I used to work as a bouncer at nightclubs, festivals, and shows. It would often be me and a handful of other guys to secure thousands of people at the event or festival. In this instance, you never knew who the enemy was because everyone was presumed to be there attending to enjoy the entertainment. But the bad guys were all around lurking in crowd watching and waiting to strike.
Your competitors are the same when you don’t know who they are. The fact is once you start to succeed you will have more and more competitors and people who are watching your every move. Building a eCommerce brand has been a tough journey but a very rewarding one, at first it was learning the business, then the finances, then team management and then competitors and price monitoring it never ends. But staying ahead of the competition shouldn’t feel like another task that you have to do. I started to enjoy seeing the gaping holes in their marketing and product fit and would often be using the research to build new campaigns and selling new products. Enjoy it!
I think that companies who want to succeed at any cost will throw large chunks of money at media platforms to build audiences. Why? companies want to win against the competition.
Ive found it that sometimes the most obvious competitors are not really the best competitors to allocate when researching true competitors.
The customer doesn’t know what categories you are trying to play in, they are oblivious to that. You as a business owner have the category in mind when you build the business, thats obvious to you.
When building out you business you would be building a little swipe file of competitors both direct from the search engine results and aspirational competitors. Or at least you should be.
One tweak that I apply to competitor research is category research. While its nice to have aspirational competitors I really need to know who it is that is taking the market share of $$$ from my search terms and advertising audiences.
If you sell ice cream, you don’t compete with just ice cream companies, but a myriad of brands that do a similar job for the customer. At the end of a long day, I might reach for pancakes or refreshing bubble tea instead of ice cream.
See the competition angles there? bubble tea and pancakes. Not really your first thought for competitors to ice cream. But they are.
If your competitor has feature X, it does not mean this product feature is recognized, prioritized or valued by it customers nor the competitor itself. It’s most often not an apples-to-apples comparison.
You’re always competing against a significantly wider set of alternatives than you’d like – and that set is in constant movement. Attempting to limit competition by narrowing it down in a strategy document does not make it so.
I like to use Clickup… or I could use Notion. On paper, these companies are in different categories, not direct competition, but they’re absolutely alternatives to each other. They both handle similar problem solving elements that appeal to me.
To be a success and not get side-swiped once you get to the top by competitors you need to know them. You need to know your goal and at the very least consider what their goal might be. Just to protect your revenue should they start targeting you and your business. I also don’t mean targeting you like pointing guns at you, but more targeting your keywords, your products, your messaging and your brand image.
You have so many competitors and this increases the more success you have. Thats not changing, if anything it will only get harder. Each of these competitors will have their own goal or you may encounter one of those rogue ones that has no goal and is a complete wildcard.
If you can be clear about what your goal is and know what resources you have and need to fulfil the work to get there, you are 2 steps ahead of 99% of your competitors. Most competitors will have a lot of goals and not be thinking about who needs to do what to help them hit those goals. They may even have multiple goals and no one assigned to any goals. This is the more likely situation where competitors are not organised but just ambitious.
In my businesses when I started out I wanted to do ecom, dropshipping, affiliate, client side agency and then developer work all at once and when I look back I was the only resource allocated to all of that. It is not uncommon for businesses to be thinking like that. When I was bouncing we had limited resources per every 1,000 people within the show and had to make sure each bouncer was being used to maximise efficiency and cover ground.
The key to this entire post is to have clarity on your goals, have the knowledge of what resources to have to get you there and to form a clear picture of your main competitors, and assess if they have a strategy to knock you off the top or are they just throwing mud against the wall to see what sticks.
Define the key people you need in order to help you reach your business goals. Many hands make light work.
In my eCommerce business I make it very clear. We have 3 customer support people who are customer-facing. They handle the calls, the support and billings support requests as they come in, and then I have the operations team of 4 who handle fulfillment, marketing, and website work. Everyone knows their swim lanes and what they are responsible for and who their direct support is.
