Ask me anything about eCommerce (2012)

[Brentnal]

If i can develop websites does that mean i can do seo,internetmarketing and eccomerce?
Or is each a speciality that you really need to learn?

I ask this question because i got a friend who is a boss at making websites he can teach me if i want to.

 

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[stranger]

Do you have an app or a mobile version of your stores? If not have you seen any decline in business from not having that?
have you seen any change in business from people shopping with a mobile device?
how much traffic to you is mobile?
thanks

Im asking because i have a store and dont have a mobile presence and getting concerned that Ill get lost without that

17-20% customers in our e-store use mobile devices. I think % mobile shoppers will grow a month to month.

 

[bboyu]

Hey Biophase! Thanks for the great thread...I am really stuck on the first step...I want to know THE criteria for finding a profitable market/product?

This is if you/re starting from scratch and want to enter a new market with no experience in that market. You're confidence will come from a solid foundation of RESEARCH of the market, customers, segmentation, trends etc.

I am not talking about "info-marketing friendly" markets where you can just write some eBook and sell it.

I am talking about markets that if you create a business in you sell a real physical product or a real service online and could easily integrate an offline component to it

OR

create that business as an offline business altogether if you wished just because you have the RESEARCH there to choose if it would be better as an offline or online business. Business traditionally have been offline and there's a sense of it being real if you are able to switch from offline to online and vice versa which is why I mention this.

Do you start by looking at ALL the different industries and try to find something you're interested in you can improve?
Find a gap in the market by looking at your own shortcomings for tools/products that you'd like to have?
Do you look at what's not selling locally (nationally)?
Look at high ticket items and therefore margins as a way of selecting a product...
What else?

I know a few really successful ecommerce business owners who are very successful and wont answer any question like this when asked in person. They don't answer such questions on finding a market. I know for definite They had no previous experience in such markets but sourced products for "THE" reason in question and are still making a killing.

They have their own website which acts as a brochure and they link it to their "eBay shop" you could easily just sell straight of the ecommerce website but they choose to do it through eBay so they save on large fees having PayPal directly manage their transaction through their own website.

Yes it took them time to get their business to that level but it was the right start and the right product which got them there as they're still selling the same thing for over 9 years for example high ticket items like quality bathtubs/jacuzzi's imported from China.

What's the evergreen method that is used to find such markets where you could create such a sustainable business? Not everyone who has created successful businesses necessarily had any experience in the field (by being employed by a business in the field)...so what is it?

 

[eqttrdr]

cant figure out how to stock an ecommerce store?

Your website is in an industry that has 100k different products. No way can a newbie order 100k different products and stock them all. If you have just one or two or 10 nobody is going to buy from you imo. People in a certain niche like a one stop shop store


cant figure out how you start a store with all these products without actually renting a warehouse and stocking everything?/

very confusing

 

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[FastLearner]

cant figure out how you start a store with all these products without actually renting a warehouse and stocking everything?/

Drop shipping.

 

[biophase]

I have a question about niche selection in regards to 10 google results competition. I have noticed that some of the niche I have start to research like camcorders, baby monitors, office chairs, watches etc. have alot of big names in google top ten like walmart, amazon, overstock.com, target, etc.

1) I was wondering whether it is possible to eventually compete with these top sites, after years of work of course (organic seo, marketing, adding value).

2) Are some of the niches that I am going after to big. Should I look to niche down: instead of baby monitors only sell a specific type or brand.

3) Also is a bad sign to not see any other ecommerce stores in the top 10 or top 20 of google in a niche? Would you consider this a red flag?

1) It's definitely harder to compete now. But if you have a good product and/or store and spend the time (years) it will get there.

2) I can't really answer this question without looking into the niche.

3) Yes, I would say it's a bad sign in that they either can't compete, or there's no money to be made so there are no niche stores in that market.

 

[biophase]

Thank you to everyone for contributing to this thread. I was awake from 11pm-4am reading and doing more research on things I didn't understand... It was worth it!

I'm 22 and recently pulled out of university (was studying Business/Law for 2 years). It may or may not have been the best choice I could've made, but I just didn't have the 'university discipline of study' to continue for another 3 years. You could only imagine the problems this has caused at home with my family...

