Need advice on how to expand my business

[José Airosa]

Hello,

This is the first time I'm posting here. Been looking for help for a while and I think this forum is exactly what I need.

I've started my company in late October. I'm currently incorporated and registered for VAT.
This is my second job. I'm a Software Engineer as my main profession and started my business as a side project, following a passion for what I'm selling. I do not know if I should post a link to my shop, but if you'd like to help me further, please send me a DM and I'll send it through my shop link. Want to make sure this is not seen and advertisement attempt.

My current situation:

• Started trading in late January after getting my VAT number
• Average price of my items is around £200. I sell premium and high quality collectible figures (things like anime, manga and movies action figures)
• I've had a total of 22 orders (half of these are pre-orders which is a common selling approach in these type of items)
• I started selling to UK only, but recently expanded to rest of the world
• I've got my shop integrated with various metric aggregators which allows me to understand my customer behaviour and make changes to better adapt to their needs
• I've got things in place like "cart recovery", "refer a friend" and planning to do a giveaway in the next upcoming days
• I act on a dropship approach. I don't hold stock in my warehouse for all items (I've got more than 3000 items in my catalogue), I order from my provider when an order comes in.

My problem:

• I'm spending more on advertising than actual profit
• I'm getting an average of 300 users/day and 1000 pageviews/day
• My conversion rate is something like 1% at the moment

My questions:

• Is it common to have this low conversion for such an new company?
• I'm worried about the unbalanced spending vs. profit. Should I be?
• If I go 3 days without an order I get really anxious

I'd be very glad if anyone could give any insight into personal experience.

Thank you!

 

[WebDesires]

I would definitely concentrate on conversions, and why customers are not converting so that you make the most out of any investment.

I'm going to PM you now.

 

[datahound]

Establishing a web shop business will take some time.

How are you advertising? Google adverts? Or magazines for that area of interest?

What is name of site so I can have a look?

 

[datahound]

"I'm getting an average of 300 users/day and 1000 pageviews/day"

Are these people or bots?

 

[José Airosa]

Establishing a web shop business will take some time.

How are you advertising? Google adverts? Or magazines for that area of interest?

What is name of site so I can have a look?

Hi, thank you for your reply.

I started with Google adwords and Facebook, but facebook turned out to bring quantity, but not a lot of quality. Bounce rate was quite high.
I'm currently only with targeted google adwords and I'm advertising on an affiliate website that is dedicated to the items that I see. I believe 40% of my traffic is now coming from that website.

"I'm getting an average of 300 users/day and 1000 pageviews/day"

Are these people or bots?

From the behaviour it appears to be real people.

 

[José Airosa]

What is name of site so I can have a look?

Apologies, forgot this part. The website is animegami.co.uk

 

[José Airosa]

Hi, just wondering if anyone else is able to provide some more insight

Thank you so much!

 

[Mr A P Davies]

I don't know anything about pushing online stuff.

You've only been trading two months?
When I started out, I invested £2000, and didn't expect to make a penny for the first two years, and that was the way it turned out. (I cut grass)
For the first 12 months, every thing I earned went back into the business, and most of it for the next 12 months.
I certainly spent more on advertising than it was bringing back, at one time. Now I don't spend anything on advertising. (I'm still not making any money, but that's another story)

In your position, providing you can see a way forward, I wouldn't be too concerned just yet.
How many more sales would you need to break even?
If it's only a couple more, hold steady and wait.
If you need 10 times as many to see a return, maybe your doing something wrong.

I remember all to well, wondering if I was chucking money down the drain. Looking back, and with the work I have now, I was nothing to worry about.
Hope it goes well for you.

 

[AllUpHere]

Apologies, forgot this part. The website is animegami.co.uk

What appear to be half naked kids toys (although presumably for adults with 'issues'), with massive boobs must be a pretty niche market.

I'd suggest finding the dark corners of the internet where weirdo's hang out, and advertise there.

 

[datahound]

Couple of ideas.

Twitter could really work for your kind of business.
Following people is a good way to get attention.
Following people who are following your competition.
Following people your competition is following.
Following people who are interested in this area, Dr Who fans, Star Wars fans. etc
In fact for Twitter promotion your business is a dream.

Retweeting can also draw attention and you have so much choice what you can retweet.

