JUST SHOPS

THE PLAN

Seeking £10,000  investment.

Executive Summary - Intro video

This is the 'important page'. Please do watch this intro vid to the Executive Summary. You get my thoughts, candid and unexpurgated. And only done once - no script, no rehearsal, as it should be. As are all the videos on here. Just me, just talking about Just Shops. 

I think the videos add value and you can always dip into the section for more, or not...

This one comes to an abrupt end because I split the video into two - so we can have a video for each section. 

Executive Summary

I was advised to complete this section after the business plan was fully in place. I totally understand why now. 

A word of warning: This has become a lengthy document, however it gives all the required information, and I've tried to make it readable.

A lot of key decisions and some astounding discoveries have been made whilst drawing up the plan:

• 
  The incorporation of Just Shops Ltd came about due to learning about a company's rights to its online presence and how domain names can become vulnerable.
• 
  The use of Keywords Everywhere produces outstanding results.
• 
  The in-depth analysis of Syncee proved very worthwhile. 50,000 products at my fingertips for $79pm. All easy to integrate into all shops in the portfolio. See Wireframes. "Syncee makes it simple for an online store to source, list, and sell an array of niche products. Experience zero upfront inventory costs and total ease of automation when you start your dropshipping business."
• 
  Recruiting staff will be an obvious thing to do. I've employed staff before, paying them salaries and dealing with all their tax issues in full-time employee roles. This time round I would outsource this aspect, or pay a contract rate to a self-employed person/s. But basically, it isn't an issue, providing the company is earning enough. And I think one, maybe two people would be enough.
• 
  One thing that hadn't crossed my mind until doing this plan was brand values. I thought 'well yeah, I like Jo Brand, not sure about her values tho' (jk). So I developed some. And those one or two staff would have to tick these off before a chat...and I'm never gonna shout about them, but here they are: Altruism, Honesty, Kindness, Mindfulness and are below the pic of me in the footer, greyed out until you hover over them.
• 
  They would also not be eligible for consideration if, during the last six months (time-boxed because I'm not a total freak) they had denigrated any server, bus driver or cleaner. People do. Not only do I not want them near my business, I don't want them in my life.
• 
• 
  The books and reports read have shed light on areas requiring specialist knowledge.
• 
  The KPIs and metrics that will be in place will have a positive impact.
• 
  The video showing a rough version of the Just Shops website took quite a chunk of thought and resulted in a good starting point.
• 
  All policies have been drafted and are available to see in the Logistics and Operations Plan section later
• 
  The schedule of website release dates has been roughly determined. Especially regarding high price band and structural products.
• 
  Competitor Advertising Methods Have Been Um, Interesting And Something That Should Be Considered   (the caps will make sense when you reach the Market Analysis section)
• 
• 
  AI isn't just about a few flowery words in the product descriptions...it is awesome at putting together real code to build a website, or to create a data transfer protocol second-to-none. See Wireframes for info. Let's say I'm glad I'm not still in the business of selling my website development skills to small companies, they can do it themselves. Better than I can...
• 
  That said, I am playing to my strengths here. The knowledge I have gained over 25 years of web development has left me in a great position to take advantage of what is available out there right now. And, it turns out, as I've learnt building this plan, I know a lot of very useful stuff.
• 
  The financials are really quite illuminating.
  

Also, what a telling statement this is:

'If you're going to do a bunch of different niches, build a bunch of different stores'. 

Please keep this in mind throughout this document.

There is also an excellent strategy laid out for just.luxury, a new domain with the website called, yeah, just.luxury. And the company called JUST LUXURY Ltd. 

Three slightly retro American-style font ideas:

JUST LUXURY

JUST LUXURY

So with this in mind, please bear in mind a lot has changed, for the better. 

I wanted to launch justcoffeetables.co.uk on April 1, it's a fun kinda day and I like fun...'Happiness' by Ken Dodd is mentioned in this plan somewhere, one of my fave songs. Not an all time classic to rival Stairway To Heaven, Here Comes The Sun or various Harry Styles tunes (big fan), but if certain people around the world just now took notice of the joy that can be achieved for everyone,  it would be a better place. 

After reading this plan, you might enjoy daveburton.co.uk/thoughts. Only after reading this plan. After. This means you Bec. You foolishly told me you like to get stuck into a good read. I expect your homework in by the end of the weekend. I know it's Easter! (I'm joking, have a lovely weekend and come back to work on Tuesday safe in the knowledge that have something to look forward to. Ish. D. )

Company Overview

Each video on here sits in its relevant section, which is a Good Thing. Worth watching them...up to you tho. I'd say watch the video AND read the finer detail, but then I'm a bit anal like that...

Only done once - no script, no rehearsal. Just me, just talking about Just Shops. 

With a career spanning nearly 40 years in IT, 25 of which are in web development, now feels the perfect time to move forward with my ambitions in ecommerce (I deliberately no longer use a hyphen in ecommerce...does anyone use e-mail these days?).

To this end, Dave Burton Ltd was incorporated on August 1, 2022. 

The name was chosen not through pride or arrogance, rather it is a catch-all, allowing business in any sphere (an idea borrowed from Deborah Meaden), but ultimately this has become ecommerce, SIC code 47910.

The registered business address is

Bartle House
Oxford Court
Manchester
M2 3WQ

Company  no: 14249420

VAT no: GB425550116 (I registered voluntarily for VAT to reclaim start-up costs).

On checking Companies House you will find all the above details.

Dave Burton Ltd is also registered with ICO, for GDPR purposes.

A national phone line has been purchased for customer enquiries: 03337723630. Currently this feeds to my mobile with an indicator 'whisper' before connection 'Business call'.

During the course of putting this plan together, a further obvious thing to do was to incorporate Just Shops Ltd (JSL). Firstly this ringfences the domain and also all just*.co.uk websites will communicate with justshops.co.uk several times daily for product updates (see Wireframes for details).

JSL will also become the legal entity that owns all sub-websites. All policies etc will refer to Just Shops Ltd, that kind of thing. Although not an ecommerce website in its own right (it's effectively a datastore and visually a gateway), it puts a clean level in between Dave Burton Ltd (DBL) and the ecommerce websites. It will be the 'group' entity essentially.

In fact, through building this plan, Just Shops Ltd has become very useful. It is the 'name' of the business. It will appear in letterheads, on stickers for packaging, on all websites. JSL shares the business address with DBL, altogether a good thing.

Whether payments to suppliers, hosting renewals, new domain registrations, software subscriptions etc will go through DBL or JSL is as yet undecided, but I feel that DBL should be used for, say, staff salaries, accountancy fees, business address, business phone, other expenses, insurance, wifi, mobiles, lease car (Jan 2025, if going well) etc and JSL for anything tightly sitting with the websites, prob including supplier payments?

