Dominating Online Ecom. Starting A New Store From 0

[hughjasle]

when do you know you have spent enough on traffic/testing?

This is hard for me to put an solid number on since everyone wants it to apply to them. So my answer will be "When you have done enough to get the feel for what it will be like when you are actually selling". This really answers your #4 question as well. The entire point of this testing phase is to have SOLID numbers. To know for sure that you can get sales at $x marketing dollars for the sales price you are asking. The more you cut corners here, there more you have to risk later on with purchasing the product. Some ppl prefer risk with product in their hand, I prefer to over test on ads as and extra $1k in ads can save me from buying $10-50k of inventory.

.order the product, how many is enough, or too much or too little?

This comes down to many factors, never order more than you can, your financial situation will be the greatest influencing factor here. For me, I try and order as little as possible for a first run. I usually base it on minimums provided by the manufacturer for bulk pricing. I don't want to order so little that my costs are crazy. So for example if I want widget A, I can get 100 for $8 each, or buy 1000 for $4 each, I'll get the 1000. Then I'll compare shipping as well in that. If the cost per unit has any significant decrease in shipping costs, I'll try and get up to that number. And on my first orders (and most) I do air shipments to get the product quick and usually the Cost per unit for shipping isn't bad when you order enough. Sure it can be dropped when doing sea freight, but in online marketing, if your product is a winner, you will have copy cats willing to beat you to market by sacrificing the cost for speed and beat you to market by going air. You can switch to sea once you have your numbers locked down and properly planning in place.


The rest of your strategy looks solid to me. You will quickly find that it's never so neat and easy in real life vs on paper But keep pushing and you'll get there.

“The courage to take a chance is half the battle. The other half? Viewing failure as a teacher and not an enemy" Chip Gaines LOL
Try things. Try lots of things. Figure out why they didn't work or why they did. Soon enough you will be a master at testing and making things work. Become that kind of master and the world will be yours.

 

[quanttastic]

Really excited to see how this develops. Your last thread was complete gold. Thanks for doing this!

 

[KSR]

I don't usually have a problem. If one manufacturer won't do it, another will. Just go into it knowing you cant get just one or two lol, you will have to order a fair amount.

What quantity do you think is fair/usually order?

 

[Sanj Modha]

Welcome to the jungle. We've got fun and games!

 

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[DCDeuce]

I got a few PM's and messages on skype asking this same question so I'll answer here. No I won't give out my sources.

It wasn't the site that gave me the ideas. It was just that something I saw finally sparked an idea to life that wasn't even listed, which lead to another and other. Sometimes things just need that little spark to get the creative juices flowing.

As for the sites, I check everything I can find including amazon, ebay, jane, wish, etc. Check for completed listings, numbers of items sold, number of reviews etc. The goal is to get an idea of things that are currently selling a lot. After a while you should hopefully be able to get a better idea of what can sell a lot and what might be a good product, but sales will be smaller. Those good products that sell less are still good, but better for amazon.

Haha!! It never ceases to amaze me at how many people want the answer instead of taking the time to do the work, research, and due dilligence to get to the end result.

@hughjasle Glad you did not give your sources to anyone!

 

[hughjasle]

When using shopify what subscription are you using?

usually the third tier so I get the indepth reporting. but that's not needed to start. For me the extra % off the transactional fee is great enough that it pays for itself many times over. But while your small and just getting started, it doesn't matter IMO which you get. Just know you'll eventually work up to the more expensive stuff.

 

[hughjasle]

Have you hired someone that costumizes the available shopify themes in order to make it fast?

I have not. Speed is important, and shopify can be slow. It's one of the lack of control things you just have to deal with to a point in exchange for not having to build out a full custom site i guess.

 

[LPPC]

Been asked to update this.

The short story is took some time to reflect on everything. My wife gave birth to our third child. My business parter and his wife just had their first baby. We realized that starting a new store and all the time it would take away from our little families and our main store was probably not a good move. So we have basically put everything for this new store on hold.

