Time flies so fast and before you know it, another year gone!

As 2018 comes to an end, we decided to look back into the year and round up our 10 most downloaded podcast episodes:

10. E169: Building Your Facebook Audience with Dave Huss
9. E158: Using Amazon PPC and Giveaways to Create an Effective Launch Strategy
8. E198: The First Steps in Ecommerce Marketing (Under the Hood with Colin Grice)
7. E159: 3 Key Email Marketing Sequences for Your Ecommerce Business
6. E205: Advanced Amazon PPC Strategies with Dave Bryant
5. E155: Where to Start with Building a Product Brand - Under the Hood with Richard Phillips
4. E206: A Rundown of the Best Amazon Tools
3. E147: Amazon PPC Strategy - Step-by-Step Guide on Saving Thousands of Dollars
2. E129: How to Pick the Perfect Product to Sell in eCommerce
1. E167: Overcoming Serious Beginner Mistakes - Under the Hood with James Treloar

Let us know what you think, and if you have topics you'd like us to discuss on the podcast, feel free to leave a comment below.

Thanks for being with us this past year, and may we all have an amazing 2019!

In this segment, I regularly come across ecommerce entrepreneurs who need help in getting their marketing efforts down pat. But once in a while, I get people like Anthony who bring a different concern for me to wrap my head around, and for all the listeners out there to learn from.

Background

Like many people new to ecommerce, Anthony Procopis started selling products that he didn’t have an interest in personally. He was using Shipwire to sell mosquito nets online in 2008. But being a skilled golf player and someone who truly enjoys the sport, transitioning into the golf-related niche was inevitable.

A Patent Issue

Anthony has ventured into creating his own product and has recently improved upon a golf swing trainer that’s already available in the market. However, he has a few challenges in front of him. One is having to contend with copycats that have brought the price down for his product. The second and more significant one is licensing. He is looking at having a big golfing supply company distribute his ‘patent pending’ product.

Listen to the full podcast for more of Anthony’s concerns and my insights on how he can grow and expand his present ecommerce business given his unique set of challenges.

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 now closed. But, you can still learn from us through our suite of free courses. You’ll find a total of 20 videos covering ecommerce topics like Importing from China and Building a 7-Figure Business.

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.

Did you join our December giveaway? We’re announcing the winner of an EcomCrew Premium annual subscription later today. Follow our Facebook page to get notified when we announce the winner.

Our Under the Hood guest today is struggling with a problem that's very baffling.

Shervin Mazaheri is struggling with conversion rates on his website. We're not just talking about low conversation rates, we're talking about extremely low conversion rates--talk about 0.1% in the last 180 days.

In this episode Shervin and I go over his website and points out which parts need improving that might help increaase his conversion rate.

Below are some takeaways:

• It's very important for the website to establish trust. One of the easiest ways to do this is to write a good About Us page.
• A prominent Returns policy helps take the worry off of buyers' minds.
• Build authority by trying to create the best informative content in your niche.

Shervin and I also discussed hiring tips and how to keep employees happy, especially remote Filipino VAs. Listen to the episode to learn how I've managed to keep my PH team happy and motivated!

Until the next one, happy selling.

Over the past few months I've been talking a lot about the mounting challenges of selling on Amazon. One of these conversations led to an introduction with Richard Jalichandra, today's podcast guest.

Richard is the Founder and CEO of 101 Commerce, an ecommerce company that aims to become the next generation retailer by acquiring businesses that own "microbrands" primarily sold via FBA.

In this episode Richard talks about their goal of acquiring 101 brands (they are currently at 14 after 6 months of operations), how they manage to still be comfortable with the mounting risks of selling on Amazon, and what they're looking for in an FBA business that makes them want to buy.

He also gives tips on how to better prepare yourself if you plan to sell, how to increase your multiple, and why honesty and transparency can preserve your relationship with a buyer even if your business has problems.

Want to sell your business?

