The bag market is set to outpace designer apparel to be worth $100 billion by 2027! This is the time to own an e-commerce brand! Here’s my product playbook – with factories – to start your own bag brand now.

I’ve worked on many bag products, tens of thousands of total units. There are so many opportunities out there, ranging from product presentation, to retail exit bags, to school bags, to designer bags, to mini bags. The size of this market can’t be underestimated!

Here’s a rough cost outline for bag products of different qualities from China:

• Translucents/mini bags: $10
• Artificial PU leather: $5-20
• Simple canvas totes, duffels, etc: $3-10
• Lower end genuine leather: $30-$55
• Real leather/sheepskin at designer quality: $100-250

Garment and tote bags to include with products is a great option for existing brands.

I purchase a lot of Rick Owens. What you may not know is that many Rick Owens’ products come with a super high-quality canvas bag that I use absolutely all the time. Providing a quality option for this helps cement your brand.

The Tiny Purse movement isn’t dead yet, and there’s lots of vendors with starting options. You need to ignore their styles, and design yourself. Take a loose concept they have so its a realistic starting point, but do you own design.

For most people it makes sense to start with an existing popular design and modify it to be something unique. This is a men’s option from Guangzhou Gaofeiya Leather Co

Translucent bags are also popular and affordable. Good option to easily put out a design in a unique style (over shoulder, fanny pack, tote, etc) with fun designs – especially for TikTok.

These are $10, custom logo at 100 minimum order quantity (MOQ).

These are 500 MOQ with custom graphics and packaging, but only $4.60 each

A vendor option for PU leather and patterned options on the cheaper end? Look at Shijiazhuang Anhong Trade Co

Quanzhou Fanlostar Int’l Co and Chongqing B.m. Import & Export are two legit factories who will import various materials as needed for quality options for any style you want to make.

Tips for sending a great “brief” to your chosen vendors:

• Note materials/colors inside & out
• Note logo placement and type of print (embroidery/silk etc)
• Clarify stitch types when possible
• Note material + quality of parts and hardware for straps, zippers, highlights etc

Process notes: Include sketches or cad drawings with dimensions in cm/mm. If you want real leather, get a sample of the leather sent prior to an actual bag mockup. Expect to pay hundreds for a real quality single sample. This can usually be applied against your order invoice (just ask).

If you want to go expensive and charge a premium, read How to Differentiate a Luxury Brand. This is my starter guide for different techniques for differentiating a premium brand over time.

Laundry list of ideas I’ve had in this space you should use:

• Kids’ book bags suck and haven’t changed in forever. There’s got to be better options to create.
• With designer knockoffs so prevalent, I feel high-end personalization is the next big trend, own this!
• Pattern development like Goyard/LV, etc. but using high-end digital techniques and renderings
• Utilizing complex textiles enabled by services like Byborre
• Mens’ bags is still wide open…

Backpacks are for kids, messengers aren’t much better. What’s a new form factor?

Quick checklist for succeeding with sourcing your product:

• Find a reputable vendor with existing transaction history
• Provide your product brief in significant detail
• Always sample ahead of time
• Go through all the details of packaging, shipment, and use by your customer

Today we focus on websites that will help you develop an e-commerce strategy, find new ideas for products, differentiate your brand, get manufacturers, and find growth marketing ideas. It’s a playbook of modern tools that feels like a cheat code for finding products that will work… and then growing them.

ThingTesting

An excellent curation of new products and brands. Plus, they feature reviews of what consumers do and don’t like. This is a fabulous feed of hip, new products and you have the ability to identify emerging trends by category.

AnswerThePublic

Another fantastic tool by Niel Patel and the team over at UberSuggest, Answer The Public lists all the possible key terms and phrases people could use when running possible search queries.

Type in a partial google search or key terms and see what people are searching by country Questions with that phrase, prepositions that are added, and comparisons. An amazing tool to find customer wants and questions

Product World

Factory links, resources for finding manufacturers and breakdowns of different product strategies and ideas. A great place to find curated suppliers and product strategy overviews!

Ahrefs (paid)

Ahrefs shows you search volume for any term, how hard it would be to compete on SEO, and related terms people are searching for. You can look at any website and see what product pages are performing on search.

