Start your own E-Commerce Store: Follow my Progress

[JamesS88]

Linkedin? I think it would be a good idea to create a business page for any ebiz sites.

How does this work when doing multiple niche sites? I've made everyone he listed except for Vimeo. I looked into LinkedIn, I've never used them, but I was reading this:

"The LinkedIn User Agreement (Section 2.C and Section 10.B.3. - see link below) detail why you can neither have more than one (1) LinkedIn account or create a LinkedIn account for your company. You can, however, create a company page, but that is *not* a member account."

Do you just have one main umbrella account and make a company page for each one of your sites?

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[AllenCrawley]

Do you just have one main umbrella account and make a company page for each one of your sites?

You can create multiple company pages. If by umbrella account you mean your own personal account then yes. Check out this page:

Company Pages - LinkedIn Learning Center

It's a very simple process and you can add products and services to the page as well.

 

[AllenCrawley]

I have a question for you. Are you using a specific software to build you ecommerce store?

He's using Magento.

 

[snowbank]

have less than $1500 in the bank.....I don't own a home

My long term goal is to build the business to $5 million in sales in 5 years.

This is not a goal, this is a dream.

What do I mean by that?

This is the equivalent to the guys who write up the million year business plans. They don't really mean anything, because they have 0 idea where they'll be in X amount of years.

If you have $1500 to your name, you have a lot to learn about money. I don't mean that negatively- that's totally fine. Most people who became successful started with $1500 to their name at one point.

But... as you learn how to make money, maybe you'll learn that being in that space is not a great use of your time. Or maybe you'll find you'd have to do things like have 20 employees to be that size in that space, and wouldn't like that. Who knows.

My point is- it's a dream, because you have ZERO idea how to turn that into $5 million today.

So it's just a dream.

It's not a good goal unless you can say -- "I want to make X, and here's EXACTLY how I'm going to do it." Then you can break down certain benchmarks you're hitting to make sure that you hit your goal.

Not only do you not have that, it's not even possible at the point you're at right now.

Figure out how you can make $10k or whatever. Set up benchmarks that allow you to hit that goal.

A year from now as long as you don't quit like 99.99% of the other "DREAM" threads, you may have an entirely different idea as to where the best use of your time is, and how to hit a 6 or 7 figure target.

Right now, focus on your much smaller goal -- which is a great one by the way. Break down EXACTLY how much that is, and figure out how many items you'd have to sell per month to do that. Then, find out how much traffic you'd have to have based on estimated conversions to get THAT. Then, you're starting to have something you can work with.

Good luck.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[theag]

This is not a goal, this is a dream.

What do I mean by that?

This is the equivalent to the guys who write up the million year business plans. They don't really mean anything, because they have 0 idea where they'll be in X amount of years.

If you have $1500 to your name, you have a lot to learn about money. I don't mean that negatively- that's totally fine. Most people who became successful started with $1500 to their name at one point.

But... as you learn how to make money, maybe you'll learn that being in that space is not a great use of your time. Or maybe you'll find you'd have to do things like have 20 employees to be that size in that space, and wouldn't like that. Who knows.

My point is- it's a dream, because you have ZERO idea how to turn that into $5 million today.

So it's just a dream.

It's not a good goal unless you can say -- "I want to make X, and here's EXACTLY how I'm going to do it." Then you can break down certain benchmarks you're hitting to make sure that you hit your goal.

Not only do you not have that, it's not even possible at the point you're at right now.

Figure out how you can make $10k or whatever. Set up benchmarks that allow you to hit that goal.

A year from now as long as you don't quit like 99.99% of the other "DREAM" threads, you may have an entirely different idea as to where the best use of your time is, and how to hit a 6 or 7 figure target.

Right now, focus on your much smaller goal -- which is a great one by the way. Break down EXACTLY how much that is, and figure out how many items you'd have to sell per month to do that. Then, find out how much traffic you'd have to have based on estimated conversions to get THAT. Then, you're starting to have something you can work with.

Good luck.

great post, I love to read your stuff!

