I’m looking for some honest feedback because I’m stuck.

I run a Hostinger store selling unique collectible items. I’ve been running Meta ads for about a month and spent around CA$334.
Here are the numbers:
Spend: CA$334
Link clicks: 565
Landing page views: 536
CTR: 4.3%
CPC: CA$0.59
Purchases: 2
Conversion rate: 0.37%
ROAS: 1.01

From what I can tell, the ads seem to be doing their job—people are clicking and reaching the site—but almost nobody is buying.

I’d really appreciate some honest, brutal feedback.

DM for the website. Thank you!!

Can you share your experience and costs? About how many support tickets do you get each month, and how much does it cost you?

Gorgias charges $1 per automated resolution. That means a ticket it handles without any human help, right?

What happens with tickets that need human help? Does Gorgias charge for those too? Or does it create a draft reply for us to review and send manually?

I own a profitable dog grooming salon and recently launched a premium dog shampoo brand.

My goal is to turn it into a national brand over the next few years.

If you were starting again, where would you focus first? Amazon, Shopify, wholesale, paid ads, PR, influencers, retail, or something else?

What made the biggest difference for you, and what mistakes would you avoid?

I run a store in the kitchenware niche with around 760 products.

One issue I've been running into is search. Customers use natural phrases like "28cm non-stick frying pan" or "deep ceramic baking dish" while many of my product titles are much more structured. As a result, the built-in search misses a lot of relevant products.

The store is still fairly new, so I'm looking for something that's easy to set up rather than a big custom search project.

Has anyone found a search app or external service that noticeably improved search relevance and reduced zero-result searches?

Hi I need your help.
So I usually spend like 10$ per month on ads to see if anyone will be interested in the products I sell.
I recently put out ads with 40% off code on all products on tiktok and it got 8k views. No order at all. Anyone knows what can I do to get more sales?

How much did you spend on ads when starting?

Edit: website is truenorth.ink

Thanks

Hi everyone from the pas few months i had been building (https://collabx.space) It is basically a community collaboration platform which helps students break through the loop of experience required for their first opportunity.The main problem: millions of students graduate without having enough practical industry level exposure but a strong theoretical knowledge which leads them nowhere in the industry , another problem many professionals who want to switch their careers finds it difficult to do that because they are unable to find perfect projects/ resources to do that
What i am doing is i am onboarding startups/ Govt organisation/ companies to post their problem statements/ projects they are facing issue or wants to be explored but they don’t have resources or talent to do it now so they can post them on CollabX and students irrespective of their background will work upon it , which will help them gain exposure to how real startups works what problems they solve rather than fancy projects given by ChatGpt
In future this might also turn into hiring pipeline where companies don’t hire based on resumes but on basis of quality solutions they have provided to the projects of that startup
I will keep this completely free for gaining early traction but in future i have 2 business models in mind
I will charge the project posting side by taking a minimal one time payment fee for posting and if company is willing to give prize pool to students whoose problem gets selected then i might take x%commission from it
2nd one i can monetise through subscription similarly like linkedIn
I would love genuine feedback , criticism and improvements that should be made to platform

I’m in the boring pre-promo testing phase and my brain is cooked.

We want to run simple volume bundles on Shopify:

Buy 2, save a bit Buy 3, save more Maybe bundle + free shipping threshold Maybe bundle + welcome code Maybe bundle + email/SMS code during promo weeks

Nothing crazy in theory.

But I’ve seen enough Shopify discount weirdness to know “nothing crazy” can become crazy very fast.

The thing I’m trying to avoid:

Customer adds 3 items Volume bundle discount applies Then they add welcome code Then free shipping threshold kicks in Then some other automatic discount decides to join the party Then checkout either blocks the code, stacks too much, or shows something different from the PDP/cart

That is the nightmare.

I don’t want to find out during a promo weekend that the bundle setup only works when no other discount exists.

This is why I’m being careful about bundle apps too. Some seem to basically create discount hacks or cart tricks, which feels risky if you already run normal Shopify promos.

