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What's covered in this post
JUNE INCOME REPORT
Etsy Income: $515.60
Shopify Store: $142.81
Collaboration revenue 1: $244.34
Collaboration revenue 2: $375.11
Other contributions: $2.46
Total Income: $1280.32
JUNE EXPENSES
Shopify hosting*: $32.11
Etsy fees: $222.60
Paypal fees: $7.72
Affiliate commission: $26.09
Advertising and promotion: $24.75
Wireless charges: $153.18
Total Expenses: $466.45 (Anything with an * next to it is an affiliate link)
Net Profit: $781.55
June was a busy month. I have been putting my shop in the back burner for a bit because I’ve shifted my focus for a bit for personal reasons and I was also on a little mini vacation to Hawaii!
But this was also the the month where I decided to get back full force and do some major house keeping for my shop.
Part of my to-do list for the month
- keeping my FB group active
- keep up with my social media and newsletter updates
- brainstorming new ideas to keep the shop interesting
- analyzing my data – i really should be doing this more often if not everyday!
- evaluating what apps are working and what apps are not in my shop (especially the ones that costs money!)
- also…update this blog
What I actually did
Getting rid of an expensive app ✂️
This app made my life super easy, but for the purpose it was serving and as much as I’d like to automate things, it just didn’t work out money-wise.
I started a little marketplace within my shop to drive traffic and more sales from collaborating with other designers. I used Multi Vendor Marketplace app on my Shopify. But this app costed at least $40+/ month which is quite pricey. The amount I was paying each month wasn’t generating enough sales for me to cover the costs. And frankly, I’m able to do all these tasks manually, but it just made things easier for me.
Finally took time to develop and announce a new product
As busy as June was, I finally took the time to finalize details for a new product launch I’ve been wanting to launch for a long time. I’ve finally polled my customers, tested out new apps and wrote out my product description. There’s still a lot of work to be done, but I’ve taken the first steps.
My new product will be a subscription service or a library or sorts for people that like to buy my designs. I decided to go down the subscription route because I want to build a steady income. With a subscription, the hope is to have some predictable income and not wonder if I’ll be making any sales this month. In general, I feel like there are lots of time wasted marketing products individually.
Hope to finally launch this in August, so stay tuned for an update!
Consolidated everything into my shop
I did this so I keep track of all my sales in one place and hopefully drive more traffic. One of my revenue generators are my Monthly Mystery Kits that I host with other designers. Designers get a commission for contributing to the bundle and we all help each other with exposure; selling to our own customers and getting new customers to notice us.
I used to use Gumroad (awesome platform by the way!). It already has a built in affiliate program, so you can issue affiliate links and get collaborators to help, and made for selling digital goods. But for me, I felt like I was wasting some of the traffic that was directed to an outside site. The bundle sales drive a lot of traffic, and it would be nice to have those traffic notice my actual shop also.
Although the platform was free, the administration fees were pretty expensive. And looking at the stats of my previous sales, the cost was similar to an app for affiliate tracking that worked really well in Shopify. So I decided to bite the bullet and took the cost upfront and tried to migrate everything to run off my shop this month. There were a few snags during the sale, but I think the traffic paid off!
Learned something new
I learned that my Mystery Bundles were doing well because there’s a release date and an end date (limited time sales). People like to know there are set dates for sales and be notified and for there to be some anticipation. This is something to take into consideration for other products I release as to spend my marketing efforts wisely.
Apps that I currently use in my Shopify store:
- Refersion – I use this app to keep track of affiliate sales. It also offers great analytics!
- Locksmith – This little simple app makes all the difference! I use it to set password protected pages on my site
Multi Vendor Marketplace – This app is great for building a marketplace. It has vendor login functions so they can create new products in your shop and ability for them to upload digital products.
