Weekend Musings on my shop and career

[SumpinSpecial]

My shop is doing a little better this year than last. By that I mean I'm averaging 2 orders a week as opposed to 1 order/month last year. And my average order size is about $28. My average monthly operating expenses are rock bottom, around $150, but I'm still not profitable yet. I have an appointment with a SCORE (small business) mentor next Tuesday where I'm going to show him my numbers and plans and ask how I can bring my sales up. But there's something else that I've been thinking about. Would love to just chew it out with you guys here, if anyone's interested.

Oh, just to level set, my shop is online retail, the link is in my siggy. So my business needs are a little bit different from consultancies or service businesses. Everyone is welcome to chime in, but keep in mind that my area of focus is retail.

I have a day job that I'm really hating lately. I'm an IT business analyst for a corporate company. I like the work, it's just that there's a LOT of dysfunction at this company. So a couple weeks ago I started job hunting. But, I'm 54 years old and agism may make a job hunt rough. I'm not of the mind to let that stop me, it's just something to consider. I have a little over $700,000 in retirement savings, and by my calculations if I continue saving at the current rate, I'll have a million in 1.7 years.

Back to my shop and my low sales volume, I'm wondering if I'm starving the business either financially or timewise. I've been extremely financially conservative because I don't want to lose my shirt (and my husband is especially risk averse). I have no loans in the business, only our own cash investment of $8,000. If I am starving the biz for cash, I can apply for a small business loan for anything more that we're not willing to invest ourselves.

If I'm starving the biz by treating it like a part time hobby (which I realize that I am), I can ask my day job if I can go part time and then spend more time on my shop. I would LOVE to do that, but it would of course cut my income down. Or if the company refuses or gets pissed off that I've started my own business, they may sideline me (I doubt they'd fire me), and if they piss ME off enough, I may just quit. So then no income.

I recently discovered that one of the local metro stations near me, one of the new ones where they're still building apartments and condos around, has set up several popup shops and community entertainment area. It's NICE and the metro station brings a crap ton of foot traffic especially morning and evening. The hours for the popup shops are 3 - 7pm Monday - Friday and when I checked it out yesterday, I noticed that some of the merchants in the popup shops also had Saturday hours. That got me excited. If I dropped back to part time in my crappy day job, I could easily work a popup shop there without having to hire staff. I would of course need to spend some money on the lease, some shelving and signage, insurance, etc. So I'm not saying it will be a free ride. But it's a VERY cool opportunity to try out a short term lease (they have 30-day, 60-day and 90-day leases on these little shops).

The way I envision a popup shop working for my biz is this: a close partnership of the B&M and online points of sale. The B&M would be a place for customers to play with the products, ask questions, get to know me... so marketing and sales. I already have a smart phone POS and card reader for my online shop, so it would continue to be my POS software and primary shop. In other words, when people buy in the B&M shop, I'd process their order through my online shop using my phone card-swiper (or cash). All my inventory and sales analytics would continue to live in my online shop platform. And I can also continue to accept online orders.

I think that's definitely the next level of growth for my shop. The main question is if I'm ready for it, or if it's too early. And the thing that's making it hard for me to answer that question is the other question of whether I'm starving the shop for time and/or cash.

Anyway, thoughts? I don't expect other people to solve the problem for me, but I think discussion might help me work it out for myself.

[vangogh]

Reading through your post, it sounds like you want to leave your job and commit more to the business, but the uncertainty is holding you back, which is more than understandable. Obviously this is a decision you'll ultimately have to make for yourself, but I'm sure we can add some thoughts and try to help you work through the decision.

Your shop is in a good business. People are crazy about their pets and it's one of a handful of industries that's always strong. Your popup shop idea sounds like a good way to generate business and customers. I can think of a number of ideas off the top of my head to draw more traffic to the business/site online. Most will require time more than anything else, unless you prefer to hire someone. Perhaps you already do some of these.

Your blog seems off to a decent start and I would keep at it. Make sure the content is less about you and products you sell and more about things people with pets would find interesting. I think you're already doing this, but I thought I'd add a reminder. Are you using social media at all. There's not much that people like more on social media than pictures of pets. Post pictures on Facebook or Instagram or Twitter or wherever. Spend a little time seeing who's popular on those sites and see what they do. I would think you could build a popular profile on one or more social sites.

How much do you and your husband rely on your salary? If you did lose it, would you still be ok? Maybe part time at work or a temporary leave will give you the time to get the business going where you want. My guess is you'll have a better feel for things after the meeting with SCORE. Maybe the first step is exactly what you're doing now and putting numbers together and thinking through how this might work.

Again, the main thing I read in your post is that you don't want to keep working where you are and would prefer to put more time into the business and it sounds like the lack of financial security is the main thing holding you back. You can do your best to minimize the risk, but my guess is this will still ultimately come down to taking the chance on the business or sticking with the security.

Hopefully something in there helps and gets the conversation going.

[Harold Mansfield]

I agree with everything VG said, but have more to add.