Don't worry about your timeline being swamped, set up lists for the stuff you want to follow. You could have also a list for people interested in Star Wars, Dr Who. Manga, and a list for your personal stuff, friends and associates. Also a list for customers, make them feel special and come back?
Then you can retweet cool news out of your lists.

Liking tweets also gets attention. People look to see who liked my tweet. They might shop you never know.

Running competitions on Facebook or Twitter where a retweet or share is required for entry.

Make your customer feel special by seeking out there Twitter handle and following them and add to list. A repeat customer is worth weight in gold and def worth the effort to nurture.

On your site I saw no telephone number. This would put me off buying. I like to know if there is a problem I can phone. You can get a landline no to divert to your mobile cheaply enough.

Maybe get yourself a good book on social media and have a read, get some ideas, I think it could really work for you.

 

[Chris Ashdown]

Your home page just shows a large number of images it does not say anything about you so not giving any confidence which you need if spending well over £100

Home page does not give address or contact details so I would not buy from you

Images are so large they take a long time in internet terms to load

You are in a very small niche area and need to be able to install confidence in the buyers

I would suggest you really find web sites and forums where people with similar interests live and get posting and advertising there and maybe magazine adds.

I would also drop the adult stuff unless its a big market as its looks out of place with the rest and could put some people off

 

[Duci]

Hello,

This is the first time I'm posting here. Been looking for help for a while and I think this forum is exactly what I need.

I've started my company in late October. I'm currently incorporated and registered for VAT.
This is my second job. I'm a Software Engineer as my main profession and started my business as a side project, following a passion for what I'm selling. I do not know if I should post a link to my shop, but if you'd like to help me further, please send me a DM and I'll send it through my shop link. Want to make sure this is not seen and advertisement attempt.

My current situation:

• Started trading in late January after getting my VAT number
• Average price of my items is around £200. I sell premium and high quality collectible figures (things like anime, manga and movies action figures)
• I've had a total of 22 orders (half of these are pre-orders which is a common selling approach in these type of items)
• I started selling to UK only, but recently expanded to rest of the world
• I've got my shop integrated with various metric aggregators which allows me to understand my customer behaviour and make changes to better adapt to their needs
• I've got things in place like "cart recovery", "refer a friend" and planning to do a giveaway in the next upcoming days
• I act on a dropship approach. I don't hold stock in my warehouse for all items (I've got more than 3000 items in my catalogue), I order from my provider when an order comes in.

My problem:

• I'm spending more on advertising than actual profit
• I'm getting an average of 300 users/day and 1000 pageviews/day
• My conversion rate is something like 1% at the moment

My questions:

• Is it common to have this low conversion for such an new company?
• I'm worried about the unbalanced spending vs. profit. Should I be?
• If I go 3 days without an order I get really anxious

I'd be very glad if anyone could give any insight into personal experience.

Thank you!

Hello, I have checked out your website and its a really simply and effective website (good job).
I would advise you too incorporate a blog onto your website - and talk about anime, share some content such as videos, new game releases etc. (this should improve your conversion rate)

I think your spending on advertising needs to stop until you enough money to pay for a more effective way of advertising - because what you are paying for at the moment is not working. I think you should register to all social media sites (if you have not already) and target the people the people who you are selling to.

You want to present your business profile in a professional manner vis social media as you don't want to seem like a scam. You want to provide high quality image and you want to make the social media site represent your business. The great thing about Instagram is that when you follow people they will get notified - so want to follow your target market and make sure your username is something that represents the area of field your in. As this will get people looking at your page....

 

[benb]

Website took a long time to load for me, this could have an affect on your bounce rate.

Also, your pricing strategy seems very inconsistent. This will likely have an affect on conversion.

 

[antropy]

I'm a Software Engineer as my main profession and started my business as a side project, following a passion for what I'm selling.

As a fellow software developer-turned-business-owner I can relate.

• I'm spending more on advertising than actual profit

Answer: spend less or increase ROI. What are you spending it on? If it's AdWords, you probably need to be more specific in your keywords and ads.

• Is it common to have this low conversion for such an new company?

1% isn't actually that low, so you need to factor this into your marketing spend.

• I'm worried about the unbalanced spending vs. profit. Should I be?

Of course, the first aim of any business is to make more money than they spend

• If I go 3 days without an order I get really anxious

Probably wise to be honest. Sometimes an update, server change, bug, whatever prevents orders. In this case you should be regularly doing test orders to make sure all is working okay.

