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Close to 2 million in turnover - men's bracelets (14)

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Let's go back to a classic - one that I have written about before. Men's bracelets.

Because Aurum brothers is doing phenomenally well in that space (see site here)

Some people might think that they need to go look for another Blue Ocean. But you don't. If something sells well, there's an interest there.
And apparently, there are many men that are interested in these.

Personally, all I have on my wrist are scars from accidents. But not owning the product does not make many less in such a profitable business.

And so should you.

Because my research has found this company: Pig & Hen (click here for the site)

They did €2 million in 2017 selling mens bracelets from sailing rope.
With a 50% gross margin.

Their other cost are listed as 424K, which I assume are the marketing cost mainly.

So financially, it all makes sense as well (profitable and from what I can judge, they pay themselves a very decent salary).

So what can we learn?

1. Have a good margin on your products

If you have a shitty margin (and this was discussed before), your advertising cost will kill your profitability. Let alone leave you any money to pay yourself.

Check market conditions, but then test.

If you start with 29,95 -> what happens when you move to 32,95?

Likely, you wouldn't loose too much in sales volume. But you will make a lot more money.

2. Don't assume the market is taken

It's better to improve / modify an existing offer then to come up with a shitty idea yourself.

From 2016 to 2017, pig & hen went from around 500K to 2 million in turnover. In a market where Aurum brothers is heavily present (mainly through Facebook).

So there are always opportunities

3. Create your own branding and product

You can get bracelets from Aliexpress cheaply and dropship those for a nice multiple.

Until people find them themselves, knowing it came dropshipped from China.

But people love a story. So give them one and they will happily pay extra.
And you won't have to compete on price (margin) with the exact same product.

The investment in coming up with a story (time or creative), a trip to China to source and a brand will pay off.

No need to overdo it and pay a fortune. It can all be done for very little

So is it too late now?

No.

There's plenty of space in this market. You can still make this work.

So if you are looking for inspiration or ideas, here's one to execute on.

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It's basically how "every" fashion brand works right. Loads of brands deliver shitty products but just create a story with influencers for example. BRANDING they call it.
Simple t-shirt with a logo and ask 40/50 euro for it, but it's "hot" to wear one ya know.

Ofcourse still a lot of brands deliver real good products, with high end fabrics for sure.

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@stickupkid - you've got a point there.

But isn't that business in general too then?

For example:

Take a shitty product from Aliexpress, make an ad on Facebook, sell it for a multiple of the original price. No value added expect bringing it to the attention of people.

There would be good products on Aliexpress as well of course.

I guess the real test for a business lies in the fact whether you can get repeat business. If yes, you are adding value in the eyes of the customer.
If there's no repeat business...

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Exactly. Marketing isn't just marketing, it's building some kind of bubble around relatively "poor" quality products and sell them big time to create margin so people can buy boats and cars.

Small affiliates do it (lately since it became more easy with Aliexpress and Shopify for example), big famous brands do it.

Ofcourse some sell legit high quality products, plus some brands have a good story + good products (mostly the handcrafted, authentic wear). Those are the ones who really have a passion or cravin' for some kind of product. You mostly experience that in certain fabrics, unique packaging and/or great aftersales.

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For sure, I do agree that branding and creativity in the representing the product play one of the key point roles to increase the numbers in your bank account. I would just add a note to still keep in mind the balance between promised and actual product. Because the misleading game could work only on a short-term basis. But, of course, there are no doubts, that there is tons of space for your campaign to start right now.

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There I somehow had to think of an old Apple commercial

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Yeah that's a great tactic, make people "scared" of not being part of society.

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Some really good tips here dude thanks!

All three of those are bread and butter builders, affiliate marketing still has many industries online to infiltrate and ecommerce I know has been a target for some time now, but god there is so much space to innovate here!

I recently was working on a campaign with another team in Aus and without giving away too much information (its a giant campaign for them right now) they had taken a fashion item people would say is heavily competitive but after finding a cheap source for these ($2~) and getting a professional photoshoot they made them seem very solid behind a modern brand name. Selling for $20~ after heavy 'discounts'

Now what made them stand out, the angle.... no other ecom store or brandname selling these had such an angle for selling the product. Think outside the box.

Every sale to them eventuates in a share, free traffic.. How they do this is the magic, how can you convince a consumer to share the product in their own will?

It's one of the biggest ecom store growths I've ever seen

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Thinking outside the box can definitely help. Here's a great book about that.

It all starts with knowning your customer though.

And that's what an angle really is. Something that resonates with your customer.
It's not about gimmicks. It's about providing value for the customer that they are willing to pay for.

Which is why testing is so important.
Knowning the customer can give you ideas, but with testing, you can find out whether you were right / what really matters to the customer.

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Thanks pekadis for the awesome suggestion on the product and niche!

Thank you also for recommending the book - I've just bought the kindle version and looking forward to reading it while working out at the gym!


That's the major takeaway for me. Volumes of books can be written on how to select products that sell, but as I've experienced recently, it can be as simple as browsing some of the bigger shopping sites to see what the best-sellers are and testing those.


Without meaning to pry or expecting a confirmation: My guess is the customer is promised some type of reward - a discount coupon or similar - for sharing the product on their FB. Anyways this is one of the many ideas I have that has yet to be implemented, that I feel has potential to eventually create enough free stream to sustain continued revenue growth without further promotion efforts/costs - once a certain critical mass is reached.

(BTW I'm putting this thread in this week's newsletter! )




Amy

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How can their GP margin be so low ... these things can't cost anywhere near half of their retail selling price.

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Where do you come up with a great (fictional) story for your brand? I don't even know where to begin...

If your talking about a brand that used influencers to brand and scale look no further than gym shark women. They sell yoga wants and they are one of the top Shopify stores. I am sure there have been 1000's of stores who tried selling yoga pants only to crash and burn.

Checkout the instagram https://www.instagram.com/gymshark/

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Gymshark is such an impressive story, the dude is so young!

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Looked at the video and cool story.

Definitely not my cup of tea when I look at their insta, so it's on point for their demographic. Which is the whole point of positioning.

And here's a small thing that was mentioned - they started with dropshipping and used that money to build the company.

So a great example of how you can do this yourself.

And another big one - they launched in a very competitive market. Meaning that there's demand.

Again, like I mentioned with the bracelets - success stories show customer interest.

Better to make you own version of something popular (as did Pig & Hen and Gym Shark), then look for something that no one sells yet (there often is a reason why).

Thanks to @luckyluciano for the example and @maynzie for that video

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