Getting Started With E-commerce in 2019

If you have a business idea but don’t know how to start, this episode will help you set goals for the New Year.

Transcript

Jesse: Richie, how’s it going today, man?

Richard: What’s happening, Jesse? I’m excited, as always.

Jesse: As always excited. Today is a day to kind of close the books on 2018 and, you know, closing the books is no fun. But looking ahead to 2019, that’s always fun.

Richard: Yeah, and I get reflectful all the time this time of the year, you know, kind of: “What are the things did right? What are the things wanna improve upon?” And, you know, we were really just hoping.. As, you know, we were reflecting on the show itself, and what we really want, and obviously, we want people who already use Ecwid to continue to use Ecwid. This is the Ecwid E-commerce Show, right. But we really just want to help people in general know more about what is e-commerce, why they should be doing it, who are the people that should be into this. You know, and when you’re setting those goals in the New Year, we know there’s a bunch of people that have been sitting there thinking about starting a store and selling something online. And, you know, I just thought we dedicate to helping that happened, you know. Whatever they use..

Jesse: Yeah. So, if that describes you, this is the show for you. We want to give you a little bit of motivation and give you a couple of the tips and tools to get started. I know by the time.. When I tell people, I mean e-commerce, they usually have a concept of what that is and they think: “Man, you know, I had this idea a couple of years ago. It was this, that, and I, you know, I never got around to it. Now there’s other companies crushing it. Now I wish I had done it.” Like yeah! E-commerce is blowing up! Like it’s easy. So we want to encourage you to, that if you have that idea of like “there’s this thing I wanted to do and I just didn’t know how to start like”. One — get started.

Richard: Yeah. Well, I mean, let’s go into that just for a quick second before we bring our guest on. Like, there are basically, let’s just say, three main categories. You could sell info online, that could be considered e-commerce, some people call it digital or whatever, but it’s a form of selling online. You could sell a product. You could sell a service, maybe of somebody else, be an affiliate of somebody else or dropships something for someone else who will mostly get into products probably in this discussion. But if you say you’re working in a job right now, and you love your job but you just.. You have a Gramma’s relish recipe that you think everybody would like, and you just want to start with one little SKU. Like, this show is for you right now. This isn’t for someone who’s been in the game for 16 years and wants to get super tactical. This is just call it out right now. This is for someone who’s just getting in. They don’t know where to start. They think they have to have all these SKUs, and all these different products, and it’s like “no, let’s just kind of dive in going.” There’s just one thing that means something to you and you want to get it out in front of people.

Jesse: Yeah, this is all about getting started in e-commerce in 2019. And to help us out with that, let’s bring on our guest DANIELLA.IO. Daniella, how are you?

Daniella: I am great! How are you guys doing?

Jesse: We are fantastic.

Richard: Good to have you back on.

Jesse: Yes, so Daniella, you’ve been on the show before on the podcast and so we’re glad to have a regular guest back on the show. So yeah.. Are you.. How did you do on your 2018 new resolutions? Are you.. Did you complete them all?

Daniella: Absolutely. Actually, one of my main goals was to complete and an Ecwid E-commerce course. So I just finished that up and that was my main goal for 2018. So I’m really excited that that’s completed.

Jesse: Awesome. And just under the gun. You’ve got it completed (laughing.) That’s important. And are you looking ahead to 2019?

Daniella: Absolutely. 2019.. I have a bunch of goals per a quarter. So, I hopefully a lot of e-commerce goals I’ll be able to achieve those also.

Richard: So, we’ve all been in e-commerce for a while. Shoot, how many years total? Well, I mean if you count my eBay early selling years that’s been.. since, shoot, 20 years.. But between us all, we probably got 50+ years of e-commerce or 40+ years for sure of commerce total on this podcast. And you’ve done this for a while. When someone’s first getting started, what do you think.. What do you think they should be thinking about as far as a product goes? Do you think they should have the plan all laid out? Should they just get started with something? Like, in your opinion, Daniella, what should someone be thinking about when they’re first getting started in e-commerce?

