The Ecomcrew Ecommerce Podcast

Welcome to Episode 354 of the EcomCrew podcast! It seems like it wasn’t too long ago when we started recording the first one, but here we are, closing 2020 out with the 354th episode. Throughout the year, we’ve talked to lots of interesting people in the industry and learned a bunch of new stuff both from their expertise and their mistakes. To cap it all off, we’ve thrown together a list of the best episodes of 2020. It includes 7 of our most downloaded episodes plus a few other favorites handpicked by our staff. What did you think about E350 and Greg Elfrink’s story of the Uber for grilled cheese sandwiches? Did the tidbits we found out in the Amazon vs. Congress Hearing in E299 raise your eyebrows? How about that crazy ‘package stabber’ story from our good friend Merideth in E339? Timestamps How we made our picks - 3:20 Top10: E301: Why Perseverance is so Important in Ecommerce with Dave Alexander - 3:54 Top 9. E315: Getting Your First Product into People's Hands - 5:16 Top 8. E298: Running an Ecommerce Business Out of Chiang Mai, Thailand - 6:15 Top 7. E307: Breaking the Patterns in Copywriting with Lianna Patch - 7:52 Top 6. E316: The State of the Amazon Seller with Joe from JungleScout - 9:20 Top 5. E299: Top 10 Things We Learned in the Amazon vs. Congress Hearing - 10:39 Top 4. E350: 7 Highly Interesting Businesses and What You Can Learn From Them with Greg Elfrink - 13:09 Top 3. E339: Crazy Customer Tales with Meredith Erin - 14:39 Top 2. Bonus Ep: The Struggles of an Ecommerce Seller in China Right Now - 16:45 Top 1. E303: A Pen, a Paper and a Dream with Roye Okupe - 19:09 How 2020 has been for us - 20:50 We’re throwing together a list of the best Amazon seller software of 2020. Simply tell us which apps you find most helpful and get a chance to win an annual Premium membership worth $1999 absolutely free. For Premium members, we’ll be extending your membership for a full year if you win. All you need to do is answer four short questions. Did your favorite episode make it on our list? Let us know and don’t forget to leave a review over on iTunes. Happy holidays and, as always, happy selling!

Being among the 100 fastest-growing private companies of 2020 in America is no small feat, but behind the scenes, things aren’t as pretty as they seem. In this catch-up episode, Victor Delacruz of Christian Planner is back to share his experiences after our hour-long Under the Hood episode a couple of years ago. We chat about his company’s immense growth in revenue, losing a key business partner, and how he is facing financial challenges that could be fatal to his business. I dissect Christian Planner’s current situation and discuss Victor’s best options moving forward. Does he need to get his expenses under control to pay off debt? Or is he better off selling the business altogether? Timestamps Catching up with Victor and Christian Planner - 3:13  Falling flat and losing C-level executives - 5:10 Victor’s struggle of not being a business person - 6:42 Analyzing Victor’s current debt situation - 8:59 Why understanding key numbers in business is an essential skill set - 15:04 Potential outcomes of staying on or moving on - 18:20 Victor’s current gameplan - 22:54 The importance of knowing your strengths and weaknesses - 26:50 Why Victor’s business is special - 29:45 How to look at debt and manage burnout - 32:44 What I would do if I were in Victor's shoes - 33:44 How businesses are valued and my advice if he decides to sell - 40:06 If you want to know more about Victor and his company, check out Christian Planner’s cool designs on https://christianplanner.com/collections/all. Do you have any favorite Amazon software or app? Let us know by answering just four questions. And to thank you for your time, we'll pick one lucky winner randomly and reward him or her with a free annual subscription to EcomCrew Premium. If you're already a member, we'll extend your membership for another year for free. All you need to do is answer this poll. Ever have to face a tough decision like Victor? Let us know in the comments section and share this episode with a friend. Also, don’t forget to leave us a review over on iTunes. Happy selling!

