That's left me with a number of products that I no longer actively sell and a number of websites that I am now in the process of liquidating.

My idea is to distribute some of my "internet marketing" products for no cost, so watch this space for some free downloads of products that used to cost anything upto $150!  Gotta be good!

Also, if anyone is interested in taking some of my AIS websites, let me know.  At the moment I have a website for sale at $575 on the Warrior Forum, and I am about to sell another on there (probably some time next week).

The one I am going to add earns just over $100 per month for absolutely zero effort - if anyone would want to make an offer before it goes onto the Warrior Forum, email me and I can let you know more.  It's a real stunner of an AIS…

This weekend (remember this is 6 weeks later) I went back to the same shop.  I walked in and the shop owner actually greeted me by name!  He must have had literally hundreds of customers in the meantime so I was amazed and very pleased.

Of course, I ended up spending quite a bit of money.  I'm not sure about the moral of this story, however, I do know that if I had originally walked in and been treated as part of the herd, I would probably have gone to another shop to have a look to see if I could get the items cheaper.

I think I'm saying;  treat your customers well, and they'll treat you well in return.

Hi, I have the new products module on the frontpage of my oscommerce website. It currently displays a gallery of a preset number of items. WHAT I WANT, is to have it display what it is currently displaying, and then to offer an option to go to the next page of all products on my website. thanks

My reply is as follows;

WHAT YOU WANT can be done.  What's your budget?

The reply;

No No No No. I want my new products gallery on my frontpage to have a next page link or page 1, 2, 3, etc.. link at the bottom to where it takes the customer to a list of all products in my website. what does budget have to do with it

So, I'm thinking that this guy just wants me to spend my time coding up something for him.  He just doesn't get it, at all.  My reply long the lines of;

You won't be giving away products for free from your shop.  I don't do code work for free.

As yet, no response.

This is the problem with (so called) "free" software.  Some naive people expect it all to be free.  Wake up and smell the coffee - free in this context does not mean "no money"…

Aaaargh.

Yesterday, DPD updated their service AND reduced their prices!  Here's some more info, taken from the horses mouth;

"This update is a big one- we've added a ton of new features that users have been requesting and laid the groundwork for even more.

Included in this update:

• A new easier to use User Dashboard
• DPD Storefront System - Multi-Item Cart Checkout
• Enhanced mail delivery features
• A new product upload tool
• New lower priced plans across the board
• More Payment Options
• Bug fixes and tweaks

DPD Storefront System

DPD now features the Storefront system, an easy-to-use way to deploy and manage multiple shopping carts across all your websites with one DPD account.   The new storefront system allows you to customize individual shopping carts for each of your sites including contact information, store name, optional store logo, and more.

Additional features of the storefront system include attractive HTML order process emails, custom logo on both the cart pages and PayPal checkout pages, PayPal micropayments account support, and more.

Enhanced Mail Delivery Features

We send a lot of email here at DPD- thousands a day.   Every purchase generates at least two emails, and with hundreds of transactions processing daily that adds up to a pile of mail.  Because of this, we fight a never ending battle with email providers trying to get our mail through their various spam filters and checks. Specifically, we've been having delivery problems with Yahoo, Comcast, and AOL accounts.   To combat this, we've added DomainKeys authentication, enhanced SPF sender ID records, reconfigured our SMTP authentication, and more.

Our email delivery success rate is very high now, and we only expect it to improve with these new features.

New Product Uploader

Our old uploader, well, it sucked.  People had problems with large files not completing, files not getting stored, etc.   We hate things that don't work- not only does it annoy you, it keeps us from working on new features when we're tracking down bugs!  So we've updated our product uploader to a new system that reliably handles files up to 1024MB (1GB).  For files larger than 1GB we can provide an FTP account for you to upload the files to.  If you need this free service please submit a support ticket after logging in to your account.

Big News! We've Lowered Prices!

So the global economy is not so hot and everybody is looking to save money. Economy of scale has allowed us to lower our operating costs and we're passing the savings on to you- that how we like to do business! That's why we've lowered prices across the board on all plans, some as much as 50%.  All current subscribers will be automatically upgraded to the new plan that matches their current subscription payment.

Basic Subscribers =  20 Product Plan
Advanced Subscribers =  60 Product Plan
Pro Subscribers = 120 Product Plan

You are free to operate at the new level or downgrade to save money- information on how to do so is located on the Subscription Manager page on your DPD Profile after you log in.

More Payment Options

As part of the plan upgrade we've updated our subscription payment processing system too.  PayPal Express Payments are still available, but in addition we've added direct Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, Switch, and Solo payments too.  The new payment system will make upgrading and downgrading less tedious- with the old system you had to cancel your current plan, log back in to DPD, select a new plan, signup again, etc.  It wasn't that great.

Once you are on the new payment system you simply log in to DPD, go to the Subscription Manager, and pick a new plan!  No canceling plans, logging out, logging in, sending support tickets, etc.  It's awesome.

