Hell.I found some east european producer of hand-made accesories for
house and garden made from wrought iron.The producer told me that they
sell with succes on markets from Italy,Great Britain,France and
more.They told me that his products sells there for prices 5 times
bigger and people still buying them.
Prices range from 20 to 40 at chairs,140 to 250 for beds and cofee
tables etc from 50 to 250 with glass included.
The iron is bended while it s hot with hammer so there is no machinery
who produce those.Strictly hand made.
I would like you to make a detailed search for me to know if i have a
chance to sell with succes the accesories on american market.I m
thinking about selling all this things through bulk Emailing system.
I also would like a suggestion on how to accept payment since i really
don t want to involve myself with merchant account.Should i go for
COD,Western union...Also for the suggested payment type please give me
some details: should i get a part of money first like 20%,and the rest
in the end or ....

---

Request for Question Clarification by jbf777-ga on 26 Jan 2004 09:43 PST

Hello -

There are certainly wrought iron products -- furniture in particular
-- sold within the US at very large retail stores such as Target and
Costco.  So there is certainly a market here in the U.S. for such
things.  Whether you can sell them successfully depends on the quality
and attractiveness of the products themselves.  A restaurant, for
instance, has no idea whether or not they will succeed until they open
their doors.  There can be several variables that determine the
marketability of a product.

What kind of sales volumes are you looking to reach?

Are you interested in becoming a distributor in the U.S., that could,
for example, sell the products through existing retail outlets?  This
may be a more promising way of sell these items.  What kind of
quantity is the manufacturer able to produce (given that the products
are hand made)?

What kind of budget are you working with?

Thanks,

jbf777
GA Researcher

---

Clarification of Question by bluelight1-ga on 27 Jan 2004 06:51 PST

Hi jbf,Thank you for trying hardly to give me an answer first:)
Regarding your questions:

Q1:What kind of sales volumes are you looking to reach?
A1:0,01% of the mails i have (about 5 millions)=500x medium spending
50$/buyer should be 25K sails which i would be extremly happy to
reach.

Q2:Are you interested in becoming a distributor in the U.S., that could,
for example, sell the products through existing retail outlets?
A2:This seems rather complicated ,but i will listen any ideas that can
 bring some profit to me.I m not a rock head:) so i care about any
opinion.Just that mail sails seems more efective.

Q3:What kind of quantity is the manufacturer able to produce 
(given that the products are hand made)?
A3:The manufacturer got 200 workers.All depends of what buyers want to
get.There are things that even 3 workers can t finish in 1 week,but i
believe that the quantity it s low,500 pieces per week.

Q4:What kind of budget are you working with?
A4:5K$


If you have any other question don t hesitate.

   Good bye,and good luck finding me the best answer.

---

Request for Question Clarification by jbf777-ga on 27 Jan 2004 12:53 PST

bluelight -

I'm just re-reading your question, and I'm trying to find out your
exact needs.  What would be a satisfactory answer for you?  What would
this answer consist of?

jbf

---

Clarification of Question by bluelight1-ga on 27 Jan 2004 14:06 PST

"I would like you to make a detailed search for me to know if i have a
chance to sell with succes the accesories on american market.I m
thinking about selling all this things through bulk Emailing system."

Do i have a chance or not?If yes gimme some forecast or smth.
Also you can give me some details about some big US reatailers where i
could give at least a phone or some email.


"I also would like a suggestion on how to accept payment since i really
don t want to involve myself with merchant account.Should i go for
COD,Western union...Also for the suggested payment type please give me
some details: should i get a part of money first like 20%,and the rest
in the end or ....."

Suggestions please.

In the end you can write your opinion on what i want to do ,and give
me some advice.Thank you.

---

Request for Question Clarification by umiat-ga on 27 Jan 2004 22:47 PST

Hello, bluelight!

 There is definitely a market for handmade wrought iron furniture and
accessories in the United States. Whether your items would be
marketable in terms of uniqueness or competitive pricing is a matter
that will take a good deal of investigation "before" you can come
close to making a business decision, as you already realize.

