You may recognize me asking questions about agency businesses. I tried my best, but I received harsh (and I mean harsh) feedback, from slurs to mockery from professionals in the field. Figures. One guy called me “a dog who unleashing upon anyone would be irresponsible”…lol.
I’ve decided to give E-Commerce a shot, here’s my idea:
A website for Men’s products and interests…think everything a guy would like. Tools, fishing poles, Kayaking, Car Posters, the full 9 yards. (I’m not saying only men like these, I’m saying it’s something that some men generally enjoy as a hobby).
Basically, this website would be tailored to men’s interests. Significant others, friends, or more could use it as a place to start gift shopping for someone.
I plan to source the products via drop shipping (for now. as we grow, I’ll build inventory. If we ever get there).
I could incorporate a point system for money back and prizes, as well as allowing customers who have bought to enter an exclusive club with free resources that guys would like. (Workout Plans, Mental Health assistance, etc…all for free, if you’ve made enough purchases and have enough points. And this service is able to be gifted, if you’re gifting something to someone.)
This is designed to try and pull customers towards my site vs other popular ones.
Do any of you have any feedback? Any Comments? Do you think the idea is interesting? Do I need to narrow my niche down?
Everyone here has given you advice, which you seem to have ignored - build something that you have an advantage in. Again, why would you have any advantage compared to, for example, me when building a men’s e-commerce store? What do I (we) know about that niche? Nothing…
You will not find any success by trying 10 different things that could all be done by anyone. Find something that only you can do , and work on that.
Businesses are 50% the idea, but 50% the founder. If you don’t have a personal advantage, why wouldn’t someone just steal your idea themselves?
Edit: Also, you need an attention span… businesses need time to work, give things at least a few weeks or months before. discarding it…
Creating a software and creating/running a business are totally separate beasts. No-code solves some part of the former, but for the latter, in general, you need to train yourself, persist on the business, sweat a lot, feel the pain, put more sweat. As they always say, ideas are cheap, it is the execution. Maybe watch the movie The Founder for the history of McDonalds. This is my favorite quote from the movie even though the movie looks harsh:
Now, I know what you’re thinkin’. How the heck does a 52-year-old, over-the-hill milkshake-machine salesman… build a fast-food empire with 16,000 restaurants, in 50 states, in 5 foreign countries… with an annual revenue of in the neighborhood of $700,000,000.00… One word… PERSISTENCE. Nothing in this world can take the place of good old persistence. Talent won’t. Nothing’s more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius won’t. Unrecognized genius is practically a cliche. Education won’t. Why the world is full of educated fools. Persistence and determination alone are all powerful.
Very true. That advantage could quite simply be a true passion for the industry or product you promote, deep knowledge about the products or industry or a great niche within that industry or product market.
Competition is what drives the economy…never shy away from entering a space that there are already competitors who are doing the same or similar, but ALWAYS think ‘how can I do it better than everybody else that is already doing it’…there is a reason why there are hundreds of Bubble development agencies and likely thousands of freelancers.
Ideas are a dime a dozen. Ideas, unless they are world changing like ‘what if I had a taxi pick me up at the press of a button’, likely have already had hundreds of thousands of people conjure them up, and even if they are world changing, hundreds of people have thought about it and just not acted on it, or failed to see it all the way through. You’d be surprised at how many people are building the same type of app for use in different regions…it can be likened to opening a Chinese restaurant. The idea of opening a Chinese restaurant is not new, and there are lots of them, but opening a Chinese restaurant in a location which the next Chinese restaurant going North or South are miles away, you may have found an advantage.
For example, my Uncle 20 years ago started an in-home chef experience in NYC. It was him alone, and the concept was he would travel to client home, cook 1 week worth of meals, store it in the client home and provide re-heat instructions. It was a great idea and he followed through on it as he was passionate and had 20 years of success, but it never expanded beyond him. Now, I’ve been working on a client app for 18 months that does the exact same thing in the Atlanta area…same idea, 20 years apart, different cities; now just think how many other people had the same idea over that 20 year span, and how many have found a great niche for themselves and do it at a smaller scale that suffices for their needs in life.
Yes, the ‘throw S@*t at the wall and see what sticks’ approach is not the best. You need follow through, so see the idea all the way to completion, until you know it is time to ‘shudder your doors’ and move onto the next business venture.
There are a lot of people making great money doing a dropshipping business. And when thinking critically about issues within a business model, you can come up with some solutions that may alleviate concerns.
Depending on the country you’re shipping to, shipping times will take 12–60 days. Some dropshippers resolve the shipping time issue by buying products wholesale then hire a fulfillment center in the country they’re shipping to. This enables them to deliver customer orders in as fast as 1–2 days.
Don’t. That on its’ own is not a draw to purchase from your site. That is a feature to add later in time after the site has gained traction and the use of that feature is for customer retention not acquisition. You will not be able to easily enough explain that messaging in a social media ad, and users will not follow a link from social media ad to a landing page and read through that as users expect to see a social media ad, promoting a specific product or product category that takes them directly to the e-commerce site search results so that they can buy that product or an item in the category.
Good thinking. You can get started with dropshipping in the traditional sense that may have longer delivery times, which consumers knowing up front can understand (I buy products that sometimes I don’t care if it takes 2 weeks to deliver)…then as you gain traction, have insight into best sellers, you can start to acquire inventory of those products to provide faster delivery times.
