About opening a little online nerd shop

[Bells]

So, hiya fellas... just brainstorming here for a bit, thought about getting some opinions on this.

A friend and i were talking about it yesterday, and he kinda got excited about the idea and it got me thinking about it... we both have a little Disposable income we could put to work for us and the desire to venture ourselves into a very small, very modest, online hub for selling nerdy crap we love.

The idea was bouncing around for a bit and now i'm kinda stuck on that one note...

The idea we had is that, we can import small itens, cheap itens, that aren't commonly sold around, and get them into the market with low prices. It's more like a hobby than an alternative income source... there will be profit, but it's more in the line of "getting a pizza in the weekend" or funding our own personal hobbies, not "pay the bills".

I'm pretty good on finding deals online, searching for goods, cool stuff that people might want that others aren't selling around here. I even have access to a network of suppliers that go from the US to Japan. He is manager in a bank here... so i guess we have the inner workings of marketing, supply and finances down!

The idea was to work with small stocks of a wide range of items aiming at the the nerdy crowd... RPG accessories, Cosplay stuff, some model kits and toys and other geeky gadgets and stuff like that.

For those of you that have your blogs, websites, online ventures and stuff like that... what's your thoughts? Just brainstorming here, kinda wondering if it's something worth getting into... because we can get started as soon as 2012 with as low as $100 to put some stock together. So i'm imagining if an adventure worth taking

[Ecks]

Sounds awesome.

Get your hands on some thinkgeek-style Organization XIII hoodies. I've wanted one forever, and the bastards have been out of stock for just as long.

[Bells]

Organization XIII Hoodies?

badabin (http://www.ebay.com/itm/ABBY-SHOT-KINGDOM-HOODIE-Kingdom-Hearts-Organization-XIII-NEW-SEALED-/160654469048?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2567c0a7b8#ht_3559wt_1396) badaben (http://www.ebay.com/itm/Kingdom-Hearts-Hoodie-Gothic-Hooded-Sweater-Org-XIII-/230677924974?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_2&hash=item35b579cc6e#ht_1535wt_1163) badabun (http://www.ebay.com/itm/Organization-XIII-Kingdom-Hearts-Demyx-Cosplay-Costume-/360293273570?pt=US_CSA_MC_Suits&hash=item53e3270fe2#shId)

..well that last one is a Cosplay piece, and it's the long verion, not really a short Hoodie... but looks good! And that's just on ebay... i'm pretty sure i could find it around other places too. But either way, there you have it =3

Told ya i knew how to find crap online ^^

...like this Metal Slug Model Kit (http://www.ebay.com/itm/METAL-BUG-SLUG-SUPER-TANK-1-35-game-/260859897395?pt=Video_Games_Games&hash=item3cbc762633) i know where i can pick this guy up for under $20 ^^ so it might be a nice novelty item to sell (also i bought myself one of these, because, goddamn that think looks awesome to build!)

[PyrosNine]

Any chance Pyros could get in on this? As I have no job, plenty of free time on my hands, and some financial experience!

Mostly in that my uncle runs an Amazon shop and my mum's a chief financial officer and I've done temp work for her.

From what I do know:

For starters: having an online space for your product. It is quite possible to use Amazon to sell your goods by sizing up as a vendor, it's also easy to ghetto fab by just putting up listings on Ebay, and a simple website running automated email scripts submitting orders could work too.

Stock: You need to have on stock at least enough of any given product to give to about 25% of your projected customer base. You can't just buy a single awesome model and put it up for resale, otherwise you're just doing online trading. If you find something awesome to sell, then you need to know how to get more of it.

Inventory: You need to have not only boxes and shipping covered, but also some place to actually keep your goods. Lying around in boxes in your closet or in your room won't work. Try to have a dry, well lit, spacious room to manage all your stuff. You also need to have a place to handle the boxing and deboxing of goods, because it would suck to break what you were about to send to a paying customer.

Shipping: Fedex Small Business. I seem to recall not only being able to print out shipping labels for your products, but also have them show up to pick up your outgoing goods on schedule.

Separate Bank Account: All funds need to go into a private bank account separate from both you and any other partner- you can't just have it go into you or your friend and just hope that each of you plays fair with the other's share of money. This keep's one shop keeper's debts from accidentally emptying the shop's funds, or breaches of trust. It's also important for taxes. You need to assign someone as "treasurer" to keep on top of funds as well as divy out payroll.

At this point, I'd say you'd actually need more in the line of $500, or even a thousand to establish good stock for even the most basic online shop. Selling scruples gathered for under 100 would likely not pay back the cost of shipping!

I'd recommend that if you are good at finding items, then you should first try buying and selling (the simple online trading I mentioned earlier) single goods in the vein of what you'd hope to sell in your store. Buy low, sell high, and you'll find out not only what people are willing to pay for your average junk , but also how good you are at holding and then selling goods, and also making profits that can be used as capital for starting your online shop.

[Aerozord]

how exactly are you going to market yourself? and I dont mean in an advertising sense, I mean how will you differentiate yourself from the other online shops?

