Muse idea--question about online store selling physical products?

[Sieren]

So, I have an idea for a potential muse, which would be a website selling actual items pertaining to something I am passionate about. My target audiance would be people who are wanting high-quality, unique, eco-friendly/natural products related to body modification & decoration (jewelry etc), and natural health and beauty (bath, herbal etc). I also want to sell my handmade jewelry and clothing (hand carved wood, natural fibers etc) via this site, and I do realize that that particualr part of it would not be automated since obviously I have to make the items for them to be handmade by me :P But that is OK with me, because that is what I am passionate about and love doing.
What I am wondering is, how much can you automate a web store that sells physical items (everything but the things handmade by me). Are informational and virtural products the only things that lend themselves well to the 4hww-type of business? I just can't think of anything like that that I would be interested in, but I would like the freedom of having the majority of the products my business sells be automated. I've been doing a little looking around, and I've noticed that I would probably have to deal with one company for the packaging, another for the actual product and maybe another for the labeling to get what I want (I want my products to be compeltely unique and kind of offer the customer an "expierience" as well as being useful). Is that even possible?
Sorry, I'm just quite new to the whole world of business and logistics and advertising and up until now knew NOTHING whatsoever about it. Just want to learn as much as I can as fast as possible!! :)
I'm about half way through the updated version of the 4hww, so if any of my questions migth be answered in parts of the book, feel free to just point that out and where! Thanks so much in advance everybody! I've already learned so much from this forum + the 4hww book!

[preneur]

Hi, Sieren. Great question.

In terms of setting up an automated online store with physical products, it can absolutely be done through drop shipping. Now, drop shipping is where there’s a manufacturer who actually dispatches the products directly to the end-consumer or purchaser on your behalf.

So, you can set up your website and sell the jewelry, and bath and herbal products that you don’t make or manufacture yourself, and then choose products that can be drop shipped by manufacturers who will send those products directly to the consumer on your behalf. But the ones which you manufacture, you make those and send them off. So, you can definitely do a 4 Hour Workweek-style business that way.

The best place to look for drop shipping is a website called Worldwide Brands. There is a fee to actually get access to it but it’s the biggest resource online with drop shippers. You can put in the topics, the products, and the keywords for the niches you want to target and it will bring back all the companies and manufacturers that would drop ship for you.

Other than that, I’ll just start Google-ing ‘drop shipping suppliers’ and things like that and see what they can do. That would be the best way I’d be looking at doing that because it’s definitely possible to have the lifestyle you want. So, you can spend your days making the things you’re passionate about, and obviously, four hours a week just making sure everything else works physically for you. Remember that Tim’s product originally was vitamin tablets and that sort of stuff, Brain Quicken. That product, Brain Quicken, was a physical product. It wasn’t informational or digital; it was a physical product that ended up getting drop shipped and manufactured by someone else on his behalf. So, you could do the exact same thing.


Cheers,
Pete
p.s. This response was actually transcribed and posted by my virtual assistant.

[Sieren]

Thank you so much, that was very helpful! :)