Our EcomCrew family is growing year after year, and we’ve been welcoming new members since we first launched. However, despite the unique individuals who join the community, we’ve been noticing some questions that are constantly recurring be it in our exclusive Facebook group, in the emails, or during our monthly webinars. So Dave and I decided to pool together the top 5 questions that our Premium members are asking and answer them on this podcast. You might be having the same queries yourself, so this is a great episode for you to finally get the answers! Timestamps: The silver lining of the pandemic for me - 4:50 Question 1: Should your blog content be on a standalone domain or should you have it on your e-commerce website? - 9:25 The advantages of having a standalone blog - 10:51 Question 2: When should you group your products together? - 13:37 How eliminating some of my products helped my conversion rates - 15:52 The effect of launching a variation of a successful product - 20:20 Question 3: When should you open a second Amazon account? - 21:40 The advantages and disadvantages of making a separate Amazon account for different brands - 24:10 Question 4: What type of URLs do you use when sending traffic to Amazon? - 29:48 Question 5: When should you stop optimizing your Amazon listings and work on another product? - 36:20 What I did when our competitors started copying our listings - 39:00 Our plans for EcomCrew in 2021 - 42:20 Aside from these five questions, a lot more are being answered within our EcomCrew Premium community. If you want to be a part of the team for free and join us on our exclusive webinars, you can tell us what your favorite Amazon software is so you can get the chance to win an EcomCrew annual subscription! If you’re already a member, we’ll extend your membership for another year. All you need to do is answer four quick questions, and you can be the lucky winner. We hope you enjoyed this episode, and if you did, don’t forget to leave us a review on iTunes. It helps this podcast a lot, and we’d really appreciate it if you do. Until the next episode! Happy selling!

We’ve talked about buying and selling e-commerce businesses before, but in this episode, we are joined by a respected lawyer in the field who will help us understand the technicalities of the legal side of the process. John Di Giacomo is a partner at Revision Legal and is also an adjunct professor of law at Michigan University. He is an expert in intellectual property law, corporate law, internet law, and international law. His expertise and his 11-year experience in e-commerce make John highly sought after by entrepreneurs who are looking to buy or sell their online businesses. In this episode, we delve into the nitty-gritty of the process so you can be guided. Timestamps Introduction to John Di Giacomo - 3:03 Why and when you should prepare your business for sale - 4:40 Cleaning up your financial records - 5:35 The importance of separating different lines of your business - 7:35 The value of a valuation analysis - 9:00 How tax prepping helped me sell ColorIt more smoothly - 14:54 Cleaning up your cap tables - 16:08 Supplier price readjustments during the turnover - 21:44 Taking account of your business’ intellectual property rights - 26:55 Disclosing your loans during negotiation - 29:23 Identifying the terms for post-deal participation - 32:33 How we’re doing with inbox zero - 40:18 I want to thank John for his time in recording this episode with me. If you want to reach out to him, you can visit their official website or email him at john@revisionlegal.com. EcomCrew is also doing a survey about the Best Amazon Software of 2020. Help us out by answering just 4 questions at ecomcrew.com/vote. As a thank you for doing so, we’ll give you a chance to win an annual subscription of EcomCrew Premium--a prize that’s valued at $1999! If you’re already a member, we’ll extend your membership for another year for free if you get chosen. If you like this episode, please don’t forget to leave us a review over on iTunes if you haven’t already. Until next time, happy selling!

As e-commerce sellers, we can become attached to our businesses, especially when we built them from the ground up. However, at some point in time, we have to let them go to move on to better projects or, as it was in my case, to let go of some of the stress that comes with running multiple businesses.   There are good reasons for selling your business, and our guest for this episode knows them all too well.   Greg Elfrink is the Director of Marketing of Empire Flippers, a company that specialises in buying and selling online businesses. In this episode, he shares seven of the most interesting businesses he had to deal with at Empire Flippers and the lessons he learned from each.   Timestamps: Catching up with Greg - 2:26 Business #1 - 5:03 How important are product niches? - 6:53 Business #2 - 8:30 Why I sold ColorIt and the factors I considered before doing so -10:06 How to line up your personal and business goals - 13:00 Is it okay to sell your e-commerce business? - 14:02 Business #3 - 16:56 How to be featured on review articles - 20:20 The latest improvements on Tactical.com - 22:10 Business #4 - 28:15 The importance of simplifying your e-commerce business - 30:06 Business #5 - 31:30 How EcomCrew is designed for simplification - 35:12 Business #6 - 37:34 Business #7 - 39:18 The future of e-commerce and brick-and-mortar stores - 43:00 How to get a free valuation from Empire Flippers - 49:02 Why you should try Empire Flippers’ services - 50:00   If you want to know how much your business is worth, you can visit empireflippers.com/valuation-tool. To contact Greg, you can reach him at greg@empireflippers.com.   If you want to get the chance to win a free annual EcomCrew Premium subscription valued at $2000, go and answer our Amazon software survey. There are just four questions, so it wouldn’t even take much of your time.   If you loved this episode, please don’t forget to leave a review on iTunes.   Happy selling!

