Replica Store Advice + My story

[bombonera123]

Hi,
this is my first post even tho I consumed some of the content provided in the past.

Short story I want to tell you my experience with a Replica store and the overall niche in my country. I used to own a shopify store with a HUGE catalog I’m talking about 2K products. Being hosted on Shopify we had to avoid displaying the names of the brands so all names were kinda crypted.

We sold around 100K euro worth of products almost exclusively through organic social media videos (street interviews basically 0 budget) and almost 0 ads. We also got our Instagram page to 190K followers through a FOMO mechanism in those videos but eventually that audience became low engaging.

Here’s the thing: the previous 2 years this business model became so popular basically each week 2-3 new stores/pages popped up everyone using the same strategy.

Unfortunately we got IG banned on May due to a mass ban behalf instagram probably pressured by those big brands.

A month later a guy we hired to add new pics to the products saved one file containing a branded name and Shopify banned us after a 1.5 years.

I got lazy this summer and find myself on October the need to make money and built the website again but on Wordpress this time.

I admit I lost the timing for the Q4 and now I’m scrambling and rushing but things are not going good.

Organic videos were r*ped so much nothing more is going viral and I want to ask you what type of content can I bring to reach lots of people with low budget.

We are currently doing ads and metrics are really good but at the end the conversions are low, many people are leaving at the Checkout.

Besides some fixes we clearly need to do on the website (not my role) Im feeling stuck with no ideas, new algorithms changed everything and also Meta did the Andromeda update making less skillful the art of advertising and everyone is still learning.

I have insights of my competitors and talk to them, we saw generally less appeal and volume overall but the niche will never die.

Im the only one currently doing bad numbers and I really want to discuss what can I do (more on the organic side of thing but also advice on advertising).

Feel free to ask me anything.

 

[medialounge]

Since the niche never dies, the grind continues until you find a way that works to your level of perceived maximum optimization

I'm have always wondered why people use Shopify to sell replicas

Is it because of payment processing or ease of use
Because any little issues there leads to a ban store
And you have to start all over again

 

[bombonera123]

Since the niche never dies, the grind continues until you find a way that works to your level of perceived maximum optimization

I'm have always wondered why people use Shopify to sell replicas

Is it because of payment processing or ease of use
Because any little issues there leads to a ban store
And you have to start all over again

Easy to use + payments, to be fair I dont know about others but so far Hostinger/Wordpress is so trash.

 

[HotMilfNearYou]

I always say this—even more so for sensitive businesses: you have to build an email list.

Like, whatever your traffic source, by definition, it doesn't belong to you. In this type of business, the risk of being banned is high—but that's true everywhere: algorithm rules change, unpredictable things happen...

It's the same for your website; unless you self-host on your own physical server, there's always a risk, however small, of losing it.

So:

Your first objective: transform your traffic into an email list. For e-commerce stores, this approach is too often neglected.

Personally, I would present the site with a somewhat exclusive concept—like you have to be a member to see the prices or something. In short, something that gives the impression that it's normal to "force" people to sign up. And I would set up an automated system to copy and update the list in two backups hosted on different services for each new subscriber.

If I get banned from my traffic source, I'll continue working with leads and former clients by sending limited time offers via email. If I lose my website, I can create landing pages wherever I want and send limited time offers to those pages. When the new website is up, I'll provide the new address by email.

There are no longer any companies standing between me and my clients.

 

[bombonera123]

I always say this—even more so for sensitive businesses: you have to build an email list.

Like, whatever your traffic source, by definition, it doesn't belong to you. In this type of business, the risk of being banned is high—but that's true everywhere: algorithm rules change, unpredictable things happen...

It's the same for your website; unless you self-host on your own physical server, there's always a risk, however small, of losing it.

So:

Your first objective: transform your traffic into an email list. For e-commerce stores, this approach is too often neglected.

Personally, I would present the site with a somewhat exclusive concept—like you have to be a member to see the prices or something. In short, something that gives the impression that it's normal to "force" people to sign up. And I would set up an automated system to copy and update the list in two backups hosted on different services for each new subscriber.

If I get banned from my traffic source, I'll continue working with leads and former clients by sending limited time offers via email. If I lose my website, I can create landing pages wherever I want and send limited time offers to those pages. When the new website is up, I'll provide the new address by email.

