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AlexanderFRG

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Jun 18, 2021
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Hello guys!

In short:

I'm located in germany and started a physical products brand focused at Dachshund owners.
My first product is called DorsusProtect. Dachshunds are because of their anatomy very prone to backpain, and the ingredients of DorsusProtect can avoid this medical issue in most cases. It's a powder you simply add to your Dachshunds food.
I'm selling in my own online store, because of fulfillment costs i only ship to germany. At the moment i'm facing serious issues.

Timeline:

Dec 2022 - Jan 2023 Research on ingredients, finding a supplier, setting up site, building social media audience (1.2k on insta by now), 300 person email list, pre-launch.

19.02.2023 Launchday, about 1k in sales on day one, mostly through my email list, good days followed.

Thinks were looking rosy.

Product cost per unit: 18,11€
Overall fulfillment costs (incl. pr. costs): 28 €
Asking price: 59,95€

Since then i got steady sales, mostly through Meta and google Ads. My product already got some fans, i get great reviews etc....

The thing is: My ad costs are extremely high, i only make about 2-3 € net profit per sale on a 60€ product. My ads wear off very fast (in a matter of days), probably because my niche is too damn small. The CPC increases from 40ct to 2€ in a matter of a few days.

I'm going all in on my customers, everyone gets a handwritten letter, my customer support is fantastic, the customers love my product. I got a 30 day money back guarantee noone ever used.

Nevertheless my overall CPC also increased day by day, now i'm practically operating a non-profit with a lot of work behind it.

If that wouldn't be exhausting enough:

DHL (german mail) has "lost" a package with the new batch i payed around 2000€ for. In germany the seller (my producer) is only responsible for the goods until he gives it to the transport company (DHL in my case).
I probably won't get my money back from DHL, and if i do it will take at least MONTHS.

Because of that I'm running nearly out of stock.

All of this is just so F*cking exhausting.
I ditched my whole social life, doing nothing "fun" in my life anymore, I'm working 17 hours a day (including my employee job), and putting all my energy and money in that project.
Also i feel bad for my GF helping my a lot with the fulfillment, spending a lot of her time as well on my business (voluntary of course, told her she doesn't need to do that).

Today i stopped placing ads so that i don't run out of stock.
No more sales. As expected.

I don't know where my head is, i don't know what to do.
What's the damn issue?
Is it me?
Is it my product?
Is it my marketing?
Is my niche to small?

I'm feeling helpless, i don't know what to do. How should i go on?

If it's me/my skills, a change of niche would only bring me back to square zero, just to experience the same shit again.
If it's my niche being too small it would help.

Could someone give me some advice on what to do?
I'd be really glad.

With gratitude,
Alex
 
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Last edited:

Cano

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Product cost per unit: 18,11€
Overall fulfillment costs (incl. pr. costs): 28 €
Asking price: 59,95€

Since then i got steady sales, mostly through Meta and google Ads. My product already got some fans, i get great reviews etc....

The thing is: My ad costs are extremely high, i only make about 2-3 € net profit per sale on a 60€ product. My ads wear off very fast (in a matter of days), probably because my niche is too damn small. The CPC increases from 40ct to 2€ in a matter of a few days.
Hey Alex,

first of all congrats on building a product customers love, thats already a huge archivement!

I want to share with you a blog that @JasonR recommended to read on this thread in the forum 9 years ago.


also this where he talks about LTV & CAC. In my opinion a realy good thread even tho its old.

In my opinion should you work on your ecommerce funnel.

Upsell? Cross-Sell? (increase average order value + profit)
Return Path? Subscription in the back-end? (increase repeat purchases)
increase your overall LTV of each customer so you can work with CPC and outperform your competitors.

i hope this helps.

@fastlane_dad @NeoDialectic would you recommend this too or is this to early? whats your solution?
 

AlexanderFRG

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Jun 18, 2021
7
7
24
Germany
Hey Alex,

first of all congrats on building a product customers love, thats already a huge archivement!

I want to share with you a blog that @JasonR recommended to read on this thread in the forum 9 years ago.


also this where he talks about LTV & CAC. In my opinion a realy good thread even tho its old.

In my opinion should you work on your ecommerce funnel.

Upsell? Cross-Sell? (increase average order value + profit)
Return Path? Subscription in the back-end? (increase repeat purchases)
increase your overall LTV of each customer so you can work with CPC and outperform your competitors.

i hope this helps.

