Taking Effective Product Photos

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday. Back to the regular grind. I will be finished with my semester in about 2 weeks of classes, including my finals. This may be my last post for a couple of weeks as I prepare for, and take my finals.

I have gotten my Wine Making Kit online, as well as the required Wine Making Kit Refill


If you have any sort of web store, or are selling any items on the internet, or anywhere, for that matter, you will need to take enticing product photos. I will try to provide a short description of a technique for taking simple, effective product photos.

1. You will need a place to take the photos.

I fashioned a simple "photo studio" which serves my purpose. You may, if you wish, purchase a "home product studio" from several retailers. These are more professional, and have everything you need, but you will pay for it.This is effective, and will serve your purpose if you have the cash. You can find this studio at first street, among other places. If you have $60 to spare on your business, go ahead. I do not, however. If you will be taking TONS of photos, this is worth it, I, however, do not have enough turnover to make it worth my while.

I fashioned my own studio which works very effectively. I simply used 4 different pieces of computer paper to fashion my own little studio. I just took a little time, and some tape, and formed exactly what I needed, add a light to the picture (it's a pun, get it?) and voila!

To make these:

• I folded the side pieces, so, when laid on top of the other piece of paper, they would reach the end.
• Tape them to the back piece of paper.
• Tape the bottom piece of paper to the walls.
• You are finished making it.

Now, you need a light for...lighting. I shine a nice light straight up, and then use another piece of paper to reflect the light back down onto the products. This gives a nice light effect (DO NOT USE A FLASH!)

I turned off the lights in the room, shined my light straight up, reflected the light back down on the product, and got a result as follows:
A little quick photo editing yielded me:
This was as simple as pie. Well, it sounds simple as pie, but how exactly did I do it?

2. Get a decent camera

I used the Panasonic Lumix FZ28, which I just got, and think is an INCREDIBLE camera. You do NOT need a super complicated camera. Certainly, the nicer the camera, the nicer the photos, but you will not get bad photos from a less than stellar camera. Ideally, you will want some manual settings. I set my shutter to 8 seconds, at and ISO of 100, and got great results.

You do not need to be perfect, but here are the settings I used:
Shutter priority
ISO 100
Shutter time of 8 seconds (Also tried with 6, and 4 seconds with good results)
NO FLASH

You will likely need a tripod, or some sort of stable place to put your camera. With these long shutter times, it is very easy to get a blurry image. You can get a cheap tripod on e-Bay. While not necessary, make sure you at least have a way to keep the camera very steady.

If you can set these settings, try them out. The important thing is to try to work out what settings are needed for your own camera. These worked for me, but may be terrible for your settings, only time will tell.

3. Edit the photo

At the very least, you can put your photo up without any editing, but you will benefit from some editing. If you have adobe Photoshop, and you know how to use it well, you are pretty much done with anything I could tell you.

You will want to do some cropping, which can be done in very simple programs, even windows picture editor can crop. If you want to do a little more work, try GIMP. It is a toned down photo editor like Photoshop, which is completely free. I have used GIMP do do some very nice effects, and though I don't like it as much as Photoshop, it works well. I used a clone stamp tool to fill in some areas which were not what I wanted them to look like. For example:




This was the original photo, taken with only the little photo studio I fashioned.












You can see the difference that can be made upon a photo with just some simple editing tricks.






4. Publish the Photo

You'll want to make sure you save the photo in the proper settings for your personal sales website. My main requirement is that I save in a square. Beyond that, it can be in any size, and it will be fixed by ecrater.


I hope that helps out, it's a simple process, and it can be repeated for any products. Picture here were my Wine Making kit, and Wine Making Refill Kit.

• Make a simple studio
• Get a simple camera
• Take some photos
• Do some editing
• Sell some products

If you have any questions, please contact me at ContactUs@dorm-gear.com

If you have read this post on facebook, the complete blog is available at www.dormroombiz.com

Basic Sourcing Information

As my readers will know by now, I have been putting together a wine making kit to sell on my store. I have been working on this for a while now, at least a month, I'm not positive how long (I should probably pay attention in the future) but I have met a couple of delays. These delays could have been lessened if I had developed a better sourcing strategy.

A sourcing strategy sounds like a big term, meant for bigger businesses, or eat least larger small businesses, not a dorm room business. A dorm room business is just purchasing, right? Buy products and then sell them. Well how are you going to choose what to buy? How do you choose where to buy from, or how many you'll buy? That's a sourcing strategy; it doesn't have to be the incredibly complicated procurement systems some companies use.

