 with Zach Stebik. Zach is the chief executive officer at Minds Science, which is an e-commerce consulting agency. He leads a team that designs, builds, and optimizes e-commerce Storefronts. He's been active in the e-commerce space for five years, and has been building websites for over two decades, from everywhere from IBM to Ogilvy on topics ranging from designer and developer workflows to what agencies need to know about WooCommerce. When he's not working, he enjoys spending time behind the lens as a professional concert photographer and photojournalist. Also, co-organizes the Word Press Meetup in Rockford, Illinois with me, and is a co-organizer of WordCamp Chicago. Without further ado, Zach. Thank you, Andrew. So today what we're going to talk about is selling online. I don't know if you got that from the title of the presentation. We're going to talk about some of the complexities, the pitfalls, the processes, the patterns, the thoughts, and the dreams that make somebody a modern e-tailer, and maybe talk about a little tactic while we go through. So normally, you know, a lot of these presentations start out with an introduction of who the person is. Andrew already covered that, so I want to talk about who you are. Do we have any people that are already store owners in the room that are running an e-commerce store? Beautiful. And people who are at agencies trying to help store owners? Okay, so that gives me a good idea that a lot of you will be able to gain from this, and anybody who would like to be a store owner. Okay. So we're going to start out just talking about selling online. And, you know, a lot of times when you're talking about e-commerce, this dream comes to mind of sipping cocktails on a beach while some fulfillment company or Amazon does all of the work for you. You know, you're just going to sit and relax and watch the money come in, right? How many of you believe that? Yeah, let's talk about reality for a moment. This is going to be home. It's going to be surrounded by boxes, if you're doing physical products, right? Surrounded by boxes, weighing things, printing shipping labels, boxing things up, in a warehouse somewhere, possibly starting in your own home, but eventually you'll realize that you probably need a warehouse. So this is the reality of being a product selling e-commerce store owner. So one of the first things I like to discuss is platforms. Now, we're at a word camp and obviously, you know, at a word camp we're going to talk about a couple of platforms. We're going to talk about e-commerce. We're going to talk about easy digital downloads, right? Easy digital downloads being better if you're looking at selling digital products perhaps than e-commerce. But e-commerce being better at selling physical products, subscriptions, memberships, bookings, you know, tons of things that e-commerce can do. So the platform does matter because it's what you're going to live in every day, right? As you're selling things, you're going to go in and you're going to use the admin, find your orders, pick your orders, pack your orders, ship your orders. But honestly, the platform doesn't matter. I know store owners that are making seven, eight, nine figures a year still running on Yahoo stores. How many of you remember Yahoo stores? How many of you would choose to use it starting today? Exactly. But they're still making millions of dollars on that platform. And that's because all of the things we're going to talk about today are things that they do really well. One of the things that I actually just heard in the business track is, you know, you can either commoditize or differentiate, right? And so if you're a successful store on Yahoo stores, you've probably differentiated really, really well. You're not a marginalized commoditized asset. You are selling something that is different enough that people have a reason to go to a Yahoo stores based e-commerce website. So one of the first things I want to talk about is finding a product. How many of you have tried to source a product for an e-commerce store? And the first time you do it, it's kind of like wading into water that is a little deeper than you thought it was, right? The first time you are trying to source a physical product specifically, if it's something of your own design, and you send it out to get it manufactured somewhere, and you don't know yet that you should probably get a proof back from the factory that, you know, shows that they're executing your design in the way that they should be, and you don't know that it's probably a good idea to go and tour that factory and make sure that you believe they're going to be up to the challenge of making your product. It can be a very difficult thing. But more than just sourcing a product, finding the product that you want to sell is important. And you have to make a decision. Are you going to find a product that you can be passionate about? Or are you going to choose a product because you know it will be profitable? Now these aren't mutually exclusive. You can have a product you're passionate about that is also very profitable. And you can have a very profitable product that you are not passionate about at all. A good friend of mine, Andrew Eudarian, he sold cb radios. It wasn't something he was really passionate about, but he built a really big business doing it and then sold that business. He also hosts an amazing podcast called e-commerce fuel. And he's been