Advice for a digital-only startup

[amusingmuse22]

Hey all! I was just wondering if anyone here has some experience with e-commerce. I kind of joined my friend's efforts to raise a dropshipping brand around sportswear, but I don't really know much aside from writing product descriptions and maybe an article or two... We got a guy who works as an accountant, he'll be in charge of cash flow management, but we need better ways to spread the word, at least locally. We've almost completed the profiles for Fb and Insta, we plan to pump content there as well. But, we don't really know how to gauge the popularity of our future efforts, aside from the tools Wordpress provides and GA. Any pointers for that?

Also, which apps would you recommend for internal communications (we got two other team payers residing in different time zones)? Should we stick to Trello/Asana mostly?
We got some budget, so we can handle monthly subscriptions for a fair deal, for now. Of course, if you know any free apps that helped you with a similar task, do tell

If this isn't the right place for this, the mods will let me know I suppose (and apologies in advance if that's the case)

 

[rushjurassicparkfly]

I guess your success will depend on how truly devoted you're to that idea. I'm sure you're aware your pitch is far from a unique concept, but that doesn't mean you can't turn it into a decent source of income. If you don't get discouraged in the first 100 days, you just might stand a chance

I'm not qualified enough to recommend marketing apps, and as for the organization front, don't forget to use google sheets and connect them with trello/asana so that everything gets updated automatically. Also, implementing an internal file management system might shield you guys from the usual chain of silly mistakes startups perform early on. Being able to route each freshly edited file/PDF to its intended digital location is more than handy in that regard. At the same time, each team member will be able to trace the logical hierarchy of files and no contribution will fly under the radar.
Another smart move would be to make a virtual business card for your brand. It only takes a second to make them after picking a template, and then you can spread the word in style. Plus, the e-cards allow you to track which consumers interacted with the QR code and from where, thus allowing you to collect valuable insights about what interests them the most.

 

[FAST6191]

Assuming we are not talking to another spambot (9 posts new member asking this sort of thing is sometimes legit but often not).

Drop shipping (that is to say keeping no/minimal stock on hand and most of it coming from the manufacturer as it is ordered, you dealing with the website and customer service) is a fairly low margin activity, clothes even more so*, and that is a lot of people with a piece of the pie. Most things I see are single person, couple of friends, or husband and wife with maybe an accountant that does their taxes aspect. While it is legit rather than a pyramid scheme or scheme for fashion company to dump their junk (you can have the thing people want but you also have $1000 of crap to also try to sell, good luck) then it is brutal. I would also see you consider what your friend brings to the table -- I personally hate working for money men (having a budget for software is a bit of a red flag there) that offer nothing other than money, if your friend is a good graphics designer or has a pulse on what slogans will sell, is hot at sourcing things, or can operate the printing/sewing/cutting/embossing/wear recreation/... machinery then that is a different matter.
If you are willing to take pictures and write descriptions though then in 90% of web headaches I have dealing with clients it is that (9% because they bought a domain and hosting package and thus don't control the domain themselves, and 1% actual technical issues most of which would be solved if people took backups rather than hoping the hosting they pay a pittance for keeps a backup for them). Hope you have a mannequin, some lighting and a decent camera, though plenty do virtual nowadays. If you can do graphics on top of that for business cards, banners and such then even better.

*I doubt you have thus far managed to do a hype brand wherein fairly basic clothes get returned in whatever fun colours or designs from the printer and you sell them for a silly markup as it has clicked for a/the particular cultural zeitgeist of the moment.

