/biz/ - Business & Finance

Usually you should be able to call a place in your state that helps you go through all that stuff, lays out the steps and all that junk. Might want to check out your states government website and search the entrepreneur or small business pages.

Other than that I would suggest looking into writing up a business plan to orient yourself, tons of articles and templates out there to help you with that.

Also the llc for selling in your state might be different if your shop is entirely online. Also if your products are not digital and you are going to be handling the shipping yourself it might be helpful to look into the postal service because I know that if you are someone that sends out packages as a business or just alot of packages all at once then you can get like a special license with them to make shipping easier.

hope this all helps anon!

>>52344340
How do you intend to compete ?

>>52346247
I dunno, but ads? Supposedly I don’t have to handle the materials it’s more like they order on my website/Shopify and the distributor (?) sends it from my understanding

>>52346159
The legal stuff sounds super daunting but I have a coworker who has an llc and he said it was pretty easy to get the license, I’m definitely gonna have to ask since it’ll be online. But idk what I intend to sell yet or how to analyze the market, but I need to at least give this a spin even if it goes ass up so I can say that i tried to escape the tradesmen life

>>52346294
you understand if it was this easy to succeed, everyone would be doing it right? I wish you well, but it sounds like you need a better plan or competitive edge. where I've found success is in looking at gaps in my local areas, and pointing customers i've met in person at my online stores

>>52344340
E commerce is harder and needs more work hours than opening a physical retail shop. dropshipping is a meme. its only profitable if you sell courses to dumb faggots (like you)

>I want to get into dropshipping
Lol retard this isnt 2019. The only people still making money off dropshipping are the people selling courses on how to make money dropshipping to gullible mongs like you
Get a real job

>>52346724
I mean its probably more feasible and more rewarding experience even if he fails than gambling on digital currencies that its best use is for black market deals.

>>52346997
I have a real job faggot, im trying to explore my options here, every dropshipping nigger on YouTube e is just selling a course so I was hoping for some real info

>>52346724
I don’t care if it’s easy, but I’d rather do that than doing electrical work like I do now

>>52346835
Yeah but I can do it at my house, which is appealing and I have a partner who is down for the cause as well

>>52346724
Would local gaps help an online business? I’m trying to get some ideas together and a plan, but I’m not sure where to start, most of the shit I’ve read is pretty vague on the legalities and what you need to get an llc, shit I’d go for a sole proprietor ship if it’s easier to get the license

it's a complete fucking scam, you won't make any money and you'll waste a shit ton of time to break even on 400 bucks before you burn out and give up because you can't compete with some superchink scammers . unless you're thinking about renting a lambo and making fake tai lopez style baller videos to sell some kind of bogus E-COURSE then you are about to get absolutely raped LOL

>>52347642
What’s something I could do in that vein?
In e commerce or is it all dead?

>>52346724
99% of people are either too dumb or lazy to even start. That's like saying never open up a business that already has existing competition.

>>52346997
I make money off dropshipping. You just need to learn how to do it right and it can take time.

>>52347485
>>52347614
I would just consider other businesses really. Dropshipping seems extremely competitive. Personally I grow mushrooms, no one was doing it around me really and they don't ship well so I don't have to compete with huge farms. I would try and find something like that, could even be a service orientated business.

>>52347845
what do you mean by "i make money". what is your ANNUAL NET PROFIT?

>>52347845
Can you give me a little details? No free courses tho

>>52347890
I launched one website last year and I made 25k dollars net profit this year. I have very young children and a full time freelancing business so I don't even have much time to do more than this right now but it works if you follow the right methods.

>>52348062
All I will say is that you should try markets outside of the US because Pajeets are saturating the US market so it's way too competitive. Also try to find ways to get traffic without advertising if you want to be profitable. And don't be lazy. It's doable but it's a lot of work.

>>52348194
So its not as competitive in let’s say SEA? I could look into the markets there see what is missing.
Your other thing though, what does that mean? I was pondering about that last night and my partner brought it up about bringing people to the site would an emailer that give past customers info on deals be something along those lines?

>>52344340
helping a fren out here. Should of screenshotted my last blog post.

