Background:

I had been laid off again from my engineering job. We first began selling online in 1998.   I always wanted to own my own business, ever since I had my first job at the hardware store back in 1976 (200 years after our forefathers had had enough!).

Well I won't bore you with all of the complaints associated with working for others.  Chances are if you are reading this, you already have decided that working for others is a waste of your talent.  Let's just summarize by saying that there are two types of people in this world...employees and owners.  With us, you will always be dealing with an owner.  We do not believe in employees.

So in 1998 I took another job.  This time with Lucent.  We were liquidating all of our excess networking equipment.  Little did I know that we were preparing to close the factory and I was actually preparing for my own demise again.  Things seemed desperate, but I did not understand why at the time.  As time went on, it seemed the management became more desperate and started to liquidate things on a certain online auction site.  As usual, I worked had a lot of talented people (fellow employees who were low on the food chain, but really talented) and a lot of management (employees who were overpaid, had no personal motivation -other than to make demands of others and had a notable lack of  any demonstrable ability).  Anyway that a certain online auction site thing caught my attention.

As time went on, I began to sell stuff on a certain online auction site as a side business.  I quickly realized that a certain online auction site was run by a bunch of employees and being dependent on a certain online auction site was really no better than being dependent on an employer.  While at first, I thought I was running my own business, I quickly realized that I was just a "slave to the king once again".  Well it started when a certain online auction site kicked me off (for violating a policy that did not exist and that I was not even violating).  There was no way to talk to them or reason with them.  It was just like getting laid off.  They just throw you out one day for no particular reason and there is no way to appeal your case... nobody gives a shit!  Just shut up and get the H. out of here!!!

Well, at this point I am really in a hole (2001) .. 3 kids a wife... a mortgage and nobody working.... My 401K went from $250K to $5K.  I had just transferred my IRA into a Roth IRA and paid tax on all the gains.. then the value went to zero after I paid the tax!  I never really occurred to me that the advantage of the Roth IRA could against me.... I couldn't write off any of the losses!  Well I had worked most of my life away.  I saved 40% of what I earned and went without for many years to do that.  Now I was wiped out, out of work and kicked off a certain online auction site,  I was 45 years old.  Held engineering degrees from a #2 ranked University. MBA from #5 ranked University.  24 years work experience for seven different fortune 50 companies and none of the operations I worked at were still in business!

I really searched my soul.  I thought I had done everything right.  I studied hard.  I worked hard.  I got a great education.  I excelled at math and science.  I never did drugs.  I never drank.  I worked really hard even on weekends.  I saved and invested.  I paid my taxes.  I never abused credit cards and paid my bills every month.  I never borrowed any money other than a home loan.  I never broke the law.  I never cheated on my wife or got divorced.  I never called in sick for work, unless I was really-really sick.  I always got good grades in school and good performance reviews at work.  Basically everyone who knew me would say............ he is a smart guy...he is a nice guy... he works hard.. etc....  But I was broke.  I was a loser.  I had nobody to help me and nowhere to turn to.  Nobody wanted to hire me.  Nobody wanted to help me.  Nobody even wanted to talk to me except my own family.  I never felt so hopeless. 

Now you might be saying to yourself: " You must be some sort of a dummy"  " Heck, who would be so stupid to get themselves into such a mess".  Well - If you feel this way, you have been blessed!  Consider yourself lucky.  But please be careful.  Trust me.........No matter how well off you think you are now, it can happen to you.

For awhile, I thought I was the dumbest guy on the planet.  Then I started feeling sorry for myself.  Then I got angry.  I was a victim.  I was cheated.  I was deceived.  Even the government was in on this!  

But wait a minute....................  None of this was my fault!  I was victimized by others....and I let it happen.  Therefore I had nobody to blame but myself. It was up to me to turn this around.  Not an employer...not a certain online auction site... not the government....ME!  ...........and I had the ruby slipper on my feet all the time!  I just never knew it! 

A New Beginning:

I upped the anti and began selling more an more stuff on a certain online auction site.  I figures if I had 10 good products and made $50 per week profit, all I had to do was get 100 good products and then I could make $500 per week profit....Not bad!  But I was wrong....  When I went to 100 good products, I was making $5,000 profit per week.  How is this?..you may ask.  I wondered the same thing until I understood the all important formula:

Online sales grows faster if you:

• Have more products

• Have more venues

• Have more traffic

Plus, online sales are growing naturally because:

• Internet users are increasing worldwide at 30% per year.