@fastlane_dad @NeoDialectic would you recommend this too or is this to early? whats your solution?
Thanks!
I'll read the blog right away, thanks for the recommendation.
At the moment i'm working out automated follow up mails in case of abandoned carts. Increasing LTV by implementing a subscription model would probably be useful, although i will reduce the size from 200g to 100g per unit first. 200g are enough for about 6 months for one Dachshund, that's a bit long for a subscription model.

I'm not able to make upsells at the moment because i only have one product at the moment, the second one (a back-sparing dog harness) will take a little to get developed.

Thanks again for your answer!
 

Subsonic

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Hello guys!

In short:

I'm located in germany and started a physical products brand focused at Dachshund owners.
My first product is called DorsusProtect. Dachshunds are because of their anatomy very prone to backpain, and the ingredients of DorsusProtect can avoid this medical issue in most cases. It's a powder you simply add to your Dachshunds food.
I'm selling in my own online store, because of fulfillment costs i only ship to germany. At the moment i'm facing serious issues.

Timeline:

Dec 2022 - Jan 2023 Research on ingredients, finding a supplier, setting up site, building social media audience (1.2k on insta by now), 300 person email list, pre-launch.

19.02.2023 Launchday, about 1k in sales on day one, mostly through my email list, good days followed.

Thinks were looking rosy.

Product cost per unit: 18,11€
Overall fulfillment costs (incl. pr. costs): 28 €
Asking price: 59,95€

Since then i got steady sales, mostly through Meta and google Ads. My product already got some fans, i get great reviews etc....

The thing is: My ad costs are extremely high, i only make about 2-3 € net profit per sale on a 60€ product. My ads wear off very fast (in a matter of days), probably because my niche is too damn small. The CPC increases from 40ct to 2€ in a matter of a few days.

I'm going all in on my customers, everyone gets a handwritten letter, my customer support is fantastic, the customers love my product. I got a 30 day money back guarantee noone ever used.

Nevertheless my overall CPC also increased day by day, now i'm practically operating a non-profit with a lot of work behind it.

If that wouldn't be exhausting enough:

DHL (german mail) has "lost" a package with the new batch i payed around 2000€ for. In germany the seller (my producer) is only responsible for the goods until he gives it to the transport company (DHL in my case).
I probably won't get my money back from DHL, and if i do it will take at least MONTHS.

Because of that I'm running nearly out of stock.

All of this is just so F*cking exhausting.
I ditched my whole social life, doing nothing "fun" in my life anymore, I'm working 17 hours a day (including my employee job), and putting all my energy and money in that project.
Also i feel bad for my GF helping my a lot with the fulfillment, spending a lot of her time as well on my business (voluntary of course, told her she doesn't need to do that).

Today i stopped placing ads so that i don't run out of stock.
No more sales. As expected.

I don't know where my head is, i don't know what to do.
What's the damn issue?
Is it me?
Is it my product?
Is it my marketing?
Is my niche to small?

I'm feeling helpless, i don't know what to do. How should i go on?

If it's me/my skills, a change of niche would only bring me back to square zero, just to experience the same shit again.
If it's my niche being too small it would help.

Could someone give me some advice on what to do?
I'd be really glad.

With gratitude,
Alex
It seems you face a scale problem where you are too specialized. Three ways you could expand you market are here.
  1. Go broader: create a new supplement/product for all dogs. Very simple so I don't think I need to elaborate.
  2. Go deeper: find more things to sell to your market. That could be anything besides that supplement that can held dachshunds and their owners.
  3. Go upmarket: that would mean selling to stores, franchise, dog schools or Tierärtzte. Here the advantages are more reliable customers and larger orders.

I hope that helps.
Ich drück dir dir Daumen Bruder.
 
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AlexanderFRG

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Jun 18, 2021
7
7
24
Germany
It seems you face a scale problem where you are too specialized. Three ways you could expand you market are here.
  1. Go broader: create a new supplement/product for all dogs. Very simple so I don't think I need to elaborate.
  2. Go deeper: find more things to sell to your market. That could be anything besides that supplement that can held dachshunds and their owners.
  3. Go upmarket: that would mean selling to stores, franchise, dog schools or Tierärtzte. Here the advantages are more reliable customers and larger orders.

I hope that helps.
Ich drück dir dir Daumen Bruder.
Going broader is nearly impossible, my whole brand is centered around Dachshunds, including my website (teckeltraum.de). I guess going deeper and upmarket is the way to go, I'm already working on my second product. Going upmarket is promising as well.

Danke Dir :peace:
 

Happyheart

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Going broader will require some thinking, but will be a good thing in the long run. You can easily start a new website and market good products e.g. for older dogs, for joint problems, for back pain, etc. I would recommend to offer various options regarding package size and price. And do not put all the good stuff in one package.

