Hi everyone, I am really new to this whole process of starting a business. I am looking for some help writing a business plan and getting my ideas down on paper to start a online and eventually a store front selling gently used and new kids clothing, bedding, ect. For a couple years I have baught clothes for deep discounts and sold them. I have been doing pretty well but am ready to take it a bit further. I would like to start with an online store to begin with and then eventually when funds are available turn into a store front. I have the ambition and the drive to do well and I think my ideas are great but am just not sure about how to put it all down on paper so it sounds professional and that those that read my business plan take me seriously when I say I will succeed at this! We live in between to big Cities in Minnesota and just feel that a store of this nature would do really well...Also, I am not exactly sure if there are vendors or wholesalers that I could buy from? If anyone would be so kind to help me or has any ideas about where to start I would appreciate it. I am a married mother with 3 kids and 1 on the way and I have great ideas just not sure about where to start or how to start.


Thank you
jmaaafeit

I would contact your local chapter of SCORE for help with this.

Hi Jmaaafeit-

It's great that you're trying to turn your hobby into a real business. I agree with the previous poster - you should visit a SCORE center. Their services are free. You can find more information about their services, and a local office, here: http://www.score.org.

Regarding starting an online store - there's not much you need - just a website. Take a look at my signature for a suggested service you can use. pageBuzz.com is a do it yourself system that is pretty easy to use so I don't think you would have a hard time building your website. You can learn more about starting an online store here:
http://pagebuzz.com/startonlinestore.html
http://pagebuzz.com/howto_startwebsite.html

Regarding vendors and wholesalers. I believe you said that you are selling gently used items - correct? For those, you could do an online consignment store so that people could mail items to you. Although, I'm sure that you can find plenty of great things in your area by going to garage sales. For new items, it really depends on what you want to sell. There are many designers that make their own products here in the US - they call this market DIY and/or Indy. You could contact many of them ask if you could sell their products. You could also order from wholesalers, but they may want you to order more than you can handle right off. To find distributors, you can do a search for the following terms: wholesale clothing distributors.

Best of luck! :)

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Hi Jmaaafeit;

More and more hobbies are turning into business now a days,
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Regards,

Cathy

As hostingdiva said, setting up an online store is really not that complicated. I have worked with a really great ecommerce solution called Avactis for the past couple years integrating it into my client's websites. You can check their website out at : http://www.avactis.com/ . If you have any questions about websites or online stores, feel free to give me a holler! I'd love to help you out however I can.

Greetings,

Sounds like you know your clothes so I would offer this suggestion.

A daughter in law that also knows clothes started on eBay with a small store and made out very well. Then she kept that store moving and used the extra funds to venture into a brick and mortar store.

It will work since you know what clothes are about.

As one wo has built and sold 4 businesses myself in 4 different states. I too strongly advise that you go to "Score" they are a great group of retired business exec..

Sincerely,
Pastor Brady

Enjoy a relaxing day with your Family
fishing at: www.fishingatcountrycovevillage.com

Hello,

Its nice that you are planning to have your own small business. I would like to share with you a few websites that will help you out in making your business plan:

bplans.com
startup.partnerup.com
entrepreneur.com
SCORE
SBA

Check out these sites and you will learn a lot from there.


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Vilmarie Budde
On your business plan you need a mission statement as at the end you need a vision statement.

Make flyers telling people that if they have decent loking clothing to please call you and you could sell it as used and see how you can find out when a clothing wholesaler is going out of business buy from them at discounted prices. as well as walmart tend to throw things out and ripe them call their corporate office and inform them of your knowledge of what they do with clothing in somewhat decent condition and asked them if they would be willing to sell it to you at less price