I've worked on my own remotely / out of an office environment for years, and definitely miss the banter and the camaraderie, but would never trade it back for the typical 9-to-5 I use to have.
I find it insanely easier to get things done when I'm in a closed, quiet room with no co-workers around to bother me. At the office, I'd often be bombarded by drop-ins, people chatting or other distractions. A focused 4 hour day working on my own is equivalent in productivity I've found to a full working around other people who aren't completely involved in their work.
Call me a robot, but I love to get my work done alone and then shift into social mode. I'm not good at doing both at once.
Very nice! Will this work with complex forms I already have built on my site, or do I need to create the form with special code/markup for it to work properly?
Cool listing, Dave. Shared it as I think it will be interesting to see how this pans out. Quick question: Do you guys have the processes for this store well documented? IE, written instructions for how to do all of the recurring tasks like route orders, issue refunds, answers to common questions, etc?
Didn't use them right from the beginning, no. Have been using them to sync inventory for about 6 to 9 months now, and just recently started using them for order routing and sending out tracking numbers.
Original product data was gathered from the manufacturer, as well as independent research.
Unfortunately, the trailing six months isn't a meaningful figure given the annual seasonality of the niche. Value would be over stated in the spring (when profits are high) and under stated in the fall (when profits are low).
And while, theoretically, it could be possible to create a ton of fake transactions to boost the sale price, it'd sure be a heck of a lot of work for little payoff. You'd need legitimate transactions, otherwise you'd simply be returning the motors and reducing revenue.
I suppose I could start a trolling motor MLM and ruin all my personal relationships to boost my chances at a slightly higher sale price...
Appreciated, thank you. And congratulations with the success you've had pairing your web app and eCommerce - very original! Best of luck with it in the future.
Good question. It's really a personal decision based on risk. Technically, I think consumers can go after anyone in the supply chain so, even retailers or stores. So it's not a bad idea to have.
That being said, I'd say the majority of stores don't have it....
OP here! This is not the only drop shipping site I run, and I talk about the others on my blog. This specific site (TrollingMotors.net) doesn't make six figures annually - that's correct. But I do have stores that do (I mention my other stores on my blog). And, of course, the combined earnings are above the six-figure mark.
Also, I don't sell my eBook - I give it away for free. :-)
Starting with $0 would be difficult. I think having at least $1,000 or $2,000 would be helpful for web hosting, some basic design / logo work, and a small advertising budget.
I started with $1,500 (for my first site, not this one. This one I invested a LOT in early on - not all of it prudently!) so you don't need a ton to begin, especially if you're willing to invest a lot of sweat equity.
Thanks! I picked the niche purely based on where I thought I could make money. When I started it, I had been running another drop shipping site for a few years already and wanted to try my hand in different market.
Finding drop shippers is actually a lot easier than you might think. You can't find them for every niche and market, but if you're willing to spend some time digging through Google you can usually find legitimate wholesale drop shippers without too much work. I did a video on it (see below) that might be helpful:
I will if you will offer me a 60 day options contract to sell bitcoins at a fixed price after close! Otherwise, the volatility cold double or half the purchase price. :-)
Good question! I was actually wondering about that when I was drawing up the financials. I don't honestly have a good answer for that.
Speculating here, but it could be minor changes in the manufacture pricing (they set minimum pricing levels). It could be slight differences in which supplier we use over time (given different costs at different warehouses). I'm really not sure. Sorry I don't have a better answer for you.
On point #1, you're right - not everyone will know about the auction right away. But I have been able to alert a large group of people early.
I have a good-sized email list, and they found out this morning. I structured the sale to (hopefully) get attention as well early on, and that has also seemed to work well. This was also the rationale behind the 5% referral bonus - to get people to spread the word.
So there will be some buyers who, yes, won't see it until mid-way through. But there should be (hopefully) enough early on watching to get some serious buyers interested at the right time.
On point #2 - you're absolutely correct. The 2 hours / day assumes just the day-to-day operations. There will be other things that need to be done (updating site, misc. work, etc). In the full post, I do disclose this and am not trying to say it's 2 hours a day only, for the entire year.
But generally, with small eCommmerce sites like this, there is an exception for a full-time owner salary when calculating the earnings, which is what the multiple is based on. Given the fact that the total hours per week are 20 inclusive of maintenance (if being liberal) - and a 40 hours owner's salary is usually excluded from calculating income - I feel it's fair.
And thanks for catching the typo! Would you mind letting me know which post it was in? Appreciated.
OP here. Thought a lot about the auction structure and decided the Dutch style (reverse) was the best given my goals.
I wanted to combine getting a good value with the ability to showcase the bid/price - and the process - publicly.
If I did a normal open auction, there is a chance everyone would wait until the last minute to bid. I'm managing bids manually, so it could get hectic. Plus, it wouldn't be as fun to watch for people reading.
Also, if there were NO bids early on it would really hurt the potential sales price with a lack of interest.
A full-on closed auction wouldn't be nearly as exciting for people to watch, and I wanted to generate buzz and interest, plus show the whole process.
With the reverse auction, the bid management is simplified - I only have to manage one winning bidder. It also allows the process to be showed publicly. Finally, it creates a sense of scarcity. If someone really wants it, they'll be more likely to bid early to prevent others from getting it.
So is it perfect? Definitely not! :-) Probably leaving some money on the table but I thought that this was the best structure to maximize value AND interest.
I find it insanely easier to get things done when I'm in a closed, quiet room with no co-workers around to bother me. At the office, I'd often be bombarded by drop-ins, people chatting or other distractions. A focused 4 hour day working on my own is equivalent in productivity I've found to a full working around other people who aren't completely involved in their work.
Call me a robot, but I love to get my work done alone and then shift into social mode. I'm not good at doing both at once.