If you’re looking for great tips and insights into how to run your online store, look no further than the Ecommerce Podcast: a show dedicated to helping you deliver eCommerce WOW. New episodes are released every Thursday, and each episode features interviews with some of the biggest names in the eCommerce world. Whether you’re just starting out in eCommerce or you’re a seasoned veteran, you’re sure to learn something new from each episode. So what are you waiting for? Subscribe to the Ecommerce Podcast today!
Episodes
Thursday May 21, 2020
Thursday May 21, 2020
We like to believe that everyone gathers all the available information before they make a decision but the sad fact is that there is too much information out there.
What influences our decision making process? How do we persuade others to our way of thinking?
Meyrick D’Souza, Digital Marketing expert, has always been intrigued by what drives people's behaviour. In his research the best example that he could find was the book Influence: Science and Practice by Robert Cialdini. The book is based on Cialdini’s research of six important weapons or shortcuts that people use to influence their decisions and behaviour.
Meyrick D'Souza is a Digital Marketing professional with over 20 years of international experience helping organizations build customer-focused digital engagement. Has worked both agency and client-side. Experience ranges from Fortune 500 to start-ups. Skilled in helping organizations reimagine and transform their customer experience, by understanding the opportunities and challenges that new technologies can have. Strengths in strategic council & best practices to develop digital capabilities Passionate about what motivates human behaviour in digital spaces Experience includes working for blue-chip organizations such as Adobe, LenovO and BT. Recently returned to London after 21 years of working and living in Asia.
In this episode, Meyrick D’Souza introduces the six shortcuts and looks at how they apply to the world of eCommerce.
Connect with Meyrick:
Twitter @metric_dos
LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/meyrickdsouza/
Sponsors:
The eCommerce platform we use to run all our eCommerce businesses. If you are in the market for a new eCommerce platform, check it out. Their new monthly subscription service has made this even more accessible. Have a look at it, check out the demo.
Lightbulb
Light bulb agency is an end to end eCommerce business that anything that you don't really want to do or have the expertise to do with eCommerce. It offers a range of services such as research product, create website, marketing, generate traffic, customer service, picking and fulfilment. Lighbulb ship from the UK all over the world for a number of customers and you can try out their service with no problems.
Links to other platforms where this podcast is available:
Thursday May 14, 2020
Thursday May 14, 2020
Lorna Leaver is the Engagement Manager GS1 UK. Having a background in retail eCommerce and specialising in marketplaces, Lorna joined GS1’s engagement team to use her experience in trading online to help sellers and marketplaces come together using industry standards to improve buying experiences for customers. She previously ran the marketplace operations for global retailers such as Mothercare, Early Learning Centre, Boohoo.com and most recently the shoe retailer Dune London.
In this episode Lorna unpacks for us the topic of barcodes and gives clear insight into the importance of product identification for online businesses.
Top three takeaways:
Takeaway #1: Barcodes are critical for your online business.
Takeaway #2: Barcodes are like a passport number for the product - it tells you everything you need for product identification.
Takeaway #3: If you're planning to sell a product on Amazon first check the licence owner to make sure the barcode is licensed to the manufacturer of the product. To run this check you can use the GS1 database at:https://gepir.gs1.org/ (there is an app available for this too, search ‘igepir’.
For some fun, take this short informal quiz to test your knowledge of how to barcode and measure your products correctly: https://www.gs1uk.org/bossing-the-basics !
Connect with Lorna:
Email lorna.leaver@gs1uk.org
Twitter @lornabeams
LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/lornab/
You can also email GS1 at support@gs1uk.org or call freephone 0808 178 8799 or alternatively call 020 7092 3501.
Sponsors:
The eCommerce platform we use to run all our eCommerce businesses. If you are in the market for a new eCommerce platform, check it out. Their new monthly subscription service has made this even more accessible. Have a look at it, check out the demo.
Lightbulb
Light bulb agency is an end to end eCommerce business that anything that you don't really want to do or have the expertise to do with eCommerce. It offers a range of services such as research product, create website, marketing, generate traffic, customer service, picking and fulfilment. Lighbulb ship from the UK all over the world for a number of customers and you can try out their service with no problems.
