Imagine having finally decided to take the plunge and sell on Amazon. You've figured out what to sell, you've placed your first order from a Chinese manufacturer, you've set up your listing.
Your product arrives in FBA warehouses and just when you're ready to get your first sale, you notice that there are tons of other sellers on Amazon selling the exact same thing, and all for lower prices.
You wait days and weeks but sales are barely coming in. Now you start to worry about your inventory sitting in warehouses eating money, and will continue doing so, unless you sell more...
...or pull your inventory off Amazon and liquidate.
That is not a pretty picture.
This problem can happen to anyone, especially to those selling for the first time and diving head first without much knowledge on how this all works.
But while being put in this situation truly sucks, there are still some things that can be done to turn the situation around.
This is what James and I talk about in this Under the Hood episode.
Some conversation points:
If you'd like to be featured on your own Under the Hood episode and get free business advice from me, just sign up here.
Resources mentioned:
Under the Hood
EcomCrew Premium
E148: How Digital Products Can Bolster Your Ecommerce Business
If you’re an entrepreneur who’s been tinkering around with an awesome business idea but short on capital, we’d love to help.
In this episode, I met up with three of my buddies in the industry, Greg Mercer from Jungle Scout, Steve Chou from My Wife Quit Her Job, and Scott Voelker from The Amazing Seller, to talk about our latest project called the 5 Minute Pitch. It’s an opportunity for bootstrapped online businesses to pitch their best business idea to us as judges and win $50,000.
We are on the lookout for an online business with great forward momentum. We want someone who can take a unique business idea and add the meat and bones to it. So, give us your business backstory, be transparent about your numbers, and spill all the details for your chosen venture.
Finally, act natural.
“Let your personality shine through because at the end of the day we are investing in people. Oftentimes, businesses have to make pivots and go on to do different types of things. So we want to know that the founders that we’re giving this money to as a gift are going to really exceed with it.”, says Greg.
Simply log on to www.5minutepitch.com or fill out the application form here. Please note we only accept 32 entries so time is of the essence.
The grand prize winner will be selected after a series of elimination rounds. We’re starting with 32 contestants who will be giving us their 5-minute pitch on Skype. From that cluster, we’ll be selecting 8 contestants to advance to the next round. These 8 contestants will again be narrowed down to 4. The lucky 4 will be flown to San Diego to present their pitch live to the four judges. From these, we’ll then select the grand winner of a $50,000 cash gift.
We’re giving away a cash gift worth $50,000 to the lucky winner plus some mentoring time with each judge.
We’re launching this contest in the fall. Sign up for our email list to get the latest updates.
Other Useful Resources:
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!
Last week, we hosted a webinar about importing products from China. Today we’re going to talk about the nitty gritty of shipping products from China to western countries like the United States and Canada. Joining us in this episode is Noah Alhadeff. He’s a sales manager at Freightos, a “digital freight marketplace” that connects importers to freight forwarders.
Noah likens Freightos to Expedia in that it allows importers to instantly compare “all-inclusive” rates from as many as 60 different freight forwarders, depending on where you intend to ship your products to. In addition to comparing rates, the marketplace allows you to narrow down your results based on reviews, shipping method (air or ocean), bonds, insurance and so on.
Noah also offers some great advice for those who are new in their importing journey.
In addition, Freightos is also offering a 5% discount to EcomCrew listeners on the first shipment. Just enter the code ECOMCREW5 on checkout (this is not an affiliate code; they just know how much even a 5% discount can help ecommerce owners especially in a very low margin business).
As part of what led to this interview, check out Freightos’ Experts Guide to Importing from China, for which we contributed a chapter. This guide is brought to you by some of the best in the business--people running ecommerce, sourcing and freight companies.
Other Useful Resources:
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!
Prime Day has come and gone. Now, it’s time to pull up our stats and see how we fared.
In today’s podcast episode, Dave and I do an apples to apples comparison of earnings over a week-long period, beginning on July 9th.
In Amazon US, my products had a 158% uptick on July 16 to July 17 (actual Prime Day) compared to the same days during the previous week. Dave got a 160% uptick for his products on the same dates.
The disparity between our numbers was greater in Amazon CA. Dave got a 788% uptick in his product sales, while I had 74%. The Canadian obviously had home advantage.
Dave, who has never tried running a Prime Deal (and probably never will), believes that it is better to just “ride the Prime Day wave” because you are going to get a sales boost even without a deal.
The numbers we came up with are providing substantial evidence to support this. While the item that we had a Prime Deal for predictably sold a lot, it would still have done well without it, and we wouldn’t have needed to subtract the cost of being able to participate in the Prime Day in the first place.
Useful Resources:
Thanks for listening to this episode! If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below. Happy selling!
An ecommerce seller’s journey is rarely a smooth one. If you’ve been a regular podcast listener, you would have heard me talk about Amazon suspending one of our best selling products. In this episode, I’m going to share more about that particular experience.