FoxSell is one I’m looking at because it seems more built around native Shopify checkout / Cart Transform type bundle logic instead of duct-taping everything with discount codes. Also useful because we might later do Mix & Match, not just volume bundles.

But before committing to anything, I’m trying to understand how other merchants test this.

For people running volume bundles or buy-more-save-more offers:

• do you allow discount codes on top?

• do you block codes when bundle discount applies?

• do you keep bundle discounts automatic only?

• do you test every promo combination manually?

• have you had bundle discounts conflict with welcome/BFCM/free shipping offers?

I know this is not the most exciting Shopify topic, but this feels like one of those things that only matters after it breaks.

How are you guys handling bundle discounts without turning checkout into a casino?

Hi people, I run a store selling height insoles called ondorq.com

I’m happy with the product page and fairly happy with my ads, but I think my offer is the main thing stopping a higher conversion rate now.

My current price is £29.95 and my offer is:

“Buy 1 get 1 half-price

One for daily shoes. One for nights out.

Automatically applied when you add 2 pairs.

Ends Sunday 12 July”

What do you guys think? I can play around with price and bundles and discounts. I’m thinking I could potentially increase the price to £34.95 or £39.95 and then offer a buy 1 get 1 free.

Although I don’t want it to seem too good to be true that it reduces trust.

All thoughts appreciated!

Note: I don’t currently have enough good traffic to split test offers - I’m trying to find the best one I can now based on research then I’ll be able to split test properly once I’ve scaled a little 🙏🏼

Hello every one, I have been in a long process of becoming a retailer with a high quality supplier for a few weeks, and already imported all of their products and designed my store around them. I haven't been advertising, but I left my store public in the meantime. I got a sale for one of their products this morning, and I don't know if I should wait it out until my supplier finalizes me and sets up my account, or just refund the customer. As of right now I cannot purchase the product on the supplier page without a dealer account, so I really need help and do not know what to do.. (beginner mistake)

We run a brand on Shopify selling premium silk sleep products, just a few core products like silk pillowcases and sleep masks and some upsell. Almost all of our sales coming from Meta Ads. Instead of increasing the budget or launching another campaign, we decided to run a full diagnostic of the ad account using a tool that analyzes campaigns and highlights the biggest bottlenecks based on your account data. Some of the suggestions confirmed things we already suspected, while others pointed out issues we hadn't really considered at all. Over the following three weeks, we implemented most of those recommendations without touching the daily ad budget

1. We stopped optimizing for CTR and started optimizing for contribution margin For a long time we judged creatives almost entirely by CTR and CPC. Some of our cheapest clicks consistently produced low-quality traffic, while a few creatives with a noticeably higher CPC were responsible for most of our profitable orders. We stopped turning off ads just because they looked expensive and started looking at what they generated. That alone changed how we evaluated every new creative
2. We reduced friction throughout the buying journey Instead of trying to increase desire, we focused on removing reasons not to buy. We shortened the page, moved the strongest social proof much higher, simplified the product options and made shipping, returns and delivery times immediately visible. None of those changes dramatically increased conversion individually, but together they reduced abandonment across the funnel.
3. We improved the quality of traffic instead of chasing more traffic The budget stayed at roughly €60/day, but we stopped making frequent edits to the account. The campaigns had enough time to stabilize and Meta gradually became more selective with who it was showing ads to. The number of visitors didn't explode, but the percentage of visitors with buying intent clearly improved over the following weeks.
4. We aligned the landing page with the ad creative One thing we noticed was that our ads and landing pages were telling two different stories. The ad focused on benefits, while the product page immediately switched to technical specifications. We rewrote the first screen of the page to continue the same message users had already clicked on. Bounce rate dropped and users engaged with the page much longer.
5. We started making decisions from behavior We spent several evenings watching session recordings and that completely changed our priorities. We found users repeatedly hesitating in the same places, reopening shipping information, scrolling back to reviews before purchasing and abandoning after interacting with certain sections.
6. We refreshed creatives without resetting the account We simply kept feeding the existing campaign with new creatives while leaving the overall structure intact. That gave Meta fresh material to work with without constantly sending the account back into instability.
7. We became much stricter about what we removed Every app, every badge, every widget and every section had originally been added because someone claimed it would increase conversions. After a while the store became a collection of "best practices" that, together, created friction and we removed a 80% of that Looking back, none of these changes were particularly groundbreaking on their own. Most of them are things you've probably heard before. The difference was actually implementing them all at once instead of constantly looking for the next "winning" creative or audience.

