Ideas For Shops

[incka]

I want a high cost, high profit niche to sell but I can't think of any... I was thinking of tying in with the family tree making boom and offering heraldic wall shields, but of course they are custom made, so therefore I would have to make them. Idea of the window... I'm still thinking, anyone got any ideas for me. The product should be sold for atleast $75 and have aleast 25% profit....

[shim]

Good question, incka!

Will you want to drop ship or store the inventory yourself? I'm just trying to get an idea of size limitations.

[chromate]

Another thing to keep in mind is shipping costs and the strength of the pound.

1) If you're using the search engines for traffic, it's likely that most of your customers will be in the US. Shipping to the US will add expense, especially if the product is heavy or large. This may not be a problem if the buyer pays for the shipping - but if it adds to the cost considerably, they'll just buy elsewhere (if they can).

2) You're going to have to combat the crazy exchange rate of about 1.8 at the moment which will make it harder to make a decent amount of money. Of couse you can put your price up, but again, people can shop elsewhere.

I would also love to start an ecommerce store. But in todays economic climate, it almost seems impossible for someone in the UK. Unless you're targetting UK shoppers and or the product is something that's really hard to get in the US but easy to get here in the UK.

[incka]

I've got an idea, but I don't have enough to fund it, the products are an average of £400, and I would need a veriety of stock. If I go ahead with the idea there is some people here who might be interested in link exchange with the site.

[Chris]

Fur coats.

The UK is definitely going to be harder to do this in than the US. The US is huge, so sometimes things can't be found locally. The UK is geographically much smaller and so in general there are shorter distances to drive.

So if there is one suppler of widgets in the US there isn't a good chance you're close enough to drive. In the UK if there is one supplier, there is a much better chance.

Plus the overseas shipping thing sucks too.

UK only store might work, but it'll be harder than if you were in the US.

[MarkB]

Or, a UK site sourcing UK products, with free (or discounted) postage to Europe and the US.

Incka, sell UK candy and soda to ex-pats living in the US :)

[r2d2]

Originally posted by Chris
Fur coats.

I'd have thought that clothes would be quite hard to sell over the net? Or at least you would get a lot of returns I think?

[Chris]

Clothes actually do very well online. Lots of clothing companies have had success by offering through their websites.

The reason is selection. Brick and mortar stores cannot carry all sizes, websites can. Plus you can easy search through all the products a company offers.

[chromate]

Originally posted by Chris
Fur coats.

If anyone is going to do this, please make sure it's fake fur. Without wanting to kick off an animal rights campaign on here, the way they "obtain" the fur is absolutely sick in the head. I hope that no one on here would want to support the industry. Fake fur's a different matter obviously :)

I think for the people from the UK, the main thing to consider is shipping to the US is going to be a real pain. Plus almost a two dollar pound making life very hard to make any decent money. I had an idea of selling guitar / instrument strings. The shipping would be really cheap and there would hardly be any returns. However, profits would be really low on each item, so I'd have to sell at least 20 packs a day to make it worth while. Probably not very likely! However, people regularly want new strings so if I got a lot of return customers it may work out. Dunno.

[Mike]

Fur coats is a good idea. They can be sold for hundreds.

[chromate]

I would rather sell hardcore porn than sell fur coats ;) (read message above)

[incka]

Nice idea chromate ;)

I've been looking at shipping rates... You can ship from the UK to china for basically nothing... I think it's because all the ships take goods from china have nothing to make money on on there return journey...

[chromate]

Shipping from China to the UK is pretty expensive though. I made a few contacts through alibaba.com and was going to get a few samples shipped over for another idea I had (which I still might do). The products were light and not bulky, but the shipping was ridiculous. It'd work out cheaper if I was getting a bulk load though, but these were just about 7 sample items.

[incka]

Yeah, my dad has a timber business and buys EVL (Engineered Veneered Lumber) from there... He buys about 100 tonnes at once, but it still is really expensive... The weak dollar is good for him... He has bought loads of timber from US companies and is making massive profit on it... The business is new though, so has to pay for start up costs, so he will only just break even this year...

[Mike]

Originally posted by chromate
I would rather sell hardcore porn than sell fur coats ;) (read message above)

Yeah, I'm not too keen on how they cut the fur. I said it as a relative of mine inherited one, which she didn't want so decided to try and sell it off somewhere.

