电子商务（e-commerce)与网上生意／贸易(Internet Business)

cheechon

零一六六九七七二三九. 如果是Poslaju的话，建议你去Pos Office买他们的Buble Envelope或者Pos Pak/Pos Box。价钱比外面便宜至少一半。
Fedex的话，就用他们的Padded Fedex Pak。免费的。.

Sjms

Yes..一口气仔细阅读完cheechon兄的精华论,还有Googlepenang的贴还没看完
有想过要出书吗?!真的写到很棒!!!加油..只可惜迟了发现宝
想问,
cheechon多少岁?几岁开始接触ecommerce?真的很厉害o...
看完了后，有种不入虎穴,焉得虎子,做什么都要敢敢来
你不需要1000个不成功的理由,你只需要一个成功的理由,很喜欢这句话...
小弟,
也想在网上开'商店',卖自己设计的T-shirt,自己设计,自己印刷..自己的'品牌'..
可是不知从何开始,
cheechon可以给点意见吗?
先在ebay,lelong拍卖网站开始还是?
要如何起步..?付款也是很大问题...货物的运送?

小弟的能力有限,资金也是,不过会网站建设..parttime帮人家设计网站

[ 本帖最后由 Sjms 于 4-5-2006 09:27 PM 编辑 ]

G仔

很不错 看了这篇文章 我对于 明年上大学 要选什么科来读 有了答案 只是不懂 一个读e-commese的人 除了网上生意外 还可以做什么呢？？？我只是一个学生 对于这些东西不太了解

888teekee

cheechon兄,我是新人,想在网上开'商店'.是不是一定要有personal 的website?应该怎样开始做呢？请指教....您的公司可以给我帮到我吗?谢谢

cheechon

首先，谢谢大家的捧场

Sjms,

原帖由 Sjms 于 4-5-2006 09:14 PM 发表
cheechon多少岁?几岁开始接触ecommerce?真的很厉害o...
看完了后，有种不入虎穴,焉得虎子,做什么都要敢敢来
你不需要1000个不成功的理由,你只需要一个成功的理由,很喜欢这句话...

我个人觉得很多人都有心要做东西，
可是却喜欢马马虎虎，没有多少人是真正付出100%的。
他们总是希望自己抛一分钱出去，然后就希望有十元的回酬。
他们总是抱怨没钱做生意，却舍得花钱在其他的方面。
坦白告诉你，即使如今我还是用着对很多人来说是非常老旧的Nokia8850.很多时候出门也是骑摩托车或搭taxi,bas等。衣服也几乎是一年买一套而已（大概新年的时候买吧）。但是如此，当做生意的时候，即使买现金三五十千的货，我也是眉头也没有扎一下。也从来没有跟供应商或合作伙伴讨价还价。所以他们都会很识趣自动减到最低，大家合作就很愉快。

我本身就很喜欢星球大战(Star Wars)第六级里面，Yoda绝地大师训练Luke Skywalker时讲的一句话：
当时，Yoda要求Luke用Force把他的飞船拉出泥沼。
Luke说:"i'll Try."
Yoda马上打断他的话，说:"There is only Do or Don't, There is no trying"

原帖由 Sjms 于 4-5-2006 09:14 PM 发表
也想在网上开'商店',卖自己设计的T-shirt,自己设计,自己印刷..自己的'品牌'..
可是不知从何开始,
cheechon可以给点意见吗?
先在ebay,lelong拍卖网站开始还是?
要如何起步..?付款也是很大问题...货物的运送?size]

从注册domain name开始吧。
卖T-Shirt，是不错的。我知道有些马来西亚人在网上卖Batik卖到加拿大的也有。他的生意也相当不错。

建议你双管齐下，建立自己的网站的同时也在拍卖网做买卖。毕竟没有必要限制自己吧。

如果你有看完我的帖，为何还会觉得付款和货物运送是大问题，我不是已经些了吗？

hiphop_186，
我再重声一次（我已经在第一面讲过了），这个帖子只限于讨论买卖实质的货物的网站。
如果你想搞服务性质或卖广告，或入门的网站，那就祝你好运。
请勿再问同样的问题。

