Is eCommerce the Mystical Income Stream Manhattan Magician has been Searching for?
Being “Manhattan Magician” here in NYC is not always easy. The pandemic took its toll on me and was kind of a demotivator when it came to developing news effects and patter. I was not interested in doing magic shows via Zoom to fill my top hat with ducats. While indoors waiting for my second Covid shot, it became my passion to bring forth new online methods that magicians can bring in earnings. And one of these techniques I thought about and think it is at least worthy of consideration.
eCommerce the Magic Way
We here at ManhattanMagician.com have relationships with online consultants and other tech professionals. And when picking the brains of some of these media folks, the platform that kept coming up in conversation was eCommerce. The reason that they thought eCommerce could be a winner for conjurers is because they saw the format as a possible promotion tool while earning money.
Manhattan Magician’s Take
What is my take on why my digital expert friends thought that starting an eCommerce store could be a good monetary move for magic artists? My guess is that they probably meant that that a prestidigitator might consider starting an eCommerce store to sell eBooks about doing magic, offer online magic courses and maybe even t-shirts that have printed on them “I am the world’s greatest magician that nobody knows about.” Things along those lines I would imagine. From this point on in this blog post is from my dear electronic geniuses who have kindly given me the permission to publish below an excerpt from an eBook on eCommerce they are working on. So, if you are someone who makes their living waving a magic wand, you may want to check this out to see if anything resonates with you or gives you ideas on how you could use the eCommerce platform. Over and out from me and thus begins the eCommerce eBook preview:
How Were eCommerce Stores Helped During the Pandemic?
The pandemic experience for all of us has been different and varied. Some industries had growth while other ones wilted away. And jobs were impacted in different ways too. Some employees continued to do what they do but did so remotely from home, while others in industries that could not be done electronically were hit hard and lost their jobs. During the long time spent indoors the concept of “working” changed. And it became obvious that if you wanted to survive in a comfortable manner you needed to figure out a way to have a job that, if need be, could be done long distance and not necessarily in the office or other workspaces.
Should You Have Your Own Ecommerce Store or Sell On Someone Else’s?
Some people, due to the pandemic, made the decision to seek an eCommerce dream as a way of making certain that they would have at least one income stream coming in no matter what happened. Those who sought this transition found themselves being torn between two different paths when it came to how to sell their products online. One path was to invest in having their own eCommerce store, which would mean that although they would have to both manage their site and promote it, they would be able to have more options to do what they wanted to do and not have to follow someone else’s rules. Plus, they would be able to keep all the income that came in and not have to give another entity a large percentage of the money coming in. But on the other hand, if they used a third-party seller like that big one, they would have to give a large chunk of the profit coming into someone else. But the benefit to selling on someone else else’s ’eCommerce site, depending on how big and successful that site was, they would have access to more potential customers and might make more sales though only being able to hold on to a part of it. Though, when you work with one of the biggies to sell your ware, there is going to be a big chance that no matter how much you SEO optimize your page with keywords, you will get extraordinarily little and sometimes none of the traffic you need. The reason why that that the gigantic platforms do this intentionally, is because they want to get richer by you having to pay them for you to be sent visitors. Given the fact that both sites of the fence have their pros and cons, one possible approach that truly could be the best of both worlds is to use these two different approaches to eCommerce at the same time. Some have found this amazingly effective and your decision of whether to have the two paths meet, might be worth thinking about.
Are eCommerce Sites Profitable?
When trying to answer the question of whether eCommerce stores are a suitable was for the regular person to make a living, it all comes down to an ambiguous response that some of you are going to be very unhappy with which is that “it all depends.” There are several factors that go into making the decision of whether to move forward comes down to some basic questions to ask yourself and do research on. What are you selling? Is there a niche group the desperately wants your product and seeks yours out because they have a hard time finding somewhere to purchase like yours? How will you promote your site meaning will you have to pay for ads and traffic, or have you figured out a way to use free resources like being linked to other sites in your industry, being engaging, responsive and interactive with social media? What are the basic numbers for you? Are you selling physical products and if so, how much does it cost for you to get or make them versus how much will you charge for them? Or will you go the digital download approach such as eBooks and online course for which you do not have to worry about inventory for but still need an effective and workable to drive the right traffic of individuals who are avidly seeking out to buy now what you are selling?