Winter 2007 Update for SportsFanBase.com

Hello everyone - It is Ari Bluestein again here to give you another update on SportsFanBase.com!

Traffic continues to be steady as I receive between 4,000-8,000 hits per day. We have some plans in 2008 to increase the traffic. One of which is to create a Member Rewards program. This would act similar to a Credit Card Rewards Program where the more activity members have, the more points they earn. And the more points a member earns, the more prizes a member can redeem. I will have Official Sponsors that will contribute prizes for this program and I already have about 2-3 companies on board. In addition to the Member Rewards Program, I intend on helping SportsFanBase.com's natural search by changing the code a bit in the site so it is more favorable for search engines to read. This way, the search engine ranking should increase slightly.

The last update I had talked about the 2008 Calendars and the merger with My World of Sports.com. Well - Both of which have not panned out the way I planned. While the calendars were successful in that most people like them, they have not been that successful in promoting the site and in making me some money to go towards development and promotion. The merger is most likely not going to happen at this point, but I am still associated with My World of Sports.com and a solid business relationship could come out of it.

But, I do have a new development that could end up being something really special - Not only for SportsFanBase.com, but for me as well. I will be appearing on ESPN Radio in the Maryland, DC and Florida areas during 2008! I am partnering with a company called Sports Journey Radio that broadcasts on ESPN radio 5 times per week. I will be going on their show as "Ari Bluestein from SportsFanBase.com" every Thursday night starting January 10th and every 3rd Saturday morning starting January 19th. I will be promoting the site as well as talking about sports topics - college basketball for the most part.

So this is very exciting and I do not have to pay to be on the radio show. If anyone wants to check it out, go to this link: http://www.sportsjourney.com/NetworkShows.html.

Click this link then go to the first show - "The Sports Journey Radio Show with Lake Lewis." Then click the 'Listen Live' link. I will be on every Thursday night from 6:40-7 PM talking about college basketball (starting on 1/10/08). I am not sure on the Saturday times, but it would most likely be somewhere between 9-10 AM.

I will post another update this Summer! HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Summer Follow-up for SportsFanBase.com

Hey everyone, I am back reporting to you about some new and exciting developments with SportsFanBase.com.

First, we will be producing a 2008 Calendar with the theme, "Girls and the Sports They Love." The calendars should be printed within the next few weeks and they will be sold on SportsFanBase.com. Also, we have already made contacts with purchasing departments from 3 well-know sporting goods retailers across the country. They have asked us to send them a sample of the calendar to potentially put them in their stores.

This effort should not only help in promoting SportsFanBase.com, but we will be making a good amount of profit to put back into the business to help promote the website.

Second, a huge new development may be occurring with SportsFanBase.com. A bigger company called My World of Sports has taken notice of our website and we are currently in early negotiations to merge our two companies. Nothing is 100% definite yet, but they certainly seem interested as our logo has already been placed on their website.

With this merger, My World of Sports will buy SportsFanBase.com, sync up our two sites as to basically create on entity, and the company will be hiring me full-time as their Head of Promotions for the entire East Coast.

This is certainly an exciting development and I will be keeping everyone posted about this new potential merger.

Check out their website if you would like. It is currently not fully launched, but click on the link below and you'll be taken to their Beta site that is currently available to the public.

www.myworldofsports.com/beta

Final SportsFanBase.com Post

Hello everyone! This will be my final post as a participant in the Student Venture Experience. Let me just first say that this has been a great experience for me and Dr. Chaganti & Dr. Cook have really helped me along the way.

OK, now for the updates ...

Well, SportsFanBase.com reached its 1,000th member! As of April 26th at 4:30 PM, SportsFanBase.com had 1,029 members. Traffic continues to be pretty high as we are getting into the thick of baseball season. For April, SportsFanBase.com should reach over the 160,000 hit mark for the 2nd consecutive month. Also, unique visitors have been pretty high and I am not sure of the numbers at this point, but April may be a new high month for unique visitors.

The promotions I am running have not shown too much benefit thus far, but it is still early in the year. On Saturday May 19th, I along with the "Jenns" (who are the spokesmodels of SportsFanBase.com) and some other volunteers will be going to a Wilmington Blue Rocks game to promote SportsFanBase.com. This promotion comes with the marketing package that I originally paid for at the beginning of the season. I have bought a banner and photos of the Jenns for them to sign as souveneirs. I will be putting together a little brochure that will be handed out to fans at the game. So hopefully that promotion goes well. I am doing something similar on June 29th at the Bakersfield Blaze stadium in Bakersfield, California.

