First True Venture into Importing & Growing a Business

[Denim Chicken]

2nd @Vigilante .


Cash flow is everything. No reason to have inventory for a year if you're bootstrapping and you have one product.

For last six weeks of the year, plan for 2x normal sales. 3x if your product is "gifty".

Thanks. Asking you the same question, based on your experience, how many months of inventory is appropriate? 6 months?

The inventory and turn around changes depending on what I estimate my daily sales rate will be.

If the last 6 weeks ends up being 2x-3x (my product would make a decent gift actually), I could see myself hitting 20-30 sales/day for that time. In which case, I guess it wouldn't be ridiculous to have 1000 units get sold purely during the holidays.

If it's not workable, your suggestion is to find another supplier? They're pretty good, have always been up front with me, and currently my product is custom it would mean starting over with everything for that part.

EDIT: There is risk it won't get here in time for the holidays. So earlier the better I make an order if I'm going to do it.

 

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[amp0193]

Thanks. Asking you the same question, based on your experience, how many months of inventory is appropriate? 6 months?

As little as possible. I don't think of it as "months of inventory" but as "how long is my does it take for a dollar to return to my pocket". So, cash flow.

When I compare new products, cash flow is the most important determining factor. How long is my cash outlayed, and how fast can I turnover inventory.

In my business, it take 6-8 weeks to get my dollar back. I turnover inventory every 2-3 months. This is because, lead times are fast: 7 days production, 3 days ship. I have product in my hands 3 days after payment.

If it's not workable, your suggestion is to find another supplier? They're pretty good, have always been up front with me, and currently my product is custom it would mean starting over with everything for that part.

Or figure out a way to sell more product.

There is risk it won't get here in time for the holidays. So earlier the better I make an order if I'm going to do it.

This is true. If you're going to order, do it soon. Preferably 2 weeks ago.

 

[Denim Chicken]

As little as possible. I don't think of it as "months of inventory" but as "how long is my does it take for a dollar to return to my pocket". So, cash flow.

When I compare new products, cash flow is the most important determining factor. How long is my cash outlayed, and how fast can I turnover inventory.

In my business, it take 6-8 weeks to get my dollar back. I turnover inventory every 2-3 months. This is because, lead times are fast: 7 days production, 3 days ship. I have product in my hands 3 days after payment.




Or figure out a way to sell more product.



This is true. If you're going to order, do it soon. Preferably 2 weeks ago.

Thanks, hmm I guess I hadn't considered too much that aspect of it because I only have 1 product and wanted to try to make it work.

The time period to get my money back is unknown since I've only been up 2 weeks but I can quickly estimate the turnover based on daily sales rate.
5 sales/day = 20 months turnover
10 sales/day = 10 month turnover
15 sales/day = 5 month turnover
20sales/day for 6 weeks = 900 units/3000 = 30% turnover in 6 weeks.

I guess the answer is, if I can bring sales up to an average of 15+sales/day + holiday season, it would be worth it from a cash standpoint. My best day was 11/sales at the $19.99 price point. I'm selling 6 at $25. I think it's possible but its pretty nerve tracking

 

[Esoteric Wealth]

Great thread man. Great job on your progress.

I do have a question. What was the main source of finding your manufucturers? Google, Alibaba, etc? And did you find it difficult to find an actual manufucturer rather than just a wholesaler/trader?

 

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[amp0193]

Thanks, hmm I guess I hadn't considered too much that aspect of it because I only have 1 product and wanted to try to make it work.

The time period to get my money back is unknown since I've only been up 2 weeks but I can quickly estimate the turnover based on daily sales rate.
5 sales/day = 20 months turnover
10 sales/day = 10 month turnover
15 sales/day = 5 month turnover
20sales/day for 6 weeks = 900 units/3000 = 30% turnover in 6 weeks.

I guess the answer is, if I can bring sales up to an average of 15+sales/day + holiday season, it would be worth it from a cash standpoint. My best day was 11/sales at the $19.99 price point. I'm selling 6 at $25. I think it's possible but its pretty nerve tracking

Always use conservative estimates, not hopeful ones, and you'll save yourself a lot of pain.