I'm trying to break into the same thing and although I haven't pulled it off for my own store I've done so for clients.

>t. digital marketer

So here's some things:

Shopify/WordPress w/ WooCommerce for selling
Shopify will auto generate legal documents BUT you should be able to find this elsewhere if you do something like WordPress
Printify/Printly,etc any print on demand service
SEO, SEO, SEO pick up the basics and expand from there.
Don't do ads just yet, get up and running and then set money on fire.
Facebook, as much as I hate it, generates TONS of traffic.
LLC depends on state. You could do DBA but desu I'm not as well versed in this. You could also just sell and get this later although its a bit of a risk if you get sued. (Depends on what your selling too)
Google Merchant Center is also your friend. Anal AF to get sorted but if your product is accepted they'll turn up in search results.

Start small. 3-5 products, personal experience is to dropship NEAR your location instead of from china. The wait times are not worthwhile even if the product is dirt cheap.

S&H, I'd stick with your own country of origin. Say, US. Stick with US range because outside S&H will eat into your margins and people are impatient when you can't beat 2-day amazon shipping.

It's a continuous process but from past clients you CAN just set it and forget it once you've established a good rhythm of sales and traffic.

Lastly, don't be afraid to outsource into fiverr/etc. There's a balance between cheap labor and quality so determine what you're comfortable with. From experience, the easy boring routine stuff goes to cheap indian subcontractors, the harder items either here in the states where I can expect quality results or things I have to handle because I need them done ASAP or a certain way.

Good luck fren! Rooting for you.

>>52348356
I am in Europe, I don't know enough about SEA, you need to find a market where there is a good purchasing power though. I am talking about ways to get free traffic. Instagram is too difficult now but it seems that tik tok works well. I am using mainly SEO.

>>52348466
Checked, and thanks bud, I’m not sure what some of that stuff you said means, but I’m gonna ss this post and research some of the vocab. Your advice sounds good though. My wife is very supporting of this idea cause we both want to ditch the day jobs and work for ourselves instead of someone else

>>52346294
I don't want to discourage you but the moment you see people selling courses online and telling you how easy it is it's over.

Also if you plan on selling anything nowadays get followers first. Instagram, TikTok, Youtube, Twitch. If you don't have an audience to sell to don't bother.

>>52348577
sure thing fren.
I relate to the escaping the wage cage as well. Few more items for those peeking

- Ubersuggest for SEO. It's free but the lifetime license is worthwhile. SEMRush/AHREF is a bit better BUT its wildly expensive agency tier

- ScreamingFrog SEO, free one is good as well, especially to map out your site.

- Learn the basics on Google Analytics/Console, this is key as this helps measure traffic, sales, etc.

- Canva. Free is fine for simple banners, etc for promoting on social media.

- Test your products before selling. The quality will speak for itself EVEN if its dropshipped, not all vendors are created equal. (ironed on designs instead of dyed in, shitty stitching, etc, if clothes ACTUALLY WASH THEM, if it fades easy, it gets dropped)

- Actually use your product. If you yourself can vouch for it, everything else is easy. "Why would I buy YOUR product if you don't even use it"

- Look at competitors. Usually their products are beyond simple (text on a shirt) these are easy to take out with proper SEO best practices and really just having a better site. I'm not even talking something bespoke, the literal defaults with some love and attention will stick out.

- Signal trust, SSL on browers, etc. Make sure you make it clear to users that if there IS a problem you'll be there to fix it. Returns, refunds, etc.

- Behance, Dribbble, HTTPSTER, Instagram for inspo. The bar for quality is SO LOW with dropshippers all it takes is a nice font and colors.

Anons like to sperg out thinking this shit is hard but I work with a variety of clients selling droppshipped or custom made wares and they do all right with it. By no means will you buy a lambo but paying bills or even nice vacations is entirely doable with this.

THE hardest thing is literally just getting started. One step at a time fren, one step.

also checked

>>52349018
Yeah I’m looking to fund stuff like vacations and mtb trips and maybe a few nice things for the house, even if I was making enough for a lambo I wouldn’t even consider it as they are probably expensive to maintain.
Back on topic do you think looking into a business course would help understanding some of the lingo and terms cause some of it is foreign to me.