For the near future, I will be looking into "beefing" up SportsFanBase.com a little bit more by expanding on some current features and adding some new features that should increase traffic to the site. In addition, I will be looking into starting my Internet Marketing Strategy by using Search Engine Optimization. I should be earning some extra money that I will put into the business to start my SEO campaign. This should increase traffic and new members. The SEO campaign will last about 6 months.

As far as advertisers go, All Sports Connection just signed up for 3 months for a side banner and horizontal top rotational banner. I am currently in talks with 2 other companies that seem to be interested in advertising.

But another new big development has happened - I have started a marketing internship program run through Rider University and I will have 2 summer interns that will be helping me with selling advertising space and gaining sponsors. I am highly looking forward to this program and it should help me bring in more advertisers and sponsors.

Looking at the long-term, I realized that SportsFanBase.com can really become something special. With only doing minimal promotion and really not having much time to put into SportsFanBase.com, I really feel it can go a lot further. Using SEO and the college campus tour I plan on doing (which I am probably year or two away from doing), SportsFanBase.com can reach new heights. And with the help of these interns, selling advertising space and getting sponsors will be a lot easier.

So although SportsFanBase.com is not generating a whole lot of revenue at this point, the long-run return can potentially be very favorable.

To sum up, I just want to say thank you to Rider University, Dr. Cook, and Dr. Chaganti for helping me in this effort to grow my entrepreneurial spirit and to grow SportsFanBase.com.

More2Cell Updates

It has been a few weeks now since I last posted an entry on the blog, so it is past due that I update readers on the status and vision of More2Cell. Many aspects of the business have evolved of changed after being in the industry for a little over two months. These changes have resulted from both successes and failures of the original aims of the business plan for More2Cell.

More2Cell's focus has shifted the following ways:

· Offering wholesale lots of ten items or more as one sale to retailers and distributors of cell phone accessories vs. just offering individual items

· Using CRM to retain customers who bought wholesale lots in order to produce repeat sales in the future vs. Relying on high-volume retail purchases online

· Avoiding auction format listings to minimize costs vs. Relying on auction format listings to generate sales and promotion for the eBay store

· Setting up a domain name (www.more2cell.com) for easy location of the eBay store

· Utilizing personal selling to friends, family, and others on campus vs. selling only online

Still, after implementing all of these changes, More2Cell LLC is not producing as much revenue as expected, but there are definitely reasons for this. First, promotion and exposure on eBay is not as easy as it was thought to be when the business plan was created. Listing on eBay costs money and with that investment, no sale is guaranteed. Additionally, other methods of promotion include pay-per-click search engine advertisements, which also cost money.

Even with a solid marketing strategy, gaining exposure to the number of people originally expected is not possible. Promotion on eBay specifically is a bit of a “catch 22” because posting items as fixed price and auction style listings is great for getting the customers to buy the items, but the cost of posting this way outweighs the benefit of promotion.

Fees on eBay and PayPal are becoming a major cost to More2Cell. In fact, the bulk of our costs have been attributed to fees paid to eBay. Each time a purchase is made from More2Cell’s eBay store, eBay receives a final value commission (usually about 5% of the price of the item) on top of any listing fees and other fees. These fees cut into More2Cell’s profits, along with the 3% commission that PayPal takes on credit card purchases through the store.

Another reality that More2Cell did not foresee is that not every item listed will sell. In the business plan, there was no mention of what percentage of the items posted actually sell. It was assumed that 100% of the items listed would sell, based on the financials, which is completely inaccurate and caused all the numbers in the initial report to be skewed. From the six weeks of experience, More2Cell’s store seems to only convert about 12% of the items listed into actual sales. Even still, this percentage is lower that the “worst case scenario” that I would have expected, especially since that the items are priced competitively. Based on the counters on each listing, I know that people are viewing my listings, but the listings are not converting as often as I would like. I may need to focus more on the format of the listings and add some more information about the items.

More2Cell has been utilizing drop-shopping for any non-inventory wholesale orders of 12 or more items. This means More2Cell simply takes the orders, processes them, creates a purchase order for the wholesaler, notifies the wholesaler of the need for a blind drop-ship, and pays the wholesaler. No packaging or physical contact with the goods ordered occurs, taking a lot of the hard work out of More2Cell’s hands. A number of successful drop-ships have been made and More2Cell plans on continuing to use this feature.

With the idea of becoming the online wholesaler for those resellers purchasing online, More2Cell has opened up the ability to create a strong CRM model. Each time a customer purchases from More2Cell’s store, the user’s email address and name are given to More2Cell. With this information, it is More2Cell’s intention on retaining that customer, especially considering that the customer will probably re-order the same item or similar ones in the future when their inventory needs to be replenished.

