Hi, I hope this is the right sub-forum for my question. I am thinking about an idea which - when everything works out well - will create a real big sales volume. I wont be selling nothing on this site. The project will be acting like a broker - getting together buyer and seller. Traffic (compared with the expected sales volume) will be kind of low. My question now is, how can I get something from the cake? Adsense wont work out well because traffic is too "low". I could charge a comission when a deal is made. But then I dont know how to be 100% sure that the deal really was made. Is there anything else I could do, besides Adsense and comission? Although a comission would be great, I just dont know how to realize it because it exists the possibility that buyer and seller make the deal outside from my project, avoiding the comission. Any help would be really apreciated.
How about a posting fee from the seller much like sitepoint. charge $1 just to let the buyers know that the seller means business.
Look into co-registration and data sale. If your working as an intermediary, you should definitely be getting a piece of the pie from your connections. Try to form affiliate connections (I hate what the internet has done to the word affiliate) I MEAN REAL AFFILIATE connections with the companies that your dealing with. Your concept is too vague to really give you any insight. I could offer my services as a consultant, that is, if your serious about spending money to make money.
Yep, or alternatively look at any one of the off the shelf auction scripts if the products are tangibles as well, and work in a 1% cut of the sale price for instance.
Yeh, and to build some volume - you could start with "free" for some time ("beta period") and after that start charging fee from those who "post announcements".