I think your online store could be more profitable if you put some real time, and resources into it. What you have online is a nice website. It's not a retail powerhouse website that could compete with other online retailers. But it could be. It's not the lack of resources or care that is holding it back. You obviously care. It's the lack of understanding of eCommerce and design. Something that can be learned and fixed easily.

I agree that if you have the resources, yet are scared to put them into the success of your business that none of your ventures will be successful enough to leave your day job because you're playing scared. You've done enough to get up and running,. spending the least amount of money possible, but you're scared to take any significant risk to get it where you want it to be. You're hoping it will just happen.

Take it from experience, it doesn't just happen just because you're want it and are nice people.

If I were you, and were going to spend any more time, resources or money into anything it will be the website and eCommerce. With a better sales focused, eCommerce website it could be the anchor of your other endeavors.

Now if you do the pop up shop thing and really promote "shop our store from home" with every customer you touch, and your site is dialed in like the sites they're used to shopping on, you're utilizing all of your resources to grow sales and your brand.

I watch The Profit a lot. Where you are now is where those businesses are (minus the sales) before Marcus shows them how to market. A good idea, you've done a great job getting it up, but it won't go much further until you get serious and start treating it like you want it to be a full time job or a retirement cushion.

There is no success without risk. Risk scares people. But no one ever made it by just sticking a toe in the water to see what happens.

If this is just a hobby, then so be it. But if you want your sales to be thousands instead of hundreds you have to do something to make that happen and I don't think a pop up shop is going to fix the core problem or help anything more than make a few sales here and there. At least not right this second.

Improve your marketing...web design, presentation, sales copy and probably packaging. Really work on a professional newsletter and building subscribers...really the whole gambit. Do that and you'll have a better shot at building return customers, referrals, and your business overall.

Don't waste any money on more promotion until you have a great presentation.

Also, get involved in the community. Sponsor or be involved in local pet and pet owner events. Dog walks, Charities. Get your name, face and the company's branding out there synonymous with pets.

The problem with risk is that you could fail. Sounds like you need to figure out if you really believe in this thing, or are just playing around to see what kind of side money you can make. You won't do anything especially well until you get past that doubt.

[SumpinSpecial]

How much do you and your husband rely on your salary? If you did lose it, would you still be ok? Maybe part time at work or a temporary leave will give you the time to get the business going where you want. My guess is you'll have a better feel for things after the meeting with SCORE. Maybe the first step is exactly what you're doing now and putting numbers together and thinking through how this might work.

Again, the main thing I read in your post is that you don't want to keep working where you are and would prefer to put more time into the business and it sounds like the lack of financial security is the main thing holding you back. You can do your best to minimize the risk, but my guess is this will still ultimately come down to taking the chance on the business or sticking with the security.

Actually we're pretty well off. And quite spoiled actually. I've always been very conservative financially and still have a habit of planning and prioritizing for expenditures, but my husband likes to be able to just spend as he wants without prioritizing. We're lucky that we can afford to do that. But it makes him more risk averse then me. He also had a bad experience with his first wife who apparently quit her job at one point and tried to be the kept housewife, which he didn't like. I've always been a career woman, but no matter how much I tell him that I'm not going to leech off him financially, he can't seem to internalize it. Long story short, we can pretty easily afford to live on just his salary for a while but it makes him nervous. A likely compromise will be for me to work part time.

And yes, I think what I want is to stop wasting time at the day job that I hate, and use my time working for myself instead.


If I were you, and were going to spend any more time, resources or money into anything it will be the website and eCommerce. With a better sales focused, eCommerce website it could be the anchor of your other endeavors.

Now if you do the pop up shop thing and really promote "shop our store from home" with every customer you touch, and your site is dialed in like the sites they're used to shopping on, you're utilizing all of your resources to grow sales and your brand.

Yes, that's what I envision with the pop up shop. It would be like another sales and marketing plank in my overall sales/marketing platform. Integrated but the ecommerce shop would remain the primary focus of the business.


I watch The Profit a lot. Where you are now is where those businesses are (minus the sales) before Marcus shows them how to market. A good idea, you've done a great job getting it up, but it won't go much further until you get serious and start treating it like you want it to be a full time job or a retirement cushion.

I've been watching that a lot also, since you turned me onto it. Love that show! I actually learn things from watching it.


Improve your marketing...web design, presentation, sales copy and probably packaging. Really work on a professional newsletter and building subscribers...really the whole gambit. Do that and you'll have a better shot at building return customers, referrals, and your business overall.

Don't waste any money on more promotion until you have a great presentation.

Also, get involved in the community. Sponsor or be involved in local pet and pet owner events. Dog walks, Charities. Get your name, face and the company's branding out there synonymous with pets.