very successful in the e-commerce space. There are also plenty of people that sell for their passion. I would guarantee you any of the companies here that are selling plugins or hosting would tell you that they're very passionate about what they're offering. And they are still profitable. The next decision is if you're going to sell a physical or a digital product. So physical products take a little bit more work honestly on the sales side once the sale has gone through. Digital takes a lot more work before the sale, right? Because you have to have something there that people want to buy. So we'll talk a little bit about both of those. Is it original IP, something you've created? Or are you going to start a business trying to get the buy box on amazon for a product that thousands of other people are selling? That's a possibility. There are people that do it really, really well. And that's a decision you have to make. Are you going to sell something original? Or are you going to sell things that are already out there and just do a better job of it than everybody else? There are companies that will sell the exact same thing as someone else, but people will choose their company because their customer service is better, because the experience on their website is better, because they feel more comfortable with the brand that they're buying from. So all of these things factor in to deciding what you're selling. So i talked a little bit about Sourcing and how interesting that can be. You have to figure out how many of you are familiar with The concept of a dropshipping business? Yeah. That's all that is, right? It's sourcing all day, every day, figuring out what you're going To be able to dropship and where you can get it from and how You can get it in a way that customers aren't disappointed when They aren't receiving their product for three, four, five, Six weeks, right? And you have to determine whether or Not there's a market for what you're trying to sell. So a lot of people lately have been using a crowdfunding Model to validate businesses, validate products. If there's enough interest based on a prototype, then they Can actually crowdfund that money and bring it to market With less investment on their part. That's a great way to test whether or not there's a Market for your product. The other way is just to get it Out there and see what happens. You want to do this in a way that you can make a smaller Investment up front, maybe cutting into your margin a Little bit by ordering a lower number of items until you Know that there's going to be enough demand to sustain That. The next step, and this is one that a lot of people Don't think about is if you're selling a physical product Once you sell it, you actually have to ship it to the customer. This is hard, especially at scale. If you get a thousand orders on a day that you were Expecting your average of 50, what's your next day Going to look like? It's going to be very hard. Yeah, you're going to be sitting there doing nothing But putting things in boxes and taping boxes shut. It happens. There are some ways to make fulfillment easier As you scale, something like using a third party logistics Company or 3PL. There are plenty of those out there That work with e-commerce sellers To distribute their products to the purchaser. And that way you don't have to have the warehouse anymore. You don't have to have people going and picking things. But that comes at a cost. You're trading part of your margin For somebody else doing the work, right? So i always mention subscriptions because there are a lot of Products that are commodities that are used. And once they're used, they need to be replaced. And if you're not offering that type of product as a subscription Today, you need to because it will increase the bottom line For your store considerably. You'll suddenly have this Magical thing called monthly recurring revenue. And this magical thing makes sure that you know you can put Food on the table as you're starting your company, right? You know that no matter what, those subscriptions are Probably not going to churn more quickly than new subscriptions Are going to start as long as you have a good product. So pushing a subscription-based model gives you a little bit of Stability in a world where there really is not a ton of stability. You could get a rush on your products. How many of you remember fidget spinners? They're still around, but how many of the thousands of websites That sold them do you think are still running today? Not many, right? Pricing. Pricing is hard. How many of you have priced a product before? It's hard, isn't it? It's probably the hardest part Is finding the right amount of money to charge for your Creation. And finding the right tipping point Where you're going to have more people buying at a margin That makes sense for you, where you can maximize profitability, But you're not so expensive that you're pricing yourself out of sales. It's a very hard balancing act. It's like walking a tightrope. Because on one end of that chart, you may sell 10 Of your product a day and make $30 per product. But on the other end of the chart, you may sell a thousand Of your product in a day and cut your margin to $20. The math on that's pretty easy. Selling $1,000 at a $20 margin Is a better option all day long. So that's part one. Choosing a product, finding the right product fit. The next is finding customers. That's what these