I joined the forum a couple weeks back and said I would be making a progress thread. Well... here it is!
If you want to know a little more about me you can check out the intro thread I posted, but some key points are that I'm 18 years old, I'm a freshman in college (going for the knowledge, not necessarily the degree as I don't plan to get a job), and I seriously LOVE the hustle.
I have a small e-Commerce store in a very specific niche that I have gradually grown to ~$450/month in sales (currently). This is averaging 3-4 sales a day; sometimes less, sometimes more. My margin % (after shipping, merchant fees and cogs) is about 45%. I am working to dominate the niche that I'm in, and grow it to the point that I can cover my basic costs of living with the revenue. I'm living in my parent's house currently, so this would hopefully give me the option of moving out. I don't know if this business has quite that much potential (the niche might be a tad too small), but that is my vision for it.
Here's a re-cap of the last couple weeks (from around the time I posted my intro thread to now).
Executed
A little background for the first bullet point: About 6 months ago (yes, that long... yikes!) I ran out of one of my products, and my supplier just fell off the map. I have no idea where they went. This product is bundled with my main product and the bundle sells for almost twice as much(still under 10 dollars though). I was lazy and didn't take action towards getting a new supplier.
Some Things I Learned:
If you want to know a little more about me you can check out the intro thread I posted, but some key points are that I'm 18 years old, I'm a freshman in college (going for the knowledge, not necessarily the degree as I don't plan to get a job), and I seriously LOVE the hustle.
I have a small e-Commerce store in a very specific niche that I have gradually grown to ~$450/month in sales (currently). This is averaging 3-4 sales a day; sometimes less, sometimes more. My margin % (after shipping, merchant fees and cogs) is about 45%. I am working to dominate the niche that I'm in, and grow it to the point that I can cover my basic costs of living with the revenue. I'm living in my parent's house currently, so this would hopefully give me the option of moving out. I don't know if this business has quite that much potential (the niche might be a tad too small), but that is my vision for it.
Here's a re-cap of the last couple weeks (from around the time I posted my intro thread to now).
Executed
A little background for the first bullet point: About 6 months ago (yes, that long... yikes!) I ran out of one of my products, and my supplier just fell off the map. I have no idea where they went. This product is bundled with my main product and the bundle sells for almost twice as much(still under 10 dollars though). I was lazy and didn't take action towards getting a new supplier.
- Contacted about a dozen suppliers (mostly China based, a couple Taiwan), inquiring about the product I need.
- After lots of back and forth between the suppliers I landed on one that I liked their product, as well as their quoted price and their company in general.
- They agreed to send me 5 free samples (each unit is priced as under a dollar each), with a $24.00 shipping charge. They also agreed to allow me to pay via PayPal, which makes it easy on me with less risk.
- Samples arrived in about 3 days from the shipping date. Tested the product, loved it. Contacted the supplier and placed an order for 500 units. My order won't arrive until march sometime due to Chinese New Year.
- Spent 50 dollars ordering two new products off of Aliexpress that are relevant to my customer base. I am going to test them out to see if they will sell. If they will, I will find a supplier for them and place a larger order.
- Adjusted some things on my shopping cart to make it more clean and simple. Also made it so I have the ability to open up shipping to other countries in the future (currently only shipping to US and Canada... would like to ship to the UK, Italy, and Australia).
- Ordered a fiverr gig for a new logo (HAHA!), turned out to be OK actually. Just not what I was looking for. Note: I don't really need a new logo, I just saw it and thought "Eh, what's 5 bucks?"
- Ran an AdWords campaign for about a week at 5-7 dollars a day.
- Found some threads on a couple forums asking about something related to my product. I helped them out with a very detailed response and recommended my product (this is mostly in hopes that if someone finds the post in the future they might find my site)
Some Things I Learned:
- Improved my skills working with chinese/international manufacturers.
- Chinese New Years is one freaking long vacation.
- How to run an Adwords campaign!
- AdWords simply will not work for this business. The margins are too small (in terms of dollars, not %) to make money with it.
- Shipping via china post is VERY slow(free shipping option on the things I bought from Aliexpress)
- I really like waking up at 5 or 530am.
Dislike ads? Become a Fastlane member:
Subscribe today and surround yourself with winners and millionaire mentors, not those broke friends who only want to drink beer and play video games. :-)
Access Restricted: Unlock 1,000,000+ Posts
Stop Peeking Through the Keyhole.
Open the Door.
You hit a wall because the best advice isn't free—it's earned. Since 2007, MJ DeMarco has been active here daily (99.9% active rate), building a war room for entrepreneurs who refuse to settle for mediocrity.
- Active Daily: Life-changing content posted dozens of times every day. No dead threads.
- MJ's Inner Circle: Direct access to the author of The Millionaire Fastlane.
- Vetted Network: Connect with founders scaling to 7 and 8 figures.
- Proven Roadmaps: Strategy over motivation. Execution over "hustle porn."
"SCALED TO 6-FIGURE MONTHS"
"Tips and advice here saved me from huge mistakes, others allowed me to scale my business to 6-figure months."— User MitchC
"INSANE QUALITY OF PEOPLE"
"The number of high quality people I've met from this forum has been insane. All of it predicated on building real value."— User Richard Peck
"You are the average of the five people you surround yourself with."
Are you surrounding yourself with success?
.
