Joe Chammas

Documenting a start-up venture.

[josephmchammas]

Progress of Start-Up Venture – Week 13

I’m happy to report that I finally made another sale today after a bit of a drought. I spent the last couple of weeks on this project renewing my older listings, posting some new ones, and following up with a few leads of some folks who were interested in buying some books early on. That seems to have gotten me a little bit of traction back with one sale of an individual novel and another potential buyer of a children’s book bundle. In fact, if I’m able to secure that last sale in the next week or so, I would be meeting my projected revenue target as per my calculations from the budget assignment earlier in the course. Offering the books in different formats/quantities and noting on the bundles listing that they could be purchased individually may have been responsible for getting me that new sale.

It’s been a slow and steady process and I can only imagine that filling out those listings a little bit more and varying them up earlier on would have garnered me more sales by now. It’s certainly been challenging to balance the workload toward the end of my first stint as a college student in almost a decade, while still making sure I put some time into trying to grow my business.

All things considered; things are going alright. I would have liked to have made more sales, but the new sale and new leads this week certainly reinvigorated me and made me feel a little bit more confident about the progress of this venture.

I’m not entirely sure if it’s the proximity to Christmas and the holidays that’s been driving up traffic to my listings, but I am learning first hand that every business has ebbs and flows and you have to do your best to adjust to the tides.

I feel as if my patience paid off, as I opted not to pivot in another direction two or three weeks ago. I do still feel like I could have stood to be a bit more tenacious when it came to marketing and getting the word out about my books, but I think that overall I’ve been adapting relatively well to my circumstances.

[josephmchammas]

Progress of Start-Up Venture – Week 12

Posting newer listings selling fewer and specific items (as well as renewing some of the older ones) is at the very least generating more views on my ads. The problem is that it’s still not driving nearly as much actual engagement and sales as I had hoped for. Originally, I was planning to try to pivot my focus to selling baked goods if things were still not going well about two-thirds into the project, but I decided to stay on course with book sales.

At this point I sound like a broken record pointing out both the extenuating factors that may be affecting my business as well as my own struggles with properly marketing products and being prepared for this situation. Brampton is back on lockdown and the weather has been cold and gloomy. These factors are keeping people from wanting to venture out to big box stores, let alone buying from a stranger. But again, I have to saddle myself with the blame of not coming up with a smarter marketing strategy going into this and being pre-emptively aware of the limitations of my selling platforms. At the very least that might have bought me some more time early on to list several more books individually rather than blitzing through as many of them as I can toward the end of the 14-week period. Better yet, some foresight might have coaxed me to spend a little extra money on crafting an online solution and being able to ship products by mail, which customers may be less averse to at the moment.

I wish things were going better. I did believe that setting my sales goals lower than expected would get them within view, and while I’m not too far off, that’s mostly because of overestimating expenses. I would have liked to have made more sales by now.

More and more, I’m learning about the difficulties of running a business, particularly a small business. I don’t fault people for being cautious about going out to stores in light of everything going on, but I’m empathizing now more deeply than ever with small business owners who have been hit so hard by the effects of COVID-19. Another thing I discovered that I might have mentioned before that bears repeating is how vastly important preparation is in small business. Although now this has taught me that you can’t prepare for everything and adaptability is also key. Although my success has been limited in the later weeks of this project, I do feel like that adaptability is a skill I’ve been able to practice and develop a lot more.

[josephmchammas]

Progress of Start-Up Venture – Week 11

This week, traffic is up on the older listings that I’ve renewed and there have been a few views on some of the newer bundled listings. My message is reaching more people which is good, but there still hasn’t been much in the way of sales leads.

I’m having difficulty pinpointing what the exact issue is. I know from my survey early on that some people are hesitant to purchase used goods in light of the pandemic and things haven’t gotten much better since then, especially in my neighbourhood.  That being said, similar businesses and person-to-person selling operations are still finding ways to turn a profit. Putting some time into creating an actual eCommerce site from the beginning of this project might have netted better results, having a centralized location where the books can be purchased. My issue is that the amount of money invested in something like that to sell an ultimately finite resource may not be worth the return.