I'm probably answering my own question here. That said, the most significant outlays are to Google for advertising and Shopify for commissions (ignoring cell Y104). Oh, and the letters aren't cheap either, but well worthwhile. We'll see how best to do this, but it felt right...still does. DBL for all admin stuff. JSL for all webby stuff. Nice. I'll ask my accountants for advice and clarification. Update - I've split costs in the financials spreadsheet to reflect this - it works I think.


Moving forward

Having completed extensive due diligence into feasibility, mentorship, the entire market, it is now the perfect vehicle to forge ahead with ecommerce plans.

Ecommerce continues to grow strongly year on year.  It is clear this was accelerated by the pandemic, but growth was also occurring naturally.

This isn't going to change anytime soon.

https://www.searchlogistics.com/learn/statistics/ecommerce-statistics is a good source of information.

From their website:

• 
  2.74 billion people worldwide were estimated to have purchased services or goods online in 2023 – that’s about 31% of the world’s population.
• 
• 
  $3.96 trillion in online purchases were made from mobile devices alone in 2023.
• 
• 
  Ecommerce is expected to account for about 22% of the total global retail sales in 2024, reaching $6.76 trillion.
• 
• 
  The 3 biggest adopters of ecommerce are China, the United States and the United Kingdom.

We have invested in 130+ website domains, see Domains page, the reasons are all outlined in this plan. 

As a well-respected ecommerce analyst in the US commented...

'If you're going to do a bunch of different niches, build a bunch of different stores'.

There are ways to handle this amount easily and effectively with the right tools. And we have them all at our fingertips. But fundamental is this niche-specific approach - together with high customer ratings and quality products. 

Minimizing the steps in the purchase path is one of the best conversion rate optimisation (CRO) strategies for e-commerce websites. 

I'm very aware that a link from Wayfair after a search will go directly to their coffee tables page, but there are also so many diversions and other products the visitor can easily become distracted. On justcoffeetables.co.uk there's only one thing to do, buy a coffee table. A good one.

Worth bearing in mind

Google Shopping has changed in recent years. Now, when customers click on products listed on the Google Shopping search page, they are taken straight to the product page.

Customers no longer have to navigate through a landing page, home page or visit a category page prior to reaching the product they are looking to buy. 

Google Shopping is a big, emerging traffic builder and most of the traffic relies on product pages as the first impression of a site. 

Skeptical?

A friend questioned the idea...her point being that if I claim to be justcoffeetables.co.uk, then how can I also be justgardenbars.com?

This came about because I want promote all stores on all stores. The individual sites are just[niche].co.uk, but there are lots of them...well, that's ok. And the all-important backlinks would increase.

My answer was that the greengrocer who opens a shop specialising in oranges, and calling it Just Oranges, isn't precluded from opening a shop next door called Just Apples. It's how he wants to do it, and that's fine.

And for the bananaholics in town, he opens Just Bananas. And because his customers know they're gonna get high quality and good service, with a pleasing thank you, then all his shops start doing well without impacting on each other...And certainly without anybody asking the question 'Hang on, if he just sells oranges how can he sell apples? AND NOW BANANAS?'. The opposite happens, in fact the locals love it! All shops thrive. Strange analogy but sure you get what I mean.

When a visitor comes to justcoffeetables.co.uk, that's what they get...just coffee tables. The niche. No cumbersome menus to traverse, no overload of horizontals, just the one product type. Which they are specifically looking for, right in the moment, there and then.

Now, having had a great experience, and having recently bought a house (and a coffee table), they might just want a dining table. Subtly, towards the bottom of the page or in the footer, is a list of simple links...not buttons, one to each niche. And a link to justshops.co.uk. 

justshops.co.uk will be a very simple site which will carry a 300x300 pixel image for each niche, sorted in alphabetical order (when live). 

Four across the page and scrollable for all niches on one page. No paging, unnecessary (no-one cares about being 'above the fold' since the arrival of the smartphone). This will be a small version of the hero image for each site or a relevant image and will link to that site. Nothing more. 

Might get the backlink count moving too.

Preview

justshops.co.uk will be live in July 2024. 

None of the links will be live, this will simply show how it is envisaged to be a simple and elegant route to the portfolio of sites. 

Meanwhile, here's a sneak preview (video, developed locally - I don't mean developed in Ashton, I mean this is just on my laptop at the mo - 0:30):

There is a confluence of everything coming together, right now. The time is right...

Products

Good to watch this one - all about products, and touches on how we help the sales with handwritten letters etc. 
Final line in here quite interesting - well at least I'm honest!

Only done once - no script, no rehearsal. Just me, just talking about Just Shops. 

• 
  A relationship is established with a supplier of our chosen niche, say a manufacturer or wholesaler of coffee tables (amongst other items). Let's call them Artisan Furniture Ltd. They're based in Ipswich, handy for imports from India, where they run a highly ethical furniture manufacturing business ensuring local communities benefit from excellent co-operative working practices.
• 
  A website is built by us selling just coffee tables, and called, incidentally, justcoffeetables.co.uk.
• 
  We place Artisan's coffee tables on justcoffeetables.co.uk with all metadata - title, description, price, main photo, additional photos, v short video (maybe produced by OMI), size, materials, customer rating, SKU, EAN GTIN etc. This step can be automated.
• 
  A customer is driven to the website by strategic advertising, let's call them Bill and Betty Jones. They live in Glossop (only because I like the name) and have bought a product from Just Shops Ltd previously (this impacts on the checkout journey). Ads on Google, Pinterest (v useful for us), Facebook, Instagram, X, Tik Tok (hmmm, jury's out). Eventually a YouTube channel.
• 
  After much deliberation and studying of in-depth zoomed photos, dimensions, materials used, uniqueness etc. of a number of coffee tables within their chosen price range, they settle on one and buy it for £400.
• 
  Standard, elegant checkout for first time customers, simple 2-click checkout for Bill and Betty (see later).
• 
  The order is received by us, including the payment of £400.
• 
  We order the coffee table from Artisan Furniture for £280, and furnish (sorry) them with the customer details. This step will be automated.
• 
• Artisan Furniture ship the coffee table from Ipswich direct to Bill and Betty in Glossop as soon as possible. 
• 
  It arrives in 3 days.
• 
  We create a handwritten thank-you letter and send first class, ideally to coincide with the product delivery.
  
• 
  Rinse and repeat.

And we should we get a good review. On Trustpilot, Reviews.io, Judge.me, others. 

The graphic below is borrowed from a very interesting piece on Vendesta. Reviews are becoming critical. If we deliver quality, timeously, followed by non-intrusive, but actually pleasing communication, we will be in a good place moving forward.

https://www.vendasta.com/blog/top-10-customer-review-websites/

We'll break down the above graphic in the Marketing Plan section later.

'Near me' suggests the customer might want to visit a store - this is outside our control, but that's ok. Many people are buying houses, cars etc online now, the odd coffee table or two will surely be ok. Ok, two would be unusual, maybe Bill and Betty couldn't decide which...

