Chris and Lucas share some of the biggest lessons they've made from nearly catastrophic events. They've both messed up big time, so listen closely, and avoid costly mistakes.

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Lucas is going to be talking to vendors and tech partners in the ecommerce ecosystem to keep your store fine tuned and winning.

Chris Meade woke up to a big box retailer definitely know of discounting Crossnet 50% at the end of season. Which is totally reasonable.

What hurt was when 35 new sellers were competing with us on Amazon for the buy box. We had no choice but to buy them all back.

Lesson learned - always negotiate buy backs with your retail buyers.

The second lesson he share is the first time Greg and I ordered a container. Nobody told us you had to have protective packaging.

Turns out weeks at sea isn’t the greatest thing for your product’s packaging. When we got our shipment, everything was damaged and destroyed.

We had no choice but to pay retail for new boxes and stickers and redo everything ourselves.

Lesson learned - Use one company that can get the products across borders and to your doorstep.

After the big retail summer season, comes our BFCM season, which is great for us when we make sales directly through the website. Especially when we’ve already collected the POs from all the retailers.

What isn’t so great, is when our Black Friday deals over discounted what the retailers were able to do.

Buying ads to send traffic to retailers isn’t fun. It’s low ROI, but it’s a great way to build rapport and relationships with buyers.

Lesson Learned - Have a special package for retailers or your website to avoid the feeling of competition.

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Chris Meade is the co-founder & CMO of CROSSNET, the world’s first four-way volleyball game. Chris was honored with Forbes 30U30 for the 2021 Sports category. CROSSNET combines elements of the childhood game four square and volleyball in a competitive game to 11, win by 2. CROSSNET is now available at 3000+ retail stores such as Walmart, Target, DICKS, Academy Sports, Sam’s Club and 20+ other retailers.

Lucas Walker is a serial entrepreneur founding Venngage, Treats Happen, and Rolled Up. Connect with him on Twitter, and LinkedIn.