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For some time now Dave and I have been looking at the possibility of adding a shop front to UKW to sell consumable items, it makes a lot of sense given the traffic that we’re generating now. The thing I don’t want is cries of objection saying that CES are going to make money out it! CES probably will, but I doubt Dave will become an internet millionaire anytime soon. 😉
What I’ve agreed with Dave is that CES (Dave’s company) will deal with it all basically as, frankly, I don’t have the time with all the other stuff I’m up to and nor am I liable to have time for it anytime soon. So here’s the deal so far…
CES get to sell high margin consumables on the site, it will be limited to that for now and maybe a few of the top sellers that are available with high margins on them. They will be sold at above normal retail by a margin, some of the margin (which I’ve still to smack Dave about the head to get a figure for :lol:) will go back into UKW coffers thereby hopefully benefitting all and driving still more traffic to the site.
Let me stress the point: spares will be sold at above normal retail prices!
The reason for this is simple, we do not want to affect anyone’s current or planned operations into online selling as that’s not what we’re about with UKW, but if some muppet is daft enough to pay over the odds to buy online then WE may as well be the ones that benefit from it rather thn some online retailer no-one’s ever heard of before.
This may also help in our little “bulk-buying” endevour in the medium to long-term, all in it fits nicely with what we’ve been doing thus far and where we want to go.
So, that’s the plan, whether or not it will work is a total uncertainty but, like the banks I don’t think any of us would be willing to invest in an online trader right now so it seems a sensible one. We may win, we may not, but there’s only one way to find out.
In the end, I think it’s a positive move for UKW and I could not ask Dave’s CES or any other company to do this on a not-for-profit basis, that would be wholly unreasonable. The thing is that UKW as a whole stands to benefit from this and I feel cannot ignore that possibility and that I’d be doing UKW members a diservice by doing so.
Of course, if it’s possible to do it, I may have more in store for this little concept in time if it works, but let’s prove the basics first. 😉
K.
Re: A Little Experiment…
There surely is a market for this via CES and very applaudable indeed. Of course it must be a margin above normal retail to make the venture worthwhile, the markup retail prices are often too low anyway.
So many visitors to this site want spares anyway, no point in letting them go elsewhere!
Martin
Re: A Little Experiment…
kwatt wrote:which I’ve still to smack Dave about the head to get a figure for
Ok, here’s the way I see it from here.
First off, I will buy the shop for UKW as this is not free like the usual PHP software is, this will be paid for by any profit I have already made from selling spares to UKW visitors. As some may or may not know, the help desk has various visitor options from a drop down list, the clever thing is that depending on which option is chosen, the messsage is sent to the relevent person, so, I get the message regarding spares and have sold a few from there, so that money will now go ack to UKW.
When the shop is installed, as Ken says, the only lines to be sold presently will be high turnover, high margin spares, this will allow UKW and my own company to benefit from it, I will have to have some margin myself as it will be my staff packing/posting and reordering etc and I can’t afford to get them doing this for nothing.
Percentage wise, I will have to sit down and work this out as this is a new venture and the margins will be a lot different than I am used to, but, I would think the easiest way is to split the profit down the middle for now and see how it goes. This can be changed at any time though, as the topic suggests, this is an experiment at the moment.
Dave.
Re: A Little Experiment…
And like a bad episode of Buffy, let’s ressurect this thread…
The shop module has been in place, both Dave and I have been very distracted of late with other things but the finger is out now!
I want this launched and soon. I’m not buggering about anymore with it, I want it done.
To that end, I need any ex stock that the subscribers have with a photo and a description etc so I can get it up on the site for you with as much information as you can give me. I’ll then get the bits and bobs on the shop for sale.
Any questions please ask.
K.
Re: A Little Experiment…
Even if anyone’s not sure what that particular part is they want shot of, photo it anyway and send it to me if you like, I’l try and identify it if I can.
Unfortunatley I am unable to upload photo’s and stuff to the shop images file, but I can add products, so a desription will do sometimes if anyone wants to send me any, I can always “find” a photo 😉
Dave.
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