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I was once where all you guys were. The beauty of having a blog (I no longer update it) is that I have a recorded history of thoughts and events. I was looking for a particular post today and came across my old posts from back in 2007.
These are the first posts after my store was set up. It's incredible the amount of learning day by day that occurred. As this was back before MJ's book was written, I can clearly see myself thinking about these things as the snags are uncovered. When I read through these posts, I realize how fast my business evolved. In my head, these changes that I made happened over the course of years, not within 3 months!
My first e-commerce site is live October 19th, 2007
I flipped the switch about an hour ago on my first e-commerce site. It’s live and can take orders now. I built the site using OS Commerce and a free template that I got from Template Monster. My backend is processed by Paypal, Google Checkout and Authorized.net. The site was done a few days ago, but I spent a few days troubleshooting and doing test runs. While the site isn’t exactly what I’d like it to be. I decided to let it go live and begin working on the 2.0 version of it.
I may have to hire someone to modify its layout as I’m at the limit of my technical abilities.
The easy part is done. The next step now is to drive traffic to it without spending too much money! Here’s where I put everything I’ve learned about SEO from running this blog to the test.
I’m not going to post the URL but I’ll mention that the site is a retail site that sells specialty clothing and gear for the outdoors. I’ll go into why I choose this type of market next week.
My Comment: I got many comments on my blog asking for the URL. Back then, there was no Bigcommerce or Shopify, so I took an open source free program and a free template and did it myself. Notice I launched before it was perfect.
Ecommerce site update – after 7 days October 27th, 2007
It’s been a week since my site went live. My current goal is to drive traffic to the site and improve its search engine rankings as quickly as possible. My goal of this site is to get one sale a day with an average checkout total of $180. If I can achieve this goal the site would net about $15,000 to $18,000 per year. I hope to attain this goal within 6 months.
My Comment: My goal seemed tough at the time!!
Got my first ecommerce website order!! November 1st, 2007
My first website order came in yesterday evening. I was so excited when I got the order. It’s the same feeling as when I got my 1st rent check. It’s the affirmation that things are going according to plan. The order was for $142.00.
Of course then Murphy’s Law struck. When I logged onto my account to fill this order I couldn’t find this product on my dropshipper’s site. I searched and searched and realized that sometime in the past week they must have dropped it from there inventory. That totally sucks! I checked all my other products just in case and it’s the only one that’s gone!
Now I have to go directly to the manufacturer to see if they will sell direct to me. I was eventually going to go this route anyway, but I wanted to get the site up and running with one supplier first. Since it’s 12:00am, I can’t call them now, but I’ll call them first thing in the morning. I guess I’m going to be setting up multiple distributors earlier than I thought.
Let’s hope I can fill this order and don’t need to cancel it.
Short update today November 2nd, 2007
Sorry for the late update, I forgot to blog again. I spent yesterday working out making kinks in my little ebiz. The small things that you don’t think about until an order happens.
For instance, my 1st order was authorized on credit card but it hadn’t settled yet. So, do I order my product now or wait until it settles? Once it settles when do I get the money? How does my packing slip look going to the customer?
Well I got all those questions answered today.
I got a copy of the packing slip and didn’t like what was on it. It had all my LLC information, not my DBA information. So I had to call the dropship company and change that for my orders. In addition, it has the dropshipper’s website at the bottom of the page. That’s no good.
My first order settled last night and this morning I found a transfer going into my bank account. So I guess I get the money about 1 day later. It’s also going to the wrong bank account, I’m on hold right now to see what the problem is.
I also got my second order last night!
My Comment: Notice I didn't worry about things until they occurred. I dealt with issues as they popped up.
Chugging along – The Little Ebiz Train That Could November 28th, 2007
The Ebiz had a record day in sales today. It must be the Christmas season kicking in. I had 5 orders today totalling $667.00. I decided to take a look at the numbers and see how this business has done over its first 40 days.
Remember I got a $200 bonus for opening a business checking account. So maybe I could say that I’m actually up $163.00 for the month. But I think it’s more proper to not include it.
So without it, I am so close to turning a profit this month. Well, there’s 3 days left in November. I expect to be in the black in December since I won’t have the startup costs to contend with.
I’ve bumped up the online advertising in the past week to $20/day. So far, it’s been paying for itself easily, but I may tone that down as it is alot to spend in a month. I’m getting better at this online advertising. In hindsight I wasted some money on ads that didn’t work. I’m getting a good click through percentage now. However, my conversion rate isn’t that great yet. I’m getting 100+ visitors a day, so I think I should be getting 1-2 orders a day, but I’m not.
I’m also working on getting the product costs down by signing up with a few different suppliers. I can probably shave another 10% off the costs. In addition, I’m thinking about stocking a few items. Some items are very popular and if I order them in bulk and ship them out myself I’ll increase my margins.
Also, I’m increasing the prices of some of my products a few bucks because their margins are too low. My lowest margin orders have been $12-$13 and I bumped up my product price a few bucks and the orders are still coming in.
