Ecommerce Empire Builders’ Post

Why Ecommerce? In today's digital age, ecommerce has emerged as a game-changer for individuals looking to start earning and grow financially. Whether you're an entrepreneur, a stay-at-home parent, or someone seeking a side hustle, ecommerce offers a wealth of opportunities to achieve your financial goals. Let's explore why ecommerce is the best choice for you. [🕒] 1. Flexibility and Convenience You can run your business from anywhere with an internet connection, giving you the freedom to work from home, a coffee shop, or even while traveling. [💰] 2. Low Startup Costs Unlike regular physical stores, starting an online store requires very little money. You don't have to pay high rent, big utility bills, or buy a lot of stock. You can start an online store easily and cheaply. This makes it easy for anyone to get into ecommerce. [🌍] 3. Access to a Global Market Ecommerce breaks down geographical barriers, allowing you to reach customers from around the world. This global reach significantly expands your potential customer base. By leveraging the power of the internet, you can grow your business beyond local boundaries. [📈] 4. Scalability and Growth Potential Ecommerce businesses offer tremendous scalability and growth potential. With effective strategies and tools like digital marketing, automation, and data analytics, you can efficiently scale your operations to meet demand. Whether starting small or aiming big, ecommerce allows you to grow at your own pace. [💡] 5. Diverse Revenue Streams Ecommerce provides various revenue streams that can boost your financial growth. You can sell physical products, digital goods, services, or do dropshipping. This diversity allows you to explore different business models and find what works best for you.

Ecommerce advice is out of date. And ecommerce moves fast. This isn’t surprising. We’ve all seen and lived it. When I first got into ecommerce, the companies and founders who could sell their product–even once– were the ones that took off. Acquisition was the MVP. You could spend a dollar to get a dollar. We were living in the attention economy.   Now, we’ve shifted into the routine economy. It’s not only about selling a product people want to buy; it’s about selling a product people want to keep. It’s not just about acquiring your customers once; it’s about retaining them. How does your product become so essential to your customers that it’s part of their daily routine? The routine economy is all about understanding the customer.   In this new world, retention is the name of the game. When you’re looking at advice given on LinkedIn, I’ll say this: those who still approach today's challenges with the attention economy mindset aren't solving the same problems as those who are focused on retention. Here’s mine to take or leave: 1. Prioritize your onboarding experience. Make it educational enough to help your customers understand your product and the length of time needed to see the benefits from said product.  2. Cultivate and gather subscriber intelligence and use that information to engage with them. And use it to keep them as customers. Our Cancellation Prevention tool does exactly this.  3. Know your product diversification strategy. Are you going all in on one SKU or do you want to be someone’s entire skincare routine? That’s more than one SKU. There’s no one size fits all here but you need to understand your strategy.  4. Consider your packaging and unboxing experience. The key to being in someone’s routine is your product solving a genuine problem AND is a delightful “catch me at the end of a long day” experience. I personally can’t wait to see the innovation that comes from this era of routine. Give me some other hot takes.

Ecommerce Boom: 3 Models to Ride the Wave The e-commerce market is exploding, with Statista projecting continued growth. This translates to one thing: more demand for great products than ever before! Here are 3 popular models to consider as you launch your online venture: 1. Reselling Existing Products: This includes models like dropshipping, where you manage the storefront but don't hold inventory. Your supplier fulfills orders directly. You can also order in bulk, hold inventory, and ship it yourself. Profits come from the difference between your selling price and the wholesale cost. Pros: Easy to get started Cons: Most rewarding and hardest part is sales (forces you to become a better marketer) This is a model I've used successfully for the past 10 years in multiple niches and brands. 2. Creating Digital Products: This is a low-overhead option. Popular digital products include online courses, ebooks, and fitness programs. However, building trust and attracting traffic can take time and effort. While many successful digital creators seem happy and content, the best part for some is the ability to build a community of like-minded people and share wins and failures. I am considering creating an E-commerce OS Course if there's enough interest. 3. Creating Physical Products: This model offers high profit potential but requires a more upfront investment. By leveraging customer feedback and data analysis, you can create innovative products that solve real problems. It's definitely hard to pull off, but success can literally buy you time freedom since you ideally "get it right" only once. This is my long-term goal. What model resonates with you the most? Leave it in a comment. Follow for more e-commerce content. Join my waiting list for the E-commerce OS Course: https://lnkd.in/gbnfTrWS

