The Ecomcrew Ecommerce Podcast

It’s Dave here. I’ve taken the reigns from Mr. Jackness in order to bring you an update on the status of my second ecommerce venture. I started this business in June 2017 with the intention of generating a million dollars in revenue by March 2018. It’s been 8 months now and I still haven’t broken through the 1M mark but the numbers look good and we are in a strong position coiming into 2019.

It's Dave here. I've taken the reigns from Mr. Jackness in order to bring you an update on the status of my second ecommerce venture.

Regular listeners to this podcast will know that I sold my first company two years ago. After going on a hiatus for a couple of months, the call to entrepreneurship became too strong to ignore. So in June of last year, I started another business with the intention of generating a million dollars in revenue by March 2018.

It's been 8 months now and I still haven't broken through the 1M mark. But, revenue projections are on an upward trend and profit margins have increased. There have been some hiccups along the way but the business is growing. Given the numbers, we're in a strong position to achieve $1.75 million in revenue by 2019.

Wins

• Getting brand registered (finally!)
• Amazon.ca continues to be a big revenue driver
• Google Shopping and Facebook Remarketing ads are also doing really well
• Hired a full-time VA

Losses

• Dispute with the buyer of my first company
• A major quality issue with a product that caused it to be removed temporarily from Amazon
• Slow eBay sales
• The Canadian version of our website was a complete flop

For more details of my 18-month ecommerce journey, check out the accompanying blog post here.

Registration to EcomCrew Premium is closed indefinitely. But, you can still learn from us through our suite of free courses. There's a total of 20 videos covering ecommerce topics like Importing from China and Building a 7-Figure Business. Find more information on the link below. Free Video Courses As always, thanks for listening to this episode! 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!

Our audience base is largely located in the United States, however; we do have listeners in the Asia Pacific and in Europe. More recently, I’ve discovered that we’re reaching entrepreneurs in Central America. Proof of this is Elias Manopla, our featured ecommerce entrepreneur on this episode of Under the Hood. Elias loves barbeques and has used Shopify to set up an online butcher shop. He is now looking at ways of growing the business by extending his brand’s reach and visibility.

I always enjoy meeting people who listen to our podcasts. Our audience base is largely located in the United States, however; we do have listeners in the Asia Pacific and in Europe. More recently, I've discovered that we're reaching entrepreneurs in Central America. Proof of this Elias Manopla, our featured ecommerce entrepreneur on this episode of Under the Hood. Elias owns an online butcher shop that sells a variety of barbeque meat, poultry, and fish items in and around Panama. Grill accompaniments like corn and arepas, the local corn cake, is also available for purchase.

Taking quality meats 'online'

Elias, a big barbeque fan, got the idea to sell these products after ordering meat from a supplier that was recommended to him by a friend. Impressed by the quality, he has since partnered with this supplier to make these meat products available online. He used Shopify to set up an online butcher shop and is now looking at ways that he can grow the business by extending his brand's reach.

My two cents

Elias's ecommerce business belongs in a highly niched industry. Given where he's located, it can also be assumed that a chunk of his target market has yet to try shopping online. Some might not even have access to the internet.

Facebook ads are great for reaching more people with minimal effort. However, they have to be strategically targeted in order to work. Start with existing customers. Do they have something in common? Knowing your target demographic allows you to be more successful at targeting those ads.

Speaking of ads, videos are a great medium for promoting foodstuffs. Creating videos should be part of the marketing plan.

Finally, increase repeat orders by crafting a flawless post-purchase sequence. The goal is to turn first-time buyers into loyal customers.

Listen to the full episode for more tips on how to grow a unique food-based ecommerce business like the one Elias has.

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! Registration to EcomCrew Premium is closed indefinitely. But, you can still learn from us through our suite of free courses. There's a total of 20 videos covering ecommerce topics like Importing from China and Building a 7-Figure Business. Find more information on the link below. Free Video Courses As always, thanks for listening to this episode! 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!

An update on my 2018 goals for Q4. There have been a couple of snags along the way but I remain optimistic about the coming months and what we’ve got planned for the business.