SEO & product development should go hand in hand!

SnaxShot

Impeccable CPG (consumer packaged goods) curation, with identification of trends far before they hit the mainstream so they can be applied across many industries. My favorite use of this tool is looking at packaging and product design to consider for new styles.

MarketingExamined

 Case study after case study from @alexgarcia_atx and friends on every marketing concept imaginable. Anytime I’m looking for a platform strategy or growth idea, this is where I start.

JungleScout (paid)

Sophisticated Amazon product research tool that includes an “Opportunity Finder” so you can discover high-volume, low-competition search terms. It also gives great overall Amazon data by category on existing products. Great for finding existing winners for new channels.

Pinterest

If you plug in enough search terms, the algorithm on Pinterest is amazing. I searched for retail displays to build a new board, and it just continued to serve me more and more interesting ideas. Use this as an inspiration source!

Drop Point (paid)

Drop Point aggregates current and legacy ads on social media with the ability to search by product keyword for $5/m. See ads and product ideas for what’s happening in DTC.

Free Game

Virgil Abloh “open sourced” a good deal of the brand creative process, and simple things like trademarking and store setup. There’s also lots of his inspiration links along the way.

Thanks for reading. Let me know in the comments below which websites have helped you with your e-commerce strategy. Who knows… we could be featuring them in an upcoming post!

See the original 10 Websites to Develop an E-Commerce Strategy Twitter thread here. Thank me later  🙂

– Oren

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Top Tips To Build Your Website Traffic

I write about tools and ideas to bring winning physical products to life. Whether you have a brand or want to build one in the future, I highly recommend joining the 3051+ on my Product People newsletter!

I always appreciate your follows @orenmeetsworld and be sure to subscribe via the link below!

In this ​YOUTUBE VIDEO​ I break down how to make a product like this…

Speaking of Warren Lotas, he’s a tribute to what happens when you have a unique style, and keep consistently building the brand behind that style until it is undeniable. From zombie streetwear to NBA collaboration, it is quite the transition, built from having the respect of, and success in, the culture.

Curious about glass for your own business? Here’s some options:

Glass factories to approach

Plus a fun frosted glass and bamboo lid option from another factory for supplements and similar.

Happy Labor Day! Another week gone and even more interesting CPG/Consumer news that you may or may not have seen 👀 🧵

— Nate Rosen (@RosenZone) September 5, 2022

My first 7 figure product

Sold around $2.5M of these car footwell lights

In hindsight, my biggest products were the ones that I found out about through friends / life, not ad spying tools.

Being the first to advertise a product is an insane advantage. pic.twitter.com/j99nbmFmL3

— Mark Wagner (@themarkwagner) September 4, 2022

pic.twitter.com/4FOqM3xrq2

— Outlander Magazine (@StreetFashion01) September 4, 2022

I appreciate you reading, and stoked to see what you create!

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Casio G-Shock has announced a new metal case line-up which looks awfully like another prestigious watch. Can you guess which brand that is?

@orenmeetsworld

Is g-shock back in the conversation? #watches #gshock #audemarspiguet #audemars #trends #luxuryfashion @orenmeetsworld

♬ So Fresh, So Clean – Outkast

Lets break it down…

So, secondary market metal cases for watches like Casio’s has been a thriving economy on sites like Etsy, and similar sites for years.

Basically, people are using metal casing for these modified watches to get as close to looking like an Audemars as much as they possibly can.

About the Casio G-Shock Design

G-Shock did a pretty smart move and came up with this lineup, which looks extremely similar in color and texture to Audemars and takes advantage of this trend.

I’m not a G-Shock customer but this is a pretty good looking watch for the type of actual timepiece that it is; not trying to be too fancy or too prolific.

Obviously, the steel casing gives it greater protection, the kind you’re not going to get on a standard watch if you’re using it in ultimately rugged environments.

But if you check out the look and feel of these more premium – and obviously more expensive – watches, one thing stands out above all others… It’s become more interesting to see how more expensive brands are going to adapt if they want to be able to lean into this trend or think they’re going to have to dock their way out of it.

