online tanning store advice needed

[cheekymonkey]

Hi guys,

I have been approached by a friend and offered a large share of a business idea that he has. He has secured a very good domain name and is looking to set up a store that supplies tanning products, but lotion and fake tanning.

I have done some quick research into this market and it appears that there are very little online stores that sell a range of different brands within the field. Also looking at the stats the fake tanning industry is growing bigger and bigger!

We all this in mind i would love to hear from anyone that has an info, tips, contacts within this industry. Also as this would be my first online store, should i try and work on the no stick bases and become almost like an agent, where the order will be delivered direct from the main supplier? This obviouslu would be the cheaper and less risky option, but i worry that we would lose the branding on the parcel covers etc...

Any ideas how i should approach the suppliers? should i just approach each supplier and try and get their products at the best possible price? Will large suppliers happily agree to stock their products with us? The reason im asking is because my friend has approached a number of these companies with emails and calls and not one has come back to him...

Or should i look at finding a central distributer that deals with a range of brands and work out a price with him ( although i would presume that this would mean higher prices as their would be him working at the middle man.

Any advice on running an online store? any advise on the tanning market? Although this idea is is a industry that is new to me, i really think that with the right branding and exposure it could have real potential.
...
I welcome your thoughts?

[Astaroth]

The main question would be why is there an established product that doesnt have any websites specialising in it? Is it because there have been and they have failed or is it a brain wave your friend has had?

Dropshipping is always an option (where its delivered directly from the supplier to the customer) and depending on the supplier you may not lose "your branding" as some will ensure invoices etc are sent with your header etc but you need to check all of this out and who "ownes" the customer for the purposes of marketing to them.

If you are negotiating for carrying stock you will need to speak to suppliers. Some large suppliers are happy to deal with small businesses others require minimum order sizes that are prohibative to them. Likewise dont always assume that a middleman adds additional costs, in some cases suppliers higher in the supply chain will deal with small consignments but prefer not to and so dont price competitively.

As to if they will allow you to stock their products, that depends on the brand and their proposition. I dont know about the tanning market but certainly in other spaces there are brands who are very selective about their retailers where as others allow every person who wants to sell them.

[quikshop]

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=fake+tan+lotion&meta=

or

http://www.google.co.uk/products?hl=en&q=buy+fake+tan&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=HDbCSZDdCaKHjAeG_uCqCw&sa=X&oi=product_result_group&resnum=1&ct=title

Plenty of competition, definitely trial the idea first perhaps on Ebay or through a cheap hosted solution before commiting a lot of money to your idea.

[LBtrading]

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=fake+tan+lotion&meta=

or

http://www.google.co.uk/products?hl=en&q=buy+fake+tan&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=HDbCSZDdCaKHjAeG_uCqCw&sa=X&oi=product_result_group&resnum=1&ct=title

Plenty of competition, definitely trial the idea first perhaps on Ebay or through a cheap hosted solution before commiting a lot of money to your idea.

Actually google shows that it isnt competitive at all in fact the first link only has just over 300,000 search results and also the websites on page 1 have little to no backlinks.

also keywords like tanning lotion have very little competition in seo terms and wouldnt be hard to rank. Infact I would say its a good for someone to learn some basic seo and you could tackle this niche yourself.

the above is from an seo perspective only and has nothing to do with the conversion side of things which is the website design, product varience etc but from an online business perspective it is viable even for beginners, looking at the ammount of search's for a few keywords its not going to make you millionaires but has potential to provide a reasonable monthly income depending on what the profit margin is like on your products.

as for finding products just go to other tanning lotion websites find the most popular brands and email them, if they wont supply you direct the may refer you to a distributor.

[Burden]

Maybe why there isnt a other store selling branded tans etc and that he hasnt had a single reply is because they only stock in Chain stores with Bricks and mortar?

Worth checking out first.

[quikshop]

Actually google shows that it isnt competitive at all in fact the first link only has just over 300,000 search results and also the websites on page 1 have little to no backlinks.

That was just the first search I did, try http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=buy+fake+tan&meta= with nearly 1 million, I'm sure if I changed the search term I could return a lot more results.

You've repeated my point, to succeed with such a niche product within such a price-competitive market is not easy. Businesses like Boots can trim margins to 5% per item sold, that's less than 30p gross profit per £5.99 bottle of tanning lotion, to compete on a big enough scale to make this type of business worthwhile needs some very clever marketing and product positioning.

My advice remains to trial your idea on Ebay or by using a low-cost Ecommerce solution to see if your business idea can gain traction. And only then once you have proven the concept and that a market is there for this type of business, then throw some investment at it.

[Burden]

i agree with Dave, a few stores on ebay already stock Fake Bake so might be worth contacting them, see what prices you get from them / the distribution chain for them, see how that compaires to the prices selling on ebay (minus ebay/paypal costs) to see what it leaves you or if you can offer better prices and then give it a go.

If it works, throw some money into a flash store and marketing, if not its a few hundred pound lost.

[JamieM]

Maybe why there isnt a other store selling branded tans etc and that he hasnt had a single reply is because they only stock in Chain stores with Bricks and mortar?

Worth checking out first.

I think this is highly likely. Cosmetic companies are very protective of their brands.

I think you will struggle to get these products as an online only new start. All you can do is persist in trying to contact the suppliers.

[LBtrading]

That was just the first search I did, try http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=buy+fake+tan&meta= with nearly 1 million, I'm sure if I changed the search term I could return a lot more results.

You've repeated my point, to succeed with such a niche product within such a price-competitive market is not easy. Businesses like Boots can trim margins to 5% per item sold, that's less than 30p gross profit per £5.99 bottle of tanning lotion, to compete on a big enough scale to make this type of business worthwhile needs some very clever marketing and product positioning.

My advice remains to trial your idea on Ebay or by using a low-cost Ecommerce solution to see if your business idea can gain traction. And only then once you have proven the concept and that a market is there for this type of business, then throw some investment at it.

I would like to mention in terms of seo the number of search results returned doesnt really matter that much, its onpage and offpage optimization of the results that determine how competitive (hard) it is.

I agree that profit margins maybe tight thats part of market research that you need to do.

Personally I think starting on ebay is a bad idea in terms of a test for how well an ecommerce site will do, they are totally different in every way, but a low cost e-commerce solution is great advice.

Either a monthly one or a low cost oscommerce, zen and cre etc.

[Burden]

Recieved the New Start magazine yesterday!

The distributor owned by Sandra McClumpha that brought Fake Bake to the UK has just bought the Parent company in the USA for £10 Million.