Advices for setting up of an online shop

brendali

Hi all,

I have been reading from this forum for quite some time now and really admire those who had started out from scratch. Guess you guys have experienced a lot. I humbly ask for some sharings to help me build up on my online shop.

I have started on selling handmade products such as cards, wedding favors, party banners etc since beginning of the year. Business is really slow but I figured mostly due to my lack of time as I am still looking after my 2 kids.

I hope to use the remaining of this current year to build up my products variety before fully move into selling next year when I can send my kids to school.

I'll be grateful if some can share about some of my concerns :

1) I'm planning on importing US partywares to sell online. However, I see most pushcart retailers here seems to get their products mostly from HongKong/China etc. Is it really a better place to source? But I'm concern about their qualities as I don't have much capitals to make mistakes.

2) Those selling Sanrio and Disney's stationeries at pushcarts. I've been seeing quite a few seeling at neighbourhood pushcarts with favors going real cheap as in below a dollar. I'm hoping to find suppliers to get products to integrate into my profile as well but anyone has any idea whether I will get into trouble if I 'mix' them with US authentic products? Cos I did register my business so I want to be real careful

3) Moving into pushcart sales. Frankly speaking, when it comes to gifts, I guess nothing beats to seeing and feeling it before buying. So i would hope to move into cart sales as soon as I can. I read that some consign their items, some gets part time salegirls etc. With minimal time and capital (I know, that doesn't sound like a good thing for running business) can anyone recommend me whether it's better to start with consigning goods (considering mine are paper products) or weekend pushcart/flea market?

Hope I'm posting at the right place..

Oh one last question :
Where do I find the info on the premium membership etc?