How to Make Money on the Internet: Scam or Opportunity?

"Do you want to tap into the billions of dollars available in e-commerce on the internet?" (Response: "Yes! Yes! We do! Cheers, applause!)

The above exchange happened about fifty times in the recent storesonline workshop that my husband and I attended in New York City. A question asked, and enthusiastic answers poured from an audience of desperate and eager attendees who are all looking to cash in on the latest wave of fad money making schemes.

Why, you ask, were we at this workshop? We who consider ourselves urbane New Yorkers, who drink cosmopolitans, and read the New York Times? The answer is simple: my husband loves free things. He especially loves free things that you can get by exploiting the system. You know those "Get a Free Ipod" sites? The ones that you have to ignore when they come up as ads? My husband has mined these sites for three free Ipods, a PSP, and a Digital camera. Somehow he finds a way to avoid buying the stuff they're selling. He's clever like that.

So Storesonline was offering free Mp3 players to attend this workshop. And a free dinner. So he RSVPed and I, reluctantly, attended with him. I owed him for all the experimental theater workshops I had dragged him to over the years.

Stores Online is, from what I can gather from my 90 minute informational session, a software program that allows you to design your own e-commerce site and keep it running for a yearly or a monthly fee. That is, if you have something you want to sell online - quilts, grapefruits, miracle elixirs - they'll help you hock it.

If you attend the first workshop, you get a free coffee, a 90 minute speech about how YOU can tap into the billions of dollars of commerce on the internet, a soggy sandwich, and an invitation to a second event where they will teach you how to market your website. This second workshop is, I gather, where they push you to buy their "pro" system, which costs $3600.

Here was the basic structure of the workshop I attended, for those who are thinking about actually RSVPing to the snail mail spam they received today.

1. Do you want to make money on the internet? (Cheers, applause)

2. You can't if no one can find your website! (Boo, hiss)

3. You need an e-commerce site that can teach you how to market your website and make money while you sleep (Cheers, applause).

4. Programmers (Boo, hiss!) will charge you money to make changes to your website. Don't fall for their schemes.

5. We teach people how to become the number one site when searched on google, yahoo, or MSN. (Results not typical)

There you go. That was the conference in a nutshell.

The evening was interesting, if not particularly informative. Lucky for me, my husband is one of the much maligned-by-Storesonline computer programmers that could easily design and implement any e-commerce site I would want to put online.

Like that Tradeau guy on the informercial who says he can cure cancer and then tells you have to buy his book to find out how, a lot of this workshop was geared towards what you'll learn if you pay a $50 fee to get access to the most basic software and attend a free all-day marketing workshop. For those who read between the lines, it was clear that the second workshop was going to be another sales pitch that assured you it was essential to buy the more expensive software if you wanted to succeed in e-commerce.

There was a sort of preview, however, as to what you would learn in the marketing semina, which wasn't a complete waste of time. It stressed the following marketing strategies which one could follow if they simply learned how. The instructor said that the difference between Stores Online and other software programs that provide e-commerce is that Stores Online teaches you how to MARKET your site. "Will other programs teach you how to MARKET your site?" he asked.

Here are the marketing strategies that they advocated.

1. search engines

2. strategic links

3. proprietary e-mails tools

4. vertical portals

5. e-publishing

6. target marketing

7. affiliate programs

8. permission e-mail marketing

9. reverse search tools

10. drop shipping

All of these tools are indeed fabulous marketing strategies for getting your website out to the public. But you don't have to pay a $50 fee and attend a seminar to learn how to use any of these strategies. A simple google search will give you all the knowledge you need to learn what these strategies are and how to best use them to your advantage.

The drop shipping item was gone into in a little bit more detail by our instructure. Drop shipping is buying your product from a wholesaler and then selling it on your site while the wholesaler does all the back work. We can teach you how to access these Drop Shipping contacts, the seminar promised. But this too, is something one can easily learn through the power of the internet.

Now I may be a little cynical. I already work from home and my husband does as well. We're not slaving in an office for someone else. We're not miserable. So we weren't eager to cash in like some of the other people there. We just wanted free Mp3 players.

However, I do fervently believe that anyone with a little smarts and savvy can figure out how to make their own e-commerce site for far less than what Stores Online is charging you. The internet IS, as they advertise, a world of untapped opportunity. Its also a world of untapped information, that you can access for FREE.

So go if you want the free sandwich and coffee and (sometimes) free Mp3 player. Stay home if you have better things to do. And don't we all have better things to do?