Featured Listing: 3-Year-Old eCommerce Business

About the business

Tell us a little about yourself. What’s your background? How did you start the business?

I am a Canadian who has been living in Japan for the last 3.5 years. Before coming to Japan I worked as a professional musician for 10 years but decided to take the opportunity to visit Japan for a year while I could. As a result, I ended up staying here and was inspired by the culture, amazing experiences, and people around me to start this company.

As an eCommerce business, where are your products made?

Most products are made in China, although a few have come from Japan directly.

What can you tell us about your Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) and Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

This has varied quite a lot due to iOS updates, but the CLV is about $20 as we had not engaged our past customers much until recently, using email marketing. So, this number is increasing as email marketing has been successful. The CAC has fluctuated quite a bit, but we would typically run our advertising campaigns to try and maintain a ~$6 CAC.

How have you marketed the product and where are your customers originating from?

We have marketed our products mainly on Facebook and Instagram with some promotion testing on other platforms such as Pinterest. Most of our customers had originated from these social sources, although organic google traffic continues to grow.

Is the asset on your listing owner-operated, how much time does it take to run the business, who else is needed on the team, and what is automated?

Yes, it is owner-operated. No other people are currently needed and it takes about 10 hours per week for general operation. Adding new products, blog writing, and email marketing can add more time relative to the output. The order fulfilment is largely automated although I do check over things manually to try to catch discrepancies, tracking syncing, abandoned cart sequences, some post-purchase sequences are also automated.

What does someone need to do to continue operating the business in its current form?

To continue operating in its current state, it is good to have an idea of how to run Facebook Ads, Write simple emails, Answer customer service questions (I do have a document with copy and paste responses for most situations), and become familiar with our fulfilment software (it is quite simple).

Growing the business

Can you list a few opportunities for a potential new owner to continue growing the business?

We have recently partnered with another website that has listed our products to dropship from us. Nurturing that opportunity would be good. The largest opportunity is likely in platforms such as Amazon, eBay, and possibly Etsy as we are not selling on those platforms currently. Blog writing / SEO is always a good opportunity for growth and email marketing has been very beneficial recently while iOS affected marketing channels have been less profitable.

What has been the evolution of this asset since its launch?

The website has grown and scaled up quite easily. I am very conservative with my scaling, but as revenue grew constantly and profitably, more products have been added, more organic traffic has come and the site as a whole has grown and become more self-sustaining.

How does this business make money? What are the current revenue streams?

This website is an eCommerce site making money through product sales. We have recently registered for a Japan-specific affiliate program which would be valuable to add to applicable blog posts or email marketing to customers.

What marketing channels are most profitable for the business?

Facebook / Instagram, and email marketing to re-engage customers.

How does the business currently acquire customers and what is your breakdown for marketing costs?

Customers are acquired through social media marketing and organic traffic by signing up for our welcome email or filling out purchase information on our eCommerce site.

How big is your current team? How many people does it take to run this business?

I am the only person running the business.

What’s the reason for selling your business on Flippa?

Peace of mind. The business has been down well and was growing predictably, but with the iOS updates affecting advertising platforms and covid affecting global logistics, I am choosing to sell instead of “waiting out the storm” so to speak. I am confident once the current global situations are stable the store will be easily scaled again, but the extra focus in the meantime has motivated me to sell.