Neville's Digital Surrogate Brain
I didn’t really do much to improve HoR today because I was primarily concerned with an all day doing-taxes-at-the-last-minute session. Actually it only took about 2 1/2 hours thanks to TurboTax….it made my day a WHOLE lot easier.
Ha! In the amount of time it took me to make that creepy TurboTax-love picture I probably could’ve upgraded something on HouseOfRave.
One of the very unfortunate drawbacks to dropshipping like House Of Rave is the lack of your own marketing and branding materials that are physically sent to each customer in their order.
With my old supplier, each order had SOME marketing materials as they would simply print out my customized invoices and send orders based on that. It was easy to tweak information on the invoices. Now my orders are all electronically sent and things got a little more complicated.
Now when an order is received by a customer, they get an invoice…but it doesn’t say “HouseOfRave” anywhere. That doesn’t help people remember the name…and sometimes actually confuses customers.
To combat this I designed some front/back 4″ x 6″ flyers and had several hundred printed out:
So whenever an order is sent from the supplier on behalf of HoR they will toss in one of these flyers. This makes sure the customer remembers HoR, makes HoR look a little bigger, thanks the customer for their order and also contains return instructions in case something doesn’t work.
I only printed out several hundred the first time since the text can use some modification over the next few months. I also might want to initiate a call to action on the flyer by offering a 10% discount or free shipping on the next flyers…see how it works.
In the future I hope me and the supplier can somehow customize my order invoices electronically as that would be the easiest and cheapest method to branding. Theoretically I can simply email customized packing lists to the supplier for each order, but this involves more work on my end and his end.
So come Monday I’ll send these flyers to the supplier!
Day 3 of improving HoR consisted of changing some more product image layouts like on Day 1, then some new things like adding cross-sell products to some of the popular items.
I still have a lot to do, but when someone looks at certain products, they see “Related Products” which they also might be interested in. So if someone’s searching for high intensity glowsticks and lands on the House Of Rave search result, they will see other types of glowsticks they might be interested in like this:
Another thing I picked up again today was the Search Engine Optimization of HoR. I’ve done many contracts for larger companies on this in the past, but never applied it to my own stuff before. So I charted out some keywords to go after and have actively started tracking them using the SEO tracking software I used for other companies.
This will be a several-months-long project as SEO is relatively slow moving, however the software did make me aware I didn’t have proper description tags on many of my section pages, so I went through and changed (or added) most of them.
This is more of an obligatory post to say I’ve continued pretty much doing the same thing from Day 1.
Day 1 of my effort to improve my online business HouseOfRave.com started with me re-doing a bunch of products with a new Add-To-Cart template.
Previous all the products on HoR had the shopping cart buttons at the bottom of the page, like this:
As you can see it’s often not centered, different product image sizes throw it off, and it’s just more confusing in general.
To cure this I had a top-right-centered template made for Shopsite, so I’ve been going through and changing product pages to this more standard Add-to-Cart layout:
In theory I can simply select all the products in the catalog and mass-edit them to the new template in one action…however many of the products on the old template required me to insert a lot of breaks so the formatting around the images was correct. This causes problems now since the layout is different, and if I blindly apply this template, it leaves many of the products with a lot of wasted space like so:
So there’s the unfortunate job of going through all the products and removing that code. The upside is once this job is done, I can make new templates without worry about ghetto-ized code messing everything up.
So today I’ve gone through several product sections and cleaned up code, re-sized a lot of product images, added bulk pricing information to certain products as well as updated shipping cost information.
For the remainder of April I want to dramatically increase the quality of my online business House of Rave.
I’ve decided for this month not to contract work out and simply focus on one thing. Of course lots of other things go on at the same time, but I’d like to pin-point my focus on HoR.
So for April I will post daily about progress I’ve made. I’ll do this every day, even if the changes are relatively minute.
Some visual and content things I need to focus on:
Some more “shopping experience” things I need to focus on (which I’ve never focused on before):
Feel free to suggest possible upgrades and point out confusing portions of the site throughout the series of posts.
Inch by inch, it’s a cinch.
I’m not sure what to do, so I’ll write it out..
I’ve got two very similar online businesses:
HouseOfRave.com and BodyMonkey.com
Aesthetically they look identical, but they are geared towards different markets. I have HoR which is a niche website that caters to light up stuff, so the items sold are generally things that glow, blink or light up.
