The Ecomcrew Ecommerce Podcast

Dave's back on the podcast with me to talk about one of our favorite topic - tariffs (insert sarcasm). As anyone caught in this plight will know, the US and Chinese governments have reached another impasse in the ongoing trade talks. This resulted in the Trump administration raising tariffs from 10% to 25% on $200 billion worth of goods imported from China effective this month.

Here are some key points from our discussion.

How are things looking?

Both sides of the fence are playing it tough in this trade war for distinctly different reasons. Trump believes he's a great negotiator and is convinced that he will sway the Chinese and bring back manufacturing jobs to America. The Chinese, on the other hand, has learned not to kowtow to any country that perceives itself as a 'superpower'. It stands firm on its position and will retaliate if necessary to push their trade agenda forward.

What are the possible implications?

On June 17, 2019, the implementation of 25% tariffs on the remaining $300 billion worth of goods (List 4 | the final tranche) will be reviewed. If a trade deal isn't reached, it could take effect late in the year.

If Chinese imports are tariffed to the hilt, there would be inflationary consequences.

How does an ecommerce company like yours prepare for this?

• Monitor growth
• Focus on profit instead of top-line growth
• Make sure cash is being used as effectively as possible
• Take a closer look at your debt and identify ways of clearing it with a lesser impact on your bottom line

How can you ease the impact of these tariffs increases on your business?

If your products have a low-profit-margin, increasing prices is inevitable. It's also good to monitor invoices from your Chinese manufacturer and determine how you can cut back on those.

And if this mess with tariffs has taught us anything, it's to diversify, diversify, diversify. Source from different countries. China might be a manufacturing powerhouse but other countries like have their strengths too. Vietnam, for instance, produces great textile products.

The situation is downright frustrating. But I hope that the insights shared in this episode can still be helpful to all ecommerce sellers out there impacted by the enforced tariffs increases. If you have questions or comments, I'd love to know. Please leave them in the comment section below.

Want a physical copy of our tried-and-tested Amazon launch strategy complete with examples and screenshots? Get your free book here.

Get advice from Mike and have your business featured on the podcast? Sign up for the EcomCrew Roadshow today!

Join season two of the 5 Minute Pitch by filling out and submitting the application form.

Finally, if you enjoyed listening and think this episode has been useful to you, please take a moment to leave us a review on iTunes.

MORE RESOURCES:

E182: When the Little Guys Get Caught in the Tariff War

Get to know Terran’s terrific 10. These are the talented and hardworking individuals based in Cebu, Philippines, working behind-the-scenes to grow the different brands the company is known for. Listen as they tell us a little bit about themselves, their jobs, and their experience working for Terran LLC.

Each year since starting Terran, I make it a point to travel to the Philippines to visit our team there. If you've been following the podcast since day one, you'd have heard me mention Cebu a couple of times. That's where our team is located and every year, I would make the journey to touch base with them in person.

Working with employees on the opposite side of the world is challenging. The time difference and slow internet in the Philippines are just some things you need to deal with. But I am truly grateful for the team that we've got. Not only are they able to overcome these challenges, but are able to produce stellar work that exceeds my expectations.

There has been so much growth over the past two years. We had three employees to start with and now our Cebu office is home to 10 full-time employees, each making a significant contribution to the brand they work for.

Get to know a little bit about our talented and hardworking team members in Cebu when you listen to this podcast.

Want a physical copy of our tried-and-tested Amazon launch strategy complete with examples and screenshots? Get your free book here.

Want to get advice from Mike and have your business featured on the podcast? Sign up for the EcomCrew Roadshow today!

Join season two of the 5 Minute Pitch by filling out and submitting the application form.

Finally, if you enjoyed listening and think this episode has been useful to you, please take a moment to leave us a review on iTunes.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below. Happy selling!

RESOURCES:

Episode 96: Our Philippines Team – Hiring and Maintaining a Team of Rockstar VAs

Episode 249: How Our Filipino Team Reacted to the ColorIt Sale

Tac9er Facebook Page

Today we're joined by Scott Voelker of The Amazing Seller podcast. Scotty's not just a personal friend but a comrade-in-arms in a number of ecommerce projects, the most recent being season one of the 5 Minute Pitch along with Steve Chou and Greg Mercer.

Scott and I have many similarities when it comes to our background and how we've grown our respective ecommerce businesses. So, after hearing his presentation on ecommerce business sustainability at this year's Sellers Summit, I got him on the show solo.

Not everything works forever

Ecommerce is a dynamic industry. It's constantly evolving according to the latest market trends and who's dominating it (big "bad" Amazon).

