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Case Study

$2,000 a month in fees, before they sold anything

An online store and training program that grew faster than its setup. The business was spread across marketplaces and rented platforms, each taking a cut. We rebuilt the foundation, and the savings paid for the work.

  • Client: Online Store & Training Program
  • Duration: 6 months
  • Services: E-commerce, Platform Migration, CRM, Print, Photo & Video
  • Engagement: Build & Launch
Fresh artisan sourdough loaf being sliced on a wooden cutting board — product from the online store case study

The problem

They built the business themselves and it grew quickly, which is the good version of this problem. The setup never caught up. Products lived on a marketplace, training lived on someone else's platform, and every transaction paid a toll to a company that owned the customer relationship.
01

They didn't own their storefront

Selling through a marketplace meant fees on every order and a customer relationship that belonged to the platform rather than to them.
02

Their training platform took a percentage

The course platform charged a revenue share, so every improvement to the business made the platform more money. Growth increased the cost of growing.
03

Fragmented across systems

Products in one place, training in another, customers in neither. No single view of who a customer was or what they had bought.
04

Costs nobody had examined

Insert and instruction cards printed locally at over a dollar per order. A cookbook quoted at a price that made it a break-even proposition at best.

We fixed the cost structure first

  • 01

    Their own store, their own domain

    A Shopify store and a proper website, so the storefront and the customer relationship belong to them. Marketplace fees dropped by over $2,000 a month immediately.

  • 02

    Training moved onto our platform

    We migrated the training program onto the platform we run for clients. No revenue share, so scaling the business no longer scales the cost of running it.

  • 03

    Marketing and support built in

    Email and SMS from the same system that holds the customer records, used for campaigns and for technical support.

  • 04

    Print costs renegotiated

    Insert and instruction cards moved to a printer we work with. Per-order cost went from over a dollar to under twenty cents.

  • 05

    Cookbook production and distribution

    They wanted to break even on it as a value-add for customers. We found a printing and distribution partner and brought the unit cost to a third of what they had been quoted.

  • 06

    Photography and video

    Product photography, video, and a live baking class shot for the training program.

The cookbook

They asked us to help them break even

The cookbook was meant to be a value-add for customers, not a product line. At the price they had been quoted, breaking even was the realistic ceiling.

It sold out in a few weeks and returned over $25,000 in profit

The book didn't change. The cost of producing it did. We brought in a printing and distribution partner we work with and landed the unit cost at roughly a third of the original quote.

That's the difference between producing something and producing it at the right cost. Same product, same audience, same launch, entirely different outcome.

The results

The savings paid for the work.
BEFORE
AFTER
Storefront
Marketplace, fees per transaction
Own domain, own customers
Training platform
Revenue share on every sale
No revenue share
Insert cards
Over $1.00 per order
Under $0.20 per order
Cookbook
Break-even at best
$25k profit, first run
Customer data
Split across platforms
One system
Marketing
No email or SMS capability
Built into the platform
$2,000+

Per month, recurring

Not a one-time saving, and not dependent on selling anything more. The same orders simply stopped paying a toll to a marketplace.
$25k

Profit on a break-even project

The first cookbook run sold out in weeks. Producing it at the right cost turned a customer perk into a real revenue line.
80%

Off every order's print cost

Insert cards went from over a dollar to under twenty cents. Small per order, and it compounds across every order forever.

Before we ran a single campaign, the business was making more on every order it already had

Map first · Fix second

What is your setup costing you?

Fees, platform cuts, and vendor pricing nobody has examined since the day it was signed. It is usually the fastest money we find.
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