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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 ver

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 postage fees/packaging (note the flat fees on postage), payment fees (3-4%), discounts, returns, shopify monthly fees, accounting software etc. You'll spend about 50% of your day cutting & packing orders, taking them to the post office etc. (or you can employ someone to help) and the rest of the time taking shots for instagram, sourcing new suppliers, working on SEO/blogging and doing admin. If you're good at marketing you can shift quite a lot of fabric, but it will take you about a year to get your stock levels up to a sustainable amount to pay yourself a wage. If you want a real shop front you will generate most of your profit from running classes as the costs for a high street store are significantly higher than shopify and you gain little in terms of footfall vs online traffic. This isn't a get rich quick model but over time it works well and is replicable at scale.

anoncoward111 8y ago
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 niches. Fabrics, clothes, prints, whatever is super niche and high margin and can't be found on the shelves of a big box store.
- fabricexpert 8y ago
  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.
- fridaysoff 8y ago
  You're welcome. Ya you can't be scared off by the big guys like Michaels, Walmart, Amazon. The fabric I sell isn't really mainstream and it's more boutique quality designer prints. My market isn't really people who would shop at the big box stores anyway. I tap into the niche markets, etsy shop owners, small biz crafters. There is a real community and it's one that likes to shop local and Canadian.
  - ggg9990 8y ago
    What’s the URL? I’m in the market for specialty fabrics
    - fridaysoff 8y ago
      www.fridaysoff.ca
  - markkanof 8y ago
    Thank goodness there are people like you that aren't scared off by the big box stores. I am not in the market for fabrics right now, but I am looking for various supplies for a home remodel. I frequently find that while the big box store might have multiple options in any given product category, they are all garbage and I have to look at specialty stores to find anything worth spending money on.
  - cpeterso 8y ago
    How do you source your fabrics? Do designers or agents approach you with existing inventory? Or do you seek new art online or at trade shows? My wife worked in fabric design and it's hard for new designers to break into the industry.
    - fridaysoff 8y ago
      I work with a few manufacturers and meet with their sales reps on a quarterly basis.
justaskin134 8y ago
> 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 ?
- rhizome 8y ago
  tl;dr: Learn retail. It's kind of funny that people will get advice to get CS degrees, take a boot camp, learn a language, etc. to execute on an idea, but for soft skills you never see classes for business or marketing recommended. People could take 2-3+ business/marketing classes in the time it takes to learn React from zero Javascript knowledge. Instead, people are told to sign up to Stripe Atlas or Shopify and Instagram. "...and then a miracle occurs."[1] Imagine a bizdev person saying, "for me, programming is always the toughest part, any tips?" and the response being, "Oh, you should definitely sign up for Stack Overflow. Simplifies things quite a bit." This may reflect a conceit on the part of programmers that it's soooo much more complicated and important, and the business side is full of chads and beckys who talk too loud on speakerphone (yes these people are a cancer, but that's beside my point). Biz/Mark has its own, shall we say, "Data Structures and Algorithms" to it, there's just no one set of books that everyone (...) agrees on. Even so, people have been selling fabric for thousands of years, there's not much that the internet changes about that, or many if not most other business categories. 1. https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4003/4633000725_8817dcedb9_b.jpg https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4003/4633000725_8817dcedb9_b.j...
  - Swizec 8y ago
    Look around for what I call The MicroConf Crowd. Practical advice on the business part of business abounds. Books courses and more. Often targeted at programmers. The Independent Consulting Manual is a good place to start, then go down the list of authors and read their other stuff. They often do a christmas sale too. Follow Patio11 on twitter, read his stuff. Follow Amy Hoy, do 30x500. Then spread out from there. If you’re funded, great! All the same advice applies, you just have more gasoline to pour on the fire. Try things faster.
    - 8y ago
amelius 8y ago
One thing I've been wondering about wrt high-volume online shops: how do you protect your hands against the dryness of the cardboard boxes and papercuts? Is this an issue?
- jasonpeacock 8y ago
  Lightweight cotton gloves :) Put them on, do all your materials handling, and be done.
- fridaysoff 8y ago
  I developed an allergy to the fabric at one point and had to start wearing surgical gloves. As long as I keep them well moisturized in the dryer months I'm ok now :)
fridaysoff 8y ago
Thanks for your insight. You're not too far off, but my margins are much higher - thank goodness. I've been at this for 5 years and also have an employee who helps with all the cutting, packaging and shipping. I offer a flat rate shipping fee for small price orders anything under $45. Sales above $45 ship with a Canada Post calculated shipping rate. Good luck with your business :)
- swalsh 8y ago
  Just out of curiosity, have you tried building the price of shipping into the product, and marketing with free shipping? From my own experience in eCommerce, it really boosts conversions.
  - jccooper 8y ago
    I have a similar-ish product. For non-discrete items sold at a single price per unit, and where people buy a wide range of volumes, baking the shipping costs into the product leads to strange prices outside whatever sweet spot you choose, because shipping prices don't scale linearly with your product. The flat rate shipping under $45 in this example is probably because it costs nearly the same to ship half a yard or five yards; shipping 20 will cost a good deal more, but not be anything like 20 times the cost of shipping one yard. So there's no way to bake in a price that doesn't end up generating absurd results either for you, your customer, or both.
    - Fredej 8y ago
      Can't you just give a lower price at 10 yards and again at 50 yards for example? Then you solve your baked in price issue and get to offer discounts on high amounts, incentivizing buying more.
      - jccooper 8y ago
        Depends on your range of purchase sizes and industry expectations. My product will sell regularly in quantities from 1 to 10,000, and my shipping costs on those vary from about $5 to $50, so I'd have to have a lot of price tiers. That's kind of absurdly broad, though. I'd think fabric and other categories should have a few orders of magnitude less, but I might be surprised. But, you can do that if it doesn't fly too much in the face of customer expectation. In some industries, like printing, it's common. In fabric I think there's a strong expectation of a single price per length unit, though I suppose you could challenge it. I don't think lots of price tiers is a good customer experience, so I decided against it as a long-term customer satisfaction strategy. I do wonder if it's costing me sales. Maybe I should set up an alternate brand that does tiered pricing and free shipping.
blknmild 8y ago
At what point do you decide that it is not worth your time? To me it seems taht at a certain point, once you've established the the margins, you grow the business to where you're no longer doing any work.......turning the business into an asset which has some nice cash flow and allows your employees to be happy.
- fridaysoff 8y ago
  When you're bored with the business and uninspired to do the work then I think it's time to move one. Also if you're deep in debt and not making any money I would say that's a pretty good indicator too.

