Is Building e-Wealth Possible For You?

An honest answer to the above question will be, "It's not whether it is possible, e-wealth is increasingly becoming unavoidable." Why so?

It's because people will more and more prefer spending through Internet, which in turn is because doing so will be more convenient, transparent, and quick.

It is likely that you're already playing a part in e-commerce. You may be paying many of your monthly bills online. There are those ‘online bill junctions' in many countries where you can pay virtually all your statutory dues through the Internet by simply pressing your computer keyboard.

True, in these countries the telecom backbone is robust and the payment receiving service is highly dependable. Thus when many people pay at the same time from various places, the system does not collapse.

What else do you pay for online? Depending on your needs you may be buying books, gifts, groceries, movie tickets, downloadable music, airline tickets, and maybe even holidays.

And who does sell these items on the net? Many online sellers are not that big like Amazon or eBay. Quite a few are just a year or two old, operating in niche categories, and perhaps already doing brisk business.

This is not an imagined scenario. This is the near reality today, and as time passes, e-commerce will without doubt become the dominant platform for monetary transactions across boundaries.

It will not matter where the flesh-n-blood ‘you' is. You can receive and send money for anything, from anywhere.

Let me now come back to my poser at the top. Are you not realizing that e-commerce is going to be the ‘money-movement' norm - the rule than an exception - sooner than later?

Given that, how is it that you can participate in making e-wealth for yourself?

There are many ways to answer the question. According to me, the first thing you've to decide is whether you're going to sell hard goods or e-goods or maybe you'll just be an intermediary earning commission referring buyers to sellers.

Selling Hard Goods

In case you're selling hard goods, the minimum you need is setting up an e-store displaying your products, and readying a payment making system where the buyers will electronically pay for the items they order.

The next will be order fulfillment whereby you pack the items ordered and dispatch them to your buyers.

The first 2 activities, namely an e-store and receiving payment, happen online, most likely in a website owned by you. The third action, that is packaging and dispatch, is the offline activity that completes the circle of commerce.

However the 3 activities above are not enough to make you profitable. There are many actions that come before and after them which are equally, if not more, important.

What are they? Let me answer the question by asking the 4 vital questions below:

1. How will you attract potential customers to your website?
2. What will you do in your website to make your customers feel comfortable to place orders?
3. How will you know how the customers and non-customers behave in your website whether or not they make a buy?
4. How will you retain your loyal customers after they once bought from your e-store?

The success of your website, or to tell it succinctly the amount of your e-wealth, will depend on how best you can address the 4 questions above.

It is not easy, but then who says e-wealth is easy?

Selling E-goods

Compared to hard goods, selling e-good is a lot easy. But again it depends on what you're selling. There are very large companies like Travelocity that offer a wide gamut of travel-related e-goods, or social media companies like say YouTube that offers video sharing service, or similar others. We're not talking about them here.

Instead, let me deal on small businesses like selling an e-book or offering an online teaching course or suchlike. Here too the 4 questions above apply, but when I say that selling e-good is easier I actually refer to the ‘delivery' process of the good.

Not only is the delivery of e-good free of offline hassles compared to hard goods, there is an important advantage also. E-good is never exhausted. You can sell as many as you want, and yet enjoy a peaceful holiday in a virgin island while you're selling.

Not so with hard goods, and this is why for the first-timers selling e-goods makes good sense to build e-wealth.

Selling Information

Look at this site. It's offering information in the shape of free articles written by guest authors. The articles are laden with helpful tips like this article itself.

But is the site earning no money by offering information? Not really. Scattered on the page are ads that tend to closely relate to the main thrust of the site.

When the visitors click on these ads to seek more help, chance is the site-owner earns some money as ‘commission'. If a visitor clicks on an ad and goes on to purchase the product, the site-owner may stand to earn good amount as affiliate income.

As can be expected, for selling information too there can be many ways.

For example, you put an AdWord ad for a product of which you're an affiliate, and you arrange to direct traffic clicking on the ad straight to the product site itself. In this case you're building e-wealth even without a website of yours.

If you think for awhile, you'll find the possibilities are endless for selling information and e-goods, any of which can turn out as a resounding home business. Well, you are only bound by the imagination from your fertile brain.

Conclusion

What I've covered above is just the so-called proverbial tip of the iceberg. I only intend to convey that the time is not very far when there will be no escape from the necessity of making e-wealth for you in some form or other.

As I write this, let me tell you a secret of what it is on the Internet. When you see many people have already struck gold on the Internet, you may believe that perhaps you have missed the bus.

The reality is though many people are already into the game, considering that the spread of Internet is still nascent in many parts of the globe, and just about a little more than peripheral in many advanced countries, the days of early birds are still not over.

Moreover, the technology is constantly evolving throwing up newer opportunities. Whatever was prevalent a couple of years back is no longer that important.

Not only that, many web ventures that have debuted or are debuting with much fanfare just languish after awhile because of faulty planning and lack of perseverance. This is more so in case of small and medium websites compared to large ones.

Putting it all together, it will not be wrong to say you have time to pull up your socks and get going. The opportunity is not going to end anytime soon, but that doesn't mean why you must not start building your e-wealth now.

Okay, ready to start? But maybe you're wondering what e-business you ought to begin? As for that, let me save the topic for future articles. Do stay tuned.

And if a good number of my readers want to know my take on the subject, who knows I may contemplate writing an e-book titled, "How To Start An E-Business"! Any taker?