The Ecomcrew Ecommerce Podcast

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E106: Biggest Ecommerce News of 2017 Dec 18, 2017

Show notes

I just did a podcast about my 2017 biggest struggles in our last episode and today I will cover the biggest news to ever explode in the ecommerce world this year. It definitely seems like 2017 flew us by but not without leaving news bombs that left a lot of people in ecommerce amused, worried, hopeful and wondering what's going to happen next.

We compiled a list of the biggest news in ecommerce this year, ranging from the Bitcoin explosion to the ever-so-perplexing sales tax. The items on this list are not written in any particular order. Listen to the podcast for my discussion of each.

Resources mentioned:

Stamped.io AsiaInspection Free 2 hour webinar How to Hire Virtual Assistants and Open an Overseas Office in the Philippines

As part of our goal to get more reviews on iTunes, we are hosting our first-ever 2-hour Webinar on December 21st where we will answer any ecommerce questions you have and give you tips you need. I usually charge $500/hr for consulting but this webinar is free, the only thing we ask in return is for you to leave us an honest review on iTunes. Check out how to join the webinar here.

We hope you enjoy this episode and as always, happy selling!

E105: My 7 Biggest Struggles in 2017 Dec 14, 2017

Show notes

"In general, I think that people spend too much time talking about their wins, and gloating, and how well things are going and never talk about the disarray or things that are going on behind the scenes, or things that they're struggling with. I think it's important to talk about this stuff; I think everyone goes through these types of things." - Mike Jackness on the business and life struggles he faced this year

This is that time of the year when people talk about "best-of", "top 10 of the year", and all those things that highlight the most significant things that happened to them this year. It's a great way to look back on the successes and lessons of the year that is about to end and to get ready for the year that is about to come.

In this podcast I will not do a "best of". Instead, I will talk about the struggles and the challenges I faced. Too many people talk about the glory of being an entrepreneur and sweep the mess under the rug. Being in ecommerce is not all roses and the bigger your business grows, the more problems you encounter. So in this episode, I will talk about the hardships, the confusions, the worry and all the uncertainties that we faced head on this year, and what we did to get overcome them.

I elaborate the following challenges my company and I faced head on:

Having to reinvent myself as we adopted a new launch strategy (I talk about our new launch strategy in detail in this episode)
Keeping up with explosive growth and the tough high-level decisions I had to make
Hiring a C-level employee for the first time and how scary that moment was
Trying to get our non-Amazon sales to catch up with our Amazon sales and the constant dread of something terrible happening to our account
Being able to systematize everything
Staying focused and keeping myself away from pet projects
Working with my wife (happy wife, happy life right?)

It definitely has not been an easy year but with all the struggles came the fruits of our labor: explosive business growth, a great team, and happy customers. We don't expect problems to let up anytime soon since we are gearing for more growth next year, but we do know that we will be giving it all we've got. And you should, too.

Resources mentioned:

Stamped.io AsiaInspection Our Amazon Product Launch Strategy for 2018 Free 2-hour Webinar

If you enjoyed listening to our podcast, please leave us an honest review on iTunes. We badly need reviews to help us get discovered by other ecommerce entrepreneurs out there looking for our content and we need your help.

In connection, we are having a 2-hour coaching webinar on December 21st and attendees can ask anything under the sun and we will give our honest unbridled advice that will be really helpful for your business. Normally I charge $500/hr of my consulting time but this webinar will be for free. The only thing we ask in return is that you leave us an honest review of the podcast. You can check out the details here.

Thanks as always for tuning in. Until next episode, happy selling!

E104: Building a Brand Around Loyal Customers with Nat Arem of Hookgrip Dec 11, 2017

Show notes

"If you put no effort into your stuff, like if you're really not contributing any value to whatever community you're in--you have crappy packaging, crappy products, crappy support--you're not going to get anywhere. So you have to make yourself stand out." - Nat Arem of Hookgrip

Here at EcomCrew we put emphasis into how important it is to build a brand and not just sell a bunch of products. It's fine if you're just starting, but building your brand needs to be a part of your long-term strategy. Having a brand makes it easier to move off of Amazon if you decide to, or if, God forbid, Amazon suspends your account.

Having a brand also makes it easier to establish a following of loyal customers. Today's guest, Nat Arem of Hookgrip, talks about how he built a brand around in a niche that is full of die-hard followers: CrossFit and weightlifting.

