Website Closers® presents an eCommerce company that sells a blend of unique cast iron home décor, many pieces of which are fabricated and invented in the US. The business also makes hand tools for bending rebar by hand for the concrete trade. They have also invented several products that are highly popular. The company designs many items and then sends the samples to China for mold making and casting. Three Chinese vendors make up 100% of product purchases.
The owner learned early on that competition would hurt the growth of the business and subsequently hunted for and designed products that no one else had. This exclusivity with products has given the company safety in the marketplace. Furthermore, the business has built niche products to make, giving it more protection due to the barrier to entry. Most other sellers don’t want to do what this company has done to secure its place, including taking chances with unknown merchandise, and finding markets where there were none. The brands sell within several different niche markets. Each is standalone from the others, meaning if one goes down, the others won’t necessarily follow. This was done purposefully to protect the company from downturns and competitors. In the future, new products are on the horizon and being tested in the marketplace.
Purchasing and resale of merchandise Payroll and bills The arts and crafts aspect of the business Building maintenance Finding and inventing new SKUs
The two owners work on various tasks.
One handles:
- Purchasing and resale of merchandise
- Payroll and bills
- The arts and crafts aspect of the business
- Building maintenance
- Finding and inventing new SKUs
The other:
- Deals with all shipping labels and returns
- Handles all customer service inquiries by email and phone
- Purchases all shipping and office supplies
In addition, the company has two employees. Both help with packing daily and preparing orders for the USPS and UPS pickup. They then repack the shelves, ensuring everything is in order for the following day’s shipping. They also bring in new shipments and arrange them in the warehouse, keeping track of inventory as needed. 50 to 150 orders are shipped daily from the company’s 8,000- square-foot warehouse.
Vendor purchase orders are generally placed every second month, depending on forecasts. Receiving inventory has been very slow due to the pandemic and shipping backups worldwide, which is now showing signs of returning to pre-pandemic levels.
The customer base is as diverse as the product range. Although individual items experience seasonality, the business as a whole sells consistently throughout the year, maintaining a stable cash flow and making inventory management straightforward.
The company uses little advertising, besides a small budget for Google Ads, and does not partake in social media.
As successful as it is, scale opportunities are abundant. A new owner has excellent opportunities both on and off Amazon for growth. Due to the lack of advertising knowledge of the owners, it stands to reason that this brand can be scaled drastically with proper advertising on the right channels. Additionally, the Shopify-built website makes up a fraction of total sales. Therefore, it presents a huge area for growth and the opportunity for a new owner to increase margins while driving new customers to the website.
Outsourcing the Amazon storefront to an experienced agency would likely see an enormous improvement in sales, a boost in revenue, and the benefits of marketing expertise that the current owners don’t possess. Simply implementing attractive A+ content, keyword-rich descriptions, and effective PPC advertising would boost sales significantly. Moreover, given its tenure on Amazon, this business can quickly sell into additional lucrative markets, such as Australia, Canada, parts of Europe, and other market segments, expanding the product offering into different verticals.
There is also immense opportunity for a new owner to scale the operation with mass retail. The brand hasn’t ventured into wholesale. A buyer with an established sales network can take this company to new heights through this channel.
Tapping into digital advertising beyond Amazon is an obvious next step, and affiliate marketing and added focus to secondary sales channels can be implemented. This brand’s niche lends itself extraordinarily well to influencer marketing on social media, particularly Instagram and TikTok. They should look to influencers and collaborations to build more awareness and loyalty. This will drive traffic to their Shopify website and improve margins. In addition, a strong email campaign for sales and promotions should be created.
