Quit my Job. Starting My First eCommerce Business.

[Entrepreneur99]

Good to know someone's learning stuff from my random updates!

Here's a quick list of all the stuff I've learned so far:

1. Add real value. Not stuff you THINK is value.
2. Watch someone unwrap, assemble, and use your product. It'll tell you a LOT about how your customers interact with your products.
3. For your first validation run, ordering a small sample at a high unit price > ordering large order at a small unit price. Yeah, you won't make much profit (might even take a loss) from that first sample run, but it's a damn fine way to minimize loss if the market doesnt like your product. For example, I wasted $700 on this last project instead of losing $80. Really.
4. If you haven't found competitors, you're doing it wrong.
5. Add real value.

Great second hand experience here. Rep transferred!

 

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[tycoon7]

What are the stats of your adwords compaign?
How long it was on? Are you sure that you are not giving up to early? Sometimes you have to test/adjust for months to find the edge.
How are sales of your competitor on Amazon?
Are you sure your site converts? Lots of questions to ask before giving up.
PM me your kw/url if you want.

 

[sle3pyguii]

What are the stats of your adwords compaign?
How long it was on? Are you sure that you are not giving up to early? Sometimes you have to test/adjust for months to find the edge.
How are sales of your competitor on Amazon?
Are you sure your site converts? Lots of questions to ask before giving up.
PM me your kw/url if you want.

It was on for about a week and a half. My giving up because I just felt that I didn't bring anything new to the market.
My competitor had roughly ~200 reviews on Amazon, averaging 4.5 stars, last time I checked. From that I'm assuming he's broken roughly 20000 sales.
My site and ads definitely needed to be worked on as I only got a 2% CTR from the start, with no actual sales.

I appreciate the offer, but I shut this down because I couldn't think of a way to add value for the customers. I could've kept going with AdWords and social media and I'm sure I would've gotten sales, but I didn't want my business to be built on just a great Adwords campaign. I wanted it to be product and value focused first.

 

[sle3pyguii]

Good news(?): I was researching more about the sample product that I ordered. There seems to be an entire market that it hasn't been introduced to yet. The item is cheap, so I'm wondering if the people selling it just didn't bother? But even then...it's quite a large group to neglect...Maybe they did try and it just tanked? I know people who are deep within that market so I'll ask them about it. One person I did ask confirmed that it was never introduced to her or anyone she knows.

Good sign for me I guess. Even though I'll probably only sell this item for >$10, it'll be fun to see what happens with it.

Oh and this time I only spent like $40 total for 20 sample pieces. No more blowing large chunks of money on samples.

Sorry, this was just me typing out loud right now. Nothing really constructive or new, other than my contract with my part-time gig is ending in a few weeks.

 

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[sle3pyguii]

Quick update:

I sent in about 17 pieces of the Aliexpress items to FBA last month. Checked my email and I got my first sale last night. This was a test run, and I don't think it'll be worth going for, but it's nice to know that I made some money off of it. I'll post the items at a later time.

I also sent in the drawing tablet to sell on Amazon, but they lost my order...but they recouped me a little more than what I was going to sell for, which was awesome.

Still looking for a viable need to fill. Hopefully I can find one soon.

 

[sle3pyguii]

So that first sale I got yesterday wasn't just 1 unit, as I normally expected. It was 5 units of the product. After FBA fees and overall costs, I basically made $45 without lifting a finger for a test run.

I was slowly getting discouraged, but this is definitely a nice little boost.