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SirShroomsAlott
Howdy



Registered: 05/15/14
Posts: 6,945
Loc: United States
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How can I take my business or at least part of it online, or even just gain an online presence?
#26849773 - 07/28/20 11:54 AM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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I own a sheet metal fabrication shop, we have enough equipment and property to be able to quadruple our output without having to increase overhead almost at all besides the additional payroll for the increased work loads, have excess trucks, 2 breaks and 2 shears with only 1 of each being regularly utilized and not even full time. Two portable panel forming machines that only on occasion are both being utilized. Technically we'd be ready to grow immediately with quality installers but metal fab and install is kind of a specialty trade and sadly there's few who can do it or do it well I should say, plus to be fair, the fabrication is the real money maker in my business. We are by no means slow (at least not yet, we'll see how the future plays out with the economic uncertainty at the moment and depending on how a vaccine/virus plays out) but I would still like to grow.
Seems like a no brainer in hindsight but I bought a box made out of sheet metal (something I regularly make) from another sheet metal company I found online (they're time consuming, we're busy enough I currently didn't have time to make them myself) and realized I could put what we offer online and just add in the additional costs for shipping whether it be LTL freight or in a box through ups/fedex or another carrier. I didn't have to call them, just googled something, found their website, could click and specify any details needed, paid, and within a week it'll arrive here........something a lot of people in today's day and age seem to prefer with the seamless transaction and of course the ability to not have to interact.
But......I'm completely outside my realm when it comes to this kind of stuff, how would I go about creating a website where people could pick products, a quantity, and pay and order. Is it expensive as hell to do something like that or would even a small volume of sales through it be able to cover the costs? I do already have a website but more for product display and informational purposes rather then direct sales, and to be honest it's pretty bland/lackluster and nothing special as it is. Would be happy to be PM someone who might be interested the link to my website if they wanted to take a look and see if it's something I'd already be able to work with or whether I should just scrap it and start with something easier or just from scratch, for somewhat obvious reasons I just prefer not to put my website on here publicly for just anyone to stumble across and be able to associate with me but as I said have no problem sharing privately if asked.
Any tips, advice, general direction, or just any help at all would be greatly appreciated.
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geokills
∙∙∙∙☼ º¿° ☼∙∙∙∙


Registered: 05/08/01
Posts: 23,417
Loc: city of angels
Last seen: 7 hours, 43 minutes
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Re: How can I take my business or at least part of it online, or even just gain an online presence? [Re: SirShroomsAlott] 1
#26851433 - 07/29/20 09:16 AM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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The only metal fabricators I've used with who have an online presence are https://metalsdepot.com and https://mcnichols.com
MetalsDepot's web presence is very straightforward, industrial and not particularly exciting to browse, but effective enough if you know what you want. McNichols has more flash with a plethora of visual images and descriptive filler. Might not appeal as much to strictly engineers who simply want to reference exactly what they need and buy it, but generally better for a web presence when you're trying to expand your market to smaller retail buyers and DIY hobbyists.
If you don't have or know anyone with qualified web development experience, don't worry too much. E-commerce as a service platforms are quite flexible and capable of creating a visually appealing and robust web presence with minimal to no technical experience required.
We use https://shopify.com for the Shroomery's https://swag.haus and it has been pretty slick. https://wix.com is another customizable/template based website creator you might want to check out. Not sure I have too much else to contribute to this discussion, but I would be interested in taking a peak at your existing website if you feel like sending me a PM with the URL.
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-------------------- ┼ ··∙ long live the shroomery ∙·· ┼ ...╬π╥ ╥π╬...
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NOUS333
Stranger Than You


