I have an idea for a SAAS business. But so does everyone. Its about execution that counts.
But which do you do first? Do you write code or market it first? Do you built it or sell it first?
Theses are very really questions.
My response is market it and validate the need for it first.
So here's my idea 💡
If you want to start out and build an online store where do you go? Etsy? Shopify?
Great but here the problem. I'm not sure about you but do you pay fees for just about everything on Etsy? You pay a fee to have a store, you pay a fee to selling a new product. Fees fees fees.
And shopify is great but at £29 a month... when you start out and have 2 orders every few months. That's a big hit to the budget when you don't sell. And at that cost you still have to design and build your site before going public....
So what's the solution?
Sell products and only pay 1 fee when you sell something.
Upload product details and the site will do the rest.
Customise a store front like a YouTube channel and be featured on the home page.
What do you think?
Here's the marketing, before the building.
Do you think this is the right way around? Do you think this will work?
Leave a comment or follow to keep up on the progress of this idea.
Thank you for reading 📚
To help me to fund this please could you buy me a coffee?
Top comments (2)
Neat idea. However, there are sites where you can currently do these things, even if they are not as well known. I occasionally sell random things on webstore.com. I am not affiliated with them other than being a user, and this is not intended to be a recommendation. There are things I like and things I don't. I deliberately didn't link to avoid misinterpretation as an endorsement. It is mainly to point out your existing competition.
They have 0 fees, so 1 less fee than you are proposing, unless the seller accepts payment from paypal, at which they'll pay paypal a fee but not webstore.
They market themselves as an auction site, but they also have storefronts. Sellers can post an item either in their storefront, or as an auction, or both. So they have your storefront feature.
How do they make money if they don't charge fees? Their site has ads and I'm assuming most of their revenue is ad based. They also have optional donation levels that earn sellers perks, such as featuring auctions or storefront, and possibly time without ads.
If you can avoid ads, while keeping your per item fee low, then that might compete well against a free site with ads. Personally if there are any fees I'd stick to the free alternative. But I'm sure that if your fees are low enough for an ad-free experience that your idea could work.
Good luck working out details.
Thank you so much for commenting. This is super helpful and indepth. 🚀