''This marketing plan probably sucks as far as the e-commerce experts are concerned, but it makes my success dependent on your delight with my product, which is how things are supposed to be."

I think I could be happy if I could set up a little shop in a good place and hire a clerk, and just send my products there and let him or her handle everything else. I'd never be bothered with the nuts and bolts of commerce. Hopefully the clerk would send me some money back, but you never know, I guess.


My little store is a little website, which I guess you found if you're reading this. I hope you like my work and will buy something, but I'm not going to try to trick you into it.

That's what all this web commerce seems to be about, tricking people, and I'm not very impressed. I've been researching how to market a product. It turns out it doesn't matter how good your product is.

If you want to make a living, you have to get into a complicated game of cross-linking with other websites, paying for "click-throughs" and generally making a nuisance of yourself by screaming "me! me! me!" at every intrepid consumer who dares turn on a computer.

I do etched glass, but if you search for etched glass on the most common search engines, you won't find me in a million years. Instead you'll find sites where people who have played the e-commerce game can advertise junk at crazy prices. It's almost as bad as going to a mall.

A certain gift-finding website will let you advertise your elegant pile of dog poo as long as you pay their initial fee. They have no interest in serving as a portal through which people can find gifts to make their loved ones happy; they care about the fees. And they can get those fees because they have a lot of traffic -- because they have a great, easy to find, well marketed name, not because they offer great service.

Marketing is everything. But it doesn't add value to a product; it only makes people spend more money for reasons that have nothing to do with the value of the product.

That makes it easy for people who have no skills besides "creative product presentation" to keep their jobs, but it makes it very hard for someone who has a great product to be heard above the clamor.

Having said all this, I can now let you in on my own marketing strategy. My product is $75 plus $5 for shipping and handling, and if you don't love it, you can send it back within 30 days and get a full refund, less shipping costs.

But that is only the price IF you show it to other people and tell them about my website if they are interested.

I don't need you to email me the names and addresses of everyone you show it to; I'm gonna trust you on that. But if you keep my product and don't show it to anyone, the price is $5,000,000.00. (We haven't worked out a monthly installment plan for that yet.)

My point is that I think my product is so good I don't have to trick you into buying it. I think you will want to show it to your friends, and they will want one, and when they get it, they will want to show it to their friends too. If they don't, they can get their money back.

This marketing plan probably sucks as far as the e-commerce experts are concerned, but it makes my success dependent on your delight with my product, which is how things are supposed to be.