Start your own E-Commerce Store: Follow my Progress

[wade1mil]

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!

I've been frustrated as well at times. The more it happens, the more you realize how important it is to determine whether a big enough need exists. I'm rooting for you man!

 

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[JamesS88]

That's where I'm at right now, I have to make a business account. What do you mean by business license? LLC?

Edit: I know how you feel. I get overwhelmed and have wanted to give up several times. I just keep pushing, though, and tell myself that's what separates fastlaners from the others. I was just telling my girlfriend a little while ago, "I wish we wouldn't have told anyone about this, in case it's an epic fail." lol we've slowly but surely let our plans slip to the majority of our family.

 

[JasonR]

Thanks - yep. Got to keep pushing. There will always be doubts and what ifs. Glad I can vent a little on here - your replies actually makes me feel a bit better about it.

James: I need to pursue getting a local business license, tax ID, etc. so I can get product/price lists from the two major dropshippers in my niche. I have to bootstrap, and utilize drop shipping to start with as I don't have the capital to stock inventory immediately.

 

[Eskil]

. I was just telling my girlfriend a little while ago, "I wish we wouldn't have told anyone about this, in case it's an epic fail." lol we've slowly but surely let our plans slip to the majority of our family.

Dude.. Sometimes this can be a blessing in disguise. I have actually made an effort this time to tell family and friends. Why? Because it is my way of forcing myself to follow through with what I have set my eyes on. With more people expecting you to fail (lol) - the more determined you will be to prove them all wrong!

 

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[JamesS88]

Jason - I agree. I'd rather fail miserably than regret not trying and seeing it through. At the very least, it's worth the knowledge gained. I'm going the same route, drop shipping to start, I just received my LLC info in the mail a few days ago. Wasn't much to it other than the ridiculous wait time, although you can expedite it for more money.

Eskil - That's a very good point and a much brighter way to look at my situation. Thank you. I know you will do well, you already have 100x the knowledge that a lot of us have, and in the areas that count most for fastlaners. Great PPC thread btw and I will be studying it much more closely when I approach that step in the near future.

 

[JasonR]

James - I started this thread for several reasons. One...to keep me accountable. If no knows about my project, no one holds me accountable. Two - to journal my progress and to write my thoughts down. And three - to help others out.

Not that I need others to keep me accountable, but it helps.

Magento doesn't have a native blog feature built in. I'm going to use this FREE Blog Extension: AheadWorks Magento Blog Extension. Already downloaded, will configure it and install it asap. My only concern is if it will work with the theme I've installed.

I'm also going to pick up this extension relatively soon: Shop By Brands Magento Extension.

The one thing you need to be careful with Magento is the compatibility of extensions. Using too many (or a badly coded extension) can cause major compatibility issues with other extensions and the entire store itself. I'll be using as few extensions as possible, and always installing one at a time. When it's time to develop the site into something better (IE after I'm up and selling and have positive cash flow), then it's time to start customizing the website/Magento.

I'm also debating shortening the URL by using initials for the brand name. Hard to explain without giving the brand name - more on this later. I'm going to pick up the extra domain name anyways.

So - next week - get necessary business permits from the city, tax ID number, etc. Then get price lists / catalogs from drop shippers. Start adding product, researching which products to add first.
-Diving in and learning more about this niche to become an expert.
-Writing articles in the niche to attract Organic traffic. Lots and lots to write (buying guides, how to guides, etc).

My elance guy is working on the logo. Probably won't knock it out of the park, but will get me a decent logo to start with for $50.

 

[JamesS88]

I got my logo on fiverr lol. She made two versions. She wanted my input for the first one as far as what I wanted it to be like. It turned out ok but not great. On the second one, I told her I trust her judgement and she could have full artistic freedom. She killed it that time. It's amazing what people on there will do for five bucks.

 

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[JasonR]

Good idea. I might try that just for another option....

 

[JasonR]

Opened up Business Checking and Saving Account
Installed and Configured AheadWorks Blog extension
Logo still a WIP
Contacted GlobalWealth about an out-of-state LLC (because filing a LLC in California is expensive)

Thinking about how to start this on a shoe string budget - shit! I don't know how I'm going to do this. I'll definitely need money for marketing (buying links, directories, etc.). Onward I press...

Next steps:
Continue to become familiar with Magento (using this: The Magento User Guide) and playing with the software itself
Robots.txt optimized for Magento and entire website (layered navigation concerns)
Continuing to learn about the niche I'm in.
Contacting dropshippers once business license / LLC is in place
Start building out Categories, writing description, etc.
Start writing content (learning center pages, blog pages, company info, etc.)

