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Going for it. Ecommerce.

JByers210

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For anyone starting out or getting into business.........KEEP TRACK OF ALL EXPENSES AND HAVE MONTHLY INCOME STATEMENTS. I've neglected doing all of that and just kept a rough estimate in mind of what has been going on and today I put it all into excel and am blown away by how much it's costed me to get materials for my product. I obviously have had to test and test and some things will go to waste..but this is the last time I'll let it get past me.

(@CareCPA gave me the nudge a while ago to stop assuming with the numbers. I've just slacked off on it the past couple months.)
 
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fKMARG

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Man, +RESPECT!!

I just finish to read the whole thread right now.

I can't handle so many insights on a single thread.
My eyes are hurting and my mindblowing.

Keep hustling!!
You inspired someone from Brazil
 
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Walter Hay

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Everybody wants to be liked
It's the Dopamine effect. This is why people crave likes on Facebook etc. Every time they receive a like, or even give one, their brain injects a little shot of the feel-good neurochemical Dopamine.

This gives them a little high, but it can easily, and very often does, lead to Dopamine addiction, via whatever medium is the place where they get their highs.

The American Marketing Association is urging members to capitalize on this proven addiction.

Walter
 
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JByers210

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Today I decided to stop action-faking with paid traffic and to create an ad campaign on Facebook at around noon. I've been in my own head lately about it and all the things that could go wrong and money that could be lost.

Last night I created my customer profile template to help me with targeting options. My dad is really into this niche (I am too..but not like he is), so he was able to answer all the questions I had.

I set the budget for two ad sets at 15$ and had steady traffic come in all day. Just now when I got home from the gym I heard the *cha-ching* and made my first paid traffic sale!!!!! I only spent 12$ to still get 37$ in profit after. The reason it's so exciting for me is because of the fear I've been having and then the action paying off within 10 hours.

My margins give me 30-40$ of profit (depends on where they live because I offer free shipping) that give me room to test ads without freaking out about every dollar.
 

Parker P

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Today I decided to stop action-faking with paid traffic and to create an ad campaign on Facebook at around noon. I've been in my own head lately about it and all the things that could go wrong and money that could be lost.

Last night I created my customer profile template to help me with targeting options. My dad is really into this niche (I am too..but not like he is), so he was able to answer all the questions I had.

I set the budget for two ad sets at 15$ and had steady traffic come in all day. Just now when I got home from the gym I heard the *cha-ching* and made my first paid traffic sale!!!!! I only spent 12$ to still get 37$ in profit after. The reason it's so exciting for me is because of the fear I've been having and then the action paying off within 10 hours.

My margins give me 30-40$ of profit (depends on where they live because I offer free shipping) that give me room to test ads without freaking out about every dollar.
Is this with your handmade product?
 

JByers210

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Is this with your handmade product?
Yeah, I'm only selling this and getting into other variations of it now. The first two Amazon products are really seasonal so I'm only going to sell those in the months that I can. My closet is full of product I decided to get sent back from Amazon.

I have a whole shop set up in the garage and I make them in small groups so I don't have to spend any money or time that I don't need to without orders. That's the nicest part about doing it yourself instead of having a supplier I guess. I plan on eventually getting one, but for now this works.
 
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JByers210

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Got two more sales within the next day of running paid traffic on Facebook straight to my product page (I use a featured product home page on Shopify for now) with the CPA at 20$. I'm pretty confident in the product after getting 20 sales from etsy (90$ AOV) and three sales in two days from cold leads.

but...I paused the ads for now to rethink where I am at. I have limited funds at the moment (full car insurance, real estate classes for my license, food, etc.) and I don't want to throw money at something when I could make this take off on Amazon first and then use the profits from there for paid ads and funnels on my website. @JasonR recommended using Amazon as a starting point and then doing funnels later on a little while ago and it makes total sense.