The only drawback is that since everyone is on the old PayPal simple payments system the first time you upgrade or downgrade you will have to cancel your current plan, log back in and select another.  Don't worry though- we won't delete your products and everything will work normally during the account change."

Give it a go, I recommend it -> www.digitalproductdelivery.com

I got to thinking about what barriers osCommerce places in front of a purchaser. One of the main barriers is the whole checkout process - it's too long and tedious, and it is too much "in your face" for a prospective buyer…

For my own Store, I have reduced the Checkout Steps quite a bit and took out the "password" functionality from the create_account.php page. I'm hoping that this will lead to increased sales as most people don't like having to remember passwords etc.

What I have done is recoded the create_account page slightly to create a random password, which is then emailed to the customer in the "Welcome Email".

You can see the exact way I did this on my other blog, right here.

The cost was £8.00.

When I went to pay (by card) the hairdresser/receptionist said, here's £2 (and gave me 2 pound coins), and I'll put £10 on your card.

Fair enough, I thought.

It's only later thay I realised just how clever this is. By giving me £2, it was easy for me to give it back to her as a tip…in fact, it was just about impossible for me not to tip her!

The UK isn't really a tipping country - hardly anyone gives tips unless it's for exceptional service.

Thought I'd chuck the idea out there to see if you can adapt what this hairdresser is doing and apply it to your own business…

Here's how to do it.

Step 1. Find a piece of software that has LOADS of users

Step 2. Spend 3 months learning that piece of software inside out.

Step 3. Make a blog about that piece of software. Post to it regularly.

Step 4. Make a number of sites about that piece of software. A template site. A "how to" eBook site. A site selling plugin scripts. A site selling consultancy services. And so on.

Step 5. Be prepared to work 40 hours per week at it.

That's all there is to it. You'll soon become the "go to guy".

Forget "get rich quick" schemes. Forget "Google Adsense". Forget "Affiliate Marketing". That's all BULLSHIT. Only the people at the top of the pyramid make the good money (and yes, i have been there). Internet Marketers who think they are better than you. Buyers who do chargebacks within minutes of buying a product.

Forget that.

Hard work will get you good rewards!

If anyone is interested, I can give further details by email - oscshops@gmail.com

What this system does is basically hedge betting - you bet on all three outcomes of a given football game;

Team A to win
Team B to win
Neither win

1 of those three outcomes has to happen. So what you do is bet on each, making use of different betting firms. You can read the example given in that page.

Seems to be money for doing nothing, if you are into betting.

Note that I have not given it a go, and I am not recommending that you do so - I just thought I would highlight this sort of thing as a way to make a guaranteed profit. If you do decide to have a go, let us know the results of your bet?

Since 2003, I've been setting up what I call "AIS" - you can read more about that by looking back through this blog. Fast forward 5 years, and some of those original AIS sites are still bringing home the bacon…

I haven't done a results thing for years, so…

Here is how 2008 panned out…

1. I dumped adsense as a source of revenue..decided it's too much to be beholden to Google for any form of income.
2. I stopped promoting other peoples stuff, UNLESS I get a free, full functional "whatever it is they are pimping". And only if I like it, find it useful do I promote it.
3. I closed down around 300 websites - just let the domains lapse. I can't be bothered keeping track of all those domains, hosting etc
4. I bought some sites back to the person I had sold them too.
5. I decided to get back into osCommerce (it's enjoyable and there are very few "experts" out there)
6. I stopped reading most blogs - complete waste of my time.
7. I stopped posting on forums (unless I have a very good reason to do so)

The figures

I have 7 overall AIS's - so I'll break the figures down for each…

Adsense - 3739.26
eBook Sales - 18,161.36
Template Sales - 2,091.72
Affiliate Commissions - 744.60
Script Sales - 4,569.40
Subscriptions - 5,510.00
Other (mostly link sales) - 11,090.88

For a grand total of $45,907.22 (all figures are US Dollars) - not bad considering that 90% of this is completely hands off. Obviously this figure is only for AIS income streams, and does not include other areas of work such as website designing, script installs, consultancy fees etc.

Now, consider that this year I set up just 1 site - no adsense sites, no affiliate sites, just 1 site selling a product (JV with a couple of friends). Perhaps, had I worked a bit harder that bottom line 45 grand would have been double? triple? Who knows. When I was working hard in 2006, my top month came in at just about 20 grand, so it's possible.

What of 2009?

1. Well, I can tell you that Adsense is OUT, most Affiliate stuff is OUT.
2. IN is selling my own products on my established sites.
3. I am going to dream up some more "products" to sell and perhaps start some new sites.
4. I also want to do a couple of JV (Joint Venture) things with some selected people, but the problem is finding those people that are ready to understand that any JV does take a bit of work to get up and running.
5. I intend to update a few of my sites as time goes on
6. I have no intention of building lots of little sites - too much work to keep on top of.

What of you for 2009?

Remember that I've been building foundations for "making money online" for over 5 years - so now I can work NO hours and still earn a decent income. Easy, Peasy, Lemon Squeezy. Or is it?