I found an opportunity to start an online store and I’d like to ask the DT brainstrust on some feedback. I’ll mark it all as spoilers because people may not want to read my full ramblings or some of the subject matter:
Business talk
So I’ve been looking at business where I work to try boost my other business offer, selling marketing software subscriptions, and I came across a lingerie wholesaler.
They just had an open submission to sign up as a stockist so I thought I’d check it out. I have an ABN and a registered company so I could just do it, and there was very little vetting on their side.
Once approved I had access to their entire catalogue and they do dropshipping, where you don’t need to stock the product yourself. Essentially someone buys the product from you, then you buy the product from the wholesaler and they ship it to the person for you.
These guys have way more than lingerie. You can stock a whole sex shop with what they have. But I’ve decided to keep it simple, try focus on a few core products I think would move, and have picked more socially acceptable things that you could actually advertise on social media.
Instead of uploading everything, I’m focusing on things that could target the rave, festival, club scene. So it can still be seen as fashion instead of getting labelled as a sex store and getting banned from every online platform. I’m offering a few best selling items in the hope they will have a broader appeal to try get some cut-through.
I came up with an idea for a store name and a design, here’s the URL, the store is up and running: https://lxix.store/ LXIX is the number 69 in Roman Numerals so it looks fancy but is a sex joke over two thousand years in the making.
Let me know what you think of the website. It’s a little rough in areas and doesn’t have everything, but I’m hoping it looks trustworthy enough someone might click through from a Facebook ad and trust it enough to convert and buy.
It’s almost impossible to grow a social media following organically these days, so I’m expecting to put a bit of money into ads. My only problem is I have no assets aside from the so-so product images from the wholesaler and the brands themselves.
I’m hoping the way I can make this work is I’m hooking up every tracking pixel to just about every social media account I can find. My plan is to eventually get to know my target audience enough I can create ads and remarket to them effectively enough I can build a mailing list, introduce new products as if it’s a ‘launch’ to capture previous customers again, and just grow the database of customers and like customers.
But I need actual sales to keep this going and achieve any of that. I only took the ‘Coming Soon’ off the website last week so it’s still early days, but I want to make sure this website looks like it will work. The marketing software and business consulting was a slog because I don’t have a network or capacity to follow up with people effectively. If I get things right here I could just run an ad and get returns.
I’m also considering reaching out to people and sending free product for content. But that’s also a case of choosing the right people, as it still costs me money when I have no cashflow at the moment.
Also, I’ve searched for the most popular products on the wholesaler’s store to find other websites selling the same stock. A lot of them are basic and ugly websites that don’t look all that maintained. You can upload a CSV of the wholesaler’s catalogue to your store, and I think a lot of people just do that. So they have basic images and descriptions, and are hoping for more of a ‘build it and they will come’ approach.
I also want to do a lot of SEO work and try be the top rank for a few keywords. That can supplement ad spend and helps with building a following long term. I don’t think anyone but the big stockists are doing the same.
I’m just worried I could have a theoretically perfect online store, but can’t realise any actual sales because my ads aren’t good enough or I don’t have enough capital to spend on advertising to figure it out. Any feedback is recommended because I feel like I could make this work.
Maybe make all the descriptions 3 lines long (maybe a blank line after short descriptions) so that the ‘add to cart’ buttons line up nicely. Otherwise it looks great.
I’ll see if I can add some spaces or a line break to shorter product titles. Then I can look into some more consistent formatting so they’re always the same height. This is partially an exercise in learning web design for myself more as well
At the moment I’ve picked things that are one size. I’m having trouble getting the sizing options to display properly so I’m just working around it for the moment
I’m no expert but I’d be wary of anything that at one point could leave you holding the bag.
Say if someone does an order with you but you’re relying on someone else and the goods are late or don’t arrive.
Also be careful as Mastercard and PayPal have cracked down on anything of an adult nature so if they flag something you might not get paid. No idea how strict it is and it might be ok to pay for underwear but the association with the other goods might call attention.
Also the website is clever but I wouldn’t parse that, I’d just see random letters that might look a bit sketchy and probably not click.
Sorry! I’m just a bit wary and raised some risks you might want to consider, the side hustle isn’t a bad idea.
These are all good points. The wholesaler seems pretty established, I’ve seen their products listed on large, real company websites. The issue I could have is someone orders something from me and it’s actually out of stock on the supplier side as someone else has bought the last one. I’ll figure that out if it happens.
I’m expecting people to see ads before they see the URL, so they’ll see the logo with LXIX in it then see the URL. I hope that makes it seem less spammy. I get what you mean though, most junk URLs are just a random string of letters.
Thanks for the tip on Model Mayhem as well. That’s exactly what I need right now. I need assets of real people wearing the clothes, especially videos. I can edit those into ads that will grab a lot more attention if done right.
