Sam OvettCo-Founder of Mobile Pocket Office Notes: 5 buckets AttractConvertFulfillDelightRefer Bio: Sam Ovett is the Founder of Mobile Pocket Office. Sam is a professional guide turned automation mega nerd, Mobile Pocket Office is leading the way to help new and established businesses augment their human and technological resources to leverage growth and streamline productivity. As a previous professional whitewater kayaker and guide Sam has translated his experience navigating Class V whitewater and mitigating life threatening risks and hazards into the business world. He leads a team of 15 to a profitable bottom line over $1M ARR. Sponsors: Spark Shipping Links: https://mobilepocketoffice.com Transcript: Charles(00:00): In this episode of the business. E-Commerce I talk with Sam Ovett about using automation to grow your e-commerce business. This is a business of e-commerce episode, 161. [inaudible] Welcome to the business of e-commerce the show that helps eCommerce retailers start launch and grow their e-commerce business. I'm your host, Chelsea [inaudible]. And I'm gonna tell you what Sam Ovett, Sam is the co-founder mobile pocket office, where they help businesses grow and streamline using automation. I asked Sam on the show today, talk about using automation to grow your e-commerce business. He goes through a five-part framework. They're really segments, where should we auto using automation, some of the best places. And he kind of has a nice  nice way of thinking about it in this interview. As you know, I love talking about automation. So I get, you know, don't, it's not often I get to geek out with someone on the same topic. So I had fun talking to Sam Herr, and I think  I think this would be good to listen to, and it gets you thinking about where are some places in your business. You can start adding some automation to really improve the customer experience, not just standard chat bots and that sort of thing that take away from experience to really enhance the experiences, what Sam's in here for. So let's get into the show and listen to what he has to say, Hey Sam, how are you doing today? Sam (01:28): Good. I'm excited to be here. I'm hoping we can share some stuff that people can dig into and use. Charles(01:33): Yeah. I'm excited to dig out about some automation. This is kind of my thing too. So I saw that and I was like, Oh, let's let's chat about this. So yeah. What are you guys? So mobile pocket office just real quick. You guys help folks automate, is it more on the marketing side typically or Sam (01:53): Yeah, so we help people automate their marketing and sales customer journey. That's our core focus and then that's where it starts. So we, the, the big picture view of how we work with people is we look at a business that has a lot of manual steps. Usually people are overwhelmed and they're deciding whether or not to hire more people or to invest in some technology. And then that's usually where the limitations are as well. What do we do? How do we set this up? How do we think about this? So we do a, an engagement with people where we actually like, think about and consult on what is the journey that you want somebody to have. And then from there it's process, and then understanding from the process, what of that can be automated and taken off your plate to create a better customer journey, to follow up with people longer, all those kinds of things. And we can get into the details, but that's the big picture. And then we actually have helped people. We, you know, we do it, we implement it for them. Charles(02:50): Yeah. I mean that whole customer journey, right? Like from when somebody first engaged with the brand to, you know, after the purchase, post-purchase all the way down to follow. There's Charles (03:00): A lot there. And if you're not, if you're not automating it, it's very easy to go off the rails. Right. Like it's very easy. Yeah.

The Business Of eCommerce

Using Automation to Grow your eCommerce Business (E161)

https://www.youtube.com/embed/Usw7BbIx6RQ Luc SimmonsCo-Owner of Scope16 Notes: 5 KeysTimeConversionOrganicDataMoney Sponsors: Spark Shipping Links: https://www.scope16.com/https://www.instagram.com/lucsimmons/?hl=enhttps://www.facebook.com/scopem16arketing Transcript: Charles (00:00): In this episode of the business. E-Commerce I talk with Luke Simmons about the five keys of a successful e-commerce business. This is the business of e-commerce episode 160. Charles (00:19): Welcome to the business. E-Commerce the show that helps e-commerce retailers start launch and grow the e-commerce business. I'm your host, Charles Buskey and I'm here today with Luke Simmons. Luke is the co-owner of scope 16, an agency that works with e-commerce retailers to help them scale from six to seven figures, I asked Luke on the show today to chat about what are the five key elements that are required for successful e-commerce business, like how he runs through this list. And they really are all things that you should be thinking about when you're first starting or just trying to scale your business. And he helps to really set some expectations for a lot of retailers, usually early on that kind of starting what they should really be looking at and know what they're getting into. I think anyone starting off this is going to be super helpful. He goes through the five different topics. I'll link to those in the show notes, but let's get into it. Speaker 2 (01:09): So, Hey look, how are you doing today? Speaker 3 (01:11): I'm doing really well. Charles, how are you? Good. Charles (01:13): Happy to have you on the show. I think I think this topic is great for people kind of starting off. I see a lot of retailers kind of trying to get going and they kind of get stuck right at that very beginning phase. Speaker 3 (01:25): Absolutely. Especially, you know, this well, everything that's happened in the last 12 to 18 months, it's definitely, everyone's noticed that, you know, going online and e-commerce in particular has been something that, you know, a lot of people wanted to jump on and take advantage of and you know, don't blame them whatsoever. So, absolutely. I think it's definitely a question that relates to a lot of newbies, if you like, in terms of the e-commerce, I'm really getting their brand up and up and up. Charles (01:52): Yep. Yeah. We've seen 'em I know his hair, at least we've seen a lot of brick and mortar retailers in the past 12 months say like, you know, the brick and mortar is just zero. People coming in were shut down to some government you know, the government lockdown sort of thing. We need to do something and we're like, we still have these distributor relationships. We still have all these products. We still have all the stuff we just need to sell it somewhere. So a lot of them jumping online just because of that, but it is different, right? Because let's say you're a brick and mortar. You're used to, you know, putting on your sign, doing your local advertising and you're competing against the people within a X number of mile radius versus you online. Now you're competing against everyone in a it's a niche. So it's like this like virtual radius. And does a mind shift a mindset shift there? Speaker 3 (02:35): Absolutely. You know, everything from the way that you position yourself as a brand to, you know, even the community, because you know, like you said, brick and mortar, you understand the community that you're living in, you understand what their needs and their wants going online and one competing, but also then trying to understand how your audience can change from whether they're on the East coast or the West coast is completely different. So yeah, it's, it's, it's definitely not something that is just, you know, a quick fix and it's definitely not something that you can just kind of jump straight into it takes time.

