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Hi all,
after a lot of reading I decided to participate in this fantastic forum - it might give inspiration and I might get some good help! Can't be asked with a blog, so this might give me nice little motivation and clear historic view of what actually happened when.
Goal - be able to quit the office. That will need at least about 5k profit gross / month (double the current net income, due to pensions, security etc).
How to get there - scale an online shop to the absolute MAX.
July/August - product idea, researched market which showed there are only a hand full of shops that sell a similar product and all of those don't look like they are run by exactly scale-driven, perfectionist individuals.
August - product purchase, directly from China through Alibaba. Nervous first big investment of circa 2k to get a first big(ish) batch of products delivered door to door. Delivery costs were just as much as the product costs but that's what it is when you order the MOQ (minimum order quantity). Then some more smaller investments from national suppliers for printer, paper, labels, envelopes, some other smaller things to assemble the actual product. Overall prob 3k investment.
Delivery - nothing straight forward, first the chinese supplier takes much longer than anticipated to get the packages out, then one of packages is either LOST or probably never been sent, so another 4 weeks on top, also they /forget/ to pay for customs clearance so I end up paying 50 quid to get that last (crucial) package through...
Mid September - launched a little online shop, using shopify which is very easy to set up and easy to make look good/converting.
Mid September Launch Marketing - No one (no one) will get to your shop if you don't buy the traffic. So first channels to launch are:
- PPC google, search and shopping
- Paid Social (as competitors are very active with influencers/paid social)
- Influencer emails/reaching out if they fancy a free product
- Amazon (but nothing approved yet)
Week 1
Desperate for the first sale, watching real time google analytics non stop - who knows that
THEN BOOM first sale after about 4 hours and obviously much more money spent than that sale would bring in.
In the end spent about 300 pounds that first week on mainly top line, awareness social campaigns. Top line cost per sale way too high - nervous time but early days. From my experience I know about digital marketing and how algorithms can't work if you don't feed them with data, visitors.
- tried snapchat ads without any results (just left me with a stupid visitor explosion in analytics as /preload website/ was activated for EVERY ad impression on snapchat...
-86 P&L
Week 2
- added more apps to the shop, some crucial some probably not.
- optimizing paid social, cutting down on awareness, putting more into modeled custom audiences
- end of week changed an essential thing in the shop and giving customers more CHOICE - conversion rate significantly increased.
- first profitable week (just looking at marketing costs, product unit cost vs revenue) - over the moon
+140 P&L
Week 3
- done a mobile website speed check - SHOCKING results, way too slow, very very bad. Cut down all of the non-crucial shopify APPS, massive difference, speed up again, conversion rate up instantly almost. using Speedboostr.com instead of google page speed tool - massive difference, don't panic about google;s score..
- optimizing paid social further, more ads, more audiences
- scaling down on PPC as it is losing money
- sending loads of products to influencers without proper success (thanks.. I thought boobs sell everything)
- about same performance week on week (for a LOT of work)
+200 P&L
Week 4
- One Influencer post really made a difference! Profitable for itself even with paying about 200 quid for it, also great brand effect (I assume). Very different target group than originally targeted - so this shows, nothing will be as you think.
- adding and testing more creatives on social.
- retargeting on social activated.
- record for direct sales which have a big impact on overall efficiency (0 CPA).
- CPAs amazing! Profit amazing! ROAS amazing.
- Amazon FINALLY approved products and account, sales slowly come in.
+689 P&L
Next: scaling without losing that efficiency... wish me luck
.
Questions in my head at the moment -
- when to start email marketing to existing customers (don't want to burn email adresses too early!). Shall I wait until I got 1k+? (currently about 400).
- when to add a new product line (I have something in mind that would fit well to the category but is a very different product)
- can i get my xmas wrapping idea executed in time
TBC...
after a lot of reading I decided to participate in this fantastic forum - it might give inspiration and I might get some good help! Can't be asked with a blog, so this might give me nice little motivation and clear historic view of what actually happened when.
Goal - be able to quit the office. That will need at least about 5k profit gross / month (double the current net income, due to pensions, security etc).
How to get there - scale an online shop to the absolute MAX.
July/August - product idea, researched market which showed there are only a hand full of shops that sell a similar product and all of those don't look like they are run by exactly scale-driven, perfectionist individuals.
August - product purchase, directly from China through Alibaba. Nervous first big investment of circa 2k to get a first big(ish) batch of products delivered door to door. Delivery costs were just as much as the product costs but that's what it is when you order the MOQ (minimum order quantity). Then some more smaller investments from national suppliers for printer, paper, labels, envelopes, some other smaller things to assemble the actual product. Overall prob 3k investment.
Delivery - nothing straight forward, first the chinese supplier takes much longer than anticipated to get the packages out, then one of packages is either LOST or probably never been sent, so another 4 weeks on top, also they /forget/ to pay for customs clearance so I end up paying 50 quid to get that last (crucial) package through...
Mid September - launched a little online shop, using shopify which is very easy to set up and easy to make look good/converting.
Mid September Launch Marketing - No one (no one) will get to your shop if you don't buy the traffic. So first channels to launch are:
- PPC google, search and shopping
- Paid Social (as competitors are very active with influencers/paid social)
- Influencer emails/reaching out if they fancy a free product
- Amazon (but nothing approved yet)
Week 1
Desperate for the first sale, watching real time google analytics non stop - who knows that
THEN BOOM first sale after about 4 hours and obviously much more money spent than that sale would bring in.
In the end spent about 300 pounds that first week on mainly top line, awareness social campaigns. Top line cost per sale way too high - nervous time but early days. From my experience I know about digital marketing and how algorithms can't work if you don't feed them with data, visitors.
- tried snapchat ads without any results (just left me with a stupid visitor explosion in analytics as /preload website/ was activated for EVERY ad impression on snapchat...
-86 P&L
Week 2
- added more apps to the shop, some crucial some probably not.
- optimizing paid social, cutting down on awareness, putting more into modeled custom audiences
- end of week changed an essential thing in the shop and giving customers more CHOICE - conversion rate significantly increased.
- first profitable week (just looking at marketing costs, product unit cost vs revenue) - over the moon
+140 P&L
Week 3
- done a mobile website speed check - SHOCKING results, way too slow, very very bad. Cut down all of the non-crucial shopify APPS, massive difference, speed up again, conversion rate up instantly almost. using Speedboostr.com instead of google page speed tool - massive difference, don't panic about google;s score..
- optimizing paid social further, more ads, more audiences
- scaling down on PPC as it is losing money
- sending loads of products to influencers without proper success (thanks.. I thought boobs sell everything)
- about same performance week on week (for a LOT of work)
+200 P&L
Week 4
- One Influencer post really made a difference! Profitable for itself even with paying about 200 quid for it, also great brand effect (I assume). Very different target group than originally targeted - so this shows, nothing will be as you think.
- adding and testing more creatives on social.
- retargeting on social activated.
- record for direct sales which have a big impact on overall efficiency (0 CPA).
- CPAs amazing! Profit amazing! ROAS amazing.
- Amazon FINALLY approved products and account, sales slowly come in.
+689 P&L
Next: scaling without losing that efficiency... wish me luck
.Questions in my head at the moment -
- when to start email marketing to existing customers (don't want to burn email adresses too early!). Shall I wait until I got 1k+? (currently about 400).
- when to add a new product line (I have something in mind that would fit well to the category but is a very different product)
- can i get my xmas wrapping idea executed in time
TBC...
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