Okay, I'm doing some of that, and not doing other parts of it. Here's what I am doing, and then I'll ask about the parts I'm not yet doing:

I do a monthly newsletter via Mailchimp. The articles are primarily teasers and links to my blog articles (driving readers back to my site). I've also gotten involved with local rescues. I've been meeting people and developing the shelter donation program (described on the giving back page). I've put down a deposit on a large B2C expo event next March where I will work to get more newsletter subscribers in addition to sales and demonstrating products. I have a Facebook page that I keep updated frequently and a twitter profile. I post the blog articles to them both. I started a Pinterest page full of product photos, and I can see some traffic coming back to my site from that, but I'm befuddled as to what Pinterest does for you. (People come to look but never buy.) Snapchat and Instagram sound like Pinterest, so I haven't tried them. Pretty much anything that doesn't cost a lot, I am doing (although the booth rental on that event wasn't trivial).

I suspect that I'm going to need to hire a marketing person as my first permanent staff. I am admittedly weak on things like sales copy, designing ads and other marketing collateral, and social media promotion.

I've been reading books like crazy, how to operate a retail store (b&M and online), merchandising, marketing. I have a long way to go, but I'm working on it. But I still often sit here and think I should be doing something for my shop but my mind is blank. I know I should be almost constantly writing newsletter/blog articles, improving my product details and photos, marketing like crazy... but... well, maybe it's just that there's so much to do I don't know where to start. Although I have already started and do various things at various times. I probably need to set up a routine. But it doesn't help that I have to drop what I'm doing and go back to my day job. Like now. Ugh!

[SumpinSpecial]

Hmm, okay I just got back from the appointment with the SCORE mentor. He had a different twist than you guys did. If you don't mind I want to compare and contrast, not to play you guys off against each other, but more to boil it down in my head, get a synthesis of what I should be doing. The mentor has decades of experience with brick and mortar retail, and he claimed to have some experience with online retail also but I'm not sure how much. He's an older gentleman, and he didn't seem fully up to date with how online marketing works. But that's just an impression from the first meeting. I'm not discounting him or his advice.

In a nutshell he said that he thinks investing any more money in online advertising or marketing would be a waste. He thinks I should focus more time and money in actual face to face sales, whether that's weekend markets, popup shops or whatever. I've been eyeballing the popup shop concept for a little while as you know, so that advice isn't a major pivot for me. He advised me to write up a startup expenses/cash flow statement for what it would take for me to get into a short term lease popup shop. I'm going to do that before our next meeting.

He was rather pointed (and actually kind of negative in a well-meaning kind of way) about the way I'm sourcing and selling. He pointed out that anything I have that's also sold on Amazon means that I AM competing with Amazon. If you as the customer pull up my shop in one browser tab and look at a product, and pull the same product up in Amazon on another browser tab, why would you decide to buy from my shop? I had no answer for that. Amazon undercuts me on price, shipping, returns handling, everything that matters to the customer. He suggested that I should look for different products that are not available anywhere else and buy them in volume to keep my cost of goods sold down. He did say that sometimes a manufacturer will be willing to stamp a product with your business name and that's one way to sell something not available elsewhere. I'm not sure how much I can do that, but it's worth investigating. I have one product that I can have branded for sure - those Irish muzzles where the manufacturer offered to stamp anything I wanted on the nose pads. That's a start. I have to take a look at the toys and other stuff because I don't want to just be a muzzle shop.

He seemed very negative about advertising in general, even telling a story about how he spent a lot of money for his furniture store once placing a full page, full color ad in the Washington Post Sunday magazine, and never saw a dime in revenue from it. I wasn't surprised. My impression is that marketing raises your revenue from getting your name in front of people but it doesn't directly result in sales.

So lots of things to think about. What do you guys think? I'd love to continue hashing this out with you, if you guys have the patience.

[Harold Mansfield]

If everyone who lost money the first time they ran an add stopped running ads, there would be no ads.

His advice sounds fine of you're focus was brick and mortar. But it sounds like your focus is the web. Shaking hands and getting out there is ALWAYS a good idea for any business. But you can't shake enough hands in one small area to make a website successful.

I would definitely try the pop up shop though. Doesn't sound expensive and what do you have to lose? Whatever happens you're going to learn something about sales. This may sound like some old buzz world BS, but if you can't sell in person or on the phone you can't sell online. Learning how to sell on the phone taught me how to sell online.

Respect to the old timer and his service helping people at SCORE, but it sounds like he's pretty cranky about the web.

[SumpinSpecial]

Yep, and as an ex-engineer, sales isn't my strong point. So it's definitely something I know I need to work on.

He also scoffed at the tiny amount of risk that I accepted to launch this thing... only $4000 to launch and working on it in my spare time. He made a clear point that I need to risk a LOT more if I want to succeed at this. It was only an hour meeting, so we didn't get down to details yet, but after we work out a startup cost analysis for a popup shop maybe I can get my feet wet with larger and larger chunks of risk. (meaning, a popup shop here and there for a year, then a small permanent shop - assuming that's at all realistic which I don't know)

[Fulcrum]

He also scoffed at the tiny amount of risk that I accepted to launch this thing... only $4000 to launch and working on it in my spare time. He made a clear point that I need to risk a LOT more if I want to succeed at this.

