Using the E-Commerce Internet ...making money FINDING A NICHE MARKET Nearly everyone has a hobby, special skill, avocation, or burning interest in something. These interests can point the way to a niche market that can be exploited for earning a little extra money using an Internet storefront. Read below about the Woodburner.com business as a prime example of turning a hobby into a viable business. As much as we all like to think we're unique, and we are, we're usually not unique in our interests. No matter just how esoteric your interest is, we're willing to bet that there are other people out there with the same or similar interests. So let's have a little fun, pick something really weird, and do a search at Google.com to see what turns up. This month's flavor is: EDIBLE BUGS. Pardon the pun. Our search turned up about 21 thousand results. There was even a cook book and a "Bugs for Sale" site. It turns out we weren't being very sophisticated. We should have been searching for EDIBLE INSECTS; or even better, entomophagy but, then we would have gotten only about 800 hits. The point is, no matter how esoteric your interests are, there is probably a market waiting to be served. In the case of the bugs, it was a whole lot bigger than we ever expected. What an opportunity to open up an Internet store selling edible bugs and providing information and resources for all of the bug eaters worldwide. YOUR MARKET OK, so bugs aren't your thing but, you get the point. You may not think that there are other people with your same interests but, there are. Try finding a bug store in your community! This is why there is gold in the Internet and you can get to it through an on-line storefront. Your neighbors may not share your interest but, you can bet that there are thousands of people worldwide that do and it takes the Internet to get to them. In some respects, the more unusual and specific your business is, the greater will be your chances of success because the competition will be limited and the potential customer's need will be greatest. For instance, you may be an audiophile or guitar player that's really into tube amplifiers. An Internet search will turn up quite a few resources: many amplifier kit sites, some old tube sites, and a lot of expensive equipment but not many antique amplifier stores. So how about getting out and searching the byways for antique shops with old electronic equipment. Most of them will know an antique radio when they see one and price it accordingly but, we'll bet an antique amplifier will be cheap. Take it home, fix it up, offer it on-line, and you have the beginning of an Internet business. We can't kid you though. Getting your website known will be more than half the battle. You're going to need visitors to make sales. Working in your favor though will be the search engines and the uniqueness of your business. Unique websites will be searched for using fairly specific search terms. So, it is likely that your site will appear in the first couple of pages of a search result. Therefor, be sure to submit your site to the top ten or so search engines and directories. See our past newsletters on "Getting Known" for specific information on search engines at: http://www.imaginenation.com/Public/Newsletters/index.htm The Staff Team ....ImagineNation Did you know you can take credit cards at your Internet store without a merchant account. Learn more about our IAMS  Merchant services There are lots of advantages to subscribing to an IAMS account and a couple of compelling reasons:   Everything you'll need is in one easy to use location, including free use of our award winning PeddleGold storefront. Take a look at the advantages of subscribed services. View a demonstration IAMS order management console. Recent     Changes    Improvements    Upgrades    Stories Woodburner.com Here's a hobby that probably 98% of our readers have never thought about. It first became popular during the early part of the 20th century as a part of the Arts and Crafts movement in this country. As the company name implies, it's about burning wood. Hey, we're all good at that! Technically it's known as pyrography. It's a technique of using moderately heated tools to inscribe designs and pictures onto wood surfaces. This is a creative art form for just about anyone. You can produce some pretty good results without being a Cezanne or Monet. And you'll have a lot of fun doing it. And that's what the Woodburner site is about. It is a vertically integrated site devoted to everything wood burning. It has all you'll ever need to get started and to advance your skills. It has books, instructions, tutorials, tools, patterns, a message board, a gallery, a resource center, FAQs, and even a newsletter. If you think wood burning is just a few burn marks on a board, have a look at the gallery; you'll be amazed at the creative level that can be achieved. Woodburner couldn't be doing it better! By vertically integrating and offering everything you'll ever need to pursue this hobby from one location, they command customer loyalty and frequent return visitors. The bottom line ...frequent selling opportunities. Try getting this kind of service from your local department or hobby store, if you can even find one with Woodburning supplies. This is a prime example of how to exploit a niche market using the Internet, while making money, and having fun in the process. Woodburner.com is an on-line only enterprise which makes good use of search engine placement and viral marketing to attract customers. Check it out. Thats URL, http://woodburner.com or link, Woodburner Team ....ImagineNation Tips 'n Tricks    HTML tags shown here use the caret (^) instead of braces <> for proper rendering.     Brackets are represented by the curly bracket symbols ({}). A number of clients have recently enquired about entering off-line orders received through the mail or telephone and processing a credit card in payment. This can be done quite easilly through a webPeddle or PeddleGold storefront. Obviously you can use your on-line store and enter the order for the customer. Just as easilly, as long as you have a copy of the store on your computer, you can open the local copy by double clicking on the peddlegold.htm or webpeddle.htm container files and entering the customer order. You just have to be connected to the Internet when doing this. Other circumstances though, may call for a different approach. For instance, you may be at a trade show with your laptop computer and want to enter "show special" orders with different description and price information. The solution here is to make a duplicate copy of the entire store folder and save it under a different name. In the case of webPeddle the default name was "NewStore", and for PeddleGold, it was PeddleGold. Now go to the newly created folder and change the database entries to the desired values. Again, as long as you have an Internet connection, you can enter orders directly from this new storefront right from your computer and simultaneously process credit card payments. Over the next month or so, we will be upgrading the IAMS order management console. One of the additions will be a manual order entry form so you can place an order without the storefront and process a credit card payment. The BakPak console already has this capability. ImagineNation © 1996 - 2003  Products of ImagineNation!    Providing on-line stores for small and mid-size Internet businesses since 1996,   Imaginenation is a full service company meeting all of your e-commerce needs:    Storefronts     Credit Card Processing     Back Office Utilities     Merchant Accounts DO YOU NEED HELP WITH OUR PRODUCTS OR HAVE A GENERAL QUESTION? Please E-Mail specific product questions using the mail form at  ImagineNation.com For general information questions, visit our moderated public Q&A   FORUM For back issues of E-ComTips visit the   ARCHIVE Suffering from overload?  List Removal E-ComTips is brought to you by ImagineNation because you are listed as a user of one of our storefront products or have subscribed to receive the Newsletter itself. To remove your address from our list, go to List Remove and, if your correct address and service ID are not showing when you get there, enter the correct values manually. Please do not reply to this newsletter return e-mail address. Replies here are not processed. Use the Mail Form at ImagineNation to correspond. This e-mail address is: [EMAIL] and the ID is [SID]

_____________________________________________________
USEFUL URLs FOR TEXT ONLY E-MAIL READERS
ImagineNation    http://ImagineNation.com
webPeddle        http://webPeddle.com
PeddleGold       http://webPeddle.net
Public Forum     http://ImagineNation.com/Public/Q-A/index.cfm
Free Downloads   http://imaginenation.com/Order/index.htm
Subscribe        http://imaginenation.com/Public/Mail/subscribe.cfm
Remove           http://imaginenation.com/Public/Mail/unsubscribe.cfm
(This e-mail address:  [EMAIL]    Your SID value:  [SID]  )
View E-ComTips from your browser 
  http://ImagineNation.com/Public/NewsLetters/index.htm
To correspond, please use the mail form at ImagineNation.
  http://imaginenation.com/Public/Mail/contactmail.cfm
_____________________________________________________