Episode 58: Answering Your Questions
Hey it’s Mike and Grant here! Today’s episode of the podcast is part 2 of a Q & A series we started last week. You guys send awesome questions and we love hearing from you. For those of you who watched us on the Facebook Live recording if you had any questions that you wanted to ask during the recording, we tried to answer those as well.
Here are some questions we answered today:
[In regards to drop-shipping] “I'm wondering if I'm simply in the wrong business model, what can I do to make it better?”
- The pros and cons of drop-shipping.
- When drop-shipping is practical.
[Regarding Facebook ads] “Can you talk more about your front end ads and funnels? That is where I am struggling running Facebook ads.”
- How Mike uses retargeting ads.
- Using Facebook ads to reach out to niche customers.
- Why Grant doesn’t use retargeting ads.
- How to use Google ads.
“Do you guys do fulfillment in house?”
- How we fulfill orders in house.
- The pros and cons of in-house order fulfillment.
[Regarding the supplements industry] “How to replicate the ‘free value' approach?”
- Why supplements are a great arena for the “free value” approach.
- Using free samples to market to your customers.
- Our advice on how to use the “free value” approach effectively.
“Where do you find your VAs (virtual assistants?)”
- Where Mike finds his VAs.
- What he asks for from potential hires.
- When you should (or could) hire a VA.
“What is the process for being approved for a Google Trusted store?”
- How to get approval for a Google Trusted store in general.
- How to do it through Bigcommerce.
- How to do it through Shopify.
We had tons more great questions and we’ll get to those next time during part 3 of our Q & A series. Thank you to everyone who sent us questions and those of you who asked us questions during the Facebook Live recording. Also thanks to those of you who listen to us on iTunes. We appreciate your reviews and all the great feedback we get from you guys. If you want to be a part of the Facebook Live recording like our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/ecomcrew.
Resources Mentioned Today:
Google Trusted Stores (no longer supported as of June 1, 2017)
If you have any questions or anything you’d like us to discuss on the podcast please go to ecomcrew.com and fill out the contact form. Also we would really appreciate if you would leave us a review on iTunes. Thanks for listening!
Great show, glad you are answering questions from the audience.
I’ve been looking around in expired auctions, marketplaces, and domain forums for an ideal .com EMD for an nice ecommerce business. Obviously premium .com domain like this are extremely hard to get at reasonable price. For category-killer commerce domains I’ve found most want over $10k.
I can understand the asking prices but I don’t have that sort of capital right now. What do you guys think of using an EMD .net or .org domain for an ecommerce store? Have you used a .net or .org domain for a store in the past?
Is it a bad idea? Should I just finance or save up money for the .com? How much has having something like CuttingBoard.com given you an edge against competitors?
Hi Adam, we’ve used .net or .org before but I really don’t recommend them. It’s harder to build an online presence using those domains as people just aren’t as familiar. You can do non-ecommerce things just fine, but it’s not a great conversion route to go with.
Premium domains are good, but they’re not end all be all. If you’re doing commodities, it is better, but if you have very brandable products, then even something like AdamsGarage.com can work just fine. We all know Snap On for example but I have no idea what’s on AutoTools.com. If you go branding, then you need to have a strong marketing mission ahead of you to solidify your message.