[Successful Journey] to living wage with eCommerce Branding

*edit: I reposted this so I can put the appropriate tags on this to make it easier to find. I was also inspired to put successful Journey because of @Bloooop.

Hey guys,

I want to start this journey not only to improve my marketing and copy but also because eCommerce intrigues me. I'm also super interested in logistics, owning my own stock, and marketing and creating funnels. This is also a replicable process which also intrigues me.

It just comes down to finding the products, creating killer copy and pages, and marketing effectively. I previously started a journey that was going meh (gained 3 clients and lost them all in the following month) so that sorta swayed me to eCommerce. I'm not the most skilled at all of those so creating this journey will not only help me stay focused but also help me improve the process.

I'm open to all and any suggestions. I want to focus on eCommerce (specifically with Shopify) as I have a decent amount of experience with it and i've consumed a bunch of content regarding the subject haha so I would like to have laser focus. I know this will work as there are many in this space who are seeing 5-6 figure months.

TIME TO LOCK IN!

The plan:
- Create a list of 10-20 products that are seeing consistent sales (using seller-pulse and FB to find them) and confirm that they are solid products to dropship.
- Create a general store to test the products with FB ads ( I do plan on using every avenue of marketing eventually)
- Once I find winning products, contact sellers to see if I can lower COGs and well as get better shipping times.
- Improve the store and backend

If there is anything I should know/missing, LMK haha.

Edit: just catching everyone up (new update coming tomorrow 4/23)

UPDATE: 4/14/2021

- Found 5-6 products I want to test ( I have about 10 in total )
- Created the store and bought a domain
- Created the FB page, and made multiple business managers and ad accounts (due to the bans that happen)

Things to do next:

- Upload the products and create the product pages
- Create the support pages ( order tracking, contact, returns and tos)
- Create Logo
- Start testing first product
- Find another 5 products to test.
- Install apps for abandoned carts, tracking products, user tracking (hotjar or the orange one), etc

LESS GOO.

Any advice will be considered and applied.

Best of luck! following this thread as I also want to start such project.

UPDATE (Kinda late.. ik) - 4/18

- Store is built out
- Apps are installed
- Logo Created

- Imported 6 products with fresh pixels on each one. I did that because I'm starting with a general store then I'm going to build one product stores around the successful products and improve the branding and backend on those to increase the conversion rates.

- Have 2 abo campaigns scheduled to start @ 12 am Monday so wish me luck. My biggest obstacles I'm looking forward to facing is my ad account being banned and testing creatives. I plan on ordering the products to make custom content.

Update cont. - 4/18

For those wondering what my complete strategy is, here it is.

Step 1: Build the branded store to test the products on. (done, though I might build a branded niche store in the future to further help build out the brand and create trust.)

Step 2: Find 5-10 interesting products with proven sales/traction daily so that I always have products to test. (My criteria for interesting products are ones in the $5-15 area with either high perceived value, have a wow factor (aka can't be found in stores) and/or solves a problem.

Step 3: Build out the product pages.

Step 4: Start testing with traffic (FB, Insta, Snap, etc.)

Step 5: Once products start getting consistent sales I would say of 20+, then it's time to improve the customer experience/journey (things such as product page, shipping times, the funnel (from the ad to checkout), etc.)

Step 6: Improve and optimize ads ( CTR, CPA, AOV, CPC.)

Step 7 (though I probably would do this earlier): Improve profits by lowering COGS and improving KPI's (Key performance indicators) helps this as well.

Rinse and repeat

Though I know it's not this easy, from my research and experience, these are the steps to building a successful ecommerce brand and I'm prepared to take them on.

Will be updating once a week and posting screenshots of revenue and profit numbers and ad progress. Wish me luck my brothers.

EDIT: I see you guys' point in the term and thinking behind picking "winning products". Will definitely switch my perspective and thought process

UPDATE: 4/20

So my ads didn't get approved and I'm 100% sure I know why. So before I start running more ads, I'm going to finish all the product pages (which should be done by Thursday and start running ads again. Wish there was a quicker way to build out the landing pages)

Good luck to you.

What I would recommend is to build your shop around one specific sub-niche. Once you get sales and traffic, scale it up and add more products.

A big mistake many people are doing is they think they could start out with a general store adding 100 products in different niches to it.

