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From Affiliate Marketing To Importing And Ecommerce

Marketing, social media, advertising

hughjasle

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STEP 1: Identifying and Testing Various Products

I identified a couple products to work with and tested them to see if they were worth pursuing.

I did this with a few products (6) but one stood out more than the others and that's the one I'll be focusing on first.

I found these by creating good looking shopify pages for the products and running Facebook ads for them. The shopify pages were basically just shells of sites (just wanted to to quickly gauge interest). The users were led to ad the product to cart and checkout, but in doing so they would be greeted with a nice "Oops this is embarrassing, due to such high demand, we are out of stock! To make up for it, would you like to be added to our mailing list? To make things interesting for you, when we get the product back in stock, we will let you know AND send you a 30% off coupon for waiting."

This worked out well. I also did a few full tests after collecting over 100 emails, of just letting people check out and then refunding the money and emailing them the saying we were out of stock yada yada yada. Doing these two things I found I can get a sub $10 CPA. Sweet.

I tested the product at $100 a piece and face value on alibaba/dhgate is $8-15 (which I can get cheaper from past experience), either way - with the couple improvements I want + branding + packaging, the markup is definitely great if I can keep that CPA.
 

hughjasle

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I'll keep it short and simple.

Been doing affiliate marketing for almost 2 years now. Was working with a dysfunctional company for most of the time, but got out of that and on my own now a couple months back.

VERY happy with where I am now with affiliate marketing, but I want to build something I can sell off someday. A million a year in affiliate marketing is just that, a million bucks. That's great, but a million a year business is a million bucks AND you can sell it off for multiples if you do it right.

So that's my goal, use my skills and warchest i've built (and will continue to build) from affiliate marketing and put them towards businesses that I can sell off, first of which is importing goods and creating sites/brands around them.

I will mostly be using Facebook marketing for this as I go, I'm already a few steps in so I'll update in next posts so we don't have a wall of text here.
 
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Just want to thank @hughjasle for this thread. All that you need is here guys. I started at the beginning of June doing Facebook ads and ecommerce.

Broke $10,000 in first 5 weeks, starting from zero knowledge/experience. Something like 15% roi and 75% roas (both if 0 is breakeven). Did this while working 60-70 hrs per week at a summer internship, taking 2 full university courses, personal health issue, and family health issues. Not boasting or anything, just trying to show the guys who are delaying or have excuses, that there are no real excuses. You will find a way (and time) to get it done if you really want it.

You don’t need a mentor, guru’s course, or whatever, just this thread and anything else can be found on google or facebook groups. Not going to try to give any tips because its all here and don’t want to hijack this thread (plus not knowledgeable enough yet). But the point I can’t stress enough is to just get started, and only look for information when you need it. You can spend forever reading every blog or asking about pointless things like which fulfillment center to use when you have no sales. If you need to ask a question, make sure you cannot find the answer anywhere else (google) and have actually attempted to solve it (ex. try scaling strategies before asking how to scale).

You don’t need a week to make your store. Use shopify and launch in a few hours. Make changes as needed. Just pick a product and start running ads. There is money in every niche and you will get better at identifying potential winning products/niches as you get experience.

Also, I didn’t study copywriting and don’t know design (haven’t even spent time to learn photoshop yet, I make all my ads in Microsoft paint and free video editors)

Just run some ads and learn as you go. I promise you will learn more than any amount of reading. Also once you actually start, you won't want to stop.

Final thing, is be smart (especially with your budget), but have some guts. I think the days of spending $5 per day and expecting results/sales are over. Sure you can do that at the start to get a feel for the ad platform, but it takes money to make money.

Have seen this quote around in variations, but its something like the winner is who can pay the most to acquire the customer. I am in the process of working on increasing my customer value to really be able to scale. 99% of my sales have also only come from one product. I realized I over committed myself (my store, work, school, etc) and need to focus if I really want to get better at marketing and scale. This is something I am working on solving immediately.

Again, thanks @hughjasle for laying it all out in this thread. Also shout out to @G_Alexander (awesome thread today!), @Sanj Modha for his thread, and there are others on here too. It feels like I have a superpower to sell online now (even though just starting) and things are becoming clearer every day.

Might start a progress thread to casually update if people find this helpful in any way. Anyways, back to working!
 

hughjasle

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I've been asked by a few ppl in PM's about marketing products on FB and how I tested mine and how others can better sell their products, so I'll give a few tips and ideas here.

Really every product is different and FB is a crazy beast where 1 ad done twice can yield completely different results.

Tip 1: spend the money - lots of it, it's just part of the game.

