CONTROL FREAK!

For many years now I have realized my tendency to want to control too many things in my life. Recognizing the trait has been healthy for me. But it's causing me problems with my website.

I've lost a few orders because I took the tactic to drop ship my items rather than putting my cash on the shelf and risk not recovering it. If I did a financial analysis on that, I may decide that I should stock the inventory and liquidate what doesn't sell. But I'm not a "big boy" and not ready for that financially or mentally.

But getting an order and finding out my supplier didn't tell me they were out of stock for a month is a bit frustrating. Also frustrating is not being able to take more pictures of the items, expecially the antiques.

So what do I do? I take a big breath and let it out slowly. Then I make a mental note of the situation and sally forth. Someday I'll be in the position to make improvements to the business, I just can't do it today. You see? It's still under my control, isn't it?!

FINALLY

June has been a strange month for me. It's the 24th already and I see where I have only posted on the blog once this June. I guess I get quiet when I have big question marks in my mind. Why the question marks? Because business has been slower than I ever expected. But today, FINALLY, I received a decent inquiry about some product - I've got to tell you, I really was wondering if there were any people behind those unique visits to the website.

I'm floundering a little on what merchandise to pick. Not my expertise at all. I just have to go by instinct right now until I can afford help. I went to SCORE online to see if there was a counselor with merchandising expertise. Think I found someone who might be able to help but she keeps asking me for my business plan. I sent her a draft and now she wants financials. Haven't sent that yet because I was waiting to see what response I was getting so that I could extrapolate some numbers. She also wanted to know how much I've invested to-date. I thought I already told her so I'm a little frustrated. But I tell myself to just take a deep breath, forego the frustration, and keep on moving.

I also received some information from SCORE on internet marketing. Says that 97% of internet business gross less than $30k per year and only 2% have sales exceeding
$500k per year. Wow! Another interesting point was the 1/3 Rule of Thumb for site design - 1/3 text, 1/3 white space, and 1/3 graphics and design. That made me go back and look at my homepage. I quickly saw that I had added on too many 'boxes' and the site was looking cluttered. Another WOW!

I have continued to look for product online and think I'm making a bit of progress. But now I'm getting to the point of deciding how much money to commit. I'm still not convinced there is money to be made here. But breakeven would be nice. And volume would be even better.

Enough posting for today. I'll try to get back soon.

Tossing and Turning

I get all these great ideas at night when I can't get to sleep. You'd think I'd jot those brilliant pieces down on paper but I don't. I wake up the next day and sometimes really have to struggle remembering those brainstorms. And even when I remember them, sometimes I don't get to them because of all the other tasks that need my attention and completion. I really need to start a list - next to my bed.

Sometimes my ideas aren't really brilliant. Sometimes I really feel like a dumb fool. And that was me last night. As I was stewing over reasons why I haven't converted more visits to sales it suddenly occurred to me that I am being greedy. My dropship wholesaler is charging me for packaging and I have set up my website to pass that charge on to my customers. Well, if you take a different perspective that should be an overhead of mine. I mean, afterall, I don't have the brick and mortar expense to pay for so maybe I should bear this cost. Duh!

Thanks for listening!

Google Adwords - Comment 4

I'm at 78 clicks at a cost of $21. Still no communications from anybody. 954 visits - MOL I'm pleased with that. Now I need to get some visits converted to orders.

I'm working on adding more product choices. And offering products with lower price points. And products that aren't so limited in the number of people interested in them. What more is there? I did one month of free shipping. Now I'm going to be contributing 10% of sales to Oxfam America. Poco a poco I guess.

For other entrepreneurs

Why am I blogging? I thought it might be helpful to future entrepreneurs to read about the steps I am taking to start my web business. I'm bound to do some good things and I'm bound to make some mistakes and I just thought it may be useful to someone else to have this information.

Already I have missed posting some of the steps I've taken because I'm not in the habit of blogging. I'll try to correct that and post the minutia as it happens. Everything I'm doing is a learning process. It's fun and I am resolved to be tenacious with it. Quitting would be too easy.

SEM

I've had 2 cold calls from SEM companies. I think they are getting my name from the hosting company and I don't find that too thrilling because they call me at dinnertime. I told the one yesterday that their prices were far too high for my pocketbook. He was telling me that I should have been starting SEM when I first got the domain name. My reply to that was - fiddle fhoo - I didn't even know what products I was going to carry at that point. How do you come up with keywords when you don't have product?????

I had an epiphany about it last night. Why haven't I used the keywords from my Google Adwords optimization and added them to the website metatags???? Bet that's where the SEM companies start.

I'll try it and let you know.

Google Adwords - Comment 3

I'm up to 56 clicks now at a cost of $14. No orders but my visitor count is climbing. I can even see that some have made it to the shopping cart window. I'm getting a lot more traffic than the clicks I am paying for from Google and Yahoo. That's exciting.

Technorati

Technorati Profile

Today I'm adding this blog to Technorati. I've got a lot to learn and so little time to do so. I think that is the story of all small business owners. Not enough time! I want to buy some!

Earthquake Victims

I watch the news every night looking at the massive devastation in China and I can't really comprehend what has happened. But I do know that they must be very frightened and in shock as they desparately try to dig through the rubble.

Thought I would put some links on here in case anyone wants to send some money to help. I saw some postings elsewhere telling people to ignore the situation and not send money because China would never step up to help us but, you know, I think it isn't a political situation - it's real human beings suffering and who need help. Since we can't go over and help dig, the least we can do is try to make sure they get fresh water, food, and shelter.

