Bad assumption. Plenty of ways (too many to name) that can make money online. Some harder than others and ecommerce, drop shipping, and the like comes with its own set of challenges (big or small). It's more on how you execute something than it is thinking something will be a sure or more sure way of working

Thanks for your reply. I understand that building a business is never going to be easy and that there will always be challenges. However, I guess the question I am asking is whether or not e-commerce is a faster route to sure profitability? For example, if I was to devote my time to building a social network it could potentially be very very lucrative. However, the likelihood of it being lucrative or ever even making money for that matter is a lot smaller than if I devote my time to ecommerce. This makes me think ecommmerce is a "surer" way of working(less risk).

The only way I know of speeding up the process is to get into a shady industry or take advantage of a loophole. Years ago there were websites making a lot of money simply by providing links to streaming movies & TV shows hosted on other websites.

I know a guy who made a million dollars from it. A year after he got out, all his competitors were getting sued and shutdown. But he was off the radar, got to keep everything and never got in trouble. He found the niche, created the website in a few days, made money for a year or two, and shut it down with precision timing to maximize profits and minimize risk.

Thanks for your comment. That is an interesting story and something to think about. What is the loophole at the moment? Not that I want to get involved in anything shady. A lot of the time with start-ups there is a lot of risk with the possibility of massive rewards, however there has to be safer options(medium risk) without getting a corporate job or being a contractor.

Bittorent and Bitcoin make a millionaire every week, it's high risk though. You could start a tracker like Demonoid and your only job would be to move the servers around and cover your tracks (ie: pay with visa gift cards, use chained proxies)

Another high risk option is becoming a vendor on Silk Road. Those guys are getting more orders than they can handle. Even the guys who just resell/repackage are making a killing.

You could even open your own Silk Road, which is lower risk than being a vendor. Just collect your small fee off every transaction, while staying completely anonymous.

Most of this stuff probably seems pretty shady to most people. But anyone with 10-20k, some balls and smarts can become a millionaire from it, very quickly.

Speaking from experience, there is very little margin in drop-shipping so you need to do a lot of volume. To do a lot of volume you really need to be spending on ppc ads. If you pour your heart into this and do about 1mm in sales a year you can expect to clear 80-120K. Just to warn you, to get to this level it might take 3 or 4 people working fulltime.

Making something and then selling it would be a better bet, but therein lies the rub. Once you buy product you need to house it and eventually ship it.

Thank you very much for this.

I have been reading ecommercefuel.com and Andrew(webmaster) says you can get around the low margin by choosing a niche that requires a lot of additional information,e.g something technical and then pricing yourself higher than competitors. He argues customers will pay for the additional information and good customer service. E.g. help installing etc.

As someone who has been there and done that, would you agree with this?

Information marketing is easier than e-commerce. No physical products to ship

Is the web not saturated with ebooks about how to train your dog etc. Are there other information products to sell?

Yes, I always think of information products as scams.Who really buys ebooks about niche X or Y?

lots of people

there is an infinite amount of information products to sell.

Thanks Dylan, will look into this. Do you have any good blogs you can recommend for getting started?