If you find a way to gauge popularity then turn around and sell that rather than deal in the overstuffed fashion market, though better people than us have tried and largely failed. You can try impressions vs clicks vs sales... and probably get somewhere. If playing big boy economist then regression testing is going to be the answer. That is to say don't do something in an area/timeframe/year on year/... and judge the difference as best you can -- skip going to a show (any number of festivals, selling events, local craft fairs, industry events...), skip paying for facebook adverts for a month, skip paying for google adverts for a month, don't buy instagram of whatever engagement boosting thing there is, don't do a selling stream this week, sales events vs not**, don't buy the advertising banner on the way into the city some time, trickle some stuff to an influencer and skip that for a month, do a set of useful merch (cups are always a fun one) rather than handing out business cards...
I would also suggest you do in person things -- you can sell antiques online easily enough but clothes benefits considerably from in person for everything I have ever done for people here (which is quite a bit over decades now).
I will however also say facebook is probably useless unless you are a 40 something woman selling things in a livestream to other 40 something women (mostly being extended friendship circle) -- most people under 25 don't even have an account there any more or only use it to talk to grandma. Even without that click through rates to websites are abysmal and it is also another way customers will try to contact you/thing you have to monitor.
Everybody wants to achieve virality, nobody really has an idea of how to do it on command (if politicians and companies paying hundreds of millions can't manage it then yeah). You can try having your gear in popular settings -- protests, big political clashes, night clubs... and maybe astroturf some of that if you are bored (few sockpuppet accounts or meat puppet accounts asking about the top in that photo and a reply saying it is this but not obvious it is an advert).
Likewise are you pushing quality (I don't personally want a polyester tshirt when I can have decently heavy cotton), price (while I am a tart and won't don polyester then others might if the price is cheap enough), features (I like pockets on my trousers), style (in my case if I look like I should be invading/being a soldier of fortune in a small African country then I am happy, however there is a reason I am not a fashion designer and realise that is possibly even more controversial*** a look in Belgium)... and see what happens when you target those attributes in your adverts.
How to choose... that is the trick and every business wonk will have a story of how all their market research was for nothing as it turns out there was a sector they (and everybody else) had not considered or were able to grow. Age-sex-location is boring... it is all about the mindset and we have known that since the 1930s but you can discover Edward Bernays on your own time

**not always a trivial thing either. People like to think they are getting a bargain even if maths says no you are not so consider that. Failures in such things have killed very big businesses.

***controversy, willingness to offend and edgy does sell though.

Internal communications. It will also depend how traceable things need to be, who needs to see what and how wide you plan to grow it -- two people can do email and whatever IM you care to use quite happily, three gets more fun depending upon what people care to hear about. If email is a more passive thing for some elements -- does the boss need to see lower employees all the time then you can do things like have everything forwarded to the boss and a local script stick everything like that in a folder for later tracing following an incident (anything from idiot customer to something serious).
Depending upon how good you are you may also integrate it into the site itself and CRM (customer relations management), or if you prefer there is a reason "Slack", the default choice for many a big tech company, is owned by Salesforce who are the professional version of what you are trying to do with wordpress (and charge very much for it). Microsoft have Teams which does well for a lot of people, and skype does well for others (voice, text, pictures, group...). How they need to access it varies as well -- I hate mobile phones so don't have anything rely on it, others hate busting out the laptop, others only need it at home where others still need it on the road, as might technical abilities (I am glad the one I do websites for is mostly out of the game as me having to do another email and booking confirmation setup on an ancient phone for someone not technically savvy enough to operate a light switch... and that is without gmail, yahoo, hotmail/microsoft, aol and whatever other big players there are randomly black holing the email and not even letting it make the spam folder because the domain is new or some stupid reason I have to read the tea leaves for).

 

[eyeliner]

Do you have monies to start the endeavor?
Legal address? VAT numbers and all that?

 

[amusingmuse22]

Most things I see are single person, couple of friends, or husband and wife with maybe an accountant that does their taxes aspect. While it is legit rather than a pyramid scheme or scheme for fashion company to dump their junk (you can have the thing people want but you also have $1000 of crap to also try to sell, good luck) then it is brutal. I would also see you consider what your friend brings to the table -- I personally hate working for money men (having a budget for software is a bit of a red flag there) that offer nothing other than money, if your friend is a good graphics designer or has a pulse on what slogans will sell, is hot at sourcing things, or can operate the printing/sewing/cutting/embossing/wear recreation/... machinery then that is a different matter.