Instead we are doubling down on our current shop, fixing everything we did wrong at the beginning and growing that one. I'll come back and try and write up all that has taken. I'll need to take some time to go through the site and remember all that was done to get it where it is now.

Thanks for updating man!

Doubling down on what works and taking more time for family doesn't seem like a bad idea

Congratulations on your third child!

 

[LPPC]

Agree with @quanttastic, thanks for doing this!

 

[Dan1el]

I'll try and update this when I can, but really there isn't much to report on at this point. Most of my time and days are spent hunting for new products, fine tuning the layout or flow of the site, funnels, etc.

I just spent 5 hours looking for products and only came out with ideas for 2-3 products. Lots of rubbish out there. I don't want things that everyone else can get. I like looking at existing products and seeing how I can put my own twist on it.

Sometimes ideas will flow to you left and right, sometimes it can take weeks to come up with just 1 good idea.

What do your process of finding products look like? Any specific way of doing it you recommend over another?

Thank you for doing this by the way! Im currently a couple of pages into your old progress thread. Tons of value.

 

[KSR]

Totally depends on the product and the change. If it's just a color print change on a piece of paper, then only 10 pieces, and no real additional fee. Maybe $50 for them to go out and get the color or something stupid.

If it is something that requires a new mold, then I wouldn't expect anything under $5-10k worth of product.

Thanks a heap man, very helpful. If you have any other manufacturing tips - I'd love to know them.

 

[The-J]

Following this thread. You're gonna kill it.

 

[ZeroTo100]

Couple of questions...

I get what you're doing and I understand how you're doing it but what doesn't make sense to me is why you're doing it?

Is there a customer pain point in the market for these products? Before you import, don't you think it's smart to test just a few out and be sure the market even wants them?

I commend you on taking action but I recommend you do some hardcore research on your competitors. Find a gap in the market or a weakness in your competitors. Adding products to a Shopify site and driving traffic is something anyone can do. Find a way be different - best of luck!

 

[BStaff95]

(On a new Instagram account, the first post received 64k organic likes with the help of a few techniques I use and thousands of visitors to my store - so it is not something to underestimate and is easily replicable if you know how.)

Would you be willing to share how you went about doing that? Currently using IG to drive traffic so it would obviously be extremely useful. Those numbers are insane.

 

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[pds]

Really looking forward to seeing how this develops, I am currently heading down the same path - I have a site, that is based on a loyalty and passionate community of sorts - and am in the process of setting up a new set of sites to add to my network.
One way of advertising you may want to seriously consider as a stream of consistent income is Social Media, currently my entire sites revenue is based purely off of Instagram - if you can leverage it in certain ways, it can basically act as Facebook but with no charge. (On a new Instagram account, the first post received 64k organic likes with the help of a few techniques I use and thousands of visitors to my store - so it is not something to underestimate and is easily replicable if you know how.)
I am currently in the process of setting up another store which is less niche than my first and am interested in expanding into Facebook ads - if you are interested, perhaps we could skill share?
Looking forward to hearing from you.

That's impressive. Can you share how you do this with Instagram? My guess is that you pay several influencers for a sponsored post that all drive their fans back to your IG page with a call to action in your bio.

 

[hughjasle]

since you are selling multiple products on your site will you be dropshipping or will you be buying in bulk for every item?

At this point just bulk buying/importing. I have a few personal issues with drop shipping. However, I haven't completely disregarded it. I do see why so many like it, but the pro's haven't outweighed the con's in my eyes yet. Maybe it's because I haven't found the "right" product for that model yet.

 

[ZeroTo100]

I'll answer the second question first as that is easier to simply answer, yes I do test before I go out and import almost anything.

I say almost because sometimes manufactures just send me sample products etc. Otherwise I'd never import in bulk something untested. Way too much risk.

