If you recall my interview with Oberlo on SE3 EP07 - Is DropShipping a Viable Model for Scale?, we discussed the viability of the ecommerce model of dropshipping from China selling to your local or a global market. As you are probably already aware from that episode, dropshipping from China is fraught with inefficiencies, particularly around fulfilment and customer experience.   My guest on today’s episode, Yaw Owusu has built a platform similar to Oberlo that primarily allows e-tailers source and dropship from US suppliers. Shipping times are 3 days with supplier level accountability and customer support.   His platform is an app on the Shopify app store called MXED.     --   Reference links: https://apps.shopify.com/mxed-sell-official-pop-culture-merch       SPONSORS This episode is brought to you by:  Klaviyo  Klaviyo is a game-changing email automation tool specifically built for scaling eCommerce businesses. I am not just saying it…I use Klaviyo in my ecommerce store as well in a number of stores I advise for. With Klaviyo, in just a few clicks you are able to activate pre-built email automation flows such as cart abandonment, up-sells and win-backs.  Klaviyo also seamlessly integrates with Facebook Audiences. If you’re an eCommerce manager, I cannot recommend Klaviyo enough. Give Klaviyo a try today on  www.klaviyo.com. ★ Support this podcast ★

On this episode, I’ll be talking about key developments and news headlines in the month of May, that everyone involved in ecommerce should be aware of. #1: Magento’s Acquisition  - Adobe Acquires Shopify Rival Magento for $1.7B - May 21, 2018 EBay spinoff's value goes from $150 million to $1.68 billion in Adobe buyout. The acquisition is expected to help Adobe compete with cloud-based marketing, sales and service offerings from Salesforce.com (NYSE:CRM), which bought Demandware Inc. for more than $2 billion in 2016 to be able to offer a similar set of functions.  #2: Google I/O May 8-10 I talked about it in detail on SE03 EP35 Key announcements were -  Google Assistant: more natural voice based on John Legend’s voice No need to say ‘OK Google’ It remember’s your past angers and parses multiple questions in one sentenceDuplex - schedules appointments for Google uses play the youtube video Google Lens   #3: GDPR - 25 May 2018 General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) (EU) 2016/679  is a regulation in EU law on data protection and privacy for all individuals within the European Union (EU) and the European Economic Area (EEA).  It also addresses the export of personal data outside the EU and EEA.  The GDPR aims primarily to give control to citizens and residents over their personal data and to simplify the regulatory environment for international business by unifying the regulation within the EU.   #4: House of Fraser slides to £44m loss ahead of Chinese takeover 10 May 2018 C.banner told investors it agreed to buy a 51% stake in House of Fraser to “enhance the company’s presence in the retail market in [China] as well as to facilitate the company to lay a good foundation for a new brand and retail roadmap overseas”   #5: Mothercare to close 50 outlets and reinstate ousted CEO  Mothercare to close 50 stores as part of rescue package Mothercare is to close about 50 of its 137 stores by June next year with the potential loss of about 800 jobs after landlords approved a financial …       SPONSORS This episode is brought to you by:   Klaviyo  Klaviyo is a game-changing email automation tool specifically built for scaling eCommerce businesses. I am not just saying it…I use Klaviyo in my ecommerce store as well in a number of stores I advise for. With Klaviyo, in just a few clicks you are able to activate pre-built email automation flows such as cart abandonment, up-sells and win-backs.  Klaviyo also seamlessly integrates with Facebook Audiences. If you’re an eCommerce manager, I cannot recommend Klaviyo enough. Give Klaviyo a try today on  www.klaviyo.com.   ★ Support this podcast ★

On this episode: I talk about the eCommerce Growth Triangle. It is a framework I developed over a year ago. Which pretty much concludes that in order to grow and scale a thriving eCommerce business, you should be: Vertically integrated (manufacture your products) Have retention built into your product Create a Word of mouth viral loop The principles above still hold true but have evolved into an updated model I have created call the eCommerce Growth Pyramid. I talk about it on this episode ----------- SPONSORS: This episode is brought to you by: Klaviyo  Klaviyo is a game-changing email automation tool specifically built for scaling eCommerce businesses. I am not just saying it…I use Klaviyo in my ecommerce store as well in a number of stores I advise for. With Klaviyo, in just a few clicks you are able to activate pre-built email automation flows such as cart abandonment, up-sells and win-backs.  Klaviyo also seamlessly integrates with Facebook Audiences. If you’re an eCommerce manager, I cannot recommend Klaviyo enough. Give Klaviyo a try today on  www.klaviyo.com.   ★ Support this podcast ★

