Setting up an online retail business - advice needed please!

[FlumptyDumpty]

I'm hoping to start an online shop, selling toys for babies and young children. The plan is to sell a curated selection of high quality, beautiful and quirky items, rather than a vast selection of commonly found items, iyswim. I expect item prices to range from around £8 upwards, with most items costing in the £12-25 range.

I'm really excited about it, but have never run an online business before, and my only experience in retail is as a Saturday assistant 20 years ago! Though I do have a lot of experience of buying....

I'd be really grateful if anybody with experience of running an online shop could help me out with the practicalities, especially the pitfalls.

One question I have is with regard to finance. Is it possible to get a business loan for this sort of thing? Do manufacturers/wholesalers do sale or return?

How long should I expect to run at a loss before making a profit, assuming I have a good selection of items at good prices and I market the business via SEO, Adwords, Twitter, Facebook etc?

All advice v welcome!

Hello, FlumptyDumpty! I’m looking for advices on how to start an online business too. Not one week ago, my sister and I decided to start an online business, our products will mainly be hand painted stuff—shirts, bags, shoes, and everything we could paint. So our mom’s first advice is to fix all the necessary documents, and then, to advertise it thoroughly. We followed her advice, of course, but then my friend said that I should check www.mybusinessmanager.com/business-advice.html out. Apparently, starting a business, is not as easy as it seems. Anyway, I haven’t fully understand what it really meant as I’m only 16. But if you check it out, maybe give me an idea of what it is about, please? Thank you!

Hi,
I read somewhere that toys and gifts are the hardest markets to rank in google. So much established competition. Without hope of getting on page one for several keywords , you will struggle to get enough unpaid traffic to make a business.
If you are keen on selling toys , any chance you could do a stall instead?