5 Must Read Books Before Operating E-commerce Business

Hate your jobs and want to spend your precious time on more meaningful things and with your loved ones? Well, you're not alone, according to the study, more than 60% of people around the world don't like their jobs. 

The good news is there are already some books teaching us how to create our own business and build the lifestyle we desire. Among them, these five books are highly recommended and worth reading:

1. Click Millionaires

Scott Fox offers us tons of ideas about how we, too, can build a business and a life we love. It's a guide book on business develop­ment and financial free. In this book, he provides us the first-rate advice on how to monetise our interests online with an Internet lifestyle business of our own. 

2. The 4-Hour Work Week

Being the No.1 best seller on Amazon, with nearly 5000 reviews, this step-by-step guide to luxury lifestyle design teaches us: 

• How the author - Tim went from $40,000 per year and 80 hours per week to $40,000 per month and 4 hours per week;

• How to outsource our life to overseas virtual assistants for $5 per hour and do whatever you want;

• How blue-chip escape artists travel the world without quitting their jobs;

• How to eliminate 50% of your work in 48 hours using the principles of a forgotten Italian economist;

• How to trade a long-haul career for short work bursts and frequent “mini-retirements”.

3. DotCom Secrets

Once you complete any of the above two books, it's very likely that you want to set up your own website, selling or promoting your products / services online. In order to operate a successful e-commerce business, you need to make your website well known and make the potential customers to purchase your products. 

You need the efficient and effective strategies and market plans to attract traffic to your website. DotCom Secrets is the right book for you. In Russell Brunson's experience, after working with thousands of businesses, he has found that’s rarely the case. Low traffic and weak conversion numbers are just symptoms of a much greater problem, a problem that’s a little harder to see (that’s the bad news), but a lot easier to fix (that’s the good news). DotComSecrets will give you the marketing funnels and the sales scripts you need to be able to turn on a flood of new leads into your business.

4. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO): An Hour a Day

This book is the ultimate Do-It-Yourself guide to SEO! It offers expert advice, practical instructions, and smart tools to help you increase visibility for your website on Google and other major search engines. In this new edition of their bestselling guide, veteran search marketing consultants Jennifer Grappone and Gradiva Couzin give you the very latest SEO and social media strategies and tricks of the trade in a workable, day-by-day plan. Perfect for busy self-starters in organizations large and small, this book will quickly help you increase your visibility and presence on the web.

5. One Click: Jeff Bezos and the Rise of Amazon.com

After equipping yourself with all the basic & necessary knowledge and concepts from the above four books, you are now ready for operating your e-commerce business in reality. It would be better, if you have a closer insight about how Amazon operates its business successfully, learn from it and develop your own business plan. 

 

How To Find Your Niche?

1). Why A Niche Store?

Niche store is always much better than general store. If you operate a general store, you need to compete with sites like Wal-Mart, Amazon & Ebay, and it's very unlikely that you can get out without being badly hurt. 

The challenge is finding an area where the audience is underserved that interests you so much personally that you are inspired to build a business around it. Build the products / services around the audiences, meet their needs, solve their problems and serve them better. And a niche store is an efficient way of helping the potential customers. Why?

• There's less competition in niches, the more specific & narrow your niches are, the more quickly will you attract your potential customers.

• People who are interested and passionate about the niche, usually tend to know other people who share the same interests. If you serve them well, they will tell their friends, word-of-mouth marketing is extremely cost-effective.

• If you work on a niche that you like, you are learning and improving each day, you will enjoy the process and that's the lifestyle that most of us dream about. 

To find potentially profitable small business niches, it is usually necessary to dig four to five levels deep. 

2). How To Identify The Best Niche?

a). Start your niche business from one of the Four Ps: Passion, People, Problem & Products

• Passion: You can develop your business by serving people who have certain hobbies and are passionate about certain industry, issues, etc. People are always willing to spend thousands of dollars on things they truly enjoy and they are proud of that.

