The Ecomcrew Ecommerce Podcast

Amazon is the 800-pound gorilla in ecommerce and when they announce something new, it's bound to make the waves. But just in case Amazon news missed your inbox, Dave and I are here to recap them for you. This will be a recurring episode in the podcast with Dave and I regularly updating you with big and exciting announcements from Amazon. This series is going to be chock-full of value even if you'r...

Getting into ecommerce is tough--it's a low margin business and it's saturated with competition from big and small names alike. In order to break into the game you need to have a lot of resources, with cash being one of the most important. But when Katrina McKinnon started her ecommerce business 10 years ago, she didn't have a lot of money. There were already big names operating in her niche and n...

Last year Dave set out on a goal to rebuild another million dollar company in a span of one year. It has been a little more than 12 months since he set out with that goal, and today we have him on the podcast to talk about his results. Did he make it to that $1 million mark? Let's find out! But first, here's a bit of a backstory. In October 2016 Dave sold his first ecommerce company, which was doi...

This is the fourth and final episode of the series I'm doing on the book Traction . In Episode 1 we discussed setting the company's core values and communicating them to the entire team. We followed that with Episode 2 , where we talked about defining the company's core focus and setting the company's 10-year goal. Since the 10-year goal is ideally a BHAG (Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal), we'd need to...

Many of us starting on the ecommerce entrepreneur route debate between selling two types of products: physical or digital. It's relatively easy to demonstrate the value of a physical product, and it tends to evoke the feeling that you're running a real business. Physical products however require higher overhead, as you need ample amounts of inventory and money on shipping operations to keep the bu...

While Amazon PPC is one of the most important tools for any Amazon seller, it's also one that's very expensive. It can potentially drain your profits if left unchecked. Case in point: In January we spent roughly $33,000 on Amazon PPC, generated sales amounting to around $104,000, with ACOS at 30%. Deducting Cost of Goods and other Amazon fees, we incurred a net loss of $537. You might ask what's t...

For those who missed Monday's episode , David Wilson is our Under the Hood guest who enjoyed massive sales growth right before suddenly experiencing a plateau. He tried regaining growth by increasing ad spend, to the point that his profits were in danger of drying up. He needs cost-effective ways to get his sales back on pace, and that is what we talk about in this episode. On Monday's episode , D...

Massive growth is not uncommon for ecommerce businesses. We, for instance, doubled our revenue every year since we started in 2015. With this kind of trend it becomes very unsettling for most ecommerce business owners if sales suddenly remain the same month after month, even if that sales number is high. This is what today's Under the Hood guest is going through. David Wilson had been enjoying mas...

Here's something you don't hear about very often: me and Dave sitting side by side on a train heading to China talking about EcomCrew. With me being based in the US and Dave in Canada (and Dave most recently living in China for the last 8 months), communication has not been very easy. We had to deal with time zones and dropped calls, making it hard for Dave to be on the podcast with me (he doesn't...

This is the third episode of the series I'm doing on the business book Traction by Gino Wickman. In episode 1 we covered the importance of setting your company's core values and communicating them to the entire company. Next we covered setting the company's core focus and 10-year goal in episode 2 . Here's where most people hit a snag. 10 years is a length of time most people can't wrap their head...

Out of all the things I do with EcomCrew and in ecommerce in general, the one thing I get asked about the most is our  Philippines office . I'm not sure if it's because I talk about our Filipino employees so much or there are so many entrepreneurs out there who want to find high quality virtual assistants but just don't seem to get landed with one, no matter what they do. I definitely get the sent...

EcomCrew has gone through a big transformation ever since the site merged with Dave Bryant's site ChineseImporting.com. In less than a year we've accomplished so much--we've launched new courses, upped the podcast to two episodes per week, and revamped the entire EcomCrew site. Dave and I are tremendously happy with what EcomCrew has become and we are gearing to do even more, but we would not have...

