Ask me anything about eCommerce (2012)

[Wuping]

I'm almost done reading through all the pages. There's just so much value in this thread - thanks a lot Biophase and other contributors!

I have a question about PPC.
Right now I've set up at simple website selling 1 product (iPhone charger). I want to test out the product before I start heavily investing in it, hence I'll run a small Adwords campaign first.

I'm selling iPhone chargers. When I create the ads, using "iPhone" in the text, I receive an error from Adwords saying I'm not allowed to use iPhone in the text. I've applied for an exception (I'm not sure if that will do anything - excited to see their response).

However if that doesn't turn out like I want it to - what would you suggest doing? Change the ad text so it doesn't include any iPhone/alike words? I'm really not a fan of this as I can imagine this will hurt my CTR and relevancy quite a bit?

Thank you!
And keep up the great work - you surely inspire and help a lot of entrepreneurs (like me) out there!

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Vigilante]

Debating live phone support to back up my eCommerce retail sites.

Higher conversion rates and more credibility vs. increased costs of human interaction.

I just took a call from a customer (we don't make it EASY to find us) but obviously closed her. We could probably close every customer we speak with. However, our items are low average ticket. Spending 10 minutes on the phone with a customer to close a $15 transaction seems to be a losing ROI.

Your opinion?

 

[Amail]

Will you ever sell to that customer again? If you can amortize that customer service over a few sales it would be worth a try. You could always scale it back if you found it's not pulling its weight.

 

[JasonR]

Debating live phone support to back up my eCommerce retail sites.

Higher conversion rates and more credibility vs. increased costs of human interaction.

I just took a call from a customer (we don't make it EASY to find us) but obviously closed her. We could probably close every customer we speak with. However, our items are low average ticket. Spending 10 minutes on the phone with a customer to close a $15 transaction seems to be a losing ROI.

Your opinion?

What about testing out live chat, first? Less expensive, less time consuming.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[BeingChewsie]

Debating live phone support to back up my eCommerce retail sites.

Higher conversion rates and more credibility vs. increased costs of human interaction.

I just took a call from a customer (we don't make it EASY to find us) but obviously closed her. We could probably close every customer we speak with. However, our items are low average ticket. Spending 10 minutes on the phone with a customer to close a $15 transaction seems to be a losing ROI.

Your opinion?

My opinion is coming from a consumer perspective because in our business phone support is a must, it isn't even an option to not have it, so take this for what it is worth. As a consumer I want to know if I have a question or problem, I can speak to a human being. Even if you have to call me back, if you make it hard for me track down a number and I feel like you don't care about me the customer....anybody remember how in the early days of Yahoo, you could had to hunt like crazy for a number to reach them if you had an issue? I'm very likely to go to the seller that I can reach out too. Sales is still about relationships even in the digital medium, it just takes a different form than it does in face-to-face sales. I think people still want to be able to call a company if they need too, I think if they can't get a hold of someone in yours, you are leaving an exploitable service gap that someone could very easily come along and fill, causing you to potentially play catch-up with a competitor. A game we never want to be playing.

Sue

 

[PatrickP]

My experience, I didn't have phone service for the first 3 years. Then when I got a manager he put his cel # out there for customer support.

He said he gets a couple calls a day if that. But we only sell approx 1% direct, the rest is via distributors or stores so maybe that is why so few calls.

 

[biophase]

Biophase, I was looking through your camoadvantage site out of interest and your return authorization form is 404ing, just letting you know in case it's not supposed to be like that.

Thanks for letting me know. Fixed.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[biophase]

johnscheapipadcases.com is taken. do you think if I get johnscheapipadcases.me that will be just as good?

I can't tell if this is a sarcastic question so I'll answer it by saying... no.

 

[biophase]

Awesome writeup biophase, After watching the video of the guy thats making 100k a month. Your explanation is exactly what he was doing. Kudos to you!

I watched about 30 minutes of that video so far. Pretty good! I have to save it for later.

 

[biophase]

I'm almost done reading through all the pages. There's just so much value in this thread - thanks a lot Biophase and other contributors!