I’ll try find some 20 year old girls to show the website to as well. The main thing I want to check is if they’d wear the items, and trust the website from seeing it in an Instagram or Tiktok ad to convert to a sale.
Nice. If you can get fancy you could also include at least one bigger girl so customers can see what it might look like on them and see immediately that it’s got their size.
Some of the products have a larger woman modelling them, but she has the same tan and hair as the other woman. She just looks like a larger version of the other model.
If I reach out to people to model the items myself I’ll just want anyone that can wear them in their own style. Body shape doesn’t really matter, as long as they can show how versatile this stuff can be.
The store name/URL is wonderful - definite winner, there. It’s memorable and easy to type.
There’s something really off about the models. If those are real women, they’ve been airbrushed into the uncanny valley. If they’re AI-generated, that would make sense. I have no idea how you could go about fixing them, but yeah - that’d be my first priority in your shoes. Photoshoots and models are super expensive, I realise.
I don’t know about the rave scene or what what the GenZ crowd in general are into. I can say that I doubt any of this stuff would appeal to my wife though. Possibly the red one? By targeting a crowd, are you turning off a large potential client base?
The website itself looks basic - like a template off square or wordpress or something. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but I’d emphasise that you are real some more - ABN, Contact details etc.
The three things I care about as a customer are: Quality, Price and how long it takes for my stuff to arrive. I’m variable on #2, depending on #3. I’ll pay more to have my stuff sooner. If it’s going to take two weeks to come from China, be super clear about this.
As to quality, be really upfront about that. If the quality of the product is dubious, don’t try and spin it as excellent quality.
There’s probably a lot more to cover. At a glance, the range of products looks really limiting. I’m at work and can’t really be closely scrutinising a lingerie store, so I only spent about 2 minutes on the site. A wider range will probably increase the trustworthiness of the site.
Thanks for the feedback. I wanted to start with a limited range but I could add more accessories to pad out the listings more.
The photos aren’t great. I’d really like to get photos of real women on there. Ones where they’re wearing things as part of an actual outfit, there’s a background, they’ve got tattoos and coloured hair and whatnot. I could reach out to people and see if they’d take photos in exchange for free product.
I want to target a specific crowd to start with so it’s easier for me to target ads. No one knows about the store so I don’t need to worry about excluding anyone. If I target a segment I can put new products on the website that may encourage return customers as well.
I’ll add more company details so the website feels more legit. I can do some website updates but I’m not a front end designer and that will take a while. At the moment I don’t mind if it comes across as one person doing their best, and I can spruce it up and add nicer details later.
The product is already here in Australia but I haven’t actually seen any of it yet to attest to quality. I might order some of it to check it out for myself, then I have some on hand for potential local models. I might be able to take some real photos myself of flat lays on a bed or something.
This has given me a bit more to go off so this has been really helpful, thank you.
I found an opportunity to start an online store and I’d like to ask the DT brainstrust on some feedback. I’ll mark it all as spoilers because people may not want to read my full ramblings or some of the subject matter:
Business talk
So I’ve been looking at business where I work to try boost my other business offer, selling marketing software subscriptions, and I came across a lingerie wholesaler.
They just had an open submission to sign up as a stockist so I thought I’d check it out. I have an ABN and a registered company so I could just do it, and there was very little vetting on their side.
Once approved I had access to their entire catalogue and they do dropshipping, where you don’t need to stock the product yourself. Essentially someone buys the product from you, then you buy the product from the wholesaler and they ship it to the person for you.
These guys have way more than lingerie. You can stock a whole sex shop with what they have. But I’ve decided to keep it simple, try focus on a few core products I think would move, and have picked more socially acceptable things that you could actually advertise on social media.
Instead of uploading everything, I’m focusing on things that could target the rave, festival, club scene. So it can still be seen as fashion instead of getting labelled as a sex store and getting banned from every online platform. I’m offering a few best selling items in the hope they will have a broader appeal to try get some cut-through.
I came up with an idea for a store name and a design, here’s the URL, the store is up and running: https://lxix.store/ LXIX is the number 69 in Roman Numerals so it looks fancy but is a sex joke over two thousand years in the making.
Let me know what you think of the website. It’s a little rough in areas and doesn’t have everything, but I’m hoping it looks trustworthy enough someone might click through from a Facebook ad and trust it enough to convert and buy.
It’s almost impossible to grow a social media following organically these days, so I’m expecting to put a bit of money into ads. My only problem is I have no assets aside from the so-so product images from the wholesaler and the brands themselves.
I’m hoping the way I can make this work is I’m hooking up every tracking pixel to just about every social media account I can find. My plan is to eventually get to know my target audience enough I can create ads and remarket to them effectively enough I can build a mailing list, introduce new products as if it’s a ‘launch’ to capture previous customers again, and just grow the database of customers and like customers.
