Things are picking up!

I have been slacking in the blog department, and with very good reason!  Business has definitely been picking up!  Very positive things are happening, so I figured I would write up a quick post.  My Ebay sales last month were my highest ever, and to most people they probably are not anything to brag about, but to me it is amazing!  I sold a record amount of my Jeep items, Redcat Racing was solid with the highest sales ever and I also sold some odds and ends that I was experimenting with for retail arbitrage. My Etsy store was also a record setting month (not hard to do when it is my first full month).  In regards to the decal startup, things are going pretty well also!  Had a race team order decals, as well as a small business that ordered car window decals and plenty of local one off decals as well!

The last week or so I have mostly been playing catch up, but my main focus this month is to fine tune my Ebay listings, as well as add to my listings.  At this point we are just over 100 listings running, but the goal is to realistically get up to the 200 mark by the end of the year.  I have access to around 25 more Redcat vehicles that I can list, as well as parts and accessories that should not be an issue.  The main research that I need to do involves the profit margins.  I need to make sure that the items I list have been maximized for profit, as well as "searchability"!

Vinyl Decal/Ebay progress!

I have not posted in awhile, and there is good reason for that...I have been busy!  Sales are up all around and the vinyl is slowly starting to take off!  My first few orders went very smoothly and I have been learning a lot just by watching tutorials etc... My fiance and I just started up the Facebook page for the decals, which I would love to have you check out at www.facebook.com/603decals (I would love it if you even gave it a like!)  So basically this is where I am at:

1. Custom Vinyl:  Currently sitting at about 10 decals sold (does not sound like much, but I feel great about it)  I also have a custom order for a friends race team that should be at least 20-25 more, that I am splitting the proceeds with him to help him raise capital.  Currently selling on Ebay, Etsy and locally.

    Goals:  More sales!  Also learning new techniques and getting the word out there.  Facebook should help, Instagram will help (check out 603decals on Instagram)

2. Ebay: The RC cars are doing well, I look at these as more of just perfect feedback and a little bit of cash to the business per month.  I typically sell 2 or so per week, and they are easy, pretty much autopilot.  The Jeep accessories are doing great, I had to drop my pricing a little bit to keep them in line but my margins are great!  You can check out the ebay store at http://stores.ebay.com/603Hobby

Experiment? Vinyl decals!

Today is the big day! (Technically last night was the big night I guess)  The vinyl cutter has arrived and is now setup in our home office!  The good news is that the setup was very straight forward...the bad newstuff is that I had no idea how to use it or the software that it came with...It was time to do some research!

You may or may not already know that I absolutely love Youtube!  I have never had a problem finding videos to teach me exactly what I need to know; which is just what I did for vinyl cutting.

Once I did some basic research (I'm not going to lie, I rushed through some basic videos so that I could get on to the good stuff...)

This is what I ended up with:

I have to say that for my first go at it, I'm pretty excited about the results!  Any tips that might help?  Let me know!

A new Income stream!

Today is a pretty exciting day!  We have decided to branch out and add another stream of income to the E-commerce side!  Would you like to know what it is??  OK, you twisted my arm, I’m going to spill it!  We purchased a vinyl decal cutter!  Obviously, I don’t plan on getting rich with vinyl decals but anything that we make from it will certainly help the bottom line.  The goal is to offer some Jeep, some other Auto related items as well as full custom decals!  I ordered it all today, so I should be seeing it next week!  When I get it set up in my office I will do an office set up picture to let you all see what I am working with!

The Ebay Experiment 1st quarter results

Sales Report 1/1/16-3/31/16

I decided that I would include quarterly “progress reports” on the blog to show how things are going.  January and February I basically took off completely to revamp the Ebay store/listings/etc…  Overall I feel great about the quarter, and April is already heading in the right direction.  March is when I began some drop shipping, as well as came up with two of my own products that accounted for much of those sales!