G仔，
我很高兴能够在这里给到你一些意见。
但ecommerce不是用来"读"的，是用来"做"的。
基本上，如果是在马来西亚大学出来，只能意味着你什么都不懂，一切都是从零开始。
如果你的问题是：＂我持有ecommerce的文凭，我能申请什么ecommerce相关的工作?＂。你可以申请IT, Internet Security, Designer或System Engineer， Webmaster之类的Technical Post， 或着marketing之类的工作。
Ecommerce是一个很广的范围，所以你必须专注几个比较重要，冷门的领域如：
Online 的 Payment Gateway 或 Mobile的 Payment Gateway
Online Marketing / Search Engine Optimization
Anti-Fraud Detection, Web／Hosting Security等

888teekee，
你把自己放在客户的位置，就知道自己应该做什么。
你会不会在付钱给一些连自己／公司的网站都没有的人？
我建议你先多了解，才来决定吧。

Sjms

太棒了=)謝謝cheechon 兄的回復..
前幾天也翻完了你在GP那裡的專欄...
那裡的言論好像比較自由點

cheechon開始時是主要買賣The L.R的戒指嗎?
大學時有修讀有關e-commerce的科系?還是自己摸索的?

如果你有看完我的帖，为何还会觉得付款和货物运送是大问题，我不是已经些了吗？

小弟是看完了
不過...那些paypal的東西還真的是有點亂..沒有接觸過信用卡,轉帳等..年紀還小
再研究下

Paypal有點小問題想請教,
如果客戶在網上完成交易了,加上三四个工作天的过帐,那麼也就是說..
身為賣家的我們,是需要先出貨?還是加上那3,4天過帳後才出貨?
如果客戶在途中cancel掉他們的貨物交易..那是什麼情況?

還有我想實際操作+自己摸索下網上買賣系統,lelong點com點my可以做為起發點嗎?對于新手有什麼需要注意的?
幫忙解疑,謝謝cheechon兄

[ 本帖最后由 Sjms 于 8-5-2006 12:56 AM 编辑 ]

cheechon

http://chinese.cari.com.my/myfor ... &extra=page%3D1

Sjms

RM200一次性收费=這個是永久性的嗎?

ebay跟lelong跟你的citymall有什麼不同點?
什麼理由讓我選擇你的citymall做為我的第一站呢?=)

cheechon

好东西免费＂益＂大家。
有关的详情请参考佳礼的网站推荐(不算打广告吧)
http://chinese.cari.com.my/myfor ... &extra=page%3D1

参考最后的回复
如果版主认为不适合，可以删除。谢谢

dingolon

有一个叫盛子的,
出书叫人家如何用网页赚钱
楼主认为他如何呢?

cheechon

"SeXzi",在日文的意识是老师或＂师傅＂的意识
应该是读成sen1 seh2。而不是盛子。

他的书或seminar...hmm
我不想批评太多。
基本上，我认为是一本compilation的书

dingolon

原帖由 cheechon 于 2-6-2006 09:43 AM 发表
"SeXzi",在日文的意识是老师或＂师傅＂的意识
应该是读成sen1 seh2。而不是盛子。

他的书或seminar...hmm
我不想批评太多。
基本上，我认为是一本compilation的书

因为去了书展看到
他的书, 翻了一翻
是写盛子啊,
薄薄的一本要RM30++.
楼主你看来也可以出书了.

cheechon

我说谎，夸大或言不由衷的时候还是会脸红，
所以搞seminar或出书，吃这些饭我吃得不心安理得。

cheechon

我最近把一些付款及送货的详细细节及方法,post在我的论坛，如果有兴趣大家不妨看看。如果想要做电子商务，就更加需要留意了。

http://portal.citymall.com.my/modules/newbb/

hoov2000

原帖由 cheechon 于 2-6-2006 10:55 AM 发表
我说谎，夸大或言不由衷的时候还是会脸红，
所以搞seminar或出书，吃这些饭我吃得不心安理得。

可以给我你的Yahoo 吗

kanasai88

不错的idea。。。加油

cheechon

Interview: Former eBay Top Seller GlacierBayDVD Speaks Out
By Ina Steiner
AuctionBytes.com
September 29, 2006  
GlacierBayDVD rose to become one of eBay's top PowerSellers, achieving 268,198 unique feedback ratings and making $4.6 million in GMS (the value of items sold) in 2004. But something went terribly wrong, and in February 2006, GlacierBayDVD's status changed from PowerSeller to NARU (not a registered user).