I've got to agree with this to a certain point. You need to risk enough to get the business to the point where it's self sufficient while ensuring that you don't spend so much money that you'll never turn a profit (or worse lose it all).

[WarrenD]

I guess I'm a little late to join this conversation. But pop-up shop or any new channel is an additional investment of time, money, energy and resources. You'll have to get involved in a lot of new things like inventory management and especially logistics, since it's going to be a pop-up shop. Before getting into all that, I'll suggest expanding your business a little bit more from your current channels. Getting your monthly volume from 2 to 4 isn't much in terms of absolute numbers, but is a 100% increase of turnover for your business. Once you get there, you can re-evaluate what you want to do next.

[SumpinSpecial]

I've got to agree with this to a certain point. You need to risk enough to get the business to the point where it's self sufficient while ensuring that you don't spend so much money that you'll never turn a profit (or worse lose it all).

Yeah, that's one of those apparent catch-22's for those who haven't done it before. It's pretty hard to know where the division is between sufficient investment to launch and wasting money. But that's where mentors come into play. By the way, just in case it isn't obvious, I've come to think of you guys as mentors also. I've always preferred learning from others (as opposed to my brother for example, who preferred to learn by his own mistakes). I may not respond to every reply, but all of it does sink in over time.


I guess I'm a little late to join this conversation. But pop-up shop or any new channel is an additional investment of time, money, energy and resources. You'll have to get involved in a lot of new things like inventory management and especially logistics, since it's going to be a pop-up shop. Before getting into all that, I'll suggest expanding your business a little bit more from your current channels. Getting your monthly volume from 2 to 4 isn't much in terms of absolute numbers, but is a 100% increase of turnover for your business. Once you get there, you can re-evaluate what you want to do next.

I'm already involved in all of those things on a very small level. I have some inventory (about 1/4 of my total products) that I manage, and I have done some logistics for the annual sales events I've done. Those are tiny granted, but they're a taste. (In fact, to blow my own horn for a moment, logistics and organization are one of my strong points. Even in my day job, I'm known as the most reliable and most organized person around, and I secretly grind my teeth as I have to watch my extremely disorganized boss and team lead try to figure out how to keep the team organized.)

But what do you mean about expanding the business from the current channels? Selling on Amazon and/or ebay? Or something else?

BTW, on a tangent, as I was telling my husband about the meeting, we looked up one of my products that is made by a small manufacturer and didn't used to be sold on Amazon. It is now. Amazon is selling it for $10 less than the price I paid. That's really irritating and I'm finding it more and more. The easy answer is that Amazon can buy in volume enough to get the very lowest wholesale price, but... this was a small manufacturer. I guess they found a way to increase their manufacturing output to be able to handle the volume. No idea.

[turboguy]

It sounds to me like you have a bit of a catch 22. You can't buy in volume unless you can sell in volume. You can't sell in volume unless you can buy right which means in volume. Buying something in volume without knowing if you can sell a lot of the items is too big a risk. Right now you don't have enough traffic on your site to sell anything in volume If you spent a ton of money on advertising you could get more traffic to your web site but if you can't sell enough product to that traffic advertising is money down the drain.

One thought I had would be to find a few really hot items. Source them from China or somewhere that you can get a competitive price and sell them on Ebay or maybe even Amazon so you can sell them in quantity then keep adding to what you have.

I think you could also look at adding more products. I went on Amazon and did a search for pet supplies for dogs. I am guessing their most popular items are gong to show up on page one and there wasn't one item on page one that I see on your site although I could have missed something.

I have mixed feelings about advertising. Back a decade ago I was spending $ 125,000 on print advertising and doing 25 trade shows a year. Now we spend $ 15-20,000 on print and do 6 trade shows. I have a little side business that ties in with my main business and at one time when yellow page ads were still relevant spent a lot of money on a yellow page ad that probably cost me half or more of my profit. I would get 20-30 calls a year from the ad. Now I just use a web site and one industry listing which costs me almost nothing and get 120 calls a year. More and more of my competitors are using pay per click which I have always avoided. If you can generate the return it is probably worth it but on a popular search like pet supplies the cost may outweigh the benefits.

[SumpinSpecial]

I think I understand what you're saying, but I don't want to be a seller of cheap Chinese commodity products. I'm trying to position myself as more upscale, almost boutique products. Maybe the lesson is that boutique isn't profitable, though.

[turboguy]

I do tend to think that running a business is a learning and growing experience and we need to see what works and what doesn't and expand on the things that do and move away from the things that don't.

When I started my original marketing business there were 3 segments we wanted to target and one we wanted to stay away from. After a few years we dropped two of those and the one we wanted to stay away from became the main part of our business.

When I decided to switch from a marketing business to a manufacturing business the first two product lines were very innovative and had a lot going for them but did fail because we couldn't make money on them. It took the third product line to hit a winner. Since then we have added a number of new product lines, some were ok, some flopped and one became very successful. Being flexible and learning what works and doesn't work will lead to success but that may not come over night.