5 Keys to a Successful eCommerce Business (E160)

Michael SeneDirector of Sales at Deliverr Bio: Michael Sene is the Director of Sales with Deliverr. He works with more than a dozen fulfillment specialists, oversees the onboarding of all new sellers, and helps those sellers increase revenue through current and new sales channels. Sponsors: Spark Shipping Links: https://deliverr.com Transcript: Charles (00:00): In this episode of the Business of eCommerce I talk with Michael Sene about how to ship today or next day without breaking the bank. This is a business e-commerce episode 159. Charles (00:19): Welcome to the Business of eCommerce the show that helps e-commerce retailers start launch and grow their e-commerce business. I'm Charles and I'm here today with Michael Sene. Michael is the director of sales at deliver where they help retailers get faster next day or two day shipping on all their products. I think they're doing something new here, and it's pretty interesting to see how, as a independent retailer, you can actually get next day, two day shipping to try to really compete with the big guys like an Amazon or a Walmart. And this is something that's becoming more and more important in the game of retail. Now folks are expecting it and it's something that people are just becoming very used to. So they've really changed the model they're using technology to do this. I think it's kind of interesting chat to kind of go into how they're doing this and to put some thought into where as a retailer, you want to be now, and in the future, when maybe the expectation goes from two days to one day or one hour, wherever it is. And he kind of talks about that and kind of get you in that mind space of thinking, what do I want to be now and in the future. So it's going to show, so, Hey, Michael, how are you doing today? I'm Michael (01:25): Doing great. I'm doing great. Thanks for having me. Charles (01:27): Yeah. Awesome. I have you on, I think this topic is very timely on fast shipping. This is, this is the era of the whole shipping pocalypse where we've seen a lot of people struggle with this. So it's good to kind of talk through this. Speaker 2 (01:41): So we're talking. Oh yeah. It's it's Charles (01:45): I think Amazon, especially this year has kind of got us all addicted to like quick shipping, right? So two day shipping, we talk about that next day shipping. And I think a lot of retailers want to provide this on their own and everyone's kind of struggling to, how do I get from my standard ups ground? You know, that could take a week and try to like, bring that down to close it, to match Amazon or compete. And you can pay that you can pay for air obviously, but doing that affordably, I think it's kind of a trick and I think you have some experience with us, right? Michael (02:17): Yeah, I do. I think you bring up a great point just to start. When you think about the problem is you need to do it at a low rate and really fast. And I think everyone's trying to tackle this problem from your big retailer to your smaller Shopify merchants, your e-commerce merchants on marketplace. Everyone's trying to solve this. I think the issue is they're taking at it the wrong approach, right? When you think about it to get today at a low rate, your items need to be in at least four to five warehouses to get next day and same day, your items need to be in 10 to 18 different warehouses. And a lot of large retailers are overly invested in their current setup. That's for retail, right? And the position of their FCS are not in the right places. So, you know, getting to that same day or next day is a, is a massive challenge of capital that you would have to invest in. Michael (03:07): And your smaller merchant, you know, naturally wants to do this, but doesn't have the capability. And then when you think about companies that are offering this, you really have, Amazon is the only one. And when you think about what deliver has is we...

How to Ship 2-day and Next-day Without Breaking the Bank (E159)

Jeff OxfordFounder and CEO of 180 Marketing Show Notes eCommerce SEO is a different scale and sizeLink build strategiesProduct ReviewsHARO - Help a reporterGuest PostsReach out, send your bioTop blog listsBudget< $100 per link - Bad$200-300 - More common whitehat linksSend examples of past linksAsk if they own the blogs Sponsors: PrisyncSpark Shipping Links: https://www.180marketing.com/https://linkhunter.com/ Transcript: Charles (00:00): In this episode of the Business eCommerce I talk with Jeff Oxford about whitehat link building for e-commerce. This is a business of eCommerce episode 156. Charles (00:20): Welcome to the business of e-commerce the show that helps e-commerce retailers start launch and grow their e-commerce business. I'm your host, Charles Palleschi with Jeff Oxford. Jeff is the CEO and founder of one 80 marketing and SEO company focused exclusively on SEO and content marketing for e-commerce businesses. As Jeff on the show today, talk about link building specifically for e-commerce businesses. There's definitely some nuances that make link building different when it comes to e-commerce. So I think he really digs into that and this is his focus. So he brings some great tips that I think really everyone should listen to. It's something that link building isn't talked about that often it's something that I think a lot of folks kind of focus more on the on-page more and some, some other factors when it comes to SEO. But I think link building really is one of the keys to making your SEO strategy work. Charles (01:14): And Jeff really goes deep and specific when it comes to e-commerce link building. So I think you should watch the entire show. He gives three strategies on how to build links and some concepts on budget. And we should be looking at if you're thinking of getting into us. So let's get into the show and listen right to the end. He also talks about his product which I think is actually great. You should check out I'll link to in the show notes. So let's get into the show. Hey Jeff, how are you doing today? I Jeff (01:42): Am doing great. Charles, how about yourself? Charles (01:45): Doing good. Thanks for coming on the show. I've had a few guests there in the past. Talk about SEO, but kind of more of a focus on link building. I feel like that's not something I've touched upon at least here in the past. So I'm kind of excited to get into that aspect of it real quick. First one, any marketing you're the founder, how you've been doing SEO for, for how long Jeff (02:07): I would do an SEO for about a decade now, mainly on e-commerce sites. So I'm little side stories. I've built my own in the past, back in like 2012, built my own e-commerce sites, drop shipping sites had success there and then decided just to kind of pursue the e-commerce marketing side of it and focus less on the operations. Charles (02:27): How would you say? So when you say you focus on e-commerce, how is e-commerce SEO different than, you know, if I'm a SAS or whatever any other sort of company, how has e-commerce SEO different? Jeff (02:40): I'd say the bit, one of the biggest differences is just the scale and size. I mean, of course you can have a small e-commerce site. That's just selling a few products. Maybe they have like a small catalog under 10 products. In which case that's going to be pretty similar to how you'd approach SEO for a SAS or your typical brochure website. We, when you start having a website with, you know, hundreds of thousands of products and dozens or hundreds of categories, it's a whole nother, separate set of challenges. And the biggest difference is just prioritization. Prioritization is super critical. You know, you don't have all the resources in the world to make, you know, optimize every change perfectly. So you have to prioritize, you know, apply the 80 20 rule, which products and categories can bring the most results and traffic.