I have a question about PPC.
Right now I've set up at simple website selling 1 product (iPhone charger). I want to test out the product before I start heavily investing in it, hence I'll run a small Adwords campaign first.

I'm selling iPhone chargers. When I create the ads, using "iPhone" in the text, I receive an error from Adwords saying I'm not allowed to use iPhone in the text. I've applied for an exception (I'm not sure if that will do anything - excited to see their response).

However if that doesn't turn out like I want it to - what would you suggest doing? Change the ad text so it doesn't include any iPhone/alike words? I'm really not a fan of this as I can imagine this will hurt my CTR and relevancy quite a bit?

Thank you!
And keep up the great work - you surely inspire and help a lot of entrepreneurs (like me) out there!

Google adwords won't let you use certain trademarked words. If they deny you, you'll have to figure out another way to convey what you sell. You can use iphone as a search term, so the people seeing your results will be looking for what you have. I would do something like cell phone chargers, smart phone charger, etc...

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[biophase]

Debating live phone support to back up my eCommerce retail sites.

Higher conversion rates and more credibility vs. increased costs of human interaction.

I just took a call from a customer (we don't make it EASY to find us) but obviously closed her. We could probably close every customer we speak with. However, our items are low average ticket. Spending 10 minutes on the phone with a customer to close a $15 transaction seems to be a losing ROI.

Your opinion?

You should definitely have a phone number prevalent on your site.

What I would do is...
Point them to a FAQ with answers to questions during your announcement
Give them your email address in the announcement
Make the announcement really long so they don't wait for the beep

Trying chat as someone else mentioned could work, but then you'd need someone sitting in front of the computer all day. But they can service multiple people at the same time.

To minimize phone calls, put all the information your customer would ever need on the site. Many will reading everything and never call. The ones that call, never read anything anyway.

We don't get that many calls a day. But we probably close 90% of the ones we get and the ones in which we return the calls.

 

[XavierYZ]

I watched about 30 minutes of that video so far. Pretty good! I have to save it for later.

It leads into a 1000 dollar course. I watched most of it and became very excited. However I started to get the feeling that it was too good to be true. Anyone care to share an opinion on this webinar?

In my researching my next idea, I feel like setting up a cart for a niche, also selling on amazon sounds exciting too. Living in Canada I have to decide whether I sell Canadian made to Canadians or import.

I am thinking of trying a few things part time while I grow my current business. The more time I spend here the more I feel like getting out of hvac and pursue something that can scale fast

I've spent 3 years and way to much money on this venture. It's starting to feel like I own a job

 

[PatrickP]

It leads into a 1000 dollar course. I watched most of it and became very excited. However I started to get the feeling that it was too good to be true. Anyone care to share an opinion on this webinar?

In my researching my next idea, I feel like setting up a cart for a niche, also selling on amazon sounds exciting too. Living in Canada I have to decide whether I sell Canadian made to Canadians or import.

I am thinking of trying a few things part time while I grow my current business. The more time I spend here the more I feel like getting out of hvac and pursue something that can scale fast

I've spent 3 years and way to much money on this venture. It's starting to feel like I own a job

I am not so sure he has it correct when he talks about the criteria Amazon uses to rank their ebooks. I had my VA(oh I have been WANTING to use that in a post since I just hired one yesterday lol) do an analysis of the top 10 ranking books in the 6 categories he outlines in the video. Turns out there are some that are ranked in the top 3 which have less than 5% the number of reviews other books in the top 10 have.

BUT doesn't mean the other info is no good. You can also do a Google search and it will show a thread on WF of people who have bought the $1000 course. It seemed to me that most of it is software program to make it easier to get on Amazon's top list but it seemed like the majority of people in the thread sent the course back for a refund.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[MakeItHappen]

I am not so sure he has it correct when he talks about the criteria Amazon uses to rank their ebooks. I had my VA(oh I have been WANTING to use that in a post since I just hired one yesterday lol) do an analysis of the top 10 ranking books in the 6 categories he outlines in the video. Turns out there are some that are ranked in the top 3 which have less than 5% the number of reviews other books in the top 10 have.