There are only a few weeks left and while I was pleased with the initial results, I’m a little disappointed in how they’ve been tapering off. That said, I’m still not quite ready to give up. I’m going to try another blast on my personal social media accounts to get the word out, and try out a few more different types of listings. Perhaps choosing a few of the more popular books and a few of the more niche ones and listing them one at a time (like most other products on those platforms) could garner better results.

I may have mentioned this before, but I’ve certainly learned the importance of planning and that you can never plan too much. I’m confident in my ability to be detail-oriented, but I feel like any business, big or small, needs to be approached with a very forward-thinking mindset. We are taught in the context of business (or any moderately risky venture) to “imagine every possible scenario.” I thought that was an aspect I had under control, but I learned that I could stand to dig deeper when researching what could go right and what could go wrong.

[josephmchammas]

Progress of Start-Up Venture – Week 10

It seems like the new listings with bundles and selling fewer books at a time is starting to gain a bit more traction. I’m seeing a more significant view count than the initial listing that had all of the books in one sheet. Although the traffic on the ads is up, there still haven’t been many bites for sales, so I think I’m going to have to start to get a bit more specific with what I have and focus on the more popular books and series in my catalog (Disney-themed books, Marvel and DC comics, Goosebumps and Animorphs, etc.)

I’m still a bit nervous about how slowly things are progressing but as I’ve already stated, I think it’s pertinent to keep trying different strategies and find something that sticks. I’m going to keep pursuing different angles of marketing and getting the word out there about the books. It also won’t hurt to re-up on some of those initial social media posts and renew some of the first ads that were pushed through Marketplace and NextDoor.

I’m learning that marketing is of the utmost importance in a somewhat saturated market. I do think that you can accomplish a lot solely on the uniqueness of a product, but selling books when there are dozens of other stores and other people selling books is not going to work unless you differentiate somehow. Once again, I feel that I making those first few sales organically before I even had the listing up actually caused me to underestimate just how difficult it would be to maintain that pace of selling as time went on.

Despite this, I’m actually starting to feel like I would be good in an entrepreneurial role, but perhaps not as the sole figure behind a business. I feel like my marketing skills leave a lot to be desired, but in terms of budgeting, finance, maintaining a product list, etc. I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished so far. If I can get half as good at marketing as I am the clerical stuff, there may be a chance to make a few more sales in the final few weeks of this project.

[josephmchammas]

Progress of Start-Up Venture – Week 9

Spreading the word to friends and family about my little used book business has garnered a little bit more traction. I’ve managed to close another couple of sales and may have one or two more potential buyers. That said, the traditional digital channels I was using before are still not generating much of a buzz and I’ve begun to take some new photos of various groups of the books to try selling them by the bundle with new listings.

As I began to discover last week, the potential online merchandising solutions that are low-cost or free seem to have a lot of limitations and are likely not worth the money and effort put into them as there’s a pretty slim guarantee that they will drum up any new business.

I still feel a little weary as the project trucks along, not entirely sure if I’ll meet my projected profits, but there are still a few things I’m hoping to try. While falling back on the baked goods idea might be a viable option, it would still require a pretty drastic restructuring of the business, having to take into account a new budget for ingredients, supplies, etc. I may put out a couple of “test listings” to see if the interest is any higher for tarts and pies than it is for books. I feel that between my difficulty properly marketing the business, and people’s reservations about buying used goods during a pandemic, it’s difficult to gain traction.

As I stated before, I’m finding that running a business has many challenges, and I feel like that would still be the case even in the best conditions.

I really have to pump myself up to put in the time and care to properly market the business and create the new listings to get things going. While I’m confident that my stock of books has a number of great titles that would interest people, a lot of my reason for going with this particular venture was the fact that I was already stocked with the product. I can understand people’s reservations about purchasing used books, especially now. But if I don’t believe in my own product, no one else will either!

With all of that being said, there are still some options I can explore in the coming weeks to try to kickstart the business.