And here's the letterhead for these letters. I'm doing a general one too, but doing this allows the guys at the handwriting place to print off x of these - they're all the same, independent of which website/what product has been bought. Do it once and do it well...(that's what an early girlfriend told me anyway...funny sort)

How do we guarantee quality? 

Well, we don't, simple answer. However we strongly infer that all our products are quality. 

We don't deal with coffee tables costing less than a certain amount (initially £200), and all coffee tables have at least a 4* customer rating. 

Exceptions to this are very high value coffee tables, such as one from Artemest costing over £85,000. They don't have reviews for various reasons... a) they don't sell any/enough and b) it's clearly way below their average clientele's persuasion to actually post a review...'Oh, Tarquin, dayn't bother with that piffle-paffle' (no offence Tarquin).

We'll place anything above £2k on the site without the need for a 4*+ rating (unless it does actually have ratings that are lower than 4*, in which case, not for us).

Seller of Record

We are the seller of record. 

As the seller of record (SoR), we are the entity identified as selling the product to the end consumer. 

We set the price, record the purchase as revenue, and assume responsibility for the sales tax on a particular sale. Even when a third party stocks and ships the items, we’re the seller of record because we own the products before they ship to the customer. This is good practice.

Returns and refunds should be minimal, and generally handled by the supplier (Artisan Furniture in our example), but as seller of record we are there to help/intervene/settle disputes, just be involved in whatever way necessary. 

Damage may occur in transit...bar that, due to our stringent quality assurances, nothing should be untoward. 

Market Analysis

Let's have a look at the market - niches that might interest us, competitors, suppliers etc. 

The video gives a quick overview. As always, not rehearsed or scripted, just a one-off - I won't re-do these if I stumble over the odd word etc, not bothered really, it's just me, just talking about Just Shops innit.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

We will be employing in-depth SEO practices, as is par for the course these days to be fair. But these won't be working from day one.

SEO is an organic beast...

We want to enhance our online visibility and attract relevant traffic. 

A comprehensive approach entails meticulous keyword research for which we'll be using Keywords Everywhere.

We'll also strategically integrate terms relevant to the particular niche high-quality content which will be user-friendly, engaging, and tailored to meet the needs of the target audience. 

I mention backlinks a few times in this plan - building authoritative backlinks from reputable and top websites strengthens domain authority and improves search engine rankings effectively.

We have an Authority Marketing section set out in the Marketing Plan where this is discussed in depth.

If we use proper on-page optimization techniques such as optimising meta tags, headings, and image alt text then this further enhances search visibility. 

We're using Google Analytics to constantly and consistently measure website performance metrics which helps in refining strategies and adapting to algorithm changes. 

User experience is our priority as I've shouted about. By prioritising user experience, providing valuable content, and staying abreast of industry trends, we can establish a strong online presence and drive sustainable growth.

Nice.

As part of my initial investigations into the market for coffee tables, I bought a subscription to Keywords Everywhere. 

This provides a Google Chrome extension that pops a small line of data below the search bar detailing, among other things, the monthly UK search count for the item searched for. This is very useful. We wanted products with 6000+ searches, and furniture is popular.

Keywords Everywhere offers much more and will be used extensively during ad preparation. 

Let's continue for a moment...we see this on the Google results page following a search. I won't go into it in depth, but a brief description of the 4 main elements follows. And we'll dig a little deeper into On-Page Difficulty..

SEO Difficulty : This gauges how difficult it is to rank at the top for this search query. The higher the number, the harder it would be to rank.

How this affects us: coffee table/s is a highly popular search term, with 165,000 UK searches per month. We are aiming for 100 CTR (clickthrough rate) per website (in this instance coffeetables.co.uk), per day. So we'll find out in time where our daily spend needs to be in order to achieve higher rankings. But if we're lower down the page, and still achieving 100 CTR, then we're happy.

We use price bands which are explained in the Financials spreadsheet later; these will affect CTR.

Brand Query: This tells you whether Google considers this search term to be a brand-based query. Brand queries are tough to rank #1 for unless you are the brand.

How this affects us: Coffee table isn't a brand.

Off-Page Difficulty: This gauges the backlink equity of the top 10 pages that rank for the search query. A high value here means that you will need to gain more domain authority via backlinks from top sites to compete.

How this affects us: Page ranking is an organic thing which will improve over time - as incoming (or back) links increase. One key aspect is that running 89 websites immediately gives rise to 88 backlinks for each site. What I'd like to do is propagate backlinks as far and wide as possible. This will happen in due course.

On-Page Difficulty: This gauges how optimized the content is of the top 10 pages that rank for the search query. When most results have their content optimized, this value will be high; in such cases, link metrics (or brand value) will be the decider.

How this affects us: Let's dive in...

The On-Page SEO Difficulty is a score out of 100 that measures how optimized the top 10 results are for the search term. We calculate this for each of the top 10 results using the following set of rules - a green tick means we're looking good for this

Here's our example ad:

And this is what affects On-Page Difficulty:

- Is the exact search query (or its plural) present in the page title? (15 pts)
- Is the exact search query (or its plural) present in the URL? (5 pts)
- Is the exact search query (or it's plural) present in the description? (5 pts)
- Is the broad search query (or its plural) present in the page title)? (25 pts)
- Is the broad search query (or its plural) present in the URL? (10 pts)
- Is the broad search query (or its plural) present in the description? (10 pts)
- Has Google highlighted keywords in the description, or is the description data special? (30 pts)

Nice.

Below we have a detailed explanation for each of the seven rules above, specifically for all of you out there who are massively interested in this (this means you Jim)...

- Is the exact search query (or its plural) present in the page title? (15 pts)
If the exact search query is present in the page's title, the tool awards it 15 points. E.g., If the search query is "weight loss diet," the three words have to be found in the page title, in the same order to be given the 15 points.

- Is the exact search query (or its plural) present in the URL? (5 pts)
If the exact search query is present in the page's URL, the tool awards it 5 points.
E.g., If the search query is "weight loss diet," the three words have to be found in the page URL, in the same order to be given the 5 points
http://domain.com/weight-loss-diet-info.html will be given the 5 points, while http://domain.com/weight-loss-best-diet.html won't.

- Is the exact search query (or it's plural) present in the description? (5 pts)
If the exact search query is present in the page's description, the tool awards the page 5 points.
E.g., If the search query is "weight loss diet," the three words have to be found in the page description, in the same order to be given the 5 points.

- Is the broad search query (or its plural) present in the page title)? (25 pts)
The tool checks the page title for the presence of each of the words in the search term. For every search term found, a portion of the 25 points is awarded.
E.g., If the search query is "weight loss diet," and the tool finds the words "weight" and "loss" but not the word "diet" in the title, then it will award 2/3rds of 25 points - i.e., 16.66 points
If only a single word is found, say "weight," then it will award 1/3rd of 25 points - i.e., 8.33 points
If all three words are found, then it will award all 25 points.

- Is the broad search query (or its plural) present in the URL? (10 pts)
The tool checks the page URL for the presence of each of the words in the search term. For every search term found, a portion of the 10 points is awarded. This works exactly like the above rule.

