Brandt Loveridge
🇺🇸Small e-commerce: margins, ads and knowing when to stop
- 14 years of experience
I have run online stores for fourteen years, two that worked and one that burned through a hundred thousand dollars before I shut it. I now advise small operators, mostly people doing between ten thousand and two hundred thousand a year. Almost everyone who comes to me has a margin problem they think is a traffic problem. They want more advertising; what they need is to know their real contribution margin after shipping, returns, platform fees and the ad cost itself. Half the stores I look at are losing money on their best-selling product, and nobody has ever calculated it. The other conversation is harder and I have it often: whether to stop. There is a version of this business that takes four more years of your life and does not work, and recognising it early is worth more than any tactic. I will do that arithmetic with you honestly, including when the answer is to keep going.
Consultation languages
- English
On TalkXp for 1 day
Skills
- Contribution margin
- Shipping and returns costs
- Paid acquisition for small budgets
- Marketplace fees
- Inventory cash cycle
- Deciding to close
What sets them apart
Half the stores I look at lose money on their best seller and have never calculated it. We do that number first, and sometimes the whole strategy changes in twenty minutes.
Moderate cancellation
Fully refunded up to 24 hours before, half up to 2 hours before, nothing after that.