Amazon sellers use various software as tools to help grow their businesses and make the processes smoother. If you’ve ever wondered which ones are used by most sellers, you’re not alone. To settle this matter, we’ve decided to conduct a survey that will give us a list of the most popular Amazon seller software. We’ve created a total of four categories, which we discuss in detail in this episode. The good news is that you can take part in this survey, and after answering just four questions, you can get a chance to win a full year of EcomCrew Premium subscription! That’s a prize valued at $2000 for a few minutes of your time. Plus, you’ll also get a swag pack from us if you win. Just head on over to ecomcrew.com/vote, and don’t miss your chance to enjoy EcomCrew Premium for free! Timestamps Updates on my e-commerce websites - 3:20 My 2020 Black Friday sales compared to last year - 5:00 The difficulties in comparing year-over-year Black Friday sales - 5:50 What you need to do if you want to sell your business in the future - 10:05 1st Category: Product Launches and Giveaways Software - 12:30 2nd Category: Keyword and Product Research Software - 16:17 3rd Category: PPC Management Software - 22:00 4th Category: Reimbursement Services - 36:03 For more details about the survey and the software tools we feature, head on over to the EcomCrew blog page and read Dave's article. If you want to get to know more about Jungle Scout, one of the software featured in our poll, listen to the podcast episode I had with its CEO, Greg Mercer. You can also watch the video of the interview on Youtube. If you like this episode, please don’t forget to leave us a review over on iTunes. It helps our channel a lot and also allows us to reach more e-commerce sellers who can benefit from our content. Until the next one, happy selling!

Welcome to Episode 348 of the EcomCrew Podcast! It’s Dave here! I’m taking over the podcast recording today to share with you some advertising methods you can use after the busy season is over. I know you’re still tired with all the preparations for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and it’s not the best time to experiment with your ad campaigns. But after the dust has settled, you might want to try out these methods to see how they work for you. Over the years, we’ve seen improvements in Amazon ads, but they are getting more complex and more expensive. So aside from knowing which method to use, you should also know how much you should be spending on them. Timestamps: Amazon changes that affect advertising costs and methods - 2:20 Pages that Amazon advertises on - 3:50 The new default metric on Amazon ads - 5:05 Method #1: Sponsored Brands Videos The need to invest in high-quality video ads - 9:40 How much to spend on Sponsored Brands Videos - 10:15 Method #2: Sponsored Display ads (Product Targeting) - 11:43 Method #3: Sponsored Display ads (Views Remarketing) - 14:55 The problems with Views Remarketing - 16:34 How much you should spend on Views Remarketing - 19:20 Method #4: Ads on NARF listings - 20:43 If you want to know more about these methods, check out the article I wrote. It goes into much more detail about each ad option. If you have any ecommerce-related questions you’re dying to ask us, you can do so live on December 1 at 10 AM (PST). This webinar is usually for Premium members only, but we’re offering it to you for free as we reopen EcomCrew Premium one last time in 2020. Also, please take time to leave us a review over on iTunes if you like this episode or the podcast in general. Happy selling!

Cory Stout is perhaps the most frequent guest of the EcomCrew podcast. He did a Roadshow with us as well as a two-part Under the Hood segment. In this episode, I talk to him again to see how his business is doing and how my advice to him almost three years ago worked out. We also talk about the future of ecommerce, his plans for the next year, and other random stuff about being an entrepreneur in this day and age. Timestamps: How being consistent helped in growing my sites - 3:42 How Cory implemented my email marketing advice in his business - 7:35 Living in a world of infinite leverage - 9:40 Assessing Cory’s plan to make an eCEO - 12:20 What decisions are worth making and which ones should be delegated - 16:48 The effects of raising your products’ prices - 24:44 Living in the present vs. living online - 29:20 The philosophy that best defines me - 32:36 The future of ecommerce - 36:15 Will Amazon still be the ecommerce leader in 3 to 5 years? - 40:22 Cory’s plans for 2021 - 45:58 If you want to know more about Cory’s business, you can check out his awesome sunglasses over at woodies.com. If you want to be a guest at the podcast, you can sign up now to get an hour of free coaching. This is also an opportunity for you to create more awareness about your brand while we get awesome content for the podcast. It’s a win-win! And if you’re getting value out of the business advice we give to guests on the show, you’ll love our upcoming webinar. Get the chance to ask us anything on December 1 during our Q&A webinar. This is a feature that we give exclusively to EcomCrew Premium members, but we’re letting you experience it for free. All you have to do is sign up and show up on December 1 at 10 AM (PST). I hope you enjoyed this episode, and if you did, please leave us a review over on iTunes. Happy selling!

