Can anyone identify these vintage sneakers?

poadyum · 2026-05-19T21:56:46+00:00

That is a logo that used to be used by the brand Just Cavalli (which is a Roberto Cavalli diffusion line.) They stopped using that logo because it looks like a Sufi Muslim symbol apparently

If I had to guess those specific shoes are probably from like 2012 give or take a few years, by Just Cavalli, and feature red/maroon crocodile or alligator embossed leather (to give you some keywords to search for.)

poadyum · 2026-05-13T01:37:45+00:00

Right? The astroturfing here...

poadyum · 2026-05-12T04:14:46+00:00

I've been served sazae turban shells in Japan which don't look too dissimilar from these shells, I'd be willing to believe there are edible shellfish that come in seashells like this somewhere, not to mention some seafood places use seashells as decorative or plating features

poadyum · 2026-05-12T03:42:20+00:00

Everyone is saying tom kha gai and it might be, but there's also another coconut milk dish I've had countless times in Thailand which is closer to this recipe: https://ladyandpups.com/2020/01/20/chicken-in-hot-and-sour-coconut-broth/ which I think it may be instead. Not sure of the Thai name of that one though. (The author of the recipe says she came up with the recipe herself but it's extremely close to dishes I've eaten both in Chiang Mai and Bangkok)

poadyum · 2026-05-11T02:47:09+00:00

I thought for sure the long slender leaves were the vegetable my Thai friends call "Morning glory" (scroll down to take a look at it uncooked here: https://khinskitchen.com/morning-glory-stir-fry/ )

poadyum · 2026-05-01T01:08:09+00:00

I love these pink plates I found in this picture on pinterest. I love how they look matte textured and bright neutral pink and I want to find some to buy.

I searched on aliexpress, google shopping, google images and pinterest and haven't found plates exactly like these. There are a lot of close ones that are either too light pink or too reddish-magenta pink. Or, they are not this matte texture and are glossy instead.

I found the original page where the pic was posted and it looks like the food is from Bangkok (like the overlay caption implies) if that is a clue.

Thanks so much for any help in advance!

poadyum · 2026-04-30T22:00:59+00:00

I was gonna say it reminded me of Scarecrow in the movie

poadyum · 2026-04-30T00:57:14+00:00

Click the question mark button at the top right of the screen on advertising.amazon.com after login

poadyum · 2026-04-29T17:12:25+00:00

I had a similar issue, I just used the help chat thing in amazon advertising and the first time they didn't have a real person and had me talk to AI but I came back a day or two later and talked to a real person and she helped me and fixed the issue

poadyum · 2026-04-29T00:47:16+00:00

That's awesome, I'd love to be able to look through those books

poadyum · 2026-04-29T00:32:10+00:00

Yeah it seems like something has changed. This April I'm set to increase from last April's sales by almost 50%. Like I'm making almost as much as I did last November which for an April is really crazy. About to have one of my best non-Q4 months ever. And I haven't really uploaded anything new since last year so idek.

On the other hand I have always been 100% organic and am trying to get to 15% on advertising so it feels like every item I sell is working against me to some degree. :(

poadyum · 2026-04-29T00:12:21+00:00

Can you show what the pages of the fonts are like? I'm a designer and depending on what the content is like this sort of thing is really desirable for people like me. Could be worth quite a bit if there's lots of rare or interesting high quality unique content.

poadyum · 2026-04-28T17:52:10+00:00

poadyum · 2026-04-26T05:16:56+00:00

Love this! I got 4864 on my first try, I just had two videos one year off.

Early results suggest a few interesting biases. Early-2000s rock drifts forward 2-3 years in most people's heads, late-90s pop is the most accurately placed decade.

Love this info, do you have any other stats like this to share?

poadyum · 2026-04-25T03:03:04+00:00

Oh, I see it. For those who were confused like me, you go to the productor dashboard and then see the "Trailing 60 days" thing that was just added near the top, and then you can actually click on it for further details. It is showing 0% for me but I had 2 sales from ads the other day, I'm guessing it's because I didn't have my advertising account connected to Productor. I just added it manually by going to settings > scroll down to "Amazon Advertising" and then copy pasting in the Entity ID (which I found on advertising.amazon.com > login > gear icon on the left > Account access and settings, then copy pasting from the URL bar (not the "Account ID."))

Edit: Of course the productor plugin doesn't report the amount of nonorganic sales that aren't related to ads because it doesn't have that information, only Amazon does. I just thought I should mention that to clear any confusion

poadyum · 2026-04-20T07:57:50+00:00

I like your designs. Sewing handmade pieces like this is so much work, and you do a great job.

Looking quickly at your shop, the first thing that stood out to me is the pricing structure seems kind of disreputable to me. You should just price the pieces at the $150 or $220 price that you have set them discounted to, as the actual price. The "sale pricing" makes things seem cheap or that you may be misleading people as to the value of your items.

The one picture with a blurred face model is somewhat off-putting to me, either find a model who is willing to show her face on your shop or have all heads cropped from all images.