Whitehat link building for eCommerce (E158)

https://www.youtube.com/embed/z4z8RbHnUUA Chloe ThomasAuthor & Host of eCommerce MasterPlan Show Notes: Think in quartersFocus on 3 thingsTraction - https://amzn.to/3tJZ1Y1The 12 Week - Year https://amzn.to/373dIvkeCommerce Marketing: How to Get Traffic That BUYS to your Website - https://amzn.to/3a8Hy3BProductive Planner - https://amzn.to/2Z4XDRAThe Customer Master Plan ModelCustomer JourneyThemesTrafficConversion RateAOV Sponsors: PrisyncSpark Shipping Links: https://www.brandox.com/ecommerce-masterplan Transcript: Charles (00:00): In this episode of the business. E-Commerce I talk with Chloe Thomas about choosing where to focus your time and attention. This is a business e-commerce episode, 158. Welcome to the business of eCommerce the show that helps e-commerce retailers start launch and grow your eCommerce business. I'm your host, Charles Palleschi and I'm here today with Chloe Thomas. Chloe is an author and the host of the eCommerce Masterplan Podcast, where they provide online training, advice and information for growing e-commerce businesses on the show. Me and Chloe go really deep into the topic of mindset and specifically choosing where to focus your time and attention and how to focus that attention. I think this is super helpful for anyone, and this is a big topic that I think this is often overlooked and it's really one of those things. If you get this right, it doesn't just have linear effects, but it also kind of multiplies and it, it can really move the needle. So super interesting interview is a bunch of book recommendations that I definitely think you should check out and I'll drop those all in the show notes. So let's get right into the interview. So, Hey Chloe, how are you doing today? Chloe (01:14): I'm good. Charles, so it was great to be here getting to talk to you about all things e-com Charles (01:19): Yeah. I love having also another podcast or on the show. You are the whole, you're an author, right? But also the host of the e-commerce master plan. Chloe (01:29): I am, yeah, yeah. Hosted the e-commerce most fun podcast, which is a we're in a few retailers and of the keep optimizing podcast where we focus on a different marketing method each month with mainly supplier side guests and experts. So, so yeah. Podcasting seems to take up a huge amount of my time these days. Charles (01:47): Yep. Nice. I like, yes. Well kind of we were talking earlier before the show two ideas and I mentioned kind of the whole going into the mindset and every once in a while, I, I love talking to someone about this exact topic just on, I feel like it's, it's like a force multiplier, right? Like you can talk all you want about like Facebook ads and like that works. But like, if you want to make any sort of large shift, it always comes to changing just like a complete mindset change, a direction change. And the easiest way to do that is changing your mindset about what direction you should be moving. Do you agree? Or, Chloe (02:22): Yeah, I think it it's. I mean, I've been been helping people solve their marketing problems in e-commerce and their e-commerce problems in general for about 15, 16, 17 years now. And there's kind of two questions that everything I ever get asked, get boils down to, and one is Chloe, what should I be doing? And the other one is glowy is what I'm doing, what I should be doing, because I think it's, there's so much we could be doing success comes from focusing in on the right things. And unless you've got your head in the right space, you know, you know what you're trying to achieve in your life for your business, you know what your strengths are, your weaknesses on you, what your head in the right place, unless you've got all those things in place, you can't make good decisions about what you should be focusing your time and effort on. Chloe (03:09): And it's, it's very easy to spend, you know, an I,

Where to Focus your Time and Attention (E158)