BodyMonkey goes through the same supplier as House Of Rave, but focuses on a broader product range. On BodyMonkey you can find all sorts of toys, games, decorations and things that appeal to a larger audience. The broader range of products is good, but online specialization is sometimes BETTER than selling items you can often find elsewhere. This has been a key to HoR’s success.
House Of Rave has been the steady producer over the years which only recently I’ve been taking more seriously. BodyMonkey makes a small profit every month with a large potential, but I don’t think I can maintain both stores. I’ve tried with very average results.
So my problem is should I keep both businesses or focus just on one? I’ve struggled with this question for a while now, and in my opinion I should get rid of BodyMonkey.com.
Focusing on just House Of Rave would allow me to improve it to awesome status, while focusing on both sites might leave me with two mediocre sites.
OPERATIONAL COSTS:
House Of Rave costs roughly $350 per month to keep running.
BodyMonkey costs roughly $85/month to keep running.
END GOAL:
The end goal for HoR and BM is to provide me with a steady monthly income so I can dabble in other projects while still having my bills paid. With the additional burden of BodyMonkey on my hands, maintaining the two stores almost becomes a full time job.
With this said, I think it only makes sense for me to kill the monkey. Sad, because I think it has lots and lots of potential.
Now the questions is, what do I do with it?
If someone takes over BodyMonkey, they would be sharing the same relationship with my supplier. This makes it very important that I can personally vouch for the person who takes it over (if I choose that route).
Any suggestions?
Oggz are egg-shaped lights that slowly change color. That’s it.
This surprisingly simple invention is now selling in Wal-Mart which means its been proven at every level of retail up to the highest.
Since I own an online rave store that focuses on light-up stuff, I was one of the early people to start carrying this obscure product several years ago. It was manufactured by Can You Imagine, and the single Oggz unit retailed at $19.99 and the 3-Pack retailed at $49.99. Till this day the price is pretty much the same. The kicker is now you can buy the triple pack Wal-Mart for $28.00 (a full $22.00 cheaper than standard retail price). Wal-Mart’s retail price is even lower than my wholesale price!! Definitely shows the massive purchasing power Wal-Mart has!
I don’t usually see most of the products I sell online since everything is dropshipped, so I was always flabbergasted by the volume at which these Oggz sold at. This product was definitely a large staple for HouseOfRave and most definitely a large income earner. Another plus was people never complained about the product breaking, malfunctioning or not working. Customers loved them. I loved them too because they sold well, had a high margin and no one ever returned them.
I was in college when Oggz came out, so the extra income from this single product was greatly appreciated.
I eventually ordered some Oggz to see why so many people of different backgrounds kept ordering this product, and then I finally saw why people like them….they’re just neat. They slowly morph into different colors as you watch them. They don’t JUMP to different colors…they gently move through the spectrum of light creating a mesmerizing or soothing effect. They’re quite a nice nightlight, play toy or decoration. Lots of spa’s and masseuses would order Oggz to create a nice ambiance around their offices. They have a sleek looking and compact charging base, and when you remove them from the base they stay lit for 24 hours or more without charging.
I ended up liking the product a lot, but noticed the standard manufacturer photos of the Oggz didn’t really fully describe the product effect:
This inspired me to do my very first set of product photos on the Oggz:
I also did my very first product video with a triple pack of Oggz and a bottle of flammable Everclear. You can check it out, but be prepared to laugh!
Keep in mind it was my first product video. I’m not sure what I was thinking with the Journey song in the background or the overly dramatic intro with the fire, but it was fun at the time, and you have to start somewhere! I’m still too embarrassed to watch it the whole way through! I ended up taking this product video down from the Oggz description page because of the extremely high cheesy-ness level, but it still resides on YouTube.
The Oggz seem relatively easy to manufacture. The Ogg itself is simply a white, slightly-bendable poly-urethane case shaped like an egg:
Inside the casing resides a simple yet sturdy mechanism with an on/off swith and three led lights that sequentially change color to create a full-spectrum light show that blends together:
This is now a pretty common effect, you can see many products on HouseOfRave that use this same lighting effect.
Anyways, I’ve always been curious how this obscure and relatively useless product went from mom & pop sales to the big time. Reading a lot about product licensing from Stephen Key also fueled my curiosity of how the Oggz got started.
