The Ecomcrew Ecommerce Podcast

Latest Episodes:

E116: Under the Hood with Megan Loftin Part 2 - Don't Focus on Facebook Ads YET Jan 29, 2018

Show notes

Last week, Megan and I talked about cash flow and early-stage financing for her ecommerce business. We continue to talk a little bit more about financing in this episode, specifically Amazon loans, then move on to the next big issue: Facebook ads.

Any ecommerce entrepreneur knows how important Facebook ads are in any ecommerce business. However for a business like Megan's which is still at its early stages--and an Amazon-only business at that--focusing on Facebook ads might not be the best idea. Doing Facebook ads at this point might push her to get her own Shopify/BigCommerce store so that she can fully utilize the power of Facebook ads, and that could mean a lot of work, taking her focus off the more important things like Amazon listing optimization and PPC. It boils down to prioritization and not biting off more than what one can chew.

To break things down, here are our conversation points:

Bank financing
More on Amazon loan specifics
How to be laser-focused on what needs to be prioritized for a young ecommerce business
Why Facebook ads are not recommended for an Amazon-only business
Focusing on listing optimization, PPC, and brand registry first
Utilizing the power of YouTubers to promote products

We'd like to thank Megan for this information-packed episode. She runs an ecommerce site called The Bootstrap Boutique and a YouTube channel for ecommerce entrepreneurs. Check them out!

Resources mentioned:

My EcomCrew Under The Hood Signup Kabbage Sellers Summit My 2018 Goals

If you're interested in becoming an Under The Hood guest yourself, just sign up here. Thanks for listening and happy selling!

E115: Under the Hood with Megan Loftin Part 1 - Cash Flow and Financing Jan 25, 2018

Show notes

We have another Under the Hood episode for you! Under the Hood is a new segment we are doing on the EcomCrew Podcast where we give our listeners the opportunity to be on the podcast and ask us any advice about their business. They get free coaching from us and our listeners get amazing content, too--it's a win-win!

For today's episode we have Megan Loftin of The Bootstrap Boutique on the spotlight. Megan is currently doing her business as a side hustle, and like many entrepreneurs still at the early stages of the ecommerce journey, she has been having problems about cash flow and keeping inventory. As is very common with an inventory-based business (especially if the inventory is coming from China), money can get tied up for months on end. In this episode Megan and I talk about the best ways to finance her business and solve this problem.

More specifically we talk about the following:

Who Megan is and how she got started in ecommerce
How hard it was to start, and how she failed with her first product
How she got back up again
Money getting tied up and running out of stock
How I got over my hate of debt and how loans helped supercharge the growth of my business
The specifics of getting an Amazon loan
Other ways to get financing

This episode is just Part 1 of our entire coaching session and on Part 2, we continue to talk a little bit about financing, and then move on to Facebook ads. It is a very interesting conversation and if you are just starting on your ecommerce journey, then these two episodes will definitely be helpful to you.

Resources mentioned:

My EcomCrew Under The Hood Signup Steve Chou Scott Voelker

As always, thank you for listening. If you want to become an Under the Hood guest, just sign up here. Until next week, happy selling!

E114: How to Lose Money Chasing Champagne Dreams of Retail Distribution Jan 22, 2018

Show notes

"The most finite resource you have is your time and your team's time. So if we were to spin our wheels chasing this huge big box business, that would prevent us from spending our time to stuff that is hugely profitable and is continuing to work. So why take your eye off the ball?" - Bill D'Alessandro on abandoning the big box retail route

"My products are in 5,000 Target stores."

Admit it, at some point in your ecommerce entrepreneur life, you wished you could say those words. Or let's say you didn't, but imagine for a minute that you're at a party back home for Christmas and high school friends are asking what you're up to, and then you say those words. Yeah, we've all been there.

But with all the allure of big box retail distribution comes headaches that you probably are not aware of. As an example, one big chain approached us about selling our coloring books on their shelves and we were psyched. But after running the numbers we realized that it's not even worth it.

Today's guest, Bill D'Alessandro, has gone through the big box retail route when he acquired a business that already had a retail presence. He tells us in this interview the woes he encountered and why he ultimately decided to no longer pursue that route.

