Validating first E-commerce idea

[7.62x51]

First a bit of background:
My life absolutely sucks right now, I'm 27 and work a manual labor job in a warehouse. This was the best thing I could find after a few months of job searching. I thought about continuing to apply to other jobs but I would rather work on a long term solution. This job is hell but it also motivates me like hell to find a better way. I want to stay motivated and keep my hope alive that I can break through this.

Making this thread for the sake of accountability, to get my ideas written out into concrete steps and of course feedback from others who have been down a similar path. My plan is to launch an E-commerce store which will sell accessories-type items for a certain niche. I picked this niche because it's a personal interest and I understand what it's like on the customer side. First step will be to validate whether or not I can make this profitable.

Week - 1:
- Make a list of about 20 items from places like alibaba
- Construct a wordpress e-commerce site and put in those selected items, add a "buy now" button
- Use google adwords to generate traffic to the site
At this point the user will not actually be able to buy but they will think that they can. My purpose here is to gauge their interest in the products. If the results are good then I will figure out how I can actually get those products, if not, I will switch to a different set of products and try again.

That's the rough idea, now we'll see how it goes.

 

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[Brian C.]

Interested to see how this goes @7.62x51 I think it's a good idea to gauge customer interest rather than jumping right in under assumptions.

I am familiar with e-commerce, but am far from an expert as far as I am concerned. I do have a couple of questions regarding your process.

1. Will you be paying for a specific domain? Will there be any other costs in regards to the design?
2. How will you be using Adwords? It is my understanding you have to pay for this service, which could get costly if your customers are not on board.

Excited to see how this works out. Really hope you go through with this.

 

[Paul Thomas]

First a bit of background:
My life absolutely sucks right now, I'm 27 and work a manual labor job in a warehouse. This was the best thing I could find after a few months of job searching. I thought about continuing to apply to other jobs but I would rather work on a long term solution. This job is hell but it also motivates me like hell to find a better way. I want to stay motivated and keep my hope alive that I can break through this.

Making this thread for the sake of accountability, to get my ideas written out into concrete steps and of course feedback from others who have been down a similar path. My plan is to launch an E-commerce store which will sell accessories-type items for a certain niche. I picked this niche because it's a personal interest and I understand what it's like on the customer side. First step will be to validate whether or not I can make this profitable.

Week - 1:
- Make a list of about 20 items from places like alibaba
- Construct a wordpress e-commerce site and put in those selected items, add a "buy now" button
- Use google adwords to generate traffic to the site
At this point the user will not actually be able to buy but they will think that they can. My purpose here is to gauge their interest in the products. If the results are good then I will figure out how I can actually get those products, if not, I will switch to a different set of products and try again.

That's the rough idea, now we'll see how it goes.

I'm not an expert myself, but have you thought about going straight to Amazon with a product idea or two and seeing what "sticks"? No need to purchase massive quantities. Tons of volume is driven to Amazon daily for the sole purpose of purchasing/browsing products.

 

[7.62x51]

Update:

After doing some research I've concluded that this niche is actually pretty competitive.
- Retail stores that sell products in this category are working on thin margins (came to this conclusion by comparing the Alibaba price with retail price).
- Even in the local classifieds there are people trying to sell similar items.

I also don't have much capital to invest in this so that further limits my options. I've decided to move on to a new idea.

New Idea: a SaaS site for the same niche
There is one problem I've personally had for a while and it's something that I know others have had as well (see forum posts on it all the time) but almost no one has ever tried to solve it.
A solution to this problem would save people a significant amount of time/money. So far there is only one company I've seen which has tried to solve this and it's a feature inside an app. However, they're limited to one province.
If I build a solution as a web app and make it work for all provinces, I know there will be interest in it but to what degree? I could just dive in now and get to it but I'm going to launch a quickmvp campaign first to get some real validation.

 

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[7.62x51]

Idea validated! Quickmvp campaign was going too slow so I made a forum thread on a major site related to this niche and literally asked everyone if this is something they would be interested. It quickly turned into a 4 page thread with all positive replies. People really do want this to be built.

Also checked back on the quickmvp campaign got 4 emails from 6 clicks which seems pretty good to me.

As far as validation goes, I've done my homework and now have some data to support the hypothesis.

Now moving towards execution. I'm going to put speed as the highest priority. In practical terms that means:
- wordpress + plugins instead of trying to learn ruby and build from scratch
- stick with current hosting provider instead of switching to new potentially better provider

My goal is to quickly scrap something together and put it out there. I have some validation but I've also released the idea into the wild, if I don't build it, someone else will (serious).

The other reason to be quick on the technical side is that it's only half the battle. The other half and probably the reason no one else has done this yet is the vast amount of data that will need to be collected and processed into a usable form. At most that would take a few weeks which is not much of a deterrent to me.

 

[SEBASTlAN]

Idea validated! Quickmvp campaign was going too slow so I made a forum thread on a major site related to this niche and literally asked everyone if this is something they would be interested. It quickly turned into a 4 page thread with all positive replies. People really do want this to be built.

Also checked back on the quickmvp campaign got 4 emails from 6 clicks which seems pretty good to me.

As far as validation goes, I've done my homework and now have some data to support the hypothesis.

Now moving towards execution. I'm going to put speed as the highest priority. In practical terms that means:
- wordpress + plugins instead of trying to learn ruby and build from scratch
- stick with current hosting provider instead of switching to new potentially better provider

My goal is to quickly scrap something together and put it out there. I have some validation but I've also released the idea into the wild, if I don't build it, someone else will (serious).

The other reason to be quick on the technical side is that it's only half the battle. The other half and probably the reason no one else has done this yet is the vast amount of data that will need to be collected and processed into a usable form. At most that would take a few weeks which is not much of a deterrent to me.

Great job man.

I always thought QuickMVP would be limiting because the landing page concept doesn't help you understand why some visitors leave without pressing that buy button - as opposed to real feedback from potential users in a forum.

I had a SaaS idea for real estate software, the way I validated it was by posting in a real estate forum with a demo prototype (made from 2 wireframes I made in Mockflow then patched together with Slideshare). Ultimately it turned out to be something that users didn't want/need.

Keep us posted on the progress!

 

[7.62x51]

Trying to figure out how to create an online map that will contain information which can be surprisingly difficult to find. This map is the solution the site will provide.

The map will cover all of Canada. Every province has their own way of providing this information, in some provinces it's harder to find than others.

Currently trying to get help from users on Upwork and posted some ads in the local classifieds.

In theory, this should be possible, the information is definitely out there, but finding it and then getting it into a digital forum, that's the challenge/opportunity.

 

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