Ask me anything about eCommerce (2012)

[Tronik]

Hey Kenric, hope you're doing well. I discovered your blog LiveLearnInvest yesterday and the sheer amount of info it had was awesome, I read about 37 pages yesterday, very inspirational. Im hoping to open my first Ebiz/E Commerce site soon, and I was wondering how much would having my SEO done for me would cost? I looked online and I found hundreds of different services, with some offering monthly subscription services for 500 a month, although Im not sure why SEO is a subscription service lol. Are there any SEO sites you could recommend that are cheap enough for a 16 year old to buy?

 

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[biophase]

If you don't mind me asking, how much under MSRP do you typically sell at?

This is about what I figured. Thanks!

I don't even know what the MSRP of my products are. I just set a price based on a profit that I can live with to start. If I sell alot of them, I move the price up a dollar until sales decline and then I drop the price. Eventually, they all settle on a price.

 

[tincho1492]

Tronik: Today AppSumo posted a deal for a SEO book for $5. Maybe it could help you to start with that. http://www.appsumo.com/seo-copywriting-book-evergreen/

 

[biophase]

Strange, I actually enjoy this process too ... signing a book, throwing it in a box, and dropping it off at the post office. While die-hard "Fastlaners" might say "This is a waste of time!!!" I find it enjoyable. I've never had an issue with the *work* of order fulfillment -- curious that you feel the same. I wonder what the psychological reasoning is behind it ... Perhaps it makes us feel more intimate with the customer and the value you are offering?

I think it is more about customer service and completed tasks. When a customer places an order from you, they are expecting a level of service. They expect what they ordered to get shipped to them in a timely manner. Until you ship that order, it's on you and it's a nagging incomplete to do in the back of my head.

Since I was always a project manager, I tend to think of each order is an individual project. It starts when the order comes in and is only completed when the package is picked up by the Fedex guy.

I'm sure part of it is the intimacy also because you do read the names and addresses of the people purchasing from you. Sometimes, people are surprised when they call in and I can remember their location and order just because I happen to have packed their order.

It's such a short project cycle, but it is rewarding because you complete many projects at a time. It's like finishing a huge to do list for the day, the customer is happy and you have made actual money. You can actually count the money in your pocket as you box up a package. I remember thinking, "I'll go pack that box during the next commercial and make $50 in 2 minutes." With that type of thinking, I've never gotten sick of packing boxes. Who wouldn't want to make $1000 an hour in between commercials.

 

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[biophase]

I'm SO SORRY, i thought it was a maybe 08-09, but this nice guy corrected me, should have never said anything and its a shame to think a Ferrari is a Porsche, my fault

You have to admit they do look similar from the front, but I should have seen the wheels as distinctively Ferrari

It's no big deal. That kind of stuff doesn't bother me. Cars and just cars to me. You could have asked if it was a subaru and I wouldn't have cared. I should have put a smiley face at the end of my post.

 

[biophase]

I was wondering how much would having my SEO done for me would cost? I looked online and I found hundreds of different services, with some offering monthly subscription services for 500 a month, although Im not sure why SEO is a subscription service lol. Are there any SEO sites you could recommend that are cheap enough for a 16 year old to buy?

I think the first thing is that if you don't understand why SEO is a subscription service then maybe you don't understand SEO that clearly. $500 is probably the average going rate with lower end SEO companies. I can't answer your question about cost, but you will probably find a huge range from $300-$5000 a month for SEO.

I suggest that you (and everyone else) learn SEO yourself. It is probably the best investment you can make in yourself if you are going to go the Ecommerce route.

 

[Giles]

What would you consider an appropriate First-Page drop off rate?

I'm looking at Google Analytics and my Visitor Flow shows people go to the Homepage, then 78% go onto another page, and 22% leave the store.

Obviously this depends on two factors: The quality of the traffic being driven to the site, and the Homepage.

Whats your initial thoughts on this percentage?

Thanks for the great thread!

 

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[Tronik]

Thanks, I think I will attempt to learn SEO, Im already pretty good at really basic SEo, and im planning on going to a 3-day classs like the one you went to. I'm going to the library to check out some books on SEO and im building up a few online resources I could look to for help.

 

[nayR]

I think the first thing is that if you don't understand why SEO is a subscription service then maybe you don't understand SEO that clearly. $500 is probably the average going rate with lower end SEO companies. I can't answer your question about cost, but you will probably find a huge range from $300-$5000 a month for SEO.

I suggest that you (and everyone else) learn SEO yourself. It is probably the best investment you can make in yourself if you are going to go the Ecommerce route.

