Hey, all. I'm looking at starting a webstore but was curious what the ramp-up time is like for new shop owners. I realize that it depends HEAVILY on how much/what kind of marketing is done, but maybe some of you more experienced entrepreneurs can let me know about how long it was from the time your store went live to the time you started getting a decent number of orders. Also, what kind of marketing did you use to get there?
Thanks a ton and I look forward to participating more in the future.

Jim V.
Family Hearth (?)

Welcome!! Depends on what goods you are selling, and how well you
have marketed your site/store...you could add image link
in your sig at these forums.

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and
Unusual and Special Gifts

Ditto everything Dezina said. A lot depends on your target market. I used to sell High Visibility safety clothing so my target market was obviously other businesses as this is where the big orders came from. One decent business order was worth more than fifty orders from the general public due to the amount involved and the likelihood of receiving similar repeat orders.

Strangely enough, the best marketing for my store was to use eBay! I didn't blatantly plug my site on there but I was either approached directly from prospective bulk buyers or I'd send a flyer for my site with each delivery and hope that they would use the site instead of eBay for the next purchase.

My site was standing on it's own two feet within three months but it depends on what you sell and who your target market is. Most of my sales were from repeat orders which makes things easier, but if what you sell is likely to be one offs then you have to use a different marketing strategy and really work those search engines.

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Lawrence

What I'll be selling is small home decor items (a combination of commercially available items from a supplier and home-made woodcrafts). I tried once about a year ago to start a webstore through Homestead but totally flopped due to my lack of knowledge of internet marketing. I'm now getting more knowledgeable of affiliate programs, etc. One of my biggest questions I have on my mind right now is how long it may take to get orders coming in so that my sales will at least cover my costs.

Thanks for your help!

Should not cost a great deal to start online store
i.e.
1 domain name.. around £6.50 for co.uk..lasts 2 years,
.com for year, around £4.50
Yearly Web Hosting...if you shop around, £50/80 per year
1 Free shopping cart programme i.e. zencart or oscommerce
Orders: again, depends how you market your site, submit to search
engines, try Lawrence's ebay suggestion, especially those home made items.
If you don't try, you will never know what might have been

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and
Unusual and Special Gifts

Google are giving away £30 of AdWords for all new accounts.
http://services.google.com/marketing...rds-gotooffer/

You can use this to give your site a little kickstart. Recouping the money you spend on a site can usually be done easily and quickly. It's recouping the cost of the time you put into the site that's more difficult.

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Lawrence

Hi Jim,

Generally it depends on the size of your marketing budget as to just how quickly you can ramp up a new Web shop.

There are exceptions, one of our shop owners hit the ground running big time by selling high value and highly sought after products, another got her Web shop listed on her main suppliers web site as a preferred retail outlet and that got her shop off to a good start.

The most successful Web shop we've ever seen took 3 months to get their first order. Now in its 5th year the owner takes a good 6-figure annual turnover.

If you can afford the initial outlay, you might want to look at affiliate schemes such as Affiliate Windows, Affiliate Futures etc. These are not instant hit solutions, but if your products have a market and you can make your affiliate proposition attractive enough, you could gain wide exposure quite quickly.

Before they stopped using affiliate schemes, asos.com was generating up to 25% of their business through affiliates promoting their products.

Otherwise, if like the rest of us your marketing budget is modest, a new Web shop like good SEO should be seen as a medium to long term venture.

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Regards,
Dave

Internet Retailer eCommerce shops . Geran SEO search engine optimisation