https://www.youtube.com/embed/GyD6cHnjfdA Dr. James RichardsonFounder of Premium Growth Solutions Sponsors: PrisyncSpark Shipping Links: Ramping Your BrandPremium Growth Solutions Bio: Dr. Richardson is the founder of Premium Growth Solutions,a strategic planning consultancy for early-stage consumer- packaged goods brands. As a professionally trained cultural anthropologist turned business strategist, he has helped more than 75 CPG brands with their strategic planning, including brands owned by Coca-Cola Venturing and Emerging Brands, The Hershey Company, General Mills, Kraft Foods, ConAgra Brands, and Frito-Lay as well as emerging brands such as Once Upon a Farm, Peatos, Ithaca Hummus, Mother Kombucha, Rebel Creamery, zaca recovery, and others. James is the author of Ramping Your Brand: How to Ride the Killer CPG Growth Curve, the #1 Best-seller in Business Consulting on Amazon. He also hosts his own podcast—Startup Confidential, and his thoughts appear regularly in industry publications such as Foodnavigator. Transcript: Charles (00:00): In this episode of the Business of eCommerce. I talk with Dr. James Richardson about what causes exponential growth. This is a business of eCommerce episode, 157. Charles (00:20): Welcome to the business. E-Commerce the show that helps e-commerce retailers start launch and grow the e-commerce business. I'm your host, Charles Palleschi. And I'm here today with Dr. James Richardson. James is the founder of premium growth solutions, a strategic planning consultancy for early stage consumer packaged good brands as a professionally trained cultural anthropologist turned business strategist. He has helped wasn't 75 CPG brands with the strategic plans. Some of those brands include read them off air Hershey's general mills, Kraft food. Frito-Lay a list goes on how he's helped a lot of brands. And he's super interesting take on growing the business and what to really focus your time and attention on. And I think that's the big thing here on. If you really want to double down, he kind of talks about here's the exact segment and here's how you should find that segment and who should be focusing on. So I think that part's super helpful on really kind of nailing who to focus on if you want to be able to really scale your business and see that year over year exponential growth. So let's get into the show and I think he has some great tips. Also, he links to his book at the end that we'll link in the show notes. So let's check that out. So, Hey James, how you doing today? James (01:32): I'm good. How are you doing Charles? Charles (01:34): I'm good. Awesome. To have you on the show to dig into this topic a bit, we're talking earlier about exponential growth and how there's some DCC brands that seem to get it and others wish they got it and others never do. And it seems to be this like magic formula people think, but you've kind of talked about this a bit. So curious to kinda get your thoughts on that. James (01:59): Yeah, so I I do work with a mix Adidas C and retail only brands, but I think what I, what we were just chatting about, I think before we hit record, was that I meet a lot of DTC folks who thanks to the internet itself are well-versed in all the KPIs of D to C business management. And they're, they're drowning in data and lifetime value and average order value and all this stuff. They try to measure the health of their business purely within the context of those data points, which are coming in through Shopify essentially. But they're not necessarily asking at any point, even if they're doing well, which is actually just as important. And in my view asking why, why are people repeating what behavioral is attracting them to like constant purchase on a monthly basis or weekly basis, if you're really lucky and you're able to sell like drinks to people or stuff. James (03:00): But I mean, if you're not asking the question,

What causes exponential growth? (E157)

https://www.youtube.com/embed/6JKRRdXpX9s Jim ColemanCo-Founder of xFusion Sponsors: PrisyncSpark Shipping Links: https://www.xfusion.io/https://www.linkedin.com/in/jim-coleman/https://www.linkedin.com/company/xfusion-support/https://twitter.com/jim_coleman1https://twitter.com/Groove_Jar Transcript: Charles (00:00): In this episode of the business. E-Commerce I talk with Jim Coleman about how to get started outsourcing customer support. This is the business of e-commerce episode, 155. Charles (00:18): Welcome to the Business of eCommerce. The show that helps e-commerce retailers to start, launch and grow their e-commerce business. I'm your host Charles Palleschi and I'm here today with Jim Coleman. Jim is a co-founder of X fusion where they provide outsourced customer support for e-commerce businesses. I asked him on the show today to talk about if you're a founder and you're thinking of hiring your first support person or outsourcing support, what are some of the do's and don'ts and what are some things you should absolutely do to make your first support hire or outsource successful? You works with a lot of e-commerce retailers. So I think he brings some great advice to the table and has some great tips out. So let's get into the show and if you have any questions, leave in the show notes and I can forward them over to Jim. So let's get into this. So Hey Jim, how you doing today? Good, Charles, how are you? Good. Awesome. I have you on the show. I'm excited to dig into the topic of customer support and outsourcing. It's very near and dear to my heart. So, so real quick, what do you, so you run an agency. Oh, so I was saying support essentially, right? Jim (01:31): We do. Yeah, it's called X fusion.io. And we, we provide customer support customer success to founders. We started kind of scratching our own itch. My, my co-founder David and I are both business owners and we built out a team internally on, on each of our companies. And then wanted to bring that to the broader market so that we kicked off mid 2019. And it's been growing since then. Charles (01:54): Okay. Yeah. So I feel like support is one of those things where everyone just want to, like the, it's usually one of the first things you see, like you're trying to word this correctly, the biggest time sink at the beginning, where you're just spending a ton of back and forth. And a lot of founders want to kind of get it off their plate early, but I don't think a lot know how or know the right way. Maybe they're like running out of their inbox or just as no docs, just kind of doing everything out of their own head. What do you kind of see that? Do you folks usually come to you at the beginning when, Hey, you know, I'm a founder, I'm doing a hundred percent of support and I want to get this moving somewhere else. So [inaudible], Jim (02:35): Well, we have a really nice mix of both. So we have, we have solo founders that come to us and they're just overwhelmed and swallowed up in support requests and other responsibilities. And then we also work with the existing teams to help them scale. I enjoy both, but I particularly enjoy working with, with founders because of the, the wins that we can help them achieve at the earlier level. And, and what I mean is just that we, we like to focus on helping founders get back to the highest and best use of their time. And I recognize that like everybody has to make the decision on like when is the right time to pull the trigger for them. And I recognize that, you know, we have to build up revenue before we have the, the, the bandwidth to be able to hire a team to handle support. Jim (03:12): But one thing I'd like to consider is like, if, if you're at that place where you can afford to do so, and you don't, then you're spending a good chunk of time working on tasks that are not the highest and best use of your time. In other words, things that other people can effectively handle ...