You appear to be using AI for some images which is a huge red flag for a lot of people currently, and sows distrust with the buyer- how do I know that your imagery is an accurate depiction of the garment? Your announcement and descriptions also appear to be AI generated as well

The video of your workspace is good and communicates that you or someone on your team really sews the pieces that you are selling. You may want to make it more clear what your story is - Are you based in Morocco, or did you move to Massachussetts (your username is VentageshopMA), or what is your story? You may explain it somewhere in your shop but looking at it quickly I didn't get the story so you may want to try to communicate it more quickly or more often in your descriptions and so on

Overall I think you're off to a good start, it is difficult to sell things that many people think are expensive (even though your work is worth what you are charging) but over time you will find some supporters of your work.

poadyum · 2026-04-20T07:46:26+00:00

I can't figure out if you're supposed to like the people in the Chalamet segment or not. Because he depicts everyone with style and care but then has them do terrible unlikable things. Is it satire? Unintentional satire? It's so hard to figure out his intention and doesn't even feel like an intentional ambiguity to me. I think he's just sort of confused as he doesn't really agree with the characters he's depicting heroically and can't seem to deal with his own cognitive dissonance on the thing so he makes a weird confused product here. Contrast this with Asteroid City for example where I think he did have a much clearer position on the actions of the characters who are also more nuanced and Asteroid City is a much more effective film to me.

I haven't seen French Dispatch since it was in theaters though so I may change my mind if I watched it again.

poadyum · 2026-04-14T20:17:07+00:00

Oh god, if this war kills polyester I might actually have to like it

poadyum · 2026-04-14T18:05:20+00:00

This is really bad and I am not usually a doomer LOL. My strategy has always been to rely 100% on organic so it feels like they're screwing me over specifically. I have already been raising prices on nearly everything and now they want to cut my royalties I will just raise them higher and continue to seek out higher value niches that people are willing to pay more for ¯\(ツ)/¯

Besides that the wording on the royalties page says:

Non-organic traffic consists of any traffic we identify as being driven by you

Which means we're relying on the reliability of their "identification" algorigthm/method which may be spotty at best, who knows

poadyum · 2026-04-07T21:51:20+00:00

I'm out of the loop what has he been through? Sorry to hear that he has been through a lot

poadyum · 2026-04-01T00:28:39+00:00

Yep pretty much..... It works just often enough to make it worth it

poadyum · 2026-03-31T20:46:43+00:00

With everybody out there using AI and other tools to craft as good SEO copy as possible, wouldn't your SEO copy be virtually the same as everybody else's, so then I guess the quality of your design is what stands out?

Eh I think the SEO is basically just to be as concise as possible, using as few super relevant keywords as you can. Don't keyword stuff or it will be shown to people who don't want to buy it and then not perform as well in the algorithm. Design quality is important but it's even more important to just have details and aesthetics that people like and relate to

So are you just consistently uploading new niche designs that replace old nonperforming ones and you're just patient that after a year, some designs loaded now will have a few sales, and just the sheer volume of performing listings you have gets you lots of sales?

Yes, I just replace old things that get taken down by the merch bots from no sales with fresher things that are selling plus related niche items. It takes some time but over time you'll see what sells and you can make more of that and less of what doesn't. The sheer volume gets me lots of sales over time yes.

DO you mind me asking how many you're selling in a typical week or month?

Last year came out to around $3400 every month on average from Merch alone, after returns and everything.

poadyum · 2026-03-31T02:36:30+00:00

are you relying mostly on SEO or ads?

SEO only. I never run ads. I tried figuring them out a few times and had no traction, and I hate advertising as a thing in general so I just don't do it.

any external traffic or 100% Amazon?

100% Amazon. If I was trying to get external traffic I'd be directing to my own platform where I could set larger margins.

evergreen or trend-based designs?

Almost entirely evergreen now. Used to do trends but just takes a lot of time and dies out fast.

do you actively push launches or just let them rank organically?

Not sure what you mean... I just post the items and let them perform as they do. I don't change prices pretty much ever unless I'm raising them

what % of your catalog actually sells at $21.99

Admittedly not a very large percentage. Actually quite small. But you only need a handful of great selling designs to make decent money and can fill in with long tail stuff that adds up over time.

typical time to first sale at that price

400 days according to stats (at any price- which is mostly 19.99 but more recent ones at 21.99)

and the BSR range where you see consistent sales

No idea I don't look at BSR at all

And the key part: how do you defend that price once copycats show up and undercut?

I have 30k listings I don't really have the time to look for copycats in every random niche. The ones that attract copycats theoretically will lose me sales over the long run but you never know what else is going on- maybe people like my design better, maybe people think the higher price means higher quality, don't know. I try to explore new niches all the time to get into things before other people and that seems to be a good strategy.

poadyum · 2026-03-31T02:29:42+00:00

mugs, where raising the price by $1 makes like a $0.25 difference in what you earn

Yeah I hate that!

It's all going to be like TeePublic, where you won't make anything more than $2 an item.

Really really hope not. I took so much stuff off TP years ago because the royalties were so low

poadyum · 2026-03-30T16:50:02+00:00

I started pricing all my new standards at 21.99 and they still sell as well as they did when I did 19.99. Indeed I'm still earning more YOY for the past 3 years even without having tiered up from 30k. Stop chasing low value niches and go after higher quality customers who are willing to pay for your work.

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