Looking for Advice
10-15-2012, 04:41 PM
#14
Super Member
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: Piedmont Virginia in the Foothills of the Blue Ridge Mtns.
Posts: 8,562
Beyond the website.....which I am going to assume she has thought about a lot.....I urge her to quickly get in contact with http://www.fabshopnet.com/ which is a trade association for fabric shop owners. (More than what most of us know as FabShopHop) Laurie Harsh is a wonder; she began this business in the late 1990s and has saved, encouraged, taught, trained, and demanded the best from many owners who are still going strong. It may be the best, fastest help your daughter can get.
Good luck to her! There's nothing like following your passion and having it come to profitable fruition!
Jan in VA
Good luck to her! There's nothing like following your passion and having it come to profitable fruition!
Jan in VA
10-15-2012, 06:29 PM
#16
Super Member
Join Date: May 2009
Location: Orchard Park, NY (near Buffalo, which is near Niagara Falls)
Posts: 3,884
Speaking from experience... setting up a *serious* store online is way harder, and much more expensive, than one might think.
If she doesn't have a lot of time on her hands, she might want to think twice about it. Beyond the initial time spent setting things up, you have to continually maintain it. When I first began selling online, I was very dismayed to find that I was spending at least 5 hours a week just answering e-mails, most of which did NOT result in any sales.
Has she thought it all through, and "crunched the numbers"? If she sets up her own website, there is an ongoing cost to host the site, plus she will have to buy an e-commerce solution (shopping cart) and if she is not tech-savvy she will have to pay someone to set it up for her. Does she realize that she will lose 3.5% - 4% off the top of all sales, to credit card or PayPal fees? Has she figured out what it will cost her to ship her goods? Does she realize that if a package gets lost enroute, she will have to replace it at her own expense?
Does she know that even if she builds a WONDERFUL website, it's very hard to get found on the crowded web? The very nature of search has changed a lot over the past year. If you do a search at Google now (for a product), 60% of the screen space is devoted to paid ads, both at the top and the right hand side. Is she ready and willing to "pay to play", to get listed among those ads? Can she compete with the advertisers with deeper pockets? Can she get her site found at all, if she doesn't pay to play?
Etsy and E-Bay might be expensive, but some of those fees they charge go toward ads that will appear on Google and other search engines. Just some things to keep in mind...
If she doesn't have a lot of time on her hands, she might want to think twice about it. Beyond the initial time spent setting things up, you have to continually maintain it. When I first began selling online, I was very dismayed to find that I was spending at least 5 hours a week just answering e-mails, most of which did NOT result in any sales.
Has she thought it all through, and "crunched the numbers"? If she sets up her own website, there is an ongoing cost to host the site, plus she will have to buy an e-commerce solution (shopping cart) and if she is not tech-savvy she will have to pay someone to set it up for her. Does she realize that she will lose 3.5% - 4% off the top of all sales, to credit card or PayPal fees? Has she figured out what it will cost her to ship her goods? Does she realize that if a package gets lost enroute, she will have to replace it at her own expense?
Does she know that even if she builds a WONDERFUL website, it's very hard to get found on the crowded web? The very nature of search has changed a lot over the past year. If you do a search at Google now (for a product), 60% of the screen space is devoted to paid ads, both at the top and the right hand side. Is she ready and willing to "pay to play", to get listed among those ads? Can she compete with the advertisers with deeper pockets? Can she get her site found at all, if she doesn't pay to play?
Etsy and E-Bay might be expensive, but some of those fees they charge go toward ads that will appear on Google and other search engines. Just some things to keep in mind...
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