- Is the broad search query (or its plural) present in the description? (10 pts)
The tool checks the page's description for the presence of each of the words in the search term. For every search term found, a portion of the 10 points is awarded. This works exactly like the above rule.

- Has Google highlighted keywords in the description, or is the description data special? (30 pts)
Sometimes Google shows a special description for specific results. These descriptions could be tabular data, a list of items, review data, or some special text. When our tool can figure out that this description is special, all 30 points are awarded to the page. 

When the descriptions are standard text, Google will bold certain words in the description text in typical cases. These can be words from the search query, synonyms, or related terms that Google deems important in the content. See the screenshot below. Google considers "burning fat" and "meal plan" important for the search query "weight loss diet". See screenshot below, and refer back to our example ad above where Coffee Tables is bold.

More on all this, for Gluttons Everywhere, is available at https://keywordseverywhere.com/seo-metrics.html

I was supplied with a spreadsheet by Lex (my mentor) and this became my mantra as more domains were purchased. It is a living document but this was the state of play in March 2024.

Please watch both videos.

The spreadsheet itself is below. It details all niches with domains purchased and their various metrics to ensure we were dealing with viable products. Download the spreadsheet below (xls, 375k, opens in a new window).

Sheet 1 lists all domains currently owned, with the following analysis carried out for each domain.

• 
  Search Volume
• 
  Price Range
• 
  Prices Stability
• 
  Target Market
• 
  Is it Brand Dominated?
• 
  Number Of Brands (Est)
• 
  Seasonal?
• 
  Does this Excite You? (I only answered 'No' once...)
• 
  B2B & B2C?
• 
  Ecom Competitors

The niche sheet also displays which website is currently being built, what is next and what is 'coming soon'.

Sheet 2 lists competitors. Further analysis was carried out on their advertising strategies, as detailed in the Marketing Plan section below. 

Sheet 3 lists suppliers with contact details and comments. 

As furniture is such a mature market, suppliers are plentiful. 

Registering is straightforward, normally an online sign-up followed by identity and viability checking. 

I have developed several important relationships with key suppliers. 

They all seem to like the concept (well, they would say that).

Sheet 4 contains a CSV from Ancient Wisdom (great company, strictly wholesale, totally embraced dropshipping - the CEO writes a blog about his travels in India and beyond - very good! http://blog.ancientwisdom.biz). Their website is at ancientwisdom.biz

Sheet 5 contains a slimmed-down CSV from James Benstead, General Manager at Artisan Furniture. Yes, they really exist, they really are based in Ipswich, and they really do run a highly ethical furniture manufacturing business ensuring local communities benefit from excellent co-operative working practices. Website at artisanfurniture.net

Marketing Plan

The Marketing Plan is  extensive - I've split it into two videos. 

Here's the first, dealing with ads...you should defo watch, you'll learn lots, I did...

The second deals with KPIs, reviews and social media and is halfway down this section.

Don't go to it straight away.
 
I'm not putting a link to it because I think it's important you watch this one first, and anyway, Google does too. So that's that.

All just me wittering on - one take, no script etc, just stuff relevant for Just Shops.

The first part of this section, videos, should possibly sit inside the previous section, Marketing Analysis, but as it has become a key part of our plans, I've included it here. But please treat as though it sits across both (hope that makes sense).

These are videos, please listen to the comments made as we analyse various methods of advertising.

One interesting note, and this must be on point just now, is that Nearly All Text Adverts Have Every Word Capitalised. Unsure Why, But Who Are We To Buck The Trend? 

Find videos below to gain a fuller understanding of our advertising intentions. 

To begin, the above video (0:47) shows Your Online Choices - a useful learning tool, detailing all aspects of online advertising including a glossary in simple terms (Jargon Buster).

It resides inside AdChoices, the small blue triangle found in the corner of most Google ads.

In order for this entire business to work, advertising is key, the more we know, the better.

Videos

There are a number of videos here, taken to describe the advertising practices of competitors and others. 

These can be directly attributed to how we will  advertise. It isn't plagiarism, it's simply utilising other company's advertising agency ideas in a cost-effective manner. Honest, guv.

Hubspot - info for me really (0:54)

Amazon - small online bookseller - bit like an online version of Hugh Grant's travel bookshop in Notting Hill (0:56)

ReHaus - London based despite German-sounding name - used designer fine furniture. Great website. Lots of respect. (0:31)

Shopify themselves! (1:59)

Ancient Wisdom ads...
Great company, mentioned elsewhere - they ship from Sheffield (0:46)

Not advertising, but something I did to show Joe, hence you hear him mentioned...

It's a nice way to display products - smaller than our furniture - but similar can be done for large items too.

I'm thinking the Artemest coffee table or the Arditi ones...(0:16)

aosom.co.uk - interesting hybrid of retailer/dropshipping supplier

Rehaus, just some nice, simple design

ProductsUp - Zoom meeting about online retail. Very good as it turned out...

Ogilvy - love their ethos!

Maybe I did this Amazon lot something of a disservice - they're selling other stuff now...(0:23)

This is describing a digital marketing program from Udemy - they're very good if you ever want to learn anything techy...
I have an account and it's proven worthwhile. Still is...(0:21)

And this, well this is Google innit...I quite like Google, you may have gathered...(1:02)

This research has led to me joining Google's User Experience Research program...might pick up some tips.

Adverts

Potential adverts for display in Google results page. Further thought will go into these, but given the cues taken from the ad videos above, these are early thoughts...

Rough example of justcoffeetables.co.uk website ad - light background, text focussed:

We are adhering v closely to 'What Google Wants' (I feel a film coming on). By this I mean if someone searches for 'coffee table' we fit with the criteria described in the Marketing Analysis section above.

Which you've already read, haven't you?

We might go for 'You have a choice. Buy a coffee table. Or don't. (or just do a little research maybe)'

Ok, I'm gonna expand on that thought.

I've learnt that 'you' is a particularly powerful word in marketing...

Let's see what some competitors do - these are line by line. A line seems to contain around 64 or 65 letters. Argos manage 68. Caps may take room.

Next: 
Browse our high-quality coffee tables for your living room. Shop 
modern round & square designs made to last. Next day delivery &
free returns available.

Furniture Village: 
Coffee Tables - Complete your living room with a coffee table from 
Furniture Village. Shop now and browse a variety of styles and size

Swoon:
Shop for coffee tables at Swoon. Our exclusive collection of glass 
coffee tables, round coffee tables, coffee tables with storage and...

Dunelm:
Find the perfect coffee table for your living room! Dunelm's wide 
range includes wooden coffee tables, and glass & metal coffee

Wayfair:
Our extensive catalogue of coffee tables ranges from polished 
wood to glass. Choose from modern to vintage styles. 12,542...

The Range:
Find a coffee table for your living room at The Range. Ready 
assembled and easy set-up options in all styles.

Ikea:
Check out our extensive range of coffee tables. Find coffee tables 
in different sizes, shapes, styles or with built in storage to choose...