[josephmchammas]

Progress of Start-Up Venture – Week 8

Not a whole lot new to report between this week and last week. Sales have waned from the beginning of the project and now I’m beginning to implement some of the measures I spoke about last week that could help to breathe some life into the business. I’ve taken a look at a free Google Merchant page which would see my products listed within Google’s shopping tab, although I would need an image of each individual book. Taking photos of over 100 books might not be the best time investment simply to get the books listed on one other platform. I plan to keep looking into other free or low-cost platforms that could utilize the data I’ve already collected on each of the books. 

The other thing I have started to do is turn to social media a bit more and spread the book catalog list around via word-of-mouth and that seems to have generated a little bit more traction, potentially getting a few people interested in buying at the very least. I’ve also tweaked a few of my existing listings, specifically on the Brampton NextDoor neighbourhood forum, to let people know where I am in the neighbourhood, my willingness to deliver, etc. I’m hoping that if I keep pushing on these channels and searching out a few new ones, I’ll start to pick up a bit more traction over the next week or so. Failing that, it will be time to start putting in the extra work of bundling the books and taking new photos to create multiple listings, rather than just one big listing linking to the entire book catalog.

I feel like it’s still slow-going at this point, but it’s certainly giving me the opportunity to think of my feet. That’s a valuable skill to practice and learn, not just in a sales context. For as much research as I did around customer base, I feel like I could have done a bit more to discover what might have worked better logistically for selling this amount of books. There’s no such thing as over-researching in this case, which is a lesson I plan to take with me going forward into other ventures.

[josephmchammas]

Progress of Start-Up Venture – Week 7

The first few weeks of my start-up venture selling used books have been interesting. One of the very first things that I did was find some forums online where residents of my city and the local area would be congregating and chatting. Before I even had my catalog of books ready and posted online, I made two sales: one on Reddit through the Brampton “subreddit” and one on Brampton’s “NextDoor” neighbourhood group. This is when I was just canvassing and asking about potential interest in used books or whether people were purchasing used goods in general in light of the pandemic. It became clear that targeting those more local forums was the best way to go about things.

Interestingly enough, it’s been sort of slow going since then. I finished cataloging all of my books (about 120 of them) and posted them on the major selling sites I had intended to, NextDoor, kijiji, Facebook Marketplace, etc. I cross-posted the Facebook listing to some local Brampton Buying/Selling groups as well, but haven’t gotten much response. What I failed to realize was the limitations of sites like these for selling multiple items. The listings are built around selling one item at a time, so in the case of selling multiple items, one base price has to be listed. I recall Craigslist working a little differently so I may have to look into listing the books there and refreshing some of my other listings. I’ll likely need to look into other inexpensive ways to sell them online that allows me to better take advantage of my catalogued product list.

I feel like things are moving a bit more slowly than I anticipated. I expected at least a few more bites once I got my full list of books up on all the major selling sites I was targeting. I’ll need to step up my game and maybe look for other online communities for Brampton and the surrounding areas (Caledon, Georgetown) where I can get the word out about my books.

With as simple an idea as this, there are still so many facets to properly running a business that go into it. The last thing you should do with a simple idea is underestimate the difficulty of selling, which I feel like I might have done a little bit.

I’ve always felt incredibly distant from the world of sales and marketing. I took an advertising program at Sheridan years ago when I was starting my post-secondary education and I absolutely hated it. I dropped out after a year to pursue something else. Even the retail jobs I’ve had over the years (some of them commission-based) selling power tools or cell phones were always so difficult and disappointing to me. On the other hand though, I’ve been a musician for 15 years. Over the last few years in particular I’ve been releasing music, and doing open mics and sharing and re-sharing things on social media and entering songwriting challenges and working hard to get the word out about my music. It seems like I do have that tenacity required to be a good salesman, but only when it’s something I’m extremely passionate about. The trick will be trying to apply that same work ethic to my used book sales.

[josephmchammas]

Where will I get the Money?

