Shopify Profits 1
Introduction:
For many years, creating an online store was a long, complicated process. You had to register a domain, set up hosting, install a pain-in-the-butt script, troubleshoot when it invariably went wrong, set up payment processors… it just went on and on. It could take weeks or even months to open the doors!
Then Shopify came along and made it easy for absolutely anyone to set up an online store in a few hours. Even if you only have a little time each day, you can have a site running and making money in as little as a weekend. It’s literally so easy to use that a pre-teen could have a site online in a day or two!
We’re going to take you step-by-step through the process of setting up a Shopify store, and it’ll only take a few hours to be up and running! Sure beats weeks or months, doesn’t it?
So let’s get started.
Choosing a Market:
The first step in the process is choosing a market. You may already have your market in mind, and that’s great. But you should do some market research in order to ensure the market is likely to be profitable. Additionally, you may want to
To get some ideas, you can check out:
http://www.InternetRetailer.com
They have a guide that will tell you information about what is selling, which markets are trending, etc.
Here are some ideas for criteria you should use to decide if a market is viable or not:
Average order should be at least $50. This doesn’t have to mean individual products are $50 or more, but the full order should be over $50. (And larger is obviously better.)
Profit margins should be at least 20%. This means electronics are generally out because profit margins are notoriously low. Find products with good margins.
Customers are likely to return often. Is your product something most people would only ever buy once? You want to find a niche where the average shopper will come back to buy more from you in the future because it costs much less to sell to a recurring customer than it does to find new ones.
Average order is more than one item. If your business focuses on a product that people will only buy one of at a time, you may want to choose another market OR consider adding additional supporting items. For example, if you’re selling dog beds, you might want to add a line of dog clothing and accessories to get additional sales from the same customers.
Business is not seasonal. Seasonal businesses can be quite profitable, but if your aim is for steady income, you might want to shift your focus or at least consider adding non-seasonal items. For example, if you’re selling pool supplies, you could sell winterizing equipment to help supplement your income in the off-season.
Products can’t easily be found locally, or the average buyer might not want to buy them locally. For example, some people might be embarrassed to shop for adult novelties locally, so those are a good option for online stores.
There is some competition in the market. Too much competition is a bad thing, but ZERO competition is worse. Trust me, unless you have invented something no one else can sell, there will be some competition in any profitable market. Competition means a niche is probably profitable.
Low shipping weight (under 10 pounds). If you have to charge too much for shipping, you won’t get many buyers, and absorbing shopping costs (such as free shipping for orders over $50) can eat your profits alive. Low shipping weight products mean lower shipping costs, which both you and your customers will appreciate.
Product is easy to source. The product needs to be something you can easily obtain. If you have to hunt high and low or wait months for the product to arrive, it’s not a good market to be in.
Target market is mainly female. Females have tremendous buying power, and a lot of women even do the shopping for their significant others. So targeting women is usually a winning proposition.
While you don’t necessarily have to fit every single one of these criteria, the more of them you can check off the list, the better the market is likely to be.