A month or two ago I cold called a big distributor in my product's space and told them about my product and they asked me to send them an email. I send the email and they said they were very interested in doing wholesale. To sum it up til now, I've gotten the product exactly how they wanted it and yesterday they agreed to my pricing and are going to start promoting it on their website and catalog! (They are going to dropship it through me instead of bulk).
 

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Got two more sales within the next day of running paid traffic on Facebook straight to my product page (I use a featured product home page on Shopify for now) with the CPA at 20$. I'm pretty confident in the product after getting 20 sales from etsy (90$ AOV) and three sales in two days from cold leads.

but...I paused the ads for now to rethink where I am at. I have limited funds at the moment (full car insurance, real estate classes for my license, food, etc.) and I don't want to throw money at something when I could make this take off on Amazon first and then use the profits from there for paid ads and funnels on my website. @JasonR recommended using Amazon as a starting point and then doing funnels later on a little while ago and it makes total sense.

A month or two ago I cold called a big distributor in my product's space and told them about my product and they asked me to send them an email. I send the email and they said they were very interested in doing wholesale. To sum it up til now, I've gotten the product exactly how they wanted it and yesterday they agreed to my pricing and are going to start promoting it on their website and catalog! (They are going to dropship it through me instead of bulk).

Now you're going places!!! Very excited to see where this is all going! :smile:
 

JByers210

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Was outside working yesterday from 10-8 making my product. It gets really frustrating, but it's given me the ability to sell these as orders come in so I have constant cash flow. I'm already contacting suppliers to see if I can get these made at a good price so I can make the last few changes to them when they get sent here and then send them off to Amazon.
 

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I've been in my own head lately about it and all the things that could go wrong and money that could be lost.

but...I paused the ads for now to rethink where I am at.

J,

Just to let you know, something I've learned the hard way. When you pause a campaign or adset on Facebook ads, it basically has to start from zero again. They take time and traction (and thus more dumping of money) to "learn" and "optimize."

Feel free to PM me and I'll tell you what I've learned doing mine so far. I'm no expert but I might have some helpful tips.

The fact that you're selling already is VERY good, you know you have a winner product.
 

JByers210

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I contacted suppliers this morning and just an hour ago got a bunch of responses and will get quotes pretty soon here. Today was another long and rough day of manufacturing my products that ended with me raging and throwing something that was laying around. Seriously, there wasn't much that could have gone much worse with me being sick as well. Once I get a supplier nailed down, I'll be able to finish the product in 20 minutes instead of 2 hours... I can't wait.

The good part about me knowing how to do all this and getting my hands dirty is if anything were to happen and a supplier disappears when I need them.. I can make them from scratch alone.
 
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JByers210

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Decided to sum up everything up to this point with my new product so anyone who gets to this point or wants to chime in knows what's going on.

Sales so far (started in February):
February - 15
March - 9
April - 2

I started out by putting it on Etsy and basically posting in a bunch of Facebook groups in my niche about it. Most of my sales came from those Facebook groups to Etsy.

I've had three sales from FB ads to my shopify store for the two days I ran them and two sales to my Amazon listing from another Facebook group. I feel like I'm wasting my time trying to rank on Amazon and that my product won't get a ton of sales...but Unicorn Smasher (it's a free jungle scout alternative in case you don't know) is saying I'll be able to sell 50 a month for ranking to the first page with certain keywords. I guess time will tell.

It's been a little depressing going from all these sales at first to about nothing not going to lie. Started to run Amazon PPC yesterday with this advice I read that @amp0193 gave to someone else. I've sold 26 and have gotten all five star reviews with a repeat buyer in the mix so I know people love it and it's a good product...I just hope Amazon sells enough to give me the cashflow I need to grow this.

Any and all advice or feedback means a ton to me. I still have so much to learn and you guys on this forum have cut my learning time in half already.
 

amp0193

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Started to run Amazon PPC yesterday with this advice I read that @amp0193 gave to someone else.

Sometime after I made that post, I stopped splitting match types into different ad groups and just lumped them altogether.