If your hopeful best-case scenario barely makes the plan doable, I wouldn't be comfortable with that either. I like it when the worst-case scenario is a win.

I don't know you situation, and if 15/day is likely, or just hopeful.

 

[Denim Chicken]

Great thread man. Great job on your progress.

I do have a question. What was the main source of finding your manufucturers? Google, Alibaba, etc? And did you find it difficult to find an actual manufucturer rather than just a wholesaler/trader?

I used Walter Hay's book. Alibaba works if you know what to look for. It's not difficult to find a manufacturer versus a trader, you can kind of figure it out eventually.

 

[Denim Chicken]

Always use conservative estimates, not hopeful ones, and you'll save yourself a lot of pain.

If your hopeful best-case scenario barely makes the plan doable, I wouldn't be comfortable with that either. I like it when the worst-case scenario is a win.

I don't know you situation, and if 15/day is likely, or just hopeful.

I'm currently in talks with another few suppliers to see if I can have them make two parts for me that is outsource-able. If I don't get this product to where I can have it imported and fulfilled by a 3rd party center without me having to assemble it, I don't think I will pursue it further after my inventory sells out.

I'm going to be testing this weekend at the 19.99 price point and see if my volume changes. It's pretty steady for my $25 price point.

 

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[amp0193]

I'm going to be testing this weekend at the 19.99 price point and see if my volume changes. It's pretty steady for my $25 price point.

Check out https://splitly.com/ for split testing pricing. It'll tell you what you need to know.

 

[Denim Chicken]

Check out https://splitly.com/ for split testing pricing. It'll tell you what you need to know.

Interesting, ill check it out

 

[Denim Chicken]

Signed up for Splitly

- Contacted new manufacturers for alternatives for outsourcing the assembly
- Reaching out to 3rd party centers here in the US
- Talked to my current supplier about lower MOQ which he agreed to
- Asked my supplier again emphasizing that assembly on our end is an issue that we're trying to address, if he knows of any 3rd party assembly warehouses I'd be grateful for his contact. He contacted me and says he knows someone and will give me a quote
- Asked a few people how they would feel if the product came as self-assembly versus fully assembled. 1 family member has stated she would not have liked if it didn't come assembled already. Another said it was fine. I might have to test this before I place a large order. I'd have to change my listing to coordinate with when the new self-assembly inventory hits so that it doesn't mismatch with the current inventory. I don't want to make a whole new listing
- Shutdown adwords, too much adspend no sales.
- Price testing now

My sales over the weekend diminshed to an all-time low between 2-5 sales/day. This happened directly after I lowered the price to $19.99. I don't know what's causing it as my best day in the past was also at $19.99. Could be just a regular cycle in sales. My BSR has increased quite a bit but my competitors have also increased and their sales is slowed so could be something not isolated to me.

I am still ranked on page 1 of most of my important keywords, it's just not a niche with a lot of traffic all the time.

 

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[Denim Chicken]

ACoS shot up this week to an insane amount, 60%. Same conversion rate, CPC and everything else. I wonder if a competitor is clicking my ads. PPC accounts for roughly 25% of sales, rest is organic. Only thing I did different was raise my default bid by $.1 across the automatic and manual campaigns.

 

[Denim Chicken]

I have a bit of an obsessive personality especially when I do something like sports or competitive things. On a daily basis, I refresh Seller Central probably every 15 minutes, I need to stop. I had only 2 sales this morning and figured I'd end myself before dinner. Then sales come in back to back and everything is back to normal.

It's also very quite amazing how the sales always come in at the same time periods and it's like clockwork the # of sales I average. I'm really amazed on the consistency of traffic and sales.

I started A/B testing on my listing. One, is the control. Two, is a new variant with the only changes being that it alludes to an easy self assembly process. I want to see how my conversion rate % changes based on this one variable. If there is no pushback, I will proceed with my next large order from my multiple manufacturers. If however, my conversions drop, I will have to re-evaluate things.

