Business Ideas BrAiNsToRm

Any new ideas, we can put here!

yes, let's brain storm~

Guys,

What do you think about making a blog and forum about design? We can attract designers that way.
Also, we can make a blog+forum for our beliefs too!
It seems pretty fun and its free!

Also, we can establish an online book store for the books we've read and recommend.

I know Fung has been reading a lot of books on entreprenuership and I've been reading a lot of english books on life and entrepreneurship as well.

I think it can work, but the problem is that we have to spend lots of time in managing the blog and forum. Also, we have to post essays regularly.

Hey man, recently, i chatted with a friend in Malaysia. He is working on direct sell, partner with Amway, one of the largest direct sell company in USA. He shared with me that he earns quite a lot. Maybe we can think about that by doing that in the China market.

http://www.amway.com.cn/

I know about 传销.
But its quite difficult in China, they need to apply a license.
Amway applied for a license to operate in China since its really big already.

Personally, I am hesitant to do 传销/直销.
A friend of mine introduced me to another 传销 called "eCosway", I've been to a few of their talks and "training sessions". To me, their main focus is about earning money. At least, that is the point they kept selling me: that eventually, I don't need to work and let your team/followers earn money for you.
I'm not saying that earning money is bad, its just that the products that amway and ecosway sell are health and personal care products mainly. For me, the products don't really interest me.

As for direct marketing in general, it can be a good business model. Just that, we need a good product and connections~

For the blog/forum - basically I'm just thinking of posting my thoughts and philosophy in life. Thinking if you guys want to start one together.

ya, direct sell doesn't interest me at all...
i just want to find some ways to earn money in faster, then i can have enough capital to start the business i want

actually, sharing our own thoughts is really cool~~
I have lots of strange "philosophy" to share...haha
I always believe that i am a think tank

Bookstore @ taobao

I think we can make a bookstore in taobao or something and sell the books we have read.
The ones that we think are really really inspiring and good.
It will probably be about business, entrepreneurship or life.

I've checked a few websites in China that sells books

www.taobao.com
www.amazon.cn
www.dangdang.com

Most of them have very little choice on english books (they are also very expensive), so I'm thinking if we can enter this market and import from hk some books that are hard to get in China.
We can also help ppl find some books they want since there are soooo much more variety of books in HK than in CN.

At my university time, i was thinking supply books to the university students, it is because
i, books are very very expensive and there existed a PRINTING EDITION in Chinese book market for those Import English books which always under $100
ii, there are demands for students to have a text book for only one semester, which the turn over rate is high, and we can only focus on two high demand period, sep & oct and jan & feb, we can have time to do other things

however, those PRINTING EDITION can only be used in China, not HK allowed, and it needs to have the books come across the boarder. second, we can only promote it secretly which may hard to touch the target. and also have the risk to be reported to the customs.

therefore, if we want to sell books in china, we need to consider if there are markets, because i assumed that if there are markets, then there are PRINTING EDITION.
AND i think what jacky means maybe the word "代購" which is to buy on someone's behalf. then we cannot restrict our business just on books, we can help buy anything the clients want us to. things maybe from HK, japan, usa where chinese cannot access to it, and we can have surcharge on it and can also do the reverse, help usa/eu clients to buy things from china/japan/hk

代購 http://s8.taobao.com/search?q=%B4%FA%B9%BA&commend=all&ssid=s5-e&pid=mm_14507416_2297358_8935934

yes! what I am saying is basically 代购!
I don't know about you guys, but I know a lot about books, but for other products I don't know a lot about them...
What other products do you guys have in mind?
Also, we can definitely source our products from other countries and not just HK.

Well...for BJ, there is not a lot of bookstores that sell imported books. It is pretty difficult to go to a bookstore and the selection is not very big...
I don't know about other cities in CN, can you guys find out?
(There is a market for fake printed english books but we are not competing against them)

For this project, I have researched a bit on the available websites.
www.taobao.com allows sellers,
www.amazon.cn doesnt.---anyone can confirm this?
www.dangdang.com allows registered comapnies/shops only
so we can only use taobao sell our books.