Argos: 
Get the perfect centrepiece for your living room with glass and wood 
coffee tables at Argos. Order online today for fast home delivery.


That'll do for now. 

I find these all fairly, well, banal, much of a muchness. AI in some cases. Let's look a little closer:

We've looked at eight retailers.

• 
  Six of them discuss types of coffee table.
• 
  Four of them use the word 'our'.
• 
  Five of them use the word 'your'.
• 
  None of them use the word 'you'.
• 
  Two restrict usage to a living room. This may be subliminal, but people who might want a coffee table for a conservatory for instance, possibly wouldn't follow such a link.
• 
  Only two mention delivery.
• 
  Three use the word 'shop'.
• 
  Swoon particularly like 'coffee table' squeezing it in four times.
• 
  Only one mentions returns (bound to happen!)
• 
  Furniture Village says 'from Furniture Village' which is good brand usage.
• 
  Argos - nice usage of 'centrepiece'. And 'perfect'. But customers limited to wood or glass.
• 
  None of them have 'coffee table/s' in their url.
• 
  All of them have lots of distractions once a visitor arrives on their site.
• 
  No-one's really heard of any of them anyway...oh.

Points for consideration:

• 
  Max 65 letters for us inc caps.
• 
  Max 2 lines.
• 
  Avoid 'our'.
• 
  Embrace 'You', 'your' etc
• 
  I'd prefer to avoid 'high-quality', or 'high quality' even.
• 
  Wanna talk about 'You are the focus of your home', 'you', 'style', 'simple', etc - bit long tho. For later.
• 
  'Browse' prob a good word.
• 
  Don't limit choice based on type, materials or whatever, the customer can find that out on the site.
• 
  We don't have brand recognition so let's not waste letters on 'from Just...' etc.

So:

Just Coffee Tables:
You can browse stylish, eclectic Coffee Tables here. Then either:
You buy a Coffee Table. Or you don't. Simple. Fast UK delivery.

That's 65 chars and 63 chars. 

Thinking out loud:

You can only do 3 things: Browse coffee tables. Buy a coffee table. 
Don't buy a Coffee Table. UK sourced and speedy UK delivery.

Thoughts? I'd (naturally) be interested to hear opinions of such a tactic. Weird? Test it? Or go for it?

Or do YOU have a variation. I'm not exactly wanting to disrupt here...just make people go 'Oooh' (it's a trait of mine, but we won't go into that here).

Interesting to see Wayfair shouting about 12,542 coffee tables. I'm inclined to shout about '200 hand-picked 4* and 5* coffee tables only'. No paging for more, dead simple, no distractions. End of the day, people who search for 'coffee table' want a coffee table at some point in the near future (don't they?).

Rough example of shop​coffeetables.co.uk website ad - dark background, image focussed:

(The above ad was shamelessly borrowed from Made.com. The words directly below the first image...'Shop Coffee Tables' are their words...hmmm...thanks, Made.com)

Rough example of shopcoffeetables.co.uk website ad for commercial searches - dark background, image focussed:

Other ad ideas...just text ads for now

All will end with...

All High Quality, 4⭐ And 5⭐ Rated Products
Speedy, Trackable Delivery From Our Exclusively UK Partners

And I guess all should be Capitalised...(let's emphasise the JUST - why? So that people start to get the brand, the brand is hugely based on the word just, so why not...in fact I'm gonna make it bold - JUST! Ok, not quite decided on this tack yet but could be tested). So...



You Can't Buy Burgers Or Beer Here...
JUST Barbecues...
justbarbecues.co.uk
All High Quality, 4⭐ And 5⭐ Rated Products
Speedy, Trackable Delivery From Our Exclusively UK Partners



You Can't Buy Baby Lotion Or Bubble Bath Here...
JUST Bathroom Cabinets...
justbathroomcabinets.co.uk
All High Quality, 4⭐ And 5⭐ Rated Products
Speedy, Trackable Delivery From Our Exclusively UK Partners



You Can't Buy Boxers Or Bras Here...
JUST Bedside Tables...
justbedsidetables.co.uk
All High Quality, 4⭐ And 5⭐ Rated Products
Speedy, Trackable Delivery From Our Exclusively UK Partners



You Can't Buy Businesses Or Bubbly Here...
JUST Boardroom Tables...
justboardroomtables.co.uk
All High Quality, 4⭐ And 5⭐ Rated Products
Speedy, Trackable Delivery From Our Exclusively UK Partners



You Can't Buy Byron Or Brontë Here...
JUST Bookcases...
justbookcases.co.uk
All High Quality, 4⭐ And 5⭐ Rated Products
Speedy, Trackable Delivery From Our Exclusively UK Partners



You Can't Buy Cake Or Cosmo Here...
JUST Coffee Tables...
justcoffeetables.co.uk
All High Quality, 4⭐ And 5⭐ Rated Products
Speedy, Trackable Delivery From Our Exclusively UK Partners



You Can't Buy Keys Or Coins Here...
JUST Console Tables...
justconsoletables.co.uk
All High Quality, 4⭐ And 5⭐ Rated Products
Speedy, Trackable Delivery From Our Exclusively UK Partners



You Can't Buy Diaries Or Dongles Here...
JUST Desks...
justdesks.co.uk
All High Quality, 4⭐ And 5⭐ Rated Products
Speedy, Trackable Delivery From Our Exclusively UK Partners



You Can't Buy Dinners Or Doners Here...
JUST Dining Tables
justdiningtables.co.uk
All High Quality, 4⭐ And 5⭐ Rated Products
Speedy, Trackable Delivery From Our Exclusively UK Partners



You Can't Buy  etc...



It's an unusual concept; provoking interest, suggesting benefits (multiple), arousing intrigue... to be tested.

If it doesn't work, we'll do the more traditional 'Come To Us To Buy A Coffee Table' banal, anonymous rubbish - but at least it's capitalised!

BUT - adding a couple of tangible things to the ad that people can relate to will help tho, won't it? The benefit and all that...so Cosmopolitan, Byron, Doners, Keys, Beer, Bubble Bath, Bras - all part of everyday life surely! Well they are mine. Ok not alllllllll...(tho it does remind me of an occasion at JCB lake when my then ​fiancée Dawn was maggoting up to do some fishing and I was sat on me deckchair reading Cosmo. Don't ever mention this, thanks...)

AI help with ads

I ran an idea through AI...the result is here, not bad! But clearly AI.

Discover the magic at justcoffeetables.co.uk! Elevate your space with high-quality coffee tables, all adorned with the golden touch of at least 4⭐ and 5⭐ excellence. Unleash style and substance in every sip! Speedy, trackable delivery from our exclusively UK partners.

Hmmm...anyway, we'll start to use AI in lots of ways - it can help develop some of the websites, create some APIs, provide some product copy, paint some images etc - then shuffle off back to its kennel for some meat.

Nice.

