Yeah. I noticed the pun when I was typing it.. But was too lazy of a way to write it without one.
Adventures with Corndog: Corndog's Fish Store
- Thread starter Corndog
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Guest, did you like the last podcast notification?? Well here's the second one, and for the third podcast! Yep. This Thursday 8-8-24 at 7pm Central
Go here to check out his podcast thread for info on topics and links!Go into the FoH discord and find the Happy Time Fun Hour channel and give it a listen!
3rd Full month is in the books. Just under 13k. Didn't mean my goal, but when I set the goal I forgot to factor in the summer is always slower in sales. From everything I'm hearing around me, the sky is falling and no pet stores are making money. I seem to be weathering this month just fine.
So I finally found some success on facebook. I had my graphics guy make an infographic of some useful aquarium info with my logo on it. Posted it yesterday and so far 3200 people have viewed it and it's had 58 shares. Which as resulted in 9 new likes for my page. Which doesn't mean much cause they were all out of my state. It more about learning how to make something go viral in the fish nerd circles.
My page has like 250 likes on it. So 3200 people real fish people reach is pretty good. I'm going to try this again with a good call to action of liking to see if I can get better results on another one in a week or so.
My page has like 250 likes on it. So 3200 people real fish people reach is pretty good. I'm going to try this again with a good call to action of liking to see if I can get better results on another one in a week or so.
Big Phoenix
Pronouns: zie/zhem/zer
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To expand what Phoenix said, maybe make a little tutorial video about putting together a starter fish tank, a how to for someone starting out or something, expand on that like once a month with a new video or so. Make the starter tank a growing project that people can come in and see and such.
Big Phoenix
Pronouns: zie/zhem/zer
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Tmac
Adventurer
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This. People respond really well to "well done" video. Here's one I had done through my timber company, where we feature a seedling grower:
Corndog, are you able to order ADA (Aqua Design Amano) items? I've been thinking of starting a planted tank and would order some of the items through you if you did.
Technically yes, but the profit margin for me is ridiculously bad. There are 2 dealers in the united states for ADA. Aqua Forest in Sanfran, and ADG in Texas. I'd order from them wholesale, then mark it up... You'd get it cheaper from one of them. I do carry things like Aquatop and Mr. Aqua tanks which are really high quality, without the ADA price tag.
I totally agree. Except my store is still only 60% built lol. Once it's done, for sure there will be a video that will blow people's minds
Running a photo contest with facebook user gating... Great results so far. Like 50 new likes in under 12 hours. Spreading around facebook gaining brand image. The cost to me is $15 to run the contest via software. Prize was donated by the sponsor. Will do this monthly for sure.
Thanks for the reply, yea I will order through one of them, figured I would check with you first at least.
What's your ETA on finishing (building) the store? I understand that you and your knowledge is a huge factor in retaining customers, but wouldn't a half built store at least increase the likelyhood of first time customers not coming back?
I'm sure it would increase it, but retention rate seems to be basically 100% as is. I'm definitely chomping at the bit to get things installed. My builder is caught up with his real profession of bee keeping. The honey flow is on until it rains... which it's been sunny for like a month straight now, not the norm for this state at all.
Half way through the month. If it continues will be my new sales record. Constantly working on sourcing products for cheaper/keeping them in stock. A lot of wholesalers are on tough times right now. Means they run oos semi frequently.
Anyone have some ideas for a coupon mailer going out? For $300 roughly I can get a full page ad in a coupon book that gets sent out to 15000 local homes.
I'm thinking about giving away 1 free live aquarium plant. Retail Value of 5.50 or so. Cost to me is like 1.50. Then the next coupon should be something that encourages them to spend money while they are there. Maybe $5 off their first purchase of $10 or more?
Also thought about having a coupon that is 1 "raffle ticket" for a nice aquarium or something.
Ideas? Thoughts?
I'm thinking about giving away 1 free live aquarium plant. Retail Value of 5.50 or so. Cost to me is like 1.50. Then the next coupon should be something that encourages them to spend money while they are there. Maybe $5 off their first purchase of $10 or more?
Also thought about having a coupon that is 1 "raffle ticket" for a nice aquarium or something.
Ideas? Thoughts?
opiate82
Bronze Squire
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Many people do just throw their mailers away, but that isn't the real danger. The real danger is cannibalizing your own sales. People who were going to come in and buy your products anyways use the coupon to get it cheaper. Since Corndog's business is so new his cannibalization risk on mailers/couponing is going to be low right now.
Corndog- That seems like a very good price for mailers, and your offers seem pretty good. You can also make your "raffle ticket" good for a discount as well (PLUS receive 10% off your purchase when you enter!). Important thing to remember with coupons, make sure you keep every one that is redeemed so you can crunch the numbers and figure out what your cost-per-redemption ends up being with the promotion. (Cost of promotion + amount of discount / number of coupons redeemed). Keeping the coupons will also help you gain an idea of which offers drove traffic (e.g. if you get a ton of redemptions on the $5 off $10 but not many for the aquarium plant, you will know to skip the aquarium plant offer next time and to try something different).
As you establish your business, to reduce your cannibalization risks in the future, you can create offers that are value-added based rather than discount-based. Discounts will drive traffic better, but will hurt your bottom line if it is just your regular customers using the coupons when they were going to shop at your store with or without the coupon.
Corndog- That seems like a very good price for mailers, and your offers seem pretty good. You can also make your "raffle ticket" good for a discount as well (PLUS receive 10% off your purchase when you enter!). Important thing to remember with coupons, make sure you keep every one that is redeemed so you can crunch the numbers and figure out what your cost-per-redemption ends up being with the promotion. (Cost of promotion + amount of discount / number of coupons redeemed). Keeping the coupons will also help you gain an idea of which offers drove traffic (e.g. if you get a ton of redemptions on the $5 off $10 but not many for the aquarium plant, you will know to skip the aquarium plant offer next time and to try something different).
As you establish your business, to reduce your cannibalization risks in the future, you can create offers that are value-added based rather than discount-based. Discounts will drive traffic better, but will hurt your bottom line if it is just your regular customers using the coupons when they were going to shop at your store with or without the coupon.
Thanks for that Opiate. Some good insight in there.
On an unrelated note. What are people doing for reviews on their website? I've got 6 posisitve google+ reviews, 7 faceboook reviews and 22 yelp reviews. Unfortunately yelp is filtering out 18 of those reviews. I'm reading that people are taking screen shots of the filtered reviews and posting them under a reviews section on their website. There seems like there should be a better way to do it. I have no problem getting positive reviews. Just a problem with yelp being lame if you don't advertise with them. Also I see that some other search engines bring up different reviews first. Like bing doesn't show google reviews, google shows google before yelp etc.
I don't want to invest money into yep advertising. From what Im reading I'm much better off putting that money towards SEO and having the reviews on my site etc. Anyone know of a good wordpress plugin to do that , or another service to manage reviews? Ideally I'm looking for an app I can install to my website that would feed in reviews from all of the sources.
I'm the same way Tarrant. But when asking customers what they do with them, there's surprisingly a decent portion that does go through them. One guy says he goes through every time to see if the oil change place he likes has a coupon in it. Then it gets put on the fridge. That would be a home run for my business. Right now I'm just looking to get my name out there more. I also thought about, the person that would use a coupon is the person I don't really want a customer as I tend to be on the higher end. What do I like about it is it's targeted to local homes.