Featured Listing: The Original Brand Behind the Wireless Automatic Curler that Literally Broke the Instagram Scene

About the business

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

We’ve been creating e-commerce brands for 4 years now, specialising in branding and marketing. 2 years ago, we saw an opportunity in this niche and created Silkwave which has been a great success. The competition was poor quality and poor marketing, so we used our branding and marketing skills and improved the product with our supplier to make it the best hair curler in the UK.

As an eCommerce business, where are your products made?

China

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

Our product is usually a one time purchase so our LTV is around £40 and we usually spend around £11 in marketing to acquire a customer

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

Social media marketing (facebook ads, Snapchat ads, google ads). Our customers are in the UK.

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?

We spend around 10h per week in total (5h each) on running this business (mostly creating and running ads as well as ordering inventory from our supplier). Our customer support and influencer marketing are taken care of by our VAs. Everything else is automated.

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

Create new ads and run them. Order inventory from supplier. Regularly check on the customer service team.

Growing the business

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

Order more inventory in order to be able to scale the advertising budget. Add new products to the store (hair care product range for example). Start selling in the US and Europe. Start leveraging SEO (we already have a full SEO strategy waiting to be launched, including a list of blog articles to write and keywords to use)

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

We started as a dropshipping store in 2020, then moved to a 3PL in the UK in order to offer next day shipping. This limits our ability to scale the revenue as we need to buy inventory in advance but results in lower COGs than shipping each order individually from China. We rebranded the store in 2021 with a custom theme and created a new packaging. We also added a new product to the store.

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

Shopify sales from traffic driven through social media marketing and influencer marketing.

What marketing channels are most profitable for the business?

Facebook Ads, influencer marketing, Google Ads, Snapchat ads

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

Facebook Ads 40%, Google Ads 40%, Influencers 10%, Snapchat 10%

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

2 founders, 2 customer service agents (VA), 1 influencer marketing expert (VA)

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

We own 2 other businesses and want to focus our time and money on those.