Starting an Online Store: Interview With Steve from MyWifeQuitHerJob.com

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Have you ever thought of running an online store yourself? It’s certainly one way you can make a living online like Steve who runs a blog a at his site called “My Wife Quit Her Job”. But before I spilled too much about what he does, I’ll let him do the talking.

1. Hi Steve to start things off, can you tell us more about yourself?

My name is Steve and I run a blog about entrepreneurship and how to open an online store at MyWifeQuitHerJob.com. I also run an online store selling wedding handkerchiefs, linen napkins and linen towels with my wife. Finally, I recently launched a full blown course that teaches others how to create a profitable online store as well.

My wife and I first got started in ecommerce because we needed a way to supplant my wife’s six figure salary so she could quit her job and stay at home with the kids. Sure, we probably could have gotten by on just my salary, but the cost of living is extremely high where we live so we really needed to earn some extra money or make drastic cutbacks in our lifestyle..

So, our online store was born in 2007. While business was slow initially, we managed to earn over 100K in our first year of business. And ever since, our business has grown in the double and triple digits every year. When my friends heard about our success, they started asking me questions about how we did it and I found myself repeating myself over and over. As a result, I decided to start a blog at MyWifeQuitHerJob.com to document our experiences and to help educate others on how to start their own businesses as well.

2. I noticed that both you and your wife have a very successful online store, can you tell us more about this business?

Our store sells wedding handkerchiefs and wedding linens. My wife loves weddings so when we were brainstorming products to sell, she definitely wanted to target brides as our main customers. The reason we came up with the idea of selling wedding handkerchiefs was because when we got married, it was extremely difficult to find ladies handkerchiefs to carry to the altar. After all, my wife knew she was going to cry and she didn’t want to use some ratty tissue to dry her tears. She wanted an elegant hankie that matched her wedding dress. So, we first launched our store with wedding handkerchiefs as our main product. And soon after, we expanded to linen napkins and other wedding related textiles.

It’s a small niche, but a lucrative one. Today my wife makes way more that her old salary , works far less hours and gets to spend her time with our kids.

3. Having to source items from wholesalers, dropshippers and various distributors, what are the common challenges you face and how do you manage them?

We actually only work with overseas vendors today. Initially, there were many challenges. Since we were dealing with foreigners, there was a big language and cultural barrier. The way people do business in Asia is much different than in the US. For one thing, I found out the hard way that contracts are meaningless over there. It’s all about the relationship. So the way we overcame these barriers was to travel to China and meet with our vendors directly.

Once we met them face to face and got to know them on a more personal level, our supply problems mostly went away. Today, we’ve worked with many of the same vendors for several years now and have established a bond of trust. Therefore, managing our vendors is not such a big deal anymore.

4. With so much competition online, how do you manage to get people to notice your store? We take a 4 prong approach.

1. First of all, we make a lot of sales via word of mouth. By going out of our way to provide great customer service, our customers tend to refer us to others. As a result, our store reputation spreads with every sale that we make.

2. We optimize our store for the search engines. A little bit less than 50% of our customers arrive through organic search. What’s nice is that this traffic is completely free. The way we attract customers through search is by pumping out excellent and useful content for our store. For example, we provide tutorials and craft ideas using our products that customers can make for their wedding day. People tend to find us through these crafts and then go on to purchase the materials.

3. We contact wedding and event planners directly. Actually, it’s not just event planners, it’s anyone that has bulk purchasing power.

4. We use PPC marketing. PPC is an excellent way to get extremely targeted traffic to your store. Our conversion rates with Google Adwords are excellent.

5. I realized that there is a lot of work involved in setting up an online store, can you highlight some key steps to go about setting up one?

Actually these days, it’s not hard at all. Most of the software is written for you and it’s free! All you have to do is install it and you’re ready to go. If you are not technically inclined, then there are fully hosted options that will cost you only 25 a month. I actually offer a free mini course that teaches people how to set up a niche online store. Check out my blog to sign up.

6. Of all the online marketplaces and auction sites like eBay and Amazon, what other places would you recommend to start selling items?

Ebay and Etsy are ok places to start, but terrible places to set up an online store. For example, when all is said and done, Ebay charges you up to 15% of your revenues in fees. This is completely ridiculous. When you run your own online store, you can avoid most of those egregious charges. Today, if business were to slow down with our store, we could keep running on only 80 dollars a month with no transaction fees except what the credit cards charge us.

By using Ebay, you are also not establishing your own brand and your own domain and as a result, you are at their mercy. If they jack up their fees, you can’t do anything about it. So I always advise serious shopowners and would-be entrepreneurs to launch their own site and register for their own domains. Ebay and Etsy are for casual sellers.

7. Do you think having a background in business and economics will give you an advantage? If so, what can other non business background people learn about setting up an online store?

I actually don’t really have much of a business background though I did study the mechanics of how to start a company in college. I think a lot of things about business are based on common sense and experience. In general, you want to direct your spending towards only what you need and focus on selling products that people want to buy. Having a background in business certainly helps because you have some amount experience already and have studied what makes a business successful.

8. Besides managing your online store with your wife, what else do you do online to help support your family?

My blog actually earns a decent amount at this point. I also work a full time job as a hardware engineering manager and recently, I started selling a course on how to create a profitable online store. The money is nice, but I really love doing what I do and I love making new friends through my blog.

9. What do you think was the biggest stumbling block starting this business? Have you ever felt like quitting?

The hardest part about starting a business is being able to absorb a tremendous amount of information in such a short period of time and actually act on it. At certain points, I felt as though I was drinking from a fire hose. It’s also tough when you’ve spent an enormous amount of time getting your business up and running only to be greeted by no customers when you launch. The first 2 weeks in the life of our online store were particularly challenging for my wife and I because we weren’t getting the traffic that we wanted. And early on we wanted to quit.

The biggest stumbling block for me was getting over the fact that developing a business takes time and patience. You simply can’t expect to make a ton of money right away. Much like a child, you have to grow your business gradually and have faith that what you are doing is the right thing.

10. Thanks for your time Steve, really appreciate doing the interview here. Before you go, what would be your biggest advice to all those who are planning to start a home business?

The best advice I can give is to just go for it. Running a business online is about as cheap and risk free as it gets. There’s so little money required and you’ve got nothing to lose, so why not give it try? My wife and I launched our store spending only about 600 bucks with a recurring cost of only about 40 dollars a month. You can’t beat that.

 

Bryan: I hope you’ve enjoyed this intereview and gain something from it guys. All the best!

 

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