I needed a few products for my kit, and my ultimate goal was to find the most cost effective products that would still provide quality for my customers. If my customers purchase products that are of low quality because I decided to only go for cheap products, that reflects poorly on me. No one cares if I tell them "oh, my supplier messed up" because to them, I messed up. Think about it, if your supplier got the product from someone else, you don't care, if your product fails, you have issue with your supplier.

I did quite a bit of searching on the Internet. First, however, I developed a list of products that make home wine making easy, and then a list of items that are required for home wine making. These required products are the ones I chose for my kit. Some products make things easier, but they are not required, and thus would be stuff my customer does not need. So, my product development strategy was to develop a bare essentials product that was quality, but cost effective. I had a target price in mind, $10 for the kit, so I knew about what I could pay for the different parts of the kit.

So, on to sourcing; I knew what I needed to get, so I found the lowest cost suppliers I could find. I had it narrowed down to about 4 different suppliers for the least expensive products. I then eliminated those suppliers that did not have everything I needed, even if the products were not lowest cost. Something to remember is that with low volumes, shipping cost can be a major deal breaker. I had thus narrowed it down to 2 suppliers, which I was ok with; 2 suppliers to put together these kits. I was fine with it until I got a shipping quote at $18, on about $40 worth of products. Back to the drawing board.

I did a cost analysis (adding together my costs per kit) of using just the one other supplier, and it wasn't great, but I thought I might have to do that. Then, a few more Internet searches, and I finally found a company that had EVERYTHING I needed, and at the lowest prices. I have no idea how they were able to do this, but everything was a quality brand, so I purchased everything from them.

I did not think it all through, however, because I ordered 30 1 oz. doses of a liquid sanitizer (BTF Iodophor) which is required, and I received 7 4 oz. doses, and 2 1 oz. bottles. That did not work, so I talked to them, and they told me to send them back, and they would re-bottle them for me. I sent them all back (except the 2 1 oz. bottles) and got 28 1 oz. bottles back. The problem...the bottles they use leak. Iodine stains, and is nasty stuff, so I decided to change my product. It cost me more, and I COULD use the Iodophor, but I decided my customers would not like products that could leak all over everything.

I knew there was one supplier (Mr. Beer) that sells affordable, one-step powdered sanitizer. I bought 25 of those packets, and it comes out, with shipping, to about the same price as I was paying, so I'm ok. I'm currently waiting for the products to show up, but I think I'm going to put up the wine kits on the store once I get a shipment confirmation from Mr. Beer, so I can start advertising.




That was a long story just to make a few points, so I'll try to bullet-point the important stuff.

• Develop a product plan
• Figure out exactly what you need for your store or product
• Develop a list of potential suppliers, google is your friend for this
• Look for overlap, where suppliers can supply a large portion of your store
• Do a total cost analysis (Cost of product, plus tax, shipping, etc.)
• Develop a list of 1-3 suppliers, and commit.
• Remember, you might save money on shipping per unit by buying in bulk, but don't forget about your personal storage abilities (ex: A dorm room cannot store large boxes of shirts)
• Make your purchase, and be excited to have stuff to sell
• Be ready to adapt in case something does not work out.

I hope those are some helpful points. If you have any questions about this process, PLEASE feel free to contact me using the contact button on the right.

Also, remember, if you would like to submit a guest post, I am still accepting them. I love to get other points of view out there.

If you are reading this on facebook, you can find the complete blog at: dormroombiz.com

Legality

I'm going to talk a little bit today about legality. Unfortunately, a MAJOR aspect of any business, is the laws governing it. Whether you are a major corporation who is subject to millions of rules, from the SEC, down to local laws, or you are a small entrepreneur who is not subject to nearly as many laws, how can you figure out what laws apply to you? Breaking a law can not only be expensive, it can shut you down.

First of all, a few resources you can use
Business.gov
Small Business Guide at Business.gov
Findlaw.com - Link to the small business section of Findlaw
Small Business laws at findanswers.com

So there are some resources for small businesses to find some laws that might apply to you. This is, however, DORMroombiz. We are all about dorm room businesses, and there is another level of laws that apply to you. You should definitely read any material available to you about the rules in your particular dorm complex. Please be sure you read this information, there may be some rules that you don't think make sense which are strictly enforced. I thought I would be allowed to have a harmless toaster oven, but they are strictly forbidden. This is a non-business example, but you get the point.

My dorm life contract DOES specify that I may not sell items from my room. I have interpreted that to mean I may not turn my room into a store, which I would definitely not do. If you choose to break these rules, you may get away with it, but if you get caught, it can be severe. Some have even been kicked out of the dorms. Remember, if you get kicked out, you VERY likely do not get a refund.

