In the early days of the web there were lots of theories about what you could and should sell online. Now we don’t have to make do with theories. We’ve got enough e-commerce under our belts that we pretty much know for sure that there are two things you shouldn’t sell on the web if you’re a normal musical instrument store.
NOTE: This advice isn’t for you if you have a catalog operation or if you serve a niche market.
The first thing you shouldn’t sell on the Web is musical instruments. Why? Because the folks who will buy musical instruments on the Web are precisely the folks you can’t make money selling musical instruments to, unless you have a specialty.
These are the folks who really shop for the lowest price. That means they’re low margin customers who may or may not buy anything else from you.
SUGGESTION: Use your site to push other strengths of your store to attract local buyers who will shop at your place because it's local.
The second thing you shouldn’t sell on the Web is little stuff that you have to ship. You don’t want to be doing what pets.com did and lose money on just about every order you ship. Stay away from the business of shipping polish and valve oil and strings over the Web.
SUGGESTION: Use the Web site to build traffic into the site and increase convenience for regular customers. Let folks place orders that they can pick up at the store. Then have them pick up their order in the part of your store that sells what they buy. Let folks give you the information for basic repair orders online, or re-order items they order frequently.
You can sell items online profitably if it's to regular customers, but watch that shipping costs and effort don’t eat up your profits
