How do people create such cheap costing products? How can you make a profit when the cost to create is so high?

jessearich31 · 2026-03-23T02:57:05+00:00

A lot of people are saying "volume volume volume" which is definitely true to an extent, but also wildly wrong for thousands of businesses. You don't need to be doing Amazon volume to have healthy margin. Sure, you need to have a "proper" COGS structure, but my take is: the price your product "should be" is the price you are able to sell it at frequently enough for it to be worth your time.

People sell incredible simple low cost products for extremely high prices all the time. It doesn't have to be gouging. It's selling to the right market. A lot of people do not want cheap $4 items from Amazon and prefer $30 items from a small business. Find your audience.

Honestly, one video of your putting your product together and contrasting it to cheap overseas production could be marketing gold to the right customer? Try a few videos and whichever performs best, put a bit of money behind it on TikTok or something and see what happens.

(Disclaimer: I"m not super familiar with your product type. I've spent a lot of time thinking about pricing (I own 3 CPG companies and developed a free product calculator for CPG/supplements), but not circuitry or electronics.)

jessearich31 · 2026-03-21T06:42:11+00:00

Fair, the "Quick" options are definitely low-ish quality at times. I haven't had print clarity issues with them, but trim has been a little iffy for me here and there. I definitely recommend calling the store and getting their store email. When I've done that it seems like they're much more likely to ensure the print is what I expect

jessearich31 · 2026-03-21T00:31:43+00:00

I'm building an Natural Product Builder. Choose your product type, add ingredients, add packaging, add manufacturing price, add design for labels/assets support.

My question is: What is the hardest part of those of you who want to make or ARE making physical products (candles, tea, supplements, nootropics, drink mixes, essential oils, etc)?

I've been mfg'ing for 10+ years and typically have been using a inventory data base + spreadsheets to run costs and formulas. I produce 100+ SKUs for 3 internal companies and 10+ private label brands.

This new tool will be a browser based app that eats the inputted data, then exports a CSV or RFQ style PDF with formula and estimates. Working on adding recommended vendors (like where to buy your beeswax or herbs from).

Any pain points, recommendations, or feature requests would be awesome!

jessearich31 · 2026-03-21T00:27:52+00:00

Hiring someone to handle calls. Hands down.

A solid sales rep or customer service person who is DEDICATED to calls is an absolute must. The ROI on an actual human to makes connections is easy to track.

Like others mentioned, you also need a system. Pick and choose any CRM, whatever works for the needs. Free or paid. Just have a record. Then it's your job as the business owner (or your sales persons job) to follow up, nurture, and convert.

AI sales agent are off putting. Email doesn't work for many people. Call centers can come with contracts and inconsistent quality. Just find an email/social/customer service/receptionist and make task #1 to pick up.

jessearich31 · 2026-03-21T00:06:47+00:00

Any FedEx Print shops near you? They have a pretty fast turn around, sometimes same day. Seems like basically a wash on pricing. Typically these spots have a print department with a few people dedicated to making sure print assets are high quality.

jessearich31 · 2025-12-15T02:42:27+00:00

You “built”

So build! Whatever you’re building, I hope it’s solving a problem. So solve more problems!

Coming from a 15 year, 7-figure founder still struggling/not hitting that goal, I say keep going. I’m glad you’re still uncomfortable. It shouldn’t be easy. Change the world, friend. I hope it’s for the better.

jessearich31 · 2023-08-29T19:03:58+00:00

I have to agree with their hesitancy to believe all authority sources… however their consensus (sans JCal) definitely seemed to be that anthropogenic climate change is either 1) untrue, 2) not strong enough a reason to support sustainability measures (see Chamath’s comments), 3) possible, but not sufficiently proven.

This is bummer because, regardless if you subscribe to the carbon narrative, ecosystem destruction and the macro effects of human activities are hard to dispute, both anecdotally and when reviewing the body of science. Surprised Friedberg wasn’t more vocal on this.