Some of these color patterns are super-similar. Obviously, G-Shock leaned into having that exact look and feel, not too close that you would consider it a problem but certainly hopping onto the trend.

I do think that the conversation around this release and the on-trend aspect of it is going to put Casio G-Shock back in the timepiece conversation in a relatively significant way.

I’m curious to hear what ya’ll have to say in the comments.
– Oren

Thanks for reading. I regularly break down sourcing and developing different products to 5,000+ entrepreneurs on my Product People newsletter. You should join me there.

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Does it seem like everybody’s graphic design is absolutely next-level on their brand identities right now? You’re not alone in thinking that. These 6 best design tools will help you elevate your brand’s style and make your designs really POP!

No time to read?
Check out my TikTok Short video below, or scroll to continue reading.

@orenmeetsworld

These are the tools to make your brand’s style up to par in 2022 #brandingtips #brandingdesign #brandidentity #marketingtips #designtok @orenmeetsworld #greenscreen

♬ ASTRO Trap Beat – Hip Hop Instrumental – AfterInfinityMusic

Best Design Collaboration Team

This series of graphics was a collaboration between YouTube and 18 top creators – including Saint Urbain, a creative design and branding agency based in NYC and LA.

The designs were part of the YouTube Shorts snack challenge for VidCon 2022. The 18 designers that took part in the challenge had some really sick designs all throughout it.

Best Fonts Tool

Fonts are just getting better and better. Yours can, too.

Check out Type Department. They have a wide selection of fonts that are really sick and instead of having these massive, expensive $900+ licenses to get the good stuff like other foundries do, Type Department is really affordable. Go grab yourself a good license for $30-$60 and get the hot fonts you need.

Best Brand Guidelines Tool

The world of the PDF brand guideline is completely dead now that brand guidelines are online and collaborative.

BrandPad is a great way for you to get your brand into this new generation of having all your design assets in the cloud and collaborative, which also means the people you’re working with will be able to work together better and faster.

Best Cloud Collaboration Tool

Speaking of working together better and faster, Figma is an online, all-in-one graphic design tool that helps you create flow charts, user journey maps, and more. It’s like having a collaborative Photoshop in the cloud…

• work together
• leave notes
• see what other people are working on
• easily duplicate community files to digital
• and use it even for traditional printing.

It’s a really simply and easy way for people to design. If you’re on a team and collaborating but not using it, I highly recommend you make the switch.  

Best Image Library Tool

Stock images are one of the biggest things that help you stand out but not when they make it look like everyone shops the same images off iStock.

What I really love about DeathToTheStockPhoto is they have a super-unique library, very distinctive style, and a well-curated collection that’s refreshed monthly. At just $12 a month, it’s super-cheap and best of all? Usage is unlimited! Vote on what the next photoshoot is and be a part of the community-driven process to get the perfect photo your brand or next project needs.

Best Design Asset Packs

Sign up to Creative Market and get pre-made assets and packs once-off and cheap. Get graphics, icons, textures, web elements, fonts, presentations, logos, branding templates, wireframe kits, and so much more.

The free account gives you access to free assets or sign up for monthly drops worth every bit of the $19-95 subscription fee. This is the tool every serious designer needs!

Leverage the best design tools and see what good designers are using to elevate their designs. If you have an existing brand or are in the middle of creating a brand, you need to think about how you’re going to make sure you’re operating at this level of quality to stand out from the crowd.

Contiue to iterate because brands aren’t permanent anymore; they’re at this permanent state of flux which provides a really interesting state of environment for design teams to work in. 

Thanks for tuning in and reading to the end. Let me know in the comments below if there’s a tool you think we should add to this list!

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In today’s economy, differentiation is what’s going to make you stand apart from the crowd, like this vendor. With almost 1 million transactions under their belt (so to speak) the Dongguan Rainbow Touches Garment Co. is a great vendor for differentiated and custom men’s fashionwear. 

