User Power
Value/Post Ratio
182%
- May 12, 2023
- 11
- 20
I’ll start this with a random thought. I’ve decided that no matter how rich I get, I’ll always do my own laundry. I dunno if this is weird but the process of washing my clothes, hanging them and then folding them up when they’re dry relaxes me. I’ll never pay someone to do that. Tbh I’d probably just prefer to do all my basic housework. Also I don’t really like random strangers in my house, makes me feel like I can’t fully sit back and relax if I want to. Don’t get me wrong, If I’m running and AirBnB I ain’t cleaning my customer’s shit. I’m most definitely paying someone else to do that. I only want to clean up my own mess or the mess of those I love, kinda like how people only like the smell of their own farts.
Anyway onto the point, I’m about to launch my own Shopify store and I want to track how it goes, so I’ll do that here. There’s been a lot of time in the desert leading up this point. Receiving samples, modifying the product to value skew, getting content, finding suppliers, writing a ton of copy, finding a good 3PL, saving and saving capital etc. If you’re in this forum there’s a good chance you know how it goes.
So I had a couple failures with drop shipping back in like, I dunno 2019. Then I got lucky with a product, it was nose hair wax! It was easy to create a scroll stopping ad with it because the sight of people pulling out nose hairs with a wax stick up their nose is gnarly, it rips out soo much hair. And anyone who’s ripped out a nose hair knows how painful it is. So I posted the ad and it started getting a lot of traction. People found the product hilarious and tagged their friends, shared the video, it was getting millions of organic views. I made quite a few sales managing to stretch to 40k in revenue in one month, roughly 30% profit.
But then,
It ALL WENT TO SHIT. I was drop shipping off Aliexpres and the nose hair wax was taking months to arrive at people’s houses. They all called me a scammer even though every person who placed an order received their nose hair wax eventually. I got throttled with 1 star reviews, Facebook banned me and I closed the website down. It was doomed to fail anyway, I was never considering how I could give the customer more value. I only thought about how I could take more of their money.
Anyway then I was discouraged for a while, tried Amazon… that didn’t go so well because again, I was not interested in the customer’s needs and wants.
Then I was saving up for other things like a trip around Europe and moving to the UK yada yada.
Now we’re here.
My store is due to go live in 2 days. I have 1,000 units in a warehouse in Texas ready to ship FAST. I have an arsenal of emails professionally designed on Klaviyo ready to send to a list. The compelling video ad and retargeting photos are done. The product photography (god that was expensive) is looking great. The website is getting its finishing touches from the web developer.
It might have already become apparent that I outsource a decent amount of work. The thing is, I know my strengths and weaknesses. I have good taste (not rare, most of us do) which helps me to ask the freelancers I hire for exactly what I’m after, I can script a good ad etc. But when it comes to design, it’s just not my strong suit. I know there’ll always be someone that can edit the video better than me, design the email better than me (with my writing, mind you), draw a logo better than me etc. So I hire other people to do all that shit for me. Is it lazy that I’m not putting in the hundreds of hours to master those skills or just resourceful? I guess there’s an argument for both.
Amazon wouldn’t let me sell with them. I’ve just moved to the UK and I can’t get a credit card because I haven’t built up any kind of credit history here. So it forced me to pivot and make a Shopify store. Like Marcus Aurelius said, “The obstacle is the way.” Now I’m grateful that I took the harder route of creating an independent store. I have a far greater locus of control and the possibilities are vaster than a store that only exists on Amazon. And honestly I’ve seen some horror stories with Amazon. People having thousands of dollars frozen, unable to reorder inventory and Amazon Support not helping at all. I’ll eventually sell on Amazon when I can afford to let them F*ck with me. Right now, I don’t have the capital to allow anyone or anything to F*ck with my money. That’s why I think the wiser but also more treacherous path is independent store first, Amazon launch second. At the start, maintain as much control as possible because you don’t want the whole operation toppled over by some giant that doesn’t give a F*ck about you. Then as you excel and build momentum, you can sell a percentage of your inventory on third party online retailers.
