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Can I get an online shop?
You can make extra money from an online shop either as:
- Your main business activity
- A side hustle or craft hobby
- An ecommerce extension to your existing business
- Or a profitable and fulfilling future business
How do people start selling with online shop?
Many people who sell products via an online shop do this via, eBay, Amazon, Depop, Instagram, Facebook marketplace or Etsy. There are others but these are the biggies. While these platforms are great and set the benchmark, there are some serious downsides to putting all your sales through these platforms. Get an online shop and control your selling situation.
The downsides to watch for
Once you’re set up selling and established, these big ecommerce platforms don’t advertise the painful fact of their up to 40%, or in many cases 70% sales and marketing fees. These fees are deducted at source from your money or earnings.
Example 1
If you sell £1000 worth of goods, you think ‘great I’ve made a grand!’ Sorry not the case. By the time you manage to decipher the accountants figures, or your own analysis spreadsheets and bank statements, you’ll find the good old “Big Tech Platforms” have robbed you blind! You’ll be left with only £300 if you’re lucky. This may prove quite expensive if not totally disastrous to the many small businesses in the UK who are unware of these costs.
Unsustainable and insane conditions for any new business.
The worst common mistake people make when setting up an online shop
It’s easy to start selling branded goods only to find out later that the brand owner is not keen on unlicensed resellers. Check this thoroughly or you’ll end up with products that are barred from sale via eBay, Amazon, or Etsy. Worse still it could get legal. That mistake could cost a lot of money!
You’re selling lots of things on Etsy and Ebay, what next?
Why not have your own Online Shop running in parallel and save on all these high sales platform fees? Woocommerce is a good platform, see an example here: https://mie.me.uk/
Do some smart basic marketing to beat the Amazons
Put a brochure and business card in all your delivery packs, pointing buyers to your own online shop and beat the robber barons to the online sale! Money in your own pocket. Not paying out for someone else’s child’s school fees, or their new £100,000 Tesla car.
Postage and Export documents
The rich documentation features of Etsy are all available free via Royal Mail. The cost is nil per year. No more selling fees!
Export / Import Taxes
Most people do not realise that many small shop items are usually within the under the £100-£135 (varies by country) threshold. These items are not taxed for export to many countries. Indeed they are zero duty for import into those countries. The best thing to do is run tests. I have a huge amount of information about this. My shop benefits from this.
Take control of the situation and get your own retail shopping website!
- Have control over your own retail shop sales.
- Don’t pay extortionate sales fees to platform owners’ shareholders.
- Don’t have all your eggs in one basket.
- Increase your gross profit by 70%.
- Take control now!
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