However, it sounds like you've made a good start and with some tweaks and improvements you should be able to make it more profitable. Spend the time trying to work out what tweaks you can make that will increase your ROI. Don't just guess, make changes and measure the difference. Marketing is often incredibly counter-intuitive.

And feel free to run your site through here for some free tips:
www.antropy.co.uk/ecommerce-website-grader/

 

[José Airosa]

I don't know anything about pushing online stuff.

You've only been trading two months?
When I started out, I invested £2000, and didn't expect to make a penny for the first two years, and that was the way it turned out. (I cut grass)
For the first 12 months, every thing I earned went back into the business, and most of it for the next 12 months.
I certainly spent more on advertising than it was bringing back, at one time. Now I don't spend anything on advertising. (I'm still not making any money, but that's another story)

In your position, providing you can see a way forward, I wouldn't be too concerned just yet.
How many more sales would you need to break even?
If it's only a couple more, hold steady and wait.
If you need 10 times as many to see a return, maybe your doing something wrong.

I remember all to well, wondering if I was chucking money down the drain. Looking back, and with the work I have now, I was nothing to worry about.
Hope it goes well for you.

Thanks a lot!

Yes I incorporated at the end of October, but only started trading at the end of January.

I would say to brake even, at this point, I would need 2x of what I'm making.

 

[José Airosa]

What appear to be half naked kids toys (although presumably for adults with 'issues'), with massive boobs must be a pretty niche market.

I'd suggest finding the dark corners of the internet where weirdo's hang out, and advertise there.

Yes those figures are actually quite popular, but within a niche.

Thank you for the feedback, I need to try and find some places where I can advertise these specific items, as most places are quite against direct advertisement.

 

[José Airosa]

Couple of ideas.

Twitter could really work for your kind of business.
Following people is a good way to get attention.
Following people who are following your competition.
Following people your competition is following.
Following people who are interested in this area, Dr Who fans, Star Wars fans. etc
In fact for Twitter promotion your business is a dream.

Retweeting can also draw attention and you have so much choice what you can retweet.

Don't worry about your timeline being swamped, set up lists for the stuff you want to follow. You could have also a list for people interested in Star Wars, Dr Who. Manga, and a list for your personal stuff, friends and associates. Also a list for customers, make them feel special and come back?
Then you can retweet cool news out of your lists.

Liking tweets also gets attention. People look to see who liked my tweet. They might shop you never know.

Running competitions on Facebook or Twitter where a retweet or share is required for entry.

Make your customer feel special by seeking out there Twitter handle and following them and add to list. A repeat customer is worth weight in gold and def worth the effort to nurture.

On your site I saw no telephone number. This would put me off buying. I like to know if there is a problem I can phone. You can get a landline no to divert to your mobile cheaply enough.

Maybe get yourself a good book on social media and have a read, get some ideas, I think it could really work for you.

Thank you very much

I think I probably saw twitter wrongly, or probably just understood it wrong. I think the following and liking twits related with my products could definitely go a long way. Thanks for that.
I need to read more about lists to be honest, that will help me a lot.

I do have a competition setup to start in the next couple of days. Lets see how it goes

Do you suggest any books?

 

[José Airosa]

Your home page just shows a large number of images it does not say anything about you so not giving any confidence which you need if spending well over £100

Home page does not give address or contact details so I would not buy from you

Images are so large they take a long time in internet terms to load

You are in a very small niche area and need to be able to install confidence in the buyers

I would suggest you really find web sites and forums where people with similar interests live and get posting and advertising there and maybe magazine adds.

I would also drop the adult stuff unless its a big market as its looks out of place with the rest and could put some people off

Thank you for the feedback.

Those items are actually quite popular, I would say, 25% of my sales are those items.
I tried to mitigate that by obfuscating them and you only see them if you click on to remove the filter.

In regards to address and contact details, they can be found on the contact us page. I only have a virtual address as this is just an e-commerce. I do get all correspondence redirected to my home address tho. Phone number I also have one, but it's not on the homepage, I will definitely add it there. Only problem with phone number is given this is currently not my main job, I might not be able to take the call.

The images is strange, you're actually the first person to mention about slow loading. I'll definitely look into it.