Nat has been a friend of mine for 10 years now and has been around when I was still neck-deep in the online poker world. We both got out of that and went separate ways but surprisingly both found ourselves in ecommerce.

In this episode Nat and I talk about our online poker days and how he turned his passion--weightlifting--into a solid brand with a loyal fanbase.

Conversation points:

The time we were living in Costa Rica doing online poker
Why we both left the online poker business
How photography became a big part of his business
How Hookgrip started and how he developed a loyal fanbase
What makes a good brand
How his passion turned into a profitable business

Resources mentioned:

Stamped.io AsiaInspection Under The Hood Hookgrip

We hope you enjoy this episode, and if you did, please leave us an honest review on iTunes. And as a thank you for leaving a review, you are welcome to join our 2 hour webinar on December 21st. Click here for more details.

Have you heard of Under The Hood? Starting next year, we will be featuring a segment where selected listeners get an hour (up to 1.5 hrs) of FREE coaching with Mike and Dave. In exchange, the coaching session will be recorded and turned into a podcast episode. Sign up at ecomcrew.com/UnderTheHood if you're interested.

Once again thanks for listening, and until next episode, happy selling!

E103: Buying a Business vs. Starting One From Scratch with Bill d'Alessandro of Elements Brands Dec 07, 2017

Show notes

"If you're never been an entrepreneur before, I would suggest starting a business. If you have done it once, I would strongly advice buying a business. It's just a lot easier." - Bill D'Alessandro of Elements Brands

If you've been listening to the podcast for a while now you might have noticed I that when I talk about my speaking engagements, I always give credit to someone who told me--back when I was unwilling to speak in front of a large crowd and would rather get a root canal--that I needed to do something that makes me uncomfortable to further my career and life. That someone is my guest in today's episode.

Bill D'Alessandro 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. We invited him to be one of the special guests of our 100th episode and if you haven't listened to that, absolutely do so--you will find nuggets of advice you won't get anywhere.

In this episode we discuss why he prefers buying businesses over starting one from scratch and when you can do the same.

Here's an overview of what we discussed:

How Bill and I met and how he helped push me to become a speaker
Why he prefers buying existing businesses
When it is right to start a business or invest in an existing one
Bill's buying criteria and the attributes of a business that is a good buy
Turning ugly into an opportunity
What businesses to avoid buying
The time when a third party tried to sue him for buying one of his businesses
What he does after buying a business
Why not all debt is bad, especially if you bought a business you want to grow (unless you have rich parents)

If you want to explore the possibility of selling your business, you can reach out to Bill on Twitter or shoot him an email at bill@elementsbrands.com.

Resources mentioned:

AsiaInspection Stamped.io Elements Brands Under the Hood

We have a new segment on the show! Starting next year, we will be featuring a segment called Under the Hood, where selected listeners get an hour (up to 1.5 hrs) of FREE coaching with Mike and Dave. In exchange, the coaching session will be recorded and turned into a podcast episode.

If you want to ask Mike and Dave for ANY advice about your business absolutely for FREE and want to help put out good content for the podcast as well, we need you. Sign up at ecomcrew.com/UnderTheHood if you're interested.

Thanks as always for listening, and until next week, happy selling!

E102: Amazon Product Launch Strategy for 2018 Dec 04, 2017

Show notes

"Seeing all these things that other people ... are doing, especially the black hat sellers, and not being able to beat them by using my white hat tactics--it's a very brutal position to be in. But the thing is, one day, I want to be left with a chair when the music stops and they won't." - Mike Jackness on his long-term Amazon launch strategy

Earlier this year we came upon a chilling situation--more and more sellers are employing black hat tactics to try to win more sales on newly launched products. With so much competition on Amazon it's very tempting to do the same, even though we all know it's against Amazon's TOS and doing so is very much like playing with fire.

And we all know what happens when Amazon finds out. I haven't been suspended before, but I know what it's like to suddenly lose so much money overnight because the platform you depend on decided to basically kick you out. I've heard of so many dreadful stories of Amazon killing accounts and leaving sellers in the dumpster. I don't want this to happen to me--I certainly don't want to be stuck with a million dollar's worth of gel pens I can't pay bills with.

So I got to thinking, what does amazon really want? If I need to win in this without risking my account, I need to think of a long-term strategy that plays by Amazon's rules.

That's how I came up with the strategy that we've been using to launch our newer products. We've started to get some real traction, and with this success, we decided we will be using this strategy moving forward to 2018.

