Black Friday...

[Vigilante]

Smell that? It's the smell of money in the air.

For some, it meant getting up at the crack of dawn, standing in line --- to buy --- stuff.

For others, it means a day off from your voluntary slavery arrangement.

For people like me, it's one of the best days of the year. I rolled into the office early this morning. Parked in the first parking spot at my building (as everyone else is busy about nothing per the above.)
I slipped up the elevator to my floor, stopping by the coffee machine to take the edge off of the headache from yesterday.

Into the office, noticing the place is a ghost town. All of the workers are thankful their bosses gave them a 24 hour reprieve from the gerbil wheel.

I hopped on line. To no surprise, a few high flying entrepreneurs I know personally are on line. Checking sales. Some undoubtedly from the sanctuary of their pajamas. Totally ok. They're watching the early Christmas returns come in.

Today is one of the best days of the year for an entrepreneur with products in the marketplace. Today is the day that the snowball starts rolling down hill, picking up momentum with each new day until around 12/22.

This week, we discovered a new marketing strategy that has the potential to be electric. Hopefully I will be able to write about it some day --- for now I have to keep it under wraps. I will maybe talk about it a bit at the B&P 2015. So... there's that. While everyone else is dreaming about turkey leftovers, the mind of an entrepreneur never really goes on vacation.

Happy kickoff to the official season for anyone with a product in the marketplace.

During the holiday season, Amazon.com buyers will see messages that indicate which products can be delivered by December 24. The three messages that can be displayed are "Arrives before Christmas," "May arrive after Christmas," or "Arrives after Christmas" where the message displayed is determined by the range of estimated arrival dates for the fastest shipping option. The "Arrives before Christmas" message can continue to display on your listings later into December if you update your shipping options to reduce your handling or transit times or offer expedited shipping. Sellers that meet the Premium Shipping eligibility requirements may also be able to offer Two-Day Shipping.

Happy BLACK FRIDAY to Fast Laner's. I hope you are on the receiving side of the tsunami that starts today.

 

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[RHL]

Hustle hard fastlane retail bros. Good luck. That is all.

 

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[biophase]

Had a nice uptick in sales today. Listed one product for the Black Friday sale on Amazon today.

 

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[jesseissorude]

This was officially my first Black Friday selling a product since I've started a company and quit my job.

Since I'm still early on in my business and hustling, yesterday I had to wake up super early, and run more of my pretty-little-thing I make to a local store that sold out of them.
When I woke up I was like "ugh, gotta do this errand." But as I was driving I couldn't help but smile. Last year at 6am, I was driving to my awful job. This year, I'm taking a thing I make and running it to someone who gets value from it. Best day ever.

 

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[Ramble On]

We did things a little different and ran a sale today. Here is what we have going out from today's sales so far.



Not much compared to some of you guys, but this is our first year in. Just trying to get the hang of it. Thanks for the motivation MJ!

 

[theag]

I noticed a drop in sales in the last few days. Probably getting overbid. But thats no problem because I dont care for black friday and cyber monday. May my competition have the discount shoppers Have some ninja tactics ready starting next week that will crush everybody else in my market .

 

[AllenCrawley]

Sales have been great the past few days. Record numbers in fact. I thought about doing a Black Friday promo but I believe I may sell out without any discounts so no need to leave money on the table. It's going to be an interesting weekend.

 

[Vigilante]

Sitting in my office. Thinking about leaving, but every time I do a new order pops up. And... I like shipping orders while everyone else is shopping.

 

[SBS.95]

I should have taken pictures of all the packages I shipped out today. More sales the past week than the entire month of September!

 

[AllenCrawley]

Black Friday was definitely a great day for us. We smashed through our previous record for daily units sold and total revenue. I did NOT run any promotions or discounts.

 

[theag]

 

[Vick]

Black Friday was a huge success for us as well. We did over 12k in sales

I though I would've been lucky to hit 6k.

Nice to be on the other side of the Black Friday madness. Its much more enjoyable I must say.

 

[PaulRobert]

Today is one of the best days of the year for an entrepreneur with products in the marketplace. Today is the day that the snowball starts rolling down hill, picking up momentum with each new day until around 12/22.

Amen.

Seeing all those people wasting hours away just to trample each over $50 in savings, I just thought to myself "Thank God, I'm on the other side of this."

Producer > Consumer all day everyday.

 

[Vick]

I noticed a drop in sales in the last few days. Probably getting overbid. But thats no problem because I dont care for black friday and cyber monday. May my competition have the discount shoppers Have some ninja tactics ready starting next week that will crush everybody else in my market .

Im seeing a huge drop in sales as well over the past 2 days.

I will however be having a Black Friday sale. Gonna test it out. only way to know

 

[DeletedUser394]

Thoughts on buying on sale black Friday TVs from Wal-Mart, and reselling them on Craig's list in a few weeks as Xmas specials for only $50 more? Hmm may try it out

best day of the year to make a huge amount of money relatively quickly.
Hire friends, buy everything. Turn around and collect the profit.

 

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[AllenCrawley]

It's shaping up nicely so far. Today's sales tracking higher than the daily sales for the past 7 days for this time of day.

