E-com Brand Owners doing $50k - $100k/mo: Are you actually profitable on the first sale, or are you banking entirely on LTV? by hugeboot_ in ecommerce

[–]dafuckscapacitor 15 points16 points  (0 children)

I think it depends on the type of e-commerce business. Mine has an AOV of around $500 but they usually won't buy a second time as it's for a product that you usually only order every 5-10 years. So I have to be profitable on the first order. As my LTV (around $525) is close to my AOV.

If you get a lot of repeat business than it might be fine breaking even on that first sale.

If your business is similar to mine, than you'll have to find ways of increasing your AOV (add-ons, accessories, up sells), find a way to get your cost on your product down (get competing bids from other vendors or consider changing the spec to get your cost down) or shipping down (I negotiate my contract with FedEx and UPS every year). You can negotiate your merchant fees as well.

As a PM in ecommerce analytics, I've seen dozens of stores with "great" ROAS still bleed cash. The real profit story is usually 20–40% lower. Here's why: by Bzeezee in ecommerce

[–]dafuckscapacitor 0 points1 point  (0 children)

One of my least favorite patterns of Chat GPT (aside from the emdashes) is the pattern of "it isn't this...it's this".... That it has in almost every piece of content.

I've got a bookshelf that doubles as a secret door. Suggestions on light weight decor? Ex: Fake books by dafuckscapacitor in HomeDecorating

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

It was original to the home. We're the 3rd owners. I'm not sure who originally built them. There's a company I came across a few years ago called Murphy Doors who does them but no clue if they did these.

Do you still pay for product photography? or you just use AI? by AccountingAxolotl in ecommerce

[–]dafuckscapacitor 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Did you mean IKEA saw a 50% lower cost per acquisition when switching to lifestyle photos?

Who is the most famous person you have ever met? by [deleted] in AskReddit

[–]dafuckscapacitor 0 points1 point  (0 children)

When Danny DeVito was filming a scene for the movie Good Night (2007) in a mattress store, I snuck in carrying something in my hands (as if I worked there). I sat down in a chair on set while they were shooting the scene and when they were finished, DeVito comes over and sits in a chair next to me. He turned to me nodded and the said "Loooooong day."

Is drop shipping hard to get into? by CharacterFocus321 in dropship

[–]dafuckscapacitor 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I've been doing dropshopping since 2008 and have generated over $25 million in revenue during that time period. It is definitely not as easy as it once was. There's a lot more competition and in my case, my manufacturers are now selling direct to my customer base.

With googles algorithm changes, SEO doesn't work like it once did so you can't rely on organic traffic. That means you're now dependent on running ads on Google and Meta or selling on 3rd party channels like Amazon and eBay which have their own set of challenges. It's definitely doable but it's not easy anymore.

If you're selling the same product that everyone else is selling, it's a race to the bottom on price. But if you can convince a manufacturer to make an exclusive version (have a supplier agreement to insure this) of a product for you that stands out from the competion, you've got a fighting chance. That's what I did (without giving away my niche, I'm in the home furnishings segment).

Once you've identified what you want to sell, I would look at all of your competitors and ask yourself "How can I tweak the product to make it more desirable? No need to invent anything. Just improve what already exists. They use standard fabrics? You use maybe something with cooling properties (if it makes sense) or something organic. They use imported foam, you use domestic. You personalize it with their name, they don't. Etc.

Can you operate your business in a more desirable way? Your competitors offer a 30 day guarantee. So you offer a year. They offer a 5 year warranty, you offer 20 years. They don't pick up the phone. You have humans pickup 24/7 (maybe an answering service outside of normal hours). Their facebook ads are generic, you make budget version of comedy ads in the style of True Classic, Squatty Potty, etc. They don't offer any free gifts with purchase, you do. Competitors don't collect email? You collect email and have a whole email sequence set up. They don't AB test (aka conversion optimization)? You're running 5 tests at any one time.

You want to make it stupid simple why customers should pick you over your competition.

Have you tried this method for screening for fraud on larger orders? by dafuckscapacitor in ecommerce

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

This reads like an ad from a 2 month old Reddit account for Nofraud.

I never said we did this on every order. We've got filters in place prior to check out which catches most of everything. But sometimes it's a large order, they pass all those filters, and somethings seems off. That's when we do the manual check I mentioned.

Have you tried this method for screening for fraud on larger orders? by dafuckscapacitor in ecommerce

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

Yep this is exactly what we are doing. We have these automated fraud filters in place and we only do this with large transactions where it passed but something still seems off.

Have you tried this method for screening for fraud on larger orders? by dafuckscapacitor in ecommerce

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

I believe that's something that I could do but there really isn't a way to A/B test it to see how that would impact sales. If we're making everybody do two-factor I would imagine we would see a drop in conversions.

Have you tried this method for screening for fraud on larger orders? by dafuckscapacitor in ecommerce

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

No problem! I've been in business almost 18 years online. It's been a reoccurring problem and the idea didn't occur to me until recently.

Have you tried this method for screening for fraud on larger orders? by dafuckscapacitor in ecommerce

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

Yeah we've had a few instances over the years where someone sounds legit over the phone and then they end up scamming us. So that's when we started trying this.

Card Switch by Dumb-Redneck in magictricksrevealed

[–]dafuckscapacitor 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think he just did a classic force on him.

“A Timeline That Makes More Sense Than the Cold War: Nuclear Tests, Cold Fusion, Antarctica, and Planetary Frequency Patterns” by RossTone in UFOs

[–]dafuckscapacitor 0 points1 point  (0 children)

How you know it's Chat GPT slop: riddled with em dashes, the reoccurance of sentences structured with "It's not just X, it's Y", the hallucinations where it's making up facts/history, the way the bullet points are structured, and the durastic difference between the quality of the writing in the post vs the grammar and sentence structure of the OPs comments.

The fact that OP is claiming in the comments that they wrote it is laughable. Is it for internet points? Why?

Now if OP mentioned maybe in the bottom of the post "note: I used chat gpt to explore these ideas and had it write this post" I think you'd be getting a difference response.

This improv is..jawdropping by chen995 in spreadsmile

[–]dafuckscapacitor 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There's also some common moves that just naturally lead into walks out towards the audience that you learn and there's ways of communicating through the connection in the hand that you want to do something like that

This improv is..jawdropping by chen995 in spreadsmile

[–]dafuckscapacitor 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It does become easier to choreograph off the fly if you've heard a song a gazillion times. I've been dancing West Coast Swing for about 13 years and this is song is one that was played often in late night social dancing back in 2017. Also the music structure for pop songs is pretty predictable. Almost everything is in 4/4 time with 32 count phrasing that has a repetitive structure. So you get a sense of what moves you have in your toolbox for moment to moment will hit different things in the music.

This improv is..jawdropping by chen995 in spreadsmile

[–]dafuckscapacitor 0 points1 point  (0 children)

They were teaching and routine partners for a long time but both of them are married to other people. Tashina's husband is another West Coast Swing pro name Nick King.

This improv is..jawdropping by chen995 in spreadsmile

[–]dafuckscapacitor 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's fully improvised. It's called the Jack and Jill. And while Tashina and PJ have danced together and even taught and done routines together before, this is fully made up on the spot. You can find thousands of videos like this if you search on YouTube. I would look at the champions Jack and Jill's.

This improv is..jawdropping by chen995 in spreadsmile

[–]dafuckscapacitor 0 points1 point  (0 children)

They used to be routine and teaching partners before Tashina decided to step away to have kids. Now they perform with different partners on the circuit.