The first month of the Q4 is nearly at an end so its high time that I give you guys an update on my 2018 goals. There have been a couple of snags along the way but I remain optimistic about the coming months and what we've got planned for the business.

If you haven't been keeping up with my previous updates, here are the other podcast episodes to listen to. My 2018 Goals 2018 Goals Quarterly Goals

The Half-Way Mark

And now, here's where I'm at.

1. Develop 50 new products

We're currently very far behind because of the fact that we were forced to make changes tie due to existing market conditions. The advent of tariffs has resulted in us canceling further product launches in favor of having a more sustainable cash flow.

2. Launch on Amazon Canada, UK, Germany, France, Italy, and eventually, Australia

We're already on Amazon CA and also Amazon UK. However, sales figures for Amazon UK have been lower than what we expected. Amazon CA remains a bright spot though.

3. Optimize our Amazon PPC listings to increase sales by an average of 50%

On-track but the whole process has taken longer than expected. However, I expect that we'll get this done before the end of the year, at least for top listings.

4. Optimize Amazon PPC

We've managed to drop ACOS from 30% to under 25 %, this figure represents 5-figures a month in savings for us.

5. Implement the concepts in the book Traction in our business

You can track how we've done so far by listening to these series of podcasts - part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 4.

6. Reach $10 million in revenue at a 10% net profit

Again, market conditions will mean that we won't be meeting this goal. I'm hoping that we'll end up somewhere around the $7 million mark, depending on Q4 performance.

7. Lose 12 lbs

To date, I have already lost between 8 -10 lbs from doing intermittent fasting and going on 3-mile hikes.

8. Record 100 episodes of the EcomCrew podcast

We're already on episode 193 and can end up doing up to episode 198.

9. Launch a new version of ecomcrew.com

Done.

10. Launch at least 4 new courses

We've now done this with the recent launch of the Facebook Messenger course.

11. Speak at 4+ industry events

This has also been accomplished.

12. Hike 80 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail

This didn't happen but I did go on a 3-day trip backpacking and hiking trip to Mammoth Lakes.

13. Take an epic 2-week vacation

We went on a great vacation to New England. We also visited Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont and checked out the cities of Quebec and Montreal. This brings my total to 48 states visited.

14. Visit the Philippines office at least once

Visited the guys out there in April was planning to go back in October but that fell through. Planning a trip there next year.

15. Read 4 books

For this quarter, I read Phil Collins's memoir Not Dead Yet.

16. Handoff my Facebook ads to other people within the company

Was checked off but now it's unchecked again because our marketing person left. We'll have to go back to the drawing board on this to rethink things because what we're doing at the moment isn't working.

17. Come up with at least one new tactic that no one else is doing

Haven't had a whole lot of time to do this but we'll see what happens.

18. Never lose sight of the bigger picture: create 5-star products that customers will truly enjoy. Enjoying coming to work every day and ensuring that we creating jobs and opportunities for employees ensuring that they're excited to come to work every day.

I have been getting positive feedback on our products and from our employees.

Registration to EcomCrew Premium is closed indefinitely. But, you can still learn from us through our suite of free courses. There's a total of 20 videos covering ecommerce topics like Importing from China and Building a 7-Figure Business. Find more information on the link below. Free Video Courses

As always, thanks for listening to this episode! 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!

Stress is perhaps one of the many constants in running an ecommerce business. Whether you're a starting entrepreneur or someone looking to scale that business, stress is always bound to creep up.

Dave and I have both been in business for some time now. Over the years we've encountered situations that resulted in much worrying and a number of sleepless nights. Unfortunately, stress in relation to developing and growing an ecommerce business isn't something many entrepreneurs talk about. This episode aims to initiate that very conversation.

Unsurprisingly, we share quite a few stress points. Here are some that made it to our lists.

• Inventory
• Staff
• Logistics
• Amazon
• Tariffs
• Sales Tax
• Competition
• Business failure = Personal failure

We end this conversation with some tips to de-stress.

• Don't put money on the table that's more than you can spend.
• Take a real vacation.
• Set aside time for yourself.
• Exercise.
• Spend an hour or so at the end of the day for family time.

What aspects of the business do you stress over? Let us know in the comment section below.