On this episode, we are going to talking about how to leverage sales growth through 3PL Distributed Fulfilment Networks + Dropshippers. Today’s guest is Sina Djafari - he runs a service called Duoplane. Duoplane helps online retailers bridge complicated communications and confirmations with their suppliers in real time. Sina is an accomplished online retailer himself -he managed to sell his contemporary furniture store, Design Public, prior to starting Duoplane.    His platform is enabling ecommerce brands move beyond the hassle of managing their own warehousing inventory by adopting a more nimble dropship model without the negative connotations associated with drop shipping.    The golden nuggets from this interview is how to automate order fulfilment with a network of suppliers so that you focus on what matters to your business - which is branding, marketing and customer experience.  --- SPONSORS: This episode is brought to you by: Klaviyo  Klaviyo is a game-changing email automation tool specifically built for scaling eCommerce businesses. I am not just saying it…I use Klaviyo in my ecommerce store as well in a number of stores I advise for. With Klaviyo, in just a few clicks you are able to activate pre-built email automation flows such as cart abandonment, up-sells and win-backs.  Klaviyo also seamlessly integrates with Facebook Audiences. If you’re an eCommerce manager, I cannot recommend Klaviyo enough. Give Klaviyo a try today on  www.klaviyo.com.   ★ Support this podcast ★

Please VOTE for us here: http://www.mora.fm/nominee/kunle-campbell-2x-ecommerce/   The 2X eCommerce Podcast has just been nominated for the Best Online Talk Show in the Business Category (Finalist) at this year’s Mixcloud Online Radio Awards!   Please VOTE by just clicking the link below and then tap 'Vote Kunle Campbell, 2X eCommerce' http://www.mora.fm/nominee/kunle-campbell-2x-ecommerce/   Thank you for your continued support for the show.   On this episode of the 2X eCommerce Podcast show, we are going to talking about ALL KEY announcements at the Google I/O Developer Conference 2018 that WILL AFFECT THE ECOMMERCE LANDSCAPE OVER THE 12 MONTHS and beyond     Google Assistant: more natural voice based on John Legend’s voice No need to say ‘OK Google’ It remember’s your past answers and parses multiple questions in one sentence   Duplex - an AI personal assistant that schedules appointments for Google uses  -    Android P: An buttonless android device Bigger screen real estate     Google Lens Point the phone’s camera an outfit, accessory or piece of furniture. Google will use object recognition machine learning to purchase the item online. If it does not find a match, it will find similar styles.   Google is serious about Speed on the mobile web - it is achieving this with PWA and AMP   AMP - frontend framework - acquisition Super fast page loading times - AMP load on avg. in 0.5 seconds from Google search. AMP is a framework and library of components build on top of HTML  specifically designed for performance AMP format mandates a number of rules about its pages that are again focused on maintaining   performance but also on enabling caching And This ability to cache in remote in serve remotely is what enables platforms serving AMP to pre-render them effectively.     Google Pay best practices by-passes forms and autocomplete pushing default payment method one-click checkout allow guest checkout show full breakdown     Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) - overarching methodology - PWA conversion Google is launching its own PWAs at scale. Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) are web applications that are regular web pages or websites, but can appear to the user like traditional applications or native mobile applications. The application type attempts to combine features offered by most modern browsers with the benefits of a mobile experience. The enable fast, integrated, reliable, and engaging web experiences. Video: https://youtu.be/NITk4kXMQDw   PWA is a transition from AJAX geared towards mobile devices. Google is trying to move users on mobile from apps to the web because it is currently 80% app Google is the gateway to the web PWA is important to Google and to Ecommerce 53% of users abandon sites that take longer than 3 second to load. Caching Could involve sections in your website not the entire site Useful notifications - e.g tracking info, order updates,    examples: eBay deployed PWA in their checkout page    More videos about PWA: Progress Web Apps - Google Chrome Developers: https://youtu.be/z2JgN6Ae-Bo     --- SPONSORS: This episode is brought to you by: Klaviyo  Klaviyo is a game-changing email automation tool specifically built for scaling eCommerce businesses. I am not just saying it…I use Klaviyo in my ecommerce store as well in a number of stores I advise for. With Klaviyo, in just a few clicks you are able to activate pre-built email automation flows such as cart abandonment, up-sells and win-backs.  Klaviyo also seamlessly integrates with Facebook Audiences. If you’re an eCommerce manager, I cannot recommend Klaviyo enough. Give Klaviyo a try today on  www.klaviyo.com.   ★ Support this podcast ★

