Greetings from Montreal! In the midst of shooting course videos and planning new content, we sat down to record this podcast. Both of us have considerable experience selling on Amazon and over time we have refined our strategies to be able to derive the best possible revenue potential from the products that we sell.
This episode centers around a checklist of what Mike and his staff do in the days leading up to a product launch and immediately after that. Dave rounds up the discussion and adds his own inputs at the end.
To make things easier, we have broken down the entire process into three phases. So, read on and take note!
Other Useful Resources:
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If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below. Happy selling!
Hello everyone! It’s Dave again bringing you what is perhaps our most special episode yet. Today we have Michael Jackness on the other end of the microphone. In these podcasts, we often hear Mike talk about his real-life experiences in running an ecommerce business. What many don’t know is that he got his start in digital marketing as an online poker affiliate business back in the early 2000s. On this particular podcast, Mike shares what it was like to start this kind of business and scale it to become a highly profitable company. Aside from the highs, he’ll also delve into the lows of being in this industry and reveal the reason why he finally decided to retire.
Mike had a personal interest in poker from an early age. His grandfather and uncles gambled and he grew to enjoy it as well. Gambling. He got started as an affiliate in early January 2004. While playing on an online poker tournament one night, he was also surfing online poker websites. While browsing within the site’s terms and conditions, he stumbled on the affiliate page. Essentially, the website was offering $50 per person for people who can bring in 1-9 players in a month and $70 per person for those who can bring in more than 10 people.
Mike thought he didn’t know enough people personally to make money out of this venture so he gave away a book through a penny auction on Ebay. Around this time he reached out to PartyPoker and struck a deal that he would be paid $200 per person if he could have 200 people sign up on a monthly basis.
This was how PokerSource was born.
The company Mike founded with his cousin a friend would reach profits in the seven-figure range. The trio would move operations to Costa Rica in 2006 but would suffer a setback shortly after due to the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act. He would retire from the industry at the end of 2010, which is great timing as the infamous Black Friday would take place on April 15, 2011.
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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!
If you’re new to importing products from China, wiring money to a supplier you’ve never met face-to-face can be a scary prospect. Well, you can rest easy because the likelihood of you being scammed out of hundreds or thousands of dollars is low.
But, resting easy doesn’t mean you can be totally lax or just partially involved. Scams might be rare in China but they do exist and in today’s episode, we’re going to talk about some of them.
To get you warmed up for the actual podcast, here are the highlights.
Don’t be afraid to assert yourself when the situation calls for it. Being clear about your product and shipping expectations will save you a lot of grief in the end. For a detailed guide of avoiding scams, check out Dave’s blog post that’s linked in the Resources section below.
Other Useful Resources:
The Ultimate Guide to Avoid Being Scammed On Alibaba And When Importing
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 topic of today’s podcast is something that I talk about a lot. You’ve probably heard free plus shipping offers being mentioned across the board - from podcasts to webinars to course videos. It’s such an integral part of our marketing strategy that we feel it deserves its very own episode on the podcast.
So, here we are. For the next half hour or so I will be talking about how we have sold products and grown the business with the help of our free plus shipping offers.
When we first started ColorIt back in 2015, we wanted to differentiate our coloring books from all the other options available in the market. We wanted a good quality product that adult coloring enthusiasts can enjoy.
To achieve that (and find out if our coloring books would sell at all), we needed consumer input. And getting genuine and constructive input meant we needed to get the product into people’s hands. So we had 10 of our designs printed on artist quality paper, added a hardback cover, and sent them out to people who only paid for shipping costs. Back then, this wasn’t a tactic that many people selling online knew about, let alone used. We had our “Aha!” moment and so did our customers. Our order retake rate was over 50 percent.
We’ve launched many free plus shipping offers for our different brands since then. We followed up those coloring books with three random markers. Currently, we’re building our email list for our outdoor brands Tac9er and Tactical.com by giving away credit card muti-tools. Our willingness to use this tactic, again and again, means that it works. It also means that you can replicate it in your own business.
In this podcast, I’ll be sharing with you tips on how to set up your own free plus shipping offer and provide some other real-life examples. However, the key points have already been outlined below.
Other Useful Resources:
GIVE US YOUR 5 MINUTE PITCH AND WIN $50,000!
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Hi, it’s Dave here. Mike is taking some much-needed time off at the moment so I’m taking the reins. Coincidentally, today’s podcast topic is something that I’m in the best position to talk about - selling on Amazon Canada. If the accent isn’t a giveaway already, I am Canadian myself and currently running my business out of Vancouver.
So, let’s start off with a question. Should you be selling in Canada? The answer to this is of course relative. But, if you are living in the United States, then Canada would technically be the “lowest hanging fruit” when it comes to expanding your business.
I’ve added some more advantages below.
Depending on your circumstances, these disadvantages may be relevant.
In America, there is no federal tax. In Canada, you have to pay the equivalent of a federal tax called the GST/HST. This is typically 5%. While you can get this amount back at the end of the year, that’s an upfront cost you have to deal with right out of the gate. And this can be tricky since we mostly run cash flow dependent businesses.
