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$100k 2017

A detailed account of a Fastlane process...

sparechange

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I am a huge Kevin O'leary fan from shark tank, no need for politeness when giving criticism, I get yelled at nearly every day for minium wage....thick skin here.
 
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sparechange

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Got one sale so far for this month, chatted with customer for a couple hours actually and kinda got derailed / went boarding for the day (found some amazing sick hills)

Lets go for the first 4 digit month? Feel its possible.

My life needs to be like this

Every

Single

Day

Until next time..
 

Xeon

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Got one sale so far for this month, chatted with customer for a couple hours actually and kinda got derailed / went boarding for the day.

My life needs to be like this

Every

Single

Day

Until next time..

That sale is from another product and not the dog jacket right? Would it be possible to sell more? Maybe look into how it's being marketed and the techniques used to market it, or even improve the product itself, rather than skipping to a new product or idea.
 

sparechange

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Yes its another product I have, deff possible to sell more (Im confident I'll sell all will just take time) Didn't think it would drag out so long.

Marketing your totally right, have been looking into hiring someone to help shoot a demonstration video, I think my ad sucks now so can be improved.

Big hill I went down woooooooooooooooooooooooo!

IMG_5443.JPG
 
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Xeon

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Everytime when I read your posts, I keep having
this visual image that you look similar to this:

o-HAWAIIAN-SHIRT-570.jpg


:rofl:
 

sparechange

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lol no idea who that is.

rock a beard and am a chubby version of shia labeouf if you would like a better image to think of next time :D

My friend is trying to convince me to quit my job,............ strongly considering atm :S

#thestruggles
 

Longinus

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Since your thread title says "100k 2017", I decided to read your first post again.

alright, this will be a fun goal to achieve, i recently did my first ever entrepreneurial startup with $0 (got a shovel and made $57 in a few hours work clearing snow, its completely alien to me to make money from nothing..i was brainwashed to get jobs and be an employee...anyways i just wanted to make this thread for my dream of making $100k and tracking it every once in a while

i have a few business plans that i will be executing in the spring/summertime (maybe winter time to) and believe i can achieve this magic number...ive been broke all my life, ''rich'' to me was holding a few grand in my hand...will be really nice to hold $100k, ill prolly take a bath in it and go swimming, until then..im just at $55 net so far, guilty of spending $2 for a hot chocolate and peanut butter bar so theres $99.945 to go..there will be multiple streams of income so if i can get some to take off i can hire people to do the work for me whilst i work on other things/enjoy my life...

good luck to everyone on theyre journey to freedom...

[work hard & make people HAPPY] ''some guy in a red ferrari f430''

Not much changed for you in almost 2 years. I think you were and still are money chasing. You also don't seem to take advice. Ecom isn't going to pay your bills in the short term.

If you won't change anything, your situation in 2020 will still be the same. Your thread (22 pages long for F*ck's sake) is a waste of time for everybody who reads it and the reactions prove it. This thread might reflect your real life too. You seem like a guy who's just messing around and hoping something will work eventually, like @maverick states. Get your shit together.
 
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sparechange

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Total revenue in the first week of September surpassed last months overall =) 3 weeks to go wooo
 
Last edited:

Telamon25346

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lightly skimmed over the thread, what's going on man? you had a plan of mowing lawns and opening some sort of landscaping business and now you're hopping into amazon? sorry but to me it sounds like your chasing money, not a solid business. if you stuck to mowing lawns you probably would've hit your 100k goal by now
 
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sparechange

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Did lawn care for the last summer and then transitioned into e-com as working super long hours in the heat took its toll on me, even though making some side cash was nice I opted towards a more scale-able business which hasn't exploded as imagined. Will be doing snow shoveling this upcoming winter though, great exercise & pay.

Have an extended ''vacation'' as my work has been shutdown for renovation, still sitting on 4 figures worth of inventory which hasn't moved. No exciting news to report really.

For the record I'm not on Amazon, just Shopify.

My products just suck, not sure if I mentioned this before but I met with a person to borrow they're dog for a video shoot demonstrating my product that didn't work aswell as expected. Which reminds me of MJ's cancer cure example & pushing instead of pulling.

Have been considering just off loading my inventory at a massive discount & taking a small loss. Been holding onto this for to long.

Something to share for other people in e-commerce is my backwards thinking, more of a lesson I've learned is that building an audience & then selling a product is a complete waste of time.

While the idea is pretty at first no-one cares. Trust me on that, I've done multiple give aways yet have 0 engagement on IG/FB from those people. From my give away ads my audience reach has been in the thousands for just a few dollars on FB yet have no conversions.

youre-dead-to-me.jpg
 

Kid

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Did lawn care for the last summer and then transitioned into e-com as working super long hours in the heat took its toll on me, even though making some side cash was nice I opted towards a more scale-able business which hasn't exploded as imagined. Will be doing snow shoveling this upcoming winter though, great exercise & pay.

Have an extended ''vacation'' as my work has been shutdown for renovation, still sitting on 4 figures worth of inventory which hasn't moved. No exciting news to report really.

For the record I'm not on Amazon, just Shopify.

My products just suck, not sure if I mentioned this before but I met with a person to borrow they're dog for a video shoot demonstrating my product that didn't work aswell as expected. Which reminds me of MJ's cancer cure example & pushing instead of pulling.