[tallen]

we looked up one of my products that is made by a small manufacturer and didn't used to be sold on Amazon. It is now. Amazon is selling it for $10 less than the price I paid. That's really irritating and I'm finding it more and more. The easy answer is that Amazon can buy in volume enough to get the very lowest wholesale price, but... this was a small manufacturer. I guess they found a way to increase their manufacturing output to be able to handle the volume. No idea.

Did you note who the seller of the item was? Was it Amazon themselves or another seller? Could it be that the manufacturer is selling direct through Amazon (not *to* amazon)?

[cbscreative]

I've only been lurking on this rather high word count thread so far since you've received some great responses and was holding off participating. I'll have to agree with learning everything you can about effective ecommerce. That Goliath "competitor" of yours, Amazon, serves as a great example. This company has invested more heavily in research and testing than anyone else is likely to even come close to. Yes, you want to be different (boutique, upscale, etc.) but not so different you deviate from the processes and flow of information that they've mastered. I also agree you want to make that site the best it can be before dumping huge sums into marketing.

Work on conversion design, get a writer who can create the upscale impression you want to achieve. Get it done but don't let it take too long. My next advise is one primary reason why.

Currently, Facebook ads are reasonably priced, highly effective, and an overall great bang for the buck. Rest assured, that will change. More people will jump on board creating both more competition and less effectiveness as users will pay less attention due to bombardment. And prices will go up. Facebook knows as much about their users as Google and definitely a LOT more than the IRS. You can target your ads down to the minutia of demographic you want to reach, including pet owners of course, income, browsing habits, information that people share without even thinking about what they're posting, and FB data mines to the Nth degree. They probably know what kind of toothbrush you use. You can get very specific about who sees your ads and only pay for clicks.

[Paul]

I’m not an internet marketing guy, but I do know retail. Many of the same principles relate to both online and storefront shops. They are manifested in different ways but generally the same concepts, traffic, attractive shop, advertising, marketing, service etc. The benefits and detriments are fairly obvious for each.
One of the most important shared necessities in both types of retail is inventory selection. There is an old retail saying “Pile it high and watch it fly!”

If you open a retail location make sure you can fully stock the shelves. This will be your biggest investment. You cannot skimp here. Once you get a customer to walk in, or visit online, you have one chance to sell them something! This is critical! Even if they don’t purchase on the first visit they must be impressed with selection. They may come back, but not if they are disappointed with selections. This is the same for both online and retail.

This leads to a comment on the website. You DO have a good selection BUT it is not very obvious when you first visit the site. I suspect a number of visitors may bounce out real quick because it doesn’t look like a big selection. It is a little too much work scrolling around the site.

Just like walking into a retail store and seeing shelves loaded with products, you need to excite the customer on the very first page of the site. I know you may want to keep the home page “crisp and clean” and the site organized BUT you have to smack em right in the face with products right off the bat. Don’t make them work to realize you have a nice selection. Load pics, scroll specials, razzzle dazzle them at first glance with a page full of products. You want them to think “wow, they got a lot of good stuff!”. You want them to start the shopping experience immediately. Then you can let them navigate around. Just like a retail shop, once you get them in and shopping around not only might they buy what they were looking for but they may also add some impulse items.

So my primary comment is to invest in inventory selection. If you can’t it will be a tough road. You will never compete on price on commodity pet supplies BUT you can be the shop with the biggest selection of premium pet products.

Score Guy-He probably isn’t too familiar with online marketing BUT he had some points. I would disagree with him on his furniture advertising flop. I was a little surprised at what he said. I was in retail furniture for 17 years and did constant advertising. That is an institutional kind of advertising campaign to get and keep the name out in the public. Rarely did we ever expect a single ad to generate sales, it was a cumulative repetitive campaign.

[SumpinSpecial]

Did you note who the seller of the item was? Was it Amazon themselves or another seller? Could it be that the manufacturer is selling direct through Amazon (not *to* amazon)?

It looked like they sold it to amazon since it says "sold by amazon". It's this product if you want to take a look (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B009P4K2V4/ref=twister_B01I6VOJRE?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1). BTW, that price isn't actually less than what I paid (my bad memory, but I double-checked my inventory spreadsheet). It's about 4 dollars more than I paid, but that's still not enough margin for me to compete, especially since I can't offer free shipping.


This leads to a comment on the website. You DO have a good selection BUT it is not very obvious when you first visit the site. I suspect a number of visitors may bounce out real quick because it doesn’t look like a big selection. It is a little too much work scrolling around the site.

Just like walking into a retail store and seeing shelves loaded with products, you need to excite the customer on the very first page of the site. I know you may want to keep the home page “crisp and clean” and the site organized BUT you have to smack em right in the face with products right off the bat. Don’t make them work to realize you have a nice selection. Load pics, scroll specials, razzzle dazzle them at first glance with a page full of products. You want them to think “wow, they got a lot of good stuff!”. You want them to start the shopping experience immediately. Then you can let them navigate around. Just like a retail shop, once you get them in and shopping around not only might they buy what they were looking for but they may also add some impulse items.