The first question now, it all totally depends on the product. I'm not sure what products you think I'm running so it's hard for me to guess what you are guessing lol. But IMO not all products are purchased due to a pain point. Sometimes ppl consume for pleasure as well. Guess you could argue that the pain point in those cases are "not enough pleasure, fashion, etc in my life".

I'd like to find the people who's pain points are "too much money in my bank, must buy something over and over"


noted

I guess I should clarify for any future readers. I'm not building your typical BS Shopify site that sells the latest and greatest trending/trademarked/patented/knockoff crap from aliexpress and dropships it etc. Those are a dime a dozen. I'm building something that I can sell off that has happy customers that RETURN and buy more.

Ah now I got ya. Thanks for clearifying that. I actually got nervous for you thinking about the risk in importing all that product without testing but I can tell (after reading a lot of your threads and following you) that you're a lot smarter than that.

You're right in selling to people that aside from having a pain point may just want to buy for pleasure. My last startup I did we created the demand for the product. We sold in beta on limited supply - first come/first serve basis and people lined up for them. People didn't actually need it but they wanted it. We did such a good job marketing it that after we sold, our customers were bragging that they were able to get in on beta and shared it all over social media. We blew it up and the blogosphere followed.

When your launch is that strong that people share the product for you, you're doing something right at least from a marketing perspective.

After about 1400 sign-ups at launch, I shut the company down haha. Broke even but too many variables and moving parts to deal with.

Anyway, I like the content you put out. Very helpful to me and I can relate to a lot of your stuff.

Thanks bud

 

[ZeroTo100]

Nice job here man. Have you done a thread about it? Would make an insightful read

Haha I would but that's one of the things I'm actually very good at and some of my tactics might not be best to share in the open public. I don't even think most of it can be taught.

I did pick up a lot of my skills running an event business for a long time. Took a lot of chances and made a lot of ballsy moves that could have buried me. Really learned a lot by getting creative.

Let me know if you need help with anything.

Steve

 

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[Fredyisgold]

You don't know till you test it.

BTW - I'm wrong more than I'm right. I just keep testing. I have fully custom products that I thought would be killer awesome, not sell at all. Mega bummer.

How do you go about testing multiple products? How would that work with the manufacturer(s)?

This is what I'm thinking. You set-up a store with your marketing, drive traffic for that particular product, check sales, growth, etc and if not as effective as you thought it would, do you move on to setting up a new store for a new product and repeat?

Or do you list multiple products on Amazon, verify needs/pains/simplify complexity and THEN set-up a store with marketing and drive traffic to it?

Thanks for your valuable time <3

-Fredy

 

[hughjasle]

How do you go about testing multiple products? How would that work with the manufacturer(s)?

This is what I'm thinking. You set-up a store with your marketing, drive traffic for that particular product, check sales, growth, etc and if not as effective as you thought it would, do you move on to setting up a new store for a new product and repeat?

Well, I already have my store set up. New products are added in. I test via 2 methods at this point. First, I get samples in generic "off the shelf" branding that the manufacturer has on hand. I use these to test them out. If I like it (good quality, passes my tests of something I like, then I'll go ahead and create a page for it. Then I'll send it some traffic to see how it does and what others think. If it's good, I'll get it fully done in my company branding and order a batch. If not, I'll delete it and move on.

Amazon is not my go to source so I don't test new products there. I just use it as a medium for selling my brands products.

 

[WorkingOnIt]

...So my answer will be "When you have done enough to get the feel for what it will be like when you are actually selling". This really answers your #4 question as well. The entire point of this testing phase is to have SOLID numbers. To know for sure that you can get sales at $x marketing dollars for the sales price you are asking.

..........So for example if I want widget A, I can get 100 for $8 each, or buy 1000 for $4 each, I'll get the 1000. Then I'll compare shipping as well in that. If the cost per unit has any significant decrease in shipping costs, I'll try and get up to that number. And on my first orders (and most) I do air shipments to get the product quick and usually the Cost per unit for shipping isn't bad when you order enough.....


