"Semi-Custom" Product...Bad idea for first muse???

[TS_eXpeed]

I have an idea that I love for my muse. I think it would be a great product to launch, but I still need to go through with testing and such so I can't say 100% for sure. I'd like some input on whether this may or may not be a good first muse.

My idea is geared toward a task-specific shoe, and I'm modifying it to better serve certain people. After thinking about it, I have some concerns about having a shoe as my first muse. Part of the process if you decide to proceed with a muse is to have the manufacturer you've selected to make 'x' number of product, correct? You then either have it shipped to you or the fulfillment house (depending on where you are in the maturity of your business) and continue operations.

Well with a shoe...they're all the same product, but they are different sizes for everyone. With this is mind, I feel like this is impractical for a start up of this kind. You couldn't order any sizable amount of product because who's to say you'll sell 'x' number of this size, or that size? I'm afraid I'd get trapped with having all kinds of excess inventory that might take forever to sell.

My guess is the idea having a manufacturer make 'x' number of products at a time serves 2 purposes:

1) More cost effective for me as the end-provider of the product
2) The customer doesn't have to wait 2-4 weeks or more for a product to be manufactured just for them (something as a consumer, I would avoid at all costs)....it in many instances could be shipped that day or next


With that in mind, do you think a "semi-custom" product like a shoe not a good idea to use as a first muse...or muse at all??

[AlexMoen]

Maybe try selling the idea to a shoe company and receive royalty kickbacks instead.

[liam75005]

It all comes down to minimum order quantity from manufacturer.

My experience with book printing is that I thought i could be cost effective with printing 200 or 500 books, but it appear that in my case (hardcover perfect bound book) minimum manufacturing Qty is 1000 pcs. That means I had to review my initial investment plan : you have to have the money to manufacture the initial batch.

It would be the same with shoes : there is probably a minimum that factories can reasonably produce, you should investigate on that minimum, check what price point that would mean and finally decide according to your initial budget.

[seth121]

The best thing to do so you don't have to waste a lot of money is to build a mock site with a shopping cart and some "key products" and see the average amount of orders you get within a month. Don't buy the stock yet but just to get an idea of what your monthly volume would be. Use tracking to view the keywords they are using so you know what product you should market more.

As for shoes and outsourcing some shoe companies only sell their shoes to certain retailers. For instance Nike only sales to rather large retail chains or websites so if you want to order shoes and an outsourcing company says they can sell you Nike shoes it's more than likely they are boot legged shoes and if you want to verify with them that they are affiliated then you would ask to speak to their Rep(nike rep for that division). Most of all the outsourcing companies that make shoes for important brands will only sell in large parcels.

It's best to talk to an import/export agent or person to get the best information and learn some tricks

[jbirdtexas]

Hi TS,

I think you need to do some hard market focus as to what is the most common shoe size that is ordered by men and then again by women of your target demographic. That will give you an idea as to the breakdown of inventory needed to cover the demographic of your target market for an initial order. If your shoe is medically or orthapedically specific to solve a foot issue than that should be niche enough (being that the product actually remidies the problem foot). The delivery time on a specific one of a kind item isn't to big of a deal unless it runns beyond 4 weeks to take order...manufacture...ship. Start Googleing anything that even remotly resembles your product. When you find similar products look very closely at their web pages and see what they did. They may suck at shoe sales. But if their site is up and running and you can click through to a shopping cart chances are they have overcome the initial order phase and could prove to be a viable template for a start up site structure. After you are up and running you can tweek and re-tweek until you see paydirt. But that is just my thoughts...I am a Noo-B and don't really know doodly squat.

Oh wow....another idea....Try a non semicustom shoe sales page and after it is up and running introduce the niche shoe and infuse it into production after you have established a reportt with your manufacturer. I dunno...maybe???