It started with a dream – the dream of owning my very own blogshop or online store. I thought it about it constantly and even asked friends if they wanted to join me in my venture. Of course they were interested, but sadly, it never did work out. Sure we talked loads about it, dreamed and aspired but we didn’t get our lazy butts off to scout for products and such because it was such a difficult and to be honest – a really ‘mafan’ process. Plus I kept putting it off saying that I don’t have the time, when actually I did.

But a dream can never come alive if you don’t do anything about it. 

That was what I realized this year. Plus I’m not getting any younger, so why not give it a go? Here, I would like to give credit to my cousin for getting me inspired to think about it and actually DO IT.

However, before I started on my journey, I started to write down a list of the biggest issues that I faced with opening a blogshop (in my case) and proceeded to solve each step albeit with many additional add-ons and comments. They are not in order btw:

What should I sell? 

I know that selling clothes can be pretty profitable. But I decided to start off small – with accessories instead. Moreover, there are like a zillion or fifty thousand blogshops in Singapore already selling clothes! Like, there are so many new stores are popping out just everyday! At least with regards to accessories, the competition is less stiff even though the profit margin is lower.

Suppliers

This is naturally a no-brainer. So I spent weeks scouting for places where I was able to do so. And I finally did – not revealing who, and where. Suffice to say that I get my products from many different overseas suppliers. Please don’t ask(:

I need a place to store my products

My house is extremely space constrained even though it is a 4 room private apartment. Well, you know the sizes of private apartments – bloody small. Hell, a HDB is wayyy bigger. Added to the fact that my mom’s a total clean freak and she doesn’t like things to be cluttered and such. Clothes take up a huge space so I thought, why not start small? Like accessories instead? I have a luggage bag that I recently bought for my Vegas trip in May 2012 which is being kept in the storage room, so why not just stuff everything inside? Yeah, that’s me being ‘super creative’.

Oh and FYI, no I didn’t do that. Am now using my bf’s room as a storage room for my accessories instead! Hehe, now his room is even more girlier!

What should I name my shop? (And all the other nitty-gritty)

So I named it – GlamPuss. Why? Well, let’s just say that’s another story. I’ll probably post it up sooner or later(:

Where should I host my site?

Most blogshops nowadays host their bs on free platforms such as livejournal, wordpress, blogger and weebly. But I didn’t want to be so conventional, I wanted it to be a little different. Plus my CSS/HTML coding is like..non-existent and I was on a budget so Shopify/BigCommerce/Volusion is out. After browsing around, I started off with Storenvy. Spent quite abit of time doing up my shop till I liked the way it looked:

Unfortunately, it didn’t work out so well as the Paypal thing was a little complicated. So I decided to make the move to Wix.com. It’s simple and easy to use and I liked the fact that I was able to customize the way I deemed fit. This is the end result as you see now:

I’m immensely proud with my efforts and I don’t regret the amount of time I spent beautifying it. The only biggest issue I have with Wix though will be the loading time for my page and all my items. I truly hope that when people view my site, they don’t leave because of the waiting time. If ever that becomes a problem in the future, I am considering to invest and move to Shopify for a better customer experience. As of now, I’ve decided to leave it as it is.

Establish Goals

1) Get 100 fans on Facebook

– I’m reaching this goal. Thank you so much for all the support given by my friends. I really appreciate it!

2) Future goal: To get 500/1000 fans on Facebook

– Would you like to help?(: Show your support by liking here:

2) To earn enough to cover costs for a Shopify website for an overall improved experience.

– That’s because Wix only allows me to have a maximum of 100 products, so if ever I have more – that could be a problem

3) To expand into apparel and of course, to be successful

– This is everyone’s goal and dream, not just mine. And I know I can do it – so I’m gonna keep trying!

How can I differentiate GlamPuss from the rest? 

Accessories may be less competition compared to apparel but really, this is naturally an issue. I thought about it long and hard and finally it dawned on me. Why not sell handcrafted items as well? Of course there are many bs doing that too, but hey, this narrows down the competition even further! Lol, but the issue is that I’m not really the handicraft kinda person. When I told several of my friends that I was gonna do that – they laughed! Oh come on! I can do it! Actually I was also inspired by a friend of mine – Rachel. I love all her little creative DIYs that she does, including the earrings that she gave me for my birthday present and it got me wondering – how do I do that?

So with 0 experience or whatsoever, I decided to embark on my handicraft journey. I read, watched, breathed, followed tutorials which I thought were within my capabilities. And to my surprise, I realized that I have developed an interest in making them! I finally understood what it’s like making handcrafted stuff and it IS interesting and fun to do so. Wanna see a few stuff that I’ve made so far? Hehe, well wait! I’ll slowly post them up!(:

Oh and also, I’ve invited Rachel to collaborate with me to sell her products under her own label – Love For Fabric.

And onto the last and most important point:

Customers

You can do everything perfectly, set up a store, market it, etcetc. But what really matters are the customers The equation is simple:

No customers = No profit = 0 Success

In terms of this area, I’m still working on it. I’ll try my very best and hope that this venture succeeds.

So come and follow me on my journey!(:

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Thank you for reading this rather long and draggy post! There’s so much more that I haven’t covered, but to be frank, I’m really lazy right now.

Till later

♥ mitsueki