Everyone has clarity. Everyone has purpose and everyone has a direct support when they need help.
Now competitors and I mean your real competitors not dropshippers or churn and burn stores wont have this in place. Unless they are all in career dropshippers who have teams ad portfolios. The real competitors should have tell tale signs that you can see when the market shifts, trends emerge and new products launch. You should be able to see their change in tactics and how they adapt to this change. If you cant message me and Ill help you identify these changes of behaviour and how to pick them up.
Looking below its hard to tell what product is the best fitness tracker. They all look same same.
Just note down in a sheet or notebook somewhere what you notice about each competitor. I personally log a manager sheet per store, website, brand that I own/operate. This contains all my research for that market and any observations I see while reviewing the changes in the market and any competitor movement. If you track it you can monitor it for patterns, better than not tracking it and letting it blindside you right?
Now how to make sure the competitors cant catch up to you.
You should be singing your brands message from the rooftops. Making sure there is a lot of noise around your USP and everyone who visits your store knows what that USP is.
The more you can make visitors aware of your place in the market the more traction and followers you will get.
promote your values,
your people,
your products,
your unique selling point
The more people will find a connection with you, your brand and your message.
To really compete in any market there needs to be winners and losers. You can always call out competitors but make sure you have yourself a good shield in place for when they come back at you. Make your point of difference so clear that there is no cause for concern on backlash. Alert & Inform your prospective customer that this is what you do, how you do and what they can expect as a client or customer.
Choose the delivery method of these points and fully align with them. If you don’t do one of these things that you say DONT mention it. You need to have a solid problem and solution message in play to get buy in from a customer. No half-hearted vague AF message, that just doesn’t cut it anymore.
Only when you announce your target, you can define a strategy to win… or at least, you can make yourself believe you are now truly playing the game. Being the brand people want to buy and the brand that competitors wish they could partner with is the winning ticket. Always be building a brand and not a store.
Identifying your goals is the only way to reach them. If you keep your goals inside your head and not written down or having a huge printed sheet outlining the target goals its hard to move towards them each day. The same goes with your competitors, if you know who they are in your noggin but have not put them in any research list or outlined them in your competitors research spreadsheets you can lose sight of them.
Get Ready to Launch Your Catchy Named T-Shirt Business with Print on Demand Software
Do you dream of starting your own T-Shirt and clothing company with a catchy name and designs that people will love? Maybe you’ve even tried it before but didn’t have the time or resources to make it a success.
As someone who started a clothing label back in 2016, I know the feeling all too well. That’s why I’m excited to share with you how you can make your dream a reality with the help of print on demand software.
With print on demand, you can create custom designs and have them printed on high-quality apparel without the need for inventory or upfront costs. And the best part? You can do it all from the comfort of your own home.
So if you’re ready to commit to building your T-Shirt business and making it a success, join me in exploring the world of print on demand software and creating a brand that people will love.
When I was building my first print on demand store I had good intentions, but I had a very low commitment to the building of the storefront. I didnt have the time focus or interest at that particular time, as I was growing another handful of businesses sadly.
I personally find picking business names to be really hard and I way overthink them. I also wont make a business name unless I have purchased the domain name and have some form of a logo to use.
Now I have come so far and I dont think its relevant to trouble you with my problems when starting a business. but you should know the struggle. Back to it. I want to have something catchy and attention grabbing. I thought it might be helpful to outline how Im researching the brand over the next couple articles.
The business will be to start with a print on demand store until I have the data to start building targeted collections and have my manufacturer in place. I really want to go back to creating designs for the shirts like I had before, I actually worked with an Italian artist to create the designs and the story around the brand. Back then I didn’t really have focus on this venture to give it the focus it deserved.
Creating The T-Shirt Company Brand Name
Printing custom t-shirts for businesses, clubs and teams can be a very profitable venture to get into to. I am thinking about using the feature where customers can upload their images or add personalisation to the shirts.
