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Candy Japan April Income Report

candyjapan.com

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Re: Candy Japan April Income Report

#41

Post by prawn »

tferris wrote: post #11
prawn wrote: post #10

Anyone tried the same idea but with Asian stationery? There's always been a huge array of crazy stuff when I've browsed stationery sections of department stores in Thailand, China, etc. I'd try it myself, but I think there'd need to be someone on the ground with direct, cheap access sourcing the product. Lightweight, should be cheap to ship, etc.

Crazy stuff at stationery sections? What do you mean exactly?

Asian stationery is often pretty peculiar. Bizarre and cutesy characters, Engrish slogans, colour combos and so on. I think someone could put together packs of pens, pads, erasers, etc and have a crack. Wish I were over there to try it.

Would partner with someone who was there on the ground and handle design and so on if anyone was interested.

Re: Candy Japan April Income Report

#43

Post by joering2 »

First thing is PayPal fees, after which we are left with $6895. We are switching from PayPal to accepting credit cards directly through WireCard + Recurly, but that will likely just raise our costs a bit (but will hopefully improve conversions).

This interests me the most. Could you shad some light as of why you switching knowing the cost will go up. You say it will improve conversions, but #1 isnt PayPal still the most well known payment system over the web, and #2 dont they offer payment via regular credit cards?

What you trying to do here, is replace better option with narrower one for all customers. If anything, you should add Google Checkout, as I got used to using it over PayPal (and sometimes wont convert) because PayPal got me real mad couple times in the past.

Re: Candy Japan April Income Report

#44

Post by woodall »

bemmu wrote: post #33
rmATinnovafy wrote: post #31

I've been following your posts since you started with the business. Have to say that I'm impressed by your tenacity in keeping this fun idea going. Now, your marketing copy is all over the place. The layout is so hard to follow. Things are just too spread around, and the eye cannot follow an easy reading path. Put everything into two columns, side by side. Put more pictures, and more information. Get a smaller third…

Hi, thanks for the feedback. The current layout is the result of lots of playing around with the site. Testimonials and the video had a big impact on conversions, so they are front and center now. I guess I might be biased from looking at the site a lot, but to me it seems pretty clean. I think it needs to be clear exactly what step I want the user to take to join, so that's why that huge big green button is there. I…

Have you tried targeted ads on reddit? Maybe for something like /r/snackexchange? I just spent $30 on a test ad, if you're interested I can share the traffic stats with you.

Re: Candy Japan April Income Report

#45

Post by bemmu »

joering2 wrote: post #43

First thing is PayPal fees, after which we are left with $6895. We are switching from PayPal to accepting credit cards directly through WireCard + Recurly, but that will likely just raise our costs a bit (but will hopefully improve conversions). This interests me the most. Could you shad some light as of why you switching knowing the cost will go up. You say it will improve conversions, but #1 isnt PayPal still the m…

Instead of redirecting users to PayPal and requiring them to have PayPal accounts with credit cards linked to them, I can directly ask for their credit card information. This is how it should look after the Recurly integration is complete: http://imgur.com/SHC0a

I am now paying PayPal $339 / month.

Recurly charges 1.25% + $0.10 / transaction + $69 / month. WireCard charges 2.75% + $0.19 / transaction + $24 / month. My total cost from these would then be about $473 / month. If I can get ~20 new customers because of this more convenient payment method, then it was worthwhile.

I'm also expecting some increased life happiness from having to deal less with PayPal (the interface is sloooow).

