here is why:
on kindle platform their system takes care of:
- exposure and traffic to the pages
- maintaining system
- creating sales pages
- delivering the product
- taking care of customer relations
- no extra marketing is required for pages to sell
- Etc.
One of the most important elements is of course traffic.
At this stage it is impossible for me to know what amount of traffic do my pages get.
What is essential though is to see that sales do come through.
So, at this stage it's a system that works.
on my site, I have to:
- create a sales page
- generate traffic (traffic to my new sales page is insignificant in the beginning)
- create a selling structure with payment options
- etc.
I do believe that I can get some results but the main limiting factor for products presented on my site is traffic.
Traffic is challenging to generate.
I wonder as well about conversion rates on amazon/kindle.
Somehow, I get the feeling that conversion rates for some of my products on kindle must be high but I am not sure...
results do show...
so far sales on kindle keep pouring in where as sales for new products on my site are not happening.
there are a few reasons for that:
- very little traffic
- sales pages structure
- maybe pricing... but I don't think that pricing is the fore issue.
---------------
I have many more examples of the same phenomena with free products like videos and audios.
video of views on youtube are probably 20x more than the views on my site.
estimate?
maybe 100 video views on site - 2000 video views on youtube.
If these were fee products at $1/piece, I would make $100 on my site and $2000 on youtube.
See the analogy???
That's probably what I am getting from amazon compared to my site.
It's the same type of proportion.
If I make $400 on amazon, I will make $20 on my site.
It's an easy equation.
Even if the time and effort to set up products on my site and amazon was the same, I would still make 20x less on my site than I do on amazon.
so, if products are same price and they sell 20x less on my site, I make only a tiny fraction on mys site than what I do on amazon.
Right now, the product's price on my site are higher. $19 - I make $18 in the transaction against $6 average on amazon/per product.
so, if products were selling on my site along that type of proportion, if I make $400 on amazon, I would make $60 on my site.
Now, I am note even close to reaching these numbers.
Why?
Because of lack of traffic!
Right now, traffic is a huge major factor limiting sales on my site.
Another one is probably credibility and brand associated with consumer behavior.
I believe that these elements impact on the conversion rates.
here is what I mean.
People are used to the amazon brand.
When they enter that shop, they are in the buying mood.
They are looking for something and are ready to pay for it.
The people entering amazon is a buying audience. It's a shopping audience.
People surfing the net and simply looking for info are in a very different mood.
some are ready to buy of course but the vast majority of surfers (I would say 90%) are simply in the internet tourism mode... They are not in the buying mode.
They are in the information quest mode.
So, this has a huge impact on the conversion rates.
My guess is that because of this fundamental difference, conversion rates on amazon kindle could be 10x higher than conversion rates on my site.
This is just a guess but I do believe it could be realistic.
How do I know that?
Because I can see how many people enter a sales page and leave on the spot as soon as they see they will have to pay to access content.
It's an instant departure from the page for maybe 80% of visitors.
I believe this still happens a bit on amazon but way way less.
Suppose conversion rates are 10% on amazon kindle pages and 1% on mys site, this means that sales drop even further on my site.
All these are guesses.
It's stuff that I can't prove at 100% but my gut and experience tell me that this is what goes on.
-----------
If I look at mp3 downloads on my site, I get around 60000 downloads/month.
Probably 90% of these downloads come again from Itunes and only maybe 5% come directly from visitors clicking on links on my site.
Again, these are just guesses but I do believe that they are quite accurate.
Downloads exploded the moment I put my content on Itunes.
So, here is the conclusion:
while it's interesting to put sales pages and new ebooks for sale on my site, will probably get x to 20x more results from the books I offer on amazon and other similar platforms.
The equation is easy to understand.
Is the effort still worth it? of course it is.
If the product creation takes me 4 hours writing, the setting up for sale on amazon, nook and my site represents only 1 hours work. putting in for sale on my site is only 5% of the overall effort.
So, yes, even if it's just for branding reasons, it is worth it.
I have to keep in mind that I must lower my expectations concerning sales of this products.