>>52348971
You think something like a meme page would work for getting followers? I don’t really want to use my real fb account

>>52344340
I would focus on creating products with value and selling the brand rather than competing on price with tiktok ads for the latest fidget spinner or back massager where China can always under cut you. If you're going to do it then do Amazon FBA

>>52349310
Can you tell me more about Amazon fba? I live close to a fulfillment center so maybe that would be the move

>>52349276
anything helps really. I remember back in the day I made some fb page for a meme and got like 10k people just because I was the first one who made it and it was a popular meme.

trending memes are a good way. maybe about a specific trending meme.

you can also try what many others are doing on youtube and tiktok, which is basically teaching others X skill they mastered themselves. But the key here is to make the costumer think they can achieve X without putting in the usual Y effort.

>>52344340
Use gay YouTube tutorials you lazy fag

>>52349330
You identify a gap in the market using software where there's demand and you can rank high and/or undercut the competition. You send your stuff to Amazon and they fulfil orders. They charge you storage and fulfilment fees. It's a volume business

>>52344340
you're like 8 years too late on this one bud

you are 3-5+ years late buddy it's pretty hard now since every kid out of high school wants to do it. I made a little bit from it in 2020 with FB ads but haven't tried it since.

You have to put a lot of thought in whatever you sell, and you have to make essentially a brand that does not scream "this is a dropshipping website".

You have to find a niche/trend, pick a product for it that triggers zoomers dopamine receptors and have it on an apple-esque website that can convert a good % of its visitors

an example of this would be the people dropshipping shark slippers that look like yeezy slides

https://cloudsharks.co/en-ca/products/cloudsharks

>>52349262
I can't say for sure as I just came into the digital marketing industry straight from college having no experience whatsoever and just learning on the job.

I would say dig into some youtube content but the best experience is just getting your hands dirty and setting a timer on yourself. (6 months, a year, etc)

A lot of the anons here are sorta right but I wouldn't let it discourage you. The easy dropshipping money is LONG gone that's for sure but for every shark slippers there's literally a shitty site with "Dog mom" on comic sans font pasted on generic shirts and it SELLS.


It all comes down to a little bit of effort. There's this idea if you're not doing X or Y it won't work or the money pot has emptied out but it's always been there for those brave enough to take a leap of faith.

Modern site design ISN"T that hard and product sourcing isn't either. Don't let crabs pull you down.

You got this.
https://www.alibaba.com/showroom/shark-slippers.html

>>52349682
I have more funds than a greenie out of high school, but I’m willing to hear other ideas about e commerce and ways to turn it into income, that way I can maybe use those funds to invest in stocks or something

>>52349915
On that idea of the shitty site with the shirt, that’s not a bad idea, my wife’s mom has a shirt printer and I can be funny, like putting a twist on the dog mom shirt but not t has some fucked up looking dog on it along with the text, just make the website nicer and buy some ads with a line of three or so shirts. Does that sound goofy or am I on to something?

>>52349951
I'm lurking cause I'd love to learn what other anons are doing with it. /biz/ doesn't have to be just a shitcoin casino.

The idea of the everyman, house wife, high schooler is plain FUD. You can get shopify hooked up to alibaba/amazon for shit items but there's WAY more work that goes into it than just that to make it actually run that normies don't have the capacity for and the ONES that do have this up and running make for easy prey.

Wanting to do it and doing it is totally different.
>t. myself right now

Study their site, their content, is their product actually good? What are their gaps in their social media presence, their SEO, site structure. Normies aren't thinking this way because to them that's too much work, so they'll hire an indian for 3 an hour only to get the site more fucked up than it was to begin with or better (for you) they don't even KNOW what to look for, was the job done to spec, etc.

Here's a tip. Take a stroll through etsy. Look at all the products. There's some good ones, there's some shitty ones. Start seething when you realize some of these shitty products get sales and that number is publicly available for you to see.

Now ask yourself. "If THEY can do it, why can't I?"

>>52344340
I'm still mad at what they did to Garfield

>>52350033
Dog people, nurses, thots, etc. Any "group" is there for the taking. So yeah it could work.

