How to Make Money With an Ecommerce Store With Gretta van Riel



(upbeat contemporary music)Hi guys, Gretta here.So a common question that
I get asked again and againis how do you make money selling
physical products online?From my experience building
four e-commerce storesand making over eight figuresselling physical products online,I've put together a frameworkthat works extremely effectively.Now I worked with Foundr
to turn that frameworkinto a course called Start
& Scale Your Online Storethat thousands of entrepreneurs have takenand achieved some incredible resultsbut I'll chat to you
more about that later.So now I'm gonna take you
through some of the stepsto get you on the way to making moneyselling physical products
online with an e-commerce storewhich I've taken directly out
of the Start & Scale course.So step one is to find a trending productand a point of difference.Step two is to look at the
viability and validate your idea.Step three is to manufacture
your product locallyto begin with, then move globally.Step four is to create
your store using Shopify.Step five is to build an audiencebefore you launch your store,and step six is to launch and scale.Okay, so let's dive deeper
into each of those steps now.So step one is to find a trending product.There are a few different
ways you can go about this.Some really good places to
start to do your researchare websites like Trend Hunterwhich you can search in niches
that you're interested inand read about innovative products.Another option is looking
at websites like Kickstarterand which products and ideasare receiving a lot of financial backing.This also helps to validate your idea.The next thing that we want to doafter we decide on our niche and productis to make it different.So while you don't need to come up withsome crazy new patented
idea or reinvent the wheel,you can make your product
different or betterby changing a dimension
of an existing productto find your unique value proposition.The things that you want to look at hereare the product's design,
functionality, price,and time it sold for.So let's take a mobile
phone case for example.To change the design we
might wanna use the trendof customization or personalizationwhere you can add your
initials to the caselike the brand The Daily
Edited in Australiawhich is worth around $30,000,000.To change the functionalityyou might wanna add a handlethat you can slip your fingers throughlike the brand LoveHandle has.This helps with people who
often drop their phone,especially while using it
one-handed for a selfie.So when adding a functionalityyou should be trying to
solve an existing pain pointof the product.When it comes to pricing
you want to considerwhether you're going for that
direct-to-consumer price pointwith products starting at
under $100 like Warby Parkeror luxury pricing for higher exclusivity.And then moving onto time,the amount of time your
product is available.Some companies have done this
through limited edition modelslike Yeezy's or a flash
sale model like Gilt.So that's how to come up with
your unique value proposition.Step two is to look at the
viability of your productto be sold online and shipped worldwideand to validate your idea.So when looking at the viabilityof your product for e-commercewe wanna make sure that
your product is light,cheap to produce, and
high in perceived valueso that you can have a good profit margin.This means that your productwill also be financially viable.So you wanna consider these factorsbefore beginning to
manufacture your product.The next thing that you want
to do is validate your idea.There are a few different
ways you can do thisbut I'd just get out there
and start talking to peopleand surveying them, not
just your friends and familybut your actual target audience.To find your target audienceyou can create what's
called a customer personawhich you can Google
to find out more about.So now that we've got our
product idea and validated itwe can move on to step three
which is manufacturing.What I recommend hereis to create a prototype
of your product locallyto begin with and even run
your first order or twowith your local manufacturerand then decide to move globally.The reason to create a prototype
of your product locallybefore going overseasis that overseas manufacturers
in China for exampleare often great at copying a productbut not as great at
creating one from scratch.This could be because there's
a lot of back and forthand there might be a language barrier.Plus they'll usually requiremuch higher minimum
order quantities or MOQsand there's always the risk
of working with somebodyyou've never met before
from another country,and I've learned this the hard waywith my brand SkinnyMe Tea.We placed an order with
a Chinese manufacturerfor 1.3 million dollars' worth of teaand when it turned up
it was basically compostwith metal bolts in it
and all kinds of bacteria.It cost another $14,000
just to throw it outand it cost an additional $80,000when it had been held up in customs.It's hard because I thought
I'd done everything right.I'd placed smaller initial
orders with the manufacturerand even met with him
multiple times in personbefore placing the orderas I was living in Hong Kong at the time.So this is a strong lessonon why to manufacturer locally firstand then only when you're
confident you can go overseasand make sure that your
manufacturer comes well recommended.Step four is creating your online storeand this is gonna be an easier oneas I create all of my
online stores with Shopify.With Shopify you can pick a themethen basically create
your entire store yourselfif you want to.You don't need any technical knowledge,just a computer and an
internet connection.They have a big app store
where you can choose appsto add to your storefor things like a abandoned cart recoveryor specialised popups.I'm a huge fan of Shopifyand we even won their Build a
Business competition in 2013for SkinnyMe Teaand have collaborated with
them again more recently.I know the team well.They're worth billions of dollars nowand they're the best
solution on the market.Step five is to build an audiencebefore you launch your storeand my concept of market product fitas opposed to product market fit.This concepts highlights the importanceof building an audience or a marketbefore you launch your productrather than the other way around.So building an audience
before you launch your productis a great place to startand where I started for all of my brandshas been on Instagram.Instagram is still a very
powerful marketing platformwhere you can build an audience for freeor with a very minimal budget.Over the last six yearsI've grown my combined Instagram followingto over 16 million followers
across 25 different accountsincluding Vines with
5.7 million followers.Foundr actually runs the best
Instagram course on the marketthat teaches you step-by-stephow to grow your Instagram followingcalled Instagram Domination.So if you'd like to
find out more about thatI'll put the link in
the description as well.Okay, now we're at step six,
which is to launch and scale.Before you launch you wanna
build an email wait listto email out to when you're launching.What you can do is create a landing pageand incentivize your
social media followersto sign up for early bird discountsor first access to your brand.What you want to dois build as much hype
and demand as possiblebefore you launch your store.Once your store is live you
want to start scaling it.The two ways that you can
get more sales in your storeis sell more to your existing customersor find new customers.So I'm gonna cover a couple
of techniques for each.So if you want to sell more
to your existing customersyou want to look at ways
of increasing your AOVor average order value with
techniques like up sellingand cross sellingand focus on things like
abandoned cart recovery.To scale your store by
acquiring new customersyou wanna focus on things like
social media marketing again,influencer marketing using a toollike my influencer marketing
platform Hey Influencers,growing your email marketing
list, paid advertising,content marketing, the list goes on.So that's it guys.I've covered quickly step-by-stepthrough how you can make moneyselling physical products online.If you wanna be guided through
my exact repeatable frameworkthat I've used to start and scalemy multiple e-commerce
brands again and againyou wanna check out my course with Foundrcalled Start & Scale Your E-Commerce Storewhich you can find out more aboutin the link in the description.So thanks for watching guysand if you want more content
from myself and the Foundr teambe sure to hit subscribe below.(upbeat contemporary music)- [Presenter] The Foundr
mission is to help you createan ass-kicking business and help you learnstraight from the mouths
of world class founders.Get your free printed
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handling at foundr.com/branson.

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