 

[José Airosa]

Hello, I have checked out your website and its a really simply and effective website (good job).
I would advise you too incorporate a blog onto your website - and talk about anime, share some content such as videos, new game releases etc. (this should improve your conversion rate)

I think your spending on advertising needs to stop until you enough money to pay for a more effective way of advertising - because what you are paying for at the moment is not working. I think you should register to all social media sites (if you have not already) and target the people the people who you are selling to.

You want to present your business profile in a professional manner vis social media as you don't want to seem like a scam. You want to provide high quality image and you want to make the social media site represent your business. The great thing about Instagram is that when you follow people they will get notified - so want to follow your target market and make sure your username is something that represents the area of field your in. As this will get people looking at your page....

Thank you, great feedback

I do have a blog currently. I'm currently trying to find people to help me with content, as unfortunately I have limited time to work on the shop and build content. But that makes perfect sense.

 

[José Airosa]

Website took a long time to load for me, this could have an affect on your bounce rate.

Also, your pricing strategy seems very inconsistent. This will likely have an affect on conversion.

Yesterday I had some issues with my provider. The shop is heavily cached, so in theory it should load in less than 1 second. I will look into that tho, thank you.

Could you elaborate a bit more on the pricing strategy?

 

[José Airosa]

As a fellow software developer-turned-business-owner I can relate.

Answer: spend less or increase ROI. What are you spending it on? If it's AdWords, you probably need to be more specific in your keywords and ads.


1% isn't actually that low, so you need to factor this into your marketing spend.


Of course, the first aim of any business is to make more money than they spend


Probably wise to be honest. Sometimes an update, server change, bug, whatever prevents orders. In this case you should be regularly doing test orders to make sure all is working okay.

However, it sounds like you've made a good start and with some tweaks and improvements you should be able to make it more profitable. Spend the time trying to work out what tweaks you can make that will increase your ROI. Don't just guess, make changes and measure the difference. Marketing is often incredibly counter-intuitive.

Thanks a lot!

I ran the shop through that grader. There's a lot of good information there!

I've got my shop heavily monitored, from new relic, to inspectlet and heap analytics. I believe I have a great deal of data, just need to find the best way to apply it to the shop.

I'm mostly spending on adwords currently. Something like £10/day.

 

[datahound]

Not really that I can think of now.

The trouble with books is they can go out of date so quickly.

Have a search on Amazon. Read the reviews. On the Kindle versions they only cost a couple of quid so buy three or four and glean the best from each.

There are also lots of free resources online I should imagine.

I have gleaned a lot of my ideas based on what I have seen others doing and what I have thought myself would work.

 

[José Airosa]

Not really that I can think of now.

The trouble with books is they can go out of date so quickly.

Have a search on Amazon. Read the reviews. On the Kindle versions they only cost a couple of quid so buy three or four and glean the best from each.

There are also lots of free resources online I should imagine.

I have gleaned a lot of my ideas based on what I have seen others doing and what I have thought myself would work.

You're right on the books. I'll definitely read more on the social aspect.

 

[Leather Briefcase Company]

If you have 300 users a day, and your conversion rate is 1% - you are selling three items a day.
However if you've been going two months, sold 22 items from 18000 visitors [ your facts are 60 days trading and 300 visits per day ] your sales to visits conversion rate is 0.12%.
Plenty of room for improvement.

However over 20 high value items in two months is a good start.

Don't worry about days with zero takings, you are selling items which are "considered purchases" not "impulse buys".
You'll find the end of the month may bring a bunch of orders as the pay cheques arrive.
Also stick it out until Xmas.
Your kind of products can achieve 50% of annual sales in the peak weeks of November and December.
So you've started at a good time to build up customer confidence through the year.
And I agree with a previous comment, put your phone contact on every page.
Potential clients like to feel they can contact you.
Good luck.

 

[BlackMagicX]

Hi,

I know exactly what you're selling. I think i'm starting to get a nack for this.

Are you sourcing Max factory and GoodSmile Anime figurines as well? I researched this market and found a couple of problems.

1. It's very niche. Unless you're selling replicas or are able to manufacturer your own figurines, you're likely to hit a ceiling. Anime and Marvel fans are very loyal to who they buy from, you'll need to convince them as to why they should buy from you instead. They also prefer to purchase directly from Japan for authenticity.

Look to Instagram, target Anime fans and Influencers.

2. Pre Orders limits how quickly you can grow. Manufacturers obviously limit what they produce to encourage demand, but as a business that wants to grow this can be quite frustrating.

