Done for you ecommerce
Own an ecommerce brand.
Without running one.
We build a direct to consumer brand from the ground up, then stay on as the team that runs it. Product sourced, store built, media bought, orders shipped, numbers reported. The company, the stock and the profit are yours. The work is ours.
Where the money is made
Starting is easy. Staying profitable is the job.
Your store can take its first order thirty days from now. Whether it is still making money in month nine comes down to a few hundred decisions made in between: which creative to kill, when to reorder, what a customer is worth paying for, which supplier is quietly eating your margin. That is the part nobody sells you, and it is the only part that decides the outcome.
Do it yourself
Everything you need to know is free and online. What it does not tell you is which decision to make on a Tuesday when the return rate moves. You learn that on your own money.
Paid for in ad spend and evenings
Hire an agency to build it
You get a store, a supplier contact and a handover call, then the invoice arrives and they move on. From that morning you are the operator of a business you have never operated.
Ends the moment it gets difficult
Bring in operators
People who have already built brands, already made the expensive mistakes, and already know which suppliers answer. They build it, then they stay and run it.
The reason Vantage exists
How it compares
An income asset that does not come with a second job.
Every asset asks something of you. Property asks for management. Equities ask you to hand over control entirely. A business you run yourself asks for your calendar.
Track record
What these brands made for the people who owned them.
Three of them, straight from the profit and loss.
- Revenue
- USD 562K
- Net profit
- USD 136K
- Net margin
- 24.3%
- Best month
- USD 102K
- Status
- Scaling
- Revenue
- USD 713K
- Net profit
- USD 101K
- Net margin
- 16.5%
- Best month
- USD 147K
- ROAS
- 1.94
- Revenue
- USD 687K
- Net profit
- USD 19K
- Net margin
- 2.8%
- Best month
- USD 127K
- ROAS
- 2.02
Operating results of brands built and run by our founding operators, converted from EUR. References available on request. Past performance is not a forecast.
The difference
Anyone can hand you a store. Very few will stay and run it.
A store going live is not a business. The business is everything after, when somebody has to buy media before breakfast, reorder before the stock runs out, and know why last week's margin moved before you have to ask.
We could charge three times as much for the build and be gone by the launch party. Plenty do. We would rather charge less at the front and earn the rest out of profit, because a share of profit is worth nothing unless the brand is making some. It is the cleanest way we know to make sure the people running your brand want the same month you do.
What we hold, daily
- Product Sourcing, sampling, supplier terms, quality control
- Media Paid acquisition on Meta and Google
- Creative Produced and tested in cycles
- Store Conversion, merchandising, pricing
- Supply Stock cover, reorder timing, fulfilment
- Numbers Contribution margin, monthly, with the workings
Before anything is built
We start with the arithmetic, not the product.
Before a single order goes to a supplier we model what actually decides whether the brand makes money, and you see the model, not just the answer it produces.
If a category cannot carry the margin, you find out in week two rather than month nine.
Anyone can quote you a return. We would rather show you what a customer costs to buy in your category, what the product has to sell for, and the revenue the brand needs before it clears its own costs. Then we agree the target and go and work on it, every day, for as long as we are running the brand.
Modelled before you commit
- Cost Landed cost base, including duty and freight
- COGS The cost of goods the category can carry
- Margin Contribution margin at each price point
- Breakeven Revenue required to cover the operation
- CAC The acquisition cost the model can absorb
- Capital Your total exposure, agreed before you sign
Where to start
Starting from nothing, or from something that stalled.
Brand Build
An empty page to a trading business in thirty days. For owners who want the asset without assembling a team to create it.
- Category and product selection
- Unit economics modelled and agreed first
- Supplier sourcing, sampling and terms
- Brand identity, naming and creative
- Store build and conversion setup
- Paid media launch and scaling
Takeover Audit
For brands already trading that have flattened out or are quietly losing money. We rebuild the P&L from your source documents rather than your dashboard.
- P&L reconstructed from source data
- True contribution margin by product
- Paid media and creative teardown
- Supplier and fulfilment cost review
- Written findings, yours to keep either way
- Option to hand operations to us
What it takes to do this properly
The team, before you have sold anything.
A brand that stays profitable needs three people on it. Someone buying the media, someone making the creative fast enough to feed it, and someone holding suppliers, stock and returns. Employing them looks like this.
Indicative market rates for comparable roles, before visas, insurance and end of service.
What it costs
The cost is fixed. What it earns is the part worth arguing about.
Build
We build the brand, hand you the keys and the operating plan, and step back. Sensible only if you already have people who can run it.
- Product sourcing, identity, creative, store and launch
- One build rather than five separate invoices
- Operating procedures written for your team
Build and Operate
The same build, and then we stay. Media, creative, suppliers, stock and reporting sit with us. You approve the decisions that matter and keep everything you own.
- A senior operator on your brand every day, not an account manager
- Media bought at cost, no markup and no commission
- An operating team for a third of what employing one costs
- Our 20% only pays if the brand is profitable, so we are in the same month you are
- Six months to begin with, then thirty days notice whenever you want it
Stock and media are yours to fund and depend on the category. Both are modelled and agreed before you commit to anything.
The company, store, brand, creative, customer list and stock are in your name from the first day.
It is your asset, so take it. Six months to begin with, then thirty days. Accounts, suppliers and procedures go with you.
One set of numbers a month, in plain language, with the workings behind every line.
How it runs
Thirty days to your first order.
Validate
Product, suppliers and the unit economics proven before anything is bought.
Build
Brand, store and creative made. Opening stock ordered.
Live
Media on. First orders landing in a company with your name on it.
Operate and scale
We run it. Creative tested in cycles, stock kept ahead of demand, margin held.
You choose how close you sit to it. Some owners take a weekly call with their operator and see every creative before it runs. Others take the numbers once a month and get on with their lives. Neither one changes what we do.
Who does the work
You will deal with the people doing the work.
The person buying your media is the person who answers your message. No account manager in between, no junior learning on your budget, and no monthly deck built to justify a retainer. We keep the number of brands per operator low on purpose, because attention is the thing that moves a P&L.
Supply chain and operations
Product sourcing, supplier negotiation and quality control. Inventory, fulfilment, margin management and the daily running of the account.
Growth and media
Paid media buying, creative production and testing, conversion optimisation and the store itself. One owner for performance across every brand we run.
Commercial
Scoping and structuring engagements, kept away from delivery so the people running your brand are never pulled onto sales calls.
Second line
Or buy one that is already earning.
If you would rather skip the build, we find ecommerce businesses that already generate cash, take them apart properly, and run them for you after close. Every target's numbers are rebuilt from the seller's own documents before it reaches you, and where the figures do not add up, that is the first thing you read.
How a purchase runs
- One Targets sourced against your mandate and budget
- Two Full seller documentation requested under NDA
- Three P&L rebuilt from source, discrepancies flagged
- Four Findings presented, including reasons not to buy
- Five Transaction supported through to close
- Six Operated by us afterwards
Next step
Tell us what you want to own.
Half an hour, no deck. Bring a category you have been thinking about or a brand you already have, and you will leave the call knowing what it takes to build, what it costs to run, and what has to be true for it to work.
If it is not a fit, you will hear that on the call rather than three weeks into a proposal.
Prefer email?
hello@vantage-digital.co