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Show HN: My new side business

rogerthat.com.au

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Re: Show HN: My new side business

#11

Post by prawn »

If I was tackling this space without a monstrous marketing budget, I would pick a niche (art and craft, hobbies, gardeners, cookware, etc) and run with that. A lot of the best niches already have players - young mums has MumGo, wine has VinoMofo, etc.

Going with a generic spread of products means you won't be ideal to anyone and you'll have to compete aggressively on price against established companies who already have volume, capital, marketshare and so on.

For best results as a new entrant, if you can pick a niche you have an interest in, that would help a lot. You might already participate in niche forums that would make ideal advertising partners or early users, for example.

Re: Show HN: My new side business

#13

Post by sideproject »

devcom wrote: post #8
jere wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My first thought was "hope you're good at baking cookies." >I haven't made a sale yet and I am not sure why. Is "14 OFFERS SOLD!" BS then? One small thing: the "what's hot" products on the right looked like third party ads. Maybe it's just me.

Yeah the 14 offers sold is just to make the website not look like a ghost town. Put some activity on it. That's great feedback on the sidebar thanks.

Love the honesty there. You should've said 114 then. Heck, how about 1140?

Re: Show HN: My new side business

#14

Post by devcom »

prawn wrote: post #10
devcom wrote: post #2

If you wouldn't mind I would love some feedback on this. I haven't made a sale yet and I am not sure why. ANY feedback is appreciated!

How much traffic? A lot of competition in that space won't help.

Not a lot! Struggling with marketing at the moment. We are running multiple facebook ads and we are about to approach our local newspaper. Not sure what else to do. Google Ads?

Re: Show HN: My new side business

#15

Post by stephengillie »

devcom wrote: post #7
wildcardww wrote: post #5

How does this differ to the 20+ other 'daily deal' sites in Australia? Is there a particular niche you are targeting?

We wanted to make ours more fun for the buyer and have a 'theme'. All our marketing has been aviation themed, such as "fly in for a great deal". At this stage we kind of went broad, having a bit of everything to see which products sold more. We are a little limited to what our suppliers have at this stage. But the prices are still cheap

That's a neat marketing theme, but I'm unsure how today's deal, a shaped cookie dough press, ties into that theme...

Re: Show HN: My new side business

#16

Post by sideproject »

At the bottom you say it's SSL secure. And it even says "Click to verify". I clicked on it and it says

"www.rogerthat.com.au is not a valid identity."

Huh? SSL is.. almost.. mandatory as a bare minimum when you are doing some e-commerce transaction to at least give the customers some sort of confidence.

Re: Show HN: My new side business

#17

Post by devcom »

sideproject wrote: post #16

At the bottom you say it's SSL secure. And it even says "Click to verify". I clicked on it and it says "www.rogerthat.com.au is not a valid identity." Huh? SSL is.. almost.. mandatory as a bare minimum when you are doing some e-commerce transaction to at least give the customers some sort of confidence.

Yeah we have purchased it. Hasn't come though yet apparently. I will chase that up. Thanks

Re: Show HN: My new side business

#18

Post by devcom »

stephengillie wrote: post #15
devcom wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We wanted to make ours more fun for the buyer and have a 'theme'. All our marketing has been aviation themed, such as "fly in for a great deal". At this stage we kind of went broad, having a bit of everything to see which products sold more. We are a little limited to what our suppliers have at this stage. But the prices are still cheap

That's a neat marketing theme, but I'm unsure how today's deal, a shaped cookie dough press, ties into that theme...

good point. I guess none of the items are really themed. But we could possibly add some themed artwork on the picture?

Re: Show HN: My new side business

#19

Post by frakkingcylons »

devcom wrote: post #12
mikescoffield wrote: post #9

How are you marketing it?

Just facebook at the moment. Any other ideas?

I've used Reddit (you can advertise on specific subreddits such as /r/australia) and StumbleUpon. If you go the Reddit route, don't use an annoying amount of fluff words in the post title. That'll make 'em upset.

Re: Show HN: My new side business

#20

Post by devcom »

frakkingcylons wrote: post #19
devcom wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just facebook at the moment. Any other ideas?

I've used Reddit (you can advertise on specific subreddits such as /r/australia) and StumbleUpon. If you go the Reddit route, don't use an annoying amount of fluff words in the post title. That'll make 'em upset.

Hey thanks! I haven't got any experience with reddit but I have heard that you can upset them easily. I will look at some of the other posts to get an idea of what is suitable.

StumbleUpon is a great idea! I used to use that all the time. Didn't cross my mind to use it. Thanks

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