How to open a computer online store.
Greetings to the Habro community.
I ask you not to judge strictly for the post, firstly it’s a sample of the pen on this site, secondly it’s just your own experience, which is quite possibly not ideal for copying, but it may become a basis for you to do better.
So start over.
In the fall of 2008, I was cut from the now-memorable company “Cifrograd” (bankrupt, if anyone does not know, all operators refused to buy the country's third-largest retail cellular network). Having rummaged through the labor market and not finding worthy vacancies (you understand that you didn’t want to fall into the sn, it seemed that people would still be happy) decided to implement their experience in the notebook sphere and, together with a partner, began to prepare for opening an online store selling laptops. After analyzing the competition and suppliers, it was decided to open in St. Petersburg, because there are fewer competitors, most suppliers have their own units there, and there is a higher margin on the market. Since I am a Muscovite and my partner lives in St. Petersburg, we had the opportunity to open up in any of these cities, but in view of the above criteria, the northern capital was chosen, and Moscow was left for later.
Business model
')
Since we didn’t have much money, we chose the scheme of work without our own warehouse. That is, in terms of suppliers' prices, posting their product range on the website and, upon order, go to the distributor and take the goods from him. This scheme, in addition to the plus in the absence of the need to invest in the product and the ability to lay out the maximum range of products available on the market, also carries inconveniences and risks. They are as follows:
- you can never be 100% sure that the supplier ordered goods you have (even if he dropped the price where you have a position in the morning, in half an hour there could be a large customer who bought the entire quantity in stock).
- most often you can not deliver the goods on the day of order
- you will have difficulties with the client's desire to come and choose from several models (ultimately possible, but depends on the agreement on the conditions with the supplier. This is discussed below).
We wanted to find customers through price-lists: Yandex.Market, Price.ru, NBPrice.ru, Torg.Mail.ru. The context was not originally thought of, it seemed to us expensive for the opening phase.
In addition to laptops, we wanted to offer accessories for them and, naturally, services (installation of useful software, support packages).
Delivery was made paid, 300r in the city (the average price for the hospital).
Suppliers
There are not so many suppliers in the notebook market. I will name the largest ones: Merlion, Elko, Pyrite, Lanck, Marvel, OCS, Oldi, Nexus, Pronet, Mics, Roscoe. It should be understood that each of them specializes in only a few (2-3) brands. Most of them are ready to work with online stores under the order. Conditions on average are as follows:
- 4-5 orders in advance, then a technical loan is provided for a period of 2 to 7 days.
- the possibility of returning the goods, if the box is not opened (some are ready to accept opened boxes, but this is rather an exception to the rule).
As for prices, you need to understand that you will not take large volumes, so you should not wait for particularly sweet prices. In the future, it all depends on your ability to bargain. If you know what your competitor takes from your supplier - do not forget to chase retail prices for your sales.
Another supply chain can be a retail chain. Her earnings consist of a mark-up and money received from vendors - rebates and marketing funds. Therefore, such a partner can be offered to increase their income received from vendors at the expense of the quantity of goods that they will sell through you. Each negotiations are individual, but we managed to agree with two. We must also understand that as long as you do not have your physical store or you don’t develop your brand to the level of say notik.ru, uti-note.ru or notebook812.ru - you can discard the dream of money from vendors. Vendors are not interested in paying you money, because you are “killing” prices with the rest of the small players on the Internet market. They are ready to pay money only if the minimum recommended prices are observed, which, as you understand, are almost never respected on the Internet. The crisis, of course, has an impact on everyone, but first of all it concerns distributors who are ready to give a lower price to anyone, just to buy, and the vendor is not in a hurry to change the rules. Therefore, if you succeed in time to unwind and open your physical store, then you can sell goods at “white” prices, and turn the online store to “show” vendors to it - and it will be given to you from them.
A separate topic are accessories. Understandably, distributors cannot take them under the order (it turns out only at retail networks) and if it does not work out with retail, you will have to invest in the most liquid things - bags, mice, antiviruses. Thousands of 50-60 will pull.
Required initial capital
- firm (purchased Ltd., with the “left” director and his own chief accountant) - 35 tr. (I understand all the sighs and criticism that may be, but we must understand - the profitability of this business is very small and tax evasion is still a forced measure, and therefore it is naturally impossible to hang up a company.)
- current account - 5.5 tr.
- cash and its registration - 15 tr.
- office (15 sq. M. With furniture, internet and 2 phone lines) - 20 tr. In a deposit and 20 tr. for the first month = 40t.r.