Think about adding some value whilst buyers wait. Throw in complimentary t-shirts or up sell related products that are more available.

3. The lifespan of these models depends on whether they are popular or not. You may sell hundreds of a Link Nendoroid for example but sell hardly any Luigi Nendorids because it's not a popular figurine. You're then stuck with hundreds of a product that nobody wants. Anime is like fashion, if you can keep up with the trends, you'll be fine. Although this won't apply to you since you're dropshipping, but might explain why certain models won't sell.

There is a reason why there isn't many new companies in the market and why Anime sites generally look like they were designed in the 90's. I do however think there is space for a well designed brand, but again, you need to offer something different.

I really want someone to succeed in this space and believe you have what it takes. Many of these companies went bust during the recession and it can be really infuriating seeing the quality of websites selling these products.

 

[José Airosa]

If you have 300 users a day, and your conversion rate is 1% - you are selling three items a day.
However if you've been going two months, sold 22 items from 18000 visitors [ your facts are 60 days trading and 300 visits per day ] your sales to visits conversion rate is 0.12%.
Plenty of room for improvement.

However over 20 high value items in two months is a good start.

Don't worry about days with zero takings, you are selling items which are "considered purchases" not "impulse buys".
You'll find the end of the month may bring a bunch of orders as the pay cheques arrive.
Also stick it out until Xmas.
Your kind of products can achieve 50% of annual sales in the peak weeks of November and December.
So you've started at a good time to build up customer confidence through the year.
And I agree with a previous comment, put your phone contact on every page.
Potential clients like to feel they can contact you.
Good luck.

Thanks a lot. Appreciate the feedback.

I've only started to see those numbers roughly since 2 weeks ago after started advertising on a anime figures website. It has risen to 600 user a day for the last 4 days and about 2500 page views. It's quite good, but not that many orders yet. I believe the trust issue is coming into play now.

I've just done a couple of changes to the website, re-arranged top navigation and added more info to the contact us and about us page. Will monitor any uplift in the next couple of days.

I must say, thank you everyone for the awesome comments, I did not expect so many people to pitch in and help

 

[José Airosa]

Hi,

I know exactly what you're selling. I think i'm starting to get a nack for this.

Are you sourcing Max factory and GoodSmile Anime figurines as well? I researched this market and found a couple of problems.

1. It's very niche. Unless you're selling replicas or are able to manufacturer your own figurines, you're likely to hit a ceiling. Anime and Marvel fans are very loyal to who they buy from, you'll need to convince them as to why they should buy from you instead. They also prefer to purchase directly from Japan for authenticity.

Look to Instagram, target Anime fans and Influencers.

2. Pre Orders limits how quickly you can grow. Manufacturers obviously limit what they produce to encourage demand, but as a business that wants to grow this can be quite frustrating.

Think about adding some value whilst buyers wait. Throw in complimentary t-shirts or up sell related products that are more available.

3. The lifespan of these models depends on whether they are popular or not. You may sell hundreds of a Link Nendoroid for example but sell hardly any Luigi Nendorids because it's not a popular figurine. You're then stuck with hundreds of a product that nobody wants. Anime is like fashion, if you can keep up with the trends, you'll be fine. Although this won't apply to you since you're dropshipping, but might explain why certain models won't sell.

There is a reason why there isn't many new companies in the market and why Anime sites generally look like they were designed in the 90's. I do however think there is space for a well designed brand, but again, you need to offer something different.

I really want someone to succeed in this space and believe you have what it takes. Many of these companies went bust during the recession and it can be really infuriating seeing the quality of websites selling these products.

Hey! Great to see someone here that knows this market.

It's true, it's niche. I've got so many things planned for the shop, content to add to the blog, etc. It's just hard because I'm doing all of this alone and there's only 24h in the day. I've managed to automate everything that is related with the shop. I just need to focus mostly on getting the shop out there and polishing rough edges.

I'm surprised that currently 50% of my orders are pre-orders. I didn't expect such a high volume when I started.

The reason every other website looks terrible is exactly why I decided to get into this. Fortunately due to my background I can build anything technically, but it's the marketing side that I'm currently lacking the most.

Thanks for the Instagram suggestion. I'm on all social networks currently and a lot of them are automated with IFTTT and Buffer, which helps a lot.

 

[japancool]

I'm in almost the same market as you, although I don't sell figures.

I don't see anything particularly wrong with your website. It's ahead of most of the sites in the industry, mine included. I don't think the site is the problem.

