The Ecomcrew Ecommerce Podcast

Hey it’s Mike here for Ecom Crew! I will be doing a solo podcast today. I’m going to talk about my plans for my upcoming trip to China. I will be attending the Global Sources Show and the Canton Fair. There will be some other visits I’m going to make this time around, but Hong Kong will be where I will spend the majority of my time. I also talk about our recent promotion on Colorit.com. It is working really well for us! We are offering 3 free markers to a selective group of customers. I discuss the offer for those of  you who are curious. Here’s today’s conversation points: Colorit’s free markers deal. Why I travel to China. The Global Sources Show. My plans to visit Macau. The Canton Fair. Why I’m looking forward to meeting up with my Filipino team. If you heard last week’s episode then you know we talked about the Global Sources Show. We were able to get a discount code (3ec50) for anyone wanting to go and save a little money. If you are going to be over in China for these events during April 15-22, then let me know and I’ll try to arrange a meetup. If you are interested in being a part of our live episodes, then find us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/ecomcrew. You’ll get a notification when we begin an episode. Resources from today’s episode: Global Sources Exhibitions 2017 The Canton Fair Color It If you have any questions or anything you’d like us to discuss on the podcast please go to ecomcrew.com and fill out the contact form. Also we would really appreciate if you would leave us a review on iTunes. Thanks for listening!

Our guest today is the coordinator of the Global Sources Summit, Meghala Bhardwaj. We discuss the upcoming tradeshow in Hong Kong and what visitors can expect  from this year’s event. The summit will be held in 3 phases. Along with the phases, a conference will overlap with the second phase, the Mobile Electronic and Home & Gift show. The phases and dates for this summit are as follows: Phase 1 - Electronics: April 11-14 Phase 2 - Mobile Electronics and Home & Gifts: April 18-21 Phase 3 - Fashion: April 27-30 Global Sources Summit Conference: April 17-19 There will be a second summit in October on the same dates. Here are other aspects we covered today: The growth of the summit. The Canton Fair vs. The Global Sources Summit Who attends the summit? The best way to request a sample from a vendor. The 3 reasons to attend the summit. Why you should always ask the right questions. The importance of having a walking plan. Mike’s travel plans. Because of the logistics of this episode we weren’t able to do it as a Facebook Live episode. We will be back next week with a new live episode. To be a part of the Facebook Live episodes just visit our Facebook page and like it. You’ll be notified when we do an episode. If you would like to know more about Global Sources visit www.globalsources.com.  To learn more about the summit visit  www.globalsources.com/summit. To contact Megala directly send a message to summitinfo@globalsources.com. Mike will be attending this event, so if you plan to attend this tradeshow and summit let him know and he’ll try to organize a meet-up. Resources Mentioned Today: Global Sources The Global Sources Summit The Canton Fair Ecom Crew Facebook Page If you have any questions or anything you’d like us to discuss on the podcast please go to ecomcrew.com and fill out the contact form. Also we would really appreciate if you would leave us a review on iTunes. Thanks for listening!  

Hi, Grant here. I am broadcasting solo today, but I have a great topic. I want to talk about brick and mortar business. I have been franchising for around 3 years now, so I have some experience with physical location selling. Most people consider brick and mortar “old fashioned,” but if you couple brick and mortar with ecommerce something special can happen. Today I’m going to tell you how you can mesh these two business models together.  Here are my points for today: Some of the challenges of doing business out of a brick and mortar location. Why brick and mortar sellers have an advantage over ecommerce. The benefits of running both an e commerce side and brick and mortar side. The kind of people ecommerce attracts. Why I like e commerce. Chris McCabe in Seattle. There are a lot of opportunities ecommerce and brick and mortar can give each other. Keep your mind open and all sorts of opportunities could come along.   If you want to be part of our live episodes just look for our Facebook page. That’s www.facebook.com/ecomcrew, and like our page. You will get notices about when we’re about to go live. Resources Mentioned Today: Ecommerce Chris Cuttingboard.com Colorit.com Icewraps.com Facebook Page If you have any questions or anything you’d like us to discuss on the podcast please go to ecomcrew.com and fill out the contact form. Also we would really appreciate if you would leave us a review on iTunes. Thanks for listening!