There are no longer any companies standing between me and my clients.

I agree with you, I do have an email list and I’m planning to work on it (Klavyio is asking me 150€ per month that I cant spend rn) but I gotta do it somewhere else.

About the organic posting any idea? I dont want to rely only on ads… I really miss those times were videos were viral bringing lots of traffic

 

[HotMilfNearYou]

Klavyio is asking me 150€ per month that I cant spend rn

Yes, it's definitely too expensive. That's also one of the reasons why you need a backup: in the worst-case scenario, you could lose your email marketing tool account, but more often than not, you might simply need to switch providers.

Personally, my favorite is Kit (formerly Convertkit), but they're very selective with new clients; I don't think they'll accept a business like yours. In fact, they'll almost certainly refuse. But if you can convince them it's for a different type of business, like the ones they're looking for, and they accept you, they're really inexpensive:

Don't choose the plan on their homepage; choose the "newsletter" plan on their pricing page. It's free up to 10,000 subscribers. Unlimited email sending. You can send as many emails as you want for your offers. There's also an automated sequence included in this plan. I like to use it as a welcome sequence to "indoctrinate" future and new customers.

Then, you can also create as many opt-in forms as you want. The form function includes the list function found in other tools. It's a little confusing at first, because you have to create a form even if you don't use it, because, like me, you create your own forms and the subscribers are transferred via their API.

The advantage is their incentive function: when someone subscribes to the list (which they call a "form"), you can choose to automatically send them a specific email (I like to include upsells here). The subscription can be triggered by a trigger on another service and relayed via the API, Make, or Zapier. Or, if you're like me, you can also use Cloudflare Workers (free up to 100,000 requests per day!!!).

In short, it also has all the options of classic email marketing tools, like creating tags, segments, etc., and all of that is free up to 10k subscribers! After 10k, it's something like $10 or $20 per month. It's the best value for money I've found.

Alternatively, you could have your own system with Amazon SES or something similar.

 

[Deegitaldeepirate]

Can

Hi,
this is my first post even tho I consumed some of the content provided in the past.

Short story I want to tell you my experience with a Replica store and the overall niche in my country. I used to own a shopify store with a HUGE catalog I’m talking about 2K products. Being hosted on Shopify we had to avoid displaying the names of the brands so all names were kinda crypted.

We sold around 100K euro worth of products almost exclusively through organic social media videos (street interviews basically 0 budget) and almost 0 ads. We also got our Instagram page to 190K followers through a FOMO mechanism in those videos but eventually that audience became low engaging.

Here’s the thing: the previous 2 years this business model became so popular basically each week 2-3 new stores/pages popped up everyone using the same strategy.

Unfortunately we got IG banned on May due to a mass ban behalf instagram probably pressured by those big brands.

A month later a guy we hired to add new pics to the products saved one file containing a branded name and Shopify banned us after a 1.5 years.

I got lazy this summer and find myself on October the need to make money and built the website again but on Wordpress this time.

I admit I lost the timing for the Q4 and now I’m scrambling and rushing but things are not going good.

Organic videos were r*ped so much nothing more is going viral and I want to ask you what type of content can I bring to reach lots of people with low budget.

We are currently doing ads and metrics are really good but at the end the conversions are low, many people are leaving at the Checkout.

Besides some fixes we clearly need to do on the website (not my role) Im feeling stuck with no ideas, new algorithms changed everything and also Meta did the Andromeda update making less skillful the art of advertising and everyone is still learning.

I have insights of my competitors and talk to them, we saw generally less appeal and volume overall but the niche will never die.

Im the only one currently doing bad numbers and I really want to discuss what can I do (more on the organic side of thing but also advice on advertising).

Feel free to ask me anything.

you advise on how you handle payments. Or if you know anyone reputable offering payment processing services

 

[bombonera123]

Can

you advise on how you handle payments. Or if you know anyone reputable offering payment processing services

i just know the method im currently using, tho im aware there are some payments you can rent for replica

 

[Deegitaldeepirate]

i just know the method im currently using, tho im aware there are some payments you can rent for replica

Would you mind PMing those services am in need please

 

[bombonera123]

Would you mind PMing those services am in need please

i cant PM and dont really know how to do it. reach for me if you can