Let's Get This Show On the Road

November sales were lackluster. Lackluster is good, considering that I've done nothing to support Christmas.  At this time last year, I was $8,000 in debt and ramping up my ad spend. This year I'm not taking on any expenses at all. Well, I did make good on my threat to return payroll back up to 20% of sales after getting out of debt, so I should get a couple of slightly less laughable paychecks in December, and that will increase costs a wee bit.

Here's what Quickbooks says:

November

Total income: -38.9%
Payroll: +53.7%

Marketing: -79.8%
Net Income (Profit) vs LY: -108.6% (-$412)

Actual Profit/Loss: -$992

2017 YTD

Total income: +57.3%
Total COGS: +8.4%
Payroll: +240.1%

Marketing: -38.4%
Net Income (Profit) vs LY: +243.4% (+$6,375)

QB says revenue was down by $1,984, while Excel says it only came up short by $864. I don't know why the discrepancy is so huge.

December should come in way below LY, but again, without any expenses. LY's anemic sales came at great cost.

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Remember that Sunshop support renewal bill that I mentioned in my last post? The $125 payment was due on 11/29. I was leaning toward downloading the current version and then canceling the contract, since the odds that I will actually upgrade next year are low. Then Turnkey made the decision for me by charging my card on 11/24. I was displeased. I was even more displeased when I got a "Cyber Monday" discount offer on 11/27. I asked for a $25 refund. They gave it. So I've decided to keep the contract for another year.

Meanwhile, MDD Hosting decided that the price of my dedicated IP address is going up to $60/year unless I want a "free downgrade" to a shared IP. Yes, please. I don't even remember why I bought the dedicated IP in the first place.

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I spent four hours on MailChimp remembering how to make and send a newsletter. It went to 231 contacts on Tuesday. One bounced and two unsubscribed. 64 recipients (27.8%, vs. 13.3% industry average) opened the email. It got 19 clicks (8.3% vs. 1.6% industry average) and one conversion.

How can I afford to absorb the cost of shipping, which is my largest single expense? Well, I can't, especially when nearly everything is priced at break-even at best. The single coupon redemption (so far) cost me $20.69 to bring in $51, all for products that were priced below profitability. I did convert a big box of dead stock into dollars, so that's nice, but I'd go broke if all of my customers did that.

Newsletters transcend the mailing list. MailChimp was supposed to autopost it to my Facebook page. That didn't work, so I did it manually, and 24 more people (out of Curio City's 223 followers) saw it -- if you want to reach your whole list, you have to pay Facebook a bribe. The key is that Facebook then autoposts it to the bottom of my store's front page, where the people who see the offer should be highly motivated to use it.


It showed up there two days ago. Nobody has used it yet, but at least I have an offer linked on my front page now. There's no other good way to do that.