Should I buy a shop or sell online?

Welcome to the dilemma we all face!

In fact it's not that difficult to solve... One of the fundamentals theories of marketing as u may have heard are the 4 p's!

Product
Place
Price
Promotion

Quite simply it means what is your product, where are you going to sell them, at what price and how are you going to promote it.

With a high street presence you need to look at location, is there passing trade, similar businesses around, parking and competition etc. Pricing will depend on competition locally and demand. Promotion will be to a local audience so the usual shop window displays, local advertising, newspapers, leaflets and anything clever etc.

With the internet the place is a website, so how will you promote this.. price could be more competitive as you will be competing with lots of other websites, and with easy price comparison sites and google products, you may have less of a margin.

You really need to fully understand who your customers are, what are their buying habits and how will you attract them.

The great thing with selling online is you can test the market very cheaply. Build a website and start selling from your front room and see what happens.. with retail it can be harder and a lot more expensive.

There could be other options.. you could have a website, but tour wedding fairs, so show examples and take orders, but the web is your shop front.

Anyway enough marketing theory for you for a Sunday afternoon

hope this helps

Andrew

www.funkypuffin.com