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If you’re a writer, researcher, subject matter expert, enthusiastic hobbyist, or an authority on almost any topic, there has never been a better time to start your own subscription website or online newsletter.

And if you’re already publishing a hobby website, now is the ideal time to convert at least a portion of the content to fee-paid access.

Smart website owners are now realizing just how valuable their hard-earned knowledge is to others. Much of the information that used to be available for free to anyone and everyone on the World Wide Web is moving behind closed doors, accessible only to paying subscribers.

Savvy writers and publishers are not giving it away anymore. They’re setting up profit-driven, members-only websites and building online communities of subscribers who value their knowledge. Perhaps surprisingly, resistance to paying for content is gradually melting away.

The end of free

This trend away from websites offering free information and toward a subscription, or pay-for-access business model, has several causes.

First, only a few websites operated by big companies can afford to provide valuable content without being compensated. Some of them can do it for the public relations value, but they are the exception.

The rest of us can’t be so generous. And trying to recapture our expenses by selling advertising on our websites has failed to pay the bills. Online advertising and click-through rates are on the decline.

Second, many people are now more than willing to pay to learn what you already know, as thousands of online publishers of subscription websites have already proven.

Why subscribers are ready to pay

The Internet has enabled people with similar interests to find each other and form online communities. Whether your interest is in politics, gardening, or model railroading, the Internet enables you to connect to others who share your enthusiasms and values.

But in the current political and social climate, there is heightened anxiety and concern about privacy. If you previously contributed to public online discussion forums, you may now be feeling vulnerable. You never know who is lurking and reading your comments, or gathering information about you. One frequent concern: what spammers are harvesting your e-mail address?

However, in the seclusion of a subscribers-only website, you feel more protected. You can share ideas with an affinity group of like-minded people with less fear of ridicule or repercussions. The publisher moderates the forum and promises to honor your privacy.

These concerns are not diminishing over time, they are intensifying as people perceive the world — and cyberspace — as an increasingly dangerous place. The result has been a proliferation of private, members-only, subscription websites and online newsletters covering literally hundreds of diverse and specialized topics.

Finding the right subscription business model

Coming up with the right topic for a successful subscription website is usually the biggest stumbling block for those wanting to get into this business. Choosing your site topic is a serious issue, as the topic you select pretty much dictates your chances of success with a subscription website.

Research by the Subscription Website Publishers Association (http://www.SWEPA.com) shows at least five successful models for subscription website topic selection. These include existing print newsletter topics; trade and professional associations; career advancement, personality based or insider tips; and downloadable product libraries. For details go to http://www.swepa.com/public/136.cfm.

As the Internet changes, it is creating moneymaking opportunities for people who like to write, teach and otherwise share their expertise. Your years of study, hands-on experience, and tried and true wisdom could be worth a hefty income when turned into an online community.

Online communities bring together people who are interested in a common topic. They create value by providing insiders’ secrets that the group is eager to learn about. And best of all, the members are willing to pay money to join.

Why having a subscription website on the Internet is so great

As the publisher of a subscription website, you have an almost unfair advantage over other print publications that don’t operate on the Internet. Consider the benefits:

• Low cost of entry — a computer, minimal software and Internet access are all you need.

• No or low rent — work from home.

• Low overhead — production and distribution costs are close to zero.

• No employees — do it all yourself.

• Operate from anywhere in the world.

• Access a worldwide audience.

• Reach a well educated, affluent market.

• Offer a visually rich website, with text, images, audio or video.

• Sell and deliver digital information products instantly.

• Build loyal communities through discussion groups, online events.

The next phase in the subscription website evolution

Information is increasing in value. Over the next several years, the trend to information provided on the Internet by paid subscription will continue.

A two-tier model for the dissemination of quality content is emerging. Successful online publishers provide samples of their wares for free, either on the public portion of their website, or through a free, opt-in e-mail newsletter.

But to get down to the most valuable data — the premium content of secrets and the insider’s tips and techniques — subscribers are learning that they have to pay. Information seekers are getting accustomed to the change, just as they have learned to pay for premium content on cable and satellite television.

The most successful online publishers will be those who can strike the perfect balance between free and fee. The time to get started with your own subscription website is now.

About The Author

Peter A. Schaible is executive director of the Subscription Website Publishers Association (http://www.SWEPA.com).

SWEPA exists to support online publishing by providing education, training and industry recognition. Our goal is to help members build successful, profitable subscription websites.

Copyright 2003 Subscription Website Publishers Association. Permission to reprint is granted provided the references and hypertext links to SWEPA are included.

peter@swepa.com

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An online store is a 24 hour active revenue machine, it should accurately
display and describe your products and services in a professional manner to give
you the best opportunity for each and every sale. Your success depends on this.

Now, don’t get the wrong idea, a site design does not need to be full flash,
loads of custom images and special entry pages, look at Google, they have a nice
logo and a clean understandable landing page. Depending on your target market,
you may only need text to make your sales, but the text still needs to be
clearly layed out and understandable.
It’s always best to carefully study and consider the designer for your
website. Make sure he/she is prepared to show you many examples and ask many
questions about your needs. They should ask for example sites that you like and
work to your budget, not up-sell you special Flash graphics.
If you are working with an ecommerce website shopping
cart then it’s advisable that you keep all design services and
software technology within the one company as it’s important for the designer to
know the capabilities of the shopping cart software they need to work on.