So my primary comment is to invest in inventory selection. If you can’t it will be a tough road. You will never compete on price on commodity pet supplies BUT you can be the shop with the biggest selection of premium pet products.

Score Guy-He probably isn’t too familiar with online marketing BUT he had some points. I would disagree with him on his furniture advertising flop. I was a little surprised at what he said. I was in retail furniture for 17 years and did constant advertising. That is an institutional kind of advertising campaign to get and keep the name out in the public. Rarely did we ever expect a single ad to generate sales, it was a cumulative repetitive campaign.


I understand what you're saying here. I do have a good selection already but I admit you have to browse a bit to see it. Given the categories (dog, cat, bird, rabbit) that can then be subdivided (toys, beds, collars, etc.) what would you recommend for a better front page display that gives an exciting impression of large selection? That large space in the middle (currently showing my baby Capri) is supposed to be a slideshow of merchandise, so I could use that better. But I'm limited to something like 4 images to rotate through.

The site needs to be clean not only for esthetic reasons but also so that customers can shop on their smart phones as many do. I could display fifty products on that first page, but nobody would scroll though it. Responsive (i.e. smart phones) technology is really limiting when you add in the requirement to keep important things "above the fold".

I do need to go back and look at updated heat maps of the site to see what people are looking at. I'm currently reading a book about merchandising and it's explaining how people scan shelves of products. A lot of this stuff DOES translate to an online store, I agree. I need to move my high margin (and highest selling) products up to where people are looking.

A thought just occurred to me that at least my high margin products are the best selling so far! That's good but I do need to trim off some of the crap and replace it with product that's more inclined to move.

Don't be too worried about what the SCORE mentor said. I think that was one story he related to me just to show me that even experienced businessment take risks and sometimes lose. I don't think that was the only time he advertised.

[Fulcrum]

I'm no internet wizard as web design puts me to sleep. So take what I say here with that in mind.

How's about a simple row on the front page that has your top 3 sellers (or highest margin with good sales) and a simple one click ordering direct to checkout? Ideally these would be high margin, high volume consumable items (natural dog food maybe that can be considered human consumption grade).

With that said, focus on getting sales. Collect and study your sales metrics on a weekly, monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, and annual basis. Refine and modify your product offerings based on what you find in the metrics (maybe one product sells in the winter but not in the summer so don't carry inventory during the slow time).

[Paul]

I'm also not a design guy but I agree with Fulcrum. With apologies to your beautiful dog and your nice "blog" it is wasting the most valuable space on the site. Somehow use that space better, load it with products. Like Fulcrum said if you can identify your best items use them, if not fill with anything! Get them shopping right away. Imagine them stepping into your retail shop off the street. What do you want them to see first? Merchandise of course.

[Harold Mansfield]

I'm also not a design guy but I agree with Fulcrum. With apologies to your beautiful dog and your nice "blog" it is wasting the most valuable space on the site. Somehow use that space better, load it with products. Like Fulcrum said if you can identify your best items use them, if not fill with anything! Get them shopping right away. Imagine them stepping into your retail shop off the street. What do you want them to see first? Merchandise of course.

I agree wholeheartedly. Your website is not for you. It's for customers. Put your personal stuff on an "About" page if people want to know who you are. But your job is to sell product and that's what your site should be doing above ALL else. Sales. Sales. Sales.

[tallen]

So the images for shopping for products by type of animal on the home page shows a dog eating out of or playing with a spiral maze type of dog dish or toy -- but I searched through all the products for dogs and couldn't find that one at all. Also the navigation through the products was difficult to follow -- you "tagged" them into certain categories, but the menu to show tags did not stand out very well, and the categories didn't always make sense. Would I look for the spiral maze bowl toy thingy under bowls, toys, interactive, or what? In any case, I would take care to make sure that any products shown anywhere on your site have an entry in your inventory database and show up in your store even if out of stock, backordered, or discontinued....

So all of this is just to concur with the other commentators that there is still some work that could be done to improve the shopping/ecommerce experience on your website. I would agree with the suggestion that maybe you could highlight a few select top-selling high-margin products on the front page (maybe could be a rotating selection?).

In terms of brick and mortar vs. online, there's no reason you couldn't do both. This is a pet store near one of our businesses: Maine Made Pet Supplies | Boothbay Harbor, ME | Two Salty Dogs (http://www.twosaltydogs.net.) He's got a small shop, but a big presence in the community, and I guess also does a bit of business online too (not that his website is necessarily the best example of an online shop). His newsletters and blog are very humorous and often written from the perspective of one of his (now three) salty dogs, and he is a pretty creative marketer.

[vangogh]

Wow, I miss a few days and my how this thread has grown.

