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

[Kathleen Heytink]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Fortune Elkins [mailto:fortune_elkins at summithq.com]

> amusing story: i know a canadian guy who has a consumer site
> for coffee
> stuff. it's not an e-commerce site at all; all it does is
> offer free product
> reviews, written by normal people, and some articles of
> interest to coffee
> freaks. http://www.coffeegeek.com

We're a wine importer, wholesaler and distributor.  Our web site is there to
let people know about our wines and to provide a source of wine education.
There are no "buy now" buttons, no shopping carts, no prices or shipping
information, yet we get at least 4 or 5 e-mails a day from people who want
to order wine.

One person write to tell us that we wouldn't be in business very long if we
didn't make our ordering system easier to find.  I wanted to write back and
tell her that if we wanted to sell wine on our site we would have had "buy
now" buttons in full force.  Some people don't get the hint.  On the other
hand we don't want to tell people - go away, buy our products in your local
wine shop.  It's been a struggle from the beginning to find way to do this.
Subtlety obviously doesn't work, but we don't want to hit people over the
head with it either.

Probably would have been easier just to sell the wine, but in this industry
we have a lot of legal restrictions on that.

-- Kath ...
work --> www.winebow.com
home --> www.cyber-kat.com --> topkat at cyber-kat.com --