 

[PatrickP]

I'll be using this thread to update my progress on starting a new e-commerce store and business. Here's some background on me:

I'm 27, college educated (Economics, Cal Poly SLO 2009), have less than $1500 in the bank, and currently have a full time job. I'm single, without kids, little debt (under $3k), I don't own a home (I rent), and keep my life as simple and expense free as possible (while still having some expenditure for fun). I have over 5 years of experience in the e-commerce field. Previous websites I've worked on are Poly Performance and Starwest Botanicals (my current employer). My boss from Poly Performance is a mentor of mine; he started his e-commerce business from nothing a little over ten years ago, and he's doing quite well now.

This thread isn't a straight up how to guide; this is how I'm doing it, the roadblocks I've run in to, and how I've handled it. I'm going to throw somethings at you that some of you probably won't understand. That's ok...it happens. Ask me questions, or Google it.

My short term goal is to earn enough money from this business to quit my job and work on it full time.

My long term goal is to build the business to $5 million in sales in 5 years. I will do this by growing the initial e-commerce site, and/or expanding into new niches.

I am prepared to do whatever it takes, to not have much of a social life, and to lose out on some fun to get ahead in life and be able to free myself of having to work for someone and to free myself from having to work my whole life.

I don't know what's going to happen. I could fail. I could have tremendous success. I'm hoping for tremendous success. But here's what I do know. I will do my very best to succeed in this venture. If I don't see it becoming as successful as I want it to be, I'm going to find a way out and pursue another venture. I have had one previous business venture which failed, and was a huge learning experience. Here's to failing forward.

Let's get started.

I started with 1/10th the money you have. 5 years later sales of 2.5 million. Can you do 5 million I truly believe you can.

Will you? None of us will know for another 5 years.

Best of luck to you!

 

[Dezzamondo]

Great Thread JasonR.

Puting knowledge into action and going for it.

I don't know what's going to happen. I could fail. I could have tremendous success. I'm hoping for tremendous success. But here's what I do know. I will do my very best to succeed in this venture. If I don't see it becoming as successful as I want it to be, I'm going to find a way out and pursue another venture. I have had one previous business venture which failed, and was a huge learning experience. Here's to failing forward.

Let's get started.

Best of luck & keep us posted on your progress!

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[JasonR]

Very good thread fella. I have a question for you. Are you using a specific software to build you ecommerce store? Or are you doing the programming crap by yourself. This is an area i'm very interested i'll be following along for sure.

I'm using Magento. I know some basic HTML/CSS, but I don't know PHP. I will be using a theme with Magento, so no programming necessary (yet). One of the first things I"ll be doing is dumping money (from sales) back into the website to build out a custom theme and customize Magento some.

 

[JasonR]

Just to show no cart is good "out-of-the-box" for SEO (even though Magento says it is), I discovered yet ANOTHER home page URL yesterday. Apparently the URL key for Magento's home page is "www.mystore.com/home" (really, Magento?). So I had to set up another 301 redirect from "www.mystore.com/home" to "www.mystore.com"

Edit: I was at the hospital yesterday for most of the day - I'm a newly minted Uncle.
Back to work!

 

[JasonR]

Ok - problem. I need to get "in" to this industry to become an expert. A couple of weeks ago I went down to see if I get a job or offer to help out for free in a local shop selling the same stuff. Basically, since I have a day job, my only availability was Saturday. Saturdays are slammed and I won't learn much.

Basically, some of the "widgets" I will be selling needs to be set up for customers (think stringing a tennis racquet- selecting the right string, setting the tension, and using a machine to string it). It's slightly more involved than that, but I need to learn how to do it with my product. Now, I can get away with selling accessories and other things surrounding the widgets, but I want to make a huge push and sell the main attraction - the widgets - set up just as if you were at a pro shop.

So, what do I do? I don't know any friends in the industry, and the only place around here selling the stuff I can't "help him out" for free (aka learn from him). Hmmm... (brainstorming).

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[theag]

Have someone from the local store setup those things for you before you ship them? Sounds like a complicated niche. What about high return rates if the setup breaks during shipping to the customer?

 

[AllenCrawley]

Ok - problem. I need to get "in" to this industry to become an expert. A couple of weeks ago I went down to see if I get a job or offer to help out for free in a local shop selling the same stuff.

Maybe I'm missing something. I can see wanting to be an expert in the niche you're building your site around but why to you have to get a job at a B&M in order to do that?