BUT doesn't mean the other info is no good. You can also do a Google search and it will show a thread on WF of people who have bought the $1000 course. It seemed to me that most of it is software program to make it easier to get on Amazon's top list but it seemed like the majority of people in the thread sent the course back for a refund.

I like the webinar so far a lot! The free tips he gives are really valueable imo.
I also think that the amazon rankings are not that simple... i think there are a couple more ranking factors but if you really get into it it shouldn't be to hard to master this... but obv the 4 factors he is mentioning play a BIG role for good rankings and most importantly can be controlled

 

[CKoski90]

Hello! Let me say a little about myself first. Ive always done some ebay stuff off and on, nothing this serious though. As in u would buy items and garage sales and thrift stores. The merchandise i was looking for started to come by less and less often. So i think im going to finally jump into the wholesale e-commerce route. Just today i filed for an LLC and i already have a few products im considering.

I only have one question for right now..How often should a keyword be searched to consider it a good item to sell? I searched on adwords my keyword and its only searched right around 8-15k times a month. This doesn't seem like enough after seeing how often page viewers actually stay, let alone purchase from your website. The product im selling is a generic version of a brand named item. Besides the brand selling theirs, there's only about 3-4 websites selling generic versions. Also the keyword im thinking of is not with the main brand uses. Should i ditch it and find something better? If so how many searches would be a green light to go? Sorry if didn't make too much sense, just let me know if i need to clarify anything.

 

[XavierYZ]

If you look further back in this thread you will see some references of keyword searches 2000 per month appeared to be the lowest number Keyword monthly that you're looking for

If you can dominate a keyword for a niche that brings has 2000 search hits per month
if you could capture 50% 1000 people visiting your site and converting 1% would be 10 sales per month

Sell a product that profits $100 and now you have $1000 per month in Gross profit

Of course I've made this sound a lot easier than it is

take a look back in this entire thread and you'll find some very valuable information I know I have

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[splok]

Debating live phone support to back up my eCommerce retail sites.

Higher conversion rates and more credibility vs. increased costs of human interaction.

I just took a call from a customer (we don't make it EASY to find us) but obviously closed her. We could probably close every customer we speak with. However, our items are low average ticket. Spending 10 minutes on the phone with a customer to close a $15 transaction seems to be a losing ROI.

Your opinion?

At that price point, I have a hard time imagining that phone support could be worthwhile. The exception would be if the customer actually has a much higher LTV due to repeat business or something, though it seems like you would have mentioned it if that were the case. If you really want to have a phone number for people to call but wanted to minimize the cost, you could just have it drop to a voicemail box which emails you a transcript, then you can ignore/email/callback as needed (and even if you ignore practically all of them, you still get the trust benefit of having a real number visible).

It's better service to have phone support, sure, but to be honest, you may not want those customers to begin with. Depending on your niche, someone who feels the need to talk to a human may be WAY more trouble than they're worth in the long run. I remember one of the Ultima Online devs saying once that after running the numbers, it would have been more profitable to ban everyone who ever used customer support than to have a customer support department.

 

[stranger]

Hi Biophase,
Sorry, for my question. It feels I missed something. Do you re-send products to customers youself or your suppler does it? If you do it yourself, how long the customer is waiting for his order because you should collect the sames order from others and then pass them to your suppler?

 

[stranger]

How much % commissons amazong pays now When did it they paid 4% - lower commission i've eve seen.

Iv been into droppshipping for over 5 years now. But Im moving towards Amazon affiliate program.

No need to find droppshipers
No need to process orders.
No need to deal with customers.
No need for licenses or tax ids etc.
No need to do taxes, get your 1099 and thats it.

yes its less commission,
but I used to make bank with amazon, and with my method Ill be back up there in no time. Just a suggestion. not meaning to highjack, i think its a nice piece to add to this particular discussion actually. Please share your thoughts..