Start with a simple site. 2-3 products. Spam on FB and afterwards buy some ads.

My ad experience isn't too strong, so take that with a grain of salt but my reasoning is a wait and see approach. If you're getting dog moms to bite on FB start expanding products, FB ads, then google, etc.

Ads are zero sum and painful if you're not pulling a sale from a click. say for instance you have an ad budget of a $100 per week, $10 per click (10 potential clicks). Say someone clicks on your add (-$10) but DOESN'T buy your stuff. Well you're out 10 bucks and not getting it back. So when I recommend it ads, usually at a point where you're already pulling in sales through normal organic traffic. Use ads to amplify your reach not as a crutch. (***I'm not an ad expert however, SEO is my domain of expertise)

>>52349951
Starting your own brand might not make quick money in the way 1 hit imported product that blows up for a month that you can market on social media might but it does give you more room to differentiate yourself from competition, get a 3-5X mark up on products and build something that can expand.

Two case studies: 1. Gamersupps.gg it's supplement products with a big mark up repackaged for esports and streamer fans rather than bodybuilding, sells waifu cups and twitch partnered merch which can get attention to the brand. A business like this is fairly low cost to start if you ignore legality until you're making money. It was bought out by a YouTuber.

2. Gym Shark. Fitness brand now worth $1 billion selling generic gym clothes with logo slapped on. Started by Ben Francis in 2012
who worked at Pizza hut and went into clothes after a failed supplement drop shipping business under that name. It was successful because he partnered with early instagram influencers and dropped all his money to get a stall at a Birmingham fitness expo.

>>52350290
Search engine optimization, is there a place you recommend I can go to learn more about it? I’m an electrician so a lot of this stuff I have no idea about but I want to learn as much as I can so I understand what I’m doing.
What do you mean by organic traffic?

>>52350344
Thank you fren, checking those out.
I had sorta heard from Gym Shark on this. I believe the guy and his waifu are actually /fit/ which helped sell the brand better BUT I can't remember as well

>>52350532
I know exactly his story actually because I was there at the time trying something similar. I tried to register the domain gymshark.com and he beat me by 5 days. I looked up who owned it on whois and saw his name meant he was either Brit or Aussie and was probably going to attempt something similar to simplyshredded.com which was bringing in $10k a month through affiliate marketing at that point. I instead registered gymrhino.com and put up a content site that also intended to sell clothes. I moved on after awhile as I wasn't making enough on adsense and was too risk adverse as I was young.

Moral of the story: the difference between success and failure is small and you have to work hard to just power through and constantly look at where you can improve. The upside to developing a brand is high if you get it right.

>>52350388
I had partially learned on the job as I didn't go to school for this but it did help (CS Major)

Resources I used to help me get a better footing:

- Wholesale Ted
https://www.wholesaleted.com/
*I don't buy her stuff but I found her youtube videos pretty informative. I'm sure there's better sources but I started with her.

- https://neilpatel.com/
People have a love hate with him. Idgaf, his stuff is pretty entry level and easy to digest. Again, there's probably better sources.
He also owns Ubersuggest which I highly recommend. Try the free version before buying. https://neilpatel.com/ubersuggest/

- SEM Rush & Hubspot Courses
https://www.semrush.com/academy/courses/
https://academy.hubspot.com/courses?page=1

These are free, don't pay for youtube, guru, sigma grindset bullshit courses. It's all free and anyone shilling on "the next big thing" is full of it.

I had to take those lessons for work and get my certs, you don't have to grind out for certs but the videos are informative and to the point. No shilling bs, just the facts.

- Search Engine Journal
If you want to stay afloat on whats happening on SEO. They cover everything on that space so they should have something on e-commerce as well.
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/

- various e-commerce/marketing subreddits
I know its easy to hate on reddit but you'll get better more informative responses than a Vietnamese beanie baby forum

Ultimately the amount of time and effort it takes isn't worth it unless you really excel in my opinion.

>>52344340
YouTube.
They'll tell you every detail... then try to sell you their course. Can it work? Totally.

>>52350665
I'm not /fit/, 30 khv but I often fantasized if I had a QT hunnie she'd be my model for all my get rich quick schemes.

