Last October, I was sitting across from the founder of a mid-size skincare brand – let’s call her Mei – watching her scroll through her TikTok Shop product listings with a look of genuine confusion. “We’re spending $8,000 a month on TikTok ads,” she told me, “and our click-through rates are decent, but nobody’s actually…
Last September, I was sitting in a cramped conference room with a skincare brand founder who was on the verge of pulling her entire TikTok Shop. She’d invested $14,000 in creator partnerships over two months, her videos were racking up views – some hitting 400K+ – and yet her conversion rate on TikTok Shop sat…
In March 2023, a client selling premium bamboo cutting boards came to me with a problem I’ve seen dozens of times: their product was objectively better than the competition – thicker boards, organic finish, beautiful packaging – yet they were sitting on page three of Amazon search results, converting at a dismal 4.2%. Their product…
Last October, I helped a small skincare brand list their first five products on TikTok Shop. Within three weeks, exactly one product had sold – a single $14 vitamin C serum, purchased by someone who was almost certainly the founder’s cousin. The other four listings had zero sales. Zero. The brand was ready to pull…
Last October, I was reviewing the analytics dashboard for a skincare brand I consult for – a mid-size DTC company doing about $2.3 million annually through social commerce – and I noticed something that genuinely stopped me in my tracks. Their TikTok Shop carousel posts with professionally shot product images were converting at 0.4%. But…
In the spring of 2022, I was staring at a listing for a bamboo cutting board that should have been printing money. The product was excellent – sustainably sourced, beautifully designed, priced competitively at $24.99. We’d invested $8,000 in inventory. And for six straight weeks, we sold exactly 14 units. Total. Not per day. Not…
In March of 2022, I helped a client launch a bamboo cutting board on Amazon. The product was genuinely excellent – sustainably sourced, beautifully finished, competitively priced at $28.99. We had the keywords dialed in, the backend search terms optimized, and a launch strategy involving vine reviews and a modest PPC budget. After six weeks,…
Last October, I sat across the table from the founder of a DTC skincare brand – let’s call her Priya – watching her scroll through her TikTok Shop analytics with the kind of defeated look I’ve come to recognize. She had 47 products listed. Beautiful photography. Competitive pricing. And precisely zero organic sales in the…
In late 2022, I had a product that should have been a winner. A silicone kitchen utensil set – well-designed, priced competitively at $24.99, sourced from a reliable manufacturer, and packaged with care. I launched it on Amazon, waited for the sales to roll in, and watched it sit on page seven of search results…