Going forward with my business, if I did want to expand a little bit and start thinking about building out a proper ecommerce site to sell my books, I would require a small investment. Based on the very small size of my business, I would most likely use a combination of my own personal funding (personal investment) as well as a “love money” investment, borrowing from my parents. In the case of my used book sales business, my mother would technically be considered a subject matter expert on the product itself, with insight into the books being sold as well as what a parent might be looking for in a book for their child. My relationship with my parents has been such that we are always honest and open about finances and there is a level a trust that I can count on there that I will likely not get from a third-party lender right away.

Parents, family or friends that I am trusting as “love money” investors would be people who I have an established relationship with who know me well enough to be aware of my financial maturity and professionalism. Showing that I have put together a detailed, catalogued list of our products would be one way to show that I am developing a plan of action to sell. The fact that I have also done some “digital word-of-mouth” marketing through platforms like Nextdoor and Reddit” (and even made some preliminary sales that way already) are also factors that would help to instil confidence in the business.

The already established relationship or rapport I would have with “love money” investors makes the question of the personal guarantee even more personal. If there is enough established trust already, this could also work to my advantage when asking for an investment.

[josephmchammas]

Business Operations Plan

Materials Needed

To execute this business in its simplest form, I am lucky to already have everything that I need. The most important material needed is my product, a finite number of used books (about 120) that I am looking to sell for a small profit.

Product (used books)

Alcohol wipes (to clean up any dirty/marked covers)

A computer with internet access (and access to third party selling applications (Facebook Marketplace, LetGo, Kijiji, etc.)

A camera (To take/post photos of the collection and individual photos of the rarer books in the collection)

Spreadsheet software (to catalog the books and note down genre, condition, description, price, etc.)

Selling Space

I have decided to run my business from my home. What this means is that I am limited to a mostly local customer base. Based on the type of product that I have (mostly children’s books) and some preliminary research about the demographics of the local area (mostly young families and children ages 0-14) I am fortunate that there’s a pretty good customer base around me that may be interested in what I’m selling. Selling from home, I have the option to have customers pick up the product from me directly or deliver it locally to them. There are a lot of conveniences doing this from home. Rather than finding another building/location to set up shop, doing it this way helps me avoid using up a lot of time going through zoning regulations, location scouting, looking into taxes and infrastructure. I do face the limitation of having to sell locally and having to adapt to selling in the location I’m in, but with the small size of my business, selling from home makes the most sense.

Manufacturing, Logistics & Purchasing

With a finite number of products, and the draw of the product being that they are used, hence more cost-effective, there is no need to source newer books to sell. What I need to be concerned with in terms of potential purchases are:

More cleaning supplies for any books that are marked up (if necessary)

Buying sprays or alcohol wipes in large quantities from a wholesaler may not actually make sense when I will likely only need relatively few of them, as most of the books are in good condition. For this I would source from a local discount retailer and purchase only what I need

Investment in a proper eCommerce website

This is a little trickier. As it stands now, I have plenty of free resources at my disposal to help facilitate the sale of my product. This investment will be made only if necessary if, for some reason, I am not able to operate successfully with the free resources available to me

Delivery costs

I will be logging the kilometers travelled to make deliveries and then find my delivery costs by calculating my logged kilometers as a percentage of the cost of an average fill-up for my vehicle, based on average fuel prices for the duration of the business being open. I will have to be mindful of this and begin to recoup costs by charging more for delivery should this begin to negatively impact my profits.

Policies, processes, procedures for my business

Policies

No refunds – as with most used goods this is an understood rule (applies to second-hand stores, consignment shops, etc). Customer agrees that the quality of the product is sufficient before purchasing. Indications of quality or pictures of the product will be available online prior to purchase to ensure customer satisfaction.

Bundling – seller can make adjustments to the prices they have listed when customer purchases a bundle. Seller can use this opportunity to offer the products at a discounted bundle price to encourage the sale.

Processes and Procedures

Prior to purchase, each book will be cataloged in a spreadsheet and sorted by Title, Author, Description, Cover Type, Genre, Condition, Price and additional info such as accolades the book has (awards, best-sellers lists, etc.)