- MFP (laser with fax) - 7.5 tr
- DECT to 2 tel. lines with an answering machine - 4.5 tr.
- money for the initial placement in price-lists - 30 tr.
- hosting for a year - 2.6 tr.
Total - 140.1 tr. (of these investments - 90.1 tr. (operating expenses - rent and advertising - they are not included).
As for the software for the online store, I have finished my own samopisny CMS. I do not rule out that the existing free packages could be used for this, and Webasyst licenses (6 tr.) And PHPShop Enterprise (12 tr.) Are not so expensive. I spent a lot of time on fine-tuning, but the sharpening “for myself” is understandably much more convenient. The design was created almost “on the knee” - but our gaze turned out to be tolerable for a new project, while opinions from the side keep us from changing it. Despite the seemingly “collective farm”, the result was decent - thanks in large part to the fact that we knew exactly what we, the search engines, wanted to see, and more importantly, what the customer wanted to see.
Staff
The first month I worked “in the field” together with another sales manager and forwarder. Now we have three salespeople (30 tr.) With a schedule from 11 to 20 hours 2 through 2 and still the same forwarder (25 tr.) With a schedule from 11 to 20 6 days a week. Accounting is maintained by incoming booze (20 tr).
Project Interim Results
Three months after opening (from mid-December to mid-March):
- we sell about 100-130 laptops per month (the total turnover of the store is on average 4.5-5 million rubles)
- return on sales is kept at about 8% thanks to the access and services.
- attendance is rather low - 250-300 unique visitors per day, but steadily increasing.
- the project has become self-sustaining already in the first month of work.
- investments were recaptured after 2 months.
- now with a partner, even without our main works, we would have a lot to live with. (income is at least the second zp).
From what has not been done so far:
- there is no investment in promotion (that is, it is conducted by our own efforts, with the help of AllSubmitter and other programs). We feel that it's time to invest.
- in the next month we will start trying Yandex.Direct for our low-profit business.
- the project is not open for Moscow (we are going with the spirit and the fat - the price competition is painfully tough).
Afterword
The scheme I described should work for other money-consuming computer goods - monitors, projectors, printers, desktops. All the same suppliers, the same conditions, the same scheme.
Ready to answer additional questions or listen to smart tips / criticism.
I ask you not to judge strictly for the post, firstly it’s a sample of the pen on this site, secondly it’s just your own experience, which is quite possibly not ideal for copying, but it may become a basis for you to do better.
So start over.
In the fall of 2008, I was cut from the now-memorable company “Cifrograd” (bankrupt, if anyone does not know, all operators refused to buy the country's third-largest retail cellular network). Having rummaged through the labor market and not finding worthy vacancies (you understand that you didn’t want to fall into the sn, it seemed that people would still be happy) decided to implement their experience in the notebook sphere and, together with a partner, began to prepare for opening an online store selling laptops. After analyzing the competition and suppliers, it was decided to open in St. Petersburg, because there are fewer competitors, most suppliers have their own units there, and there is a higher margin on the market. Since I am a Muscovite and my partner lives in St. Petersburg, we had the opportunity to open up in any of these cities, but in view of the above criteria, the northern capital was chosen, and Moscow was left for later.
Business model
')
Since we didn’t have much money, we chose the scheme of work without our own warehouse. That is, in terms of suppliers' prices, posting their product range on the website and, upon order, go to the distributor and take the goods from him. This scheme, in addition to the plus in the absence of the need to invest in the product and the ability to lay out the maximum range of products available on the market, also carries inconveniences and risks. They are as follows:
- you can never be 100% sure that the supplier ordered goods you have (even if he dropped the price where you have a position in the morning, in half an hour there could be a large customer who bought the entire quantity in stock).
- most often you can not deliver the goods on the day of order
- you will have difficulties with the client's desire to come and choose from several models (ultimately possible, but depends on the agreement on the conditions with the supplier. This is discussed below).
We wanted to find customers through price-lists: Yandex.Market, Price.ru, NBPrice.ru, Torg.Mail.ru. The context was not originally thought of, it seemed to us expensive for the opening phase.
In addition to laptops, we wanted to offer accessories for them and, naturally, services (installation of useful software, support packages).
Delivery was made paid, 300r in the city (the average price for the hospital).
Suppliers
There are not so many suppliers in the notebook market. I will name the largest ones: Merlion, Elko, Pyrite, Lanck, Marvel, OCS, Oldi, Nexus, Pronet, Mics, Roscoe. It should be understood that each of them specializes in only a few (2-3) brands. Most of them are ready to work with online stores under the order. Conditions on average are as follows:
- 4-5 orders in advance, then a technical loan is provided for a period of 2 to 7 days.
