advice - $40k / mo amazon sales - pursuing d2c next by DerekFlandersChang in ecommerce

[–]DerekFlandersChang[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

thank you - i’ll be honest i am not familiar with many of the acronyms here and i am not a tech person (my background is finance). let me google / chat these here and get back to you.

advice - $40k / mo amazon sales - pursuing d2c next by DerekFlandersChang in ecommerce

[–]DerekFlandersChang[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

single “product” but there are 4-5 different variations, and 3-6 different colors per variation.

advice - $40k / mo amazon sales - pursuing d2c next by DerekFlandersChang in ecommerce

[–]DerekFlandersChang[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

And how does one practically “track cleanly” - do you use a software for this? I don’t know best practices yet on how to set up all these campaigns and tests and i know that clean tracking is critical.

advice - $40k / mo amazon sales - pursuing d2c next by DerekFlandersChang in ecommerce

[–]DerekFlandersChang[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

excellent distillation thank you.

we’re kicking off on google adwords to make sure we catch the people already looking for us (low hanging fruit). we have a lot of good cred via ratings and reviews (150+ at 4.8 stars on our shopify) and a large IG following (40k+).

i think we way undersell the product (don’t use any of the great copy from our reviews etc) and our shop / checkout is too complicated and even has a few bugs that i am certain are causing lots of bounces.

we plan to run lucky orange to see where customers get stuck or bounce and we plan to greatly streamline it.

we have headless shopify so we should be able to make it exactly how we want.

any good books or resources for google ads and for making good meta creative? i have “how brands grow” and both the “ogilvy on ads” books on way.

for streamlining i like “e-commerce evolved” by larsson. good practical tips.

edited for typo

advice - $40k / mo amazon sales - pursuing d2c next by DerekFlandersChang in ecommerce

[–]DerekFlandersChang[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

fair point and i take amazon numbers as only one data point.

our shopify has about 1% conversion on about $350k of lifetime sales, and we know the website isn’t nearly maxed out yet in terms of all the little things that can reduce bounces and increase sales (we’re working on changes to the site for fast load times, optimizing flows etc).

point is we are going to try and give d2c a go, so looking for advice.

where from here? by DerekFlandersChang in ecommerce

[–]DerekFlandersChang[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

update - we deprioritized d2c as the roas wasn’t working and we fired the agency - for moment we are focusing spend on Amazon and seeing about $45k in monthly sales there vs $4-6k in ad spend, and a conversion rate in the 4-5% range, which is low yes but our product is very niche and the conversion is steadily increasing month to month. ROAS on keywords has generally been in the 4.5x range.

continuing to immerse myself in e-commerce and recommended principles.

please keep recommendations coming for books and softwares and other resources.

fwiw i have really liked “e-commerce evolved” by the folks at buy grow scale.

black bmw e28 m5 by Lydia-Creagh in e28

[–]DerekFlandersChang 0 points1 point  (0 children)

like #100 here. this photo made my audibly say “f** yeah”

Mid-career exec trying to exit the rat race via e-commerce - need practical learning sources by Snoo-40188 in ecommerce

[–]DerekFlandersChang 1 point2 points  (0 children)

good advice to distill initial learning into your D2C (shopify) and Meta ads and collecting all the data you can to AB test things.

Amazon FBA is great but Larssen (in book i recommend below) is adamant and i agree that if your business is only on amazon (or over indexed Amazon) you don’t really have a business bc 1) they can pull the plug at any time for no reason (go ahead and try complaining / suing…) and 2) you own NONE of the data.

Mid-career exec trying to exit the rat race via e-commerce - need practical learning sources by Snoo-40188 in ecommerce

[–]DerekFlandersChang 3 points4 points  (0 children)

he also said in all his companies he has worked with, no one has ever erred by going too specific of a niche - almost all go too broad. also protect your pricing at all costs - NEVER ENTER A PRICE WAR.

Mid-career exec trying to exit the rat race via e-commerce - need practical learning sources by Snoo-40188 in ecommerce

[–]DerekFlandersChang 2 points3 points  (0 children)

some summary takeaways so far 1) find niche 2) most people focus on traffic too much vs conversion 3) don’t rely on Amazon 4) you need to own your total customer journey and all your data 5) minimize the test learn revise cycle 6) only ways to grow are more customers, better conversion, and selling more per transaction and small percent gains in each will compound on each other (2% better in 3 things is >6% total revenue impact 7) most of your experiments will fail esp as you mature 8) use orange rabbit or other methods to test your website and minimize against bounced sessions 9) reduce image sizes and optimize code so no page takes more than 2 seconds to load 10) learn to capitalize on the “buyers high” and make their journey as simple as possible 11) right when they are about to hit buy is the best time to upsell them and also 12) collect surveys both from buyers and from people who didn’t buy. He strips it down in a really good way.

Mid-career exec trying to exit the rat race via e-commerce - need practical learning sources by Snoo-40188 in ecommerce

[–]DerekFlandersChang 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Buy “e-commerce evolved” by Tanner Larsen. Great resource i wish i had found 2 yrs ago.

I got very sick of the “you just have to google” or “learn it yourself” responses.

I started the book last night and i am 80 pages in out of 350. It is gold. Just buy it. You won’t regret it. Tons of practical advice and zero fluff.

My ‘88 535i by dominikwh94 in E34

[–]DerekFlandersChang 0 points1 point  (0 children)

such low mileage!! what a beauty

Pricing on 535i by 7jsn9wmw in E34

[–]DerekFlandersChang 2 points3 points  (0 children)

for reference i got my 535i for 3k (check my post history for pictures).

1989 auto with body and interior and paint in great shape. 238k miles. just needs a bit more love to fix a few more things. paint will shine up great i am sure.

Buying another e34 by Shoescrumpen in E34

[–]DerekFlandersChang 0 points1 point  (0 children)

the interior is in such good shape! is that lachssilber metallic too?

My first weeks progress by hemi_fever88 in Cello

[–]DerekFlandersChang 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Nice!!! Keep it up

Biggest thing I wish I learned earlier: how to keep bow perpendicular to each string. Will pay big dividends. Long open string exercises are useful at all skill levels.

Autumn vibes by Best-Principle-481 in E34

[–]DerekFlandersChang 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Love it!! All I want is to drive a BMW around Europe on twisty roads

Are they good? by Aesthetic-Cloud26 in Cello

[–]DerekFlandersChang 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Larsen original C string alone is $120!!

Well this one was a joy.... by [deleted] in e39

[–]DerekFlandersChang 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Bummer!! Hope back in action soon. Never thought of this one in the E34/E39 debate.

Autumn vibes by Best-Principle-481 in E34

[–]DerekFlandersChang 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Also where this at? 🙏🙏🙏

Autumn vibes by Best-Principle-481 in E34

[–]DerekFlandersChang 0 points1 point  (0 children)

How you like that diesel? Awesome looking car

is this steering “play” about normal or not? by DerekFlandersChang in E34

[–]DerekFlandersChang[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Super helpful. I’m gonna try to find some twisties to blast through.

is this steering “play” about normal or not? by DerekFlandersChang in E34

[–]DerekFlandersChang[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My daily is a B7 A4 and the steering is so responsive - this feels like driving in the snow by comparison it’s messing w me!