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MenuCriticism time! Does this idea stand a chance?
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MOQs
MOQ (Minimum Order Quantity) is not a new concept; it has a high success rate and various implementations the most common being regulatory agency restrictions, which have to do with import/exports, good sold etc.
Additionally, no manufacturer can sell at cost (no markup) and remain in business. There are always “costs” with any goods/services sold.
I hope my broad-stroke response has provided you some clarity. I am happy to assist with specifics via phone consultation.
Your idea is fantastic marketing strategy! It is somewhat like the Wholesaler marketing concept that is prevalent in India and extremely popular. The wholesale market in India focuses on three basic strategies:
1. Formulate the wholesale marketing strategy–Marketing plans need not always be set of documents. Spending time to form the wholesale marketing strategy will improve the ability to gain customers to a large extent and will eventually lead to consistent sales. The company’s marketing strategies should contain many small tactics which when joined will create a flow that will direct the business towards the right direction. Few points that be taken care is to create a social media post, to create a company website, give a local advertisement, direct mail and so on.
2. Focus on the marketing strategy – Once the marketing strategy is set, focus on the 3 main areas – get new wholesale customers, get more orders from the customers, increase the sales from the wholesale business.
3. Wholesale promotion ideas for getting more orders – It is a great challenge to get the wholesale customers to register. There are many wholesale promotions methods that can be used to encourage the wholesale customers to connect with the company. There could be many barriers like unawareness of the product, shipping charges, minimum orders, process of ordering, unaware of the terms and conditions and lack of sales support. Keeping this barrier in mind, the wholesale promotions should be targeted by making the customers be aware of the product, orders etc.
But yes, there is one thing I will mention is that you will require people to implement this idea, because without it the idea will not make a profit.
Besides if you do have any questions give me a call: https://clarity.fm/joy-brotonath
This could potentially work. You could run the sales as daily flash sales, letting buyers know about the purchase thresholds that have to be met before a sale becomes final. I think if you didn't run these as flash sales with time limits, it could take too long for a given product to reach it's threshold. People want their stuff fast. The flash sale concept would both encourage purchase via natural urgency, and enable the sales to be finalized and processed quickly.
If you can guarantee manufacturers that you'll hit their minimums, they will be likely agree to this as long as they are okay with drop shipping the sold goods.
Related Questions
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I want to start an ecommerce business that imports goods from India to sell in the U.S.. Where in the world do I start re: tax/legal implications.
TAX is US. For export paperwork (free tax delivery) is India. Use business location may in delaware for lower state taxML
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I'm looking to get off the Yahoo platform. Shopify seems to be nice, and BigCommerce just looks like a slightly better Yahoo. Thoughts?
Shopify is best use case for $0 to $1M ish, depending on product line, how many transactions that makes up, and if their are some custom things that are not possible on Shopify that realistically lead to huge gains that would cover more costs of a custom solution with something like magento. I recommend Shopify to everyone starting out. That's what we used at Diamond Candles up until about a $5M run rate. We were/are growing quickly so we hit a point where payoff of customizing checkout flow, add of social sign on, etc. that could not be done because of Shopify, would cover and surpass costs of a more custom option. Best to think about this simplistic example. View the ecom platform market in about 3 buckets. 1. Starting out: $0-$1M ish 2. Wow looks like you have a business: $1M-$20 or 50ish 3. You are/could be publicly traded: $50M+ Take a look at usage #'s for market share size from independent third party analytics tools from Builtwith: http://trends.builtwith.com/shop/Shopify/Market-Share http://trends.builtwith.com/shop http://trends.builtwith.com/shop/hosted-solution Just because something is found on the web more isn't the full picture. Ie. I could make a blogging platform and have a bunch of scripts and bots install it on millions of domains and I would have majority of the market for blogging platforms (ya that would take a while and isn't a realistic scenario but you can get the point). Providers dominating the different categories by companies in those areas actually doing volume and being succsessful? 