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Comment by kentf | Hacker News Reader

Happy to answer any Qs. Retail is def more fun than dropshipping :)

Can you give some insight into how you choose what products you want to add to your site?

What was your initial investment cost for inventory?

How much inventory (dollar amount) do you keep on hand now?

Why would a customer choose to buy from your site over someone like Amazon?

Who is your target audience?

Do you have any thoughts on Facebook vs Google adds (which you prefer, which drives more traffic, which drives more spends)?

Is there anything such as a Shopify App, website, or service that you wish existed that currently doesn't?

Can you give some insight into how you choose what products you want to add to your site?

- I use the products I sell, and I am diligent about only putting up ones that are actually good.

What was your initial investment cost for inventory?

- $8,724

How much inventory (dollar amount) do you keep on hand now?

- Would rather not say here, DM on twitter :)

Why would a customer choose to buy from your site over someone like Amazon?

- Great customer service - Domain knowledge of the products - Fast shipping - Easy, no hassle returns - Service attitude

Do you have any thoughts on Facebook vs Google adds (which you prefer, which drives more traffic, which drives more spends)?

- Google will always yield higher quality traffic.

Is there anything such as a Shopify App, website, or service that you wish existed that currently doesn't?

- Great question need to think on it, follow up with me on Twitter @kentf.

Are there any decent self hosted Shopify alternatives at this point? Last I checked the best option was something old school like Magento.

We have used WooCommerce for 4 years now and are very happy with it: https://woocommerce.com/

Spree, it's a Rails Engine and def my fav for 3rd party hosting.

How do you like that compared to something like Solidus?

Do you know anyone who is in the e-commerce space for marijuana/e-cigs/adult? What are they using for payments?

PsiGate is the common gateway and Magento / custom builds are pretty much the standard.

Most of the e-cig/vape sites I've purchased from are running WooCommerce.

So what's the link to your site? (if it was in that medium article, it was not obviously found by scanning)

haha purposely didn't include it, didn't want it to feel too self-serving.

Very interesting read. You work for the place you source the products from, right?

Yes :), but I can't buy them because we haven't launched in Canada yet.

What's your profit like?

Depends on how much I pay in shipping, but I aim for 25-35% of gross. Still lots of room to optimize.

How do you compete with people who list on Amazon?

Curated assortment, domain knowledge of the products, word of mouth, fast shipping, and fair discounts to power users.