Have been considering just off loading my inventory at a massive discount & taking a small loss. Been holding onto this for to long.

Something to share for other people in e-commerce is my backwards thinking, more of a lesson I've learned is that building an audience & then selling a product is a complete waste of time.

While the idea is pretty at first no-one cares. Trust me on that, I've done multiple give aways yet have 0 engagement on IG/FB from those people. From my give away ads my audience reach has been in the thousands for just a few dollars on FB yet have no conversions.

View attachment 22343

Sorry to hear that i didn't worked out well.

I've read somewhere (i don't remember where) that first product you do should be a failure. Point is to not throw away all the e-commerce, but move on, iterate and try again.
 

sparechange

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Word on the block is my 2 year anniversary is coming up shortly.........

Sad to say I am not anywhere close to as ''successful'' as planned out, ha! I cant say plans generally, well goto plan.

Reviewing with a friend of mine our goals and talking to each other the reasons for our failures. Another friend of mine has 0 interest in engaging with the discussion. Nice!

To be quite honest the past ? 3 ? years of my life have been a major struggle of poverty. Hilarious considering I have mostly been working full time.

I'll write a full description sometime in the future..leaving out some bits.

In the tail end of 2015 I moved out from my parents & got a crappy job for minium wage washing cars in January of '16. Fast forward about a year I got fired in December, my life literally revolved around going to work, paying rent and barely feeding myself. Sometimes I wouldn't even eat because I had $0...Literally I've been there.

Discovered TMF in November of 2016 and began my action faking plan. Dont think I need to go into detail if you have been following this thread from the beginning.

2017 came around and I got a really cool job working at a ski resort, kinda put my life ''on hold'' and had 4 of the best months of my life.

Summer came around and I launched my ''second business'' the original being shoveling snow knocking on doors making some side cash....which led me into landscaping mimicking the same strategy.

Didn't make all the billions of dollars as expected although hey, I worked quite hard on it although could of come up with a more efficient system. Anyways savings were getting low so I went to get a job doing laboring for a construction company.

Tail end of 2017 was quite rough and needed to get away so managed to move to Calgary in December.

Start of 2018 was a complete nightmare and couldn't find a job for about 3 months, yet again being broke as shit was no fun. Ended up finding a crap job and saved up enough money to start importing products from Alibaba. Basically dumped all of my money into this along with a little bit of degenerate gambling (still sitting on some inventory)

And yet again for 2018 in the tail end I'm still in the broke as shit category.

On the + side I do have a ''business'' although hasn't scaled as quickly as imagined. Simply I need a better product to sum it up.

Considering making another thread or continuing here, my whole back story is rooted in this thread so believe it would be nice to continue here although at the same time it is quite cluttered. (suggestions welcome)

Leaving out some bits of my story as they are more personal

Plans for '19 are to increase my sales, along with the addition of new products and finally reach this ***** 100k mark.

If I'm to continue the past over again it is literally a cycle of barely getting by and being exhausted from working all day while having some time off to work even more on my own business & barely pay my bills.

And TBH I'd rather not as my mental health from grinding it out is super low.


*** Sorry for the long post, wasn't that long when I had it in my head ***
 
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ManlyMansNegator

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Word on the block is my 2 year anniversary is coming up shortly.........

Sad to say I am not anywhere close to as ''successful'' as planned out, ha! I cant say plans generally, well goto plan.

Reviewing with a friend of mine our goals and talking to each other the reasons for our failures. Another friend of mine has 0 interest in engaging with the discussion. Nice!

To be quite honest the past ? 3 ? years of my life have been a major struggle of poverty. Hilarious considering I have mostly been working full time.

I'll write a full description sometime in the future..leaving out some bits.

In the tail end of 2015 I moved out from my parents & got a crappy job for minium wage washing cars in January of '16. Fast forward about a year I got fired in December, my life literally revolved around going to work, paying rent and barely feeding myself. Sometimes I wouldn't even eat because I had $0...Literally I've been there.

Discovered TMF in November of 2016 and began my action faking plan. Dont think I need to go into detail if you have been following this thread from the beginning.

2017 came around and I got a really cool job working at a ski resort, kinda put my life ''on hold'' and had 4 of the best months of my life.

Summer came around and I launched my ''second business'' the original being shoveling snow knocking on doors making some side cash....which led me into landscaping mimicking the same strategy.

Didn't make all the billions of dollars as expected although hey, I worked quite hard on it although could of come up with a more efficient system. Anyways savings were getting low so I went to get a job doing laboring for a construction company.

Tail end of 2017 was quite rough and needed to get away so managed to move to Calgary in December.

Start of 2018 was a complete nightmare and couldn't find a job for about 3 months, yet again being broke as sh*t was no fun. Ended up finding a crap job and saved up enough money to start importing products from Alibaba. Basically dumped all of my money into this along with a little bit of degenerate gambling (still sitting on some inventory)

And yet again for 2018 in the tail end I'm still in the broke as sh*t category.

On the + side I do have a ''business'' although hasn't scaled as quickly as imagined. Simply I need a better product to sum it up.