In this episode I talk about exactly how we plan to launch products next year, step by step. A word of warning though: this does not involve fast and easy tricks and gimmicks--this strategy takes longer, but is every bit worth it.

Here's the breakdown of what I discuss:

The why and the how of building an email list off of Amazon
Reaching out to customers in a way that is not against Amazon TOS
The purpose of contests and giveaways
Using ClickFunnels to offer upsells to people who joined the contests (I will email my ClickFunnels landing pages to you for FREE when you sign up through our affiliate link)
Using free plus shipping offers
Developing a 5-star product
How to properly use Amazon PPC when launching a product

If you decide to try out ClickFunnels and want a copy of our landing pages, send us an email to let us know. ClickFunnels has made it really easy to share pages, so sign up here if you haven't done so.

Resources mentioned:

AsiaInspection Stamped.io ClickFunnels

If you found this episode useful, let us know by leaving a review on iTunes or by leaving a comment below. Thanks so much for listening, and until next episode, happy selling!

E101: Tips on Finding Profitable Products in a Saturated Amazon Market with Chad Rubin of Skubana Nov 30, 2017

Show notes

"So how do you win if you're doing what everyone else is doing? If we're all using Best Selling Rank or BSR, then everyone is always going to sell the same products and we're just flooding the market with all the same products. So we try to go where the puck is going and not where the puck is." - Chad Rubin of Skubana

In our second 3 digit episode we have Chad Rubin of Skubana as our guest. "Chad Rubin of Skubana" is how I refer to him but he is so much more than that. He co-founded Skubana, a multi-channel inventory management software that we have been using for over a year now. He is a 7-figure seller who also runs the Accelerate Workshop, an exclusive one-day workshop for high-volume multi-channel ecommerce sellers.

Like Kevin Stecko of 80sTees.com, Chad is one of those we jokingly call the "grandfathers of ecommerce" because he has been in ecommerce for a very long time. At the time there was an absence of good ecommerce tools, so to satisfy his own ecommerce needs, he created his own internal tools and shared them with the world, one of which is Skubana.

In this episode we talk about a topic that is of crucial importance especially for those just venturing in ecommerce--how do you find profitable products to sell in a market that is already saturated?

Many sellers do their research: they look at BSR and probably fire up Jungle Scout to judge profitability, and that could work, but people who do that usually end up selling "me-too products". That saturates the market even more and buries their products beneath thousands of similar others.

Chad has a solution. He doesn't want to do what everybody else is doing; he instead focuses on what people are actually looking for but which Amazon does not have yet. He explains how he does this in detail and provides some examples in our conversation.

We also covered other topics, including:

How to prevent being copied on Amazon
How he had his business audited, not for selling purposes, but to increase profitability
The systems he put in place to run his business efficiently with just one employee
Lifetime value of a customer
Amazon's A9 algorithm and ways to rank higher
The importance of conversion rate
The Accelerate workshop

This is a fully packed episode with actionable advice and lots of resources and software recommendations. We've compiled the links below so you can easily check them out.

Resources mentioned:

AsiaInspection Stamped.io EcomCrew Podcast Episode 35: Chad Rubin on the Development of Skubana Crucial Vacuum Think Crucial Accelerate Workshop

Shopify apps he is using:

Bold Brain Bold Tiered Pricing Bold Upsell

Webinar:

International Selling Secrets Direct From Amazon For Maximum ROI on International Marketplaces

That's episode 101 guys! We hope you find Chad's valuable actionable advice useful in your own business. If you do and you enjoyed this episode, we'd really love it if you'd leave us an honest review on iTunes. That will help us in our rankings and discoverability so we can reach more ecommerce entrepreneurs out there.

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

Episode 100: A Special Q&A with Five Successful Entrepreneurs Nov 27, 2017

Show notes

100 episodes! Can you believe it?

Today marks a special moment in EcomCrew history. We've hit a very important milestone and we never would have done it without YOU.

I had my struggles; I can't tell you how frustrating it is not knowing whether people truly enjoyed listening to the podcast or if they got any real value out of it or not.

But then I go to these live events and people come up to me and tell me how the podcast helped them in their businesses, and I just feel stoked. It makes me feel like what we're doing makes a difference, and pushes me, and the rest of EcomCrew, to do our best in putting out even better content for you. Your comments, feedback, questions, and support keep us going.