anoncoward111 8y ago

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 niches. Fabrics, clothes, prints, whatever is super niche and high margin and can't be found on the shelves of a big box store.

fabricexpert 8y ago
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.
fridaysoff 8y ago
You're welcome. Ya you can't be scared off by the big guys like Michaels, Walmart, Amazon. The fabric I sell isn't really mainstream and it's more boutique quality designer prints. My market isn't really people who would shop at the big box stores anyway. I tap into the niche markets, etsy shop owners, small biz crafters. There is a real community and it's one that likes to shop local and Canadian.
- ggg9990 8y ago
  What’s the URL? I’m in the market for specialty fabrics
  - fridaysoff 8y ago
    www.fridaysoff.ca
- markkanof 8y ago
  Thank goodness there are people like you that aren't scared off by the big box stores. I am not in the market for fabrics right now, but I am looking for various supplies for a home remodel. I frequently find that while the big box store might have multiple options in any given product category, they are all garbage and I have to look at specialty stores to find anything worth spending money on.
- cpeterso 8y ago
  How do you source your fabrics? Do designers or agents approach you with existing inventory? Or do you seek new art online or at trade shows? My wife worked in fabric design and it's hard for new designers to break into the industry.
  - fridaysoff 8y ago
    I work with a few manufacturers and meet with their sales reps on a quarterly basis.

justaskin134 8y ago

> 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 ?