101 Commerce is 87 brands away from their goal and they are on the look out for brands to buy. Below are the characteristics they're looking for in a brand:

• Is 100% or predominantly on Amazon
• Has brand potential and doesn't sell highly commoditized products
• Has a trademark and is on Brand Registry 2.0
• Has good gross margins (around 70%)
• Has a good review structure (quantity and velocity)
• Has been around for at least 2 years, preferably 3

If your brand checks all these boxes, click this link and fill up the form to let Richard and his team know.

Thanks for listening to this episode! Let us know what you think by leaving us a review on iTunes. Visit and like our Facebook page for more updates.

Until the next one, happy selling!

Dave and I have been part of this industry long enough to have tried a number of strategies to grow our respective ecommerce businesses. Of course, this meant we had to use tools that are compatible with Amazon to develop new products, monitor reviews, and ultimately hit key business metrics.

That being said, we wanted to go through a handful of these and comment on them (or at least on the ones that we do use).

To make things easier, here are some of the ones we both personally use or have tested - organized into specific categories.

Product and Keyword Research

• AMZ Scout
• Jungle Scout
• Unicorn Smasher

Landing Page Generators

• Zipify Pages
• Zon Pages
• ClickFunnels

Pricing and Repricing

• BQool
• Repricer Express

Review Monitoring

• Sellics

We also have an article going out in conjunction with this podcast episode. There you’ll find more specific information for each of the Amazon tools that we mentioned, including pricing and freebies.

Registration to EcomCrew Premium is now closed. But, you can still learn from us through our suite of free courses. You’ll find a total of 20 videos covering ecommerce topics like Importing from China and Building a 7-Figure Business.

We’re also launching giveaway during the holidays so like and follow our Facebook page for the latest updates.

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!

Hey, Dave here. Today’s podcast will once again be about PPC. But, we’ll be going into the more advanced strategies that Mike did not cover in his popular podcast on the same topic.

So, what can you expect from this particular episode?

• A refresher on the main types of Amazon advertising
• A look at Amazon Bit+
• New product targeting that was recently rolled out
• Headline search ads

Listen until the end for more information on these. If you’re looking to really dig deep into these new concepts and strategies, I’ve written a blog post that should ably supplement what was discussed in this episode.

Registration to EcomCrew Premium is now closed. But, you can still learn from us through our suite of free courses. You’ll find a total of 20 videos covering ecommerce topics like Importing from China and Building a 7-Figure Business.

We’re also giving a free annual subscription. Join the giveaway here. The winner will be announced on December 26th.

Like and follow our Facebook page for the latest updates.

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!

We’ve been talking quite a lot about the stress that comes with running an ecommerce business. In fact, in our last episode I talked to Dr. Sherry Walling, an experienced psychologist, about how entrepreneurship can be an addiction and how this can lead to stress and that experiencing that feeling of loneliness.

This episode is a follow-up to Episode 192, where Dave and I discuss our stress points in running an ecommerce business. We got so many comments about it that I thought it best to come up with a follow-up.

So, here we are.

In this episode, I read some of the best comments we got from our listeners - what stresses them out and how do they cope with it.

Listen all the way through to the end. I’m sure you’ll relate to many of the dilemmas mentioned and can learn from the de-stressing techniques these listeners have shared.

Registration to EcomCrew Premium is now closed 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

We’re also launching giveaway during the holidays so like and follow our Facebook page for the latest updates.

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!

Now, this isn’t the first time I’ve talked about these two things on a podcast. In episode 192, you’ll recall that Dave and I went through our stress points as entrepreneurs. This time around we’ve invited an expert to shed more light on this topic from a medical standpoint.

Dr. Sherry Walling is a clinical psychologist and the driving force behind Zen Founder, where she helps both up and coming entrepreneurs and established business owners navigate their own mental and emotional pain points.

Here are some takeaways from our discussion.

“The scarcity of time certainly causes a lot of stress and the misallocation of time can drive a lot of loneliness.”

Sherry references one of Sigmund Freud’s Defense Mechanisms. Sublimination is when we take our impulses and channel it into something entirely different, doing it in a way that is socially acceptable.  

Entrepreneurs are disruptors. We ditched the cube and hacked the system. If we are successful, we get praised for it. If we fail, people call us foolish. Most of us develop a complicated relationship with risk, with rule-breaking and going against the flow. And these certainly play to some addictive tendencies, which can then lead to stress and feeling isolated.

