I decided to shut down my Caribbean Gecko online store after a few months of grinding at it and learning way more than I could ever have done by speculating. It was an experiment to see if the Belize diaspora and travelers wanted Belize and Caribbean-themed gear with designs that were meant to be subtle. Here’s what I learned:

1. Your audience has to be willing and able to shop online.
2. Your store should be an addition to your content engine, not the other way around.
3. Retail margins are brutal, especially without a content engine and audience funnel.
4. Social media marketing in the US is expensive, especially for fledgling stores.
5. Social media marketing in Belize is cheap, but online payments remain the bottleneck.
6. Shipping to and duties in Belize will also eat your margins.

The analogy I use to explain my learning is to take Apple as an example. There is a reason the iPhone is premium and costs accordingly, and a reason why Apple also offers a lower-priced version to include more of the market that is not really the target market for its premium phones.

So if you start a business, it will be better for your first customers to be those who can and are willing to pay your premium price for the particular problem you are solving. It does not mean you do not include the rest of the market who are not as willing to pay in the long run, but you will have to work your way there and build enough scale to sustain the lower margin. If you already have this knowledge, that’s great. If you’re like me and it took you a while to learn this, you’re welcome.

Next, it’s easier to sell to an existing audience than to create one from scratch on social media or other channels. If you don’t have that, then you need to go to events, markets, etc., but there is obvious friction and you have to step out of your comfort zone.

The point being: no existing audience, you need to build one. Capital will burn on social media ads in the process while you’re competing with better-funded ads from the biggest players. But alas, audience is important.

So if your margins, the dollars that are left after you pay for the materials for the product you sold, are tight, then you need to find other creative ways to lower your cost of acquiring a customer. Plus the obvious: find ways to increase your margins.

Since I launched the store in Belize as well, I can say a little more in regards to social media marketing there. And it’s not just from this store. My siblings and I have launched multiple stores in Belize over the years and can attest to how cheap the marketing in Belize is. With $2 USD, you can put your product in front of thousands of people in very little time.

The caveat is that online payment penetration is still in its early stages. And since duties are an important source of government revenue, importing products can also get expensive very quickly. In my experience, by the time everything is accounted for, you can end up paying close to half the price of your product in duties and taxes.

My hope is that we will see better incentives for small businesses in the future because those costs increase the barrier to entry and cause local retail prices to skyrocket. But alas, one step at a time.

Ever since I was blessed with my Walton scholarship, I was incredibly serious about creating something that helps Belize and the Caribbean. I used to think that helping Belize meant I needed to build something directly in Belize. I don’t think that anymore. I think I can be more useful by continuing to build experience, capital, and capability where I am now, then bringing more of that back when I am actually in a position to create something sustainable.

Caribbean Gecko did not become that business, but it taught me something I probably would not have learned by sitting around thinking about it.