Starting your own business may be a bit scary, but choosing an effective name is a great place to start. I think instead of going general to anyone and everyone you can highlight a specific market and build your T-Shirt company to be a solution for them for example gym gear and workout gear would be a good entry for a start up clothing company.
Here are some T-shirt company names I used to spring board my new brand name. I hope these will help get your mind thinking about your version of your new T-Shirt company.
3Nuts Ink. Absolute Graphics Cartel. Action Design Collective Action Screen Graphics Affliction Ward Almost Famous Awesome Merch Band T-Shirts Black Cat Merchandising Black Market Bleeding Star Clothing Blood is the New Black Blue Ridge Graphics Born & Thread Brew City Brand Apparel Bull Shirts Inc. Busted Tees C.C. Creations Chestees T-Shirts Choice Image Inc. Clockwise Tees Clothesline Creative Cotton Bureau Cotton Connection Inc. Crazy Dog T-Shirts Create My Tee Creature Creations Crocktees Deadbury Dead Design By Humans Designed in Ink Detour T-Shirts Digital Print & Imaging Dirty Coast Collective Dos Chico Tees Earmark Design Eleven West Inc. Elite Screen Printing EmpTees Epoch Threads Custom T Shirt Printing FabNob Fresh 2 Def Clothing Fresh Milk Clothing FunkRush Garment Decor Geek Bouteek Gleenz Tees Go Big Tees Go West T Shirt Company Gold Star Graphics Graphic Impact GritFX HomeBrewed Tees I Am The Trend I Love T-Shirts Image Market Imaginary Foundation Imprint Revolution In My Short Sleeve Ink Images Custom Apparel Integrity Ink Apparel Jimmy Jam Kelgraphics LadyUmbrella Last Exit to Nowhere Legacy Merch Liquid Blue LogoDogz Merchster Midwest Impressions Inc. Mintees Mother Falcon Non Factory Obey – This brand started my love of T-Shirts so just added for Inspiration Outhouse Designs PalmerCash Tees Peace and Cotton Prestige Tees Promo Planet RetroDuck Custom Screen Printing Round Rock Screen Printing Shirt Bakery Shirts Illustrated Skreened Stitch Me Storyville Superior Silk Screen Inc. The T-Shirt Mill Threadless Threds Inc. T-Shirt Safari T-Shirt Warehouse Twisted Image, Inc. Undefeated Underground Printing Union VS Tees Wallflower Merch Woven Inc. Write On T-Shirts Zen Threads
That list HAS to have something you can start with. Take a word and run with or combine multiple words. I look for the buzz word and the feeling. Like OBEY gives me just a sense of pride in their story and journey but to start that same thing new with no skin in the game I need to think harder about the name.
Think like this: Buzz word + Thing
I like also to use TOPIC and a word that describes the brand like Group, Collective, Clan, Herd and so on.
You can take any words and build on them until you find something that resonates with you. I also like to review existing brands – OBEY and see whats working for them, ideas that they have and words I draw from the brand to use in my branding excercise.
Im giving myself 1 month of research and prep before launching. You can go much faster but I have commitments and I cant waste time on a flop. Have a good think about the type of business as well, will you just be print on demand business or an actual Brand that you work on to scale.
Second Idea Print Store if this Works Well
I also tinkered with the idea of building a print on demand physical store
Catchy Printing Company Names A Bright Printing All City Printing Alpha Graphics Beast Printing Busy Bee Printing Color & Creation Coloredge Elite Flyers Everyday Printing Fancy Bee Green Press Influence Print Kwik Kopy Life in Colors Lightsource Minuteman Press One-Stop Printing Overnight Printing Print Express Print Road Rush Flyer Shore Printing The Color Group The Paper Boutique Total Printing Systems Village Print & Media Where’s The Party
I am still thinking if I move towards a print store because COVID is still a real thing.
