tombruzzo
@tombruzzo@aussie.zone
- Comment on Discussion Thread: Tuesday, 4 March 2025 5 hours ago:
I found an opportunity to start an online store and I’d like to ask the DT brainstrust on some feedback. I’ll mark it all as spoilers because people may not want to read my full ramblings or some of the subject matter:
Business talk
So I’ve been looking at business where I work to try boost my other business offer, selling marketing software subscriptions, and I came across a lingerie wholesaler. They just had an open submission to sign up as a stockist so I thought I’d check it out. I have an ABN and a registered company so I could just do it, and there was very little vetting on their side. Once approved I had access to their entire catalogue and they do dropshipping, where you don’t need to stock the product yourself. Essentially someone buys the product from you, then you buy the product from the wholesaler and they ship it to the person for you. These guys have way more than lingerie. You can stock a whole sex shop with what they have. But I’ve decided to keep it simple, try focus on a few core products I think would move, and have picked more socially acceptable things that you could actually advertise on social media. Instead of uploading everything, I’m focusing on things that could target the rave, festival, club scene. So it can still be seen as fashion instead of getting labelled as a sex store and getting banned from every online platform. I’m offering a few best selling items in the hope they will have a broader appeal to try get some cut-through. I came up with an idea for a store name and a design, here’s the URL, the store is up and running: https://lxix.store/ LXIX is the number 69 in Roman Numerals so it looks fancy but is a sex joke over two thousand years in the making. Let me know what you think of the website. It’s a little rough in areas and doesn’t have everything, but I’m hoping it looks trustworthy enough someone might click through from a Facebook ad and trust it enough to convert and buy. It’s almost impossible to grow a social media following organically these days, so I’m expecting to put a bit of money into ads. My only problem is I have no assets aside from the so-so product images from the wholesaler and the brands themselves. I’m hoping the way I can make this work is I’m hooking up every tracking pixel to just about every social media account I can find. My plan is to eventually get to know my target audience enough I can create ads and remarket to them effectively enough I can build a mailing list, introduce new products as if it’s a ‘launch’ to capture previous customers again, and just grow the database of customers and like customers. But I need actual sales to keep this going and achieve any of that. I only took the ‘Coming Soon’ off the website last week so it’s still early days, but I want to make sure this website looks like it will work. The marketing software and business consulting was a slog because I don’t have a network or capacity to follow up with people effectively. If I get things right here I could just run an ad and get returns. I’m also considering reaching out to people and sending free product for content. But that’s also a case of choosing the right people, as it still costs me money when I have no cashflow at the moment. Also, I’ve searched for the most popular products on the wholesaler’s store to find other websites selling the same stock. A lot of them are basic and ugly websites that don’t look all that maintained. You can upload a CSV of the wholesaler’s catalogue to your store, and I think a lot of people just do that. So they have basic images and descriptions, and are hoping for more of a ‘build it and they will come’ approach. I also want to do a lot of SEO work and try be the top rank for a few keywords. That can supplement ad spend and helps with building a following long term. I don’t think anyone but the big stockists are doing the same. I’m just worried I could have a theoretically perfect online store, but can’t realise any actual sales because my ads aren’t good enough or I don’t have enough capital to spend on advertising to figure it out. Any feedback is recommended because I feel like I could make this work.
- Comment on Discussion Thread: Monday, 3 March 2025 23 hours ago:
Make sure you sing the dango song every time if it’s a thing in this game as well
- Comment on Discussion Thread: Monday, 3 March 2025 23 hours ago:
My lenovo smart clock fell and the power cable snapped right on the metal barrel. It’s a 20 volt power supply as well so I guess it’s just trapezoidal ewaste now.
Maybe I’ll get one with the wireless charger as ac replacement so I get a bit more convenience out of these things if they’re going to spy on us
- Comment on Discussion Thread: Sunday, 2 March 2025 1 day ago:
There’s a little bit of that on the Watershed album. The death growls stuff is great too if you’re into that sort of thing
- Comment on Discussion Thread: Sunday, 2 March 2025 2 days ago:
Pale Communion is my favourite of the no death growl years. The Last Will And Testament is a great blend of old and new Opeth. They’re a great band with so many eras to keep you busy
- Comment on Discussion Thread: Sunday, 2 March 2025 2 days ago:
We just did Hoopla in South Morang. It’s a good play centre. Plenty going on and enough to keep the kids busy.
We’ll have to go again because their ticketing isn’t very clear and I bought tickets for ourselves as well. They credited back the difference so that’s a free trip
- Comment on Discussion Thread: Sunday, 2 March 2025 2 days ago:
As long as we don’t get a 30 degree day in April I’m happy
- Comment on Discussion Thread: Saturday, 1 March 2025 3 days ago:
It’s one thing I wish they’d embrace down here more. A midi is not enough and sometimes a pint is too much
- Comment on Discussion Thread: Saturday, 1 March 2025 3 days ago:
The Aristocrats are playing tonight, I only found out this week. I’d really like to go so let’s hope the boys go down easily enough
- Comment on Discussion Thread: Saturday, 1 March 2025 3 days ago:
I managed to sell some boots on depop recently without too much hassle. Maybe the market is picking up
- Comment on Discussion Thread: Friday, 28 February 2025 4 days ago:
I’ve had a week of late nights but I hope I can fix that soon. I think I’ve been holding up alright but I don’t recommend it.