I'm wanting to get into drop shipping, and this past 2 months I've been searching my 'niche' and have found many different fields to enter. I was hoping OP and anyone else who has had experience in this field of business could give me some advice?

As a drop shipper, what is your objective?
Are you looking to make a large profit margin on each product sold - or do you concentrate on selling larger volumes at a competitive price?

I assume you mean as a store owner who dropships, not as the dropshipper. This depends on your strategy. I personally would rather have lower sales and higher margins.

When you say you need to test an item before deciding 100% that it is your chosen niche, what does testing involve? Do you open multiple online stores, purchase domain names and start your SEO/PPC campagins?

Or do you test your product on ebay and see if there is a market for it?

I don't remember saying that I tested markets. If my research shows that the numbers work, I just go for it. I never test on Ebay, it's all about price on there.

When looking for a niche is there a profit range you're looking for? Would there be any point in specialising in products which only make a couple of dollars product? Let's say stationary for example. It doesn't seem practical to spend money of niches like that which only generate a small profit margin, unless you sold a huge quantity.

No, you need at least $20 profit per order.

Also as a drop shipper, what's stopping a person from going on ebay and finding your same product for a cheaper price? As the drop shipper, what value do you give to the customer, that big brand names/ebay/amazon stores don't?

Thank you so much for your time everyone!

Nothing. Your knowledge and quality of your store is your value.

 

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[biophase]

Do you have an app or a mobile version of your stores? If not have you seen any decline in business from not having that?
have you seen any change in business from people shopping with a mobile device?
how much traffic to you is mobile?
thanks

Im asking because i have a store and dont have a mobile presence and getting concerned that Ill get lost without that

Most shopping carts have mobile versions included. Mobileis about 25% of my traffic. Tablet is 8%.

 

[biophase]

Hey Biophase,

Hope all is well. I have a pretty simple question.

Have you ever experienced a female sales rep flirting with you on Skype after seeing your profile photo? lol

Thank you for taking the time out to answer this.

I don't understand the question. Are you talking about the online in store chat? Otherwise, not sure when I would use Skype to talk to a sales rep.

 

[biophase]

If i can develop websites does that mean i can do seo,internetmarketing and eccomerce?
Or is each a speciality that you really need to learn?

I ask this question because i got a friend who is a boss at making websites he can teach me if i want to.

No, each is a separate skill that you have to learn.

 

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[biophase]

Hey Biophase! Thanks for the great thread...I am really stuck on the first step...I want to know THE criteria for finding a profitable market/product?

This is if you/re starting from scratch and want to enter a new market with no experience in that market. You're confidence will come from a solid foundation of RESEARCH of the market, customers, segmentation, trends etc.

I am not talking about "info-marketing friendly" markets where you can just write some eBook and sell it.

I am talking about markets that if you create a business in you sell a real physical product or a real service online and could easily integrate an offline component to it

OR

create that business as an offline business altogether if you wished just because you have the RESEARCH there to choose if it would be better as an offline or online business. Business traditionally have been offline and there's a sense of it being real if you are able to switch from offline to online and vice versa which is why I mention this.

Do you start by looking at ALL the different industries and try to find something you're interested in you can improve?
Find a gap in the market by looking at your own shortcomings for tools/products that you'd like to have?
Do you look at what's not selling locally (nationally)?
Look at high ticket items and therefore margins as a way of selecting a product...
What else?

I know a few really successful ecommerce business owners who are very successful and wont answer any question like this when asked in person. They don't answer such questions on finding a market. I know for definite They had no previous experience in such markets but sourced products for "THE" reason in question and are still making a killing.

They have their own website which acts as a brochure and they link it to their "eBay shop" you could easily just sell straight of the ecommerce website but they choose to do it through eBay so they save on large fees having PayPal directly manage their transaction through their own website.

Yes it took them time to get their business to that level but it was the right start and the right product which got them there as they're still selling the same thing for over 9 years for example high ticket items like quality bathtubs/jacuzzi's imported from China.

What's the evergreen method that is used to find such markets where you could create such a sustainable business? Not everyone who has created successful businesses necessarily had any experience in the field (by being employed by a business in the field)...so what is it?

The reason that they don't answer the question is because there's no real formula. You just have to always be thinking and looking. You need to get out there and find out what's not there. How do you know it's not there? When you need something and you can't find it.