guys Supposedly did according to the show. Finding customers, advertising, getting people in to the door. So how many of you use traditional marketing methods, Things like sales mailers, catalogs? Catalogs still work. It's remarkable. But they do still work. And so traditional marketing is Something to consider. I know we're living in a digital age And you think, e-commerce, we're going to be fine. We've got a website. That's our catalog. But for some reason, having something tangible to hold For some demographics will make them order more frequently. And they may still just go to your website to order it. But being able to flip through those pages and look at those glossy photos Of course you spend a ton of money getting made in the first place Can be really helpful. So if you're selling something Where that makes sense, consider a catalog. We worked with an electronics retailer based in my hometown Of Love's Park, Illinois. And they sell security equipment. And they still produce an 80 to 100 page catalog Every year. And it does remarkably for them. And a lot of people who use the website have seen the products In the catalog first. So it's very worthwhile. Direct mail can still work. Other things such as billboards And television commercials, all of those things can work. It's just a matter of whether or not it makes sense to spend That amount of money based on the margin you'll have left In your product and the amount of interest it'll generate. Email marketing. How many of you get more Newsletters than you would like? I consider that proof that email marketing works Because one, you're getting more than you would like But you haven't unsubscribed from them. And two, if you can build a good list, One that is tailored to your product fit, bless you, Then you can get a whole bunch of people to come repeatedly To your website just by letting them know something's new, Something's on sale, or that something has changed. Search engine optimization. Now, we're well past the days where the old Search engine optimization techniques that you get Random robot calls about still work, right? But search engine optimization still matters. There are things you need to do to make sure that your site Is as visible as possible on Google and Bing and Yahoo. So using an SEO friendly theme or an SEO plug-in On your site to make sure that the right metadata Is there is really important. And then there's pay-per-click advertising. This really is going to depend on the product you're selling. If the product you're selling is one that is very, Very competitive, well, you're probably going to Have some trouble getting a good bid per click on Pay-per-click advertising. Some of the keywords have gotten really high Into the hundreds of dollars per click. That may not make sense for you, but if it does, And you are unique enough that it makes sense, Pay-per-click can still be a great way to get traffic in the door. Social media marketing. How many of you are on Facebook? Twitter? Instagram? Interest? All of these, okay, Snapchat. Anybody? Yeah, there are a few of us. All of these platforms have their unique markets. So designing the same creative for every single one of these Social platforms doesn't work. You can't post the exact same ad in all five of those Social networks and expect the same response. You have to tailor what you're talking to that market about To the market itself. And we don't have time to get very far into how that all works, But if you'd like to talk more about it, I'll probably be at the happiness bar after this talk. Video. Video is powerful. There's a reason why Kickstarter has a higher success rate With campaigns that have well-produced videos than anything else. Video tells the story in a much more effective way Than words on a page do. If you can highlight the features of your product in a video, People are more likely to listen to that video And watch that video than they are to read a wall of text. And the other great thing about video is that If you combine video with social media marketing, You can create a revenue funnel that just works. You look at people who've watched, Say you're doing Facebook targeted advertising, You look at people who've watched 50% of the video ad That you put up and you remarket only to those people. Well, they've watched half the video. They're obviously interested in some way. Let's tie a carousel ad to what they saw in that video. And you see an exponential increase in return By doing things like that. Providing a branded experience. Is there anybody in the room who gets loot crate Or geek fuel or any of those subscription boxes That you get nerdy things in the mail every month? I do. I will admit. I am 100% a nerd. And I get both of those. But they both provide a branded experience. The box that comes in the mail has their logo on it. It's the color of their branding. The geek fuel box is bright red. You get this red box in the mail. You know, hey, I just got more nerdy things. This is awesome. They have black and white marketing and branding. And that really stands out. If you're selling t-shirts and you're putting them in poly bags Look into getting custom poly bags made with your logo on them. Because there's something to be said for that experience Of seeing that in the mailbox and knowing that it's there And it's exactly what you were waiting for, right? That's why Amazon puts their logo on everything, too. So creating a branded