Help very much needed for online trading

[joingram87]

Hi everyone,

I am a complete and utter newbie in regards to the whole beauty industry and business side of things. However, I will very soon be training with CND to become a nail tech and I would very much appreciate you opinion on part of my business.

I have a name for my business and I am looking to start designing my website and getting my business cards designed ready for when I am qualified. I would also like my business to trade online too for like cutical oil, nails files, polishes etc.

Does anyone have any advice how I would go about this? Would I need to approach direct supplies to be able to sell their products on my website or could I buy in bulk somewhere and then sell it online?

I would like this side of things to get started before I am qualified so I can start to get my name known at the same time of making a small income.

Any tips or pointers would be greatly recieved as I want to make sure I buy from the correct place and dont end up going down the wrong track!

Thank you for your help!

 

[Ruth Mills]

It would be a good idea to speak to suppliers to see if there are any restrictions on selling particular brands online.

When setting up an online shop, you also need to be aware of the Distance Selling Regulations, and make sure you get the wording of your Terms & Conditions right, particularly with regards to refunds etc.

For taking payment for online orders, the most straightforward and inexpensive ways of taking payment are probably Paypal and Google Checkout - neither charge a monthly fee (unlike other payment gateways, e.g. Sage Pay) - they just charge a percentage fee on each order that you take.

 

[joingram87]

It would be a good idea to speak to suppliers to see if there are any restrictions on selling particular brands online.

When setting up an online shop, you also need to be aware of the Distance Selling Regulations, and make sure you get the wording of your Terms & Conditions right, particularly with regards to refunds etc.

For taking payment for online orders, the most straightforward and inexpensive ways of taking payment are probably Paypal and Google Checkout - neither charge a monthly fee (unlike other payment gateways, e.g. Sage Pay) - they just charge a percentage fee on each order that you take.

Hiya,

Thank you for your reply, I thought it best to speak directly to the individual distributors and see if i can get an account with them and do it that way.

I had thought about paypal, hadnt heard of google checkout but Il look into it.

Thank you x

 

[trulyscrump]

In terms of promoting your business, you can't beat online. In fact, we spend most of our marketing money on online. It's great for salons and beauty therapists as you can focus on your location (ie. the town you are in). This is good as 20% of all searches are geographically based.

The only thing I would say about selling products though is that you are told by the suppliers that you must match RRPs online, ie. sell products at a fixed cost. BUT, many people flout this and are offering products for silly money. The ONLY way these people can be making worthwhile money is by volume - and a lot of it.

For example, one of our biggest sellers on our shop are the Jessica Nail Polish range. We sell for RRP of £8.95, the product costs £4.61 and when you take VAT into consideration (if you are VAT registered), you would make £3.00 profit. This is okay, but some people are selling these with 10% off and free delivery. We can't compete and I can't see where the margin is.

We sell less retail in our salons and online because many of the products are sold so cheaply online and in larger discount shops. While our hands are tied, some of these 'quality' salon brands end up in TK Maxx and Superdrug!

Add into this the fact that a good website costs money to build and then you have to pay transaction fees to the bank (or Paypal) and I wonder how many smaller retailers may have to stop selling products online.

Sorry to be negative but unless you are really clued up on e-commerce, I would tread very carefully.... (speaking form experience).

Good luck with your plans though.

 

[tinksandfloris]

I agree with truly,

I had an e-commerce website for 2 years and used to work in the web industry before re-training. Thought you and anyone else wanting to build a site might find this handy. It's not the definitive guide but it's enough to get you started:


A new website is 'sandboxed' for the first 6 months of it's life by the biggies such as Google (i.e, they keep it in the google play-pen because it's new and so your rankings build slowly in effect).

When you're building your site, think about the words you use in it as these are what the spiderbots will pick up and add to google etc. E.G - B&Q were really clever and chose diy.com as their website name. This means that every time someone types in DIY, they come top because their site is most relevant to that query. You could have two website addresses, one for your company name and one that is what you do and where you are. For instance, my website address is mytownnamebeautytherapy.co.uk.

