New Ecommerce site advice
Discussion
Hi All,
Please can I pick your brains?
I own a bathroom showroom and have always steered of the whole online selling due to thinking it will be to hard to run along side the busy showroom with lack of storage space and just generally thinking I had missed the boat. Recently my mine supplier who we already deal with have started doing direct deliveries and have employed an online/direct delivery guru. I have a good long chat with her and she has lots of interesting facts and figures about other people who own showrooms are doing what I plan on doing. As they sort out all the delivers this eliminates the whole stock problem and having the guru gives me a little handholding that I need.
So, ecommerce, looks like a whole lot of black magic, setting up and running, then the whole SEO and PPC. How do you chose a company? What do I need to look for as it seems very hard to see actual results as it’s a massively complicated beast?
I think the site will start off with maybe 500 items with each one having a few different options, any very very rough idea on price I might have to pay to set it up?
What amazing advice and peals of wisdom would you pass on to someone starting from fresh in ecommerce?
I will start talking to some local web design people soon, just need to do some more research before I start out. Any great (simple) sites/books to start reading?
Thanks
Please can I pick your brains?
I own a bathroom showroom and have always steered of the whole online selling due to thinking it will be to hard to run along side the busy showroom with lack of storage space and just generally thinking I had missed the boat. Recently my mine supplier who we already deal with have started doing direct deliveries and have employed an online/direct delivery guru. I have a good long chat with her and she has lots of interesting facts and figures about other people who own showrooms are doing what I plan on doing. As they sort out all the delivers this eliminates the whole stock problem and having the guru gives me a little handholding that I need.
So, ecommerce, looks like a whole lot of black magic, setting up and running, then the whole SEO and PPC. How do you chose a company? What do I need to look for as it seems very hard to see actual results as it’s a massively complicated beast?
I think the site will start off with maybe 500 items with each one having a few different options, any very very rough idea on price I might have to pay to set it up?
What amazing advice and peals of wisdom would you pass on to someone starting from fresh in ecommerce?
I will start talking to some local web design people soon, just need to do some more research before I start out. Any great (simple) sites/books to start reading?
Thanks
TheBogFlogger said:
Hi All,
Please can I pick your brains?
I own a bathroom showroom and have always steered of the whole online selling due to thinking it will be to hard to run along side the busy showroom with lack of storage space and just generally thinking I had missed the boat. Recently my mine supplier who we already deal with have started doing direct deliveries and have employed an online/direct delivery guru. I have a good long chat with her and she has lots of interesting facts and figures about other people who own showrooms are doing what I plan on doing. As they sort out all the delivers this eliminates the whole stock problem and having the guru gives me a little handholding that I need.
So, ecommerce, looks like a whole lot of black magic, setting up and running, then the whole SEO and PPC. How do you chose a company? What do I need to look for as it seems very hard to see actual results as it’s a massively complicated beast?
I think the site will start off with maybe 500 items with each one having a few different options, any very very rough idea on price I might have to pay to set it up?
What amazing advice and peals of wisdom would you pass on to someone starting from fresh in ecommerce?
I will start talking to some local web design people soon, just need to do some more research before I start out. Any great (simple) sites/books to start reading?
Thanks
Would that be for bath bombs?Please can I pick your brains?
I own a bathroom showroom and have always steered of the whole online selling due to thinking it will be to hard to run along side the busy showroom with lack of storage space and just generally thinking I had missed the boat. Recently my mine supplier who we already deal with have started doing direct deliveries and have employed an online/direct delivery guru. I have a good long chat with her and she has lots of interesting facts and figures about other people who own showrooms are doing what I plan on doing. As they sort out all the delivers this eliminates the whole stock problem and having the guru gives me a little handholding that I need.
So, ecommerce, looks like a whole lot of black magic, setting up and running, then the whole SEO and PPC. How do you chose a company? What do I need to look for as it seems very hard to see actual results as it’s a massively complicated beast?
I think the site will start off with maybe 500 items with each one having a few different options, any very very rough idea on price I might have to pay to set it up?
