GUEST POST NOW REVEALED! How eCommerce Stores Make Millions By Ditching The Traditional Storefront

[Velo]

I hate being the party pooper who douses everyone at the party with cold, icy water after they've had 5 glasses of tequila and 6 bottles of cheap beer, but the reality is the vast majority of people who are successful in eCommerce does at least one of the following:

1) Sells an exclusive product (in other words, acts like some kind of exclusive online distributorship/wholesaler for the manufacturer)
2) Sells a very expensive/niche B2B product that involves a lot of haggling, sales, phone calls, etc.
3) Latches onto a trend like 10 ton opposing magnets, thus earning 40% margins over a short period of time, before moving onto "the next big hottest thing"

Then there's a bonus/secret option:

4) Be Amazon and use analytics to steal the best profit margin products from your downstream sellers and label the product as your own brand (if you're posting on this forum, 99.999% this door will remain closed for you)

That is it. These are your options. The idea you are going to make $250K+ per year in cash flow with something resembling "passive" income (min. requirement for my standards to be considered a legitimate CENTS business) in eCommerce without applying one of the following is so ludicrous you'd more likely die from being crushed by a flying piano.

 

Don't like ads? Remove them while supporting the forum. Subscribe.

[Black_Dragon43]

I hate being the party pooper who douses everyone at the party with cold, icy water after they've had 5 glasses of tequila and 6 bottles of cheap beer, but the reality is the vast majority of people who are successful in eCommerce does at least one of the following:

No worries, if this is your opinion, feel free to share it hah.

1) Sells an exclusive product (in other words, acts like some kind of exclusive online distributorship/wholesaler for the manufacturer)
2) Sells a very expensive/niche B2B product that involves a lot of haggling, sales, phone calls, etc.
3) Latches onto a trend like 10 ton opposing magnets, thus earning 40% margins over a short period of time, before moving onto "the next big hottest thing"

Then there's a bonus/secret option:

4) Be Amazon and use analytics to steal the best profit margin products from your downstream sellers and label the product as your own brand (if you're posting on this forum, 99.999% this door will remain closed for you)

That is it. These are your options. The idea you are going to make $250K+ per year in cash flow with something resembling "passive" income (min. requirement for my standards to be considered a legitimate CENTS business) in eCommerce without applying one of the following is so ludicrous you'd more likely die from being crushed by a flying piano.

But I can tell you for certain one thing: I personally know people who have made $250K+ profit in a year, from scratch, even by dropshipping on the model I shared. Some have even left video testimonials for it, where you can actually see sales above 1M+. And none of them met any of the 4 points you've mentioned above.

So the fact is that this funnel based business model is very strong, and can overturn otherwise failing eCommerce businesses into massive successes. How long this will last remains to be seen, but at the moment, not many sellers know about it, hence there's still a lot of untapped potential. People have gotten better at skewing value on the production side, but not on the marketing side yet... if you can do both, you'll have a truly explosive business. Do one of them, and you can still get to 1M+.

One thing is for certain though... if you want to take advantage of it while it lasts, you must grab the report and inform yourself + get rid of these limiting beliefs that are holding you back. The knowledge is available, it's really your limiting beliefs that hold you from taking action and being successful. If you work on those, understand the knowledge, and give it a serious try, more than likely you'll be pleasantly surprised by the results...

Based on what I've seen, if you're more likely to die from being crushed by a flying piano than make $250K+ profit in a year with this model as you say, then your chances of being crushed by a flying piano must be quite good... you better watch out so it doesn't hit you haha!

 

[biophase]

I hate being the party pooper who douses everyone at the party with cold, icy water after they've had 5 glasses of tequila and 6 bottles of cheap beer, but the reality is the vast majority of people who are successful in eCommerce does at least one of the following:

1) Sells an exclusive product (in other words, acts like some kind of exclusive online distributorship/wholesaler for the manufacturer)
2) Sells a very expensive/niche B2B product that involves a lot of haggling, sales, phone calls, etc.
3) Latches onto a trend like 10 ton opposing magnets, thus earning 40% margins over a short period of time, before moving onto "the next big hottest thing"

Then there's a bonus/secret option:

4) Be Amazon and use analytics to steal the best profit margin products from your downstream sellers and label the product as your own brand (if you're posting on this forum, 99.999% this door will remain closed for you)

That is it. These are your options. The idea you are going to make $250K+ per year in cash flow with something resembling "passive" income (min. requirement for my standards to be considered a legitimate CENTS business) in eCommerce without applying one of the following is so ludicrous you'd more likely die from being crushed by a flying piano.