[chromate]

Yeah, that's the only good thing about the weak dollar - importing. I'd still rather have a strong dollar and get paid well for my ad revenue :)

[incka]

I would rather it changed from weak to strong on a month by month basis so everyone gets good money :)

[chromate]

Originally posted by Mike
Yeah, I'm not too keen on how they cut the fur. I said it as a relative of mine inherited one, which she didn't want so decided to try and sell it off somewhere.

Yeah, I have nothing against that. I mean, I do appreciate that fur coats feel absolutely great (not too keen on how they look). But to support the current industry is just ****. Many of the animals get skinned alive. It's not pretty. But I wont go in to it here :) As a meat eater, I used to think... well I effectively kill animals to eat, so what's wrong with killing them for clothing... Until my girlfriend had a go at me and made me look into it. I was kinda horrified at what goes on. Needless to say, I changed my attitude towards fur :)

[incka]

I'm a vegan, so I know what they do... All animal products are evil... If you think eggs and milk don't harm the animals your so wrong... 99% of male chickens are killed at birth, on most large farms by being put into large boxes, piled on top of eachother, then closing it without oxygen... After cows have given there milk most don't have enough for there young, and therefore they die, I don't have anything against meat eaters, thats there choice, but I do have something against all these large scale agricultural methods that are evil beyond the word.

[chromate]

I saw this thing on TV last night about how they fatten up chickens so they weigh what would be their normal weight at 18 months, at 6 months instead. They couldn't support their own weight so were dragging themselves along instead of walking and so they were getting burn marks on the skin from their urine. Nice (!)

... getting way off topic here. Back to my guitar strings idea... worth perusing or not? I would think, not? Guess it depends how cheaply I can buy them for.

[incka]

I was thinking guitars, but I don't think there is much profit on them. I was then thinking exercise equipment.

[chromate]

Exercise equipment is too heavy to ship in most cases. There is probably also health and safety stuff to think about.

I thought about doing guitars too, but they would be very expensive to purchase in the first place. £100 - £2000 a piece. Though, imported from USA, Tiwan, or Mexico it may be very profitable to sell here in the UK. I could sell them for less, because I wouldn't have the overhead of a normal shop. Again, shipping would be expensive because they're very delicate and there would probably be a fair few returns because they don't "sound" right or something silly like that.

[r2d2]

How about accessory guitar kit, like stomp boxes etc?

They range from about £40 to about £400 I think (a few years since I played :) )... Guess thats about $80-$800 with the dollar as it is... And they are fairly small and light.

Some competition (http://www.stringsdirect.co.uk/index.php)? They sell lots of other stuff like the stomp boxes (http://www.stringsdirect.co.uk/commerce/catalog.php?action=details&pid=1709) too..

[chromate]

Yeah, I thought about doing the whole "guitar accessories" thing. It would provide good scope to expand into more expensive lines if things went well. However, music shops are so accessible in the UK. I would have to beat them on price alone I think, which may be possible. I am looking at products in the £50 to £500 bracket. I think that will make each sale worth while. I don't want to be chasing "small" sales all the time.

The other thing is, I can't afford to offer a large range of different brands / products. Also electronic equipment like that becomes obsolete pretty fast as soon as the "next model up" is released. Chris's swords for example don't become obsolete (as far as I know!) :) That could really burn me if I'm not careful. It all sounds a bit risky.

[Chris]

Originally posted by incka
I'm a vegan, so I know what they do... All animal products are evil... If you think eggs and milk don't harm the animals your so wrong... 99% of male chickens are killed at birth, on most large farms by being put into large boxes, piled on top of eachother, then closing it without oxygen... After cows have given there milk most don't have enough for there young, and therefore they die, I don't have anything against meat eaters, thats there choice, but I do have something against all these large scale agricultural methods that are evil beyond the word.

Most calves don't die, they're money a farmer isn't going to let them die. They are fed formula. They have these huge baby bottles they use.

I can understand people not liking fur, but anti-leather people puzzle me. Its not like the animal is dying just for it's fur. A cow is killed for food first and it's skin second. So wear all the coats and shoes you want. Even if you didn't wear leather the cow would still die because people like their steaks.

[chromate]

Originally posted by Chris
I can understand people not liking fur, but anti-leather people puzzle me. Its not like the animal is dying just for it's fur. A cow is killed for food first and it's skin second. So wear all the coats and shoes you want. Even if you didn't wear leather the cow would still die because people like their steaks.

Yep, if an animal's going to be killed for meat then I say use everything of it possible. If I buy some meat and it goes off before I use it meaning I have to bin it, I hate it. It's such a waste of a life. I don't eat Veal or battery farmed chicken because the way they're kept is terrible.