Owning a t-shirt business sounds like a lot of fun and if I set it up right It will be hands off management. It can be if the business starts on the right foot, but Ill need to do a little more research to make sure I am not building ANOTHER business that needs more of my time.
Here are some print on demand softwares to help you start your own printed Tshirt business:
Shopify – The number 1 store building software for ecommerce.
Printify – the best print on demand supplier in the game.
RedBubble – a design marketplace of creativity that you need to bookmark.
Etsy – A marketplace for a whole lot of stuff. hidden gems here.
PlaceIt – easy easy to show off your designs in the real world on models.
Appsumo – All the software you want in one place for design and editing
ThriveKart – for starting a sales and product page with a checkout.
Browse through the best ideas above to come up with an eye-catching, meaningful name for your business. The key is to take something from the list and ADD your own twist to that name. The name should speak volumes about your brand. If it doesn’t, your business may not make it out of the startup phase. The key to success is to build brands, not stores.
Every day millions of products are bought and sold on Facebook Marketplace. For ecommerce brands, dropshippers and print on demand businesses this is a gold mine of supply and demand.
Retail arbitrage is a way where you can buy low and sell high from most marketplaces. The good thing is Facebook has an active userbase on the marketplace 24/7 so buying and selling happens non stop.
The core sales principles remain
1 Use clear images that show the products best features
Facebook marketplace is a place for everyone to make some money selling products online. As a dropshipper Ive made money from facebook marketplace many times over. You do need to be watching your listings but if you can communicate fast and have a product in demand you are going to make sales.
Here are some key points to consider when trying to start dropshipping on Facebook Marketplace
Research Niche and Products:
Begin by researching and identifying a niche that has demand on Facebook Marketplace. Look for products that are unique, in demand, and have good profit margins.
Choose reliable and reputable suppliers for your dropshipping business. AliExpress, Oberlo, and SaleHoo are popular platforms where you can find suppliers.
I like to use Australian suppliers if Im promoting marketplace product listings in Australia, the shipping is better than coming from overseas.
Create a Facebook Business Account:
If you don’t have one already, create a dedicated Facebook Business account for your dropshipping venture. This allows you to separate your personal and business activities.
Build a Professional Profile:
Create a professional and appealing business profile on Facebook Marketplace. Use clear images, write compelling product descriptions, and highlight the benefits of your products.
Product Listings:
List your products on Facebook Marketplace with high-quality images and detailed descriptions. Be transparent about the product’s features, specifications, and any potential shipping delays.
Pricing Strategy:
Set competitive prices that factor in product cost, shipping fees, and your desired profit margin. Keep an eye on your competitors’ pricing to ensure your offerings are attractive.
Clearly communicate the expected shipping times to your customers. Since dropshipping can involve longer shipping times, manage customer expectations to prevent dissatisfaction.
Customer Service:
Provide excellent customer service. Respond promptly to inquiries, address concerns, and provide tracking information. Positive interactions can lead to repeat business and positive reviews.
Order Fulfillment:
When an order is received, fulfill it through your chosen supplier. Ensure that the correct product is shipped to the customer’s address.
Payment Processing:
Set up a reliable payment processing method that’s secure for both you and your customers. PayPal and Stripe are common options.
Feedback and Reviews:
Encourage satisfied customers to leave positive reviews on your Facebook Marketplace page. Positive reviews can build trust and credibility.
Marketing and Promotion:
Use Facebook’s advertising tools to promote your products to a targeted audience. Consider running paid ads to increase visibility and attract potential buyers.
Legal and Compliance:
Familiarize yourself with local and regional regulations related to online selling, taxes, and consumer protection. Ensure your business is compliant.
Continuous Optimization:
Continuously monitor your sales, customer feedback, and performance. Adjust your strategies based on what’s working and what’s not.
Scale Wisely:
As your business grows, consider expanding your product offerings, optimizing your processes, and potentially exploring other online sales channels beyond Facebook Marketplace.