rhizome 8y ago
tl;dr: Learn retail. It's kind of funny that people will get advice to get CS degrees, take a boot camp, learn a language, etc. to execute on an idea, but for soft skills you never see classes for business or marketing recommended. People could take 2-3+ business/marketing classes in the time it takes to learn React from zero Javascript knowledge. Instead, people are told to sign up to Stripe Atlas or Shopify and Instagram. "...and then a miracle occurs."[1] Imagine a bizdev person saying, "for me, programming is always the toughest part, any tips?" and the response being, "Oh, you should definitely sign up for Stack Overflow. Simplifies things quite a bit." This may reflect a conceit on the part of programmers that it's soooo much more complicated and important, and the business side is full of chads and beckys who talk too loud on speakerphone (yes these people are a cancer, but that's beside my point). Biz/Mark has its own, shall we say, "Data Structures and Algorithms" to it, there's just no one set of books that everyone (...) agrees on. Even so, people have been selling fabric for thousands of years, there's not much that the internet changes about that, or many if not most other business categories. 1. https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4003/4633000725_8817dcedb9_b.jpg https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4003/4633000725_8817dcedb9_b.j...
- Swizec 8y ago
  Look around for what I call The MicroConf Crowd. Practical advice on the business part of business abounds. Books courses and more. Often targeted at programmers. The Independent Consulting Manual is a good place to start, then go down the list of authors and read their other stuff. They often do a christmas sale too. Follow Patio11 on twitter, read his stuff. Follow Amy Hoy, do 30x500. Then spread out from there. If you’re funded, great! All the same advice applies, you just have more gasoline to pour on the fire. Try things faster.
  - 8y ago

amelius 8y ago

One thing I've been wondering about wrt high-volume online shops: how do you protect your hands against the dryness of the cardboard boxes and papercuts? Is this an issue?

jasonpeacock 8y ago
Lightweight cotton gloves :) Put them on, do all your materials handling, and be done.
fridaysoff 8y ago
I developed an allergy to the fabric at one point and had to start wearing surgical gloves. As long as I keep them well moisturized in the dryer months I'm ok now :)

fridaysoff 8y ago

Thanks for your insight. You're not too far off, but my margins are much higher - thank goodness. I've been at this for 5 years and also have an employee who helps with all the cutting, packaging and shipping. I offer a flat rate shipping fee for small price orders anything under $45. Sales above $45 ship with a Canada Post calculated shipping rate. Good luck with your business :)

swalsh 8y ago
Just out of curiosity, have you tried building the price of shipping into the product, and marketing with free shipping? From my own experience in eCommerce, it really boosts conversions.
- jccooper 8y ago
  I have a similar-ish product. For non-discrete items sold at a single price per unit, and where people buy a wide range of volumes, baking the shipping costs into the product leads to strange prices outside whatever sweet spot you choose, because shipping prices don't scale linearly with your product. The flat rate shipping under $45 in this example is probably because it costs nearly the same to ship half a yard or five yards; shipping 20 will cost a good deal more, but not be anything like 20 times the cost of shipping one yard. So there's no way to bake in a price that doesn't end up generating absurd results either for you, your customer, or both.
  - Fredej 8y ago
    Can't you just give a lower price at 10 yards and again at 50 yards for example? Then you solve your baked in price issue and get to offer discounts on high amounts, incentivizing buying more.
    - jccooper 8y ago
      Depends on your range of purchase sizes and industry expectations. My product will sell regularly in quantities from 1 to 10,000, and my shipping costs on those vary from about $5 to $50, so I'd have to have a lot of price tiers. That's kind of absurdly broad, though. I'd think fabric and other categories should have a few orders of magnitude less, but I might be surprised. But, you can do that if it doesn't fly too much in the face of customer expectation. In some industries, like printing, it's common. In fabric I think there's a strong expectation of a single price per length unit, though I suppose you could challenge it. I don't think lots of price tiers is a good customer experience, so I decided against it as a long-term customer satisfaction strategy. I do wonder if it's costing me sales. Maybe I should set up an alternate brand that does tiered pricing and free shipping.

blknmild 8y ago

At what point do you decide that it is not worth your time? To me it seems taht at a certain point, once you've established the the margins, you grow the business to where you're no longer doing any work.......turning the business into an asset which has some nice cash flow and allows your employees to be happy.

fridaysoff 8y ago
When you're bored with the business and uninspired to do the work then I think it's time to move one. Also if you're deep in debt and not making any money I would say that's a pretty good indicator too.