Seriously, even if it costs you $10k in testing, all it takes is finding ONE product/campaign that works. Once you get that one that works, you can create 10x that and more.

Tip 2: Instead of trying to figure out how to find an audience for your product, find a product that fits an audience instead. I knew what audience I wanted based on who I already knew spends money online.

I know everyone says this, but it's true. I went through 6 different products till I landed on the one I wanted to go with. Just kept hitting the same audience till I found one that "flew off the shelves".

Tip 3: For those of you that already have products that are selling decently and are looking to get on FB, place a FB pixel on your checkout cart.

It costs you nothing to do, just place the pixel there, FB will start keeping track of the purchases. Let it sit for a bit then go ahead and jump on FB ads and create an ad that targets users that are similar to those who already purchased your products. Doesn't get much easier than that.

**Like I said at the beginning, even those this tips worked for me, they may or may not work for you. Just free tips - may be worth that as well.

Good luck
 
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hughjasle

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Just a quick update:

Just wanted to mention what a world of a difference it is when you have a quality product that people really like and enjoy versus a gimmick-like product. Have have both running, and man it is night and day. 100% I'm only focusing on high quality products from here on.

Gimmicks sell, that's why I started there. But the constant customer service was/is frustrating. Having to factor in chargebacks, deal with dumb people, returns, etc. was just a normal part of the biz.

With these high quality products I'm getting flooded with testimonials, reviews and video reviews on my FB page and elsewhere from really happy and pleased customers voluntarily doing them. I've had 0 chargebacks, and only 1 return now on 7k units sold. Man, serious, Night and day.

So learn from me, ignore the low hanging gimmick products that you know will only work a % of the time. Get the good stuff. Make your life easy and make MORE money.
 
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hughjasle

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Been about a year since I started on this path so it's time for an update.

I learned A LOT this year. It was kinda like going back to the school of hard knocks. My overall income dipped because of this vs just hitting affiliate marketing like I had been, but the payoff is well worth it for me.

Few key take aways:
  1. There are scumbags in ecommerce just like in affiliate marketing. You try and help people, show them your funnels and products to help them out (yes guys on this forum are no exception) and find out 1 month later they stole your exact funnels and products and are trying to compete. I will destroy anyone because I put in the time to build top notch service for my customers, but it just pisses you off.
  2. There is a massive wave of drop shippers hitting right now. They all sell crap products. They scale like mad to get up to $25k a day, only to burn out in a month when paypal freezes their accounts, FB bans them, and customers are charging back their orders because of shipping issues/piss poor customer service/and terrible quality products that are usually rip offs of patented products. Idiots. These are the money chasers. Don't be one of them. Be a wealth creator. Don't get sucked into the crazy money they "seem" to make.
  3. Doing things correctly takes TIME. Lots of time. Don't expect to make a ton of money overnight if you don't have $$ in the bank to hold a ton of inventory and a pay a team of people to help you provide customer service to all those orders.
  4. Selling on FB is good and all, but you need more sources if you want your business to really be sellable at fun multiples.
  5. Working with the right people is crucial. From who you partner with (if you partner) to who you hire to help as well as who you go with for fulfillment. These are all SO IMPORTANT. I finally have a good fulfillment center that i'm extremely happy with. It makes a night and day difference. Customer service issues are cut literally by 90% just by getting a fulfillment center that cares. It amazes me the crappy service and high fees these guys charge because - that's what they all do.

I'm very excited for the next 12 months and all the years to come. I am excited to be in this space. Coming up with new products and introducing the world to them just excites me. May next year bring massive learning and incredible experiences to everyone :tiphat:
 
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hughjasle

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Wow - nothing on the above question really?? That's disappointing.

Anyhow here's a bit of an update from over the weekend. (Friday-Monday)



I started advertising and collecting orders. So far it's doing just as expected after all the testing.


Here is an *edited screenshot of the ad account on FB for the product:

http://screencast.com/t/HvHdEpp4



So only a total of just under $1500 spend. Should have been more but for some reason it didn't spend it's full budget one of those days. At the rate it's selling at (under $10 CPA) I'll sell out this week.



Speaking of sales - Here is a another screenshot (don't need to edit any personal info out of this one) but of shopify:

http://screencast.com/t/tDqaAxvPZpP



So its doing extremely well so far. Just over $22k in sales during those 4 days.




...Only issue is I may have jumped the gun ...




My product isn't in just yet. It's in transit to my fulfillment center as we speak and should be there soon. All orders know that they wont be shipped till the middle of this month, but still worries me. Guess I'm just spoiled from Amazon and my two-day shipping. It appears these people just don't care thus far thankfully.



