Newbie E-Commerce

[Vick]

You asked about samples. Which tells me you haven't contacted any suppliers yet. Which means you don't have a product yet. You just have an idea of what the product is. And did some research. The product should be finalized and ready to sell tomorrow before doing all the fun stuff. Like the website.

Get your product completed first.

 

[SYK]

Do some more meaty validation:

1. Build a landing page for your hypothetical product including "buy now" button
2. Build pop up form that says "sorry we're out of stock leave your email and we'll be in touch once back in stock" when a customer tries to buy your product.
3. Set up google analytics
4. Send PPC traffic to landing page.
5. Give it a few days and then analyse the results.

Opportunity to validate and start capturing email addresses.

It's not 100% water tight validation but it beats aimless googling and ebay.

 

[Deleted2BB3x9]

New to E-Commerce? Me too. I've decided to start this thread to give back to this amazing community, provide some value and hold me accountable so I don't get lazy lol. First of all, I'd like to thank Biophase and JasonR for your E-Commerce Threads, they are a great source of motivation and a goldmine of value. Thanks.

Now a bit about myself: I'm Ben. I'm new to the forums, I posted a thread about starting a content website a while ago but I've decided to switch gears (It just wasn't my thing). So I've decided to go with E-Commerce. I also have experience in copywriting so that helps, E-Commerce is like a giant mail order catalog. But the bottom line is I'm a newb. I've never started a business before and pretty much haven't accomplished anything yet. So, I'm starting this thread for those who really haven't started to take action yet. Hopefully this thread will be able to show how I go from Zero to Hero.

Basically the only thing I've done so far is pick a niche, but I must say IT'S A KILLER NICHE. I don't want to reveal too much but I'll say that is has no competition whatsoever (except big box stores but I'm confident I can outrank them) and 100,000+ searches a month. I've also written down a list of the distributors, there's 50!

I also have some questions, should I contact the distributors before customizing my site? (Just so I can find out the margins) and what kind of licenses and permits do I need? Should I register my business before contacting the distributors? I'm in Canada.

I can't wait to hear everyone's feedback! I'll keep you updated!

P.S. I will be using Bigcommerce.

P.P.S. Here's a summary of what I've done so far :
-Learning copywriting (handwriting an hour per day)
-Learning SEO
-Researched and picked a niche
-Signed up for Bigcommerce trial
-Registered domain name
-Bought a NUANS report for corporation name

 

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[XOthermic]

My advice,

Stop wasting your time with this. OUTSOURCE this technician task: Focus on strategy/ and building sales/ marketing of your product.

I fell into this trap. I'm very proud of what I accomplished but as I look back as a business minded I realized that I'd do things differently now.

However, knowing the basics does help. You just don't need to learn all that B.S. man.


Example from my own experience. My website ran on magento 1.6 when I started it now runs on 1.9 and is set way differently to the point where it's not even efficient for me to fix and change things on their.

But

you know what is effecient? is me selling, negotiating and closing deals. My experience from the beginning continually builds and is useful (maybe not relevant as much).

DM me for questions.

 

[Vick]

Get the product first.

All that other stuff can be done later.

 

[theag]

forget seo

find a product with margins that can sustain paid advertising costs and can be built into a funnel down the road

btw, if an ecommerce niche has "no competition" in 2014 you either researched it wrong or it sucks...

 

[SYK]

Instapage said I have 120 vists and 115 clicked on the button! That's a 95.8% conversion!

Temper this excitement. There is a big difference between people visiting a website shop and making a purchase. In my initial advice, I said to make it a "buy now" button for your product, which is the closest you'll get to intent to purchase. Visiting your shop is just browsing to another page; there's no commitment to purchase.

 

[SYK]

I used Wufoo to build the form and instapage for the landing page. There are plenty of other options out there though.

 

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[Deleted2BB3x9]

I just got my first lead! I've had 42 sessions on the landing page and 19 clicks on my "Visit the store now" button. The button bring them to a wufoo form where I tell them the store is currently under construction but they can enter their email to be notified when the store opens and to receive a coupon as one of my first customers. My conversion rate is 5.26% right now. Can anybody tell me what's a good conversion rate and how many leads I should be getting?

