Ecommerce Q&A

I'd recommend having a product with a decent margin and value $100+
You need enough margin to pay for acquisition costs

Hi Daniel,

As a marketer I would definitely say start with the drop shipping first to test your market. Sure you will forgo some profits initially, however it could avoid the expensive mistake of having a container full of dead stock in your back yard.

Be aware that sometimes using a drop shipper can mess with your ability to deliver awesome customer service if the 'partnership' is not right, so choose wisely if you want referrals and returning customers.

Once you know how many you are selling per week/month you will then have a better idea of your storage requirements.

The question then becomes, how much storage? If you are selling only 1-2 week, rent (or borrow) some room out of a mates shed and work from there. In a nutshell though, it is really a case of doing the numbers. Idea 3 a storage, unit could work for awhile - again though, it depends on what your profit is on each item and your sell through rate.

Hope this helps, Cheers, Lisa

It can work and it can fail like anything. You lose a lot of control compared to stocking and shipping goods directly yourself. Drop shipping adds another layer between you and your customer and the drop shipper is never going to care about your customer to the same level you will within your own business. It's all third party arrangements with mixed results. Depends on what you're selling and who you're partnered with to drop ship which will determine the viability and potential succeess.

I think Mark has provide a well-written reply, but I'd like to add something else:

What do you want to achieve in the long run?

Both are quite easy to use (with Squarespace I believe a little more adaptable for beginners), but if in the future, you're planning to have a robust e-commerce platform selling hundreds of products, then Shopify my be your go-to. Compared to Squarespace, at the time of writing this post, seems to make it easier / more affordable to implement various payment options, such as multi-currency and Afterpay.

If you're looking for basic content or e-commerce (selling a handful of products), Squarespace, in my opinion, has been easier for beginning users with no experience making websites.

Early on we used OzBargain (and similar sites) as it was a quick, free way to attract a lot of people to our brand but in the end we abandoned the site altogether.

The problem, at least for us, was the users weren't converting to loyal customers and were primarily focused on getting the cheapest price which isn't a long term strategy for our business.

Despite providing a lot of traffic the conversion rate was very poor and it was very difficult to get any momentum out of a promotion as our business isn't the normal Ozbargain offering (technology or mass market)

I definitely say eCommerce is not dead. In fact, it has a huge scope.
We all are going through the hardest times because of the COVID-19. This pandemic has given a hint that eCommerce will rule the world. I am one hundred percent sure that the COVID-19 pandemic is going to change the entire business model and eCommerce development companies (https://www.fortunesoftit.com/au/ecommerce-development-company-australia/)  will have a huge scope.
If you have a look at the current situation, the one who is having just a physical store and no online presence is suffering the most due to shutdowns. 
I definitely recommend you to invest in eCommerce development.