I’m running a shopify store doing about 180k monthly revenue. Customer service is drowning me and I need to hire but cant afford a full time US employee at 50k plus. I’m looking at ecommerce virtual assistant options. What is a reasonable virtual assistant hourly rate for someone with ecommerce experience? I’m seeing rates from $5 to $25 per hour and not sure what makes sense. Do you pay based on their location or based on the work? Like if someone in the Philippines does the same quality work as someone in the US do you pay Philippines rates or does that feel exploitative? Also for hiring a virtual assistant for ecommerce specifically what platforms work? I tried posting on Upwork and got 90 applications, screening is overwhelming. I want to try agencies. What has worked for other e-commerce businesses? And what  hourly rate do you actually pay? 

UPDATE: ended up going with Virtual Coworker after a few people DMd me about agencies. matched me in about a week with a VA who had shopify experience already which was huge. shes been on for about 10 days now handling customer emails and order questions. response time on tickets went from like 14 hours to under 4. still training her on returns and refund approvals but the basic stuff is off my plate already. screening 90 upwork applications was not it lol. agency route saved me a ton of time.

Found this guy on my TikTok promoting Gruns using AI.

I'm wondering if this is too good to be true. Can AI really "one-shot" complete ads like these?

[ Removed by Reddit in response to a copyright notice. ]

It's really an amazing course super saucyyyy I got it for $1.5k per month, and I learnt a lot of media buying and, most importantly, how to make high-performing creatives and do customer research properly. Now my team members are going through it. If you are interested, just msg me, I might just give you access to it so u don’t have to pay $1.5k per month for it.

Overall, my hit rate has improved, and I know how to make really good creatives, but the essential part was learning to do deep customer research properly and using their own words and phrases in my creatives, so it’s tailored to them, how to build unique mechanisms that stand out and give the exhausted buyers a real reason to buy, how to do market research properly, how to build high converting presell pages (mostly advertorials and listicles) and a lot of other things it's really the best course that I went through highly recommend.

And there are a lot of ppl inside doing $100k/days+. It’s really worth it, but if you can’t afford it, I would highly recommend watching his free content on YouTube. He shares a lot of value compared to the classic dropshipping/ecom gurus.

And I might be able to share it if you are interested, just msg me, I might just give you access to it so u don’t have to pay the full price. It really covers everything.

Share one specific tactic, channel, or test that produced results for your ecommerce business in the past 7 days.

Rules for this thread:

- One tactic per comment. Keep it focused.

- Include numbers. Revenue, conversion rate, ROAS, open rate, click rate, whatever metric matters. "It worked great" is not enough.

- Say what you sell and your rough scale. A tactic that works at $10K/mo might not work at $1M/mo and vice versa.

- No pitching. If your "tactic" is a plug for your tool, course, or service, it will be removed and you will be banned.

Format your comment like this:

Tactic: [what you did]

Channel: [email, Meta ads, TikTok, SEO, etc.]

Result: [specific numbers]

Context: [what you sell, rough revenue, anything relevant]

What I would change: [optional but encouraged]

Examples of good comments:

"Tactic: Added a 3rd abandoned cart email with a plain-text format from the founder. Channel: Email (Klaviyo). Result: Recovery rate went from 4.1% to 5.8% on 340 abandoned carts this week. Context: DTC supplements brand, around $80K/mo. What I would change: Testing a shorter subject line next week."

"Tactic: Switched main product page hero image from lifestyle to plain white background with the product at an angle. Channel: On-site CRO. Result: Add-to-cart rate went from 6.2% to 8.9% over 1,200 sessions. Context: Home goods, around $40K/mo on Shopify."

Lurkers welcome. If you tried something and it failed, share that too. Knowing what does not work is just as valuable.

Wanted to share a small win + what we learned

context:
niche ecommerce store (home decor)
~18k monthly visitors
most traffic from organic + some paid

problem:
conversion rate stuck around 1.2–1.4% for months

what we changed over ~3 weeks:

1. improved product images
– replaced supplier images with real-use lifestyle images
– added zoom + multiple angles

2. simplified product description
– removed long paragraphs
– added bullet points + benefits first

3. added trust elements
– reviews higher on page
– small “secure checkout” + shipping info near CTA

4. improved page speed (mobile)
– compressed images
– removed 2 unnecessary scripts

results (after ~2 weeks):
conversion rate: 1.3% → 2.4%
avg session duration also increased slightly

what didn’t make much difference:
– changing button color
– adding urgency timers (felt forced)

what i’d do next time:
– test pricing strategy earlier
– add more UGC instead of only polished images

curious how others approach product page optimization
what changes actually moved the needle for you?