All work done around KPIs will be updated constantly, and recorded for later use. I sound like a telephone system when you ring your energy company... This will be in the form of a live spreadsheet, videos, notes, docs, graphs etc shared and updated as and when necessary, all interested parties being notified when required through DBL WhatsApp group.

KPIs and metrics are fundamental in achieving our objectives. Whilst an advertising campaign ('​Byron or Brontë' for instance) may be considered, subjectively, to be good, the proof is in the pudding. And the pudding needs to be inspected for shards of glass or sixpences (hmmm, sorry).

I invested in 'The Ultimate Guide to Ecommerce Growth, a fascinating read which describes 'Seven Unexpected KPIs to Scale an Ecommerce Shop'. ISBN-13: 978-1-64467-132-0 I can supply a copy on request, free.

A few snippets follow. No need to scrutinise, moving forward these are great aide-memoires for, well, me:

Further reading absorbed in recent weeks

A little light reading from Shopify

Stripe are best-of-class in terms of payment providers, and used throughout Shopify, and as  a consequence, across all our sites too...

Hubspot - well, I have an account...

SBT Media - A guy who has done well and makes some good points

SimilarWeb - The State of Ecommerce - A comprehensive guide to the biggest consumer trends in 2024.

Intrigued? WhatsApp me.

Reviews

Reviews have become VITAL for all ecommerce enterprises.

The stats are rising all the time and could be construed as quite alarming! This is why I'm very pro 4* and 5* rated products only.

If we can start getting good reviews, we're away.

It's important to remember that we're not delivering toilet rolls here...the customer has quite likely invested a lot of time, money and effort and wants to be very happy with that purchase. These aren't impulse buys.

Our intention, with both the product and the letter, is to raise smiles (I should mention that one of my fave songs of all time is Happiness by Ken Dodd - I'm trying to wrap that up in a nicely packaged box and a well-written letter).

The product should be well-received, and be exactly what they were looking for.

The handwritten letter will reinforce our intentions to please and have a good to major impact here. 

This is kinda what we're aiming for...(come back on August Bank Holiday 2024 to see if we've got anything like this...)

I had a lengthy chat with Lee, Operations Director - the company are called Scribble Mail and they churn out tens of thousands of letters per month. They are staffed mainly by mums following the morning school drop-off apparently - well women frankly, as in most things in life (all?) are far better than men at handwriting.

A testimonial for their work...

"If you want to rocket power your marketing ROI (and if you're in business, why wouldn't you?) then you really need to check out Scribble Mail. 

Handwritten communications can augment the effectiveness of almost any campaign and with Scribble Mail, it couldn't be easier. 

They're fast, professional, and they get results. Highly recommended."

Max Maclean - Ogilvy & Mather

I penned the original letter content a week or two ago and ran it past my 91yo mother...she's so good at this stuff. I had a short para in there saying something like 'If you're not satisfied please contact us and we'll do our best to fix it' etc - she said this was negative and to only be positive! So I changed it to what you saw earlier (didn't you?).

Also, I decided to remove any reference to the review, coz it's naff to ask, and I think the letter itself will prompt people to review anyway, that's the idea! 

That's what I'm after...good reviews...but unsolicited-ish... 

Lee and I discussed this and thought that those that regularly review will be close to 100% likely to review if they get a letter...those who sometimes review will be much more likely to...those that rarely review are a bit more likely to...and those that never review, well, we'll leave them to their own devices.

Investigation into Senja - looks good. 
Lots to do in this area, but first, we've got to sell something....(0:59)

Later yesterday (Feb 29) I was also involved in a meeting with Ben Gallagher at Luxe Collective.

They won Dragons' Den recently and have a partnership with Stephen Bartlett - I'm getting close to Stephen now and hope to speak to him at some point. 

I have the full recording of the 1.5hr session with Ben (available on request) - They're based in Liverpool and I will probably visit them soon. They were v pleased a 60yo was in their Zoom meeting, and particularly happy to see me screenshotting the meeting...they knew that I knew that what they were saying was nothing short of awesome. And they got to learn that I defo know my stuff. They were, errrmmm, pleasantly surprised by my level of knowledge. For my part, I was pleasantly surprised they said so!

It was Ben's last webchat for a while as he really needs to focus on the business and that's understandable - but because of that, and the general course of the meeting, it led him to give away some fantastic secrets.

'You' is the most powerful word to start a video clip with - and video clips lead to reviews. 

He spoke a lot about video clips - something I'll start doing, aimed at Instagram, oh and LinkedIn coz I'm very swanky and talk all posh.

The hook, the first 3 seconds, is vital. Get that right and the viewer will stop to listen, and may stay for some time, and visit the site/s in question, and leave reviews...should be fun! 

This is Ben talking, scouse accent - just a quick screenshot video - 42 seconds worth - not v great quality, but you get an idea of the full contents of the meeting...he's a cool guy.

We discussed a couple of other ideas of mine about World Famous Grass and World Famous Snooker Cloth. These are a bit of an aside - an idea I had years ago, seems they may have legs now!

The web page describing these is at daveburton.co.uk/wfg - so please take a look - but not right now because you're busy looking at this business plan so don't go far, and anyway we're discussing reviews about furniture, not the far more mundane and boring subjects of football and snooker!

This is a slight aside - on the screenshot... for anyone that may not have seen these before...at the top are tab groups. You can arrange your tabs in Chrome into groups of your own making. It's the best thing since...... Well it's just the best thing. Full stop. (geek note: true)

Click above for World Famous Grass and World Famous Snooker Cloth - opens in a new window...but don't go there just yet, haven't finished here yet!

All the above happened on Feb 29! Didn't get any proposals tho which came as a surprise I have to say, what with me being single and all.

Reply to reviews

The intention is to not be fawning - so I'm very tempted to not comment on any 4* or 5* reviews...hmmm, that might change. Probably will. 'Thanks for your kind comments' should do.

We will always respond to anything negative however. Bad reviews can be incredibly damaging.

I'll try to avoid 'GET STUFFED YOU OVER-ZEALOUS REVIEWING FREAKBALL!'  and be considered, courteous and offer a solution.

Quick thought - I guess as we have a large number of websites, each with individual Trustpilot accounts, we could potentially turn a site off with a bad review and, well, move on...dunno.

Social Media Activity

Ensure Linkedin presence discusses everything. Make the most of my Expert Sales Navigator status (!).

Write a blog twice weekly using SEO.AI - not sure where this should be posted...Instagram and LinkedIn prob, as mentioned. 

Record and post Instagram videos. I've applied to be on Countdown and am EXTREMELY sure they'll want me on soon (ok, I'm not) - if they do, thought it might be fun to keep a video diary of it...:

• 
  'Dropshipping is not a dirty word...'
• 
  'Do you use the intruded r? Don't!.......'
• 
  '10,000 hours...'
• 
  'You are the central focus of your home...'
• 
  'You can smell the coffee, now put it somewhere...'
• 
  'You wanna go faster?....'
• 
  Countdown 1
• 
  Countdown 2
• 
  etc

Tweet lots

Loads more to come - this section will be updated regularly once we get moving. Or not. In fact not. I'm gonna use the WhatsApp group DBL (Dave Burton Ltd) to post all updates etc. Join below...

