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Candy Japan April Income Report

candyjapan.com

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Re: Candy Japan April Income Report

#21

Post by patio11 »

bemmu wrote: post #14
elktea wrote: post #13

I was surprised not be greeted with high quality photos of examples of past candy. To see any of your product I need to find the 'past candy' link then decide on which unfamiliar product to click on.

Yes, also intuitively to me it would make sense to have such photos, but I found the same thing as Manpacks did ( http://mixergy.com/manpacks-ken-johnson-interview/ ) that showing product photos on the main page lowers conversions. It seems people are in it for the surprise factor.

P.S. This is not untrue for software in many cases. Some products get a big boost out of screenshots. Many don't, and instead get big boosts by e.g. showing pictures of users or the team which wrote the software. (Whether a screenshot helps is surprisingly uncorrelated with my subjective impression of which products are "pretty", even given that I have less artistic sense than a mole rat.)

Re: Candy Japan April Income Report

#22

Post by sparknlaunch12 »

bemmu wrote: post #18
sparknlaunch12 wrote: post #16

$2k per month profit (before tax) is not bad. There are some costs that cannot be avoided per order but imagine as volume grows, so will efficiencies. This model looks like the mens shaver business. Can see this working for any niche - shavers, stationary, fruit, nuts... How can we see earlier blog posts?.

I started this to learn and to provide some basic source of income in addition to software, so it has worked well for that purpose. It has involved writing more software than I expected, though! Earlier posts are at http://www.bemmu.com/ with currently no easy way to see only the Candy Japan related things. I was still feeling a bit undecided where to put them, wondering if it's a good idea to expose customers to inc…

Absolutely awesome blog. Pretty sweet ( excuse the pun) execution of an idea into a profitable business.

Do you think you automate the packing and shipping?

Re: Candy Japan April Income Report

#23

Post by smiler »

sparknlaunch12 wrote: post #16

$2k per month profit (before tax) is not bad. There are some costs that cannot be avoided per order but imagine as volume grows, so will efficiencies. This model looks like the mens shaver business. Can see this working for any niche - shavers, stationary, fruit, nuts... How can we see earlier blog posts?.

Yup, www.graze.com for healthy snacks in the UK

Re: Candy Japan April Income Report

#24

Post by lewispb »

I like how you've used my IP address to tell me that delivery will be free 'even to the United Kingdom'.

May I suggest using the same code to also convert the price from $23.95 to the users local currency as this will help increase conversions. £15.10 feels a lot less than $23.95!

Other than that, great idea and I wish you all the best!

Re: Candy Japan April Income Report

#25

Post by bemmu »

sparknlaunch12 wrote: post #22
bemmu wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started this to learn and to provide some basic source of income in addition to software, so it has worked well for that purpose. It has involved writing more software than I expected, though! Earlier posts are at http://www.bemmu.com/ with currently no easy way to see only the Candy Japan related things. I was still feeling a bit undecided where to put them, wondering if it's a good idea to expose customers to inc…

Absolutely awesome blog. Pretty sweet ( excuse the pun) execution of an idea into a profitable business. Do you think you automate the packing and shipping?

It's already outsourced, which I'm very happy about since it was very time-consuming when we did it ourselves. I've gradually grown a nice relationship with the nearby supermarket, it's almost a drop-ship operation at this point, although I do still meet with them face-to-face every week as our process isn't totally perfected yet.

If you mean automated as in having robots do it, that would be fun, but moving oddly shaped objects from sealed bulk packages into narrow envelopes isn't a very easy task to automate that far.

Re: Candy Japan April Income Report

#26

Post by bemmu »

lewispb wrote: post #24

I like how you've used my IP address to tell me that delivery will be free 'even to the United Kingdom'. May I suggest using the same code to also convert the price from $23.95 to the users local currency as this will help increase conversions. £15.10 feels a lot less than $23.95! Other than that, great idea and I wish you all the best!

That's a great idea, I get this gut feeling/fear though that it might introduce some extra complexity. I might be able to do that at least for EUR/USD/GBP but I suppose have avoided it until now to keep things simple. Will have to think that through more.

Re: Candy Japan April Income Report

#27

Post by bemmu »

patio11 wrote: post #21
bemmu wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, also intuitively to me it would make sense to have such photos, but I found the same thing as Manpacks did ( http://mixergy.com/manpacks-ken-johnson-interview/ ) that showing product photos on the main page lowers conversions. It seems people are in it for the surprise factor.

P.S. This is not untrue for software in many cases. Some products get a big boost out of screenshots. Many don't, and instead get big boosts by e.g. showing pictures of users or the team which wrote the software. (Whether a screenshot helps is surprisingly uncorrelated with my subjective impression of which products are "pretty", even given that I have less artistic sense than a mole rat.)

Any tips btw. for content I should have on the site for SEO purposes? Even though I rank for the generic term "japanese candy" and also some specific candies, I haven't been able to convert people except those searching for the site specifically (http://i.imgur.com/OnVIF.png)

Re: Candy Japan April Income Report

#28

Post by sparknlaunch12 »

bemmu wrote: post #25
sparknlaunch12 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely awesome blog. Pretty sweet ( excuse the pun) execution of an idea into a profitable business. Do you think you automate the packing and shipping?

It's already outsourced, which I'm very happy about since it was very time-consuming when we did it ourselves. I've gradually grown a nice relationship with the nearby supermarket, it's almost a drop-ship operation at this point, although I do still meet with them face-to-face every week as our process isn't totally perfected yet. If you mean automated as in having robots do it, that would be fun, but moving oddly sh…

Interesting. Packaging and shopping seems to be your biggest pain point and cost. Reduce these and you have an easier business to manage and can focus on getting more customers.

Good luck. I imagine there are other goodies from Japan you can offer.

No robots, but rather outsourcing.

Edit: just read your recent post on face book adverts. Really clever. Would you share more details on conversion numbers.

Re: Candy Japan April Income Report

#29

Post by icebraining »

vasco wrote: post #8
icebraining wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And every time I try to come up with a similar idea matching my region but I don't find any. I did the same, but my idea didn't really work. Too bulky and sensitive to the shipping delays.

Pastéis de Belém, heh?

That was my first idea, but it's actually a trademark[1] owned by "Antiga Confeitaria de Belém Lda", and I didn't want to get involved in ugly legalese.

[1]: http://oami.europa.eu/CTMOnline/RequestManager/en_Result?tra...

Re: Candy Japan April Income Report

#30

Post by bemmu »

sparknlaunch12 wrote: post #28
bemmu wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's already outsourced, which I'm very happy about since it was very time-consuming when we did it ourselves. I've gradually grown a nice relationship with the nearby supermarket, it's almost a drop-ship operation at this point, although I do still meet with them face-to-face every week as our process isn't totally perfected yet. If you mean automated as in having robots do it, that would be fun, but moving oddly sh…

Interesting. Packaging and shopping seems to be your biggest pain point and cost. Reduce these and you have an easier business to manage and can focus on getting more customers. Good luck. I imagine there are other goodies from Japan you can offer. No robots, but rather outsourcing. Edit: just read your recent post on face book adverts. Really clever. Would you share more details on conversion numbers.

Long story short, I am not planning to expand my FB advertising efforts at this point. In my best ever campaign I managed to get 6 conversions after spending $280 which is getting close to breaking even, but not quite there yet. Just to reach this almost-breaking-even point I've spent probably close to $2000 on various ad networks.

Another one that came close to working was bidding on SMBC comics ads through Project Wonderful.

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