“It’s okay to do the deep dive but know that you’re choosing that. Know that it comes with significant sacrifices in your relationships. Make sure you’re okay with that.”

Getting a bigger pile of money or hiring more employees requires devoting more time and energy to the business. This could mean making significant sacrifices in other aspects of life. Nothing wrong with that as long as we are fully aware that this is a choice we are making willingly.

“Are you going to build things that will outlast you? Or are you going to rest on your laurels and spend your money?”

We go through different stages of life. Sherry says that from our 20s to our 40s are what’s called the “deep building” years. It's the height of our professional and personal development. But at 40, there’s a shift that happens in terms of tasks and goals. Our wants and needs change.

“Some people talk about work-life balance as if it’s the equitable distribution across these different domains of our life and I don’t think that works for most of us. But I think it’s that sense of whatever you’re doing, be there. Do that fully.”

Having focus is important because it improves the quality of relationships and drives business growth too.

Listen to the entire podcast for more of the insightful interview that I had with Dr. Sherry Walling.

Registration to EcomCrew Premium is now closed 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

We’re also launching a giveaway during the holidays so like and follow our Facebook page for the latest updates.

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!

This episode is a follow up of sorts to our 200th episode.

After wrapping up 5 Minute Pitch semis, my co-judges Scott Voelker, Steve Chou, Greg Mercier and I had some time to talk a bit about ecommerce while out for dinner here in San Diego.

But it’s not the usual shop talk that you’d expect. For one, Scott initiated a speed round and dropped this thought-provoking question.

What you would do right now with all the information that you know, everything that you've gained, but you only have 5,000 dollars to start your new business?

Unsurprisingly, each one of us had a different answer to this. I’d start a blog and get into affiliate marketing. Greg would invent a product or improve upon an existing one. Steve (who doesn’t need the $5,000) would join an online forum, become an authority figure and use that influence as a launchpad to having his own paid courses and webinars. Finally, Scott would build an audience by creating content that would target a specific or niche market.

These discussions are really something that I look forward to. Being able to bounce ideas of three of my best buddies in the industry, each one successful in his own right is always a treat. That being said, these talks bring about insights that could be useful to any up and coming entrepreneur.

I hope you enjoy this episode as much as we had fun recording it.

In other news, registration to EcomCrew Premium is now closed 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

We’re also launching giveaway during the holidays so like and follow our Facebook page for the latest updates.

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!

Q4 is already in full swing with Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but before it could swallow us alive, Dave and I decided to sit down and talk about new things happening up on Amazon land.

In this episode we discuss things we discovered with Amazon recently, from good updates like new PPC changes to the frustrating alleged review throttling. We also talk about other things in between.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals: are they effective?

The short answer? It depends.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals are profitable depending on the niche.

For example, Dave sells offroading products which are seasonal and not really hot items during the holiday season. He does experience a bump up in sales during Black Friday, but it's not substantial.

On the other hand, my products (coloring books, gel pens, markers) are very giftable. In fact, a huge chunk of ColorIt's yearly revenue is generated in Q4 during which we run lots of deals, Cyber Week included.

Should you lower prices to fight competition during the holidays?

Our answer? Don't. In fact, we raise our prices a little bit.

A common thinking among sellers this time of the year is that they need to lower prices to get more holiday sales and therefore, more profit.

While that's not wrong, there's a better way to do it.

Increasing your prices will reduce sales, BUT will increase profit per widget. So you can potentially get the same amount of profit but fulfill less items, answer less customer emails and in general, have less headaches.

We found this out last year when we increased prices for some ColorIt products because we were in danger of selling out before the holidays were over. To our surprise, our net profit dramatically increased.

Some buyer psychology plays out here. People are frantically looking for gifts around the holidays and are probably more inclined to finish buying gifts than saving a couple bucks. Also, the more expensive the item, the more valuable the gift is perceived to be.

Pro tip: Make sure to A/B test this. We use Profit Peak, a feature of Splitly.

Is Amazon throttling reviews?

