‘Worldwide Brands’ has released their latest ‘Product Sourcing Newsletter’, complete with product sourcing tips for home-based e-tailers, upcoming trade shows, and spotlighted eCommerce wholesalers. The featured article is titled “Does this eCommerce Thing Really Work?”.

Does this eCommerce Thing Really Work?

By: Chris Malta, CEO WorldwideBrands.com

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Most people are content to live out their lives working a regular job.

Maintain a steady income, buy a house, put money away in the Company 401K plan, create a College Fund for the kids. Get home from work at 5:30, tired, but with a general sense of satisfaction that they have put in a decent day’s work and all is basically right with the world.

Get dinner on the table; make sure the kids have done their homework.
Maybe watch a movie, putter around with a hobby. Spend some time with the spouse. On the weekends, play a little softball, go see the Grandparents, hang out with a couple of friends, jump on a Jet Ski, and take the kids to the Zoo.

Once a year, take that accumulated vacation time and rent a cottage somewhere or maybe once every few years blow a stack of cash and go to Disney World.

Same job, day in and day out. The people change occasionally, but that’s all right. There are always new friends to be made amid the shuffle and bustle that comes out of the Personnel Department. The longer the time on the job, the greater the skill and knowledge. With that comes the respect of co-workers, and gradual advances in pay and privilege.

Sometimes there’s grumbling and griping. The new boss is an idiot, or there’s a co-worker who just arrived from the planet “Huh?” The occasional setback; the Company’s sales are down, so there’s no Christmas Bonus this year, or rumors of layoffs have begun to circulate once again.

Overall, though, there’s a deep-seated satisfaction that one is just plain “Doing the Right Thing”, and that’s something that’s very important to have.

So, how does that have anything to do with trying to make a living on the Internet?

It doesn’t. If you’re one of those many people who can work the daily grind for thirty or forty years, retire, and call it a good thing, then more power to you. It is a good thing. I envy and respect you, I really do; and you probably don’t really need to be reading this Newsletter in the first place.

There are those of us, though, who simply cannot be satisfied with that life, and that’s probably why you are here.

For some of us, although we “Do the Right Thing” on the surface, we are simply never happy with it. There’s a longing for something more that is actually a physical heartache at times. Many times we don’t know what it is; we just know that we need it, and the need never goes away. We search for it by changing jobs, or changing relationships, or both.

Sometimes we even unconsciously keep the most important people in our lives pushed away, at arm’s length, because we are so obsessed with our pursuit of something that perhaps we can’t even define. It’s an elusive but overwhelmingly annoying feeling that what we’re doing with our lives is simply not enough. We need to be in charge of our lives completely!

If you haven’t guessed already, I’m one of those people with that need.

As far back as I can remember, I was never happy holding a steady job. I was always looking for more, even though I could not define what more was. I didn’t even know if more was good; I just knew I needed it.
I don’t know if that need is genetic, or if it’s environmental. Whether it’s something I was simply born with, or something that I picked up while growing up. I DO know, however, that either way, it came from my parents.

They both had the need, too. Both of them. My Mother had a good career, but she was always doing other things on the side. She found an answer to her need through a series of home businesses. Whether it was a complete answer for her, or just satisfied the need enough to make it go away from time to time, I’ll never know.

Back then, the big home business was the Party Plan. Tupperware, Rubbermaid, Park Lane Jewelry…you name it, she was into it. And she was good at it. It wouldn’t be long after she began a new venture that she would become the Regional Manager for this or that, or the Top Producer for the other.

My Father had the need too, as I said. He worked himself practically into a coma supporting our family, and his combination of drive and need finally culminated in his actually buying the last company he worked for.

He took over that company and turned it into a viable, respected multi-state entity that employed a lot of people and had a solid reputation for quality and integrity. People always trusted my Dad, because he always kept his promises. I think he may have found the answer to his need to a greater degree than my Mom did, but again, I’ll never really know. I don’t think he ever really understood how much I respected him and my Mother for what they accomplished in their lives. How they went out into the world “outside the box”, risked everything, and never gave up. How they found answers to the need that I know from my own experience was so powerful and overwhelming for them both. It’s a rare and wonderful thing to have the courage to actually do it, and their examples are a source of great pride and inspiration for me.

Through the years, boiled down to its most basic aspect, I’ve come to realize that my own personal need is for honestly gained financial independence, following in my parents’ footsteps.

I know that sounds shallow, on the surface of it. That this deep-seated drive and overwhelming need for something more in life should be all about money seems a little lame. However, it’s NOT about money. It goes farther than that. Money is just a tool that allows me to satisfy the need. It’s what can be done with it that’s important to me.

For me, it’s about being able to send my kids to good colleges. Making sure that when I’m gone, my grandchildren, and those who come after them, will have a good life. Being able to reach out and to help people who need it whenever I have to, without worrying about the cost. Could I do all that by “Doing the Right Thing”? Working the daily grind all my life for someone else?

Yes, I could, and many people do. However, that doesn’t cover the entire scope of my need. For some reason, I need to be the one calling the shots. So, satisfying that need means that I’m not interested in the whole concept of having a boss.

Wherever your own personal need comes from, you know it’s there, and you’re looking for a way to satisfy it. The fact that you’re reading this Newsletter suggests that Financial Independence is a part of your need too.

People repeatedly ask me the same question, via email. They want to know, “Can I REALLY make money at this ‘Internet thing’, or is this just another flash in the pan?”

That’s a question that comes from the kind of person who’s serious about satisfying the need I’m talking about here, and it’s an important one to clarify.

Online business is not a ‘thing’. It’s not a scheme, or a gimmick, or the latest fad that will fade with time.

Online business is something that has already been around forever; it’s simply changed into another new suit of clothes, as it’s done decade after decade for thousands of years. eCommerce is simply Sales, folks.

It’s Retail Sales.

Thousands of years ago, in the desert markets on the ancient Silk Road, people would put their wares out on the ground in open marketplaces for passers-by to see.

Later, people began developing permanent stands from which to sell their wares.

Later still, people in growing centralized communities began hawking their wares door-to-door.

After that, someone began selling by catalog.

Then, along came Radio, and Television, and Direct Marketing, and the Party Plans my mother was so good at.

Now, we have electronic sales. The ultimate shop-at-home system; the Internet.

In the future, perhaps people will order products just by imagining them; who knows? :o)

ECommerce is simply the latest vehicle for the same old basic exchange of goods for currency. Retail Sales. As long as you don’t fall for the scam artists and con games, that’s all it is. (Incidentally, scams and cons in Retail have been around LONG before the Internet, so the Internet is not to be blamed for them. People who scam and con are to be blamed.)

My point here is that the question should not be “Can I be my own boss and become financially independent with this ECommerce thing”. The fact that it’s ECommerce is irrelevant to the real question. The real question is, “Do I have the drive, determination, and the NEED to go out and get people to give me their money in exchange for whatever I have to sell to them?”

It’s not the Sales Venue; it’s the PERSON. Don’t ask, “Is this newfangled Internet thing going to make me rich in some mysterious way?”

DO ask, “Do I have the drive and determination to make MYSELF financially independent, no matter what I do to achieve that goal.”
If you can honestly answer that question with a YES, then ECommerce is a great way to do it.

Product Sourcing Newsletter

* IMNewswatch would like to thank Worldwide Brands for granting permission to reprint this newsletter article.

Before purchasing with you, buyers must perceive that your business is legitimate and real. But establishing customer relations takes time. And if they don’t feel comfortable buying from you, you’ll never get a chance to develop those relationships in the first place!

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