Considering making another thread or continuing here, my whole back story is rooted in this thread so believe it would be nice to continue here although at the same time it is quite cluttered. (suggestions welcome)

Leaving out some bits of my story as they are more personal

Plans for '19 are to increase my sales, along with the addition of new products and finally reach this ***** 100k mark.

If I'm to continue the past over again it is literally a cycle of barely getting by and being exhausted from working all day while having some time off to work even more on my own business & barely pay my bills.

And TBH I'd rather not as my mental health from grinding it out is super low.


*** Sorry for the long post, wasn't that long when I had it in my head ***

You are not learning from your mistakes instead repeating variations of your previous failures.

Take a maths problem:
x+1=7
You try to solve by dividing by 7 continuously
x/7 + 1/7 =1

Hey that didn’t work? So you begin dividing by 8 and then 9 and so on.By the time you finish you end up with an even worse problem.Yet you keep going all the while muttering Maths is a sham.

If you learnt from the initial mistakes and moved onto a different process completely you would solve the problem! For instance in our case the problem wasnt reduced by changing the size of the numbers.So don’t bother scaling.Find your problem @sparechange and then attack with completely different methods.

For 2019 perhaps you need to change the method of attack.For example I have always done YouTube and twitter etc yet got not even one retweet .found my problem and attacked it using “quantity “ approach where I spammed quantity content.Then I brought follow for follow approach and finally the quality content with hashtags approach.The last seems interesting as I see results ( random people retweet and like it ).Try doing eccomerce but use another tactic.

Maybe your products shit? Or maybe your marketing is bad? Or maybe your mindset is bad? They all are different underlying problems with different solutions and thus different methods.Find your problem! Define it ! Then attack it from every angle!

Good luck and Godspeed brother.
 

Merging Left

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You tried shoveling snow, mowing lawns, and e-commerce, working towards the amorphous goal of obtaining "$100k." What did you learn from each of those that you can apply to your next attempt?

Before you jump into something new, you need to be asking yourself some questions about the viability of the idea. I'll try to describe this using the CENTS framework from the books, which you should be familiar with.

CONTROL
Are you in control of this business? Can one thing, totally outside of your control, destroy your business instantly? The obvious is example is: What will you do if Amazon bans your account or decides it no longer supports your product?

BEFORE you start something, you need to answer this question. For e-commerce, the answer could be that you're going to launch on Amazon to validate the product and be vulnerable for some time while you build up an organic following on your own web store. To me, that's a fine approach, but it should include a detailed plan on exactly how you're going to transition to your own site.

ENTRY
Can anybody copy you with 2 hours of work and have an identical, competing business? All of your business ventures so far fail this command, but that's not necessarily the end of the world. Anyone can start a lawn care, snow removal, or import-from-Alibaba business. Once that happens, how will you differentiate and compete?

For the service-based businesses, there's another thread that talks about how simply picking up your phone and returning customer phone calls can set you above 90% of your competitors.

NEED
Do people need what you're offering? How do you know? Are there other, perfectly suitable options that they could go with, or is your product something people can't live without? Have people actually been asking for this specific thing? Remember, not everyone is your customer, so don't talk yourself out of a good idea because some people won't care about this product. Is there a definable group of people who NEED this product?

TIME
If you go on vacation for a week, will you make any money? For your service ventures, the answer is probably "no" until you address Scale. So just focus on: Will this job require a direct investment of my time FOREVER?

SCALE
How will you grow this business in size? For e-commerce, maybe it's adding more products. For services, it's hiring people (and more people to manage the first people).

These are the fundamental criteria for a fastlane, time-independent business, and they help you determine whether an idea is worth exploring or not. To truly vet your idea, however, you need to dive much deeper.

Before you move forward with your CENTS business, you need to address the following issues:

DEMAND
If nobody wants what you have, no amount of brilliant marketing is going to save you. If you properly addressed the NEED commandment, then what you need to do here is quantify the level of demand for your product or service.

With your service businesses, you're limited by scale. What is your capacity for mowing lawns? How many can you mow in a day? Do you have enough savings and enough demand to justify getting another truck and hiring another 1-2 people to mow customer lawns?

If you're selling a product, you need to determine how many people want that product. Finding Google search volumes can help, as well as creating a landing page and collecting e-mails. If you create a landing page and run ads for a week and collect 12 e-mails, you might not have enough demand. If you collect 300 e-mails, you might have struck gold.

For Amazon, you can use BSR and there are tons of online tools to track inventory levels of your competitors that will help you gauge demand.

Knowing some people want your product/service isn't enough. You need to know HOW MANY, and at WHAT PRICE.

CUSTOMER

Who EXACTLY is your audience? For lawn care, your audience might be homeowners with large front lawns who have an income above $60,000 per year, and whose homes have other evidences of landscaping (i.e. they care about how their house looks). You need to be able to define your audience so well that you can ignore everyone who is not your specific audience.

In real estate, most investors have a very specific set of criteria for properties they want to invest in. For example, I only buy side-by-side duplexes where each unit has 3 bedrooms, is newer than 1950, in the Shaker Heights area of Greater Cleveland, for less than $100k. That's pretty specific. It's so specific, in fact, that it would only take about 30 seconds to know if it's worth looking into a property listing. The same concept can apply to any idea you have.

