One of the more difficult aspects to starting a retail business is finding true wholesalers. While there are services like Doba and others, sourcing out good suppliers is an ongoing task for every new business owner. That’s why I wanted to share this resource I really just stumbled on quite by accident, and since I just did a post on selling books online as told by Family Business Ideas.com, I thought I’d throw it up. (that didn’t come out right, did it??)

Bargain Books Wholesale has a good selection of books offered with a minimum order of 3 of any title , and a $150 order. I couldn’t find them in the BBB, so there must not be any reports against them, and a brief online search didn’t reveal any problems. I will assume most of their books are what are referred to as ‘remainders’, which are basically printer’s overstock. I did take a random book called “God’s Word For Boys” which is available for $4.50, and looked it up on Amazon and found it is sold on Amazon for $18.99, or $7.97 by individual sellers (new). You could list it there for $$7.95 and be the first choice from Amazon’s Marketplace!

Hope it helps. Anyone else have a good wholesaler they’d like to share? mmmm, didn’t think so. Seems to be one of those resources businesses don’t like to share.

In my constant search for great resources for homeschool entrepreneurs, I still can’t believe I’ve never come across this website, but better late than never! Written by a homeschool family with eleven children in upstate NY, Michael and Julie Anna Schultz have been booksellers online for over five years now AND they are powersellers on Ebay.

Leaving a lucrative job in corporate America four years ago, Mike is a stay at home father with their book business on Ebay as his primary income. He also travels all over America teaching eBay classes, as well as entrepreneur classes! Mike and Julie Anna’s have caught the ‘Homeschool-Entrepreneur’ vision – uniting families through home entrepreneurship.

On their website, FamilyBusinessIdeas.com, you will find many great ideas for your family business, as well as help on how to get started. They offer a very reasonably priced ebook giving you everything you need to succeed on Ebay selling children’s books, and a book for the WAHM,  Cybermoms Home Income Ebook, also available on Ebay.

You can also subscribe to a monthly report that keeps you up to date on the most valuable books that you can be looking for to sell yourself. You may have one or more on your shelf at home!

Visit their bookstore at Book Jewels For Children.com

The holidays are quickly approaching, and the predictions are positive for retailers, especially those online.  A great deal of research has been done on consumer’s buying behaviors for 2009 with some basic suggestions to optimize your business. Here is a re-cap of an article from the American Express Open Forum.com (by Julia Rogers):

1. Fine-tune your website. The expected 49%  increase in online shopping is encouraging enough to make double sure your website is fine-tuned and ready to go.
2. Hire temporary help. Interestingly, budget pricing and sales-watching were not considered during our nation’s time of economic recovery. What was suggested was to utilize the high unemployment rate to snag some quality temporary help to give the best possible customer service. Get creative and utilize the exceptional talent that is available right now—you’ll be helping them while they help you.
3. Beef up your customer services. Be sure your customer service is absolutely the best it can be, adding 800 numbers and customer chat capabilities to your website if possible. Email alerts, fast shipping and consistent availability of hard to find items are good ideas, too.
4. Social Networking. Facebook isn’t just for students anymore. With over 300 million active users, the over-35 demographic is the fastest growing. This doesn’t look like a short-lived trend, and a Facebook-Twitter presence has  become as essential as a good web page in essential business practices.

Open Forum believes that the 2009 holiday season will be markedly different from last year. We all know that predictions aren’t always correct, it’s always good business to be ready for the busiest season of the year.

Read the entire article here: http://www.openforum.com/idea-hub/topics/money/article/what-customers-want-for-the-holidays-julia-rogers

An important side note for Christian families:

A Timely Homeschool Entrepreneur Discussion Topic:

We always try to pass along  tidbits to help your home business, but our main objective here at HSE is to encourage and highlight the benefits of mentoring through a family business. It’s so easy to get caught in the undertow of the commercial aspect of the holiday season, with or without a family business to run. Discuss with your children how your family really wants to experience the holidays, and how you feel about this time of year – and what you want your family/business to stand for. This is the season that most retailers prepare all year for. How should Christian entrepreneurs really respond to that? Set goals as a family that will reflect integrity over profit – and enter this season deliberately, before the whirlwind hits. It will be a lesson your children will carry with them for a lifetime.

Just came across a site that matches moms that review products with companies that will pay you to review their products. You need to be somewhat established, they will ask for your page rank, and how many Twitter-followers you have. Naturally, the better your ranking, the better the pay . . . but if you are new, you could offer reviews for a dirt cheap price to get your foot in the door-everyone starts somewhere!

Check it out:

http://momtent.com/for-bloggers/

Hopefully, you have subscribed to Score.org and already receive their monthly newsletter that’s packed with ideas, resources and tips. Don’t feel bad if you haven’t heard of them, you are in the majority because 99% of the people I’ve mentioned SCORE to have never heard of them. The 1% that has heard of them had no idea what they offered and were shocked when they learned it was all FREE!

SCORE.org is a non-profit, government sponsored agency that provides free professional counsel to small business owners. You can get real help from other experienced business owners that have signed up to offer their expertise. It’s strictly volunteer, but the counselors have been checked out and have made a commitment to follow through. It’s completely free and you can gain advice 24/7 via an online sign up process, or you can locate an office close to you and speak face to face with a volunteer.

SCORE also offers a wealth of how-to articles, tips, forms and other reliable small business helps at the their website and in their monthly newsletter. This month’s newsletter included reference to their free business plan templates, exclusive tips for success from Guy Kawasaki, and an online workshop called,  “Quick Start Biz Plan”.

Anyone can use their service. Even if you don’t have a business yet, you can talk to someone about your ideas and what you need to do next. Last year a friend of ours was thinking about starting a solar equipment installation business and we referred him to SCORE for some expert advice. He received replies from three engineer-level consultants that offered a wealth of resources to find out everything he needed to know. It turned out there are agencies that can measure the (probable) amount of solar energy available in different parts of the country and we aren’t in a very good area for utilizing solar power. One of the consultants even suggested some alternate ideas (like maybe wind power supply products) that would work better for our area of the country.

SCORE is definitely one of the best resources available for anyone thinking of starting a small business, and the best part is their price!

Visit their website and find out more at SCORE.org

Find the free business plan templates here >>