Chaudywogbaaga

What I mean by business forum is the space, real or virtual, that the business happens in. Very specifically, this is the space where the sale occurs. It could be a storefront, a webpage, anywhere the business of attracting customers can be done.

I’ve been thinking about this because I’m trying to find one! I tend to operate new business ideas on the premise of very small cash investments. In other words I try to get businesses off the ground as cheaply as possible. One of the things that suffers the most in that formula is forum. I can’t easily get a storefront for selling my goods for nothing. I can get a website for next to nothing but the internet is everyone’s forum so it is very hard to be heard above the din of everyone else selling.

I’m not the first person to be a cheapskate and try to operate a business for next to nothing. In centuries past street vendors would ply their trades for the cost of a cart to haul things around. Then there are door to door salesmen. Not the kind you see today, these were people that were down on their luck and couldn’t afford the cart! One story that resonated with me was of a man during the great depression who made statues out of plaster and went to people’s doors to sell them.

The problem with these methods are that they are forbidden most of the time. They are considered a nuisance. While I don’t want to be a nuisance, I do want to support my family. These low investment sales are the pressure relief for people who are trying to survive. No one would do them if they had the money to sell in a different forum. In the end all salesmen are a nuisance but in some cases they are necessary.

A home can be made into a storefront but my home is quite remote so it would not be very effective. There are also a nightmare of liability and regulatory concerns with making a storefront in the home.

Then there is the “craft show". With the entrance fees to these events you would think that the crafters are selling in huge quantities. All the crafters I have spoken to have said that they often walk away with no sales at all. That may just be the economic conditions that we’re in currently.

There are public forums on the internet like ebay and etsy but again, being seen amidst all the other listings is a challenge. Before you think “Now you’re just being lazy!” think about the challenge of competing on any platform other than price in ebay. How do you demonstrate quality? What about craftsmanship? It is doable but it isn’t straightforward. Etsy is more geared to demonstrating quality and craftsmanship but it’s categorizing is not as robust which makes it difficult to be found.

So far I haven’t figured out how to create my own forum that will allow me to get people’s attention and not cost thousands of dollars. It would seem to me like this would not be an easy task, otherwise everyone would be doing it and therefore it would again be difficult to be seen but here is what I can figure out on how I would go about creating one.

Follow up:

1. Eyeballs or the equivalent.
A forum must be where there are people and it must provide visibility to the product. I drive by (an apparently so do many others) restaurants that have gone out of business and the common theme I see is that they do not have windows that give visibility to the inside. Websites must have high quality pictures of the items being sold. In addition there has to be lots of eyeballs that are going by so that some will decide to come and buy

2. An attractive forum
The forum itself must be well themed and attractive. Walmart gets away with vinyl tile floors, but it wasn’t always that way. Most businesses that do not have an appealing look with expensive amenities will struggle until they are already an established name. On a website expensive usually means someone spent a lot of time on the design of the site adding animated menus and perhaps video.

I have been playing around with the idea of entertainment to drive sales. Normally you would see this in a movie theater but I’ve been thinking about it for a website. One of the similar ideas that is common on the web is the entertainment site that also sells related products. There are some sites that sell products and provide entertainment, one such site is Thinkgeek. All the products on the site have a humorous description thus providing entertainment. I was thinking of turning the webcomic site on it’s head and having comics based on the products instead of the other way around. I can easily imagine the result being horribly bad but with the right approach, it could be done well.

3. People with money
How much money depends on your product. If it’s a small item, students may be a good audience. If you’re selling new italian sports cars, I wouldn’t expect success. Sure this step seems like a no brainer but it usually ends up the business owner stretches for more of #1 and doesn’t pay enough attention to #3. Another pitfall is being slightly too high priced for the eyeballs that are coming in. It’s better to seriously think about how to attract the right income bracket.

4. A place to land
There are so many storefronts out there that do not have adequate parking. This makes it a hassle to stop, even if you love the place. On the web, this is more mental and applies more to information. If information is lacking, then no one will stop to buy an item they are unfamiliar with.