Does it matter? Anyways heres a few more examples of highly profitable websites :
http://www.zipdrip.com/
http://www.carsecrets.com/
www.marketingtips.com
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Opinion wanted. This Market too saturated to enter?
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http://www.zipdrip.com/
http://www.carsecrets.com/
www.marketingtips.com
CallTheFBI
Banned
If that is true, it just goes to show there are a lot of idiots in the world.
And even many of those have come and gone like the wind.
If you plot historically, say the last 20 years, the indices of NASDAQ, NYSE, and DJA, but remove the hugely "skewed" performance between 1995 and 2000 due to the purely speculative dot-com bubble, the markets are roughly where they would have been without the "dot.com bubble" ever happening, if not 20% - 30% lower than they would have been. Given the catastrophic affects of such an enormous "correction", 20% - 30% isn't unreasonable.
IOW, the markets are historically about where they should be. So if you are expecting your JDS Uniphase or Oracle shares to return to their extremely over-valued state, you're only wishing for further insult to injury.
That's really what everyone who acquired stock late in the game is hoping for, "just go back up so I can dump all my shares, even if I just break even." Not gonna happen. From 1997 to 2000, the markets gained more than it would normally have in 20 years. That's not sustainable.
And that's easier said than done.
Most people don't understand what they are dealing with. Several major on-line retailers are little more than 'retail fronts' for a major hardware distributor. A distributor creates a subsidiary of sorts or partners with a retailer. That retailer now has access to virtually the same capital resources as the distributor. If you're talking a MID-SIZED distributor, you're easily talking $10 million in capital or credit resources.
If you want to compete with Newegg, you better know what a venture capitalist is and where to find them.
Miramonti
Lifer
Whats amazes me about newegg is how much resources they continually put towards enhancing their website. It wasn't all that long ago that it was considered a ripoff of multiwave...and now you'd never know. Its a great site, very easy to get around and search, and has a tremendous amount of product information. No one will beat them for a long time if they continue at this pace and keep up the outstanding customer service.
DaveSimmons
Elite Member
and hire someone to copy-edit your website 😉 (only slightly kidding -- one or two mistyped words like that and a potential customer's opinion of your professionalism will sink like a stone.)
Thanks to everyone for the input. I too find this useful at the moment and also for future purposes. I've been holding back for fear of not being savvy with the market. Hopefully this will motivate me to plunge in.
First, I would like to have a show of hands of all the people dispensing business advice who have never attempted to start a business, particularly selling computer hardware. Woohoo! Look at them all...not.
That pretty much rules out most people. I'm sure there are a couple people who have started a business, myself included.
As someone mentioned, a ton of overclocking and enthusiast businesses have come and gone.
There are really no unsaturated 'niche' markets in computer hardware. Anyone remember that company who sold 'pre-tested' and 'guaranteed' overclockable CPUs and CPU/Mobo/RAM combos? I forget the name, but they're gone, too. People who are enthusiasts are more likely to build their own PC, anyway.
For those few who aren't inclined to build their own, Alienware and Systemax (Tiger Systems) are offering some killer liquid-cooled, case-modded, gaming PC's for enthusiasts at difficult to beat pricing. vprMatrix, VisionPC, Cybertron, and a dozen others are offering 'enthusiast' class PC's as very attractive prices. Two dozen other 'smaller' companies are offering similar products. Heck, even Dell, HP, and Compaq offer some performance PC's at competitive prices.
It is NOT like it used to be 10 years ago. I personally know a dozen PC shops that were doing quite well, but folded under the crunch of competition from larger companies. The only ones left were those who had substantial access to capital or credit and can compete with the big OEMs by leveraging that purchasing power.
PC's are a commodity today, like televisions, VCR's and microwaves. You don't spend $150 to repair your $150 microwave, you replace it. Computers have become no different.
I certainly don't want to discourage anyone, just to give a better perspective of what you're dealing with and getting yourself into. You need capital today, a lot of it.
I owned a PC business primarily concentrating on hardware sales and custom builds, I got my ass handed to me on a platter by large volume companies. I lost several thousand dollars of my own money. Granted, that was my first mistake: never use your own money in a business venture.
But that was the ONLY significant mistake I made, other than trying to compete with the volume resellers in the first place without enough capital to even have a fighting chance. Its a ton of fun spending an hour of your time discussing computers and a custom build with a customer who "claims" he is interested in a custom built PC, only to have him reply to your price:
"Wow. I can get a similar PC from Gateway or Packard Bell for $200 less than that, and they offer a lot more software, toll-free tech support, a better warranty, and I don't have to wait two weeks. Can you match all that at their price?"
I had about 200 customers do that to me, that's roughly 200 hours of my time down the sh-tter for naught. If I sold all my hardware AT COST and not a penny over, I would still only MATCH the prices of volume resellers. It was very rare that I could beat them. Matching their price INCLUDING their warranty and software bundle? Not a chance.
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