The Seven Rs

An industry-standard definition that explains the process simply is the seven Rs:

• 
  the right goods
• 
  in the right amount
• 
  in the right state
• 
  at the right time
• 
  at the right location
• 
  for the right customer
• 
  at the right price

This succinctly describes what is involved, and as a dropshipping company, we will endeavour to retain visibility of each of these throughout the various processes. We have software to help.

Dave's daily planner (check 2pm)

The Eisenhower Matrix (mentioned in the Daily Planner above)

The Eisenhower Matrix is a powerful tool that can help with ​time management. Also known as the Eisenhower Decision Matrix or the Eisenhower Box, this simple tool is named after the US President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

It offers a way of categorising tasks based on their level of importance and urgency, and can be a valuable tool for planning work and managing time more effectively.

I refer to it daily.

There was mention of package stickers?

First impressions

Ideally any packages sent from suppliers generated from our orders will have our stickers on them. Exactly what will be on the stickers is yet to be decided (prob Manchester address, phone, email, web address) but they'll look like this:

And here's our Joseph and his Technicolor Dreamcoat version...

And finally, let's open the box...

Split testing

A second split test to consider is this... In order to prevent any nasty surprises for visitors, and because we only deal with high quality products, I'm keen to mention this in ads. So we put the base price for each band in the ad... 'from £200 to £20,000+' on coffee tables ad and split  test.

We'd need to do 'split testing' here. Sue (mentioned in the Executive Summary and my sounding board) thinks the mag offer is a bit much.

So, simply put, one ad with the offer, one without...then check the click through rate (no. of people visiting the site from each ad divided by no. of people seeing the ad) and the conversion rate (no. of people buying...normally about 2%). Then we find out...

I've had another thought here which allows us to contact existing customers - 'Would you like a free magazine subscription AND one for your friend? If your friend comes to any of our websites and purchases any product, you both get a FREE 6-month magazine subscription. No terms, no nowt, that's it. Just a nice offer from us to you.'. 

And a third is playing with 'You have a choice. Buy a coffee table...or don't buy a coffee table. Nothing else to do here.'

Just Shops Ecommerce Tech Stack

Bear these in mind...

"Too much Tabasco is not necessarily a good thing" - Dave Burton, circa Nov 2023, following an incident.

"...a little bit of extra virgin olive oil..."
"...a little bit of butter..."
"...a little bit of seasoning..." - James Martin, circa most days.

So we want everything to work, a blend of established software solutions, seamlessly and simply implemented.

Our ecommerce tech stack is the collection of digital tools, software applications, and platforms - put together from above - that we will use to run Just Shops Ltd. 

These tools work together to optimize day-to-day tasks - across sales, marketing, customer service, order fulfillment and returns, payment processing, and other key areas - and reveal customer insights that can fuel growth.

Here's my silky smooth way...ok, maybe not, but it's the way I went.

• 
  Keywords Everywhere to validate the choice of niche and 'tick all the boxes' detailed in the spreadsheet, sheet 1, available in the Market Analysis section. The items are listed there also.
• 
  Shopify is my chosen online store hosting platform - Shopify allows you to build a custom ecommerce website - regardless of your coding experience - using simple drag-and-drop commands. Mobile ready, super-slick checkout, automatic supplier orders sent, 24/7 support, offers integration to many third-party applications to be chosen during build, as necessary.
• 
  Google Workspace to organise everything
• 
  Syncee is my main chosen product partner, there are others - Syncee has 8,000,000 products with all images, prices, descriptions, data etc for immediate import into your shiny Shopify site without cutting and pasting all day long.
• 
  Canva for design of logo and letterhead (all my own work! I know! Well it'll do for now anyway).
• 
  Keywords Everywhere
• 
  Ahrefs - nail SEO upfront and once the site is live discover links, track ranking, optimise site for keywords, analyse competitor marketing techniques and iteratively review SEO optimisation.
  
• 
  Klaviyo for email and SMS marketing

• 
  Gemini AI by Google
• 
  Google Analytics
• 
  Google Search
• 
  Google Merchant Centre
• 
  Simprosys
• 
  Auto Sync
• 
  ROAS
• 
  Google Performance Max
• 
  Clickfraud protection

Do you wanna go faster?

Let's talk scaling

165,000 searches in the UK every month for 'coffee tables'. 

My figures are based on 2 sales per website per day - so that's 60 of those 165,000 buying on justcoffeetables.co.uk in a month. We can do more than that. 

Looking at available figures, that's one person or household in every 172 looking online to buy a coffee table per month (there are 28.2m households in the UK). Seems reasonable; the 165,000 isn't inflated or incorrect.

And what are people looking for if they search for 'coffee table'? Porn? A cheap thrill? 'How do I put something on my coffee table?'. No. Of the 165,000 searches, about 164,500 are looking to buy a coffee table, whether just starting their search, or intending to buy within the next ten minutes.

Nice.

(the other 500 are probably troubleshooting assembly instructions on ikea.com)

We need to be aware of incoming calls from customers with grievances. At a factor of 1, as in E31 in the spreadsheet, we should get 2 customer orders per day. How many of the 2 customers buying on any one day are really gonna make my/staff lives awkward? This might happen once per month. 1/60. Ok maybe more but ho hum.

So instead of £50 per day, per website, let's plan for £150 spend.

Change E31 to 3. Smile.

And reactions on receiving their coffee table? Most will smile, and again when they subsequently get our handwritten letter through the post. Then they'll tell their mates when they drop round and comment on it. Every. Single. Time.

Every time. Certainly for the first year or so. 'You got a letter from them Betty? No-one writes letters these days!'.

'I know Ethel - and let me know if you ever want to buy anything from Just Shops...we both get a free magazine subscription if you do! Dead easy to just remember their website...stick 'just' in front of nearly any type of furniture or just go to justshops.co.uk Ethel'.

'I will!'

Touché.

Change E31 to 10.

Other thoughts

It's just a numbers game.

Consider this:

• 
  Find UK suppliers with a UK-manufactured coffee table with a minimum rating of 4​ and a wholesale cost of £300. Done.
• 
  Add 30% to wholesale cost (suggested and reasonable - prob lower than RRP).
• 
  Advertise - get 100 clickthroughs for £50 per day (expected).
• 
  Get 2% conversion rate (industry average).
• 
  Pay £20 for all other costs (should be much lower).
• 
  Realise £110 profit.
• 
  How do we get to that figure? 300*0.3*100*0.02-(50+20), simple.
• 
  Scale everything up 10-fold for justcoffeetables.co.uk.
• 
  Go the pub.
• 
  Launch justdiningtables.co.uk.
• 
  Rinse and repeat.
• 
  Buy the pub.