I got more Inventory, it goes up after my break

Well, I'm on my spring break right now in Texas, but as soon as I get back to Michigan, my new products go up on the store. I got glow shot glasses, 16 blue, 16 red, 16 green, and 12 yellow. One of them was pre-cracked (it came glowing, which means I can't sell it) so the company I bought from put a credit on my account so I can get an extra one next time I order from them. I also bought a bunch of temporary tattoos. I was going to put these up before spring break, but I decided to wait until after spring break to upload the products and really promote the store. I figured if someone ordered something while I was in Texas, there was no way I could fulfill the order, and that would be bad for business.

Since I got to see one of the shot glasses pre-glowing, I was able to see how cool it was. It was really quite awesome. I just thought it was going to have a little novelty, but I really liked taking a shot out of it, there's something cool about a glowing shot glass, it just felt right :)

Anyway, I should probably begin uploading the products on Monday, and I'll start serious marketing. As far as I can tell, I am going to have some of the least expensive glowing shot glasses on the web. The tattoos are going to be great add-ons to other products. They'll be cheap, but they're really cool tattoos. I got the armband ones, wristband, and a couple types of Chinese symbols. I figure they're fun little items that people can pick up with their purchase.

This is going to be a short post, because I have to go get ready for a dentist appointment, but it's been good to get a few thoughts out there and let everyone see where I am.

Cheap Dorm Food

Well, I tried making the quesadilla's, and they were dynamite! It was simple, tortilla down, mexican cheese spread out on it, meijer brand chili powder sprinkled over top, and another tortilla. Microwaved it for like 20 seconds, and it was awesome. This will sound weird, but it reminded me of the really good spot in a bean burrito from Taco Bell...you know, the sauce pocket that always forms and is really the best part of the burrito. This entire quesadilla was like that; the tortilla got soft, (since there was no direct heat, it couldn't become crispy) but I kind of liked that, it was a very different quesadilla, and I loved it.

My spring break plans are set now. I'm heading to Detroit for like 4 days, and then heading out to Texas for another 4 days. The Canada trip was put on hold due to lack of interest, it will happen at a later time. I like this anyway, I get to see some family in Detroit, and then see my Parents and friends in Dallas too, so it's not too bad.

I am going to upload my webstore soon, it should be coming out in the coming week hopefully...actually, I think I'll wait till after spring break to do it, so I'll actually be here to ship out items in the even that I get any orders.

I had a plan for a little business to start over the summer. Inspired by Neville's water selling idea (see it here) I am going to try to find a way to sell drinks/candy at the pool this summer. I have to contact the homeowner's association to see if I can do this. I figure I'll offer them a share of the profits, and then to help with trash, I'll offer a refund if the kids bring back the trash, to encourage them to throw things away. Of course we'll clean up at the end of the day anyway. I am going to try to get a few friends in on this, so we could share posts, and also the costs. I thought about this for a while last year too, and I figured out we could make a KILLING on this stuff if it sold. There is relatively little startup costs, just the candy, drinks, and wood/paint to make the stand. It folds up real nicely, into very little to carry, if I build it right, it will be great.

The Front of the Stand, with a plastic window to display candy.

The Back of the stand, where we would sit
This is the stand all folded up. The top comes off
Another View

We would paint the stand, and come up with a different name, this is just a 3D model to show what it would look like, approximately. I think it could be a very profitable model. I put together a quick spreadsheet just for the candy, using a supplier I found online. I see high potential. Unfortunately, I can't get the image to work right now, but the numbers are good, ranging from a 44% markup to 114% markup. Woot!

My first Woot! Purchase with intent to sell

So I made a purchase on Woot! the other day, and I'm pretty excited about it. I bought three Sandisk mP3 players, which sell for about $20-$25 on e-bay, for $35 total. They're pretty nice actually, I just don't need one 'cause I have my iPod. I'm hoping to make a couple bucks on this, and at least I'll have the experience of buying something on Woot! For those who don't know what Woot! is, it's a website that offers deep discounts once a day on certain products, if you get the product, you get the discount, but once they sell out, it's over. It's found at www.woot.com

Every so often, they'll get some products that are re-sellable (there's a limit of 3 items per person) and this is the first one that seemed pretty solid on e-Bay. I'm trying to find something to get me back into the e-Bay groove, but I just can't think of anything, I've hit a sales wall :'( Any ideas would be GREATLY appreciated, although I know anyone reading this would probably keep those to themselves.

