I have an online shop but started on eBay, expanded to Amazon then set up my own website in parallel with trademarking my brand. My husband was equally as suportive (I'm still an at home mum but out earnt him this year - only my second full year of trading). It's not always an easy thing and can be quite lonely especially when you get an abusive customer, credit card disputed transaction, HMRC inspection, have to learn about ever changing tax rules VAT registration and now digital tax etc etc.
My husband has adjusted now and has taken on a bit more of the round the house stuff. Only so many hours in the day.
Not wanting to scaremonger I will also say HMRC have always been helpful when Ive needed to contact them or when they've contacted me.
Free social media advertising didnt take me that far (instagram, twitter, facebook page) and was/ is a surprising amount of work to maintain.
My website is with shopify and they have some statistic about on average it takes new startups something like 3000 dynamic site hits for your first 10 purchases. If pay per click advertising is maybe 25 - 50p/ click if you focus on misspellings as lower cost clicks it's quite a chunk of money to start your turnover going. It doesnt stop when your turnover starts either.
Getting suppliers to take you seriously does take some effort. Some won't talk to you but keep your head up, goal insight and knock on the next door. Phone contact is probably better than email - treat it like an interview and write notes of the key things you want to say.
There's a big event in Birmingham at the NEC about to happen called the Spring Fair - beginning of Feb. It is more of a home and gift show but if you can get to Birmingham it may be a really good place to get your business juices flowing. It could help you to define the look and feel of your brand, your market, packaging sourcing etc.
I started with a budget of £2000. I didn't take anything out the first tax year - started Oct so October to April 17, April 18 I did take something out and my next sum out was to buy a car in December. I will take more out in April depending on how much I reinvest.
I quickly found I needed to upgrade my camera (£500 second hand with a special lens for micro photography), then buy a decent lighting set up (£50), then a reliable printer, label printer for royal mail postage collection, laptop as the family wanted access to the home PC I was hogging. All this was from first year what would have been profits but was essential in my expansion.
I have several hundred products so professional photography would add up but for a smaller range it may be an option. I'm also considering dabbling with getting copy written for me as I find getting my message across concisely challenging.
I don't regret doing this and my intial investment was relatively small and not a loan so we could have stomached it if things hadn't worked out. It has worked out in a very different way to how I ever imagined it could.
EBay was a great learning platform for selling and very low overhead in comparison with going it alone. I'd heartedly recomend selling a few bits using eBay or a similar online platform to get a feel for online retail its trials and its benefits. EBay is still the bulk of my business. The community boards are full of peoples winges and failures with the odd real gem of information worth trying.