But on a serious note I can relate to being risk averse. Becoming a 30 year old boomer, actually KHV, post-covid made me realize how safe and boring I've been playing life so after such a mental break I've made it a promise to start putting schemes into play for real.

2023 is gonna be /our/ year right?

>>52344340
You won't make it unless you have passion for whatever your craft is. There are plenty of people who care about their women's sportswear or anime hoodies or whatever and their products will always be superior to yours. It doesn't matter if you study advertising autistically and watch faggot courses on how to Ecommerce. If you don't actually have some level of pride in your products you will be unsuccessful and miserable.

Had a cannabis / smoking accessories store. Shipped 1000+ orders a day. Sold it to a cannabis co. AMA, but my opinion is that it isn't worth it.

What you need to know:

Selling brands you don't control is a losing game long term. They will push you out once their brand is big enough. They can control your MAP (minimum advertised price) and cut you off if you don't comply. Pro tip: make your own product and partner it with top brands that people are already searching for. That alone is a million dollar tactic that works on your own website or on Amazon/Walmart.

Some have mentioned SEO. It is overrated. Use influencers to drive traffic. If you spend money on influencers and you don't sell, that means your website sucks. Do better.

Finally, building an email list from your visitors is a lot more efficient than trying to get new customers constantly. Collect visitor emails and make sure you market to them effectively.

This alone will make you better than most in ecom. I did 10,000,000 yr in sales online. I started with $1000. I know what I'm talking about.

>>52351291
>Finally, building an email list from your visitors is a lot more efficient than trying to get new customers constantly.
Excellent point. Selling to the same people over and over that you have a relationship with is vital

>>52346997
someone says this in every dropship thread

>>52347751
>What’s something I could do in that vein?
>In e commerce or is it all dead?
weed is pretty hot right now but if you have to ask for handouts you probably won't be competitive in that industry

>>52349915
might end up selling a variant of the slippers
cool suggestion

everyone posting about "SEO" in 2022 is Pajeet-tier

>>52351291
I've thought about reaching out to influencers but this is something I have zero experience on.
How do you weed out good ones over the shitty ones? What's the avg price in your experience when going this route?

Emails, for me have been mostly misses instead of hits BUT i've also dealt with clients who don't really like handing out deals or coupons for their items. Could be different if you're a bit friendlier in this area.

I wouldn't discount SEO as easily. Just the raw basics are fine. Meta descriptions, good images etc.
>you don't sell, that means your website sucks
You fix this by optimizing right?

Anything like backlinks, imo is pretty overrated.
You won't get quality backlinks without quality content and anyone saying otherwise is just shilling indian backlink farms.

>>52351505
saturated as fuck, couple months late

>>52344340
It's easier to start botting Jordan's, whiskys, yeezys, watches and most importantly tickets. Buddy and I just finished our last sale of NFL tickets of the European games, we netted 46k€ on 72 tickets. Before that we scammed dozens of young girls over BlackPink European Tour tix with sometimes 300% margins.
Dropshipping is for useless nigger, you're better off scamming Laquarius over some Jordan's.
Botting is also easily scalable and when you don't give a fuck for two weeks cause you'd rather gonna go surfing in Portugal you're not gonna go broke, you just turn off the pc and say fuck y'all.

>>52355562

How do you do this?

>>52347827
What a fucking retarded take. I'm sure you are aware that over 50% of small businesses fail in the first year and 95% fail within the first five years, right anon?

>>52347468
Kill yourself you nigger retard. You're more pathetic than wageys because at least they actually contribute something to society and aren't just buying a bunch of stuff to sell at a higher price online like some Jew Pajeet hybrid

>>52351086
Realest comment on /biz/ right now. Anons just don't understand this.

>>52351291

How do you make your own product?

setting up an llc and getting a license before you even have products and customers is a good sign you are retarded with no experience, all the newfags waste their time on bullshit instead of focusing on the bottom line of a business which is cashflow

>>52344340
I already have vinu for passive income, why don't we just keep working until one of our bags makes us rich when we are old?

>>52356493
You're the retard if you run your life based upon the failures of others.