Randy Smythe, owner of GlacierBayDVD, now wants to share his story. In a post on Associated Content (which he dramatically titled "What is the E! True Hollywood Story About EBay's Former Top Seller Glacier Bay DVD?"), Smythe explained why he decided to speak out now, 8 months after his company's demise.

"I've been observing eBay over these past 8 months and I've come to the realization that they are a ship without a rudder, and it is affecting a group of people that I care a great deal about: EBay Sellers. So I thought I would lend my voice to the discussion. I have a unique perspective on eBay, and since I no longer sell online I can speak freely."
http://www.associatedcontent.com ... ollywood_story.html

AuctionBytes interviewed GlacierBayDVD owner Randy Smythe this week to see what lessons could be learned from his journey to the top and subsequent plunge to bankruptcy. (Interview has been edited for length.)

AB: Give me some background on GlacierBayDVD - what did you sell, how many employees did you have, how long were you selling on eBay?

RS: I sold DVDs and CDs, I had at the time I closed 6 employees, a 5,000 square foot warehouse and had been selling on eBay since 1999 and started the business in 2002.

AB: Were you using an auction-management software program?

RS: I used AuctionRover, then ChannelAdvisor Pro. I was one of the first to use ChannelAdvisor Merchant.

AB: What was the effect of that on your business?

RS: It gave me so much more control, it allowed me to scale some aspects of my operation and it allowed me to grow probably faster than I could have at ChannelAdvisor Pro.

AB: Were you drop-shipping, or did you carry inventory?

RS: Well, I guess I can tell that model now. (Laughter) We had a hybrid of drop-shipping. We carried some inventory if we got deals on product, but very little in-house inventory. We hooked up with our vendors and got data feeds of their inventory. Then we had a little rule: if inventory at a vendor was X (for example, if the vendor had a quantity of five or more of a title), we could list (that title) on eBay. I took all the order from Tuesday, and submitted them to my vendor on Wednesday morning, and Wednesday afternoon, I had the items in-house and shipped them.

AB: You got the items the same day?

RS: My vendor was in close proximity. Initially, that's how I started. I wanted control of product, I didn't want to leave it in the hands of someone else. When I did the numbers, it was a wash. Either I paid them or I did it myself. When I got into the warehouse, that's probably when I should have got into drop-shipping, but that's another story. We added a couple of other vendors so that we had a broader mix of products.

Editor's Note: some sellers use drop-shippers that fulfill the items so the seller doesn't actually ship the items to the customer, the drop-shipper does the shipping.

AB: So it was the advantage of drop-shipping in that you didn't have to buy inventory until you had orders, but you knew you had access to it.

RS: Right.

AB: And you were doing well?

RS: I made the determination I wanted to grow to $10 million. In 2004, we did $4.6 million in GMS, including S&H, and 90 percent of that was DVDs. Everything was going along swimmingly. I spent the money to grow to $10 million. We decided we wanted to have our own systems so we wouldn't have to hire additional people. All those expenses added up. But the cash flow was there, the sales were there. Everything was going just perfect. We had our best month ever in February of 2004, $480,000 in sales in a short month, and I was just jazzed, because I thought this was going to be great.

And then, eBay - and I had been pushing for this, so I can't blame eBay - eBay came out with Pre-Fill for the media category. And I had been pushing for it because I had wanted to sell CDs. I didn't have the database for CDs. We had already built our own database for DVDs, we had spent $60,000 to build our own database of DVDs. So we had that covered, and as long as our competitors didn't have that data, we always had some kind of advantage over them.

So when they released Pre-Fill, I thought this was great, because now I can expand quickly, because I can get CDs up there without spending another $60,000 or more to create that database. The problem I didn't consider at the time, is that, this makes it easy for everyone coming in. That's when a big competitor came in. My whole point had been about competitors was I didn't believe anyone was going to spend the money we were spending. We were doing a lot of auctions, because we were building our brand, and we were building the company at the time, and we were spending a lot on auctions. I didn't think anyone would challenge us.

