Out of Stocks - Brasticks

Due to an unexpected overwhelming demand, Brastick is temporarily out of stock. We've just ordered more and waiting for its arrival. You may still continue to purchase Brasticks but please note that you will receive them on 11 April 2011 onwards. Obviously if stocks come in earlier, we'll mail them out to you immediately.

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J. - 30 March 2011

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Posted in: Entrepreneurship

How to Source for your First Product Online

[This is the 3rd article of the online business series. Read the first article here.]

Welcome back J,

That’s me talking to myself after disappearing for months for the lack of ideas, inspiration, suffering from the occasional (in my case forever) writer’s block, a little depression, a little anxiety, panic attacks etc etc etc… As humans we all face it from time to time.

Brasticks sales has been slow which was expected  but I surprise myself when I decided to do a total sales report last night.*Drum roll* and it turns out I did pretty good for a newbie (pat on back!) . Brasticks by Jeny’s Closet launched in November 2010 as complementary product to the dresses has brought in $472.01. That is an average of $94 monthly in just about 5 months.

Is it enough to make me quit my job and be the next millionaire online entrepreneur?No. 

Is it a success story?I would like to think it is. 

Am I happy?Yes. Estatic.

For someone who hasn’t make a dollar online before to making $472 purely online, it is nothing short of a miracle. I am not a genius who knows the art of making money online by magic. I stumbled way my through with trials and errors and sifting out useful information from the tons of information I have read or heard about with real time practicality.

I’ve mentioned this before in my previous post. Online business is as similar as any traditional business out there. You gain success through dedication and effort. An overnight success though not impossible maybe a  case of ‘as quick as they come and gone just as quickly’.

 No one would know Jeny’s Closet  existed if I don’t constantly ‘market’ myself insanely through the various social networks like Facebook. I don’t do it aggressively but I still have to do it. Would I earn more if I do market it aggressively? Maybe. 

In a span of 5 months, I educate myself with online jargons such as ‘SEO Optimization’, ‘Keyword Research’ , ‘Page Rank’, ‘Backlinks’ etc. Was it overwhelming? Absolutely. So overwhelming sometimes, like recently,  I took a 3 months break from writing. Just so I can clear my head.

Most online gurus out there would have you think that earning an income online is easy breezy. It most often is but sometimes it may not be.  Allow me be the first to tell you that once the motivation and the excitement wears off, you will as I did, find yourself staring at the computer wondering what on earth are you going to write, or sell or how to get your services known out there, increase traffic and it goes on. It is normal. I am not online full time. At least not yet.  I will be lucky if I get enough sleep at the end of the day or have enough time with my love ones and family after a long exhausting day from the office. 

How do you start getting a product at wholesale from the gazillion ‘wholesalers’ of the online universe at a relatively small capital? If you start with Google you will find the likes of online scammers who claim they dropship gazillions of product for you to sell and profit. If you are anything like me, you get confused with the tons of information flooding your email everyday as you signed up for every free reports, tips, newsletter imaginable.

You started reading them conscientiously for the first week and then find these are informations being repeated over and over again, while some may be helpful, some are downright useless. Eventually, you’ll get tired chasing the goose all over town.

I will share with you how I got started with Jeny’s Closet from sourcing a product to selling them and answer some of the questions I’ve raise from the ‘4 ways to Make Money Online’ post. Listen up.

Do you have a product to sell? Is there a market for it?

I had struggled  to find a market and a product  I could sell online until  I saw a friend of mine who got tagged to one of the photos by Lilgummerz Collezione which was selling dresses on Facebook. I had no idea that people were selling stuffs on Facebook at the time (call me a late bloomer) and I happen to LOVE the dresses. It was pretty, simple yet elegant and very affordable.  Isn’t Facebook brilliant? At a click of a button you can reach hundreds of your own personal friends that you are in business. People were flooding her wall to buy those dresses so I knew there was a market. I decided then that I wanted to sell the exact same dresses for Jeny’s Closet.

[Note : Don’t reinvent the wheel. Build on other people’s ideas.]

How to start an online business with very little or no capital ?

Lilgummerz Collezione couldn’t have been a retailer and as it was ran as a home business online it would not have the space to stock plenty of dresses. I bought the dress on a pre-order system which allows the seller to use the money paid upfront by the customer as capital to bring the products in.  That lessens the seller’s risk and allows them to start the business at no capital at all. I found the supplier by tracking him from the tag on the dress I bought.  A couple of emails later, I launched the first catalogue of Jeny’s Closet in Facebook.

How to find wholesalers you can trust?

It is very easy to get duped online by scammers who claims to be wholesalers but aren’t.  Faceless money transactions only meant that there is the hassle of catching a con man on the other side of the world which you may not  have the means for.  I knew I can trust my supplier because I received my dresses from Lilgummerz Collezione who has dealt with them so there is a proven track record that the supplier is legit. Another method is to be on the look out for stuffs when you travel, be sure to deal with someone who’s got excellent online facilities, speaks English and most importantly have track records of dealing with international buyers. Do your own necessary checks. This is important as you want to know that they are trustworthy. Some suppliers do not want to deal with small online home based business owners as wholesalers generally make more money with bulk purchases so in this instance you can offer on  working with the pre-order system.

While it is not impossible for you to be the first person  to introduce a new innovative or unique product to the world it will save you a lot more heartache if you lower the expectation a notch and worked with suppliers that has worked with online business owners like you. Having a supplier you can trust means that you reduce the risk of your business significantly and protects the reputation that you are starting to build.

I hope you find the above post useful and I would love to know how you would go about starting your own online business. How do you start?

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Earn your first dollar online here. 

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Posted in: Entrepreneurship