A couple of weeks ago, our ColorIt gel pens were randomly flagged as hazardous materials, even though we’ve sent the documentation well in advance to prevent this from happening. I won’t go into detail here about the events that followed (that would be giving too much away) but suffice it to say that they were maddeningly frustrating.
Through this experience, I’ve come to reflect that there’s a greater need to balance our business off of Amazon. Because at the end of the day, we can’t expect them to lift a finger on problems like this (even if you’re a million-dollar seller) if it doesn’t affect their bottom line.
Finally, I’d like to clarify that this is not me telling you that we’re hating on Amazon, but rather a cautionary tale to other ecommerce businesses disposing of their inventory on this platform.
Useful Resources:
Thanks for listening to this episode! If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below. Happy selling!
It’s the middle of July. Man, where did the year go? So much has happened since I last gave you guys an update in April so this one is due.
The last couple of months have a been marred by struggles. However, our wins definitely rank higher than our struggles. As a company, I’d say we are in a good place and poised to be in an even better one before the year is out.
So, let’s get to it. Here’s a status update for each of my 18 goals in 2018.
If you haven’t been keeping up with my previous updates, here are the other podcast episodes to listen to.
Other Useful Resources:
Thanks for listening to this episode! If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below. Happy selling!
Hey, it’s Dave filling in for Mike. In today’s podcast, I’m going to talk about my stint at Amazon last year.
In January 2017, I got hired as a picker at one of their oversize FBA warehouses in Vancouver. I worked for 8 hours and was paid CA$13.75 an hour. I had originally intended to work there for two weeks but had to cut it short to a few days.
Still, it was more than enough time to have a good idea of what goes on inside these warehouses and what it's like to work there.
Here are 5 important takeaways from my time there.
1. Different sized items are sent to different warehouses.
Amazon has warehouses specifically for storing standard items and oversize items. If you’re importing products from a Chinese manufacturer, it’s best to ship only one-size items at a time. This prevents them from getting sent to different warehouses.
2. Amazon sells a lot of diapers and TVs.
There was a staggering amount of TV sets and Pampers boxes at the warehouse I worked in.
3. Amazon has the ability to handle any item you can throw at it.
Don’t worry about shipping your oversize products through Amazon. They’ll find a way to pack and ship to your customer securely.
4. There is no conspiracy to lose your stuff.
Amazon doesn’t intentionally lose your orders. It's more likely that the warehouse it’s shipped from doesn’t have a reliable way of organizing all the products going in and out. At our warehouse, the apparent lack of this system caused an item or two getting misplaced ever so often.
5. Peak fees are a result of peak rates.
Amazon often has a harder time getting people to work in their warehouses during busy seasons like Christmas. So, they lure prospective employees with higher rates. This added expense is passed on to business owners, which explains why FBA fees are steeper at certain times of the year.
For a more detailed chronicle of “Dave the Amazon Warehouse Picker”, check out my blog post here.
Useful Resources:
Thanks for listening to this episode! If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below. Happy selling!
This one definitely made my day.
It is really rewarding to be able to help someone grow and improve their ecommerce business. And in this episode, I got to experience just that!
I recently caught up with David Wilson to see how his ecommerce business is doing. If you guys can recall, David was struggling with a plateauing business when we talked to him last year. In parts 1 and 2 of this Under the Hood series, we discussed a couple of strategies that could help his online enterprise get out of that slump.
It’s been six months and, I’m happy to report that his situation has definitely improved. From steady revenue of $10k month after month, David’s ecommerce business is now inching closer to that $20k goal.
Here are the things that helped bring about this upward turn.
We also had a good discussion about what David can do to continue on this trajectory. Here’s what we covered.
Other Resources Mentioned:
July 18 Webinar: Importing from China Like a Pro
Thanks for listening to this episode! If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below. Happy selling!
Is email marketing dead?
I certainly don’t think so. Email marketing is responsible for generating about half of our company’s revenue.
Fortunately, my guest on today’s podcast shares the same sentiment.
In this episode, I’m talking to Xiaohui or better known as “X”. He’s an industry expert, who along with his team of email marketing specialists, are helping ecommerce businesses reap the benefits of an expertly crafted email sequence.
And email sequences are at the heart of this episode. X identified the top 3 types that ecommerce entrepreneurs should be aware of. We’ve listed them below.
This sequence is defined as a welcome sequence specifically for prospects. When done properly, it has proven to be very effective for generating additional email addresses. It propels the prospect forward in the email sequence and eventually results in revenue.
The prospect nurture sequence often uses intelligent pop-ups that offer value to the recipient instead of just plain ‘hard selling’. Tried and true incentives tend to work best in this type of email sequence. A sequence is typically made up of 3-5 emails.
This email sequence targeted towards people who have become customers.
X also touched a bit on the win-back sequence and offered tips on how to use it to get customers back and still manage to make a conversion in the process.
Other Resources Mentioned:
Thanks for listening to this episode! If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below. Happy selling!