Starting Again
Discussion
DSLiverpool said:
Our rent is approaching £3k, thats for a 6 man office and 2 hot desks and 4 permanent desks in the open. If I commit for 3 years we can have the space in the picture for £3k for 9 months then £4k. Its a mad amount to rent but as I said before being where we are is getting us business.
|https://thumbsnap.com/uXUmRUiJ[/url]
In other news the lead generation side is a month old and we are starting to find a formula that means each lead attained doesnt cost us more than the client will pay (win) and as its ecommerce silly season we are getting some quality leads.
More things I have learnt - ecommerce management and site dev is not like banging up a wordpress site in that the client can s
t themselves daily depending on revenue, with say a hotel site the hassle process is far slower / less reactive. Also with ecommerce if we re platform from magento say then the data transfer will fk us up every time (Magento / woo etc have fields we cannot always replicate in Shopify) one client has 180k master skus (not variants) and whilst cart2cart said ok the reality was a total utter mess we are still working on and its depressing as the main site is 90% finished awaiting the data.
Our retainers are at an all time high and whilst you cant keep everyone happy all the time employing a head of communications to call everyone weekly and meet monthly was a good move.
Some clients appreciate us
|https://thumbsnap.com/GisLRjCH[/url]
Why the agency model is dead, or at least dying. |https://thumbsnap.com/uXUmRUiJ[/url]In other news the lead generation side is a month old and we are starting to find a formula that means each lead attained doesnt cost us more than the client will pay (win) and as its ecommerce silly season we are getting some quality leads.
More things I have learnt - ecommerce management and site dev is not like banging up a wordpress site in that the client can s
t themselves daily depending on revenue, with say a hotel site the hassle process is far slower / less reactive. Also with ecommerce if we re platform from magento say then the data transfer will fk us up every time (Magento / woo etc have fields we cannot always replicate in Shopify) one client has 180k master skus (not variants) and whilst cart2cart said ok the reality was a total utter mess we are still working on and its depressing as the main site is 90% finished awaiting the data.Our retainers are at an all time high and whilst you cant keep everyone happy all the time employing a head of communications to call everyone weekly and meet monthly was a good move.
Some clients appreciate us
|https://thumbsnap.com/GisLRjCH[/url]Canute said:
jammy-git said:
Why?
The ridiculous overheads that end up being passed onto the client, or reduced performance per £ compared to leaner operations.EddieSteadyGo said:
Canute said:
jammy-git said:
Why?
The ridiculous overheads that end up being passed onto the client, or reduced performance per £ compared to leaner operations.illmonkey said:
EddieSteadyGo said:
Canute said:
jammy-git said:
Why?
The ridiculous overheads that end up being passed onto the client, or reduced performance per £ compared to leaner operations.Blowing things out of all proportion!
It's bang out of order!
This is also a relevant pun, at a stretch.
illmonkey said:
EddieSteadyGo said:
Canute said:
jammy-git said:
Why?
The ridiculous overheads that end up being passed onto the client, or reduced performance per £ compared to leaner operations.
. and its nothing to do with us Miss Pap are in admin either (we did the USA site).Canute you seem to have an axe to grind on Shopify and agencies, I think you should declare your hand and be more open if your going to be so unshifting in your ways - tell us why.
As you know agencies work on ROI and ROAS so the overheads are factored into the deliverable strategy.
DSLiverpool said:
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 ...........
Yes yes but what about the sweet printing side business? That's all 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
DSLiverpool said:
Canute you seem to have an axe to grind on Shopify and agencies, I think you should declare your hand and be more open if your going to be so unshifting in your ways - tell us why.
.
I don't have an axe to grind, Shopify is well documented as being a bit pants from an SEO angle and I did point out in that post that I was only referring to Shopify from an SEO angle..
Quick update, generally it's going well, this isn't a sit back and have no hassle type of business but its FAR less aggro and stress than dealing with ebay or Amazon. Daily we have a myriad of small issues and client comms can vary a lot but its quite enjoyable and we are still one of the only agencies I compare us to with no debt, how some can owe hundreds of thousands is beyond me.
Dev has more work than we know what to do with (possibly too cheap), a new really good marketing director is building up the retainers and a great PM is looking after it all.
We are starting a new business to sell on Amazon using seller fulfilled prime, remote warehouse, "buy it as we ship" stockholding and our own system and carriers, this is virtually cutting edge Amazon sales and logistics and relies heavily on bespoke software created by one of the new partners in the business.
We started marketing Velstar using SoPro and a small PR agency (who hasn't started yet), SoPro was a disaster for 4 weeks then they realigned the campaign and whilst we still net a few dolphins (other agencies / dedicated Magento users) we mainly get Tuna and have covered 4 months trial with one lead with 3 more decent leads in the pipeline. We have 1 month to run and we may have to stop unless we can find more dev capacity.
As a treat, we are buying ourselves a static caravan in North Wales as we both have young families (yes amazingly I have 2 kids under 10!) and I think this would be a nice thing to spend untaxed income on (as it will be for the benefit of all staff).
