2X eCommerce Podcast

Building your own brand in a mature and established vertical can be somewhat likened to being in a David and Goliath story, going against giants who have long gained and cemented their foothold in the industry. And it certainly is no easy feat to set up your own brand, not to mention distinguishing yourself from other big names out there in the market. 

But as our guest, Michael Young, would say, “If you follow the same paradigm, you cannot run because people have been doing it for more than 50 years and doing it better than people that do it the same way for 50 years is very difficult. The only way to win is to be different.” And this is exactly how they managed to bring UNDONE into the direct-to-consumer eCommerce space that is earning millions of dollars each year in creating personalised watches for their end users. 

UNDONE is a Hong Kong-based watch company that creates uniquely customised designs for its users. They take pride in empowering the consumer by giving back the design-making process into the consumer’s hands and bringing in the authenticity of the brand with each highly customisable watch.

Join Kunle and Michael in today’s episode as they talk about entrepreneurship, crowdfunding, operations management, and building a brand in a highly-competitive space.  

 

 

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When I heard that eCommerce Sales were up by 30% in the last six weeks compared to the previous six weeks, I couldn't help but want to know how and why this has happened. 

Given that we are in the middle of a pandemic and hardly any country is back to normal, how has the ecommerce industry thrived amid the closure of bricks and mortar retail and Amazon not operating at full capacity?

Well, according to Klaviyo's insights, e-tailers' seem to have seized the opportunity to serve a continuously surging customer-demand for specific products that align with consumers' hierarchy of needs. 

My interview with Jake Cohen, Head Of Product Marketing at Klaviyo is a must-listen if you would like to understand better categories in ecommerce currently thriving (there are some surprises) as well understand how to make the best use of this unique opportunity. 

Jake explains that Klaviyo have a customer-base of 100,000 e-commerce stores, 

30,000 of which are paying customers.

They selected 19,000 stores from their cohort of paying customers that were in business all through 2019 as well as 2020 and have been able to deliver their highly detailed 'Coronavirus Ecommerce Insights'. 

Klaviyo have also been running a daily ecommerce brand and customer survey to get a sentiment and pulse.

 

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Daily Pulse - Klaviyo 
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 Calling all eCommerce Marketers and Founders, Klaviyo have put together this daily survey to assess the impact of COVID-19 on the industry. Please fill it out here, it will take only 2-minutes. Results will be emailed to you daily So go ahead and support it by completing the form: 2xecommerce.com/covid ----------- SPONSORS: This episode is brought to you by: Klaviyo  This episode is brought to you by Klaviyo – a growth marketing platform that powers over 25,000 online businesses. Direct-to-Consumer brands like ColourPop, Huckberry, and Custom Ink rely on Klaviyo.
Klaviyo helps you own customer experience and grow high-value customer relationships right from a shopper’s first impression through to each subsequent purchase, Klaviyo understands every single customer interaction and empowers brands to create more personalized marketing moments. Find out more on klaviyo.com/2x.   Rewind This episode is brought to you by Rewind.
The #1 Backup and Recovery App for Shopify and BigCommerce stores that powers over 25,000 online businesses. Direct-to-Consumer brands like Gymshark and Movement Watches rely on Rewind.
Cloud-based ecommerce platforms like Shopify and BigCommerce do not have automatic backup features. Rewind protects your store against human error, misbehaving apps, or collaborators gone bad with Automatic backups!   For a free 30-day trial, Go to Rewind.io, reach out to the Rewind team via chat or email and mention ‘2x ecommerce’

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On today’s episode, Kunle interviews the founder of a direct-to-consumer brand creating an entirely new sports game called Crossnet that is rapidly growing at a 4X Year-on-Year rate despite the current slowdown in retail. You don’t want to miss this one - do stay tuned!

Crossnet is volleyball reimagined - so instead of the typical two-sided court setup of volleyball, Crossnet is a four-square volleyball game that can be set up on sand, grass, or indoors.

