Can Anyone Be An Internet Retailer?
| Category: Home Based Business - Marketing | Date: 2003-06-19 |
Amazon.com (AMZN) , eBay (EBAY) , eToys, Priceline.com, Buy.com. The Internet has spawned a stunning array of new companies, many experimenting with new ways of doing business. A new player on the horizon represents the latest step in the evolution of the Internet Economy.
Introducing Alan Switzers Denver Nuggets Fan Page.
Switzers site is one of hundreds or even thousands that will negotiate to partner with Mountain View, Calif.-based Affinia when the company launches in July. Affinia aims to turn narrowly targeted Web sites into ministorefronts.
Think of it as e-commerce for the rest of the Web retailing thats targeted at customers who dont frequent popular sites like Yahoo (YHOO) and Excite (ATHM), but instead spend their time in little-known corners of the Internet.
Affinia is far from the only company trying to extend the reach of electronic commerce to small, obscure Web sites. SmartAge helps small businesses build online stores. And portals ranging from Yahoo to CitySearch have all targeted the small-business e-commerce market.
But Affinia plans to take a very different approach. While other companies try to give small businesses a Web opportunity, Affinia is trying to give small Web sites a business opportunity.
The company maintains a database of every item it can find for sale on the Web and matches these items to small, topical sites. If you have a windsurfing information site, Affinia will set you up with a free storefront that is branded under your name and features various windsurfing-related items: windsurfing books, CDs or apparel. When visitors click on an item, theyre carried to the site of a merchant that sells that product. If they buy something, you get a cut, and so does Affinia.
In contrast to companies like Yahoo and Amazon, which spend millions to create online brands, Affinia plans to stay behind the scenes and help fulfill orders and connect partners.
"We dont want to be a household word," says Affinia CEO Kris Hagerman. "We just want to be a household word among small-site owners."
That will be no easy task. Affinia has attracted impressive financial backers, including Oracle (ORCL) , Sequoia and Fayez Sarofim, but only after convincing them that Affinia will avoid the fate of other business efforts focused on small Web sites. Josh Pickus, an investment partner at Bowman Capital Management, says he grilled Hagerman hard before joining in a recent $12 million venture round.
"I worked with Whistle Communications, which sold boxes that provided Internet access and Web publishing to small businesses," Pickus says. "It was a great product at a great price point, but it was hard as hell to sell it." But Pickus agrees that Affinia avoids this problem.
"Were different from CitySearch [which has struggled to sell localized Web advertising to small businesses] because it was selling Web sites to non-Web people," says Hagerman, who founded Big Book, a directory-listing site that GTE (GTK) bought. "The folks we approach already have sites."
The success of Affinia will hinge on both convincing the Webmasters of small sites to buy into the idea and turning visitors into buyers.
"Youll always run into the problem of not being the topmost thing on your partners mind," says Chris Gwynn, founder of Fridgedoor.com, an online magnet store that has signed up as an Affinia merchant, along with PlanetRx, Garden.com and others. "But we get e-mails all day long from people trying to join our existing affiliate-marketing program." Gwynn contends Affinias approach is a logical next step for anyone interested in affiliate marketing.
Affinias business model cuts to the heart of the evolution of the Internet as a retailing arena. Are small Web-site owners ready to leap from homesteading to setting up shop? And will they blindly affiliate themselves with merchants they dont know?
Alan Switzers site depends on more complicated issues than a typical e-commerce partner understands.
For Switzer, the success of his sites e-commerce strategy depends as much on the wisdom of the Denver Nuggets draft picks and the success of its defensive strategy as it does on clever site design and commerce possibilities. "They need a big center, they need to stay healthy and they need one more good shooter," he says of the Nuggets possible contributions to the success of his site. "Thatll help."
23 October 2000
About the Author
Jacob Ward
:To contact see details below.
jacobw@thestandard.com
http://www.thestandard.com
Introducing Alan Switzers Denver Nuggets Fan Page.
Switzers site is one of hundreds or even thousands that will negotiate to partner with Mountain View, Calif.-based Affinia when the company launches in July. Affinia aims to turn narrowly targeted Web sites into ministorefronts.
Think of it as e-commerce for the rest of the Web retailing thats targeted at customers who dont frequent popular sites like Yahoo (YHOO) and Excite (ATHM), but instead spend their time in little-known corners of the Internet.
Affinia is far from the only company trying to extend the reach of electronic commerce to small, obscure Web sites. SmartAge helps small businesses build online stores. And portals ranging from Yahoo to CitySearch have all targeted the small-business e-commerce market.
But Affinia plans to take a very different approach. While other companies try to give small businesses a Web opportunity, Affinia is trying to give small Web sites a business opportunity.
The company maintains a database of every item it can find for sale on the Web and matches these items to small, topical sites. If you have a windsurfing information site, Affinia will set you up with a free storefront that is branded under your name and features various windsurfing-related items: windsurfing books, CDs or apparel. When visitors click on an item, theyre carried to the site of a merchant that sells that product. If they buy something, you get a cut, and so does Affinia.
In contrast to companies like Yahoo and Amazon, which spend millions to create online brands, Affinia plans to stay behind the scenes and help fulfill orders and connect partners.
"We dont want to be a household word," says Affinia CEO Kris Hagerman. "We just want to be a household word among small-site owners."
That will be no easy task. Affinia has attracted impressive financial backers, including Oracle (ORCL) , Sequoia and Fayez Sarofim, but only after convincing them that Affinia will avoid the fate of other business efforts focused on small Web sites. Josh Pickus, an investment partner at Bowman Capital Management, says he grilled Hagerman hard before joining in a recent $12 million venture round.
"I worked with Whistle Communications, which sold boxes that provided Internet access and Web publishing to small businesses," Pickus says. "It was a great product at a great price point, but it was hard as hell to sell it." But Pickus agrees that Affinia avoids this problem.
"Were different from CitySearch [which has struggled to sell localized Web advertising to small businesses] because it was selling Web sites to non-Web people," says Hagerman, who founded Big Book, a directory-listing site that GTE (GTK) bought. "The folks we approach already have sites."
The success of Affinia will hinge on both convincing the Webmasters of small sites to buy into the idea and turning visitors into buyers.
"Youll always run into the problem of not being the topmost thing on your partners mind," says Chris Gwynn, founder of Fridgedoor.com, an online magnet store that has signed up as an Affinia merchant, along with PlanetRx, Garden.com and others. "But we get e-mails all day long from people trying to join our existing affiliate-marketing program." Gwynn contends Affinias approach is a logical next step for anyone interested in affiliate marketing.
Affinias business model cuts to the heart of the evolution of the Internet as a retailing arena. Are small Web-site owners ready to leap from homesteading to setting up shop? And will they blindly affiliate themselves with merchants they dont know?
Alan Switzers site depends on more complicated issues than a typical e-commerce partner understands.
For Switzer, the success of his sites e-commerce strategy depends as much on the wisdom of the Denver Nuggets draft picks and the success of its defensive strategy as it does on clever site design and commerce possibilities. "They need a big center, they need to stay healthy and they need one more good shooter," he says of the Nuggets possible contributions to the success of his site. "Thatll help."
23 October 2000
About the Author
Jacob Ward
:To contact see details below.
jacobw@thestandard.com
http://www.thestandard.com
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