Alright… NEAT STUFF, we’re here, we’re back… We’re blogging. And, I’m sitting at a pizza shop hands deep in some cheese pizza (in reality it just arrived and you’ll see my cheesy prints all over this post)
So at this point 2016 is over halfway through, I know what you’re thinking. “WHERE HAS THE YEAR GONE?!” and to be completely honest I have no clue. I feel like my dog Brutus put me some sort of Anesthesia and I missed out on the past six months (he’s crafty for a guy with no thumbs)
However, since we’re at the halfway point of the year it’s allowed us to aggregate some data over the past half of the year! It’s allowed us to learn certain things such as the following
But seriously, today I’ll be revealing our top 5 best selling product types so far into 2016… It’s not really anything GROUND BREAKING WOAAAAHHHH
But it will give you an idea of what our best sellers were and some insights into how we sold and marketed them. Just because our results are this way doesn’t necessarily mean your results will reflect exactly the same thing
It depends on a wide variety of things such as niches, designs, target audience, how much pizza you eat… (Just kidding about the last part, gee…)
So, enough pizza talk… (I just finished my first slice by the way) Let’s jump in!
NOTE: This is a top 5, that means 5 is the worst seller in the list and 1 is the TOP DOG ROUND THESE PARTS. Keep that in mind!
Congratulations to all t-shirt fanatics YOUR PRODUCT type has made our list of top sellers in 2016. It’s not all smiles though. We’ve made some decent t-shirt sales over the past six months but it isn’t all smiles, rainbows and tennis balls. The reality is we’ve always struggled to make t-shirts profitable on our stores and haven’t been able to do it repeatedly since back in 2013 when we first started using TeeSpring
We’ve tested these out in a variety of niches and our main store now is actually an apparel company that focuses strictly on shirts (I’ll talk about this more at the end of this section)
Typically, we just can’t make these profitable. We’ll start strong making multiple sales on the first day with an extremely low ad spend (probably in our first $2 spent) and then when we go to scale… We’re almost ALWAYS met with crickets. This has really blown us away because this is the ONLY PRODUCT TYPE we’ve come across this issue with. To be fair, I don’t think we’ve given t-shirts enough effort. After 1-3 failures we kind of just move on to what we KNOW works and wouldn’t you know it… As soon as we switch it’s like we’re back in easy mode!
So I suppose the verdict on t-shirts is this. We can sell them almost every time, but we can’t scale them. At least not yet. Does that mean you should stop selling t-shirts? Hellz nah! There’s a lot of people out there with wild success selling t-shirts such as Justin Cener & I highly recommend you check out his mastermind on Facebook by the way. Just search “Cener Mastermind” but you get your pizza covered fingers off that keyboard until my article is over (oh wait those are my pizza covered fingers… awkward)
And also, I mentioned above our main store now focuses on apparel. Well, we’re not giving up on t-shirts. Although we haven’t found too much success yet WE KNOW there’s a ton of potential and we’ve come up with something we think is truly special. Not only is this our “passion project” from here on out but I also believe it has the potential to make us 8-Figures profit per year so… We’re coming for you T-Shirt world. Don’t you worry
And hey, if you ever want to see a T-Shirt company that does things the RIGHT WAY.. You need to go check out StartupVitamins RIGHT NOW… they’re not limited to just T-Shirts however this is what you should be striving to emulate if you have a print on demand business and fun fact… They also own the #1 Print On Demand company in the world that I know of (Printful) so they really know what the heck they’re doing
Check out their website here http://startupvitamins.com (KEEP YOUR FINGERS OFF THAT MOUSE UNTIL YOU FINISH THE ARTICLE!)
Back to print on demand oooohhhh yeah, I’ll probably have less to say about mugs than I did about t-shirts. This is a lot more straight forward. So when you run a business that provides info or designs there’s going to be a huge and highly valuable tool in your arsenal and if you haven’t realized it yet. Then START PAYING ATTENTION!
It’s called (drumroll please) REPURPOSING CONTENT. That means all those designs you’re putting on those t-shirts can be repurposed for other things. And that’s basically exactly how we come up with our mug designs. Here’s the interesting part though, we’ve always had a MUCH EASIER TIME selling mugs than we have selling those dastardly T-Shirts
I feel like they’re little caffeine filled magnets on our website, even if we’re not running ads to them our customers always seem to find them on our website and then they work their way into their carts. Protip, if you’re selling t-shirts you better start Upselling your customers with mugs… Well, yesterday. You can install my Upsell App SMAR7 Bundle free for 30 days and let it make you some serious money by clicking here.
The point is, these bad boys sell and they’re actually a very easy sell. They make great upsells OR related products on your store and they can even stand on their own
So if you’re doing this print on demand business, incorporate mugs NOW, you’ve nothing to lose and profits to gain. Not bad right?