My gut feeling is that nothing will change but gut feelings can be wrong. That's why there's testing before dumping $10k on a shipment.

Starting research on next product(s). Maybe found something, not really sure. Before ordering anything I want to be a customer and experience the hobby/niche/vertical as an user. This takes some time, learning the Ins and outs of the problems, the market leaders, the price points, etc. I'm thinking I can bring a higher quality set of products to this underserved community related to mine.

Next steps:
- Finish A/B testing on my listing
- Price test to see if I can charge even more
- Place orders in time for the holiday season
- Reach out to 10 good influencers about a giveaway and posting a picture with my product. Go from there

 

[Denim Chicken]

Broke my record in sales yesterday. There is still more room to grow.

Also got a my first, very nice 5 star review from a customer with photos and stuff, I was a bit surprised.

It feels awesome when you spend MONTHS sketching, making prototypes, re-sketching, designing everything from scratch, graphic design, writing the instructional insert and pictures, etc. trying to make a product actually better, and someone you don't know says they love the product with proof of its use with their own photos.

There's something to be said about choosing a niche or area that you know about. There were times when I had (and still have) doubt creep in my mind about whether or not its worth it to continue to pursue, whether it's the amount of money I sunk in, the volume of traffic, having to assemble each unit by hand, etc.
But because I firmly knew that my product is different and better as a consumer of said product first, it's a lot easier to stick with it.

If I was selling garlic presses, it'd be harder to push through the doubts since I have no interest or background in using them.


I will say this, to anyone who wants to start with something.. In my experience, your best chances of success are when you are LASER FOCUSED on what you are doing. I used to get shiny object disorder in the past and it got me 50% of the way for about different ventures. This one, my goal was to really see it thru to learn the ins and outs of ecommerce, even if it is a failure.

And it's easier to maintain focus when you have a product you believe in and trust, for months on end, not some random product from Jungle Scout. At least for your initial first launch.
Now, I feel like I have a better gauge of how Amazon works, how competitive a product is, the margins, how hard it will be to source, oversized fees, etc. and while I'm not an expert, it's much easier for me to know when looking at other products using tools like JS, how easy/hard it will be to launch.
I had actually bought Jungle Scout in the past about a year ago and did nothing with it because all that data is meaningless without context.

If you're launching something PL, keep to this formula: Improve it as much as possible without having to sink too much into it. Get the lowest MOQ possible, even 100 or 500 units. You need at least 100 to test product and sales velocity.

Sell it all, A/B test, price test, finalize the margins and numbers, optimize, and most importantly, LEARN. If it's a REASONABLE product and not a $10 commodity knife, worst case scenario you should be able to at least liquidate it at cost and lose nothing, or very little and chalk it up to a hands-on ecommerce course. If it works, then good improve it further and order more.

 

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[Denim Chicken]

Got my first hijacker on my listing. Newly launched seller, fake a$$ name, 0 seller feedback, he's leeched himself onto a handful of products that he doesn't own or manufacturer. F*ckin low lives..

He's listed lower than my price, not FBA (of course, he doesn't have the product in stock cause I'm the only manufacturer and retailer for it) and it says estimated delivery date sometime between sept 6 and 21.

What is this guy's endgame? I have heard some people hijack to get sales and stats on a product.

Does anyone know what kind of info he can glean if he is listed on my product page?

Anyway, sent a firm email telling him to remove himself or action will be taken. Sent an email to Amazon seller support reporting a violation and listing that I own all the following: copyrighted work, all product photos, product design, manufacturering, trademark, etc. and link to my website as well as my email with the appropriate domain, etc.

Hope they take care of it asap

@amp0193 Experience with this?

 

[amp0193]

@amp0193 Experience with this?

ehh... it's been a looong time since I've dealt with it.


Are you brand registered?

 

[Denim Chicken]

ehh... it's been a looong time since I've dealt with it.


Are you brand registered?

I'm not because I'm not registered for a trademark yet. I just put ™ in front of my name letting people know it's in the process. But now that this has happened, I'm going to use a trademark service to get the process started now and pay the $300 or whatever it is.