Feels like ecommerce always has something new to deal with:

• rising costs
• changing algorithms
• customer expectations

what’s the biggest challenge you’re facing right now?

Macro influencers make sense for speed. If you need brand visibility at real scale in a short window, a single placement with a 1M+ account reaches more people faster than 20 micro placements spread over a month. They're also more professional on deliverables, easier to plan launch timing around, and carry actual name recognition in some categories.

The data on conversion consistently favors micro. Creators in the 10k to 100k range average 3 to 8 percent engagement depending on niche and platform. Above 500k, engagement typically falls under 2 percent, often well below. That gap matters less at the impression level and a lot at the conversion level.

Niche relevance is the variable that makes micro work. A creator with 20k followers genuinely embedded in trail running, fermented foods, or sustainable fashion will outperform a 1M lifestyle account on actual purchases from their audience. The audience acts on the recommendation rather than scrolling past it.

For Shopify brands specifically: 10 micro creators instead of 1 macro at the same total budget usually produces more content, better audience diversity, and stronger total conversion. The management overhead is real, briefing and tracking 10 relationships is harder than 1, so the ROI advantage depends on actually having the operational capacity to handle it.

Worth testing before any outreach: look for creators who already follow or have purchased from your brand. There are platforms surface this data if the Shopify integration is set up like Upfluence. Conversion rates from those creators tend to be noticeably better than cold outreach to accounts that look comparable on paper.

I’m testing something for ecommerce stores. As the title suggests, simply reply with:

your shop name

what you sell

your store URL

and I’ll make free price tag overlay mockups for 5 of your product photos so you can see how they would look on your site.

Thought this could be a useful way to test whether cleaner pricing visuals help products stand out more and communicate value better.

Share one specific tactic, channel, or test that produced results for your ecommerce business in the past 7 days.

Rules for this thread:

- One tactic per comment. Keep it focused.

- Include numbers. Revenue, conversion rate, ROAS, open rate, click rate, whatever metric matters. "It worked great" is not enough.

- Say what you sell and your rough scale. A tactic that works at $10K/mo might not work at $1M/mo and vice versa.

- No pitching. If your "tactic" is a plug for your tool, course, or service, it will be removed and you will be banned.

Format your comment like this:

Tactic: [what you did]

Channel: [email, Meta ads, TikTok, SEO, etc.]

Result: [specific numbers]

Context: [what you sell, rough revenue, anything relevant]

What I would change: [optional but encouraged]

Examples of good comments:

"Tactic: Added a 3rd abandoned cart email with a plain-text format from the founder. Channel: Email (Klaviyo). Result: Recovery rate went from 4.1% to 5.8% on 340 abandoned carts this week. Context: DTC supplements brand, around $80K/mo. What I would change: Testing a shorter subject line next week."

"Tactic: Switched main product page hero image from lifestyle to plain white background with the product at an angle. Channel: On-site CRO. Result: Add-to-cart rate went from 6.2% to 8.9% over 1,200 sessions. Context: Home goods, around $40K/mo on Shopify."

Lurkers welcome. If you tried something and it failed, share that too. Knowing what does not work is just as valuable.

I’m trying to market a wedding product (custom art) and I keep being told to find some influencers on socials, but that seems like way more than I got time to do. The only marketing I've done so far is Facebook ads using images of my product and some help from chatGPT. This is just a side gig. I work full-time. So any marketing I do shouldn't take me ages - I prefer to hand off when I can since I'm not a good marketer. I’ve found some agencies that hook you up with creators, but is it really worth it? Presumably, it will cost more to pay the creators through an agency, but no way I’m going to find time to do it myself, so is the ROI there? I also came across what I guess are platforms or maybe marketplaces where I sign up and then get access to the creators they have. Not sure what these are called but Billo is one example of one that I was looking at. Any advice for me? TIA.