Do you have any books/websites recommendations to learn SEO and any important tips on SEO?

 

[tincho1492]

nayR: Read what I posted on this page recently of a book about SEO. Maybe it could help you too.

 

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[biophase]

What would you consider an appropriate First-Page drop off rate?

I'm looking at Google Analytics and my Visitor Flow shows people go to the Homepage, then 78% go onto another page, and 22% leave the store.

Obviously this depends on two factors: The quality of the traffic being driven to the site, and the Homepage.

Whats your initial thoughts on this percentage?

Thanks for the great thread!

That's better than mine. I have about 30% dropoff from the homepage. I have never researched this number so I don't know what the industry average is.

 

[Mexidan]

All I can say is that it grows every year at a decent rate. I have 2 employees and a small warehouse. I think people get stuck on these numbers and many don't realize that you can run huge businesses yourself, out of your bedroom with no employees. I'm talking about multi-million dollar businesses.

I remember reading on this forum about the plenty of fish guy who did it.

Love your ´just do it´ attitude btw. Over analyzing it is something taught in business school and has killed some ideas for me already.
Right now I just took 1 simple idea and I´m pushing it through all the way without worrying too much about all the little details or trying to get it perfect from day 1.

I noticed on your page you accept payments two separate ways, bank tranfer and paypal.
Don´t you feel its worth it to get Paypal Pro so customers do not have to leave your page to complete payment?
Secondly, how do you accept bank payments? Do they need to sent you confirmation in order to complete payment?

 

[PatrickP]

Bio, have you ever thought of manufacturing your own products?

That is what I do in the health care industry and the markup is nice. You also don't have to worry about selling direct if you do not want to, as you sell to a couple distributors and a couple large online stores, and let them take care of customer service etc.

I have a fulfillment company which sends out the orders which is why I started selling direct again. So no need for a warehouse, forklift etc. They warehouse for free and charge 1% of the order to send it our plus actual shipping which I collect from the distributor.

You are right about not needing a lot of employees nor an office. I work from anywhere I can get an internet connection

If I pay $7 for an item to be made I sell it to a distributor for $22. Overhead is a commission only sales person and 1 full time employee. I work approx 5 hours a week. BUT the first 4 years I worked countless hours sometimes working 25 or 26 hours straight on my feet filling orders.

BUT I never felt put upon or upset I REALLY enjoyed the physical work because instead of doing it for someone else as I had for years in factories I was doing it for my own business.

.....

 

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[biophase]

Don´t you feel its worth it to get Paypal Pro so customers do not have to leave your page to complete payment?

Secondly, how do you accept bank payments? Do they need to sent you confirmation in order to complete payment?

I don't like the big paypal button as I think it's confusing to customers. I do like having paypal as a checkout method. I get maybe 20% of my checkouts through paypal.

I think you have mean credit cards, not bank payments right? I don't accept bank payments directly.

 

[biophase]

Bio, have you ever thought of manufacturing your own products?

That is what I do in the health care industry and the markup is nice. You also don't have to worry about selling direct if you do not want to, as you sell to a couple distributors and a couple large online stores, and let them take care of customer service etc.

I have a fulfillment company which sends out the orders which is why I started selling direct again. So no need for a warehouse, forklift etc. They warehouse for free and charge 1% of the order to send it our plus actual shipping which I collect from the distributor.

You are right about not needing a lot of employees nor an office. I work from anywhere I can get an internet connection

If I pay $7 for an item to be made I sell it to a distributor for $22. Overhead is a commission only sales person and 1 full time employee. I work approx 5 hours a week. BUT the first 4 years I worked countless hours sometimes working 25 or 26 hours straight on my feet filling orders.

BUT I never felt put upon or upset I REALLY enjoyed the physical work because instead of doing it for someone else as I had for years in factories I was doing it for my own business.

Sorry that I missed this one.

Yes, I do manufacture my own products. I import directly from China and Taiwan. I also wholesale out to other retail stores so I guess I am a distributor now too. I'm going to try to get into large department stores in the future.

I thought about going the fulfillment company route, but based on reading stories from founders of Zappos, CDbaby, and many other retailers. All of them said that outsourcing fulfillment (your main job as an ecommerce store) was bad and based on my own feelings and findings, I believe it's much better to keep that stuff in house.

I'm sure it can be done. Amazon has fulfillment services that many companies use. If I start a new business, I may give it a shot someday.

 

[Mexidan]

Makes sense about the payment gateways.