• People: Think about what type of people that you want to serve and you want to invest your time and efforts in. Who are the people that you would most like to help?

• Problem: Start from you own experience & your life. What problems do you encounter that you wish a better service could be provided? What will you do to make other people's life more convenient and easier?

• Products: If you already have products, information or services, you can develop the existing products / services further, to add more features, functions, to suit a wider audience or serve the customers better, etc.

b). Analyse the needs of the audiences.

Once you decide you will develop your business around what purpose, it's time to analyse the needs of the audiences. What are the problems and difficulties that people are encountering now? What are their needs and demands? 

c). Measure the market and calculate potential earnings.

Do sufficient researches about the current market needs, product costs, estimate the advertising fees, predict the potential sales amount. Before investing any real money, get the clear idea about what it costs and whether it worth your efforts and time or not.

d). Develop marketing strategies. 

Once you are confident that the selected niche has broad enough audiences and you are able to make decent profits out of it, plan carefully about how you are going to make your products / services be well-known to others. Which platform will you use for advertising? How much is your advertisement budget? What type of ads will you use? Think of the market strategies before getting the products ready to sale.

A broader audience with casual interest may not generate more profit than the smaller audience who is more interested and involved in the products / services. 

5 Effective Ways of Running Facebook Ads Campaign Like A Pro

1). Create Different Ads For Different Target Audiences.

People of different ages, genders have different needs, preferences and problems. For example, older people like blue, purple, and green, while younger people are more into yellow, red, and orange. For each potential customer type, create an ad accordingly. Men, women, teens & elders, what do they like? How are your products going to help them solve their problems?

Once figuring out their biggest pain point, create ads and let people know that your products will erase their pains off their life.  

Here's a post from AdEspresso, discussed in details about "How to Develop Buyer Personas for Facebook Ads".

2). Be Consistent. 

People click the ads because they like what is on the ads. Make sure that the click will lead them to your web page where same products and same wordings are displayed. You can introduce more about the products, with more images, description, etc. 

You can imagine how frustrated and disappointed a visitor will feel if they click an ad promoting iphone cases, but ends up seeing baby diapers on the web page, or they cannot find the promise of 50% off that is shown on the Facebook ads. 

Here's an ad of Blue Corona. The landing web page is consistent with its ad.

3). Choose The Right Placement.

Depends on your campaign objectives, you might want your ads be displayed on different channels. While creating ads campaign, Facebook will allow you to choose where you like your ads appear: 

• Facebook feeds (mobile and desktop)
• Facebook right-hand column
• Instagram
• Audience Network
• Instant Articles
• In-stream Video

Facebook Business provides some advices: 

• Brand awareness (including Reach & Frequency buying): Facebook and Instagram
• Engagement (including Reach & Frequency buying): Facebook and Instagram
• Video views (including Reach & Frequency buying): Facebook, Instagram and Audience Network
• App installs: Facebook, Instagram and Audience Network
• Traffic (for website clicks and app engagement): Facebook and Audience Network
• Product catalog sales: Facebook and Audience Network
• Conversions: Facebook and Audience Network

While for displaying ads on Facebook alone, you can choose to make ads appear on Desktop Newsfeed, Desktop Right Column or Mobile Newsfeed. 

Generally, Desktop Newsfeed is more powerful and great for engagement, but more expensive, compared with Desktop Right Column. Right Column performs better for targeting people who already know your products, for the ads image will be smaller and text will be less readable. While Mobile Newsfeed is a good place to win "likes" and brand your products, for more and more users tend to browse Facebook with their phones. However, most people will make orders with their desktop, for the images and necessary informations are displayed much clearer and bigger on desktops. And they want to make sure all the informations are correct before they place the orders.

4). Add Social Proofs / Customer Reviews.