MARKETING
Now that you've determined the demand and identified who your customer is, how are you going to reach them? If you've solved Need and Customer correctly, it shouldn't take a lot to get them to purchase from you... they just need to know where you are. You need a legitimate marketing plan to reach your customers.

Facebook ads, Instagram shoutouts, Yelp ads, Youtube videos or Youtube ads, Kickstarter, pulishing articles with back-links on Forbes and Medium, etc... If you don't know how you will reach your customer, don't launch. Solve this first.

While you're doing that, figure out how much it's going to cost you as well. What's the cost-per-click (CPC) for each ad platform, and what is the monthly search volume for your keywords?

ROI
You have a goal of reaching $100k by the end of, well, 2017. So let's say $100k, in net profit, by 12/31/2019. Therefore, it's not going to be worth your time to pursue a business venture that has a maximum annual profit of $30,000. Now, maybe an annual profit of $30k sounds great to you, and you can adjust your ultimate goal. The point is that you should have an expectation for your results BEFORE you start your business.

You know your product. You know your level of demand. You know who your customer is and how you're going to reach them (and hopefully how much that's going to cost).

Now you can calculate your potential ROI. How much will your product cost, how much will you sell it for, how many will you sell each month, and how much will it cost you to attract that many sales?

Price - Product Cost - Advertising Cost = Profit.

If you are going to say "well, The Amazing Seller podcast says that I just need to sell 10/day at $10 profit to hit a home run, so I'll do that!" you're going to be sorely disappointed. You need to be objective here, and be conservative. Err on the side of higher costs and lower sales price & volume.

Define your worst case scenario and use that to make your decisions.
---------------------------------------------------------------

You need more structure to your approach to business. Throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks simply will not cut it. Today's environment is too competitive for that. You need clear, results-oriented direction.

Good luck.
 

sparechange

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Thank you for your post.

My biggest weakness has been structure.

I need more of a routine, although as of now my schedule is going to be extremely **** from working nights, have a temp job for a bit that I'll quit probably next week & then go back to my regular job. We've been shutdown for a bit, tried looking for a better job but no luck.

Repeat the process of saving up $ again then getting some product & making my own. Basically in the rebuilding stage now..

Products I have now totally suck and sat in inventory for a few months so not exactly sure what to do with that.


2019??? 100k!?!?!?

CubanPano-web_66041.jpg
 
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sparechange

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Why do you think the product failed? What steps did you miss?

The product failed I believe because of it not being as effective as perceived. Having used it on a dog to shoot a mini commercial for it I noticed it not working that great. Which would explain the lack of replies when communicating with my customers after they're purchase.

Ironic part is that on Amazon (I am not selling on there/cant afford to compete on price wars with guys like biophase) similar products are doing quite well with thousands of sales.

So one problem can be customer X can visit my store & simply go on AMZ and buy at a slightly cheaper price, to combat this I bundled my product with dog toys. Market still didn't approve.

Another massive problem I've encountered is a dog owner that I've spoken with mentioned the issue about lack of trust. This one really cut me deep as they have a friend thats ordered ____ pet products off facebook from a random store and were scammed receiving NO product & issued no refund. The paranoia of entering in your credit card details on some random website that any bozo can start up is in fact real. To combat this I've failed in creating a large brand that people trust, this actually has been ALOT harder than imagined.... Posting some pictures on FB & IG then calling it a brand is a NO FLY ZONE.

Marketing, as stated before, when trying to shoot a commercial with the product it just sucked. Thats a no go, as MJ said if your product doesn't pull... You are running a marketing gig.

One more thing thats not really related to the product is I'm buying product X off alibaba then selling it as my own, learned that I'm actually dealing with a middleman and need to have my own product.

Im happy that I actually did something though, so lets keep it positive. Thinking to just discount this product now massively and take a tiny loss & call it a day.

Whats my next steps? Slave the job, save some cash, have good products, and be unscripted . 2019 will be a good year to make some spare change.
 
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biophase

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The product failed I believe because of it not being as effective as perceived. Having used it on a dog to shoot a mini commercial for it I noticed it not working that great. Which would explain the lack of replies when communicating with my customers after they're purchase.

What was the dog product? I assume you won't mind mentioning it since you aren't selling it any more. It wasn't a car seat cover right? You mention others are selling well on Amazon. So did your product not work, or do they all not work?
 

sparechange

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What was the dog product? I assume you won't mind mentioning it since you aren't selling it any more. It wasn't a car seat cover right? You mention others are selling well on Amazon. So did your product not work, or do they all not work?


These bad boys, I'm sure your familiar with these as they started off selling well then a million other people jumped on the bandwagon, at one point I saw these drop to $2. Believe they were starting off around $20+ and the price wars began.



glooo.JPG


While trying it on a dog for a video shoot it sucked imo, wanted to create a video marketing it showcasing its use but wasn't to impressed.

IMG_5596.JPG

Now could I have researched this a little bit better? Absolutely, my thinking however was to atleast get something going atleast to finally execute SOMETHING. Action faked enough to be quite honest & thought since its selling on Amazon it would be a great product to start off with & learn how to sell a product.
 

biophase

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Why does the other version have 2200 4.5 star reviews?

I can already tell from you photo that yours had way less bristles. Your bristles are also alot shorter and thinner than the Delomo.

