Five Things Not to Sell From an Online Store
If you are planning on starting an online store or if you already have one, it might be useful to know what really sells online and what does not. To some people this might seem obvious; however it is not a particular product that you should be looking to avoid but a particular group of products. The following is a list of five things to avoid:
1. Items under $10 - While this may sound like a great idea, this will end up hurting you financially in hidden costs. Shipping cost is something you must pay critical attention to. For example if your are offering Santa hats for $4 and they retail for $8 in normal stores, people will flock to you to buy them. However, if your shipping cost is $3 then the total cost to the customer is 7$. When they realize this, they might even consider going over to the local store to get it instead of having to wait for it via mail because the benefit from buying online is minimal. One way to overcome this is to bundle several items together and that way the shipping cost becomes negligible.
2. What everyone else is selling - If several people are successfully selling Xbox’s do not dream that you will be immediately successful as well. This has nothing to do with your ability to sell, but everything to do with the bulk quantities that your competitors are able to buy. By buying bulk, they get discounts and discounts enable them to offer lower prices; something you will not be able to do if you want to sustain your business.
3. Things you love…but no one else does - Just because you love your hobbies or a certain gadget it does not necessarily mean that everyone else will. You must understand that starting a trend is extremely difficult and should be undertaken only if a sufficient budget is available to push the product on many different levels of advertising.
4. Items that are difficult to ship - Fragile items and items that are likely to deteriorate quickly like flowers or plants should be avoided as the risk during shipping is very high. It is possible that you would receive negative feedback and worse still, negative reviews if the product arrives damaged at the consumer’s location.
5. Very large or bulky items - This should be undertaken only when you are an experienced seller. Initially, you should stick to smaller, easier-to-pack items as they are less complicated to ship than very large products.