Remember that dropshipping can be competitive, so your success will depend on factors like product selection, customer service, and marketing efforts. It’s important to stay adaptable and willing to adjust your strategies based on the evolving needs of your business and customers.
Facebook Marketplace also has some strict rules in place for how users transact between each other. It’s worth you learning the restrictions and guidelines in place to keep any business you build using this method safe and operating for years not days.
Breaking Down Google Analytics 4 For Affiliate Marketers
Google has announced the release of Google analytics 4. The last time Google Analytics had an update was some time ago. This latest update comes with a laundry list of powerful upgrades and from the chatter I hear from my network, this has my marketing colleges worried.
The key point is that this free tool that’s been so beneficial to my business has just provided an even more powerful feature set that provides even more data and metrics to be used for marketing my business online. Yew that’s music to my ears.
Google’s analytical tool is the most widely used tool by marketers, websites, and business owners to track the performance of their website. There are alternatives but this Google Analytics platform is the most used platform in the world.
This updated version of the tool will allow marketers to analyse performance and trends even more in-depth as they happen. Harnessing the power of AI this instal of the popular data platform will be a marketer’s best friend.
The user interface is much cleaner and easier to navigate than the previous version. For bigger data sets you need a clean interface. I feel having a wider feature label on the left-hand nav panel helps access the right tool for the job much faster.
It is still the early days of the rollout and many third party tools have not yet adapted and added integrations to collect and work with the data in GA4.
The big switch is moving from a UA – universal analytics to a G – Google analytics property label. UA properties deal with cookies rules where the newer version has less reliance on cookies.
Why Should You Switch to Google Analytics 4?
The future of website performance monitoring is Google Analytics 4. The insights that can be reviewed and integrated from the dashboard will power the strategy behind marketers decisions to construct campaigns.
Gleaning insights from performance tools is real enjoyment for me and GA4 provides that extra look behind the curtain.
I do like the way this was rolled out, you are presented with an option to run the UA version and the G version side by side without any double handling. When you build a new property the option is only to set up GA4 but once that’s set up you can come back in and build a UA property if you need to integrate any third-party tools that have not yet adapted.
I don’t suggest rushing ahead and just using the new GA4 property without a good reason. I do suggest running parallel monitoring with a Google Analytics 4 property and a Universal Analytics property.
How Google Analytics 4 Properties Work
Key Features of Google analytics 4 (GA4)
GA4 will permit advertisers to alter and adjust to how events and marketing campaigns are followed in analytics without any coding required.
Importing data will now be easier as it incorporates getting information from a wide variety of non-website sources (example:- Apps) all with just one property.
With Google Analytics 4 cross-domain tracking of the website is easier. It can be done without codes (adjusting codes) and can be done inside UI.
The biggest and predicated to be the most impactful change in GA4 is “The Life Cycle Report” for all accounts and focuses on showing the visitor or user journey on site. The feature “Templated reports for e-commerce funnels” gives advertisers an approach to show and view information – a component of analytics that was earlier accessible to only Analytics 360 accounts.
GA4 will work with AI as the fundamental process for collecting information and analysis, utilizing “machine learning and modeling” for measuring data, that can extrapolate from existing information and make suggestions about site traffic/client conduct. A new feature of AI-controlled “insights” will analyze on its own and will suggest relevant and supportive data for advertisers.
It’s centered around giving advertisers a “more complete comprehension of the client venture and behavior on various devices.” And it appears to be that it’s more focused on estimating a start to finish customer venture, and not simply focus on singular measurements across gadgets or pages.
The design intends GA4 to be “future immune” and work in a world with no cookies or distinguishing information.
Google Analytics 4 highlights “streams of data” rather than the “views” and fragments utilized by Universal Analytics properties.
The “view” level part is removed in GA4. While conventional Universal Analytics broadly has three levels (Account, Property, and View). As it might show biased data hence “view” hence removed and GA4 just has Account and Property levels.