Registered: 12/26/15
Posts: 2,952
Last seen: 2 years, 10 months
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Re: How can I take my business or at least part of it online, or even just gain an online presence? [Re: geokills]
#26857043 - 08/01/20 10:40 AM (3 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
geokills said: The only metal fabricators I've used with who have an online presence are https://metalsdepot.com and https://mcnichols.com
MetalsDepot's web presence is very straightforward, industrial and not particularly exciting to browse, but effective enough if you know what you want. McNichols has more flash with a plethora of visual images and descriptive filler. Might not appeal as much to strictly engineers who simply want to reference exactly what they need and buy it, but generally better for a web presence when you're trying to expand your market to smaller retail buyers and DIY hobbyists.
If you don't have or know anyone with qualified web development experience, don't worry too much. E-commerce as a service platforms are quite flexible and capable of creating a visually appealing and robust web presence with minimal to no technical experience required.
We use https://shopify.com for the Shroomery's https://swag.haus and it has been pretty slick. https://wix.com is another customizable/template based website creator you might want to check out. Not sure I have too much else to contribute to this discussion, but I would be interested in taking a peak at your existing website if you feel like sending me a PM with the URL.
I just recently got into ecommerce. I just spent a month on wix and I would not recommend it. I am going to be trying shopify for my next business venture. It seems to me like you get a lot more versatility using shopify and better options all around.
I have very little experience but I can tell you what I would do if I were you. I would make a shopify store and put the items you wish to sell on there, put items you think might be desirable to customers, maybe even add some sort of request area so if you haven't displayed something customers want they can request it from you.
Then, I would make an instagram and a facebook account. And here is how I have gotten a lot of sales/attention with instagram. If you have a kid/kids or a bored wife or friend, you could throw them a few bucks to just sit on instagram or if you have time you can do it yourself, but just sit on instagram searching tags related to your industry. You click the tags that are most relevant and a page with every account who has used that tag will show up. You just keep following every single account until eventually instagram stops allowing you to. Usually you need to wait like an hour at this point and then you can continue. I did this for a week straight for one of my businesses in my free time, just whenever I had a second I would pull my phone out and keep following and following... if you have a problem with getting hooked on reading posts on social media you kinda gotta be disciplined enough to avoid looking at the posts and just remain focused on following.
Make sure your website a long with a friendly message or something to get customers interest is in your bio. This worked great for me... time consuming, but it is free and it works.
Facebook ads aren't really expensive at all, for the amount of people you can reach. There are tons of videos on youtube that show how to use facebook ads. So I would do that also if you don't mind spending a couple bucks a day on ads. Instagram also does ads and promotion through facebook.
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TheGrandMasterFunk
GM
Registered: 09/22/20
Posts: 1
Last seen: 3 years, 3 months
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Re: How can I take my business or at least part of it online, or even just gain an online presence? [Re: SirShroomsAlott]
#26948992 - 09/22/20 09:15 AM (3 years, 4 months ago) |
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Website, social media, google, listing pages, etc.
You gotta know your target audience and consider what they're doing in order to find your competitors. A good SEO agency can do wonders for that, but they're rarely good at actually producing the website.
how would I go about creating a website where people could pick products, a quantity, and pay and order.
Gotta consider your return on investment, an ecommerce with less than 50 individual products can start at 2k USD for anything reliable. (that's pushing it, and kind of assuming you're willing to put in a lot of work with the developer)
Is it expensive as hell to do something like that or would even a small volume of sales through it be able to cover the costs?
a domain is like 10 bux a month at most, hosting can be about 5 bux a month at cheapest, if you start getting a lot of traffic you can upgrade your SSL and everything.
I do already have a website but more for product display and informational purposes rather then direct sales, and to be honest it's pretty bland/lackluster and nothing special as it is.
Feel free to PM me your site and I'll give you a 'this is what I'd do'
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Rat-a-Tat
Psychedelic Student



Registered: 07/11/17
Posts: 219
Last seen: 1 year, 2 months
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Re: How can I take my business or at least part of it online, or even just gain an online presence? [Re: SirShroomsAlott]
#26958787 - 09/28/20 12:59 PM (3 years, 3 months ago) |
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Hey SirShroomsAlott - my background is in sales, marketing and data analytics. I work for a produce company where I increased web traffic by 10,000% and signed major companies like Walmart, Aldi, Supervalu, and others within a 2 year time frame and sold about 6 million in gross sales in those 2 years. Not saying this to brag, just to demonstrate that I have competence in sales/marketing.
My questions are: 1) What kind of metal things do you fabricate? 2) How many total different products do you sell? 3) How many of those products could be sold online? 4) What are the average price-points of the things you create? 5) What is the competition climate of your industry like? 6) Would you agree that the top 20% of your clients make-up 80% of your business? 7) How are you getting new clients now? 8) What is the process/cost of acquiring a new client? 9) How many people do you have on your sales team / what are their means of acquiring leads? 10) You have a website now - how many people log onto it monthly/yearly?
This can give us a snapshot to work off to explore further. Thanks - Cole
Edited by Rat-a-Tat (09/28/20 01:00 PM)
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Frank Rizzo
Old whipper snapper