But I need actual sales to keep this going and achieve any of that. I only took the ‘Coming Soon’ off the website last week so it’s still early days, but I want to make sure this website looks like it will work. The marketing software and business consulting was a slog because I don’t have a network or capacity to follow up with people effectively. If I get things right here I could just run an ad and get returns.
I’m also considering reaching out to people and sending free product for content. But that’s also a case of choosing the right people, as it still costs me money when I have no cashflow at the moment.
Also, I’ve searched for the most popular products on the wholesaler’s store to find other websites selling the same stock. A lot of them are basic and ugly websites that don’t look all that maintained. You can upload a CSV of the wholesaler’s catalogue to your store, and I think a lot of people just do that. So they have basic images and descriptions, and are hoping for more of a ‘build it and they will come’ approach.
I also want to do a lot of SEO work and try be the top rank for a few keywords. That can supplement ad spend and helps with building a following long term. I don’t think anyone but the big stockists are doing the same.
I’m just worried I could have a theoretically perfect online store, but can’t realise any actual sales because my ads aren’t good enough or I don’t have enough capital to spend on advertising to figure it out. Any feedback is recommended because I feel like I could make this work.
Maybe make all the descriptions 3 lines long (maybe a blank line after short descriptions) so that the ‘add to cart’ buttons line up nicely. Otherwise it looks great.
I’ll see if I can add some spaces or a line break to shorter product titles. Then I can look into some more consistent formatting so they’re always the same height. This is partially an exercise in learning web design for myself more as well
It’s all one size?
At the moment I’ve picked things that are one size. I’m having trouble getting the sizing options to display properly so I’m just working around it for the moment
Size range is S-M-L-XL-LX-IX
I could add to cart without selecting a size, that’s why I asked.
I’m no expert but I’d be wary of anything that at one point could leave you holding the bag.
Say if someone does an order with you but you’re relying on someone else and the goods are late or don’t arrive.
Also be careful as Mastercard and PayPal have cracked down on anything of an adult nature so if they flag something you might not get paid. No idea how strict it is and it might be ok to pay for underwear but the association with the other goods might call attention.
Also the website is clever but I wouldn’t parse that, I’d just see random letters that might look a bit sketchy and probably not click.
Sorry! I’m just a bit wary and raised some risks you might want to consider, the side hustle isn’t a bad idea.
These are all good points. The wholesaler seems pretty established, I’ve seen their products listed on large, real company websites. The issue I could have is someone orders something from me and it’s actually out of stock on the supplier side as someone else has bought the last one. I’ll figure that out if it happens.
I’m expecting people to see ads before they see the URL, so they’ll see the logo with LXIX in it then see the URL. I hope that makes it seem less spammy. I get what you mean though, most junk URLs are just a random string of letters.
Thanks for the tip on Model Mayhem as well. That’s exactly what I need right now. I need assets of real people wearing the clothes, especially videos. I can edit those into ads that will grab a lot more attention if done right.
I’ll try find some 20 year old girls to show the website to as well. The main thing I want to check is if they’d wear the items, and trust the website from seeing it in an Instagram or Tiktok ad to convert to a sale.
Nice. If you can get fancy you could also include at least one bigger girl so customers can see what it might look like on them and see immediately that it’s got their size.
So many things only have straight sizes
Some of the products have a larger woman modelling them, but she has the same tan and hair as the other woman. She just looks like a larger version of the other model.
If I reach out to people to model the items myself I’ll just want anyone that can wear them in their own style. Body shape doesn’t really matter, as long as they can show how versatile this stuff can be.
Quick thoughts:
There’s probably a lot more to cover. At a glance, the range of products looks really limiting. I’m at work and can’t really be closely scrutinising a lingerie store, so I only spent about 2 minutes on the site. A wider range will probably increase the trustworthiness of the site.
Thanks for the feedback. I wanted to start with a limited range but I could add more accessories to pad out the listings more.
The photos aren’t great. I’d really like to get photos of real women on there. Ones where they’re wearing things as part of an actual outfit, there’s a background, they’ve got tattoos and coloured hair and whatnot. I could reach out to people and see if they’d take photos in exchange for free product.
I want to target a specific crowd to start with so it’s easier for me to target ads. No one knows about the store so I don’t need to worry about excluding anyone. If I target a segment I can put new products on the website that may encourage return customers as well.
I’ll add more company details so the website feels more legit. I can do some website updates but I’m not a front end designer and that will take a while. At the moment I don’t mind if it comes across as one person doing their best, and I can spruce it up and add nicer details later.
The product is already here in Australia but I haven’t actually seen any of it yet to attest to quality. I might order some of it to check it out for myself, then I have some on hand for potential local models. I might be able to take some real photos myself of flat lays on a bed or something.
This has given me a bit more to go off so this has been really helpful, thank you.