The Ecomcrew Ecommerce Podcast

Mike and AccrueMe founder Don Henig take a walk down memory lane to talk about the biggest struggles that all entrepreneurs face and how to overcome them.    Entrepreneurship is a challenging endeavor. Getting your business off the ground, growing your company, and building relationships takes a lot of time and effort—not to mention the plethora of uncertainties you will face along the way.    In this episode, Don Henig joins me in dissecting the biggest struggles of entrepreneurs based on our own personal experiences. We’ll be sharing some valuable lessons we learned throughout the years about business, people, and money, as well as how we faced our biggest setbacks head on.   If you’re stuck in a rut or are in need of a little bit of inspiration, there’s a lot of value in this episode for you.   Timestamps:  Don’s entrepreneurial journey – 2:18 How to handle serious business losses – 13:52 The hardest part of being an entrepreneur – 20:52 Moving on from business partnerships and valuable employees leaving – 24:00 Why AccrueMe is the only financing that’s accretive for sellers – 38:47   I wanna thank Don for coming back to the podcast and making this episode very insightful. If you’re interested in what AccrueMe has to offer, check out Episode 384 where Don talks about why AccrueMe is a fresh way to get some funding for online sellers. Also be sure to check out our In-depth Review of AccrueMe so you can make an informed decision before diving in.    If you’re ready to get some funding, head over to AccrueMe website using this link to get a sweet deal as an EcomCrew listener!    Happy selling and I’ll talk to you soon!

Mike and Omnisend Co-Founder Rytis Lauris discuss the most popular marketing channels for ecommerce businesses and how you can optimize your marketing campaigns.   Marketing is part and parcel of running an ecommerce business, but the industry is constantly changing and sellers who are constantly looking out for the most effective marketing methods are often the ones who are ahead of the curve.    Joining me for this episode is Rytis Lauris, Co-Founder and CEO of Omnisend, which is a very useful all-in-one suite for running marketing campaigns, from email, SMS, to Push notifications.    Some of the good stuff we talk about in this episode include the most effective marketing methods right now, what people get wrong about online marketing, and how you can give customers that great first purchase experience. Since we’ve had Rytis on the podcast before, we’ll also do a bit of catching up about the latest developments in marketing to help you optimize your own marketing campaigns.    Timestamps:  Intro – 00:35 Email is not dead – 1:02 Where people go wrong with email marketing – 8:15 Why SMS marketing has taken off – 18:50 What happened to Push Notifications? – 26:07 Connect your marketing efforts with your support structure – 32:55   I’m definitely excited to have Rytis back on the podcast down the road to talk about all the big changes in the marketing landscape in a couple of years. If you’re interested to know more about Omnisend and all its cool features, head over to their website or hit Rytis up on LinkedIn.  Also, don’t forget to leave us a review over on iTunes if you haven’t already. Happy selling and I’ll catch you on the next one!

Happy New Year! We've been a little bit late with publishing this episode due to the holidays but we're back with the weekly releases.  Today, we're back with our monthly report for the month of November - we’re going to stop with the monthly report blog posts but we do plan on keeping this tradition alive for the podcast, so stay tuned for more Brand Report episodes. Do let us know how you feel by sending an email over to support@ecomcrew.com.  Since it's the beginning of winter, we've reached an all time low in terms of revenue across all our brands, mainly because most of them reach their seasonal peak in the summer months. We've seen this trend before with all of our previous years of data, so we're not too worried about it.  We're actually a little more excited than usual because WildBaby was able to survive a lot of the Black Friday rush, and we didn't run out of inventory like we usually did in our previous years. But how much inventory is too much? With interest rates also going back up, our bottom line is starting to look a little dicey for 2023.  However, despite these challenges, we’ve had a lot of wins in many of our brands. We’ve recently been in talks with our suppliers to get better payment terms, and been working with an agency to up our branding.  1:13 – An update to our Brand Report Segment   4:05 – November Revenue numbers 5:11 – Predictions for December numbers 6:06 – Sneak Peek: Not running out of inventory for December  6:32 – How much inventory will Mike be left with?  8:00 – Loss: Having too much inventory 9:06 – Loss: Interest Rates going up  16:37 – Is the risk of supply chain disruptions going down?  18:59 – Supply Chain Uncertainties: Predictions for 2023 20:11 – COVID and Chinese New Year 23:19 – Wins for November 23:25 – Better Payment Terms for Suppliers  27:20 – Will Inflation go down the same way everything has?  34:30 – Win: Incorporating UGC into our Brands  Check out the Brand Report that complements this episode for more additional details on our wins, challenges and action plans. Secret Sauce and EcomCrew Premium subscribers also get access to our monthly Income Report, which contains a more detailed breakdown of our numbers and strategies. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review on iTunes. We’d love to hear about what topics you want us to discuss next.