Their growth rates are impressive:

2017 set up and prototyping 2018 - $75k 2019 - $2.5m 2020 - $8-10m (estimated)  

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Daily Pulse - Klaviyo 
-----------
 Calling all eCommerce Marketers and Founders, Klaviyo have put together this daily survey to assess the impact of COVID-19 on the industry. Please fill it out here, it will take only 2-minutes. Results will be emailed to you daily So go ahead and support it by completing the form: 2xecommerce.com/covid ----------- SPONSORS: This episode is brought to you by: Klaviyo  This episode is brought to you by Klaviyo – a growth marketing platform that powers over 25,000 online businesses. Direct-to-Consumer brands like ColourPop, Huckberry, and Custom Ink rely on Klaviyo.
Klaviyo helps you own customer experience and grow high-value customer relationships right from a shopper’s first impression through to each subsequent purchase, Klaviyo understands every single customer interaction and empowers brands to create more personalized marketing moments. Find out more on klaviyo.com/2x.   Rewind This episode is brought to you by Rewind.
The #1 Backup and Recovery App for Shopify and BigCommerce stores that powers over 25,000 online businesses. Direct-to-Consumer brands like Gymshark and Movement Watches rely on Rewind.
Cloud-based ecommerce platforms like Shopify and BigCommerce do not have automatic backup features. Rewind protects your store against human error, misbehaving apps, or collaborators gone bad with Automatic backups!   For a free 30-day trial, Go to Rewind.io, reach out to the Rewind team via chat or email and mention ‘2x ecommerce’

 

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On today’s episode, Kunle interviews Brian Miller, the Founder of Easy China Warehouse, an Ecommerce 3PL Logistics company based in Shenzhen China. They discuss how his company survived the Cornonavirus lockdown and offer insights on what you can learn from the Chinese experience.

Here is an outline of a few topics that we discussed,

• What happened in China when the outbreak began and how China handled the virus
• How the virus affected local and global supply chain
• Trends in the shipping/logistics market and what can be said about demand from those trends

----------- 
Daily Pulse - Klaviyo 
-----------
 Calling all eCommerce Marketers and Founders, Klaviyo have put together this daily survey to assess the impact of COVID-19 on the industry. Please fill it out here, it will take only 2-minutes. Results will be emailed to you daily So go ahead and support it by completing the form: 2xecommerce.com/covid ----------- SPONSORS: This episode is brought to you by: Klaviyo  This episode is brought to you by Klaviyo – a growth marketing platform that powers over 25,000 online businesses. Direct-to-Consumer brands like ColourPop, Huckberry, and Custom Ink rely on Klaviyo.
Klaviyo helps you own customer experience and grow high-value customer relationships right from a shopper’s first impression through to each subsequent purchase, Klaviyo understands every single customer interaction and empowers brands to create more personalized marketing moments. Find out more on klaviyo.com/2x.   Rewind This episode is brought to you by Rewind.
The #1 Backup and Recovery App for Shopify and BigCommerce stores that powers over 25,000 online businesses. Direct-to-Consumer brands like Gymshark and Movement Watches rely on Rewind.
Cloud-based ecommerce platforms like Shopify and BigCommerce do not have automatic backup features. Rewind protects your store against human error, misbehaving apps, or collaborators gone bad with Automatic backups!   For a free 30-day trial, Go to Rewind.io, reach out to the Rewind team via chat or email and mention ‘2x ecommerce’

 

 

 

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Actions to take in your eCommerce business right now in the wake of COVID-19   1. Stay safe - life is more important than anything else 2. Assess your supply chain and delivery partners
 3. Governments will want eCommerce to function
 4. Write to your customers immediately
 5. Organise remote working
 6. Communicate with your 3PL partners
 7. Ensure your Warehouse staff are safe
 8. Reach out to all service providers, see if you can secure any payment holidays
 9. It is not business as usual and so be empathetic in all of your communications, social media, email, etc
 10. Stay abreast on grants, loans and support from the government
 11. Facebook business grants


Coronavirus crisis has afforded brands a rare opportunity to show their human side—but in giving out freebies, they risk looking opportunistic. 

 

----------- 
Daily Pulse - Klaviyo 
-----------
 Calling all eCommerce Marketers and Founders, Klaviyo have put together this daily survey to assess the impact of COVID-19 on the industry. Please fill it out here, it will take only 2-minutes. Results will be emailed to you daily So go ahead and support it by completing the form: 2xecommerce.com/covid ----------- SPONSORS: This episode is brought to you by: Klaviyo  This episode is brought to you by Klaviyo – a growth marketing platform that powers over 25,000 online businesses. Direct-to-Consumer brands like ColourPop, Huckberry, and Custom Ink rely on Klaviyo.
Klaviyo helps you own customer experience and grow high-value customer relationships right from a shopper’s first impression through to each subsequent purchase, Klaviyo understands every single customer interaction and empowers brands to create more personalized marketing moments. Find out more on klaviyo.com/2x.   Rewind This episode is brought to you by Rewind.
The #1 Backup and Recovery App for Shopify and BigCommerce stores that powers over 25,000 online businesses. Direct-to-Consumer brands like Gymshark and Movement Watches rely on Rewind.
Cloud-based ecommerce platforms like Shopify and BigCommerce do not have automatic backup features. Rewind protects your store against human error, misbehaving apps, or collaborators gone bad with Automatic backups!   For a free 30-day trial, Go to Rewind.io, reach out to the Rewind team via chat or email and mention ‘2x ecommerce’