While “tracking events” in conventional Analytics required Analytics code, editing, or gtag.js content, Google Analytics 4 professes to empower editing, following, and adjusting of events inside the UI. This implies interactions like page scroll, clicks, and more, that’s only the tip of the iceberg.
GA4 is focusing on “events”. These events are the principal way in which the information is introduced in the new Google Analytics.
AI handling the procedures in this new Analytics implies that it can fill in gaps that organizations can’t comprehend and are not able to deliver to their best abilities. A lot of their customers and traffic that visit websites are choosing without cookies and hence companies are not able to get all data about their visitors it will be resolved with GA4 and its AI-driven process. Users and even browsers are getting more protective and do not allow analytics to collect data. For instance, Mozilla Firefox has moved to introduce “Block Analytics”, and a lot of sites are beginning to prioritize visitor agreement to characterize their Analytics. People are opting out of consent for using cookies and analytics is changing it hindering organizations to collect all data and keep track.
The requirement for something like Google Analytics 4 to a great extent comes from new security assurance laws (like the GDPR and CCPA) and the falling apart of universal analytics. Many organizations are utilizing Universal Google Analytics which could frequently run into issues with mistaken or missing information because of consent issues by users for cookies because of these privacy laws.
Google stated that the reason for the new Google Analytics is the advancement of new technologies and the rise in demand for “privacy as a priority”, following, x-channel estimation, and AI-based usage in information collection at the same time. By applying Google’s AI models, the new Analytics can fill data gaps for website traffic and client/customer behavior without depending on having “hits” coming from each page.
Google Analytics 4 is based on the “Mobile Application + Web” framework that they delivered in 2019. The App + Web adaptation of Analytics was fundamentally developed around cross-channel information, implying that it gave advertisers an approach to follow clients across applications, programming, and a site.
This implies that its fundamental objective is to change how information is presented to customers from the beginning to their conversion as clients.
How To Setup Google Analytics 4
Setting up Google Analytics 4 follows the same path as if setting up the Universal Analytics but with some small twists to the end setup. I’ve been using Google Tag Manager for the instal process. GTM allows for an easy configuration of the GA4 platform.
A neat feature that GA4 has is some out of the box conversion elements like tracked link clicks and scroll depth pre-filled when you set it up. This saves me a good 30 minutes setting that up manually.
Another change is instead of picking a web or an app tracking selection you can now track both web + app as one.
Let’s take a look at how you can set “GA4 property” with your existing Universal Google analytics:
Sign in to your Analytics account within your website’s existing property.
Search for the Admin section.
Now, in the Account column, you can see “account” select the account. Choose the account in which you want to create the GA4 property.
Click in the Property column, select the Universal Analytics property for your site that you desire.
Now here you will see the ‘GA4’ option and select “Upgrade to GA4” and follow the steps. If you can not see any such option fear not as in some cases this button is not visible.
Now you have to select “Create a property” and then follow the steps and create a new property for “Web + App”. Using this default setting you will be taken to the new “Google analytics 4” property and your account will upgrade to GA4.
Once this step is completed you will have the new version of Google analytics-GA4. There will be few others steps to follow before the property start appearing in your account.
Now for activating “enable data collection” there are two ways: link the existing tracking data from your conventional Analytics, or you can start with new tags. You can add these tags to your website in a similar way as in traditional analytics.
Head over to Google Tag Manager when prompted and start to configure the new GA4 tags and triggers. The GTM template library already has a template for GA4 built in so its really easy to set up.
Once you have set all the options that suit your business best remember to publish the changes.
Test that you have real live activity or events by reviewing your GA4 dashboard and by being on your website just to confirm tracking is working. If it is you are done.
This is my first round guide for getting set up with Google Analytics 4. This will change as I’ve got more data on best practices for affiliates and eCommerce marketers to use this powerful platform. I hope it helps put some more insight into how to use GA4 for your benefit.
