- Thread starter
- #7
Its been a little over a week since my first post and I am finally getting around to the post that will kick off this Progress Thread.
Over the past 6 weeks or so I have spent many late night hours and part of my weekends working on my business. My business is centered around a specific niche within a much, much larger industry and my initial target customer is women. I can expand beyond women if I choose to down the road but I want to keep things simple at first. My business is based on an E-Commerce model which will produce healthier margins. The big players in my target industry do not do E-Commerce well so I will exploit their areas of weakness and learn what I can from those doing it right. That said, I expect that the most value will be gained from my own trial and error and feedback from my customers. The key will be to listen, listen, listen and act upon their feedback. Collecting info and not using it is just as bad as not collecting it.
Where am I now and how did I get here? Here it is in a nutshell:
So I have done a lot of work but don't have any sales yet. My goal was to be able to sell some of my product from my sample order but it arrived with some minor defects. In looking back at my Skype chat and emails with this supplier they had mentioned that this would be the case. I was so excited that I was getting a shipment that I overlooked this. I will be taking photos over this weekend and will have product loaded into the website with images. I am having a slight issue with the wattage of my light bulbs. These are daytime bulbs and I usually don't have time for pictures until the evenings when I get home from my slow lane. My wife is out looking for bulbs as I type this so we will clear this hurdle soon. I will spend the weekend taking photos and uploading product.
I am going on vacation next Tuesday, otherwise I would have the site up and running next week. It is for a family event so I couldn't cancel but I am going to take advantage of the tranquility I will have and the oceanfront scenery to work on my business in between.
I will post updates as often as I can.
YOU CAN DO IT TOO - By no means am I an expert or do I have all of the answers but I am not afraid to fail and I am not afraid of the work ahead. We all have our own fears and/or reasons for not pursuing and living the life we want to live.
I currently earn low six figures in my slow lane, am married, have a one year old daughter, another daughter in college and a 16 year old son. For a very long time my salary, benefits, bonus, need to maintain family, etc. had me paralyzed. But the bottom line is that I want much more for my family and for me. I want to provide something of value to others and if I don't develop my process and keep up with the forward progress I won't get there.
My main motivation is knowing that my 401K isn't going to allow me to live the life I want to live and neither is my job anytime soon or any other job in Corporate America. I have always been an entrepreneur at heart and I am looking forward to sharing more of this great journey with all of you.
Over the past 6 weeks or so I have spent many late night hours and part of my weekends working on my business. My business is centered around a specific niche within a much, much larger industry and my initial target customer is women. I can expand beyond women if I choose to down the road but I want to keep things simple at first. My business is based on an E-Commerce model which will produce healthier margins. The big players in my target industry do not do E-Commerce well so I will exploit their areas of weakness and learn what I can from those doing it right. That said, I expect that the most value will be gained from my own trial and error and feedback from my customers. The key will be to listen, listen, listen and act upon their feedback. Collecting info and not using it is just as bad as not collecting it.
Where am I now and how did I get here? Here it is in a nutshell:
- IDEA RESEARCH- Landed on a product based on google search volume, e-bay completed sales (double digit $ million sold in the past 90 days) and the website traffic of the top competitors (2) in my niche. Each of them have 250,000 to 300,000 unique visitors per month. Images of my type of product are shared heavily on Pinterest and rarely link back to a landing page where they can be purchased or are backed by a brand. there is a video on YouTube that shows creative ways of using my product type and this video had well over 23 million views since April of 2011. While I don't have sales yet I feel very confident about diving in with a test order.
- PRODUCT - My product is light weight and can easily be shipped via air in a large amount of quantity for minimal cost. On average cost per unit including shipping and branding is $6 and I should be able to price at about $32 on average based on what I have seen so far (excludes eBay where you can find these items priced as low $10 for lower quality and that's if you are willing to wait for delivery from china.
- COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS - I studied my direct competition and ordered product from one of them so that I could determine where they manufacture, how they package, quality, etc. What did I learn?: Shipping took too long, shipping cost was inflated which was a major turn off. Quality was ok but the item had a horrible smell which was not expected and is not normal, there are care tags that I later found out may be required by the FTC. It's amazing what you can learn by doing this one simple thing. I am duplicating those things I did like and I can do so for next to nothing. I also found that my competitors are grossing between 2 - 4 Million a year with what I consider little effort. They aren't really doing anything spectacular and are leaving a lot of money on the table based on what I know so far. I could be wrong but I doubt it.
- BRANDING - Since I knew I wanted to create a brand I spent close to a week developing a brand name, including buying a domain name. The name is a 6 letter word so I have a nice short name and domain name. This was a major pain in the a$$ but I am very happy I went through the pain of it. It will be worth having a brand that stands out, is recognizable and to build a story around it. My top competitors do not have a brand but instead sell generic brands and use the niche name in their domain name. I chose to do the opposite on purpose. I love the Zappos story and brand. In fact, Zappos started selling shoes as ShoeSite.com and later changed to their current name which has become a widely recognized brand.
- E-COMMERCE PLATFORM/SETUP - Researched E-Commerce platforms and landed on BigCommerce initially based on other peoples experiences with them. They seemed like a good fit and I was up and running with a great free theme in a very short amount of time. I know CSS and was able to make a few quick tweaks that remove the Powered by BigCommerce label and a few other touch up items.
- FINDING SUPPLIERS - I researched many Alibaba suppliers to get to manufacturers of my product. I received free samples from one supplier(had some learnings around shipping costs, defective stock, etc.). I only had to paid the shipping costs.