Okay so this is actually a niche I haven’t messed around with much, however, Kelsey has been very present in. So I know “Practical Goods” isn’t a very descriptive title and I don’t want to give away her product since it’s going very well for her so let me explain what I’m talking about
So these are basically products that support some type of cause and make life easier. For instance “Green Products” or “Fun Products” for home
The idea behind it is they’re very practical, and they also help someone out in their day to day use. Think along the lines of “Solar Powered Speakers” OR “Solar Panel Chargers” and things like this. They have a niche (environmental friendly people) and they provide a great value to whoever purchases them
Anyways, we’ve got some stores built around this and they’re selling extremely well for us. This product could actually be #2 and it was a pretty tough choice… However since this niche is newer for Kelsey, it’ll find it’s resting spot here at #3
Okay now we’ve come to the only items we’ve ever sold using the Free + Shipping method
Here’s the thing though, while most people are doing F+S (this means Free+Shipping) to generate small profits our goal was simply to do a little under break even with these products. So, in essence, we were intentionally losing JUST A LITTLE BIT of money.
However, the entire purpose of selling these stickers was to Upsell them products we actually wanted to sell them such as product #1 which you’ll be introduced to in the next section… Obviously
Now here’s why it’s awesome, let’s say the average CPA (Cost Per Acquisition Of Customer) is $2.00 yet when we’re selling these stickers for free + $2.00 shipping we can now acquire customers for $0.25 each and no they’re not profitable… Yet
After they buy we present them with an Upsell to our rings or jewelry and we have a 25% conversion rate… Now all of the sudden our average CPA is $1.00 down from $2.00 and those other 3 people who chose not to buy our upsell, we can simply email them offers at a later time and sell them on our other products down the road. Which isn’t too hard since they’ve already paid us before… Maybe they just weren’t ready yet and needed a little extra nudge
Safe to say, I think this is much better way to do the F+S method and it’s definitely a more long term business model with better profit margins typically. And it’s got a pretty low entry barrier since you don’t really need a huge budget to try it out
Obviously, it doesn’t have to be limited to stickers, that’s just the product we used. But you can do this with any product you can afford to do it on… And thankfully since most people are using AliExpress/Baba you can probably afford to do this with most of your products
All you need is this
A cheap product you can afford to sell very cheaply (Less than $2.00 is good) and then some products to upsell your customers. (Don’t forget my upsell app has a 30 Day free trial and is by far the best, you can find it here)
HERE WE ARE, WE’VE REACHED THE TOP DAWG. Big daddy, numero uno, king of the pizza. So Jewelry has been our best seller basically since we started. For some reason it always just clicks with us, our ads look great, the customers love them and they sell like crazy
It also helps that we heavily use Product #2 to supplement our #1 winner here. Get your products working together and that’s where some serious money comes in
So I do think this is the easiest thing to sell as long as you can find the right passion audience. The cool part is even if you don’t expect men to wear the jewelry a lot of them will still buy it for either a significant other, a family member, a daughter… Or hell, even themselves. So your instantly at a huge advantage that the sex of your customer doesn’t necessarily matter too much. It’s still worth tracking and optimizing based on their sex though
And since AliExpress sells these bad boys so cheap, you can sell them pretty cheap as well and just play the numbers game. I mean we typically spend $1.00 per item – $1.50 to acquire a customer – $2.00 Shipping and then we sell them for $15.00 + a $19.99 upsell which converts at like 20%
Easy money ????
By the way, our Upsells are basically always the same when it comes to jewelry.. See the flow chart below
Do they buy a ring? Upsell them a necklace and then earrings
Do they buy a necklace? Upsell them a ring and then earrings
As for the earrings… We don’t run ads to those, we find their best served only in the magical Upsell land
The key to jewelry at the end of the day is making sure it’s a passionate niche
I hope this was helpful and make sure you steal *ahem I mean use as a guideline* what I’ve shown you in this post to make you some serious money as we begin to close out the second half of 2016
MAKE SURE YOU COMMENT BELOW, look we spend a lot of time creating you this content… All we want is to hear from you… Maybe a Christmas card every few years also (kidding)
But seriously, just comment below, let us know what you think, introduce yourself… It would mean the world to us
So, until next time… This is pizza shop Devin, SIGNING OUT!
Take it easy and comment below
Takeaways:
– Devin loves pizza
– Results vary person to person
#5: POD T Shirts – Strong initial sales but scales poorly
#4: POD Mugs – Magnetic, great in related products or upsells
#3: Practical/Green/Fun Home Products – support a cause & make life easier
#2: Stickers (Free + Shipping) – low CPA, low barrier to entry, easy to upsell/remarket
#1: Jewelry – great profit margins, sell like crazy to the right audience
Hey Zack!
You definitely nailed all of those takeaways – especially Devins love for pizza
Thanks for the comment, hope you enjoyed the post 🙂
Thanks for the info Devin. Regarding your smar7 app, does it help in finding good products or niches to choose from. Can you share a link on more details and price…and will there be support on how to utilize ut
Info is great it takes definitely some work and a lot of hours to get it figured out
Hey Devin, thank you for the great info!