Quality of the books will be measured on a three-point scale:

Good – the book is clean, minimal wear on the spine, no water damage or scribbles

Fair – The book may be marked up with considerable spine wear but still appears clean and readable

Poor – ripped or torn pages/covers, excessive wear on spine, many scribbles and markings

Once books have been sold, they will be highlighted red on the spreadsheet and the seller will note down any applicable price adjustments that were made in order to keep track of sales.

Business Goals

Have all of my books properly cataloged in a spreadsheet by the end of week 6

Take photos of each of the rarer books that require them (roughly 20) by the end of week 6

Sell $100 worth of books by the end of the 14-week term

Clear out at least half of my stock (approx. 60 books) by the end of the 14-week term

Licenses and Permits

Reading through the list government resources, it’s possible I’d have to take into account the e-business regulations around providing secure debit and credit transactions online. The way that many small online sellers using existing platforms get around this is to either exchange goods and money in person or to use online banking e-transfer services. Typically, online banking e-transfers are common enough and are secured by the respective financial institutions. The matter of small fees associated with these however need to be considered in these instances. For the most part, I will be conducting my business in person with cash via delivery or pickup.

[josephmchammas]

Creative Advertising Exercise - The Sock Buddy

[josephmchammas]

Ideal Customer Persona

[josephmchammas]

Local Competition

With used book sales, analyzing local competition is a little bit tricky. Businesses offering the same or similar products or services vary quite a bit. Seemingly the three top competitors for me would be:

- An independent seller with a limited stock of used books (very similar to what I’m doing) - A somewhat established independent book store with a modest supply of new and used books and a few other novelties - A chain big-box store with multiple locations, nation-wide shipping and several other types of products (home decor, toys + games, fashion, etc.)

shopbooksonline/Books Galore The smallest operation I’m competing with, shopbooksonline has a very small online presence. Their website is minimal and simple but not as user-friendly as a simple website ought to be. The business is listed on Google as “shopbooksonline” and that is in the URL but he heading on the website is “Books Galore” so the branding is a little confusing. Although they offer delivery, it seems to be to a very limited local area (for instance, my home is a 15 minute drive from the business location but was deemed too far outside the delivery area.) 

It seems to be a home-operated business meaning they can breed a more personal relationship with their customers. There seems to be a focus on the quality of the books, with a particular callout that although the books are used they are in excellent condition (no worn spines, scribbles, folds, etc.) The books seem, for the most part, priced very competitively with other independent book stores/big-box stores.

The business seemingly has no social media presence and there are no reviews available for them aside from one uncredited testimonial on their website. Again, the small size of the business allows for a personal connection/direct contact with business owner, with phone and email of the business owner listed on the website. 

The Book Wardrobe For a smaller independent book shop, the website is quite impressive. There’s a good searching/filtering functionality, a nice home page with well-curated book lists, a page detailing availability of upcoming book orders, etc. There are however pages of the site that are just incomplete (”About Us” page has headings but none of the actual blurbs or photos that are mentioned.) Although the search functionality is impressive, the database seems to include a lot of results that are missing associated images and are not in stock or available for order from the store. 

They have positioned themselves as a cozy, quaint shop with an emphasis on their local community appeal and imploring their customer to support small/independent businesses. There are very few independent book stores in my city and the surrounding area so they are certainly filling that niche. They have overwhelmingly positive reviews on Google and Facebook, sitting in the 4.7-5 range, though there are under 25 reviews in total.The staff does engage with its customers through reviews and on social media adding to the “community” feel of the business.

In terms of pricing, they are comparable to their big-box counterparts. They are upfront about shipping times which vary between 2 and 10 business days depending on the availability of the books. Their shipping costs are a bit higher than other larger book retailers which typically offer free shipping depending on the size of an order. 

They are quite active on social media and have a decent following. They seem to be engaging with customers and asking questions and most of their posts focus on upcoming products, marketing, promotions, etc. 