Valentines Day is coming up, and...well, I think it's a fairly pointless holiday, but it does help to stimulate the economy to a small extent, so it can't be all bad. It's definitely a consumer holiday though; however, whoever enjoys it, enjoy it with all your heart, just because something might be a consumer holiday, doesn't mean you shouldn't enjoy it if you want to.

It's been a little while since my last post, sorry about that; I had 3 exams in a matter of 2 days, and that kind of adds up the other work to be done, I wasn't really thinking about the blog. I ended up getting:
ITM 309: 33/40 (82.5%)
MSC 303: 44/50 (88%)
ACC 202: 17/18 (94.4%)

I'm pretty pleased with those scores, I expected a perfect score in Accounting, but the others went well. I usually score around an 80% on the first exam, then step it up to around 95-98% on the last exams, which so far has always averaged out for a 4.0. This isn't exactly my toughest semester (I just moved on to Oxy-acetalene welding in my Welding class) but these classes still require some work. I also started thinking about what to do with my schedule: I think I'm keeping the Supply Chain major, I'm also taking all the Accounting classes (though they won't give me the extra degree) with a specialization in Entrepreneurship and maybe International Business. This should get me a good first job (goal is $60,000 a year) and from there I should be good to get a free MBA.

Anyway, I am still looking for an effective way of making money on the internet from this room. I am going to make custom magnets, if anyone has a funny idea for a magnet, I would love to hear it, if I decide to use it, you might make a little cash :)

I'll keep you all posted on how things are going. Also, the senate approved the stimulus package with a few changes, I won't outline them, but if someone wants to guest post them, I'd be happy to put it up.

Is Dorm Room Business Legal

Here's something everyone should consider before trying to run a business out of your dorm room: Is it even legal? I don't mean as far as the actual laws go, but read your housing contract, see if you're allowed to run any sort of business. I just read an article about an NYU student who sold beer paraphernalia out of his dorm room; he was kicked out of student housing. You can find it here: Click Here

I think some businesses should definitely be allowed in dorm rooms, provided they don't get out of hand. This is an example where the University may have been justified in their actions, seeing as he was apparently over-running the mail room with boxes of merchandise. I encourage everyone to read that article, it's a good one.

I would love to hear about any dorm businesses any of you have started out there! Small or big, anything would be great to hear about. Click on the submit a guest post on the right hand navigation bar and send an e-mail detailing your dorm room business. If you would like to keep it confidential just let me know and I won't post it online.


Well, it's tax season! I was thinking about volunteering with an organization on campus that helps low income and foreign students with their income taxes. It's a community service, and it seems it would help with my interests. I figure it would be a good experience, and it's a good looking community service. Any thoughts?

This is going to be a short one, I just thought I would throw out a few thoughts for today. Looks like my e-Bay auction didn't so well...I didn't really expect it to, just taking a little gamble.

Have a safe and wonderful day.




As usual, if you are reading this on my imported facebook blog, you can find my full blog at wwww.dormroombiz.com

Dorm Room Business Update

I've been up to a lot. I'm working on the website which is going to be somewhat difficult. I'm going to need to spider it all together, and make sure everything works. It'll be a ton of pages. I also need to work out how I'm going to use a shopping cart, figure out what product options I'll offer, and research total shipping costs. I actually designed a logo for the website, and it's pretty cool, but I don't want to publish it until the store is up and running (and the domain is purchased) I don't want someone to see it, and buy the domain and try to sell it to me.

I'm currently working out the details for hosting as well. I've found a few websites that will host pretty cheaply. I'm leaning mostly toward host monster, since it seems to be pretty legitimate, and has most of the features I would want. It is 5.95 a month, but you have to pay ahead of time, so it's a $100 investment before the store actually opens. I'm working hard on this, and always looking for new merchandise. Let me know what you think of the product photos I've already put up by the way.

This is the add to cart button I think I'll use...any suggestions?

Guest Poster: Matthew Wolfe

I recently imported all my blogs into Facebook. There Matt Wolfe took some interest, and was generous enough to send me some tips on the DVD rental idea. Although I can't personally run a business like this, I thought his points were WAY too good to pass up, so I asked if I could post his message to me as a guest post. I hope you all enjoy it.


"Hi Paul! I haven't seen you in a while. I saw your note and decided the opportunity to offer my two cents was too good to pass up.

I think it's awesome that you are contemplating the merits of a business venture. I haven't run or began my own business yet but I offer my advice because I read about businesses every day in the Wall Street Journal, Yahoo Finance, thestreet.com, etc. I encourage you to seek out the advice of actual business owners/creators, to read columns and articles online about starting your own business, etc.