I found a competitor just like me today. At first I was like, nooo someone else had the same idea as me. Then I realized it was a good thing. McDonald’s doesn’t freak out because Burger King exists. It understands it can’t have a monopoly on burgers. And not that I needed reassurance but the fact that there’s another store that appears to be successfully selling the same single product as me, shows the idea ain’t too dumb after all.
So I’ll launch the ad on FB and IG soon and journal the process on this thread.
I’ll let you know in 9 days how launch week went.
Anyway onto the point, I’m about to launch my own Shopify store and I want to track how it goes, so I’ll do that here. There’s been a lot of time in the desert leading up this point. Receiving samples, modifying the product to value skew, getting content, finding suppliers, writing a ton of copy, finding a good 3PL, saving and saving capital etc. If you’re in this forum there’s a good chance you know how it goes.
So I had a couple failures with drop shipping back in like, I dunno 2019. Then I got lucky with a product, it was nose hair wax! It was easy to create a scroll stopping ad with it because the sight of people pulling out nose hairs with a wax stick up their nose is gnarly, it rips out soo much hair. And anyone who’s ripped out a nose hair knows how painful it is. So I posted the ad and it started getting a lot of traction. People found the product hilarious and tagged their friends, shared the video, it was getting millions of organic views. I made quite a few sales managing to stretch to 40k in revenue in one month, roughly 30% profit.
But then,
It ALL WENT TO SHIT. I was drop shipping off Aliexpres and the nose hair wax was taking months to arrive at people’s houses. They all called me a scammer even though every person who placed an order received their nose hair wax eventually. I got throttled with 1 star reviews, Facebook banned me and I closed the website down. It was doomed to fail anyway, I was never considering how I could give the customer more value. I only thought about how I could take more of their money.
Anyway then I was discouraged for a while, tried Amazon… that didn’t go so well because again, I was not interested in the customer’s needs and wants.
Then I was saving up for other things like a trip around Europe and moving to the UK yada yada.
Now we’re here.
My store is due to go live in 2 days. I have 1,000 units in a warehouse in Texas ready to ship FAST. I have an arsenal of emails professionally designed on Klaviyo ready to send to a list. The compelling video ad and retargeting photos are done. The product photography (god that was expensive) is looking great. The website is getting its finishing touches from the web developer.
It might have already become apparent that I outsource a decent amount of work. The thing is, I know my strengths and weaknesses. I have good taste (not rare, most of us do) which helps me to ask the freelancers I hire for exactly what I’m after, I can script a good ad etc. But when it comes to design, it’s just not my strong suit. I know there’ll always be someone that can edit the video better than me, design the email better than me (with my writing, mind you), draw a logo better than me etc. So I hire other people to do all that shit for me. Is it lazy that I’m not putting in the hundreds of hours to master those skills or just resourceful? I guess there’s an argument for both.
Amazon wouldn’t let me sell with them. I’ve just moved to the UK and I can’t get a credit card because I haven’t built up any kind of credit history here. So it forced me to pivot and make a Shopify store. Like Marcus Aurelius said, “The obstacle is the way.” Now I’m grateful that I took the harder route of creating an independent store. I have a far greater locus of control and the possibilities are vaster than a store that only exists on Amazon. And honestly I’ve seen some horror stories with Amazon. People having thousands of dollars frozen, unable to reorder inventory and Amazon Support not helping at all. I’ll eventually sell on Amazon when I can afford to let them F*ck with me. Right now, I don’t have the capital to allow anyone or anything to F*ck with my money. That’s why I think the wiser but also more treacherous path is independent store first, Amazon launch second. At the start, maintain as much control as possible because you don’t want the whole operation toppled over by some giant that doesn’t give a F*ck about you. Then as you excel and build momentum, you can sell a percentage of your inventory on third party online retailers.
I found a competitor just like me today. At first I was like, nooo someone else had the same idea as me. Then I realized it was a good thing. McDonald’s doesn’t freak out because Burger King exists. It understands it can’t have a monopoly on burgers. And not that I needed reassurance but the fact that there’s another store that appears to be successfully selling the same single product as me, shows the idea ain’t too dumb after all.
So I’ll launch the ad on FB and IG soon and journal the process on this thread.
I’ll let you know in 9 days how launch week went.
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