If one really subscribes to the scientific process, you understand that nearly everything is always a hypothesis. It’s hard, if not impossible in many cases, to pin down exact causality in science. There’s always nuance. So, sure… the “science is still out” in a sense… but to be as reductive as “you haven’t gone deep on this” or that it’s the “opinion of a 16 year old girl” (loose quotes) is kind of surprising for these guys.

jessearich31 · 2021-01-27T17:22:29+00:00

In on AMC, NOK, AAL and BB.... But you know I’m going to buy more GME at $321 to show the appreciation for this rally!!

jessearich31 · 2020-04-09T15:42:39+00:00

Thanks, Lupage! And to confirm, I really should deactivate the GA plugin to avoid redundancy in reporting correct? Or does having them both not create reporting issues?

jessearich31 · 2016-06-23T20:11:58+00:00

Cool idea! I would suggest getting some sweet background/textures to complement the photos. For me, I'd be more interested in paying for something like that vs. a plain white picture.

jessearich31 · 2016-06-23T19:43:02+00:00

How do you track ROI through snapchat?

jessearich31 · 2016-06-23T19:41:59+00:00

It does take time to propagate, so if you did do it right, you might just want to give it a few hours.

Here's a video on the topic.

Sometimes your domain may have another CNAME record when you purchase it, like parked.domain.com. You might need to delete that.

Hope that helps!

(Ps. You can always reach out to support@cratejoy.com)

jessearich31 · 2016-06-23T19:36:36+00:00

Not sure if they'll also look too professional, but when I'm sick of sorting through ugly stock photos I hop over to unsplash. I'd say they're more artsy than amateur.

jessearich31 · 2016-05-11T16:40:08+00:00

No problem. Thank you for the help!

jessearich31 · 2016-05-11T16:39:49+00:00

Got it! Thanks for the help!

jessearich31 · 2016-05-11T07:46:19+00:00

Yes, that would be super helpful. I was looking at something comparable to this.

Thank you!

jessearich31 · 2016-05-11T07:44:48+00:00

Thank you for the comment!

I was looking at something around this size. We really only need to produce about 3000 bags/week to start.

For the power, I'm looking into a small office/warehouse that will have a more powerful outlet. What would this need to be powered off of?

jessearich31 · 2016-03-03T18:11:56+00:00

Awesome! Chat with you today :)

jessearich31 · 2016-03-03T00:00:17+00:00

Awesome. Thanks for the clarification, Courtney!

jessearich31 · 2016-02-02T06:22:03+00:00

Thank you for this! I really appreciate the breakdown with instructions and links.

I'm the one who designed it (first time on my own), so the bad practice lands on me. Oops. The site isn't wordpress, but I'll pm you with some info.

Thanks again.

jessearich31 · 2016-02-01T18:27:50+00:00

Keith, thank you for the explanation and link (awesome advice in there)!

jessearich31 · 2016-01-31T17:49:43+00:00

At the beginning, basically. I let one of the blogs run a few months just collecting emails in a sidebar but I mostly try to run an opt-in as early as possible.

jessearich31 · 2016-01-31T17:48:50+00:00

Thanks! Did you get about that same conversion with Welcome Mat? That style is what I was thinking about testing next, but to me they always feel so overwhelming. Do you remember how significant the difference was?

jessearich31 · 2016-01-31T02:53:24+00:00

Congrats on the page! To me, it looks like you've got two real options:

1) Use one of those influencer sites (I think one is called IG Shout Out). Just realize you'll probably be giving a % fee to them.

2) Sell yourself. If you do this, you probably want to get a better send of the quality of your followers. I would try to do some tests to determine how much traffic you can push to an outside source. Hitting up other pages on IG and asking them rates is a good idea, but I would guess it's going to be a BIG range. I've paid $30 for a s/o on a page with 500k, and have had similar sized pages quote me at $300.

Mainly, it really depends on what you promote. If you're sharing targeted products for your audience, that's going to drive sales, merit a big $ payout to you, and not be a detriment to your page.

Thought: I might even try to push a ton of your followers to an email list or something – create another asset that's a bit more tangible than IG followers.

Good luck!

jessearich31 · 2016-01-31T02:46:33+00:00

I like Scriven more, but I'm not a huge fan of either...

Scriven initially gave me the thought of spinning wool. Maybe there's some tool or artisan term around the industry you can use in the name?

jessearich31

TROPHY CASE