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Online smokeshop. Yes or no?

Akash Acharya

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I'm starting a weed paraphernalia business online. There are many notable sites already up. Despite that the margins are really high. Plus with weed becoming legal all over I think that demand for paraphernalia might increase. I know it seems like cheating but I'm using templates from hostgator. It's more time efficient than coding. My question is should I continue down this path or will this lead to a dead end? Also what could I do that's different?
 
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Scot

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Are you doing this because you can deliver value?

Or are you doing this because you see the opportunity to make money?

It sounds like you're money chasing on this one to be honest...
 

Akash Acharya

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Are you doing this because you can deliver value?

Or are you doing this because you see the opportunity to make money?

It sounds like you're money chasing on this one to be honest...
I believe that I can deliver value on this business. I'm not only gonna sell the product I'm going to make blog posts for stoners that can actually make their lives a bit better. Plus I feel that I can provide more variety than the other sites. They dont have a whole lot to offer honestly. Their selections are garbage and they dont have great customer support. I feel like I can do better
 

biophase

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I believe that I can deliver value on this business. I'm not only gonna sell the product I'm going to make blog posts for stoners that can actually make their lives a bit better. Plus I feel that I can provide more variety than the other sites. They dont have a whole lot to offer honestly. Their selections are garbage and they dont have great customer support. I feel like I can do better

I love how you call it weed and the people stoners.

So the value in your store is to have articles.

And hostgator for a store?

Yeah, this is going to go well for you.
 
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ApparentHorizon

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I'm starting a weed paraphernalia business online. There are many notable sites already up. Despite that the margins are really high. Plus with weed becoming legal all over I think that demand for paraphernalia might increase. I know it seems like cheating but I'm using templates from hostgator. It's more time efficient than coding.

Look into Shopify or WooCommerce instead. Ditch hostgator or any EIG hosts. ( Endurance International Group - Wikipedia )

Your best bet is an AWS server if you can help it. If not, GoDaddy will be fine to get your foot in the door.

My question is should I continue down this path or will this lead to a dead end? Also what could I do that's different?

That's something you'll have to find out yourself.

Plus I feel that I can provide more variety than the other sites. They dont have a whole lot to offer honestly. Their selections are garbage and they dont have great customer support. I feel like I can do better

What are you waiting for then?
 

Akash Acharya

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Look into Shopify or WooCommerce instead. Ditch hostgator or any EIG hosts. ( Endurance International Group - Wikipedia )

Your best bet is an AWS server if you can help it. If not, GoDaddy will be fine to get your foot in the door.



That's something you'll have to find out yourself.



What are you waiting for then?
Dude thanks so much for the input. And I'm not waiting on anything I've already started lol. It's just taking a really long time. Plus I wanted to know whether or not it was worth pursuing further
 
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Akash Acharya

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Look into Shopify or WooCommerce instead. Ditch hostgator or any EIG hosts. ( Endurance International Group - Wikipedia )

Your best bet is an AWS server if you can help it. If not, GoDaddy will be fine to get your foot in the door.



That's something you'll have to find out yourself.



What are you waiting for then?
Also what about wix? Would you recommend that?
 

ApparentHorizon

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Also what about wix? Would you recommend that?

These builder platforms lack in SEO functionality. SquareSpace is decent, but still missing a few features, last I checked.

WordPress has a few page builders if you don't want to program or hire a coder. Divi, Elementor and Beaver are some of the most popular.

These have drawbacks as well, including bloating the page size. Thus increasing load speed, which kills conversions. You can reduce this with CDN services (cloudflare + jetpack + wp super cache).

You can get a load time of 3-5s with the above. Which is average.

A hand coded site can get down to less than 1s.

I don't use Shopify, but I've heard good things about it. Worth researching.
 

Akash Acharya

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These builder platforms lack in SEO functionality. SquareSpace is decent, but still missing a few features, last I checked.

WordPress has a few page builders if you don't want to program or hire a coder. Divi, Elementor and Beaver are some of the most popular.

These have drawbacks as well, including bloating the page size. Thus increasing load speed, which kills conversions. You can reduce this with CDN services (cloudflare + jetpack + wp super cache).

You can get a load time of 3-5s with the above. Which is average.

A hand coded site can get down to less than 1s.

I don't use Shopify, but I've heard good things about it. Worth researching.
Dude I really appreciate the insight thank you so much for taking the time to help me out.
 
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Jeff Noel

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I would definitely head towards a shopify store considering everything mentionned above. It's "noob friendly", so no need to learn coding or anything. Themes are optimized, websites load fast and have great uptime.

@ApparentHorizon for my personnal knowledge, what's wrong with EIG ?
 

ApparentHorizon

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I would definitely head towards a shopify store considering everything mentionned above. It's "noob friendly", so no need to learn coding or anything. Themes are optimized, websites load fast and have great uptime.

@ApparentHorizon for my personnal knowledge, what's wrong with EIG ?

They're a rollup company. Acquiring web hosts and aggressively cutting costs.

Personally I've used Hostgator and Bluehost.

BH recently had a security breach. Their auto scripts, like SSL don't sync up, so you have to go in and do it manually every 3 months. Support is pure garbage. Tier 2 support didn't even know how their own backend worked. Really sad, since they used to be one of the best a couple of years ago.

