Thread by @landforce

A friend of mine is buying generic water bottles on Alibaba for $1.98 and selling em on Etsy for $14.99.

509 sales!

- Assume <$5ea for shipping
- Net around $7ea after Etsy fees

That’s over $3500 profit.

Lemme show you how to take this from a hustle to a brand though:

I broke this down a bit a few weeks ago, we're gonna go into more detail now.

First things first we need to slap a logo on these.

Adding custom branding and increasing order size will keep cost the same if not less. Now we’ve got the beginnings of a brand.

Next we need hang tags on your water bottles, but you don’t need 10k at a time. Use business cards.

Thick, rounded corners, shapes... a premium or unusual sized business card, a hole punch, and some string.

$40 tops for 1,000 of em
gotprint.com/company/stock/…

Now packaging!

No more whack brown cardboard boxes. At scale, a custom branded mailer will likely cost LESS than those.

But again you don't want 10k yet. Hop on packlane.com and go custom in way smaller volumes.

Eat the extra COG temporarily. We're making a brand!

With the hang tag and custom packaging, now your friends take your side hustle seriously.

Shoot new product photos. Pick up a cheap photo tent on Amazon for $20-$50 and shoot in portrait mode on your iPhone.

amazon.com/dp/B07TNPZ6HR/…

Scale up Etsy ads to get your volume up. You’ve got $5-6/unit of margin to spend on customer acquisition. Spend it all and A/B test pricing and primary photo.

Price 1 x Photo 1
Price 1 x Photo 2
Price 2 x Photo 1
Price 2 x Photo 2

Run each for a wk

Look at your results, use the lowest cost per dollar of profit.

Remember, you tested price sensitivity too. It's not lowest cost per conversion. It's lowest cost per $ of net profit.

Now hit your bottle manufacturer.

Send em a photo of your whole kit together and detail photos of the tag and packaging.

Tell em you want to drop ship the tags and packaging on em for them to assemble at their factory.

They’re gonna charge you $.25 per unit to do this cuz it’s super basic.

They’re also gonna tell you they can source the tags and boxes for you. For much cheaper, too.

They’ll want volume. They’ve known you for months now. Negotiate. Get terms. Get the bottle price down too.

Now you’re done assembling tags and boxes in your living room and costed down ALL your components.

Your cost is prob at or below where it started in the beginning, but now you're selling a product under your own brand not hustling a commoditized Alibaba water bottle.

But wait we're not done yet - Your next order is ready at the factory.

It's big. It's not gonna fit in your basement.

Great - It's time for a fulfillment center.

An FC will store and ship your orders as they come in.

There are lots of options, here's one:
shipbob.com.

You’ll pay for storage and some handling, but get shipping cheaper cuz of their economies of scale.

And you’re never gonna touch em.

You’ve got a brand now!

Research and find some good line extensions. Avoid apparel - the margins often suck and you have to deal with sizing.

I'd extend carefully, and take on each new line the same way we scaled up this one.

Don't over extend cuz you're excited.

Now a site, SEO, email list, content for your target audience. Time to grow up out of the marketplace.

The $ is in the execution. Builders build!

If you're new here, I build businesses and tweet about it all day every day. Come follow along if you don't already!

> @landforce <

TLDR:

- Hack the details that make a brand feel legit
- Prove it out before you order big
- A/B test price sensitivity and creative
- Outsource assembly and fulfillment
- BUILDERS BUILD!