I'd love to know where you got your data from. This is just 100% wrong. I don't know anyone that does any of the 4 that you mentioned and I know a lot of people in ecommerce that do $250k+ easily.

In fact, number 3 and 4 are what the majority of unsuccessful people in ecommerce do.

 

[biophase]

That's an interesting take on things. It goes back to what MJ was saying in TMF about you (the vehicle) being critical on the road trip to wealth. So would you say that your business did worse because you'd lose in productivity & motivation? Or what was the real factor that led to decreasing results, even though your main focus was actually on results?

I wouldn't say that the business did worse. It just didn't grow. If you aren't working on strategies for the future and just relying on set and forget, the business stagnates. There's no mechanism for it to grow without someone steering it.

I actually never said that I had decreasing results. I think during my 13 years in ecommerce, I only had one year where gross revenues decreased year over year. But my growth would be like 5-10% per year when I wasn't really working on it.

But that was ok for me. I didn't need to grow to be happy. I just didn't like it to go backwards.

But I am reaching the point now, where 0%-5% growth is ok with me. That's just because revenue is at the point where I just don't need to make much more. And the extra money is not worth the loss in freedom or stress in taking on more risk.

 

[sparechange]

@biophase My focus has been email marketing, thanks for ruining my day

What is your customer acquisition strategy? I've been sampling out my products to people allover Vancouver and it hasn't been a profitable venture for me atm.

 

[biophase]

@biophase My focus has been email marketing, thanks for ruining my day

What is your customer acquisition strategy? I've been sampling out my products to people allover Vancouver and it hasn't been a profitable venture for me atm.

Well, I never said that email was bad. I just don't use it.

I've been using Facebook mostly because it is what works for my customer base.

 

[Freddy270291]

Sorry I lost myself after half of the posts, but I didn't understand the main topic: the concept should be to have a landing page for the single product and link it to a direct buy website (not 3rd party) + make the buyer buy it through time by fidelization?

 

[Black_Dragon43]

Sorry I lost myself after half of the posts, but I didn't understand the main topic: the concept should be to have a landing page for the single product and link it to a direct buy website (not 3rd party) + make the buyer buy it through time by fidelization?

Hey Freddy!

Thanks for reaching out on this. The best way to understand is from the report itself, so if you haven't grabbed it yet, I suggest you do. You have nothing to worry about in submitting your email - all the emails we send out are complimentary, you can set your preferences about how many you want to receive immediately, and you have the option to unsubscribe at any time if you feel it's not valuable. We've had people who literarily got the report and unsubscribed hah - not that I recommend it, since there's a lot of value in the emails, but you can certainly do it. Your data is also fully protected under GDPR laws, never sold to third parties, etc.

To answer your question more directly (again, the report will fill you in on the other details):

The idea is to switch from a traditional storefront, where you drive traffic to your Amazon product page or Shopify storefront, to driving traffic to a landing page that's part of a funnel that provides a series of offers that is personalized for your target market. This enables you to provide significantly greater value through your marketing, by only presenting relevant offers to your target market, and not having irrelevant distractions that only serve to confuse your audience or get them to feel they're not interested. Email marketing is only a tool that can serve as one element in this process.

In Unscripted language, it's about creating a value skew in the way you market to your customers - so it's something that applies to anyone selling anything online, regardless of whether they're a dropshipper, selling their own locally made products, or however else they do it.

 

[arivera]

Hello friend, I hope I do not offend you, but after reading your report, I was disappointed, it is more of the same, that is, basic and obvious information; with a single purpose, to capture email and subsequent promotion of the services or the Tanda Copywriting course.

For me it would have more value if they had documented a case of success where they applied the 5 steps that you mention about the application of funnels for ecommerce.

 

[Bradley R]

Of course, email is still king, but you've got "the next big thing" in the form of SMS marketing and social media chatbots that can serve parts of a funnel just as well.