Bill is the founder of Elements Brands, a company that acquires and scales consumer products brands. He has been buying businesses for 7 years now and currently owns 9 brands with over 130 products. He is not a stranger to this podcast and you can listen to a previous episode he has done with us about buying businesses vs. starting one from scratch.

Some conversation points:

The details of how Bill got into retail distribution
The advantages of mom and pop shops over big box retail
Treating mom and pop shops as big B2C customers
The actual costs of going into retail
What chains expect from a brand owner
The ridiculous fees chains charge to get your product in their shelves
What he plans to do moving forward

Bill is currently on the lookout for good businesses to buy and add to his portfolio. If you are planning on selling, you can contact Bill at bill@rebelceo.com or hit him up on twitter at @billda

Resources mentioned:

Stamped.io AsiaInspection

Thanks for listening to our 114th episode. Until the next one, happy selling!

E113: Interview with our New Director of Ecommerce Jan 18, 2018

Show notes

"What's the next thing we have to do to keep going? Is that contacting Amazon, or fixing a listing? Where in some places we probably should take a step back and think about where are we going with this brand and how do we picture it in the next 6 months or a year." - Jacquelyn on focusing on the bigger picture and not getting distracted by the day-to-day activities of the business

When you run a small ecommerce company, it's fine to wear many hats--you can be your own CEO, product development specialist, even your own janitor. But if you want your company to grow, you'll realize that being a one-man band hugely limits the scalability of your business.

While I'm not a one-man band, I realized I needed somebody to help with high-level business development when our company began growing aggressively. If you've been following the EcomCrew podcast for a while now, you'll probably remember a few episodes early last year where I mentioned I was looking to hire a C-level employee. Six months later, we hired Jacqueline as our Director of Ecommerce. It was a long and meticulous process, considering that this is a role that will have a direct impact on the direction of our business.

Jacquelyn has been with us for 3 months now and she has already made huge improvements in our business, streamlining many of what used to be "brute-force" processes. I invited her to be a guest on this episode to talk about the hiring process and what it's like to be on the front seat running our ecommerce company.

Some conversation points:

Why I decided to hire a C-level employee
How we found Jacquelyn
Her professional background
What she's done so far and what changed with our business since she came onboard
Her first impression of our business and the areas she thought needed improvement
The most difficult challenges she sees in the next 12 months
What she's excited about the company moving forward

We plan to grow double this year and I'm confident we will achieve it with Jacquelyn's help. I had fun recording this episode and I will have her on the podcast again in a couple of months with updates on our growth.

Resources mentioned:

Stamped.io AsiaInspection Episode 96: Our Philippines Team--Hiring and Maintaining a Team of Rockstar VAs

Thanks for listening! Until next week, happy selling!

E112: Under The Hood with Brad Bernhart Part 2 Jan 15, 2018

Show notes

This is Part 2 of last Monday's Under the Hood pilot episode. We'd like to thank Brad for bravely coming on the podcast to talk about his business, essentially becoming a guinea pig for our new segment.

If you're interested in getting at least an hour of free coaching too (and getting featured in a podcast episode), sign up to be an Under the Hood guest here.

During Part 1 Brad and I discussed his business in detail, painting a clear picture of where his business stands right now and where he wants the business to go in the future. I had an insight on the strengths and weaknesses of his business and then developed a customized and specific strategy for him to achieve his desired growth.

We get down into the meat and potatoes in this episode. I explain to him in detail the strategy I developed and how to execute it properly. As a sneak peak, the strategy encompasses the following:

Email marketing. We discussed emails that actually contain value, not just marketing material. We also discussed list segmentation and abandoned cart sequence.
Facebook ads. I explained to him Facebook remarketing campaigns.
Google product listing ads
Utilizing Houzz, a platform for home remodeling and design
Amazon. Brad needs to step us his Amazon game to reach his revenue goal relatively easier.
We also talked about hiring and the explosive growth that usually comes with hiring the first employee.

Brad's business has the potential for explosive growth. Our conversation is chock-full of information and we hope the strategy and recommendations we talked about can help set his business, and yours too, on the right path.