And to celebrate our 100th episode, we have a special treat for you. I got 5 of my favorite successful ecommerce entrepreneurs in this episode and asked them one question:

"What would you have done differently if you could talk to your younger self when you were just getting started in ecommerce?"

Their answers are a mix of rookie mistakes and lessons that took them years to learn. You can use these lessons as warnings or advice and apply them to your own business, without having to go through years of trial and error.

Below is a snippet:

From Andrew Youderian of EcommerceFuel:

"The biggest thing I would probably fundamentally change in my approach about starting an ecommerce business today versus what I've done in the past is probably take something that I thought--it didn't have to be something I was madly in love with, or my soul passion but something that [I] had some kind of interest or overlap with what I enjoy or who I was."

From Bill D'Alessandro of Elements Brands:

"If I could go back in time, I would smack my 4 Hour Workweek self across the head and say, Don't be a wimp, hire people."

From Greg Mercer of Jungle Scout:

"If I were to start all over again--once I figured out how to launch the successful products, and the products themselves had good unit economics--I would've looked into using other people's money to invest in my business to start to scale it up faster."

From Scott Voelker of The Amazing Seller:

"I would focus on finding something that you know you can launch multiple products in, and then from there, taking that approach of a brand where you're able to have a face to that brand ... and then start building that following, start building that email list."

From Steve Chou of My Wife Quit Her Job:

"If there's something that you enjoy per se, that might not necessarily be the best idea for a business. Because chances are that if you have to do it for money, or you feel like it's a chore, then you're not going to enjoy it anymore."

And of course, EcomCrew will not be the same without Dave Bryant. He has been a prolific addition to the crew and has added many extremely useful content to the site. Here's what he would have done differently:

"If I can tell myself one thing to do differently at the beginning of my ecommerce journey, it would definitely be to start with an end goal in mind and reverse engineer from there."

Those are just a sneak peek of our incredibly loaded conversations. Go ahead and listen to the entire episode and find out why they came up with those answers.

Resources mentioned:

AsiaInspection Stamped.io EcommerceFuel Elements Brands Jungle Scout The Amazing Seller My Wife Quit Her Job 2018 Sellers Summit EcommerceFuel Live

And that concludes 100 episodes of the EcomCrew podcast! We invite you to stay with us for another hundred episodes of our ecommerce journey.

And from everyone at EcomCrew, THANK YOU.

Episode 99: An 18-year Ecommerce Journey with Kevin Stecko of 80sTees.com Nov 23, 2017

Show notes

"I think perpetual unhappiness with everything about an entrepreneur's business is probably the only way they're going to be successful, right? Always be thinking that something needs to be improved." - Kevin Stecko, 80sTees.com

Our guest for the last episode before we hit the 100 mark is my good friend Kevin Stecko from 80sTees.com. We jokingly call Kevin as one of the "grandfathers of ecommerce", having started his business way back in 1999. He has seen the good, the bad, and the ugly in the business, and has gone with the wave of changes of what made ecommerce what it is today. In this episode we talk about his entire ecommerce journey--how everything started, where he stands in his ecommerce business now, and the joys and challenges of being in a constantly changing business for 18 years.

This episode is quite longer than usual, and that's because it's fully packed with lessons from Kevin's almost 2 decades of ecommerce experience. Below are the highlights:

The funny story of how Kevin and I met
How 80sTees started and how the littlest things can change the course of one's life
How starkly different ecommerce was back then
My own start at eBay
When he decided to quit his job and give ecommerce his full time attention
The interesting story of his transition to Shopify which included a website hacking and a visit by the Secret Service
His experience with Shopify Plus and how he got around Shopify's SEO problem
His inventory and fulfillment struggles
His big picture outlook on ecommerce

This has been a really fun conversation with Kevin (especially the Secret Service stuff) and it is a good close before we hit the 100th episode. It's always great to hear about a fellow entrepreneur's ecommerce experience, but hearing from someone who's been riding the ecommerce wave for almost 2 decades is nothing short of amazing.

Resources mentioned:

AsiaInspection Stamped.io 80stees.com Shopify

Thanks for listening to this episode and feel free to post any comments down below or message us at support@ecomcrew.com. Stay tuned for our special 100th episode next week!

