1 ecommerce for Publishers A Short Primer by Jordan Gold CEO Goldstandard ebusiness Successful publishing is all about multiple revenue streams, from circulation revenue to advertising, to digital revenue and more. A relatively new revenue stream for publishers comes from ecommerce. Many publishers have dipped their toes into ecommerce, only to jump out of the pool quickly. Time, Inc., Hearst, and others have had notable failures in the space. However they are still trying and they should be. Retailers are starting to become publishers (hello, Amazon!) and before they take your readers, you should fight back! Why ecommerce Your readers come to your website for information. Often, that information leads them to purchase a product or service. Why not make some additional revenue while they are in a purchasing mood? You are already generating advertising dollars, but you can also sell your readers a thing or two without competing with your advertisers. Consider: A newspaper publisher in Ohio sold more than $30K worth of t- shirts, hats and mini- football helmets when the local high school team won the state championship A newspaper publisher in Colorado sells books and holiday cards celebrating the local area, generating more than $20K annually Some publishers sell online access to special issues online. Money Magazine, for example, offers access to its College Planner for $24.95 per year. US News offers a similar product for $29.95 per year. This is a good start, but why not sell physical products? Sports Illustrated sells books, back issues of magazines and merchandise from the annual Swimsuit issue in its store. Harper s Bazaar launched ShopBazaar in 2012 and it has slowly been making progress and generating revenues. This is one of the most ambitious ecommerce sites in the publishing world. But many other publishers are following suit.
2 What To Sell On Your ecommerce Site Beyond subscriptions to your print and digital products, special sections, and article reprints, An ecommerce Primer Jordan Gold
3 you can sell a variety of products on your ecommerce site. They can be: Related to your editorial content Products that your editors recommend Extensions of your brand. If you are a regional magazine, for example, you can sell regional delicacies, guides to your area, maps, etc. Marketing products such as t- shirts, hats, coffee mugs, etc. You are only limited by your creativity in the products that you can sell You have the necessary ingredients for an ecommerce revenue stream: Loyal customers Interest in your product and subject area The ability to create products that they would be interested in Once you have a plan for what you d like to sell, you are ready to get started. All you need is an ecommerce site. Building an ecommerce site You can either build an ecommerce site yourself, or you can use one of the many ecommerce vendors who do much of the work for you. Here are some options: If you have a Wordpress blog, you can simply put an ecommerce plug- in such as WooCommerce on your blog. This is easily done, but is also not without its issues, as Other popular ecommerce options include Big Commerce, Shopify, Volusion and Yahoo! Stores. Each offer a variety of power and sophistication depending on your needs. We ve included a handy chart to help you decide. An ecommerce engine provides site hosting, storage for your site, the ability to take credit card payments, shipping options, design templates so you can use a built- in design and don t have to start from scratch. Most ecommerce engines have SEO tools designed to help your site get more traffic, are mobile optimized so your site is usuable on both desktop and mobile devices, provide analytics telling you how well your site is doing and what products are doing the best, have inventory tracking built- in and have a community of other users who you can communicate with. All, except Woo Commerce have customer support, many have 24/7 customer support.
4 Provider Pricing Number of Stores $29 per $19 per $15 per $26 per Free Comments 95,000+ Fast growing. Offers a multitude of products and services at a low price. Relatively easy to use. Great mobile support, easy to set up Facebook stores, integrated with Google Shopping. Hundreds of third party apps to make your store have even more capabilities. 100,000+ Easier to use than Big Commerce. Fantastic templates! Typically requires additional plug- ins to work effectively, raising the cost. 40,000+ Feature- packed shopping cart system. Low cost. More difficult to use than Big Commerce or Shopify, but a good option. 50,000+ The oldest ecommerce engine. Lots of features, but not nearly as advanced as the other options. Also charges a transaction fee for all plans. 100,000+ Good choice for publishers who use WordPress, as it is a WordPress Plug- in. It offers a lot of features and functionality for free, plus five free themes. Additional themes are available for $79 to $139 each. Plus, while other platforms provide hosting, payment gateways and security, you re on your own with Woo Commerce. Expect to spend more than $100 per for the features and functionality you need. And because it s open source, there isn t any customer support number to call. After you ve chosen an ecommerce provider, create product pages for each of the products, make sure you have a way to process credit cards (you probably already process subscriptions, so you can use that credit card processor and payment gateway), and design a site that looks
5 like it s yours. Any website that you create, ecommerce or otherwise, should look and feel like your website and your branding. And all of the above platforms give you templates that make the process easier. Beyond Your Own Site Once you decide to start selling products on your website, you are not limited by selling only on your own site. You can sell products on ebay, Amazon, Buy.com, Jet.com and other third- party sites as well. If you are going down this route, I recommend starting with Amazon. It s really easy to get set up selling on Amazon and you can place your products there in an hour or two. You can also generate revenue without selling products, but by becoming an Amazon Associate. You simply put ads on your site that go to Amazon and get paid for sales made there. For example, if there is a book that you think adds particular value, you can put an ad for that book on your site and anyone who goes to Amazon and buys it will earn you a commission. This is called affiliate revenue. You won t get rich from affiliate revenue, you only get 5% or less of revenues, but it can be a decent revenue stream. And you don t have to do anything to get it except put an ad up. ecommerce Is Growing - Participate ecommerce continues to grow. It s now more than 11% of total retail in the US and is growing at 8% per year. It s expected to generate more than $279 billion this year, according to Forrester Research. ecommerce represents an excellent additional revenue stream for publishers. It s a great way for you to connect with your audience in a different way and to generate revenues that you couldn t generate before. About the author: Jordan Gold has sold millions of dollars worth of products on ecommerce sites since 1995, when he launched one of the first publishing sites for Simon and Schuster. He is CEO of Goldstandard ebusiness, a publishing and ecommerce consulting company. He has previously held executive positions with Freedom Communications, Simon and Schuster, Wiley and many other publishing companies. He has founded a variety of publishing and ecommerce sites including InformIT, Frommers.com, Dog Channel, Cat Channel, OrangeCounty.com and Colorado Springs.com He is the author of nine books and hundreds of magazine and online articles. He owns two ecommerce sites Keepdoggiesafe and MexicanTrainfun, sells on Amazon and is an ebay Powerseller. He has been a member of the WPA Board of Directors since 2012.