The Storm Brings the Calm

This week came to a halt when the drumbeat over winter storm Nemo grew deafening. The weather’s just starting to degenerate at 1 pm on Friday. I managed to get in a little more than a mile of my customary four-mile morning walk before 30” of snow paralyzes Braintree for a couple of days. We escaped Hurricane Sandy, but I don’t think we’re going to get so lucky this time. I wish people would strip Curio City’s shelves the way they have pillaged the grocers…maybe they’ll shop out of boredom tonight.

I did implement my second big product gambit for 2013. As many as a third of my bird kite customers are interested in buying poles. I don’t sell them because they won’t fit inside the standard kite mailing tube and my years-ago experiment with carrying them as a standalone product didn’t work out. But I found out last fall that Jackite will package them together in a larger tube and dropship for me, and so yesterday I added the option to all of my product pages. 

Dropshipping makes me uncomfortable. I don’t like putting my customers at the mercy of another company’s service. The hassle of generating and tracking special orders offsets the (admittedly welcome) labor savings from outsourcing the shipping. But a chance to double the price of a substantial fraction of one of my best products could put thousands of dollars on the table. 

I’ll find out soon enough. Kite season starts in March.

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I can take back part of last week’s reason to hate the USPS after they answered my question about international battery shipping clearly and accurately. They retain partial hatred for making me question their outdated online help in the first place, though.

The death of Saturday mail delivery is a big yawn since package delivery won’t be affected. The six-day week is one of USPS’s main advantages over UPS. I’m old enough to remember when getting the mail was a small daily treat, but, like everyone else, I get almost nothing but junk nowadays. Losing Saturday delivery will cut into Netflix deliveries and shave a disk or two from my usual monthly consumption, which I suppose is a win for Netflix. It gives me a weak reason to switch over to their streaming service someday.

Here Come the Clouds

The promise of Solar Powercaps was clouded when I created ad groups for them on Google and Microsoft. First-page placement for the best keywords costs more than $1.50 per click. I’ll sometimes bid as much as 45 cents for a high-priced product, but anything higher than that is a losing proposition. A 40-cent bid with a 2% conversion rate costs $20 to land a sale. At $1.50 I’d have to spend $75 to land that same sale. Since advertising is budgeted at 10% of gross, my average sale would need to be $750 to justify that outlay.
It’s not. I’m sure I’ll still sell the odd solar cap now and then, but it’s not going to be the hit that I had hoped for.

So let’s follow another dashed hope with a portrait of mediocrity.

January & Year to Date:

Total income: -20.0% (-$1,201)
Total COGS: -33.8%
Payroll: -0.6%

Marketing: -17.7%
Net Income (Profit): +20.8% ($121)

The month did fine until Jan. 24. What happened on that day? Beats me, but daily sales fell from triple to double digits and didn’t get back up again until yesterday. General Valentines Day traffic didn’t swell the late-month numbers and a Valentines-themed newsletter had no effect, as usual. I’d have finished even with LY were I not up against last January’s $1,200 bird kite sale.

At least Cost of Goods Sold fell farther than sales did. That’s something. Unfortunately, marketing is not down by nearly as much as sales are, and that’s something else. Profit is actually up by a smidgeon, though, and that’s really what it’s all about. 

So what to do? I turned keyword bidding back over to Google’s automation. Although the purpose of Google’s algorithms is obviously to make profits for Google, they worked out pretty well over the Christmas season. Let’s see if they can do as well when traffic is weak.

I do have one big trick up my sleeve for February. Unfortunately, last February was another unusually good month, so I’m pessimistic. 

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A $300 lighted cap sale to a Canadian saved this month’s numbers, but I might have to cancel and refund it next week. Last May the USPS banned international shipments containing batteries. Some websites report that they eased that prohibition last November to permit batteries that are installed in products. However, the USPS website disagrees. I’m pretty sure their information is just wrong; shipping the caps with batteries is probably fine, but I’m hazy on labeling requirements. I’m waiting for USPS to clarify by email -- this issue comes up a few times a year, so a definitive response would be welcome -- but I don’t have much confidence in the accuracy of their reply. I just hope they don't consult their own website!

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The Cool Baseball Necklace is history. I suspected as much when I couldn’t reorder the largest size last fall and the vendor couldn’t tell me when she might get any more. Now her website is gone. They brought in $1,100 over the two years that they lasted. 

As long as we’re saying goodbyes, Funkeyboard keyboard stickers are also toast after delivering $2,100 over three years. I won’t miss them terribly; they were a marginal product at a low price and the USPS's 0.75" minimum package thickness requirement made them inconvenient to ship, but the markup was good and, hey, $2,100!

Here Comes the Sun

The Solar Powercaps finally came! They really are as cool as I had hoped. If I don't sell hundreds of these I’m doing something wrong. They will appeal to frugal people who don’t want to keep buying batteries, to eco-conscious sorts, and to techies who are geeked about solar power.

I’m going to bring in lighted visors this summer and winter hats this fall. Those will find an audience, too, but I really think the solar caps are going to blow outta here. 

That’s all for this week. January numbers coming next week.