experience is really important. And having that branded experience Speaking the same language at every touch point. So we're going to talk about another statistic Or metric that we track cost of acquisition After all your marketing efforts What was the cost to get somebody to your site And finally to buy. That's what this means. Let's talk a little bit about keeping customers. So it's seven times harder, according to research, To find a new customer than it is to keep an existing one. So this is important. One of the metrics we talk about Here is customer lifetime value. That's something that sounds like we'd want to maximize, right? We want our customers to not only be happy, but to come back And buy more. Remarketing is a great way to do this. To increase customer lifetime value, you can set things like Klavia or MailChimp up to target these customers who Have already purchased and send them emails about products That are related to what they've already purchased to get Them back to the site to buy more. Or you can use an advertising network like AdRoll Where once they've hit your site, everywhere they go They suddenly see your brand. How many of you have gone to a Website and then surfed the web and seen that brand everywhere? Yeah. It happens a lot. One of our clients uses it, Oscar Mike. And after I've been on their site working on it for Any reason, I see Oscar Mike ads for the next two weeks. It's a really powerful thing. Providing a superior customer Experience is also really important. So, like I said before, if you're selling something Very similar to what somebody else is selling, the only Way to get that sale is to differentiate. And by providing a superior customer experience at every Touchpoint, you will differentiate yourself far away from Most of your competition. The other thing is how you fix Things matters. How many of you have had a bad customer Service experience? I'm surprised more of you didn't raise Your hands because I know there have to be some people In here who've used Comcast in the past. Yeah. Okay. So, how you fix things matters? And they're starting to realize this at Comcast. They are. They're starting to realize it. If you have a negative support experience, do you go back To that company? No. Unless you're stuck and they have a market monopoly, like Other certain companies that I already mentioned won't Mention again. But if you have a superior customer Experience when you've had a support request, what do You do? Do you tell your friends about how awesome it Was? I do, too. How you fix things matters And how you fix things can grow your business and grow Your brand. So, I know this was a lot to go Through and talk through. But these are just some of the Factors that go into running a successful e-commerce store. I know it might be a little overwhelming because that was a Lot of surface information with just a few tidbits. But it's way too much to cover in a half an hour. I would say if you're interested in starting an e-commerce Store, find a product you like. And like this guy says, don't Let your dreams be dreams. Just go out and do it. Just start something. Because if you never start, one, You can never succeed. But two, you can never fail. And i would say that the failures are more valuable than The successes because they will teach you how to Succeed the next time. So, andrew told you a bit about who I am. All this stuff about me. I'm a serial Entrepreneur or have been for most of my life. This is what we do at mind size, the consulting firm that I founded last year with my partner patrick. We've worked with some really amazing brands. The list is a lot longer than this, but i didn't want to Edit the slide because it's in a pdf. And that's a pain. If you go to our website and you go to our portfolio, you'll See a few more brands up there. This is how to get in touch With me on twitter. That's our website. Feel free to reach out. I'll be around here or at the Happiness bar. Just stop me if you have any questions at all. Thank you very much for your time. And i will take questions Now because we have a couple of minutes. Yes. Okay, so the question was about what kind of point of sale Systems can integrate with wu commerce. Right now probably The most popular is square. The square integration will Sink inventory and will allow you to sell and use their Payment gateway on your website as well if you want to keep Everything consolidated. But square is a great option for Point of sale. There are a few others that i know have Been worked on, but i don't think any of them are really Out yet. But expect that the point of sale Integration portion of the wu commerce landscape will Grow. But that's probably the suggestion we Make most frequently. Well first you have to make Sure you have really good documentation. So the question was What does the process look like when you are moving from an Idea to a product you would actually be producing. So you have to have really good documentation about how you Want it manufactured. You need to find a manufacturer that Can make it. But not just make it. Make it at a price that gives you the margin that you Want. So if anybody is wondering why so Much manufacturing has moved, it's because it's more Expensive to manufacture here. That's why. So if you're a business owner, would you like to make more Money off that product or less? Well it depends. What are your values, right? We have a lot of companies That we