* - I edited out my personal information or any info that might give away my page/product
 
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hughjasle

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Can you explain how advertising a product on facebook is cost effective. I would have thought if they actually needed a product they would search on amazon or another ecommerce site. Sure they may belong to a community but they may likely won't want/need your product at that time nearly as much as using adwords for specific keywords or amazon ppc. Am I just stupid? It is obviously working for you I just can't see how you can get conversions at rates nearly as high as from other places.

Lots to cover here.

How it's cost effective just comes down to the numbers. I'm getting conversions/sales for around $10 each, product with shipping to me and then to customer included costs around $18. Product sales for $120. Total expenses are $28, total rev is $120. Avg total profit is around $92. There are other costs involved, this just gives an idea. Shopify has fees, some retarded shipping broker charged me $400 to get my stuff released from the airport and I have a feeling that price is going to differ one shipment to the next, I have a virtual assistant, etc.


I would have thought if they actually needed a product they would search on amazon or another ecommerce site.
I'm sure many people do. That's what I'd do myself - most of the time. However if there was a product I liked (like mine) and I saw a massive sale was going on and I know it was ending soon, I'd do it. This just comes down to marketing. Show people the current solution to their problem and how it's wrong, then show them your solution and how much better it is. Make the price seem like a no brainer and to get it at that price they have to act now as it's gonna sell out fast (which it did).

Sure they may belong to a community but they may likely won't want/need your product at that time nearly as much as using adwords for specific keywords or amazon ppc.
This question was hard to follow so I'm going to reword it to what I think you are asking before I answer it. LMK if I'm wayyyy off.

Q: Why would Facebook ads work since people who actually are in need of the product at that second aren't searching facebook but instead searching for it on google or amazon where you can advertise to them right there?

A: They both work. Sometimes people just don't know what they want till they see it. Just like all those soccer moms who go to Target for milk and leave with a shopping cart of stuff. Advertising is just a numbers game. Put the product in front of enough eyes and sales will come it. Just comes down to making the numbers work after that.

Am I just stupid?
lol I don't think so, But I can't answer that. If you really want an answer take this test and keep the results to yourself: http://www.quizrocket.com/stupid-test :tiphat:

It is obviously working for you I just can't see how you can get conversions at rates nearly as high as from other places.

Here's where advertising gets fun and interesting. Sure I may be getting the lowest conversion rate compared to other traffic sources, but perhaps my cost per sale is the lowest due to my low cost per 1,000 people who see my ad.

For example (all numbers are made up here):

Cost to run on google for " I want to buy that Hugh Jasle's product right now" is $6.25 since it is so direct many people are bidding and the cost is thus high. BUT for every 3 clicks there I get a sale. So my end cost is $18.75 and my conversion rate is 1/3 or 33%.

Cost to run an ad on facebook for women between the ages of 18 and 25 is $0.14 per click. However those people aren't nearly as qualified to purchase as the google ones so I only get a sale for every 65 clicks. That's a 1/65 or 1.5% rate compared to the 33% of google. However since my clicks are so much cheaper, my cost per sale is only $9.10.

In that example I made FB the lower cost but it could very easily go either way.
 
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hughjasle

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So had this thought the other day;

If you had 100k to start a new business in this space, I feel like there would be almost no chance for failure with this method of testing first. If you go and learn enough to know how to make proper funnels/shopify sites, and how to properly use Facebook that just leaves you with finding the right product. With $100k to blow to find one, there just seems no way you can honestly spend that amount and not find at least 1 product. I seriously would be surprised if you don't find at least 10, but lets just stick with 1.

All it takes is one good product that works. That 1 product can replace all losses and make a substantial profit quickly once you have the above in order. Build out a team to manage what you built and start on your next product, then the next, on and on till you have a brand with a huge line of products and before you know it, a full business built out that is the lively hood of a handful of awesome people that call you boss.
 

hughjasle

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Forgot to post final numbers on that first batch of 500 units.

Rough numbers~
Returns/Refunds/Chargebacks ended around 6%. Good. I estimated far more so that's great.

Ads: $4k
Shipping: $3k
COGS: $5k
Fees/Brokers/Returns/misc.: $3k

Total Expenses: $15k

Total Revenue: $55k

Profit: $40k


What I learned:
  • My product can use a LOT of improvements. Just don't know if I care enough to do that.
  • I have no idea what i'm doing lol
  • I hate having to rush. I lost a bit of $ by doing everything last minute instead of planning it out first
  • as much as I complain - it still wasn't that hard, just have to learn how to do it right through experience.
  • Don't know if/how to make this business into a sellable asset.. which is the main reason I started it. Would love pointers here.
  • If I can figure out the above and want to continue, I will hire someone to take care of all the inventory and shipping crap. I hate that part of it.
  • I need to better protect myself with a new LLC or something just for this product. I don't want a lawsuit that can take down my other stuff.
  • Finally - Taxes on selling physical products SUCK.
 

hughjasle

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You spent up to $80 because you have a big margin I suppose.

because from 10-20$ it is really hard to tell if add is a success.
^^ this. Or to be a little more clear, because I started seeing patterns of high click rates and good comments and wanted to get significant data to confirm that those patterns were statistically significant. Don't want to do the next step of work on small data is all.