Yeah, we're barely a handful of people, and as for paid software, I was hoping for something up to 5 bucks per month, just so we can get something going. And yes, my friend who started this is crafty in those regards. Also, we're fully aware this might prove futile very soon, we're treating it only as a side hustle for now

If you find a way to gauge popularity then turn around and sell that rather than deal in the overstuffed fashion market, though better people than us have tried and largely failed. You can try impressions vs clicks vs sales... and probably get somewhere. If playing big boy economist then regression testing is going to be the answer. That is to say don't do something in an area/timeframe/year on year/... and judge the difference as best you can -- skip going to a show (any number of festivals, selling events, local craft fairs, industry events...), skip paying for facebook adverts for a month, skip paying for google adverts for a month, don't buy instagram of whatever engagement boosting thing there is, don't do a selling stream this week, sales events vs not**, don't buy the advertising banner on the way into the city some time, trickle some stuff to an influencer and skip that for a month, do a set of useful merch (cups are always a fun one) rather than handing out business cards...

Right, no other way then getting your hands dirty. Very useful and practical advice, thanks a lot!

I would also suggest you do in person things -- you can sell antiques online easily enough but clothes benefits considerably from in person for everything I have ever done for people here (which is quite a bit over decades now).

Agreed, this is something we absolutely intend on doing, glad to hear it worked for you!

I will however also say facebook is probably useless unless you are a 40 something woman selling things in a livestream to other 40 something women (mostly being extended friendship circle) -- most people under 25 don't even have an account there any more or only use it to talk to grandma. Even without that click through rates to websites are abysmal and it is also another way customers will try to contact you/thing you have to monitor.

Haha true, but expanding in that "niche" (the "40+ woman" niche) is also not a bad idea, we can hire someone to follow a script and do a few videos for our socials/reels

Likewise are you pushing quality (I don't personally want a polyester tshirt when I can have decently heavy cotton), price (while I am a tart and won't don polyester then others might if the price is cheap enough), features (I like pockets on my trousers), style (in my case if I look like I should be invading/being a soldier of fortune in a small African country then I am happy, however there is a reason I am not a fashion designer and realise that is possibly even more controversial*** a look in Belgium)... and see what happens when you target those attributes in your adverts.

The guy in charge has a pulse on this, but yeah, we'll focus on stuff we'd actually spend money on for the time being

Internal communications. It will also depend how traceable things need to be, who needs to see what and how wide you plan to grow it -- two people can do email and whatever IM you care to use quite happily, three gets more fun depending upon what people care to hear about. If email is a more passive thing for some elements -- does the boss need to see lower employees all the time then you can do things like have everything forwarded to the boss and a local script stick everything like that in a folder for later tracing following an incident (anything from idiot customer to something serious).

We're very few for now, I was mostly asking about the best way to keep everything under control and ensuring we do not send the wrong file or invoice to a client, since the accounting guy can only work in off-hours, and he won't be the one in charge of the customer-facing end. So, mixups can happen , and we need an internal system for this - something like an electronic cabinet that we'll learn how to navigate so that anyone can follow thorough on what's been done in the time they were not "online"

Depending upon how good you are you may also integrate it into the site itself and CRM (customer relations management), or if you prefer there is a reason "Slack", the default choice for many a big tech company, is owned by Salesforce who are the professional version of what you are trying to do with wordpress (and charge very much for it). Microsoft have Teams which does well for a lot of people, and skype does well for others (voice, text, pictures, group...).

Right, this ties to the previous point, thanks

How they need to access it varies as well -- I hate mobile phones so don't have anything rely on it, others hate busting out the laptop

Agreed, we don't intend to perform serious tasks on the phone, we'll probably end up renting a small office soon, at least for the three of us leaving nearby

@FAST6191 Thanks for all of this! I really, really wasn't expecting such a competent take on my query! Hats off to you sir! Always nice to hear rapid-fire answers from someone way more experienced than me!
Cheers!

Post automatically merged: Jun 12, 2023

Do you have monies to start the endeavor?
Legal address? VAT numbers and all that?

Yeah, affirmative on those fronts, I only hope we won't drive ourselves into a corner right away... We already invested a decent sum, as you can tell...