The problem in this industry is twofold.

One, you're competing with direct imports from Japan. There is, in my experience, a ceiling price compared to the Japanese list price that people will pay to buy locally. Anything above that and people will buy direct. Even at that price, you simply cannot compete with ebay sellers under-declaring the value of the item and helping the customer avoid VAT.

Secondly, in the figures industry, you have to be prepared to end up with a LOT of dead stock. The popularity of certain characters has a limited life, generally within a few months of the TV series being aired. And most of this stuff isn't shown on TV here. Right now, you could get Sword Art Online or perhaps Attack on Titan, but if those don't sell within the next few months and the series ends, what then? People will be after the next big thing. This is the same point that BlackMagicX makes.

Thirdly, high end collectibles, in the UK, are a VERY niche market, even moreso than general anime goods. We sell Robot Damashii collectibles, and you would think these would be popular with our audience - but no, no one's really that interested in them because they don't see them as collectibles that justify the price.

Fourthly, if the likes of Forbidden Planet start stocking the same items as you, you're screwed. They will drop the prices by 20-30% if their stock doesn't sell. They can afford it, because they're diverse enough to subsidise it with the margins on their other products, can you do the same?

I wish you good luck and I hope you succeed. But I honestly think you might be on a hiding to nothing with figures.

However, since you're in London, I recommend you get a stand at MCM at Excel. They still have some floor space only stands available for the May show, and if you want to build brand awareness, that's where you want to be. There is at least one other company that offers figures, but they're a German company. Stand space is expensivem at close to £200/m2 but with 150,000 potential customers there, it's worth it, IMO.

 

[José Airosa]

I'm in almost the same market as you, although I don't sell figures.

I don't see anything particularly wrong with your website. It's ahead of most of the sites in the industry, mine included. I don't think the site is the problem.

The problem in this industry is twofold.

One, you're competing with direct imports from Japan. There is, in my experience, a ceiling price compared to the Japanese list price that people will pay to buy locally. Anything above that and people will buy direct. Even at that price, you simply cannot compete with ebay sellers under-declaring the value of the item and helping the customer avoid VAT.

Secondly, in the figures industry, you have to be prepared to end up with a LOT of dead stock. The popularity of certain characters has a limited life, generally within a few months of the TV series being aired. And most of this stuff isn't shown on TV here. Right now, you could get Sword Art Online or perhaps Attack on Titan, but if those don't sell within the next few months and the series ends, what then? People will be after the next big thing. This is the same point that BlackMagicX makes.

Thirdly, high end collectibles, in the UK, are a VERY niche market, even moreso than general anime goods. We sell Robot Damashii collectibles, and you would think these would be popular with our audience - but no, no one's really that interested in them because they don't see them as collectibles that justify the price.

Fourthly, if the likes of Forbidden Planet start stocking the same items as you, you're screwed. They will drop the prices by 20-30% if their stock doesn't sell. They can afford it, because they're diverse enough to subsidise it with the margins on their other products, can you do the same?

I wish you good luck and I hope you succeed. But I honestly think you might be on a hiding to nothing with figures.

However, since you're in London, I recommend you get a stand at MCM at Excel. They still have some floor space only stands available for the May show, and if you want to build brand awareness, that's where you want to be. There is at least one other company that offers figures, but they're a German company. Stand space is expensivem at close to £200/m2 but with 150,000 potential customers there, it's worth it, IMO.

Hello!

Thank you very much for this. It really does clear things a bit.

I'm definitely going to try and get a stand at MCM.

Doing my best to make the business bloom

 

[japancool]

In order to sustain your business, make sure you know what your "bread and butter" products are. And get enough of those in to keep you going.

Selling One Piece, Dragon Ball, Power Rangers may not be what you want to do, but they will keep your business alive while the £200-£2000 figures wait for the collector who's looking for them.

 

[José Airosa]

In order to sustain your business, make sure you know what your "bread and butter" products are. And get enough of those in to keep you going.

Selling One Piece, Dragon Ball, Power Rangers may not be what you want to do, but they will keep your business alive while the £200-£2000 figures wait for the collector who's looking for them.

