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Perfect technical skills - no marketing skills (8)

02-21-2018 11:35 AM #1 mrwadeirk (Member)
Perfect technical skills - no marketing skills

Hello everyone,

I have just registered to the forum and here I am writing my first message.

I am the owner of a UK based web agency. We have been working for months, years for clients into the Affiliate Marketing.

We have studied and built so many landing pages, scripts, installed tracking tools, became persuasive copywriting experts. We have developed incredible technical skills.

However, we never did the most basic of things: started selling a product or a service online. We helped others succeed in AM and never did it by ourselves.

Our intention now is to start selling products online, but we are still at the very first steps: deciding which one.

And here comes my question. Our idea is to study an interesting niche, get in touch with an Aliexpress vendor who does Private Label / OEM (is that the right term to use when you can use your own label on a product?), test their products and if we are satisfied order a bulk of them to start selling them in UK.

THE QUESTION: I was wondering if this is the right way to go to sell a physical product, and what could be the best way to promote the landing page we will eventually build. We know how to deal with FB and Adwords advertising, however we are now exploring CPA networks such as ReflexCash. Can it be of any use?

Any suggestion would be greatly appreciated. As you can see, as I wrote in the topic subject, we have technical skills, but no marketing skills.

Thank you

02-21-2018 12:02 PM #2 cmdeal (Veteran Member)

Welcome to STM forum.

Basically in this industry, you need 3 things.

1. Enough knowledge to not make the costly beginner mistakes
2. Enough capital to run campaigns
3. Disciplined approach to testing

It looks like you have 1 and 2, so then the next step is to take the plunge and start testing. The lowest risk way to start out is probably dropshipping, this way you don't take on any inventory risk.

02-21-2018 12:14 PM #3 mrwadeirk (Member)

Quote Originally Posted by cmdeal View Post
Welcome to STM forum.

Basically in this industry, you need 3 things.

1. Enough knowledge to not make the costly beginner mistakes
2. Enough capital to run campaigns
3. Disciplined approach to testing

It looks like you have 1 and 2, so then the next step is to take the plunge and start testing. The lowest risk way to start out is probably dropshipping, this way you don't take on any inventory risk.
Thank you, cmdeal. Yes, as you said I believe we got 1 and 2.

Is Aliexpress the best way to go for Dropshipping? If I choose this solution, will I be able to have my own label on the product (like they will do it for me after taking an agreement) or shouldn't I mind about this and only focus on selling in the beginning?

Currently I have been sending the following message to some Aliexpress well-rated vendors. Thanks again for the precious suggestions.

Dear Seller


My name is --- and I am the director of ---, a company in the UK. We are currently starting new campaigns and looking to sell this product with our custom-made label, and interested to buy around 100-200 pieces to get started.


I have the following questions:
- Is your product OEM?
- Can we apply our label to your product?
- What discounts do you do for bulk purchase?
- Is there any way to try your product beforehand?


Thanks in advance for your time.


Regards

02-21-2018 12:21 PM #4 cmdeal (Veteran Member)

Please don't worry about whitelabelling right now. That is putting the cart in front of the horse. Right now, you need to validate that there is demand for the product at a customer acquisition costs which will be below the profit margin you will get for the product.

After you have validated this, then you can worry about brands, labels, etc.

Please watch this in full before you do anything https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEvKo90qBns

02-21-2018 12:30 PM #5 mrwadeirk (Member)

Quote Originally Posted by cmdeal View Post
Please don't worry about whitelabelling right now. That is putting the cart in front of the horse. Right now, you need to validate that there is demand for the product at a customer acquisition costs which will be below the profit margin you will get for the product.

After you have validated this, then you can worry about brands, labels, etc.

Please watch this in full before you do anything https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEvKo90qBns
Hello cmdeal,
thanks again. I am very familiar with the lean startup concept, but I will be watching the whole video before replying anything else.

Thanks!

02-21-2018 04:08 PM #6 matuloo (Legendary Moderator)

Have to agree with cmdeal here ... pushing for your own branded product at this stage is counterproductive. You need to find a product that is high in demand first, then worry about it carrying your brand.

Instead of ordering 100 piece product batches of something you're not even sure would sell, try to mass-test products in a niche and try to find out which ones have the potential ... then maybe brand them.

A good start would be to put a dropshipping ecom store together and source products from Ali ... check out Caurmens eCom Cookbook to get an idea about how to start : https://stmforum.com/forum/forumdisp...merce-Cookbook

02-21-2018 05:57 PM #7 mrwadeirk (Member)

Quote Originally Posted by matuloo View Post
Have to agree with cmdeal here ... pushing for your own branded product at this stage is counterproductive. You need to find a product that is high in demand first, then worry about it carrying your brand.

Instead of ordering 100 piece product batches of something you're not even sure would sell, try to mass-test products in a niche and try to find out which ones have the potential ... then maybe brand them.

A good start would be to put a dropshipping ecom store together and source products from Ali ... check out Caurmens eCom Cookbook to get an idea about how to start : https://stmforum.com/forum/forumdisp...merce-Cookbook
Thanks for your comment, matuloo. I agree with the lean approach that was suggested to myself so I'll take it step by step; I thought initially that whitelabeling the product had to be done, but I have to admit my mindset is changed already. I have a few nieches in mind and I will test them via dropshipping. Also I'll have a look at the cookbook.

Thanks!

02-21-2018 10:04 PM #8 peterj (Member)

If you go down the drop-shipping route, you shouldn't need to order the product in bulk, the entire process can become hands-off.

Once you receive an order from your page, you forward the details to the AliExpress vendor. The vendor will package the order and send it to the customer (as long as you have an established agreement).

Once you have purchase estimations and projected sales, it will be easier to contact the vendor and introduce white labeling.

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