Anyone do eCommerece that can help with my idea?

[TrevorJ]

So, I have been doing a business for about 6 months now. I have realized the pitfalls in the model. I currently run a small SEO firm making me 60k profit a year (it's only 6 months old me doing it full time, so not that bad). But I realized this business has a lack of control (aka i fight Google with clients all day), and it isn't easily scale able, epic saturated market, so on and so on. And honestly, it F*cking bores me to tears.

So, I have been thinking about eCommerce and product creation also in a market that at least to SOME DEGREE interests me. I have always been a fan of fashion, and I wanted to start a clothing, etc. eCommerece site. This would be for a niche style, although it's a niche it has some big companies in it with 1million facebook fans etc.

However, in my model I want to offer both mens and womens of this style, the main competitors only offer women. Plus I want to offer other niche accessories that go with the "style" that my competitors don't offer in the same way.

In the start up phases, this would obviously be sourcing products from other retailers or sources like alibaba. Hand selected to be the best for the niche. Eventually, if it grows I would like to then start adding in my own products etc.

My strong point has always been in internet marketing. I don't know coding, I can't create software, I don't have the funds to create my own clothing products at this time.

So ideally, would be starting the niche store, sourcing the right type of products from retailers in a unique marketing perspective then eventually creating my own line (maybe kick starter). Anyone done anything similar or have any words of advice?

 

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[Talisman]

If importing is your new 6 month project, buy an INSIDERS subscription. The information you'll find in there is second to none, regarding importing. Every question you have, and will have, is answered there.

As for your SEO business... Automate it. It IS automatable, just need to get the whole process written down in clear steps and get someone to do it. Depending on how complicated your SEO tasks are, you could get a VA full time for a year at a cost of 10k - 20k. (Where 10k is a full on gun).

 

[TrevorJ]

If importing is your new 6 month project, buy an INSIDERS subscription. The information you'll find in there is second to none, regarding importing. Every question you have, and will have, is answered there.

As for your SEO business... Automate it. It IS automatable, just need to get the whole process written down in clear steps and get someone to do it. Depending on how complicated your SEO tasks are, you could get a VA full time for a year at a cost of 10k - 20k. (Where 10k is a full on gun).

Very true man, the SEO biz could be automatable. But that industry is kind of a mess honestly, strong lack of control element clients are at googles whims. That is really why I want to start a biz that could eventually create it's OWN products. I could grow the SEO biz and use revenue from that to bootstrap the new one probably. Only difficulty with SEO is getting a VA to do the stuff and have it not be shit (aka article writing etc) and still get me good returns. These days outsourcing and getting good results for clients is iffy. But you are right I could probably pull it off.

I am trying to make sure I am not just jumping ship on random ideas. But based on elements of control and scalability etc I feel like the new project is more on par also with my general interests. SEO bores the shit out of me.

 

[Talisman]

Yeah SEO is boring as all f*** but that just makes it something that noone wants to do, that they'll pay good money to have done for them. I mean, who the fk wants to collect other peoples trash? 1800-GOT-JUNK does - he must be killing it into a billion dollar business by now, the guy's even in Australia. Shredding office documents.. not my idea of a good weekend.. but (in AU) I see these trucks outside most major businesses at some stage: www.shred-x.com.au

Anyway you get the point.

If you can make 60k profit on your SEO currently, I have no doubt you can start pulling 30-40k out of that, 99% passively, with the right setup. Phillipino writers are AWESOME (well, you have to interview a few dozen to get the great one / two) to do article writing. They communicate well, and if you can find one / two that can take instructions well just use one as your SEO manager if you have enough business to justify it.. Anyway, it's what I'd do.. It would only take a few weeks to get it all streamlined. I don't do other peoples SEO, but I have my own VA that I've trained up in a similar way.. I just cbf with SEO.. so I just send her articles that I get written, and she takes care of the rest - posting.. setting up campaigns on a VPS I have for her.. tracking.. cleaning up.. I did find one with great attention to detail mind you, and I pay her well (relatively speaking).

 

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[TrevorJ]

Are you running seo for clients?

Yeah SEO is boring as all f*** but that just makes it something that noone wants to do, that they'll pay good money to have done for them. I mean, who the fk wants to collect other peoples trash? 1800-GOT-JUNK does - he must be killing it into a billion dollar business by now, the guy's even in Australia. Shredding office documents.. not my idea of a good weekend.. but (in AU) I see these trucks outside most major businesses at some stage: www.shred-x.com.au

Anyway you get the point.

If you can make 60k profit on your SEO currently, I have no doubt you can start pulling 30-40k out of that, 99% passively, with the right setup. Phillipino writers are AWESOME (well, you have to interview a few dozen to get the great one / two) to do article writing. They communicate well, and if you can find one / two that can take instructions well just use one as your SEO manager if you have enough business to justify it.. Anyway, it's what I'd do.. It would only take a few weeks to get it all streamlined. I don't do other peoples SEO, but I have my own VA that I've trained up in a similar way.. I just cbf with SEO.. so I just send her articles that I get written, and she takes care of the rest - posting.. setting up campaigns on a VPS I have for her.. tracking.. cleaning up.. I did find one with great attention to detail mind you, and I pay her well (relatively speaking).

 

[Talisman]

Nup, stuff that. I'll rank my own sites instead

 

[TrevorJ]

yeah, see man that's how I feel. My SEO biz I want to make like 50k a year from it if I can outsource 90% of it, just for some income. But I hate doing SEO for clients, feels like epic waste. Something about doing SEO for my own stuff vs clients seems way different for some reason

 

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[MakeItHappen]

@ TrevorJ
I get your point however the negative side has also a positive side imo. Sure you don't have that much control over the results your clients get however other SEOs have the same problem and i guess a lot of people stop doing SEO for clients because of this. However never the less the SEO Industry is a huge market. Hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue every year if not billions. So there is also a lot of potential to build a fastlane business. Like Talisman said it's about the systems you put into place and the scaling involved.
Also i think there are a few things you could do to lower the negative side.
You could aim for bigger companies with big budgets that don't care as much about short term results as businesses with very low budgets.
Also what about online reputation management? Imo there is also a big need and the lack of control isn't as bad imo.

yeah, see man that's how I feel. My SEO biz I want to make like 50k a year from it if I can outsource 90% of it, just for some income. But I hate doing SEO for clients, feels like epic waste. Something about doing SEO for my own stuff vs clients seems way different for some reason

Sure having your own projects to work on would be the best solution however you have to handle a lot more stuff than just SEO! SEO will only be a little piece of all the work that has to be done. It's up to you but building a 60k/year month business in 6 month is great! How big could you make it if you would keep at it and start scaling it?

 

[TrevorJ]

Well that's what I have thought about, how big could you scale it. Really, what I have noticed is the best results come from working with low level entry clients. AKA local plumber. You can charge anywhere from 400-700 a month and outsource roughly 100-200 dollars of the work. But the problems that arise, is for these type of "low management" clients, I would need a LOT for fastlane to happen. The bigger clients that you could charge say 2k a month, those require more hands on expertise and is more difficult to outsource. I mean honestly, to hit big revenue at say a profit of 300 per month each client I would need nearly 70 clients (20k a month profit). That is a LOT of clients to manage and to keep at all times without hiring employees etc, then that would increase the need even much further. I have about 7 clients right now over the last 6 months (without doing any sales, they have found me). I would need to increase this 10 fold. Most of them look for a local company to do work with, even in my city with 500k people getting 70 clients would be nearly impossible (if that many even exist here). Shit even outsourcing 70 clients would require crazy shit.