Lots, and lots, and lots to do.

 

[JasonR]

If anyone is wondering what niche I'm in, you'll probably be shocked at how simple the niche is. I'm not doing anything special here, except for believing I can do better than what's out there right now. The websites in this niche are poorly developed, laid out, have poor rankings, and the owners just don't seem to understand SEO or the online world very well. I believe I can do much better.

Unfortunately, it's a bit more complicated than others - but - barriers to entry are a good thing.

Printed the user guide - lots of reading to do!

 

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[JamesS88]

Daaaamn that's thick. You're gonna start having Magento dreams when you sleep. Who did you choose for banking? I'm still undecided.

 

[GuestUser8117]

Hey I was thinking about selling wine via ecommerce. Then the big question struck me. Is it fastlane? Hmmm, I don't know, what do you guys think. My scale would be mainly in Canada and America. Even if it's not fastlane( let's say fastlane would be 1 million profit in sales for 3 years) maybe this could be a lucrative business.

 

[JasonR]

Daaaamn that's thick. You're gonna start having Magento dreams when you sleep. Who did you choose for banking? I'm still undecided.

I actually forgot some pages. It will no longer fit into a binder clip. LOL

I went with Wells Fargo - simply because I already have my personal accounts with them.

 

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[JasonR]

Screen shot of the design / theme (identifying marks blurred out at this point - so far...very little lol)

 

[JasonR]

Magento's layered Nav is going to cause some problems with SEO (duplicate content). Luckily, Magento now has Canonical tags built in - however, I'll have to do more research on this later. I' deferring this task to later - getting up, running, and selling is a priority.

 

[JasonR]

Submitted my app for my reseller's permit, and have a call and email in to the city regarding a home occupation permit and a business permit. Have my two suppliers ready for when I get this information.

Started building out the store - ran into some more Magento issues (as expected).
Category URLs - The category URLs include subcategories nested inside them, no way to turn this off. It's not ideal, but it should have little to no impact on SEO

Duplicate Subcategories - this will cause duplicate content. Short term solution (IE no programming solution) is to 301 redirect duplicate sub-categories to the original category with Magento's built in URL rewrite feature.

Inability to directly edit h1 tags on Product Categories - This is a pretty major issue IMO. For example, I want "Widgets" in my top navigation, but I want to display "Awesome Widgets" in my h1 tag (SEO purposes). Andrew, from ecommercefuel.com, got back to me with a way to do this (some code editing required). Hopefully, I'll have this fixed over the weekend.

After I do all this, it's time start loading product, getting a merchant account, and open the store. I'm going to launch with 100-200 products (this is a big niche) to begin with. I'll make sure everything SEO wise is in place, and keep a close eye on Webmaster Tools for issues. At this point I'll start writing content (user guides, etc.)

After that, it's 100% marketing, marketing, marketing (building links, blog posts, etc.).

 

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[ecommercefuel]

I linked to a great e-book in another thread, but here it is again:
link removed[/url] <-- Right Click > Save As

Hey Jason! Andrew, original author of the eCommerceFuel eBook here. Really appreciate you sharing my eBook, but can you please take down the hard-link to the PDF? I spent a TON of time writing the eBook as a quality incentive for people to join my blog / community, and while it's free I do ask for an email address for the download.

If you could please remove the hard-link and instead share the eBook landing page link (below), that'd be appreciated.

How to Create an Online Store That's Successful | eCommerceFuel

Thanks,

Andrew

 

[SeekingValue]

Hey I was thinking about selling wine via ecommerce. Then the big question struck me. Is it fastlane? Hmmm, I don't know, what do you guys think. My scale would be mainly in Canada and America. Even if it's not fastlane( let's say fastlane would be 1 million profit in sales for 3 years) maybe this could be a lucrative business.

Selling wine online can definitely be fastlane man! Take a look at wine library TV which brings 50M+ to Garyvee! For anyone who need some motivation, Gary is a GREAT speaker, go check this Web 2.0 Expo NY: Gary Vaynerchuk (Wine Library), Building Personal Brand Within the Social Media Landscape - YouTube and get motivated! Gary is a love it/hate it kind of personnality but def. one of the best speaker I've seen!

And fyi you won't be able to sell wine in Canada from US, it is pretty much controlled by the government and if you're not a canadian winery, restaurant, bar, etc. it is illegal.