* You will be competing with companies in the United States that
already offer wrought iron furnishings as well as some overseas
companies that supply similar objects and ship to the United States.
You will have to decide if you, or the customer, will pay the shipping
costs. This will be an important factor in the competitiveness of your
pricing structure.

 In any case, it seems that you need to gather quite a bit of 
preliminary information concerning exactly what wrought iron products
are available in the United States market before you can even consider
the viability of your potential business.

===

** I suggest providing you with an answer to your question which
varies quite a bit from what you originally asked. What I am proposing
follows:

 1. You might consider becoming a supplier to European companies that
sell handmade wrought iron furnishings and accessories strictly within
Europe, or to the United States as well.

  A. I could provide you with some names and contacts of such companies.

2. I could provide you with links to websites of US companies that
currently sell handmade wrought iron furnishings and accessories so
you can get an idea of item pricing and how you could compete,
financially, if you were to offer items on your own.

  A. Some of these companies are actually run by former Europeans, or
those who learned their craft in Europe, who now manufacture
handcrafted wrought iron products for sale in the United States.

3. I could provide contact details and websites of interior design
supply firms that deal in wrought-iron furnishings and who might be
interested in ordering your products on a wholesale basis, or
referring customers to your products through a brochure or website
address.

4. I could provide some examples of payment and shipping options that
overseas companies employ to sell their products. (For example, one
company I reviewed uses the following payment options - "checks by
mail, Electronic Checks Online or by Fax, Money Orders, international
money transfers and letters of credit. %40 deposit is required on all
ordered items with the balance due on shipment from our premises.
Items cannot be shipped until payment in full has been collected."

** I want to stress that it is virtually impossible to give you an
estimate about how much money you could make in a business like this
without a lot of preliminary groundwork being done first. Your
financial return depends on many factors.....first of which is whether
your items are marketable, or if they merely replicate what is already
on the market in sufficient quantities.

** You have mentioned that you would like to sell your products
through "bulk email"? Do you mean that you intend to have a website,
and then take email orders?
 
===

 Perhaps, after reviewing what is already available in the United
States (by US and foreign suppliers) you will be in a better position
to decide how (and if) you still wish to market some wrought iron
products. For instance, you might decide to settle on a few accessory
pieces to market to some interior design firms or small companies that
specialize in wrought iron decorative furnishings. You would have to
supply photographs and information pertaining to the products you hope
to market.

==

** Please let me know if you are interested in the type of answer I
have proposed. If so, I will continue with some further research.
umiat-ga

---

Request for Question Clarification by umiat-ga on 28 Jan 2004 15:48 PST

Please be aware that you can respond to my clarification even while I
have the question locked.

One other point I wanted to make is that your handmade wrought iron
would be more attractive to "specialty stores" and custom home owners
and designers as opposed to the mass-produced, non handmade cast iron
products sold in major chain stores.

---

Clarification of Question by bluelight1-ga on 28 Jan 2004 19:50 PST

Dear Umiat,I thought i ve made my self clear in the other clarifications.
I like the fact that you are trying to help me ,and i will give you
free hand in giving me the best answer.What you must understand is
that I want the best sollution regarding my new business.People things
different and everybody s opinion could help me make a good deal.I
like the idea of "speciality stores",and i like the idea of having a
list with potential retailers arround USA or Europe.What i you must
think FIRST is that i will not start by dealing with retailers.I will
start with a lot of emails,and first of all i want an opinion here.Any
advice any suggestion will be studied by me.Think that i need a
sollution for selling the accesories on the site i ll create
soon.After all this you can give me a list with retialers from big
stores and "speciality stores " from US and EU.I hope i ve made my
self clear this time cause this is the last time i ll clarify this
question.

I NEED USEFUL FEEDBACK:)) 

Was a joke,but i m serious, i need all you can give.

---

Request for Question Clarification by jbf777-ga on 30 Jan 2004 18:11 PST

Sorry to drag out the clarification requests some more, but please
understand -- we need to have a very clear understanding of your needs
in order to give you an answer you'll be satisfied with.

