E399: Breathing New Life into Products through Customisation [Under the Hood with Dalit Sorokin]

When you're selling another person's product, it's hard to find ways to differentiate yourself from other sellers, and you'll be forced to make some hard decisions sooner or later.    How can you prevent others from eating into your revenue, especially when you sell the same products? Should you break free from the mould and create your own product? Is it better to keep the warehouse or to let it go?     Questions like these are not uncommon with ecommerce sellers, but that's what our Under the Hood segment is for.    In today's episode, we're doing an Under the Hood session with Dalit Sorokin who I met way back in Steve Chou's Seller Summit years ago.   We'll be talking about the value of customisation and how it can breathe new life into your products, using paid advertisement for the first time, and struggling with your very first product during development.    I'll also be sharing my strategies for leveraging paid advertisement, how Dalit can use personalised stickers to increase Average Order Value, and to increase leads, plus, I'll be answering some of Dawn's burning questions that you might also be itching to ask yourself.    Timestamps: Revisiting how Dalit and I first met - 3:17 Leveraging the value of customisation in her products through stickers - 9:27 How to approach paid advertisement for the first time - 20:42 Using instructional videos for video ads - 33:05 Possible solutions to moving out of the warehouse model - 34:08 Offering customisation through Amazon - 39:55 Struggles with the product development stages in her very first product - 41:45   I had a fun time talking to Dalit and I hope that her business sees a lot of action in the coming months. Check out all her awesome bento boxes over on Cute Kid Stuff.    By the way, Premium won't be open again for a few months, but we still have a ton of free stuff that you'll surely find value in.    As always, if you enjoyed this episode, leave us a review over on iTunes to let us know. Happy selling, and we'll talk to you soon!