 

[JasonR]

Hey Jason! Andrew, original author of the eCommerceFuel eBook here. Really appreciate you sharing my eBook, but can you please take down the hard-link to the PDF? I spent a TON of time writing the eBook as a quality incentive for people to join my blog / community, and while it's free I do ask for an email address for the download.

If you could please remove the hard-link and instead share the eBook landing page link (below), that'd be appreciated.

How to Create an Online Store That's Successful | eCommerceFuel

Thanks,

Andrew

Done! Thanks Andrew.

 

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[JasonR]

An update.

I'm moving into a 5 bedroom house to lower my cost of living. Currently, I rent an apartment for $800 a month. The new place will cost me under $600 a month, and I'll have less of a deposit. Plus - the space is bigger, close by, and I think I'll like living there more. Anyways.

Magento is a beast! I'm getting more and more familiar with the software, and it's exciting! However, sometimes changing a simple thing can be a huge task - especially for someone who only knows HTML/CSS. For example, the "Returns and Exchanges" link (or whatever it was called) was hard coded into the footer of Magento. It took me HOURs to get rid of it. Not to mention, I'm on the most current version of Magento - things written for earlier versions don't always work with Magento.

However, the flip side of this is that I'm learning how the software actually works. For example, I can overwrite many of the core Magento files without touching them by using my theme's folder instead (hard to explain). Like today, I wanted to get rid of my H1 tag around the logo on the home page - took me about 5 minutes to do it.

And here's another lesson learned. I spent an entire day on trying to figure out how I could have my Top Navigation links DIFFERENT than my Category Headings (h1s). For example, I wanted my top nav to say Widgets, but needed the Category heading to say "Awesome Widgets" (for SEO purposes). I spent all day trying to figure it out, googling, trying different things - nothing worked. Messed up my store and had to restore from a back up. Always keep a back up of modified files and your entire site, FYI. The only reason I am not doing this on a dev server is because my site is not "live" yet. You can visit it, but I have it blocked from Google, no traffic, etc. Anyways, I despite my best efforts, I couldn't figure the Top Nav/Category headings on my own. So I bid the job out on elance. Average bid - $35. Yup - lesson learned - don't waste too much time if you can get someone else to do it fairly cheap.

Anyways - moving on. I've been doing more keyword research for my categories, and figuring out which keywords to target on specific pages. I've got to set up Quickbooks 2009 today (2009 - yeah, lol). I'm also waiting to hear back from the city on business license requirements (slow process, meh). Then I can contact my two suppliers, get price lists, product lists, etc. and start loading product. I'd like to launch with at least 50-100 products.

As far as the product import goes - I'm hoping to be able to do this with excel. More on this later.

 

[PatrickP]

CONGRATS on moving forward! Keep at it man.

Side question. Do you live in the USA? If so what area of the country can you get a 5 bedroom house for $600/mo? Sounds great.

 

[JasonR]

Thanks Patrick.

Sorry - I should clarify. I'm moving into one bedroom of a five bedroom house for $600/month. Not the whole house. I'm in Northern California at the moment.

I can't wait for the day I can own my own damn 5 bedroom house, and not treat it as a cash flowing asset (because it's not).

 

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[comment]

An update.

I'm moving into a 5 bedroom house to lower my cost of living. Currently, I rent an apartment for $800 a month. The new place will cost me under $600 a month, and I'll have less of a deposit. Plus - the space is bigger, close by, and I think I'll like living there more. Anyways.

Magento is a beast! I'm getting more and more familiar with the software, and it's exciting! However, sometimes changing a simple thing can be a huge task - especially for someone who only knows HTML/CSS. For example, the "Returns and Exchanges" link (or whatever it was called) was hard coded into the footer of Magento. It took me HOURs to get rid of it. Not to mention, I'm on the most current version of Magento - things written for earlier versions don't always work with Magento.

However, the flip side of this is that I'm learning how the software actually works. For example, I can overwrite many of the core Magento files without touching them by using my theme's folder instead (hard to explain). Like today, I wanted to get rid of my H1 tag around the logo on the home page - took me about 5 minutes to do it.

And here's another lesson learned. I spent an entire day on trying to figure out how I could have my Top Navigation links DIFFERENT than my Category Headings (h1s). For example, I wanted my top nav to say Widgets, but needed the Category heading to say "Awesome Widgets" (for SEO purposes). I spent all day trying to figure it out, googling, trying different things - nothing worked. Messed up my store and had to restore from a back up. Always keep a back up of modified files and your entire site, FYI. The only reason I am not doing this on a dev server is because my site is not "live" yet. You can visit it, but I have it blocked from Google, no traffic, etc. Anyways, I despite my best efforts, I couldn't figure the Top Nav/Category headings on my own. So I bid the job out on elance. Average bid - $35. Yup - lesson learned - don't waste too much time if you can get someone else to do it fairly cheap.

