@danavirsarria on Twitter
DTC Candles Breakdown I...
DTC CANDLES BREAKDOWN I re-launched my fantasy-inspired candle brand, The Wicked Warlock, on November 21st. Ordered 370 candles. So far, I've sold 186 units and generated $5,962.79 in top line revenue in the past 3 weeks. Here's what happened: P.S ALL FEEDBACK IS WELCOMED 🙂
Note: Thread scandles
First, why candles? 1/ $300 inventory cost to launch my first MVP 2/ 3 week lead times 3/ $35+ AOV 4/ 57% gross margin 5/ $2 shipping from manufacturer And ultimately, I wanted to do something fun. I'm obsessed with IP and entertainment. Candles got me there.
Now, let's start with the 1st round of tests. I launched the Tavern back on September 19th and sold out my inventory of 28 candles by October 7th. $38 + $10 s/h per candle, so they're not cheap! I spent $536.16 and generated $1,288.40 in revenue.
Result: Slightly profitable with paid ads after landed costs. I only had 1 SKU, but I still somehow made plenty of bundle sales before the actual holidays. IMO, this meant my fantasy-inspired candle brand idea was "validated". So I got to work on my next batch...
Theory: 1/ Bundles made me profitable, so I expanded to 5 total candles... enough for a high enough free shipping threshold. 2/ I felt like a honey + tavern candle was too niche, so I broadened into more popular locations + ingredients people already understood w/o smelling.
I re-launched on November 21st, just days before BFCM. My goals: 1/ Sell at least 50% of my inventory by Christmas 2/ Boost CRV up to 3% due to the holiday bump 3/ Get AOV to $95 4/ Get CPA to $30 for single SKUs 5/ Find my best sellers + bundles 6/ Find best ad creative
After 3 weeks, I learned a lot. 1/ Tavern & Dwarven Mine were my best sellers. Elven City was a clear 3rd. 2/ Adventurer's Bundle (5-pack) sold well. 3/ Heroes' Feast + Dragon's Lair were total flops lol. 4/ People enjoyed my "immersive' ad creative the most.
Overall, I spent $4,280.16 in ads and made $5,962.79 in revenue. $931 of that came from email (2 day, click attribution... I didn't email until December). If my math is right, this means a 1.39 MER. It also means I lost about $881.37 in the process. About 71% of breakeven.
Without email, the numbers would have been much worse. 1.17 ROAS - $1,412 loss I'll be honest, now that I'm writing that down here, it doesn't sound very good... but it is my first significant ad campaign for these candles. (View Tweet)
I re-used the same ad creative format from my Tavern test since it worked pretty well. This meant... 1/ The ad copy was modified for each specific candle. 2/ I split-tested the candle illustration w/ the candle added to each scene my illustrator already made.
Probably should have consolidated ad creative into 1 big campaign... But anyway, on a per creative basis Dwarven Mine had the most promise with Elven City as #2. Interesting observation: I made my Tavern sales from people who bought my Dwarven Mine and Elven City candles.
For context, my PDPs are straightforward. 1/ Illustrations by a former Wizards of the Coast artist. 2/ Original stories written by a creative writer. 3/ 3 testimonials 4/ Guarantee NOTE I just upgraded to Impulse last night, so testimonials + guarantee aren't up right now.
So what does all of this all tell me? Emotionally, I'm a bit nervous haha. I did sell half of my inventory, the brand is unique, and I'm getting closer to hitting my KPIs, but I'm always worried that I may be trying to push something that doesn't have product-market fit. (View Tweet)
On the other hand, it does feel like I'm 1 offer + 1 ad + 1 landing page away from making this work at scale due to the results of individual SKUs and ad creative. People are buying and enjoying the candles. I just need to focus on optimization. (View Tweet)
The Plan: 1/ Make landing page for The Adventurer's Bundle on Replo. 15% OFF + Free Shipping = $161 AOV. 2/ Invest in GREAT ad creative (animation + UGC). Also, make ad copy testimonial-driven. 3/ Consolidate my ad account structure: 1 "testing" and 1 "scaling" campaign. (View Tweet)
4/ Test 10% off opt-in offer with "free candle" offer. Current CRV is 3.9%... need it to be 10%. 5/ Look for organic or affiliate traffic... primarily TikTok, affiliate sites, SEO, or even collaborations. 6/ Collect as much feedback as possible with KnoCommerce. (View Tweet)
Overall, I've lost money so far. The next 2-3 weeks will also be dead as my manufacturer will be off for the holidays. So I'm going to take this time to regroup, then I'll launch again in mid-January with one BIG final push to make ads work. We'll see what happens. (View Tweet)
Want more behind-the-scenes looks as I grow this brand? Make sure to follow me! Also, don't forget to like and retweet this thread. I'll try to post monthly threads or whenever there is a big breakthrough. (View Tweet)
@JoelCollis @zachmstuck And yea! I just installed KnoCommerce a few days ago. Kicking myself for now doing it earlier. The early Insights are super cool, so would have been insane with 50+ responses haha (View Tweet)