Ebiz1 update
January 8th, 2008 by KenricThe most frustrating thing to me now is that my suppliers sold out of their entire stock during the Christmas rush. They said that this year was the best year ever for my product. It seems like its finally getting popular and now demand has outpaced supply.
With that said, I have 7 orders that are 15 days old that I cannot fill due to supply problems. Who would have known that if I would have stocked products in December in my home, I’d be the only one in the country with the product in stock now.
The graph from Google Trends below shows this product’s search trend history. Basically, at the end of April is when the product finally had enough search volume to get tracked in Google. Look at the increase in October and December!
In addition, one supplier is raising prices on January 15th. The prices are increasing alot. I have one product that will go from $74 to $99 wholesale price. I’m wondering what my competitors are going to do. I’ll wait to see if their prices go up or if they eat the difference in the pricing.
I’ve been tempted to order about $3,000 worth of inventory at pre-2008 prices. This is in order to get the price savings and also to have stock in my products. I know that this would defeat my whole business model. I’ve done the numbers and the additional profit would probably not be worth the time.
One final note is that many of my keywords jumped a week ago to rank 10-15 in Google. I can start lowering my advertising budget now since I’m getting alot more organic hits than paid hits.
Updated: 1/8/08
Keyword 1 – #10 (up 23 spots from 12/25/07)
Keyword 2 – #15 (up 26 spots)
Keyword 3 – #19 (same)
Keyword 4 – #25 (down 8 spots)
I’ve been slowly implementing the things learned from the SEO Book. I’m on page 240 of 350 pages! These things take time and hopefully I’ll see the benefits in a month or two.
Posted in Ebiz | 1 Comment »
Stumble it!
This is one of the problems with running a business based on dropshipping: Much of the business is out of your control.
Have you already accepted money for those orders that are on backorder? Are you sure those people want those products still? You realize that you have to comply with the FTC’s Mail Order Rules when you cannot immediately ship a product, yes? I don’t think you do so here is a link to the mail order rules: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/buspubs/mailorder.shtm
You need to follow this, particularly since you accept credit cards. (Always remember those chargebacks since they will spank you if you don’t follow the rules!)
I am busy with my own business but I owe you some posts on some of your previous posts. That’ll have to happen when I get time, but I’m glad to see your business is doing well.
P.S. If you really want to do retail, I would just start doing this like a regular retail business. Order product and stock it yourself. Ship it yourself. Actually control the entire business rather than just controlling a website!! Yeah it’s more work, but there are so many ways to differentiate yourself from other people who are selling the same stuff you are. The way you are doing it, you’ll always be under the dropshippers control.
By ubu50 on Jan 8, 2008