I want to eventually have our own website for this project in the future, only for imported books---mostly nonfiction, about life/entreprenuer/creativity, etc...

The reverse (cn-->outside) is possible but much of the products will be manufactured,B2B stuff (ie. source=factories)

Also, this project requires very little start up costs, basically we just buy stuff when the customers buy from us.

selling sexual products...haha
one of my fds suggested to me long ago

ann in amazon.cn, there is a category for imported books
but the china market is big, i think we can take a try by using exsiting taobao platform

http://www.amazon.cn/%E8%BF%9B%E5%8F%A3%E5%8E%9F%E7%89%88%E5%9B%BE%E4%B9%A6/b/ref=sa_menu_ib0/480-3684537-8167901?ie=UTF8&node=2045366051

hahaha~ sexual products! nice!
we can sell some Germany-imported condoms =D

anyways, for imported books.
there are 2 forms of business:
1) amazon style - we list and sell books thru taobao or a website of our own.
2) on demand - we help people find books that they request but cannot find in China.

We can do both I think, we just need a theme for our bookstore.
Is our bookstore going to be:
1) all imported books
2) non fiction books
3) books on a selected topic (eg. philosophy of life, entrepreneurship, etc)

What we need to do is set up a 1) taobao shop and 2) a blog for book reviews!

start from taobao is a basic and easy way, and the first thing to overcome is to be outstanding from thousands of similar competitors all around in taobao. i am wonder how those store keepers doing their best to attract and keep the vulnerable consumers? it is the first things we need to figure out. see what we would find out

jackyso99 寫到:hahaha~ sexual products! nice!
we can sell some Germany-imported condoms =D

anyways, for imported books.
there are 2 forms of business:
1) amazon style - we list and sell books thru taobao or a website of our own.
2) on demand - we help people find books that they request but cannot find in China.

i think both can exist without conflict.

For imported books

I think there are a few things we can start thinking about.
1) where is the storefront - taobao/own website? i think taobao should be a good start
2) what kind of books we selling?
i) target audience
3) what kind of distribution method we using? 快递 eg.顺丰 is best method
4) where do we source from? amazons from other countries? local bookstores?
5) how to differentiate ourselves? i think a blog for book reviews is the easiest way, what other ways you guys got?

as for other 代购 things

i don't want to just help people 代购 anything.
i think we need multiple accounts~

citi_flight 寫到:start from taobao is a basic and easy way, and the first thing to overcome is to be outstanding from thousands of similar competitors all around in taobao. i am wonder how those store keepers doing their best to attract and keep the vulnerable consumers? it is the first things we need to figure out. see what we would find out

Taobao is a good start as everyone of us agree.
For circle's concern, I think jacky's suggestion provide the solution. We can attract those book worms through the blog by sharing book reviews. And I believe the market is so big that we can still occupy a place, maybe just very little. Through the blog, we can build up our reputation gradually.

I think this kind of service require much more time to earn revenue.

I agree with Fung.
I think this is a long term thing, it is much for interest as it is for money.
But I think that is why it will work! Because I suppose we all like to read books...
also, this project we don't need much money. Just time and persistent blogging!

Also, I think we can use 微博 for quotes that you really like from a book!
I always wanted to quote some passage from a book that I've been reading!!

jackyso99 寫到:I agree with Fung.
I think this is a long term thing, it is much for interest as it is for money.
But I think that is why it will work! Because I suppose we all like to read books...
also, this project we don't need much money. Just time and persistent blogging!

Also, I think we can use 微博 for quotes that you really like from a book!
I always wanted to quote some passage from a book that I've been reading!!

Exactly, I will jot down those inspiring quotes that i read from books!!!

should we use our contesa blog or open a new one?