What do you want from a Model RR e-business?

No, you won’t get difinitive answers here or anywhere else for that matter. If it were that easy, everyone would be an e-tailer.

What I want…

…A large selection, competitive prices, professional shipment(Preferably USPS[:)]), a good search engine, a well-laid out and understandable website, and service with a smile. Er…smiley. Hehe.

Matt

Matt, thanks for responding, A large selection will not be possible at first, however I intend to roll any sales I make into more inventory. I will ship my orders through Canada Post, and it will be laid out with the Keep it simple format in mind. It will be a Yahoo store site, (reg. the web domain yesterday), and I am going to set it up so that if you are interested in a HO structure, there will also be a hyper link to the detail parts that you may want to go with it. And, from the responses I have had so far we have decided that we will list an inventory of how many are available in stock. If it is not in stock we will post that right up front. No back orders, unless you choose to wait. We will use paypal
secure payments and finally, Every order is shipped the next day!
any other ideas?

I gotta agree with fugate - “If you build it they will come” sure don’t cut it on the web. Gotta work your butt off in getting attention. My wife spends hours and hours in promoting her clients websites. It’s a lot of the reason she doesn’t make much with it…too many hours for not enough money.

Are you going to get mileage/mentions on the wide variety of model RR forum sites, for example? Perhaps offer a bit of a discount to modellers who post a link to your estore?

It’s the same as location, right? Gotta get noticed!

Tayder, I hope that the mom&pop style of business (customer appriciation) will be a big factor. How many times do we see complaints on this forum about customer service from some of the big guys.
Also (no offense to your wife) this will be my only site to promote and maintain, this also will be something I truly enjoy, so it will not be a chore.
Finally, I am intentionally limiting my market and product line to structures and details
to Canadians, who from what I see, are limited to LHS within a reasonable driving area.
Gas is 1.09 a liter here in Ontario, and that means it is easier to have Canada post deliver. Hey, I guess I have more time and money than brains, but I am going to give this a sincere try. I welcome any input from people as to know what materials and products would be needed for buildings, structures etc…
Thanks
David