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Old 11-20-2007, 09:42 PM
Mingo Mingo is offline
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Default Disrupted The Flow

Hello all, I think I may be putting the cart before the horse. Tell me if I need to stop and think my situation over.

My website will be reselling quality products in the $100 - $700 range.
I've niched down by only reselling 2 types of products, whereas all competitors have from 50 - 80 types of products. I'm also only going to be selling here within Canada, because I did research on competitors and most have terrible or no Canadian shipping policies at all.

I have contacted distributors and have even received emails containing business agreement forms from some of them.
I have bought the domain name and space for the business through bluehost.com , and am outsourcing the project to either elance or netmancorp. I have set up a paypal account. I have also found two great keyword combinations for google adWords advertising.
I have done no testing. I have just assumed that since people are buying the products from other websites, they will sell on mine. I have gotten the keywords ready for google, but I have not set them up yet. I have done no advertising in print magazines either yet. Haha, forgive me.

What should I do at this present moment given my current situation?

Thanks for the feedback.
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Old 11-21-2007, 12:00 AM
webgal webgal is offline
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Is there a way to sell these products and break down your target market to more of a niche. For instance, let's say you are selling socks. And everyone sells these socks. But you realize they have coolmax, so you target runners, even marathon runners. Then you could position your website to target this group which might be the big buyers. Just an off-the-cuff example.
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Old 11-21-2007, 04:05 AM
TimW TimW is offline
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In the spirit of helping you learn, instead of just feeding you information, what do you THINk you should do next? have you done any research on e-tailing? Market share? Competitive advantages/weaknesses?

Why do you think that your site, selling only 2 products, will do better than competitors who are selling many many more products (of what type or similarity to yours, we can't say from your info)?

Let's just say there is one sentence in your original post which clearly indicates what step you need to take next.

(hint: never assume. Besides the pithy saying about it, it's costly in business, unless you're lucky and end up correct)
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Old 11-21-2007, 05:58 AM
Mingo Mingo is offline
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Thanks for the help guys. I just wrote out a big post, and then it somehow got deleted. 2am will do that.

I realize I have to stop trying to get this business up as quickly as possible. That's really where the disorganized state of mind is coming from. I know where I'm going to end up. I love where I'm going to end up. There's no need to compromise quality by getting it a day earlier.
I realize I haven't even looked at revenue and expense costs. so Tim, the next step is a no brainer.

My two products are actually a lot of products.

What I meant by products is 1.audio recording, mixing, editing software for djs and 2. audio recording, mixing, editing software for producers. Fairly Vague.

However, my competition also sells guitars, bass guitars, drums, pa systems, etc etc etc. They're all trying to be a small fish in a big pond.

Apart from the very few (1-2) competitors that reside in Canada, the competition has expensive to no shipping to Canada. I would use this to my advantage and be able to reduce price slightly and invest it back into the company in the form of multiple-buyer discounts, a better return policy, etc.

To further niche, I would offer software that is designed to one specific musical genre. Since I am a trance music producer, and having personally used most of the products I will sell on the website, I'm thinking the genre I choose may very well be trance.

So from being a contender in the International / North American market of musical instruments, accessories, hardware and software, I have carved my niche in as Audio Software for Trance Producers in Canada. I like the sound of that!

What I am going to do tomorrow is pretend like my company is already up and running, and I am looking at the monthly expense and revenue statement. I'll figure out the expected costs to as many expenses and revenues as possible.

Hopefully I'm not in the red.

Last edited by Mingo; 11-21-2007 at 07:08 AM.
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