This right here. Huge opportunities right now in building and utilizing Messenger/SMS lists

 

[Freddy270291]

The idea is to switch from a traditional storefront, where you drive traffic to your Amazon product page or Shopify storefront, to driving traffic to a landing page that's part of a funnel that provides a series of offers that is personalized for your target market. This enables you to provide significantly greater value through your marketing, by only presenting relevant offers to your target market, and not having irrelevant distractions that only serve to confuse your audience or get them to feel they're not interested. Email marketing is only a tool that can serve as one element in this process.

Understood, but at moment of the purchase of the product is there a link to the Amazon/Shopify landing page for completing the purchase or are you talking about inserting the Purchase option directly inside the landing page?

If so, this wouldn't mean that you are going also to take care of the shipping and the purchase back-end?

 

Don't like ads? Remove them while supporting the forum. Subscribe.

[Black_Dragon43]

Hello friend, I hope I do not offend you, but after reading your report, I was disappointed, it is more of the same, that is, basic and obvious information; with a single purpose, to capture email and subsequent promotion of the services or the Tanda Copywriting course.

Hey friend, I take no offense, your feedback is just one amongst the 300+ people who have downloaded the report so far, and you're the only one who is even slightly negative.

I'm sorry about this, but unfortunately, I have to disagree with your assessment that the report presents "basic and obvious information" or that it exists "with a single purpose, to capture email and subsequent promotion of the services of Tanda Copywriting".

With regards to "basic and obvious information", let me ask you this. Is this basic and obvious information in your opinion?
• "By 2040, around 95% of all purchases will be done via e-commerce channels" (source)
• "Sephora uses facial recognition technology to show customers what different make-up will look like on them" (as an example of increased personalization online)
• "The pandemic has accelerated the shift from offline to online shopping by 5 years" (source)
• "Central & Eastern Europe is the place where eCommerce is growing the fastest at +21.5%" (source)
• "Only 29% of brands nurture their existing customers beyond the initial purchase" (source)
• "There is a 60-70% chance of selling an existing customer, compared to a 5-20% chance to sell a new customer" (source)
• The three biggest challenges of the eCom industry in 2021 and beyond (backed by stats).
• Etc. etc. etc.

I don't think these and many many more such pieces of information are basic and obvious to most people. Now it is possible that you're just very informed about the state of the eCommerce industry and have a masterful understanding of the space, so you already knew most of these things. If that's the case, congratulations - it took my team and I hundreds of hours of research to reach these conclusions.

However, I doubt that most people have this knowledge or understanding of the industry and where it's going.

With regards to the report existing for "the single purpose of capturing email", I don't think this is true at all. It's certainly true that one of the reasons why the report exists is to initiate a relationship through email with the people who download the report, but the main goal here is to provide value.

In fact, I don't want people who don't appreciate my emails and don't want to receive them on the list at all. That's why you're given the option to unsubscribe immediately after you confirm your subscription and receive the report if you don't want to get any other emails from me. Please see below...

Even if you choose not to unsubscribe then, you always have the option to unsubscribe in every single email that goes out at the bottom.

I highly recommend that you read through this blog post that I just wrote for one of the brands I own. I think it could be very helpful to you. It is your own choice to believe that the report exists just to grab email addresses despite the evidence to the contrary instead of to think that the report exists to provide value and start a meaningful relationship with the subscribers. Is that choice empowering you? Or disempowering you?

Understood, but at moment of the purchase of the product is there a link to the Amazon/Shopify landing page for completing the purchase or are you talking about inserting the Purchase option directly inside the landing page?

The purchase is inside the landing page, all the time - the upsells/downsells further down the line, exactly as the report explains are crucial to providing a more personalized experience, so you need the funnel structure.

With regards to order fulfilment the preferred way is to use an app that transfers purchase data over automatically from your funnel management software (such as Clickfunnels) to a Shopify (or different) backend for order fulfillment. Then you can do your order fulfillment the same way you did it before - so if you have a VA taking care of it, they'll still be able to do it in the same way, or if you have your Shopify link up to the API of a fulfillment center or warehouse, you can keep the same setup you used to use. This means that there are no "software infrastructure" issues if you want to switch over.