Re: Candy Japan April Income Report

#46

Post by OzzyB »

bemmu wrote: post #45
joering2 wrote: post #43

First thing is PayPal fees, after which we are left with $6895. We are switching from PayPal to accepting credit cards directly through WireCard + Recurly, but that will likely just raise our costs a bit (but will hopefully improve conversions). This interests me the most. Could you shad some light as of why you switching knowing the cost will go up. You say it will improve conversions, but #1 isnt PayPal still the m…

Instead of redirecting users to PayPal and requiring them to have PayPal accounts with credit cards linked to them, I can directly ask for their credit card information. This is how it should look after the Recurly integration is complete: http://imgur.com/SHC0a I am now paying PayPal $339 / month. Recurly charges 1.25% + $0.10 / transaction + $69 / month. WireCard charges 2.75% + $0.19 / transaction + $24 / month. M…

And how are you going to handle SSL encryption for your checkout/cc page? Going to use a separate hosting service for that part?

I see that you're running on App Engine, hence the question...

Re: Candy Japan April Income Report

#47

Post by hellweaver666 »

bemmu wrote: post #33
rmATinnovafy wrote: post #31

I've been following your posts since you started with the business. Have to say that I'm impressed by your tenacity in keeping this fun idea going. Now, your marketing copy is all over the place. The layout is so hard to follow. Things are just too spread around, and the eye cannot follow an easy reading path. Put everything into two columns, side by side. Put more pictures, and more information. Get a smaller third…

Hi, thanks for the feedback. The current layout is the result of lots of playing around with the site. Testimonials and the video had a big impact on conversions, so they are front and center now. I guess I might be biased from looking at the site a lot, but to me it seems pretty clean. I think it needs to be clear exactly what step I want the user to take to join, so that's why that huge big green button is there. I…

Personally, I really like the design. The only thing I would do would be to slightly increase the line-height on your copy. It should make it slightly easier to read (I usually aim for about 1.5em but some prefer slightly less).

Re: Candy Japan April Income Report

#48

Post by bemmu »

woodall wrote: post #44
bemmu wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi, thanks for the feedback. The current layout is the result of lots of playing around with the site. Testimonials and the video had a big impact on conversions, so they are front and center now. I guess I might be biased from looking at the site a lot, but to me it seems pretty clean. I think it needs to be clear exactly what step I want the user to take to join, so that's why that huge big green button is there. I…

Have you tried targeted ads on reddit? Maybe for something like /r/snackexchange? I just spent $30 on a test ad, if you're interested I can share the traffic stats with you.

Hi, yes actually I tried exactly that. It cost me $60 / customer, which is over my lifetime value so I discontinued advertising there.

Here's my stats from the attempt: http://www.bemmu.com/stats-from-advertising-candy-japan-on-r...

Things might be different now, the page was less optimized back then. I might try again later, but I'm really hoping Reddit would just lower their minimum daily spend. Right now they have no advertiser there at all, I'd love to advertise if it was just a tad cheaper.

Re: Candy Japan April Income Report

#49

Post by bemmu »

OzzyB wrote: post #46
bemmu wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of redirecting users to PayPal and requiring them to have PayPal accounts with credit cards linked to them, I can directly ask for their credit card information. This is how it should look after the Recurly integration is complete: http://imgur.com/SHC0a I am now paying PayPal $339 / month. Recurly charges 1.25% + $0.10 / transaction + $69 / month. WireCard charges 2.75% + $0.19 / transaction + $24 / month. M…

And how are you going to handle SSL encryption for your checkout/cc page? Going to use a separate hosting service for that part? I see that you're running on App Engine, hence the question...

HTTPS works for appspot domains, so I thought I'd redirect them to bemmu1.appspot.com for the checkout. That wouldn't exactly inspire confidence in the service, but just until App Engine gets around to adding proper support.

Re: Candy Japan April Income Report

#50

Post by bemmu »

shiftpgdn wrote: post #20
bemmu wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's true there is marketing benefit from HN. Not just directly, but many bloggers read HN and sometimes feature the service because of that (btw. if you're thinking of doing that, you can reach me@bemmu.com).

For what it's worth I hadn't heard of you guys until this post and I just signed up. I imagine I'm not the only one.

Thank you! So far there have been 23 new subscribers today that I would attribute to this HN post.
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