Daniella: When they’re first getting started, I’d say keep things simple. A lot of people go off on creating a whole bunch of products and different ideas, and they.. I have a lot of friends who have started a couple of e-commerce gigs, and they went way off on huge tangents at the beginning. So I was like: “OK, you have a ton of awesome ideas. Write them down.” So, start right writing down all of your ideas just on a simple piece of paper or whatever you like to use, if it’s an app or anything. And then look at where your passions are. Because if you don’t follow your passions.. You know, should be something that you’re passionate about.

Richard: It’s going to be work at some point in time. You may as well like it, right?

Daniella: Exactly. Exactly. And then try to drill it down to a couple ideas, maybe initially, if you have a lot of ideas you’d like to start with.

Jesse: For sure. Good advice and I think, you know, adding to that to think about, you know.. Yes, you want to have a passion in the product, and I like to think of the price point of that passion as well (laughing.) Not to be a to be a dirty capitalist, but if that passion product is about 20 bucks it’s going to be hard to market it. If a passion project is a hundred dollars or more you’re going to have a lot easier time attracting traffic and marketing that store to your, you know, to your future customer base. Throwing the dead one.

Richard: You know, I totally completely understand that. And to your point, Jesse. You know, won’t go super down in the weeds, but there’s.. Let’s just say someone had two products. You could be marketing that first one knowing you’re going to make up the money in the second one, right? So, but point very well-taken, when you’re choosing a product if you’re going to sell something that’s a $1,25. Like, don’t be surprised when you don’t have a lot of margin to work with to do other things.

Jesse: I’m not something to try to change anybody’s passion. I’m saying it’s a choice between a or b. I’m going to go with the probably the more expensive product based on, it’s not always the most expensive product, but the most that’s defensible and unique in the market and, hopefully, you know, higher-dollar items so there’s a lot more margin to play with.

Daniella: Exactly, and that’s where you want to have an educated choice after that. So, if you’re selling an info product for two dollars online, you have no shipping, you have no overhead, it’s really fast arriving in your customer’s inbox. Let’s say, for example, you made a PDF that explains something that you’re really good at or really passionate about. I know someone who created a PDF about how to save money on your plane tickets. So, something very simple, something she’s passionate about, and she’s been selling it. You know, it was just two dollars a pop. Well, she’s still making a profit. But if you have a physical heavy product to ship in the post then you’re going to have to rethink your margins. So, the next step, I think in my opinion, would be to try to figure out, you know, where you’re going to make money, and things like that.

Jesse: Yeah, for sure. So, with that product there’s a lot of places where they can sell. Is your product.. Is it a product that’s going to have a long name that people are going to search for it on google? OK. Great. You’re going to want to have a website, you can expect people that are searching for your product to find you. If it’s a product that’s maybe more common or let’s just say something that nobody searches for, but they need to see it. All right, well, you might want to gear your product to your market towards an Instagram and social media world where nobody knew they needed rainbow-colored platform shoes, until they saw it on Instagram and they think: “Oh yeah, I need that!” But nobody would ever type that in. So, you need to start thinking about: OK, you have your product, where will it sell? Because that might determine what your first steps are, right?

Daniella: Yeah. Something that can help with that is Google Trends. So if you go to Google Trends, and you type in a couple of keywords that people might search for that you might think of with regards to your product, you’ll get trends or tracking about how people are searching for that product, for free. It’s free information. And you can see if the trend is upwards then maybe that’s a cool product to start, you know, digging deeper about.

Richard: Have you done much in the arena of.. Just since we’re talking about where would you sell it, have you utilized kind of the multi-platform experience for people? Are you selling on Instagram, Facebook and on Ecwid store? Are you selling all over? You just choosing e-commerce?

Daniella: Absolutely. I have different cases as I work with a couple of different clients. So, it depends on their needs. And even for myself I’ve tried a bunch of different channels, but you can even sell on Facebook without having a website. And that’s an incredible opportunity. If you already have an audience on Facebook, you could serve your online store right there within Facebook and that’s a possibility. I’ve tested a couple other integrations with Instagram Shopping, which is a fairly new feature at this point, where you could add links to your products within Instagram, so people can purchase them directly. So, and if we’re talking just about what you might need to build your online store, you don’t necessarily need an actual website for it.