 

[theag]

Sounds like he needs to learn how to assemble his product before shipping it to the end customer and wants to learn this from the experienced guys in the B&M store.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[JasonR]

Sounds like he needs to learn how to assemble his product before shipping it to the end customer and wants to learn this from the experienced guys in the B&M store.

Exactly. This is why my particular niche is under-served (in my research) online. It's easy to sell the ancillary products, but it's harder to sell the main product (the most expensive product, usually $300-1500 depending on the model and accessories). I may have to start with the ancillary products first.

I need to be trained on how to set up my particular "widget" a-la the tennis racquets. I told you there were some barriers to entry and some problems with this niche. Problems are good. I mean, if everyone could sell it then everyone would enter. Plus it's a very tight (in my opinion) niche with loads of potential, and only two real competitors online. There are lots of hurdles to overcome as I grow and become bigger (but I can't get a head of myself, I haven't started selling anything yet).

I don't need a job to learn how to set up my particular products, but I do need to know how to do it.

Edit: The set up won't "break", but if a customer is unhappy I'll happily return their product. I plan on offering a 100% satisfaction guarantee.

The niche itself is more complicated then, say, trolling motors or CB radios. But, it's not as complicated as other niches. Sorry, this will become clearer when I reveal the niche when I launch (or whenever I decide to). I'll probably post it on the INSIDERS forum first.

 

[theag]

so you got me intrigued, what do you sell? gun related? airsoft guns?

 

[JasonR]

Thought about selling airsoft - too saturated (easy entry). Keep guessing, and no, I'm not going to tell if you got it right (yet).

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[JamesS88]

Did you see my last question? I'm on an iPad and can't quote the entire post

 

[JasonR]

Why is that exactly? I've seen some other adult stores on shopify that look really nice.

Are you referring to this question?

If you can host adult stores on shopify, and have limited capital and knowledge of e-commerce, launch with shopify.

 

[JamesS88]

Yep, thanks. Just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something. Just got my EIN and hooked up with my distributor, I'm excited

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[theag]

Thought about selling airsoft - too saturated (easy entry). Keep guessing, and no, I'm not going to tell if you got it right (yet).

I thought about airsoft too but entry is hard in Germany as you need the same arms dealer license you'd need for real guns. And unfortunately in Germany this is tough and expensive to get, you have to complete a full lengthy apprenticeship for it and even have a gun engineer or whatever its called in your company.

 

[Tiger]

Basically, some of the "widgets" I will be selling needs to be set up for customers (think stringing a tennis racquet- selecting the right string, setting the tension, and using a machine to string it). It's slightly more involved than that, but I need to learn how to do it with my product.

Rethink whether or not this is the right product for you. Remember FASTLANE. Can this process be systemized and easily taught to others so they can do it once you scale up? If not then you're not FL.

Also, the reason many of us get into ecommerce is the ability to systemize, scale and involve ourselves in the process as little as possible. If you can't just drop your product in a box and ship you're not taking advantage of the true beauty of ecommerce. If assembling your product takes any sort of specialization, I'd come up with a new product.

I'm not saying you can't be successful but when you get into specialized human assembly, you defeat the beauty, simplicity and affordability of ecommerce. You then have to have human capital. Human capital means financial capital; It means time capital in training. It means government regulations with employment. It's those very reasons I got into ecommerce.

Good luck and I hope everything works out well for you.

 

[JasonR]

Rethink whether or not this is the right product for you. Remember FASTLANE. Can this process be systemized and easily taught to others so they can do it once you scale up? If not then you're not FL.

Also, the reason many of us get into ecommerce is the ability to systemize, scale and involve ourselves in the process as little as possible. If you can't just drop your product in a box and ship you're not taking advantage of the true beauty of ecommerce. If assembling your product takes any sort of specialization, I'd come up with a new product.

I'm not saying you can't be successful but when you get into specialized human assembly, you defeat the beauty, simplicity and affordability of ecommerce. You then have to have human capital. Human capital means financial capital; It means time capital in training. It means government regulations with employment. It's those very reasons I got into ecommerce.

Good luck and I hope everything works out well for you.