Edit: now analytics is telling me I have 25 sessions and instapage says I have 71 views?

 

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[eqttrdr]

take it from someone who researched and found a niche that had basically no competition -- I mean products did exist like mine so I made mine MUCH MUCH better...

problem with that theory is that nobody was buying the other ones that sucked in the first place. I figured that if I made a superior product then everyone would want it.... but nobody even wanted the couple that were already out there.

My market was way too small and also those same people NEVER spend a penny.

If I had it to do all over again I would find a product that I know about that sells well and just put my own spin on it.. I would NEVER tried to reinvent the wheel. Sure there are new products being created and new markets being created every day - I just personally liken the odds of me successfully doing that right away are 1 in 1,000,000.. I would rather make a consistent fastlane income copying something that already works and using that money to try random stuff hoping I can make a new market.

just my .02

 

[Deleted2BB3x9]

I forgot to update you guys. So no sales yet, but I see loads of potential with this product. I've had 200 visitors already so I'm not sure why i'm not getting sales. I've decided to purchase some reviews from fiverr and I'm also going to start selling on ebay too. Ebay should get me some additional traffic and I think the reviews would be the final push needed for my customers to buy.

P.S. My CTR for my keywords are 7.87% and 10.81%. So people are interested in my product, I think the reason for no sales is a trust issue. If anybody experienced is following this thread, maybe I could show you my site and see what you think about it.

 

[early riser]

Hey guys,


-What matters most to people is PRICE

Somewhat, let me explain. And don't worry the only reason I know this is through experience selling.
Frankly I wish I was where you were at when I was 16.

Anyhow:

People don't buy exotic cars bc they need something to get them from point A to point B.
What matters with anything is value, or need.

No one ever has bought something willingly that they thought was worth the same as what they are paying for.
You have to convince them that what they are giving up (money) is worth less than what they are buying ( whether that value is derived from a product/service/a matter of convenience or need and the importance of such/ reassurance of a company's reputation, the happiness/fun level/status it may bring someone etc.).

Still boils down to they perceive it to be more than worth the cost.

That is how transactions take place.

 

[Ecom man]

Hey guys,

So I've got some bad news, I don't think this business is going to work out. I was very naive in thinking I could compete with the big guys. So it's time to close up shop, it's better to move on quickly then to try to make it work and waste more money. I think this thread will still serve as a great starting point for those looking to start ecommerce. I know I've already inspired a couple people and I hope it keeps on inspiring people; learn from my mistakes.

Here's what I've learned from this business:
-Don't compete with the big guys (walmart, bestbuy)
-Research your product immensely before starting, don't get lured in by the thought of how much money you can be making
-Have a kick-a$$ USP, provide REAL value.
-Adwords is a good way to test if people will buy
-Just because you get leads doesn't mean people will buy
- Me-too dropshipping is dead
-What matters most to people is PRICE
-Don't give up if your first business fails

Now it's back to the drawing board, I'm also going to read the book again just to refresh my memory.

In my opinion you didn't give this enough time to tell if it really will work or not. You lowered the price on Wednesday night. You did not have any sales for 2 days and called it a loss on Saturday morning. You do realize there are a TON of online purchases made over every weekend right? I agree with you that it doesn't make sense to throw good money after bad but a Thursday/Friday with no sales doesn't mean the idea wasn't going to work out. I would give it a full week at minimum, say from this Wednesday through next Wednesday, before completely trashing the product/ idea. Just my 2 cents worth.

 

[Deleted2BB3x9]

So while I'm waiting for the incorporation process to finish I figured I would mess around with bigcommerce, improve my design and get used to the backend. While I was doing this I found a great series of tutorials on how to use html and css in bigcommerce. No previous programming experience is needed, I was able to understand after just watching the first video, so I figured I would share it :

Part 1 : BigCommerce HTML and CSS Tutorial Part 1:

Part 2 : BigCommerce HTML and CSS Tutorial Part 2:

Part 3 : BigCommerce HTML and CSS Tutorial Part 3:

 

[Deleted2BB3x9]

If I am dropshipping should I still get some inventory just to start off? I don't really have the capital to stock anything yet, the products are pretty expensive, it's about 100$ for the most basic model, i'm only 16.