Anyways - moving on. I've been doing more keyword research for my categories, and figuring out which keywords to target on specific pages. I've got to set up Quickbooks 2009 today (2009 - yeah, lol). I'm also waiting to hear back from the city on business license requirements (slow process, meh). Then I can contact my two suppliers, get price lists, product lists, etc. and start loading product. I'd like to launch with at least 50-100 products.

As far as the product import goes - I'm hoping to be able to do this with excel. More on this later.

Be really careful with this whole thing. I was doing exactly what you are doing now, just different software. It was extremely difficult to learn how to use, and some days I spent upwards of 4 or 5 hours just to change the color of a link or figure out how to move/add/remove something. Every time I succeeded, it felt great, but before the website was finished I got totally burned out on it. It took me a month to get maybe 85% of the way through, and then I just stopped for a few weeks. I got so sick of opening up dreamweaver and scrolling through thousands of files and folders just so I could move a link 3 pixels to the left. I finished it eventually, but if I could do it over, I would have put all that time into simpler software and made it REALLY nice with add-ons or my own code, or whatever else. The huge upside is once you've learned magento, you have that knowledge and it will always be easier the second time around. Just dont get burned out.

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!

[video=youtube;KJyUydc1NtA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJyUydc1NtA[/video]

 

[JasonR]

Thanks for the input.

Magento, for me, was the right choice. I'm familiar with X-Cart, and that is also a fairly complicated piece of software. With BigCommerce, Volusion, etc. I didn't like the lack of control of software changes, platform changes, etc. I also knew of the steep learning with Magento, so I was prepared for it. If it was easy, everyone would do it.

It was easy for to get a theme up and running, but some of the SEO tweaks have been more difficult. Things like, what do you do about the layered NAV SEO issues, home page h1 tags, the Category headings, etc. These weren't things that were needed to get a store up and off the ground, but were big enough issues to get the fixed asap.

I've seen that video. Thanks again!

 

[susanyang]

Jason: why do you choose LLC instead of sole proprietorship? Any chance you will reveal your niche real soon?

 

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[PatrickP]

Thanks Patrick.

Sorry - I should clarify. I'm moving into one bedroom of a five bedroom house for $600/month. Not the whole house. I'm in Northern California at the moment.

I can't wait for the day I can own my own damn 5 bedroom house, and not treat it as a cash flowing asset (because it's not).

No worries. You will get there.

At the age of 35 I was renting a room by the month just like you. I brought everything I owned with me which was one bag of clothes. No bed, no dresser nothing. Funny thing I can't remember thinking I was poor or even feeling bad for myself. Not sure if that is because I had a positive attitude, I just never cared about possesions or if I now have a short memory lol

 

[andviv]

I brought everything I owned with me which was one bag of clothes. No bed, no dresser nothing. Funny thing I can't remember thinking I was poor or even feeling bad for myself.

Same feeling here.

One bag with clothes.

A sleeping bag.

Sharing the trailer with another guy. I even shared my bedroom with somebody else for 9 weeks. Two sleeping bags, one next to the other.

I even now remain nostalgic about that... it was a great time.

 

[JasonR]

Susanyang:

I am running it as a Sole Prop for now - can't afford the LLC expenses to start (about $1300 to file an LLC). Will file an LLC as soon as funds permit. I will reveal my niche once I have a few sales under my belt. However, I may choose to do so only on the INSIDERS forum (for the sake of anonymity in a public forum).

Patrick/Andviv: Thanks for your stories! I don't feel bad for myself, I actually don't have it bad at all. Just working full time plus working on a business leaves me with about 30 minutes a week for everything else, lol. It is what it is, I've accepted it.

 

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[JAJT]

Just got through the thread - great stuff. Keep at it!

 

[PatrickP]

Susanyang:

I am running it as a Sole Prop for now - can't afford the LLC expenses to start (about $1300 to file an LLC). Will file an LLC as soon as funds permit. I will reveal my niche once I have a few sales under my belt. However, I may choose to do so only on the INSIDERS forum (for the sake of anonymity in a public forum).

Patrick/Andviv: Thanks for your stories! I don't feel bad for myself, I actually don't have it bad at all. Just working full time plus working on a business leaves me with about 30 minutes a week for everything else, lol. It is what it is, I've accepted it.

In FL it costs just $125 for LLC. If you need certified copies it is $25 - $50 more.