A Note About the "My Dollar Shop" Business Opportunity Found on The Internet Posted July 29, 2008

Ok, so I am obsessed with dollar stores. I love 'em! I've been wanting to start an online dollar store, cuz I just don't already have enough going on between the radio show, the webzine and the magazine... I came accross a business opportunity online and got sucked right in. But it's Ok, because one of my goals is to test out online "opportunities" and expose the catch.

It costs just under $2.00 to open a store with My Dollar Shop. I thought,"That's worth the risk." as I'm drooling over the idea of offering great deals for my readers while potentially increasing revenues any way I can. So I pay up, then I read the terms and conditions. Yeah I could've backed out, but no, I'm a risk taker. Even though the real cost of the store is actually $40.00 per month to maintain and I was warned that I will receive offers via e mail and possibly by phone, I went ahead and dove right in.

Once I agreed to the terms and conditions, I pick a template for my store,and go through all the "options". It's very user friendly. I see that most of the items I only get 25 cents for whenever anyone orders. That's actually not bad, considering I don't have to purchase any merchandise and handle shipping. That's a 25% commission. However, I will not get paid until my commissions total $100.00. So in essence, I need to sell 600 items to earn about $60 per month.

But of course, there is another option... I can get others to sign on and I get a commission of $25. So that's kinda cool. Seems like one of those pyramid deals most people do not like. I myself have always had a love/ hate relationship with these type of opportunities.

And there's more. I haven't tried it yet, but you can post additional items. So that could be kind of cool as well. You just have to have a paypal account, have items available for sale, images and be willing to ship. I will try this and give feedback later.

My recommendation is this: If you don't want to spend $40 bucks a month while you try to get shoppers and new shop keepers, just don't bother with this. However, if you have an extensive e mail list or a ton of friends or know how to drive people to your shop, this could work, if you stick with it for a while and you add new merchandise and get new shop owners to sign up. Just don't give them your cell phone number or an email address that you do not want to recieve spam from and you will be fine. I'll keep everybody posted on what happens next.

All in all, there is some good useful stuff on there. I wish there were more necessary items, like deodorant or razors or toothbrushes, but there's lightbulbs, nail clippers, and a bunch of Disney items for the little ones. What you see in my shop is what you will get if you open your own shop.

The company does offer advice on how to market the site. And there is a support number. I'll give feedback about this later too.

Let me just say, thank you, if you decide to order from my shop or open your own. I appreciate it! And if you do open up a shop, I will post a link from my website to your shop to show my appreciation.

So now you know the catch! I'm a firm believer in full disclosure.

Click the image below to view the store... Oh yeah and it's called Woodstocks My Dollar Shop. Catchy isn't it? If you scroll down to the bottom of the store you can clidk on "Store Owner Bio" to find out why I chose Woodstocks...

August 4, 2008 ~ I have almost forgotten about this store that I set up! I logged on to view my store and it did not go through! I have actually decided to cancel this deal and was going to report on what happened during the week that I've had this store and report about how difficult or easy it was to close the store and remove the 40 per month charges from my account... but, now I cannot log on... not good.

August 6, 2008 ~ Was able to log in. Checked the statistics and it looks like there have been 29 unique users in the last week. That's pretty good. Still want to cancel. Will keep you posted.