Is E-Commerce still Alive for 2022 / 2023 and How To Make it a Fastlane Success !!!

[NeoDialectic]

Thank you for this, @NeoDialectic

Please as regards this.

I am a sewing machine specialist and I have an audience of sewing machine users of around 1000 on WhatsApp. They are mostly women.

So recently, I thought I could start importing some valuable kitchen stuffs and accessories at cheap price from China to Nigeria, and sell it to them. I'm thinking, since they're women, it'll be easier to sell kitchen or beauty stuffs to them.

Do you think it's a good idea pls?

I think the good idea is to figure out a complaint the 1000 sewing machine users have and sell them something that fixes that complaint. Alternatively, sell them on a product, that you make, that improves their sewing machine experience (even if they don't have a complaint).

 

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

[Spenny]

This is a superb thread. Thank you for taking the time to make it, plus thanks to all those who have added to it!

I fell into e-commerce accidentally - I just wanted to get a product out there. But EVERYTHING you listed is spot on regarding the advantages and disadvantages. It is the way to sell these days & I find it strange people will open physical product stores to address a need when the internet gives you 1000x more potential customers.

I'd say superior social media advertising can circumvent the ad spend. It takes time to master a format, but if you can hit the nail on the head and resonate with people, the platform will eat it up. Starter, main and dessert included.

 

[Alexandrel]

Thank you for this thread @fastlane_dad and the other contributors.
Very valuable info on your experience ! I like that you gave some general layout of your process.

Last item I bought on Amazon:
Phone tripod / selfie stick

What made me choose the one I bought (in that order):
- Appeared among the first items from my search
- Good quality video showing the tripod in use + good photos
- Price / quality (looked a decent enough built for a reasonable price)
- Good and many reviews,
- Weight / volume (not too heavy, doesn't take much space)

I would assume a decent percentage of people based their buying from a similar thought process.
Probably common to many products. I'll let the experts comment.

 

[ALL$NTMC]

The question was brought up if 'e-commerce' is a viable business to start today.

I'm sure my take on this will be slightly different then even @NeoDialectic but I'll try to sum up my perceptions of where it is today.

IMHO - e-commerce as a business is still just as great and viable as it was a decade ago or more.

@NeoDialectic and I have been around it for the past 20+ years in one way or another. We created and sold several businesses based on that model.

I have always loved e-commerce, and in many ways have been fascinated with it since it's beginnings. I will never forget my start - when eBay was born and I was able to make my first several online bucks flipping baseball cards for profit at the age of 14. Back then people used to send you checks in the mail (who remembers those days?) - after which they would count on you to mail their product to them promptly.

To me the world was a sea of online opportunity waiting to be unleashed with my mark on it.

Looking back over our sales of prior, @NeoDialectic and I sold around 1 MILLION e-COM GOODS total. Our total revenue during that time has neared the $50 MILLION dollar mark combined.

@MJ DeMarco coined the phrase 'affect millions to make millions' - does not ring any more true to me then in the e-com world.

I still LOVE everything about it, particularly how easy it is to mold e-com to the CENTS framework.

Sure - some of those variables might come easier or harder then others (especially need and control). Some you will have to work harder for to separate yourself (entry) - but on the overall it is just incredible to me how many opportunities there still are within e-commerce and how it can take an average 'joe' and provide them with a highly scalable business in a few short years.

I'll point out some of my other immediate 'pros'

-- How easily e-commerce is disconnected from your time (it exists online, 24/7 and does work while you sleep)

-- Depending on the niche you can have a consumable product that gets reordered month after month (cha-ching!)

-- You will have easy access to create a productocracy - as long as your product solves a need or a want, and people have access to talk about it (so let's say not a very sensitive subject overall)

-- The availability today to source anything from anywhere, and get it designed and manufactured with ease. Gone are the days when you actually had to leave your house and travel to China to draft up some contracts and tour plants (which brings me into my next point)

-- You can literally run the entire operation today out of your bedroom if you choose. The distribution, production and software networks are so ingrained with the e-commerce model today
that you can setup and run a ten figure business without ever seeing your product or owning a single employee, office space, pallet or warehouse. That is just INCREDIBLE to me. As long as you have an internet connection - you can make this business work from any corner of the globe.

-- It is fairly easy to 'test the market' (depending on what your product is as well)

-- The availability of platforms and ease of listing your products and storefront now is just incredible as well. You have your obvious heavy hitters (Amazon, Shopify, Walmart.com, Etsy, Ebay, etc.) as well as hundreds of smaller retailers that are more niche depending on what you are selling.

-- Best of all - e-commerce also disconnects the world from you 'personally' - so as long as you are providing VALUE and what people WANT - the world doesn't care who you are, who you know, where you went to school, how charming or suave you are, how many girlfriends you have or how well you know calculus. That is incredibly liberating, that almost removes any barrier of a personal excuse someone has to start up this line of business.

I can go on and on about the pros all day. To me , especially for a novice, it is still ONE of the best if not THE best ways to enter or have a shot at the FASTLANE life and earnings.

NOW for the CONS as I see them in 2022 - 2023

-- Let's get the elephant out the room - the marketplace is INCREDIBLY flooded. Many of the easy solutions have been done and tackled. Amazon, as well as the other major online retailers have no shortage of product virtually in every industry you can think of. What does that mean to you? Well for starters - is that your value SKEW just needs to be that much stronger. Instead of having one value skew you might need 3. Or 5. You might need to NICHE down your product even more (i.e. pressure reducing hiking bags for seniors with back issues) so in essence limiting the total market potential). So the work you put in will be MORE today, for potentially LESS profit. But don't let that stop you!

-- Ads are getting incredibly expensive all around. Whether you set up on adwords, amazon ad platform or many other channels - ads today will COST you. All that means is you can't fully rely on ads alone to carry you. You will need to be ingenious in your approach to marketing - and will have to look outside of the traditional / typical paths. You will have to look to see where the attention is going today (tik tok? instagram ? youtube ? ) Maybe you can make tutorials on how to use your product and post it to youtube. Maybe you can contact new moms on tik tok to help spread the message of your new baby carrier. Maybe you will have to start and grow a podcast to help sell your 5-in-1 business planner to help get the word out on that. There are countless options, more so than before to do creative advertising that doesn't need to break the bank.

-- You do need the ability to spot and try out new platforms, ways of distribution and continually trying new ways of advertising (as nothing lasts forever). This is not new - but an integral part of being setup at the 'right place at the right time'. At respective points in the last several decades @NeoDialectic and I have used google/shopify, ebay, amazon, and social media platforms all as respective channels to market and promote products. They all had their time to shine, and when things were per say 'easier'. What's the next thing out there? Well that's the million dollar fastlane question - and surely something will always be. It will be on you to position yourself correctly to be able to give you the best leverage towards helping your products succeed.

-- You need to be more resilient then ever. Moving into the future, you might need to try a few product, or ideas then in the past to see what will work. Ultimately the market decides what it needs, but it's your job to put it in front of them.

I hope this helps anyone thinking or debating going into e-commerce. There is still tons of untapped opportunity in this world. The shopping and commerce is still moving to and migrating online at a very rapid pace. Infrastructure will only be further improved to setup and improve this business model and everything surround it.

ALSO - if you are STUCK for ideas, @NeoDialectic wrote up an EXCELLENT thread on idea generation not to be missed. This will get you kicked off in the right direction, and honestly, was the plan behind us coming up on dozens of ideas that turned into very successful products.

If you have any other question, please feel free to ask and @NeoDialectic and I will be happy to provide our thoughts below!!

Legendary post! I couldn’t agree more

 

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