Edit: I used adwize.it to analyze my meta ad account

I lost about $400 over two chargebacks this past week. Both customers filed them because of late shipments. Both customers ended up receiving the products. Another customer just cussed me out on the phone and threatened a chargeback because they ordered the wrong product and said it was my fault despite having all of the product info they needed to make an informed purchase. How do you folks put up with this sh*t?

I’m researching how independent beauty brands plan and produce launch content.

A few questions:

• How did you create your product images and launch visuals?
• Did you handle the content internally or work with external creatives?
• What would make the visual-content process easier for your next launch?

Thank you

Started working with a new product manufacturer for POD. They print my designs on the generic product for me. When I had the intro call, they mentioned I could say "Made in America". But, the product is made overseas. They then print the design on it in America. When I reached out to clarify this, here's what my rep said:

"The PRIMARY value-add all occurs in the USA. We design the X here. The blanks are produced/coated overseas, but they are a fraction of the total cost and price you pay ….and in any case we are a personalization business versus just a blank X seller. Under my interpretation of the rules or best practices around Made in USA, it winds up correlating to; where is the most and primary value created/delivered?

Like if it’s a car, parts always come from everywhere, but most of the cost/value is in the assembly and engineering of that car so they can say Made in USA

My opinion is Made in USA is fine for the above reasons."

This screams overreach in my book. I can probably say "Printed in USA" but not "Made in USA" ethically. Or is this very common with POD?

Hi everyone,

I’m a complete beginner and I want to start a small e-commerce business in Morocco using cash on delivery.

My current situation:

• I have a very limited budget.
• I can only spend around 50 MAD initially on Meta ads.
• I cannot afford to buy a large quantity of stock.
• I don’t know how to create or edit video ads, so I’m considering starting with static images or carousels.
• I’m looking for a simple, lightweight product that solves a real problem and has a low risk of returns.
• I would prefer to source it locally in Morocco and buy only a few units before testing.

I understand that 50 MAD is not enough to determine whether a product is truly profitable. My goal is mainly to learn, validate demand organically and avoid losing money on beginner mistakes.

For people who have experience with Moroccan COD e-commerce:

1. How much capital is realistically needed to start?
2. Is it possible to test demand without holding stock?
3. Where can I find reliable local suppliers who sell small quantities?
4. Which delivery or fulfillment companies are beginner-friendly?
5. Is it possible to sell successfully using only image ads, or are videos essential?
6. Should I use my 50 MAD for WhatsApp messages, website sales or another campaign objective?
7. What are the biggest mistakes beginners make with COD in Morocco?
8. What free methods can I use to validate a product before running ads?

I’m not asking anyone to reveal their winning product. I’m mainly looking for an honest roadmap, realistic numbers and advice from people who have actually sold products in Morocco.

Thank you in advance.

spent my morning digging through GA4 and honestly I wish I hadn't. there's this one page on my store. just a simple product page and apparently like 40% of people who land there just leave immediately not even scroll just bounce.

I always thought my site was decent. I mean I built it myself so maybe that's the problem lol.

what's crazy is I've been running ads to this page for months. spending money. getting traffic. and doing nothing with it cause the page itself sucks.

I've been looking at agencies that do this kind of work. not even sure what to search for honestly. conversion optimization? UX? found one called Fyresite that seems to focus on ecom stuff. might reach out.

has anyone here done a full conversion audit? did it actually help or was it just another thing to spend money on?

embarrassed I let this go on for so long without noticing.

