Has anyone in physical product sales actually got a profitable website?

[Paul David]

It's not a problem. Website prices can be higher thats fine and understandable, however you cross-sell from eBay and Amazon with a discount code that brings it back to a decent price, no eBay fees and no PPC fees. Customer is happy as they get a special code that makes the website prices cheaper. Keeps them happy!

You shouldn't average out PPC costs to every sale from every source. You could have profitable organic and referral sales which are being overshadowed by a PPC campaign that's costing you money.

You may not get loads of sales this way but you'll get some over time, recommendations to friends, second chargers for their laptop at work, etc. etc. I have a mac with two chargers, i'd be tempted to buy another to keep in my laptop bag. And how much would this cost? Not a lot... flier in the parcel and an automated email where possible.

How about discounts if you offer the customer to buy two chargers? that way the PPC cost is the same and the postage cost reduces which overall increases AOV and bottom line margin.

One of my primary niches I said that people wouldn't come back no matter how happy as once they buy one it'll last them 10-15 years, they might only want a max of two and there wasn't much I could cross sell. I was wrong. I don't know the answer to your niche, but there's always something and I've learnt that the harder it is to find the more lucrative it'll be.



I know of someone who did this in a different niche with great success. Selling the same products as others but were listing them specifically for something.

Instead of a GENERIC BATTERY it was a YAMAHA YZF-R1 2005-2008 REPLACEMENT BATTERY (example, it wasn't batteries) despite the fact 1 battery might fit 20 bikes he'd list 20 products rather than 1 product that fits various bikes.

People are stupid and need to be told what to do. (harsh but true, including me, if I'm buying something I want it to literally jump out the screen punch me in the face and say buy me this is what you need and it will work.)



Are you losing money / breaking even on these orders? If so is there really any point continuing the PPC just to get orders you're losing money on? or are you doing this to keep cash coming in so you can pay yourself/staff/others? What happens when the stock runs out?

The wireless keyboard niche sounds good too, you should investigate that further if it's already working. More chances of upsells and cross sells here. Is this via a website or eBay/Amazon?

Yes that's exactly how I advertise the products. I've got over 100,000 eBay listings although this is only spread across 400 products. People search for the model i the device they are using it on so it's important that's in the title on eBay and Amazon.

The keyboards I sell only via eBay and Amazon.

I've only retained the ppc as I recently took on the freelancer to see if there's anything I'm missing to see the account running at a profit.


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[Paul David]

Looks like you are selling a commodity. It's really hard to differentiate in a commodity space as consumers generally play the "best price wins" game.

Yes unfortunately it looks that way MJ. There is a competitor who does sales of £8m a year (they don't sell on eBay or Amazon)but I've got no idea who they are selling to. They do some ppc but not a great deal.
AllBatteries.co.uk | Batteries and Chargers at Low Prices!

They are actually based in France and ship from there with a sales office in Uk.



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[MJ DeMarco]

who does sales of £8m a year

That sounds great. Are they spending 9M a year in advertising, administration, and COGS?

 

[SparksCW]

That sounds great. Are they spending 9M a year in advertising, administration, and COGS?

I've just credit checked them and can safely say that they're doing alright.

So in that case I would reverse engineer this.

Look at everything they sell, do you have the same range? same categories? same solutions

Are the prices similar enough?

What are they doing online? offline?

How can you do it better? add more value? help more?

This is how we're building our sites at present, we've identified our key competitors (and checked they're worth benchmarking against), used various software and online/offline digging to work out what they're doing then do the same, but better, answer more questions, provide more value.

Our sites didn't even really start selling until I realised we needed to do everything the competition did, but better executed. Now we're nearly over-taking the long term competition. Offering real genuine value to the customer! (Thanks MJ, that's down to your book and forum)

 

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[Paul David]

That sounds great. Are they spending 9M a year in advertising, administration, and COGS?

Ha no I think if I remember from their published accounts they made about £500k profit last year.


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[Paul David]

I've just credit checked them and can safely say that they're doing alright.

So in that case I would reverse engineer this.

Look at everything they sell, do you have the same range? same categories? same solutions

Are the prices similar enough?

What are they doing online? offline?

How can you do it better? add more value? help more?

This is how we're building our sites at present, we've identified our key competitors (and checked they're worth benchmarking against), used various software and online/offline digging to work out what they're doing then do the same, but better, answer more questions, provide more value.

Our sites didn't even really start selling until I realised we needed to do everything the competition did, but better executed. Now we're nearly over-taking the long term competition. Offering real genuine value to the customer! (Thanks MJ, that's down to your book and forum)

We do sell the same things however my prices are cheaper. We offer lifetime warranty on our own brand they don't. I've looked at their feedback on review sites and there's a few complaints because the goods are shipped from France. Ours are shipped from Uk.

I know they've got sales staff in Uk so they must be cold calling or generating inbound sales calls from customers - it could be schools or local authorities. I don't know and apart from stalking their employees on LinkedIn I'm not entirely sure how I find out! Maybe someone can point me in the right direction regarding finding out that information.






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[SparksCW]

They have a massive Amazon UK store.

AllBatteries @ Amazon.co.uk:

 

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[SparksCW]

They also own this brand.

Battery Manufacturers and Distributors | Enix-Energies.com

NX is their own brand also. Which appears to be sold B2B all over the place. Farnell list them (CPC etc.) so there is a lot more to their sales than their own online presence.

I wouldn't mind betting they provide batteries OEM for products as well.

They are deep into the world of batteries!

 

[Paul David]

They have a massive Amazon UK store.

AllBatteries @ Amazon.co.uk:

Yes but they've only got 19 feedback in last 30 days so they're not selling much on there.


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[Paul David]

They also own this brand.

Battery Manufacturers and Distributors | Enix-Energies.com

NX is their own brand also. Which appears to be sold B2B all over the place. Farnell list them (CPC etc.) so there is a lot more to their sales than their own online presence.

I wouldn't mind betting they provide batteries OEM for products as well.

They are deep into the world of batteries!

Yes they're part of VDI Group which does £50m a year. I'd like to know what % of the £8m came from direct sales via their website!

 

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[SparksCW]

Yes they're part of VDI Group which does £50m a year. I'd like to know what % of the £8m came from direct sales via their website!

Ah sorry I thought you were just trying to work out how the 8M could be made up. My mistake.

There's no way of knowing unless you befriend one of the site management team somehow, highly unlikely. We use software to see a competitors keyword rankings, back links etc and can gauge an idea of where we stand against a specific website, but it's all finger in the air stuff.

 

[applesack]

Yes they're part of VDI Group which does £50m a year. I'd like to know what % of the £8m came from direct sales via their website!

Actually SimilarWeb will give you a pretty good idea of how much they make on their site. I don't currently have a subscription... but probably someone here does? And... in any case, I think you can subscribe and unsubscribe in a month. SimilarWeb has some amazing analysis.