I remembered to bring the growler to work and it’s in the fridge pre-cooling before going to the brewery. I feel like I’ve earned it this week.
- Comment on Daily Discussion Thread: 🎨👩🎨 Thursday, 27 February 2025 5 days ago:
Sometimes you need to say what needs to be said. Management will hate you but you’ll forever have your coworkers’ respect
- Comment on Daily Discussion Thread: 🎨👩🎨 Thursday, 27 February 2025 5 days ago:
At the Lunched time straight snacking on ‘it’, and by ‘it’ I mean…
- Comment on Daily Discussion Thread: 🎨👩🎨 Thursday, 27 February 2025 5 days ago:
These daily discussion threads are great for tracking what day it is. Sometimes I need a moment of pause to remember which thread is the current one
- Comment on Daily Discussion Thread: 🎨👩🎨 Thursday, 27 February 2025 5 days ago:
I’ve heard notice period weeks drag on because you can’t do anything about them. You’ll have to find a way to make the most of them and not let it get to you too much
- Comment on Daily Discussion Thread: 🎨👩🎨 Thursday, 27 February 2025 5 days ago:
If there’s a place around that sells trading cards they might buy them. Not as good as selling them yourself but you cold get a bulk sale that should be decent
- Comment on Daily Discussion Thread: 🎨👩🎨 Thursday, 27 February 2025 5 days ago:
McDonalds have brought back the breakfast wrap. It’s now much easier to have breakfast in the car again
- Comment on Daily Discussion Thread: 🎨👩🎨 Thursday, 27 February 2025 5 days ago:
If they’re IT people then you can ask them about their tech stack at home, what games they’re playing, or their favourite OS. I’m sure if you go up to someone and ask what their preferred scripting program is you’ll get plenty of conversation out of them. Got to focus on what the group is into, rather than generic questions
- Comment on Daily Discussion Thread: Wednesday, 26 February 2025 5 days ago:
That makes a lot more sense. Even if you stop you’re still used to writing, so it just becomes a fancy version of that.
- Comment on Daily Discussion Thread: Wednesday, 26 February 2025 5 days ago:
I’d do a different thing each session, but you’d be surprised the things they have trouble with. Even just downloading images and moving them around takes a couple of goes. I feel like we go over it once or twice then I move onto the next thing they want to do. I think I should have one session where we get good at storing images, then do something else next session
- Comment on Daily Discussion Thread: Wednesday, 26 February 2025 5 days ago:
I tried adding an email address to Thunderbird for experience to help people and it imported my gmail information too easily. I quite liked the look and feel of it, much nicer than outlook, but the layout is different, it’s not a 1:1 with improvements
- Comment on Daily Discussion Thread: Wednesday, 26 February 2025 5 days ago:
I saw that in a friend’s place once, they even had carpet right around the toilet
- Comment on Daily Discussion Thread: Wednesday, 26 February 2025 5 days ago:
Man, I’d love to convince the old people to switch over to Thunderbird instead of Outlook if they HAVE to use an email client, but it’s probably more trouble than it’s worth.
Also, I think I’m covering too much in these sessions at once. We make good progress but how much is sinking in? Stretching things out means more money from return sessions, but it’s also probably better for them as we can spend more time going over a single action
- Comment on Daily Discussion Thread: Wednesday, 26 February 2025 5 days ago:
Is the muscle memory still all there? That’s impressive
- Comment on Daily Discussion Thread: Wednesday, 26 February 2025 6 days ago:
Damn, I was wondering about your move. I guess getting out of work was more important, you have to prioritise and do what you can
- Comment on Daily Discussion Thread: Wednesday, 26 February 2025 6 days ago:
I loved that about my old job. You’d go in to this massive empty floor of a building and no one would disturb you
- Comment on Daily Discussion Thread: Tuesday, 25 February 2025 1 week ago:
Baritone guitars are very nice and a good bit of fun. At first I thought it was odd they weren’t more embraced by the metal community, but I guess that’s because they just went straight to seven strings.
- Comment on Daily Discussion Thread: Tuesday, 25 February 2025 1 week ago:
That’s reassuring. He has a video on the safe injecting rooms here. Watching that one should be illuminating on his opinions
- Comment on Daily Discussion Thread: Tuesday, 25 February 2025 1 week ago:
Sorry, I meant in the state of Victoria. And you’re right, the classic line I hear about those sorts of people is “What no class analysis does to an MF”.
And they have to lander their image through somewhere. God knows they can’t present normal themselves.
- Comment on Daily Discussion Thread: Tuesday, 25 February 2025 1 week ago:
Certainly cheap and nasty. I might do the same as my headphones and find a cheap mechanical somewhere to use at work. Scan the receipt and list it as a work expense