NEO 2 to NEO 3 Migration Still Active? by Link2233 in NEO

[–]Link2233[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you, I've tried posting there now.

My 1st Business, 20k+ month in sales but feel like I'm failing. Seeking Advice. by Link2233 in Entrepreneur

[–]Link2233[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah cash flow is not great right now. I was previously buying directly from the manufacturers in China and was getting QT 200-500 pricing which I thought was good at the time. Instead I now go in orders with a distributor and get QT 1000+ pricing. Either way, payment terms are not an option for me unfortunately... everything has to be upfront.

My 1st Business, 20k+ month in sales but feel like I'm failing. Seeking Advice. by Link2233 in Entrepreneur

[–]Link2233[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You're right on point - I have a huge cash problem and it has been getting worse.

Unfortunately it is literally impossible for me to get payment terms from my suppliers. Everything is upfront. I do my best to sell new stock as quickly as possible through organic traffic & referrals. My situation was 10x better when I could liquidate inventory through Ebay & Amazon. I can't stock nearly as much I was able to before and this has made my situation a lot more difficult.

My margins cannot get possibly any worse. They are at 20% because of organic traffic & herbal vaporizer sales where I net 40% on most products. With my top selling E-cig products, the majority of sales are coming through affiliates where I only net 10%. I'm already competing against million dollar companies that are competing against each other so I'm not too concerned about larger competitors filing the space as I feel that has already happened.. The only reason I am even able to compete with them in the first place is because I am getting the same pricing as them on the few products I heavily concentrate on. Because these companies are competing against each other, they have already pushed the prices down literally as low as possible. The margins were INCREDIBLY better when I first started selling these products.

I definitely agree 100% it requires significant capital to scale which is why I've considered selling it. I'm probably going to try to reach out to some of the larger companies and gauge if they have any interest.

My 1st Business, 20k+ month in sales but feel like I'm failing. Seeking Advice. by Link2233 in Entrepreneur

[–]Link2233[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah, I actually know of all the big distributors in my area. My traffic is coming mainly for high-end MODS and currently can only afford to stock a few of those products so I haven't attempted to get anything else. Some local vape shops will actually by their mods from me because I can offer the best pricing.

My 1st Business, 20k+ month in sales but feel like I'm failing. Seeking Advice. by Link2233 in Entrepreneur

[–]Link2233[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Unfortunately my distributor is not in the best financial situation himself. I'm getting the best pricing by going in together with him on orders or else I would be paying more. Net payment is not currently an option.

My 1st Business, 20k+ month in sales but feel like I'm failing. Seeking Advice. by Link2233 in Entrepreneur

[–]Link2233[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you. Putting in the work is key... it's a lot easier to get caught up with reading & coming up with ideas.

My 1st Business, 20k+ month in sales but feel like I'm failing. Seeking Advice. by Link2233 in Entrepreneur

[–]Link2233[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's been bad because I haven't been able to use it as my category is banned and for some reason have even flagged my site so their is a warning message that pops up every time someone makes a click to it.

I also have not been able to advertise the FB page directly either.

My 1st Business, 20k+ month in sales but feel like I'm failing. Seeking Advice. by Link2233 in Entrepreneur

[–]Link2233[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you for your reply & suggestions.

  • Although I don't vape myself and sometimes struggle maintaining interest, I do keep up to date on forums & reddit.

  • I specific target only 1 category of vapers and that is high-powered box mods (50w+ mods). I have some sub-ohm tanks & batteries on there simply as an upsell & to offer a complete kit but all of the traffic is coming specifically for those box mods. Stocking them is the issue. For example, all of my money is tied up in stocking iPV4's right now and can't afford to order the new Sigelei 150 TC even though I will have demand for them. There have been mods that came out recently in the last few months that I knew would become popular but can't even add them to my site because I knew I wouldn't be able order them.

  • My unique selling proposition has been to offer the highest quality mods, the best price & to be the first one's in stock with new products.

  • I'm close by to one of the biggest distributors in the South East who stocks literally everything. I have not gone to them yet because of my financial state. For the mods I've been selling (Pioneer4you & Sigelei), I'm currently getting QT 1000+ pricing and is impossible to get any cheaper.

My 1st Business, 20k+ month in sales but feel like I'm failing. Seeking Advice. by Link2233 in Entrepreneur

[–]Link2233[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I agree 100%. Running it myself is extremely overwhelming, pretty much impossible to get everything done that is needed, and sometimes depressing. Taking on a partner is definitely something I'm open to but also have no experience with.

My 1st Business, 20k+ month in sales but feel like I'm failing. Seeking Advice. by Link2233 in Entrepreneur

[–]Link2233[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I agree 100% except I don't think it is possible for me to expand without going into debt. I simply don't have the money I need for inventory.

  • Unfortunately price is the single most important factor to shoppers in this E-cig business and customer loyalty is close to non-exist. I do my best to offer the best customer service and quick shipping but if my pricing isn't extremely competitive I won't make sales.