Let me ask you these questions:
How many of the top brands of pet grooming gloves did you buy from Amazon?
How many factories did you order samples from before you chose to go with your production order?
How many of these gloves did you put on and test out on a dog?
How many silicon tips came on each of your gloves, how many were on the competitors?

It's not the product that sucked... it was your effort. I bet I could sell these successfully on Amazon if I wanted to.
 
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Bekit

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Up front: I know NOTHING about selling products on Amazon. Only marketing. Keep that in mind with everything I'm about to say.

But it seems to me that you are in possession of an asset. A whole order of XXXX pet grooming gloves. No, the asset didn't perform as well as you hoped. They're not selling.

Now you're in a situation where you need to come up with whatever plan is going to give you the highest leverage with that asset, even if it means cutting your losses.

What if you did one minor, inexpensive tweak to give these gloves a slight upgrade and then sell them for a premium price? Kind of like the classic story from Robert Cialdini's book, Influence. In chapter 1, he tells this story...

"I got a phone call one day from a friend who had recently opened an Indian jewelry store in Arizona. She was giddy with a curious piece of news. Something fascinating had just happened, and she though that, as a psychologist, I might be able to explain it to her. The story involved a certain allotment of turquoise jewelry she had been having trouble selling. It was the peak of the tourist season, the store was unusually full of customers, the turquoise pieces were of good quality for the prices she was asking; yet they had not sold. My friend had attempted a couple of standard sales tricks to get them moving. She tried calling attention to them by shifting their location to a more central display area; no luck. She even told her sales staff to "push" the items hard, again without success. Finally, the night before leaving on an out-of-town buying trip, she scribbled an exasperated note to her head saleswoman, "Everything in this display case, price x 1/2," hoping just to be rid of the offending pieces, even if at a loss. When she returned a few days later, she was not surprised to find that every article had been sold. She was shocked, though, to discover that, because the employee had read the "1/2" in her scrawled message as a "2," the entire allotment had sold out at twice the original price! That's when she called me...The customers, mostly well-to-do vacationers with little knowledge of turquoise, were using a standard principle--a stereotype--to guide their buying: "expensive = good." Thus the vacationers, who wanted "good" jewelry, saw the turquoise pieces as decidedly more valuable and desirable when nothing about them was enhanced but the price. Price alone had become a trigger feature for quality; and a dramatic increase in price alone had led to a dramatic increase in sales among the quality-hungry buyers...These were people who had been brought up on the rule, "You get what you pay for," and who had seen that rule borne out over and over in their lives. Before long, they had translated the rule to mean "expensive = good." The "expensive = good" stereotype had worked quite well for them in the past, since normally the price of an item increases along with its worth; a higher price typically reflects higher quality."

So here's my idea:

Take 10 pairs of gloves down to a local embroidery shop, sewing machine shop, quilter with an embroidery machine, or friend who would do this as a favor. Have them embroider a beautiful dog on the back of each hand. Let's say you choose a pug. Or a German Shepherd. Or whatever dog you can use as a model for photography.

The cost of this shouldn't be a lot, as these machines are created to just take a design that is programmed in the computer, and the machine does all the work. It's just thread.

Now take these beautiful gloves and take highly emotional photographs of the glove from the back, showing the design. These photos should evoke all the love of caressing a pet, all the warm fuzzy feelings.

Now go online and post these gloves as "Pet Grooming Gloves for Pug Owners" and list them for double the price. This is only a test. It's only 10 pieces. You're validating the concept before you go gangbusters and pay to get ALL your gloves embroidered. But the focus is on the love and connection between the person and their dog. The focus is on the act of lovingly stroking their dog's fur, which they are going to do anyway, and which, thanks to the glove, will also come with a side benefit of taking out that loose hair that would have started getting all over their hand and flying around the room. Downplay the quality of the glove. Don't let that come into your buyer's mind. The quality doesn't matter. People don't need to expect it to be as good as a brush. If they want a complete grooming, they're going to go to a salon anyway. You're going for the first-time buyer of one of these things. Pet owners are already familiar with the concept of a glove like this, and now the cool fact that their favorite breed is depicted stylishly on the back of each glove is going to push them over the edge of finally getting the product.

Then go to facebook and find all the groups you can find of passionate pug owners and mention the gloves. (Pug owners are passionate about their pugs.) (Every dog owner is passionate about their breed. Golden retrievers. Labradors. Border collies. You get the picture... there's infinite directions you could go with this breed piece.) Actually--use a REALLY HAIRY dog, one that's notorious for shedding. E.g. no poodles! LOL...

Post your photos on instagram with tags like #pug grooming #pug love etc.

Suggest that people who know pug lovers buy this as the PERFECT Christmas gift for their brother or coworker or whatever.

Go around to local pet groomers, dog trainers, and veterinarians. Ask if they will let you sell the gloves there in exchange for X% of the "sale price" (which is double what you were asking before, so you have a margin to offer them). Some of them will give you display space.

See if you can sell all ten pairs. I bet you can. If they sell like hotcakes, at a great price point, then make some more in time to sell before Christmas.

Separately - here's another test.
Same product, different positioning. You can skip the embroidery on this set if you want.