 

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[ZCP]

Cannot keep enough soap in inventory. Black Friday was big. Cyber Monday was bigger. Luckily we had stocked up. Having to rush in some best sellers to restock them.

Think our product being an 'add on' makes us better for cyber Monday and for all the last minute shoppers over the next 3 weeks. Good to be on this side!!

 

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[biophase]

Considering my levels of inventory I believe (as did a few others I consulted with that sell on Amazon) that I will sell out or come close to selling out without running promos. If that is to be the case then I would be leaving a lot of money on the table by having 'black friday' discounts.

This is actually why I've never done Black Friday on hot sellers. I usually discount stuff I want to get rid of. But this year I overstocked on a couple good sellers so I felt comfortable offering a BF sale. Out of my sales, only half were the BF product, the other half was regular stuff.

 

[Vigilante]

This was officially my first Black Friday selling a product since I've started a company and quit my job.

Since I'm still early on in my business and hustling, yesterday I had to wake up super early, and run more of my pretty-little-thing I make to a local store that sold out of them.
When I woke up I was like "ugh, gotta do this errand." But as I was driving I couldn't help but smile. Last year at 6am, I was driving to my awful job. This year, I'm taking a thing I make and running it to someone who gets value from it. Best day ever.

This. Welcome to the club

 

[theag]

Im seeing a huge drop in sales as well over the past 2 days.

I will however be having a Black Friday sale. Gonna test it out. only way to know

Glad to see I'm not the only one haha, so its really the bids and my stuff doesnt suddenly suck

Put the gleam subscriber list to work . With a high priced product like yours a sale will probably work well.

 

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[Vick]

Glad to see I'm not the only one haha, so its really the bids and my stuff doesnt suddenly suck

Put the gleam subscriber list to work . With a high priced product like yours a sale will probably work well.

I am worried about one thing.

If I run a Black Friday sale. Will the people who ordered over the past week or so, want to return the product, and then order again with the Black Friday discount. Know what I mean?

Because we have a 15 day return policy. So anyone that ordered in that period till tomorrow will want that discount. So, in effect I could lose out on money. Unless I get a shit ton of orders tomorrow.

 

[Jake]

Im seeing a huge drop in sales as well over the past 2 days.

I will however be having a Black Friday sale. Gonna test it out. only way to know

May be too late..and I know everyone is tired of me talking about bitcoin but have you advertised bitcoin black friday at all? (only say this because you accept bitcoin)Can probably get a few sales from bitcoiners.

Anyway..best of luck. Love what you're doing but you already know that

 

[Jake]

I am worried about one thing.

If I run a Black Friday sale. Will the people who ordered over the past week or so, want to return the product, and then order again with the Black Friday discount. Know what I mean?

Because we have a 15 day return policy. So anyone that ordered in that period till tomorrow will want that discount. So, in effect I could lose out on money. Unless I get a shit ton of orders tomorrow.

Doubtful. You ran a discount shortly after I and the initial run ordered. I didn't think about returning them..the product didn't change with the promotion and I was willing to pay the listed price. If it was half off it may feel like a kick in the nuts but 10-15% just seems like ah..shit should have waited but not a big deal. Anything more substantial then yeah..may run the risk of alienating current customers and tarnishing a premium brand. Maybe run a 5% discount CC / 10% bitcoin or something along those lines. Would be cool for the btc community anyway to see a 5% discount over CC. Not sure if it will pay off but sets a good precedent.

 

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[GravyBoat]

Huge drop in sales for me as well. Running Instagram Black Friday promo so we shall see. Will report back.

 

[Jake]

Anybody tested something like this? I'm thinking about doing 5% on paypal to improve my cashflow in the next few weeks, as I pay most of the traffic via paypal. but I think it wont have a big effect as people who want to pay with paypal pay with it and the others dont have paypal

You see discounts once in a while on /r/bitcoin on reddit but it's not that common yet. Should be in the future when there's more competition. Bitpay processes at 0% cost and no risk of charge backs so 3.5%-4% discounts for payments in btc is fair and should be almost standard imo.

Don't mean to distract from the thread..carry on

 

[AllenCrawley]

Fascinating. Can you say why? Are you in a niche where you think that it wouldn't have mattered? Do you have any data to suggest how the sale might have helped or hurt, or was it just a gut thing?

Considering my levels of inventory I believe (as did a few others I consulted with that sell on Amazon) that I will sell out or come close to selling out without running promos. If that is to be the case then I would be leaving a lot of money on the table by having 'black friday' discounts.

 

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[wade1mil]

Now I want Bluetooth socks

 

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[theag]

Why would they want to support small sellers? Just because they are small?

 

[MoneyDoc]

Last Black Friday (before I knew of this forum and book), I was shopping for deals at best buy. This year, I was watching shoppers buying from me. Got my first order at 6:35 am and went through until midnight. It was just sales, sales, and more sales. I'm glad I was on the other side of the table this time around.


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[theag]

Have some ninja tactics ready starting next week that will crush everybody else in my market

I love it when a plan works out. Thats a direct response funnel btw, not some store where people browse around