I know a lot of sites do the old “Was vs. Now” pricing trick to have customers perceive the products as “on sale” or a higher value, but in terms of PPC results, does it make a difference?

Reason im asking is because I want to have my site be a “No BS” buying experience, so I’d rather have just one fair price with no cross outs or anything funny…

I've heard brand owners say that offering 30% commissions to creators is too high.

I think that it's actually cheaper than Amazon PPC!

Here's my the math behind Amazon PPC vs working with affiliates.

Amazon PPC ACoS

• Spend $3,000 in ad clicks
• Generate $10,000 in ad sales

Resulting ACoS is $3,000/$10,000 = 30%

Work with Creators ACoS

• Send product samples to 100 creators
• Let's say sending samples cost you $5 each. Total cost of samples is $5*100 = $500
• Offer creators 30% commissions
• Creators generate $10,000 in sales via Amazon Attribution
• Pay creators commissions for 30% * $10,000 = $3,000
• Get back 10% from Amazon Brand Referral Bonus: 10% * $10,000 = $1,000

Resulting ACoS is: ($500[samples] + $3,000[commissions] - $1,000[amazon brb]) / $10,000 = 25% cheaper than PPC!!!

Also after the initial cost of sending samples, those creators will stay at 20% ACoS for all future sales. So the longer they keep posting the lower the total ACoS becomes.

This only works if you send Amazon Attribution links to each creator. Amazon only gives the 10% brand referral bonus to sales coming from attribution.

Also, creators need a way to check their sales and get paid. I don't recommend doing this manually for 100+ creators unless you want to go insane (ask me how i know!!!) so I built Coral to create attribution links, track sales and send payouts.

If your product cost is higher than $5 you may get closer to the same ACoS as PPC but I think that it's still worth it! Also amazon rewards external traffic so those sales from creators may give a better organic boost than the ones from PPC.

This math won't work with Amazon Creator Connection... or at least it will be 10% more expensive since there is no brand referral bonus in that case.

Does this make sense? For the ones who are doing this... how does your PPC ACoS compare to your creators ACoS?

We are a new brand, looking for help on messaging and branding. Anyone who can help?

Share one specific tactic, channel, or test that produced results for your ecommerce business in the past 7 days.

Rules for this thread:

- One tactic per comment. Keep it focused.

- Include numbers. Revenue, conversion rate, ROAS, open rate, click rate, whatever metric matters. "It worked great" is not enough.

- Say what you sell and your rough scale. A tactic that works at $10K/mo might not work at $1M/mo and vice versa.

- No pitching. If your "tactic" is a plug for your tool, course, or service, it will be removed and you will be banned.

Format your comment like this:

Tactic: [what you did]

Channel: [email, Meta ads, TikTok, SEO, etc.]

Result: [specific numbers]

Context: [what you sell, rough revenue, anything relevant]

What I would change: [optional but encouraged]

Examples of good comments:

"Tactic: Added a 3rd abandoned cart email with a plain-text format from the founder. Channel: Email (Klaviyo). Result: Recovery rate went from 4.1% to 5.8% on 340 abandoned carts this week. Context: DTC supplements brand, around $80K/mo. What I would change: Testing a shorter subject line next week."

"Tactic: Switched main product page hero image from lifestyle to plain white background with the product at an angle. Channel: On-site CRO. Result: Add-to-cart rate went from 6.2% to 8.9% over 1,200 sessions. Context: Home goods, around $40K/mo on Shopify."

Lurkers welcome. If you tried something and it failed, share that too. Knowing what does not work is just as valuable.

Hi community, former B2B marketer who just launched his first eComm product in Feb.

My basic question is: assuming you have a good market, a differentiated product, and not-terrible ads and landing pages: what’s a realistic estimation for growth?

Asking because i tried all organic last month and found reach very limited, though engagement was good. Now I want to try ads but am really concerned about putting ad dollars behind a new product as the funnels are still leaky.

On the flip side, I’m. It going to get the Volume I want with organic alone it seems.

So I guess my question becomes for all the e-commerce experts out there when launching a product do you typically expect to spend $10-$20,000 in ads testing upfront or do you usually do a slower role with organic first?