Regarding your friends, what you just said does not make sense. Why would you direct someone to the ebay/paypal combo? Then you pay super high ebay fees and high paypal fees compared to processing the sale at their store using a merchant account.

 

[biophase]

cant figure out how to stock an ecommerce store?

Your website is in an industry that has 100k different products. No way can a newbie order 100k different products and stock them all. If you have just one or two or 10 nobody is going to buy from you imo. People in a certain niche like a one stop shop store


cant figure out how you start a store with all these products without actually renting a warehouse and stocking everything?/

very confusing

Was this question for me? I don't know what industry you think I'm in. BTW, why would nobody order from you if you have one or two in stock only? How does the customer know that?

 

[biophase]

I have read the entire thread and took notes, and read all the content that was linked to in this thread as well. I have a question that didn't appear in any of the prior information.

I found a clothing product that is a fairly niche product. It comes in mens and womens, and I would be focusing on men to start with. The main keyword gets 2,400 local searches, but other similar keywords add an extra 2,500 or so for a total of around 5,000 monthly local searches. The CPC is around $1.50, and google keyword tool says competition for these keywords are high.

The reason why I am interested in this product is because there is not one store that is dedicated to selling this product specifically, but instead there are multiple big name stores that have from 2 to 10 of my product category in their massive catalog of offerings. This would be very similar to ghille suits, in that you specialized on just one category of product, while big names like Bass Pro or Cabelas may carry them in addition to their massive amount of other products.

My question concerns the viability of ranking high on Google. Since the primary competitors at the top of google search results are big department stores, would my online store focused exclusively on one product be able to displace such large and well respected establishments? I know I can produce good content and offer value, but is it foolish to take on such large companies by laser-focusing on one product category?

Thanks, I love all the info that I have gleaned from your posts! If you need any details, or need me to clarify my question, just let me know.

At $1.50 CPC your product better have a profit margin of at least $50.

 

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[eqttrdr]

Was this question for me? I don't know what industry you think I'm in. BTW, why would nobody order from you if you have one or two in stock only? How does the customer know that?

yes, sorry I wasnt clear.

Basically how do you start an ecommerce store that stocks 10,000 different products? How do you do this from scratch? You would need a huge warehouse before you ever sold one unit. when you order wholesale there is a minimum order quantity. So you have 10,000 products you ordered 500 of each. How do you start something like this up a lean start up way?

If you have an industry for example adult toys... that has 100k different products. You cant possibly stock more than one or two in the beginning. So you are going to set up a whole store dedicated to only selling one or two different products? People buy from MEGA stores, not places that barely stock anything they need. They look for a one stop shop to order from.

Please correct my thinking where I am wrong..

big thanks for this tread!

 

[Viralweb]

such an awesome thread. Thanks to biophase and all the people who pitched in here, heres my success in the last month:

Found my first suppliers, Build my first bigcommerce site in a weekend. Uploaded 40 products and dropped 25 bucks adwords, and used a coupon for 100 bucks. im still on the free trial with 3 days to go and it has bought in around $1000 profit, so i'm stoked!

looking forward to taking this to the next level with a better design, seo and bigger product range.

Thanks again guys!

 

[Viralweb]

I know biophase answered this somewhere in this thread but I cant find it atm, Lets say I have multiple stores all with different phone numbers, and they all forward to my phone. Does anyone know a service allows me to track where each caller is coming from? I'm in Australia, so it would have to work here too.

 

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[marc100]

such an awesome thread. Thanks to biophase and all the people who pitched in here, heres my success in the last month:

Found my first suppliers, Build my first bigcommerce site in a weekend. Uploaded 40 products and dropped 25 bucks adwords, and used a coupon for 100 bucks. im still on the free trial with 3 days to go and it has bought in around $1000 profit, so i'm stoked!

looking forward to taking this to the next level with a better design, seo and bigger product range.

Thanks again guys!

Wow nice! How did you decide which niche to go with? I've been paralyzed by this question for weeks

 

[Viralweb]

Hey marc, for me I decided to team up in a joint venture with an existing retail business. The good thing about this is they have been around for years and have great relationships with their suppliers, and know their market back to front- plus they have the finances to back me to do whatever I like.