Ecommerce Launchpad: 4 Critical Steps Before You Open Your Online Shop 1. Choosing Your eCommerce Platform First, you need to choose a platform that you want to use to sell your products. If you lack technical skills and want a quicker way to build an online store, then you may want to look into Selly Africa. It is a fully hosted solution that takes care of all the technical stuff. The catch here is that you will be paying a little more, and your costs will grow as you make more sales. 2. Shipping or Delivery Shipping has a huge impact on the success of an eCommerce store. A study conducted by Business Insider discovered that higher shipping costs are the no. 1 cause of all abandoned shopping carts online. 3. Inventory Do you want to manage inventory and keep products stocked? For that, you will need storage space and inventory management through your eCommerce software. Keeping products in stock will increase your cost of business. On the other hand, dropshipping solves this problem. You can select products that are shipped directly by the manufacturer or supplier. 4. Price You’ll need to find products where you can offer a competitive price to your customers. If the product you are selling is more expensive than your competitors, then obviously, that would discourage many first-time buyers. Launching an online store can feel overwhelming, right? Choosing a platform, managing shipping, inventory, and pricing – it's enough to make anyone's head spin. But wait! What if you could launch your dream store in minutes without the technical headaches or hidden costs? ✨ That's where SellyAfrica comes in!

Why You Need CRO for Your Ecommerce or Dropshipping Business Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) is crucial for any ecommerce or dropshipping business, as it directly impacts your revenue and long-term success. Here are several reasons why CRO is essential: 1. Maximizes Traffic Value-- CRO helps you get the most value from your existing traffic. Instead of constantly spending more on ads or other traffic sources, optimizing your site encourages more visitors to take action—whether that’s making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, or another goal. 2. Improves User Experience (UX)-- A focus on CRO enhances the overall user experience by simplifying navigation, improving page load times, and making the purchasing process seamless. Satisfied visitors are more likely to convert and become repeat customers. 3. Increases Revenue-- By increasing the percentage of visitors who complete a desired action, CRO boosts your revenue without increasing traffic costs. This makes it a more cost-effective way to grow your business. 4. Reduces Cart Abandonment-- CRO identifies and fixes pain points in the checkout process. With fewer barriers, you reduce cart abandonment rates and increase the likelihood of finalizing purchases. 5. Provides Data-Driven Decisions-- CRO relies on A/B testing, heat maps, and user feedback to inform decisions. This ensures you make changes based on data rather than guesses, leading to more effective optimizations. 6. Enhances Customer Retention-- Optimizing for conversions doesn’t just mean improving the first sale. CRO strategies like personalized offers, loyalty programs, and post-purchase follow-ups enhance customer retention, increasing lifetime value. 7. Gives a Competitive Edge-- With so many ecommerce and dropshipping businesses competing for attention, those with optimized websites are more likely to convert visitors into customers, standing out from the competition. 8. Adapts to Changing Market Trends-- CRO is an ongoing process that keeps your business responsive to changes in customer behavior, market trends, and technological advancements. 9. Supports Scalability-- As you scale your business, CRO ensures that your conversion processes are efficient and effective. This allows you to grow without facing diminishing returns on your marketing efforts. 10. Boosts Customer Trust-- A well-optimized site enhances credibility. CRO can address issues like poor design, complicated navigation, or lack of clear messaging, all of which can make potential customers trust your site more and feel confident purchasing from you. By investing in CRO, ecommerce and dropshipping businesses can see significant growth, making it an indispensable part of any digital strategy.