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This is the second episode of our COVID-19 series that addresses how the ecommerce industry should respond to the Coronavirus global epidemic. On today's episode, Kunle interviews three experts that serve the ecommerce industry in varying degrees, 

Erich LitchPresident and Chief Operating Officer of 2Checkout, an online payment processing platform with 17,000+ Active Clients, 300+ Employees all of which currently now work remotely in the wake of the epidemic and 4 global offices.

Refael Elbaz An Israeli entrepreneur, founder, and CEO of Unicargo. Unicargo leverages technology to consolidate all the data points of international shipping, thus creating services and tools for E-commerce businesses enabling them to make intelligent, data-driven supply chain decisions.

Refael is an e-commerce logistics advisor to the Israeli export institute and a public speaker in international logistics and supply chain conventions.

Yuriy Ostapyk Chief Operating Officer and Director of Global Operations at Logistics Plus, Inc. He has over 15 years of experience in the international and domestic transportation, logistics, and supply chain sectors. Yuriy’s responsibilities include roles in Sales and Management, Trucking and Warehousing, Freight Forwarding and Third-Party Logistics, and Global Procurement.

We discuss,

1. The impact of Covid-19 on Warehousing and fulfilment networks globally. 
2. China's recovery
3. Building resilient supply chains with innovative solutions regardless of the crisis
4. How to manage the risk of chargebacks due to delayed deliveries
5. How to brace your operations for remote working

 

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SPONSORS:

This episode is brought to you by:

Klaviyo 

This episode is brought to you by Klaviyo – a growth marketing platform that powers over 25,000 online businesses. Direct-to-Consumer brands like ColourPop, Huckberry, and Custom Ink rely on Klaviyo. Klaviyo helps you own customer experience and grow high-value customer relationships right from a shopper’s first impression through to each subsequent purchase, Klaviyo understands every single customer interaction and empowers brands to create more personalized marketing moments.

Find out more on klaviyo.com/2x.  

Rewind

This episode is brought to you by Rewind. The #1 Backup and Recovery App for Shopify and BigCommerce stores that powers over 25,000 online businesses. Direct-to-Consumer brands like Gymshark and Movement Watches rely on Rewind. Cloud-based ecommerce platforms like Shopify and BigCommerce do not have automatic backup features. Rewind protects your store against human error, misbehaving apps, or collaborators gone bad with Automatic backups!  

For a free 30-day trial, Go to Rewind.io, reach out to the Rewind team via chat or email and mention ‘2x ecommerce’

★ Support this podcast ★

This is the first of a series of episodes that addresses how the ecommerce industry should respond to the Coronavirus global epidemic. On today's episode, Kunle interviews three experts that serve the ecommerce industry in varying degrees, 

Artur KiulianFounder of Colab, Los Angeles-based venture studio that helps ecommerce businesses and startups build AI/machine learning tech.

John M. Scannapieco An attorney at law firm Baker Donelson and chair of the firm’s Global Business Team. They specialise in the sale or disposition of assets, as well as the negotiation and drafting of distribution, manufacturing, employment and agency agreements throughout the world.

Andrew Tjernlund Co-founder of Tjernlund Services, they own the largest Vendor Account in the Industrial/Electrical category on Amazon.

We discuss,

1. How to effectively communicate with employees, vendors and customers. 
2. Warehousing and fulfilment. 
3. Remote working

 

-----------

SPONSORS:

This episode is brought to you by:

Klaviyo 

This episode is brought to you by Klaviyo – a growth marketing platform that powers over 25,000 online businesses. Direct-to-Consumer brands like ColourPop, Huckberry, and Custom Ink rely on Klaviyo. Klaviyo helps you own customer experience and grow high-value customer relationships right from a shopper’s first impression through to each subsequent purchase, Klaviyo understands every single customer interaction and empowers brands to create more personalized marketing moments.

Find out more on klaviyo.com/2x.  

Rewind

This episode is brought to you by Rewind. The #1 Backup and Recovery App for Shopify and BigCommerce stores that powers over 25,000 online businesses. Direct-to-Consumer brands like Gymshark and Movement Watches rely on Rewind. Cloud-based ecommerce platforms like Shopify and BigCommerce do not have automatic backup features. Rewind protects your store against human error, misbehaving apps, or collaborators gone bad with Automatic backups!  

