Does my muse idea suck?

[jonydee23]

Hi ya'll,

I've read Tim's book about a month ago and since then, have been obsessing over muses. I have lots of questions, but if you could at least answer one, it would help me a lot.:)

I like the idea of dropshipping and want to use a model similar to Doug Price's soundeffects.com muse. There aren't a lot of details in how Doug found his products in the 4HWW though, and from what I've read so far at worldwidebrands, it seems like niching down is difficult when the demand for products are constantly fluxuating.

Anyone successfull at automating an Ecommerce business, and would like to share your process? How long did it take? How did you niche down? Is focusing on ONE product (Yoga for rockclimbers) better than combining products in a niche category (Prosoundeffects.com)?:confused:

I was thinking about selling training equiptment specific to a particular martial art. I know there's a lot of martial arts equiptment websites and carry some of the stuff I'm planning on selling, but i think I can specialize a little more in training equiptment for my chosen art and condensing the various products into one website. Not sure if this will work...:eek:Some websites seem to sell EVERYTHING related to ALL martial arts, so I'm not sure if my choosen muse will be niche enough to compete.

Any thoughts?

THANKS!
-Jon

[Illustro Cado]

It seems like those sites have everything related to your chosen martial art? That's not good enough to decide-do they or don't they? If they do, move onto something else. If they don't, start elaborating on how you can develop your niche.

Might just do you good to look over these sites, notebook in hand, and record every product you see. Also make a list of what you want to sell and in cases where you'd be selling the same thing, explain why it would be different. What do you have to offer that the other guys don't?

While I haven't started my own muselife business yet, based on what I read in the book the above seems like it's what you'd have to do. If you can see a need nobody else is meeting or that nobody else is meeting well, you've got a potential niche. At that point nobody can tell you what will or won't work, you've got to test it. If you can't see how your idea is better than the competition, it sucks. Alter it, scrap it, whatever-it won't work as-is.

Hope you find that helpful.

[liam75005]

Be focused and specific. If your muse is about one specific martial art find how you can develop and sell products for this martial art. If you offer the same product as someone else, you ll have to find a way to sell it in an unique way (lead time, guarantee... don't just compete on price !).

Alternative is to customise or private label another product and retarget it to your specific niche.

[noahfleming]

Here's my opinion and this is only my opinion. There are many others doing just fine with phsyical products and drop shipping.

My personal opinion is to look for ways to capitalize on information based products first. Test some muses in the area of information based materials related to the martial arts.

I would find it tough and daunting to go into a large area of say "Martial Arts products" without some very specific skills and a plan of attack. IE. SEO for example. Looking at the top martial arts products sites out there and having a very definitive plan of attack to compete. But again, it comes back to testing.

Don't spend months trying to develop something huge, test first.

[kamakiri]

Most ideas aren't bad, but really, you can make money with anything. A muse really is only about 10% idea, the rest is execution.

Ignore outsourcing and drop shipping. Those are both services that you can get any time if you pay for them. They are like having a lawyer on retainer or paying for an accountant to do your monthly books. Spending your most valuable resource (time) on them now is wasting it. Even Tim tells you that in his book. Phase 1 is just doing it yourself.

[TimW]

Part of the issue with your idea can be addresses by the book/idea "The Long Tail". Basically, the Internet has made it so that offering nearly everything means you can capture some of the infrequent sales too. That's why places like Amazon do well...they can list nearly everything, and the incremental cost of doing so it practically nothing.

If you stock physical goods, and I know your idea isn't about that, then you obviously cannot address the long tail. If you're small, trying to do so by adding things you don't carry, but will cost you money to ship via a wholesaler, can actually COST you money. Knives I sell on my site, but which I do not stock cost me more than I make...so I will be removing them. BUT, they are also a draw...someone ordering a knife could/has ordered other things, making up for the loss. I am going over info to see if that latter situation is more than the former. I do not suspect it is, but I need to check.

Where a niche site does well, I think, is when you can go wide AND deep on the product. So, using Kendo as an example, not just all the equipment, but all the equipment from different manufacturers. Or price points...you can pick a specific niche...custom-made Bogu (armor), but it will be a high-dollar, low volume business. Go cheap and mid-level, you get beginners and folks upgrading from beginners.

[vmgbpo]

Keep in mind too, that not everything can be automated but that doesn’t mean you have to do it. Outsourcing can be a big help for tasks and processes that require a human touch, but not necessarily your human touch.