No time to read? Watch my TikTok short instead…

@orenmeetsworld

A great overseas manufacturer for mens fashion #productdevelopment #clothingline #appareldesign #fashionbrand #ecommercetips @orenmeetsworld #greenscreenvideo #greenscreen

♬ ASTRO Trap Beat – Hip Hop Instrumental – AfterInfinityMusic

Let’s start with this logo tee. If you look closely, this is actually a nice acid wash which will help make it stand out from what a basic tee is. You can start customizing your tee with a low MoQ (minimum order quantity) of just 30 pieces. Customized packaging also starts at just 30 pieces.

We’re looking at about 8.50 a piece on these if you want custom logo and packaging. Lead time for 100 or so pieces is just 7 days, and ordering 100 pieces also qualifies you for the $60 discount.

Let’s move on to this kind of jacket windbreaker, modeled here by legendary male model Stephen James. This is a great item for anyone doing merchandise because the actual cost is pretty cheap. And you don’t have to rush this for a super-high price point; You can make something useful and versatile for multiple seasons.

This is one of my favorites out of the options they offer. This is a satin-feel bomber jacket. Its obviously not real satin, but its embroidered with some really nice ideas.

With these, it would take about 200 pieces to get a customized logo, etc., and you’d need to order 500+ pieces for custom packaging. The good news is that you’re only looking at about $20 per piece, so you can get your thing up and running for about $1,000, plus shipping.

Here’s another unique item which would sell quite well. These all-over print shorts are polyester so I’d try to get a nicer fabric (like cotton or linen, perhaps). This has definitely got a very unique look that would help your merchandise stand out. This kind of all-over print is available in a range of options to choose from. 

What’s great about this is that a sample of your custom design is only $50 and you can get custom packaging at only 50 pieces. 200 MoQ for your own logo and the end cost is only about $10 per unit. 

Last is a great option for custom shorts if you’re looking for that 5-in. baggies look and all of the print. I actually like these camo ones right here, and with custom logos so you can make a fun product. Cost on these are only about $12 a piece.

Overall, this is a great vendor to look to if you want to start manufacturing clothing overseas. They have some versatile options and you can make more money than you would domestically.

Let me know in the comments below or on my TikTok video embedded above how far you got and what you eventually had made. And don’t forget to let me kno9w if you find other, similar vendors you think I should add to my curated list.

– Oren

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My niche is connecting you to new manufactures so you can launch products and brands on TikTok and other social media channels that work. Today I’ll be showing you the fastest, easiest, and most affordable way to start a ceramic planter business on the platform.

Let’s do this.

Watch this post on my TikTok channel, or scroll to keep reading.

@orenmeetsworld

An excellent manufacturer to launch a ceramics product for plant tiktok #plantsoftiktok #planttiktok #plantbusiness #productdevelopment #ecommercetips @orenmeetsworld

♬ OCEAN DRIVE – HIGH ENERGY TROPICAL INSTRUMENTAL – Georgi Velichkov

I can’t stress this enough: There has never been a better time to start your own business, and with everyone more at home now, green is the way to go. Plant TikTok is HUGE! Start a ceramic planter business now, and take advantage of this opportunity.

If you want to start a ceramic (also known as pottery) planter business, here is my go-to manufacturer to get you up and running. This is – by far – the only factory you’ll want to use to make planters: Fujian Dehua Bebon Ceramics Co., Ltd. 

Here you can see the pricing for small, medium, and large ranging from $3.55 to $5.35 per piece if you’re just getting a single unit. One drawback is that they only do customized items locally and with packaging that’ll run from about $1,000.

But here’s the thing… you could customize those with finishing in the US.

They’ve got a wide variety of ceramic products inside and outside of the planters business but things like these simple pastels are a great option.

Here’s another option. This one comes with a little bottom piece as well, which makes a great set. You can customize that, brand it, sell it separately.

There’s also more unique form factors like this crumpled paper version, too.

If you want to lower the minimum order quantity to $1000, these have a really unique look. I believe you have some customization options with the pattern and you only need to get $120 to get started. They’re ranging from $2.55 to $4.55.

You do have to factor shipping into all of these but they’re all pretty reasonably-priced if you want to launch your own brand or product in the Plant TikTok space.