The sentiment is similar toward EIG in web-dev groups.

GoDaddy has surprised me recently. They've upped their game, where a 5 min update would take 25 min due to timeouts and other nonsense.
 

ExaltedLife

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Why won't these weed-smokin' stoners buy my shit!?

Lmao this cracked me up.

I came here expecting luxury tobacco products....so disappointed.

If you can find a way to get American tobacco past Canadian customs, pm me. The prices here are retarded. *NEED* *NEED* *NEED*
 
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Ernman

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My question is should I continue down this path or will this lead to a dead end? Also what could I do that's different?
One person's dead end is another's highway...only you can decide the journey. (I'm sure somebody famous must have said something like that but I can't remember who).

Not being a stoner, I may be way off here. But would a value add be to provide locations and reviews on pot shops? Kind of a YELP for weed? I'm likely displaying my ignorance here.
 

Akash Acharya

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One person's dead end is another's highway...only you can decide the journey. (I'm sure somebody famous must have said something like that but I can't remember who).

Not being a stoner, I may be way off here. But would a value add be to provide locations and reviews on pot shops? Kind of a YELP for weed? I'm likely displaying my ignorance here.
That's a really good idea but itd already being done. A company called weed maps.
 

Travis Robinson

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I'm starting a weed paraphernalia business online. There are many notable sites already up. Despite that the margins are really high. Plus with weed becoming legal all over I think that demand for paraphernalia might increase. I know it seems like cheating but I'm using templates from hostgator. It's more time efficient than coding. My question is should I continue down this path or will this lead to a dead end? Also what could I do that's different?
Weed is being legalized all over the world but only for its medicinal use, but not fulfill addiction. Future of your setup depends on the people, how they accept it.
 

Scot

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Why not make a smoke accessory shop that’s not for potheads?

Check out the show The Profit. He does an episode about the pot industry and visits a dispensary in Colorado that sells like 4 or 5 varieties and makes them classy with names like “Relax” and “Alert” vs names like “pineapple cough lightning” or whatever. The place looks like an Apple store.

Basically, a lot people are going to start exploring pot but don’t want to be potheads. Personally, the stoner culture turns me off so much, that even if weed got legalized in Florida, I’d probably never touch the stuff.

Instead of bowls or pipes that are tie dye or covered in pot leaves, make low key, classy items. Think of cigar culture, but for pot.

My $.02
 

Private Witt

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I believe that I can deliver value on this business. I'm not only gonna sell the product I'm going to make blog posts for stoners that can actually make their lives a bit better. Plus I feel that I can provide more variety than the other sites. They dont have a whole lot to offer honestly. Their selections are garbage and they dont have great customer support. I feel like I can do better

I work in cannabis content that focuses on the local industry.

What type of blog posts are you going to write?
 
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Akash Acharya

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I work in cannabis content that focuses on the local industry.

What type of blog posts are you going to write?
All kinds of stuff. Stoner hacks like the best places to hide your weed stash, top ten most fun things to do while high, and personal stories on times that I got high and all of the funny shit I did. Stuff like that pretty much
 

Akash Acharya

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Why not make a smoke accessory shop that’s not for potheads?

Check out the show The Profit. He does an episode about the pot industry and visits a dispensary in Colorado that sells like 4 or 5 varieties and makes them classy with names like “Relax” and “Alert” vs names like “pineapple cough lightning” or whatever. The place looks like an Apple store.

Basically, a lot people are going to start exploring pot but don’t want to be potheads. Personally, the stoner culture turns me off so much, that even if weed got legalized in Florida, I’d probably never touch the stuff.

Instead of bowls or pipes that are tie dye or covered in pot leaves, make low key, classy items. Think of cigar culture, but for pot.

My $.02
That's actually not a bad idea. I might start a sister site like that for casuals. Thanks a lot for the idea man
 

minivanman

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Lmao this cracked me up.

I came here expecting luxury tobacco products....so disappointed.

If you can find a way to get American tobacco past Canadian customs, pm me. The prices here are retarded. *NEED* *NEED* *NEED*

I knew a guy that got it passed customs and made a boatload of cash.... but he won't be able to spend it for a few years. :eek:
 
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Jeff Noel

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Why not make a smoke accessory shop that’s not for potheads?

Check out the show The Profit. He does an episode about the pot industry and visits a dispensary in Colorado that sells like 4 or 5 varieties and makes them classy with names like “Relax” and “Alert” vs names like “pineapple cough lightning” or whatever. The place looks like an Apple store.

Basically, a lot people are going to start exploring pot but don’t want to be potheads. Personally, the stoner culture turns me off so much, that even if weed got legalized in Florida, I’d probably never touch the stuff.

Instead of bowls or pipes that are tie dye or covered in pot leaves, make low key, classy items. Think of cigar culture, but for pot.

My $.02
Going further with that idea, you could try to take the approach that smoking had back in the early 1900s. When every gentleman would have their tobacco pipe.

It was classy and everybody would just smoke. Trying to make pot look "normal" and marketing it in a classy way could be the way to go.
 

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