Please VOTE for us here: http://www.mora.fm/nominee/kunle-campbell-2x-ecommerce/   The 2X eCommerce Podcast has just been nominated for the Best Online Talk Show in the Business Category (Finalist) at this year’s Mixcloud Online Radio Awards!   Please VOTE by just clicking the link below and then tap 'Vote Kunle Campbell, 2X eCommerce' http://www.mora.fm/nominee/kunle-campbell-2x-ecommerce/   Thank you for your continued support for the show.   --- SPONSORS: This episode is brought to you by: Klaviyo  Klaviyo is a game-changing email automation tool specifically built for scaling eCommerce businesses. I am not just saying it…I use Klaviyo in my ecommerce store as well in a number of stores I advise for. With Klaviyo, in just a few clicks you are able to activate pre-built email automation flows such as cart abandonment, up-sells and win-backs.  Klaviyo also seamlessly integrates with Facebook Audiences. If you’re an eCommerce manager, I cannot recommend Klaviyo enough. Give Klaviyo a try today on  www.klaviyo.com.     ★ Support this podcast ★

On this episode, I have a guest from the Print On Demand Platform TEESPRING! He is Teespring's VP of Commercial, Chris Lamontagne, and has led Teespring growth efforts over this current period of rapid growth for the platform.   People all over the world use the Teespring platform to create more than 50,000 designs on a daily basis and the company recently announced its expansion to Asia.    We talk about a range of topics including How ecommerce businesses can use POD as a branding and customer affinity tool, the evolution of print of demand, Teespring's recent expansion into Asia  Teespring's marketplace expansion strategy   --- SPONSORS: This episode is brought to you by: Klaviyo  Klaviyo is a game-changing email automation tool specifically built for scaling eCommerce businesses. I am not just saying it…I use Klaviyo in my ecommerce store as well in a number of stores I advise for. With Klaviyo, in just a few clicks you are able to activate pre-built email automation flows such as cart abandonment, up-sells and win-backs.  Klaviyo also seamlessly integrates with Facebook Audiences. If you’re an eCommerce manager, I cannot recommend Klaviyo enough. Give Klaviyo a try today on  www.klaviyo.com.     ★ Support this podcast ★

On today’s episode, I am joined by Mikael Yang. He is Co-Founder and CEO of ManyChat, a chatbot platform that allows businesses to create a Facebook Messenger chatbots in minutes.   We will be talking about what Mikael refers to as the biggest sales and marketing revolution in decades - the transition from communicating with your prospects and customers via email to chat messengers.    I personally use ManyChat    Mikael Launched ManyChat in 2015, and has grown the platform to support over 100,000 businesses.  ManyChat also connects to over 250,000 Facebook pages.    ManyChat is arguably anti-email and show that you can potentially  get 10x more leads and paying customers using Facebook Messenger chatbots over traditional email marketing.   With email open rates and click-through rates now averaging 25-35% and 1-2% respectively, businesses need a better way to communicate with their leads and customers. In 3-5 years, the majority of business to customer communication is going to be done through chat messengers.   1.3 billion people use Facebook Messenger every month, and there are 65 million businesses on Facebook. ManyChat's mission is to empower these businesses to connect with customers on their terms and inside of platforms they are already using dozens of times every single day.       --- SPONSORS: This episode is brought to you by: .STORE .STORE domains are getting mainstream adoption by brands such as Emirates (www.emirates.store), Jimi Hendrix (www.jimihendrix.store), and F1 (www.f1.store). If you want a short and snappy domain name for your retail brand or your online store, you can now get a .STORE domain name for just £4.99 or about $6.99 using the coupon code 2XSTORE at www.get.store.  and Klaviyo  Klaviyo is a game-changing email automation tool specifically built for scaling eCommerce businesses. I am not just saying it…I use Klaviyo in my ecommerce store as well in a number of stores I advise for. With Klaviyo, in just a few clicks you are able to activate pre-built email automation flows such as cart abandonment, up-sells and win-backs.  Klaviyo also seamlessly integrates with Facebook Audiences. If you’re an eCommerce manager, I cannot recommend Klaviyo enough. Give Klaviyo a try today on  www.klaviyo.com.     ★ Support this podcast ★