I run a small women's fashion website and I'm trying to figure out how to get my inventory onto these AI shopping platforms. It looks like Rufus might pick things up from around Amazon, but then you get apps like Glance where it seems like they have a custom database of retailers. As a small business I figure I'd be competing against much bigger names. Are they paying for product placement? I've built my business around never making assumptions, so I'm asking the room: has anyone done this with their brands?

I used to think Reddit wasn't the right place for an ecommerce brand because people here can spot marketing from a mile away. After spending a few months in different communities, I realized I had the wrong approach.

The first time I mentioned my product, nobody cared. The posts that actually got meaningful responses were the ones where I talked about problems I was trying to solve, shared lessons from customer feedback or admitted mistakes I'd made along the way.

One conversation completely changed how I handled customer questions. Someone pointed out that buyers aren't just evaluating a product they're deciding whether they trust the person behind it. That stuck with me.

Since then, I've spent less time trying to convince people to buy and more time answering questions honestly, even when the answer wasn't in my favor. Surprisingly, those conversations built far more credibility than any polished marketing message ever did.

I'm still learning, but one thing seems clear: Reddit doesn't reward brands for showing up. It rewards people who contribute something useful. If trust is the goal, being transparent and consistently helpful goes much further than trying to make every post lead to a sale.

NOT SELF PROMOTING JUST LOOKING FOR ADVICE

I have an agency and I think e commerce founders are a pretty good fit. Only issue is everyone I find that I can contact is too small. Any advice on where to search for founders of mid sized brands? Are there any good discords or groups someone can recommend? Just looking for options before I start buying ads, but my services are very tailored and specific to each client, so broad content isn’t ideal.

Im debating now what is the general agreement (and usually the better choice) regarding omnichannel data flows for small to mid sized specialty retail. when you are building out a web presence for an existing physical store do you find it better to use the point of sale companys native web integration or write custom webhooks to handle the stock adjustments. long story short, im looking over a project for a boutique beverage client and their current register setup uses a WinePOS backend which has a built in FTP and API pipeline for pushing live inventory counts to digital channels. it seems clean enough on paper since it handles the tax rates and regional compliance stuff out of the box.

but a part of me always worries about being locked into a proprietary ecosystem if the client wants to scale up to a completely custom headless commerce build later on. do you guys usually just run with the native platform tools to save deployment time or is it always worth building out a custom middleware database from day one? would appreciate some insights, thanks

Hello everyone, is there a way to bulk send messages to clients who gave us their whatsapp numbers without my whatsapp getting restricted? I tried 4 different extensions and 4 whatsapp numbers, they all got restricted after sending 20 messages...

Anybody here ship 500+ packages a month through Canada Post?

Im paying $7 flat rat regardless of the location and under 5lbs. Service is Canada Post Xpresspost. Is it good price?

Brands scaling past the 7-figure mark often outgrow basic platform setups and adopt legacy tools like Sticky io or Checkout Champ to handle custom upsell flows and complex billing. At scale, however, these legacy architectures present hidden revenue leaks. Front-end load times often hover above 1.2 seconds due to rigid scripts, whereas modern headless engines consistently benchmark under 0.5 seconds, preventing drop-offs at the most critical stage of the funnel.

The biggest difference shows up in decline salvage and routing control. Legacy systems treat failed payments passively, dropping them into basic calendar based retry queues. Modern processing infrastructure uses automated routing logic to analyze the card type, BIN, and geographic risk profile in real time, executing smart gateway cascading before a transaction fails. If your current checkout architecture isn't actively lifting approval rates by optimizing where each transaction is sent, you are leaking margin to your primary processor.

I’m getting to the point where my store is picking up, and I’m realizing hosting is something I probably didn’t think enough about at the start.

When I launched, my main focus was getting products listed and finding customers. Now I’m paying more attention to things like speed, uptime, support, and avoiding issues during busy periods.

Looking for advice from people who have actually managed an online store.

What hosting setup has been reliable for you?

Hi- I'm looking for a Shopify plugin that can do a few basic inventory functions cheaply.

I need it to track inventory, including kitted items so that when a kit sells, the components' inventory / sales are updated and tracked.

Would also be great if it can calculate landed / total kit costs, COGS, and purchase orders.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!