This is how we helped a small business grow its online store. We worked with a client who sold luxury candles and perfumes. Their business was doing well, but they had some problems: 1. Their website was outdated and did not help them get new customers. 2. It was hard to keep track of inventory and shipping orders. 3. They used many tools to run their website and physical stores. 4. They were falling behind their competitors. So they asked us to build them a new, improved online store. After discussing their needs, we recommended using Shopify because: ✅ It's easy to create a professional website. ✅ It has lots of built-in features for sales, shipping, inventory, etc. ✅ You can connect other useful apps and tools. ✅ It has marketing tools to help attract more customers. Here's what we did for them on Shopify: 1. Made a sleek, user-friendly website for their luxury brand. 2. Added payment options to accept orders worldwide. 3. Connected systems to manage inventory and online/in-store sales together. 4. Installed apps for analytics, profit tracking, SMS marketing, and more. Their online orders went up 32%. It became much easier to run their whole business efficiently. Want to see the full details? Check out the story below. https://lnkd.in/gR8QQVQC

In eCommerce, you can't live without this thing. Crazy little thing called profit. You have to make this happen. But to do that, you must change the customer behaviour. To change behaviour, you run experiments. Marc Randolph (Netflix co-founder) said it:  “…it's not about having a good idea. It's about building this whole process, this culture, and this system to try lots of bad ideas. We got really, really good at trying lots of bad ideas, one after another, hundreds of them, each one informing us what to try next.” Experimentation matters. But here’s the thing: the way most eCommerce companies run experimentation? It’s completely broken. Here are the 3 major shifts happening in the CRO for eCommerce: Visitor behaviour ➔ Visitor AND Customer behavior Why is that? Because if you’re only looking at visitor behavior, you’re playing a losing game. Visitor behavior allows you to get more conversions. But conversions don’t pay the bills… profits do. And profitable customers? They behave the way eCommerce managers dream about. Most companies don’t profit on the first transaction. They tweak ads, scramble marketing, and hope they get profitable customers. But raising prices? No way—competitors would eat you alive. So what’s the move? You get smart about your marketing. How you do that? You use advanced solutions to level up your experimentation game. Yes, we are running this crazy pricing experiment at Omniconvert this month. Eating our own dogfood, right? Everything we've built in the last 12 years, for a no-brainer price. See how we compare with alternative solutions. Moreover, there's no trick: > 30 days trial to try before you buy > month-to-month OR annual plans > Free eCommerce growth assessment We know that progress in eCommerce means blending qualitative with quantitative data, and

The holy grail of ecommerce is a negative cash conversion cycle. But getting there takes careful planning and execution. How to flip your cash flow from positive to negative in 3 steps: 1. Extend payment terms with suppliers Negotiating longer payment terms (60-120 days) is the most effective way to shift towards a negative cash cycle. Persuading vendors to give you more time stretches out cash outflows while sales revenues continue flowing in. For example, Native Deodorant founder @ Moiz Ali bootstrapped to a 9-figure exit using this tactic. 2. Get paid faster For ecommerce, this means: - Taking customer preorders - Offering annual subscriptions - Batching inventory orders based on demand The goal? Get paid by customers before you pay expenses. Let them fund your operations. The outdoor gear brand @ Nature Calls used preorders to finance their first production run without upfront capital. Well played. 3. Keep less inventory on hand Excess inventory ties up precious working capital. To lighten the load: - Dropship to reduce stock on hand - Optimize SKUs to focus on bestsellers - Negotiate consigned inventory billed when items ship Skinny Pasta founder @ Bryan Guadagno leveraged dropshipping and prepayments to achieve 100%+ YoY growth with minimal funding. Implementing a negative cash cycle takes work, but the benefits are huge: ✅ Maximizes liquidity for growth ✅ Minimizes need for external capital ✅ Lowers working capital requirements ✅ Enables reinvesting revenue into scaling By compressing the cash conversion lifecycle, you can execute like retail giants 10,000x your size. No more waiting months for your money. Flip the script and get paid first. Master cash flow to create a self-funding growth machine. Negative is the new positive.