Jesse: Yeah. And that’s why I mentioned the odd products that maybe people don’t search for. So, Google Trends is great for products that people will search for. But there’s a lot of products right now.. You know, as you scroll through Instagram feeds and Facebook feeds where you never knew you needed these, but once you see them you have that little shopping tag, and we allow people to have that shopping tag. So when you.. If you’re looking to sell something that you think is Instagram-friendly, social-friendly, Facebook-friendly, like now is really the right time to launch these types of business, because not everyone is on it. You know, it does require a little bit of.. You’re going to have to have some Instagram skills. You have to build an audience.

Richard: That’s a good point, Jess, cause here we are again. Let’s kinda go back. The goal of the show is to get people started, right? And so, you can do all of these things we’re referring to or you can pick one or two, right? Because really, this is about.. Again. Yes, we’re Ecwid, and part of the beauty of why we want to talk about helping get someone started in e-commerce is I’ve never seen a platform that’s easier in getting people started. And everything we just described you can sell on Facebook, you can sell on Instagram, you can do.. Like, how much time does that even take, Daniella? Truly, I know you’re a whiz, but if you are someone kind of watched your videos and went through, how long on average do you think it would take for someone to set up a small site with one product and get connected to these other platforms?

Daniella: I have a video on my YouTube channel where I show how to set up an Ecwid store in five minutes. So..(laughing) I do go quickly over things, but it is possible to open an online store and get selling online in five minutes, if you’re using the Ecwid platform. So, it’s as simple as that.

Richard: I wish I would’ve said it, I was gonna say in a half an hour. So, I was like..

Jesse: Yeah, and I’m smiling because there is a tagline on our home page and we have tested different taglines and things, but we say, you know, how to get started in five minutes, and people thought like that’s not really possible. Well, all right. Check out this video. Daniella did it in five minutes. Like it is totally possible to set up a store in five minutes. Now, of course, I know you’re pro, but it’s totally possible.

Richard: Well, and again. We’re talking about, like, a product. This isn’t.. You got a CBS phone, you’re uploading, like, seventeen hundred SKUs and things that people don’t even know what I’m talking about right now. (laughing)

Jesse: You’re not going to be a millionaire in five minutes. Let’s not be crazy about it. You can open a store in five minutes. Absolutely.

Richard: And then, was it very difficult to also be able to sell on Instagram? And do these tagging features? Or Facebook ? Or was that pretty simple too?

Daniella: No, it’s very simple. Everything’s integrated with the platform, so you just click on Sell on Facebook → Connect your account and then wait to get verified by Facebook. Doesn’t take that long. And once it’s done, your products are available within your Ecwid business.. Sorry. Your Facebook business page. So, it’s just a couple of clicks. When you think about normally, if you wanted to do that, you would need development, it would cost you money, you’d have to have, like, someone do it for you. Everything’s all done. Like, the developments all done. Anyone can use these features so it’s.. It’s easy.

Jesse: Yeah, absolutely. And we talk about the.. You know, getting started in 2019. If we had this show a year ago we wouldn’t be seeing that. That was not possible. So now this is totally possible in 2018 still to do this. Like, if you have a product that’s Instagram-friendly, Facebook-friendly, you don’t really need to do SEO. You don’t need to do all these, you know, more hardcore time-intensive tasks. You can just get started and store on Instagram and Facebook.

Richard: Yeah, and that’s the beauty is you’re getting feedback right away, right? And what’s working — you do more of and what’s not — you do less of. But to your point, Jesse.. So, let’s say we’re back in the beginning of this podcast and we’re talking about someone’s passion. Well, since you can connect it all these ways, you now can think about it from a: “I like Instagram, and I like doing pictures, and now all I have to do is do my pictures that I like doing, and I’m marketing my business, and literally all I have to do is set up this store, and tag the product to my picture? And now I’m living my passion. And living my passion could be selling my product and not anything more than that.” That is a possibility again. Disclaimer: not going to say you’re going to be the next Internet millionaire in the next 90 days. Like, this takes work. But to get started and to start getting feedback, and to stick with your passion now that.. So, when you can so easily get on all these other platforms via Ecwid, you literally could just be producing content and living your passion, and actually making more sales because of it. This is so cool.