Strategies that may have worked will lose their edge eventually. As Scott puts it, "Things that worked yesterday may not necessarily work today". Innovation and a good understanding of the market are crucial for being successful long-term.

Grab their attention

"Attention is the new currency."

Speaking of marketplaces, what we've found that does work is capturing the market's attention. How do you that? By being genuine and bringing something valuable to the table. After you've identified a target market, you'll need to create a plan that grabs and sustains their attention. This usually involves putting out content in some form or another.

But offering valuable content is only half of the picture. You also need to establish that trust with your audience. Do so by proving your expertise in the subject and your willingness to guide people who may not experts themselves, but are working towards getting on that level.

Tune in to the full podcast episode for more insights on how you and your brand can navigate the changing tides of ecommerce and remain relevant in the years to come. And check out the resources section of this page for more information on an ecommerce event Scotty's putting together in September.

We have a book and we're giving it away for FREE. If you want a physical copy of our tried-and-tested Amazon launch strategy complete with examples and screenshots, get yours here.

Want to get advice from Mike and have your business featured on the podcast? Sign up for the EcomCrew Roadshow today!

Join season two of the 5 MInute Pitch by filling out and submitting the application form.

Finally, if you enjoyed listening and think this episode has been useful to you, please take a moment to leave us a review on iTunes.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below. Happy selling!

Resources

Brand Accelerator Live 2019

E187: How to Save on High-Quality Content for SEO – Under the Hood with Sebastien Taché

Avid listeners would have heard me mention Mia, our PH office director, in this podcast time and again. She is our rock and, through dedication and impressive skills, has single-handedly grown our team from one or two VAs to 9 full-time employees.

Mia made her debut on the podcast on episode 142. Back then, she and I talked about her experience with transitioning from a virtual assistant to a managerial role, and how the team she's formed has been doing.

Two years later, we've got more people on board and looking to add some new talent to the roster. I caught up with her again to chat about the biggest changes that have happened to date. These include:

• Changes to the organizational structure - employees are now working on dedicated brands
• The ColorIt sale and its impact
• Letting go of three employees on the same day due to performance issues

Tune in to the full episode for a glimpse into Mia's headspace as she navigates the Philippine team through all the new and exciting things in store for the company this year and beyond.

We have a book and we're giving it away for FREE

If you want a physical copy of our tried-and-tested Amazon launch strategy complete with examples and screenshots, get yours here.

Want to get advice from Mike and have your business featured on the podcast? Sign up for the EcomCrew Roadshow today!

Catch the finals of the 5 Minute Pitch on YouTube. Join season two by filling out and submitting the application form.

Finally, if you enjoyed listening and think this episode has been useful to you, please take a moment to leave us a review on iTunes.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below. Happy selling!

Many successful ecommerce businesses are born out of necessity. And some of the most successful ecommerce entrepreneurs are selling products that they're truly passionate about.

A Business Born of Necessity

Eight years ago, Jason Hsieh's son Keanu was diagnosed with autism. Living in Japan at the time, Jason struggled to find support services and products for him. So the family moved to Seattle. In 2017, Jason himself would start developing products that would help children diagnosed with autism and ADHD. Today, his company LakiKid sells three physical product lines - each addressing different areas where kids with autism and ADHD can benefit from the most.

The Struggle to Get Back on Track

Sales have been going fairly well for LakiKid until the end of 2018. A supply chain issue caused two of its best-selling SKUs to run out of stock right before Christmas. From averaging close to $50,000 in monthly sales, the business has been struggling to get back on track.

At present, LakiKid is over 90 percent Amazon but Jason has been exploring marketing avenues off of the platform to gain back the momentum that was lost. These efforts include a Shopify store, a blog, and hosting a weekly live talk show on Facebook.

Listen as I navigate this niche business with this passionate dad and entrepreneur and offer insights on how LakiKid can get the groove back, get more exposure and have those sales figures pick up.

Under the Hood is a segment where we do an hour-long coaching call with one of our listeners. We take a look at their businesses, provide honest feedback, offer our best business advice, and answer whatever questions they have. In exchange for the free coaching, we will turn the call into a podcast episode so that our community can benefit as well. It's a win-win!

If you're interested in getting onsite advice from Mike and have your business featured on the podcast, sign up for the EcomCrew Roadshow today!

Catch the finals of the 5 Minute Pitch on YouTube. Join season two by filling out and submitting the application form.

Finally, if you enjoyed listening and think this episode has been useful to you, please take a moment to leave us a review on iTunes.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below. Happy selling!

