zero to hero v.2 lol

[Pap_sak]

I'm bored, the darts one had quite a small pool of buyers, this one I think, will appeal to more consumers. I think I will get my first sale by the end of the month...(well, if it does I'll be happy)

Haven't reg a .co.za, or decided on a format, or have stock, so have pretty much nothing at the moment besides a vague idea.

I have a supplier (or at least a company that I think will supply me, and a little cash after a better than expected august)

Will start the process tomorrow, with a little help from you guys, I hope.

Just had 2 weeks holiday, my first in a few years, so feeling "pumped"

[IanF]

Pap sak
You must consider adding a credit card payment option. I will be adding payfast to our site soon as there is no monthly cost, just there is a R2 transaction fee plus a % which must be taken into account for the lower cost items.
Anyway good luck and let us know what shopping cart etc. you use.

[Pap_sak]

Things always look a bit easier with a few beers sunk, lol

2 routes to follow on this one. I am hoping for multi-purchases, so thinking that a catalog might be better, purely because wordpress is much better at SEO than my cubecart. The main buyers will be companies, rather than individuals, and they will need:

a) Quotes
b) Vat invoices
c) prices will have to change for quantities and delivery - which will be a bit of a problem for (basic) e-commerce sites

With that in mind, a catalog that is better in SEO is better the an e-commerce store - I think.

Oh well, time to order some goods...

[wynn]

Just goes to show, let someone have two weeks holiday and he develops a drinking problem???

[Pap_sak]

Just goes to show, let someone have two weeks holiday and he develops a drinking problem???

Hmmm, did hit the bottle quite a bit, oh well. First proper break I have hand in about 5 years. Plus a feel quite rejuvenated. Will have to do it every year now, August figures where also up 30%

Well, have a name safetybootsdirect.co.za (don't bother clicking, nothing is there) and about R15,000 worth of samples arriving...so let's see what I can put together next week.

[Mark Atkinson]

Well, have a name safetybootsdirect.co.za (don't bother clicking, nothing is there) and about R15,000 worth of samples arriving...so let's see what I can put together next week.

It must be so nice when you have capital to play around with.

Good luck. You might want to look at Joomla and Virtuemart for E-commerce. We use it and it allows for most of those features you are looking into. Virtuemart also has loads of extensions.

[Pap_sak]

Well Mark, it's more a case of having credit than having the cash, unfortunately...not quite at the level where I have the cash to throw around.

This, by the way, is one of those industries that have a very low margin - around 20%-40%, but looking at larger volumes per sale, hopefully 5 -50 pairs per sale.

Going to get it up and running on WP, will need to spend some time on Joomla soon, looks like a very good platform if you willing to spend the time.

How the t-shirts selling?

[Mark Atkinson]

Ah I see..

The shirts are selling well, we launch on Friday (when we receive our first batch of a couple hundred shirts.) and there has been tons of interest shown. Once the pre-order phase is over we expect sales to increase significantly. We have actually had a surprising number of larger-quantity orders, which we didn't expect.

We have received samples of our revised design as well. It looks far better now with a V-neck and the back balanced, as well as a few other little tweaks.

Come end of September we will be raising prices and offering the shirts at wholesale prices to those who wish to resell them. There is a large amount of interest in this particular move, can't wait to see how it pans out.

Oh and also, as far as IanF's suggestion to use Payfast above, it's definitely a fantastic system. We use it on our website and it functions brilliantly, giving customers the option to pay using as many different methods as possible.

The only issue we've had is that people get cold feet when they are redirected to the Payfast payment gateway. This is just because South Africans tend to be slightly "behind" when it comes to e-commerce and technology. We can only hope that that changes in the future.

[IanF]

The only issue we've had is that people get cold feet when they are redirected to the Payfast payment gateway. This is just because South Africans tend to be slightly "behind" when it comes to e-commerce and technology. We can only hope that that changes in the future.

Mark
I am with you on that one, we have people phoning us before they order!
But on the other hand I phoned first before ordering the malt extract for beer to make sure they had stock! There is nothing worse than ordering then to find out there is no stock!

[Pap_sak]

Ah I see..

The shirts are selling well, we launch on Friday (when we receive our first batch of a couple hundred shirts.) and there has been tons of interest shown. Once the pre-order phase is over we expect sales to increase significantly. We have actually had a surprising number of larger-quantity orders, which we didn't expect.

We have received samples of our revised design as well. It looks far better now with a V-neck and the back balanced, as well as a few other little tweaks.

Come end of September we will be raising prices and offering the shirts at wholesale prices to those who wish to resell them. There is a large amount of interest in this particular move, can't wait to see how it pans out.

Oh and also, as far as IanF's suggestion to use Payfast above, it's definitely a fantastic system. We use it on our website and it functions brilliantly, giving customers the option to pay using as many different methods as possible.

The only issue we've had is that people get cold feet when they are redirected to the Payfast payment gateway. This is just because South Africans tend to be slightly "behind" when it comes to e-commerce and technology. We can only hope that that changes in the future.

Think you both right, a payment gateway is the way to go if you constantly have the items in stock, might think of it for the dartsdirect site.

You need to change your pic's on your site if you've change to a v-neck, unless you doing both?

Cut out pic's for hours yesterday, now for the descriptions

[Mark Atkinson]

You need to change your pic's on your site if you've change to a v-neck, unless you doing both?

We are in the process of doing that. All the images and banners on both the website and Facebook page are being changed in conjunction with our launch on Friday. And no, it's just the v-neck.

Luckily I just take the photos and hand them over to my designer to photoshop them.

[Pap_sak]

http://safetybootsdirect.co.za

coming along slowly..not too sure about the black, on my wife's pc it's almost too black, think it might irritate people that what to print out sheets and wasting ink. Thinking I will make PDF's for the price lists, or should I rather use exel?

[daveob]

Not everybody has excel.

And I think there is less reluctance to opening a pdf file than something that can contain embedded macros.

[Dave A]

..not too sure about the black, on my wife's pc it's almost too black, think it might irritate people that what to print out sheets and wasting ink.

According to my print preview you don't have a problem

Thinking I will make PDF's for the price lists, or should I rather use exel?

Definitely go PDF rather than exel.

[Pap_sak]

Cheers for that Dave and I agree PDF's make more sense, do not have to worry about compatibility issues