Many people who have not been in the ecommerce business themselves have these expectations about the industry that are almost instantly shattered once they try it out themselves. One of the biggest myths in running an ecommerce business is that it’s an easy thing to do because you have the potential to earn while you sleep. What they don’t know is that unless you learn to manage your processes and to let go some of the responsibilities to concentrate on what matters most, you might not even get enough sleep in the first place. In this episode, we acknowledge these expectations and show you what you can do to run and grow your business without losing your sanity. There’s a lot to learn from this episode especially because our guest, Melissa Eisler, is an expert in managing ecommerce businesses. Melissa is an executive coach and has helped many entrepreneurs figure out how to run their businesses smoothly while still being able to have time to actually enjoy life. She has also helped us with our Masterminds before, and I’m very happy that she’s finally joining us in the podcast. Timestamps: The overwhelming feeling that comes with expanding your business - 4:14 How Melissa manages her responsibilities - 5:10 Melissa’s trick to determining which things to focus on - 6:24 The cons of having freedom with your time - 7:34 Some principles to consider to not be busy all the time - 8:53 The one thing that keeps entrepreneurs from improving - 11:30 How to transition from solopreneurship to hiring employees - 14:28 The advantages of hiring employees with complementary skills - 17:28 Mike’s advice on letting go of responsibilities and assigning them to specialists - 19:10 How to tame your controller tendencies - 21:05 Getting a business partner vs. hiring employees - 24:30 Self-awareness and the importance of actively discovering your flaws as a leader - 29:54 The harsh realities about running an ecommerce business - 33:02 Investing in good employees - 36:18 Creating a space for conscious choices - 40:03 If you want to learn more about Melissa or avail of her services, you can visit her website to contact her. She also runs our Masterminds, and if you want to learn more about that, reach out to us through the special email address we sent you if you’re an EcomCrew Premium member. If not, you can sign up to be one to get access to these Masterminds, our Secret Sauce webinars, Premium courses, and other Premium-members-only features through our paid subscription. With our Black Friday deal coming up, now is really the best time to sign up! Meanwhile, you can join us on our upcoming Public Q&A Webinar on December 1 at 10 AM (PST). You can ask us any questions related to ecommerce, importing, hiring, and any other areas you’re having trouble with. Finally, if you like this episode, please leave us a review over on iTunes. It helps us reach more people, and you’ll be accumulating good karma for doing so. Until the next one, happy selling!

Welcome to the EcomCrew Podcast, and we have a special episode for you today! Brad Bernhart, our first Under the Hood guest, is back to give us updates on how his business is doing. We get to revisit my advice to him, whether or not he was able to implement them, and how it turned out. We started this segment in January 2018, hoping to help out our fellow entrepreneurs improve their businesses while also getting great content for the podcast. Almost three years later, we’re still doing it, and we want to know how my advice actually influenced their growth. Timestamps: Recap of Brad’s first Under the Hood guesting - 3:54 The Jackness Five - 4:54 How Brad implemented my advice - 7:03 Brad’s business growth update - 15:28 The two main things that increased Brad’s revenue - 16:00 The future of ecommerce - 19:15 How Brad can get into corporate gifting - 21:23 My honest take on Brad’s corporate gifting page - 28:20 Good keywords for Earlywood Designs - 30:44 How Brad can improve his site’s SEO - 33:12 Writing content yourself vs. hiring someone else - 42:00 How long blogging will pay off - 43:18 Brad’s company is selling handmade wooden utensils, which I personally think are works of art. You can visit Earlywood’s official website to find out more. In case you missed it or want to give it a revisit, listen to Brad’s two-part Under the Hood guesting on Episode 110 and Episode 112 of the podcast. If you’d like to be featured in our Under the Hood segment and get an hour of free coaching, you can sign up now and we will contact you in case you’re chosen. You can also join us on December 1 at 10 AM (PST) for a free public Q&A webinar, which is perfect for your Q1 planning for 2021. You can ask us anything business-related, and Dave and I will try our best to help you out. If you like this episode, please leave us a review over on iTunes. Until the next episode! Happy selling!