I was in Miami for a couple of days last week for Sellers Summit and the finals of 5 Minute Pitch. Without putting out any spoilers, we've already picked a winner this season. I'm excited to meet with this person again to fulfill that mentoring session that comes as part of the prize.

For a show that's on its initial run, we've had many interesting business ideas go through. One of which was from Jon Ford.

A Relaxing Hobby Turned Profitable Business

A firefighter by trade, Jon's quest for a relaxing hobby has turned into a full-fledged business. He is the proud owner of SheaGarden Handmade, an online store that sells handmade soap.

Jon's winning personality and passion for his product are proving to be quite a hit with customers. However, being a solopreneur with a full-time job can take its toll. In this episode, we identify Jon's main struggle and I provide tips on how he can get past that.

Doing Marketing Right

From producing to pricing his handmade soaps, Jon's got a lot on his plate. He wants to find a way to market his products more effectively.

You'll often hear Dave and I talk about many different marketing strategies. But I'd like to emphasize that we don't use all of them. And this is the first tip I gave Jon - choose one or two of these to try out for your business.

Tune in to the entire podcast for the full discussion and maybe learn a trick or two on how to leverage some out-of-the-box strategies to grow your own ecommerce store.

If you're interested in getting onsite advice from Mike and have your business featured on the podcast, sign up for the EcomCrew Roadshow today!

Catch the latest episodes of the 5 Minute Pitch on YouTube. Join season two by filling out and submitting the application form.

Finally, if you enjoyed listening and think this episode has been useful to you, please take a moment to leave us a review on iTunes.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below. Happy selling!

Are you struggling to grow your YouTube followers?

If so, boy have I got a treat for you!

Today's guest is Eric Bandholz, one of the founders of Beardbrand. From a community dedicated to beard care in 2012, it has become a full-fledged company selling a wide array of men's grooming products.

The company is unique in that it isn't reliant on Amazon (at least, not anymore). Instead, it uses other marketing avenues to grow the business. YouTube is one of its core strategies. In the span of 5 years, it has amassed 1 million subscribers on TheBeardbrand channel , which is quite remarkable.

Eric was kind enough to share some tips that were crucial to their YouTube success.

• Have a vision of how your business (i.e. your products or services) can be helpful/useful to people
• Use media content (videos are big)
• Learn how the YouTube algorithm works
• Be prepared to put in that initial effort - the first hundred, the first thousand, the first million is always the hardest
• Build and streamline a process that allows you to produce content on your channel on a regular basis

Listen to the full episode for more insights that you can implement or adapt to meet your own ecommerce marketing strategy.

In other news...

EcomCrew Premium is open this week. Get access to our full suite of courses, including the newest one Email Flows to Riches, where we teach you how to use email automation to increase your sales.

If you're interested in getting onsite advice from Mike and have your business featured on a podcast, sign up for the EcomCrew Roadshow today!

Catch the latest episodes of the 5 Minute Pitch on YouTube. Join season two by filling out and submitting the application form.

Finally, if you enjoyed listening and think this episode has been useful to you, please take a moment to leave us a review on iTunes.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below. Happy selling!

They say the most important things in life are not taught in school. For us ecommerce entrepreneurs, this is especially true.

Unless you took up a business degree (even if you did, it's still not a guarantee), you probably learned how to run a business on your own, in the process of running said business. If you're anything like me, you had no qualms about learning things as you go because doing ecommerce is fun.

However, there are many aspects of running a business that are NOT fun. Oftentimes these aspects are the most crucial ones and neglecting them can kill your business.

Case in point: accounting.

Today's episode is best summarized by Dave's favorite quote: "Revenues are vanity, profits are sanity."

Thanks for listening to this episode! Until the next one, happy selling.

While the process of selling a company is mostly between the buyer and seller, most people forget that it also greatly affects the people on the front lines of running a business: the employees.

We've covered why we decided to sell ColorIt in the first place, how we prepared for the sale, and how the transaction transpired.

In this episode, which is the 4th and last installment of the ColorIt series, we bring our Filipino employees working on ColorIt to the limelight to talk about how they felt about the sale, how they dealt with the transition, and the aftermath of the deal that is going to transfer them over to another company.

You'll learn:

• How Filipino employees react when they learn the company they're working for is being sold
• Making sure you're not uprooting your employees' lives in the event of a sale
• How our manager handled the transition and kept morale high
• What we're doing to keep employees motivated under the new owner

Thanks for listening to this episode! Until the next one, happy selling.