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Bootstrapping an Online Fabric Shop and Growing to $20k per month

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Re: Bootstrapping an Online Fabric Shop and Growing to $20k per month

#41

Post by Scoundreller »

allannienhuis wrote: post #34
emilfihlman wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about: -Vacation time is not paid time while maternity leave is time the employer has to pay for. -If working does accumulate vacation time (meaning it is paid) it's a fixed perk that the employer can take into account and knows when hiring you -You must still always negotiate when you are going to take that vacation, you can't just start at a new job and instantly take paid vacation time. -2 Weeks != Maternity l…

"maternity leave is time the employer has to pay for" Not in Canada. Maternity leave is funded through the federal Employment Insurance program. The only obligation the employer has is to hold the job for a certain period of time.

There are employers that top up, to varying degrees, what EI pays out (maximum benefit is ~$500/week, and taxable).

Re: Bootstrapping an Online Fabric Shop and Growing to $20k per month

#42

Post by Scoundreller »

evfanknitram wrote: post #38
JackFr wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is using a year long maternity leave to start a business an argument for extended maternity leaves?

I think there's enough arguments for extended leaves already. This just seems like an added bonus to me. At least where I live there's rules against making money when home with kid (government pay you to be home with kid).

Canada has the same rules about earning income while on leave.

Usually you lose a dollar in benefits for every dollar you earn.

But if your business turns losses in the first year...

Re: Bootstrapping an Online Fabric Shop and Growing to $20k per month

#43

Post by fabricexpert »

anoncoward111 wrote: post #33
fabricexpert wrote: post #26

I run an almost identical fabric shop online. 20k/month revenue is great but remember this is not a SaaS with unlimited scale and low costs. It's actually a very traditional business model, and margins here are only going to about 20-30%, potentially a lot less if you have to pay for your storage space. You buy the fabric, typically you'll double the price when selling to customers. Then you take off additional posta…

Nice, thanks for the numbers! At a certain point you start competing with Home Depot, Michaels, Walmart, Amazon, whoever. You are in the product retail business, rather than the manufacturing or services business. I think if you get really good at streamlining your marketing (Instagram photos and landing pages) as well as your pick/pack/ship operations (i.e running a warehouse), then you can expand into multiple nich…

You can also move up the supply chain into the wholesale or even raw materials business (but you need more capital here) or down into actually manufacturing bespoke/custom items (but that's hard to scale).

Ultimately I think you need to actually be passionate about the product you're selling and embrace the community around it.

Re: Bootstrapping an Online Fabric Shop and Growing to $20k per month

#44

Post by fabricexpert »

sdenton4 wrote: post #3

Beware. There's a whole lot of "start an e shop and get rich quick" bullshit out there. https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/117-the-worlds-most-ex...

This is different though - the gimlet podcast is about dropshipping, where you don't keep inventory and are literally just creating a sales pipeline for someone else, and absorbing all of the marketing costs (hint: why would a manufacturer / wholesaler let you do this for them if it was profitable?).

In this case you're entering the supply chain of a product (cut fabric), which end customers cannot do for themselves and wholesalers cannot scale.

Re: Bootstrapping an Online Fabric Shop and Growing to $20k per month

#45

Post by mikec3010 »

Descartes1 wrote: post #24

Revenues are irrelevant. Profits aren't.

This is a really ignorant thing to say. If you have a hearty revenue stream but no profit, you can tweak the model to make it profitable. Some profits aren't possible at small scales, so having revenue proves you have demand and can lead to safely risking big bucks to get to a profitable scale.

Re: Bootstrapping an Online Fabric Shop and Growing to $20k per month

#46

Post by justaskin134 »

fabricexpert wrote: post #26

I run an almost identical fabric shop online. 20k/month revenue is great but remember this is not a SaaS with unlimited scale and low costs. It's actually a very traditional business model, and margins here are only going to about 20-30%, potentially a lot less if you have to pay for your storage space. You buy the fabric, typically you'll double the price when selling to customers. Then you take off additional posta…

> If you're good at marketing you can shift quite a lot of fabric

For me marketing is always the toughest part .

How do you do your marketing ?

What tips can you offer us that save the most time and money spent ?

Re: Bootstrapping an Online Fabric Shop and Growing to $20k per month

#47

Post by ComputerGuru »

fabricexpert wrote: post #28
Descartes1 wrote: post #23

I've always hated the concept of "revenues" in commerce. Honestly, who cares what your revenues are? Profits are all that matters.

Depends on scale and runway. If you have 200k/month in revenue you can easily make (or lose) a boat load of money with a few small adjustments to your margins.

> easily

Citation needed. Because everyone else would be doing it if that were true. It’s certainly possible, but not by any means “easy.”

Re: Bootstrapping an Online Fabric Shop and Growing to $20k per month

#48

Post by toomanybeersies »

sdenton4 wrote: post #3

Beware. There's a whole lot of "start an e shop and get rich quick" bullshit out there. https://www.gimletmedia.com/reply-all/117-the-worlds-most-ex...

I got down to where he said he paid $10 for shipping and instantly clicked that it was a watch from Aliexpress and it was a classic dropshipping gig.

There were some people a few years ago that managed to sell off a few hundred Hawaiian shirts that were most likely drop shipped from China by using some well targeted FB (and probably Instagram) advertising, and giving the shirts funny names (named after local alcoholic drinks). They were probably making $20 or $30 per shirt.

An interesting take on the Aliexpress game is theive.co [1]. It's basically a curated list of stuff on Aliexpress with referral links. Since I last looked at the website they've apparently launched a product aimed at drop shippers, where you can get market insights. Morally it's murky, but it's clever.

[1] https://thieve.co/

Re: Bootstrapping an Online Fabric Shop and Growing to $20k per month

#49

Post by a_brawling_boo »

emilfihlman wrote: post #13
giarc wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maternity leave benefits in Canada are paid by the federal government through Employment Insurance (EI) program. New parents get 12-18 months of EI payments. Your employer is only required to hold a position for you, they are not obligated to pay your wage.

Ah, that's good to know because in Finland, your employer does pay it.

Hey, serious question from an American. How does this policy not cause massive hiring discrimination against young women, especially recently married women? I asked my Canadian relatives this question, and their answers basically boiled down to 'well that would be illegal'. But from what I can tell enforcing anti discrimination in hiring is next to impossible, especially if you interview and hire even a slightly more qualified candidate.

Re: Bootstrapping an Online Fabric Shop and Growing to $20k per month

#50

Post by mkirklions »

Descartes1 wrote: post #23

I've always hated the concept of "revenues" in commerce. Honestly, who cares what your revenues are? Profits are all that matters.

Starter Story is blogspam. There isnt anything useful, but it seems they have lots of accounts on many websites to upvote and comment positively.
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