How to Get Started Outsourcing Customer Support (E155)

https://www.youtube.com/embed/UbnQrRDTuZQ Jeremy BodenhamerCo-founder & CEO of ShipHawk Show Notes: 5 API of the ApocalypseAmazonWalmartAlibabaJDShopifyThe Power of HabitGrove CollaborativeParker Clay - Leather ProductsAll BirdsBoneless Knee Pads Sponsors: PriceSyncSpark Shipping Links: Jeremy BodenhamerShip HawkAdapt or Die: Your Survival Guide to Modern Warehouse AutomationJeremy Bodenhamer LinkedInJeremy Bodenhamer Twitter Transcript: Charles (00:00): In this episode of the Business of eCommerce I talk with Jeremy Bodenhamer, about about how independent retailers can compete with the giants. This is the business of eCommerce episode 154. Charles (00:20): Welcome to the Business of eCommerce. The show that helps e-commerce retailers start launch and grow their e-commerce business. I'm your host Charles Palleschi. And I'm here today with Jeremy Bodenhamer. Jeremy is the co-founder and CEO of Ship Hawk, and also the bestselling author of adapt or die, a leading expert at the intersection of shipping. And e-commerce I asked Jeremy on the show today, talk about how in 2021, an independent retailer can compete with some of the largest e-commerce companies out there like Walmart, Amazon, and how you can not just compete, but also win. Jeremy has a lot of insights on both the logistics side, but also how you can attract more customers by talking about your brand. And I think it's super interesting. So let's get into the show and I think you're going to enjoy this. Hey Jeremy, how are you doing today? Doing well. Charles (01:09): How are you doing Charles? Doing good. Awesome. To have you on the show. I love the topic and want to kind of get into us. I've been seeing, kind of been following the the Shopify guys for a while, and I love the whole concept of, you know, arming the rebels, right? Where, how can you know, how can the smaller retailers compete against some of the big guys? And it's something where I think the world is going to very different ways, right? Where you have these like marketplaces kind of Amazon, like the big ones everyone knows about, but then you have these new brands that are kind of just popping up and becoming almost household names. In some cases you see this with, you know, some of like the big companies, like some of the, some of these, there's just so many retailers now that all of a sudden you, they can just build a brand name. So you're are okay. So you've been around with ship for, you said about seven, eight years now, you guys started that for about eight years. Okay. And you recently came out with a book on also basically competing with the giants, right? Adapt to die. Jeremy (02:11): Yeah. Adapter die came out a few weeks ago and is a survival guide for the independent merchants and how to compete against the giants. Charles (02:21): I love the cover also with the, the dinosaur on there. Very cool. Yeah. It's sorta my voice. Speaker 2 (02:30): So Charles (02:30): If you're talking to a small retailer, if someone's starting, you know, 20, 21, right. And they're, I want to get into e-commerce, you know, I have some products, but they're looking at all the expectations of what you need to do nowadays. How would you start kind of guiding someone to say, okay, you have to compete. You want to come up with a product X also sold on Amazon and tons of other marketplaces. How would you start kind of guiding someone through that process of competing? Jeremy (02:57): Yeah, good question. I would start by challenging them to understand the state of the current marketplace. The fact that these marketplaces by and larger, not friends but competitors. In the book, I talk about the five APIs of the apocalypse. Those five API APIs are Amazon Walmart Alibaba, jd.com and Shopify. And I predict a, a future that I think is a very real scenario where those five companies own global commerce, every transaction, every dollar spent,

How Independent eCommerce retailers can Compete Against the Giants (E154)

Sponsors: Drip – Get a free demo of Drip using this coupon code!Spark Shipping – Dropshipping Automation Software Transcript: Charles (00:00): In this episode of the business. E-Commerce I talk about why 2020 year end review. This is a business of e-commerce Episode 153. Charles (00:17): Welcome to the business. E-Commerce the show that helps e-commerce retailers start launch and grow their e-commerce business. I mean, host house plus ski, and I'm here today to talk about some of the highlights do a review of 2020 at the end, we're going to show some of my favorite clips, different interviews, different things we've spoke about over 2020. And let's just review this year. 2020 has been one wild ride earliest. You had the coronavirus hit. The world has changed. E-Commerce forever. We've seen back orders and shipping delays. You've seen issues in e-commerce that have happened at a scale, never imagined before, but we have all seen an influx of new buyers, trying comments for the first time. People in quarantine have had no choice, but to shop online, they've tried e-commerce and these are folks who've never tried it before. And now all of a sudden their buyers, their uses of e-commerce. Charles (01:16): And I believe that they're here to stay retailers I've talked to have said 2020 has been the best shower for them. And I think this is going to the trend is going to continue. So we can go and talk about all the downsides of 2020, but also there's been some huge upsides and we should definitely acknowledge effort and know that this might be the new normal, and we might be living in a world that's more connected than ever. And we start to understand how a delay in shipping can really affect the delay, getting a product into the hands. I want to look back at some of the episodes, some of the interviews I've done the share and highlight some of the really cool folks that I've talked with. There's a lot of interesting things that have come up. So let's do a little clip episode and I hope everyone has a great new year's and look forward talking to everyone in 2021. So let's get onto a few clips. A few highlights from this year is episodes. Speaker 2 (02:12): Well, the first thing that I just want to kind of start with is the difference between e-commerce and M commerce. For those of you that are listening, that may not really have a definitive knowledge, but e-commerce is commerce conducted via the internet and commerce is business done on a mobile device. Speaker 3 (02:30): I recommend you go all in. So if you don't have money for the course, but you want to launch a product and you, you are short in cash because I had some savings. If you don't have it, don't buy a course, go to YouTube, check out. You can find all this information on YouTube. I'm the kind of person that needs guidance, especially in a start. So just like Instagram marketing, Facebook marketing, any other kinds of marketing, it's, it's a different beast. But has most similar benefits and this year has been as you know, unusual Charles (03:02): To say the least. Yeah, for me, if anything is just evolving. Speaker 4 (03:07): Well, the important thing is that the email is that especially the past 12 months with also what's been happening in the world, the way the email has been used with other channels has become a lot more important. So the likes of SMS, the likes of messenger using things like quizzes to pull any email addresses. Charles (03:24): So what you do is your photos or 3d renders for your listing need to be showing the value of the product, not just, Oh, mine's a great photo, but the differentiation you did with the product. Speaker 5 (03:39): So when you start looking at, I need to get into a warehouse I'm, you know, maybe. So I think the first thing you have to do is you have to identify what is the warehouse in e-commerce we can be dealing with people who are operating out of a basement,