This method of CRM will work much better than the CRM model proposed in the original business plan, one of which each sale is liquid and no repeat sale was expected. More2Cell has already established a business relationship with two retailers, both of whom plan on purchasing from our eBay store in the near future. Maintaining these business relationships will guarantee More2Cell future business and help the store attain its sales goals in the months to come.

Of course with a drop-ship scenario like this there are some drawbacks. One major drawback is that my wholesaler takes on average about four days to process and ship orders. When buyers want tracking numbers as soon as possible, this is a bit of a problem, but I have simply told the buyers that my “shipping department” is still processing the order, and no major discrepancies have resulted. Another drawback is that since my wholesaler requires a minimum purchase order, I can only ship wholesale lots of 12 items or more to buyers, so retailing on eBay using drop shipping is not possible. This has created a situation where More2Cell can only complete wholesale orders online using drop shipping and retail orders in person or using the inventory that the company has already purchased.

As of late, More2Cell has been listing in larger lots (50 items and 100 items), hoping to capture the reseller who is looking for bulk discounts. Although 12 items may seem like a lot to some people, serious resellers want to buy in bigger bulk in order to cut the cost per item down. Using two 100 item lots as "guinea pigs", More2Cell has taken advantage of eBay's 25% discount on what they call their "Featured Plus!" upgrade for listing. What this means is that More2Cell has listed two 100 item lots for about $20 each for 30-days, but these listings will be placed AHEAD of regular listings (this is the "Featured Plus!" upgrade).

So far, more traffic has been generated using this method of promotion, and I am considering adding "Featured Plus!" to some more store inventory items. On the topic of traffic, More2Cell's traffic has jumped up a lot in the past few weeks. For the first few weeks of business, More2Cell averaged about 20 to 30 hits per day; now More2Cell is averaging about 100 hits per days with a total forecasted number of hits of about 3000 as opposed to the 600 or so that we had in March.

Looking into the future of More2Cell, the company needs to minimize costs, elevate sales and resolve many other issues that have come up. To accomplish this, More2Cell’s new vision is to create a separate e-commerce website adjacent to the eBay store. Using the domain name that is currently registered (www.more2cell.com), this additional e-store will provide users with the ability to select the phone model for which the accessory being purchased is going to be used.

This method will save More2Cell time and money while also providing for more potential revenue. For example, instead of listing 1000 car chargers for 1000 different phones on eBay, I will list one car charger on eBay and have a link in the listing for the buyer to click. Upon clicking, the buyer will be sent to my non-eBay store, where they can select what kind of phone that he or she has and purchase the car charger for that phone without using eBay to purchase it. This will open up new opportunities to my store along with saving the company money on final value fees and listing fees for all the different models of phones’ accessories.

Recently, More2Cell has looked into using an eBay affiliate, namely ProStores, which allows eBay stores to customize their store fronts using hundreds of templates provided by the company. The cost of the service is $20.95 per month, on top of the $15.95 per month fee for eBay, but a free 30-day trial is offered. After using the service for about one-week, I feel that the cost outweighs the benefit and More2Cell will probably look for a more reasonably priced service that is not subscription-based.

Additionally, other methods of promotion have been tested, including using a Facebook Flyer, advertising on Shopping.com, and posting listings on Google's Base service. The Facebook Flyer got our company's name out on campus, but no sales have been generated from the flyer specifically. Advertising on Shopping.com cost More2Cell $25 for about one week, but it seems that more traffic has been generated by doing so. It is unclear whether or not any leads from Shopping.com have generated sales or not, but $25 per week is a bit too expensive for More2Cell's promotion budget. Lastly, Google Base, a free product promotion service by Google, has helped More2Cell expose itself at NO CHARGE to the entire Internet community. Considering the data that has been collected, Google Base looks very promising as becoming an effective method for promoting More2Cell's items at NO COST to the company.

Lastly, other methods of promotion will be implemented in the weeks to come. For example, I plan on posting on cell phone and cell phone accessory forums, making sure to include a link to my eBay store to generate more targeted traffic. Additionally, I plan on advertising on MySpace through bulletin postings and on Facebook by sending a link to all of my 750+ Facebook friends. My logo is still in the works, but I will be developing a flyer with some general information and pictures about some of the products I offer. Also, business cards with our web address and business phone number will be printed and handed out to everyone I know. Lastly, wholesaler directories will be sought out to find a place to list More2Cell as a cell phone accessory wholesaler in order to target those interested in purchasing in bulk.

Like Ari, I have so many ideas and my to-do list for the business keeps growing, but there are only so many hours in a day. I have realized how much time and dedication is needed to run a business, even one that I originally thought would run without so much intervention. This semester has become a great learning experience for me as a young entrepreneur, helping me learn to balance my personal life with running a business and going to college. No matter how profitable my company is at the end of the semester, I am determined to pursue the business in the future, implementing my ideas and progressively improving every aspect of More2Cell.