I knew this post like this was coming. What niche is perfect? What niche doesn't require some sort of expertise and/or set up? I used to work for Tennis-Warehouse.com (35 million a year in sales when I was working there), and they have sales people who string racquets for orders in between calls (professional setup).

If I stopped because my product needs to be set up by a "professional" (which employees can be trained to become professionals relatively quickly), then haven't I given up already? Find me a niche where it's as simple as putting products in a box and shipping it, and I'll show you a niche where everyone can enter and profits are relatively low.

What e-commerce store are you running, what do you sell, and how successful is it?

Edit: Fastlane is about being able to build wealth in a relatively short amount of time, nothing else. You are more or less talking about products like the 4 Hour Work Week promotes.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[GuestUser8117]

Jason can you download magento for free?

 

[JasonR]

Jason can you download magento for free?

Yes:

Magento - Download Magento - eCommerce Software for Growth

But I recommend using a host which pre-installs Magento for you.

 

[theag]

Jason can you download magento for free?

Yes, Magento is open-source and the self-hosted community edition is free to download (with all features).

Magento - Download Magento - eCommerce Software for Growth

edit: woops, Jason was a few seconds quicker

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Tiger]

I knew this post like this was coming.

Congrats.

You need to chill out son. I was giving you something to think about. I didn't say you couldn't succeed. I simply asked "Can this process be systemized and easily taught to others so they can do it once you scale up?". Obviously you feel it can be so good for you.

I simply pointed some things out that are worth considering. I took some time to offer you a little advice and you come back at me with some sort of attitude and being an a**hole. I even wished you good luck and said "I hope everything works out well for you."

It's obvious the points I brought up are a sore spot with you otherwise you wouldn't have come back at me like you did.

I'm in my 40's and don't have to work another day in my life. I rarely argue with people unless it's something I'm passionate about and I certainly don't with thankless internet strangers who I took some time out to try and help.

You obviously have all the answers and don't need any advice. Good luck.

 

[JasonR]

Congrats.

You need to chill out son. I was giving you something to think about. I didn't say you couldn't succeed. I simply asked "Can this process be systemized and easily taught to others so they can do it once you scale up?". Obviously you feel it can be so good for you.

I simply pointed some things out that are worth considering. I took some time to offer you a little advice and you come back at me with some sort of attitude and being an a**hole. I even wished you good luck and said "I hope everything works out well for you."

It's obvious the points I brought up are a sore spot with you otherwise you wouldn't have come back at me like you did.

I'm in my 40's and don't have to work another day in my life. I rarely argue with people unless it's something I'm passionate about and I certainly don't with thankless internet strangers who I took some time out to try and help.

You obviously have all the answers and don't need any advice. Good luck.

I apologize if my post seemed harsh. When I asked you what you've done, I was serious. I don't know who you are, but I like to validate people if I plan on listening to them. Unfortunately, my tone of voice doesn't always come across correctly in a form post. I wasn't saying "what the hell have you done." I should have rephrased that.

You do bring up points worth considering, for sure. And I have considered another avenue of e-commerce, for sure. If I didn't think it could be systemized, I wouldn't pursue it.

Again, I apologize if I came off as an a**hole, that wasn't my intention. My intention is to learn from everyone here and what they have to offer, and also give back to the community.

I don't have all the answers, and I don't know it all...and I realize that. Thanks for your input, and I hope that you keep posting here.

 

[JasonR]

Update:

Bought the Magento theme ($80). Installed the theme, and became familiar with the settings, static blocks, etc. of the theme. The theme is very well designed...I think I'll be happy with it for the time being. Also becoming more familiar with Magento the longer I'm in it...excited!

I'm also waiting for the first round of designs for my logo.

Will also need to do a TON of product research and learning. Lots to do.

Agenda:
Figure out where to get business licenese, etc.
Open up business bank account
Keep writing content / website info

Problem: How to avoid duplicate content when writing articles similar to ones that already exist. Or - can my content rank higher?

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Lt.Dangle]

JasonR,

I too am a Cal Poly grad (2011). Just wanted to wish you luck as I follow you progress and learn from your experiences. Thanks for sharing!

 

[JasonR]

Sometimes I think...can this work? Will this work? Will this be as successful as I want it to be? I guess the only way to know is to try and to carry on. Frustrating!