The Ecomcrew Ecommerce Podcast

This year is speeding by as we're already in March! Hello from Irvine, California and Happy March everybody!  A few episodes ago, I put out an episode saying that I was interested in buying a business, and one of the interested sellers is today's lucky guest. Our guest is Jake Starr, the owner of Recycled Firefighter -- a brand that makes everyday carry items out of recycled firefighter gear, taken across America.  We talk about several things; how the business was born out of a need to support his family, and how that business quickly took a life of its own. As crazy as it sounds, he's looking to sell his business or looking into getting a partner and we get into the reasons why he feels like it's time to either loosen his grip, or let go.  Don't miss out on our free webinar on March 11th 10am PST, where Dave and I will be talking about Importing from China in 2020. We'll be addressing the elephant in the room -- the Corona virus, and how it's affecting the businesses of millions around the world, Amazon Dragonboat and the updates on tariffs as the new year picks up the pace. Register now!  

Hello from Las Vegas, Nevada! We've been back for the past few weeks and as they say, there's no place like home. In this episode, we're going Under the Hood with Roye Okupe, who's one of the few people who've been lucky enough to be interviewed on CNN about his journey and his ecommerce business. I don't want to give away too much here but Roye has one of the most amazing stories about his journey from where he was born, to how he discovered his niche and the rollercoaster ride in between. Today's episode is a little long, so if you'd like to skip ahead to the actionable advice, skip to the 30-min mark where we talk about the necessary steps for improving Roye's ecommerce business. If you want to learn more about Roye and his business, head on over to his website at YouNeek Studios. If you have an ecommerce business and want to up your Amazon game, visit our new free course where we talk about the 7 tips that you can use to set yourself apart from the competition. Today's the last day of Premium! Subscribe to EcomCrew Premium for one-on-one support with your business, access to a private Facebook group, two webinars every month where you get to ask us questions and learn from experts, and also discussing strategies on how to improve your ecommerce business. 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!

It’s goals time. Before I go into 2019's list, revisiting the 19 goals I’ve set up for myself and my company is something that I like to do before we get too deep into the year. Some of these goals were aimed for myself personally and for the company. And in this episode, we’re going through each of them – the ones we achieved, the ones we failed, and the ones that we got through halfway. Before going through this latest and final update of the progress made on my 2019 goals, here are the links to all the previous ones to get you up to speed. E227: 19 Goals for 2019 E243: 2019 Goals, A Recap on the 1st Quarter E279: 2019 Goals, After 8 Months E289: 2019 Goals, After 11 Months 2019 consisted more of ups than downs but for some reason, when you hit those low points, they feel really heavy. We may not have achieved some of these goals but we were still able to achieve some of the really important ones, like selling ColorIt and being more location independent. So, here goes. Sell a brand. Position another brand for sale in late 2020. Getting back to location independence. Reducing debt to zero dollars. Hike the West Coast Trail on Vancouver Island. Take at least 10 weeks of personal travel. Record 6 or more episodes of the Roadshow. Invest in at least 1 ecommerce business. Lose 10 more pounds. Visit the Philippines office in 2019. Start selling our services for EcomCrew. Significantly improve the quality of the podcast. Film season 2 of the 5 Minute Pitch. Break each of our brands out into different companies. Start hosting personal events for EcomCrew. Speak at 6 industry events. Shift to doing things that only bring me immense personal fulfillment. Do intermittent fasting for all of 2019 and eat less meat. Not to drink the rest of 2019. I'm definitely glad to cross out most of the items on this list. They were things that in hindsight, might have been necessary and I just didn't know it yet. Being more location independent for the second half of 2019 restored my thirst for stability, so in 2020, I'd definitely like to be more rooted where I am. If you'd like to listen to the Tropical MBA Podcast where I was a guest in, you can listen to it here. Join us at tomorrow's free webinar, How to Start a Brand from Scratch in 2020 and Beyond. Learn strategies that can help your ecommerce business grow and scale. Subscribe to EcomCrew Premium. 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!

Welcome to the Ecomcrew podcast! It's been a month-long trip overseas. We visited several countries in South East Asia and even stopped by Australia to catch the Australian Open. This particular episode was recorded while we were still in the Land Down Under. But now we're back in America, ready to jump into the year with a refreshed mind and a hunger for growth. In this episode, I sit down with Dave Alexander to talk about his ecommerce journey, how his first ecommerce business failed and how he persevered through it all by making his third product called Lazyleash, a product that's five years in the making. For all the people that are just starting out on their ecommerce journey, I think this will be a great episode for you because Dave shares how perseverance is super important when you're first venturing into the unknown, especially in ecommerce. However, if you're a seasoned seller, and you've crossed the 1-million mark, I think you'll still find this entertaining after you hear what Dave's first ecommerce idea was. Join the waitlist here to know when Premium opens next week. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review on iTunes and feel free to leave us a comment on the bottom of the page. Until next time, happy selling!

Hi, Dave here. The spread of the 2019 Novel-coronavirus (2019-nCov) has been sowing fear and panic in people throughout the world for weeks now. The latest statistics from the WHO have recorded 14,557 cases of the disease, with an overwhelming 14,411 originating from China. The Chinese government enforced lockdown on the city of Wuhan, the outbreak’s epicenter, and also in other cities in the Hubei province, including Xiangyang where ecommerce entrepreneur Cameron Walker is quarantined with this family. In this episode, we get a firsthand account of what daily life is like in a city forced into isolation, as the rest of China frantically works to contain the virus. Cameron also talks about the potential impact the Coronavirus outbreak can potentially have on ecommerce sellers importing their goods from Chinese manufacturers.