Daniella: I like to think about just 10 years ago how complicated that would have been like. I mean we didn’t even have Instagram at that time. At least as developed as it is today, right? But..

Jesse: Yeah, absolutely. And you’d be using a computer for all this to. A lot of these things that we said, you’re pretty much using your phone. Like, a good portion of what you can do can be done on your phone. Sometimes it’s easier to see the big screen. But yeah, to check sales, to even create a new product you can do that completely with inside of a mobile app. So, you know, particularly for the Instagram generation, if you’re used to everything, and Instagram being on phone, your e-commerce store, your e-commerce platform is now fully mobile. So I think, that’s pretty exciting for people too that are looking to start a new business that.. You don’t even really.. You don’t really need a computer anymore. You can do everything on your phone.

Jesse: So, a little bit more on the Where. So just as people are thinking through their products and they said: “All right, well.” “All right” “Something you just search for on Google.” Ok, great. That’s the website Facebook and Instagram-friendly. I get that. There’s another set of people who might have a product, it’s a little more Amazon-friendly. So, if you have products that are.. Boy, a lot of products can be sold on Amazon. I guess, I shouldn’t really categorize them. But if you have a product that you think you want to sell on Amazon, that’s also a very good time to get started. There’s a lot of people doing that where they’re launching, a lot of times a simultaneous e-commerce site, and an Amazon site, and using Amazon traffic to then gather those customers onto their regular site. I don’t want to go down too in the weeds there, but I think the key thing there is that.. Yes, if you have products that are going to be Amazon-friendly, now is also a good time to start. And you can sync that, totally sync that with your Ecwid store, so you can still own that customer as well.

Richard: Have you ever done any.. So, I’m trying to think now of someone who’s listening, and they like the idea of this. They know their passion. They know they want to do Instagram, or they know they want to do something that has to do with.. Let’s just say pictures and so they’re going to go down that route, and maybe they have an already existing platform. Have you integrated an Ecwid store to someone’s blog? Like, they already have a blog with pictures. They already have a blog where people.. And now they want to start selling something. Have you brought Ecwid into an existing ecosystem already? Or how does that work for someone who’s thinking: “Man, I’ve already put all this work into something else. I have this passion. I want to sell something now. But do I have to build a whole new store?” How does that work for them?

Daniella: Absolutely. Actually, it’s one of Ecwid’s greatest strengths. Ecwid is capable of integrating with almost any website. So, let’s say, for example, you’re working with a blog, a partner blog. And you wrote content for them, and it’s a really, like, good article. It’s cornerstone content. And you’d like to add your online store to that content, because.. I don’t know, you explain something in there that is related to your products, right? But you don’t want to send people like off the site. You want to keep it in there. You could add a little piece of code to that article. It’s very simple, it’s just a copy-paste. And your online store will appear within that article. So, you can add your store to partner blogs, to partner sites, other people that you work with, and that’s an incredible business opportunity.

Jesse: I think, it might be a good tip as well for people that are listening, that already have stores too. If you haven’t thought about that particular tactic, this might be a good thing to think about in 2019. You know, like who is a related, I don’t know, partner. Not even really a partner or even another Web site that you read, or blog. Can you get your product placed on their blog? It’s an easy way to add extra traffic, extra revenue to your existing store. And it’s easy.

Richard: Is there a way.. Does Ecwid track that that’s sold on that site? And can you give some sort of a commission or something for that even?

Daniella: I sure you could use coupon codes to track that. So, for example, if you give your partner a coupon code, and then the person converts in the online store, you’ll know that the coupon code was used by that partner. So that’s one way to track it.

Richard: It’s cool.

Jesse: Awesome. So, Daniella, I know you work with a lot of different clients. You know, I think.. How many? 100 or so that you’ve worked with over the years?

Daniella: Yeah (laughing.)

Jesse: So, I think, that one thing that we want to talk to the new people listening this, like, how can I get started with e-commerce? You know, I think, there’s.. Well, there’s a ton of different ways. I mean, I would be in the Ecwid employee I would say you should go to ecwid.com and sign up for a store, and get started. And that’s always the easiest way to go, but that it’s important that you’re not always on your own. You don’t just have to like brute force, trial and error. Yes, you can follow along in the tutorial, but there are a ton of places to get help with e-commerce today. You know, this podcast is one place you can get some help, if you are.. if you like videos. There’s a lot of YouTube videos that are made, and I mentioned that, because we have Daniella on here who makes a ton of videos herself.