>"I would like you to make a detailed search for me to know if i have a
>chance to sell with succes the accesories on american market.I m
>thinking about selling all this things through bulk Emailing system."

>Do i have a chance or not?If yes gimme some forecast or smth.
>Also you can give me some details about some big US reatailers where i
>could give at least a phone or some email.

This is predicated on a very large number of variables.  Firstly, I've
never seen the product-- the quality/price, etc.  I don't think a
forecast would be pragmatically possible.  How about listing the
variables that you should be aware of?  Tips on making it most
effective?

---

Clarification of Question by bluelight1-ga on 30 Jan 2004 18:34 PST

Ok.It seems that we have a hard question here ,and it seems that you
are giving all you got to find me the best answer.
Regarding bulkmailing sells i ll give you 3 possible answers.Based on
what you ve searched and what your "inspiration" is atm pick from the
answers.
1.You have no chance
2.You got some chances but people are not very interesterd in email
offers especially regarding furniture.
3.You ll rock the handmade wrought iron market if you sell through emails:)

If you got other answer i ll be happy to hear it.


Now,about accepting payment i would like to hear some sollutions.Don t
use all your time to give me complicated sollutions etc.

After all this please inform me about what should i be aware of,some
tips regarding the succes of this kinda of business and in the end a
list of
potential retailers from US and EU.I think "speciality stores" are
good so if you find some of them to include in the list would be
awesome.

Hi bluelight1 -

After researching and thinking this question through, I've determined
that the real, true answer to the bulk email aspect of it is, "Try it
on a small level and see."

There are so many variables that determine the success of a product,
the only way to see how it will pan out is to dip your toe in the
water and see what the temperature is. Notice I said "toe" and not
your whole leg.  Sink a few hundred dollars into an email campaign. 
See what kind of response you get.  If it doesn't fair up to your
expectations, try another email campaign -- this time, change the
email and subject contents.  If it doesn't work, and you're still
brave, perhaps try again: this time with a different targeted
audience.  If, after 2 or 3 times, and less than $1000 in total
expenditure, you don't see the response percentage you're looking for,
you can safely say "it's not working" and at the same time not lose
your shirt with the minimal upfront risk.  By the same token, if it
DOES show promise, then you can increase your allotted funds to the
campaign *incrementally* and see if you continue to see the same or
better results.  The look of the product on the screen, the price of
it, how it's placed in your ad, who you're targeting, the
accessibility of the product in terms of being able to buy it -- these
and other variables work to determine the success of your campaign.

What is my opinion on it?

Online furniture purchasing is definitely increasing.

"ComScore analyst Graham Mudd notes that the fastest growing areas of
the online market (aside from travel) were sales of big-ticket items
such as furniture, appliances and jewelry. Increased consumer
confidence in these areas account for the boost in spending."(1)

But I'm willing to bet that most of the online sales are coming from
people specifically looking to buy furniture, specifically going to
Google, and specifically searching for what they're specifically
looking to buy.

For a real-world look at the situation, let's ask ourselves:

If I'm not looking to buy a bed, would I care about an email coming
into my mailbox advertising a bed?  Wrought iron, hand made, gorgeous,
great price?  No.  If you're not looking to buy a chair, would you
care about an email coming into your mailbox advertising one?  Wrought
iron, hand made, gorgeous, great price?  No.  How about your friends? 
Would they care?  No.  Multiply this by hundreds of thousands of
recipients not looking to buy such items, not wanting to look at
another bulk email message, and I would think this represents a
real-world view of a general email list.  Remember, bulk email is
looked more upon as a problem nowadays to most people than a welcoming
advertisement.  Although still a viable form of advertising, it better
be targeted to "opt-in" recipients who are OK with receiving email
from advertisers (and how many are *legitimately* opting in is another
question).  How many just hit the delete button on all unsolicited
email?  You can figure a good percentage of the recipients won't even
*see* the message, even if it makes it to their mailbox!

You could have a beautiful advertisement for hand made wrought iron
beds in the newspaper.  If John Doe, browsing the paper, has
absolutely no need or desire for a new bed, is he going to act on it? 
No.  However, John might "remember" the advertisement and come back
later on to look for it if the need to buy a bed should arise.

