Harbour Goods Co.

I wanted to learn how to set up an online store and start selling to people across the world. I was also interested in learning how to source products from around the world simply from finding them on Alibaba.

Of course, I couldn’t figure out what to sell. It took me two years before I finally identified an opportunity. I had just come back from a trip to Turkey and was wearing a Turkish towel as a scarf. Each time I wore it, random people would complement me or ask me where I got it from. I’d have to sheepishly explain that it’s actually a towel and that I bought it in Turkey.

Finally, something clicked and I recognized I should look into selling Turkish towels and blankets. This led me to get first-hand experience on how to screen manufacturers from Alibaba. I also learned that I needed to register as a textile dealer and get a CA number. I also learned how to build a wholesale business. Having spent the previous few years thinking about how to launch an online store, I went from idea to launch in about 30 days.

User acquisition

After telling all my friends, coworkers and Twitter followers about the launch of my new store, I recognized I needed to find new channels to acquire customers. I started posting about my store in subreddits, Facebook groups, and Slack channels. This brought in a few more buyers, but nothing significant. I started posting on social media and visited local night markets, but found them to be a lot more of an effort than I could afford at the time. Feeling the need to experiment with a new channel, I figured it was time to learn how to run ads on Google and Facebook. While Google Ads was much more straightforward, learning how to run on Facebook became an interesting challenge. Nonetheless, I successfully experimented with ads until I shifted my efforts to becoming a wholesale merchant.

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Wholesale merchant

Now that I knew how to launch an online store, I wanted to see how I could reduce my time spent on the store while earning the same, if not more. This led me to think about becoming a wholesale merchant. I looked into local stores in Toronto that sold home goods by visiting their website and Instagram accounts. I noticed a number of them already sold Turkish towels, but most didn't sell blankets. I used this info to visit each store during low-traffic periods and asked to speak with the owner. I told them I can sell them Turkish towels and cotton blankets, and showed them a couple of the towels and blankets that I brought with me. Depending on how receptive they were, I gave them a complimentary blanket and told them to take it home and give it a try. I would then follow up a few days later and asked them about placing an order. This approach worked quite well as I was profitable well before I had delivered the products. Plus, I had fewer customers to satisfy and didn't have to market the business regularly.

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Bulk orders

Thanks to my SEO efforts, local event organizers and marketing agencies found me on Google and contacted me to place bulk orders. Now, unlike the wholesale orders where I provided 50–60% discounts on the retail price, these bulk orders received only 30% discounts since their order sizes was smaller in comparison. Nonetheless, these orders proved to be another profitable opportunity for the business and allowed me to spend less time on content marketing. One of these orders led to the blankets being used for a Grey Goose event at The Spoke Club, which I only found out about when a friend at the event recognized the blanets and texted me photos.