MyUsedText.com was created on the 22nd of April 2009 as a result of my frustrations in dealing with my university bookstore. I currently attend Carleton university and am going into my third year and, as all of you know, textbooks from any university store always seem to cost the better part of your left arm.
I created this site to help eliminate the problem and give university students a place to buy and sell their books that, with your help will be used nationwide.
Low operating costs, great SEO targetting, high conversion rates from affiliate marketing and dedicated Ad spot sales combine to make MyUsedText.com Profitable within a year.
Sincerely,
Nathan Prescott
Expenses: Hosting
Revenue stream: Legitimate related affiliate marketing i.e Dell, Tiger Direct, Amazon, Course Smart. and paid ad spots.
AM profit break down for referred purchases:
Dell: 2.5%
Tiger DIrect: 6%
Amazon: 4%-15%
Course Smart: 4% - 7%
Roots: 8%
Now bear in mind my target audience is 18-35 year olds who are in university and you will realise I have a veritable gold mine as students who are in the process of doing their back to school shopping will be the ones viewing my site.
Now what is most often purchased by this demographic you ask?
1) Laptops/New computer
- Dell + Tiger Direct Ads
2) Textbooks
- Amazon and Course Smart Ads
3) Clothes
- Roots Ads
When someone searches my site for a textbook they are given the option of also searching amazon. If they buy the book on amazon, MyUsedText.com gets 15% of the sale price. Each student has roughly 8 books to buy for a full course load increasing the possiblity of an amazon search. Given Amazon's huge database if they cant find it for cheap they will buy from Amazon as opposed to paying alot more at the campus bookstore.
As the site gains popularity it will grow into paid permanent ad spots being sold from between 80-300 dollars a month for 125 x 125 block and when membership and usage hits 20k + uniques a day permanent ad spots will be sold for 800-1500 a month on the main page and 200 dollars for a solid textlink on each classified ad. We have maximized the ad usuage without making the site appear to be cluttered.
A Modest estimate of revenue upon full SEO, usership and advertising potential being reached would be:
2700 a month in ad spot sales and an additional 3500 - 4700 In affiliate marketing.
$6,700 - 7,400 a month.
$80,400 - 88,800 a year.
With little to no overhead or maintainance!!
Your investment will go into promotion and sponsorship of an annual prize (This can be sponsored by your company for added benifit to you!)