Featured Listing: Glassics

This is a phenomenal opportunity.

Featured is an exciting opportunity in the quickly growing headshop / glassware niche. Featuring beautiful, clean, unbranded utilitarian first pieces, this business has found quick success through social influence and recommendations. Zero ad spend!

Watch the video below to learn a bit more about the business.

View the Listing!

What’s your background? How did you start with this project?

This is my first eCommerce business, but I do have experience working in the headshop space in a more traditional, brick and mortar sense.

I saw a gap in the product that people wanted and what was available online for people to purchase, so I started up Glassics in order to cover that niche of highly utilitarian glassware without the price of a brand name. It functions great, the look is clean and simple, and it appeals to a wide variety of customers.

How are you managing warehousing and fulfillment?

Glassics’s inventory is primarily sourced from China. We’ve developed strong relationships with some of the top factories in the country to find the highest quality glassware and customer service available. Smaller orders are typically placed on DHGate.com while larger orders are placed directly with the factory using a wire transfer service such as Western Union or Alibaba Payment Assurance.

When inventory is received, all products go through quality assurance to identify any damage or defects during the delivery. If any items are not as described or suffered damage in transit, the seller is notified and a replacement order or refund is agreed upon. Unpacked, undamaged items are then stored/organized for future fulfillment and the inventory is updated.

Once an order is placed on Glassics, the product(s) is processed and packaged within 24hr M-F using a 2-box method to ensure a safe delivery and is shipped by USPS Priority Mail, Ground or First Class depending on what the customer selected.

As we grow, we’re looking into outsourcing fulfillment to another company (ie Shipbob) as it is becoming a bit much to handle on our own. This would be a great opportunity for a new owner who does not have the space or the desire to manage inventory themselves.

How much are you spending on Advertising?

Essentially nothing! We are gaining about 70% of our traffic via organic search at this point.

Due to the nature of selling product within a regulated industry, it’s a bit tough to run traditional advertising, but this has actually worked to our advantage as it keeps our margins wide.

We work with influencers and organic social and have found great success, only spending a few hundred dollars each month, plus some product here and there, to keep things moving.

What are some opportunities for a new owner?

  • Outsource Fulfillment Process – Companies like ShipBob, ShipWire, ShipHero & Flowspace offer services for managing inventory, performing quality assurance, shipping fulfillment, etc., and would allow the new owner to focus more time and energy on marketing & growth. Order fulfillment can be the most time-consuming aspect for an inventory holding site such as Glassics, which would be efficiently streamlined by a storage and fulfillment service and would eliminate the need to store products locally. Estimated cost: $250-$350 per month depending on the service selected and the new owner’s needs. 

  • Outsource Social Media Management – This would be another huge time-saver week-to-week to allow the new owner to expand on the marketing and product ideas below. Contracting/hiring a photographer and social media manager is recommended now that a tested system has been created to outsource these more rudimentary tasks. Estimated cost: $200-$300 per month depending on the owner’s needs.

  • Expand Product Lineup – Selecting new products and creating new listings within the site’s product category and subcategory structure would have a dramatic influence on sales. As no new products have been added for over a year (due to time constraints with growth), new products would be an incredible opportunity to inject some excitement into the store and capitalize on returning customers who enjoyed their previous purchase. This would also increase the overall conversion rate as more products would be available to satisfy a wider variety of consumer specific needs.

  • Launch Ambassador Program – To continue to grow the site’s traffic and social media audiences, an official ambassador program would be a great option. As there are a number of current and aspiring influencers who have reached out to be part of the Glassics brand, there is no shortage of potential ambassadors who could help spread the word while earning themselves a small kickback and providing their fans with a small personal discount code to track metrics. This marketing strategy would have the most inherent value for both Glassics and the influencers involved as the rewards/earnings are consistent and based entirely on individual performance.

  • Utilize Newly Added eBay Channel – Now that eBay has launched their own Managed Payments system and no longer requires Paypal for payments, this opens up an entirely new audience and sales channel with several promotion tools for boosting listings and reaching new customers. This Managed Payments account has already been created and tested with no issues and has a lot of room for optimization.

    Benjamin Weiss is a marketing all-star at Flippa. He has well over a decade of experience running multifaceted marketing programs within the CPG industry and knows just what it takes to drive a business from vision to reality. You will often find him enjoying a cold beer on a hot day in Austin, TX, or you can always find him on LinkedIn.

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