Lex's Digital/Physical Product Group Accountability Thread

[kr8nt]

I just got my first ever sale online this morning. I can't believe it.

It took me about a month to develop my product until I was able to publish it on Etsy. Nothing was happening for a week or so and then today I checked my email and found out that someone purchased it. The best part is that I spent less on Etsy Ads, than the product is selling for, which means that it's profitable. This feels unbelievable.

Thank you a lot for your posts, Lex! Without your posts I don't think I could've done it.

What could I do now, to speed up the process of getting sales?

 

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[StrikingViper69]

I just got my first ever sale online this morning. I can't believe it.

It took me about a month to develop my product until I was able to publish it on Etsy. Nothing was happening for a week or so and then today I checked my email and found out that someone purchased it. The best part is that I spent less on Etsy Ads, than the product is selling for, which means that it's profitable. This feels unbelievable.

Thank you a lot for your posts, Lex! Without your posts I don't think I could've done it.

What could I do now, to speed up the process of getting sales?

Give it a day or two to see how it goes, then start increasing your ad budget.

If you keep getting sales, keep increasing the budget, keeping an eye on your “cost per sale”.

Start engaging with customers and try to find their likes/dislikes so you can improve the product and find out what additional things you can do to help them

 

[kr8nt]

Give it a day or two to see how it goes, then start increasing your ad budget.

If you keep getting sales, keep increasing the budget, keeping an eye on your “cost per sale”.

Start engaging with customers and try to find their likes/dislikes so you can improve the product and find out what additional things you can do to help them

Thank you a lot for the tips!

Should I better contact customers by manually writing them an email asking about what do they like/dislike, or will it be enough to create some form and send them asking to fill it out?

Also, at what point should I consider getting a website for the store?

 

[Lex DeVille]

I just got my first ever sale online this morning. I can't believe it.

It took me about a month to develop my product until I was able to publish it on Etsy. Nothing was happening for a week or so and then today I checked my email and found out that someone purchased it. The best part is that I spent less on Etsy Ads, than the product is selling for, which means that it's profitable. This feels unbelievable.

Thank you a lot for your posts, Lex! Without your posts I don't think I could've done it.

What could I do now, to speed up the process of getting sales?

To speed up sales on Etsy, you need more traffic to your store. Increasing your ad spend will bring more people to your store. Likewise, adding more products that target different keywords will also bring more traffic. Those are the two main ways outside of investing time in SEO and social media to increase sales on Etsy.

 

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[StrikingViper69]

Thank you a lot for the tips!

Should I better contact customers by manually writing them an email asking about what do they like/dislike, or will it be enough to create some form and send them asking to fill it out?

Also, at what point should I consider getting a website for the store?

Email manually to get started.

If you’re getting a few sales every day, consider a website. Then you have to think about cost, different ad platforms etc. see if current sales are steady before putting time and money into that

 

[kr8nt]

To speed up sales on Etsy, you need more traffic to your store. Increasing your ad spend will bring more people to your store. Likewise, adding more products that target different keywords will also bring more traffic. Those are the two main ways outside of investing time in SEO and social media to increase sales on Etsy.

Thank you for the tips, Lex!

If I create a lot of different products that are not related at all, this should potentially increase the sales for other products as well, because more people will be finding the store and by checking it out they could potentially decide to buy other products that are not even what they were searching for?

 

[kr8nt]

Email manually to get started.

If you’re getting a few sales every day, consider a website. Then you have to think about cost, different ad platforms etc. see if current sales are steady before putting time and money into that

Thank you, StrikingViper69!

Is it allowed to just take the customer emails directly from Etsy and start sending them emails, or do I have to ask the customers for their email first?

 

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[StrikingViper69]

Thank you, StrikingViper69!

Is it allowed to just take the customer emails directly from Etsy and start sending them emails, or do I have to ask the customers for their email first?

I don't know, I've never used Etsy

 

[Andy Black]

Just a tip @kr8nt...

These are good questions, and should be easy enough for you to figure out:

Thank you for the tips, Lex!

If I create a lot of different products that are not related at all, this should potentially increase the sales for other products as well, because more people will be finding the store and by checking it out they could potentially decide to buy other products that are not even what they were searching for?

Thank you, StrikingViper69!

