New User, New Journey [Long]
- Thread starter Tokay
- Start date
I've had a lot of things going on in my personal life and work is getting busy so haven't been that active working on my store. After being banned from Stripe I figured it was downhill. I'm still able to run shoutouts and gain a little bit of sales through PayPal only, today for example gross sales so far are around $140 with around $60 or so profit keeping in mind the cost of the shoutout - and I refunded around 2 big orders totaling another $130 (about another $60 profit) gross so it should have been a $300 ($120 profit) day :/ From just 1 shoutout I've never tried before. Already got another one booked. Tonight will hopefully be a good night since this nice shoutout will still be running and another 3 will also be running because of scheduling issues with the promoters.
I refunded them because shortly after they were placed and the buyers realized they wouldn't get them before Christmas they contacted for a refund. I could be mean and lie but I'd rather be honest and refund the money. I also received an email from Stripe about a chargeback, a customer has filed a dispute with her bank even though the items were marked as delivered 2 weeks ago. I am trying to get the proof they want (a shipping receipt) from AliExpress sellers but I doubt this will go anywhere. At the end of the day since I was using Payoneer there's no way they can actually take the money back from me. This week flew by, already Friday and I put in maybe 2 hours of work total, because of that I went 2 days without sales so profit this week is low at around $140 including today so far. Hopefully will jump up a bit over the weekend.
I refunded them because shortly after they were placed and the buyers realized they wouldn't get them before Christmas they contacted for a refund. I could be mean and lie but I'd rather be honest and refund the money. I also received an email from Stripe about a chargeback, a customer has filed a dispute with her bank even though the items were marked as delivered 2 weeks ago. I am trying to get the proof they want (a shipping receipt) from AliExpress sellers but I doubt this will go anywhere. At the end of the day since I was using Payoneer there's no way they can actually take the money back from me. This week flew by, already Friday and I put in maybe 2 hours of work total, because of that I went 2 days without sales so profit this week is low at around $140 including today so far. Hopefully will jump up a bit over the weekend.
Another small update, store still going 
3 months and 2 weeks in, I've learnt alot! Had a few ups and downs but now the store is running at a steady profit. Conversion rate for the last 30 days is bang on 1%. Got my first repeat customer today which is awesome! Even on PayPal only the store still manages to make decent sales. A lot of abandoned sales but I'm not sure having a credit card processor would have affected them seeing the countries they were from, mostly tier 2 & 3 countries and very few from the USA, by far my No.1 customer base. With abandoned USA orders I've had good results when I emailed them back with instructions on how to pay without an account. Sure PayPal's fees are high, (last I checked for me 4.4% + 30c!!) but I'll have to live with them and at the end of the day its faster than the 2 weeks for Stripe - Payoneer - My bank account.
Profit for this month so far is just under $350. This time last month it was less than $100! Last month's total profit was $700 thanks to a big boom throughout the last 2 weeks and a few $300+ days around Thanksgiving. Maybe this will happen again? Still, sales are steady and consistent and with tomorrow being the 15th I estimate $600-700 this month is a realistic expectation but we'll see after the holidays. This is a decent chunk of change considering I'm currently only putting around 3-4 hours a week into the site and will be a welcome addition to my steadily declining paycheck - such are the woes of commission based workers
The bulk of the time spent is on Monday/Tuesday where I research, add new products and design new product images. I'd love to say I spend the rest of the time being lazy but work is becoming busier and busier as we head into our 3 month peak season and Mon & Tues are some of the only quiet days I get. I spend maybe 1 hour spread throughout Monday & Tuesday looking for, adding and setting up new products, about 4-5 per week and around 1 hour staggered throughout Tuesday working on the product images so they'll be ready for the weeks' promotions.
The rest is split between fulfilling orders and marking shipped orders, a few minutes here and there answering customer queries by email and chat (currently on a ZenDesk trial, still on the edge of whether to keep it or not). Which take up a few minutes a day.
Since the site now requires little maintenance I'll be looking into new niches for next year when I'll have the time to open a second store and hopefully finally start experimenting again with FB ads even though I've been saying this for the past few weeks
3 months and 2 weeks in, I've learnt alot! Had a few ups and downs but now the store is running at a steady profit. Conversion rate for the last 30 days is bang on 1%. Got my first repeat customer today which is awesome! Even on PayPal only the store still manages to make decent sales. A lot of abandoned sales but I'm not sure having a credit card processor would have affected them seeing the countries they were from, mostly tier 2 & 3 countries and very few from the USA, by far my No.1 customer base. With abandoned USA orders I've had good results when I emailed them back with instructions on how to pay without an account. Sure PayPal's fees are high, (last I checked for me 4.4% + 30c!!) but I'll have to live with them and at the end of the day its faster than the 2 weeks for Stripe - Payoneer - My bank account. Profit for this month so far is just under $350. This time last month it was less than $100! Last month's total profit was $700 thanks to a big boom throughout the last 2 weeks and a few $300+ days around Thanksgiving. Maybe this will happen again? Still, sales are steady and consistent and with tomorrow being the 15th I estimate $600-700 this month is a realistic expectation but we'll see after the holidays. This is a decent chunk of change considering I'm currently only putting around 3-4 hours a week into the site and will be a welcome addition to my steadily declining paycheck - such are the woes of commission based workers
The bulk of the time spent is on Monday/Tuesday where I research, add new products and design new product images. I'd love to say I spend the rest of the time being lazy but work is becoming busier and busier as we head into our 3 month peak season and Mon & Tues are some of the only quiet days I get. I spend maybe 1 hour spread throughout Monday & Tuesday looking for, adding and setting up new products, about 4-5 per week and around 1 hour staggered throughout Tuesday working on the product images so they'll be ready for the weeks' promotions.
The rest is split between fulfilling orders and marking shipped orders, a few minutes here and there answering customer queries by email and chat (currently on a ZenDesk trial, still on the edge of whether to keep it or not). Which take up a few minutes a day.
Since the site now requires little maintenance I'll be looking into new niches for next year when I'll have the time to open a second store and hopefully finally start experimenting again with FB ads even though I've been saying this for the past few weeks