Risk, reward & growth in e-commerce

Within the e-commerce / webshop market, there’s a whole range of concepts to try. As with anything worth investing time / effort / money in, between the different choices there’s a large gap between risks and potential benefits. Here’s a short idea of what I mean (indicatory, not exhaustive):

• Lower risk: standard shop, buying and selling products in established markets that are not yet saturated. Do the marketing and customer service right and you’ll grow gradually over the months – years;
• Medium risk: standard shop, buying and selling products in relatively untapped niche markets. Do the marketing etc. right and you’ll grow quickly if the niche has potential;
• Higher risk: new shopping concept (social shopping, private sales, etc). If the shopping concept clicks with enough people, you have a hit. Meteoric growth, but because it’s not standard there are large risks. More cash investment in IT is needed up front because it is not a standard shopping concept, and clever marketing is needed to make the shopping concept clear to people and to trigger them to shop and invite friends.

Actually a pretty standard dilemma of where to place your priorities; additionally high risk projects also tend to need a quick time to market.