Daniella: Absolutely. I guess, if I were starting out, because I was in that case, I’m really going to put myself back in that place. Couple of years ago I was looking for a solution that was affordable, and that was hosted, because a lot of solutions you have to buy hosting, you have to get a domain name. There’s like this whole backend techie stuff that I did not understand at that time, (laughing) and that I didn’t want to learn either. I was really more of an entrepreneur and more of a marketer, I guess. So, I really have that hands on easy. Like, I just want to get started selling online ASAP-kind-of-approach. So, when I came across Ecwid, I found that it was very scalable and powerful for what I was looking to do. And the five minutes setup was a huge advantage for me, and the fact that you can sell on various platforms. So, it’s omni channel social media platforms, sales platforms, like Amazon and eBay, and the websites, like partner blogs. But the power of that is that all of that at the same time. So, if you start selling on Instagram, you’re having a lot of success there. It’s really cool. And you’re like: “Maybe I want to try Amazon, right?” You can still do that from the same store. So, there’s a lot of features that are available in Ecwid. And yeah, that’s one of the reasons why I started out with that platform at the beginning, and I’ve become a huge fan of it. It’s just.. It’s so easy to start making an MVP or a minimum viable product. You know, if you’re in the startup world, it’s just getting online, start selling. Test it out. Go for it.

Richard: And, Daniella, how did you originally learn how to build a store? Did you just just signed up, and went for it? I mean, what was your learning process? Did you have a mentor? How did you get going?

Daniella: I made a lot of mistakes! (laughing) Let’s say I went on to Magento which is a Ferrari. OK. It’s a huge platform. It’s awesome. It’s great. But you need to be a developer to have any success with that. It’s all coded, and I never understood anything. It was so complicated, and I wasted a lot of time with that, and I tested out a couple of other things, but they wound up being really expensive. And then I came across Ecwid. I was in a business incubator at the time, someone talked to me about it and I was like: “OK, this looks really easy.” I set it up in five minutes, I was like: “OK. I didn’t know it’s gonna be this way. That’s it? OK!” (laughing) “Well, I already have an online store.” I already got products online. And from there it took off, I just became really passionate about it, and started making videos.

Jesse: Awesome! So, when you got started you’d already had some.. Your learning experience was with the other platforms were actually harder. So, when you got to Ecwid, like: “Oh my gosh, this is easy!”

Daniella: Yes, and that’s what I was looking for, because I worked with other people, other clients, and I wanted them to be on my platform with a very simple solution. And they’re not techie at all. There also other entrepreneurs, and business owners, and startups, that you know are focused on so many other things. Like, they have so many other things to be doing, they don’t want to be like doing techie backend server stuff, like they just want to be selling online period. (laughing)

Jesse: For sure. I mean, that’s the goal here, we’re not.. Nobody wants to get in there and learn the technical details. You just want to get in there and start selling. So, yeah, I think so, of course. Please, you know, go in there and get started. There are a couple options for people that depending on how you want to learn. So all premium Ecwid customers get live chat, so there’s a live chat button on the upper right hand side of your Control panel. So, you can talk to support right off the bed, if you have a question right now and you need it answered. That’s what support does, and they are awesome actually. So that, that’s one way to learn. If you prefer to read, a lot of times depending on your learning styles, if you want to read — the Help section at Ecwid is great. It’s written by the support people. So that’s a great way. There’s videos embedded. And a lot of people, I’m finding now, prefer to learn by video. So, a lot of times, you can type in your specific need into YouTube, and you’re going to end up seeing the..Maybe, the Ecwid channel for Ecwid questions or you gonna see Daniella’s YouTube channel with a lot of different help on whatever subject you want. So, there’s a couple different ways you can learn, and that’s great for people that already have a little bit of a head of steam, and maybe know which way they’re headed. But, because this is New Year’s time, and people are looking to, you know, figure out how to motivate themselves for the year. Daniella, you might have another option right out there. So, tell us about your new course.

