The Ecomcrew Ecommerce Podcast

The topic of today’s podcast is something that I talk about a lot. You’ve probably heard free plus shipping offers being mentioned across the board - from podcasts to webinars to course videos. It’s such an integral part of our marketing strategy that we feel it deserves its very own episode on the podcast. So, here we are. For the next half hour or so I will be talking about how we have sold products and grown the business with the help of our free plus shipping offers. Backstory When we first started ColorIt back in 2015, we wanted to differentiate our coloring books from all the other options available in the market. We wanted a good quality product that adult coloring enthusiasts can enjoy. To achieve that (and find out if our coloring books would sell at all), we needed consumer input. And getting genuine and constructive input meant we needed to get the product into people’s hands. So we had 10 of our designs printed on artist quality paper, added a hardback cover, and sent them out to people who only paid for shipping costs. Back then, this wasn’t a tactic that many people selling online knew about, let alone used. We had our “Aha!” moment and so did our customers. Our order retake rate was over 50 percent. We’ve launched many free plus shipping offers for our different brands since then. We followed up those coloring books with three random markers. Currently, we’re building our email list for our outdoor brands Tac9er and Tactical.com by giving away credit card muti-tools. Our willingness to use this tactic, again and again, means that it works. It also means that you can replicate it in your own business. In this podcast, I’ll be sharing with you tips on how to set up your own free plus shipping offer and provide some other real-life examples. However, the key points have already been outlined below. What makes a great free plus shipping offer? Choose a product that has a high perceived value, but you can get at places like AliExpress for a cheap price. The item should weigh less than 13 oz (around 6 oz) so you can get your shipping cost as low as possible. For example, use a product that costs you $1 or $2 dollars to acquire and ship out but has a potential resale value of $10. What are the things you need to set it up? A product that’s closely similar to the product you want to sell A special landing page with details about your offer, including an upsell option A special follow up sequence for the product being sold Other Useful Resources: EcomCrew Premium GIVE US YOUR 5 MINUTE PITCH AND WIN $50,000! Thanks for listening to this episode! If you enjoyed listening and think this episode has been useful to you, please take a moment to leave us a review on iTunes.

Hi, it’s Dave here. Mike is taking some much-needed time off at the moment so I’m taking the reins. Coincidentally, today’s podcast topic is something that I’m in the best position to talk about - selling on Amazon Canada. If the accent isn’t a giveaway already, I am Canadian myself and currently running my business out of Vancouver. So, let’s start off with a question. Should you be selling in Canada? The answer to this is of course relative. But, if you are living in the United States, then Canada would technically be the “lowest hanging fruit” when it comes to expanding your business. I’ve added some more advantages below. The American market is increasingly becoming more saturated. Advertising rates are significantly higher in the United States. They’re literally 2-3 times what they cost in Canada and almost all other marketplaces. The cost of sale is also higher in America. In Canada, the average is around 3% while it’s typically above 10% south of the border. You are a lot more likely to get higher profit margins in Canada because there’s less competition within the same niche. Depending on your circumstances, these disadvantages may be relevant. Canada has significantly fewer people living there than in the US. It has about a tenth of the American population. It takes a lot of work to sell in Canada because it has its own tax and business registration regiment. If you’re new to selling online, it will be much easier to do so on Amazon.com. Canada has a different currency, which can have specific ramifications for your business. The Taxation Thing In America, there is no federal tax. In Canada, you have to pay the equivalent of a federal tax called the GST/HST. This is typically 5%. While you can get this amount back at the end of the year, that’s an upfront cost you have to deal with right out of the gate. And this can be tricky since we mostly run cash flow dependent businesses. You should also register for GST/HST in order to send your goods to Canada. There’s no getting around that. The good thing is it’s quite easy to do this. If you use a larger customs broker that handles shipments going into Canada, they can register the number for you. Most of them will do it for free or charge a small fee to get this done. Mike and I both use Pacific Customs Brokers, Ltd. Here are my tips for starting to sell in Amazon.ca. Start small and just enough to get your feet wet. Send a small shipment to Canada and work it up gradually to pallets. List your products on Amazon.ca. Consider the language in the geographic area you’re targeting when coming up with your keywords. Make sure to turn on Sponsored Ads for Canada. Monitor the exchange rate every month. When your sales start to get substantial, register for GST/HST. Canada has a record of everything you’re bringing into the country and assume you will eventually get a telephone call from CRA if you don’t. The last thing I’ll leave you with is this: have a plan to sell internationally in order to sustain growth and profitability for your business.  Some of the insights above can also be applied in another marketplace so you already have a point of reference. Other Useful Resources: EcomCrew Premium TransferWise Thanks for listening to this episode! 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!