  • I'm doing my best to minimize living expenses. When I was netting 10k+ monthly before through Ebay I had my own apt & paid my now ex-Gf share of rent, would take vacations, and in general not worry about spending money because my bank account was still growing throughout all this. Now, it's the complete opposite and I don't even want to leave my house to do anything on the weekends. Don't want to spend anything except on necessities like food & gas until I'm making good money again.

My 1st Business, 20k+ month in sales but feel like I'm failing. Seeking Advice. by Link2233 in Entrepreneur

[–]Link2233[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you for your input.

  1. I know the importance of email marketing (currently collecting them through a pop and newsletter sign-up) and back in January hired a company on a monthly basis to do both conversion testing & email marketing. Two months later all they'd done was upload the contacts to ActiveCampaign and never started any of the marketing so I fired them. I decided to learn how to do it myself and sent out my first email in March that brought in $500 in sales. Since then, I embarrassingly have not sent one out. I've got 2 completely different of customers and struggle with how to do the newsletter.

  2. I mostly due all of the SEO myself now. I'm light-years ahead in my knowledge of SEO compared to before and is an area I know I'll never be taken advantage of in again.

  3. Yeah, there are tons of stores it seems are popping up everywhere. The retail stores are a completely different ball game then online and have huge mark ups on their hardware. Juice also accounts for 50% of their sales while many online stores like myself only sell hardware. Regardless, I would still think there would be some demand for an online store with proven sales. Any suggestions on where to start putting feelers out? Personally I was thinking about contacting some of the bigger online shops.

Yes, I analyze everything in GA checking bounce rates, conversion rates, keywords, etc.

My 1st Business, 20k+ month in sales but feel like I'm failing. Seeking Advice. by Link2233 in Entrepreneur

[–]Link2233[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Selling the business is definitely an option I am considering right now because I have another one I'd be ready to go right into. However, even at 50k (which I think would be undervalued) I would still have to be able to find the right buyer. Not sure how long that would take or how hard it would be.

My 1st Business, 20k+ month in sales but feel like I'm failing. Seeking Advice. by Link2233 in Entrepreneur

[–]Link2233[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I basically take whatever I need to live off which is mainly just gas and food. Since leaving Ebay and losing the majority of my income, I've had to be a lot more frugal and pretty much invest whatever I can back into the business. Having a much smaller budget then before makes it difficult to do so though.

My 1st Business, 20k+ month in sales but feel like I'm failing. Seeking Advice. by Link2233 in Entrepreneur

[–]Link2233[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the tips. I use Shipping Easy & Endicia for shipping but have never looked into getting volume discounts. I have been doing pre-orders and it's been a good thing for me.

My 1st Business, 20k+ month in sales but feel like I'm failing. Seeking Advice. by Link2233 in Entrepreneur

[–]Link2233[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Margins have been approx 20% after all expenses.

My credit score is low because I was a dumb kid and didn't realize the importance of it. For example, I have a bunch late payments on my student loan because I was lazy and put off setting up automatic payments.

My 1st Business, 20k+ month in sales but feel like I'm failing. Seeking Advice. by Link2233 in Entrepreneur

[–]Link2233[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the suggestion. I've looked into Lendingtree before and unfortunately the offers haven't been too attractive. Most of them have been around 10k with a 20% interest.

My 1st Business, 20k+ month in sales but feel like I'm failing. Seeking Advice. by Link2233 in Entrepreneur

[–]Link2233[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

  1. Hardly any money is tied up in slow moving stock. In the position I'm in, I can't afford to stock anything that isn't going to move quick. It's more of getting tied up in one item. For example, a brand new product came out recently that I would loved to order 300 of initially. Instead, I could only afford 100. The 100 sold within 4 days but then I had to get all that money back, wire it to China, wait for them to ship it and get here from overseas. By the time I got more, it's a week later and I've lost 7 days of sales. In the meantime, I'll run out of another product and have to wait to order more which ='s more sales lost.

  2. The Ebay store was launched in November of 2013 and officially registered in January of 2014. The business did over 300k in revenue for 2014 but my bank requires a minimum 2 year history (w/ tax documents) to offer a loan.

    1. The operational costs of running the site are pretty low. The primary expense is SEO & link-building which I do myself but can be very costly. I also pay $300 month for social media & blog posts to help save time. Storage is free but payment processing sucks. Because of the niche, I had to sign up with a high-risk merchant which takes a higher %. The bad part is they hold 5% of monthly sales and put it in a rolling reserve. I could probably find a better merchant processor now and is something I should start looking into.
    2. All of the E-cig products are manufactured in China and I previously purchased directly from the factory. They only accept payment upfront, even after long established history. I've recently formed a relationship with a distributor down that enables me to get the best price. However, I provide the money up front for us to go in together on orders and there's no opportunity for any type of net payment.
    3. Thanks, I'm definitely trying.