What amazing advice and peals of wisdom would you pass on to someone starting from fresh in ecommerce?
I will start talking to some local web design people soon, just need to do some more research before I start out. Any great (simple) sites/books to start reading?
Thanks
(sorry, couldn't resist)
I would be asking how are you looking to get out there - as you say starting from scratch is work and you need to drive traffic to your new site.
Have you thought of using Amazon for instance, sure the commission is high but you have zero startup costs and a market of millions - if that goes well, then look to get your own site up.
Do you happen to know what technology your company website has been created with?
For example, if your website is written in Wordpress, you could use Woocommerce along side it. There are a few good techs and applications that go together.
What ever you do, it is important that you are involved along the development process as you will need to be able to stand on your own two feet after the project finishes.
For example, if your website is written in Wordpress, you could use Woocommerce along side it. There are a few good techs and applications that go together.
What ever you do, it is important that you are involved along the development process as you will need to be able to stand on your own two feet after the project finishes.
TheBogFlogger said:
What amazing advice and peals of wisdom would you pass on to someone starting from fresh in ecommerce?
Put the effort in, don't just launch the ecommerce side as quickly as possible just to get your foot in the door or else you will be chasing your tail for months/yearsandyb28 said:
Do you happen to know what technology your company website has been created with?
For example, if your website is written in Wordpress, you could use Woocommerce along side it. There are a few good techs and applications that go together.
What ever you do, it is important that you are involved along the development process as you will need to be able to stand on your own two feet after the project finishes.
Our normal brochure website is rubbish, so that also needs doing, but not as important as the new selling site as we do well on word of mouth.For example, if your website is written in Wordpress, you could use Woocommerce along side it. There are a few good techs and applications that go together.
What ever you do, it is important that you are involved along the development process as you will need to be able to stand on your own two feet after the project finishes.
I resurrected the DSliverpool "Starting again" thread as i think he might be on the hit list once I am a bit more clued up and able to ask the correct questions
Got to help pay for his new fancy office!You are going to a dropshipper for that supplier ?
With quite a few other showrooms doing the same thing.
First glance, I’d say there is a risk that your work / cost could benefit the supplier more than it benefits you.
Would you invest / risk £10k / £50k in it to cover 3 months? More?
What return would it need to make on the investment for you to be happy with it?
With quite a few other showrooms doing the same thing.
First glance, I’d say there is a risk that your work / cost could benefit the supplier more than it benefits you.
Would you invest / risk £10k / £50k in it to cover 3 months? More?
What return would it need to make on the investment for you to be happy with it?
JPJPJP said:
You are going to a dropshipper for that supplier ?
With quite a few other showrooms doing the same thing.
First glance, I’d say there is a risk that your work / cost could benefit the supplier more than it benefits you.
Would you invest / risk £10k / £50k in it to cover 3 months? More?
What return would it need to make on the investment for you to be happy with it?
To start with the supplier will direct deliver for me, they have many lines but i will add other suppliers to these later, which i will have to deliver myself.With quite a few other showrooms doing the same thing.
First glance, I’d say there is a risk that your work / cost could benefit the supplier more than it benefits you.
Would you invest / risk £10k / £50k in it to cover 3 months? More?
What return would it need to make on the investment for you to be happy with it?
Invest/risk is hard, need to see how much the site is going to cost, then the PPC can be a little more dynamic. But i do know it will cost a few quid!
What do i want out of it, dont really need much out of it as the showroom pays my bills. I would like it to pay for an in-house guru even if it was part time. I think that would make a huge difference long term. On the flip side, I plan on trying to do it right from the start, so a decent return would also be very welcome!
Yes. Look at Shopify and BigCommerce. Pretty much the two leaders in the non-bespoke but entirely professional and scalable ecommerce platforms.
I run a site on bigcommerce and so far, it’s been great. It’s linked directly with our stock warehouse and orders all automatically go through to the warehouse with barcodes ensuring the correct items are sent.
