eCommerce and Retail, too hot to handle?

[AffiliateDreamer]

Hi,

Say you are a 1-man operation, would you suggest starting both a retail and eCommerce operation?

Maybe doing the retail thing for a fixed period of time until ecommerce establishes to a point where you can focus on it and drop retail.

One of the key reasons is that it keeps certain distributors happy that you are not solely ecommerce...

[Wlauzon]

Pretty hard to do with just one I would think.

[King_Fisher]

I know of a guy who did just that. He couldn't get a lot of the product lines he
wanted(mostly musical instruments and equipment).They required real location so
he rented a small store front and fixed it up. So now he has both on line and off. Wife runs the store and he runs the online/shipping, etc.

They seem to be doing real well...KF

[sniffer]

Its only on the internet that people think the internet is the only revenue stream ;)

[AffiliateDreamer]

The big issue for me is that a retail store requires allot more stock, and lifestyle is less flexible since you have to be at the store all the time and answer questions 'on-demand' as oppose to doing a 'send/receive' emails hehe.

[bwnbwn]

"retail store requires allot more stock"

Not only that but time, money, insurance, employees, rental and on and on.

I started out in the retail business closed it went internet reopend retail 4 years latter due to the crazy prices on the net and we had our first grandchild.

Mum wants to see her often they live 900 miles away so she stays a month each time I couldn't work the net and a full time SEO job.

We are doing well and I am glad we did. Owning a retail business keeps you more current with the trends in your sector. It is real easy to get behind so this as well keeps us abreast with the new products coming out.

[piatkow]

Depends on the sector.

People like to try musical instruments before buying and I know of retailers who have closed the shop but still take stalls around the festivals.

[ByronM]

A retail business with net savvy people is the best combination. You can strive for better services, better distributors/wholesalers, compete online with an online store and sell locally and get better pricing.

I'm looking at opening up a B&M Retail store shortly myself and it will mostly be a catalog type store since i'm not going to be stocking many components but offering custom installs, delivery and personal assistance through the transactions as i do online.

[AffiliateDreamer]

When you say ' catalog type store ' what do you mean exactly? Not stocking much but allowing for special orders?

[ByronM]

Yeah, by catalog i mean i have displays, light inventories but our service is around not only selling you the product but getting it to your location, installed and up and running and we can better do that by managing our supply chain through custom orders vs keeping stocks.

We do floor plan and stock stuff that will walk out the door - no need in making those customers wait but a lot of the stuff is considered boutique and can change revisions quite frequently so we custom order to get the latest and greatest.