Definitely don’t follow that email follow up advice... it’s way against TOS now.
 

JByers210

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Sometime after I made that post, I stopped splitting match types into different ad groups and just lumped them altogether.

Definitely don’t follow that email follow up advice... it’s way against TOS now.
Thanks for letting me know. Just now deleted the email template lol
 
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MJ DeMarco

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Thread upgraded to NOTABLE, some sales, progress and process going on here. This is how you get your feet wet.
 

JByers210

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Thread upgraded to NOTABLE, some sales, progress and process going on here. This is how you get your feet wet.
Thanks @MJ DeMarco!!! Means a lot to have you stop in and mark this up to notable. I'm working on getting the results to eventually have you make this gold :smile::thumbsup:
 

Bruno Ferreira

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Hi @JByers210 !
Thanks for sharing you inspiring experience in here. I wish I was that "unscripted " as you are right now at age 18.

Once I saw how fast you were moving with your first product sales till the end of the year, I'd imagine by now you'd have a small ecommerce empire. That didn't happen but your on the right track!

The way I see it, crashing your car was a huge setback, not just financially but also psychologically.
Though we should let go of this episodes out of our minds and move forward, it is Crucial to look back and analyse what and why went wrong.

I should say I wish the best in your relationship with your girlfriend.
However, you should hold yourself accountable for accepting her pressure to drive faster.
I know she was in pain, but if you think about the Risk Vs Reward, you realize trying to get to hospital a minute faster, won't make up for having a car accident and get seriously injured or losing your life.

You seem to be a caring, loving protective boyfriend, but there's a line we shouldn't cross in regards of what we can or should do for our better halves.
Believe me, I've moved mountains, also got into a car crash cause of some chick I liked in college, And chased the friend's car she was in towards the hospital, lost control of it and another car crashed against mine.
No one got hurt, but I didn't had my car fixed until I could afford it and had to take the bus to my job at 6am every morning.

Many to be great entrepreneurs lose it all due to the "love of their lives" . It can be due to a life sucking relationship terminating in a strenuous divorce, or one single act like that were you lose control and you can lose everything in a blink of an eye!

It's very important to be able to manage the relationship of the persons we let into our lives, and let out the ones who are a bad influence (think Unscripted mentions that).
Your still very young, and have a huge room to grow.

I'm dropping a book recommendation that taught me how to get a hold of the way I viewed the relationship with the opposite sex, and started focusing more on myself.
Probably some members won't be the most thrilled about the book, but it can indeed be a great added value to the books you have already read.

The book is called "The Rationale Male". Despite being associated with PUA techniques books, it's way different in regards that helps you understand the opposite sex, and not chase drunk women in clubs.
In fact, it suggests you shouldn't get into a relationship till you turn 35, and are already successful, and mature enough to handle the challenge of a committed relationship.

I hope my post has been somewhat helpful.
 
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Bruno Ferreira

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Btw, let me tell you about a hack i've just done, and maybe you can replicate and make some bucks off of it.
I've asked the restaurants wifi password next door so I don't pay for monthly internet subscription.
Problem is, it only worked properly in the balcony. So, I had to get a Wifi repeater, and it had to be also free. (am I being that cheap?)

So, I go to those amazon fake review groups on facebook, and search on the listings. Contact the seller, and bang I'm getting the product and then the refund by paypal.

You probably are using your landlords connection, and it´s included on the rent.
But the point here it's that you can get into these amazon fake review groups, and review stuff in return for a free product. Then resell it on Craigslist, Ebay, or even amazon.
If you get 2 products of around 25$ a day, than you make as much as the tire shop you worked at, with way less time invested on it.
 

JByers210

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An update on where I'm at right now and how things are going.

I've still been selling my product even though it's not much. I'm not sure if there is enough demand for what I'm selling and I'm not really solving any needs. I'm going to keep testing different things and working on it but I've been researching other niches and products to get into.