Episode 98: How to Deal with Factory Shutdowns in China with Gary Huang of 80/20 Sourcing Nov 20, 2017

Show notes

"Definitely I would be vigilant like in an initial screening process. I know most online sellers probably don't have the luxury of being able to see all of their factories but if they do, if they do go to Canton Fair, I highly recommend it. Just so you know what you're dealing with and if you're not comfortable with that, definitely have some backup plans." - Gary Huang, founder of 80/20 Sourcing

One of the best perks of going to the Global Sources Summit is that I get to meet many people who are a wealth of knowledge for my business. One of these people is Gary Huang, founder of 80/20 Sourcing, a blog dedicated to show entrepreneurs how to source from China efficiently and cost-effectively. I heard him speak at Global Sources and I knew I just had to invite him to be a podcast guest so that I can share with you the valuable things I learned from him.

Gary lives in China and this episode was recorded via a call I made to him from California. The call quality suffered from the Chinese internet connection which, as you know, is not exactly zippy. Nevertheless, this episode is fully packed with great value for anyone who imports anything from China so it will be worth powering through the bad call quality to get to the good stuff.

Gary's topic at the Global Sources Summit is about supplier negotiation. There are so many things you can negotiate with your supplier aside from price of goods, and we talk about that a little bit in this episode. As a bonus, Gary has been awesome to give EcomCrew listeners access to his Negotiations pack, which includes the Online Seller's Guide to Negotiating with Suppliers e-book, a negotiations cheatsheet, and a "Secrets of Successful Sourcing" Masterclass video. You can get them all here for FREE.

Here are the highlights of our conversation:

Gary's ecommerce background and why he started 80/20 Sourcing
Why he moved to China and what it's like living in the midst of pollution
His direct insight on the ongoing factory shutdowns
The positive and negative effects of stricter Chinese environmental laws
How to deal with the shutdowns as an Amazon seller
Why visiting your factory or doing a third party inspection is very important
Direction of Chinese manufacturing
Is it a good idea to start sourcing from other countries such as India or Vietnam?
Outlook and best practices for sourcing for 2018

We hope you find this episode useful, as I did when I listened to Gary during his Global Sources talk. Don't forget to go to 8020sourcing.com/ecomcrew to get you FREE Negotiations pack.

Resources mentioned: AsiaInspection Stamped.io 8020sourcing.com 8020sourcing.com/ecomcrew

As always, thanks for listening to this episode. We'd love to have your feedback at iTunes and if you'd like to reach us, you can do so at support@ecomcrew.com. Until next episode, happy selling!

Episode 97: Asia Trip Review - Global Sources Summit, Canton Fair, and a Visit to our Philippines Team Nov 16, 2017

Show notes

"Sometimes you have to do something that makes you uncomfortable to further your career and your life and I really believe that." - Mike Jackness on speaking at the Global Sources Summit

This episode is a play-by-play report of my entire trip to Asia, covering the Global Sources Summit, the Canton Fair, meeting with our Philippines team -- basically everything my team and I did while we were in Asia from early October through early November.

If you're like me who doesn't like following someone's life abroad on an hour-by-hour basis, then this episode probably isn't for you. But if you are in ecommerce and have never been to these events in Asia before (or you're just curious about what we do there), this will give you a pretty good overview of what it's like to be on the road, traveling back and forth between cities to attend fairs and meet people, things you might need to do if you are serious in growing your importing business.

These are the highlights of my nearly month-long trip:

getting on a ridiculously luxurious first class flight to Hong Kong for about $50
hiking and exploring Hong Kong during my first few days there
the ill-timed typhoon
my presentation at the Global Sources Summit where I was rated as the number 1 speaker (this just goes to show that you can accomplish anything once you set your mind to it)
EcommerceFuel meetups, masterminds, and new plans to take EcomCrew to the next level
visiting my Philippines team
going to the Canton Fair
the amazing people I met from the ecommerce community

My wife Michelle, our Director of Ecommerce Jacqueline, and I crammed so many activities during our time in Asia that when we arrived back in San Diego we were all absolutely drained. These trips are very productive and rewarding, but be warned -- it can also be terribly exhausting.

Nevertheless, trips like this are very valuable for entrepreneurs looking for serious growth. The trick is laying out what you want to accomplish while you're there, which for me, are three things: meeting as many like-minded people/entrepreneurs as possible, touring as many factories as possible, and building as many relationships as you can with the people you already work with.

Resources mentioned:

AsiaInspection Stamped.io

Thanks for listening to this episode! If you can, please leave an honest feedback on iTunes and reach out to us at support@ecomcrew.com. Until next episode, happy selling!

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