I want to open an online shoe store, but need to know if my idea is good or not

[oscarmeyer256]

Hello ladies and gentlemen,
This is my first post here so if I make a freshman error right off the bat someone please correct me. I will not be offended in the slightest. I'm just about to enter college and have always really, really wanted to open an online business. I've loved high-end leather shoes for as long as I can remember, and I want to try my hand at combining the two to open an online store than sells high quality leather dress/casual shoes (think Allen Edmonds, Alden, ETC.). My focus would be on quality of customer service and working one on one to make sure the customer gets a better experience with my shop than anywhere else. I want to emulate the experience you would have walking into a nice clothier, but open up the more able to have more styles/colors/sizes than a brick and mortar shoe store could offer. I'm willing to work hard to make this a possibility. My question to you guys is this: does it sound like this is a feasible idea for me, a slightly busy college student with little capital, to start up?

Thanks in advance.

[DeniseTaylor]

If you are planning to work solely online, I can see pitfalls with this idea: inventory, competition and availability.

If there's enough profit margin that you don't have to sell in volume, you could specialize and create a loyal following. How about becoming a source for awesomely priced designer goods or something along that line?

I used to live near a very wealthy neighborhood where the ladies would garage sale their Coach handbags or Prada shoes for a song. If you could find it, then sell it for a great price (and good profit), you could become very popular. If you are good at what you do, people might come to you again and again because you're their go-to source.

The first trick with that idea would be to find the inventory.

Just an idea.

[Harold Mansfield]

How about becoming a source for awesomely priced designer goods or something along that line?



That's exactly what I'd suggest. Start out doing affiliate marketing and drop shipping with specialty suppliers to get your web 'sea legs' and slowly move into offering your own products, if that is the direction.

[Brian Altenhofel]

inventory

Many distributors do white-label drop shipping. At the very least, they'll likely have an EDI system where a day's orders could be aggregated, shipped to you (not uncommon for distributor->store shipments to be overnight), and then you repackage and ship to the customer.

The only time you really have to keep physical inventory as an online retailer these days is if your jurisdiction has antiquated laws that require a certain amount of inventory on-hand to qualify for a reseller or sales tax permit.

[Harold Mansfield]

Study Zappos.com

[samfisher]

The issues that you can have with an online business are in logistics.
Shipping cost is an additional cost in any online business but is not there is brick and mortar store.
Brick and mortar stores have the advantage of allowing the customer to look and feel the product while making the sales pitch more private.
Logistics comes as an overhead in online stores which can only be countered with two factors to generate profitability.
1)The procurement has to be very competitive and must be lower than that of brick and mortar competition. This can be achieved by bulk purchases or good contacts in the market.
2) The shipping overheads must cost you less than online competitor.

If you can achieve these things, then by all means go ahead, else go for brick and mortar format whose advantages are undeniably more powerful.

[JayPack]

I think that the biggest challenge is not finding the distributors or setting up the online shop. I think that your biggest challenge would be building up a big enough customer base to make it worth it. I would suggest starting on Ebay first, as it will probably get you off to a good start. Once you have an established customer based on an ALREADY established website, it will be leaps and bounds easier for you to open up your own independent website.