There are some software tools that handle this for you automatically. You can do it via Zapier, you can also do it through AppTrends (which is my main recommendation) - or of course, you can connect with the API with your own app.

 

[Walter Hay]

I have never been an eCommerce marketer, but my great success in marketing has all been B2B. With plans to assist my son in law to build an eCommerce business I needed to fill serious gaps in my knowledge.

I downloaded @Black_Dragon43's report and found it to be the perfect answer. The information provided was set out in such a highly organized way, that it was easy to follow even for someone like me who had a lot to learn.

I have never seen such a report offering full details on data sources being quoted, and I suspect that arivera must have quickly skimmed through it and not read it as someone wanting to learn.

After a careful reading I have no doubt that the sales funnel approach is the way to go if my son in law is to succeed in his new venture. Just getting to understand that concept has been of great value.

Thanks a lot Black_Dragon43

Walter

 

[bjd02]

Has anyone here purchased this course? is it worth the $349

 

[eTox]

Has anyone here purchased this course? is it worth the $349

I did. A while back actually. It was a little cheaper at that time, but let me tell you this...

It's absolutely it worth it.

Why?

Let's put it this way:

✔ You save hundreds of hours
✔ You save a lot of headache
✔ You instantly get the answers

The best part:

You get access to Tudor.

Although you can't touch him, you can ask him questions.

He goes to a great extent to provide value to every person who interacts with him. More over he does it with passion and actually points you in different directions. He responds quickly too!

If this person was not legit, he would not have been able to advertise on this forum by MJ DeMarco.

I am personally 100% satisfied with the purchase.

Now $349 may sound a little steep, but the hours you save and the access you get to personal "mentorship" so to say is invaluable.

I'd buy it again.

Bonus #1:

Go read his blog. It's a goldmine.

Bonus #2

Read his threads on the forum. The are pure gold.

That's my $0.02.

 

[lemon.drop]

Has anyone here purchased this course? is it worth the $349

I bought the course a couple of weeks ago, and I fully agree with eTox; it is indeed worth it.
Tudor is just great, we had a one-hour call where he helped me assess my options, and his point of view helped me choose a direction. As somebody that is just starting out with entrepreneurship, his input was precious. He also provided me with examples from other companies he worked with, suggesting which of their strategies I could apply to my situation.

Besides Tudor's direct help, I am currently working my way through the course, and it really is jam-packed with value. Think of it as a straight to the point (and very detailed, no vague indications) guide to make the most of your marketing efforts, especially if you are new to the subject. I say go for it.

 

[bjd02]

I did. A while back actually. It was a little cheaper at that time, but let me tell you this...

It's absolutely it worth it.

Why?

Let's put it this way:

✔ You save hundreds of hours
✔ You save a lot of headache
✔ You instantly get the answers

The best part:

You get access to Tudor.

Although you can't touch him, you can ask him questions.

He goes to a great extent to provide value to every person who interacts with him. More over he does it with passion and actually points you in different directions. He responds quickly too!

If this person was not legit, he would not have been able to advertise on this forum by MJ DeMarco.

I am personally 100% satisfied with the purchase.

Now $349 may sound a little steep, but the hours you save and the access you get to personal "mentorship" so to say is invaluable.

I'd buy it again.

Bonus #1:

Go read his blog. It's a goldmine.

Bonus #2

Read his threads on the forum. The are pure gold.

That's my $0.02.

Have you had success from shopify since you took the course?

 

[eTox]

Have you had success from shopify since you took the course?

Success is a broad term.

It depends on what you are asking.

If you mean have I got more sales with my store? Yes.
If you mean have I implemented the advice given in the book? Yes.
Do you mean has it changed my mindset and the way I approach things? Yes.

It's all about how you use the information that you receive.

The best part?

If you don't understand it, just ask Tudor. He'll be more than happy to answer your question. <- that is what is gold.

 

[eTox]

The funny thing is you guys don't mind shelling out hundreds of dollars to fake gurus who are only interested in taking your money and milking you with upsells. Yet when you have real people who want to provide value for the sake of helping out people, you don't trust them... I'm happy to understand now that you have to pay for lessons, but you also have to understand who's in it to help you, and who's in it to grab your money and run away. Be smart, fellas.

 

[Tourmaline]

Have you had success from shopify since you took the course?

