Hi, kendalkid & everyone else,
Let me pass along some correspondence between one of our customers & my boss, Polly. It's quoted with permission. This is a bit long, but I think it's very useful! -- Dave
[Esther asked us:]
>Hi, I really like your site...very comprehensive and really like the work you've gone into to get your shopping cart done....I know how much work that can be.
>
>The reason for this note is that I would like to get some information from you, if you would be so kind. I am thinking about "opening" an online store myself and was thinking about specializing in delicas first with just a few other things, like needles, or other specific to beading hobby items....Then expanding the store as I had more money.
>
>As you might realize, with limited funds, and being a single mom, this decision is a difficult one for me to make. I know I want to do it, but in order for it to become relatively successful, how wide a variety of items should I start with? Are there items that are "staples of the industry" that I can be assured of making a fairly steady income with that I should carry, however small? How important do you feel a printed catalog is? Should I just start on an auction site like Ebay first and see where it goes from there?
>
>Needless to say, I have a hundred questions related to this. I have experience in making jewelry with delicas and many other beads. I have someone to do the website. I am very familiar with Ebay and other auction sites and how the web works. I am just at the decision making part and, having so many avenues to go just in the beading category, I wouldn't be able to carry every single item or even every category due to limited funds.
>
>Which brings us to a couple of questions about your site. Do you drop ship and if not, do you know of a company that would drop ship that would still retain their wholesale price for drop shipping?
>
>Any help that you can give me would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance and I will (and do) refer your site to others. Thanks again.
>Esther Hayden
[Polly answered:]
Esther,
Personally, I would recommend the Ebay / auction method as a lower cost test.
I would be hesitant to recommend starting a bead business. There seem to be a plethora of sites selling beads on the web. Some of them specialize in Czech beads, or Seed beads, or just one manufacturer of seed beads, and others have them all. If you do a few web searches looking for "Glass Beads" (wholesale or not), or even as specific as "Delica seed beads", there are 1,000's of pages returned, and at least the first 30 are usually valid results.
However, if you had a really good site, with good information, and good coding, you could do it, and wouldn't even need to start with a very wide variety of supplies.
Since you have a background in making Delica jewelry, you could probably do the following:
- Provide hints, projects and how-to's on your web site.
- Answer people's "How do I..." questions (via e-mail,
or to have better visibility and a "community", via a
Bulletin Board of some kind).
With Projects, it is important to create projects only if you can break the steps down into very simple steps. I recommend testing any projects on a 12-year-old relative or neighbor. (and seeing if they can do it without help. Rewrite, and re-illustrate until they can!).
Make sure that for any project you suggest, you have all the parts for (such as needles, cording, et cetera).
Have links to sites with anything you don't actually carry. (Our links page has a retail link to some uncommon but useful beading blanks, such as pens and I forget what else.)
I believe that you can also use sites like Ebay to bring some traffic to your site, BUT you can't sell the exact same items on your site. However, you could use it to test the waters with a potential *new* product, I think (that you were considering adding). It can be difficult to bring traffic to your web site. It will take at least 3 months before you show up well in the search engines, and that is if you do everything right:
1. CONTENT (This is the hints and info, not your
stock).
It helps to have the words that people are
searching for (via search engines), and builds
your "brand" which I am starting to think of as a
combination of your company's personality, service,
and quality. It helps people find you, and brings
people back to *you* rather than your competition.
On your pages... beady people - especially retail
ones - need to see color. But, make sure that you
don't substitute pix for words - use both! Search
engines don't report how beautiful your images are -
they report the words on the page.
2. CODING & ORGANIZATION
A badly-coded / organized web site can
1. frustrate visitors due to
a. slow pages,
b. inability to find what they are looking for
(three-click rule),
c. scripting errors / looking bad in different
browsers, etc.
and
2. make search engines not be able to find /
report your site!
You need to use meta tags with key words ...
but not rely on them. All your key words need to
be on your page in real English, but also in the
meta tag key words lists.
Ask your .html person about some of this. Have
them explain more about the coding &
organization to you. If they can't, then ask me
for some tips. I think I have some links /
bookmarks to good sites that tell you what
should / shouldn't be coded into your site and
why.
3. SEARCH ENGINE SUBMISSION
Submit 1 - 10 best pages of your web site to at least
6 Search Engines once a month for the first 3
months. After that, at least a few times a year
(unless you get too busy with orders ... then you
don't need to worry about building traffic).
4. OTHER LISTINGS
Search the web for Crafts web sites that list
suppliers. Get listed! (For the first year of your
business, while you're learning the ropes, don't do
anything you have to pay for. Banner ads are rarely
worth their expense, for a targeted business like
beading. Don't waste your scant money on them.)
Pre-write a 20 word, 25 word, 50 word, and 100
word description of your business / site so you can
easily paste them into the listing submission forms.
Also make yourself a list of key words so you don't
forget the important ones. Continually revise all of
your templates (those pre-written things) constantly
until you love them, or as you add new items.
5. And now I'll finally mention STOCK!
Drop shipping ... we don't do it, and no businesses
like us (that I'm aware of) do it. Drop-shipping is
normally for large expensive, and/or one-of-a-kind
handcrafted items, direct from the mfg or hand-
crafter. Great idea for a person not wanting to carry
a lot of stock in their house, but ... not usually used
for the goods you want it for.
I don't think you need a deep variety to start with.
But only do this if you can provide good prices.
There is too much competition to do this with bad
prices. Your advantage is: virtually no overhead (no
separate warehouse, only 1 or 2 employees, et
cetera).
Your disadvantage is: limited budget for the large
quantities needed for best discounts.
Start with all the basic colors, and a handful of your
favorite fancy colors, and the basic accessories.
Know where you can get the rest, and offer to
special order.
One advantage to the slow build-up of traffic, as the
search engines find you, is that you can have fairly
shallow stock at first (such as vial'd-up kilos or half-
kilos of each color), and after you process those first
few orders, you can order more / deeper.
If you decide to take the plunge....Take a look at Veoweb.net's web site. They have some very affordable mini and basic web sites, and you can always upgrade to their next one when you need more space / have more traffic. They come with a bitsy 20 item or 40 item shopping cart, which I'm sure you can upgrade, too. They don't have staff 24 hours per day, but everyone who works there is helpful and knows what they are talking about! Avoid Verio! I loved my old local ISP & host, but then Verio bought them and ..... The less said, the better.
--Polly
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