When you’re just starting as an ecommerce seller, do you improve your Amazon listing first or get started on Facebook ads? There’s no right or wrong order here. The main thing to remember is that you need to plan out how you can get both done at some point. In this episode, we’re gonna tackle the Facebook side of things. As you may recall, I had my good friend Dave Huss join me in a previous podcast to talk about building a Facebook audience. I’ve had the chance to sit and have a chat with him again. And this time around, we’ll be focusing on creating a Facebook page and being able to optimize it for engagement. If you’re new to Facebook, find the quickest way you can earn from it. Remember, it’s always good to have another revenue stream outside of Amazon. Here are some detailed steps you can follow. ENGAGEMENT 1. Ask yourself why people should care about your page. Based on your answer, pick the best niche that represents your product. Don’t be afraid to go really specific, like creating a page dedicated to French cooking. 2. Select about 30 key/quality pieces of relevant content. You can use a tool like Buzzsumo to do this. If it's too costly a tool, you can do the research yourself. BUILDING THE MESSENGER LIST 3. Post or schedule posts 2-3 times initially. If you don’t see traction on your posts within a couple of days, change something up. 4. Boost some of the posts to your core audience. 5. Try to get people to like the page. 6. Do a giveaway to get people on your Messenger list. Other Useful Resources: MyEcomcrew Online Merchants Guild Growth Scout Thanks for listening to this episode! 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!

If you’re that person who listens to one podcast a year, this is definitely the episode you should listen to. Together with me are Bernie Thompson and Paul Rafelson, members of the Online Merchants Guild (OMG), a non-profit organization that is working to change the law governing online sales tax collection. This podcast episode focuses on the aftermath of the South Dakota vs Wayfair case and how it has invariably created the so-called economic nexus. This essentially means that the state can now require online sellers to collect state sales tax for online purchases, even if the seller doesn’t have a physical presence (e.g. an office or a warehouse) in that state. In South Dakota, the economic nexus threshold has been placed at 200 online purchases or $100k in revenue. Undue Burden We believe, that while the ruling can affect all online retailers, it will hit small ecommerce businesses the hardest. This is why we are campaigning to raise funds so we can fight this thing in court. Our plan is to sue all state tax commissioners and seek a declaratory judgment on this issue that will relieve small ecommerce businesses of this undue burden. We plan to steer the conversation towards viable alternatives, specifically compelling marketplaces like Amazon to collect online state sales tax for online purchases on behalf of third-party sellers.   Help us fight this cause and move the needle towards creating a more sustainable industry for everyone selling online. Please sign up using the link below. https://onlinemerchantsguild.org/choose-your-level-of-support/ Hopefully, together we can make some real progress on this issue. Other Useful Resources: MyEcomcrew 7 Figure Seller Summit Episode 136: Online Merchants Guild Thanks for listening to this episode! 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!

