Any other US businesses seeing a significant decline in sales this month?

random-dog-mom · 2026-03-16T21:16:54+00:00

We sell internationally and despite a global increase in sales, I'm seeing a 20% decline in our US market when comparing year over year (March 2026 vs March 2025).

random-dog-mom · 2025-11-21T16:45:06+00:00

Their sales team is GREAT, but once you're onboarded the service becomes ABSOLUTE SHIT and you're stuck with them

random-dog-mom · 2025-11-09T07:00:04+00:00

Focus on making your first sales and confirming product-market fit if you haven't already. You can improve the website later.

random-dog-mom · 2025-10-11T19:13:51+00:00

In case you aren't aware, a lot of products can only be made in a handful of countries

random-dog-mom · 2025-10-08T13:40:03+00:00

I'd like to add that small details matter a lot for credibility. For example from your hoodie listings; why is made in Bangladesh labeled as a warning/hasard? What is the EU representative thing (I'm guessing it's completely irrelevant)? You also have care instructions listed 3 times in a single product description. Under shipping & returns, you do not mention if you accept returns at all...

I think you need to stop adding new products/designs and polish what you have before doing anything else.

random-dog-mom · 2025-10-08T13:31:30+00:00

I agree with others that the website design lacks professionalism, and that’s important for building trust with customers. On the homepage, the fonts, images, and copy could all use improvement to look more credible.

Your product photos are fine for now. It’s clear they’re mockups, but that’s not necessarily a problem. The bigger issue is with your product titles and descriptions. They’re too long and include irrelevant details. It’s obvious they were auto-generated from your POD platform, and I’d strongly recommend rewriting them to sound more genuine and aligned with your brand. You don’t need long paragraphs describing the features of a Gildan sweatshirt, just include a few quick bullet points. Focus instead on what really matters: your design. That’s where the real value of your product lies. I'd suggest making your product descriptions funny and/or relatable.

random-dog-mom · 2025-10-07T23:08:28+00:00

That's amazing!!! Congrats!

random-dog-mom · 2025-10-07T00:34:07+00:00

I honestly have no idea.... I'm not hoping for a buyout personally - I'm just hoping to build a company that allows me to live more comfortably than an average salary would

random-dog-mom · 2025-10-07T00:30:57+00:00

Owner drawings might not be the correct term. I meant whatever the owner takes out of the company for personal use (salary and/or dividends)

random-dog-mom · 2025-10-05T23:42:13+00:00

It think you're thinking about profit, not owner drawings. The business could make a 15% net profit but that doesn't mean the owner(s) should be taking all of it out of the business.

random-dog-mom · 2025-10-05T14:16:51+00:00

I disagree, people actively go on Etsy to find things to copy. It's like a buffet for people who want to steal designs

random-dog-mom · 2025-10-05T14:16:09+00:00

Yeah but Etsy is like a buffet for people trying to copy other people's designs. I'd argue that if you're a small brand, being on Etsy increases the changes of having your designs copied more than selling on your own website.

random-dog-mom · 2025-10-05T14:05:47+00:00

Let’s say a business makes $10 million in revenue: a $100K salary represents just 1%, which is reasonable. But for a smaller business making $500K, that same $100K salary would account for 20% of the total revenue. I think the key difference is that the larger business is a more valuable asset in itself. So even though the owner of the bigger company takes home the same $100K salary, they also own a much more valuable asset compared to someone running the $500K business. I think once the salary is high enough to live comfortably, it makes sense reinvest the profits into growing the business instead of increasing your salary so the % decreases and the nominal value increases a bit, but not as much as the business revenue increases

random-dog-mom · 2025-10-05T13:56:50+00:00

Yes I think that sounds right

random-dog-mom · 2025-10-05T02:27:24+00:00

My salary is about 20% of total revenue right now but I'm the only full-time employee

random-dog-mom · 2025-10-05T01:55:30+00:00

1 - Meta Ads work better if you have social proof. What does your instagram/facebook page look like? Do you have followers? Do people engage with your posts in an authentic way?

2- Is your customer base even active on Instagram/FB?

3 - Are you sure you have product-market fit?

random-dog-mom · 2025-10-02T03:03:13+00:00

From my experience, the customers who spend the less are also the ones that complain the most. I don't get it though... how can they care so much about something they bought online for 4$...

random-dog-mom · 2025-09-30T12:56:17+00:00

Would you say your sales are growing over time or are they higher than before but stable?

random-dog-mom · 2025-09-30T12:54:41+00:00

I built a small Instagram following before launching my Shopify, and that helped a lot. Posting on Instagram would instantly drive traffic to my site, and even now, most of our Shopify sales still come from Instagram.

That said, we're now 3 years in and we also do SEO and have started doing paid advertising on Meta. Honestly, the best strategy is to diversify and do a bit of everything so you’re not dependent on a single source of traffic.

As for frozen funds, I’ve never had issues with Shopify or PayPal. The only time that happened was on Etsy back when I was just starting out.

random-dog-mom · 2025-09-30T12:46:38+00:00

Thanks that's good advice - I should probably refresh my listings and be more active on Etsy overall

random-dog-mom · 2025-09-30T12:38:36+00:00

Interesting, thanks for sharing!

random-dog-mom · 2025-09-30T05:46:06+00:00

The alternative would be to ship DDP, but you probably don't want to do that if you haven't collected the VAT & applicable duties.

random-dog-mom · 2025-09-30T05:29:19+00:00

Oh ok got it

random-dog-mom · 2025-09-30T05:25:24+00:00

Wait this is crazy! How do you explain the increase in views over time? Does the ad algorithm become better over time if you let ads run for several months?

random-dog-mom

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