You should also register for GST/HST in order to send your goods to Canada. There’s no getting around that. The good thing is it’s quite easy to do this. If you use a larger customs broker that handles shipments going into Canada, they can register the number for you. Most of them will do it for free or charge a small fee to get this done. Mike and I both use Pacific Customs Brokers, Ltd.
Here are my tips for starting to sell in Amazon.ca.
The last thing I’ll leave you with is this: have a plan to sell internationally in order to sustain growth and profitability for your business. Some of the insights above can also be applied in another marketplace so you already have a point of reference.
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!
When you’re just starting as an ecommerce seller, do you improve your Amazon listing first or get started on Facebook ads? There’s no right or wrong order here. The main thing to remember is that you need to plan out how you can get both done at some point. In this episode, we’re gonna tackle the Facebook side of things.
As you may recall, I had my good friend Dave Huss join me in a previous podcast to talk about building a Facebook audience. I’ve had the chance to sit and have a chat with him again. And this time around, we’ll be focusing on creating a Facebook page and being able to optimize it for engagement.
If you’re new to Facebook, find the quickest way you can earn from it. Remember, it’s always good to have another revenue stream outside of Amazon.
Here are some detailed steps you can follow.
1. Ask yourself why people should care about your page. Based on your answer, pick the best niche that represents your product. Don’t be afraid to go really specific, like creating a page dedicated to French cooking.
2. Select about 30 key/quality pieces of relevant content. You can use a tool like Buzzsumo to do this. If it's too costly a tool, you can do the research yourself.
3. Post or schedule posts 2-3 times initially. If you don’t see traction on your posts within a couple of days, change something up.
4. Boost some of the posts to your core audience.
5. Try to get people to like the page.
6. Do a giveaway to get people on your Messenger list.
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!
If you’re that person who listens to one podcast a year, this is definitely the episode you should listen to. Together with me are Bernie Thompson and Paul Rafelson, members of the Online Merchants Guild (OMG), a non-profit organization that is working to change the law governing online sales tax collection.
This podcast episode focuses on the aftermath of the South Dakota vs Wayfair case and how it has invariably created the so-called economic nexus. This essentially means that the state can now require online sellers to collect state sales tax for online purchases, even if the seller doesn’t have a physical presence (e.g. an office or a warehouse) in that state. In South Dakota, the economic nexus threshold has been placed at 200 online purchases or $100k in revenue.
We believe, that while the ruling can affect all online retailers, it will hit small ecommerce businesses the hardest. This is why we are campaigning to raise funds so we can fight this thing in court. Our plan is to sue all state tax commissioners and seek a declaratory judgment on this issue that will relieve small ecommerce businesses of this undue burden. We plan to steer the conversation towards viable alternatives, specifically compelling marketplaces like Amazon to collect online state sales tax for online purchases on behalf of third-party sellers.
Help us fight this cause and move the needle towards creating a more sustainable industry for everyone selling online. Please sign up using the link below.
https://onlinemerchantsguild.org/choose-your-level-of-support/
Hopefully, together we can make some real progress on this issue.
Other Useful Resources:
Episode 136: Online Merchants Guild
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!
In this episode, I sat down with “Paid Traffic Guy” himself - Dave Huss. Dave helps online entrepreneurs bring in new customers by leveraging paid traffic and using retargeting to recover lost sales through Growth Scout. He’s also an ecommerce entrepreneur with brands in the arts and crafts niche that have a massive following on their respective Facebook business pages.
And this was the focal point of our conversation. Dave gamely shared how he was able to leverage Facebook as a marketing platform for his products. His brands’ business pages have 150,000 and 90,000 fans respectively.
Here are Dave’s best tips for building a following on Facebook and creating consistent engagement with the target audience.
At the end of the day, Dave reminds us that “...The Facebook page is not really for selling stuff. I really want to put that point across especially for Amazon sellers...The Facebook page is for building trust and engagement with your ideal customer…”
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!
In this podcast, I’m joined by Mads Singers, a business coach who owns a management consulting firm specializing in ecommerce entrepreneurs. He also owns a VA company in Davao, Philippines.
When you’re a seven-figure Amazon seller, it’s tough staying on top of every little business detail. And if you’re anything like me, you experience separation anxiety whenever you need to hand over work to someone else to do. But as Mads explains, delegation is a necessary evil. As a business owner, you need to free your time so you can focus on big-ticket items.
Here are some highlights from our discussion.
It’s always better to give employees genuine ownership of their tasks rather than an SOP they have to follow every time they do a task. Genuine ownership means giving your employees your vote of confidence and empowering them to take a process you have and improve on it.
Mads employs the DISC behavior framework with his clients to help them understand themselves as well as the people they work with. Understanding your employees’ individual traits and characteristics will allow you to assign them the right type of task.
“Now, because someone sells themselves really well, doesn’t mean they’re going to be great for that job. And being able to see through that personality and understand is this person really good at could be immensely important.”, explains Mads.
What tasks should you delegate?
Other Useful Resources:
Mads Singers Management Consulting
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!