This is the second episode of a podcast series I'm doing on Traction, a business book written by Gino Wickman geared towards helping business owners run their companies with more growth and enjoyment. My company is currently in the process of applying the system outlined in the book and the impact is so great that I'm documenting the entire process here in the podcast. In episode 1 of the series I...

Today's episode is a little different from what we usually publish. I recently had to undergo a torturous customer service experience with AT&T. Those of you who are or have been AT&T customers and called their customer service hotline at any time know what I'm talking about. I have been an AT&T customer since 2007 when the first iPhone came out--not by choice, but because no other carrier offered...

We're starting a new series on the EcomCrew Podcast today. This series is called Traction, inspired by a book I read recently which had a tremendous impact on me and my business, so much so that I'm applying the principles laid out in the book to my own company. I'm documenting the process in this podcast series so that you and your business could benefit from my experience. I've mostly been an en...

Hey everyone! If you went to the EcommerceFuel Live event in January and got shoved a microphone in the face by me, then this is the episode you've been waiting for :) You might have forgotten what transpired during the event (especially if you got drunk during the party) but this episode, with all the snippets I recorded both sober and drunk, will surely remind you what an awesome event ECF Live...

As ecommerce entrepreneurs we are used to doing things on our own, with many of us even starting out as solopreneurs. This isolation, and the ability to control our time as a result, has been very attractive for us for a long time. But more recently this very same disconnectedness can lead to our own ruin. One of the issues that rattle us to the bones is online sales tax. States have been salivati...

Last Monday , Kevin and I talked about one of the biggest problems most small ecommerce entrepreneurs encounter: becoming a bottleneck to the growth of their own company. This is something that usually happens when we try to do the unthinkable, which is to do every single task on our own. Naturally, the best way to solve this is delegation. You can try to be as efficient and productive as you want...

At the beginning of January, I laid out 18 goals I wanted to accomplish this year. My list consisted of both business and personal goals, with some items certainly harder and loftier than the others. While I made sure that my goals are reasonably achievable, I can't deny that a part of me--any maybe you, too--is wondering if I can achieve them all. That's why I decided that I will do a quarterly c...

When running an ecommerce company as a side hustle, it's fine–and most of the time necessary–to wear many hats. But if you want your business to grow to more than just a side hustle, it's a different story altogether. This week's Under the Hood call is about how to stop being the bottleneck to the growth of your own company. My guest is Kevin Sanderson, who started his ecommerce company 3 years ag...

"Is drop shipping dead?" - so many blog posts in 2018 We've recently encountered a paradox of sorts.  If you type "is drop shipping dead" in a Google search bar and hit enter, you'll notice that the first page is chockfull of blog posts with that exact same title. This could only mean that people are catching on the thought that the drop shipping business model is pretty much in a bubble, and if i...

If you've been listening to the podcast for the better part of the quarter, then my 10 million dollar goal by the end of the year should be pretty familiar to you. Let me tell you something though, our forecast does not actually point to $10 million, it's actually $9.7 million to be specific. But... $10 million sounds a lot nicer :) But how did we come up with $10 million in the first place? Was i...

During last week's episode Matt and I talked about the lowest hanging fruit he can take advantage of as he transitions from a mixed B2B and B2C model to completely B2C. Matt owns Angle 33 , selling wine thermals, beer chillers, and other cool housewares made of concrete. The nature of Matt's products make it quite difficult to optimize areas like PPC ads, but its uniqueness definitely makes it sta...

"How do you pick the perfect ecommerce product?" This is one of the questions I get asked the most. It's understandable--with hordes of products to choose from and a wide array of Amazon categories, choosing just the right product is overwhelming. If your business is bootstrapped and your products are not selling well, you are pretty much doomed. In this case it's not just overwhelming--it's downr...

In today's supply chain, manufacturers often get the thinnest slice of the margin pie. With customers shopping globally and demanding better pricing, retailers compress margins to stay afloat, which puts pressure on their distributors, which in turn passes the pressure along to manufacturers. With margins squeezed the hardest, it's no wonder manufacturers are looking beyond the traditional supply...