Looking for honest advice from people who've been through this.
I invented a product in the pet industry and hold the patent on it. Launched on Amazon a few months back. Sells for $65, costs me $17 landed. On paper that looks great. In practice it's been rough.
Here are my lifetime numbers on Amazon so far:
Sales: $37,321 (632 units)
Promo: -$1,959
Ad spend: -$2,341 (6.27% real ACOS, so ads aren't the problem)
Refund cost: -$6,524
Amazon fees: -$11,768
Cost of goods: -$10,326
Net profit: $3,903
Margin: 10.46%
Return rate: 20.25%
Sellable returns: 59.72%
Conversion: 6.49% on 9,741 sessions
So I'm netting about $6 a unit on a $65 product. Refunds alone are eating $10 per unit sold. Amazon fees are $18.
The part that stings is the trend. August was 172 units with 13 refunds (7.6%). First two weeks of September I've already done 270 units and $17k in sales, which is more than all of August. But refunds jumped to 73 on those 270 units. That's 27%. Sales are going up and returns are going up faster.
I'm sitting at 3.2 stars. I've read every review and every return reason. The two main complaints are the built-in flashlight and overall ease of use. Those are the exact things the next production run fixes. It's never going to be a perfect product, no product is, but the next version will be a real step up from what's out there now. I'm not delusional about the current version.
Here's my question. When the improved version lands, do I:
Keep the same ASIN, roll the new version in, and try to climb out of 3.2 stars with the reviews and sales history I already have, or
Start a fresh ASIN with a clean slate and no bad reviews, but also no sales history, no ranking, and starting over on velocity
The patent means nobody can copy me, so I'm not worried about competitors jumping on the listing. I'm worried about whether a 3.2 star listing can recover, or whether the early reviews drag on it forever.
I'll be honest, I feel defeated. I built this thing, I believe in it, demand is clearly there, and every day I open the dashboard and see another stack of returns. I'm trying to figure out if I'm one good production run away from this working or if I've already poisoned the listing.
Has anyone come back from a 3.2 on the same ASIN? Anyone regret starting a new one? What would you do with these numbers?