Additionally, you could offer an individual assessment, either by questions on your site, or by cooperating with animal doctors. And/or laboratory testing.

And make sure you have insured shipping, if you cannot bear the cost of a lost package.

Good luck on your journey.
 

NeoDialectic

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@fastlane_dad @NeoDialectic would you recommend this too or is this to early? whats your solution?
Thanks for the tag. Working on the sales funnel would definitely be part of my advice.
Hello guys!

In short:

I'm located in germany and started a physical products brand focused at Dachshund owners.
My first product is called DorsusProtect. Dachshunds are because of their anatomy very prone to backpain, and the ingredients of DorsusProtect can avoid this medical issue in most cases. It's a powder you simply add to your Dachshunds food.
I'm selling in my own online store, because of fulfillment costs i only ship to germany. At the moment i'm facing serious issues.

Timeline:

Dec 2022 - Jan 2023 Research on ingredients, finding a supplier, setting up site, building social media audience (1.2k on insta by now), 300 person email list, pre-launch.

19.02.2023 Launchday, about 1k in sales on day one, mostly through my email list, good days followed.

Thinks were looking rosy.

Product cost per unit: 18,11€
Overall fulfillment costs (incl. pr. costs): 28 €
Asking price: 59,95€

Since then i got steady sales, mostly through Meta and google Ads. My product already got some fans, i get great reviews etc....

The thing is: My ad costs are extremely high, i only make about 2-3 € net profit per sale on a 60€ product. My ads wear off very fast (in a matter of days), probably because my niche is too damn small. The CPC increases from 40ct to 2€ in a matter of a few days.

I'm going all in on my customers, everyone gets a handwritten letter, my customer support is fantastic, the customers love my product. I got a 30 day money back guarantee noone ever used.

Nevertheless my overall CPC also increased day by day, now i'm practically operating a non-profit with a lot of work behind it.

If that wouldn't be exhausting enough:

DHL (german mail) has "lost" a package with the new batch i payed around 2000€ for. In germany the seller (my producer) is only responsible for the goods until he gives it to the transport company (DHL in my case).
I probably won't get my money back from DHL, and if i do it will take at least MONTHS.

Because of that I'm running nearly out of stock.

All of this is just so F*cking exhausting.
I ditched my whole social life, doing nothing "fun" in my life anymore, I'm working 17 hours a day (including my employee job), and putting all my energy and money in that project.
Also i feel bad for my GF helping my a lot with the fulfillment, spending a lot of her time as well on my business (voluntary of course, told her she doesn't need to do that).

Today i stopped placing ads so that i don't run out of stock.
No more sales. As expected.

I don't know where my head is, i don't know what to do.
What's the damn issue?
Is it me?
Is it my product?
Is it my marketing?
Is my niche to small?

I'm feeling helpless, i don't know what to do. How should i go on?

If it's me/my skills, a change of niche would only bring me back to square zero, just to experience the same shit again.
If it's my niche being too small it would help.

Could someone give me some advice on what to do?
I'd be really glad.

With gratitude,
Alex
Congrats on doing the hard work and seeing some initial success. I'll give you advice based on what I would do in the USA market, so keep that in mind as I am not intimately familiar with the German market.....

1. Price

The first thing I would generally do is see if the market can bear a higher price. If you can raise the price to $80 without lowering sales substantially, that will immediately solve your woes (Margins go from ~0% to 25%). The perfect time to do this is when you are running out of stock...That is a much better option than just turning off ads! It will likely lower sales, but you can run the numbers to see if it's worth it. Set aside your immediate feelings of "OMG raising the price that much is crazy, no one will want to buy it". Maybe, or maybe not. Lets the market decide. We have had instances where we raised prices much more severely than I'm recommending when dealing with a stocking issue and were surprised by increased sales!

If a current customer contacts you voicing dissatisfaction about the price increase, tell them the truth wrapped up in nice language. "We have tried to keep prices unchanged for as long as possible, but recent cost increases have made that impossible while keeping the doors open. We do value you as a customer and appreciate that you have placed trust in our products. As a token of gratitude, please use coupon code X during checkout to lower the price to the one you are used to paying. "

2. Subscriptions

I don't know what your website or sales funnel is like, but make it as easy as possible to "subscribe and save". Give them 5% off or more for subscribing to an auto-filling subscription. Repeat orders do wonders for lowering customer acquisition costs. Not that I'm endorsing the method, but plenty of businesses actually only make their profits based on repeat orders.