There's a whole bunch of people out there who hate the way their hands feel after they pet a dog. [*Ahem* cough cough how would I know? :halo:]

This product solves a need: They can slip on the glove, pet their dog to their heart's desire, accomplish a bit of grooming in the process, and then slip the glove back off when they're done. The person is happy because they didn't have to get their hand feeling icky. The dog is happy because it got a ton of attention.

Create a system to find these people. This might take some thinking... maybe start in the dog groups on facebook and ask questions like, "Hey does anyone here know someone who doesn't like touching a dog because they're fastidious about what they touch? Maybe someone kind of like Monk around your pets? I'm doing some research and hoping to conduct a few interviews with people who experience this." And then go from there and see if you get any response, and ask some questions or conduct a survey, and see if you spot any patterns for people like this.

Then, using their responses, go write up some copy. "Do you hate touching dogs because you can't stand how your hands feel after you're done?" or whatever words they are using. Maybe they mention that the dog turns its head around and gets its wet nose on their hands, and they don't like that, either. Incorporate that into your copy. This product solves that. It's a dream come true for people who love their dogs but have sensory issues with petting them. Maybe there's a family with just one member who doesn't like to pet the dog... position it as a lifesaver for that situation.

And when you ship the product, include a free pair of latex (or allergy-free latex substitute) gloves, with a little note that suggests that they put on the latex glove first and then put on the grooming glove, and they'll be as happy as a lark.

The latex glove won't be expensive for you, and you're only including one pair, but it's a little touch that someone wouldn't have thought of (but that they will appreciate immensely). It'll be a WOW! moment. "I can finally have fun petting the dog!" Again - the person will not care that the product is junk in terms of grooming quality. That's not what it's about. It's solving a psychological need for them that might be worth 5 or 10 times the price.

Sell 10 of these as a test. If it takes off, go with it. If not, you haven't lost much because you were going to sell these as a loss anyway.

Just two ideas off the top of my head.
 
Last edited:

biophase

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Up front: I know NOTHING about selling products on Amazon. Only marketing. Keep that in mind with everything I'm about to say.

But it seems to me that you are in possession of an asset. A whole order of XXXX pet grooming gloves. No, the asset didn't perform as well as you hoped. They're not selling.

Now you're in a situation where you need to come up with whatever plan is going to give you the highest leverage with that asset, even if it means cutting your losses.

What if you did one minor, inexpensive tweak to give these gloves a slight upgrade and then sell them for a premium price? Kind of like the classic story from Robert Cialdini's book, Influence. In chapter 1, he tells this story...



So here's my idea:

Take 10 pairs of gloves down to a local embroidery shop, sewing machine shop, quilter with an embroidery machine, or friend who would do this as a favor. Have them embroider a beautiful dog on the back of each hand. Let's say you choose a pug. Or a German Shepherd. Or whatever dog you can use as a model for photography.

The cost of this shouldn't be a lot, as these machines are created to just take a design that is programmed in the computer, and the machine does all the work. It's just thread.

Now take these beautiful gloves and take highly emotional photographs of the glove from the back, showing the design. These photos should evoke all the love of caressing a pet, all the warm fuzzy feelings.

Now go online and post these gloves as "Pet Grooming Gloves for Pug Owners" and list them for double the price. This is only a test. It's only 10 pieces. You're validating the concept before you go gangbusters and pay to get ALL your gloves embroidered. But the focus is on the love and connection between the person and their dog. The focus is on the act of lovingly stroking their dog's fur, which they are going to do anyway, and which, thanks to the glove, will also come with a side benefit of taking out that loose hair that would have started getting all over their hand and flying around the room. Downplay the quality of the glove. Don't let that come into your buyer's mind. The quality doesn't matter. People don't need to expect it to be as good as a brush. If they want a complete grooming, they're going to go to a salon anyway. You're going for the first-time buyer of one of these things. Pet owners are already familiar with the concept of a glove like this, and now the cool fact that their favorite breed is depicted stylishly on the back of each glove is going to push them over the edge of finally getting the product.

Then go to facebook and find all the groups you can find of passionate pug owners and mention the gloves. (Pug owners are passionate about their pugs.) (Every dog owner is passionate about their breed. Golden retrievers. Labradors. Border collies. You get the picture... there's infinite directions you could go with this breed piece.) Actually--use a REALLY HAIRY dog, one that's notorious for shedding. E.g. no poodles! LOL...

Post your photos on instagram with tags like #pug grooming #pug love etc.

Suggest that people who know pug lovers buy this as the PERFECT Christmas gift for their brother or coworker or whatever.

Go around to local pet groomers, dog trainers, and veterinarians. Ask if they will let you sell the gloves there in exchange for X% of the "sale price" (which is double what you were asking before, so you have a margin to offer them). Some of them will give you display space.

See if you can sell all ten pairs. I bet you can. If they sell like hotcakes, at a great price point, then make some more in time to sell before Christmas.

Separately - here's another test.
Same product, different positioning. You can skip the embroidery on this set if you want.

There's a whole bunch of people out there who hate the way their hands feel after they pet a dog. [*Ahem* cough cough how would I know? :halo:]

This product solves a need: They can slip on the glove, pet their dog to their heart's desire, accomplish a bit of grooming in the process, and then slip the glove back off when they're done. The person is happy because they didn't have to get their hand feeling icky. The dog is happy because it got a ton of attention.