But this big competitor didn't shy away from spending money. At the time, eBay Stores were just becoming a big thing, and this big competitor took a different approach than we did that I didn't pick up on for a while. They basically lowered the price in Stores and had higher-price auctions, and drove everyone to stores because it was a lower insertion fees. We had the exact opposite. We had lower prices in our auctions and higher prices in our Stores.

It was working well, but our sales had flattened. I had attributed that initially to summer, every summer is a little slow, and it was very much down. That's when I realized, there might be a problem. That's when I realized I might have to look at changing the model. A lot of other people got in thinking it was a quick buck. Part of the thing about me being successful and being talked about, a lot of other people thought this was easy and they got in. And every new seller that comes in the marketplace that discounts because they don't have any overhead brings the marketplace down total. The prices started to plummet. in order to keep your sales going you either have to discount, or list ten times more than anybody else.

AB: Do you think eBay was actually going out and actively recruiting sellers in this category?

RS: It's a two-part answer. Yes, they were, but not necessarily for the reason you ask the question. This is the time they were gong shut down Half. So they were trying to move everyone from Half to the eBay platform. We were flooded with all the Halfsters. Price is everything for those guys. So that's when the pricing started to just - we used to sell things at what Best Buy used to sell them. Now people sell low and make it up on S&H. So when eBay decided not to shut down Half, they (the Half sellers) didn't go back. I mean, they stayed on Half, but they stayed on eBay too.

cheechon

AB: What was the biggest challenge you faced in terms of profitability? Was it sourcing? Overhead? Selling prices? Competition?

RS: Our biggest cost on the P&L outside of our product costs was eBay. Our biggest problem, and this was a problem that to this day they have not dealt with, which is why you see the big guys going away, or falling apart like I did, or never growing past a certain point - they hit a wall. eBay doesn't provide a mechanism for you to scale your fees. Every other aspect of your business you can scale. I can get better pricing from my distributor, I can get better pricing from my shipper, I can get better pricing from my packaging guy, all these things you can get better pricing on. With eBay, you can't get better pricing, and the more you list, the worse your conversion rates get. Your sales go up, but your cost of sales on eBay goes up too.

AB: The more you list, the more your conversion rate goes down?

RS: Yes. There's probably a selection of 5,000 - 7,000 titles that should be core titles. And there's over 40,000 titles out there. Well, if you're listing 5,000 - 7,000 items and they're only closing once a week, you've hit a wall in terms of how much sales you can make, because the conversion rate's going to be 25 - 30 %, or 30 - 35% at that time and the numbers work. But you want to grow sales, so you're going to list another 2,000 titles, well you don't necessarily want to throw up the same 2,000 titles again. So you throw up another 2,000 titles that are not in that grouping of titles that are good, so your conversion starts to decrease. Or you put more of the same title up, and you're just at the hit or miss. So you list more, and your conversion rates start to decrease, you're spending more with eBay, your sales are going up, but they're not going up at the same rate.

Ultimately that was the problem I had to address. I had sales, I built up a lot more overhead than I should have, and I should have addressed the overhead issue, from a business standpoint first. I was concentrating on finding how I could get eBay fees down to 10% of sales as opposed to 17%. I didn't really want to run my business on less money than I was running it on, I felt eBay was where I should get the money back from. In retrospect, it was harder to get the money back from eBay in fewer fees than it was to cut so I probably should have cut overhead.

AB: What kind of overhead? I mean, overhead is overhead, what could you cut?

RS: Well I could have cut employees. The other overhead - I got into a new building, and I went from $300/month to $4,500/month, so that's a huge number, and I got a 3 year lease, so it's not like you can change that easily. These are all decisions I made right around the time sales started to flatten out.

AB: You talk about two things going on, one is competition, and the other are the eBay fees. If only one thing had happened, could you have survived, do you think?