Welcome to the Ecomcrew podcast and hello from Melbourne, Australia! We're at the last stop for our holiday trip but I recorded a bunch of podcasts while we were still in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam, and we've been saving today's episode for the big 300 milestone.  So in today's episode of the Ecomcrew podcast, I get to speak with a very special guest. He's one of my best friends, but we're not going to reveal who just yet to avoid spoilers for the audience. But our secret guest has been a very important person to Ecomcrew, and if you're one of the listeners that have been with us from the very beginning, you might know who I'm talking about.  We go over various topics like why he decided to start selling on Amazon full-time all those years ago, how running multiple businesses does not mean you're a great multitasker, and how we've changed and grown over so many years. 

In this episode, I will be going over the top 10 things that we learned about Amazon when they appeared in court vs. Congress; where they had to answer a few questions about Online Platforms and Market Power. Unfortunately, Bezos didn't appear in court himself, but Amazon's lawyers took his place in the hot seat instead. The lawyers were very careful with how they responded to the questions by Congress but nevertheless, there were countless fascinating insights revealed about Amazon and so, we broke down and summarized the most interesting of these points for sellers.  If you'd like to read the full article where I go more in-depth into the hearings and what we learn about Amazon, the full article is available here: https://www.ecomcrew.com/congress-amazon/ What did you think of Amazon’s answers to Congress’ questions? Do you think they were being candid and forthright? Let me know in the comments section below.

Hello from Asia! We’ve been here since the middle of December, spending the holidays over in Thailand. Now we’re in Ho Chi Minh City, exploring the capital and financial center of Vietnam. I’ve been to quite a few places in  Asia but I have to say that Chiang Mai, where we’ve been staying in while in Thailand, really stands out. This mountain city is a digital nomad’s paradise. In the weeks we were there, we’ve hung out with several ecommerce entrepreneurs who or are more less permanently settled in the area. In this episode, I chat with one of the ‘locals’. Chris Cage channeled his passion for hiking to come up with Greenbelly Meals, a company that sells ready-to-eat backpacking meals. He takes me through how he started his business and how he plans to grow it in the years to come.  And of course, he shares the perks of living and working in a tropical paradise. Check out the timestamps below so you can dive into the parts you’re most interested in. What makes a Chiang Mai is an entrepreneurial hotspot How Chris started his business The future of Greenbelly Meals The challenges ahead  Advice for beginner entrepreneurs That’s it for this episode. Are you also living the digital nomad slash online entrepreneur lifestyle? Leave us a comment below and share your experience. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review on iTunes. And use the comment section on the bottom of the page to ask us a question.  Till next time, happy selling!

Happy New Years to all of our listeners out there! For today's episode of the Ecomcrew podcast, I have a chat with Paul Rafelson about the Online Merchant's Guild and any updates that came to fruition within the last year. Other than that, we go over various topics that will definitely interest online sellers within the US such as several tax issues, why you should join the Guild, and the influx of China sellers within Amazon. If you're new to the podcast and haven't heard about the Online Merchant's Guild, it is a non-profit organization that gives sellers the opportunity to voice out their concerns on various legal issues, with an aim to make the business climate better for online sellers, whether on Amazon or on their own Shopify site. In our last podcast episode with them, we talked about Sales Tax — why it's such a complicated subject, the various states’ position on Sales Tax, and why it led to the birth of the Guild in the first place. I highly encourage all of our listeners, whether you're a seller on Amazon or on your own Shopify site, to join the Online Merchant's Guild, because while we are used to solving various legal problems on our own, this is just something that we can't do by ourselves; it will be costly and ineffective. We need to grow our strength in numbers and support each other to make this online business climate better for sellers. As always, here are the topics that Paul and I go over with timestamps:  Recap over the last year — (5:19) The Impact of the Online Merchant’s Guild — (7:56) The Issue of Back Taxes — (9:16) Income Taxes and the States that Enforce Them — (11:02) The Landscape of Taxes Today — (15:41) Why You Should Join The Online Merchant’s Guild  — (19:31) Addressing the Influx of Chinese Sellers on Amazon — (20:19) The Promise of Online Merchant’s Guild — (25:06) The Guild is For Everyone, Not Just Amazon Sellers — (28:59) Aiming for Amazon Independence — (29:49) If you want more information on the Online Merchant's Guild, feel free to send us an email at support@ecomcrew.com or visit their website to start making a change today. We'd love to hear from you.

Today's episode of the Ecomcrew Podcast is the final episode of 2019 and because of that, we have a bit of a treat for you. Dave Bryant will be joining me in this episode and together we'll be going through the Top 10 Ecomcrew Podcast Episodes of the year. To come up with the rankings, we took into consideration several statistics such as average minutes played, total downloads, pulling data from all the places that we host the podcast, like Spotify, iTunes, and even from the blog itself.  Now this does mean that we won't have an episode for next week, just to give you guys the opportunity to spend the remaining days of 2019 with your friends and family, and to get ready for the New Year as we approach 2020. As always, and for the final time this year: Happy Selling, and we'll talk to you soon.