Starting Again

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Discussion

jammy-git

29,778 posts

213 months

Wednesday 21st November 2018
quotequote all
Hoofy said:
DSLiverpool said:
All in do is send invoices and check sites / but of amazon set up etc it’s fine / not slow at all.
I will have to get another (bloody) MacBook I guess but need one with a 20” screen ??
Just get a £200 W10 PC and any 20"+ screen.
Personally I tend to stay clear of any new laptops/PCs that are under £400. Quality control means it can be a real lottery as to whether you get a machine that will constantly give you problems or not.

You can pick up some great deals on the Dell Outlet website. I've also picked up a Dell Inspiron 7348 second hand for ~£300 which was a great buy and would be a nice little laptop to use with a bigger monitor.

Well done on becoming #11 - meteoric rise considering you only started this topic 3 years and 2 weeks ago!

Broccers

3,236 posts

254 months

Wednesday 21st November 2018
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Interesting updates smile

anonymous-user

55 months

Wednesday 21st November 2018
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Nice one on the accreditation

DSLiverpool

Original Poster:

14,764 posts

203 months

Wednesday 21st November 2018
quotequote all
JPJPJP said:
Nice one on the accreditation
Not got it yet but after 3 months of systems, compliance and standards checking we will have. Game changer

SpeedBash

2,325 posts

188 months

Saturday 24th November 2018
quotequote all
DSLiverpool said:
I’ve learnt that:

Fast fashion is truly hard work hats off to the guys doing it - we have one (independent one man company) on £2m a month who puts his entire life into getting orders out the door - amazing.
Would love to hear more about this.

DSLiverpool

Original Poster:

14,764 posts

203 months

Saturday 24th November 2018
quotequote all
SpeedBash said:
DSLiverpool said:
I’ve learnt that:

Fast fashion is truly hard work hats off to the guys doing it - we have one (independent one man company) on £2m a month who puts his entire life into getting orders out the door - amazing.
Would love to hear more about this.
There is more than one, its quite amazing really. To describe generically at the top is ASOS, Missguided, BooHoo etc selling £50 / 100m pa then a few on £20 / £40m with lots sub £10m.

One company (not a client) who I admire the social strategy of is Motelrocks check their insta. They booked Alton towers for a blogger event recently and had a huge Ibiza villa this summer for bloggers and influencers.

One guy just had a huge blogger party in a nightclub (this week) getting the girls to post on insta and wearing the clothing on clickable insta, shrewd move as combined with killer offers got over 3000 orders yesterday. This is not a shiny office place with a full set of management it’s 2 guys, a laser guided pick n pack system and meticulous social marketing spread across countries and companies (we do the dev and ppc and they challenge everything making sure they get value and results).

Fast fashion is so fast that it needs to be made in the UK (trending stuff, basics and classics are ok from Bangladesh etc) and it’s mainly Leicester where I get the impression you go with a van very early in the morning and fight over the lines - I’ve not exierienced this it’s anecdotal.

This ecommerce is a million times different to my own experience of selling electronics, virtually an entirely different medium.

We seem to have a niche in clothing marketing but we didn’t aim to do so, it’s high pressure and we’re actively looking to dilute clothing with “other stuff” from flooring, bathrooms to vibrating weight loss machines !

Really enjoying seeing this side of ecommerce however I am glad I don’t get too involved as at 55 I struggle to keep up.

So points of interest from this week -

  1. Fast fashion is hard hard work and the profit can be lost in returns and marketing. Get it right make £££
  2. How many eyelashes can girls need, great item to sell but so so many orders.
  3. Pyjamas and onesies are popular.
  4. Fortune favours the brave, sellers who don’t significantly increase online marketing presence at this time get lost in the crowd.
Probably lots more but right now we’re collating traffic and conversion rate info to deliver a “run up to Xmas” strategy for the clients - it’ll be a busy weekend.







VEX

5,256 posts

247 months

Tuesday 27th November 2018
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Great updates Dave.

I really do hope to be a small part of your plans for 2019.

Interested in PPC and Amazon as well, based on the experience of the others selling high value low volume stuff.

V.

DSLiverpool

Original Poster:

14,764 posts

203 months

Tuesday 27th November 2018
quotequote all
VEX said:
Great updates Dave.

I really do hope to be a small part of your plans for 2019.

Interested in PPC and Amazon as well, based on the experience of the others selling high value low volume stuff.