[Bells]

Quick sidenote: I just lost a huge reply i was typing. FU-.

Well, let's go with the short version for now...

First of all, Thank you Pyros, you do raise some great points i haven't consider before, specially what amounts to the entire logistic of something like this. But the problem is that i'm in Brazil and so is my friend, over here we have an entirely different scenario of geek culture, which is both an advantage and a huge hurdle.

You see, over here, you have Demand. In the form of several mini-clusters of people. Those you kinda have to herd for yourself and turn then into clients. that's the main battle. Because there is also Supply, but most people here don't have knowledge of how to get it or direct access to it (like an international creditcard or English as a second language) so there is a gap that small backyard shops fill. Because you simply won't find any big chains that actually cater to this audience.

For example... you have people who play RPG here. But there isn't anything like a company that Makes good quality Dices for people to buy at low prices and ready demand, so, people import or buy through shops that import. a 7 dice set costs 12 bucks plus shipping (local currency). I can buy on ebay a set of 100 (a pound) for 30 dollars (with shipping), that's about 60 on my local currency (it's not 2 to 1, but i round it up) so each dice costs 0,6 and a set of 7 costs me 4,2. So i can sell a full set of dices for 6 bucks plus shipping and still turn a profit. Half of the lowest margin in the market here (not an average!).

I would not be able to pull this up in other countries, only here. But at the same time, i would actually have to run around to entice these customers to buy my dices, because they would probably feel "safer" buying it at 12 from a retailer they already know and trust. So i have to battle for that little cluster, because there is plenty of market, but there isn't really enough to everybody.

That being said, if you ever want to take this route for yourself, i think you have the right mindset to do it, and i would gladly pass to you my "map" of retailers, Although for an US and UK audience it's effectiveness is reduced, but still useful If you want access to some stuff you don't see people selling much around.

Like for instance

This Optimus Prime, Movie version, Model Kit.
http://i55.tinypic.com/2luqmn4.jpg

Yes.. Model kit. You can put it together

http://i51.tinypic.com/15d41ur.jpg

Have you seen this being sold around? I bet you did, at ebay, for around 168 bucks

I can tell you i know where this very same kit is being sold for 5~10 Dollars

I'm not even fucking kidding, 5~10 Dollars plus shipping.

Is it a bootleg? I have no clue, honest! Here is the thing though... i can't tell if the 168 Dollar version at ebay is original or not either! So, for Online Trading like you said? Well, damn yeah it's worth it!

how exactly are you going to market yourself? and I dont mean in an advertising sense, I mean how will you differentiate yourself from the other online shops?

I guess i have to play at my strengths... in this case, my own knowledge of nerdy and geek stuff. You know how a Video Game store is different when a owner simply sells the games instead of liking gaming and knowing about games? That's the angle i'm looking at. Because you can find tons of shops here that sell those crappy Keychains in the shape of Final Fantasy swords and call that "Cosplay Accessories", while myself on the other hand, can find ya a Organization XIII Hoodie in a beat! So i'm aiming at having a unique Inventory.

[synkr0nized]

It sounds like you don't have any special ties to manufacturers / product sources but are just acting as a middleman for customers. This isn't necessarilly bad or anything, but I remain skeptical of the business model if it is entirely possible for potential customers to also find these things on their own.

[Bells]

It sounds like you don't have any special ties to manufacturers / product sources but are just acting as a middleman for customers. This isn't necessarilly bad or anything, but I remain skeptical of the business model if it is entirely possible for potential customers to also find these things on their own.

At first, it totally is! No doubt about it...

i myself was one of these customers. I went through all the steps. Saw stuff on events, wanted it, thought it was too expensive. Went home, check for it online, found it at around the same price, the wondered "where did they got it?" so i check the web and found oversea sellers with half the price, the thought about where THEY got it, so i came to ebay, then i saw all the Asian sellers with ultra cheap stuff and asked myself "is there one more step to it?" and i found out there is!

Right now i have access to a bargaining system that allows me access to products 20-40% cheaper than what you would find on ebay. Thing is, anybody in the world with a International Credit Card, a good grasp on english and some solid income can get to that point too. To get it any better only if i could speak/write/read chinese and/or had a physical local contact to deal and ship for me. Then i could drive the price down 30-60%.

The angle is that, here, on the web, comparing to the US or UK, with any of you guys, my access is not special. Any of you can have that just as easy if you want to. But in my country, that access puts me on a upper layer, where, even if people knew how to get these deals, most still wouldn't be able to. That's the leverage.

If i do this, and it works, and it grows... in that case i can see myself easily working deals and ties with good Suppliers.

[Jagos]

Go for it Bells

[Magus]

I too encourage you to sell cheap Asian knock-offs of expensive items and kill us all with lead poisoning.

Also if you can see your way to selling me a knock-off King Crimson band t-shirt for less than Rockabillia offers them, I think we can find our way to a deal. (ALSO BLIND GUARDIAN)

Keep in mind that you could just sell the dice to people from Brazil and not to other people in other countries. Those people you find something else to sell them.