In this episode, I sat down with “Paid Traffic Guy” himself - Dave Huss. Dave helps online entrepreneurs bring in new customers by leveraging paid traffic and using retargeting to recover lost sales through Growth Scout. He’s also an ecommerce entrepreneur with brands in the arts and crafts niche that have a massive following on their respective Facebook business pages. And this was the focal point of our conversation. Dave gamely shared how he was able to leverage Facebook as a marketing platform for his products. His brands’ business pages have 150,000 and 90,000 fans respectively. Here are Dave’s best tips for building a following on Facebook and creating consistent engagement with the target audience. Figure out who your actual customers are. Create an avatar that embodies the key characteristics of your target demographic. Identify the “places”(e.g. social media platforms) they’re hanging out in. Find a model for your own social media campaign. Take a look at your competitors, focus on brands that aren’t that well known but have a strong social media following. See which aspects of their strategy can be applied to your own campaign.                                                     Test your products on your best-engaged fans, the people that care about what you’re doing. Aim to reach the same people on multiple channels - social media, email etc. Run like campaigns. Spend time creating and curating engaging content. Build a content library using a scheduling tool like MeetEdgar to ensure that you have posts that are constantly in rotation. Incorporate videos in your social media posts. If you don’t have the capability to create your own videos, look for cool and relevant ones on tools like Buzzsumo. At the end of the day, Dave reminds us that “...The Facebook page is not really for selling stuff. I really want to put that point across especially for Amazon sellers...The Facebook page is for building trust and engagement with your ideal customer…” Other Useful Resources: MyEcomcrew 7 Figure Seller Summit Thanks for listening to this episode! 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!

In this podcast, I’m joined by Mads Singers, a business coach who owns a management consulting firm specializing in ecommerce entrepreneurs. He also owns a VA company in Davao, Philippines. When you’re a seven-figure Amazon seller, it’s tough staying on top of every little business detail. And if you’re anything like me, you experience separation anxiety whenever you need to hand over work to someone else to do. But as Mads explains, delegation is a necessary evil. As a business owner, you need to free your time so you can focus on big-ticket items. Here are some highlights from our discussion. Taking genuine ownership of tasks It’s always better to give employees genuine ownership of their tasks rather than an SOP they have to follow every time they do a task. Genuine ownership means giving your employees your vote of confidence and empowering them to take a process you have and improve on it. “Deer in the headlights” Mads employs the DISC behavior framework with his clients to help them understand themselves as well as the people they work with. Understanding your employees’ individual traits and characteristics will allow you to assign them the right type of task. “Now, because someone sells themselves really well, doesn’t mean they’re going to be great for that job. And being able to see through that personality and understand is this person really good at could be immensely important.”, explains Mads. What tasks should you delegate? Things you hate doing Things you’re not good at Things that take up a lot of time for you to do Low-priority tasks Other Useful Resources: MyEcomcrew Mads Singers Management Consulting Thanks for listening to this episode! 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!

Imagine having finally decided to take the plunge and sell on Amazon. You've figured out what to sell, you've placed your first order from a Chinese manufacturer, you've set up your listing. Your product arrives in FBA warehouses and just when you're ready to get your first sale, you notice that there are tons of other sellers on Amazon selling the exact same thing, and all for lower prices. You wait days and weeks but sales are barely coming in. Now you start to worry about your inventory sitting in warehouses eating money, and will continue doing so, unless you sell more... ...or pull your inventory off Amazon and liquidate.   That is not a pretty picture. This problem can happen to anyone, especially to those selling for the first time and diving head first without much knowledge on how this all works. But while being put in this situation truly sucks, there are still some things that can be done to turn the situation around. This is what James and I talk about in this Under the Hood episode. Some conversation points: How he got started in ecommerce The fatal mistakes that created a whole mess of problems The inventory paradox Avoiding "me too" products and differentiating for defensibility The importance of product photography and Enhanced Brand Content The proper way to validate and launch products Why you should always align your interests with that of Amazon's If you'd like to be featured on your own Under the Hood episode and get free business advice from me, just sign up here.   Resources mentioned: Under the Hood EcomCrew Premium E148: How Digital Products Can Bolster Your Ecommerce Business