Resources mentioned:

Stamped.io AsiaInspection E110: Under the Hood with Brad Bernhart Part 1 Under the Hood

As always, thanks for listening to the EcomCrew Podcast. Until next episode, happy selling!

E111: Amazon Horror Stories from Real Sellers Jan 11, 2018

Show notes

This is an episode I wish we didn't have to record.

Competition on Amazon is getting stiffer and stiffer and some sellers, in order to succeed, use the short cut and employ black-hat tactics--killing the business of other sellers mercilessly, if need be.

In this episode we discuss in detail how these black-hat tactics work. I invited three Amazon sellers who actually went through the grueling experience of being victims to competitors who have no moral compass. We are doing this in the hopes that we spread awareness of what is happening, especially since Amazon doesn't seem to care much.

Below is an overview what we discussed:

How Kevin Chen, who sells items in the health and beauty market, fell victim to fake reviews and fake comments on nearly all of his reviews
How Chris Nowak, founder of My PPC Pal, got accused of selling counterfeits of a product he developed and manufactured himself
Robert Weisberg's baffling case against Amazon itself (or someone selling via Amazon Vendor Express)
How they tried to resolve their cases and how Amazon responded (spoiler alert: they weren't of any help at all)

Lately we noticed that these black hat practices are getting more and more prevalent. What's sad is Amazon mostly only cares about buyers and much less about sellers. It seems that they are okay with letting honest sellers lose, as long as they get their commissions.

We want to spread as much awareness as possible about what's happening, and if we band together, we can make a big difference.

Resources mentioned:

Stamped.io AsiaInspection Million Dollar Private Label Pros My PPC Pal

Want to get an hour of free coaching from Mike and Dave? Sign up at ecomcrew.com/underthehood.

Thanks for listening!

E110: Under The Hood with Brad Bernhart Part 1 Jan 08, 2018

Show notes

We're excited to do something new at the EcomCrew Podcast! We want to make EcomCrew a better and more awesome resource for ecommerce business owners like you and today marks the start of that endeavor. Today we are releasing a brand-new podcast segment which we believe will tremendously help you wherever you are in your ecommerce journey.

The segment is called Under the Hood, where we call one of our listeners and talk about their businesses for at least one hour. It is essentially a free coaching call--we will 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!

If you're interested in becoming an Under the Hood guest, just sign up at ecomcrew.com/underthehood.

For our pilot Under the Hood episode, we interview and coach Brad Bernhart, owner of an online business sellling hardwood kitchen utensils. Below are the details of his business:

2016 revenue: $405k Net margins: 40% Channels: 98% on Shopify website, just recently re-started on Amazon Biggest challenge: Scaling a plateauing business and keeping up with production if the business grows (he manufactures his own products)

The first part of the coaching call consists of me getting a better idea of Brad's business and understanding his current pain points. After that we discussed the following:

The "cha-ching" Shopify alert (yes, some of us are guilty of not turning that off)
If I were on Brad's shoes, what would I do next?

In part 2 I elaborated on why I would do what I told him I'd do if I were in his shoes. I even asked him to get a pen and paper because we talked about pretty high level stuff (I hope we did not make Brad's head explode with all that information). Stay tuned for that next Monday.

Resources mentioned:

Stamped.io AsiaInspection EcomCrew.com/UnderTheHood Brad's interview with Andrew Youderian

If you want to be on the podcast too and receive an hour or more of free coaching, just head over to ecomcrew.com/underthehood to sign up. Abby, our VA, will reach out to you for the next step.

If you don't want to reveal your niche/products to the audience, that is totally fine. We asked Brad if he could reveal to us some details of his business, and he was happy to oblige.

Thanks for listening to this episode, and until the next one, happy selling!

E109: My 2018 Goals Jan 04, 2018

Show notes

"Never lose sight of the bigger picture--life is short, so make great products that customers truly enjoy and enjoy coming to work." - Mike on one of his most important 2018 goals

2018 just rolled in and there's no better time to set goals for the fresh year than today. I think everyone should be doing something like this, as having clear and sharp goals keeps you from getting distracted by seemingly important but meaningless things. It helps you focus your time and resources on the things that truly matter.

