It seems like there are a lot of people on the internet spreading a false message.
The message is that e-commerce is some kind of “passive” income business. A business where you decide to sell things online while you drink piña coladas on the beach.
Well, I’m sorry to tell you that’s not true. And I don’t want you to be misled by these internet “business experts”.
I want you to have a realistic understanding.
A realistic understanding of what it takes to start a new e-commerce business from scratch.
Now, don’t get me wrong I’m all for starting an e-commerce business.
If you don’t know my background, e-commerce is where I had my first big win as an entrepreneur.
Let me tell you a quick story…
Years ago, one of my best friends and now business partner was traveling the country selling bedsheets on the side of the road.
Around the same time he was doing that, I noticed there was an opportunity that people were taking advantage of on the Amazon platform selling their products.
I also started learning about Facebook ads. And I learned I could use them to drive traffic to Amazon.
All of a sudden it clicked.
We took the bedsheets, created a logo, and put the bedsheets on Amazon.
Then we used Facebook ads to drive traffic to our Amazon listings.
Now, to be fair, we discovered how to do this near the beginning of the opportunity wave.
But if you know me then you know I consider this to be luck, because what luck really is, is when opportunity meets preparation.
You should also know that this was not an overnight thing, we kept our day jobs for a long time.
With hard work and dedication, we were able to scale our bed sheets brand over the next 18 months.
This allowed us to sell the business for a nice profit.
Nowadays the e-commerce game is a little bit different. But there’s still plenty of opportunity for new brands.
When people tell me that they want to start a new e-commerce brand I always give them a few tips.
1. The first thing I tell people who want to start creating content.
Because I’m a huge believer in providing value to people to turn them into raving fans.
This also helps people get to know you and your products or services.
But one of the most important factors that can come out of your content is building trust with people.
That’s super important for people to have before they make any buying decision.
2. When you’re building a new e-commerce brand from scratch you should go all-in on one marketplace platform.
Amazon for example has a ton of traffic and credibility that you can “borrow” by putting your products there.
Speaking of products.
I encourage people to have at least three products before launching their brand to maximize their average order value with upsells!
This gives people more choices which means you have a greater chance of making more sales.
3. Lastly, you have to give your new e-commerce brand time to get rolling and start growing.
I tell people they should have an investment of around $20,000 to get started.
The money is for the acquisition and storage of products.
Potential living expenses or the hiring of team members to help you run the business.
If the e-commerce brand is your side hustle, here’s my advice:
You need to keep your day job until your new brand is making enough profit to replace your salary.
Branching Out
There are many benefits to branching out from a centralized marketplace platform like Amazon or Walmart.
But, the primary one is that you get to control your own traffic.
This means you can communicate with your prospects and customers anytime you want.
Through any communication channels that you want.
Again, this is not something to jump into too soon.
Because running your own e-commerce site is more challenging than selling on Amazon or Walmart where people are actively searching for your kind of product.
But, there are rewards to any risk you take too.
Here’s a guideline I use to know when it’s time to expand outside of Amazon.
When your new brand is making at least $100,000 per month with at least $20,000 in profit you can start making the shift.
Now, at the beginning of this article, I talked about creating content, and if you’ve done a good job with this you’ll have at least a year’s worth of content for people to see.
This is great for you because when you decide to start running paid ads people will most likely want to do research.
They will want to know if they can trust you and your products.
Now, you may be wondering what it takes to run paid ads for your e-commerce brand.
Well, I’ll save that for another article in the future.
If you’d like to talk about the next best steps for your brand and business feel free to reach out to us anytime at www.agmagency.com/help.