I think my current biggest issue is stock keeping. I using a dropship approach at the moment where, taking into account that I'm still starting and want to take things slow, I order from my provider once an order comes in. This has obvious issues, namely with delivery where instead of having a next day delivery, it takes at least 5 days to deliver. Doing it this way I also don't take advantage of my provider discounted prices for bulk ordering. I just want to make sure the business is sustainable before investing thousands of pounds onto it, because like you said, I've got 3500+ items in my shop and I cannot keep stock of all of them

 

[japancool]

The next question is, why are you VAT registered? At this stage, you will make more profit if you're not VAT registered. Since your customers are mostly consumers, there's no real advantage to you to be VAT registered.

Unless your costs are higher than your revenue at the moment.

 

[japancool]

Anime and Marvel fans are very loyal to who they buy from, you'll need to convince them as to why they should buy from you instead.

I would say the opposite. Customers in this market are very fickle indeed and brand loyalty is hard won and very, very easily lost and largely comes down to price. Service is a distant second, when you consider the price differential between buying locally and buying from Japan is well over 30%, if you take into account VAT avoidance.

 

[José Airosa]

The next question is, why are you VAT registered? At this stage, you will make more profit if you're not VAT registered. Since your customers are mostly consumers, there's no real advantage to you to be VAT registered.

Unless your costs are higher than your revenue at the moment.

Main reason I decided to register for VAT was to bring more trust to the business. With some research I did with my accountant we found that people are more prone to trust business registered for VAT, specially when values are as high as some of the items I'm selling.

Also wanted to make this a learning experience so doing it this way makes it better to learn how all this work.

 

[japancool]

Another word of advice - if you don't have the item in stock and are able to dispatch it the same day if ordered before 11am (as per your FAQ), then don't label it as being in stock. And if the item is on request only (which I assume means drop-shipped), then make this clearer.

One of my competitors drop ships from Japan, China and Korea but their website is deliberately vague and doesn't make that clear. Customers are unimpressed when an item takes 2 weeks to arrive when he strongly suggests that he is UK based (which HE is, but his stock ain't).

 

[japancool]

Main reason I decided to register for VAT was to bring more trust to the business. With some research I did with my accountant we found that people are more prone to trust business registered for VAT, specially when values are as high as some of the items I'm selling.

Also wanted to make this a learning experience so doing it this way makes it better to learn how all this work.

To consumers, in this industry, it really doesn't make a difference. Most of them don't know or care - what they will look at is the bottom line price.

Where it does make a difference is your ability to deal with suppliers. Some won't deal with non-VAT registered businesses.

 

[José Airosa]

Another word of advice - if you don't have the item in stock and are able to dispatch it the same day if ordered before 11am (as per your FAQ), then don't label it as being in stock. And if the item is on request only (which I assume means drop-shipped), then make this clearer.

One of my competitors drop ships from Japan, China and Korea but their website is deliberately vague and doesn't make that clear. Customers are unimpressed when an item takes 2 weeks to arrive when he strongly suggests that he is UK based (which HE is, but his stock ain't).

Understood! I've tried to make it clear, under the in stock there's a link to a blog post that explains everything that happens during a deliver. Do you think it needs more work?

 

[japancool]

Understood! I've tried to make it clear, under the in stock there's a link to a blog post that explains everything that happens during a deliver. Do you think it needs more work?

Trust me, people won't read it. Half of them won't even bother to read your FAQ. I barely noticed "on request only" label myself. I clicked on "Products -> In stock" and therefore assumed everything shown was in stock and ready to ship.

I have a banner on my front page that says "Dispatched from the UK", and an (outdated) picture of our office that says "Visit our showroom" and people still ask if we have a shop and if we're based in the UK. And regular questions about how much and how long things take to ship, despite this info being in the FAQ.

 

[japancool]

A further comment - you have too many items and figures from different series on your site. You'll overwhelm your users.

Personally, I would cut about half your categories, and begin by focusing on the popular stuff. Some of the things you have are really obscure, or they come from series that just weren't that popular.

 

[José Airosa]

Trust me, people won't read it. Half of them won't even bother to read your FAQ. I barely noticed "on request only" label myself. I clicked on "Products -> In stock" and therefore assumed everything shown was in stock and ready to ship.

I have a banner on my front page that says "Dispatched from the UK", and an (outdated) picture of our office that says "Visit our showroom" and people still ask if we have a shop and if we're based in the UK. And regular questions about how much and how long things take to ship, despite this info being in the FAQ.

Gotcha! I'll make it more clear

Yes I agree that people normally miss half of the things on the page.