RS: I believe my brand would have allowed me to continue to grow my sales. I had to pull back on auctions, so in essence, I'm pulling back on revenue-generating because I'm pulling back on auctions to see if that's it. So I went to 7-day auctions. I had 500 - 1,000 titles that were big sellers for us that we were doing 1-day auctions for, and killing on it. But as competition came in, we didn't do as well on the 1-days, so I had to go to 7-days, so now you are stretching that. You know that the day things close in Core is the day you get the most sales. We pulled back on our 1-days, our sales started to level off, and so I tried to work on the fee structure and make that work, and sales flattened out.

AB: Instead of?

RS: Instead of - if I could have scaled it in some way, I could have continued to grow, and list, and not been in that position. At the time, we couldn't scale the fees and we had this increased competition. But we were still the guy. But because we had a big competitor come in, he cut our upside. Because he came in and cut our ability to grow past a certain point. Since that point, I could have grown, and I should have at the time, and I should have looked at doing the website. And looking at other venues, instead of relying solely on eBay. But again, I felt more comfortable with eBay, and I didn't want to spend the money on the website.

cheechon

AB: Were you selling exclusively on eBay?

RS: Yes.

AB: Up until the end?

RS: No, the last year we had the website up, we tried selling on Amazon and a little on Half. But I didn't like that, because basically in order to increase sales you had to be the lowest price. So again, if you don't pay fees, you have to be the lowest price, so you're cutting your margins somewhere.

Our website came into being in 2005. It took us quite a while because we did it ourselves. I probably paid a lot more money than I,... The tools that are available today, I could have gotten that website up and running very quickly.

It did pretty well. I think we did almost $200,000 in sales off the website in the first year, and that was from March to December. But because cash flow was tight, we couldn't invest in any kind of marketing for it, so we had to see if we could move our existing customers over.

And that became a problem. You can't really contact your own customers through the eBay system. They kind of slap your hand if you send them an email.

AB: You were using ChannelAdvisor Merchant, were they giving you advice about your website, Google Adwords,...?

RS: When we started to do the website, that's when they started to get into syndication and that other stuff. And they talked to me about it, and in my particular case, cash was so tight, that I just didn't want to take a chance on spending money on something I wasn't sure was going to happen.

AB: Because you were going to have to pay the upfront costs of setting it up plus a commission?

RS: On eBay, you're listing things, but you're doing that fairly smartly, and you're paying on the sale. In the AdWords situation, I have to figure out what keywords to pick and then I'm paying for someone to come to the site. I have no idea if I'm going to get a sale out of it.

So how do I figure out how much this is going to cost me? I've got to basically test it for 3 months or 4 months to figure out how much it's going to cost me. I'm not going to throw $10,000 a month at this on the hope it's going to generate $100,000 in sales. I couldn't get past that. eBay's a lot easier, you put an item up, if it sells, you make money.

AB: And Google Adwords is tricky?

RS: Well we tried it, a real limited one for the website, but you have to do a lot of work to find the right title. The amount of money you have to spend up front, I mean, I don't know when you're going to get the ROI on that, I don't have any idea.

AB: Google never reached out to you, did they?

RS: Yeah, they did. I worked with Google on a small test, but again, that was middle of 2005, and by that time I had already realized that we were broken. And I was trying to find a way to change the way the model without shutting down and starting over again.

AB: In hindsight, it seems logical to create your own website. But back then, eBay was really good enough to stay and sell exclusively.

RS: I believe I 'm a victim of market changes on eBay . I take full responsibility for the decisions I made, but I'm a victim of market changes on eBay - the increased competition, the price pressure to sell things for a lot less because of the increased competition. Kind of like, almost a kind of a whoring of the market, and you've heard this from other sellers, what's happened is ridiculous. You can buy things on eBay so low-priced, I don't know why people don't just buy it on eBay and sell it on Amazon.

AB: Sometimes you can buy it cheaper on eBay, but when you actually factor in S&H, it's not always cheaper.

RS: In my position, I had basically three choices. I could start selling elsewhere, like on the website or find another venue; I could die slowly, which was the choice I made (laughter); or I could play the game that these other people are playing and start discounting and everything else.