I’mma beginner starting with the pet niche (store is still in the making), I want to sell Miami Cuban Link Collars…
In a way I think it fits the jewelry niche, this post has give me an extra edge, and things to implement.
Keep it coming!
Thanks Devin.
This is useful information for me. I am just doing my research before I jump into the ecommerce world. There is a lot to learn and when I am ready I might well try out your app.
Thanks again.
Hi Devin
Your emails are really useful thanks a heap for getting me onto your system.is there any way you can point me to a mentor to help me grow
Cheers
Slly
Great article but where is #1?
Hey Davin! Nice to meet you!
Could you tell me please, more about Free+Shipping methode? If our profit is in the Shipping price, what can we do if a customer wants to buy, lets say 10 products? We send him 10 individual products with 10 Shipping charge? Maybe the customer think that he will acquire 10 products free and pay just one shipping cost. In this situation I’m a litlle bit confuse.
Thanks a lot!
Luchian
Awesome !! Great stuff !! Thanks for sharing. : )
Hey Devin I’ve tried a few of the products mentioned here like print on demand and didn’t get any responses even with free plus shipping I only 1 sale out of $87 ad spend
Hi Devin,
Love you! Just found you on the internet.
I signed up for $47.00 for a shopify store then three more. Haven’t started yet. Where is the training for this stuff. I watch a video….is that it?
Such an incredible newbie here. Serious newbie.
Anyway, I’m coming up with indeas.
so…can you please email me back.
Kind Regards,
LInda
Hey Devin!
Thank you! We have learned so much from you! We were wondering……
Is this still true today in 2018?
p.s. The pizza day in our family is always sunday…. and our favorite pizza is cheese pizza :), oh….. and we are dog people too.
Dang , before i built my first shopify store, i was juggling between a niched jewelry store or home decor and i went with home decor lol. Im kind of struggling to make sales but i wonder if its a bad niche. Then again there are some really nice products there, woh well, i will keep testing ;).
Hi Devin
This is great content. Today I’m finishing my first shop using your Facebook / pixel set up then the the first add
Pretty exciting
Neil
good info thanks, i’m targeting jewellery but not getting any success, can you help?
This is a great idea. The problem: how to set up free products with paid shipping that doesn’t make us lose the products that are not meant for FREE offer.
Hello David, I have been watching your webinar and I would love to take the class. I want to learn how can I generator all of those sells. I have a Shopify store but I’m not getting no sale or anything. I would like to join your class and find out how. The only thing is I’am not financially stable at all. I would like to know if I can pay throw the store with the sells I get if I was about to join your program. This would be a really big help for me. Please let me know what you think.
Hey Devin thanks for the guidance brother ✌????
Very insightful info….am gonna “steal”..hahahaa…thanks a million….real cheese bro…lol…agan thanks for such insightful info..looking forward to reading your future post…
So I guess we’ll get your best products of 2017 at the end of 2018
Great article Devin. Still trying to get my shopify store to make it’s first sale.
Also really appreciated the facebook advertising video series.
Thanks for sharing but do you think this advice is still valid as we are already approaching end of 2017? Haven’t many fundamentals changed since?
Hi Devin,
Where is the 30 day free trial of your upsell app?
It only shows a 7 day trial in the Shopify app store.
Raj
You are a fun guy, Can’t wait to get going!
Thanks for the information
Hi Devin, thanks a lot for your tips. It meant the world to me as im a newly store set up only in june this year and i failed miserably. I tot its so easy setting up a store as i have sold stuffs on other platforms before. But i was so dissapointed to have so little visitors. Most of the days are zero.i still have not given up and often doing research on wat went wrong. I was thrilled to read your article. I will give it a try now.
You have to keep trying and keep testing, nothing is easy!
do you guys have any advice on how to target jewellery?
Hey, Craig, sell niched jewelry is the easiest response
Great info, deeply appreciate it.
Of course, Magda 🙂
Devin, you the man! Just when I get discouraged from lack of sales, you find a way to motivate me. Thank you Sir!
That’s awesome, Alan!
Thanks! Can see why many would give up, but I’m with you and learning heaps.
That’s the only way you can truly fail!
11 Holywell Crescent South
swords
Thanks again Devin – always good stuff…..
Glad you like it!
Great blog post! My store sells products in a niche that I’m passionate about. However, I can implement ALL the top 5 best selling product types for my niche. The upsell strategy is brilliant! Thank you for pure value 🙂
Of course, glad you enjoyed it!
Thank you a million times!
No really a MILLION! This has been the most informative information that I’ve see so far!
Keep it coming I’m listening!
Hey Regina, super glad you enjoyed it!!!
Thanks for the article – I found it extremely interesting and helpful as to what niche I should sell in.
Glad to help, Lola!