Online store - what to do now?

ecommica

Hello. I started an online store that sells products in the UK and I'm struggling with marketing. I used agencies and freelancer and they brought no results except draining my bank account. 

I'm now in a situation where I'm not sure where to proceed and wonder if anyone has some pointers for me. 

Ideally, I'd like to sell the stock + website + trademark but finding a buyer is challenging - the turnover is tiny so brokers, marketplaces aren't suitable.
I'd be looking for someone who wants to take over a store that's ready but where can I find such person? 

I could partner up with someone who is experienced in marketing as this is what I'm lacking but again - where can I find the right person? 

I'm also prepared just to sell the stock so now looking for a buyer but at times I just feel hopeless. I invested all my money into this project (incl. Quitting my job) so trying to recover as much as possible. 

Any ideas, pointers? 
 

Emmia

Could you sell the stock via another platform like Amazon, Etsy etc.?

Exodi

I don't want to be mean but I'd give up on the idea of selling your website and brand.

The amount of 'get-rich-quick-schemes' that have popped up over the past couple of years suggesting the use of shopify and dropshipping is a shortcut to an easy passive 6 figure income is too common to count (perhaps this is how you found yourself in this situation). It means these types of stores are a dime a dozen, people give them away on streams.

Why did you use agencies and freelancers to do your marketing anyway? Google Ads is relatively straight forward to use, it's generally not very economic to pay an agency to create basic google ad campaigns for you, especially as a very small business. It was perhaps unwise to pursue a career in online sales without knowing a thing about marketing - this is half of it.

If you need assets, use fiverr to create a few ads that you can circulate, very cheap.

Personally I would focus your efforts on selling the stock, even if it's at a loss, and then just abandon the site/brand.

As I said before, your story is extremely common where many, many people have been tricked into thinking that you can get rich easily with a Shopify store.

The only people getting rich are those selling the courses...

Emmia

I'd also get yourself back into paid employment.

I realise that by doing this you'll feel as though you failed with your business, but it would take the pressure off financially.

Browntoa

I had a number 1 listed site in Google for about 6 months with a niche but popular product. Never made more than pocket money.

And after 6 months Google changed their algorithms and I vanished to the backwaters of Google search results 

martindow

Browntoa said:

I had a number 1 listed site in Google for about 6 months with a niche but popular product. Never made more than pocket money.

And after 6 months Google changed their algorithms and I vanished to the backwaters of Google search results 

Possibly it wasn't google.  Sometimes you may have a product will sell very well for a time, then others will notice and pile into the market.  There is then a race to the bottom on price and no-one can make any money on it unless you are buying and selling in huge volumes to undercut everyone else.

On other occasions, products fall out of fashion and sales just plummet.  Soolin may be along to comment as she has mentioned some examples of this in other threads.