Is it allowed to just take the customer emails directly from Etsy and start sending them emails, or do I have to ask the customers for their email first?

 

[kr8nt]

Just a tip @kr8nt...

These are good questions, and should be easy enough for you to figure out:

Oh, you are right, Andy, thanks for pointing this out! I was a bit tired and sleepy after the gym and didn't notice that the answers to these questions are quite easy to figure out.

 

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[Lex DeVille]

April was a good month. Things tapered off the last few days. I didn't quite make it to $2,000 in net sales. Still, WooCommerce sales doubled from the previous month, and total profit nearly doubled.

I expect May - July (and possibly August) to be the slowest months of the year, followed by a strong holiday season, but I went ahead and placed my largest order of physical products yet.

April Sales: $1763.40
- Thrivecart: $489.55
- WooCommerce: $1273.85

April Expenses: $603
- Google Ads: $355.00
- FOMO: $75.00
- ActiveCampaign: $75
- Physical Inventory: $98

April Profit: $1160.4



For May
My big focus for may is to narrow my physical products to those that sell the fastest.

My $49 - $54 products sell faster than the $149 products. I'll have an increased ad spend as my current spend was $10 per day for most of April and there were still a lot of impressions and potential clicks missed.

I don't plan to make any huge changes to my funnels or process. I didn't build out anything elaborate last month. I am creating blog posts as people definitely read them on my site.

Return customers spend a lot more with me compared to first-time customers.

I still have inventory from last month that needs to be listed. I roll physical products out slowly because I only keep a few of each item on-hand. This leads to many products selling out fast, and creates scarcity.


Store 2
I haven't had other stores running, but I've had an idea for a store in the back of my mind. I researched the products, search volume, and market this week and decided it's worth it.

The store is a physical product e-commerce store. There is room for digital products as well. I think the potential is so great for this idea that I'd be stupid not to at least give it a try.

So I set up a basic website, and I'll bring in some test products from Temu. Once I have a bit of inventory, I'll run some ads and see what happens. Depending on the results, I'll decide how much focus to give it.

I'm 99% sure this one will be a huge hit around the holidays if nothing else.

 

[Andy Black]

I'll have an increased ad spend as my current spend was $10 per day for most of April and there were still a lot of impressions and potential clicks missed.

What were your impressions and impressions share metrics?

 

[Lex DeVille]

What were your impressions and impressions share metrics?

Impressions were 10,194

Impression Share was: 28.90%

 

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[Andy Black]

Impressions were 10,194

Impression Share was: 28.90%

How much lost due to budget and due to rank?

 

[Lex DeVille]

How much lost due to budget and due to rank?

Budget: < 10%
Rank: 15.21%

 

[Andy Black]

Budget: < 10%
Rank: 15.21%

Something doesn't add up (literally!).

Can you screenshot this?

 

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[Lex DeVille]

Something doesn't add up (literally!).

Can you screenshot this?

 

[Andy Black]

View attachment 55705

Those aren't the columns I use.

Can you set them up as I did in this screenshot (apologies for linking out... I'm on my phone and this is the easiest way to find a screenshot):

Andy Black on LinkedIn: Started growing a newsletter with Google Ads. Hoping to get €0.03 or even…

Started growing a newsletter with Google Ads. Hoping to get €0.03 or even €0.01 CPCs. If we can spend €5/day and get 200-500 visitors a day then we could use…

www.linkedin.com

EDIT: This is a better post showing how I read those metrics:

Andy Black on LinkedIn: (Day 22) Yesterday we finally got bids low enough we didn't lose volume…

(Day 22) Yesterday we finally got bids low enough we didn't lose volume and lost no impression share due to budget. We had 32 visitors for €4.47 and 7 signups.…

www.linkedin.com

 

[Caminsky]

I had a few websites for side hustles and dipping my toes in the water. One I have given up as I was in a way too saturated market. The other one I'm currently using more like a portfolio for knowledge related to my actual profession. Other than that, I honestly haven't done much lately as far a business development.

Back to the drawing board.

 

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[CONAN]

Wow...this thread is very motivational. Thanks!
Reading it had me thinking up some ideas but I have questions about some fundamentals..
@Lex DeVille you said that you have your custom websites sites selling physical products (as they are) you get from let's say Temu..