Mike and Dave talk about the current environment of software tools in the ecommerce space; how it's grown, the leaps and bounds made throughout the years, and the pitfalls of some of these changes. 2022 has been a year of changes and innovations in the software space, and EcomCrew is once again polling sellers to find out the Best Amazon Seller Software across five categories: Keyword and Product Research PPC Management Reimbursement Services Repricing Tools Product Launches By simply telling us what you think and completing the survey, you’ll get a chance to win a free Annual EcomCrew Premium Membership valued at $2000. Head over to ecomcrew.com/softwarepoll to cast your vote! For this episode, Dave and I will talk about all the new and popular tools (including ones that Amazon launched just this year) at a high level to give you a rough idea about where the whole seller software ecosystem is headed in the coming years. In a few weeks, we’ll be doing a follow-up episode to talk about the poll results and why sellers think the winning software are the most important for an ecommerce business. Timestamps: Intro and catching up — 00:00 What EcomCrew’s’ annual software poll is all about — 3:14 Significant innovations in terms of Amazon software — 7:58 Areas of improvement for “AI” software — 10:20 Have Google and Facebook tried to resist these new tools? — 13:00 Has the average budget for seller software gone down significantly? — 17:58 Why Amazon is rolling out its own seller tools — 20:34 How to vote on EcomCrew’s Software Pool — 23:02 Don’t forget to cast your vote over on ecomcrew.com/softwarepoll and get a chance to win an annual EcomCrew Premium membership free for your troubles.  Also, don’t forget to follow and leave us a review over on iTunes if you enjoy all our content. It helps more than you know. Until the next one, happy selling!

About 18 months ago, Jodie Cook sold her business and wrote a book about the ten-year journey that led her there. She has determined the four main steps that help entrepreneurs achieve financial freedom without sacrificing personal time.   Timestamps: Jodie’s e-commerce background - 2:40 The framework of The Ten Year Career - 4:39 How ego keeps your business from growing - 7:18 How to get from Execute to Systemize - 7:56 The upside of delegating - 11:29  How to know when you’re on the Scrutinize step - 13:45  How to prepare for the best possible exit - 15:22  What pushed Jodie to sell her business - 21:44 The wrong reasons to exit your business - 24:40   You can check out Jodie’s book, The Ten Year Career: Reimagine Business, Design Your Life, Fast Track Your Freedom on Amazon. It’s a great addition to any online business owner’s bookshelf. You can also find out where you are in your career by taking the quiz on the book’s companion site.   By the way, EcomCrew Premium is still at 50% off until midnight. This is your last chance to register during our biggest sale of the year, so don’t miss out! Visit our website to secure your slot.

Starting an Amazon business today is a completely different ball game compared to starting to sell in 2015. These days, you'll need more than just good-looking listings and great copy to hit that highly 7 or 8-figure revenue milestone.   I've invited fellow MDS member and 8-figure seller Talor Zamir to tell us exactly how he's built multiple businesses up to the 8-figure mark, how he got started in the ecommerce industry and the valuable lessons he's learnt along the way. He's also got some tips in store for those of you who are thinking of starting something new for 2023.    Don't have the time to listen through the whole episode? We've got you covered. Here's some of the highlights from the episode:  Introduction to Talor Zamir - 1:22  How Talor differentiated products in his first business - 9:45  What Talor's best performing businesses had in common - 15:53 Talor's Differentiation Strategy #2 - Earning your customers trust - 18:52  Why Mike started the Ecomcrew Podcast - 25:13  Talor's Differentiation Strategy #3 - 27:23  How much time Talor spent between selling and starting businesses - 29:25  What Talor's working on currently - 34:00    The lessons here are definitely something everyone should take into consideration before starting your business. No matter how attractive it might seem to sell any product with a high search volume, the riches are in the niches and the best niches are the ones where you can see yourself as the ideal customer.    This advice may seem obvious to the experienced seller, so I'll echo out a piece of advice for those with mid-sized businesses: do a lot of thinking time. Spend some time outside of the daily work to-do list to think about what you can do to take your brand to the next level.    I won't spoil anymore for the episode, but hopefully this convinces you to listen through the whole thing. However, if you're more interested in what Talor has to say after hearing his story, check out the Peak Performance Life Podcast where he speaks with physical and mental health experts on how you can start prioritizing your health better.    Lastly, big things are happening this week with EcomCrew Premium. We’re going to be launching for the last time in 2022, and this is going to be our biggest sale ever! On top of the heavily discounted rate, we’re giving an additional 20% off to those who register for our waitlist.