Registered: 06/12/18
Posts: 184
Last seen: 2 years, 30 days
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Re: How can I take my business or at least part of it online, or even just gain an online presence? [Re: SirShroomsAlott]
#26958815 - 09/28/20 01:18 PM (3 years, 3 months ago) |
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Have you considered running an instagram account dedicated for this, takes no real setup just pictures tags and some comments, it could direct traffic to a website etc.
I see a lot of business do this with formal and informal pages all you need is a phone, not much of a learning curve and you get to really show of your work...
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jerrymor
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Registered: 01/20/22
Posts: 45
Last seen: 1 year, 4 days
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Re: How can I take my business or at least part of it online, or even just gain an online presence? [Re: SirShroomsAlott]
#27853710 - 07/07/22 03:10 PM (1 year, 6 months ago) |
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How Is your business doing now? How was it during the pandemic?
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dianfenalebaur
Coprall

Registered: 07/11/22
Posts: 9
Last seen: 1 year, 4 months
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Re: How can I take my business or at least part of it online, or even just gain an online presence? [Re: SirShroomsAlott]
#27858529 - 07/11/22 11:13 AM (1 year, 6 months ago) |
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Quote:
ViktorB said: I'd go for cross platform app development. The whole point is in an opportunity to use one app's code on different platforms. For example, Instagram, Facebook, Walmart, and Bloomberg are cross-platform and are available both for Android and iOS users.
especially now there are many constructors with which you can do this, there are many application functions already built in from the start, it remains only to decide for yourself why you leave them
-------------------- Diana Johnston is my name. I'm from Illinois' Elmhurst. I went to Elmhurst University to study. I currently reside in Miami, Florida, with my husband Wyatt and our two children, Dave and Caroline. My family is supportive of my desire to preserve and protect the environment.
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Nikon Addict
Another Earthling



Registered: 01/16/18
Posts: 285
Loc: Colorado USA
Last seen: 1 year, 5 days
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Re: How can I take my business or at least part of it online, or even just gain an online presence? [Re: SirShroomsAlott]
#27869757 - 07/20/22 01:11 AM (1 year, 6 months ago) |
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If you have a site up already, working with a competent SEO ad agency can get your company on page one in a Google search anywhere between 2 to 6 months. There are certain things you'll have to do to maintain net presence because there are specific things Google digs seeing and these techniques are always evolving. It's important to reach page one because very few people make it past page one in their search.
-------------------- personal note: "It’s fair to say I’m stepping out on a limb, but I am on the edge and that’s where it happens.”
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flamel
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Registered: 08/01/22
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Re: How can I take my business or at least part of it online, or even just gain an online presence? [Re: Nikon Addict]
#27886384 - 08/02/22 04:51 AM (1 year, 5 months ago) |
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depending on the product being ordered that could be a complicated process, if there are many dimensions and tolerances and materials to choose from, a fully auto shop would require devs and the app idea mentionned earmier seems a legit investment.
maybe you could start with a simple site wit contact options to send plans or cad files or measuring requirements to receive a quote, you could learn more about what's sought after
then a default shopify or woocommerce (free /cheaper alternative)
and if you have an online client base thats profitable, hire devs fir a big update to become a big player.
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jerrymor
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Re: How can I take my business or at least part of it online, or even just gain an online presence? [Re: flamel]
#28064250 - 11/22/22 02:29 AM (1 year, 2 months ago) |
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Good luck to you. Trying to transfer my business completely online now and so far it is not going easy. If you managed to do it, maybe you can share your experience. Also do you use microsoft teams sms for the team work or some other software?
Edited by jerrymor (11/30/22 01:39 AM)
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