If I were you I would find a business in your local area thats been around a while, with alot of stock on the shelf and 10+ employees. Hope this helps mate, Tim.

 

[marc100]

Thanks Viralweb,
You just walked in and offered to list their products on your website? And told them you'll take a commission from it?

I have some thrift stores near me, and some comic book shops, toy stores, etc.
thanks

 

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[Viralweb]

Thanks Viralweb,
You just walked in and offered to list their products on your website? And told them you'll take a commission from it?

Yeh pretty much. I started with ebay listing heaps of stuff, then did some keyword research, products with high searches got put on the website (bigcommerce).

 

[biophase]

yes, sorry I wasnt clear.

Basically how do you start an ecommerce store that stocks 10,000 different products? How do you do this from scratch? You would need a huge warehouse before you ever sold one unit. when you order wholesale there is a minimum order quantity. So you have 10,000 products you ordered 500 of each. How do you start something like this up a lean start up way?

If you have an industry for example adult toys... that has 100k different products. You cant possibly stock more than one or two in the beginning. So you are going to set up a whole store dedicated to only selling one or two different products? People buy from MEGA stores, not places that barely stock anything they need. They look for a one stop shop to order from.

Please correct my thinking where I am wrong..

big thanks for this tread!

Sorry I missed this post.

Why do you need 100k different products to start? Why can't you concentrate on one product and have 20 different models? If you have it in your head that people only buy from Mega stores you aren't going to win. My first store had 29 products when it launched. Most of my stores have less than 100 products, some have 40. Why would you want a warehouse filled with 1000 products?

 

[biophase]

I know biophase answered this somewhere in this thread but I cant find it atm, Lets say I have multiple stores all with different phone numbers, and they all forward to my phone. Does anyone know a service allows me to track where each caller is coming from? I'm in Australia, so it would have to work here too.

I use Kall8 and then use the caller ID number to figure out which store they are calling. But there's no reason they cant all have the same phone number if they are related in products.

 

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[lotus_pearl]

Hi bio, great thread, really, because it has motivated me to start building my store. I've been working on the layout but now I need to start adding product and pictures. What tips can you give us about talking suppliers to get the best prices and make a good first impression as I'm sure they get a lot of the same "im opening a store and would like to sell your products"

Keep the love coming,
Thanks.

Spencer

 

[perdanny]

Hey biophase thanks for the brilliant thread, not sure if it was answered before although i read the entire thread 2 weeks ago, how you validate your market? except from the frequency of keyword being searched monthly on search engines, do you run any sort of campaign to test the water, adwords + landing page style, as Tim Ferries (and others) suggest?

Can you please take a look on my latest thread and give your input?

 

[McCoyH]

With what seems like thousands of ecommerce stores out there for any niche you can imagine, how do you decide what to do differently? (I know the "find a need or problem", but what do you investigate to find the problem with competition?)

 

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[mzee99]

Have you had any success contacting big manufacturers? For example, you wanted to carry some Nike products. Did you do anything differently to get to them or was it basically the same process as usual?

 

[marc100]

Biophase about niching, for an online store would you pick a niche in:

1. A major category i.e.; Toys

2. A niche i.e.; Toy Cars

3. Or a microniche i.e.; Ferrari Toy Cars

 

[Genium]

Hey Biophase, I have been thinking about ecommerce site designs, and conversions and I found something interesting.

1) When setting up my store, I focused on it being more modern/trendy, and good-looking.

2) After the fact, doing more research into high-converting ecommerce sites, I found that ecommerce stores like these: http://www.schwans.com/ do very well. In fact, Schwans boasts a 41% conversion ratio. Sure, that could be because most of their visitors are probably repeats, but who really knows. The fact is, these styles seem to be converting much better.

3) Take a look at my site: www.ceramipro.com while it looks good, its nothing like traditional ecommerce sites. An additional problem is, it is difficult to redesign/edit.. Since switching to my new site design, my conversions have dropped.

My question to you is, should I make it a priority switching to a new, more traditional styled ecommerce store? This is the theme I am thinking to purchase: http://demo.yithemes.com/bazar/home/home-vi/
I would be able to get it completed within 7 days.

 

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[PSK]

This is a great thread.

 

[Lagron]

Very informative will subscribe to this.

Thanks on the great nuggets biophase and to the others here answering questions.

From Lagron


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