The Black Friday sales are a phenomenon which launched in the US and has now taken off in Australia.
The concept is simple, one very big day of massive sales, allowing retailers to kick off the Christmas rush with a bang. Black Friday is held on the last Friday in November, reminding everyone it’s time to start shopping. With great prices and motivated buyers, this sale is win/win for business owners and shoppers alike (not to mention its positive impact on the economy).
If you haven’t already jumped on the Black Friday bandwagon, there’s no better time. Make 2020 the year you tackle this sale with gusto and boost your coffers before Christmas.
One of Business Blueprint’s members Brian Chapman had incredible results during last year’s Black Friday sales, selling over $250k worth of products in just four days. If you’re not familiar with Brian’s brand, he sells the Power Planter, a simple but incredibly effective garden product. From this massive sales result, Brian was able to walk away with $60k in profit. Not bad for less than a week!
Always seeking to help others, Brian shared publicly what it took to receive these results, posting the following figures on the Business Blueprint Members Facebook group:
- $27,000 on Facebook Ads
- $3,000 on Google Ads
- 20,000 visitors to the website (22% of whom were returning customers, who added 1,610 individual orders)
- 8% conversion rate on website customers (double the usual 4%)
- $157.5 average order value
- $18.71 ad spend per order
- $33,000 as a result of email campaigns to subscribers
- $3,466 as a result of text messaging campaigns
Brian also caught up with Business Blueprint Founder Dale Beaumont recently in our studio to share more on how he took the Power Planter product from $0 to $3 million in online sales.
From portraits to Power Planters
After many years as a photographer, Brian was looking for a new business opportunity. A keen gardener, he chanced upon the Power Planter when looking for a way to plant thousands of bulbs across his Dural Property for a field of flowers project.
The Power Planters are made by the Niewold family who lives in Loda, Illinois in the United States. They had been making them for about 30 years but had never exported to Australia. Brian seized the opportunity to reach out to the company in the US and ask for the rights to sell the Power Planter in Australia.
After securing the rights, Brian set about selling the Power Planter to an Australian audience. He had already been part of Business Blueprint as a photographer and was excited to apply his skills to a new product but he wanted to do things on his terms, with flexibility, the ability to focus on marketing but no pressure surrounding manufacturing. His ideal business didn’t involve a shopfront but allowed Brian to sell products in his sleep.
In the video below, as well as sharing his story of securing the rights and becoming a direct-to-public seller, Brian lifts the lid on his top three tips for eCommerce businesses.
To go from $0 to $3 million in sales per year online, Brian leveraged the Shopify platform. This allowed him to start his first-ever online business. Having Power Planter as a side business to start off with gave him access to experts, who gave their recommendations so he could make a quick decision.
With Shopify, you can pay as little as $40 per month, even when you’re turning over thousands in revenue.
Brian’s other tips are as follows:
1. Create and optimise landing pages
This is a page of a website you direct traffic to, to encourage shoppers to do something. Brian and his team created a landing page, directing gardeners to that page. Then he took things a step further, turning his landing page into a homepage and making people’s first port of call a direct sales page. This page now has everything a customer needs to make a purchase with as few steps as possible.
2. Add Shopify apps
Brian’s website shares instant notifications whenever someone buys a Power Planter. This adds social proof and prompts people to take the next step to buy. Even if you don’t have a lot of customers, it will replay customer transactions from the past week.
3. Include product reviews
This allows you to share reviews from customers. If one client says the product doesn’t work, Brian can share the many thousands of positive product reviews in their collection. One thing that’s worth noting is that only around one in ten customers will take the time to leave a review. However, the reviews in Power Planter’s collection provide overwhelming proof of the quality of the product. “It has been an integral part of our success,” says Brian.
Brian also uses a CRM called Omnisend, which operates through Shopify to stay in touch with customers. He also relies on remarketing, which means advertising to people who have visited his website in the past.
Over 64,000 Australians are now using Power Planters to dig up their gardens five times faster and with virtually no effort required. Brian is always excited to share his eCommerce tips with other business owners in the Business Blueprint community, helping them to achieve the same level of success.