The rest of your strategy looks solid to me. You will quickly find that it's never so neat and easy in real life vs on paper But keep pushing and you'll get there.

“The courage to take a chance is half the battle. The other half? Viewing failure as a teacher and not an enemy" Chip Gaines LOL
Try things. Try lots of things. Figure out why they didn't work or why they did. Soon enough you will be a master at testing and making things work. Become that kind of master and the world will be yours.

I cut some things out just for myself when I go back to this thread and re-read things.

I do greatly appreciate the answers to the questions. Basically, when I feel that if I run the same ad cost it would be profitable doing so for my product...

I think courage is something that people don't really mention. But I have to say it definitely half the battle. If we only took x% more chances, we would likely succeed at a rate of x% more.

I'm doing this for certain, will open a progress thread, hope it works at even 5k profit a month I'll be a happy happy camper. If its a null/no-good, just continue with the next product in mind. I always thought the other way, to buy the product, then test/fear the loss of the money on goods purchased, whereas, I might as well "put some $ into something productive, marketing."

------------
As reading your thread/as starting to work on my shopify site today... I have been wondering if for my present company, I can leverage marketing to my benefit to out weight the cost. We offer a service, and yes advertising is needed/marketing, but I don't think I ever really sat down to do that...where obtaining new clients is crucial for growth :/ I need to take a look into my bread-butter and see if I can add some tea to the morning's mix.

 

[Chazmania]

Looking forward to updates.

 

[KSR]

Do you find that in order to add your own twist to a product that you need to order in high volumes? If not, how do you convince a manufacturer to custom make the item for smaller amounts?

 

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[LPPC]

If I understand it correctly, you have selected a theme/category of the store beforehand and now you are looking for products to match the theme of the store? For you have selected women jewellery as the theme and you are looking for jewellery as products to sell..

 

[KSR]

100% read the book that Walter hay wrote. I'll edit and link this post to it when I'm back to a computer.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

Absolute legend! Cheers. I've always wanted to know the ins and outs of bringing a product to life.

 

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[LPPC]

Another day spent shuffling through products and speaking with manufacturers.

Regarding picking products:

Look for products that solve a problem. Products that are a must have.

If you are a digger and see this shovel that can dig by itself, that is a must have. A shovel with a gold handle is nice, but it's not a must have. Which is easier to sell?

I don't 100% avoid anything (yet), but I do caution myself against many things that I know are difficult to import/ship. Things like products that need any kind of regulation. Some products are worth all the hassle, most are not.

Very helpful! Thank you. +reps

 

[FreedomforEarl]

I got a new product and I know it will be fire, they are working it out with customs now, ! will sell some on Ebay since I have sold on here for 19-20 years. But I want to branch out and get me a online store , maybe shoptify. I am nervous but I have to do this. Any ideas on starting a new web base business . Any help will be good. Tired about to head to bed.

 

[FreedomforEarl]

I'll try and update this when I can, but really there isn't much to report on at this point. Most of my time and days are spent hunting for new products, fine tuning the layout or flow of the site, funnels, etc.

I just spent 5 hours looking for products and only came out with ideas for 2-3 products. Lots of rubbish out there. I don't want things that everyone else can get. I like looking at existing products and seeing how I can put my own twist on it.

Sometimes ideas will flow to you left and right, sometimes it can take weeks to come up with just 1 good idea.

I just got back from Thailand and there is so much junk there I stopped looking, but I did find one item but I contacted the manufacture and I am waiting for a response !

 

[Dougema]

Just making sure to read this goldmine later! congrats!

 

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[GrabThe]

I just got back from Thailand and there is so much junk there I stopped looking, but I did find one item but I contacted the manufacture and I am waiting for a response !

Last time I was in Thailand I was overwhelmed with the amount of stuff there. I was looking for a clothing line and had great success but then the company flopped after 3 years due to his supplier not being able to get the fabric. I didn't make a ton of money so I let it go.