Business of eCommerce – 2020 Year End Review – E153

Jennifer GlassCEO of Business Growth Strategies International Sponsors: Drip – Get a free demo of Drip using this coupon code!Spark Shipping – Dropshipping Automation Software Show Notes: eCommerce vs mCommerceCustomer AvatarBuyer JournalTractionIt's the Bottom Line That Matters: Quick Tips & Strategies You Can Use Right Now to Grow Your Business in the Next 12-Months Strategies How are you driving traffic?Look at shipping - Increase AOV - Average order valueLook at costsAre you using Level 2 or Level 3 data?Hotspot VideosKiosks and AppsEmail MarketingLead magnetAbandon Carts -Omni-Channel MarketingThe Journey from $0 to $200k per Year Selling on Amazon Hot items Shopify - 12 Trending Products to Sell in 2020 Spark Shipping - Best 50 Dropshipping Products Of 2020 Transcript Charles (00:00): In this episode of the business. E-Commerce I talk with Jennifer Glass about the seven strategies to grow your e-commerce business. This is the business to be commerce episode 152. Charles (00:19): Welcome to the Business of eCommerce. The show that helps e-commerce retailers start launch and grow the e-commerce business. I'm your host, Charles Palleschi. And I'm here today with Jennifer Glass. Jennifer is a CEO of business growth strategies, international. She is a business growth expert who works with small to medium-sized businesses to help them find the money that they are leaving on the table. On this show today, she maps out seven strategies that you can use to grow your e-commerce business. I love the kind of list format, which kind of has different bullet points and kind of, we go from really different parts of the business anywhere from growth to saving money, but basically ways to just increase the business and not leave money on the table. So think it's a great episode to check out all seven and I'll also link to them in the show notes. She goes a lot of good links. So we'll put all that there. So check that out if you can too, and let's go onto the show. Hey Jennifer, how are you today? Jennifer (01:13): I'm doing great, Charles. Thank you so much for having me. I hope all is well with you as well. Yeah. Charles (01:17): Have you on the show, definitely excited to dig into this. I love having a list of things in particular, so seven strategies to grow your e-commerce business. So we were talking about this earlier. You kind of mapped out just seven things. Is this generally for e-commerce or you've worked with, and you work with small business owners in general, right? Jennifer (01:39): Worked with, I work with small business owners and general but it really is, you know, a lot of the strategies that we're going to be focusing on are focused for the e-commerce folks. Yep. A lot of strategies without a question are work both ways, whether you're online or offline, but there are certain strategies that are going to be focused specifically to the online businesses and how they can take that and really convert even more clients into people wanting to buy. So if you're an e-com client econ business, you're definitely going to want to pay close attention. If you are in an old world you know, one of those professional brick and mortar or whatever kinds of businesses, this is totally going to be up your alley as well. Cause a lot of the strategies are really working both ways in terms of what you need to be paying attention to and why, why not? Okay. All right. Let's get into it. Absolutely. Charles (02:43): Where would Jennifer (02:43): You start? Well, the first thing that I just want to kind of start with is the difference between e-commerce and M commerce. For those of you that are listening, that may not really have a definitive knowledge, but e-commerce is commerce via the internet and commerce is business done on a mobile device. And there is a difference in terms of the way that people are looking at things, the way that they're shopping,

7 Strategies to Grow Your eCommerce Business

Anatoly SpektoreCommerce Entrepreneur Notes: Started 3 years agoSelling 200k yearJungle Scout and Helium10Spent 10k on the first order buying Green BinocularsPickFu Sponsors: Drip – Get a free demo of Drip using this coupon code!Spark Shipping – Dropshipping Automation Software Links: https://www10millionjourney.comhttps://www.instagram.com/anatolyspektor/https://www.instagram.com/10millionjourney/ Transcript: Charles (00:00): In this episode of the business. E-Commerce I talk with Anatoly specter about his journey from zero to $200,000 a year, selling on Amazon. This is a business of e-commerce episode, 151. [inaudible] Welcome to the business of e-commerce the show that helps e-commerce retailers start launch and grow their e-commerce business. I'm your host [inaudible] and I'm here today with Anatoly specter, and it totally is a serial entrepreneur, six figure, Amazon seller, an it consultant, and the host of the 10 million journey podcast, where he shows his experiences scaling his Amazon business from 200 K to $10 million a year. And this episode, and totally gets really into some numbers on his business, which I think is super helpful. He does into when he started, how much it cost, some initial product runs, how much he's making today and where he's hoping to go and how he's hoping to get there. Charles (01:02): He's super transparent, which I think is very helpful when you're listening and taking advice, because a lot of it is contextual. If someone is giving you advice, you kind of need to know, is this advice for a new seller or someone doing a million a year? He kind of gives exactly what advice you would do at what step and what he has done. And I think it's super helpful. So let's get into the show and follow along right to the end where he gives some real helpful tips to both new sellers and also folks scaling the Amazon business. So Hey until you, how are you doing today? Amazing. How are you doing good. Awesome. To have you on the show. Your journey is super interesting. I've been doing some research about it and just kind of looking at talk about some of the numbers. So as far as an Amazon seller, and we're talking before the show and just kind of getting into some of those numbers, I think it's going to be super addressed in a kind of go into so real quick, you're an Amazon seller, right? That's kind of, that's your main focus? I mean, Anatoly (02:05): I like to call myself online through preneur and Amazon is the way I make sale these days. But yeah most of my revenue comes from Amazon Charles (02:14): And you're currently in you kind of, so you have a podcast and you talk publicly about the number is where you're at. Right? So that's yeah, Anatoly (02:20): Yeah, yeah. I created a podcast to sort of document my journey, how I scaled my business to $10 million. And I'm still in the process right now in the beginning, about 200,000. And I'm moving to a million who have charged me for that and then 10 million. So they'll come in to everything. I pick up brain. So other preneurs who are several steps ahead, or some of them multimillion dollars hundred million dollars businesses. And I just talk to them and pick up their brains to help me out and off. My last question is always, what can you give me as an advice I'm read here is how much you're making is what I'm doing. Tell me, and then they give me advice. So you're lucky. I'm pretty lucky first. Charles (02:55): Nice. yeah, it's a dual purpose podcast and you're helping other people, but getting advice. So I love that you aren't, so you're a 200,000 a year right now. And most of us like 90 plus percent is Amazon product sales, right? Anatoly (03:09): Yeah. Yeah. We do have a Shopify store, but it's like minimal because we were focused just on Amazon these days. Charles (03:15): How long did it take you to get there so far? Anatoly (03:19): So it was hit or miss.