Links to other platforms where this podcast is available:
Thursday May 07, 2020
Thursday May 07, 2020
A well planned strategy is critical to helping any startup successfully launch their venture and retain their competitive edge. A startup without a strategy will lack clear goals and direction to keep their business afloat.
We spoke to Heikki Haldre and extracted several golden nuggets on ways startups can strategize today for their success of tomorrow.
Heikki Haldre, Chairman, The Future of Retail Organisation Heikki is a founder of four companies, his latest - a FashionTech company Fits.me – was acquired by Rakuten, one of the world’s largest eCommerce players. Heikki mentors startups on strategy, how to build and finance their ideas to scale, and how to ensure they’ll become the commercial success stories. Currently Heikki is Chairman at The Future of Retail Organisation, founder of Find.Fashion, The Exit Academy and is named in the top 100 most influential names of the digital fashion world by Vogue’s “Online Fashion 100”.
If you’re wondering how to make your startup successful listen to this exchange and learn the three tops tips and much, much more.
Connect with Heikki on LinkedIn
For those companies that have already built something and are thinking of how to strategize and think a few years ahead or acquisitions and exit plan check out The Exit Academy.
Show Sponsors:
Link to Lightbulb Agency, coming soon.
Links to other platforms where this podcast is available:
Thursday Apr 30, 2020
Thursday Apr 30, 2020
Too often we become focused on new and trending data-driven marketing and forget the fundamental old school principles. Marketing isn’t an isolated discipline and it needs an holistic approach.
The Agile CMO, Chris Raven believes there is value in educating people in how to connect the dots for this kind of holistic perspective to their strategic marketing efforts. He uses a five stage process to help you grow your business.
Chris Raven works with clients and agencies to create cohesion from chaos, bring direction and focus to their business growth efforts, and ties together disparate functions to reduce friction.
Listen in and learn from Chris Raven's rich experience in marketing and eCommerce. You won't be disappointed!
Links
Thursday Apr 23, 2020
Thursday Apr 23, 2020
Many of us don't fully realise the rich benefit of SEO and SEO done right.
A large part of online traffic is driven by search engines and as smart as search engines are, they still need our help to access certain pieces of information. The faster we can provide the information they faster the search engines can do their job to get us seen on the world wide web.
To help us understand the basics of SEO, Alina Ghost joins us and talks about 3 specific pillars of SEO (search engine optimisation) for a good eCommerce website. These are technical SEO, content SEO and link building SEO.
Alina has a decade of Digital Marketing experience and has worked for the likes of Debenhams, Carpetright and Tesco. Currently, SEO Manager at Amara, a luxury interiors brand that is purely online, and Podcast founder and host of SEO with Mrs Ghost.
Listen in as Alina shares her SEO experience, wisdom and knowledge.
Links
Thursday Apr 23, 2020
Thursday Apr 23, 2020
In today's episode our guest, Ian Moyse, talks through the importance of personal branding and even throws some easy social media hacks for eCommerce entrepreneurs.
Ian Moyse is EMEA Sales Director for Natterbox. He was awarded the accolade of BESMA UK Sales Director of the year and in 2019 was listed in the top 50 Sales Keynote speakers by Top Sales World . He is widely published on matters of social influence, sales leadership, personal branding and cloud technologies.
Consumer habits have changed and now, more than ever before, your personal brand matters.
Social media has given us an inside view to what goes on behind the face of a business and it is creating a shift in consumers choosing small personal brands that are built around a product and the person behind the product.
Personal branding done right can help you stand out from the crowd and give you a platform from which you can inspire trust in your audience.
Creating (or recreating) a personal brand can feel daunting and the common fear is that social media will forever own you.
It won’t … as long as you are strategic about it.
Listen in and learn Ian Moyse's seven steps to your personal brand and and some easy social media hacks to drive your eCommerce business.
Links
Thursday Apr 09, 2020
Thursday Apr 09, 2020
Chloe Thomas’ latest book, How to get traffic that buys to your website, addresses the struggle people have with driving traffic that buys to their website.
Chloë Thomas is a globally recognised eCommerce marketing problem solver. Author of several bestselling books, keynote speaker, advisor, and host of the eCommerce MasterPlan Podcast. She helps her clients maximise their marketing performance.
