[thelist] does anybody make any money with e-commerce?

[Richard Bennett]

----- Original Message -----
From: "aardvark" <roselli at earthlink.net>
> From: "Richard Bennett" <richard.bennett at skynet.be>
> Again, if you have any URLs it'd be great, especially where you
> suspect the businesses are actually making a profit. It's easy to sell
[...]
>i sense you don't believe me...
>unfortunately, a lot of work i do is as an outsourced resource, so i
>don't get to brag about too many of my gigs...
>i'd be happy to send you a few offlist, though...

No no, of course I believe you, and I wouldn't like my work being used as
comparisson material be it good or bad either.
That's why I didn't include any URL's of bad or broken, or obviously not
succesfull sites in my original message either.

> guarantee, refunds etc) costs, or you do sell a lot, and you find
> yourself having to invest in a more professional infrastructure, which
> suddenly costs much more than you initially expected, when making your
> business-plan.

>the latter has been the case, but the system we built was more
>than adequate to handle *all* their orders, and so it took over... in
>this case, the client actually made out quite well...

But often the extra costs come from all sides, needing extra staff,
logistics, after-sales service etc.
It seems to me e-commerce is not for the faint of heart
That's why I wondered if recommending setting up an e-commerce site to small
businesses is always such a good idea.
It looks like a large majority must actually loose money on this.

Cheers,
Richard.