Business Idea

somethingcorporate

It's better to be told straight, upfront than them to rush headlong and lose a lot of time/money. If I were in the OPs shoes I would find someone that has a lot of experience in trying to do what they want before going for broke. As they admit, the idea may already be out there and being used.

I think Paddyrg's posts are helpful and informative. Do you have anything to add to the thread cheexy?

cheexy

I have added all I feel I need to. If you read OP's posts well, it didn't say that she/he already had an existing online shop neither did it state what the twist was. So it is very annoying to read our in house expert sky is falling advice when we don't even know what the twist is. The so called twist may end up being something more straightforward thus not requiring this "sky is falling, show your IT project management skill" approach and it could be something less straight forward. We don't know what it is and till we know, i think it would be more helpful to find out first what the "twist" is before pointing out all the potential pitfalls that may exist. Most of which may well be totally unnecessary. Just my two cents

InsideInsurance

People tend to go to extremes when guestimating how much things are going to cost. Without knowing what the twist is there is no way of even ballparking cost for developing it or even saying if it can be tested in some low cost way or not.

I personally am concerned how little thought some people put into an online business before launching as the low cost barrier to entry seems to make people think if they set up their ecommerce site or forum people will come.

That said, I am not a doomsayer either, there are still plenty of opportunities out there if you have your USP, marketing plans that arent just natural search results etc.

paddyrg

Indeed, we don't know the twist, and the OP was naturally reluctant to reveal it as it's the core of their business idea and they're wary of it being copied. As such, we have to talk in general terms, and hope the OP is smart enough to be able to weigh up their own choices dependent on the information available to them. Similarly, other people may read the thread, read the post, and may find it useful whereas me saying 'yeah, go for it, regardless!' would not contain any useful (or potentially useful to someone, somewhere I hope) information.

Starting a business is risky, the OP thinks they've spotted a gap not being filled by other vendors, and that's great. Maybe it's a great find, maybe it isn't, but to find out well take money, setting up a site to manage custom business processes, presumably taking money in some form, presumably taking customer details in some form, and then managing that unique business model behind the scenes. All good. However, all we know is that there's a 'twist', which means stepping off the tried and trusted path - making changes. In IT terms, exceptions are expensive.

Maybe the twist, as you say, isn't really a twist. Maybe the twist is offering blue AND yellow doodahs. Maybe the twist is moonpig-style digital print and fulfillment. One is clearly adding an option to an eBay listing, the other is many hundreds of thousands of pounds startup investment on IT and processes! We don't know, so a warning that the latter case is a big deal seems like it might be useful to someone making uninformed decisions. And warnings about the reality of many junior devs passing themselves off to the uninitiated as experts!

We don't find sympathy for the homeowner who lets a passing stranger on to their roof to 'check the chimneys', or who allows their drive to be done by three guys who just turn up and promise to be cheap and done by lunchtime. We say they were silly for trying to go cheap and go with the first person to offer, without any due diligence or taking expert opinion. To extend that metaphor, I started out as a specialist builder and left the industry as a qualified architect consulting for some of the big guys. I no longer have a horse on the race so can speak candidly without vested interest. If the OP has a genuine new model they can capitalise, awesome! Hooray! If they can't because the startup costs are too high, awesome! We've saved them from folding in year 1 and losing everything. Cashflow kills more businesses than anything else, so understanding the cost of doing business (which is routinely underestimated in IT and entertainment, unlike say tailoring where the costs are predictable and there's no statutory constraints) is crucial. BIG companies are managing to lose credit card details week in week out in the USA. Some banks are finding the costs associated with playing fast and loose are very much higher than playing honestly (eg PPI). Not what a fledgling company needs to discover the hard way after thinking they'd found a shrewd deal by getting a student/peopleperhour/fiverr developer to string something together as anything more than an investor demo.

I apologise if it's coming across as discouraging, it isn't meant to be, but it IS meant to warn about the unseen costs of doing a business-grade job of any custom development. You don't want cowboys using gaffer tape and cardboard instead of bricks and mortar, but many junior developers (often innocently, overestimating their experience because they wrote some "Hello, world" apps at uni) do exactly this. If they don't mention all the points above and more in their discussions with the client, they're not doing a fair job for the client. I have no horse in this race, so I'm mentioning them in case the OP or in fact any other person reading this thread now, next week, next year, in five years etc., will have just a bit more of a clue and hopefully avoid the cowboys/inexperienced and not risk/lose their business/profits as a result.