After I sent him the letter, the a**hole lowered the price even further trying to win the buy box. It says he has 9 "in stock" which is bullshit.

I called Seller support again and she filed a case and said a specialist will reach out to me but it's best if I have all the paperwork.

Other than paperwork showing that I filed a trademark (not yet granted), the source files for logos, product design, etc. pictures of the "warehouse" aka my garage for assembly, I don't have anything else.

I might have to order 1 from him and provide proof to Amazon what he's selling isn't my product.

 

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[Denim Chicken]

Hijacker destroyed.

Tomorrow is the last selling day of the month. I'm hoping I will close out above my goal!

 

[Denim Chicken]

Month 1 (Aug 2-Aug 31) Summary:

I'm profitable but now starting to catch up since in the beginning of the launch I lowered the price below breakeven.

My goal was to make $1000-1500 in revenue initially when I started this thread. I guess I underestimated the demand for the product, it's a very niche product.

 

[Denim Chicken]

All my units are at a fulfillment warehouse that is shut down for hurricane irma. Won't be back in stock until next week. No point in sending another shipment even if it goes out tomorrow it won't be live on Amazon until the same time. Turning off my ads.

 

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[Denim Chicken]

Things are steady. Beauty of low competition niche or product means you can go out of stock whenever you want and still come back and make the same amount of sales despite having been out for a week.

The only downside to that is I wouldn't make a habit of going out of stock or low because that is how hijackers use software to find listings to leech onto.

 

[samuraijack]

Nice thread brother!

I was thinking of using splitly just to test pricing or using the Profit Peak. How's that going for you?

 

[Denim Chicken]

Nice thread brother!

I was thinking of using splitly just to test pricing or using the Profit Peak. How's that going for you?

Hey, Thanks. Hmm for Splitly I only did it for a short period of time. A lot of people recommended it and I can see the value of it if you have quite a few products but for me, I only have the 1 product so it was actually better for me to just go in and change the price manually.

I settled at price of around $23 or so versus the initial $20 or $25. $25 has more profit but I didn't notice at first that my ACos is higher due to selling less units/lower sales velocity.

Anyway, I'm sure Splitly is good but I've had my share of bugs with it. It wasn't changing the prices it was supposed to, and after a while I just asked for a refund.

 

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[Denim Chicken]

I'll be closing out this product and will do a final review of my experience.

One downside to ecommerce is that the # of people who help by leaving positive but honest reviews are much fewer than those that leave bad reviews because they have no idea how ratings affect your listing.

Since the launch (maybe 6 mo now), I've gotten maybe 4 organic real reviews? Most of them are 5 stars but you cannot underestimate the stupidity of some people.

One person complained that the item was too short. Nothing about the quality. Well, the length is RIGHT THERE in the title and description. And the length is a standard size.

They left the first 2 star rating for a mistake they made. Annoys the shit out of me. Due to the lack of total # of review, this review hurts the listing.

I have approx 40-50 more units, I will do my best to just maximize the profits per unit during the next 2 weeks and hopefully it'll sell out and this review won't affect too much.

 

[J.Roddy]

Still following...it's been great watching your process and results! Keep pushing!

 

[Parker P]

I'll be closing out this product and will do a final review of my experience.

One downside to ecommerce is that the # of people who help by leaving positive but honest reviews are much fewer than those that leave bad reviews because they have no idea how ratings affect your listing.

Since the launch (maybe 6 mo now), I've gotten maybe 4 organic real reviews? Most of them are 5 stars but you cannot underestimate the stupidity of some people.

One person complained that the item was too short. Nothing about the quality. Well, the length is RIGHT THERE in the title and description. And the length is a standard size.

They left the first 2 star rating for a mistake they made. Annoys the shit out of me. Due to the lack of total # of review, this review hurts the listing.

I have approx 40-50 more units, I will do my best to just maximize the profits per unit during the next 2 weeks and hopefully it'll sell out and this review won't affect too much.

When you say you'll be closing out this product, do you mean you're going to discontinue selling this product?

 

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