Solid idea of the draw. It is akin to how retailers incorporated gift registries for weddings and baby showers. It also leads you to have peak seasons like ‘fathers day’…to have a successful business, it doesn’t need to make money all year, it just needs to make enough money to support your operating year.
Start with a more refined niche. Not a grab bag full of different hobbies. Isolate a hobby that you would want to focus on since you have an interest in it. Maybe Fishing, especially since there is a lot of different types of products that may be required such as poles, clothing, kayaks, etc. that people might need for fishing. But don’t go after every single type of hobby a man might be interested in.
A lot of the drop shipping products now are a lot less than 3 weeks. Some are longer, but the entire marketing won’t be based off gifts, so it’s not as important to build a fast shipping base in the beginning. (Although it is very important, generally speaking).
Regarding the website you posted: I’m in the US, so I guess that would give me some competitive edge to American shoppers? It’s also super gift based…I want mine to be a mix.
I try to find things that only I can do…but it’s always something that seems to be already done by someone else. I only know so much at 17.
You’re right about the attention span, but it’s really, really hard to keep trying to make something work when the pros in the field begin to bad mouth and insult it. Because they’re probably right, and I don’t want to waste time or money.
Do I just thug it out (take the beating) and make it work? Or switch?
My strength in that (the agency) was competitor analysis. I could dig (like, really dig - I’m talking find your competitor’s marketing agency and get a case study from them about your competitor for information) easily…but a lot of the experts in the filed just glance over it.
It is worth mentioning, I’ve only really discussed things with them online via forums.
Thank you for your very detailed reply. I appreciate it.
From your response, I think it seems like you’re mostly supportive of the idea.
I had a few questions, though:
Is their really a harm from being so broad, if all the products are organized neatly on the website?
Same thing about the points: is it harmful to incorporate the points from the start? And with enough thinking and tinkering around, I could find a way to make the marketing click.
You mentioned you have knowledge of people dropshipping. I was looking at AliExpress as a main supplier, if you know anything about that or any comments, lmk.
In the beginning yes. I once sat with a very experienced lawyer in the field of Tour Operations. I had the idea and he was sitting with me to help me better understand the industry and challenges. I made a statement that the tour company would provide ‘something for everyone’…his response was perfect, ‘or nothing for nobody’…basic concept, niche and narrow focus to provide for that target audience only what they want.
Too much time wasted on development, too much money wasted on tinkering around with marketing
I don’t have intricate knowledge of the industry, so I’d recommend searching the internet for more information on it. Basic reason I mentioned this is because it is a business model that works and many people employ it in their business and have great success.
When I owned a backpacker hostel, I came across a few guests who travel the world operating their business remotely which were dropshipping businesses. They would scan the big e-commerce sites for the hot new items and then use dropshipping to offer those new items. No money invested in inventory. It is a great way to iterate your product offerings to find what your target audience wants most before you invest your money into purchasing inventory.
Most important things. Do what you are passionate about because the persistence and therefore execution should follow. Niche and narrow the scope, at least in the beginning to gain the traction and prove the concept. Know when to stop and move onto a new business venture. Every successful entrepreneur has a failure story.
There are nearly 8 billion people in the world. Never be scared that there is somebody else already doing it or there is a large business that has 50% market share. There are tons of industries whose total value are so large, that even carving out a niche and taking 0.05% of the total value of the industry could be millions if not 100s of millions a year. The global animal feed industry is valued at $570 billion USD. Want to make a million dollars in that industry, find a way to capture 0.00002% of that total market value.
I do think dropshipping is a good way to go. It’s used by 10s of thousands of companies big and small. As already suggested, there are ways to use it to make it faster.
Myself, I have 2 brick and mortar businesses and an online business.
They all do good.
One of the brick and mortar businesses has 3 locations now. The other one is just about to add another location.
What I have found through a lot of trial and error, and there have been a lot of errors…
is don’t start out by throwing every product or service you can into the mix. It doesn’t work.
Someone says: I’d like to start a restaurant and I want to have hotdogs and hamburgers and pizza and spaghetti and…
then we’ll have 25 different kinds of desert. We’ll have a workout room in the back with a sauna and whirlpool. We’ll also have a pickleball court and valet parking and blah, blah, blah.
That’s a recipe for failure before you even start.
Look at PInks Hotdogs. They’re a Hollywood legend now.
They started out with a $50 hotdog cart.
They’re not a unique story. Most successful businesses started out very niche and then added products.
The secret is to start with A product. As your business grows you can add more products.
The last post you did I think you were thinking about starting a Shopify clone or something like that. I told you then to specialize in one thing.
I always say it’s good to prove your concept early.
So let’s say you’re determined to start this men’s stuff, workout guidance, mental health assistance, and whatever else you’re throwing into the site.
Instead of taking months to build all this out, get a proof of concept first.
A landing page describing what’s coming and a signup for those interested.
You’ll find out if anyone else thinks this all in one smorgasboard is a good idea or not.
Plus, you may save a lot of time.
Another thing, harsh feedback is a given in the business world. If you’re timid about getting criticism, the business world isn’t the best place to be sometimes.