Why do you say the amount doesn't matter?
I say it doesn't matter because other products might only need $20. Some product might need $20k. Nothing is a one thing fits all other than the process. The process is what's important.

1. Test a bunch of products to guage reaction to each. See which one performs the best and focus your energies there.
2. Create a site where you will actually sell your product and run some traffic to find out what your CPA will be to sell said product.
3. Order said product and set up all the backend.
4. Once it is all set up, turn your ads back on.
5. Optimize your ad/lp/etc.
6. Repeat 3-5
7. Repeat 1-6 to expand into new products.

The amount spent doesn't matter. Creating a process does.
 

hughjasle

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Guess I'll start with an update:

Getting things going smoothly now. It's pretty hands off for me at this point. I do have 2 employees managing some of the day to day work on it. Mostly things like keeping content up to date on the FB page and fulfilling orders and dealing with customer service.

I did an upgrade to my standard Shopify page and paid around $1,500 for a completely custom page done up and all tied into shopify. I thought the price was a bit steep, but figured what the heck, do it once and see if its worth it for my other products.

Well... lets just say a custom professional page is now a must for me. It over doubled my conversion rate. So I'm super stoked about that.

I have also been slowly turning up the heat on my ad spends, and thus sales. I'm honestly pleasantly surprised at how well the sales hold (the CPA) while I scale this. It has really opened my mind up to this entire space and being able to scale it to the 100k days I thought I would only get in affiliate marketing. Awesome stuff.

The BAD/Lessons Learned....

I got a nice C&D letter from an attorney. Some client of his wanted me to stop selling my product claiming they had a patent pending for the type of product I am selling even though I customized the product to be my own and placed my own brand all over it and the packaging. There are also hundreds of ppl on amazon selling basically the exact same thing....

Anyways it was kinda bittersweet to get it. Means I'm making enough of a splash with my sales that other competitors are noticing and getting butt-hurt that I'm beating them :rockon: .This is also one of the reasons I decided to blowout basically 2 weeks worth of inventory in two days and found that my CPA stayed consistent, meaning next time I start selling again, I can start right back up at $20k+ per day. SWEEEET. But then there's that legal side of things...which sucks. Luckily - I reached out to my patent attorney and found out that a 'patent pending' is worthless and I can sell the living daylights out of this. He also highly highly doubts that their patent will hold any water against me IF it is even ever granted. He can't be sure as they didn't even site the supposed patent.

So worst case as my attorney put it, they do get a patent granted at some future date and it is enough to make me stop immediately. I will just have to eat any inventory I have in stock at that point, but there is nothing else they can do. Cool. I'll take that :)

So now that CNY is over and I got that legal stuff out of the way, time to really see how much I can really sell :)

Oh, also have more products going now and building a completely new product that I'm super excited about. More about that in my next post.
 

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Speaking of making a new product.....

I've been reaching out to manufacturers from alibaba like crazy to get quotes on making my new product.

So far I have only heard back from one. They quoted me $4,500 to make my mold. Price is fine with me - but puts my first order with a new manufacturer that I have never used before at around $8k + shipping.

Since this is my first time getting a mold made... not sure what to watch out for or be careful of.

So question to those who have had their own molds done:
  1. Would it be wise to purchase some of their other products (planning on this already anyways) to see this manufacturers quality of somewhat similar products?
  2. How much do molds typically cost? does $4,500 sound steep/low/good/no idea because every product is different?(I read here someone else say $2k for a mold..)
  3. How can I make sure my mold isn't used by the manufacturer to make my same product for other people? (I will try and work my brand into the mold - any other tips?)
OK so you have been around a while, but are you sure you are dealing with real manufacturers? I always ask this when I read that someone is sourcing from "manufacturers from Alibaba", because I know how scarce genuine ones are. Maybe yours are genuine - I hope so.