(By the way, I checked deep discount's website, and they are cheap and have free shipping. For instance, the movie October Sky is only $8.59 w/ free shipping. You've Got Mail is 6.62 w/ free shipping. Not bad. However, there are better deals if you look at amazon, half, ebay, froogle.com, etc. and are willing to accept a used copy, although there are sometimes new copies for even lower than the used copies.)

Here's a non-exhaustive list of questions to answer before you begin with this venture:

What are the limitations of your client base? Just your dorm? Just the people you know in your dorm? Or anyone with a pulse on campus?

What will constitute a "day" of rental? If the person accidentally keeps the movie for 13 days (they owe you $13), have they automatically bought it? Will you offer to buy/trade movies from other people? How many copies of each movie will you have on hand?

The movies in the highest demand are new releases (new's). How many copies of new releases will you buy? What is the cheapest source for new's? It's not Deep Discount - they don't sell The Pursuit of Happiness or probably any new's.

Why will clients choose your service over Blockbuster's or Netflix's mail-service? It is important that you identify how you provide value beyond what they offer and then capitalize on that.

Just as an idea for the extra value you provide, you offer the benefit of being able to watch the movie you want that day/immediately. With mail-service, you have to wait at least a day or two for the movie to come in. Then again, are you familiar with Netflix's instant online viewing once you've rented the movie? They let you view the movie online even before the DVD has been physically delivered to you.

What forms of payment will you accept? Cash, check, credit card, anything else? My inclination is cash only at first, but you should certainly look into the cost/benefit of accepting credit card payments. Anyone can do it, I think I heard one guy tell me he has a wireless credit card machine that he pays $70/month to use (plus prob. a percentage of all transactions).

What about your competitors? If your business were not in existence yet, what would most people do to rent a movie?

Read about your competitors, I think Block & Net are operating at very thin profit margins, if any at all. Why is that? Was Block ever a very profitable business, and why did profitability decline drastically? What does that mean for your business.

Those are just the questions on the top of my head; I could think of several times more. I wish you the best!

Regards,
Matthew"


I think everyone can take away something from that message. I have invited Matthew the opportunity to guest post on my blog in the future if he so wishes.

If you wish to be posted as a guest poster on dormroombiz.com, just send your write up (blog) to recchiap@gmail.com; I'll review it, and there is a good chance I will post it if it is relevant. Then you could be a published writer online :)

Thanks again Matt, and thanks to everyone reading this.

Again, if you are reading this on the imported facebook account, you can view my full blog at www.dormroombiz.com

New Business Idea

So while I was looking for some wholesale DVDs I had a business idea that I can't really pursue, but many people out there probably could. It takes a small investment, but it could pay off. If you bought a bunch of movies wholesale, then rented them out of your room, you could make some good money. I figure you can get most DVDs for $10 somewhere. If you rented them out for like $1 a day, you could easily make the money back. Start with the movies you already have, and maybe buy a couple real popular ones.

You could make a list for people to see what you have, and you could even find a way to mark whether it's in stock or not. The main issues would be dorm rules. You would need to make sure there's no stores with really cheap rental fees. The dorm just to the south of mine rents out DVDs to students for free. Is this the norm at most colleges? If not, you might be able to make a fair buck. Make sure you write down who has what DVD, DON'T rely on your memory, that is futile, you'll forget, and someone might steal your DVD. Also write down what room they live in, in case you need to go get them. You might also have a policy in case someone breaks a DVD (ex: you break it, pay $15 to buy it)

Beyond that, you could offer to sell the DVDs to the people for like $13 after they rent it (SPECIAL: Buy the movie and get your rental fee back!) You still make a profit, and have enough to get a new DVD to replace that one.

Well, just a thought; I wanted to get it out there before I forgot the specifics I had cooked up in my head.

Some Products Found

I've found some products to use. I'm making customized magnets (fridge magnets). I'm also making these really neat photo holders. I've made 2 of them so far to hold pictures of my god daughter. I also plan on selling temporary tattoos (great upseller) and glow shot glasses. Any other ideas out there? I'm working VERY hard on getting these products going.

I'm also starting to think about store design; I'll need a shopping cart, but I can use Paypal for that. I do need to find a webhost, as well as a clever name for the store. I could use some ideas on that too. I'm pretty excited about this. Even if it doesn't take off, it's still something I did, and that's a good feeling. I tried hard with e-bay many years ago, and was rewarded for that, hopefully this will pay off as well. I wish I could find like wholesale DVD's and sell those, that would be great.

Well I just wanted to keep everyone updated on my current progress with the store.