or what I learned along the way….
Now let me be perfectly clear, I still have not really started. And, Don’t get me wrong, I have tried. Like I stated in my previous post, I even googled “at home businesses”. Which led me to drop shipping.
Now if you are unfamiliar with that term, let me take a moment to explain.
Drop Shipping is a business model, where you essentially offer someone else’ product for sale on your website.
You pay for and manage your site, but you offer another companies product on that site. You get an order for that product, you place the order with the company, they ship it directly to “your” customer.
It’s kind of like any store you might walk into. You go to buy a T.V., as an example. You decide to purchase it from The Home Depot, because you saw they had it on sale. You go to the store, you look over what they have to offer, and you purchase a Samsung T.V.
Now The Home Depot didn’t make the T.V., and they certainly made a profit from the sale of said T.V. In fact you could have bought that same T.V. from their website and had it shipped to your home. You wouldn’t even have to leave the comfort of your favorite chair.
Well that’s drop shipping, except as the store owner, you never have to worry about carrying an inventory at all. Another company does that for you.
You pay One price for the product, offer it for another price on your “store” and when you get an order, you pocket the difference. Seems simple, doesn’t it?
But WAIT! There’s more. First you will need a hosting site that specializes in this business model. then you will need a fulfillment company that acts as a go between, for you and the manufacturer/supplier. Then you need, what should I call this, a clearing house for suppliers where you can find anything you might be interested in offering.
And remember, very important, you need a “killer” product. Something that people will want, something that they cant find at stores, something that doesn’t cost to much, so that your future customers wont have to do a bunch of research on before purchasing.
In other words, if, BIG if, you can find the next “Gimmicky” product, well then, you just might, maybe, have a winner folks!
Think about fidget spinners, or going back a few decades, “Pet Rocks” Now there was a marketing Genius!
I don’t remember who came up with the original idea. But someone made a fortune off the idea to get a bunch of rocks, all about 3" to 4" in size, roughly. Put them in some colorful packaging. And label them “Pets”! Talk about a genius! I bet his family is still living off the money he made from that.
But, I am off subject now. Come back to earth Tim….daydreams, my worst Achilles Heel… oh if only I could come up with something like that!
Anyway, sorry, back to drop shipping… So I looked around and came up with a company that host’s drop shipping stores, Shopify.
I read all that they offered on the subject. They promised it wasn’t hard at all. So.. I dove in. I purchased their least expensive plan, did I mention that this was a subscription?
That’s when I found out that I would need a name for my store. But of course I hadn’t thought about that. So back to more research.
What could I use, as a name, that would grab peoples attention…. It had to be catchy, right? It had to convey the type of store that I was building. It had to offer my customer a first glimpse into what they could expect when they “entered” my store.
Now you would think that I would have worked this backwards. Figured out what kind of problem solving products I would offer and then come up with a name, right? Well, that’s not the way Shopify worked. First name, then design, then product.
(Now that I “know” better, I would have worked this backwards.)
So anyway, I looked around and I came up with the idea that I would combine my name and my wife’s name. It would have a sort of old fashioned “mom and pop” ring to it that way. So I thought, and thought, and I thought I had struck upon the “perfect” name. Ladies and gentleman,… please welcome…(insert drumroll)…. “Tim and Michelle’s General Store” Tah Dah!!
I was happy! I came up with the perfect name, it was catchy, (in my opinion), It was trustworthy, (in my opinion), it promised almost anything you might need, all in one convenient place to shop.
What could be better?
So, name done. Now onto design! Shopify offers all kinds of “themes” that you can choose from for your storefront. Themes with names like “Debut”, “Simple”, “Technical”, “Nature”, just to name a few.
They also offered free, and paid themes. I never went with the Paid ones though.
Once you choose a theme, now you have to decorate it and make it yours. Now I have to admit, this they have made very simple.
Except for the fact that there are a ton of “sections”. First the header, then the Menu, then the main title along with your chosen look. Then product section, then legal, then on and on and on.
It took me a couple days just to get this part done.
Thank the gods that my wife loves to take pictures. I needed a logo, and I looked through her pics on the computer and found a great one. It was a bumble bee on a sunflower. It was colorful, it was simple and it conveyed simplicity. This was going to be my logo. Now I had to come up with another picture that would convey “General Store”.
Did you know that there are websites out there that have pictures you can download, and some of them are completely free? So I turned to one of these free sites and did a search for general store. Jack Pot! These were awesome!
Old fashioned ones, dirt road ones, sunset ones, it was enough to make ones mouth water. I chose one that had a storefront in it, that actually said General Store, on a dirt road, with the sun setting in the background.
“Perfect”!
Now the next thing I needed to do was choose a font that was simple and clean, and looked old school. I chose one that looked a little bit like handwriting. Then I needed to choose background colors.
So anyway, I followed the directions, I placed all of these necessary things on “my” website. It looked really good if I do say so myself.
Now I need a “Domain Name” Did I mention that all of these websites said that this was “easy”? I guess it might be, IF, you were what I call tech savvy. Have I mentioned that I am functionally illiterate when it comes to computers? I’m learning though….:)
Tomorrow, the next step in my journey,
until then, with thanks,
Tim and Tipper, oh, and Michelle