Before people make the purchase decision, these questions will be hovering around their mind "Will this work? Will it solve my problems? What if I will be just wasting my money?" Testimonies or reviews from other customers who have purchased and used your products performs better in convincing potential customers that your products will solve their problems effectively, than you alone promise and guarantee that it's a great product.  

5). Connect With Customers' Emotions.

Emotions and feelings play a significant role in our decision making process. Create an ad that speaks to customers' emotions and feelings, trigger their eagerness of trying out your products or services and let them believe that your products will make their life better.

There is a thorough and profound discussion about "

16 (9 + 7) Secrets the Pros Use to Create Great Facebook Ad Designs", from AdEspresso.

Worth Watching Videos About Jack Ma - Founder of Alibaba & AliExpress

1). Story of Alibaba & Jack Ma - Full Documentary

We all know the success of Alibaba Group, China's largest ecommerce company. But few of us know its full growing stories. Here's a powerful documentary about the company's developing history. Be prepared to get inspired!

Video is provided by: Jack Ma

2). Davos 2017 - An Insight, An Idea with Jack Ma

Watch the video and listen to Jack Ma's view on the future of online trade and globalization.

Video is provided by: World Economic Forum

3). E-commerce in China and Around the World

Watch the video and listen to Jack Ma's view about how the ecommerce has been generating grassroots economic opportunities and changing lives in China and beyond, and what the future of e-commerce will be like.

Video is provided by: Credit Suisse

Does Dropshipping Have Future?

This question has been hovering in my mind for a really long time. If anyone knows that they can get the same products with really low price from AliExpress, why will they be willing to spend much more money and buy from an unknown store? Besides, AliExpress has been putting more efforts in the advertisement on global media and Jack Ma has been so famous and popular with his Alibaba and AliExpress empire. Where is dropshipping's future? 

I think the answer is "Yes", only if you can find a niche that you are able to add value. Dropshipping could be profitable, but it's not going to be easy. 

Before starting a dropshipping store, you have to think clearly about the marketing plan. How will you advertise the products, with videos, Facebook ads, Google Adwords, Blogging, etc? Millions of stores are out there selling the similar products, you have to compete with them and stand out. In order to achieve such goal, you need to: 

a). Know your customers well, identify the selling points of your products and convince the customers that they need them. You can't just set up an online store, upload products and then wait for the customers to visit your stores and give their credit cards to you. Money doesn't come that easily. 

b). Plan well on the selling price. Calculate how much margin you have and how much you can spend on advertising. If you lack of knowledge in this field, do necessary research and study first. You don't want to operate a money-loosing business, after all the time and money invested. 

Here is the advise given by Mr. Yaros, who successfully operates several online stores with dropshipping method. This is his formula for setting the selling price: 

• $0<Supplier Price<$2=Your Price: $7.95

• $2<Supplier Price<$5=Your Price: $9.95

• $5<Supplier Price<$30=Your Price: Supplier Price x 2

• $30<Supplier Price<$50=Your Price: Supplier Price x 1.75

• $50<Supplier Price<$100=Your Price: Supplier Price x 1.5

• Supplier Price>$100=Your Price: Supplier Price x 1.35

If you have made up your mind to grow your business with dropshipping, you have to give your best efforts, research deeply, plan well and work hard. 

"Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours." (Mark 11:24)

“When you really want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.” (The Alchemist)

General Store vs Niche Store

If you are thinking about diving into the dropshipping world, but wandering between a general store and a niche store, hope this article will help you in your decision making.  

Though there are many dropshipping gurus and specialists on Youtube and other channels teaching about the theory of opening a general store first, testing the products with it then setting up the niche store with the winning products. They may succeed with this method and it pays off their efforts very well. But honestly, after searching in depth among many forums, websites as well as my own experience, I will vote for working on the niche store directly. Here are a few reasons why niche store is the better choice: 

1). Easier to win customer's trust

After attracting potential customers to your site, all you want is having them buy your products, which relies greatly on how well do you convince the visitors that you are a specialist in the product filed they are looking for and your products worth their trust. However, can you imagine what the visitors will think when they browse your site for iphone cases but find the baby pacifiers on the hot-sale section? How likely will they buy the iphone cases? This could be why your ads bring you visitors, but no sales.

