How-To Cut Your Own Niche, To Grow into the Next Internet Powerhouse

by Jerome Thomas

Published on this site: June 16th, 2006 - See more articles from this month

Among a few others, three players; Yahoo!, Ebay, and Amazon survived the Dot Com Bust Era of 2000 to 2001. All three still seem to have a solid future in front of them. They have been rewarded well for their endeavours, and they have bought many of their smaller competitors to ensure that they could stand alone at the top of the pile.

What can we learn from these Top Three Survivors?

All three of these companies serve the consumer market, and they continue to offer great value to their users. They grow and they grow, but they have never really lost sight of their target market.

AltaVista lost its way. Yahoo! now owns it! Yahoo! also acquired Overture. Yahoo! purchased Overture, because they knew it would help them to deliver small business advertising to their search users. Paypal was created in 1998. In 2002, Ebay purchased Paypal because it would help their auction buyers and sellers transact business more easily. Amazon soaked up many smaller web retail companies in order to widen their retail empire. For all intent purposes, they have all succeeded.

These Internet companies have become huge, - because they never lost sight of the desires of their customer base. They kept their "eye on the ball," and never lost sight of their goals - their goals to serve the needs and wants of their customer base. They have also enlarged their customer base, by acquiring smaller companies that could offer more to their target customer base.

You might be thinking that these companies are as successful as they are, because they bought up all of their competitors. Yes, that did help them to grow at astonishing rates. But, the important thing to realize is that they had to have a nice bankroll to finance the purchase of these companies in the first place.

They developed their bankrolls by providing products and services that people actually wanted to buy. As a small business or individual wanting to make a few extra dollars, its wise to always keep the mindset of offering people what they want to buy, at a price they want to pay.

Your only question is how to show your products and services to buyers.
To sell your products online, you have lots of choices.

You can set up your own website, and then struggle against the tide - of the millions of other websites - all vying for the attention of the consumer marketplace.

You can buy a classified ad and sell your product by phone or mail. But, your classified ad will only run for a certain amount of time, and then you will have to pay for the advertisement again, if you do not sell your product.

You can use any of a dozen copycat auction sites and list your products there. The big negative on using an auction site is that you have to play the game of listing your product at a low price to get people's attention, and then hope that you will make enough profit to make your effort worthwhile.

Auction sites make a commission on every product they sell. No problem with that. What is questionable is that if you sell your product for $10, you pay one rate. And, if you sell your product for $100, you pay another, much higher amount. You might be thinking that their sliding scale system is like a percentage commission; and, you would be right.

But, if they only need to make a dollar off of your sale in order to be profitable; e.g.. a dollar if you sell a $10 item; then, when you sell a $100 item, why must they take a lot more? - When they still only need one dollar to profit? Surely, the profit that you make on your transaction should be yours and not theirs? Big auction sites are a cash cow; your cash - is their cow.

Is there an answer? Well, Mimicking your Competition is a Fool's Game.

There are dozens of copycat auction sites. The silly thing about trying to duplicate the success of the big boys is that you can never actually duplicate their success. You do not have their reputation, customer base, bankroll, or the momentum. However;

There is Always a Better Way

The secret to competing in a marketplace that is strongly dominated by a major company is to cut out your own little niche of their marketplace. There are always people that are not happy with the way some businesses operate. If you can figure out why people are unhappy with them, then you will have found your own niche. Build your niche close to the one you want to become, and service the customers who are unsatisfied with what the big names are offering them.

Just such a site is called: http://www.fastfreeads.com
Because it addresses the above issues; it is definitely designed for the seller, and, it offers the advertiser by far, a much better deal. Such as:

• Instant display advertising. (within seconds)
  
• No up-front fees. (pay after sale)
  
• Nominal 50p commission - for any final sale price.
  
• Permanent listing (no time limits or expiry)
  
• Free repeat listing of items.
  
• Free my-account page.
  
• Free email reminders, etc..

To join this new generation of seller friendly advertising, it's worth seeing FastFreeAds. But - don't take my word for it, please, try it for yourself; you just could be glad you did!

Many thanks for reading with me. Remember:

You will never be successful if you tell the world, "Look at me, I am just like xxx site." You can be successful - by telling the world, "This is why I am different, and better than xxx site."

Good luck in all that you do.

Jerome Thomas



Jerome Thomas is the owner of Fast Free Ads. If you have a product to sell, new or used, then please visit Jerome's website to place your ad. You can upload a picture with your advertisement, and a small preset price is requested as our commission, no matter how large the sale price. You can buy products cheaper at http://www.FastFreeAds.com, because we keep the cost of selling, low for our merchants. An affiliate Program is also available.