V.
I’ve met a guy who is a total Amazon guru, I’m going to try him out with a few test items if good I’ll recommend him.

48k

13,115 posts

149 months

Tuesday 27th November 2018
quotequote all
DSLiverpool said:
SpeedBash said:
DSLiverpool said:
I’ve learnt that:

Fast fashion is truly hard work hats off to the guys doing it - we have one (independent one man company) on £2m a month who puts his entire life into getting orders out the door - amazing.
Would love to hear more about this.
There is more than one, its quite amazing really. To describe generically at the top is ASOS, Missguided, BooHoo etc selling £50 / 100m pa then a few on £20 / £40m with lots sub £10m.

One company (not a client) who I admire the social strategy of is Motelrocks check their insta. They booked Alton towers for a blogger event recently and had a huge Ibiza villa this summer for bloggers and influencers.

One guy just had a huge blogger party in a nightclub (this week) getting the girls to post on insta and wearing the clothing on clickable insta, shrewd move as combined with killer offers got over 3000 orders yesterday. This is not a shiny office place with a full set of management it’s 2 guys, a laser guided pick n pack system and meticulous social marketing spread across countries and companies (we do the dev and ppc and they challenge everything making sure they get value and results).

Fast fashion is so fast that it needs to be made in the UK (trending stuff, basics and classics are ok from Bangladesh etc) and it’s mainly Leicester where I get the impression you go with a van very early in the morning and fight over the lines - I’ve not exierienced this it’s anecdotal.

This ecommerce is a million times different to my own experience of selling electronics, virtually an entirely different medium.

We seem to have a niche in clothing marketing but we didn’t aim to do so, it’s high pressure and we’re actively looking to dilute clothing with “other stuff” from flooring, bathrooms to vibrating weight loss machines !

Really enjoying seeing this side of ecommerce however I am glad I don’t get too involved as at 55 I struggle to keep up.

So points of interest from this week -

  1. Fast fashion is hard hard work and the profit can be lost in returns and marketing. Get it right make £££
  2. How many eyelashes can girls need, great item to sell but so so many orders.
  3. Pyjamas and onesies are popular.
  4. Fortune favours the brave, sellers who don’t significantly increase online marketing presence at this time get lost in the crowd.
Probably lots more but right now we’re collating traffic and conversion rate info to deliver a “run up to Xmas” strategy for the clients - it’ll be a busy weekend.
Dave I have worked with - and have a lot of contacts at - Metapack (shipping integrators used by the likes of Asos, eBay, John Lewis etc) and Clicksit (who specialise in returns - set up by a former Metapack employee) I could put you in touch with them if you need to look at optimising / streamlining your delivery and returns channels.

DSLiverpool

Original Poster:

14,764 posts

203 months

Tuesday 27th November 2018
quotequote all
48k said:
Dave I have worked with - and have a lot of contacts at - Metapack (shipping integrators used by the likes of Asos, eBay, John Lewis etc) and Clicksit (who specialise in returns - set up by a former Metapack employee) I could put you in touch with them if you need to look at optimising / streamlining your delivery and returns channels.
That might be handy ta, we’re always being asked to recommend a returns solution.
I’ll throw it out here our single biggest issue is data migration mainly from Magento. We’ve severely screwed up by including it on some builds (never again will we inc site to site) but CSV to site is ok but still needs extra work.

SpeedBash

2,325 posts

188 months

Wednesday 28th November 2018
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Saw this today and seemed relevant to this thread: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-46279638

What's your 2p's worth Dave?

DSLiverpool

Original Poster:

14,764 posts

203 months

Wednesday 28th November 2018
quotequote all
We actively embrace this as a strategy for fashion clients.

People hate waiting for refunds however and one of the fastest growing companies enables pay later / 4 payments easily on checkout.

Putting Klarna on client websites enables smaller etailers to really offer the customer financial flexibility - and yes they can buy 3 sizes and return 2 before they need to pay anything.

Returns are a fact of fashion life, embracing it will get more sales (and returns) lol

SpeedBash

2,325 posts

188 months

Wednesday 28th November 2018
quotequote all
DSLiverpool said:
We actively embrace this as a strategy for fashion clients.

People hate waiting for refunds however and one of the fastest growing companies enables pay later / 4 payments easily on checkout.

Putting Klarna on client websites enables smaller etailers to really offer the customer financial flexibility - and yes they can buy 3 sizes and return 2 before they need to pay anything.