I have a lot of experience involving molds, from way back when I sold product to mold makers and mold users through to paying for hundreds of molds for my importing business. So here are my comments about your questions:

1. Their other products can tell you a lot. Look for flow marks, bubbles, tiny holes or sprew. Sprew, also called flash, is the excess that leaks out of the joins. It should all be removed but if the visible joins are wide, mold quality is poor. Look for matt finish where it should be shiny, and vice-versa. If you don't feel confident, I would ask for one of the European inspection services to visit their factory and examine mold quality. They will even look for broken and discarded molds because they can tell a lot about mold quality. Shouldn't cost more than a couple of hundred dollars.
2. Depending on complexity, size, number of cavities, finish required, cost can range from as little as $50 for a stamping mold, to $50,000 for a complex consumer product mold with 12 cavities. You should contact mold makers to get quotes before relying on the manufacturer who quite likely contracts it out anyway. Molds in China can cost as little as 1/5 the price in a developed country. If they are made using CNC methods, quality is likely to be good. Some items require skilled craftsmen to work like sculptors, but such molds usually cost only slightly more.
3. Incorporating your brand prominently and if aesthetically acceptable, in several places, is a good form of protection, but having it made by someone outside the manufacturer's factory adds another layer of protection. Ownership absolutely should remain yours.

Walter
 
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hughjasle

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Do you mean the difference between a private labelled, customized product (quality) and the Standard goods (low quality) from e.g. China?
Not really. I mean just quality products in general. Doesn't matter what you are doing, private label, fully custom unique, or selling another brands stuff. Just make sure what you are selling is high quality.

Like I'm getting LOTS of sales from repeat buyers, friends, and other organic (non-paid for traffic) now. Really opened my eyes.

Honestly, this entire experiment of going white hat with ecom has opened my eyes. So much more fulfilling and from what I can, it will be far more lucrative than affiliate marketing in the end. Pretty cool stuff. Lots of opportunity out there.
 

hughjasle

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Broke $10,000 in first 5 weeks, starting from zero knowledge/experience
THIS is awesome and why I post.

For the few out there who are doers. The ones determined to make it. The problem solvers.

This guy didn't know marketing, didn't know copy writing, importing, etc. He has another job that takes 60-70 hours of his week and he STILL made it happen.

THIS is what someone destined for fastlane greatness looks looks like.

Personally, I think this single post is more motivating for everyone than anything I could have written since @bamboo proved anyone can do it.

Incredible
 
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hughjasle

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Still cruising along.

Got very serious at one point at expanding into a different niche as the niche I'm currently in doesn't excite me. However after lots of reflection and "life" happenings, I remembered one of my church leaders growing up (who I speak with occasionally as a mentor), he runs a 9 figure a year business selling and installing fancy window shutters. He once told me that he never dreamed he'd be doing what basically comes down to an interior design business. He had no interest in it before and still really doesn't beyond his business, but it has provided a wonderful life and he grew to love his products and business.

I decided to scrap my plans to expand into other niches that looked more fun and just buckle down in the one I'm in. I have lots of happy customers and am working at expanding our lines and improving the brand now and taking life a bit more chill. Not that it's easy by any means, I just stopped chasing things that seem fun, and instead am focusing on finding joy in day to day life with my family and the business I'm currently building.

To build out the brand, we have had to redesign for the hundredth time our entire site, products, packaging etc. Get people who know what they are doing instead of being cheap like we did when we were just selling random products that don't really go together. Beef up our emailing efforts, page and community building, get and maintain influencers, focus on producing LOTS of content (videos/images/articles) about our products or related to the market, but namely lots of content around our stuff that we can use for ads and for filling up our sites, emails, newsletters, etc.

Always something that needs to be done or redone better. It's a never ending thing.

I think everyone is looking for something that is "stable and reliable" or that lasts. I realized that is hard to come by. Things are constantly changing. Especially in the niche I'm in. What is popular right now, might not be next year so you must constantly adapt. Learning how to always be adapting and progressing is how you maintain stability. Building a business that can evolve itself with the times and tends is what lasts. Not the products.
 
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It is definitely not needed. There are plenty of guys on this forum that have or had good businesses just like this one that didn't come from affiliate marketing. @theag and @JasonR are two off the top of my sleep deprived head.

So if my goal from the get go was to build a business such as this, I would skip AM all together and just learn the importing side of things and the basics of Facebook ads to get going and improve along the way.

You're right, I have little marketing experience before I started marketing my own products. The exception is I had a bit of experience with Adwords from a company I worked for.

I also devoured every single piece of marketing information I could find. Every book, every guide, EVERYTHING.

You can certainly learn marketing with your own products/business. It's a bit harder - if you don't know your offer/product/service works. Learn how other peoples funnel/sites works, and you can get some insight on how to run your own.
 
