E-Commerce Store progress

[Blair]

Hi Guys,

Just thought id post up a quick thread that will track my progress of starting up my first e-commerce store. I already have another business selling products but thought I would give E-Commerce a try after I had an idea a few days ago.

Action Taken in past 48 hours
-Idea came to mind
-Products researched / market validation and first order from supplier placed
-Domain purchased
-Logo created
-Beginning to learn/build a shopify website

Biggest thing to get this thing to take off will be a lot of social media marketing so going to continue doing more research into that. Needing to wait for my products to arrive to take photos of them as the suppliers photos are sub par for what I am trying to achieve.

Currently going through and categorizing my products, naming them and writing a description about each. (Not a fan of excel spreadsheets!)

Hoping for site launch 4 weeks after products arrive.

 

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[GuestUser116]

Where do you get the product you're selling? Do you buy in bulk and sell at a higher price? Do you ship it to every country? I want to learn everything about e commerce business, where to start?

 

[Blair]

Buying samples to ensure quality is correct and to take professional photos of the items. Then going to do drop shipping of the products as have used them for personal products a few times and have never had a problem. Mark ups are made on the products obviously and yes international shipping. To get started my advice to you would be buy something from ebay/craiglist or your local equivalent and then sell it on for a profit. You will very quickly learn what works and what doesn't.

 

[GuestUser116]

To get started my advice to you would be buy something from ebay/craiglist or your local equivalent and then sell it on for a profit.

What item?

 

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[Blair]

Any item you choose that you think you can buy and sell on for more. If you do it by the end of the week and provide prove I will paypal you $20 personally.

 

[GuestUser116]

Any item you choose that you think you can buy and sell on for more. If you do it by the end of the week and provide prove I will paypal you $20 personally.

Challenge accepted

 

[Tyman]

Any item you choose that you think you can buy and sell on for more. If you do it by the end of the week and provide prove I will paypal you $20 personally.

Good way to get someone to actually take action!

 

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[Davor]

Will be watching this progress..
How much does product cost to be manufactured and for how much higher % you intend to sell it?

 

[Blair]

looking at selling at an average of 2.5 x the buying price. Product is sub $100 per item.

 

[Blair]

Started building Shopify website, Have added some products and going to add the rest in over the next few days and then add photos once the products arrive. Then Launch!

 

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[SJVC]

What do you think to Shopify? Sometimes I think there are so many apps, I want them all ha

 

[Blair]

What do you think to Shopify? Sometimes I think there are so many apps, I want them all ha

So far I am really enjoying Shopify. Haven't even looked into the apps yet!

 

[Blair]

Challenge accepted

How did you go with the challenge?

 

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[Blair]

Products have started to arrive! Come Tuesday I will have over 80% of my products after only 2 weeks. I was expecting that the ordering and shipping would take much longer.

I've been too lazy the past few days...the first few products arrived and I haven't got round to photographing them yet. I have however started my online marketing and now have over 200 instagram followers who are all interested in products the same / similar to what my store will sell. Am overall quite happy with the quality of my products, only concern would be with the packaging so I may divert from drop shipping to holding my own stock.

Will get my a$$ into gear over the weekend and get the site ready for launching!

 

[Blair]

350 followers, photos taken, slowly editing them and adding to site, hoping for a Friday launch, (4 weeks earlier then anticipated) But best of all.

Made My First Sale.

Saw someone out and got talking and next thing I had cash in hand. great feeling.

 

[Alveko]

Congrats, you're on the right track for sure, best of luck in these coming weeks.

 

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[AlexanderCM]

Made My First Sale.

You've officially started a business! Sounds like people are excited about your product, let's see what happens when you launch. Best of luck!

 

[teabag]

Following this thread. Good job. What niche are you in? 2.5x of buying price is an awesome find.

Is the $100 mark minimum selling price for your products?

 

[Blair]

Following this thread. Good job. What niche are you in? 2.5x of buying price is an awesome find.

Is the $100 mark minimum selling price for your products?

Nope sell products below $100, just stating that the products I'm involved with cost under $100 to purchase. Also some products are 2.5x but some are less.

 

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[MoneyDoc]

Bro, anything special you did to get the instagram followers? I've been trying to get 200+ to market a great new innovative ear phone product.

 

[dotyy]

I would like to know about your Instagram efforts as well. Any tips on the methods you used?

 

[Blair]

Outsourced my Instagram marketing, found someone involved in my industry and shared my brands vision and they did the rest.

 

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[MoneyDoc]

Outsourced my Instagram marketing, found someone involved in my industry and shared my brands vision and they did the rest.

Mind me asking how much 250 followers cost you?

 

[teabag]

I'll be honest with you all in regards to instagram. A lot of it is fake. Basically, you join these "trains" which everyone rides on to the same destination. To get more likes and followers.

Basically, you log into an instagram like platform and your account becomes a bot. You type in the hashtags you find will be most popular for your niche and also hashtags like [HASHTAG]#likeforlike[/HASHTAG] [HASHTAG]#f4f[/HASHTAG] [HASHTAG]#followforfollow[/HASHTAG], etc... and choose your budget i.e $100

Then your bot account automatically likes 100's and 100's of photos with the hashtags you chose. This happens back to your photos that you upload and people will automatically like and follow your account.

It's a script, and the guys running it are making lots of $$

I went from 200 followers to 13,000 in 2 months, and then reached 21,000.

Now, it's slowly dropped to 19,000.

 

[qvantage]

Wow! its really good that you are writing product description of each products and i like your spirit and dedication. All the best.

 

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[dotyy]

I'll be honest with you all in regards to instagram. A lot of it is fake. Basically, you join these "trains" which everyone rides on to the same destination. To get more likes and followers.

Basically, you log into an instagram like platform and your account becomes a bot. You type in the hashtags you find will be most popular for your niche and also hashtags like [HASHTAG]#likeforlike[/HASHTAG] [HASHTAG]#f4f[/HASHTAG] [HASHTAG]#followforfollow[/HASHTAG], etc... and choose your budget i.e $100

Then your bot account automatically likes 100's and 100's of photos with the hashtags you chose. This happens back to your photos that you upload and people will automatically like and follow your account.

It's a script, and the guys running it are making lots of $$

I went from 200 followers to 13,000 in 2 months, and then reached 21,000.

Now, it's slowly dropped to 19,000.

Ok with that, how many likes do you get? I wouldn't mind hitting 4000 or so followers using this method to look more professional. From there, I would obviously like to build legitimately and gain a fan base.

 

[BlakeIC]

are you selling an already existing product?
Also is your e-commerce store 1 main product or is it multiple?

 

[Blair]

Yes product already exists, multi products with multiple styles.

 

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[Blair]

Store is now ready for launch! Just waiting on domain name records to link to shopify.

 

[dotyy]

Store is now ready for launch! Just waiting on domain name records to link to shopify.

Congrats man!

My store launched recently too. I did some Instagram marketing which got us about 300 new followers but we've only had one sale. :/ Bummer. Any tips on driving the traffic to convert to sales? Included in that, how would I drive traffic to my site? I'm getting only like 45 page views. :/


Good luck man! Hopefully you have a better launch than me!