Helm › Helm University › Track 0 › Lesson 0.5
Lesson 0.5Is Helm right for you? An honest checklist
The end of track 0 is a decision, and one of the available answers is no. Here is how to tell which one is yours.
Prefer to listen? This is the same lesson, word for word. The text below is the transcript.
This lesson prepares you to: Decide whether to open a shop now, wait, or sell elsewhere, using a checklist that includes reasons not to.
Open a shop now if most of these are true
- You have real items you own and can ship. Not a dropship arrangement you have never seen a sample from.
- Nothing in your catalogue is on the prohibited list. Check it properly, in lesson 0.2.
- You can pack and hand an order to a carrier within 2 business days. That is the standard here, not an aspiration.
- You can wait 14 days after delivery for your first payouts. Every new shop starts on introductory.
- Your product is better in someone's hands than in a grid of thumbnails. That is the whole advantage of selling somewhere with live.
- You are willing to be a person on camera, or at least in your photographs.
Wait if any of these are true
- You have not decided what you are selling yet. A storefront with three unfinished listings is worse than no storefront.
- You cannot ship reliably for the next month. Holiday, house move, day job crunch. Late shipping without proof lands on you, and your refund rate is the one number that moves every held order you have.
- Your only photographs are the manufacturer's. Fix that first. It is the single highest return hour you can spend.
- You need the cash from a sale inside a week. Introductory tier is 14 days after delivery, and no amount of asking changes it.
Sell somewhere else if any of these are true
We would genuinely rather tell you this now.
- Your category is prohibited here. It is not going to be unlocked for you.
- Your advantage is price on a commodity item. Helm has no price sorted search wall to win, so the thing you are good at does not convert here.
- You need marketplace scale this quarter. Helm is early. Our catalogue and our buyer traffic are both small next to the platforms you are comparing us with, and pretending otherwise would just waste your time.
- You want to buy your way to the top. There is no ad auction. That is deliberate, and if it is a dealbreaker it is a real one.
What you are choosing when you say yes
| You give up | You get |
|---|---|
| Marketplace scale, today | An audience that arrived through an interest rather than a search box |
| Instant listing, no vetting | A platform where a stranger will risk a first order with you |
| Paid placement | Nobody being able to outspend you either |
| Control of the checkout | Helm carrying the sales tax and the chargebacks |
| Some catalogue breadth | Families genuinely shopping, with parents approving spend |
If the answer is no, that is a real answer
A marketplace that only ever tells you to sign up is a marketplace optimising for its own seller count. We would rather have a smaller number of shops that ship on time than a large number that do not, because the second kind is what makes buyers stop trusting a platform. Come back when the answer changes.
If the answer is yes: track 1 opens your shop, from application to a storefront that can take an order. Or read track 5 first if you want the money in full before you commit.