Is Open Cart comparable to Shopify and Magento?

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 margin

There is quite a bit of information available online about eCommerce conversions rates. According to a ton of sources, average visitor-to-sale conversion rates vary from 1-3%. This does not mean the Furniture conversions will be the same. The bigger problem is that visitor-to-sale conversions are not a good data point to use to measure or tune your eCommerce business. All business have some unique friction factors that will affect your final conversion rate. It's very important to understand each of these factors and how to overcome them. The best way to measure and optimize is to take a conversion funnel approach. Once you have defined your funnel you can optimize each conversion rate to better the total effect. For example: Top of the funnel: - All web site visitors, 100,000 / month First conversion: View a product page, 50% of all visitors Second Conversion: Add to Cart, 10% of people who view products Final Conversion: Complete Checkout, 80% of people who put items in a cart In this example we see that only 10% of people who actually view products put them in to a cart, but 80% of those people purchase. If you can figure out why visitors are not adding items to their cart and fix the issue to increase the conversion rate, revenue should increase significantly because of the high checkout rate. You can use free tools like Google Analytics to give you a wealth of information about your site visitor and their behavior or there are some great paid tools as well.

Thanks for reaching out. Do you want to meet in person? I am in San Francisco/San Mateo location. Best, Sean

#1) PROVE THE ASSUMPTION: Start with a dropshipper's existing products to figure out what sells best before you spend money on manufacturing and warehousing. Amazon is perfect for this - they will pay you 4%-10% to promote 253,000,000 products (http://bit.ly/1q2M85R) - you can sign up at https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/ Alternately, get very small amounts of the product (maybe even just buy some from a competitor) and try selling them on ebay and amazon. Nothing hurts more than having $50,000 of imported product gathering dust in your fulfillment warehouse while listening to a voicemail from a debt collector. #2) SOURCING There are several options here. Many people prefer Alibaba.com. Warning - if you use Alibaba, you are stepping into a tank of pirahnas. There are more scam "manufacturers" on Alibaba than real ones. Use Escrow or AliSecure Pay if you buy. If the supplier says they only take T/T, Western Union, Moneygram - just say no! I prefer American Made when possible. If you're like me, try Ariba's Discovery Service - http://bit.ly/1q2NFZu - which will allow you to find suppliers with a physical presence in the USA. Note: Many things can be made on demand (someone purchases, one gets made and shipped) instead of in 500+ manufacturing runs. Start there if you can - Books on CreateSpace.com, Clothes on CafePress.com, Playing Cards on MakePlayingCards.com, etc - to test out your exact product. #3) START YOUR SITE This is an entire topic in itself. One of the fastest ways I know for newbies to start in e-commerce is with a SquareSpace.com store. Other options include GoDaddy.com and BigCommerce.com. If you can stand to use the templates they provide instead of trying to customize them, you'll save yourself a lot of hassle and expense - customization usually looks terrible unless a designer/coder was hired to do the work. If you do customize, find someone on odesk.com or elance.com. #4) MARKET Figure out where your competition is advertising. Are they getting free, "organic" SEO results on Google? Using social media to drive billions of dollars of sales? (NOTE: That was a joke - don't count on social media as the nucleus of your marketing campaign. Please!) Are they paying for Google ads ("PPC"), buying email lists, using strategic partnerships for promotion, relying on shopping portals, using banner advertising, or something else entirely? There's probably a good reason - figure out what it will take to play in those waters. At the same time, try to find a small enough niche that you can win in it. #5) BEWARE Be careful about artsy things. If someone is attracted to something artistic, it's usually because there is a story behind the art for them, or because it's cheap. If you're going to try to sell artistic things, you may want to consider doing some serious research first about who has been successful in that area. Look at etsy.com to see handmade artsy items (very cool). #6) WORTH A LOOK Worth checking out as you start your journey: Art.com, yessy.com, Artfire.com, ArtPal.com #7) DEEP FOUNDATION If you need help, reach out for a 15 minute call and we'll discuss a go-to-market strategy specific to your goals.

TAX is US. For export paperwork (free tax delivery) is India. Use business location may in delaware for lower state tax