The Cheese #45 🧀 - Pistachios, Bottomless Margaritas, and Black Friday

The Super Bowl of Ecommerce

Black Friday is here. Some call it the Super Bowl of Ecommerce. I don’t know who actually calls it that, I don’t. Don’t get me wrong, Black Friday through Cyber Monday is BIG for most retailers. For BattlBox, it’s not do or die (survival) like it is for some. We are having some promotions and sales, revenue will be significantly higher these few days than regular days… but again, its not do or die like it is for many brands. Perhaps we are simply fortunate that we do not have a seasonality to our business.

Whatnot front - The warehouse show set a record (best show ever), but barely with $31,737.54 when the buzzer rang. We started off really strong, averaging $4500 an hour for the first couple of hours. About half way through the 8 hour marathon we realized we did not have the inventory needed to sustain that clip. We still had an amazing show, mainly because we had some takeaway learnings. We do not run these shows often (seems like we are capable of running 8-10 a year) so there are always massive learnings each time. We beat ourselves up a little bit about it, but then realized that we all needed to take a step back and admire that we still set a record. We still did more revenue in a show than we have ever done before. That is impressive.

We have 8 shows left in the month and currently sitting at $221k, which means we need another $49k to set a new record month. It’s possible with certainty, but the data suggests we will fall short. Falling short is OK, its not from a lack of effort. We have moved the goal posts every month and I could not be more proud of Cam and the team. If we fall short this month, we know why. Knowing why allows us NOT to make the same mistakes we made this month again and that is a huge victory and just as important as beating the record (don’t get me wrong, I want the record). The team still has a couple of aces up their sleeves though so I won’t count them out just yet.

We have 64 shows scheduled for December (running 63 in November). Without a warehouse sale or event sale planned, December will be a challenge. We are not actively looking for additional hosts and show runners (both in a part time capacity, side hustle style, so if you know of someone interested, reply to this email).

Amazon front, Curtis is straight cooking. This November will end up our 2nd best month in Amazon history with December being either our best ever or replacing this month as our 2nd best ever. Regardless, it is great to see the channel crushing it after a few years of it NOT being a 7 figure channel for us.

Current obsession that is becoming a work distraction? Suno.com. Savannah from DYR sent me a link to it and I have been cranking out songs. My mind is absolutely blown at how quickly it can make a banger. Currently trying to come up with some actual work use cases for it. We likely will drop an official BattlGames song when we drop Season 2 lol.

Membership is a little off from where we would like to be at for the month but Walter is confident that we will get to “our number” before the month ends (our month ends on the 3rd, weird I know). We just need to maintain our membership levels until February where we will have higher purchase order levels and can try to scale up a bit. 

Diet front? Eeeek, forgot I was on one. Somehow I have been maintaining around 140. Maybe I will start the diet back up on Monday lol

Let’s get into the rest!

The Rise and Fall of TGI Fridays

We dissect T.G.I. Friday’s and have some takeaways and lessons on why they failed. This is a good quick read.

The Pistachio Cartel

Great breakdown of Stewart and Lynda Resnick going from owning a single farm to doing about $6B in revenue a year.

So you want to start an ecommerce business?

Myself and the ASOM crew break down the most profitable niches and which ones to avoid in 2025 and 2026.

That’s a Wrap on This Week’s Flavor Explosion! 🧀

Savor the flavor? Let’s keep the cheesy love going! Forward this newsletter to a friend, colleague, or anyone who could use a little extra cheesiness in their life.

Catch you next week for more cheesy fun!

Melted Magic,
Team Online Queso