If you're doing Creative Design Nails in Yarmouth, be sure to have that phrase in your site. Google will pick out and assess every word you have on every page so it's important to get it right. However, overdo it and they'll 'blackhat' (downgrade your rankings) for using too many keywords.
Distance selling regs aren't too bad. Generally it's the 7 day rule - the customer have 7 days to change their mind regardless of what the reason is and send the goods back for a full refund.

If you want to build a website for your business my advice would be to concentrate on getting it promoted for your service in your local area that might be a better start. Go to somewhere like www.justhost.com or www.streamline.com Justhost is cheaper, streamline is easier to use but more pricey and both are really robust so you won't have any downtime. You'll need to do a search through one of these to see if your chosen business name is free. Bear in mind that Ecommerce websites cost more to build and maintain.

When your website is up and running, google some salons in your area and see who they are linking with and what sites they're free advertising on:
hotfrog
yell
twitter
facebook
linkedin
ukindex
cyclex
the wedding binder
city visitor (these are all free and the list is endless!)

The more your website and name appears on other sites, the higher up the rankings you'll go.

You have to be willing to spend a lot of time and effort promoting your site in the google rankings and on other search engine optimisation. I'm talking months, not hours. There will also be many people competing for the products you're selling. I've just googled 'creative nail polishes' and it bought up 324,000 results and 24,600 for the UK. Given the large numbers out there it would be almost impossible to get anywhere near the top of the rankings, which is where you'd need to be to be selling in any type of volume. You would have to spend quite a lot on advertising to get you the return.


I hope this helps you a bit!

Good luck with your new venture!

Tinks
x

 

[joingram87]

Hi Truly and Tinks,

Thank you so much for your help and advice. I really appreciate having other people thoughts especially as I have never ventured out into online selling before.

I was considering selling Jessica too as I love their products. I thought I would seek advice on the subject first before contacting the distributors to find out what others thought.

I can see where you are coming from that you would have to sell at the RRP etc. I have very often wondered how these other comapnies can make a profit by 10% off and free delivery but as they make their profit by volume this wouldnt be a good way to start a brand new business I would imagine.

I am quite lucky in the fact that my partner works in IT and web sites are part of his remit. Having said that building them is 1 thing but wether or not he knows about getting up in the ranks is another thing so what Tinks has said is really helpful!

Another idea was to get a shop on ebay too but taking into consideration both of your points and the fact that Truly mentioned from own experience, maybe I might re-think the idea for now!

Ideas always seem like a fab idea when you think of them - until the research begins! :lol:

 

[trulyscrump]

Hi Truly and Tinks,

Another idea was to get a shop on ebay too but taking into consideration both of your points and the fact that Truly mentioned from own experience, maybe I might re-think the idea for now!

I'm not sure the brands look kindly on ebay shops... you'd have to check with them. They say they are trying to 'protect their brand' but it's more about profit margins I think ;-)

A very cheap, dip your toe in the water approach, may be something like Mr Site (http://www.mrsite.com/). Although it's not for me, my sister-in-law has used this approach quite successfully and tied it into Paypal. I think it's quite simple to set up and play with (and not too much money).

 

[Verve Designs]

Again, not to be negative, but i'm another one that'd err on the side of caution.

Would your shop would be doing anything different, or selling anything different to the dozens (if not hundreds) that are already out there. If not, then you'd have to market it like crazy- and thats not easy or cheap.

I've run a webshop that sells hair jewels for about 3 years now, www.extensionize.com I've got the advantage that im a graphic designer and own a salon mind you!

*I posted on this last week...here's what I had to say then- might be of some use to you.

To be honest- I was a bit clueless before I started it up.

The way I figured out if it was going to be profitable or not was to figure out every single margin-affecting factor such as-

Wholesale price/selling price
Price of postage
Packaging price
Price per transaction (i.e. Paypal fees)
Website hosting/design
Taxes
Advertisting/Marketing

(and im sure theres a few more I cant remember)

Once i'd done that I was able to figure out exactly what I'd earn per item sold.

This is before you get wholesalers and manufacturers insisting you sell things for a certain price and putting restrictions on you!

You'd also have to figure out distance selling rules, and policies on returns etc etc.

Its a fair bit of work...but more than do-able. But...really do the figuring out first.

For example- if you're making 50p profit per item sold (that's net)- you'll have to sell 200 to make a hundred quid!....and thats a lot of work in real terms.