Tudor has been immensely helpful in setting up, managing, and tweaking funnels for my shopify based shop. I've gotten several times more sales and new emails using a funnel with his help than sending paid traffic directly to the website, the difference is night and day. $350 is still on the low cost side for what you're receiving, and the likely reward if you keep at it and implement with Tudor's help.

Tudor speaks from a vast amount of experience. It's not simply theory or someone that's dabbled and then is selling a course. He's the real deal and no matter what industry you're in he probably has some direct experience working in it. I imagine the price will go up soon enough too, he can easily charge triple and it'd still be a great value.

 

[Pinnacle]

Appreciate everyone's feedback so far, it's great to hear you've all been getting value out of it!

If you have any questions for me, by all means let me know.


That's very cool. Do you mind sharing how things have changed after switching over? What are the biggest differences that you've seen, in terms of conversion rates, and also ROI? And any advice that you'd have for other about the process of switching from Shopify to SamCart would be great - I know it can be difficult to move the content over, etc.

My apologies for the late reply, Black_Dragon43.
I spend very little time here nowadays.

There was an immediate change in conversions because of everything talked about in this video.

A one-page website is simple because no one is bombarded with so many choices that they can't make a decision. It is a one-page website with live chat where people can learn about and order our service. It has my story, our offer, FAQ's, payment options, samples of our work, an onboarding video people can watch before they order, and eliminates the need to do invoicing or chase payments.

Advice:
Learn what your hook, story, and offer are. If you don't know what those things are, buy one of Russell Brunson's books. Before I switched, I spent weeks deep diving into the concept of value ladders and then funnels. Value ladders first, and then funnels: because one lays the foundation for the other.

Know that SamCart is designed to sell your product, not your whole store (a la Shopify, Big Commerce, etc.). This makes it easier and faster for someone to make a decision because they only have one choice: take it or leave it. So, as far as moving content over, you are only moving over what is pertinent and the rest can go on a blog or your social media.

Backup your entire Shopify store before closing your account.

 

Don't like ads? Remove them while supporting the forum. Subscribe.

[Black_Dragon43]

My apologies for the late reply, Black_Dragon43.
I spend very little time here nowadays.

My apologies as well, somehow I missed your post in here, just saw it now. Thanks for sharing all the great info, I think this complements what we already have here very well, and it's enlightening to get your perspective on this.

There was an immediate change in conversions because of everything talked about in this video.

That's right! Eliminating distractions does increase conversion rates for sure.

Did you also notice a difference in your average transaction value and frequency of repeat purchases (assuming you also implemented email marketing)?

Most of the people I've worked with who have changed to the funnel model have seen the biggest difference in increased average transaction value and repeat purchases.

This helps in two big ways - first and most importantly, you can spend more than your competitors to acquire the same customer, because your lifetime value (LTV) is higher. This gives you a competitive edge. And secondly, you can start making a profit on the front-end due to the higher average transaction value, even without the backend. I know people who have built million-dollar funnels on the front-end alone using this fact.

A one-page website is simple because no one is bombarded with so many choices that they can't make a decision. It is a one-page website with live chat where people can learn about and order our service. It has my story, our offer, FAQ's, payment options, samples of our work, an onboarding video people can watch before they order, and eliminates the need to do invoicing or chase payments.

Yeah, and a step above and beyond this is to string a very appealing tripwire offer, followed by 2-3 upsells to maximize your order value. So you have your one-page landing page with a single possible buyer's journey (buying - no other links), and then your users go through a series of 2-3 1-click upsell pages before reaching their order confirmation. That way you usually end up with a higher average order value - sort of like McDonald's does when they ask if you want fries with that, the only difference being that you're doing it online, personalizing the chain of offers to the target audience, and making it easy for them.

Advice:
Learn what your hook, story, and offer are. If you don't know what those things are, buy one of Russell Brunson's books. Before I switched, I spent weeks deep diving into the concept of value ladders and then funnels. Value ladders first, and then funnels: because one lays the foundation for the other.

This advice is spot on. The only thing I'll add is that your story, hook and offer are only one part of the equation. Arguably the most important part is your list / targetting. You want to make sure that you're really targetting a hungry market, with a hot offer that they're looking for - ideally an offer that addresses a gap in the market.