Create a system to find these people. This might take some thinking... maybe start in the dog groups on facebook and ask questions like, "Hey does anyone here know someone who doesn't like touching a dog because they're fastidious about what they touch? Maybe someone kind of like Monk around your pets? I'm doing some research and hoping to conduct a few interviews with people who experience this." And then go from there and see if you get any response, and ask some questions or conduct a survey, and see if you spot any patterns for people like this.

Then, using their responses, go write up some copy. "Do you hate touching dogs because you can't stand how your hands feel after you're done?" or whatever words they are using. Maybe they mention that the dog turns its head around and gets its wet nose on their hands, and they don't like that, either. Incorporate that into your copy. This product solves that. It's a dream come true for people who love their dogs but have sensory issues with petting them. Maybe there's a family with just one member who doesn't like to pet the dog... position it as a lifesaver for that situation.

And when you ship the product, include a free pair of latex (or allergy-free latex substitute) gloves, with a little note that suggests that they put on the latex glove first and then put on the grooming glove, and they'll be as happy as a lark.

The latex glove won't be expensive for you, and you're only including one pair, but it's a little touch that someone wouldn't have thought of (but that they will appreciate immensely). It'll be a WOW! moment. "I can finally have fun petting the dog!" Again - the person will not care that the product is junk in terms of grooming quality. That's not what it's about. It's solving a psychological need for them that might be worth 5 or 10 times the price.

Sell 10 of these as a test. If it takes off, go with it. If not, you haven't lost much because you were going to sell these as a loss anyway.

Just two ideas off the top of my head.

The whole problem with these ideas are that he will still be selling a product that doesn't work. I wouldn't feel right about adding embroidery and doubling the price and selling something that is useless to begin with.
 

Almantas

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Why does the other version have 2200 4.5 star reviews?

I can already tell from you photo that yours had way less bristles. Your bristles are also alot shorter and thinner than the Delomo.

Let me ask you these questions:
How many of the top brands of pet grooming gloves did you buy from Amazon?
How many factories did you order samples from before you chose to go with your production order?
How many of these gloves did you put on and test out on a dog?
How many silicon tips came on each of your gloves, how many were on the competitors?

It's not the product that sucked... it was your effort. I bet I could sell these successfully on Amazon if I wanted to.

Please PM me if you ever decide to do another E-com training.
 
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Bekit

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The whole problem with these ideas are that he will still be selling a product that doesn't work. I wouldn't feel right about adding embroidery and doubling the price and selling something that is useless to begin with.
Ok. I would defer to your judgment. Brainstorm session over, now the evaluation of the idea... no worries if they ended up being ideas that need to be tossed out due to factors that I didn't see.

Just out of curiosity, you said you thought you could sell these if they were yours. How would you approach it?
 

CareCPA

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Ok. I would defer to your judgment. Brainstorm session over, now the evaluation of the idea... no worries if they ended up being ideas that need to be tossed out due to factors that I didn't see.

Just out of curiosity, you said you thought you could sell these if they were yours. How would you approach it?
I can't speak to @biophase's method, but in general:
- Order multiple samples and competitor products (if they exist)
- Actually use the product - this step is vital
- Determine what works and what doesn't
- Make changes and get new samples
- Test again
- Once happy, consult with family and friends (or better yet, target market) to ensure the product meets the needs of others
- Repeat until everyone is happy with the quality
- Order small batch and make a sale
- If successful, order more and repeat
 

biophase

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Ok. I would defer to your judgment. Brainstorm session over, now the evaluation of the idea... no worries if they ended up being ideas that need to be tossed out due to factors that I didn't see.

Just out of curiosity, you said you thought you could sell these if they were yours. How would you approach it?

Pretty much what CareCPA said.

I would have ordered the top rated ones on Amazon. At least the top 10. Maybe 15.
Then I would have gone through all 10-15 and read the 1-3 star reviews to see what people said.
Then I would have gotten a dog and tested all the gloves.
Then I would have looked through alibaba for manufacturers of the top 3 and ordered samples from 3-5 factories.
Then I would have ask manufacturers to make any changes based on the customer complaints.

Looking at his product I can easily see that he probably ordered from the cheapest factory. The nubs are too short and not dense. The glove stitching on the back is off centered and the fingers look just weird. The fabric.. ugh and yuck. No wonder it was $2. I wouldn't have picked that model either, there are other better ones selling on Amazon.

I would also not have picked a blue hand. Why did he do blue? Everyone else has blue. I would have made mine orange I think.

In summary, I would have made a better product or at least at the same level of quality as the others.
 
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sparechange

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Why does the other version have 2200 4.5 star reviews?

I can already tell from you photo that yours had way less bristles. Your bristles are also alot shorter and thinner than the Delomo.

Let me ask you these questions:
How many of the top brands of pet grooming gloves did you buy from Amazon?
How many factories did you order samples from before you chose to go with your production order?
How many of these gloves did you put on and test out on a dog?
How many silicon tips came on each of your gloves, how many were on the competitors?

It's not the product that sucked... it was your effort. I bet I could sell these successfully on Amazon if I wanted to.
Thanks for your post, you are right I didn’t do all my homework, haven’t ordered multiple samples or bought any competitors products. Noted for the next product I invest in. Honestly I was just a bit trigger happy & thought I could mimic the same results
 

sparechange

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Up front: I know NOTHING about selling products on Amazon. Only marketing. Keep that in mind with everything I'm about to say.

