What to do or sell in good hands?

There was a time when there was not much work, and it was hard to sit around idle, I decided to try to open an online store.
As a result, three of us crammed into the project, and in August 2009, an online store of natural cosmetics was born. After 8 months, I am summarizing some of the work, but what to do with this store is no longer clear.

People.

1. I ( Orang ) is responsible for deliveries, search for partners, delivery, etc. - besides the store, freelancing part-time
2. Technical specialist, is responsible for advertising and all work on the engine of the store - in addition to the store, work with full employment
3. Well, almost an accountant ( ishua ). Almost, because there is little accounting, only our internal reports - employment, in addition to the store, full-time work

Why cosmetics?

The choice fell on cosmetics by chance, honestly even probably no one will tell the true story about what exactly cosmetics, but most likely because the very first company we contacted went to a meeting and agreed to work after the fact. Search title took no more than 2 days. Once we have a natural and handmade product, we stopped at what we have now.
')

Engine

We stopped at Simpla. It was chosen mainly by me and long enough and carefully. Initially I planned to open the store alone, so the requirements were simple, I myself should be able to configure it (I know some HTML, and I can figure out the simplest PHP code), and all sorts of buns such as import / export of goods, payment by e-money (not using) . Actually the main requirement is simplicity. As a result, despite the fact that after considering various options for engines, we stopped at this. I also forgot to say that the choice of Simpla was influenced by an absolutely flexible policy of paying for the engine, we agreed on installments for several months. I must say that several times we forgot to pay and the store was cut down. After the first case, they began to give us a code with a slightly longer period (but we still forgot to pay for J).

Suppliers.

They are different: some earn money and do not shy away from working with our small volumes (and for some suppliers, these are really small volumes). There are those who want to work only with the minimum order amount, explaining that with smaller volumes it is not profitable for them. For us, this is not very convenient, we have no office and no warehouse. All that is purchased for future use or waivers are stored in my home in several boxes. At the same time we work with those and with others, with one we are comfortable, with others it is just necessary. I’ll draw your attention to the fact that the goods are rarely purchased in advance, this is our plus in terms of management and a minus, since we lose additionally on courier movements.

Products.

At first, they introduced all the positions that the suppliers had. Then they started to track sales and began to remove goods for which we have no sales or there are great difficulties with the purchase of this product. That is, as the store developed, we developed our assortment policy. The immediate goal is to increase the number of brands.

Courier (s).

At first I drove myself and for the goods and to customers. Now I communicate only with suppliers and courier insurance. Courier is one and this is enough. On the week before March 8, we had 3 couriers, plus me and a couple of times helped by our friends. The courier takes the goods from me and goes on deliveries. Payment by piece, as agreed, but I can say that in general, everyone is happy, the main thing is not to be greedy. I am not at all a supporter of low wages, how you pay and you get it, that is, I understand that with a low payment I have less moral right to demand something from a person in excess.

Advertising.

• banners on women's resources - not working
• banners on resources for expectant mothers - not working
• various contextual networks are expensive and practically do not work
• contextual advertising - for 3 months of using 8 orders. Bottom line: not working
• advertising on blogs - creates noise, rather should be used for prevention
• SEO - works, every 40-50 input turns into an order (on holidays everything is much better)
• Vendor sites, the "where to buy" section - insist that they add, often they are just lazy.

The total advertising budget for today about 7k rubles. per month (thanks to our technical specialist). I think this is a normal price in a market that is saturated.

The legal side of the issue.

As a company, we practically do not exist: we have a leased legal entity, we do not have a cash register (but this is not scary).

Results

• A steady flow of visits of about 150 unique per day give 0-3 orders.
• The shop feeds itself and brings + 5-6k rubles. per month
• There are serious prospects for growth, especially in the fall, and especially when expanding the range. For holidays, as is known, profits grow, here if you withstand delivery and make stocks (suppliers often have leftovers on holidays) store revenue increases 5-10 times!
• The design of the new store was ordered, in which it is supposed to present a more complete range (+ decorative and not only natural cosmetics)
• We do not have time to engage in shopping, and time for development requires much

Totals two :)

We want to address the Habra community with the question: “What to do?”

1. Sell? But we actually have only a domain and regular customers.
2. Hire an administrator? But we are not ready to pay, we are ready to consider the conditions when a person receives all the profit of the store up to a certain level.
3. Quit? it is a pity it is our work, and orders are coming, there are regular customers they order :)
4. Your version is% username%.

Hosting is not golden, for this we don’t even give links to the site, you’ll fail, and there’s no sense to us. :) We will provide a link to the site, if necessary, for this, write to one of us in a personal and the very need