How did you find your supplier in Asia? Website like alibaba? References?

Did you have any issues with customs being unreliable? I had lots of issues with customs either stealing stuff from my boxes or just not letting them pass at all anymore. After I hired a customs broker it got even worse.. For some samples I was supposed to be paying 100 dollars for their work and they charged 500 after they received the product.

 

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[puckman]

I suggest that you (and everyone else) learn SEO yourself. It is probably the best investment you can make in yourself if you are going to go the Ecommerce route.

There is a saying, "hope is not a strategy". While I would agree that SEO is a tool to use, its not the only thing you need to know in order to get traffic. There are several stories on the web about how Googles indexing changes greatly effected businesses who rely solely/mostly on SEO. I would caution against relying heavily on SEO for your traffic. You of course need to learn SEO, but also know that its not a guarantee. Whether its paid traffic, or dominance in a niche through other means of marketing and PR, you would be better off having a safety net in case your SEO pipeline shuts off one day.

This is a good place to start;
Official Google Webmaster Central Blog

 

[andviv]

I would caution against relying heavily on SEO for your traffic. You of course need to learn SEO, but also know that its not a guarantee. Whether its paid traffic, or dominance in a niche through other means of marketing and PR, you would be better off having a safety net in case your SEO pipeline shuts off one day.

Interesting comment...

What is your experience running ecommerce sites? How many stores do you own and run?

Based on this experience... how else are you dominating your niches?

What would be a better use of his time, if not learning SEO?

 

[danoodle]

What kind of entity do you have your stores under? Like an LLC, corp, sole prop? How important is it to setup the correct architecture for your business? Should one just find a niche, buy a domain, and start selling and worry about tax/legal stuff later, or setup the systems and whatnot correctly from the get-go? You also mentioned getting a city/state license/permit in your other thread so I am assuming I need to look into that as well.

 

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[biophase]

Makes sense about the payment gateways.

How did you find your supplier in Asia? Website like alibaba? References?

Did you have any issues with customs being unreliable? I had lots of issues with customs either stealing stuff from my boxes or just not letting them pass at all anymore. After I hired a customs broker it got even worse.. For some samples I was supposed to be paying 100 dollars for their work and they charged 500 after they received the product.

My suppliers actually found me. But they are all listed on Alibaba. I didn't go looking for them or ask for references.

Customs is tricky. They've never stolen my stuff, but it's been delayed a few weeks. Then they tack on storage and handling charges and your whole shipment is $500 more than it's supposed to be. I use a customs broker for all my shipments.

You should look at the charges and see why they increased by so much.

 

[biophase]

There is a saying, "hope is not a strategy". While I would agree that SEO is a tool to use, its not the only thing you need to know in order to get traffic. There are several stories on the web about how Googles indexing changes greatly effected businesses who rely solely/mostly on SEO. I would caution against relying heavily on SEO for your traffic. You of course need to learn SEO, but also know that its not a guarantee. Whether its paid traffic, or dominance in a niche through other means of marketing and PR, you would be better off having a safety net in case your SEO pipeline shuts off one day.

This is a good place to start;
Official Google Webmaster Central Blog

You need to understand SEO and that will help you understand all the other aspects of traffic. Amazon, Ebay, Facebook, twitter, etc... all need to be used, but if you outsource SEO you probably will outsource your social media also. If you understand how these all work, you can either do it yourself or understand it enough to hire people.

Most people on here who want to start a store cannot afford to pay $500/mo for SEO, so they should start off doing it themselves. And if they can pay $500/mo, they should understand what they are getting for that money.

IMO, if you know SEO, you can make money on the web in any field. Also, you can be hired by others in any field. And you can get a job at an SEO company. It's a good talent to have these days.

 

[biophase]

There are several stories on the web about how Googles indexing changes greatly effected businesses who rely solely/mostly on SEO.

I forgot to mention that there are many strategies to combat this. Yes, it's true that if you have one site and a couple keywords and they get hit, your traffic drops like crazy. But if you have 1000 keywords ranking and 5 visitors a day from each, your traffic is less prone to get totally slapped.

Also, if you have 7 websites in the top 10 and number 1 is slapped, your other 6 websites just jump up one notch so it doesn't really affect you.

 

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[biophase]

What kind of entity do you have your stores under? Like an LLC, corp, sole prop? How important is it to setup the correct architecture for your business? Should one just find a niche, buy a domain, and start selling and worry about tax/legal stuff later, or setup the systems and whatnot correctly from the get-go? You also mentioned getting a city/state license/permit in your other thread so I am assuming I need to look into that as well.