1. Shopify, BigCommerce, Volusion, Magento GO, 2. Magento (varying editions), Yahoo Stores, Symphony Commerce 3. Demand Ware, GSI Commerce, Magento (varying editions) At the end of the day a good illustration goes like this. A truck and a moped are two different things. A truck is not trying to out 'moped' a moped and a moped not trying to out 'truck' a truck. They are both perfectly suited to different applications, situations, needs, and circumstances. The same goes with who you choose to handle your ecom platform. For 2-3 search for internet retailers first 500 and second 500 lists. Pull off all ecommerce companies doing between $10-$50M as an example. Use the builtwith.com chrome toolbar to tell you what platform they are using. Hire someone for $2 an hour via odesk to make a spreadsheet of everything and the make a pretty little pie chart. Now you know what each revenue volume level chooses as 1, 2, 3 preferred platforms. Option 3 as a side note but very important one, is primarily a platform and commerce as a service model with companies like Demand Ware and GSI Commerce leading the market with platform and services including but not limited to customer service for the brand, fulfillment, marketing services, website product photography etc. Their pricing models are based on gross revenue share. ie. SportsAuthority.com does $100M online this year, GSI takes 30% of that to cover everything. (I am not sure who Sports Authority uses, just an example) You can almost pick any traditional brick and mortar retailer and if they have a website where they sell things, they all do, GSI or DW are the people behind the scenes running the call centers, shipping etc. Diamond Candles, my company, who started on Shopify decided to not go with a the market dominating option of Magento for a few reasons. One of which being upfront cost for an agency or on staff magento CTO type. We decided to partner with a newer entrant, Symphony Commerce, which blends the 3rd category model of platform plus service. Rev. cut is significantly smaller than providers in category 3, but still get benefits of volume savings on shipping volume, scalable customer support that can handle rapid growth and occasional spikes without us having to worry about scaling or implementing best practices, and a fully customizable platform as a service so to speak that doesn't require us to have in house tech but where we are essentially renting part time ecommerce engineers from with resumes that list Google, FB, Twitter, Magento, Amazon, etc. So in summary. If you are <$1M in revenue just roll with Shopify. Greater than that but less than $50M ish then I would recommend looking into Symphony. If Symphony is interested in letting you in then you won't have to incur the upfront costs of an agency or implementation and you will have an ongoing partner equally incentivized i your long term success financially which I prefer as opposed to an agency model which economically is incentivized to offer a one time finished product and their revenue is not tied to my financial success. It is the closest thing to an equity partner while returning our full equity.JW
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What's the best platform to build a e-bookstore?
I think a natural choice is large provides like Amazon. However, if you want to sell eBooks on your own and maintain all of the revenue, then WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads would make excellent options. Both software packages are WordPress plugins and they make it very easy to deploy an e-commerce store for digital goods. Both plugins have strong development teams behind them and they have a slew of independent freelancers who can offer assistance if needed. I've used WooCommerce myself for multiple years and we've deployed many WordPress websites that use it. It has hundreds of extensions you can add on to it for maximizing the potential.RG
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How do the economics behind Rent the Runway and Black Tux work? How would you calculate breakeven turnover and inventory requirements?
Ok, so I'm not an expert in fashion but I know finance. Here is my take: These two would be considered "fast fashion" retailers or better yet, e-tailers. Fast fashion simply means that unlike Coach or American Eagle or Levis, these FF retailers don't have to try to predict fashion 6 months in advance risking a big flop and having to heavily discount items that don't sell. FF retailers simply 'scout' runway shows and buy wholesale from these designer labels. A lot of designers would like this because they are essentially getting a guaranteed sale plus added exposure. Another thing is that these FF retailers don't keep their inventory for months at a time, they do so in cycles of weeks. If a designer sells out, chances are they retailer will continue to come back for more designs from them. They are purchased wholesale, on cash basis account, payable on credit of 30 days or 90 days. The economics as you state it are a bit more complex that what I care to explain here, but essentially if you were to 'replicate & improve' what I would do is scout and offer purchase orders to designers, just like they do. First order completed as 50/50 paid in full/credit term payable 60 days or so (assuming you already have a store ready to move inventory and not waste those 60 days setting up). Aim to sell all inventory before 60 days and pay balance with revenues. Extend credit term to 90 days at increased inventory, aim to sell by 60 days and keep that cycle going. What this will allow you to do is to always have inventory being paid for by customers before they are due for you essentially having the clients pay for your expansion in inventory. The break even is simple, don't sell for less than what your wholesale amount is. Typical increase from wholesale commodity goods is 30%, try that margin. If you have to discount "heavily" at 15% or 25% you still get at least 5% safe marginHV
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How to turn a niche seasonal business into a all year round business?
Thanks for reaching out. Do you want to meet in person? I am in San Francisco/San Mateo location. Best, SeanSP
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