Thanks for caring.

Google Adwords - Comment 2

Gulp! I plunged in and created an ad for GoldenStarFruit.com that would be published across the entire country. Last week I had limited the distribution to a few zip codes as a test to see what volume of traffic I would get. The only reason I can still breathe after doing this national ad is that my account only has $50 in it and I put a 30 cent limit on the PPC cost.

Well, so far so good. I've had 24 clicks for a cost of $6 and most of them are coming from the content network rather than from the keywords I selected. Interesting. I'll probably go through an analysis this week and see what they recommend for improving results. But for now I'm happy to see 24 clicks and counting.

AddThis

I spent hours trying to find coding to add a del.icio.us link to my website and tried a couple of things unsuccessfully. Then I tried a few searches to look for a better way and somehow I landed on Seth Godin's site and looked at how he managed his bookmarks. I was amazed. He has a simple, simple icon to bookmark that pops up a page loaded with the sharing service of your choice. I immediately said to myself, "I've got to have this!"



I linked over to AddThis.com, registered, and easily added their coding to both my website and this blog. It was everything I was looking for and I recommend it to you in a heartbeat.

Wham-o!

You know what I've noticed? That you feel like a punching bag. Seems like things will be running smoothly and then, wham-o! You get punched down.

It used to be that I would be devastated by that and angry and far too emotional. Now I try to get back up and brush myself off and keep moving forward. I'm really surprised by my composure and dedication to find a better way.

Earlier this week I found my answer for a skin care line. Nothing fancy, not a big line, but really, really interesting and it just felt like the right fit for my store. I didn't procrastinate (like I usually do) - I got right on it and sent the company an inquiry. All day I was really excited about the possibilities and then, wham-o! The next morning I received an email back telling me my timing was "unfortunate", that they had chosen an online outlet for their products the day before. I couldn't believe it. There is no way I could have gotten to them sooner.

The good news is that they agreed to talk again in a few months to assess the situation and decide if GoldenStarFruit.com can carry their products.

Photos Galore

Oh, boy. I've been busy. I've added all my product photos to Flickr using the website name and I've added a slide show to this blog. On top of that, I've cropped my website header and added it to this blog so that the image of my brand is consistent. I also added a link to my profile on LinkedIn but I haven't prettied it up because that means I have to go to someplace and refresh my memory on HTML coding and then play with those sleeping carats and stuff. Too much for my brain today.

Over the weekend I killed the Free Shipping promotion and changed the copy on my homepage. Still need to update the Yahoo products and start over on my Google ads.

But it's getting there, isn't it?

Google Adwords

I set up Google AdWords the other day and have already gotten a message from them that my ad was in violation of their rules. I had put FREE shipping in the title rather than Free shipping. Plus I used a contraction since I had to squeeze too many characters onto one line.

The first day I ran the ad and targeted certain zip codes. When I hadn't had any clicks by day 2, I decided to target a broader metropolitan area. Now I've had 7 clicks per Google but only 3 per my website statistics. Maybe there is some catch-up time????

Today I decided to lower my CPC budget from $1 to 50 cents. Got one click today. And my New Visitors has dropped - like a ton of bricks - not that I had that many in the first place.

So tomorrow I'll work on new copy for the home page since Mother's Day is almost here. Then I'll change the Free Shipping offer and load 2 new products. After that I need to load all the products on Yahoo Shopping and then re-d0 my Google ads. Might play with a display ad and find a place to test it.

Lots to do. Lots to learn.

Yahoo's Product Search Marketing

I've signed up for Yahoo's Product Search Marketing and have gotten a bit confused and frustrated. First of all they have a $50 minimum to open the account. And you have to commit to the $50 before you even know how it works! Hey, Yahoo, what about being more customer friendly? I know I'd like to test your services out before I fork out my hard-earned bucks.

It took 2 days and one error to get my test product uploaded to Yahoo but it looks very good. But then I started wondering how the mechanics of the listing function since, right now, most of my products are one-of-a-kind and once I get a sale, that's it, nada mas. Since I couldn't find anyway to remove my product I sent Yahoo an email from their help url. Two days later I got an answer - "the listing would remain online until you either turn the account off, or upload a new product feed replacing the previous one." Great. In a real world, not a test world, I wouldn't want to turn off my account since I may have other products listed. So off I go to see if I can upload a second product to replace the first.

Oh, by the way, since I tested the ad and clicked through to my website, I used 30 cents of my $50 deposit. Their computer immediately notified me to add more funds "to keep your account active and maintain your listings live on Yahoo".

Tuesday, April 29, 2008 (Posted on VantagePoint originally)

It's official - I'm a merchant now. I've started a new business and opened a new shopping website -http://www.GoldenStarFruit.com. I've just finished getting my merchant accounts so I'm into a soft launch and working on search engines and generating traffic.It's been an interesting process getting started. I tried very hard not to get the cart before the horse and that kept causing delays. I think the most challenging aspect was coming up with a website name. Everything I tried was taken and I didn't want to go out and buy anything. I had decided to launch this business in phases and Phase I calls for everything to be done 'on the cheap'. Once I reach predetermined benchmarks, then I move to Phase II followed by, guess what! Phase III.

.: posted by Carol Gamel - Carol@GoldenStarFruit.com 2:16 PM