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hughjasle

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You mentioned picking an audience and marketing different products until one/two stuck - how did you arrive at your target audience? Were they chosen at random or did you enter a market that you were familiar with/interested in?
Well two things:
1. I may be changing my own personal methods in regards to picking an audience. I am expanding my products and thus new audiences. I am now selling products for multiple audiences.

2.To arrive at ultimate final audience is simple. Start broad and narrow down based on sales. Like my first product. It was a product for long hair. Obviously a product more suited towards women. I started marketing to all women. After a bunch of sales I was I able to see that most of my sales were coming from women over 45 year old. So I stopped marketing to the 18-39 year olds. Stuff like that.
 

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How important is it to choose a product to advertise that is not already being advertised by competitors to the same audience?
Not super important. My first product was very similar to other products already out there being marketed. I know they were being marketed because I saw their ads on FB before I got started on my product. I figured I could make that product a bit better and went for it. It does make it easier if you have a great product that shows well and have no other competitors, but even if you start with no competitors, competitors will come after they see you have success.

Bit of a side note: That first product has had LOTS of competitors jump into the market with the knock off brands or variation all on my same product. Killed the market. I was getting $8 CPA and then jumped to $30. I decided to not continue with it and not continue ordering stock. I had other products that were doing great and products I personally liked way more. One of my close friends however was dying to get out of affiliate marketing like I was and wanted to have a go at keeping that product alive and working. He worked HARD to get to work. Made new updated version to the product, made a full funnel with various related upsells for that product. Ordered more inventory in big bulk to get costs slightly lower. His average cart was now higher than where I had it. He is getting around $150 per customer now. He spent over $50k testing and losing money before he started having profitable days. Went through 1000 units before he got it to start working again. Got his CPA to $20. That means after cost of goods and all other expenses, he's profiting over $100 per unit now. Just goes to show you, work hard and even in a super competitive niche you can make it work if you really want it to.

I have some serious respect for him and his determination to make it work. Another affiliate who is completely out of the affiliate game now :)


How do you know which products are already being advertised so that you can avoid those?

Do you use applications (like WhatRunsWhere) to spy on ads of competitors so that you can pick working advertisements and copy them?
Kinda the same question. I really don't care if someone else is running it. If they are just proves the market for me. I don't use spy tools either. If I find a product that seems new to me and find a way I can make it my own, I'll do it anyways. I figure, if it's new to me, then it's gotta be new/better to a lot of other people too.

If someone who has never done a facebook ad before, like me, wants to create facebook ads, do you advise them to learn copywriting first so that you don't waste precious dollars on creating ads that don't work? Or do you recommend something like WhatRunsWhere?
No and no. Learn FB. Watch some Udemy courses on FB or wherever you can get courses. Join groups of FB advertisers. Be active, learn. Take FB's courses. I haven't ever taken a copy course etc. You will learn by testing what different copy methods work. Doesn't hurt to check out other ads as they pop up on Facebook to see what they did and what kind of results they are getting. I find some advertisers SUCK while others have really cool ideas that I can test out on my ads :)
 

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Another update:

The Ups and Downs

Sales have been going good. In fact got this fun message on Shopify earlier:
http://screencast.com/t/p4NhBu9e
So that was cool.

UNTIL.....

Got this other kind of fun message:

http://screencast.com/t/DrQluUqPy

So spent the day calling shopify and sending in my ID etc. Nothing left to do but wait till tomorrow and call them again :headbanger:

So I shut down the ad, didn't want another $5k a day worth of orders rolling in while I'm under some sort of review till I get this straightened out. Besides, I'm almost all out of the inventory I just ordered anyhow. Once I get things back on I can sell the rest of them no problem....



...or so I thought.


Turns out FB decided to flag my account and remove my payment method when I paused the ad. Guess they got mad and retaliated thinking I was taking my business elsewhere. So I filled out their various forums, and hit them up on every help channel they provide, and got word back saying, "sorry this happened, they don't know why it did, just add a new payment method"

So I did and at least have the account ready to roll again.

Just waiting for shopify to put my account in good standing again so I can get back to work.

Luckily during this break I began running test ads for 2 new products that I've been eyeing and the results looks promising :hurray:

***edited since the images showed up so only ant's could see them, now us mere mortals can see them with the links provided. Can't seem to win with these images working properly lately...
 

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I saw you sold 7000 units
That was only for those dates listed. And I have lots of products now, most are far less than that $100 mark now.

Also those numbers mentioned ARE just for the Ecom side of things.

Ecom I only started in around Nov. of last year and didn't really start taking it serious till this year, around Feb/March.