October was a busy month for both me and Dave as we work on preparing for Black Friday and making more improvements on all our brands. On top of that, we’re also getting ready for 2023, so it’s no surprise that we’ve run into some challenges along the way.   In particular, we’ve been dealing with Amazon’s new inventory storage limits that affected most of our brands. In this episode, we talk about how we’re dealing with that and a few things we’ve been implementing to increase our sales and conversion. For more information, check out our October 2022 Brand Report.   Here are the episode’s highlights: Amazon Inventory Storage Limits and the percentage of sellers affected - 3:20  Our theory on why Amazon imposed inventory limits despite the abundance of warehouse space - 7:10 How our inventory levels are doing with the new limits - 11:20 EcomCrew Premium Black Friday Launch - 14:35 Using Join Brands to increase conversions - 19:50 Justifying ad costs and small improvements for your brand - 22:40 How our site traffic improved by using AI - 28:10   We’re going to be discussing more about how we significantly improved our sites’ traffic using AI in our public webinar tomorrow, November 22 at 10 AM (PST). We’re doing a roundup of all the most effective and advanced strategies we’ve used during the year and show you how you can apply them to your own brands. Make sure to register to save your seats.   Lastly, big things are happening this week with EcomCrew Premium. We’re going to be launching for the last time in 2022, and this is going to be our biggest sale ever! On top of the heavily discounted rate, we’re giving an additional 20% off to those who register for our waitlist.  

Mike talks to the co-founder of Avataar, Gaurav Baid, about the future of ecommerce through the lens of Augmented Reality and how you can enhance the customer experience through AR.   Gaurav is the Co-founder and Chief Product Officer at Avataar, a company that aims to bridge the gap between retailers and their customers to create a unique interactive shopping experiences for customers through Augmented Reality.    In this episode, our discussion mainly revolved around these 4 points:  The questions that AR can provide to improve Customer Experience The unlimited future possibilities of AR and contextual reality How creating content with AI is a struggle Being the first to adapt will give you a generational advantage The statistics of AR's effect on Ecommerce The evolution of advertisements through Augmented Reality  The costs of AR and today's capabilities    After everything you've heard today, you might be interested in checking out Avataar. Check out Avataar if you're interested in helping customers visualize your products in their personal spaces.    On another news, we’re excited to announce that we’ll be opening EcomCrew Premium on Black Friday for the last time this year. And of course, we’re saving the best for last by giving you our biggest discount yet. For an even more special offer, sign up for our waitlist today. It’s open only once a quarter, and there’s no better time to register.   Do you have any thoughts about our podcast? Leave us a review on iTunes.

Mike speaks to Will Haire of BellaVix about some last minute tactics you can incorporate into your business before the biggest sale of the year -- Black Friday Cyber Monday weekend.    The biggest online sales event of the year is coming, and we’re here to help you prepare your brand to make the most out of it. I’m joined by Will Haire of Bellavix to talk about the most important aspects of your business you should be looking at.   Here are the episode’s highlights: Will’s ecommerce background - 3:21 What businesses should be preparing for during BFCM - 4:28 Preparing your site and product listings - 9:46 The importance of going for longtail keywords - 14:38 How to encourage user-generated content without violating Amazon’s TOS - 15:12 Will’s main image horror story - 18:20 Black Friday EcomCrew Premium opening - 23:05 How to prepare enough inventory for Black Friday - 25:25 Some hard truths about selling on Amazon - 29:00 Are labor issues affecting Amazon’s warehousing problems? - 32:10 Will’s advertising advice - 33:35   Will is the CEO and Co-Founder of Bellavix, a full-service management agency. Check out Bellavix if you need assistance in managing and growing your business on Amazon or Walmart. They specialize on category domination and cater not only to third-party but also to first-party sellers.   On another news, we’re excited to announce that we’ll be opening EcomCrew Premium on Black Friday for the last time this year. And of course, we’re saving the best for last by giving you our biggest discount yet. For an even more special offer, sign up for our waitlist today. It’s open only once a quarter, and there’s no better time to register.   Have any thoughts about our podcast? Leave us a review on iTunes.

Mike talks to long-time Premium member Jamie Graham about restructuring the business and moving towards the EOS model, which entails moving from a high-level Amazon director position to a Training Manager, to spend less time on the business.   Jamie Graham is a Premium member that I was able to meet in an MDS event back in 2018. He and his wife Kayleigh own a beauty brand that’s grown up to 6 million pounds in revenue, with a profit margin of 10%.   In this episode, the majority of the discussion was focused on these four points: Restructuring to focus on what you enjoy the most Restructuring an ecommerce department: by marketplace or by discipline?  Creating a 3-year business plan and how to incentivize employees to stay on track Focusing on growing the off-Amazon channel of the business   Jamie and I also went over how close he is to making a life-changing amount of money as he approaches the endgame with almost 5 years in the business and 7 million pounds of revenue every year.    If you’re interested, you can check out the previous Under the Hood episode here. I’m looking forward to hearing back from Jamie over the next couple of months. With Q4 coming into full swing in just a few weeks, he’ll definitely be having his hands full.   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!   Get more information about Million Dollar Sellers on EcomCrew.com/MDS.   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!