I’m not getting too excited because it could be the Christmas rush. The true test will be what happens in January 2008.
My Comment: Now that I'm getting orders, I try to maximize profit by lowering product costs or shipping it out myself. I'm suprised that I was thinking of this within a month of opening. I'm also learning PPC as I go.
Sometimes not knowing is good November 30th, 2007
I’m writing this post as a response to reader’s comments about my e-business. I am totally grateful for the comments and insights on retail businesses. My knowledge a month ago was zero. I just know that I’m good at math. If I can sell a product for more than I pay, that’s good. I knew nothing about dropshipping pitfalls, chargebacks, fraudulent charges, etc… I didn’t know what “keystone” meant on the comment by UBU50. I had to look it up!
I read and try to understand each and every comment. However, I do understand that if I wait and wait until I find a product or idea that fits in the text book criteria, I would be waiting forever. I know that my margins can be bigger, but if I never started due to that fact, I would be where I am today.
Sometimes it’s better to not know what you’re getting into. Because if you know all the pitfalls and potential problems, you may scare yourself from jumping in. There are countless real estate investors that became investors when left with an empty home. I’m sure many would say to themselves if they knew how much trouble renting a home was, they would have never done it.
Here’s an example of what happened yesterday. I got 4 identical orders for a product that is on backorder from my dropshipper. I needed to fill them ASAP so I started looking at competitors sites to see if anyone had them in stock. I found one on Ebay for a great price! I called the guy and asked if he had more. He told me he was the main supplier but he was waiting for them to come in from his manufacturer. Great, I found the top of the food chain, or so I thought. A few calls later and I was talking to the guy who actually makes the product. Now you can’t get better inventory information than that. He told me he was making these as fast as he can and that the next shipment was going out next week. However, he also has an exclusive agreement to sell to the guy on Ebay so I would have to buy from him.
So the Ebay guy is the top of the supply chain for this product. I know that if he doesn’t have inventory, nobody does. On top of all that, he dropships and his price is $20 cheaper than my dropshipper!
The reason I’m writing this is that I was warned that I shouldn’t rely on one dropshipper. I totally understand that reasoning. However, I felt that having one was enough to start with. I learn as I go. I would have never found this Ebay guy if I wasn’t searching everywhere for this one product. Who knows, another shortage may lead me to another supplier. My point is that sometimes you have to just do it. Start with the minimum and expand and grow.
My Comment: More learning as you go. I also didn't realize that I found this main supplier within a month of opening. I thought it was a year after!
These are the first posts after my store was set up. It's incredible the amount of learning day by day that occurred. As this was back before MJ's book was written, I can clearly see myself thinking about these things as the snags are uncovered. When I read through these posts, I realize how fast my business evolved. In my head, these changes that I made happened over the course of years, not within 3 months!
My first e-commerce site is live October 19th, 2007
I flipped the switch about an hour ago on my first e-commerce site. It’s live and can take orders now. I built the site using OS Commerce and a free template that I got from Template Monster. My backend is processed by Paypal, Google Checkout and Authorized.net. The site was done a few days ago, but I spent a few days troubleshooting and doing test runs. While the site isn’t exactly what I’d like it to be. I decided to let it go live and begin working on the 2.0 version of it.
I may have to hire someone to modify its layout as I’m at the limit of my technical abilities.
The easy part is done. The next step now is to drive traffic to it without spending too much money! Here’s where I put everything I’ve learned about SEO from running this blog to the test.
I’m not going to post the URL but I’ll mention that the site is a retail site that sells specialty clothing and gear for the outdoors. I’ll go into why I choose this type of market next week.
My Comment: I got many comments on my blog asking for the URL. Back then, there was no Bigcommerce or Shopify, so I took an open source free program and a free template and did it myself. Notice I launched before it was perfect.
Ecommerce site update – after 7 days October 27th, 2007
It’s been a week since my site went live. My current goal is to drive traffic to the site and improve its search engine rankings as quickly as possible. My goal of this site is to get one sale a day with an average checkout total of $180. If I can achieve this goal the site would net about $15,000 to $18,000 per year. I hope to attain this goal within 6 months.
My Comment: My goal seemed tough at the time!!
Got my first ecommerce website order!! November 1st, 2007
My first website order came in yesterday evening. I was so excited when I got the order. It’s the same feeling as when I got my 1st rent check. It’s the affirmation that things are going according to plan. The order was for $142.00.
Of course then Murphy’s Law struck. When I logged onto my account to fill this order I couldn’t find this product on my dropshipper’s site. I searched and searched and realized that sometime in the past week they must have dropped it from there inventory. That totally sucks! I checked all my other products just in case and it’s the only one that’s gone!
Now I have to go directly to the manufacturer to see if they will sell direct to me. I was eventually going to go this route anyway, but I wanted to get the site up and running with one supplier first. Since it’s 12:00am, I can’t call them now, but I’ll call them first thing in the morning. I guess I’m going to be setting up multiple distributors earlier than I thought.
