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[patrick boo]

I need a new shop building for Planet Boo - I've started but given up as I don't have the time. I already have a working Worldpay account so the checkout is ready, I just want a decent shop that will work better than it does now. Any of you people know your stuff enough to do the job? If not, do you know of anyone that can help?

you mean an online shop?

[patrick boo]

That's right. this is what i have at present, I just wanted to improve it a bit.

[Keilan 303]

Do you sell this tshirt or just live by it?

aren't some of these designs copyright infringing?

[patrick boo]

Yes and no... not if you're paying for the privilege of using them... had to go all above board when we got our stuff in TopShop...

[Neil]

I would volunteer to do this but as I think I proved last time, I don't have as much free time as I first thought.

But please feel free to contact me if you have any fiddly techy bits you need assistance with.

[chrisc]

I could certainly point you in the direction of some people but they generally are the type that need paying lots of money, because it's their main business.

You should consider setting up an Ebay shop (not auctions) which you could eventually link to from your site if it took off. A lot of larger companies have started using ebay shops (for example, Evesham: http://www.evesham.com/) and I reckon demand for your kind of stuff could well outstrip supply if you go via Ebay.

You don't have to compromise on price because you're selling original stuff that you can't get elsewhere (I think). You should try setting up a small EBay shop with a subset of your stock and see what kind of response you get. Also a good place to run specials on old stock/designs you might have.

[patrick boo]

Originally Posted by chrisc

I could certainly point you in the direction of some people but they generally are the type that need paying lots of money, because it's their main business.

You should consider setting up an Ebay shop (not auctions) which you could eventually link to from your site if it took off. A lot of larger companies have started using ebay shops (for example, Evesham: http://www.evesham.com/) and I reckon demand for your kind of stuff could well outstrip supply if you go via Ebay.

You don't have to compromise on price because you're selling original stuff that you can't get elsewhere (I think). You should try setting up a small EBay shop with a subset of your stock and see what kind of response you get. Also a good place to run specials on old stock/designs you might have.

Thanks for the input - Yes, I have sold a few things on Ebay, but to be honest it's finding the time... I'm a one man business already working an 18 hour day. That's my major constraint right now... if you know of a willing worker who could help then point them my way!!

[chrisc]

Originally Posted by patrick boo

Thanks for the input - Yes, I have sold a few things on Ebay, but to be honest it's finding the time... I'm a one man business already working an 18 hour day. That's my major constraint right now... if you know of a willing worker who could help then point them my way!!

I hear ya! I'm in the same position with my business - not enough money to hire good people but too much work for one person (is that violin's I hear!?). I reckon you should go for the ebay route. You can use listing software to maintain your catalogue of products rather than listing everything by hand. It will very likely be high volume sales but would allow you to hire a part time student to help process orders every day while you produce/dispatch merchandise. Lots of students will happily work for minimum wage doing such an easy job (responding/filtering ebay questions and forwarding you the final orders) and many students in aberdeen have Broadband so they can work from their bedroom. Ask on this site for someone to run an ebay shop in return for actual money and you'll probably get legions of responses! Trial a few and let go the ones who don't process enough orders - harsh but fair

The hardest thing to do is delegate!

Quite apart from the fact Ebay are constantly improving features for merchants it's very hard to make your own (non-ebay) website stand out from the crowd in order to drive large volume sales through it.