Returns are a fact of fashion life, embracing it will get more sales (and returns) lol
So you don't think the tide is starting to turn or will turn with etailers charging for returns or limiting them in some way?

Re: Klarna - I read a couple of articles about it about a week ago - interesting concept which shifts the risk from the etailer to Klarna - problems may arise when defaulters start to rise - klarna may have to adapt and look to sell on the debt.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-46222127

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/nov/17/klar...



DSLiverpool

Original Poster:

14,764 posts

203 months

Thursday 29th November 2018
quotequote all
Klarna (and afterpay etc) are growing at amazing speed, the model works and as I said the etailer that embraces the return culture will be busier. They simply need to factor in costs to reflect client behaviour.

I did email you privately - I can show graphically sales picking up when offering payment delay (and they moved to Shopify, I can’t split that out). In clothing we have seen some quite amazing results however we don’t get involved in the net net net so I can only comment on sales.

trowelhead

1,867 posts

122 months

Thursday 29th November 2018
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Dave really good thread.

Very interesting to hear you are the closest shopify pro agency to Manchester

I'm looking to redesign our site - been around since 2011 in current form and very dated. It is based on a theme at the time and has served us well - but crying out for a refresh.

Already on shopify.

P.S - for new computer, just got 2018 MBP and the LG ultrafine 5k monitor.

You get a document up on that baby and you are seriously looking at that document.

(Just submitted an enquiry form on your site!)

Edited by trowelhead on Thursday 29th November 11:04

DSLiverpool

Original Poster:

14,764 posts

203 months

Thursday 29th November 2018
quotequote all
Just replied, (Dan or myself handle all incoming leads).

Most of our clients are in Manchester, in fact, I am going up there this afternoon for a 3-month review with a client. We are shortly to be "Plus" (can't recall if already mentioned) whats delayed it is we didn't do the "meet-ups" and the "community" stuff as were too busy doing our own stuff but they finally agreed and the standards a Plus agency have to adhere to are reassuringly strict - quite a challenge.

No plus agencies anywhere near Manchester we will be the nearest and we are opening a manned office there probably in Feb.

trowelhead

1,867 posts

122 months

Thursday 29th November 2018
quotequote all
DSLiverpool said:
Just replied, (Dan or myself handle all incoming leads).

Most of our clients are in Manchester, in fact, I am going up there this afternoon for a 3-month review with a client. We are shortly to be "Plus" (can't recall if already mentioned) whats delayed it is we didn't do the "meet-ups" and the "community" stuff as were too busy doing our own stuff but they finally agreed and the standards a Plus agency have to adhere to are reassuringly strict - quite a challenge.

No plus agencies anywhere near Manchester we will be the nearest and we are opening a manned office there probably in Feb.
Thanks, just replied, will be good to chat next week. Klarna does look interesting, i hadn't considered it. We offer product bundles that are slightly higher prices and i can imagine it would work well for that!



DSLiverpool

Original Poster:

14,764 posts

203 months

Saturday 16th March 2019
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Quick update:
Well we got Shopify Plus meaning we got through the three month appraisal and are fully onboard, what does this mean well in theory we are one of only 11 top rated Shopify partners in the UK and they will send the cream inquiries to us as they see fit. These will be enterprise level (in theory) Shopify Plus site builds and as the monthly "rent" is $2k paid to Shopify then they are pretty well established etailers probably on the second or third site.

Remember that windowless office at the start at £250 a month?, then the one with 1 window at £700 well we now have loads of windows and I could have a new Bentley for the cost (no rates/insurance or anything else though) we have 16 desks.

As a money maker it looks like only an exit strategy sometime in the future will crystalise the effort but I live in hope that getting "Plus" and the higher cost of the more complex builds will filter through to our pockets.

On the way the Jewelry idea failed, the ecommerce is technically alive but needs some TLC, the mens clothing brand partnership will probably not happen sadly as it has potential but we need the £ in Velstar right now.

Thats it really, chapter 2 (22) starts now ...........

Edited by DSLiverpool on Saturday 16th March 18:21

TheBogFlogger

156 posts

148 months

Tuesday 19th March 2019
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Nice work DS! Well deserved, you've got a great team there, all very helpful and knowledgeable. Glad I got onboard before your Plus status though smile

If you next office move could be somewhere less windy, it would be appreciated.

Mr Overheads

2,442 posts

177 months

Tuesday 19th March 2019
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Congrats DS.