My New Site: Universal Wedding Registry

September 7th, 2006 by Chris

A while back I wrote a post called “Rolling the Dice” in which I described how I was going to try for greater success by aiming for sites with very high possible incomes.

The first such site is done, and I’m going to tell you all about it.

I thought up Universal Wedding Registry back in 2001 I think after seeing something on TV that piqued my interest and with the knowledge that weddings are huge business. I dinked around with the idea until 2003 then sort of abandoned it for other projects.

Then fast forward to this year and I’m trying to invest more in my business and so I hired someone to revamp the site and build it like it should have been done to begin with.

This site is relatively unique in the content site world because it is a service site, the rarest kind of content site. It does not provide information in any form, nor does it sell anything, it simply features some clever programming that makes it easy for people to do something they might want to do, namely run a wedding registry that is independent of any single merchant. Service based content sites can be extremely profitable if you hit with the right service.

How this site works is simple, the users add products to their registry, and if I have an affiliate relationship with the merchant the link is changed into an affiliate link. Then when their friends or family visit the site and make the purchase, I get credit. Imagine 5-10% commission on every gift bought for a wedding.

At the time I first launched this site there was not any competition, at least that I knew of. Since then I’ve realized my idea is not so unique and there are a dozen competing sites. That is all right though, I’ve got my promotional skills and a pretty good domain, and the site literally is fully automated. Other than adding new merchant links, I do nothing.

Ideally the site will be uber-successful and bought by one of those giant wedding companies.

Of course it isn’t without its downsides. For instance if a family member does not use the Internet then they will not be able to use the registry, so if Grandma isn’t online the happy couple might be reluctant to use my service. This of course will gradually fade as more people get online.

If it works out I plan on porting the coding over to a baby registry site, or a generic wish list type of site.

I do not tell you all of this so that you too run out and build a wedding registry site. Rather I thought I’d shed a little light on my thought and development process in hopes to provide inspiration in a non-competing field.

Oh, and if any of you are tying the knot soon… why not give it a whirl, and please be sure to send me any feedback you may have.

No related posts.

Posted in: General »  by: Chris

4 Responses to “My New Site: Universal Wedding Registry”

  1. Kyle  Says:
    September 7th, 2006 at 10:18 pm

    Wow Chris, I’m getting married next July. Just got engaged a couple weeks ago.

    I didn’t see the URL in the post. I’ll go check out your forum signature.

  2. Jules  Says:
    September 8th, 2006 at 12:52 am

    I’m guessing you’ve ommitted a link to the site so that your readers Google it with the right keywords, and register a clickthru which we know that Google tracks?

    Clever ;-)

  3. Chris  Says:
    September 8th, 2006 at 5:27 am

    Whoops… I forgot to add the link…

  4. Joe  Says:
    September 12th, 2006 at 10:09 am

    Very nice and easy to use. I must say that bride looks a little crazy though. :)

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