Registration to EcomCrew Premium is closed indefinitely. But, you can still learn from us through our suite of free courses. There's a total of 20 videos covering ecommerce topics like Importing from China and Building a 7-Figure Business. Find more information on the link below. Free Video Courses

As always, thanks for listening to this episode! 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!

The second week of October was a particularly busy time for me. I was up in Vegas to speak at back-to-back conferences. In today’s episode, I talk to Dave about my biggest takeaways from attending and speaking at these events.

The second week of October was a particularly busy time for me. I was up in Vegas to speak at back-to-back conferences.

First up was Retail Global Las Vegas, an ecommerce event organized by Aussie ecommerce veteran Phil Leahy.

This was then followed by Rhodium Weekend, a gathering of online business owners and potential buyers.

In today's episode, I talk to Dave about my biggest takeaways from attending and speaking at these events.

• There are a lot of investors looking to invest in ecommerce businesses. With banks offering low interests, a 50 to 100% ROI that's typical of ecommerce businesses is all the more attractive.
• Many ecommerce entrepreneurs have their significant partners involved in the business. More often than not, drawing a balance between your professional and personal relationship can prove challenging.
• No one really knows how to deal with the online sales tax issue. I joined a three-person panel session on this and about ten minutes into it, these experts were arguing amongst themselves on how this issue can be addressed.

Tune in to this episode for the details and Dave's input on them. Overall, I was quite happy with how these speaking engagements. I was more relaxed and able to focus on how to deliver my presentation better to the audience.

We've opened up registration for EcomCrew Premium for 3 days. Get access to exclusive content - courses, webinars, swipe files, and conference presentations. You also get unlimited 1 on 1 email time with both Mike and Dave. Finally, we have our members-only Facebook group, which allows you to interact and learn from other ecommerce entrepreneurs. Registration closes at midnight Pacific time so go ahead and sign up today.

If you want to get involved in the Online Merchants Guild, you can get all the information here.

As always, thanks for listening to this episode! 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 really enjoy doing these Under the Hood episodes for many reasons. I get to 'pay it forward' and help people who are just starting or scaling their ecommerce businesses. It's always interesting to look at what other people are doing in niches that we may not be involved in.

Today's interview was quite a treat because I got to talk to a medical professional and entrepreneur who has a potentially winning product and strategy in his hands.

Greg, the nutritionist

Greg Williams comes from the unique perspective of someone who not only sells his products but formulates them as well. A nutritionist by profession, Greg works with people who have chronic health conditions like colitis and Crohn's disease. His journey with food supplements started with a desire to help his wife overcome colitis. After achieving success with this, he saw the opportunity to help more people in an easier and more affordable way by selling his supplements online.

Business profile

Greg started selling his supplements back in 2016 and has enjoyed a steady increase in profit. From initial sales of £5,000 two years ago, his 10 products have brought in over £100,000 in sales.

The statistics for repeat purchases are quite impressive. From a base of just under 4,000 customers, his products have a 30% repeat order rate at 1.75% purchase frequency.

Greg's marketing efforts are heavily reliant on Facebook ads so he is interested in exploring other potential traffic channels. He is also keen on bringing in more of business into Amazon.

Mike's advice

• Don't push things too much with FB to prevent account shut down. Instead, work on your organic rankings. Have a long-term keyword and content strategy. Tap influencers who can promote your product.
• Create email sequence to inform customers that products are already available on Amazon Include a discount. Use this to redirect traffic from Facebook.
• Advertise on Amazon. Start by creating the perfect listing - with high-quality images, keywords, and providing as much detailed info as possible. Turn on automatic campaigns with a very high budget and do the aggressive bidding. This strategy will allow you to determine the best keywords to target for manual campaigns.
• Explore other traffic and marketing channels like Google Shopping ads and Instagram if applicable to your target market.
• Create a free plus shipping not to achieve the 'marketing trifecta'.

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!

Registration to EcomCrew Premium is closed indefinitely. But, you can still learn from us through our suite of free courses. There's a total of 20 videos covering ecommerce topics like Importing from China and Building a 7-Figure Business. Find more information on the link below.

Free Video Courses

As always, thanks for listening to this episode! 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!