The Challenge

Starting an e-commerce business has been interesting, I would say the two most difficult things so far have been tax law and web design. I hired someone to help with the first, and I think I have the website part cornered – so I’m good there (for now). Then, it was obtaining the distributors. Two ready to go. For the third distributor my website had to undergo some series of tests. I’m not sure everything they did, but they informed me I passed yesterday – so they’ve forwarded my request to their next hurdle which is ensuring I’m a proper business entity. Everything is moving along about how I thought it would. Now my latest challenge…what to sell. Initially I was going to spread products between board, card, roleplaying, supplies, miniatures, and pop culture. Well, after looking through the available distributor products I just won’t have the space or initial capital to do decent inventory in all those categories with the current space in my home so I need to narrow that list down. I am definitely going to keep board, card, and necessary supplies. I’m thinking pop-culture will have to go for now, and I’m on the fence for the roleplaying category. I might start without it and add later, or limit the kinds of games to a few very popular versions. For miniatures I might just focus on my own line of products currently in development. However, even with just board and card games, narrowing down to a specific product line or set of products… and be able to compete with the Amazon’s of the world… that’s the challenge. I’ll have to really wrap my head around it and get a niche for my niche.