It's all about execution and pushing yourself daily. I have a decent sized team now compared to many other online entrepreneurs. I have 6 people working on just the Ecom biz, not including the fulfillment company(ies), and now just partnered with a sourcing company who has boots on the ground in China. I still have and do lots of internal sourcing, but that's mainly for the initial products and testing now, I will then use the big company to set things up proper and better as purchase orders are MUCH larger. I like having someone there to make sure products are made correctly (including all legal paperwork) before it is sent to me.

It's all just about execution as everyone here says. Just doing it.
 

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Been in a sort of funk for all of December.

Ad prices are ridiculous during the holidays so I mostly backed off everything and took the month off.

Kicking things into gear again now that the holiday's are over, BUT I've been really struggling to think if all this work on ecommerce work is worth it.

I re-orded with my manufacturer 1k units but this time I am trying to use Shipwire to do all my fullfilling. I was able to meet with them at CES a couple days ago, and honestly their prices weren't that good. I spend countless hours dealing with getting my product to them only to find out that it's not really gonna save me money (even cost more) than just hiring a kid to do it out of my house.

So whatever. I'll be able to turn my ads back on in a week or so and clear out this inventory. I'll be able to decide at that point if I want to continue or not.

If anything - I've once again learned that the grass isn't always greener. Just different, and grass in the end is still grass.
 
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1) What ever happened with that C&D letter you received?
man, I had to go back and search my own thread to see what you were talking about. I had completely forgotten about that. To answer your question, nothing ever happened there. I was in the clear and I guess they knew it just trying to scare me. Later on I decided I didn't like that product anyways and closed that entire shop down. Found out from customers that this product that doesn't deliver as promised. I don't want to sell crap. I want real, quality, value based products.
2) Did you ever end up trying adwords and if so what was your conclusion on it?
I've tried like $100. So no, I haven't really tried it much on this stuff. Adwords is great. I just don't do it. My area is FB. So I stick with that.
3) Could you touch more on your employees and hiring process?
are they all virtual or do they come to your house off of Craigslist?
a few are virtual but I'm looking to move into having people in the same city if possible. I like having contact. I'm also in the process of building a in house fulfillment center. That obviously requires physical location employees. More on that below.
At some point you had to handle shipping right? Even if you have a fulfillment center wouldn't you have to have all the boxes come to your house first, do spot checks and then ship it out to the centers to make sure on QC?
I only had product come to the house in the VERY beginning. It was a nightmare. I had no idea what I had gotten myself into by trying to do it all as a complete noob to ecom. I switched to 3rd party fulfillment centers as fast as I could. I have used various centers now for the past year and feel ready to bring it back in house. I have found there is just far more control bringing it in house. This helps the entire process. It saves money and gives a MUCH better QC and personal touch for customer service.
I know you said you wanted to bring fulfillment in house at some point but so far, how do you like fulfillment centers?
They serve their purpose, but I think having the control is better. I had multiple instances of the fulfillment centers ruining product (opening boxes with box cutters and slicing the product) and STILL shipping it out to customers. Others just don't care about your product or customers as much as you do.They are running a business too. That said, they were important to get me where I am now. Hard to hire a team to do your shipping in the beginning when sales are up and down and all over the place. It takes a team to fulfill 1000 orders a day. But when something hangs up in shipping or manufacturing and you are out of product unexpectedly for 4 weeks, that employee still needs paid. A 3rd party fulfillment center doesn't.


My vision is to build out a team. A team where most of them are based in a couple cities where myself and a partner could visit with them in person when needed if not daily at the office. Have warehouse/office space for everyone and build a family around this. I've seen that, like everything else, this is not difficult once you understand it. When you understand it and have a team and system in place to handle everything, it runs itself. Would be cool to be able to share that with others and make them a part of a team that cares about each other and sells products that provide value to other people. I can be done.
 

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What would be your recommended course of action for the 5-10k spend?

  • Get quality picture and videos of the product done. Professionally prefered unless you can do prof. quality yourself.
  • Build a funnel or store (clickfunnels or shopify), again make it good and professional
  • Make sure the copy is top notch but remember, people want to see more than they want to read. Keep copy short and too the point and do LOTS of imagery.
  • Give out this product to a bunch of youtubers/instagramers. Get video reviews and testimonials. Load them up on your site
  • Run traffic on FB
    • Test between broad and targeted.
    • Spend that money for both you and FB to figure out who your audience is
  • Split test the funnel/site (i like Virtual Website Optimizer)
  • Grow grow grow
I've found that a lot of the advertising comes down to the willingness to spend the money and making sure that you are sending that traffic to your store that is READY for them.
 
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Do you mind sharing how you test your products on Facebook?