If you’re an entrepreneur who’s been tinkering around with an awesome business idea but short on capital, we’d love to help. In this episode, I met up with three of my buddies in the industry, Greg Mercer from Jungle Scout, Steve Chou from My Wife Quit Her Job, and Scott Voelker from The Amazing Seller, to talk about our latest project called the 5 Minute Pitch. It’s an opportunity for bootstrapped online businesses to pitch their best business idea to us as judges and win $50,000. Who are we looking for? We are on the lookout for an online business with great forward momentum. We want someone who can take a unique business idea and add the meat and bones to it. So, give us your business backstory, be transparent about your numbers, and spill all the details for your chosen venture.   Finally, act natural. “Let your personality shine through because at the end of the day we are investing in people. Oftentimes, businesses have to make pivots and go on to do different types of things. So we want to know that the founders that we’re giving this money to as a gift are going to really exceed with it.”, says Greg. How can you join? Simply log on to www.5minutepitch.com or fill out the application form here. Please note we only accept 32 entries so time is of the essence. How do we pick a winner? The grand prize winner will be selected after a series of elimination rounds. We’re starting with 32 contestants who will be giving us their 5-minute pitch on Skype. From that cluster, we’ll be selecting 8 contestants to advance to the next round. These 8 contestants will again be narrowed down to 4. The lucky 4 will be flown to San Diego to present their pitch live to the four judges. From these, we’ll then select the grand winner of a $50,000 cash gift.   What does the winner get? We’re giving away a cash gift worth $50,000 to the lucky winner plus some mentoring time with each judge. We’re launching this contest in the fall. Sign up for our email list to get the latest updates.   Other Useful Resources: MyEcomcrew Jungle Scout My Wife Quit Her Job The Amazing Seller   Thanks for listening to this episode! 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!

Last week, we hosted a webinar about importing products from China. Today we’re going to talk about the nitty gritty of shipping products from China to western countries like the United States and Canada. Joining us in this episode is Noah Alhadeff. He’s a sales manager at Freightos, a “digital freight marketplace” that connects importers to freight forwarders. Noah likens Freightos to Expedia in that it allows importers to instantly compare “all-inclusive” rates from as many as 60 different freight forwarders, depending on where you intend to ship your products to. In addition to comparing rates, the marketplace allows you to narrow down your results based on reviews, shipping method (air or ocean), bonds, insurance and so on. Noah also offers some great advice for those who are new in their importing journey. Make sure you choose a freight forwarder who knows what they’re doing with Amazon. You’re go-to forwarder might be reliable when shipping directly from point A to B but Amazon has specific pallet requirements that your forwarder of choice should know about. Ensure that you get the closest Amazon Fulfillment Center to your factory. If your shipment is coming from China, that would be the Fulfillment center located in Moreno Valley, or if you’re shipping from Europe, the best choice would be the Amazon Fulfillment Center in New York Get paperwork filed quickly and accurately, preferably 7-10 days before your goods are ready. This includes Material Safety Data Sheet and Dangerous Goods Document. In addition, Freightos is also offering a 5% discount to EcomCrew listeners on the first shipment. Just enter the code ECOMCREW5 on checkout (this is not an affiliate code; they just know how much even a 5% discount can help ecommerce owners especially in a very low margin business). As part of what led to this interview, check out Freightos’ Experts Guide to Importing from China, for which we contributed a chapter. This guide is brought to you by some of the best in the business--people running ecommerce, sourcing and freight companies. Other Useful Resources: MyEcomcrew 5 Minute Pitch International Freight Index Thanks for listening to this episode! 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!

Prime Day has come and gone. Now, it’s time to pull up our stats and see how we fared. In today’s podcast episode, Dave and I do an apples to apples comparison of earnings over a week-long period, beginning on July 9th. In Amazon US, my products had a 158% uptick on July 16 to July 17 (actual Prime Day) compared to the same days during the previous week. Dave got a 160% uptick for his products on the same dates. The disparity between our numbers was greater in Amazon CA. Dave got a 788% uptick in his product sales, while I had 74%. The Canadian obviously had home advantage. Dave, who has never tried running a Prime Deal (and probably never will), believes that it is better to just “ride the Prime Day wave” because you are going to get a sales boost even without a deal. The numbers we came up with are providing substantial evidence to support this. While the item that we had a Prime Deal for predictably sold a lot, it would still have done well without it, and we wouldn’t have needed to subtract the cost of being able to participate in the Prime Day in the first place. Useful Resources: MyEcomcrew 5 Minute Pitch  Thanks for listening to this episode! If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below. Happy selling!