New DIY business
 

Greetings Chief Delphi members

A friend of my brother has started a new DIY business. My brother asked me to forward it to the robotics community.
The website is: http://www.diyitelectronics.com/
Please tell me how you like and give me feedback (good or bad). I will forward it to my brother.

Thank you

Re: New DIY business
 

The correct spelling of "Pannels" is "Panels"
"Antenna's" really shouldn't have an apostrophe; it should be plural, not possessive

For his address in the page headers, the Indiana postal code should ideally have both letters capitalized, ie (Fort Wayne, IN)

Re: New DIY business
 

For a couple of years I've had a policy of simply selling from my mountain of hardware and electronics.

I wish your brother the best. In the state of NJ the electronics/technical surplus providers have been dwindling. Those that remain have reduced their operating costs by reducing their physical presence.

I would own these tools and parts anyway, so I just sell out of my personal workshop. Packaging and presentation is an expense that I can't afford because realistically if I own a static bag of 10,000 2N2222 I doubt I will sell more than a handful at any one time. The packaging and presentation essentially negates the value of selling them.

Re: New DIY business
 

Wayne - Did he buy out a bankrupt Radio Shack? The shelves look awfully familiar.

Re: New DIY business
 

even if he didnt Im sure they were selling the shelves.

Re: New DIY business
 

The business will have to figure out what they offer that goes beyond what Amazon and/or SparkFun and online tutorials can offer (at a much lower overhead cost).

Is this primarily an online business, or a brick-and-mortar shop? It sounds like it's primarily the latter, and I'll assume it is.

In that case, judging by the website isn't going to be very informative. The best indicator is this image and "Our mission is to provide Superior Customer Service by helping you find exactly what you need and want at an affordable price." "Affordable price" is going to be a non-starter, because (as mentioned above) online outfits will do it cheaper*. Thus, I would suggest that the target markets are:

1. People who know exactly what they need to complete their weekend project but don't want to wait 3-5 business days for shipping
2. People who saw some cool project on TV/in a magazine, but need some help getting started
3. Anybody in the community you can get interested in Making who wouldn't be otherwise.

So I would focus the website toward:

• A single, more exhaustive page showing what inventory the store has, to cater to the (1) crowd - they want to know quickly whether the store will have what they need. For pictures of the items, include small thumbnails in the list that open larger images when clicked. The slideshow is not a good presentation format, in my opinion, because it hides too much (you have to wait for it to scroll through or push the button a bunch of times).
• Make the store address in the header a link to a map/directions how to get to the store
• Please, please get rid of the clipart. The site looks enough like it was made it 90s.
• Tailor the landing/home page to be more friendly, person-focused. In addition to including some pictures of the merchandise, include pictures of the store staff (perhaps smiling, but not creepily).
• Include some examples of the kinds of projects that you can help with, to reassure the (2) crowd that you can help them. Maybe offer an incentive (small ~$5 discount coupon?) for people who send in pictures of projects they've made with parts bought at the store.
• Change the dominant color from rainy-day gray to something more friendly. The same color advice could be given for the store attire itself

In addition to the website, hopefully there are more local-focused advertising efforts as well. A fun idea might be to offer workshops (maybe the first Saturday of every month/every other month or something) where community members can come in and learn how to build a small gadget. This will help expand the (3) group and push more of them towards being in (2) or (1).

Regardless of anything else, some of my favorite memories from when I was a kid are weekend trips to stores like this one, so I hope the business is successful.


* You might argue shipping costs, but the business won't survive on people coming in to buy individual $0.20 components. Also, Amazon Prime.

Re: New DIY business
 

Thanks for the feedback. I'll pass it on. I already caught the pannels :D
He is currently working with a web designer so hopefully the site will look better.

Re: New DIY business
 

Now that this has been linked on Chief Delphi offering to build FIRST robots is probably not the best idea :yikes:

Re: New DIY business
 

There's nothing wrong with selling parts for people to build into their robots...

Re: New DIY business
 

Read the line I quoted carefully, that would be building the robot or the robot parts.
Could name the store the Cheesecake Factory :D