From my experience: The more you focus on one specific niche, the higher is the conversation rate and the more people will actually visit your store.

nakamura said:

Good luck to you.

What I would recommend is to build your shop around one specific sub-niche. Once you get sales and traffic, scale it up and add more products.

A big mistake many people are doing is they think they could start out with a general store adding 100 products in different niches to it.

From my experience: The more you focus on one specific niche, the higher is the conversation rate and the more people will actually visit your store.

Click to expand...

Gotcha. I actually ended up doing just that and building a store in the pet niche. Thanks for the advice. If you ever want to take a look at it, let me know.

When I was building my own ecommerce store I always get stuck at the creative side. How do you handle your creatives? To successfully launch a gym product for example, you need a full custom video ad to maximize your success...

hreyhrey said:

When I was building my own ecommerce store I always get stuck at the creative side. How do you handle your creatives? To successfully launch a gym product for example, you need a full custom video ad to maximize your success...

Click to expand...

I think it just comes down to testing. My strategy is to pay for a split testing video package to simply test and find the products that are going to bring in most of the profit. Then from there, I'm going to invest in creating custom content (such as videos shot by me, ugc (user generated content), reaching out to influencers, etc). If you can't make the video, I would suggest finding someone either on insta or fiverr.

Krizzzly said:

Find 5-10 interesting products

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How will you use FB in this regard ?

Lost Mirror said:

How will you use FB in this regard ?

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I've tailored my fb feed to show me products that are getting advertised right now.

Krizzzly said:

I've tailored my fb feed to show me products that are getting advertised right now.

Click to expand...

Do you think it's a fools game to focus on a specific category before testing for dropshipping since I'd be competing against people like yourself (who can find winning products much quicker and more cost effective)?

hreyhrey said:

Do you think it's a fools game to focus on a specific category before testing for dropshipping since I'd be competing against people like yourself (who can find winning products much quicker and more cost effective)?

Click to expand...

What do you mean?

Krizzzly said:

What do you mean?

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Most newbies will pick their industry first (such as workout equipment) and try to scale a brand, whereas someone skilled such as yourself will be testing out hoardes of different products to find winners. I'm wondering if the former can compete. But maybe i'll PM you about this, don't want to shit up your thread haha

Good luck. Are you using Shopify? What Apps?

hreyhrey said:

Most newbies will pick their industry first (such as workout equipment) and try to scale a brand, whereas someone skilled such as yourself will be testing out hoardes of different products to find winners. I'm wondering if the former can compete. But maybe i'll PM you about this, don't want to shit up your thread haha

Good luck. Are you using Shopify? What Apps?

Click to expand...

Lol I'm picking a industry/niche. I've been suggested to pick a niche so that's what I'm going to try. I think it really comes down to your testing. I'm not super skilled. I've just done research and have a bit of experience. Everyone's new until they're not haha

I suggest you to do some product research and find some cool products with traction and from there, pick your niche. Don't pick your niche first then your products.

This looks promising good luck and following you.

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Krizzzly said:

Lol I'm picking a industry/niche. I've been suggested to pick a niche so that's what I'm going to try. I think it really comes down to your testing. I'm not super skilled. I've just done research and have a bit of experience. Everyone's new until they're not haha

I suggest you to do some product research and find some cool products with traction and from there, pick your niche. Don't pick your niche first then your products.

Click to expand...

As far as apps, just the barebones (oberlo, currency converter, abandonment protector, reviews and sticky add to cart for mobile users)

Krizzzly said:

Lol I'm picking a industry/niche. I've been suggested to pick a niche so that's what I'm going to try. I think it really comes down to your testing. I'm not super skilled. I've just done research and have a bit of experience. Everyone's new until they're not haha

I suggest you to do some product research and find some cool products with traction and from there, pick your niche. Don't pick your niche first then your products.

Click to expand...

A huge tip I learned was fast website speeds = higher ctr and more conversions

Amazing tools i found while building out product pages:

remove.bg website ( removes backgrounds of pictures) *not sure if im allowed to put websites in post
alisave ( extension that allows you to save aliexpress pictures and if you pay $2 monthly, you can save the videos as well)
Giphy or ezgif websites (allows you to make gifs)
Tinypng (website that allows you to compress pictures to improve your site's loading speed)
pagespeed insights (service provided by google for FREE to test your website's loading speed)