Restarting in online business...

[hougtimo]

Hi,

For the last 2 years or so, I ran an online business supplying Car Lighting products (no neons or anything illegal... all iso marked and approved bulbs) to car clubs. It went pretty well untill the Royal Mail messed things up big time at christmas, resulting in me losing nearly £400 in products and lost postage.

Since I've given it up I have realized it was a job I actually enjoyed and got a lot out of, as well as becoming very knowledgeable about the products.

I've decided to go back into it, but am not going to rush it. I have a stable(ish) form of income at the moment and am covering my bills so I have a bit of time to build this up properly.

Really I'm looking for advice about building this up properly, and making it work this time! I've popped together a bit of a checklist, any comments or additions would be very welcome.

Things I have got:

Website (Hosting / Programmer / Site)
3 high traffic domains
Supplier
Some capital to put into the business
Decent accounting package


Things I need:

An alternative courier (any suggestions would be very useful)
...mind has gone blank, will finish this later (suggestions welcome)


What else should I be looking out for? I could do with some help regarding markup etc... too - but I'll come to that in due course.

Thanks

Tim

[DanSimpson-P1 Technology]

so it looks like the basics are all there and presuming that you were successful before there is no reason as to why you cant carry that on.

Next steps would be to first and foremost start making a plan. Ensure that all the bills are covered and cashflow is in the positive. When detailed you should find that a minimum sales target is needed on you term (monthly say).
So your primary focus switches to, how to generate these sales.

As time goes on you will be able to improve the site, get better advertising but firstly make sure you hit that primary target!

Courier, well take you pick. There are plenty out there - City Link, ParcelForce etc etc. The important thing is to build this into your costings and each of these couriers have different services that you should also be taking advantage of!

Will be more than ghappy to carry this on, either in or out of this forum. Let me know how you get on! and I hope this is of some help!

[andymayhem]

houg, i havent run a business sending out 10s of packages a day but I have in the past had to send out 1-2 packages a day for a few months and in my experience royal mail were the best, tnt would randomly send my packages to the wrong addresses, with citylink I was getting emails complaining that clients were in all day but citylink said they were out - ie not even knocking or posting a card. There are a few others I have had issues with but RM were the best and I had no issues.

And as a customer, RM always deliver on time, and their depos are close so if i do miss them i dont have far to go, unlike citylink et which are over 30 miles away

[askgod]

Why wait to get started? It would seem to me that you have everything in place except paying customers. You should be able to recover your old ones as well if you take the time to contact each and explain what went wrong.

Generating new customers may be your concern, You say that you have high traffic domains, but do these actually deliver people looking to buy your product? There are a lot of clever ways to reach new clients, without spamming or doing anything stupid.

The best tip I can give you for this is to use the social networking search engine, set your search to time based results, then put in things like "where do I get automotive products" or "where automotive" for more results.

The search will return you lots of people who are asking these questions within the last few hours .... all you have to do is provide solutions for them and build up you list of new customers;)

[robertt]

Things I have got:

Website (Hosting / Programmer / Site)
3 high traffic domains



Dont be too hasty to alter a winning site, if you change anything on them do so over a decent time period and measure changes :)

[Robs]

Tarmag car magazine are offering to ukbf members free advertising in exchange for products/service here on another thread http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=101847

If your looking for business advice then you should make contact with your local Business gateway/Link, they will give you a business advisor and you can request to see specialist on-line business advisor. if your serious about moving fowards they can give you some really good advice.

Sign up for car forum, write threads about the best lighting for modern day pimp my ride car e.t.c

network with garages, auto electricians send them your branded calenders,cups, merchandise.

Give out leaflets and branded keyrings in your local town centres get the support of your local area as well as the wider world wide web. locals can keep you afloat.

Contact local rally sports clubs give them some marketing merchandise, go down to their meeting and give a 5 minute talk on your products/service and the benefits of using your website.

Try door to door chapping if you have catalogue or leaflets. sometimes you have to go fishing.

Adwords campaigns, Affiliate marketing for website. would it be worth spending 6k+ for seo ers to improve rankings.

Hope this helps