So this involves a more thorough analysis of what your market demands, and how it's already served by your competitors. These days you have software tools available that basically allow you to see the complete funnels that your competitors are running. You'll get a ton of insight out of that. The Facebook Ad Library and SimilarWeb are good examples of free tools you can start using right away.

And the real shortcut to the process, if there is one, is to have someone with experience whom you can ask questions and who can look over what you're doing. Mentorship is underappreciated in online marketing, but it is almost indispensable. Nothing teaches you like working with a pro.

This makes it easier and faster for someone to make a decision because they only have one choice: take it or leave it. So, as far as moving content over, you are only moving over what is pertinent and the rest can go on a blog or your social media.

Agreed.

Backup your entire Shopify store before closing your account.

Great advice here. The other thing is, you can continue doing your order fulfillment if you wish via Shopify. For example, if you use Clickfunnels, you can transfer over the Clickfunnels orders to Shopify via AppTrends or Zapier, and then you basically do your order fulfillment via Shopify exactly like you did before. This is important for those people who already have an order fulfillment infrastructure inside Shopify (maybe they also have a custom integration with a warehouse to automatically start the delivery process, etc.) and they don't want to lose that facility. So in that way your funnel becomes just a way to take orders, and Shopify can continue processing them afterward.

 

[@momo]

I read your report and straight away I was thinking this guys must of studied a lot of Dan Kennedy. I seen you mentioned him in one of your previous posts so I was correct.

While relying on email funnels is cool, the one thing people can do is just click unsubscribe. You don't own that media. If you really want to be different you need to build a brand and own your own media like a mail in the post newsletter which Dan Kennedy talks about.

If you rely on third parties then they can just "slap" you like they have done to Trump on social media and then it's goodbye business.

 

[Black_Dragon43]

I read your report and straight away I was thinking this guys must of studied a lot of Dan Kennedy. I seen you mentioned him in one of your previous posts so I was correct.

Yes, I've learned a lot from Dan Kennedy. He is no doubt a master in the field of direct response marketing, especially when it comes to local & small businesses generally. I still recommend his book No B.S. Direct Response Marketing as an introduction to good marketing practices for first-time entrepreneurs and new business owners.

While relying on email funnels is cool, the one thing people can do is just click unsubscribe. You don't own that media. If you really want to be different you need to build a brand and own your own media like a mail in the post newsletter which Dan Kennedy talks about.

Sorry, but I can't agree with this, I think you're mistaken. When we talk about control, we mean control from third-parties who can come in-between you and the consumer, and basically prevent your message from reaching the said consumer. The Fastlane principles do not mean control over consumers so that they do not have any choice but to receive your messages. People have freedom, and if they don't want to do business with me, or anyone else, then they should not be forced to. So I don't think Fastlane is about forcing people to receive your messages (that would be spam). Rather it's taking control, so that a third-party can't come in-between you and your customers and force you to break your business relationship with them.

So if someone wants to click unsubscribe, then I want them to do it! I don't want my email list to be full of people who I'm not helping, and who don't want to hear from me, or who aren't even reading my emails. I'd rather they unsubscribe themselves, and if they don't, then my team and I will periodically unsubscribe them if we notice they no longer open emails and don't show interest in our communications. You want to build clean, active and engaged email lists, that's what is valuable. A huge list of 1,000,000 contacts who can care less about your communications and don't even know who you are is worth less than 10,000 rabid fans who read every single email you put out.

Furthermore, you can be blocked from sending physical mail just as much as you can be blocked from sending email. For example: Stopping Unsolicited Mail, Phone Calls, and Email

If you rely on third parties then they can just "slap" you like they have done to Trump on social media and then it's goodbye business.

I can absolutely agree with this, but you have to note that a consumer hitting unsubscribe is VERY different than Twitter deciding that Trump should not send his message to his supporters. The latter situation has three parties involved, the former only two. And in the latter situation, a third-party has control over the relationship between Trump and his supporters. In this case, his supporters do not want to unfollow him. They like their relationship with Trump, and want it to continue, but, because a third-party has control (namely Twitter), they can decide to stop that relationship from happening.

 

[TroubleNaut]

Thanks for the article.A good read