I run a site on bigcommerce and so far, it’s been great. It’s linked directly with our stock warehouse and orders all automatically go through to the warehouse with barcodes ensuring the correct items are sent.
Basic site is one thing. Populating it with products is another and is time consuming to do properly: loads of tags and seo stuff to consider on almost every product added
It is dynamic from day 1, there is always something to research and tweak
A way to start might be to take the supplier’s top selling products (at least hundreds of them, maybe a couple of thousand) and create the site with them. Then go from there
It is dynamic from day 1, there is always something to research and tweak
A way to start might be to take the supplier’s top selling products (at least hundreds of them, maybe a couple of thousand) and create the site with them. Then go from there
Shopify is cheap and will do a job, its good at taking feeds as well.
The site isnt the issue its getting traffic and converting it - your budget wont touch the sides of others so you need to be smart
With a purchase made up of several components people tend to "google" the most popular part and add on the rest as such you could use Google shopping and pick popular single parts so you stand out and get clicks, then from that loss leader hope they buy related items or do kits with that part and others. Or you can add value but Google shopping isnt good at this approach (bathroom cab, brush, roll holder etc) as you would need your own EAN and nobody would ever see it.
Happy to have an off the meter chat BUT dont think this will be easy and that you will make a fortune quickly - it isnt and you wont BUT its doable if your buying right.
The site isnt the issue its getting traffic and converting it - your budget wont touch the sides of others so you need to be smart
With a purchase made up of several components people tend to "google" the most popular part and add on the rest as such you could use Google shopping and pick popular single parts so you stand out and get clicks, then from that loss leader hope they buy related items or do kits with that part and others. Or you can add value but Google shopping isnt good at this approach (bathroom cab, brush, roll holder etc) as you would need your own EAN and nobody would ever see it.
Happy to have an off the meter chat BUT dont think this will be easy and that you will make a fortune quickly - it isnt and you wont BUT its doable if your buying right.
Having recently done a bathroom revamp I think the challenge you will have is that it's a race to the bottom on price because people will go around all the showrooms, note what they want then hit the internet to get the cheapest price.
The other observation I'd make is that in going online you are going to have to handle returns/restocking which will be different to how you would deal with them at the moment. Well, in theory you won't because the drop shipper should be handling that for you, but the customer is dealing with you and it's your reputation on the line so it's worth establishing how returns will be dealt with. I've got a couple of hundred quids worth of Villeroy+Boch toilet cistern sat in the garage which I'd ordered incorrectly (side outlet instead of bottom outlet) - I have the replacement but it's such a ball ache to return the wrong one that it's just sat there!
The other observation I'd make is that in going online you are going to have to handle returns/restocking which will be different to how you would deal with them at the moment. Well, in theory you won't because the drop shipper should be handling that for you, but the customer is dealing with you and it's your reputation on the line so it's worth establishing how returns will be dealt with. I've got a couple of hundred quids worth of Villeroy+Boch toilet cistern sat in the garage which I'd ordered incorrectly (side outlet instead of bottom outlet) - I have the replacement but it's such a ball ache to return the wrong one that it's just sat there!
Thats one reason we are going online, people do exactly what you say, wander around and take advise then go online. The drop shipper we wiill use is revamping their T&C's so will se what they say about the returns. Returns are a ball ache in the shop, so can not imagine its going to be any harder. Apparently they get around 1% returns, which is great if true!!!
jas xjr said:
A concern i have had with dropshippers is that once they have supplied your customer , they might be able to leave their details in with their delivery.
Anybody ever experienced this? Or am i just paranoid?
Do you mean the customer gets to see the dropshipper details? Anybody ever experienced this? Or am i just paranoid?
If so, a proper dropship setup would mean that the invoice has your logo and details on; perhaps with a return address of the dropshipper. This is usually looked at before finalising arrangements.
Dropshipping is great for large items; I’ve done it for larger electrical niche furnitures. But you do put your brands credibility in someone else’s hands, to some extent.
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