What I'm wondering is, when you succeed in getting people to visit you site, be it by ads, SEO, useful content, what stops a person from seeing a product they want and then ordering from Temu themselves? Or rather, what value the person gets from staying with you (other then product ofc). Or those lost sales are just part of the game like going from shop to shop in the "real" world..

 

[Lex DeVille]

Wow...this thread is very motivational. Thanks!
Reading it had me thinking up some ideas but I have questions about some fundamentals..
@Lex DeVille you said that you have your custom websites sites selling physical products (as they are) you get from let's say Temu..

What I'm wondering is, when you succeed in getting people to visit you site, be it by ads, SEO, useful content, what stops a person from seeing a product they want and then ordering from Temu themselves? Or rather, what value the person gets from staying with you (other then product ofc). Or those lost sales are just part of the game like going from shop to shop in the "real" world..

I don't sell physical products, I sell stories. You can get the physical item on Temu, but without the story, you only get half the product. The people who shop my website aren't looking for the best deal. That's a completely different customer.

The story is both the story I tell in copywriting, and the one I lead people to tell themselves about what it means to own the product. To tell the right story, you have to answer two questions:

- Who does the customer wish they were?
- How does the product bring them closer to that?

 

[Ywan]

I don't sell physical products, I sell stories. You can get the physical item on Temu, but without the story, you only get half the product. The people who shop my website aren't looking for the best deal. That's a completely different customer.

The story is both the story I tell in copywriting, and the one I lead people to tell themselves about what it means to own the product. To tell the right story, you have to answer two questions:

- Who does the customer wish they were?
- How does the product bring them closer to that?

Do you maybe have any tips for sources to learn that kind of storytelling?
Thanks.

 

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[Lex DeVille]

Do you maybe have any tips for sources to learn that kind of storytelling?
Thanks.

My best tip for anyone who wants to learn to write stories to sell products is...don't.

Sell something people need so the product tells the story for you.

Get it live. Get it in front of people. See what happens.

If people buy your product, then worry about things like copywriting.

 

[Ywan]

My best tip for anyone who wants to learn to write stories to sell products is...don't.

Sell something people need so the product tells the story for you.

Get it live. Get it in front of people. See what happens.

If people buy your product, then worry about things like copywriting.

Well, that's perhaps not the answer I was hoping for, but of course, you are absolutely right.

Do I understand correctly that the search for a product is a process of trial and error, where you try different products until you find a winner and move fast to put as many products in front of people as possible?

 

[Lex DeVille]

Well, that's perhaps not the answer I was hoping for, but of course, you are absolutely right.

If we go back to the original question...

Do you maybe have any tips for sources to learn *that kind* of storytelling?

To answer it at face value, we have to define what "that kind" of storytelling is.

In this case, that kind of storytelling is the kind I've learned to tell over the past two decades via:
- Launching a children's book business, a romance writing business, and then a digital publishing company
- Studying lyrics, hypnotherapy, fiction, non-fiction, etc.
- Spending 10+ years as a freelance copywriter
- Earning nearly 4 degrees in psychology in addition to other certifications
- Reading hundreds of books on psychology, branding, writing, marketing, etc.
- Writing millions of words in different styles
- Writing for companies around the world selling thousands of products and noting what works and what doesn't
- Taking risks in writing, business, marketing, sales etc. that sometimes paid off and sometimes didn't

I failed English class twice in high school.

What quick tips could I possibly give you to manifest *that kind* of storytelling when it's literally a process built over a third of my lifetime?

The only tip that makes sense at all to simplify the process is to just start.

Do I understand correctly that the search for a product is a process of trial and error, where you try different products until you find a winner and move fast to put as many products in front of people as possible?

To find products, I mostly use Google ads keyword tool to look at the volume of people searching for the product on Google. I usually stick with products where I'm familiar with the audience and their needs. The only reason I'm telling stories is because it fits the audience I'm selling to.

The products I plan to launch later this year won't require much storytelling. Different market. Different needs. But there is a need, and I know how to fill it better than other people because I know the audience/industry well.

For these products, I just need to answer:

- Who does the customer wish they were?
- How does the product bring them closer to that?

 

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[Andy Black]

To find products, I mostly use Google ads keyword tool to look at the volume of people searching for the product on Google.