I'm no longer a designer, but I used to play one on TV or maybe that was in real life. I don't think the way you have things organized is bad. It's a common problem for any site with more than a handful of products. I think organizing at the top level around the different animals is the right way to go. There are other navigational systems you could use once you're in each category. One called, faceted navigation, might work better. That's where you'll have a bunch of checkboxes down the left so you can only show the products from a certain brand or below a certain cost. Here's how it looks on Walmart's page listing televisions (https://www.walmart.com/browse/electronics/tvs/3944_1060825_447913).

This might be the ex-web designer in me, but I can see where a designer could rework the site and improve it aesthetically in a way that helps direct visitors where they want to go and just makes everything on the site seem more appealing. If you do decide to invest more, that's something I would consider. You might want to spend a few nights searching Google for ecommerce design award or best designs in pet industry and similar just to see what others are doing.

I'm not sure if anyone else brought this up, but is there a segment of the overall market you want to target? What do you want people to think about when they think about your company? The aesthetic of your site should be based on how you want your customer to see your business. There's a reason why Toys R' Us looks different from any banking site and the same rationale applies to different segments within a market.

I've always thought pet sites are good candidates for building a community or potential customers. People love sharing images of their pets and talking about their pets. It'll take time to build up, but you could create areas of the site where people can contribute. They won't all be customers, but over time you can attract people to the site in general and most people tend to prefer doing business with people they know in some way. Someone who spends a couple hours a week on your site looking at images or sharing how they trained their dog is more likely to by from you than somewhere else.

[WarrenD]

I'm already involved in all of those things on a very small level. I have some inventory (about 1/4 of my total products) that I manage, and I have done some logistics for the annual sales events I've done. Those are tiny granted, but they're a taste. (In fact, to blow my own horn for a moment, logistics and organization are one of my strong points. Even in my day job, I'm known as the most reliable and most organized person around, and I secretly grind my teeth as I have to watch my extremely disorganized boss and team lead try to figure out how to keep the team organized.)

But what do you mean about expanding the business from the current channels? Selling on Amazon and/or ebay? Or something else?

BTW, on a tangent, as I was telling my husband about the meeting, we looked up one of my products that is made by a small manufacturer and didn't used to be sold on Amazon. It is now. Amazon is selling it for $10 less than the price I paid. That's really irritating and I'm finding it more and more. The easy answer is that Amazon can buy in volume enough to get the very lowest wholesale price, but... this was a small manufacturer. I guess they found a way to increase their manufacturing output to be able to handle the volume. No idea.

By existing channels I meant wherever you get your current monthly sales from - that would be your website I guess. If Amazon is already undercutting you on price then no point listing it there. Maybe you could try Ebay. In any case, don't let Amazon undercutting your price demoralize you - it is gonna continue to do that, to everyone. Set a goal - like doubling sales from your website - and stick to it. Amazon isn't eating into your volumes just yet. That's something to worry for the longer term, when you have hundreds of transactions a month.

[turboguy]

Along the lines of what Vangogh suggested I would think adding a forum to your site as a way of building a community might be a good thing. It would let you get feedback as to what people would like you to add to your products, how they like your products and they could post photos of their pets and talk about things. There are a lot of pet forums but done properly it could be an asset. vBulletin like they use here has some cost but some forum software such as Simple Machines (SMF) is free and some hosting companies offer it as a pretty much one click install.

[SumpinSpecial]

How's about a simple row on the front page that has your top 3 sellers (or highest margin with good sales) and a simple one click ordering direct to checkout? Ideally these would be high margin, high volume consumable items (natural dog food maybe that can be considered human consumption grade).

With that said, focus on getting sales. Collect and study your sales metrics on a weekly, monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, and annual basis. Refine and modify your product offerings based on what you find in the metrics (maybe one product sells in the winter but not in the summer so don't carry inventory during the slow time).

Good feedback, everyone, thanks! This is all actionable (to use corporate-speak) and I can combine it with some of the advice from the SCORE mentor. Today I'm going to review the margins on my product line, get rid of the lowest margin things, and highlight the highest margin items on the front page like you describe here.

In terms of sales metrics, I've been doing that. My sales are so low that it's easy. I sold more of the stuffed toys last year and more muzzles this year. That's because last year I marketed the stuffys and this year I've been marketing to greyhound people. Well, this year I've actually been trying to market the cat products and the dog puzzles also, but for some reason I'm only connecting with greyhound folks. Something to work on.


So the images for shopping for products by type of animal on the home page shows a dog eating out of or playing with a spiral maze type of dog dish or toy -- but I searched through all the products for dogs and couldn't find that one at all. Also the navigation through the products was difficult to follow -- you "tagged" them into certain categories, but the menu to show tags did not stand out very well, and the categories didn't always make sense. Would I look for the spiral maze bowl toy thingy under bowls, toys, interactive, or what? In any case, I would take care to make sure that any products shown anywhere on your site have an entry in your inventory database and show up in your store even if out of stock, backordered, or discontinued....