But it seems to me that you are in possession of an asset. A whole order of XXXX pet grooming gloves. No, the asset didn't perform as well as you hoped. They're not selling.

Now you're in a situation where you need to come up with whatever plan is going to give you the highest leverage with that asset, even if it means cutting your losses.

What if you did one minor, inexpensive tweak to give these gloves a slight upgrade and then sell them for a premium price? Kind of like the classic story from Robert Cialdini's book, Influence. In chapter 1, he tells this story...



So here's my idea:

Take 10 pairs of gloves down to a local embroidery shop, sewing machine shop, quilter with an embroidery machine, or friend who would do this as a favor. Have them embroider a beautiful dog on the back of each hand. Let's say you choose a pug. Or a German Shepherd. Or whatever dog you can use as a model for photography.

The cost of this shouldn't be a lot, as these machines are created to just take a design that is programmed in the computer, and the machine does all the work. It's just thread.

Now take these beautiful gloves and take highly emotional photographs of the glove from the back, showing the design. These photos should evoke all the love of caressing a pet, all the warm fuzzy feelings.

Now go online and post these gloves as "Pet Grooming Gloves for Pug Owners" and list them for double the price. This is only a test. It's only 10 pieces. You're validating the concept before you go gangbusters and pay to get ALL your gloves embroidered. But the focus is on the love and connection between the person and their dog. The focus is on the act of lovingly stroking their dog's fur, which they are going to do anyway, and which, thanks to the glove, will also come with a side benefit of taking out that loose hair that would have started getting all over their hand and flying around the room. Downplay the quality of the glove. Don't let that come into your buyer's mind. The quality doesn't matter. People don't need to expect it to be as good as a brush. If they want a complete grooming, they're going to go to a salon anyway. You're going for the first-time buyer of one of these things. Pet owners are already familiar with the concept of a glove like this, and now the cool fact that their favorite breed is depicted stylishly on the back of each glove is going to push them over the edge of finally getting the product.

Then go to facebook and find all the groups you can find of passionate pug owners and mention the gloves. (Pug owners are passionate about their pugs.) (Every dog owner is passionate about their breed. Golden retrievers. Labradors. Border collies. You get the picture... there's infinite directions you could go with this breed piece.) Actually--use a REALLY HAIRY dog, one that's notorious for shedding. E.g. no poodles! LOL...

Post your photos on instagram with tags like #pug grooming #pug love etc.

Suggest that people who know pug lovers buy this as the PERFECT Christmas gift for their brother or coworker or whatever.

Go around to local pet groomers, dog trainers, and veterinarians. Ask if they will let you sell the gloves there in exchange for X% of the "sale price" (which is double what you were asking before, so you have a margin to offer them). Some of them will give you display space.

See if you can sell all ten pairs. I bet you can. If they sell like hotcakes, at a great price point, then make some more in time to sell before Christmas.

Separately - here's another test.
Same product, different positioning. You can skip the embroidery on this set if you want.

There's a whole bunch of people out there who hate the way their hands feel after they pet a dog. [*Ahem* cough cough how would I know? :halo:]

This product solves a need: They can slip on the glove, pet their dog to their heart's desire, accomplish a bit of grooming in the process, and then slip the glove back off when they're done. The person is happy because they didn't have to get their hand feeling icky. The dog is happy because it got a ton of attention.

Create a system to find these people. This might take some thinking... maybe start in the dog groups on facebook and ask questions like, "Hey does anyone here know someone who doesn't like touching a dog because they're fastidious about what they touch? Maybe someone kind of like Monk around your pets? I'm doing some research and hoping to conduct a few interviews with people who experience this." And then go from there and see if you get any response, and ask some questions or conduct a survey, and see if you spot any patterns for people like this.

Then, using their responses, go write up some copy. "Do you hate touching dogs because you can't stand how your hands feel after you're done?" or whatever words they are using. Maybe they mention that the dog turns its head around and gets its wet nose on their hands, and they don't like that, either. Incorporate that into your copy. This product solves that. It's a dream come true for people who love their dogs but have sensory issues with petting them. Maybe there's a family with just one member who doesn't like to pet the dog... position it as a lifesaver for that situation.

And when you ship the product, include a free pair of latex (or allergy-free latex substitute) gloves, with a little note that suggests that they put on the latex glove first and then put on the grooming glove, and they'll be as happy as a lark.

The latex glove won't be expensive for you, and you're only including one pair, but it's a little touch that someone wouldn't have thought of (but that they will appreciate immensely). It'll be a WOW! moment. "I can finally have fun petting the dog!" Again - the person will not care that the product is junk in terms of grooming quality. That's not what it's about. It's solving a psychological need for them that might be worth 5 or 10 times the price.

Sell 10 of these as a test. If it takes off, go with it. If not, you haven't lost much because you were going to sell these as a loss anyway.

Just two ideas off the top of my head.
The embroidery idea seems actually pretty neat! I’ll check out prices when I get back to the city , got a temp job in the middle of nowhere right now on night shifts so my schedule is going to be horrible over the next week or so,
 

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