The Journey from $0 to $200k per Year Selling on Amazon (E151)

Alisa MeredithPinterest Product Specialist At Tailwind Sponsors: Drip – Get a free demo of Drip using this coupon code!Spark Shipping – Dropshipping Automation Software Notes: 2x3 ratio for photoThe title does the hard workText on the image is important#3 search engineBoard - Relevant title & descriptionMatch Product Categories from the shopping cartFind other ways to appeal to peopleNot about the followers, more about engagementUse Audience InsightsSecret Boards - Be Consistent97% of searches are unbrandedhttps://trends.pintrest.com - What's trendingStory PinConsumed on PinterestNo link to the websiteIn beta, must Applyhttp://pintrest.com/source Links: https://tailwindapp.comhttps://www.instagram.com/tailwindapp/https://www.instagram.com/alisammeredithhttps://www.twitter.com/alisammeredith Transcript: Charles (00:00): In this episode of the business of eCommerce. I talk with Alisa Meredith about using Pinterest to increase e-commerce sales. This is the business e-commerce episode 150. [inaudible] Welcome to the business. E-Commerce the show. It helps e-commerce retailers start launch and grow their e-commerce business. I'm your host, Charles [inaudible] and I'm here today with Alisa Meredith. Elisa is the Pinterest product specialist and marketing manager at tailwind. She's a speaker and teacher of topics, Pinterest marketing and Pinterest ads. On this interview, we go really deep into using Pinterest to generate more traffic and orders for our e-commerce business. She has a ton of insights that I didn't know about Pinterest, who are super interesting. You'll see me during the interview, taking a lot of notes. A lot of these topics are things that were very new to me. She gets into a lot of new things as well on how to find new topics. Charles (01:03): So you can create new boards, almost like Pinterest SEL, which I didn't know, something you could do. Also some new features like story pins, she talks about and re and really some Pinterest for different retailers that were very surprising on who can actually use Pinterest. She reframes it in a very different way that I think a lot of people would find helpful. So let's go into the show and if you like it, we have a like subscribe and hopefully this helps you. Thanks. So, Hey Alyssa, how are you doing today? I'm doing great. How about yourself? Doing good? I love it. I love the topic. We haven't talked about this actually ever. I mean right now, like, you know, you hear Instagram all the time, Facebook, but you don't hear Pinterest coming up as much. And I think it lends itself though, to certain types of products I think are really like the per, like the Pinterest products. So first when you say kind of Pinterest, is it Pinterest marketing, would you call it a Pinterest? Like how would you even describe using Pinterest? Alisa (02:07): Totally Pinterest marketing. So just like Instagram marketing, Facebook marketing, any other kinds of marketing, it's, it's a different beast. But has some of the similar benefits and this year has been as you know, unusual Charles (02:23): To say the least. Yeah, exactly. Alisa (02:26): But it has been really reflected in Pinterest and the way that people are using it. So for example they're up to 442 million monthly active users, which is up 20% in just six months, which is enormous for them. Yeah. And the number of people buying. So the conversions on Pinterest are, are up three X since the start of the year. So there's a tremendous potential for sales growth from Pinterest. And so I'm excited to talk about it. Charles (02:58): So you'll saying the number of people buying, when you say buying, are they people buying them on Pinterest or is it, are you tracking people that came from Pinterest and bought directly on like the shopping cart side? Right. It's Alisa (03:11): From Pinterest to your site? Yep. Okay. Charles (03:14): So a attribution.

Using Pinterest to Increase eCommerce Sales (E150)

Adam PearceCo-founder and CEO of Blend Commerce Sponsors: Drip – Get a free demo of Drip using this coupon code!Spark Shipping – Dropshipping Automation Software Notes: Ask how they want to engage.Benchmark - Open Rate 30-40%Shop Quiz Links: https://blendcommerce.com/https://www.facebook.com/BlendCommercehttps://www.linkedin.com/in/adampearceblendcommerce/ Transcript: Charles (00:00): In this episode of the Business of eCommerce I talked with Adam Pearce about proven strategies to increase revenue using email. This is a business e-commerce episode, 149. Welcome to the business. E-Commerce the show that helps e-commerce retailers start launch and grow their e-commerce business. I'm your host, Charles Palleschi and I'm here today with Adam Pearce. Adam is a co-founder and CEO of blend commerce, a Shopify agency, specializing in growth of six figure brands. Adam is a passionate advocate of email marketing and aims to make blend commerce. The world's most supportive agency, and this interview had him give some very interesting strategies on what's working with email marketing today. He helps talk about how to blend some of these strategies that, you know, it's been around for a while with some new tactics and build something that's kind of best of both worlds, right? Where you're not just emailing the same old five five sequence emails until you get a response. Charles (01:08): He saw my blending SMS messenger, a lot of new, a lot of new technologies with email to get the best results. And I think that's really powerful. One of the things that I haven't gets into is quizzes, and how to use that, to get to know your customer, to collect more data and how to offer them products that really fit their needs. This is a great strategy that I see retailers using now. I think it's super powerful. So let's get on the show and let's see what Adam has to say. So head on how are you doing today? Yeah, really good. Yeah. Awesome. To have you on the show, email marketing, just kind of grow through email. I think I've done SU I do similar episodes like this, like once a quarter and you keep seeing it come back up on like email's dead and this isn't working anymore. And then you do an episode and you dig into it and it's, it's almost like we've been talking about the same thing for years on like emails, definitely dead this, this quarter of this year. And it turns out it might not be happening. So is it dead this quarter? Adam (02:09): Good question. Well, look, the answer for me 100% is no, it's not dead, nothing, you know, for me, if anything, it's just evolving. And I think one, the important things that the email is that especially the past 12 months with obviously what's been happening in the world the way the email's been used with other channels as become a lot more important. So the likes of SMS, the likes of messenger using things like quizzes to pull any email addresses. So, you know, for me, and, and kind of looking around at the people that I work with, the clients I worked with, you know, clients are generating 30, 40, 50% of the revenue from email. So yeah, 100% email is not dead. Charles (02:47): Yeah. I think that's how it's changing as the interesting part. Right. Because we all still get email, it must be working. There's something going on here. And I know from lists, we have like, that's still one of our channels. And I'm curious though, so you say SMS messenger, like how are those things kind of plugging into it now? Yeah. Adam (03:08): So, I mean, with, with email, I think, you know, the great thing is that you've got, you know, you've got people like Play-Doh, for example, who now have email and SMS in one platform and equally you've got other people are SMS, but you can equally, you know, kind of use SMS and email very easily together. And I think what's definitely changed with those is that rather than kind of looking at them as distinct different channels now people l...