I do think the best option you can do is to find unique and interesting form factors with the ceramics and try to come up with some new ideas. Take this opportunity to develop something custom and bespoke with a factory like this. It may mean you might have to use a higher minimum order quantity (MoQ) with something that differentiates your product, makes it stand out, and helps keep the room together for anyone who buys it.

Be sure to share your thoughts and ideas with me everywhere you see my personal brand displayed: @OrenMeetsWorld. You’ll find over 4,500 links to my creator content on:

• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• TikTok
• Builders.Build
• YouTube
• and Twitter… all in a simple Google search.

BONUS MATERIAL!
Catch the Builders.Build podcast with my best friends, Colin and James, to discover more about our individual TikTok perspectives and journeys.

Agency owners should be spending 10% of their hours on building their own products, or productizing their processes. This is a simple way for agency owners to build long-term value and get:

• more skin in the game
• insight and opportunity to try what clients might be leery of for case studies.

Hot take:

Agencies should be spending 10% of ours on building their own products, or productizing their processes.

– more skin in the game
– build greator equity value
– opportunity to try what clients might be leery of for case studieshttps://t.co/y6QNrRQkHk

— Oren John (@orenmeetsworld) September 20, 2022

There’s a transformation happening with tons of new entrepreneurs starting services companies and agencies but I have a tip… if you have started one of these agencies, have a big successful version of it, or are even thinking about doing it, here’s something that I guarantee every agency should be doing.

You need to devote 10% of your team’s working hours to developing your own products and productizing your processes.

Here’s what I mean…

Productize Your Processes by Transferring Knowledge

Take the presentations you give all the time, the overviews you use a lot, any specific SOPs you may decide to use in your business, and actually sell them as downloads. Or use them as free giveaways for the community to help build long-term value into your brand.

You can also potentially generate future revenue that way, or use these free giveaways as lead magnets to build your sales funnels.

As an agency, you’re seeing inside all of these different businesses. As part of the services you offer, you’re giving them advice and helping them put together all the particular tactics and strategies to help them succeed.

It therefore stands to reason that you have the toolkit to build your own value machine.

How to Build Long-Term Value

Even if your experiment fails, you should be trying this to build long-term value. You can easily spin it off to have a team run with it, sell it, or begin pivoting what you’re working on to focus on it.

It’s going to build significantly more equity in multiples compared to what you’re doing and agency business is still at its core.

This growing trend is happening where agencies are beginning to open up their R&D arms to focus on productizing their own assets. Not only is it an amazing opportunity but it also won’t take up a ton of your time.

What does this mean in practical terms?

Think of it as an hour or less of every person working in your business per one of those days. It’s also freeing and liberating for people to work on something that they can have ownership of or be building themselves vs purely working on client projects.

If you own an agency business, I highly recommend you devote 10% of your time to developing your own products and prioritizing your processes.

Thanks for tuning in and reading to the end. Let me know in the comments below how productizing your processes is going!

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Back in 2020, in the space between when the Covid-19 pandemic first hit us and the time when we could finally stop reeling, an expansive trend report was produced that revealed the future of marketing and the resulting rise of the creator economy in a post-pandemic world.

By the way, if you missed my TikTok on this, you can catch it below, or scroll to keep reading here on the blog.

@orenmeetsworld

These graphs showcase the future of marketing and the creator economy #creatoreconomy #marketingtips #trends #influencermarketing #brandbuilding #creators #contentmarketing @orenmeetsworld

♬ ASTRO Trap Beat – Hip Hop Instrumental – AfterInfinityMusic

Amongst the specific trends uncovered was a new awareness, a shift to hyper-individualism, an emerging world where people no longer regard society’s norms as binding and begin to act in a highly individual way. However, this does not disregard mass trends, influences, or forces that guide decision-making.

Monomass is the intersection where hyper-individualism and mass trends meet and can comfortably co-exist. The generation driving this monomass? Gen Z, the next major economic power holders emerging in this new post-pandemic economy.

When we look at the forces guiding the youth (Gen Z) culture and decision-making today, we come to realize that the world has changed. How we approach those changes, the content and marketing language we use to connect with these emerging creators of tomorrow will need to change, too.

