Private listing #26376

We have a passion for the start, truly entrepreneurial at heart. We were ready to start something that offered scalability, provided true financial & personal freedom, and required low overhead & start-up costs. Knowing that online stores/e-commerce is the future of retail, we saw and took the opportunity to dive right in. We were proven right almost instantly as sales started to pour in. The fact that we love our products and customers is just icing on the already delicious cake! One more thing, our store has been profitable since day one. It helps tremendously if you want to scale up.

We love our business, but have decided to sell it due to time constraints from our other ventures. We feel that we have taken the business to great heights, but now the store requires a new individual or team to take it to the next level. The potential this store has is incredible - high profit percentages and high demand. We are ready to pass the torch on to the best candidate(s) that will take our proven success and build on it from here.

1. Fulfilling incoming sales orders from your store.
2. Customer support (some calls and emails asking about products and sales).
3. Product updates (pricing, availability, etc...)
4. Marketing (AdWords, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, etc...)

There are many challenges with growing any business. Here are a few strategies that we have identified to take the store to the next level. First, adding additional suppliers and products is important to grow the store. Second is to follow trends in the industry and see what the next successful products are, especially for the hot market of electric fireplaces. Next, we need to make sure the suppliers can scale with us. With COVID-19 hitting every industry hard, some of the suppliers can take over 4 weeks to manufacture and ship the products. Another planned strategy is to optimize and invest more in Google Ads. We have recently done this, and we have already seen a significant revenue jump. Additionally, be aware of PayPal and other payment methods. We use the most common payment methods; however, PayPal can hold your money while a dispute is in process. That is the money you do not have to move your store forward. Also, PayPal is known to freeze the funds for many stores until they were able to verify that the increased activity was genuine, and not someone running an elaborate scam. This can stall the growth potential as you require the funds to reinvest in marketing and social exposure. Cash flow is most important to stay afloat. You will need to grow your team, whether it helps with order tracking and management to marketing and social media growth. Start planning now. Expand video advertising on all social media and other platforms. Video advertising works all the way through the funnels. Campaign budget optimization changes everything. In case you have not heard the news, Facebook is about to make some big changes to its advertising platform. Facebook is bringing in Campaign Budget Optimization (CBO). In other words, when you create advertising campaigns on Facebook, all your different audiences and ads will be intelligently optimized to give the most budget to the ads and audiences that are performing the best.

Running an online store is relatively simple, but comes with some complexities. The most difficult task is really understanding the customer and their changing needs. Customer service is key here - be open to your audiences' needs. You can do so by giving them avenues to reach you, or making sure all their questions have answers on the product page already - we found lots of success here! This brought fewer requirements for engagement and more sales.

As for the technical skills, the only recommendation there is that anyone interested in running an online store should understand three things:

1. How to use Shopify. This is most important, as you will do all your customization on Shopify's platform.
2. We recommend you familiarize yourself with is both Google AdWords and Analytics. They are great (and required) tools today to really have success online. AND note that we will also provide an overview of our successful Google AdWords strategy as part of the sale.
   
3. Lastly, we recommend a strong social presence and growing your social credibility. Social media is a must, and a great opportunity for reaching a broader audience.
   

(One more thing - an optional skill that could make some aspects of running an online store easier is knowledge of HTML and CSS. Sometimes you must get your hands dirty and do some coding to create a feature that is either expensive as an app or does not exist.)