Question:
Hi Dmitry,
I have been with PMI for almost 7 weeks now. They are supposed to be building my website for me. But only 9 product titles. I have another 6 titles or more.
They are going to drop it in my lap after they do the 9. They say they will help me by letting me call the help line. I am so afraid it will take way too long to start making any money that I may be bankrupt before the site goes public. It has already been 7 weeks. They wasted 1 1/2 weeks by not answering my submission forms. I have bills from signing up with them that I am paying with personal funds. I have to keep my credit positive. Also, they have wasted another 4 days not doing anything to my site. They were supposed to start last Wednesday. Nothing yet.
My question is. Do you have any connections with site builders who can finish my site for me without a lot expense? I do not have a lot of money. Time is money. So, I am losing money every day and I am thinking just go search for scunthorpe jobs to cover my expenses with this thing.
Please help.
Terry
Hi Terry,
I am not sure if I am fully understand what’s going on. What is PMI? Do you have website address (url) so I can take a look? If you can give me lil bit more info I will try to provide you with possible solutions.
Thanks,
Dmitry
Hi Dmitry,
PMI is a company that teaches people how to advertise on eBay and teaches how to build a website. There is a 12 week course that teaches these things, as well as where to advertise. My website has not been published yet. The company I went through is an affiliate of PMI, called My-E-Biz-Pro. They were to build the site for me, only with very little to publish, I don’t expect to make one sale. When I talked to their man last week, that was when I found out that they were only doing the bare minimum to publish it.
I am at a loss. I don’t have any idea how to develop the site and am tired of waiting for them to start. I have done a few things, that I was able to figure out. But it is still not published. I don’t know where to turn. I have 3 suppliers and five different types of grills. Each type of grill has 5 different styles. Such as built-in, on cart, on cabinet, on in-ground post, on patio post.
Thanks,
Terry
Terry,
I have looked at the current website and admin panel at myebizwebsitepro.com. As far as I seen they have done almost nothing and it will take whole bunch of work to get it to the level when you can actually start selling products. I am not sure what was your agreement with them – do they agree to build website for you or only provide you with the tools to build one? I don’t know about your current financial situation. If you don’t know anything about website creation, it is possible to find freelance programmer/designer to finish website but it will cost you some money, somewhere $500 – $1500 as very rough approximation. If you want I can show you some good websites where you can hire freelancers. But as a side note it looks very similar to my first experience with eCommerce. I paid $2500 for some software and education materials that got me nothing and they wanted $69/month after for me to use their admin panel for maintaining the website. Even if you publish website you will need customers coming from somewhere – search engines, PPC, social media etc in order to make sales. I am not sure if your current financial situation will allow you to wait another month or two and spend money on advertising, promotion and so on. Let me know what you think and I will try to help.
Dmitry
Dmitry,
It sounds like you have had the same thing happen to you. Only, I have put out $8400.00 so far for nothing, but training and promises. That cost does not include the other costs they have convinced me to invest in. I don’t have available cash, but do have credit cards where I can obtain it. One other thing, I think it is really important, I have been laid off for 9 months and do not expect to go back to work until March. At least that is what the company is telling me. So, I have to get this site up and producing an income as soon as possible.
If you can help, I would be very grateful.
Thanks,
Terry
Terry,
So far I see 2 options:
#1 Gather the money that you have and continue with the online store to make it work – hire freelance designer/programmer and pay them to finish the project, promote store, tweak and improve.
From my experience I have couple objections of this option:
- It will take several weeks to finish the store
- Developing stage will require investing additional money – my estimation $1500 and up.
- After store is done you need to start promoting it in order to see customers and sales – you will need traffic
- You can get traffic via different sources – SEO (Search Engine Optimization), PPC (Pay Per Click) but it will require some time and knowledge
- If you don’t have any knowledge about Internet marketing it can be hard for you to market your store online
- Currently all your assets are hosted with third party company that seem to be not very clear/honest with you and keep demanding money
- In the future they may decide to screw/shut down your store, there is no guarantee they won’t – all the files and applications are hosted on their platform and if they do – you screwed.
#2 Get over it and check other less risky/affordable options. Again from my experience, I can say that making money with affiliate marketing is faster and easier than ecommerce and it requires much less investment to start.
Again, this is just my thoughts; I don’t know all the circumstances and my suggestions are based of my experience. I would suggest sitting down, weighting all the possible options and deciding what you want to do – go with option #1 or option #2 or do something else.
If you decide option #1 I can show you couple good websites where you can hire freelancers to finish the project. If you decide option #2 I will try to provide you with recourses that will help you get started.
Thanks,
Dmitry
Dmitry,
Thank you for the advice.
I have decided to let them start building the site then get a freelancer to finish it. Yesterday their programmer contacted me. He told me it will be three days and they will have finished their portion of building my site. I think it will be worth it to be done with it. I don’t care about the extra cost. I just want to start making money.
If you have any freelance sites that you could recommend, I would appreciate it.
Thank you so much for your input,
Terry
Hi,
I personally use Elance because it is the biggest one with a lot of professionals to choose from also you can try Odesk. In order to get started you need to post your project with as many details as you can (layout, functionality, other requirements) and after that freelancers will start bidding on your project and making proposals. Good luck with your project.
Thanks,
Dmitry