11 Biggest Mistakes to Avoid When Building an Infrared Sauna Company

Starting any business or diversifying your product line can be a big undertaking.  Often we make costly or time consuming mistakes that can hinder our growth or even put us out of business. Below are the 11 biggest mistakes to avoid when building an infrared sauna company or any big box online retail store.

1. Importing yourself?  Know who you are doing business with.  If you are importing yourself, it is wise to go to the country of origin to inspect the quality of the products and manufacturing facilities where you will purchase your products.  You will be liable for the safety of your products so its important to purchase product liability insurance for your company.  If something goes wrong with your product and you don’t have insurance you may find yourself out of business in relatively short order a the very least.  If you are importing yourself it can be an expensive risk particularly if you don’t insure your cargo in the unlikely event your ship sinks.  Cargo insurance can cost nearly as much as your container of product so many of us take the risk.  In the sauna industry you are importing a minimum of 40 saunas per container.  You pay for 70% just to get them built and then the other 30% before it goes across the ocean.  This process alone takes 3 to 4 months just to get products from China.
2. Warehousing & Shipping Considerations.  Importing yourself comes with other obstacles like warehousing, proper packaging so the sauna or product isn’t delivered damaged and negotiated shipping tariffs for price breaks on volume freight shipping.  Remember, when you are warehousing yourself, you will be the one absorbing the cost of damages.  Damages are a part of the business, will you be prepared for a freight terminal that decided to play fork lift hockey with your customer’s sauna or product?
3. The Dangers of Negotiating overseas. One of the first sauna companies I worked for, we imported and the owner made this very mistake of asking his Chinese manufacturers to make the sauna less expensive.  They made it less expensive but they also made the product a fire hazard that eventually put that sauna owner out of business.  My take away from this was in international business particularly in China.  Ask them how much for the very best hinge, relay, power cord, control panel and in most cases you’ll find at the manufacturing level the increased cost is negligible in relationship to product safety.
4. The American Importer.   The benefits of working with an American importer is that product liability insurance must be covered by the American company importing the products saving you from potentially costly lawsuits if something were to fail.   Working with an importer puts the burden of research and design on them as well.   You’ll eliminate the large outlay of initial cash or capital getting started by using someone else’s existing  prepaid inventory to break into the industry at a fraction of the time and cost of starting from scratch.
5. Product Awareness:  Now that you have your inventory of saunas to work from you need to sell them. Get the word out!  If you are starting ANY business, an online presence is critical to your success.  Get very familiar with WordPress and Google AdWords, this is how you will reach your customers.
6. Adwords is critical to the success of any online big box store. No matter how well you think you’ve got it, unless you’ve passed Google’s AdWords certification program seek out a professional. I once spent $1000 in 1 hour by mistake.  You are looking for an expert.  Google posts their partner’s test scores.  Don’t hire someone with a 70% go for 90% and above.
7. Content. Content. More Content.   Now that you have attracted visitor’s to your site, how do you keep them there?  You must know the who, what, where, when and how of your infrared sauna product or any product you sell and write it down.  In the online retail market you don’t have the opportunity to see customers as you would in a traditional retail location.  You must convey in your content the same information and personality you would if the customer were standing in front of you.  You must answer every possible question on your website as the presentation of transparency is key in gaining customer loyalty and trust.
8. Customer service. I don’t care what industry you are in.  If you are not attentive to your customers, you are just another sterile big box company.  To be exceptional you must go above and beyond and address specific customer needs in personalized manner.  Its more work that pays off in the long run of referral and repeat business, as well as, excellent online reviews and zero complaints.
9. Get Help! There is not a business professional on the planet that can be an expert in all areas from customer service, website management, online advertising, sales, product development, pick your deficit(s) and outsource to an experienced professional that won’t waste precious time, energy, resources or money.  No one can do it alone.
10. Branding and Self Promotion are critical to the success of your online business. Once a visitor comes to your site your online ad appearance for that visitor should increase so that they see you everywhere like in their email ads, video ads and article ads.  When you write about your entrepreneurial journey and experiences on news sites or emphasize your expertise in an article mention you are generating links back to your online store.  This self promotion is critical to new referral business and increased rankings in the search engine.
11. Follow the law, do the right thing and be honest! For Goodness sakes, an infrared sauna has so many legitimate health benefits there is no reason to lie.  Do you homework.  Read the studies and provide that information to customers seeking it.  Always follow the law in running your business from filing taxes to paying your bills.  You will spend so much more money skirting a lie you once told rather than being the person you say you are and doing the things you say you’ll do