work with that won't manufacture outside of the Business. They do that because that's where their Values put them. But that puts them at a higher price Point and with a lower margin. So that's a big piece. Picking the right partner is hard. You have to do a lot of Research into various companies and what they can and cannot Do. And then like i said go tour the Facility, have them build a prototype and send it to You. Make sure that it works as advertised. And then once all of that is done, you have to have the Capital to have them ramp up production. And then once You're there, you get a whole bunch of boxes full of stuff. And at that point, you know, you have to unload That, right? So the question was is everybody using Something like avalera or tax jar or any of those Software as a service tax providers. Not everybody. There are a lot of people who are using them because they Value their time more than they value the cost. I would say that's a smart business move for most people. But there are a number of people who just go with the Defaults and now hope that it works out in the end. Yeah. And then you can use something like WooCommerce services and get a lot of that information Automatically. It's probably now that it's Available, it's probably the easiest way, but it may Not be the most accurate of all of them because some of Those companies specialize just in tax. Yes, sir. So the question is when you are going out just To start your online store and you're sourcing a product that Already exists, how do you set that up? Do you buy a whole Bunch of it up front or do you set up an on-demand shipping Relationship, maybe a drop ship relationship with the Manufacturer? This really depends on what kind of Business you want to run. If you want to fill a Warehouse with that product and you have the capital to do it, You're going to make more margin by buying in bulk. If you just want to sell that product and do a really good Job of selling it but have a slightly thinner margin, then Drop shipping or having that manufacturer relationship where They're fulfilling for you makes a lot of sense. Yes. Yes. So this is another personal decision that needs to be made by The store owner. My personal opinion is that i wouldn't do It and i wouldn't do it because have you heard of this brand Called amazon basics? Do you know how they get their ideas From you? What they do is they create a cheaper Version of the exact same thing you're selling with minor modifications And they watch their sales numbers to figure out what products Are most eligible to become an amazon basics product. So if you're making a ton of money on amazon there's a good chance Amazon is going to create a version of your product. That's a risk that you run in any of those relationships. The other thing is that i am a control freak and i would like To have control of every piece of the process. So if i were to start an e-commerce business i would be one of those Guys living in a warehouse that was handling all of the Production, all of the marketing, all of the Fulfillment, all myself. Just because then i know if Something goes wrong the only person that i can blame is me Until a point where i could afford to use a 3pl or third party Logistics company to take over at least the fulfillment Side of it. Back there. Yeah. So one of the big things is to Make sure that your site is generating the right meta for Google product listings. And that way if somebody is searching For a product there's a possibility that your product can Show up in their results. I can take one more question. Let's go back there. I'm sorry i've ignored the back for a Little while. So it's not a bad way to go. So the question is can anybody comment on sourcing with Alibaba to get products. It's really not a bad way to go. You can find things that may not be unique but they're Definitely produced at a price point that you can have some Margin in. And if it's something unique enough or Something different enough you can build a business around That. I also find that alibaba and those Types of marketplaces are a great way to find companies That may be able to manufacture your original product as well. It's a good way to source factories based on the quality Of the products you're receiving that were made there as well. One more. I know we're really close. One more. If you can yes. So the client that i Mentioned Clinton electronics they have somebody boots on Around in taiwan that they do a lot of work with talking Directly to their suppliers. It helps immensely. Because there can be a gap in understanding. And so it does help a lot. The question for those of you Watching on the stream was is it helpful to have somebody Who is in the country that you are sourcing your product From? Yes definitely. If you can afford to do it do it. And that's the other reason why i recommend going and doing a Factory tour as well. Because until you get there and you are On location one being there is a sign of respect. And so the people running that factory are more likely to pay More attention to your product just because you came and visited That if you don't. Now i'm not saying that's a universal truth. It just happens to be that respect goes a long way. The other thing is that having somebody local eliminates all of Those potential communication conflicts. I'll be around in the happiness bar and around the campus Here if you have any more questions. Thank you all very much.