Furniture is typically a high-ticket item that is necessity driven.
You have a new child coming into your family, and you have to decorate
his new bedroom. Or you have to replace the kitchen chairs.  People
aren't looking to buy a bed every day.  Or every month.  Or every
year.  Same is true for new chairs, or other items that are either A)
replacing what is already in a home, or B) furnishing a new home.  I
would think you're going to have to catch people in one of those two
states. Ask yourself, of the hundreds of thousands of people I'm
emailing, what percentage are going to be even in a *position* to buy
these products?  I would think a very, very, small number.  And then,
are they going to take the time to buy one from an unverified source
that can't even accept credit cards on its own?  Only accepts PayPal? 
I personally wouldn't shop with any vendor (other than one selling
through eBay or like site) that hasn't taken the time to set up a
merchant account.  In my opinion, there's something very
unprofessional about a site selling high class items, only to visibly
dump you over to a 3rd party credit card processing company to handle
your payment.  There are a number of point and shoot merchants that
handle processing in the background, integrated to your website.
Simply search for "accept credit cards online" or related terms in
Google and you'll find a number of companies eager to handle
everything in the background for credit card processing.  Either way,
you're going to have to absorb some fees for credit card acceptance.

If you're going to use a bulk email campaign, my suggestion is to use
it as an advertising vehicle to bring people to your website where
you're selling these products.  Give them an incentive to visit there
RIGHT NOW as opposed to later; for example, "click here for an
exclusive 30% savings on these hand-made wrought iron chairs."

With 5K to spend, here are the things I would do:

A) Get a good, high class website.   Spend up to $1000-$1500 on a
company to design and/or host the whole site:

Here's two examples:

Turnkey Innovations
http://www.turnkeyinnovations.com/products.htm
Our stores are based on the latest in php/mysql technology. What does
this mean to you? It means that most all information on your site is
stored in a single database. Everything from customer orders, catalog,
prices, specials, etc. What this REALLY means is that maintaining the
store with updates and customer service is a snap! It doesn't matter
if you are processing 1 order a day or 1000 a day, our stores are
ready for the growth of your business!

They have a Home Decor "ready to go" webstore for $495.

Also

The WWW Store
http://www.thewwwstore.com/default.html

Not to say you should use these companies, but try these search terms in Google:

://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=turnkey+web+store
  or
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=web+store+design
  or
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=web+store+%22complete+solution%22

You can also try related search terms.  There are countless companies
out there that provide complete outsourced, managed solutions for
designing, building and hosting a complete turn-key web store.

MAKE SURE the site is high quality in every regard.  The site MUST
STICK OUT and be VERY EASY TO use in order to attract and hold
people's attention.  It must not look low grade, cheap, or
fly-by-night.


B) The site must get noticed.  Primarily, that means visibility in
search engines.  Two
important places to look into:

Google Adwords
://www.google.com/adwords

Overture
http://www.content.overture.com/d/USm/ays/ps.jhtml

Your site MUST be as front and center as possible to attract the
attention of would-be shoppers.  I would also investigate search
engine placement companies that specialize in getting you visible in
search engines results (with a guarantee or money back).

Try these search terms for locating a company:

://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=%22search+engine%22+placement+guaranteed

Spend a thousand or two on search engine placement and ads.


C) Try the bulk email route.  If it doesn't work on a small level,
with MEASURABLE success from the bulk emailer, I'd abandon it.

Here's a search term for locating companies:

://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=opt-in+email+guarantee

You can easily direct people to this site in any bulk email campaign
you choose to use.


D) Get your site listed in and on relevant databases, furniture
sites/directories, etc.

Examples:

Furniture Quest
http://www.furniturequest.com/Add_Furniture_Store.htm

Furniture Information Center
http://www.furniture-info.com/001-homepage.htm

Froogle
http://www.froogle.com

Furniture Shopping tips
http://www.furnitureshoppingtips.com/diningroomfurniture.html

Relevant search terms:

://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=%22wrought+iron%22+%22advertise+with+us%22

://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=furniture+%22advertise+with+us%22


E) Try eBay!  Many people/companies are making a living off eBay. 
It's a good means to advertise your products and get some visibility.