Dev has more work than we know what to do with (possibly too cheap), a new really good marketing director is building up the retainers and a great PM is looking after it all.
We are starting a new business to sell on Amazon using seller fulfilled prime, remote warehouse, "buy it as we ship" stockholding and our own system and carriers, this is virtually cutting edge Amazon sales and logistics and relies heavily on bespoke software created by one of the new partners in the business.
We started marketing Velstar using SoPro and a small PR agency (who hasn't started yet), SoPro was a disaster for 4 weeks then they realigned the campaign and whilst we still net a few dolphins (other agencies / dedicated Magento users) we mainly get Tuna and have covered 4 months trial with one lead with 3 more decent leads in the pipeline. We have 1 month to run and we may have to stop unless we can find more dev capacity.
As a treat, we are buying ourselves a static caravan in North Wales as we both have young families (yes amazingly I have 2 kids under 10!) and I think this would be a nice thing to spend untaxed income on (as it will be for the benefit of all staff).
jammy-git said:
Since dealing with Amazon and eBay is a major hassle have you considered just focusing on the agency stuff and not the side ventures?
"Buy it as we ship" very much sounds like dropshipping.
What dev work are you handling? All Shopify stuff?
New Amazon venture is handled by the two new guys, they can deal with it, we are creating a site to get the second orders after first ones from Amazon."Buy it as we ship" very much sounds like dropshipping.
What dev work are you handling? All Shopify stuff?
The "dropshipping" is slightly different, its our bench, our carrier, our printer / scanner we pay them a pick fee - to use seller fulfilled prime you need more control than dropshipping allows.
Concentrating on the agency - it doesn't need me, I am now contracts, invoicing, paying bills and HR plus I will answer the phone a bit. When I pop off getting someone else yo do this won't be hard.
All dev is Shopify, there is enough demand not to need or look at anything else.
Quick update.
So 3 years in, we still haven’t needed investment but it’s very tempting as every time we get ahead we employ more / better people.
We’re getting about £30k p/a each which isn’t enough for either of us but I can see more by end of Q1 2020 when we hope to t/o £900k.
Again being Shopify is the game changer as they give us leads but you have to convert them it’s not a gravy train.
We’ve made some errors, some over optimistic thinking and had some brilliant luck.
Worst thing is underestimating data on certain jobs, we now price as a team which is better.
Developers are hard to find, we lost one to the coop (!) and his replacement to a Magento agency after 6 weeks but have recruited 2 for December starts.
One client wanted us in their office for going live week which was unusual but we charged our day rate and they went live no issue (maybe a snag or two it’s only just gone live) Boyy.com if anyone’s interested and we were in Bangkok for a week!
This case study will be the foundation of our marketing in 2020, we’re pushing for Magento replatforming work next year.
A few notes.
• SoPro cost £5k, damages Dans reputation a bit as the emails were sent under his name, delivered quite a few leads, we converted 1 and we won’t be doing it again.
• Ecommerce partnership is about 75% done, it’s been at the bottom of the todo list.
• All but one member of staff has been replaced within the past 12 months exc Dan and myself.
• We’re getting better at interviewing
• Average site cost is now much higher, we either have sub £5k theme set ups or £25k plus bespoke with complex data.
• New marketing director is such an asset
• We have a client delivery director now overseeing client satisfaction. This is key but we couldn’t afford it before.
That’s all I can think for now, I’m still enjoying it.
So 3 years in, we still haven’t needed investment but it’s very tempting as every time we get ahead we employ more / better people.
We’re getting about £30k p/a each which isn’t enough for either of us but I can see more by end of Q1 2020 when we hope to t/o £900k.
Again being Shopify is the game changer as they give us leads but you have to convert them it’s not a gravy train.
We’ve made some errors, some over optimistic thinking and had some brilliant luck.
Worst thing is underestimating data on certain jobs, we now price as a team which is better.
Developers are hard to find, we lost one to the coop (!) and his replacement to a Magento agency after 6 weeks but have recruited 2 for December starts.
One client wanted us in their office for going live week which was unusual but we charged our day rate and they went live no issue (maybe a snag or two it’s only just gone live) Boyy.com if anyone’s interested and we were in Bangkok for a week!
This case study will be the foundation of our marketing in 2020, we’re pushing for Magento replatforming work next year.
A few notes.
• SoPro cost £5k, damages Dans reputation a bit as the emails were sent under his name, delivered quite a few leads, we converted 1 and we won’t be doing it again.
• Ecommerce partnership is about 75% done, it’s been at the bottom of the todo list.
• All but one member of staff has been replaced within the past 12 months exc Dan and myself.
• We’re getting better at interviewing
• Average site cost is now much higher, we either have sub £5k theme set ups or £25k plus bespoke with complex data.
• New marketing director is such an asset
• We have a client delivery director now overseeing client satisfaction. This is key but we couldn’t afford it before.
That’s all I can think for now, I’m still enjoying it.
Edited by DSLiverpool on Sunday 17th November 17:49
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