PasturesNew

InsideInsurance wrote: »

...seems to make people think if they set up their ecommerce site or forum people will come....

.

This is it. Anybody can have an idea, get a shop together, but it's all really down to marketing. I could have the worst product in the world, but if I market it well it'll sell, maybe to enough people to make a living out of it.

Twist or not .... they don't come if you build it. They come if you create a desire for them to have something because they believe it'll give them some 'edge' over others - make them look smart, stylish, witty, clever, savvy ..... usually. I could flog a rock out of my garden if I spent enough time jazzing it up with fluffy-speak and marketing it

fishybusiness

I apologise if it's coming across as discouraging, it isn't meant to be, but it IS meant to warn about the unseen costs of doing a business-grade job of any custom development.

Don't think you need to, the pitfalls of starting in ecommerce are massive, and everyone has a view of what is best.....try 3D Cart, its easy, na....Wordpress is the way to go, cheap, stacks of free modules, you don't want that, updates are frequent and break existing modules....go hosted, let the website software do its stuff, dead easy.....na don't do that, you can't add XYZ payment module for the UK......oh well go self hosted, its cheap and there are loads of web designers around can knock it together for a few hundred, try PPH.

So it goes, a quick job now will result in many headaches later if business really gets going, a start to finish thought process now will ensure everything works from the beginning and will be manageable as it grows.

InsideInsurance

PasturesNew wrote: »

This is it. Anybody can have an idea, get a shop together, but it's all really down to marketing. I could have the worst product in the world, but if I market it well it'll sell, maybe to enough people to make a living out of it.

Marketing is part of what needs to be planned but it isnt the whole of it either. Cashflow, suppliers, insurances, scalability, operations etc etc

Fail to plan is to plan to fail etc

Know far too many who've done a small ecommerce site thats actually done fairly well etc and then they suddenly realise they've no plan for what to do when they want to go on holiday or how they can deal with growing numbers of returns etc

FatVonD

PasturesNew wrote: »

I could flog a rock out of my garden if I spent enough time jazzing it up with fluffy-speak and marketing it

Indeed they did in the 70s, it came in a cardboard pet carrier complete with air holes and bedding material. I remember as the office junior on a magazine having to take a taxi to Harrods to buy one!

BurceCharlie

Good Idea!
there are several steps you can try, that will surely help you out to run your business online.
1- Try to Become an affiliate:
2- E-Commerce Store: Is at the forefront of the Internet revolution, e-commerce stores. Today, less than 300 pounds, or 500 pounds fully functional ecommerce store design, you can use a simple; After just a domain name and hosting. Of course, the amount of the benefit depends on the method and may include marketing activities
3- Blogging: It's the easiest way to earn more and generate the traffic.
4- Sell on eBay: It's a big big platform to start online shop.
5- Paid Blogging: It's also the way to give your business breath a long time.
6- Social Media: Now a days Social Media is the big source boosting your business even beyond your thoughts. Such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and so on.
8- If you want to get the example of online shop or online store or business running websites you can search, Such as Amazon, RetailMeNot, ClothingRic, LavishCoupon, and Ebay.
I hope these will help you.

remorseless

ADChick wrote: »

Hello all,

I have an idea for a business but not sure how to go about it. It would basically be like an online shop but with a twist that I haven't seen any other online shop use (that I could find anyway!).

RESEARCH, RESEARCH and more RESEARCH...and I suppose it all depends on the 'twist' and whether the twist is on the site or on the service. If it's on the site and driven by technology you may be surprised that a lot is already there!

I remember a while ago thinking, wouldn't be nice to go to an online shop and be able to see the item on me with my body on it and thought, hmmm never seen in on most site I go that would be an amazing 'twist'

Then months later I stumbled across http://fits.me/try-it-now/ :eek: and essentially it was basically it, oddly enough it's UK HQ, developed in Europe and yet never seen in use!

If the twist is service oriented, well it's a different story maybe!