This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
I'd like to wish you today a happy last day of the first month of the year. I realize we have lots of binge listeners and people who listen to the episodes out of order, which is totally fine. It's meant to be a program where everything is valuable, even if you're listening later. But of course we have a lot of people listening in real time as well. So happy end of January.
I hope this first month has been productive for you. I hope you have set some goals and made a little bit of progress or let's say a lot of progress. Might as well be optimistic towards something that's important to you. It is my goal and my every intention to keep bringing you different resources, stories, tips, ideas every single day throughout the rest of the year in pursuit of that objective. And by the way, if we haven't met before, my name is Chris Guillebeau.
This is Side Hustle School, a daily podcast. Now in many of the stories we feature, the side hustler in question is making something for sale. Got all kinds of people that are making something and then trying to find a way to reach people with it, offering a product, offering a service, et cetera. Well, today's caller is thinking about a different approach. She wants to create a travel themed multi-vendor online store.
In other words, she wants to be the curator of these objects for sale and she's wondering where the vendors will come from. So what's the best way to find those vendors and what are the pros and cons of this idea? That's what we'll explore in today's episode. [Music]
Hi Chris, this is Jacqueline from New Jersey. Love the show.
Thank you so much for getting me inspired and motivated to get my side hustle finally started. I'm working on opening an online store, a multi-vendor marketplace through Shopify and I'm focusing on a travel product niche. Thinking passport holders, engraved wine glasses with maps of Paris, travel themed jewelry, et cetera. And as a travel lover myself, I've spent hours searching through Etsy, Amazon, other sites. So I think there's an awesome opportunity to kind of bring it all together into one place.
My question is, when starting a store like this and putting my vendor list together, do you think it's best to start with vendors like Etsy, smaller vendors or reach out to larger, more established vendors? I love the idea of not carrying inventory but I really wanna be able to curate my product and get the right vendor list from the get go. So I'd love any advice. Please let me know your thoughts and any other thoughts you have on multi-vendor websites. Thanks so much, bye.
- Thank you so much, Jacqueline. I'm so excited to know you are working on your hustle. All right, now I do have some thoughts. You had a direct question about vendors, which I will address, but you asked if I had any other thoughts as well. So let's do that part about the other thoughts first.
Okay, so what do I think about this general idea? I think it could be a good idea if your goal is to build a brand and you have a plan for how to do that. If you really wanna create this brand where buyers associate your shop with these travel products, with this theme of nostalgia, memories, et cetera. And I think as part of that, you have to answer a really important question. Where will the buyers come from?
I actually think that is a much bigger concern than the vendors, especially if you're not carrying inventory, which of course I understand why you wouldn't wanna do that. But it's also reasonable to ask then, what is the value of this online shop? If it sells other people's products and the other people ship them out, why wouldn't buyers just go to Etsy or similar sites, which as you mentioned already has a lot of this stuff. They have a clear process for how the sales and shipping and all that kind of stuff works. Now, all is not lost here, just to be clear, but I do think you need a good answer to that question about where the buyers are gonna come from.
It's always good to ask, what's in it for me from the perspective of a buyer? And part of the answer, which I'm sure Jacqueline has already thought about, but just to kind of underline it, part of the answer could be that travel theme, all right? So yes, Etsy has a million different things, probably millions at this point, but here is a curated small set of specific items that I know are gonna be high quality and heartwarming and whatever the adjectives are, whatever you're trying to accomplish, I think that's part of the answer. Now, I often talk about the importance of story. So storytelling is gonna be really important here.
A good name will also be really important. I don't know if Jacqueline already has one in mind, but I think the right name is gonna go a long way here. [Music]
Okay, so now in terms of logistics, I would suggest starting with just a few products and then adding more slowly over time. Again, it's more important to build up momentum and trust in your overall brand. And then last, as to where those vendors come from, which is where we started, I don't know that's as important as what the products are and that broader question of branding/marketing.
Ultimately, I think you want people to associate your brand with the products, even if they are unique, special, handcrafted, made by artisans, et cetera. So since that's the goal, or let's assume that's the goal, I would just ask what's easiest for you? Because it's always good if you can make any part of the whole process simple that you can, especially when you know there's going to be a lot of work elsewhere. You can just kind of take that off your plate or simplify, as I said. And here, I think the bigger challenge is bringing in buyers.
Of course, I would love to know what happens, so definitely send us an update. And listeners, if you have a question, just come to sidehustleschool.com/questions. We're going to be featuring them throughout the year, along with updates from listeners as they launch their projects. This has been episode 1126. Coming up tomorrow, we have a new month and a new story.
Thanks so much for listening. This is Chris Guillebeau for Side Hustle School. [Music]
