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I never knew of the possibilities in the ecommerce space until I met these two people

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I have been working on the internet as a consultant since 2013.

I started out with my own blog.

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At the time I was living in Memphis, Tennessee and was consulting with small to medium size local businesses and helping them wither their local SEO.

From there, I moved onto consulting with venture-backed startups all around Los Angeles, California, where I helped them growth hack and get quick exposure on the internet.

Around that same time, I reached out to one of my long-time mentors, who I interviewed back in 2012 about some of his startups.


He is none other than the famous Jeet Banerjee.

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I still remember reaching out to Jeet and asking him to meet up over dinner.

It was a really good move on my part.

I approached Jeet and told him how well I am doing with my consulting business but how much I HATE consulting.

I would literally have the most stressful weeks, working 60+ hours per week, and spend my whole weekend splurging on Australian Wine.

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I just do not like the idea of constantly being under the pressure from clients.

And there is also always this inherent misunderstanding between expectations and what can realistically be delivered.

So, Jeet suggested to me that I get into the ecommerce space with him and sell a product instead.

I decided to partner with Jeet and launch a brand which sells organic skincare products.

We named the company Organic Allure, and set up our LLC with the help of an attorney, and started selling on Amazon about a month later.

I will tell you guys more about my venture with Jeet later in this article…

But…

Jeet is not the only e-commerce genius I had the opportunity of learning from.

I also have another amazing mentor, Ashutosh (Ash) Sharma, who I met at Draper University.

What’s so insane is that Ash is only 19 years old and already built one of the largest platforms for buying and selling goods online.

At just a tender age of 19 years old, Ashutosh Sharma has created multiple start-up companies which range from augmented reality to developing his visionary ideas.

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third of this problem.

Currently his latest startup, Sell My Good, is aimed to evolve the way people buy and sell products.

The gross merchandise value has exceeded over 50 million dollars and about 100 million messages have been processed between buyers and sellers.

But what intrigues me even more is Ash’s journey.

His vision is to change trade and the way people exchange goods online, which leads to an ICO the start-up is currently working on.

The first phase would be to tackle counterfeiting through issuing their own cryptocurrency which aims to resolve one third of this problem.

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On top of that, Sell My Good is in the process of building their own blockchain network that allows Manufacturers to connect directly with Consumers and everything in between.

Having these 2 amazing mentors in the ecommerce space is literally invaluable to me.

I have learned so many little tricks of the trade from them, which I actively deployed in growing Organic Allure.

I am going to share with you guys a few important hacks and principles I learned about running an e-commerce company from Ash and Jeet.

ecommerce

Gage demand and find a product that is high in demand, low cost to manufacture, and can be sold at a higher price without running into too much competition

Of course, this is easier said than done.

I am going to share with you the criteria that we use for Organic Allure when we look for hot products to sell on Amazon:

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Building Growth for Your Startup

Average product sale price Between $10-$50 (Non-Negotiable)

Top product for keyword must have 7,500 Best Seller Rank or smaller in Main Category (Non-Negotiable)

No brand names within Product Category / Niche (Non-Negotiable)

2-3 Products with less than 50 reviews on first page – On first page there can’t be any products with more than 500 reviews (Non-Negotiable)

Lightweight (Preferably under 2-3 pounds)

Simple item that is not easily broken

Product can be made for 25% or less of Sale Price (Quick Check)

Room for improvement and optimization of current listings

Product is easily outsourced in China

Year-round seller (Not Seasonal)

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Can make a superior product over similar products in the market

Product encourages recurring purchases

Multiple product keywords

For the top seller for a keyword, ideally less than 750 reviews

Being able to include an add-on product to increase rankings and churning revenue faster

Unless a product fits majority of these on our criteria checklist, we do not even consider the product as a viable option for us

Having a checklist like this made this task really easy for me also.

I was easily able to give this list to a virtual assistant and have him find me products which fit my criteria.