Also, have you thought about customer support?  Shipping and handling?
Are all these things handled by the manufacturer?  Are you off the
hook if something goes awry?  Do you have phone support in the USA?  A
means to handle sales, tech support, RMA questions - especially by
phone with high ticket items?  These things are integral to selling
online.

Of course, the above is all about a do-it-yourself approach.  As we
discussed before, you might want to do some investigating into
wholesaling the products to retailers or distributors.  This is
certainly of lesser risk, since you'd basically be setting up a deal
with the manufacturer and getting a cut as a distributor -- with
little to no capital outlay of your own.  You might want to try this
first.

Verizon Superpages is an excellent free source for finding retailers
and wholesalers.  Their database is arranged by state.  There are
hundreds of furniture wholesalers in California alone:

http://yellowpages.superpages.com/listings.jsp?CID=5021AH18826&MC=1&SRC=&C=furniture+wholesale&S=CA&R=N&CB=b2b&STYPE=S

Here's a list of "Furniture buyers" in California:

http://yellowpages.superpages.com/listings.jsp?CID=5021AH18826&MC=1&SRC=&C=furniture+wholesale&S=CA&R=N&CB=b2b&STYPE=S

Here are their furniture categories for California:

http://yellowpages.superpages.com/listings.jsp?SRC=&STYPE=S&R=N&CB=b2b&C=furniture&N=&T=&S=CA&search=Find+It&Find+It.x=0&Find+It.y=0

On the left hand side, you can type in "furniture" in the category,
and type in a state in the "State" field.


Here are a variety of furniture links in Europe:

http://directory.google.com/Top/Regional/Europe/United_Kingdom/Business_and_Economy/Shopping/Home_and_Garden/Furniture/

Here's a place you might be able to sell into:

Metal Maniacs
http://www.wrought-iron-furniture.com/


Links to check out:
============
(1) http://www.searchengineposition.com/info/articles/2003OnlineSales.asp

www.crmbuyer.com/perl/story/18968.html 
"The types of products that tend to sell well online are either
inexpensive -- meaning they are low-risk -- or they are cheap to
distribute," said Brozek, noting that books, music, airline tickets
and flowers are still leading the way.

http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/stories/2003/07/28/smallb1.html?page=4
Schatsky, the Jupiter analyst, says that trade on the Internet is
growing. Two percent of total retail sales occurred online in 2002,
and that will climb to 3 percent by the end of this year. Furniture
retail sales lag, however -- only 0.4 percent of total U.S. sales
occurred on the Internet in 2002.

http://www.csilmilano.com/newsletter/newsletter.html
According to this article, "Clearly furniture is a tough business even
in the real-world; Levitz Furniture itself declared bankruptcy in
1997. Today Levitz Furniture has about 60 stores (half of them in
California), while Seaman also has about 60 stores in the northeastern
U.S., according to Hoover's.

http://www.furnituresmart.com/buyingonline.htm
"Online sales of furniture and home décor items adds up to less than
one percent of all furniture sales world wide, and this number is
decreasing everyday because of the rampant problems many consumers
have experienced with the current bunch of online furniture
retailers."

Selected search strategies:
furniture sales 2003
furniture online sales 2003

---

Clarification of Answer by jbf777-ga on 02 Feb 2004 16:43 PST

If you choose to rate this answer, please ask for any necessary
clarification you may require beforehand.  Thanks for your
understanding.

---

Clarification of Answer by jbf777-ga on 18 Feb 2004 18:38 PST

bluelight -

I came back and reread my answer today, and I wanted to clarify something.

It wasn't my intent to dissuade you from this business.  By all means,
it is definitely doable if you do it right.  There are many people
successfully doing business online.  But I wanted to make sure I
presented realistic information to consider before investing hard
earned cash into this kind of thing.  Any entrepreneurial endeavor is
of some measurable risk, and I wanted to make sure you had as truthful
a picture as I could give.

If you have any other questions about this, feel free to ask.

Thanks,

jbf