A very frustrating Amazon rumor has been going around seller groups recently. Amazon could either be:

a. not allowing new reviews to be posted and limits reviews to a certain number over a period of time
b. manually reviewing all new reviews posted and puts them in a "limbo" for a few days while being checked

There's no official word for this yet but we do have some experience hinting that this is really happening.

We'll see what happens in the future.

New PPC changes

With sponsored products, you can now target by categories and competitors' products, not just keywords.

We'll test this out in 2019. In effect, we will have 3 types of campaigns: automatic, manual, and competitor targeting campaigns.

Pro tip: Go to your automated campaigns and look at the ASINs that are converting. These ASINs are perfect for this new update.

Other Amazon updates

Listing hijacking seems to be a lot more rampant these days. It mostly has to do with the holidays coming up. Wherever there's money to be made, unscrupulous people show up. This is one of those things that keep us up at night.

On a jollier note, we found that if you send a full truckload of products into Amazon, it gets received in 1-2 days. Talk about an Amazon fastlane for larger sellers!

Resources mentioned:

Profit Peak/Splitly
E147: Amazon PPC Strategy - Step-by-Step Guide on Saving Thousands of Dollars

Thanks for listening to this episode! If we've helped you in any way and would like more content like this, connect with us on Facebook.

For more episodes like this, head on to iTunes or visit our podcast page.

Until the next one, happy selling!

It’s our 200th episode. I’d like to start off by saying a BIG THANK YOU to all of you who’ve tuned in to this podcast from the very first one.

A few weeks ago we wrapped up the semi-final round of 5 Minute Pitch. The finalists will be judged on their presentations at the Seller’s Summit next year in Miami, Florida.

After three days of competition, I sat down with my co-judges Scott Voelker, Steve Chou, and Greg Mercier to record this podcast.

Over the course of this endeavor, we’ve had the chance to meet a variety of entrepreneurs. Some have already gotten their feet wet while others are still at pre-income level. There are those who developed their own products and those who took the “me too” approach in terms of what they wanted to sell.

Each of them had something to bring and this whole experience has reinforced our belief that people behind ecommerce businesses are some of the most driven, passionate, and hardworking individuals you’d find anywhere. It is indeed a great community to be a part of.

With that said, here are some takeaways from this fun and meaningful discussion.

Is it still possible to bootstrap an ecommerce business?

• Uniqueness and defensibility are good characteristics to have
• A “me too” product isn’t necessarily a bad thing
• Amazon is still a great place to get started, especially if you’re a solopreneur
• But when your business gains traction, start building your brand outside of Amazon
• Personality can be a big factor; putting yourself out there to promote your brand can be your ticket to success

Double down or diversify?

• If you have a strategy that you know works, it makes sense to double down or even triple down on it
• A good time to diversify would be after achieving a significant business goal

Head over to https://www.5minutepitch.com/ and sign up so you can follow along with the selection process.

Registration to EcomCrew Premium is open for one last time this year. Follow our Facebook page for all the latest updates. Sign up this week and you can get 50% off on our subscription plans.

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!

For our listeners outside the United States, we are celebrating the second biggest holiday today. Next to Christmas, Thanksgiving is that time of the year where we take a break from work or business to spend the day with family and friends. We’ve closed the office for today and tomorrow to give our employees and ourselves that much-deserved break. My wife and I are taking a trip down to Las Vegas to visit dear friends we haven’t seen in a while.

I am personally thankful for a lot of things. I have been living the life that I have wanted since quitting my job in 2004. I have achieved success in the different businesses that I started. This has allowed me to lead a comfortable life and be in the position to help others.

I am also blessed with friends in and out of the ecommerce and for all the experiences I’ve had until this point.

Listen in as I turn into ‘Philospher Mike’ for this particular episode and reflect on all the good and bad with sincere gratitude.

To everyone who’s celebrating, have a good one. To all ecommerce sellers, here’s to a profitable holiday season.

We’re opening registration to EcomCrew Premium for one last time this year. You can join the waitlist here. Follow our Facebook page for all the latest updates. A great discount awaits those who register before 2018 ends.