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Know how to deal with suppliers and how to distinguish a good supplier from a mediocre one

Finding a good supplier is probably the biggest challenge in any ecommerce business.

Your supplier can literally make or break your business.

Some tidbits I picked up from Ash when picking a good supplier are:

Make sure the supplier can offer a low Minimum Order Quantity (preferably 100 or less)

They should be able to do

Private LabelingThey should be able to

DropshipThey should have a large enough catalog containing many similar products in that niche

They should be communicating professionally and quickly

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They should be able to give you all costs upfront for your first order including costs of product, private labeling and shipping

They should be able to work with Amazon’s Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) program

The turnaround-time from the time an order is placed to when it arrives to its destination should not exceed 1 month

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Their products should be of high quality so there are minimum customer complaints and returns

If Amazon requires a Hazmat Statement of Review for any product, supplier should be able to provide one

Although this is, by no means, an exhaustive list of things to look for in a good supplier, it is definitely a good one that any new seller can begin with when trying to find a good supplier.

My recommendation is to try to find a seller within your own country if possible.

It will be easier to communicate with them and the shipping costs will be much lower, but their prices might be high though.

On the other hand, you can also find good suppliers in China by going to Alibaba and Aliexpress or simply googling the name of your products you are looking to sell and putting keywords such as “private label” “white label” “wholesale” next to it and searching for companies that way.

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There are also numerous blogs on the web which will have entire lists of suppliers in various niches from where you can get supplier information.

You can also join certain Facebook groups where buyers and sellers regularly collaborate and find supplies that way also.

But, yes, a good supplier is hard to find and an asset once you find one.

Keep them hidden away from your competitors!

Get creative with your distribution channels

If you keep thinking about it the same way as everyone else out there, you will be directly in competition with them.

Get super creative with how you can sell it.

From where can you sell it?

To whom can you sell it to?

For how much can you sell it?

What kind of margins can you create with it?

Building Growth for Your Startup

These are all valid questions to ask yourself when you think about selling your products.

Every niche is different.

So, before you dive head first into any new niche, try to figure out your sales and distribution model and customer demographics.

One easy way to do this is to look at existing competitors in the space who are already doing it and successful with it.

What are they doing?

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To whom are they selling it to?

And what sort of sales message is working for them?

If it is working for them, it might work well for you also.

For example, we are considering selling adult toys from Organic Allure.

But it a new niche for us.

So, after seeing some of the businesses coming out of Russell Brunson’s Clickfunnels group, one idea we have been considering is selling the toys for free via Facebook ads, and then charging for shipping and making our margins via the shipping price.

This is just one example of how you can get creative with it.

If no one out there is selling sex toys like this, it might be interesting thing to try if it’s working in other niches.

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The bottom line is that you have to really get creative and think of all the possibilities of how you can sell your product.

And if something is working for one niche, but no one is doing it for your niche, you could be the first to try it and make a killing with it!

Engage your audience while they are on your website and focus on converting them into a lead

This one is a very neglected part of e-commerce, but it makes a huge difference.

There are lots of ideas out there about getting traffic to your website, but what happens once you get the traffic there?

You have to actually convert your customers!

Once easy way to try convert them is by implementing a LIVE chat feature and having an actual customer service or sales rep manage that chat.

By implementing a LIVE chat, you are pretty much doing the same thing as talking to your customer when they walk into your gas station and saying “Hi” to them.

This makes a customer feel important and appreciated.

You can also close the sale on the spot.

This is especially true if you are selling high ticket items.

Also adding a badge of trust to your website, mentioning some of your awards, can also make a customer feel more secure to engage in an online transaction with you.

At the end of the day, you have to convince a new customer that spending money on your website is safe and that they are not at any loss of being scammed of their money.

Anything that you can add to your website to immediately make the customer feel safe and earn her trust will go a long way in helping your e-commerce store stand out among your competitors.

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