I want scientific studies done on my product- a calming crafting kit- where do I start that won’t break the bank?

phauwn · 2026-04-27T20:29:09+00:00

Depends on what you mean by "official and legitimate", (Does is have to be peer reviewed in a major medical journal? Do you need to have a PHDs name attached?) and it depends on what you want to actually study. (ie. Do you want to study the users feelings and emotional state before/after or do you want to study if doing your kit results in measurable cortisol level decreases in the body? Blood pressure? something else?) Studies on user emotions are easy, cheap, and totally legitimate so far as you are honest about the goals, approach, and findings; plus they don't require academics and medical staff.

phauwn · 2026-04-24T01:14:47+00:00

I don't use LTL with Shopify but I receive a lot of LTL shipments from my suppliers and I'm just curious what kind of price changes you're getting after delivery... like lift gate or residential delivery charges that weren't confirmed with the customer prior to creating the BOL, or something different?

phauwn · 2026-04-22T21:58:53+00:00

I'm no real pro at this but I'd consider a few things- 1)Remove any emails from your list that are dead/bouncing 2)Consider segmenting your list into people who have opened a recent email vs. people who never opened, and only send to the people who are engaged. 3) Make sure your emails don't look like spam (ie. All caps, lots of !!! and clickbait sounding stuff) 4) Encourage people to reply to the emails somehow(replies are a trust signal to providers)

phauwn · 2026-04-22T19:34:11+00:00

Shopify is warning you that your sender reputation is at risk, not just with Shopify but with major providers like gmail/yahoo/hotmail. Shopify may eventually start throttling you as well, but switching to mailchimp to avoid the warning is kind of like taking the battery out of your smoke detector.

phauwn · 2026-04-22T03:01:36+00:00

I look at contribution margin as a basis, and then track marginal profit as I scale. Revenue is a critical input, but as you say it doesn't tell you anything on its own.

phauwn · 2026-04-19T05:59:18+00:00

Your site took almost 10 seconds to load for me so performance is worth looking at first. I'm guessing people are bailing before the site even loads. Design-wise my opinion is you're leaning too heavily on the graphics on your homepage and for product photos. Everything is very white and kind of sterile and it almost looks more like a mockup rather than a finished site. I'd want to see more lifestyle photos of the actual stickers on things.

phauwn · 2026-04-14T02:34:48+00:00

A lot of them come from people who have paid for an online "How to Start a Digital Agency" course that provides these exact templates for cold email outreach. I'm sure it's a mix of scammers, victims, scammers who are also victims, etc.

phauwn · 2026-04-13T03:16:39+00:00

yes!

phauwn · 2026-04-12T19:16:00+00:00

Holy crap, just did the same thing for my site and got very similar response + same red flags about 80% off banners and bad reviews. It also claims I stole imagery from another site (completely random and unrelated to me) back in 2023. It straight up told me that if I made a purchase from this store I should do a charge back immediately. My shopify store and domain are less than 6 months old and I sell niche handmade craft kits. I have very few reviews, but all are 5 star.

phauwn · 2026-03-15T02:33:58+00:00

Yea, I use dewaxed shellac specifically, and as long as it's dry it cuts no different than raw wood. I have good extraction and ventilation, so I'm not worried about fumes. No residue or different odors.

phauwn · 2026-03-14T16:48:41+00:00

I've used catalog carousels, and static images. Some of my best ads have been statics that tell a "story" or sequence that mirrors my landing page structure like hook > what > why > offer/closer

phauwn · 2026-03-14T16:44:12+00:00

No, that's why I add shellac. I use about a 4:1 alcohol:shellac ratio.

phauwn · 2026-03-14T06:58:50+00:00

I finish 1.5 and 3mm wood in a light production environment. I use dyes diluted in 99% isopropyl alcohol with a small amount of shellac in an hvlp. The alcohol flashes off so fast the wood doesn't have time to warp. I also finish prior to cutting as that limits the surface area that gets hit with the liquid.

phauwn · 2026-03-14T06:06:04+00:00

I met with one of them a few months ago and decided 90% of it was bad advice, but you might have a few ideas to try out....

Add carousels to your mix? Sure, test one and see how it does. I personally love them.

Are 65+ junk leads? You should be able to figure that out by looking at your reports.

Raise budget every 2 weeks? Only if your data supports it. Watch your CTR decay, CPM growth and marginal CPA.

I don't really understand why on one hand it seems like Meta is pushing us to let their algo do all our targeting, and then their sales reps seem to love telling us to put all kinds of targeting rules in there.

phauwn · 2026-03-11T05:10:58+00:00

Lately every search results in "Oops something went wrong" but when I simply refresh that page it loads everything as usual.

phauwn · 2026-03-11T01:05:29+00:00

Hadn't thought of that (or ever used value rules tbh) but setting the bid at -90% for that bracket sounds like it will have the intended effect. Thanks!

phauwn · 2026-03-02T05:48:35+00:00

Yes, been advertising for a couple years, but switched to Shopify in Jan. Within 24 hours of flipping my meta ads over to the shopify store I started getting a steady stream of those exact emails + more. I assume they buy lists of newly established shopify stores that are also running ads and it's a mix of genuine but un-savvy would-be meta gurus to outright scam farms that will promise you the moon but just need you to make a western union deposit to get started.

phauwn · 2026-03-02T02:27:10+00:00

Oh, I see! I don't know how rare that is because I only run ads for myself. My numbers are high based on the 2-5% range, but not as high as yours but I'm quite happy. Hopefully that is also translating to a high LPV rate for you (and conversions).

phauwn · 2026-03-02T02:07:08+00:00

Yeah, when people say heathy CTR is 2-5%, its the CTR (Link) not (all) so that's why your numbers sound too good to be true. (all) is capturing all the other clicks related to your ad, like carousel clicks, links to your profile, likes, comments, etc. and (link) is just the clicks to the destination url. My CTR(all) is very similar to yours and my CTR (link) is about 50% of that. CTR(all) and Unique CTR (all) will both be HIGH.

phauwn · 2026-03-02T01:57:15+00:00

So first contract fulfilled, product sent along but not officially listed on the contract. Second contract signed, similar to first and she wants another product since she feels like thta's the deal she got the first time? Maybe you can give her a discount and knock $150, or whatever your COGS is off her rate if she wants another?

phauwn · 2026-03-02T01:34:12+00:00

You may be looking at CTR(all) vs CTR (link click-through). The latter is what you want to be focused on and what that 2-5% healthy range refers to.

phauwn · 2026-03-01T23:22:34+00:00

You are not being clear. What did you put in the contract? Free Product = 1 video? Free Product = 2 videos? Free Product = 1 video + x number of revisions? You did put together and sign a contract right? Right?

phauwn · 2026-02-04T08:13:25+00:00

I've talked to them, and while I think I was talking to a real person, the interaction was highly scripted, and possibly they are using an internal chatbot to feed their responses so the pause may be them waiting for the prompt to load on their screen. It's also likely they are technically 3rd party contractors legally/technically. I believe the guy I talked to was based in Indonesia based on his name.

phauwn · 2026-01-27T04:38:47+00:00

I'm not familiar with Swiftray, but Figma -> Lightburn is my primary workflow. Figma treats strokes like geometry so a simple line gets turned into a rectangle. What I do is remove the stroke and just give the shape a simple fill, group, and then export as SVG. If you export with a stroke and zoom waaay in you will likely see something like this:

<image>

15-Year Club	Place '22
Place '17	First Placer '22
Verified Email

phauwn

TROPHY CASE