We’re bringing the rates up for both the Monthly and Annual plans in 2019 so sign up asap.

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.’s

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

I’ve been tackling a couple of interesting niches in our last few Under the Hoods. The business we’ll be talking about in this episode is no different.

For this episode, I’ve taken on Colin Grice and his aquarium fertilizer and supply business. Colin has a background in Biology and Chemistry, which enabled him to manufacture his own liquid fertilizers.

Colin’s business had an impressive net profit margin of over $250K derived from a variety of sources. His website ranks on page one for a number of search terms and organic visits and connections to his website and on being an active participant in many Facebook groups. However, he wants to reach more customers through reliable marketing efforts.

Listen in as I give Colin my two cents on getting started in his ecommerce marketing efforts. Some of the strategies we cover include Google Adwords and upping his SEO game by publishing long-form and informative content on his main domain.

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!

We’re opening registration to EcomCrew Premium one last time this year. You can join the waitlist here. Follow our Facebook page for all the latest updates. We’re bringing the rates up for both the Monthly and Annual plans in 2019 so sign up asap.

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.’s

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

Every year Andrew Youderian of EcommerceFuel surveys hundreds of store owners to better understand the trends in the ecommerce industry.

Today Andrew and I review the report of last year's survey and make predictions for the future of ecommerce based on this data.

If you're also an ecommerce store owner, we'd like to invite you to help us better understand the ecommerce landscape by answering next year's survey.

Why participate?

Andrew is shamelessly bribing you and me to participate in the survey--called State of the Merchant--by giving one lucky participant a roundtrip plane ticket to anywhere in the world. Last year's winner used his ticket for an epic 15 day, 6 country trip to Europe.

More importantly though, you'll be participating in a research that's not done anywhere else. Your participation will give us a much clearer insight into what really goes on in the ecommerce jungle.

Predictions for the future

Below are predictions, some pretty bold, about the future of ecommerce based on this year's State of the Merchant data:

• Amazon will lose its spot as the number 1 go-to place for online shopping
• Facebook ads will get more expensive as more and more users leave the platform
• Conversion rate for dropshipping will decrease
• UPS and FedEx will offer Sunday deliveries for Amazon
• Amazon will launch their own delivery service to rival UPS and FedEx
• There will be a major legislation about sales tax

Full Report

You can view the full report in the infographic below.

Click here to participate in next year's State of the Merchant Survey.

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

Early this year my buddies Steve Chou of My Wife Quit Her Job, Scott Voelker of The Amazing Seller, Greg Mercer of Jungle Scout and I came up with a new show called the 5 Minute Pitch.

All four of us met up last week to film the semi-finals, and it's a little strange to say this, but it's probably the hardest I've worked the whole year. The schedule was so brutal that I wasn't able to touch my laptop for 3 whole days. Imagine that.

The 5 Minute Pitch

The 5 Minute Pitch is a Shark Tank style show where we have 32 contestants pitch us their businesses for 5 minutes, for a chance to win $50,000. Unlike Shark Tank, there's no strings attached, which means we don't take any equity from the company that wins.

Over the next few weeks after the creation of the show, the four of us and a couple of guest judges got together on Skype while 32 companies pitched their business ideas to us.

We narrowed the contestants down to 8 and had them fly to San Diego last week to present an extended pitch, in person, to all four of us plus one very special guest judge who we can't reveal yet (hint: his podcast is in iTunes' top 100 Business Podcasts).

We will be airing the first batch of pitches early next year on iTunes and YouTube.

The finals, which will determine the winner who will take the $50,000 prize, will be held in Miami, Florida during the Sellers Summit.

Most Important Takeaway from the Semi Finals

There is one thing that stood out to me during our filming last week (aside from the back pain from having to sit in the same position for too long) and that is there's one thing all successful businesses have.

The ability to adapt to change.

In business, you don't need to have everything figured out at the get go. You don't need to have everything planned. If you get too buried in planning, taking into account every possible scenario in your head, you might not get around to doing anything at all.

Learn to take action, get early feedback, and use that feedback to steer your business in the right direction.

Being nimble and learning how to ride the tide is the most important skill you need to learn to achieve business success.

