Ecommerce Conversations
Practical Ecommerce
Ecommerce Conversations is the long-running weekly podcast from Practical Ecommerce, hosted by ecommerce entrepreneur Eric Bandholz. •• Listen in as Eric interviews in-the-trenches founders and executives who address the essentials of launching, growing, and sustaining an online business. Hear their successes, mistakes, and plans — addressing customer acquisition, web traffic, marketing tactics, on-site conversion, shipping, favorite tools, funding, obstacles, and much more. •• New episodes every Friday. Subscribe to the podcast here, and then read a condensed transcript at https://www.PracticalEcommerce.com/tag/podcasts.
Episodes
Mentioned books
Oct 16, 2020 • 31min
‘Gated’ Product Launch Leads to $250,000 in 1-day Sales
Jordan West launched Little & Lively, a direct-to-consumer children's apparel company, with his wife, Carmen, six years ago in Canada. The business has grown to mid-seven-figures in revenue selling through its website, mostly. He's a master at creating demand for his products before they are available for purchase.
Oct 9, 2020 • 32min
Native Deodorant Founder on Scaling to $100 Million in 2 Years
Despite reaching a whopping $100 million in revenue in just two years, Moiz Ali, the founder of Native deodorant, says the initial version was less than stellar. "We had a pretty mediocre product," Ali told me. "We understood that people were looking for [aluminum-free deodorant] and were willing to pay a higher price point for it. But our first attempt wasn't that good."
Oct 2, 2020 • 29min
Real Men Wear Makeup, Says DTC Co-founder
Jon Shanahan wants men to wear makeup. He's a co-founder of Stryx, a direct-to-consumer manufacturer of concealer and tinted moisturizer for males. The company launched in 2017. Shanahan joined shortly afterward, having created his male grooming channel on YouTube.
Sep 25, 2020 • 28min
'My Wife Quit' Founder on SMS Marketing, SaaS Platforms, osCommerce
In 2007 Steve Chou's wife, Jennifer, wanted to spend more time with their growing family. So she quit her job. Fast forward to 2020, and Bumblebee Linens, the Chou's ecommerce company, is prospering. Steve is now an ecommerce celebrity, having launched the "My Wife Quit Her Job" blog, podcast, and YouTube channel.
Sep 18, 2020 • 28min
A Passion for Cosmetics Leads to $1 Million in First-year Sales
The YouTube-to-ecommerce business model may be the best way to build an audience of customers. It worked for Lisa and Paul Jauregui. Lisa’s passion for cosmetics led to her YouTube channel, which educated consumers on the use and selection of those products. And that audience generated customers for BK Beauty, a direct-to-consumer cosmetics brand that the Jauregui’s launched in August 2019.
Sep 11, 2020 • 27min
Success in Europe Requires ‘People on the Ground,’ Says Danish Entrepreneur
American businesspeople tend to view Europe as a single market with like-minded consumers and cultures. But Rasmus Cort knows better. His company, Sorry Mom, sells tattoo ointments and lotions throughout the continent. I asked him how a U.S.-based company can succeed there.
Sep 4, 2020 • 32min
Quality Control Drives Ugmonk.com to In-house Fulfillment
By 2017, nine years after launching his t-shirt company, Ugmonk, Jeff Sheldon had expanded into posters and workspace products. Gather, Ugmonk's modular desk organizer, had just completed a successful Kickstarter campaign with two shipping containers of custom manufactured organizers en route, to send to customers. "There's no way my parents were going to let two shipping containers show up at their front door. So I used a 3PL. It was a very bad experience. We ran into every problem imaginable.
Aug 28, 2020 • 32min
Supply.co Founder: Day of Reckoning Is Coming for DTC Brands
Patrick Coddou launched Supply.co with his wife, Jennifer, back in 2015. The company, which sells razors and shaving supplies, is bootstrapped — no outside investors. He has little patience with the concept of lifetime customer value or paying more to acquire a customer than he can recoup on the first purchase. That approach has produced, in five years, a profitable, mid-seven-figure-revenue business that, until recently, had just two employees: Jennifer and himself.
Aug 21, 2020 • 30min
A 'Love for Making' Propels Schmidt’s Naturals to Worldwide Sales
The progression for most direct-to-consumer entrepreneurs is to conceive a product idea and then locate a manufacturer to produce it. But Jaime Schmidt took the opposite approach when she launched Schmidt's natural deodorant in 2010. "I started in our kitchen with batch sizes of maybe 20 deodorants on the stove. The product turned into a business idea. So I kept the manufacturing in-house. I liked the control, which was born out of my love for making."
Aug 14, 2020 • 30min
Banned by Google Ads, SpyGuy.com Ponders Alternative Channels
Ecommerce entrepreneurs understand the need for multiple revenue channels. Relying exclusively on, say, Facebook or Amazon or Google can lead to disruptions. And that's what happened to Allen Walton's company, SpyGuy, which relies on Google Ads for most of its traffic and revenue.