If you are an online retailer and looking to scale your sales further through Facebook advertising, check out Kunle's agency:2xmedia.co. It caters specifically for ecommerce businesses. Get in touch to apply.  Campaign Management: Analysing your Ads and Decision making Knowing when to stop or scale an Adset in a Facebook Ads campaign, balls down to analysing key performance metrics you establish in your campaigns.   I set up my Adset reports in two ways.  The first way is what I refer to as the Funnel Reporting view I use to get a quick glance at performance. Here are the columns I set up: Budget Delivery Reach Link Clicks Amount Spent Website Purchases Conversion Value Website Purchase ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) Cost Per Website Purchase Website Purchases Website Add to Cart Cost per 1,000 People Reached CPM (Cost Per 1,000 Impressions) CTR (Link Click-Through Rate) Unique Link Clicks Button Clicks Cost per Unique Link Click Website Checkouts Initiated Website Adds of Payment Info Cost per Website Add to Cart Relevance Score Frequency Page Likes Positive Feedback Negative Feedback The second view I use is ROI focused and solely used for tracking costs and making decisions. Here is how I arrange the columns: Amount Spent Website Purchases Conversion Value Website Purchase ROAS (Return on  Ad Spend) Website Purchases Cost per Result Cost per Website Purchase Website Checkouts Initiated Cost per Website Checkout Initiated Website Adds to Cart Cost per Website Add to Cart Unique Link Clicks Cost per Unique Link Clicks Website Content Views Cost per Website Content Views Reach Cost per 1,000 People Reached CPM (Cost per 1,000 Impressions) Unique CTR (Link Click-Through Rate) Cost per Outbound Click You want to set benchmarks for all your 'cost per...' metrics. With the most important being: Cost per Website Purchase Cost per Unique Link Clicks Unique CTR (Link Click-Through Rate) Cost per 1,000 People Reached or CPM (Cost per 1,000 Impressions)     --- SPONSORS: This episode is brought to you by: .STORE .STORE domains are getting mainstream adoption by brands such as Emirates (www.emirates.store), Jimi Hendrix (www.jimihendrix.store), and F1 (www.f1.store). If you want a short and snappy domain name for your retail brand or your online store, you can now get a .STORE domain name for just £4.99 or about $6.99 using the coupon code 2XSTORE at www.get.store.  and Klaviyo  Klaviyo is a game-changing email automation tool specifically built for scaling eCommerce businesses. I am not just saying it…I use Klaviyo in my ecommerce store as well in a number of stores I advise for. With Klaviyo, in just a few clicks you are able to activate pre-built email automation flows such as cart abandonment, up-sells and win-backs.  Klaviyo also seamlessly integrates with Facebook Audiences. If you’re an eCommerce manager, I cannot recommend Klaviyo enough. Give Klaviyo a try today on  www.klaviyo.com.     ★ Support this podcast ★

For media buying specific to eCommerce, check out 2xmedia.co. 4 Ways of Scaling a Campaign   Campaign doing well - what do you do to SCALE up?   OPTION 1: Increase Budget Gradually Increase daily budget by 20% every 3 days The algorithm needs 2-3 days to adjust. The first day of SCALE, ROI may be negative. Change the budget within the first 3 hours after midnight of the ad account time zone   OPTION 2: Duplicate Winning Adset - Vertical Scaling Leave existing working adsets Duplicate the adsets and adjust the budget between 50-300% DO NOT touch a working ad set    OPTION 3: Horizontal Scaling Strategy 5-10 duplicates of the same adset and carry out 20% increments every 3 days     OPTION 4: Product Scaling Adding more products and testing these new products on Facebook   OPTION 5: Export you winning ads from an existing Ad account  Export you winning ads from an existing Ad account to a new ad account. Ad accounts have a different performance.     --- SPONSORS: This episode is brought to you by: .STORE .STORE domains are getting mainstream adoption by brands such as Emirates (www.emirates.store), Jimi Hendrix (www.jimihendrix.store), and F1 (www.f1.store). If you want a short and snappy domain name for your retail brand or your online store, you can now get a .STORE domain name for just £4.99 or about $6.99 using the coupon code 2XSTORE at www.get.store.  and Klaviyo  Klaviyo is a game-changing email automation tool specifically built for scaling eCommerce businesses. I am not just saying it…I use Klaviyo in my ecommerce store as well in a number of stores I advise for. With Klaviyo, in just a few clicks you are able to activate pre-built email automation flows such as cart abandonment, up-sells and win-backs.  Klaviyo also seamlessly integrates with Facebook Audiences. If you’re an eCommerce manager, I cannot recommend Klaviyo enough. Give Klaviyo a try today on  www.klaviyo.com.     ★ Support this podcast ★