Welcome back to Ecom Crew! Today we are going to discuss a part 2 about how we plan to grow our business from the bottom line, up. We share what we need to work on in our respective companies. Of course what we want to do tends to overlap with each other’s lists. We discuss what we want to improve and how those improvements will grow our revenue. Here are some things on our lists and what we discussed: Deciding when to cancel a service. The problem with Skubana. Delegating work that can be done with a process. Why PPC is important to Amazon sales. How to cull your product line. Today’s main message is your business shouldn’t have to depend on you. Sometimes taking a second look at where your money and time goes is a game changer in your business. We offer  some practical advice on today’s episode, so join us for the conversation. If you want to be a part of our episodes visit our Facebook page at www. facebook.com/ecomcrew. When you like our page you will get a notification about our live broadcast. Next episode we will have a special guest and Mike will talk about his upcoming trip to China. If you have any questions or anything you’d like us to discuss on the podcast please go to ecomcrew.com and fill out the contact form. Also we would really appreciate if you would leave us a review on iTunes. Thanks for listening!

Hey it’s Mike and Grant! Today we are going to talk about how you can grow your business when you have a “rocket ship” year. We are still making plans for 2017, but there are some plans already in the works.  We discuss those plans as well as suggestions you can do when you are in our current situation. Here is what we cover in today’s discussion: Grant’s trip to Asia. Our growth in 2016. What to consider when you need to approach a bank. How the banks will work with you. The online lending option. Why shipping rates are important. How focusing on top sellers is a way to save money. Why operational efficiencies are important. Mike’s plans for a workspace in the Philippines. There is a lot of territory to cover on this subject. We will be doing a part 2 on this topic and the next couple of episodes will be pre-recorded because we won’t be available for the live show. Speaking of the live show, if you go to our Facebook page at facebook.com/ecomcrew you can watch our podcast live when you like our page. Resources Mentioned Today: Ecom Crew Facebook Page Paypal Credit Kabbage Colorit Cuttingboard.com If you have any questions or anything you’d like us to discuss on the podcast please go to ecomcrew.com and fill out the contact form. Also we would really appreciate if you would leave us a review on iTunes. Thanks for listening!

Hi this is Mike and I’ll be doing the podcast solo today. Grant is out of town, but he’ll be back. I’m going to finish our latest listeners’ questions today. Then we will change the topic in the next episode. Again you guys have sent lots of great questions and I’ll try to answer them to my best ability. Here are some of the topics I discussed today for you guys: How to choose a 3pl. Why we don’t turn off PPC on Amazon. How to plan purchasing for your current season. My opinion on Groupon. How to improve your conversation rate. The benefits of retargeting ads. What kind of discounts we offer new customers. Why we disabled pop-ups on Google. The benefits of AdEspresso. What has worked for us in Klaviyo. Are exact domains worth it? The things we do in-house. My plans in the Philippines. Resources Mentioned Today: Icewaps.com Colorit Cuttingboard.com Ecom Crew Ecom Crew Facebook Page AdEspresso Klaviyo If you have any questions or anything you’d like us to discuss on the podcast please go to ecomcrew.com and fill out the contact form. Also we would really appreciate if you would leave us a review on iTunes. Thanks for listening!

Hey it’s Mike and Grant here! Today’s episode of the podcast is part 2 of a Q & A series we started last week. You guys send awesome questions and we love hearing from you. For those of you who watched us on the Facebook Live recording if you had any questions that you wanted to ask during the recording, we tried to answer those as well. Here are some questions we answered today: [In regards to drop-shipping] "I'm wondering if I'm simply in the wrong business model, what can I do to make it better?" The pros and cons of drop-shipping. When drop-shipping is practical. [Regarding Facebook ads] "Can you talk more about your front end ads and funnels? That is where I am struggling running Facebook ads." How Mike uses retargeting ads. Using Facebook ads to reach out to niche customers. Why Grant doesn’t use retargeting ads. How to use Google ads. "Do you guys do fulfillment in house?" How we fulfill orders in house. The pros and cons of in-house order fulfillment. [Regarding the supplements industry] "How to replicate the 'free value' approach?" Why supplements are a great arena for the “free value” approach. Using free samples to market to your customers. Our advice on how to use the “free value” approach effectively. "Where do you find your VAs (virtual assistants?)" Where Mike finds his VAs. What he asks for from potential hires. When you should (or could) hire a VA. "What is the process for being approved for a Google Trusted store?" How to get approval for a Google Trusted store in general. How to do it through Bigcommerce. How to do it through Shopify. We had tons more great questions and we’ll get to those next time during part 3 of our Q & A series. Thank you to everyone who sent us questions and those of you who asked us questions during the Facebook Live recording. Also thanks to those of you who listen to us on iTunes. We appreciate your reviews and all the great feedback we get from you guys. If you want to be a part of the Facebook Live recording like our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/ecomcrew. Resources Mentioned Today: Ecom Crew Facebook Page Cuttingboard.com Colorit.com Icewraps.com Upwork.com Onlinejobs.ph Simprosys Google Trusted Stores If you have any questions or anything you’d like us to discuss on the podcast please go to ecomcrew.com and fill out the contact form. Also we would really appreciate if you would leave us a review on iTunes. Thanks for listening!