I raised my Shipping & Handling and took away my flat shipping, in October/November of 2004, so by that time I had already realized I needed to generate more revenue because my sales were going down, and I needed my total sales,...Because the S&H went up a buck, I could go a little bit lower on my price on the product. So I fell victim to that a little bit.

AB: Would you say that all the problems you're talking about, would you say they are unique to the media category?

RS: I don't have a tremendous amount of experience in other categories, but in talking to people and reading the message boards, it's probably a little bit the same with every category. I think it's harder in a commodity category. In a commodity category, price becomes everything. I think any of the commodity categories on eBay, you've got this. The other categories, I think you got the one-dollar Buy It Now and the $25 shipping.

To me, customers are not dumb either, and they look at and do the total price and say this is not a bad deal. People buy on total price.

AB: Did eBay suspend your account, what led up to you're becoming NARU?

RS: I made a change in the model, I went to more of a Stores model, with fewer and fewer auctions. It worked on a profitability standpoint, I was able to get the eBay fees down, but it wasn't enough to get out of the hole I'd dug myself, and I made the decision in January, that if 4th quarter sales weren't up to a certain level, I would continue, but I had no hope whatsoever of getting out of the hole I was in.

AB: So, you decided you would make a decision in January 2006 based on the fourth quarter 2005 results?

RS: Yes. So I called eBay and told them I was shutting it down. And, they said, Okay, this is the amount of money you're going to owe us. At the time I was trying to negotiate with another company to buy Glacier Bay, so I negotiated that for about a month and a half, and it fell through, because eBay wanted the full amount and they weren't really interested in negotiating at all.

cheechon

AB: Who was the other company?

RS: I don't really want to bring them up. It's another company that is a fairly big company, it's not a Fortune 500 company, but it's a fairly large media company.

AB: What happened with BuySafe?

RS: I signed up with BuySafe because it was a marketing thing, I wanted to find a way to differentiate myself from somebody else. Then they signed up everybody in the media category.

BuySafe was initially a marketing thing. Never in my wildest dreams thought I'd ever have to use it. And when this whole thing happened, I contacted BuySafe and told them, they said they'd take care of any orders that were not fulfilled. I had, I believe, 200 orders that they took care of for me. So BuySafe did exactly what they said they'd do, and they took care of those customers that I could not fill those orders.

AB: So they've never come after you?

RS: no.

AB: I think (reporter) Rob Hof of BusinessWeek had an order with you.

RS: I talked to Rob. Actually, after you tried to track me down initially, when it happened, Rob was the second one on the line. I didn't talk to him. I just got back to him about maybe two weeks or a month ago just to talk about some stuff, and I forgot to ask him whatever happened to his order. Once I shut down and my vendors would not provide me with product, there was just a certain group of orders I couldn't fill. And PayPal had already stopped my ability to do anything with PayPal, so basically I just had to let BuySafe take care of those. I received a bill from BuySafe.

AB: I think Rob blogged about the incident and said he did get satisfaction from BuySafe.

RS: All my customers were taken care of. BuySafe sent everybody for that whole month that bought from me an email that said this is how you take care of an email claim.

AB: Let me move on, what's the biggest mistake you see eBay sellers making?

RS: The way eBay is right now, the biggest mistake sellers make is they're not aggressively looking elsewhere.

AB: So you are an advocate of multi-channel selling?

RS: Yes, I'm an advocate of multi-channel because I should have done it.

AB: So should they have their own website.

RS: Well there's ProStores, but I don't think they're going to be able to move people to ProStores because people are so uptight at eBay. But there's another one called Monster Commerce, Amazon just announced they're going to do WebStores, those are more what I'm talking about. The big companies have their own websites. If you're a ChannelAdvisor customer, they have their own store. I just believe that you have to look at eBay as a customer acquisition tool if you are a seller. That's what sellers need to do. eBay wants to keep everybody there.

AB: Did you look at eBay as a home on the Internet, a place where you do business on the Internet?

RS: When I was doing it, I looked at it that way the way the old-timers looked at it. I loved eBay, I loved being on eBay, it was fantastic for me.

Honestly, if I could have gotten my profits turned around, I probably would have continued to stay, the lifestyle/income equation. It had the right lifestyle, with the correct income.