Advice on creating a website that sells knives?

[stabman]

Just get a dealer membership and sell them here.

Tens of thousands of knife nerds throwing away gobs of cash right here.
Tap into the market. :thumbup:

 

[marcinek]

Just get a dealer membership and sell them here.

Tens of thousands of knife nerds throwing away gobs of cash right here.
Tap into the market. :thumbup:

Yeah. I don't get it.

Nor do I get why you have taken advantage of a site that exists partially due to people selling knives on it, to ask about making an different site that sells knives on it.

Its kinda like asking to borrow someone's knife and then poking him with it. Odd.

 

[Rhinoknives1]

Math only make sense if he was replenishing the inventory.. at minimum would cost $30k to set up right.. In your case, it sounds like eBay and forums are the way to go.

This is exactly what I would recommend and what I have done on a smaller scale for collectors and one that wanted to liquidate an inherited sword collection.
I haven't been active on the bay in selling for the last eight months or so and will soon start another selling project.

His comment about being "FUN" seems a little off? He wants you to do it, but it will be fun for him? Setting up a selling site is a heck of a lot of work, maintenance and COST. Better to sell on ebay and right here.

Fun is fun and money is well, money! Great to do both but that's done by maximizing money.

 

[yexactly]

How did sites like CutleryShoppe.com and BladeHQ make their sites? Not saying this site would be of the same caliber. Just wanted to know if someone on here could point me in the right direction. Thanks

Envisioned based on this from the OP they were looking for something more like a real online store and less like a WordPress site.. keep in mind these hosted sites charge ~2% above PayPal/credit card fees plugins ie admin tools.. if this is a going concern, it gets expensive to go with a hosted solution.

 

[rma100]

How do you figure that? I've never set up an online store, so it's a serious question.

• Registering a website name costs $9.00/year.
• Hosting for a small website is $3.00/month. Since the guy already owns a business, he could perhaps piggyback onto his existing hosting account (if he has one) for $0.00 extra.
• With a decent camera and some practice, photography costs could be $0.00.
• Website development is $0.00 using Wordpress or other CMS framework. Work it around a retail-oriented theme ($0.00) and combine some storefront plug-ins ($0.00).
• Set up a PayPal account and add PayPal capability to the website. Again, $0.00.

Perhaps your experience and insight could fill in numbers for some expense items I'm overlooking. Marketing, for example. What's it cost to successfully market a small online store?
Don't know if credit card processing would be necessary, but there are undoubtedly some costs associated with that. But if you have a PayPal business account, they can process credit card payments.

So where's the $30,000 come in?

Not quite that easy Bob. An Online Shopping Cart is a lot different than a $3 website. Minimum $600 a year. Then you need a PayPal Business Account. Not the same as a Personal Account. PayPal has some steep prices for processing payments. And with out Credit Cards, you've got nothing. Then there is Advertising, how do people find your Website? SSl Certificates so people can browse and make purchases on a Secure Server. Branding, Who are you, what do you sell? There are any number of associated, small and not so small, costs associated with setting up and maintaining a website. I'm not going to make any random quotes, but to have even a mildly successful Website is expensive and time consuming. Not a $3 website and a $9 Domain Name.