Hi it’s Mike and today I am going to talk about how organizing giveaways and special promotions has really helped our brand. We did five special promotion/giveaway type events in 2016. All the giveaways and specials really helped us reach out to our audience and draw in new customers as well. We did these 5 promotions during 2016: 4 Free Drawings 10 Downloads  for a $1 10 Free Drawings (just pay shipping) 50% Off One Book 12 Free Christmas Drawings The promotions were really successful. If you are listening to this podcast on iTunes you may want to go to our Facebook page and watch our live broadcast from Monday. We have slides to give you a visual an idea of our success. Today we cover: The benefits of offering a giveaway to your customers. How we organized our giveaways. How Klaviyo helped us keep track of our success. Who our promotions attracted. The numbers from our promotions (the proof it worked.) Our plans for 2017. Our up-coming “Provide Value” promotion. We plan to leave the Christmas promotion up for a few more weeks. So check it out! Resources Mentioned Today: Colorit.com 12 Days of Christmas Promotion Klaviyo Ecom Crew’s Facebook Page If you have any questions or anything you’d like us to discuss on the podcast please go to ecomcrew.com and fill out the contact form. Also we would really appreciate if you would leave us a review on iTunes. Thanks for listening!  

Happy New Year Everybody! Welcome back to the Ecom Crew podcast. This is Mike and  I’m going to talk about Ecom Crew’s 2016 and where we are planning to go for 2017. We had an awesome 2016! We learned tons of lessons and had a lot of challenging and helpful experiences. We grew 326%! That is phenomenal for any business! During today’s episode I’m going to share how we plan to keep the momentum going and what we learned to make 2017 a little more smoother. So, without any more delay, here are some points from today’s episode: Our revenue goals for 2017. Launching our own personal brands. Lessons we learned  from Colorit.com in 2016. The 2017 launch of Wildbaby.com (our new baby product line.) Our email marketing lessons. How Facebook ads helped our brands this past year. How we used social media in general during 2016. The key elements we will continue to grow and work on during 2017. Lessons about inventory. Other plans and goals for an awesome year! If you want to be part of our live episodes just go to our Facebook page and you will be notified of our live Facebook broadcasts. Thanks for a great 2016 and we hope to  make 2017 even better! Resources Mentioned Today: Icewraps.com Cuttingboard.com Wildbaby.com Colorit.com Ecom Crew’s Facebook page Ecom Crew Blog If you have any questions or anything you’d like us to discuss on the podcast please go to ecomcrew.com and fill out the contact form. Also we would really appreciate if you would leave us a review on iTunes. Thanks for listening!

Hey there this is Mike, I’m on my own today, with some really useful information about Facebook ads. So, Facebook is a great way to move your business away from Amazon and build your own platform. Now, Grant and I will talk about Facebook Ads more in depth sometime in January. However, today I want to talk about some really easy Facebook ad types that have really worked well for me and ColorIt. These 5 ads are really easy to set up and are really affordable from the start. You will get great ROI with these Facebook Ads. In today’s episode I will tell you about: What are Dynamic Product Ads. The awesomeness of Auto Posting apps. Remarketing or Retargeting Ads. How Klaviyo can help you market to your existing customers. Why you need a Win Back Campaign. What to expect from us in the next few weeks and 2017. These ads are great starters for anyone trying to use Facebook to build a platform. If you watch the Facebook live playback on this episode, you will see some screenshots I shared during the episode. Just go to Facebook.com/ecomcrew and like our page and you can find the recording of this episode. Resources Mentioned Today ColorIt Cuttingboard.com Ecom Crew’s Facebook Page Shopify Adespresso Klaviyo eCommerceFuel Live If you have any questions or anything you’d like us to discuss on the podcast please go to ecomcrew.com and fill out the contact form. Also we would really appreciate if you would leave us a review on iTunes. Thanks for listening!