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[dv1041]

Hey guys I hope I am posting this in the right place, and biophase, I am a huge fan of your threads! I have taken some pretty big steps lately in furthering my business and I have to say, your posts have helped A LOT! I wanted to ask you and all of you eCommerce pro's out there specifically about my current venture. Thanks in advance for any advice you can throw my way!!!!!

I have been asked by a good friend to help him out with his brick and mortar wheel and tire business. He wants to get started in eCommerce and asked me to help him set up a website with his inventory in exchange for 50% of profits made with the online store. I really want to hit this out of the park but I am kind of lost right now because I usually work with smaller niches and I am not sure how to sell and market to such a large niche. I have already started posting some product on ebay but its not going so hot due to being new to the site and not having any rep.
My question to you guys is: how would you go about marketing and selling high end wheels online. I am redesigning his site right now with wordpress and I will be using a wordpress plugin for the online store aspect. We have nailed down some pretty competitive prices for the wheels but like I said, I am stuck at the marketing aspect of this project. I feel like I need a not so basic marketing plan for this and I know a lot of you guys are really good at creating pretty genius marketing strategies.

Again, any feedback would be hugely appreciated as I know you guys are busy people and some are highly respected members of this forum and I'm just a noob starting out. Thanks again!!!

 

[PatrickP]

Go on forums where people talk about high end wheels.

 

[biophase]

Hi Biophase,
Sorry, for my question. It feels I missed something. Do you re-send products to customers youself or your suppler does it? If you do it yourself, how long the customer is waiting for his order because you should collect the sames order from others and then pass them to your suppler?

I ship products out myself and I have some dropshipped.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[susanyang]

I ship products out myself and I have some dropshipped.

Thank you for the abundance of info. I am considering opening an online store. I have a niche, I think. My question is, for a computer illiterate person like me, should I just charge ahead and open one or do it on ebay?

Also, what do you use for record keeping and tax? Is it ok to use my ssn as tax id?

 

[wade1mil]

My question is, for a computer illiterate person like me, should I just charge ahead and open one or do it on ebay?

Snowbank isn't very technical and he started a web business that made $100k in the first week. I think it comes down to whether you can afford to hire someone to do it for you or not. Some ecommerce companies like BigCommerce make it easier to create an online store. Have you looked at any of those yet?

 

[susanyang]

No, honestly, I don't know where to start. I want to just do it! I want to get into the fast lane!
Can you recommend a book? What do you think of Steve Chou's ebook? It costs $500.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[wade1mil]

I've never read a book on ecommerce. Honestly, I think me reading a few posts from this forum has been more than good enough to get me started. If I bought a book at this point, I think it would only be an excuse for me not to actually do anything. Read this entire thread if you haven't already, a couple threads from my signature below, and sign up for a free two week trial from BigCommerce to get acquainted with how easy it is to setup a store. Those are my suggestions.

 

[Amail]

Susan, last I remember you bought some shoes from DHGate. Did you put them up on eBay?

 

[susanyang]

Amail, I did. But eBay is taking too much of my profit. I have a better idea for a niche and thinking of just opening an online store. How are you doing with your business? I just want to gear up for the upcoming holiday.... but everything is so overwhelming!

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Amail]

Amail, I did. But eBay is taking too much of my profit. I have a better idea for a niche and thinking of just opening an online store. How are you doing with your business? I just want to gear up for the upcoming holiday.... but everything is so overwhelming!

eBay will definitely take a chunk - you need to have the margin to support it. Remember, eBay is a huge marketplace, you get in front of a lot of people. Amazon is too, and you can set up a store there too. The more you sell on those platforms the more you build up your reputation. It will get easier.

If you go straight into your own ecommerce store you'll need some spectacular SEO to catch the holiday shoppers - it's just around the corner. If it were me, I'd stick with eBay and Amazon since you don't need computer wizardry to sell your stuff.

 

[andviv]

Can you recommend a book?

Really?

There is a book here... read this thread again, taking notes. That should be enough, no?

Or send me $500 and I will summarize this for you and send you step-by-step instructions. Deal?