Proven Strategies to Increase Revenue Using Email Marketing (E149)

Seth KniepCo-Founder & CEO of Just One Dime Sponsors: Drip – Get a free demo of Drip using this coupon code!Spark Shipping – Dropshipping Automation Software Bio: With 9.6 million views on YouTube and 226,000 subscribers, Seth Kniep and his company, Just One Dime, have been featured on Yahoo Finance and Chicago Weekly. Today, they have members in over 150 countries and manage over $100 million in annual revenue for Amazon stores. Links: https://justonedime.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethkniep/https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8Sh9yuLqlpnQdBdcfwFErA/featuredhttps://www.instagram.com/justonedime/https://www.facebook.com/groups/jod.amazon.warriors/https://twitter.com/justonedime/ Transcript: Charles (00:00): In this episode of the business. E-Commerce I talked with Seth Kenep about why would someone buy your product over the competition? This is a business be commerce episode 148. [inaudible] Welcome to the business. E-Commerce the show that helps e-commerce retailers start launch and grow their eCommerce business. I'm your host, Chelsea Leschi. And I'm here today with Tesco leap. Seth is a CEO and co-founder of just one dime where they help retailers launch and grow Amazon businesses. They have members in over 150 countries and they manage over a hundred million in annual revenue on Amazon stores set this clearly an Amazon expert. Very good at launching products, knows how to really kind of get into Amazon and promote not just a product, but grow a brand. So I asked him on the show today on how you can show off your product and differentiate it from the competition. And we, we go into why someone would buy your product versus a competing product that looks just like it on Amazon. And this is something that I think a lot of retailers struggle with. So this is super good show. If you're thinking of getting to Amazon, you struggle on Amazon stuff has some great tips. So let's get into the show. Hey Seth, how are you doing today? Good. Seth (01:19): Thanks for having me on Charles. I appreciate it. Yeah. Awesome Charles (01:22): To have you on. I love talking this kind of conversation about how to actually get people to buy your products. Right? This, we were talking before the show and you know, years ago you were the only game in town, right? Where if you were selling this online, it was kind of a unique thing and okay, I sell this type of coffee and I'll this, whatever, right. Are you going to Amazon 10, you know, Shopify? And there's a hundred of the folks on a very similar ish product. Very true. So to get into it. So you work with a lot of Amazon sellers, right? Through them, through the business. How do you make your listing? How do you recommend your clients listening to actually stand out from everyone else? That's selling something like that online. Seth (02:06): I love how you cut straight to the heart of it. Cause it's, it's so good. Thank you. So what you do is your photos or 3d renders for your listing need to be showing the value of the product, not just, Oh, mine's a great photo, but the differentiation you did with the product. In other words, if I am selling a microphone, but this microphone's a wireless microphone, it has an internal battery. My battery lasts three times longer than the competition. What does the photo demonstrate that? Or if it's a garden tool, does it demonstrate the photo that these handles on the gardens who are more comfortable? In other words, the photo needs to show what is better about my product. It can't just be, we have the best photos it has to be. How did I differentiate my product from the competition? What is the problem? Seth (02:55): I in solving a lot of people, Charles, they get overwhelmed. They think, well, wait, Amazon saturated. Because if I go search garden rake, there's 10 million garden rakes. Why would anyone buy a mine? Well, they're looking at the competition the wrong way. Instead. They need to say, okay,

Why Would Someone Buy my Product Over the Competition (E148)

Kim WrenDirector of Business Development at SkuVault Sponsors: Drip – Get a free demo of Drip using this coupon code!Spark Shipping – Dropshipping Automation Software Bio: Kim Wren is the Director of Business Development at SkuVault, a cloud-based Inventory & Warehouse Management System. With over 20 years of eCommerce experience, Kim has held many roles. She has done everything from multi-channel eCommerce seller herself to launching products and brands, to leading an award-winning customer service team. Kim currently works with partners, consultants, affiliates, and 3PL’s to assist in the growth of SkuVault. She has a passion for Small-Medium eCommerce businesses and is always available to answer questions & assist etailers to enrich their businesses. Transcript:

Warehouse & Inventory Management (E147)

Tips, tricks, strategies and tactics to help new and experienced eCommerce retailers start, launch or grow their eCommerce Business. If you like eCommerceFuel, Shopify Master, Tropical MBA, Build My Online Store or eCommerce Momentum, you’ll love The Business of eCommerce.

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