They are in LLCs. I would just buy domain and start up a store. Get a license if a supplier asks you for one. Worry about the LLC and stuff later on.

 

[puckman]

Interesting comment...

What is your experience running ecommerce sites? How many stores do you own and run?

Based on this experience... how else are you dominating your niches?

What would be a better use of his time, if not learning SEO?

I prefer to stay anonymous, but this has been my lively hood for over 10 years, I have been employed by and involved in some of the largest portals and retail brands on the web.

Dominating your niches is not about price, trickery or marketing, but providing supreme value and becoming a solid fixture in the community. Tribes is a great book I would recommend. It would be active involvement in growing and promoting the industry/audience you play in, however YOU would define that.

SEO is fundamental for any web business, but not a be all end all. I would focus on creating solutions and value for my customers first.

Take a look at JC Penny;
JC Penny

Now you can look at this a few different ways; as a smaller store you can say "that will never happen to me because I am small" but that is wrong because the bulk of this policing by Google affects the smaller guys who solely rely on this. You can also say "JC Penny is clearly cheating" well.. they are just following a teetering industry practice that can tip in the worst direction without any given notice. There is another article out there on Inc about a smaller online flower shop who relied solely on SEO and when the algorithm changed, they lost 80% of their traffic overnight, and it never corrected(Cant find the link but it would have been perfect here)

All I am saying is; know how else you would survive without Google, if Google went away.

 

[Giles]

Thanks for your response.

Secondly, what are your "must-haves" when setting up a new store in regards to design and features?

• Credit Card Logos in clear view
• Phone number
• Trust Logos
• Store opening hours?

Is there any key things you view as a must-have?

I am setting up a Fashion store this weekend using Magento and will include all of the above. Something key for me is an EASY checkout process. I want the option to check-out without signing up. Yes, I will lose collecting details for my database, but I think it will get extra sales. Or do you disagree? I personally hate signing up for websites, especially if I only plan to make 1 purchase from that store.

 

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[biophase]

Thanks for your response.

Secondly, what are your "must-haves" when setting up a new store in regards to design and features?

• Credit Card Logos in clear view
• Phone number
• Trust Logos
• Store opening hours?

Is there any key things you view as a must-have?

I am setting up a Fashion store this weekend using Magento and will include all of the above. Something key for me is an EASY checkout process. I want the option to check-out without signing up. Yes, I will lose collecting details for my database, but I think it will get extra sales. Or do you disagree? I personally hate signing up for websites, especially if I only plan to make 1 purchase from that store.

I think that you must have:

toll free number (or a phone number)
SSL seal (maybe)
clean looking site

Customers hate signing up, but what they don't realize is that with any checkout you are actually signing up. They still enter every single piece of info required in a sign up. The only thing they don't enter is a password. You don't lose collecting anything. When you opt to not sign up, the only difference is that you can't log in to see your order. However, from our store backend, everything looks the same. It's not like we say, "wait this guy didn't make an account, let's delete all his information after we ship out the order."

Alot of times they won't type in their phone number, but they don't understand that it's in their best interest to do so. The phone number is used by us if they screw up their order or address. It's also used by Fedex drivers if they can't find their house.

 

[JayDub]

I started in 2007. Looking back, if I really pushed hard in 2007-2010, I probably should be at a few million a year in revenue. I could have been the next Wayfair. But I chose to have fun and go on vacations all the time.

Thanks for making this thread, great read. You say that if you had pushed hard in 2007-2010 you could have had some huge growth. Does this mean that you're at a stage now where you can't cause that kind of growth? Have times changed or is it just a matter of you being comfortable where you're at now?

Thanks.

 

[biophase]

Thanks for making this thread, great read. You say that if you had pushed hard in 2007-2010 you could have had some huge growth. Does this mean that you're at a stage now where you can't cause that kind of growth? Have times changed or is it just a matter of you being comfortable where you're at now?

Thanks.

No, it just means that I don't work hard enough to get maximum growth. I'm not into making as much money as I possibly can.

 

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[Mexidan]

Can you give some insight in how you managed stock when you were working with dropshippers.
For example, I have a supplier for 1 product category, but he actually has about 500 different products.
How did you make sure that you were not offering products that were actually out of stock?
Did you add all the products manually or use feed API?

 

[kwerner]

Also, if you have 7 websites in the top 10 and number 1 is slapped, your other 6 websites just jump up one notch so it doesn't really affect you.

THIS is why you are the man.