5 Keys to a Successful eCommerce Business (E160)

• Luc Simmons
• Co-Owner of Scope16

Notes:

• 5 Keys
  1. Time
  2. Conversion
  3. Organic
  4. Data
  5. Money

Sponsors:

Spark Shipping

Links:

• https://www.scope16.com/
• https://www.instagram.com/lucsimmons/?hl=en
• https://www.facebook.com/scopem16arketing

Transcript:

Charles (00:00):

In this episode of the business. E-Commerce I talk with Luke Simmons about the five keys of a successful e-commerce business. This is the business of e-commerce episode 160.

Charles (00:19):

Welcome to the business. E-Commerce the show that helps e-commerce retailers start launch and grow the e-commerce business. I’m your host, Charles Buskey and I’m here today with Luke Simmons. Luke is the co-owner of scope 16, an agency that works with e-commerce retailers to help them scale from six to seven figures, I asked Luke on the show today to chat about what are the five key elements that are required for successful e-commerce business, like how he runs through this list. And they really are all things that you should be thinking about when you’re first starting or just trying to scale your business. And he helps to really set some expectations for a lot of retailers, usually early on that kind of starting what they should really be looking at and know what they’re getting into. I think anyone starting off this is going to be super helpful. He goes through the five different topics. I’ll link to those in the show notes, but let’s get into it.

Speaker 2 (01:09):

So, Hey look, how are you doing today?

Speaker 3 (01:11):

I’m doing really well. Charles, how are you? Good.

Charles (01:13):

Happy to have you on the show. I think I think this topic is great for people kind of starting off. I see a lot of retailers kind of trying to get going and they kind of get stuck right at that very beginning phase.

Speaker 3 (01:25):

Absolutely. Especially, you know, this well, everything that’s happened in the last 12 to 18 months, it’s definitely, everyone’s noticed that, you know, going online and e-commerce in particular has been something that, you know, a lot of people wanted to jump on and take advantage of and you know, don’t blame them whatsoever. So, absolutely. I think it’s definitely a question that relates to a lot of newbies, if you like, in terms of the e-commerce, I’m really getting their brand up and up and up.

Charles (01:52):

Yep. Yeah. We’ve seen ’em I know his hair, at least we’ve seen a lot of brick and mortar retailers in the past 12 months say like, you know, the brick and mortar is just zero. People coming in were shut down to some government you know, the government lockdown sort of thing. We need to do something and we’re like, we still have these distributor relationships. We still have all these products. We still have all the stuff we just need to sell it somewhere. So a lot of them jumping online just because of that, but it is different, right? Because let’s say you’re a brick and mortar. You’re used to, you know, putting on your sign, doing your local advertising and you’re competing against the people within a X number of mile radius versus you online. Now you’re competing against everyone in a it’s a niche. So it’s like this like virtual radius. And does a mind shift a mindset shift there?

Speaker 3 (02:35):

Absolutely. You know, everything from the way that you position yourself as a brand to, you know, even the community, because you know, like you said, brick and mortar, you understand the community that you’re living in, you understand what their needs and their wants going online and one competing, but also then trying to understand how your audience can change from whether they’re on the East coast or the West coast is completely different. So yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s definitely not something that is just, you know, a quick fix and it’s definitely not something that you can just kind of jump straight into it takes time. But it’s definitely the place to be in my opinion right now,

Charles (03:10):

So. Sure. Yeah. So you have five reasons. I like numbers. I like less with numbers, so we know what we’re going to know. So

Speaker 3 (03:17):

Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Yeah. Let’s, let’s do it. So, I mean, I’ve got the five things here and like you said, this is definitely for, you know, when you’re first getting into it, understanding five of the most important things to take into consideration to allow yourself to start building a long-term e-commerce brand. So the five things, I narrowed it down to a time website conversion using and leveraging organic side of things. So more, more on the social media side data and money as well.

Charles (03:47):

So organic, more tickets, some notes out.

Speaker 3 (03:51):

Yeah. number four was data and number five was money,

Charles (03:55):

Data and money. All right, well, let’s go into each one here, data. All right. So number one is time when you say time, what are we, what are we talking about specifically there?

Speaker 3 (04:06):

Time is, I think it’s just an expectation, expectation thing. You know, like I just touched on a minute ago, it’s people think, you know, owning, running an e-commerce store is something that can just be done and it can be done very, very quickly. But I think once you start diving into the world of e-commerce, you understand, it’s not as simple as just having a product and having a website for sure. You know, there’s been cases and, you know, people have got lucky, they’ve struck gold on the first go and don’t get me wrong. They’ve made a huge success of it. But on the whole it’s understanding that, you know, Rome wasn’t built in a day as I like to say.

Charles (04:40):

Yeah. I think I talked a lot to retailers in this and Hey, I have this launch on whatever, like February 20th and you start saying like, unless you’ve done this before, unless you have your marketing and your like locked down, figured out, really dialed in. It’s very hard to just say, Oh, on the 20th, we’re going to like open the door and there’ll be that line coming in. It’s not like, yeah, it’s not like you’re like at the beach and have an ice cream shop. And like you, Hey, we’re selling ice cream. People just like show up. You need to really get people there. So,

Speaker 3 (