Daniella: Absolutely. So, if you want, you know, free tutorial videos, they’re available on my YouTube channel. But I really-really took things further in 2018, that was my goal for the end of this year. So, I created an extensive Ecwid e-commerce course, and in the course, I really review how to set up your store like a pro, quickly and easily. This course is really oriented towards anyone who’s starting out, you know, small business owners or startups. Anyone who just wants to get selling online quickly and easily. So, I show you how to create your website if you want one. So, the Ecwid Instant Site. And then how to integrate various platforms, such as Instagram, Amazon, eBay. And then.. Facebook also. And then we’ll review a couple of ways to expand your source functionality using the marketplace. And I have a whole chapter on driving targeted traffic to your new online store, and maximising profit day one, and that is now available on my YouTube channel currently, and there’s a ton of value in that section.

Jesse: Got it. So I think the.. Yeah, the interesting part there is that there’s a lot of stuff for free on YouTube. Yes, but a lot of times you need to know where you’re going or where to start. So, what you’re doing is more walking through people step by step. So, if you don’t know where you want to go next or “What should I even search for?”, this is a little more.. We’ll call it “paint by numbers”, I guess, where you can just, if you follow each course, you will have a store build, and you will have traffic in, and which will lead to sales. So, I think that’s really helpful for people that are just don’t know where to go next or where to get started. So, that’s awesome. And I heard you mentioned the traffic part at the end, that’s always really important to a lot of times. A lot of people can get their own store launch, but then they say: “Well, what about this whole traffic thing? We’re not getting the sales. We’re not getting any traffic.” You know, like that is the hard part.

Daniella: Yeah, exactly. So, I cover a whole bunch of, I guess, you could call it a “growth hacking techniques”. Of course, I explain what “growth hacking” is. It’s not a bad thing, unless you’re doing sketchy things. All the things I talk about in the course are very clean, simple ways to, you know, learn about your traffic, who your target market is, and then to increase your sales.

Jesse: That’s awesome. And now for people listening, you’re thinking: “Where do I go to check out Daniella’s course?” All right, here’s the url. I’ll go slow, write this down. It’s ecwid.com/freegift. All right. ecwid.com/freegift. So, Daniella, what are we going to put on this page for you? I think you’d mentions like a preview. Can you describe what people will see when they get there?

Daniella: Absolutely. There’ll be a playlist that includes about 10 videos that include a course content for free. So, if you go check out that playlist you’ll be able to see what the course is about, what the content is. Maybe a little bit more information as to why you might want to work with Ecwid. What the advantages are.. And yeah, it’ll take you one step further in the process.

Jesse: Awesome! So, I think, yes, if you’re listening right now, you’re thinking: “What am I going to do this year? Where should I go next?” For sure, go check out Ecwid.com/freegift. You see the preview of Daniella’s course. You’ll learn something for free. You don’t always have to pay.

Richard: And speaking of I just want to throw this out there that we never mentioned during this whole thing. You can start with Ecwid for free. Some of these things might be paid. I think a few of the things we mentioned you have to be on a paid plan, but the majority of everything we talked about right there, you can get started for free. And listen, watch Daniella’s videos for free, and you could get going. If you want to expedite that, and you need the course, so you wanted to help or you find someone else that’s teach individual. But right now, that idea, that’s been in your head for all the 2017, 18, 16.. However far back it’s been, you’re ready to get started. You can do it right now for FREE.

Jesse: That’s awesome. And we’re on a free podcast..

Richard: ..and a free podcast.

(laughing)

Richard: Now your mobile phone plan that you’re listening to it on or whatever like that — sorry, someone’s gonna pay (laughing.)

Jesse: Some free internet at the library or something like that. Yeah. but yeah, Now’s the time. It’s the end of 2018 coming into 2019 with a full head of steam. So that’s awesome. Everybody, you know, try to think of your plan. Get to see Daniella’s course at ecwid.com/freegift. Richie, Daniella, any last thoughts?

Richard: No, just thanks for coming on, Daniella. We always love having you.

Daniella: Best of luck in 2019!

Richard: You too!

Jesse: Thanks!