 

[Vick]

Oh your drop shippin. Well I don't necessarily mean to stock the product. Just finalize what your actually going to sell first.
Don't you think you should at least check the product out before selling them to people?
And why were you asking about samples then?

 

[Deleted2BB3x9]

Oh yeah I forgot to mention I was dropshipping, but yeah I think I should, it will help with writing descriptions and getting familiar with my product. My only concern is the amount of models, should I check out every model? And I was asking about samples because you were talking about getting my product, so do distributors normally give out samples for free or will I have to buy them?

 

[Vick]

Ask them

 

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[Deleted2BB3x9]

I just finished setting up my landing page, it was just a simple design and some pictures. It was a great opportunity to try out my copywriting skills though.

I used instapage and set up a button that redirects to a wufoo form where I asked them to enter their email address so I can notify them when the store opens. Thanks for the advice SYK!

Google analytics is also set up and I set up an adwords campaign targeting around 20 keywords, my budget is 25$ a day.

Let's see how many leads I can get!

 

[chrischapman]

get all the legal stuff done first.

Why do you want to get legal stuff done first?

Have a reason for everything you do. Are you doing it to save on your already growing tax bill or are you doing it because it is busywork which makes you feel like you are doing something important?

 

[Deleted2BB3x9]

Now it's time to make my first business call, I'm a little nervous but I've written down a series of questions on paper so that helps. For those interested, the questions are :

Do you offer a dropshipping program? Retail or wholesale? Do you charge a fee?
Do you ensure my company's information is on the packing slip/package?
What kind of discount do you offer?
What are your damaged return policies? What is your defect rate?
Do you charge sales tax or require a seller's permit?
May I use your product images on my website?
How do I place my orders? (Online, Email?)
How long does it take for orders to be processed and shipped?
What shipping methods do you offer and do you offer tracking?
Are you the manufactuers of your product?
Do you offer credit for my orders? (How often will I need to pay?)
Do you offer samples?
Also would it be possible for you to forward me this information by email?

These questions help you find out more about your supplier and helps you decide if you want to work with them.

 

[SYK]

It looks like most of my leads are coming from foreign countries, mainly india. I haven't got a lead from Canada yet and only one from the US.

Do you plan to service these foreign countries? If not, change your adwords (presuming this is how you're getting your traffic) targeting to USA, Canada only.

 

[Deleted2BB3x9]

So I got my pricing list from my distributor, the margins are looking good! I can double my money on almost every model! But after calculating shipping, I don't think it's worth importing, I would only be left with a 200$ profit.

I'm going to see if I can find a distributor from Canada instead, or one that dropships to Canada. That way my overhead won't be so expensive.

 

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[freelife2014]

Good job ,young people

 

[mosdef]

good progress!

 

[freelife2014]

Well done ,i like to read your posts

 

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[dotyy]

Great thread. I love to see progress threads where people are actually taking the steps to do it. Now it's my turn to get my a$$ in gear and DO IT!

 

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[GravyBoat]

It'll be around 50$ per sale. For people with experience, is this a good margin?

Hell yes it is, this means you can live off 2 sales per day. What if you make 10?

 

[GravyBoat]

Send me a PM.

 

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[Deleted2BB3x9]

Hey guys,

So I've got some bad news, I don't think this business is going to work out. I was very naive in thinking I could compete with the big guys. So it's time to close up shop, it's better to move on quickly then to try to make it work and waste more money. I think this thread will still serve as a great starting point for those looking to start ecommerce. I know I've already inspired a couple people and I hope it keeps on inspiring people; learn from my mistakes.

Here's what I've learned from this business:
-Don't compete with the big guys (walmart, bestbuy)
-Research your product immensely before starting, don't get lured in by the thought of how much money you can be making
-Have a kick-a$$ USP, provide REAL value.
-Adwords is a good way to test if people will buy
-Just because you get leads doesn't mean people will buy
- Me-too dropshipping is dead
-What matters most to people is PRICE
-Don't give up if your first business fails

Now it's back to the drawing board, I'm also going to read the book again just to refresh my memory.