2). Easier to market and target the right audiences

We all know the old saying - "You can't please everyone." Same for the business, when you target for every customer, you will not have any customer. 

Most dropshippers will use Facebook ads for marketing their products and brand. And usually a fan page is required before creating the Facebook ads campaign. However, it would be really troublesome to advertise a general store that selling all kinds of products, since you have to create many different fan pages, in order to target and attract the specific customers. And the name of the fan pages may not be the same as the store name, which will confuse the visitors and not being effective in branding.

3). More efficient for blogging 

Blog is an efficient and effective way in supporting and branding the products. It's quite a popular strategy in providing value-added content with blogs for the potential customers and attract them to your site, then get them take out their credit cards. And such method works well with a niche store that sales products in a well-defined field. You can create an educational content, at the end of the post, you can introduce your products to the readers, and let them know that they can actually get it from your store...

4). More effective in increasing SEO ranking in search engine 

Most likely a niche store is named with the same keywords as its domain name, which increases the chances of the store being searched and exposed. Besides, the blogs content of a niche store are more likely to contain the keywords of the store title, which helps to add more links to the store. And the number of the links a page receives is an important factor for Google to determine the page ranking. 

Conclusion

To be a winner in the dropshipping world and be effective with your time and money, start with the niche store. Do necessary researches and home work first, be familiar with the niche industry that you plan to dive into. 

Right direction, comprehensive planning and hard working increase the chance of being successful.  

Value-Added Dropshipping

1. Why adding value is important?

Adding value is the most crucial factor for creating a successful ecommerce business, otherwise, your store will be just another "Me Too" store, selling the similar products with millions of other stores out there.  

People look for products because they run into problems and they have the needs of getting them solved. If your products can meet the needs, add value and help them, you are going to taste the sweetness of success.

2. What products are more suitable for adding value?

The successful ecommerce business owner knows that he/she is not just selling products, but providing guidance, knowledge, information, insights and solutions. If you can provide customers with professional advise or expert guidance within your niche, you will differentiate your store from other competitors. 

For some products, it will be much easier to add value, compared with other products. Basically, you will be looking for: 

a). Products that have many components: 

Which products need more support, a necklace or an entrance excess device? The more complicated and confusing a product is, the more likely people will search for solutions and answers, and that's where you can jump in and offer your value. You can provide detailed information about what the functions of these components are and how to assemble them together, etc. 

b). Products that are adjustable / customisable: 

If your products can be adjusted and customised, according to customers' specific condition or needs, it will be a great way of providing guidance and adding values.

c). Products require technical setup: 

The customer who purchased an entrance access device is very likely to be confused and feel frustrated by the complicated installation and setting up procedures. If you can provide a short & clear instruction video, presenting the setting up procedures in an easy-understanding manner, you are helping customers to a great extent. 

3. Ways to add value:

Educational content is the most widely used and popular strategy for adding value. You can: 

a). Create a comprehensive buyer's guides:

Explain to customers in details about what they need to watch out or check, in order to choose the right products;

b). Prepare a detailed product descriptions and listings:

Let customers have clear and thorough information about the products you are selling. 

c). Prepare installation & setting up guides: 

Create a short video with a clear presentation, guide the customers through the whole process of installation and setting up the products. Solve the nightmare for the customers.

d). Create a comprehensive users / maintenance manual: 

Explain clearly to the customers about the how the products work, what they should do to keep the products in good condition for a longer time, etc.

Conclusion

Adding value with quality information, guidance, educational content is the most effective and crucial way of creating a successful dropshipping business. Think hard about it and you will get the business rolling bigger and stronger.