• Internet users who purchase online are increasing worldwide at 40% per year.

But, all along, I knew that a certain online auction site was a bad deal.  It reminded me of being back at work again.  Stupid rules.  Stupid people in charge.  With a certain online auction site, I kept paying more and more and getting less and less in return.  It was like I was a slave to a certain online auction site... and then after paying them all that money....a certain online auction site just kicked me out for no reason! I would sign back up and spend hours re-listing all my products... Then a weeks later...bang in the middle of the night my online auction site listings were all gone.  They did it to me over and over again.  

So I focused all of my energy into my own website.  

With a website, you don't need to pay any fees and nobody can kick you off, right?  Wrong again. 

As I started to network, I was finding that more and more users of a certain online auction site and payment service were having their accounts closed for no reason.  They just woke up one morning and their businesses were closed over-night. More an more this was happening and I decided that there had to be a better way.

Now I had great products.  I had great customers.  I had a great business, but no way to collect money online without a constant threat of being sabotaged but the corporate giants who controlled all of the e-commerce and online payments.

What I found was just more and more red tape and crappy glitzy solutions that did not meet my needs.. 

• Crappy shopping cart software that did not work

• Overpriced shopping cart software

• Software that did not allow me to conduct business

• Products that limited the size of my websites and products that I could offer.

• Pay as you go services that locked me into an over priced hosting service.

• Software that had no payment gateways and impossible code that took weeks to decipher and lousy technical support.

• PHP solutions!!!!!!!!!!!!! Unless you are Walmart.com Watch out for these!!  The search engines will never find you!

• Great.... the shopping cart works. but how do I get paid?

• Solutions that did not allow me to propagate to a new site without more fees.

• Paying others for doing nothing, while I was the one doing all the work!

http://www.volusion.com/ecommerce-web-hosting.asp 

http://www.aspdotnetstorefront.com/p-97-aspdotnetstorefront-ml-developers-pack.aspx

http://www.pinnaclecart.com/purchase-shopping-cart-software.htm

What I found was that there was no good solution.  Every solution out there had one or more major flaws:

• Locked me into a single hosting service that was overpriced or under powered

• Overpriced Overpriced Overpriced Overpriced !

• No flexibility to grow

• PHP based

• Search engine dead-end solutions.... I can write a book on this subject alone, but trust me, our solution is more search engine friendly than any other solution out there.  This is a simple equation that is not understood by the "experts".  We can show you, but you have to start out in the right direction.

Want proof?  Google this:  "194 leds"

Google this "lvd bulbs"  

I can go on and on with examples.....and I can show you how you can be on top of the search engines. I never paid one cent for advertising either

• Locked into only one payment solution.  If the provider shuts you down you are out of business!

• Cannot ever get Google checkout to work!

• Cannot get any payment gateway to work!

• Can only use on one domain.

• Limited products or they charge more for adding more products.

• Crappy admin page that does no allow you to manage your business.

• No international capability.

• Have to build the entire website to a fixed model so you cannot control Content.  Content is one of the four horsemen to search engine rankings!

• etc.... I could go on and on. but I will summarize in that there is no other solution out there like ours.  If you have been in this business for 10 years like I have, you will know what I mean.  If you are new to this, don't learn the hard way!

Our solutions:

So after all I have been thru, I decided to once again rely on myself.  I partnered with a programmer and we developed Quick-n-EZ Shopping Cart®

In developing this solution, we incorporated all of the key features that I found were lacking in every other solution out there.  We left out the glitter (for now) and focused on the engine...Quick-n-EZ Shopping Cart® is a workhorse that is devised to make you money, not me.  Note: We will be adding more glitter features later and offer free upgrades as we go, but I wanted to offer this solution sooner rather than later.  We focused on the most important aspects:

• Getting your business going quickly

• Getting your business going easily

• Collecting payments quickly

• Managing your daily business activities

• Growing your business quickly

• Simplicity without sacrificing raw power

• Ability to change hosting providers, change payment gateways and change domains in minutes rather than months. Don't be held hostage!

• Add new products quickly and easily with simple copy paste and edit commands.

 Now I want to offer this solution to others so they too can share in my success story.  

Quick-n-EZ Shopping Cart® = Success