Website Closers® presents a popular and profitable eCommerce company in the inkless pocket smartphone printer niche. What started in 2020 as a DropShipping business quickly transitioned into an established brand due to immediate customer loyalty and a robust and well-nurtured community. And with an exclusivity agreement in hand with the manufacturer, the overall market for these products has a lower competitive landscape than in other verticals.
As a “razor-razorblade” business model, additional recurring sales comprise paper roll refills, and management has recently added stationery products to the catalog, astutely noting that many customers are crafters and love DIY. More add-on products are certainly possible and ownership has ideas for these products readily available.
The founder spent 3 years testing the business model before launching this brand. In the first nine months, it brought in $1.2 million. Sales almost doubled the following year. Margins continue to increase, and the recently-signed exclusivity agreement is helping to solidify this brand in the marketplace and to shore up market share.
All products are sold internationally on the Shopify-built website and Amazon.com. Shopify accounts for over 90% of sales, and the site is highly optimized for maximum conversion. Notably, there is no concentration on any given SKUs—with ten responsible for 64% of sales. Amazon presents an enormous opportunity to boost sales significantly, particularly with the massive advantage of exclusivity. The company can also optimize logistics by utilizing Amazon fulfillment centers in the US and Europe.
Additionally, sales are healthy year-round, with an excellent spike in Q4. The typical customer is a woman between 18 and 35 interested in crafts and DIY. Many customers return—with a 23% repeat order rate. The products are popular around the world with the following sales mix:
- Australia: 20.5%
- Canada: 5.3%
- Continental
- Europe: 18.2%
- UK: 32.9%
- US: 22.7%
Inventory is ordered from China with the assistance of a sourcing agent. Orders are either purchased in bulk to send stock to the overseas fulfillment warehouse or are DropShipped to some destinations. The hybrid model is convenient for international sales, while 95% of US orders are fulfilled using the Amazon Multi-Channel Fulfillment (MCF) service.
Working capital requirements are minimal and range from $15,000 to $30,000. Typically, inventory on hand is worth $50,000 and lasts for three months. Orders are placed every two months and are shipped by sea, which takes between four and six weeks to reach the point of delivery.
The owner works only ten hours weekly. His primary tasks include supervising the freelance staff in customer support and operations, paying suppliers, and managing paid advertising accounts when necessary.
Freelance staff work between 5 and 20 hours each weekly and comprise two customer support agents, a social media manager, an operations agent, and a graphic designer.
Lead generation is primarily achieved through paid advertising on social media platforms. Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Google have all shown an excellent return on ad spend of between 4.1 and 5.5. Additionally, promotional offers are sent via SMS, email, and Facebook messenger. The brand has 129,000 email subscribers, 49,000 SMS subscribers, and 83,000 Facebook messenger subscribers.
Finally, the social media community is kept active with giveaways, a few paid collaborations, and affiliate partnerships with micro-influencers.
The business is well-systemized, straightforward to operate, and easily transferable to a buyer. A new owner without experience would have no difficulty, while one with a strong digital marketing background could scale the brand dramatically. Scale opportunities are rife, and various methods could quickly be employed.
Low-hanging fruit to boost sales includes increasing the brand’s presence on Amazon. The owner was initially reluctant to do so, worried it might cannibalize the website sales and margins. However, now that the brand is more established, promoting the products on Amazon would introduce considerably more customers to the products. Introducing additional products is also an uncomplicated way to increase sales. The catalog comprises around 60 products, but with an enormous database across email, SMS, and social media, new products could easily be sold to existing customers, at high conversion rates, with little advertising spend.
Furthermore, the exclusivity was granted in October 2022, and some sellers still offer the same product with different branding. Once their stock sells out, the company will become the only retailer of this product. Purchasing the product rights, stocking and shipping to save costs, and scaling the US market, which has the highest conversion rate, all present wonderful prospects.