Chapters

The website is fully mobile optimized and they have an accompanying app available. It’s a colourful, feature-heavy site (wishlist, rewards program, etc.) Although it’s an impressive website it is quite buy with a lot of links, text, etc. It is positioned primarily as a book store but books are seemingly no longer the main focus with fashion, home decor and toys/games having equal standing on the website/promotional material.

They have taken the time to have particular social media accounts for each location and my nearest location/competitor is quite active on social media (Facebook, twitter, Instagram). Even as a big box store, they have quite impressively made it a point to promote local authors and show solidarity with the Brampton community. They also seem to post community, charity and event relates posts almost as frequently as marketing, sale promotions, etc. The particular location has positive reviews on Google and Facebook (4.6 on both). The only pitfall here is that as it’s a large chain of stores, one negative experience at a particular store reflects poorly on the brand as an entirety.

They are well-stocked and able to order in what they don’t have with relative speed. They are priced accordingly with new vs. old books and their shipping costs are comparable to other big-box stores. They offer free shipping on purchases over $35 which is a definitely value add for customers doing online orders.

[josephmchammas]

A “Message Map” for Nintendo Co., Ltd.

[josephmchammas]

Strengths and Weaknesses

Financial Planning Over the years, I’ve done well to save the money I’ve earned. Seeing my older brother and his friends get bogged down by student debt spurred me to be more conscientious about my spending as I went through high school. All throughout high school I worked summers at a warehouse in assembly and packaging, putting most of the money I earned into a savings account. By the time I was ready for college, I had put away enough money to comfortably pay off my tuition with minimal assistance. As I progressed and explored new opportunities in college, I found another part-time job and kept saving to avoid having to take out any loans. I’ve always had the mentality that financial security begins with a future-minded outlook. Always having that cushion of savings to fall back on and living within your means is important. As I grew older, I sought out basic investments, mutual funds, RRSPs, etc. knowing what kind of expenses I would potentially face some day (marriage, home ownership, children). My skills centre around budgeting and saving for personal financial growth, but where I’d like to become more well-versed is short-term planning in a business scenario and knowing where to allocate funding to ensure success.

Sales/Negotiation I feel like I’m an effective communicator in general but I feel I have a lot to learn when it comes to sales. As a young musician hoping to sell CDs in 2008, I did well to create my product with as little overhead as possible (finding inexpensive print shops, enlisting help from close friends, buying slim jewel cases in bulk from wholesalers and burning/imaging each CD myself at home to keep costs down). At my CD release show, I did very well, moving 70 out of 100 CDs at $5 each. This resulted in a great profit that more than justified my initial spend. As time went on and I booked more gigs, I was barely moving any CDs because there were nowhere near as many people at those gigs. I was missing an important part of the process that the other artists on the bill at that first show had taken care of for me: “selling” myself and the show. I could be as friendly and personable and helpful at the merch table selling CDs as ever, but none of it mattered if no one was there to buy. I hope to learn some new tools and tricks to sell “experiences” by using promotion, advertising, etc. and get people interested in the product, whatever it may be.

People management I get along very well with most people and haven’t had any real issues working toward a common goal with a group, but overall, I do feel like more of a follower than a leader in these scenarios. I’ve had instances in my career where I’ve had to delegate work and responsibility to a small team of people but these were co-workers that I had already established a great relationship and rapport with. I would love to learn more about how to navigate these kinds of scenarios in a business setting. I feel I have the communication skills to lead, but I would like to work on establishing a presence as a subject matter expert.

[josephmchammas]

Hello world!

Hey folks, I’m Joe and this is my new tumblr blog. This blog was created for the purpose of documenting my “start-up venture” project for the Entrepreneurship course I’m taking. I’m actually taking this course as an equivalency to knock some required credits off the program I hope to begin in January, “Information Technology Infrastructure and Services.”

I recently made the big decision to quit my job as a VOD Business Analyst and head back to school to study something I’m much more passionate about: computers and technology!

It’s been almost a decade since I finished college so, this should be an interesting journey!