SALES SUMMARY_SALES
Session	Jan-16	Feb-16	Mar-16
Sales	$0.00	$56.33	$2,128.16
Month-to-month sales growth	0.00%	5633.00%	3678.00%
Ended listings	0	2	35
Ended items	0	2	223
Sold items	0	2	58
Sold items %	0.00%	100.00%	14.30%
Average sale price per item	$0.00	$28.17	$36.69
Total buyers	0	2	56
Total unique buyers	0	2	56
Repeat buyers %	0.00%	0.00%	0.00%
SALES SUMMARY_FEES
eBay
Fees
Insertion fees	$0.00	$0.00	$1.00
Listing feature fees	$0.00	$0.00	$1.00
Final value fees	$0.00	$5.63	$198.91
Subscription fees	$0.00	$0.00	$22.70
Subtotal	$0.00	$5.63	$223.61
Credits
Store referral credits	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00
Unpaid Item final value fee credits	$0.00	$5.00	$5.10
Other credits	$0.00	$0.63	$0.00
Subtotal	$0.00	$5.63	$5.10
Net eBay fees	$0.00	$0.00	$218.51
Net eBay fees as % of sales	0.00%	0.00%	10.30%
PayPal
Fees	$0.00	$0.48	$80.03
Credits	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00
Net PayPal fees	$0.00	$0.48	$80.03
Net PayPal fees as % sales	0.00%	0.90%	3.80%
eBay & PayPal
Net eBay and PayPal fees	$0.00	$0.48	$298.54
SALES SUMMARY_UNPAID ITEMS
Unpaid Item reminders sent	0	1	1
Final Value Fee claims requested	0	1	1
Unpaid Items reported as % of sold items	0.00%	50.00%	1.70%

Jeep Wrangler Grill T Shirt Project

Figured I would share a link to the T shirt campaign that I am currently working on!  This is a pretty cool (yet very basic) design , and I really like it!

Jeep Wrangler Grill Teespring

Low (or no) budget business startup part 3; keep it simple!

If you have not read part 1: Low (or no) budget business startup part 1

And part 2: Low (or no) budget business startup Part 2

I would suggest starting there.  Part three is going to be handled today, and this one is titled “Keep it simple!”  The overall premise of this low (or no) budget business startup guide is to show you that you can get up and running for very little (if any) money out of pocket.  I am not saying that this no budget business would be sustainable throughout all time, but at least you can get running to build some capital. 

Keeping it basic means exactly what it sounds like; don’t overdo it!  We are going to be keeping our outlay of cash at the beginning as minimal as possible, and sometimes we are going to have to cut some corners for the short term!  IF you plan on focusing on online selling (ecommerce) to get you started, I would highly recommend looking in to drop shipping.  I am actually writing a drop shipping guide as well, but unfortunately that is not ready for your eyes yet!  Drop shipping is pretty simple, the basic premise is:

-Sell an item (you do not have this item on hand)

-Receive payment for the item

-Purchase the item from your drop shipper of choice

-They ship the product to your customer

-Happy customer=profit! (you hope)

I have seen plenty of people try to start with this method and fail, for various reasons.  Some of the most common reasons are:

-Try to compete on price point right out of the gate.  You need to know your profit margins, to know what to list your item for.  If you are trying to keep up with Company ABC (who is doing $1 million in revenue) from a price perspective, its just not going to happen.  They make it in volume, and heavier wholesale discounts.  This will not work for you, and you will just end up losing money and being out of the game before you even started.  My goal here is to price myself somewhere in the middle of the road for the products that I offer.  I am typically not the least expensive and I am never the most expensive.  I find that to be a pretty sweet spot for my business model.

-Sell the wrong products.  This is a tough one, and there is definitely a learning curve.  My personal favorite sales platform is Ebay, which gives you some great tools to find what is selling, and how much it is selling for.  I have seen new business owners load listings with 1000’s of products, buy tons of equipment,  and spend all of the money in the world to look big and play with the big boys, only to fail because they don’t end up selling.  Do your research!

Keep your over head low!

-Don’t go out and buy the best laptop in the world; use your personal laptop or buy an inexpensive one to get you started.

-Don’t buy 1,000’s of dollars of inventory before you know what you will sell, and at what rate it will sell.

-You do not need to subscribe to the latest and greatest software programs to get started, keep it simple and there are plenty of free programs out there that work just fine!

-Treat this as an actual business!