- SAMPLE & TEST ORDERS - I placed a test order of 82 items with another supplier without getting a sample order from them. Their high resolution images looked great and I had the experience of ordering samples under my belt so I went for it. I wasn't out much ($250 or so) but approximately 20 of the items were defective. I am working on getting my money back for those but the supplier needs images and my focus has been on getting images for the good product. Once I have this done I will focus on getting my money back. I learned a lot about dealing with suppliers payment terminology and shipping. All of the research I did on shipping inexpensively didn't do me much good. The experience of a supplier telling me it would be $40 and it turing out to be $145 for shipping was a learning experience. I later learned of another shipping company used in China "SF EXPRESS". For my order of 82 items which was 10 times greater than my sample order shipping was only $50 and I received the items in 7 days. There is also E-Packet which can be used for small items such as some samples. This is a service offered in conjunction with the USPS and they promise speed for a very very very cheap price. I did not use them so I cannot vouch for them but you can google it.
- PRODUCT DESCRIPTIONS/BRANDING - Wrote description copy for my product. My product has variations in styles and color. I wrote the copy in a fun, conversational way and a way that quickly provides the benefits of each item. Don't let your market arrive at their owns conclusion as to how your product/brand is going to benefit them. Tell them upfront so that they don't even have to think about it. Example: Diamonds are a girls best friend and a perfect mothers day gift. (not my product but you get what I am saying). For those of you spinning your wheels learning copy. Sure it is important but think about those brands that are super successful in selling via the same medium(s) you are. You can quickly study their copy and be up and running! Thanks for this tip @IceCreamKid
- SSL CERTIFICATE - Purchased and installed an SSL certificate. I had no idea how to do this but with the help of google and BigCommerce it was pretty straightforward.
- PAYMENTS - Installed a PayPal Sandbox so that I can run through test transactions before going live. It's like being in a full blown test mode and I can actually see payments processing so that I can refine my process from point of payment through email order confirmation, etc.
- PRODUCT PHOTOS/STUDIO GEAR - Photos are super important, especially for social media marketing and visually engaging my target market so I researched this a bit and ended up learning a few things about lighting white backgrounds, etc. I understand that there are some other ways to achieve a white background look but I am striving for as much perfection as possible in my photos so that my brand can stand out. Especially on Pinterest. I managed to buy on Amazon a camera tripod, a backdrop support stand, studio lighting/umbrellas and good quality white backdrop paper. Sounds like a big expense but it was under $200. Most may argue this could have waited but I see this as part of my investment into this business.
- PINTEREST MARKETING - I have never marketed anything on Pinterest but it will be easy as long as I keep moving forward.
- TOLL FREE NUMBER - A very important thing so that your customers can easily reach speak to us for questions, issues, etc. I am using Grasshopper. It's awesome and starts at $12 a month.
- LEGAL STRUCTURE - I filed my LLC. I am in the state of Florida so cost was minimal. I also got my EIN from the IRS.
- BEYOND PAYPAL - I am looking at expanding my payment methods using Braintree Payments and they require a legal entity and a business bank account. They don't have any startup costs which is good for me at this stage. Not something I am taking on immediately but the research is done. Thanks to @JasonR for mentioning them in one of his posts.
- PREPPING PRODUCT FOR SHIPPING - Making sure my product stays dry between the time I mail it and it gets to my customer is necessary. I found cheap ($15) Poly mailers that meet my immediate needs.
- ORGANIZING PRODUCT INVENTORY - When importing and selling products something that can be a bit of a challenge is creating a system to receive, inventory, inspect, label, load the products. It's exciting to get your shipment in the mail but don't underestimate the work that comes afterwards. Get organized or you will waste a ton of time on bullshit.
- MARKETING - I expect Google Adwords to play a key role in quickly growing my business. I understand the concept of PPC, etc but I have some big time learning to do. I am not sure about Facebook marketing and my product. I guess I will need to test this channel to see how well it converts. In a post from @JasonR he mentions TRAFFIC BLACKBOOK 2.0 and how he wished he had taken the course sooner. Thats all I needed to see to go out and get it on my own. I am still churning through the content but have been busty with other important aspects of the business. I will get to this in my vacation next week.
So I have done a lot of work but don't have any sales yet. My goal was to be able to sell some of my product from my sample order but it arrived with some minor defects. In looking back at my Skype chat and emails with this supplier they had mentioned that this would be the case. I was so excited that I was getting a shipment that I overlooked this. I will be taking photos over this weekend and will have product loaded into the website with images. I am having a slight issue with the wattage of my light bulbs. These are daytime bulbs and I usually don't have time for pictures until the evenings when I get home from my slow lane. My wife is out looking for bulbs as I type this so we will clear this hurdle soon. I will spend the weekend taking photos and uploading product.
I am going on vacation next Tuesday, otherwise I would have the site up and running next week. It is for a family event so I couldn't cancel but I am going to take advantage of the tranquility I will have and the oceanfront scenery to work on my business in between.
I will post updates as often as I can.
YOU CAN DO IT TOO - By no means am I an expert or do I have all of the answers but I am not afraid to fail and I am not afraid of the work ahead. We all have our own fears and/or reasons for not pursuing and living the life we want to live.
I currently earn low six figures in my slow lane, am married, have a one year old daughter, another daughter in college and a 16 year old son. For a very long time my salary, benefits, bonus, need to maintain family, etc. had me paralyzed. But the bottom line is that I want much more for my family and for me. I want to provide something of value to others and if I don't develop my process and keep up with the forward progress I won't get there.
My main motivation is knowing that my 401K isn't going to allow me to live the life I want to live and neither is my job anytime soon or any other job in Corporate America. I have always been an entrepreneur at heart and I am looking forward to sharing more of this great journey with all of you.
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