My contract with Syncee, one of my suppliers (well, an aggregator) gives me access to 50,000 products for £63pm. 

That's enough to fill a couple of hundred niche websites. 

It's just about scaling. 

If we get to the point of spending £10k or £20k+ per day on advertising, then that's a Good Thing. 

We'll be doing ok. 

It's just modern-day mail-order catalogue...without having to print stuff, gather mailing lists, post out catalogues etc.

Just simple.

Just Shops.

Financial plan

A benefit of a dropshipping business is that there is no financial outlay for stock or premises, as per a traditional retail store.

The financials are therefore kept relatively simple.

Outgoings are minimal, and until staff are recruited, no salaries will be paid as I can draw on the Directors loans that I have made to Dave Burton Ltd. This stands at around £27,500 currently. There is currently a small amount in liquid funds available (as at March 1, 2024).

I have mentioned a credit line of £10,000. I feel this would be plenty in the early days. However, if things prove to be going well, and the ROAS is achieving or out-performing the anticipated, the scaling should be introduced relatively quickly. It would be useful to have easy access to increase the credit facility to £25,000 in this eventuality.  

A consideration in future is to engage an online advertising specialist. I have received some quotes. However this needn't be considered at this stage.

The financials spreadsheet can be downloaded here and tweaked as desired. Try B33.

Conclusion

Let's revisit our mission statement and give it context...

We hope to enrich Bill and Betty's lives by gently suggesting a simple, elegant way for them to buy quality stuff from Just Shops, because it fulfils their desire, they see the benefit, they have the money and they want to.
'Nuff said.

If you've got through all the above, you'll get it, well done. And job done.

To me, it feels like I'm doing a 50,000-piece jigsaw puzzle. But that's ok, doable. The straight edges are all in place, and the picture on the box describes everything in perfect detail. That's this plan.

Einstein once said 'If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution, I would spend the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask, for once I know the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes."

Touch​é Albert.

There will undoubtedly be many bumps in the road and obstacles to overcome, such is the nature of business. For instance I'm very aware that Google Merchant Centre can be fickle and suspend advertising accounts for a period occasionally, amongst other issues, but essentially, there is a very feasible business outlined here.

A long conclusion - please read, it's vital

I'm well aware that conclusions are supposed to be short, and this one isn't. But I also know those that want a quick overview, will jump straight here. Hi if that's you.

Before I ramble on, please be aware this does not happen on my websites. I wanted all my thoughts down on paper for me to refer back to, so that's what I did.

Conversely, the product page on my websites (the most important page) will carry this, and only this, on all websites in the portfolio, ever.

Pictures paint thousands of words.

Name: Tamarind and Resin Coffee Table
Brief description: A really nice coffee table
Material: Tamarind wood and resin
Stand: Metal
Size (cm): 45h x 100l x 50d
Shape: Rectangular
Brand: Arditi

Price: 4000 £

That's it. Full description will be available, but not surfaced. This is, of course, required for accessibility. All sites will be 3* WCAG-compliant, the highest accessibility rating possible. If a site achieves this (and 93% don't) you're well on the way to a good website becoming a great one. And it's fantastic for SEO. So better to investigate thoroughly.

I started this on Jan 2 this year with Lex as my mentor. I realised by Jan 5 that if I plan, and plan well, then we could be onto something. I gave myself 3 months timeboxed to consider everything. I have achieved that within 3 months, just. It's complete.

In that three months I went from a potential niche of coffee tables and a domain name of coffeetablesbydaveb.co.uk, to what you see on the Domains page. Driven by the discovery that justcoffeetables.co.uk was available. Thanks Joe, tremendous help. Find out more about our chat on the Elevator Pitch page.

Keep coffee tables in mind.

Because this was early days and I had time, I explored the possibility of other furniture-related niches. I chose furniture because many furniture pieces are niche...there's nothing that comes below them with a starting price of £200.  They're also sturdy and can't really come to much harm if packaged and couriered well.  And they vary in price tremendously... maybe I could create different tiers, like Just, Deluxe, Highend, Ultrahighend.

All well and good but what would be the natural home for high-end luxury? just.luxury 

The results are on the Domains page.

In the three months, I had time to do all of the following, and do them to the best of my abilities, pulling on every piece of knowledge I have amassed since 1999.

I've managed to:

• build a [portfolio] of 670+ domains with real longevity, with International, high value sales a reality
• learn about Shopify completely
• discover Syncee and just what they can provide
• Place all beDroppy handbags on ahandbag.co.uk for testing
• investigate best practices to the nth degree and develop ideas for each page of the websites. Home page (also our product listing page with a grid of handbags), product page, basket, checkout and all [supplementary] pages.
• write a mission statement
• create a brand
• determine brand values
• create a main logo (JUST SHOPS)
• created 5 group logos (HIGHEND  SHOPS etc) 
• created 140 sub-brand logos (justcoffeetables.co.uk etc)
• gain confidence that will allow me to approach and interact with all major manufacturers across the UK and Europe (esp Italy and Scandinavia) irrespective of their position in the marketplace [pyramid of importance]. 
• choose from good 4* + customer rated coffee tables at £200, to UHNWI coffee tables at £80000 before eventually deciding the bands organise themselves and we just throw the highest-priced tables into UHNW websites etc etc
• determine I can contact CEOs and decision-makers directly by email/video/phone or via my extensive LinkedIn network. I can just do this with aplomb, just.luxury will open doors, just by being well, just luxury. Not a bad thing to use as an ice-breaker. And obviously intentional use of 'just'. 
• It's just that's what this is all about. Read that again. It's 'just' - that's what this is all about.

Let's revisit our mission statement and give it context...

We hope to enrich Bill and Betty's lives by gently suggesting a simple, elegant way for them to buy quality stuff from Just Shops, because it fulfils their desire, they see the benefit, they have the money and they want to.
'Nuff said.

If you've got through all the above, you'll get it, well done. And job done.

To me, it feels like I'm doing a 50,000-piece jigsaw puzzle. But that's ok, doable. The straight edges are all in place, and the picture on the box describes everything in perfect detail. That's this plan.

Einstein once said 'If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution, I would spend the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask, for once I know the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes."

Touch​é Albert.

There will undoubtedly be many bumps in the road and obstacles to overcome, such is the nature of business. For instance I'm very aware that Google Merchant Centre can be fickle and suspend advertising accounts for a period occasionally, amongst other issues, but essentially, there is a very feasible business outlined here.

To summarise...

• 
  the market is strong
• 
  the products are quality
• 
  the route to market is mature and established
• 
  the software solutions are phenomenal
• 
  the competitors are understood
• 
  the marketing plan is structured and solid
• 
  the KPIs and metrics will be fundamental to scaling strategies and success
• 
  the supply chain, logistics and operations are all in place
• 
  the figures add up
• 
  the ROAS and ROI fit
• 
  the company is ready
• 
  'If you're going to do a bunch of different niches, build a bunch of different stores'
  

Time to put it into practice.