By Paul Lang, Editor, Sell It!
October 25th, 2000

See Also   Terrence Sherry and 1 World Sarongs   Andrew Bridgeman and eART-originals   Mark Annett and Scruplestore.com   David Sabot and Cheaphumidors.com   William Waite and Nemmelgeb Murr   Mary Lu Wason and LampLink   Michael Campbell and Cellwest   Bob Rankin and Flowers Fast   Louis Jay and Health4Her.com   Jeff Swearingen and TheGift.com   Bill Broadbent the T-Shirt King   Jim Goodbody and PlanetLearn   Todd Mogren and coastaltool.com   John D. Einhorn and CapShack.com   Beverley Wood and the Gift Ship   Sgt. David Hack and US Wings   Brenda Do and MindFood Media.com   Rory O'Connor and Shopirish.com

I guess the key learning from this latest "My Store" article has to be that there is always “more than one way to skin a cat”. I've long recommended that the best way to build a successful e-business is to choose a niche and exploit it ruthlessly. Mark Annett, however, has taken a different approach: he has created an exclusive product with mass-appeal and is marketing it to as wide an audience as possible.

Not only is Mark's product line unique, but also the way he has gone about building his Scruplestore.com Web store is unique too. If you are thinking about turning a hobby in to a moneymaking e-business, then Mark has some wonderful tips and hints to help you.

Lang: Why did you decide to open a Web store? Why did you choose your particular product line?

Annett: This question is kind of like, which came first the chicken or the egg. The truth is that I fell into about $6000. This in my opinion was found money and I didn't mind potentially losing all of it. I had decided that I wanted to have some fun with this money and I had seriously considered blowing it all on a Disney Cruise for my family. Then I thought about it some more and, although a Disney Cruise would be a lot of fun for a week, opening up a Web store would keep me busy for at least a year. Additionally, I rationalized the decision to myself that if my business was successful then there would be lots of opportunities for cruises in the future.

Having this amount of money, and only this amount of money to spend, limited my business options. Also, given the fact that I wanted this to be a hobby, it had to be something that I could do in the evenings, preferably after my daughter went to bed. I had several product ideas that I had been fantasizing about for years. They ranged from a unique twist on a hot dog to a sleep apnea monitor. (I'm a biomedical engineer by profession.) The problem with hot dogs was that you couldn't taste them over the Internet. The problem with the sleep apnea monitor was that it was going to cost more money than I had to spend.

Of all the product ideas that I had, selling SCRUPLES was the least practical. People will always eat hot dogs and people will always need sleep apnea monitors but people don't necessarily need my product. In order to sell my product I have to convince people to part with their money for something that they never had any intention of buying in the first place. However, in spite of those challenges, SCRUPLES is a lot more fun then any of my other product ideas and it puts a smile on peoples' faces, even if they don't buy them.

Additionally, selling SCRUPLES had some very definite advantages over my other product ideas:

• The entry costs were very low. Assuming that I did all the work myself and I relied on free advertising, I calculated that I could be in the black within my first year, even with marginal sales volumes.

• I had somebody who was going to do the manufacturing for me. This was very important. If I had to develop the manufacturing, I never would have been able to develop my Web site. I'm pretty sure that David Sabot of Cheaphumidors.com would say the same thing. If you want to be successful then you need to out source as many functions as possible. This is something that I have made a conscious effort to do.

• It is a product that is ideally suited for the Internet. Selling a novelty product, like SCRUPLES, is simply a numbers game. There is no better place to get huge numbers than on the Internet.

• Finally, and this is the most important advantage, was that selling SCRUPLES offered exclusivity. I have trademarked "SCRUPLES" through the US Patent and Trademark Office. Now, no one else can legally put "SCRUPLES" on a coin or commemorative medallion.

Although I strongly agree with you, Paul, that one of the best ways to insure success is to find a niche and exploit it ruthlessly. A theoretically better option is to gain exclusivity and market it to as broad an audience as possible. This second option was the reason I chose to open up a Web store and to sell SCRUPLES.

Lang: What e-commerce experience did you have before starting your store?

Annett: Believe it or not my very first e-commerce transaction was to file for my trademark on-line. Up to that point, I had only utilized the Internet to perform searches. Anyway, after I filed for my trademark, I then sat down with my next-door neighbor, who is “in the business”, for about an hour or so to get an overview. During this meeting he had talked to me about something he had called HTML. I patiently listened but I was sure I was never going to need it. I was confident that I could buy one of those business in a box programs and be up and running in no time. You can guess just how right I was.