Design layout.

Layout of a website is extremely important to the ease of navigation for your
customers. Their product of choice should only be within 3 clicks from the home
page. Be sure to to have an easy to use category menu and obvious product titles
with good descriptions directly below. Always aim to cross sell in your product
pages with thumbnails of related items.

If you are using custom graphics or flash design, make sure this is kelp to a
minimum in a shopping cart and only serves as a
quick impressive display of professionalism rather than showing off how much money you have.
Your design needs to look professional for one important reason. If your site
looks like it was built yesterday and could easily be taken down today because
you obviously don’t care about the look of your business, then why would your
customers be comfortable in spending money with you. Trust level is a big reason
for customers parting with their hard earned money.

Remember, you only have one chance to make a first impression. If a visitor
comes to your site and doesn’t like what they see, their gone and there’s a good
chance they’ll never come back.

James O’Brien
Professional hosted and managedshopping
cart software

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What is an E-marketplace anyway?

E-marketplace is a business to business web based venue, where buyers and sellers meet online, generate business leads and conduct business transactions. The e-marketplace features are tailored in a manner so that a large numbers of buyers and suppliers can be serviced as a community. A participant of an E-marketplace can be a buyer, a seller or both. Unlike an E-distribution portal which is oriented to assist suppliers selling their products or an E-procurement system which is focused on buyers solely, an E-marketplace is a platform which caters buyers and sellers equally. As a participant of an E-marketplace you are able to explore buying and selling opportunities, make sales offers and buy products and services, add products and services to aggregated e-catalog and use numerous other value added features.

E-marketplaces are tremendously beneficial to all businesses that decide to participate in them. However, the potential benefits that a company can accrue from an E-marketplace are directly proportional to the factor how heavily the company uses the offered features of that E-marketplace. Naturally, a company that makes e-marketplace as its primary sales channel and integrates its sales resources to supply chain solutions of the E-marketplace avail more in sales and administrative overhead cost savings, reduced paper work, better customer service, reduced product distribution costs and online sales growth than a seasonal user of the e-marketplace.

A committed participant of an E-marketplace can benefit from and improve two primary factors of company productivity: Revenue Growth and Cost Savings.

Revenue Growth

Expand Customer Base

A seller, once registered with an E-marketplace, gets immediate access to a large community of prospective buyers of his products or services.

Revenue Increase from Existing Clients

Existing clients get faster and easier access to product information, quicker response to their requests, get better customer support and buy products online.

Revenue Increase from Value Added Services

Once an E-marketplace is set as primary sales channel, freed resources can be used to create more value added services for clients. Some of the services that the E-marketplace offers also can be utilized to generate more value.

Cost Savings

Order Processing Cost

The supply chain solutions of E-marketplace allow sellers to reduce order processing cost significantly. Studies show that cost of processing a purchase order can be reduced from US$ 70 down to US$ 6 only.

Sales and support costs

By automating sales and customer support processes companies can reduce over head costs over 25-30% easily.

Inventory keeping costs

Clearer visibility and forecasting ability allow companies considerably reduce inventory keeping costs.

Most executives agree that primary reason why they feel that the companies should participate in E-marketplace is its ability to streamline supply chain mechanism. Many inherent inefficiencies of supply chain process can be eliminated thanks to integrated to e-marketplaces supply chain solutions.

What sellers have to do in order to participate in E-marketplaces and reap numerous benefits that it can provide?

As most of the administrative and operational tasks are done automatically by the e-marketplaces, participation in them is not a difficult process.

These are the basic steps that a seller must take to participate in an E-marketplace:

Register

Registration might be an easy job of filling up a form. It is much better to take some initial preparations before doing this.

Choose a good login name: your login can be used by the E-marketplace to give you subdomain name, i.e. login.e-marketplace_name.com.

Profile: A well-written profile increases company image.

Logo: your logo helps you brand your company.

Add your products or services to E-catalog

Most E-marketplaces furnish with easy to use forms or wizards for sellers to add their products to E-catalog. As the product and service classification used in the E-catalogs often is an industry standard, it is important to spend some times to find the perfect subcategories for your products or services. If you have any doubt contact the customer support of the E-marketplace. Fill up as many given fields are there for a product as you can. The more information buyer gets right away the faster his buying decision would be.

Create offers

Most sophisticated E-marketplaces have various sales platforms apart from the E-catalog inclusion. Make general sales offers, time sensitive offers (hot offers - with offer expiry dates) and auction offers of your products and services. Determine the terms and methods of price, payment and shipment.

Decide how you will handle portions of the supply chain that you have to do offline.

Although, most of the supply chain process can be done online, not all e-marketplace offer a complete end to end solution. You also have to figure out what part of your back office can be integrated to the E-marketplace.

About The Author

Nowshade Kabir, Ph.D., is the founder, primary developer and present CEO, of Rusbiz.com, a global business to business e-commerce portal with feature like storefronts, aggregated catalog, e-marketplace, trade leads, internal messaging system supply chain solutions, etc. With a doctorate in Information Technology, Dr. Kabir has worked an advisor to government projects and has over 12 years experience in International Trade. An author of many B2B and business related articles; he publishes a bi-weekly E-zine for online business community. You can subscribe to his newsletter free of charge from http://www.rusbiz.com.

nowshade@rusbiz.com

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