For a free 30-day trial, Go to Rewind.io, reach out to the Rewind team via chat or email and mention ‘2x ecommerce’

★ Support this podcast ★

On today's episode, we are joined by GQ Fu, a co-founder of LTVplus and a #cxnerd that is on a mission to rid the world of bad customer experiences.

We talk about leveraging customer support functions as revenue-generating channels. 

 

 

-----------

SPONSORS:

This episode is brought to you by:

Klaviyo 

This episode is brought to you by Klaviyo – a growth marketing platform that powers over 25,000 online businesses. Direct-to-Consumer brands like ColourPop, Huckberry, and Custom Ink rely on Klaviyo. Klaviyo helps you own customer experience and grow high-value customer relationships right from a shopper’s first impression through to each subsequent purchase, Klaviyo understands every single customer interaction and empowers brands to create more personalized marketing moments.

Find out more on klaviyo.com/2x.  

Rewind

This episode is brought to you by Rewind. The #1 Backup and Recovery App for Shopify and BigCommerce stores that powers over 25,000 online businesses. Direct-to-Consumer brands like Gymshark and Movement Watches rely on Rewind. Cloud-based ecommerce platforms like Shopify and BigCommerce do not have automatic backup features. Rewind protects your store against human error, misbehaving apps, or collaborators gone bad with Automatic backups!  

For a free 30-day trial, Go to Rewind.io, reach out to the Rewind team via chat or email and mention ‘2x ecommerce’

★ Support this podcast ★

On today's episode, Kunle goes deep into the subjects of emotional selling, developing video creatives and media buying scheduling.

Emotion is critical to advertising and advertising works by establishing feelings, associations and memories in relation to a brand. The association of memories influences buyer behaviour which ultimately translates into a purchase.

Emotions help,

• stimulate and guide attention
• create and reinforce associations created by advertising

What your video ads should set out to do is, to deliver incidental learning in a passive way, whilst your media buying strategy will ensure audience relevance. 

Repetition helps establish memory more firmly, it will typically take more exposures to establish a new memory than to confirm an old memory.

Media Planning + Effective Creatives have to work together and might require continuous or infrequent exposure that is dependent on the following four factors.    1. Likeable ads So your first task as an ad buyer is to ensure that your ad(s) triggers apositive emotional response. i.e. it is likeable. Likability and relative likability determine the degree of attention the ad will attract as well as the potential response.   2. How established is your brand amongst your target audience? Brand equity - What brand associations and stored memories have been accumulated thus far? Are you working with a full or empty cupboard? This will determine both the degree of frequency and creative refresh required to enable you plan your media buys.   3. Stagnant vs Fresh messaging in creatives Ad exposure: Frequency and intervals between ads Excessive frequency does not work well with stagnant creatives High frequency on the other hand will work with on-brand creatives that deliver fresh messages and new ideas   4. Are your new creatives delivering a new message or new offer? If yes, they may be competing against existing memories.  And will need more exposure to force brand associations and stored memories

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Michael Epstein started his ecommerce journey by starting and scaling an ecommerce brand to over $10m in sales with a successful exit.

Michael is currently the CMO of AutoAnything, a 9-figure online retailer of aftermarket automotive accessories. He is also an investor and partner in PostPilot, an app that enables online stores to segment their customer list and automatically send personalized postcard campaigns just as they would with an email or SMS marketing automation platform.

 

-----------

SPONSORS:

This episode is brought to you by:

Klaviyo 

This episode is brought to you by Klaviyo – a growth marketing platform that powers over 25,000 online businesses. Direct-to-Consumer brands like ColourPop, Huckberry, and Custom Ink rely on Klaviyo. Klaviyo helps you own customer experience and grow high-value customer relationships right from a shopper’s first impression through to each subsequent purchase, Klaviyo understands every single customer interaction and empowers brands to create more personalized marketing moments.

Find out more on klaviyo.com/2x.  

Rewind

This episode is brought to you by Rewind. The #1 Backup and Recovery App for Shopify and BigCommerce stores that powers over 25,000 online businesses. Direct-to-Consumer brands like Gymshark and Movement Watches rely on Rewind. Cloud-based ecommerce platforms like Shopify and BigCommerce do not have automatic backup features. Rewind protects your store against human error, misbehaving apps, or collaborators gone bad with Automatic backups!  

For a free 30-day trial, Go to Rewind.io, reach out to the Rewind team via chat or email and mention ‘2x ecommerce’

 

★ Support this podcast ★