Losing 6K in 3 months

[Lukas WJ]

I have been running my own e-commerce stores for a good 1.5 years.
I have only made real sales this year. So far it is 90k. Until July I had about 8K gross "profit". (I know, for the turnover not much). The last 3 months, however, I have lost just under 6K, because I have tested a lot and unfortunately nothing has really worked.
If you include the tax I am currently a good 4K euros in the red.

Since I've been working on it really daily for over 1.5 years now and have tested a lot and still have made almost no sales at all for the last 4-5 months, I'm thinking about whether it's time for a pivot.
I would then move away from e-commerce and new areas. It should not be a "giving up", but rather a reorientation.

What are your thoughts on this?

 

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[Cano]

Since I've been working on it really daily for over 1.5 years now and have tested a lot and still have made almost no sales at all for the last 4-5 months, I'm thinking about whether it's time for a pivot.

im thinking the best thing to do right now is analyze your failures/mistakes after 1.5 years of "testing".

here's a suggestion from me what we could do that could help everyone starting in the ecommerce space :
show us what you've been doing for the last 1.5 years with products/advertising/branding.
explain what your products had for value skews, what value did you provide?

because there are many people in this forum who are very successful in ecommerce like @fastlane_dad @NeoDialectic.
In my opinion it would be realy interesting what they would have done different and why.

This could be very valuable for everyone starting in ecommerce. what do you think @fastlane_dad @NeoDialectic ?

(of course only if you want to share lukas)

 

[Jobless]

Break down the costs so we understand them, and also the type of testing you are doing.

Losing 4K is not much, the 1.5 years however is a major time cost you should take into account. I assume you have learned a lot from this process though.

 

[NeoDialectic]

im thinking the best thing to do right now is analyze your failures/mistakes after 1.5 years of "testing".

here's a suggestion from me what we could do that could help everyone starting in the ecommerce space :
show us what you've been doing for the last 1.5 years with products/advertising/branding.
explain what your products had for value skews, what value did you provide?

because there are many people in this forum who are very successful in ecommerce like @fastlane_dad @NeoDialectic.
In my opinion it would be realy interesting what they would have done different and why.

This could be very valuable for everyone starting in ecommerce. what do you think @fastlane_dad @NeoDialectic ?

(of course only if you want to share lukas)

You nailed it. We made a thread talking about this topic in a general sense HERE. But to talk about specifics, we need alot more info to help make any kind of call.

A few thousand in loses is no big deal, depending on the reason. So just as an example of how my opinion can differ based on context....If this is a drop shipping business where you are trying to beat out the other lowest price competitor, I would say it may be time to move on. If you have made an innovative product and you are just having difficulty getting attention on it, it may be worth looking at different methods of advertising before giving up. It may just be as simple as not conveying your value skew properly or to the right people. But it all depends.

 

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[Stargazer]

I have only made real sales this year. So far it is 90k ...

... and still have made almost no sales at all for the last 4-5 months,

Just to clarify, you broadly did $15k per month for 6 months then it's gone to approx $0 for last 4/5 months?

Did this drop start after your testing or before?

ie If you were doing abc and changed to abd then ade did you revert at any time back to abc to see what would happen?

Other than that, as previously mentioned, you need to add more details. What is the product? Is it seasonable for example?



Dan

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Your post mentions nothing about the product.

I might be wrong, but it sounds like you're just pushing commoditized products (and money chasing) but not offering anything unique. This is a common problem for money chasers and droppshippers as they're just competing for who will take the least amount of profits as their commoditized product is obtained anywhere, and everywhere.

This is what happens when people get into business for the explicit purpose to "make money" with no concern about what they're actually selling.

So when people ask questions like "how do I turn this ship around?"

My answer isn't to turn the ship around, it is to let the sink ship.

Shining turds isn't a business activity.