What part of how I tested exactly are you looking for? How I created the ads? Otherwise the general idea of what I did I covered in the first few posts. If you have more specific questions ask away. Just don't know what part you want to know more about.

I understand how you run ads to checkout page to track conversions but how complicated is the refund process after they have made the purchase?
With Shopify it was as easy as clicking a button. No issues there.

am also lost on how you pick products to test. I know small is key as well as high retail prices ($100-$300) but i feel like that is millions of different types of widgets. How do you do research to find a need in the market that isn't being satisfied?
When I looked for products I didn't look for any "keys". Small, large, cheap expensive, didn't matter to me. I just looked for things that I know the end users could understand what it is just by looking at the ad (image or video) and wow them. I'm looking for impulse buyers.
 
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How do you know how much money a product needs for testing?
You don't know until you start to see that 1.) you can get consistent sales for around $x or 2.) you haven't gotten a single sale for 3x the product sales price.

Really it's a judgement game. This is getting into the "art" side of marketing. After doing it for so long you just get a 'feel' for what is right. Much like a painter knows how to paint a masterpiece. There is the process to painting that anyone can use to make their own paitings, but there is the 'art' side of things that is created by each artist after years of practice.
 
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How important would you say your affiliate marketing experience is

Well, this business wouldn't exist if I weren't doing affiliate marketing. Facebook is all I use for Affiliate Marketing so I already knew the ropes and knew what it would take to find stuff that sells well, etc.

BUT

If you had no affiliate marketing experience and you wanted to build this business
It is definitely not needed. There are plenty of guys on this forum that have or had good businesses just like this one that didn't come from affiliate marketing. @theag and @JasonR are two off the top of my sleep deprived head.

So if my goal from the get go was to build a business such as this, I would skip AM all together and just learn the importing side of things and the basics of Facebook ads to get going and improve along the way.

There aren't many tricks to fb ads, a killer product will sell itself if you just put it in front of the masses.
 

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Due for an update:

  • upgraded the site.
  • Using a fulfillment company now - but now that I've done it in house and outsourced, I've found that bringing it back in-house will be a better option for me.
  • Running low on product due to the CNY. I thought I would be fine but seem to be selling faster than I anticipated and don't really want to turn down the heat.
  • Starting to get into more products now and expand.
  • Hired help to manage the day to day. I'm now freed to focus on keeping the marketing up to date and expand the line(s).

Now that I have the system working for me rather than me doing it all and learning as I go - it's becoming pretty fun. Goal this year is to have my income from ecommerce and the likes match or exceed my affiliate commissions.
 

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Do you have a favorite spy tool you use to keep track of competition / find new product ideas?
Facebook :)

That's about it. I don't worry too much about competition. In reality Amazon and all the Chinese manufacturers selling there now is my largest competitor. Their prices on there are insanely low. I just focus on beating everyone to the customer and providing a super pleasant experience even when things go wrong. Fast shipping and shipping times as well as prompt and personal customer service is my focus.

We do MOST all our customer service over FB Messenger. People are constantly blown away with how we use FB Messenger and respond to people there. It's a very under utilized service that customers absolutely love.

That was a bit of a tangent from the question - my bad lol.

But I'm always looking out for neat products or things I think I can improve upon or things I see out there that would sell well if people just knew about them. I also have family and friends now who bring products or ideas to me. Additionally, relationships with the manufacturers and the like are huge. They have SO MANY products that just aren't listed anywhere it's unbelievable.
 

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Short update:

Been learning a lot about the Shopify platform and their do's and don'ts. I went fast and broke stuff. It happens. I'm learning as I go.

So Shopify is still "Holding my payments". I had to send in all kinds of proof that it's a legit business and not some scam. This sucks mostly because I am now in an odd position of having sold out my entire stock (500 units), but I haven't been paid out so I don't really want to ship them till I know I'm going to get the money. Meanwhile Shopify's banking partner doesn't want to release the funds do to so many orders that haven't been fulfilled. I basically sold out in a weeks time and my fulfillment company (amazon)was/is super slow to get my account (I didn't think it would be so hard to get someone to just ship my products but it seams I have to create a listing on amazon for my product first).

Anyways in a stalemate of sorts with Shopify, but my reps think the banks will release the hold next week as I have shown sufficient proof that I actually own the product I'm selling and not just scamming people.

I may just start shipping some out as further proof to shopify to release my funds.

Otherwise, my customers are starting to get antsy. A couple of the idiots who purchased multiple orders on accident are charging them back. I'm sure that doesn't look good so I'm trying to reach out to them and their banks and explain that the customers are idiots and I can just get them a refund if they would respond to my calls or emails - seems they'd rather just hide from their mistakes and do a charge back. Ugh.
 
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