I decided to call the always helpful folks at Can You Imagine, Inc. to get the full story:
So whenever a set of Oggz is sold, the original inventor gets a cut of the sale. Considering these things sell so well PLUS they’re sold in the largest store on the planet…I’d say this guy is sitting pretty! Cool thing is the original inventor hardly does a thing now. Shows the possible money making power of licensing a product!
While I’ll never make as much as the inventor off these, the Oggz still made enough money to help me pay my tuition!
Exciting title no?
One of my New Year’s resolutions was to keep time of the things I do so I can speed everything up and do more work. As the old saying goes, “Anything that is measured and watched, improves.” Actually, that’s from What Would Bob Do.
So about a week ago
so I could start timing all the little tasks I do. So whenever I start handling the HouseOfRave.com orders for the day, I start the clock and try to beat my estimated time.
One of the scary things about timing yourself is seeing how LITTLE work you actually do. Whenever I have a boring task to complete, it feels like an hour, but unless my $12 Wal-Mart stopwatch is wrong, it only took me 18 minutes. Instead of going downstairs to get a quick snack after the task, I’ll realize it only took a few minutes and keep working on something else.
On the flip side it also keeps me from spending too much time on something. For example as I was making the Disco Ball section banner for HouseOfRave I had to stop myself and just upload what I had as the clock started ticking past 10 then 15 minutes. I usually have fun doing those kinds of Photoshop tasks, but tinkering around with different backgrounds and fonts for an hour doesn’t increase productivity.
Of course there’s a bunch of stuff I don’t document here, but I like looking back to see what I was doing at a similar date the previous year. This at least gives me a little snapshot.
So after finally getting HouseOfRave.com off the ground, this is how it works:
I will show what happens from the time I get an order, till the customer receives their order. Everything is done in 5 steps. I can accept, process, account for and send off 2 orders in around 2 minutes with this system. 10 orders will take me about 10 minutes with this system:
1.) Check, View and Review Orders.
I login to the backend of my Shopsite software to see how many new orders I have waiting. I click to view all the orders and do a quick skim of the order information. I am looking for any subtle signs of fraud at this point. After 5 years, I’ve become pretty good.
I can view individual orders or all the orders at the same time:
2.) Charge Orders.
This is the most inefficient step, as I choose to process cards manually to become more familiar with the customer names, locations and spot fraud. I login to my merchant account digital gateway and copy/paste from Shopsite the needed customer information. This step goes quicker than imagined because I use my tablet PC pen. During busy times I turn on automatic charging, so this step sometimes takes only one click to charge all the orders.
Here I find out if each order is legit. If the order is declined, I make a note of it and move on. If the order was paid for using PayPal I already know it was charged. If the order looks suspicious or comes back with negative address verification, I will often call the person on the spot to verify the order.
3.) Enter Into Accounting System.
This step is very quick and allows me to see my estimated current profit, my expenses, what I owe etc.. I’ve used some pre-made accounting modules for Shopsite in the past, but I like my Excel sheet better. Over the years I have honed it to help predict my profit at the end of each month. I don’t know my exact profit until I get the monthly bill from my supplier, but this Excel sheet gets me pretty damn close.
4.) Create with Word & Send.
This step is the way THIS particular business of mine works. Once an order is ready to go, I copy/paste the information into a Word document and send it via email to my supplier. From there, they print it as an invoice and send the order. This is the way my particular supplier chooses to do business, others may have different methods.
5.)Followup.
My supplier will send me a tracking number once the order is sent. These go into my tracking system where customers can check the status of their order. The tracking module also sends customers their tracking numbers via email automatically.
How I make Money:
I pay wholesale price for the products I send out from my supplier. They send me a bill for the products & shipping each month. I charge retail price on the website and bring in all the money myself. At the end of the month, I cut a check to my supplier and the difference is my income after product expenses. I then subtract my server costs, merchant account costs, PayPal costs and phone bill costs to get my total profit amount.
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Hopefully this mini-series helps someone further understand the inner workings of a small drop shipping business!
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The House Of Rave .com Story
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Part 1: The Beginning
Part 2: Finding Something to Sell
Part 3: Finding A Drop Shipper
Part 4: Getting A Site Setup
Part 5: Pros and Cons of Drop Shipping
Part 6: How It All Works
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