2X eCommerce Podcast

Continuing this month’s Amazon Seller Success Series is Sophie Howard, a mother of 2 that bootstrapped her way to sell over $1.5million worth of products in only 18 months on Amazon whilst having a full time job. Her newest Amazon venture is Higher Tea, a brand of premium teas called which launched less than six months ago yet already making a round in front of Hollywood stars.

Going directly against the grain of teachings of popular training courses, Sophie’s approach to selling on Amazon is to build brands rather than chasing niches. Instead of looking for top-selling products to copy, Sophie focuses on understanding target markets and demographics to enable her to tailor her range of products to be a direct match with what the customer wants. That of course, and all of the basics, which she now teaches in her own trainings and coaching at Aspiring Entrepreneurs.

In this episode Sophie goes into the details of how you can create and run a scalable Amazon business that is going to last, including the payoffs of good design and packaging when selling a premium product to match a premium market. We also cover some pros and cons to the Amazon platform and why it can be ideal for testing and launching your product and brand. We then finish up with an exploration of what is covered in the Amazon training that Sophie now offers for anyone wishing to follow in her footsteps and under her guidance.

If you are looking to create your own brand to sell on Amazon, this show is a must!

My third guest on this month’s Amazon Seller Success Series is Saj Gilani, our first UK-based expert Amazon seller to the show. Saj started selling on Amazon in 2011 with only £300 pounds and a 37.5% APR credit card. Fast-forward four years on and he's running a seven-figure Amazon business split between private label and retail arbitrage. He has also co-founded and is managing and consulting four other Amazon accounts for split-profits. He has a podcast and blog, Anybody Can Do It, and an academy where he trains and mentors students to sell on Amazon.

This is part 1 of my interview with Saj, which went for over 2 hours and hence this episode is split into two parts. In this half being the first hour,  Saj shares his strategies with retail arbitrage initially, and then with regards to the creative and highly successful launch of his private label. We then touch upon different ways the Saj continues to evolve and expand in his business. We finish this half of the show on Saj’s outlook and tips for both retail arbitrage and private label on Amazon. The insights and advice Saj shares here are grounded in business fundamentals and hard-earned experience.

Saj’s fascinating story of building an Amazon business from zero and constantly adapting and evolving with a positive outlook on an ever-changing landscape is inspiring, and not to be missed!

Today’s guest is a bestselling fitness author and creator of MuscleForLife.com and Legion Athletics.His scientific approach to building muscle and losing fat has helped thousands of people build strong, lean, muscular, and healthy bodies.His ‘Muscle for Life’ books in healthy and fitness niche sell to the tune of over $1M each year on Amazon and His supplement business Legion Athletics does about $80K per week. 

Prior to coming on the show, he specifically said he is NOT here to talk about “secrets” or “tricks.” of selling on AmazonBUT how to properly and effectively run an ecommerce business that uses Amazon as a channel - i.e.good products,good branding,great copy,great customer service,good advertising, etc.

Without further ado…I’d like to welcome Mike Matthews to showwho is joined by Jeremy Blumberg, co-founder and head of marketing.

Happy New Month folks! Today kicks off the launch of the March Amazon Seller Success Series....each week in the month of March, I will be interviewing an Amazon retailer that has seen success at either scale or magnitude.

By scale, I mean profitable businesses selling $10m or more on Amazon per annum and by Magnitude I mean businesses that hit the $2m or more in revenue from Amazon in less than 2 years. 

I will be speaking with some really interesting and open entrepreneurs happy to share their journey and teach us their unique approach that has enabled them achieve success on Amazon. 

Stay tuned as it is set to be very useful to online retailers currently selling on Amazon and those of you considering selling on Amazon.

Bikini Luxe was founded by Candice Galek - who is also fondly known as the 'bikini geek'. In just two years, she has managed to garner a huge social media following for her ecommerce brand - Bikini Luxe with a social media reach totalling 250,000 in 2015. Influencers on Instagram, YouTube and Fashion Bloggers have enabled Bikini Luxe receive a direct return on investment on social media. Their unique use of both visual social media, influencers and PR drives a significant amount of word-of-mouth market and sales. 

Read the show notes for this episode on http://2xecommerce.com/podcast/ep66/

Tristan Handy is the Vice President of Marketing at RJ Metrics, a business intelligence platform for SaaS and e-commerce businesses.  Last year on Episode 9, I interviewed Tristan on RJMetrics' 2015 Ecommerce Growth Benchmark Report. In that episode, Tristan introduced the concept of scale from an ambitious standpoint and it was a turning point for me and for the direction of the show.

Tristan returns to the show this year, my first returning guest by the way, to give a breakdown of the 2016 RJ Metrics Holiday Customer Benchmark. In this episode, we rethink who the holiday customer is and what our strategy might be for nudging them to make that second purchase. We then analyse further in terms of what to expect in the post-holiday period with sales and returns, and how branding and loyalty plays an important role in remarketing tactics. Tristan finishes with inspiration to make your own report, and what to look for to get a read on the broad outlook ahead for e-commerce in 2016.

If you are wanting to get the most from your holiday customers as well as better understand their shopping behaviour, then this episode is not to be missed!

Read the show notes for this episode on http://2xecommerce.com/podcast/ep64/