to yourself, “If everyone in Australia gave me a paltry $1, I’d be a multi-millionaire”?

It might have then occurred to you that you don’t really need $20 million dollars.  So you fantasise: “If even only 52,000 gave me a paltry $1 per year I’d have $1000/week to easily pay the bills… and then some.”

The logistics of collecting $1 from 52,000 people might be a little daunting at this point but you might starting thinking that this is starting to enter the realms of possibility with a little extra thought.

So then you think: “Okay, I might be able to convince the average person or business to part with $30/month (or $1/day) for something they’re interested in or need.  If I had 150 customers I’d generate $54,000 per year!”

Then the complexities of income verses profit come into it and you might decide that you actually need $30/month in profit.  No problem, really.  Just something to factor in.

Do you think that you could find 150 customers to pay you a little over $30/month for something they want or need? Perhaps an online service with no physical component? It could be an online course, membership site or some other Internet-based service like online survey hosting. Or maybe an online shop selling physical products (with a $30 profit margin) on a subscription model.

We’re talking pretty small numbers here (150 and $30) but, through the magic of primary school level multiplication, it adds up very quickly.  (And, consider that the number of customers required plummets to 50 if you generate $90/month profit per client.)

Come on, stop imagining that this is too hard and give it a bit of thought.  What do you know that you could teach via an online course?  What online service could you set up (or resell)?  What are you passionate about?  Could you make a membership-based website on that subject?  (Have you been dreaming about it for years and not done anything about it?? You know who you are!)

Feel free to send me an email and bounce ideas off me. I’ll share with you what I’m doing. I’ve already started: 148 customers to go!

There are some fantastic gems of knowledge and advice in this interview that have inspired me to re-shape some of my own online and offline efforts.

Listen to the interview (30 minutes)

Download the MP3 for your iPod or other MP3 player

Download the PDF transcript

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