If you think about it, so many successful businesses--AirBnB, Lyft, Cisco--didn't have all their ducks in a row. And if you look at their history, they are not the same company as they were when they started.

But they all have one thing in common: the ability to adapt to change.

Even the 5 Minute Pitch didn't start out perfectly. We knew we wanted to do this but the details weren't clear to any of us when we started. But we went ahead and did it anyway, improvising and learning from our mistakes along the way. The result of it is a show that all four of us are excited and proud to present to you.

EcomCrew Premium Opening One Last Time This Year

We've recently been limiting the number of people we accommodate with EcomCrew Premium because we wanted to be able to attend to the needs of every single one of our members, and having too many people sign up prevents us from doing that.

We have a trick up our sleeve for our next reopening on Black Friday, which will be the last time we will open registrations this year. Connect with us on Facebook to be among the first to get updates about our surprise for the reopening.

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

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!

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!

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.

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!

Hey everyone! Dave here going solo for this episode. Mike is down with a terrible cold after a couple of Las Vegas speaking engagements, so he might miss the podcast for a while.

For this episode, we'll uncover the mystery that is Amazon A9. If you've been selling on Amazon for a while, you probably have a basic understanding of how SEO for Amazon works. But with the crazy competition from prominent companies and obscure Chinese sellers alike, how do you really propel your products to the top?

This episode ties in with a recently published article that dives deep on how Amazon A9 SEO works and the strategies to take full advantage of it.

As a sneak peek, here are some discussion points for this episode:

• How rankings are most often determined by relevancy and conversions
• What makes a listing relevant to Amazon with respect to keywords
• What the "hall pass" of new listings is
• How to create converting listings
• How to optimize your Amazon product listings

If you want a deeper look at how this all works and how you can apply it for yourself, check out Dave's article on advanced Amazon A9 SEO strategies. In the article he shares a bunch of advanced SEO tactics for Amazon, strategies even the “courses” won’t teach you.

If you liked this episode or found it helpful, we'd be stoked if you left us a review on iTunes.

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

A brick and mortar business can be vastly different to owning an ecommerce one. Each offers a unique selling experience and would require different kinds of resources. Having said that,it can be challenging for traditional entrepreneurs to make the transition.

Today’s guest is poised to make that very transition. Wilson Lee has been a traditional entrepreneur for 10 years. He’d previously dipped a toe at an ecommerce venture or two but is now ready to get both of his feet wet.

Initial Plan

Wilson is looking at two potential brands to sell online. The first is a green tea brand which he will source from a farm a business partner owns in Taiwan. The second is a baby brand. The plan is explore other online channels to sell on apart from Amazon. He also intends to set up a free plus shipping offer for these brands to test the waters and collect information on his potential target market.

Mike’s Input

Mike stresses the importance of taking the focus off Amazon when looking at online marketing channels. Diversification is important in order to develop and scale an ecommerce business.

He offers this play-by-play strategy for getting Wilson’s ecommerce business off the ground.

1. Start with brand name and URL
2. Design a logo - this will inform other branding elements like font style and colors to use
3. File for a trademark - a crucial requirement if you plan to sell on Amazon
4. Make the product - focus on creating that free plus shipping offer

A product belonging to a highly competitive niche can make an impact by having a premium look and feel about it.

Great packaging is more important in other niches than others. For example, new moms or moms-to-be would be more discerning about product packaging than tea aficionados.

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!

It's been a while since we've had an Under the Hood episode! For those of you who are new to this segment, we sometimes bring on podcast listeners to the show where they can talk to us about their businesses and ask us for advice. It's essentially a free 1-hour business coaching session turned into a podcast episode. It's a win-win!

If you'd like to be featured on the podcast and get advice from us, just send us an email at support@ecomcrew.com with the subject line: Under the Hood application.

For this episode, we bring on Sebastien Taché, an ecommerce entrepreneur from Canada. Sebastien holds a full-time job while running an ecommerce business that nets him $170k in revenue. His ultimate goal is to be able to grow that revenue to $700k-$1.2M by 2020.