- the possibility of returning the goods, if the box is not opened (some are ready to accept opened boxes, but this is rather an exception to the rule).
As for prices, you need to understand that you will not take large volumes, so you should not wait for particularly sweet prices. In the future, it all depends on your ability to bargain. If you know what your competitor takes from your supplier - do not forget to chase retail prices for your sales.
Another supply chain can be a retail chain. Her earnings consist of a mark-up and money received from vendors - rebates and marketing funds. Therefore, such a partner can be offered to increase their income received from vendors at the expense of the quantity of goods that they will sell through you. Each negotiations are individual, but we managed to agree with two. We must also understand that as long as you do not have your physical store or you don’t develop your brand to the level of say notik.ru, uti-note.ru or notebook812.ru - you can discard the dream of money from vendors. Vendors are not interested in paying you money, because you are “killing” prices with the rest of the small players on the Internet market. They are ready to pay money only if the minimum recommended prices are observed, which, as you understand, are almost never respected on the Internet. The crisis, of course, has an impact on everyone, but first of all it concerns distributors who are ready to give a lower price to anyone, just to buy, and the vendor is not in a hurry to change the rules. Therefore, if you succeed in time to unwind and open your physical store, then you can sell goods at “white” prices, and turn the online store to “show” vendors to it - and it will be given to you from them.
A separate topic are accessories. Understandably, distributors cannot take them under the order (it turns out only at retail networks) and if it does not work out with retail, you will have to invest in the most liquid things - bags, mice, antiviruses. Thousands of 50-60 will pull.
Required initial capital
- firm (purchased Ltd., with the “left” director and his own chief accountant) - 35 tr. (I understand all the sighs and criticism that may be, but we must understand - the profitability of this business is very small and tax evasion is still a forced measure, and therefore it is naturally impossible to hang up a company.)
- current account - 5.5 tr.
- cash and its registration - 15 tr.
- office (15 sq. M. With furniture, internet and 2 phone lines) - 20 tr. In a deposit and 20 tr. for the first month = 40t.r.
- MFP (laser with fax) - 7.5 tr
- DECT to 2 tel. lines with an answering machine - 4.5 tr.
- money for the initial placement in price-lists - 30 tr.
- hosting for a year - 2.6 tr.
Total - 140.1 tr. (of these investments - 90.1 tr. (operating expenses - rent and advertising - they are not included).
As for the software for the online store, I have finished my own samopisny CMS. I do not rule out that the existing free packages could be used for this, and Webasyst licenses (6 tr.) And PHPShop Enterprise (12 tr.) Are not so expensive. I spent a lot of time on fine-tuning, but the sharpening “for myself” is understandably much more convenient. The design was created almost “on the knee” - but our gaze turned out to be tolerable for a new project, while opinions from the side keep us from changing it. Despite the seemingly “collective farm”, the result was decent - thanks in large part to the fact that we knew exactly what we, the search engines, wanted to see, and more importantly, what the customer wanted to see.
Staff
The first month I worked “in the field” together with another sales manager and forwarder. Now we have three salespeople (30 tr.) With a schedule from 11 to 20 hours 2 through 2 and still the same forwarder (25 tr.) With a schedule from 11 to 20 6 days a week. Accounting is maintained by incoming booze (20 tr).
Project Interim Results
Three months after opening (from mid-December to mid-March):
- we sell about 100-130 laptops per month (the total turnover of the store is on average 4.5-5 million rubles)
- return on sales is kept at about 8% thanks to the access and services.
- attendance is rather low - 250-300 unique visitors per day, but steadily increasing.
- the project has become self-sustaining already in the first month of work.
- investments were recaptured after 2 months.
- now with a partner, even without our main works, we would have a lot to live with. (income is at least the second zp).
From what has not been done so far:
- there is no investment in promotion (that is, it is conducted by our own efforts, with the help of AllSubmitter and other programs). We feel that it's time to invest.
- in the next month we will start trying Yandex.Direct for our low-profit business.
- the project is not open for Moscow (we are going with the spirit and the fat - the price competition is painfully tough).
Afterword
The scheme I described should work for other money-consuming computer goods - monitors, projectors, printers, desktops. All the same suppliers, the same conditions, the same scheme.
Ready to answer additional questions or listen to smart tips / criticism.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/55974/
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