Let’s hope I can fill this order and don’t need to cancel it.
Short update today November 2nd, 2007
Sorry for the late update, I forgot to blog again. I spent yesterday working out making kinks in my little ebiz. The small things that you don’t think about until an order happens.
For instance, my 1st order was authorized on credit card but it hadn’t settled yet. So, do I order my product now or wait until it settles? Once it settles when do I get the money? How does my packing slip look going to the customer?
Well I got all those questions answered today.
I got a copy of the packing slip and didn’t like what was on it. It had all my LLC information, not my DBA information. So I had to call the dropship company and change that for my orders. In addition, it has the dropshipper’s website at the bottom of the page. That’s no good.
My first order settled last night and this morning I found a transfer going into my bank account. So I guess I get the money about 1 day later. It’s also going to the wrong bank account, I’m on hold right now to see what the problem is.
I also got my second order last night!
My Comment: Notice I didn't worry about things until they occurred. I dealt with issues as they popped up.
Chugging along – The Little Ebiz Train That Could November 28th, 2007
The Ebiz had a record day in sales today. It must be the Christmas season kicking in. I had 5 orders today totalling $667.00. I decided to take a look at the numbers and see how this business has done over its first 40 days.
- Gross Sales -$2,500.00
- Product Costs – ($1920.00)
- Advertising – ($312.00)
- Startup Costs – ($200.00)
- Monthly Fees – ($105.00)
Remember I got a $200 bonus for opening a business checking account. So maybe I could say that I’m actually up $163.00 for the month. But I think it’s more proper to not include it.
So without it, I am so close to turning a profit this month. Well, there’s 3 days left in November. I expect to be in the black in December since I won’t have the startup costs to contend with.
I’ve bumped up the online advertising in the past week to $20/day. So far, it’s been paying for itself easily, but I may tone that down as it is alot to spend in a month. I’m getting better at this online advertising. In hindsight I wasted some money on ads that didn’t work. I’m getting a good click through percentage now. However, my conversion rate isn’t that great yet. I’m getting 100+ visitors a day, so I think I should be getting 1-2 orders a day, but I’m not.
I’m also working on getting the product costs down by signing up with a few different suppliers. I can probably shave another 10% off the costs. In addition, I’m thinking about stocking a few items. Some items are very popular and if I order them in bulk and ship them out myself I’ll increase my margins.
Also, I’m increasing the prices of some of my products a few bucks because their margins are too low. My lowest margin orders have been $12-$13 and I bumped up my product price a few bucks and the orders are still coming in.
I’m not getting too excited because it could be the Christmas rush. The true test will be what happens in January 2008.
My Comment: Now that I'm getting orders, I try to maximize profit by lowering product costs or shipping it out myself. I'm suprised that I was thinking of this within a month of opening. I'm also learning PPC as I go.
Sometimes not knowing is good November 30th, 2007
I’m writing this post as a response to reader’s comments about my e-business. I am totally grateful for the comments and insights on retail businesses. My knowledge a month ago was zero. I just know that I’m good at math. If I can sell a product for more than I pay, that’s good. I knew nothing about dropshipping pitfalls, chargebacks, fraudulent charges, etc… I didn’t know what “keystone” meant on the comment by UBU50. I had to look it up!
I read and try to understand each and every comment. However, I do understand that if I wait and wait until I find a product or idea that fits in the text book criteria, I would be waiting forever. I know that my margins can be bigger, but if I never started due to that fact, I would be where I am today.
Sometimes it’s better to not know what you’re getting into. Because if you know all the pitfalls and potential problems, you may scare yourself from jumping in. There are countless real estate investors that became investors when left with an empty home. I’m sure many would say to themselves if they knew how much trouble renting a home was, they would have never done it.
Here’s an example of what happened yesterday. I got 4 identical orders for a product that is on backorder from my dropshipper. I needed to fill them ASAP so I started looking at competitors sites to see if anyone had them in stock. I found one on Ebay for a great price! I called the guy and asked if he had more. He told me he was the main supplier but he was waiting for them to come in from his manufacturer. Great, I found the top of the food chain, or so I thought. A few calls later and I was talking to the guy who actually makes the product. Now you can’t get better inventory information than that. He told me he was making these as fast as he can and that the next shipment was going out next week. However, he also has an exclusive agreement to sell to the guy on Ebay so I would have to buy from him.
So the Ebay guy is the top of the supply chain for this product. I know that if he doesn’t have inventory, nobody does. On top of all that, he dropships and his price is $20 cheaper than my dropshipper!
The reason I’m writing this is that I was warned that I shouldn’t rely on one dropshipper. I totally understand that reasoning. However, I felt that having one was enough to start with. I learn as I go. I would have never found this Ebay guy if I wasn’t searching everywhere for this one product. Who knows, another shortage may lead me to another supplier. My point is that sometimes you have to just do it. Start with the minimum and expand and grow.
My Comment: More learning as you go. I also didn't realize that I found this main supplier within a month of opening. I thought it was a year after!
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