I put together 18 goals (yes, I did 18 to be cheesy) that I'm going to work towards achieving this year. It's a collection of goals for Terran (our holding company for ColorIt, IceWraps, Tactical, and WildBaby), for EcomCrew, and for my personal life as well.

Below are my 2018 goals (in no particular order) which I will explain in detail in today's podcast:

Develop 50 new products
Launch on Amazon Canada, UK, Germany, France, Italy, and eventually, Australia
Optimize our Amazon listings to increase sales by 50%
Improve PPC
Implement the concepts in the book Traction in our business
Reach $10 million in revenue with a 10% net profit
Lose 12 lbs
Record 100 episodes of the podcast
Launch a new version of ecomcrew.com
Launch 4 new courses
Speak at at least 4 industry events
Hike 80 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail
Take an epic 2-week vacation
Visit the Philippines office at least once
Read 4 books (I know, I know... 4 books aren't a lot but I'm not really a book reader so please don't laugh at me)
Hand off my Facebook ads to other people within the company
Come up with at least one new tactic that no one else is doing
Never lose sight of the bigger picture: create 5 star products that people will truly love and continue to enjoy what I'm doing

That's a pretty long list; some of the items are harder than the others, but they're all clear goals that will guide our efforts this year. What are your goals? Feel free to share them in the comments below.

Resources mentioned:

Stamped.io AsiaInspection Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business Under the Hood ECF Live Global Sources Sellers Summit

E108: Merry Christmas EcomCrew Listeners! Dec 25, 2017

Show notes

Merry Christmas everybody!

We just want to thank you guys for an awesome year, it never would have been possible without you. We did a lot of things that are new to us this year (insert shameless plug for our course) and you've stuck with us through the hiccups, providing us feedback along the way which helped us improve immensely. We can't thank you enough for that.

Since everyone will be on holiday mode for the next couple of days, we figured we'd do the same and take a break on the podcast. This is not a long term break, we're just going to skip 3 episodes and resume on the 4th of January, kicking off the new year with a goal planning episode.

We hope you have a blast during the holidays, and see you again next year!

E107: 2018 eCommerce Predictions Dec 21, 2017

Show notes

As 2017 comes to a close, it's only fitting to devote our last episode of the year to 2018 ecommerce predictions. Dave and I listed what we think will happen in the ecommerce world next year, from sales tax to Bitcoin. It's always fun to make these predictions and then revisit them by the end of 2018 to see how many of them actually happened.

It would've been great to have Dave on the episode as well, but he is still in China as of recording this, so I will just cover his predictions here. This will also be our last full-length episode for the year and we will resume with new episodes twice a week next year. I also recorded a short special for Christmas Day next week, stay tuned for that!

Here are our predictions for ecommerce next year:

Amazon will start collecting sales tax for sellers in multiple states (it will begin collecting sales tax for merchants in Washington State early next year)
Shopify will continue to dominate hosted ecommerce platforms but its stock will dive when investors realize there's a finite number of ecommerce store owners to grow their customer base with
Facebook will start to monetize messaging near the end of 2018
Amazon will continue to get bad press for counterfeits and knockoffs, do a major crackdown which will benefit brand owners but probably hurt sellers selling third party merchandise
China will continue the crackdown on factories heavily contributing to pollution
Facebook ads will continue to get more expensive - way more expensive
Amazon will increase fees substantially (Amazon has just announced fee increases beginning February, probably with more increases to come)
Amazon will actually do something about the review debacle
More sites accepting Bitcoin in ecommerce--especially international
Amazon will continue to grab market share
Amazon will start or acquire a transportation network

Many of these predictions bring terror to us sellers--especially Amazon FBA fee increases and sales tax--but ecommerce in general is expected to grow over the next few years and we are hoping to ride along on that growth.

Resources mentioned:

Stamped.io AsiaInspection Amazon FBA's Largest Ever Fee Increase Coming in 2018 - How Will it Affect You? 2-Hour EcomCrew Q&A Webinar

Registration for our first-ever webinar is still open. You can ask us anything under the sun about ecommerce for 2 hours for FREE. Go here for more details.

Thanks as always for listening. Until next year, happy selling!

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