SportsFanBase.com Update

It's been a couple of weeks but I am back for an update. SportsFanBase.com has been doing fairly well as we approach the 1,000 member mark. Traffic has still stayed fairly consistent at about 35,000-45,000 hits per week. In fact, SportsFanBase.com had 2 days of over 20,000 hits in one day! March 12th we had over 20,000 hits because of the NCAA Tournament and April 1st, the opening day of Major League Baseball, marked the 2nd day of over 20,000 hits. For March, SportsFanBase.com finished with a total of over 162,000 hits. Once again, this hits a new high and shows that traffic to the website continues to grow.

In terms of promotion, The Wilmington Blue Rocks and Bakersfield Blaze promotions look to be headed down the right path. In fact, I, along with some helpers, will be at the Saturday May 19th Blue Rocks game in our SportsFanBase gear to promote the website. Then, on Saturday June 29th I will be out in California promoting at Bakersfield. So these two promotions should really help increase customer awareness on two different sides of the country.

I have also been looking into Search Engine Optimization, which would help SportsFanBase.com by placing the website higher when Internet users search for 'sports' or 'fan' or 'sports fan.' This is a somewhat expensive operation, so I am going to wait to do this some time in the near future. I may decide to do it once the football season starts and as my baseball promotion at the ballparks ends.

Advertising revenue continues to be a little bit slow, but I still have some solid leads and I locked up my sponsor of the Predictions contest for the month of May. I am looking into recruiting Marketing majors from Rider University that would work as an intern on commission basis to sell ad space on SportsFanBase.com. This would help me since I am basically running the website myself at this point.

In terms of ways to cut expenses, I am thinking of eliminating Rommel's Rant from SportsFanBase.com, which is a section where I have a paid columnist write a new editorial every week. This part of the website doesn't seem to be that popular and because of it, I am losing money right now since ad revenue is slow.

So things are still going fairly well and my business is surviving. The members on the site love going on, so I have a decent loyal customer base. As long as I can continue to keep the site up and running and continue to develop it (I have more ideas than there are hours in a day), SportsFanBase.com could really be something special.

Traffic Increases Again

Well with the help of some 'chatter' in big discussion boards and the popularity of the NCAA College Basketball Tournament, traffic has increased again on SportsFanBase.com. In fact, one day during March right before the NCAA Tournament began, we got over 20,000 hits in one day. As of March 18th, SportsFanBase.com received about a total of about 115,000 hits for the month - putting us on track for another record month, surpassing the 121,000 hits for February.

I am also currently working on acquiring a few new advertisers. It has been slow so far this quarter so I am hoping things begin to pick up.

The Nike deal I had wrote about previously has been put on hold and we can hopefully pick something back up later this year. The company I was dealing with was too busy to start a partnership with SportsFanBase.com at this time, but I will certainly keep in touch with him and continue to pursue that deal.

Baseball season is almost upon us and I am excited for the promotions I am running in Wilmington, DE and Bakersfield, CA. I've started making some payments and I have delivered the t-shirts I will be using as the giveaway prizes for the contests at the baseball games.

So all is going pretty well for SportsFanBase.com. Traffic continues to increase steadily and hopefully advertising revenue begins to increase a bit.

Keep checking back for more updates!

Ups and Downs

We are going through some ups and downs right now with SportsFanBase.com.

First off - Traffic is still pretty solid with 121,776 hits in the short month of February (the most hits in a month thus far). March started off a little slow, but now has started to pick up with nearly 28,000 hits through March 7th.

Right now, the big development is with the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament - SportsFanBase.com will be having a bracket challenge where the 1st prize will be $100 in merchandise from my sponsor, Sportsopolis.net.  2nd prize is $50 and 3rd prize is $25. So with that coming up this week, I am beginning to send out e-mails to current members to have them participate and this weekend, along with the beginning of next week, I will be going to some discussion boards to promote the contest.

In terms of advertisers, I got a new advertiser - KoolPitcher and I have invoiced them and I am awaiting their payment. I am currently working on a few other advertisers and over Spring Break I will be doing my fair share of selling to potential advertisers. Right now I am about 2/5 of the way towards my goal for the first quarter, so I have my work cut out for me in order to reach my goal.

One new development I am working in terms of selling to potential advertisers is the angle of becoming "The Official of SportsFanBase.com." This can be something I can sell for a higher price than my regular advertising options and it will also be for longer periods of time, like 1-year or 2-year contracts. So that is something I will be pushing in the near future.

Right now, the focus is on promotion to get traffic higher and getting advertisers to maintain a decent cash flow. It will take some time and effort, but I know I can take care of business.