An effective earnings model

[AltHome]

I created https://alt-home.com using the business model that vendors would list individual products or services for a fee. I created packages for 1 annual product listing, 3 annual product listings and 6 annual product listings.

Now that the site is launched I find I have an empty container. Without content I cannot draw users. Without users I have no traffic to sell to vendors. The standard “chicken and egg” problem.

Along the way I have created a spreadsheet of 1000 vendors with company, city, state, country, zip, phone, email, website and category.

My question is whether it now makes sense to revise my business model and what website changes and HivePress extensions would be required.

Would it be better to hide the vendors on the front end, add the Import and Claim Listing extensions and import the 1000 vendors as listings? Then activate the Claim Listing extension and sell an annual company listing for a fee?

Or would the Marketplace extension provide a solution where the vendor could establish a company listing and then sell individual products from within their user account?

I’m months and hundreds of hours into this thing and need to figure out a workable revenue model where I can add content to an empty container that will draw traffic.

Any suggestions from others that have faced this same dilemma would be appreciated.

[ihor]

Hi,

Unfortunately I can’t suggest a specific business model since this depends on your startup niche (I assume that you understand the needs of vendors/customers in this niche better for sure), but you can check our extensions for monetization, e.g. Marketplace, Bookings, Requests, Memberships, Paid Listings, Claim Listings and choose the best one for your project, for example if you believe that users are more likely to pay for adding listings than viewing the listing contact details then you can use Paid Listings instead of Memberships.

Yes, marketing requires lots of effort, especially for two-sided marketplaces. For example, you can start a blog and add content for organic traffic or simply buy Google Ads, or Reddit Ads, or try crowd marketing - there are many possible ways.

Hope this helps.