Ouch, this is totally my bad. Yeah, I discontinued that maze bowl. i'll replace that image with something that I actually do carry. I'll also try to sort out the product tags. It's kind of messy, I admit. I've noticed that when you're on a smart phone, the tag system jumps out to you first (and they're a real mess) but you have to search around to find the menus which are tidier. No excuses, though, I'll fix that. The site has to be 100% functional and easy to buy on smart phone. It was one of my must-have's from day one.


Wow, I miss a few days and my how this thread has grown.

I'm no longer a designer, but I used to play one on TV or maybe that was in real life. I don't think the way you have things organized is bad. It's a common problem for any site with more than a handful of products. I think organizing at the top level around the different animals is the right way to go. There are other navigational systems you could use once you're in each category. One called, faceted navigation, might work better. That's where you'll have a bunch of checkboxes down the left so you can only show the products from a certain brand or below a certain cost. Here's how it looks on Walmart's page listing televisions (https://www.walmart.com/browse/electronics/tvs/3944_1060825_447913).

I'm glad everyone is chiming in here because I truly value the feedback! :) I considered switching to a theme that has the side checkbox navigation. Then I figured out that I could use nested menus on my current theme and set that idea aside. But you guys are right, this theme still isn't working as well as I need it to. I'll check out some of those websites on my phone to see how they work there, and switch my theme if it works well.


I've always thought pet sites are good candidates for building a community or potential customers. People love sharing images of their pets and talking about their pets. It'll take time to build up, but you could create areas of the site where people can contribute. They won't all be customers, but over time you can attract people to the site in general and most people tend to prefer doing business with people they know in some way. Someone who spends a couple hours a week on your site looking at images or sharing how they trained their dog is more likely to by from you than somewhere else.

Yes, this is what I was trying to accomplish with the blog and the image of Capri on the front. I've actually been swapping that front page image every month or so, and tried asking through social media for people to give me their special pet stories and images. Only one person did so. I had her kitty up for a while but then had to swap it out for something new and here we are with my heart dog. But I didn't put her up because of what Harold implies below (although I realize it may look like it). It was more to try to inspire people to tell me their own stories that I can post. Trying to "build a tribe" as Seth Godin teaches. I don't think it's working, maybe because they have to email their stories to me rather than just posting them directly. Not sure.


I agree wholeheartedly. Your website is not for you. It's for customers. Put your personal stuff on an "About" page if people want to know who you are. But your job is to sell product and that's what your site should be doing above ALL else. Sales. Sales. Sales.



By existing channels I meant wherever you get your current monthly sales from - that would be your website I guess. If Amazon is already undercutting you on price then no point listing it there. Maybe you could try Ebay. In any case, don't let Amazon undercutting your price demoralize you - it is gonna continue to do that, to everyone. Set a goal - like doubling sales from your website - and stick to it. Amazon isn't eating into your volumes just yet. That's something to worry for the longer term, when you have hundreds of transactions a month.

Okay, gotcha. My current channels are my site and the occasional in-person sales events that I do. The problem with eBay is that since it's known as an auction and/or bargain hunting site, it's the wrong market demographic for me. While I do want my sales to increase, I don't want to become a volume commodity dealer. Everybody else is already doing that. The margins are razor thin. But I can increase my in person sales channel and I'm okay if over time that becomes my primary channel and my site becomes secondary.

Thanks again, y'all! I'm getting to work!

[SumpinSpecial]

So over the weekend I made some changes to the site, primarily replacing the "shop dogs" etc images on the front page with featured products (high margin and/or good sellers). I also deleted some products that were low margin and never sold, although that's not visible to customers. I also finally made contact with the organizer of the indie arts market nearby and found that they have some openings for the dedicated vendors. (They have dedicated spots where you always go there to vend, or drop in vending spots. The problem with the drop-ins is that I'd have to load up the car with all my merchandise and tables and such and if they don't have space that day I'd have to turn around and bring it all home again.) So I've sent in the application for that, starting in a couple weeks. Every Saturday in-person vending should help me out a lot.

BTW, one of the "homework assignments" that the SCORE mentor asked me to do is fill out a retail startup costs worksheet. He said to do it as if I was starting up today and going into a brick and mortar store. I was able to fill out the supplies and startup inventory sections, but have trouble with the capital expenses. Without actually approaching a realtor to shop for retail space, how can I estimate things like first month's rent, interior construction costs, signage, etc? Those would all depend on the size of the space I get.

[turboguy]

Another thought for you to consider. What if you got into a high quality organic pet food line. The plus to me would be that it could be repeat business rather than one time sales as you probably get a lot of now. Some products are pretty hard to find. This thought was started by knowing we have one of the most difficult dogs to own you could imagine. It basically is the pickiest eater I have ever seen. The only thing it would eat in the past was a special chicken/rice/apple concoction my wife makes but we did just find a dry food she will eat but we have to drive 40 miles to get it. My wife plans to try to find a place to buy it online. I thought about you and thought it might be a good addition to your line. Of course the negative side might be that it could have a shelf life. Just thought I would throw that out.