Featured Business: Piper Lou Collection - an eCommerce empire in the making ~ WAPNETREALM

With Net Operating Income of $1.3m calendar year 2018 Piper Lou Collection consistently performs with an avg. $110k monthly return.

So, what do they do?

Pipe Lou Collection sells a collection of on-demand fun drink-ware, apparel and accessories products to a mostly female audience. They offer print on demand and also wholesale. The brand leverages their own site plus FBA.

In the interview below, founder and owner Corey talks about Piper Lou Collection's best selling SKU, the most profitable marketing channels and opportunities for the future buyer.

Asking Price: $5,000,000

See the full listinghere

Interview with founder Corey Rush

Tell us a little bit about the model and where revenues are derived?

Piper Lou operates with a print on demand philosophy that has been custom tailored for multiple verticals (digitally printed items, embroidered items, laser etched Items, UV Printed items and sublimation). The online e-commerce side operates on Shopify Plus, and the wholesale side operates on a normal Shopify plan. The e-commerce side, of course, carries higher margins since it is direct to consumer; however, we don't carry any inventory risk and have multiple suppliers across the country who stock 'blanks'. These are ready to digitally print, screen print, embroider or laser etch.

What is your top selling SKU from the store and also from the printing business side of things?

Our tumbler business has sold well over $10M in the past 2 years, and this really has only ever had 2 SKUS (30oz Tumblers and 20oz Tumblers). This product line could be expanded.

Which marketing channels are your most profitable and what is your CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost)?

Our team at Blue Pack Marketing built Piper Lou by accident, as we are Facebook/Instagram marketers by trade. Our Facebook/Instagram strategy is roughly 60% of our direct to consumer marketing agenda, and we pay around $11 to acquire a customer (new). However, our return customer rate is 17% for 2018, and our facebook page has over 530,000 fans who love the brand.

Apart from selling via your own website, what, if any, other avenues does the business use to drive and generate sales?

Our wholesale channel has over 600 active accounts who order Piper Lou and sell in their stores (brick and mortar). We have an Amazon FBA channel we license out that pays us a 10% royalty on all sales. We also are currently working on a subscription model that should make the new buyer very happy with the return on investment.

What is required to run Piper Lou's Collection? How big is the team and how many full-time staff members do you currently have?

We are selling the brand due to the recent success of our e-commerce agency picking up multiple global media clients; so we've prepared to sell the brand for the past few months. The brand is very turn key and really will require someone who is ready to pick up the areas we simply haven't had the most time to drive hard. A subscription model, wholesale conversations, and overall new product development with our vendors. The team that will come with the sale will be a fully trained customer service staff (3) who handle 100% of tickets and wholesale inquiries, a optimization developer (1), and the ability to have our team run the online marketing/train your team/and we will be open to staying on in an advisory role.

Given that a good portion of the business is wholesale, would the prospective buyer be given the same competitive terms that you currently hold with your manufacturer?

95% of the business is technically direct to consumer e-Commerce and NOT traditional Wholesale (we have that too); but yes vendor agreements allow us to have aggressive pricing. We also have contacts with the largest vendors in the USA when it comes to the blank products so we know our margins stack up.

You have a huge amount of experience in marketing and a strong understanding of eCommerce. Could someone who was less experienced realistically run Piper Lou? How automated are your current marketing initiatives?

Yes, they absolutely could. We've worked for the past 3 years to establish a very rabid fanbase who loves the brand. Much of the marketing programs are automated, including SMS marketing, email marketing and other exciting omni-channel strategies. However, we are open to working with a buyer on our strategies or even staying on in a marketing or advisory capacity.

You mention in the listing that a prospective buyer could improve the business through a subscription box? Can you tell us a little bit more about how this would work and what it would entail?

With an email list of almost 700,000 buyers and prospective buyers, 100k in SMS subscribers, and another 10,000 on push notifications (new); one communication blast could open this box with a huge success. It's all about math when it comes to looking at our existing base of customers on a recurring revenue concept, and I think we could see a 5-10% OPT IN on this initial push. Example below

Potential Customers - 810,000
Take Rate - 2%
New Subscription Box Customers - 16,200 subscribers
Profit Margin (Based on $19.99 Month/$29.99 Month) - Profit could be $8/12 so we will use $10
Potential profit recurring monthly - $162,000

This of course could be higher or lower, but the potential upside of this program which is ready to execute would immediately make this a safe / strong investment.