Get high-quality articles without breaking the bank

One of Sebastien's first steps towards this goal is to improve his content. However, he is facing a problem most ecommerce owners with blogs do: experts who produce high-quality work are too expensive but generic freelancers on sites like UpWork who charge on a per article basis will most likely produce mediocre work at best.

We faced this problem too early on in our business and we found that the best way to get around it is to hire a full-time content writer.

Granted that it takes longer to find a good content writer than finding a freelancer, and that you'd have to pay them a monthly salary, the advantages are tremendous. As a result, number of articles writter by our content writer has consistently been on page 1 of Google search.

We discuss this strategy in detail on the podcast, but aside from that, here are a couple things Sebastien and I discussed as well:

• Whether outsourcing PPC is a good or bad idea
• How to develop your own brand in a competitive niche
• Is it a good idea to go to China when you're bootstrapping your business?
• How to use available line of credit
• How to approach a product that's potentially patented

Tips from the conversation

Here are some of the tips I gave Sebastien during our conversation:

• Aim for low-traffic, more-specific long-tail keywords that will yield better coversion rates
• Put your writers through a digital marketer training course
• Never, ever outsource SEO
• DO NOT rely on the manufacturer telling you that a product is not patented

I enjoyed this conversation with Sebastien and I look forward to talking to him again in 12-18 months and see where he is in his ecommerce journey.

If you'd like to be a part of the show and be featured in your own episode, send us an email at support@ecomcrew.com with the subject line: Under the Hood application. Looking forward to hear from you!

Thanks for listening to this episode! If you found this helpful, please leave us a review on iTunes.

Until next week, happy selling!

The avid listeners of this podcast would know that I don’t do interviews with people I don’t actually know in person, with the exception of one business-savvy MMA fighter.

As it turned out, the guest on this episode is another worthy exception.

The person I’m referring to is Mikael Yang, the co-founder of ManyChat. By some fated scheduling twist, Mikael and I ended up on the same call. After an awkward start, we finally figured things out.

Being a fan of the software, I was excited to have Mikael on the podcast and ask all those ManyChat questions I had tucked away. Here’s a preview of our discussion.

How did Manychat start?
ManyChat traces its roots back to a messaging platform called Telegram, one of the first messengers to open up their APIs. Mikael and his partners thought that people would want to use the platform to broadcast marketing messages.

By October 2015, ManyChat was already at 20K bots and enjoyed 50% growth on a month per month basis. In November, it was able to scale up to 30K bots. This steady growth led to the opportunity to join a startup accelerator program that helped the company scale and grow.

ManyChat for Facebook Messenger was launched on April 2016. Mikael and his co-founders had to make a very hard decision to migrate to Facebook since they were already getting good traction on Telegram but they took the plunge. “And obviously if you wanna be the biggest and best marketing platform, you have to work the biggest social network.” , he explained.

Today there are 400K Facebook Business pages connected to ManyChat in over 100 countries worldwide, with 150 million subscribers to those pages.

Why is Facebook Messenger the “future” in terms of messenger marketing?
There are two billion people using messaging apps. Most of your clients are probably using one; it’s where all the consumer communication is already happening here. Businesses need to adapt and use the platforms that they’re customers are using.

Statistics indicate that 50% of people prefer text over other communication mediums like video or voice.

If you’re serving a younger demographic (18-44 years old), the stats for text increases to about 61-62 %.

According to Mailchimp’s data, email open rates are about 20%, on average.  For Messenger, it’s about 84% percent. Doing the math, you can say that “...there’s a 10x engagement on Messenger that makes it appealing as a channel…”

Tips for creating non-promotional messages that add value to your list.

Do not include a link in the first message.
Do not use words like “sale” and discounts”.
Add an unsubscribe button to avoid being blocked or tagged as spam.

Businesses need to adapt and use the platforms that their customers are using. If you’re a marketer, you’d want to take advantage of this because this is where businesses are going to go to talk to reach their consumers.

For those who want to start using ManyChat, you can download the software here. You can connect with Mikael on his Facebook and Twitter.

Listen to other podcasts about Facebook Messenger and ManyChat. Dave and I also talked at length about these topics on a recent webinar.

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!