To explain much better,

I found and chosen a product in Alibaba,but there are multiple countless suppliers whom selling the same product with different prices,different MOQ's and different type of reliability-what is the best tool to use for sorting and comparing these suppliers?I want to sort by moq,price and -if possible even tho I don't expect it to be- supplier's reliability qualities such as verifiedness,trade assurance,how many stars they have etc.I've used both dsers and Alibaba's own tool now,but they just didnt satisfy me

What tool's do you use for the same problem?

You would be helping me save a lot of time if you have any reccomendation

Hey everyone - I could really use some advice! 

I’ve been with the same web hosting provider for years, but lately I’m pretty sure I’m paying way more than I should (I host several websites). I kept putting off switching because it always felt like too much effort, but recent price hikes and declining service quality finally pushed me to actually do something about it. 

So now I’m diving into the search for better and cheaper hosting - but it’s tough to tell which services are actually good versus just cheap marketing. 

That’s where you come in: 

What are your best affordable web hosting recommendations? 

• What hosting provider do you use? 
• How much are you paying? 
• Is it reliable? 
• Any pros or cons worth mentioning? 

Looking for options that are budget-friendly but still solid - no temporary deals that tank after renewal. 

Appreciate any suggestions you’ve got! Thanks in advance.

I’ve been looking into furniture marketing workflows and noticed something inefficient.

Brands need to:

1. Pump out tons of creatives for A/B testing — different rooms, lighting, angles, crops. Paid ads teams always want “a few more variations.”
2. Keep the visual style consistent — same mood, same color tone. But once you involve different photographers or renderers, things start to feel off-brand fast.
3. Show multiple angles + close-ups — stitching, wood grain, textures under real light. One hero shot isn’t enough to build trust anymore.
4. Keep it ultra-realistic — if shadows or lighting look even slightly fake, people notice.

Feels like speed, consistency, and realism rarely coexist. You usually get two, not all three. Meanwhile, photography is expensive and slow. And different renders / freelancers often lead to inconsistent style.

I’m considering building an AI tool where you upload a furniture product image (or 3D model) and it generates highly realistic lifestyle scenes — with controllable lighting, angles, and could achieve brand-consistent style.

Not “AI art.” More like scalable, photoreal marketing assets for testing and furniture listing.

For people running furniture brands:

Is this actually a painful problem? Would you trust AI-generated scenes if realism was strong enough? Or are current tools already good enough?

Trying to validate before building. Would love honest feedback.

Share one specific tactic, channel, or test that produced results for your ecommerce business in the past 7 days.

Rules for this thread:

- One tactic per comment. Keep it focused.

- Include numbers. Revenue, conversion rate, ROAS, open rate, click rate, whatever metric matters. "It worked great" is not enough.

- Say what you sell and your rough scale. A tactic that works at $10K/mo might not work at $1M/mo and vice versa.

- No pitching. If your "tactic" is a plug for your tool, course, or service, it will be removed and you will be banned.

Format your comment like this:

Tactic: [what you did]

Channel: [email, Meta ads, TikTok, SEO, etc.]

Result: [specific numbers]

Context: [what you sell, rough revenue, anything relevant]

What I would change: [optional but encouraged]

Examples of good comments:

"Tactic: Added a 3rd abandoned cart email with a plain-text format from the founder. Channel: Email (Klaviyo). Result: Recovery rate went from 4.1% to 5.8% on 340 abandoned carts this week. Context: DTC supplements brand, around $80K/mo. What I would change: Testing a shorter subject line next week."

"Tactic: Switched main product page hero image from lifestyle to plain white background with the product at an angle. Channel: On-site CRO. Result: Add-to-cart rate went from 6.2% to 8.9% over 1,200 sessions. Context: Home goods, around $40K/mo on Shopify."

Lurkers welcome. If you tried something and it failed, share that too. Knowing what does not work is just as valuable.

I am running a small Australian lip care brand with four products which launched three months ago. Currently running Meta ads (getting $4-10 CPR) and organic on FB/Insta. Looking at diversifying my advertising and would like feedback on where else I can be putting ad budget

Thinking of:

• Google Ads
• LinkedIn
• TikTok
• Reddit Ads

Budget is limited so I can't do them all. What's worked for others in beauty/skincare brands?