🌐 Are you part of a startup or SME looking to venture into the world of ecommerce? The rise of ecommerce has paved the way for new opportunities and growth potential for businesses of all scales. Here's why ecommerce is crucial for startups and SMEs: - Increased Reach: Break geographical barriers and expand your customer base globally - Cost-Effectiveness: Save on traditional store expenses and allocate resources efficiently - Flexibility and Scalability: Scale your operations according to your needs - 24/7 Availability: Operate round the clock for customer convenience - Targeted Marketing and Personalization: Tailor your marketing strategies for enhanced engagement 🛒 When it comes to selecting the best ecommerce platform, what factors should you consider? - Inventory Management: Simplify complex inventory tasks and get real-time stock updates - Customization: Personalize your online store to align with your brand’s identity - Support: Evaluate the effectiveness of customer service 🚀 Check out the top 5 ecommerce platforms for startups: 1. Swell - Headless e-commerce tech for a customizable consumer experience 2. BigCommerce - Offers user-friendly back-end dashboard and analytics for quick scaling 3. Shopify - Provides a comprehensive set of tools from storefront to marketing 4. Wix - Known for elegant templates and AI design assistance 5. EvolveAR - Augmented reality tool for immersive brand experiences 💡 Choose the right ecommerce solution that fits your needs and budget without compromising essential features. Explore the world of ecommerce and unlock the potential for your startup or SME! https://lnkd.in/e93XN9mG

Drop shipping is an ecommerce strategy where you sell products on your website without having them in stock. Instead, when a customer places an order, you forward it to a supplier or manufacturer. They then ship the product directly to your customer. In this setup, you act as the intermediary between your customer and the supplier. Drop shipping is great for entrepreneurs because running a store doesn't demand as much operational capital as the traditional retail model. You don't have to open a brick-and-mortar store, hire employees, pay overhead, or stock products. Instead, you open an online store and buy from suppliers who already have products and warehouse space. But is it really a goldmine, or is there anything in this story? In this blog, we'll dive into the world of drop shipping, exploring its pros and cons, and unpacking some best practices to help you navigate this exciting business model. Pros of drop shipping: Low overhead costs: You can run an entire business right from your laptop, and you don't need to make any high-level investments. Even as your business grows, your costs will be fairly low-especially when compared to traditional business expenses. Location independence: One of the biggest perks of drop shipping is that you can run your business from anywhere. Whether you're at home, in a coffee shop, or traveling, you can manage your store. Strong supplier network: Drop shipping opens doors to forming strong relationships with suppliers. These connections can be invaluable for future business ventures. Imagine you want to start a new product line or a completely different business. Having established supplier relationships means you have a network ready to support your new ventures. Cons of Drop shipping: Lower Profit Margins: Low margins are a big challenge for drop shipping companies in competitive markets. Since it's relatively easy and inexpensive to start a drop shipping store, lots of businesses enter the market and sell their products at very low prices to attract customers. Shipping complications: When you run a drop shipping store with multiple suppliers, you'll face some shipping challenges. This is because you don't have control over the supply chain in the drop shipping model. imagine a customer orders three different items, and each one comes from a different supplier. Product Research: Choose in-demand, high-quality products with healthy profit margins. Branding and Marketing: Don't be just another drop shipping store. Build a strong brand identity and invest in marketing strategies to attract and retain customers. At the end i want to say drop shipping offers benefits such as low starting costs and minimal overhead. It allows for increased product variety and reduces the risk of unsold inventory. However, drop shipping has drawbacks, including minimal profit margins and high competition.