3. Give it time

Sometimes it can just take time for things to take off. Reorders start building slowly. Word of mouth follows as well. But I do understand that you don't want to invest 10s of hours a week into making little money. That leads me to...

3. Lower your work

Try to figure out how to lower your time investment. The paltry profit wouldn't be too bad if you only spent 2 hours a week on it right? Try to figure out how you can build systems to automate things.

4. Expand your Lineup - First Angle

A certain % of customers that buy one product will buy other things you sell. Especially if you have a good sales funnel handling upsells well. Double that if you have a good product that works and leaves customers happy. This once again lowers customer acquisition costs. It also adds to your profit overall. 10 products doing OK money, turns into GOOD money as a whole.

5. Expand your lineup - Second Angle

My experience has been that some products require less push than others and finding that product can sometimes be easier than pushing harder products. By increasing your lineup, you increase the chances that you stumble on a star product that everyone wants and is ripping out of your hands. It's like playing the game on easy mode vs hard mode.

Now that doesn't mean you should just ditch this product. If you are having good sales and clearing a profit, I think it deserves a chance. Even acknowledging what I just said, there are no absolute rules. Some products take time to start spreading their wings. You can add products without ditching this one. You can check out my post on finding products to see if it helps you think of some new variations.



Hope that helps!
 
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BizyDad

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Quit.

Sorry, but here's my reasoning...

Screenshot_20230327-192742.png

From this article in 2007.


Dachshunds live roughly 15 years. They were declining in number 15 years ago.

Let's just do some back of the napkin math...

7000*15 = 10500 potential dogs out there. Some people keep multiples of a breed, so let's just say there's 9,000 dog owners.

10% of that market is 900 customers. And this product of yours happens to be a monthly sale? Even if you raise your price, even if you can find people who can afford $80 for a dog food supplement, that is still only 18000 per month (900*20 profit).

And that sounds like a lot.

But if you're burning through advertising...

And you've reached all 9,000 owners...

And at some point people stop their reorder...

And
This begins to shrink really fast.

Now you can definitely add new products. And yeah, if you have a rapid fan base that could work.

But it seems like you're going to be working really really hard, and getting your girlfriend involved as well, for something that is going to make you roughly, best case scenario, $200000 a year.

And it sounds like it's going to be a harder road to get there. I just think there's easier ways to do this.

Like a for example, make more powders for other breeds of dogs.

Maybe I'm wrong. I did run a dog store dedicated to large dogs for 7 years, so I have a little bit of experience in this field.

Based on your constraints, of only wanting to sell to dachshund owners, and only selling in Germany, I just think your market is too small.

You would really need to capture most of the market for this to be a fast lane venture.

And based on how much money you're spending, and how much money you said you've earned, I'm guessing that you aren't capturing even 10% of the visitors.

So most dachshund owners don't want this product...

What does Google ads say about the number of searches for this kind of product?

@mikecarlooch this is another way I do market research...

---

Oh wait, good news. My math is off. I'm not going to bother editing, because this is too funny.

7000*15 is 105000. Add a zero to all my numbers!

90000 potential Dachshund owners in Germany.

20% of those are going to be dogs over 12 years old.

That's 18000 dog owners who want to extend the life of their dog. Those people are going to be highly motivated to buy. You've got to find those people.

Ask for the rest, there should be plenty to add another zero to monthly profit potential.

Back of the napkin math... 180000/mo. A potential 2 million euro business...

**And that's not counting any revenue from any new products**

And it's assuming you only capture 10% of the market.

Stay serving dachshund owners. Work on making sure that people reorder. That's going to be critical to your long-term success.

Also, build your email list.

Create a Facebook group for dachshund owners where they can share pictures of their dog and funny dog memes and that kind of stuff, and have your company sponsor it.

It'll be a lot cheaper to advertise for people to go into that Facebook group than it will be to advertise to get them to buy your product.

At the very least, now you know that the market is large enough.

And it sounds like maybe you don't have a lot of competition? So it's just a matter of time before you get there.

I like @NeoDialectic 's idea for how to slow it down.

Up the price, and put something on the packaging that offers people a discount if they refer a friend. And the friend gets a discount on their first order too.

That's going to be the cheapest advertising. Word of mouth. Dachshund owners like talking to other dachshund owners when they see each other.

Hope that helps. Good luck.
 

Xeon

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Just throwing it out here. but do the problems that affect Dachshunds also affect other types of long-body-short-leg breeds like corgis? If so, maybe you should gradually (in the long term) change the brand to cater to such breeds?
 

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