I love how @Vick created his product and the process he went through in his thread. I started thinking about an idea I had a few months ago. This product has always irritated me and today I hopped on to twitter search to see if I could find anyone else who hated it.

My first search brought up pages of complaints. Sooo many people saying how much they hate it and wishing they didn't have to even use it. Then I came up with an idea that seemed stupid and crazy to me to solve it.... and when I went to another page someone word for word said "They need to invent (insert the idea I just came up with)!"

Very interested and am going to look more into it....I would 100% buy this product right now if someone had it for sale online because it solves a very annoying problem for me.

I know that there are the "money-chasers" and I've done everything I can to keep from being one...but I think there is also a point where you realize you're in the wrong niche or doing something that isn't working...and that just means I have to keep researching and finding problems to solve.

I'll keep this thread updated more often! Been busy with learning the ropes as a real estate agent and everything, but I love this forum. I'm on here often and it surrounds me with people that are where I want to be.
 

JByers210

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BEYOND PUMPED... I think I'm onto something BIG.

I just found an article on a design/project website that a guy made of the exact idea I'm looking into and he already tested a bunch of designs and surveyed a bunch of people to see if they would use it. All the quotes were positive and people loved the idea. I don't even think this guy did it for any other reason but to contribute the idea to the website and get into a competition.

So I already have some confirmation that the market likes the idea, can see the materials that have already been tested, and look at drawings and photos of the real life product in action... and no one has taken it to the marketplace yet.

Like everyone says, ideas are worthless. This would be a long, hard process...but that confirms that it's worth doing even more. I may have to start a new thread. Stay tuned!
 
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Fastlane Liam

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BEYOND PUMPED... I think I'm onto something BIG.

I just found an article on a design/project website that a guy made of the exact idea I'm looking into and he already tested a bunch of designs and surveyed a bunch of people to see if they would use it. All the quotes were positive and people loved the idea. I don't even think this guy did it for any other reason but to contribute the idea to the website and get into a competition.

So I already have some confirmation that the market likes the idea, can see the materials that have already been tested, and look at drawings and photos of the real life product in action... and no one has taken it to the marketplace yet.

Like everyone says, ideas are worthless. This would be a long, hard process...but that confirms that it's worth doing even more. I may have to start a new thread. Stay tuned!
Do it. Finish it. Release it. You got this.
 

CareCPA

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BEYOND PUMPED... I think I'm onto something BIG.

I just found an article on a design/project website that a guy made of the exact idea I'm looking into and he already tested a bunch of designs and surveyed a bunch of people to see if they would use it. All the quotes were positive and people loved the idea. I don't even think this guy did it for any other reason but to contribute the idea to the website and get into a competition.

So I already have some confirmation that the market likes the idea, can see the materials that have already been tested, and look at drawings and photos of the real life product in action... and no one has taken it to the marketplace yet.

Like everyone says, ideas are worthless. This would be a long, hard process...but that confirms that it's worth doing even more. I may have to start a new thread. Stay tuned!
I would spend some time up front making sure the guy didn't patent it. You probably don't want an expensive lawsuit if this thing takes off.
 

JByers210

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I would spend some time up front making sure the guy didn't patent it. You probably don't want an expensive lawsuit if this thing takes off.
I looked into it and so far haven't found anything related to it that is active. Thanks for the heads up!
 
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KingChuck211

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Just read this whole thread!! It was lovely seeing you test , develop and learn!

I shall be starting my own progress thread soon!

I was successfully dropshipping but stopped that due to customer complaints on shipping times. Following MJ's advice I listened to the echo and have now decided to do the shipping myself in house reducing shipping times to a few days rather than weeks.

I hope my success is as good as yours!
 

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Pretty good thread. Lots of good stuff . Also make sure to check out Ecom Man thread about ecommerce&ebay (my apologies if it was already suggested).
 

JByers210

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For anyone running facebook ads, this guide has been very helpful to me on reddit. I'll post in update on how things are going soon.
 
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awesome thread
 

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