These graphs will tell you everything you need to know about the past and the future of the creator and content economy.

Let’s break it down…

For the last few decades, if you made marketing campaigns or content, it followed a strict path. You led a consumer down a very specific route to get them to an end result. Then, you’d start over on that same path once again with a new customer or on a new product.

By the 2010’s, most good brands followed this format. They had creators, hired folks like photographers and videographers, to execute professional campaigns at the behest of ad agencies, or actual influencers who were hired to do specific created-for campaigns.

All of these folks created content and it was pushed out through all the different mediums. Tastemakers (influencers who determine what’s stylish enough to become a trend) would  then pick up on that content and amplify it to their communities.

Now, content and creation isn’t a straight line when you’re following that kind of a path. Instead, it’s now become a circle.

I’ll explain…

Now the creators that are empowering a brand (or the brand’s story) is you. And it’s me, and it’s them, and it’s us. And it’s all happening right here.

We’re all creating content, and more and more people are doing that every day. This may be specifically for a brand or as part of a story with which that brand interacts. And all of this created content is being pushed out into a larger community.

Now, all the people who engage with the brand and its evolving stories are able to provide feedback in real time and to interact with that brand and that story in a way that isn’t predictable. It can’t follow any existing path.

You can script it as much as you want to, but its going to be something that’s a living, breathing, piece of content ‘thing’. It then all feeds back into each other and those opinions form the basis for new content, new initiatives, new ideas.

There’s only one way to be ahead of the game as the creator economy continues to rise all around us…

You as a brand must understand that you need to be creating content with your user base and your influencers and yourself, as a company. That is allowed to be one story, one that you can’t always control but you need to be in the middle of. You need to be acting on that when you’re thinking about your community, about the conversations you’re building all around your brand as a living, breathing, evolving thing.

CREDITS

These graphs are actually about two years old and from a publication called The Era of Monomass by Dazed Studio. Their information was super-predicted as to what was about to happen, and I’ll really pay attention to anything they put out in the future in terms of reports because they’ve always been super on the ball.

Get your copy of this report here.

Thanks for reading. I regularly break down sourcing and developing different products to 5,000+ entrepreneurs on my Product People newsletter. You should join me there.

– Oren

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The best tool in their playbook for brands who are trying to launch their brands and get attention on the internet today is to the power of storytelling to showcase their brand and the business processes behind it with their content.

This sketch shows the mohair cardigan by Bluboy and WNTD Apparel below, which is just a super-unique piece. Bluboy’s done a great job of showcasing some of the creative process inside what he puts out.

I love this enamel button they’ve used to replace a traditional button on this cardigan. I think especially with the contrast to other green mohair, it’s just super-cool.

See this post in action on TikTok…

@orenmeetsworld

Storytelling and showing behind the scenes is a huge leg up for new brands #ecommercetips #brandingtips #marketingtips #fashionbrandcompany #fashionbrand @orenmeetsworld

♬ OCEAN DRIVE – HIGH ENERGY TROPICAL INSTRUMENTAL – Georgi Velichkov

The Power of Storytelling for Brands

Back to the concept…

Storytelling today for new brands is paramount. It can get your attention on social media, help people invest in your story, and helps those who are interested to learn. It then also gains a positive affinity for your brand because they are learning from it.

But the biggest reason you should consider doing this, is the biggest and most-established brands are going to try and hire all the value that they can. They’re not going to have the same playbook as the new creators – maybe some will, but most won’t – of saying “Hey, maybe we should share as much as possible, we’re going to provide much value.”

You ever heard that quote… “If you’re not giving away so much value, that it makes you uncomfortable, then you’re not giving away enough”? That’s how I feel all creators and new brands should be looking at how they showcase their creative process.

The power of a single story goes far beyond simply relaying facts and data and can be a highly effective tool to create customer loyalty
~ Tony Robbins

By sharing and giving away as much of your creative processes as possible to build an affinity for your brand, you’re releasing the power of storytelling. 

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15 Steps to Start a Business Without Much Money

Thanks for reading. I regularly break down sourcing and developing different products to 5,000+ entrepreneurs on my Product People newsletter. You should join me there.

– Oren

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