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Starting a 1 product 'side-shop'

by nel013
4 replies
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Hey guys,

At this moment im selling like 100 times product x a month. I get 2 dollar commission so that will be 200 bucks. If im going to start buying them in and selling them from my own stock I will get like 8 dollar per sale profit so that will be 800 bucks profit each month.

My expertise is on SEO and so ranking websites. I was finaly to the conclusion that i wouldnt start a webshop. Now that my traffic is growing, will lead to more sales. So I just thought about the webshop again. I really dont like the customer support and the shipping but if I going to do that my profit grows with 400%!

So I was thinking if I am going to sell 100 times product x from my own stock and just hire a guy that will do all the customer support (my mother wants to do the shipping for free 2 times a week so customers do get there product in like 1-3 days). So just for answering mails (that is our online contact) I wanted to ask lets say 200 dollar a month. So I keep something like 500-600 dollar a month profit.

Then I get rid of the customer support because someone else is doing that. Also I can still do what I like to do and that is SEO and im going up in profit each month if im going to supply my own product.

The salespage where i am sending traffic to now (the affiliate) I can really copycat this one and tweaking here and there to improve the CTR. I already got proof of 100 sales a month for like 2-3 months and it is not a seasoned product.

So guys after all this explaining I still dont know if im going to do it. I really dont like the 200 bucks now for like 100 product if i can get 800 bucks for the same product....

The ultimate question is:
- What would you guys do in my position?
- Also do you start a 1 product shop at like shop.domain.com or will you do it on another domain. Ideally i will make like 3-4 blog on different subjects with product that are easy to sell on the internet. Than I will buy a brandable domain name and put those blog related products in this webshop. So Im building a blog for the traffic and send those to my own webshop. I really like this idea because I can hire someone to control that webshop! But for now Im just sticking with 1 product. Where would be the webshop? Same domain or new domain?

Sorry for the long post but I would love to read your thoughts about it!
#ideshop #product #starting
  • Profile picture of the author nel013
    Nobody????
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    • Profile picture of the author philsgiftshop
      I'm new here, but I like your idea, and I would do it on it's own domain. You can get domain names so cheap, and run it on the same hosting account. So, why not start that up and see how it does while keeping your current store? Then if that takes off you're all set. Would also possibly want to talk to you about driving more traffic to my site.
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  • Profile picture of the author Jassen
    [DELETED]
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    • Profile picture of the author OnlineStoreHelp
      I disagree with above. If you are selling a single product and getting those margins and able to get even higher, in that case, it makes sense to bring it in house. You have something half the people on this sub-forum are looking for a niche that can convert and give good margins.

      In addition, with those margins, you can use a fulfillment house to handle it all for you since you know what your volumes will be, and you can keep x +5 items in stock at all times, which reduces your storage fees but gives you same day fulfillment and low cost shipping. That means your mom can do one thing, handle customer support emails.

      Depending on how you do the product you have a lot of options. This is one of the few times you might hear me say, it might be good to use wordpress as your cart (drupal would be better IMO). Or if you want to keep it simple you have two options:

      Shopify on a subdomain: shop.mysite.com : What is great about it though, is you can actually embed the product on the main sales page (they have a widget system) and they will check out on your cart.

      Americart on subdomain: Americommerce subsidiary that allows you to embed the products in your main sales page and then they check out through Americart.

      Opencart install on mysite.com/store : this allows you to maintain consistency and with a single product this might be more cost effective for you since figure $4/month for a dedicated IP and $50/year for a low cost SSL cert.

      Either way I think you are in a good position and let me know if you have other questions.
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      Learn how to set up a powerful, functional yet easy to use e-commerce website at cartprep.com.

      Not sure what ecommerce solution to use? Watch my video walk through of popular shopping carts.
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  • Profile picture of the author ronrule
    If it's a single product, get a domain and do a single page checkout style like you see on direct response/infomercial products. Most of the pages I do this way convert at 8-12% (vs 1-2% for the traditional eCommerce site). Single page checkout = having the order form right on the page.

    I can't imagine customer service would be very high for only 100 orders. Worry about hiring someone when you need to worry about hiring someone.

    As for fulfillment, you can use any number of Pick & Pack/fulfillment services for this. Usually they charge a monthly fee for storing the product, plus a small amount per order ($1-$2 at best) to ship it out. This part is easy and cheap.
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    Ron Rule
    http://ronrule.com

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