Formula for eCommerce Success
The book, How to get traffic that buys to your website, is based on the formula: Traffic x average order value x conversion rate = sales
If you want to increase your sales, you have to improve your traffic, your average order value or your conversion rate. These are the only three ways you can do it.
Traffic is the most powerful of the three components because it affects both the AOV and the conversion rate. There is only so far you can push an average order value and conversion rate but there are endless ways in which you can push traffic. However, driving a lot of traffic is far from enough. It has to be driving the right traffic. The traffic that actually wants to buy.
Traffic Optimisation is the most important skill for eCommerce growth
Traffic optimisation is critical to ensure that the money and time you are spending on driving traffic to your website is traffic that is buying.
The process of optimisation is looking at each source from which your traffic is stemming from and constantly tweaking it to make it better. In essence you want to bring more traffic that buys for less cost to your business.
To be successful in eCommerce you have to, at the very least, understand optimisation as a skill set. If you’re making decisions on how money and time are spent in your business you need to understand the skill sets you will need in the people that you employ.
Three core marketing methods
1. SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)
People tend to ignore SEO because it is more of a slow burn and it can take months for results to show. Instead they focus on ads or emails that will bring immediate results.
There are three parts to SEO
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- Be relevant and get the right keywords in the right places on your website
- Be in the index by allowing google into your site so that it knows you exist
- Be important by constantly building links to your website
In essence, SEO is of value to your business if it is going to drive traffic that buys to your website.
For those who want to start doing SEO, the good news is that the SEO community is very good at sharing and updating each other. In doing so they offer a whole host of free information online. Here’s a few pointers to get you started:
Google search console is a must for anyone wanting to start doing SEO. This is where you submit your sitemap to be in the index. Consider it also your way of talking to Google about what’s happening on your website. Google search console gives you stats which can be integrated into your google analytics for more stats.
Moz.com are geniuses in the space of SEO. They have some really nice free tools that you can use to check things like domain authority, which is an estimation of how important Google thinks another website is.
SEM Rush has a suite of really useful tools that will check rankings.
2. Search Engine Advertising
Search engine advertising tends to deliver faster results than SEO.
Once you know your profit target (this usually comes down to your return on advertising spend (ROAS) or your cost per acquisition (CPA) the two main numbers for businesses to focus on are: money spent and money earned.
To get the most out of Google ads, whether you're doing Google shopping campaigns or you're doing keyword advertising, the more focused you can make your activity, the better it generally performs.
It’s best to start small and then use the data to build out.
3. Email marketing
Email marketing is a lot more work than it used to be. The days of batch and blast are largely over but to keep emailing marketing working for you, you need to find the right strategy.
Be clever with your data and look after your customers by sending them valuable information and quality messages.Use this as a way to build a relationship with the customers.
An email marketing strategy that takes into account what you’re trying to build and what messaging you want to use and who you want to send emails to will go a long way to growing your business. It's a lot more work than it used to be but the good thing is once you build those automations into your email marketing strategy then they deliver for you.
Evidently driving traffic that actually buys from your website is absolutely critical for the success of your business. If you are struggling with knowing how to drive traffic that buys to your website, listen to the podcast or pick up Chloe’s book.
Links
How to Get Traffic That Buys to Your Website
Friday Apr 03, 2020
Friday Apr 03, 2020
As much as we like to repeat the old saying, “don’t judge a book by its cover”, we all know that first impressions really do matter. Within seconds we make snap judgements which influence our perception of what is or isn’t credible.
Websites are no different.
Simon Driscoll is the owner and formulator at UXB a natural skincare company that specialises in cleansers and exfoliants. UXB was founded in 2018 and sells directly to consumers at uxbskincare.com.
Simon began his skincare products journey after a eureka moment in a Turkish bath in 2016. Developing and formulating products very quickly became a hobby and passion for Simon. After a couple of years of selling products at fairs and markets he has decided to really push his website and requested Matt’s expertise.
Simon is very knowledgeable and passionate about the distinct skincare products that he formulates and sells. However, Simon’s biggest problem is traffic but no conversion.
While reviewing UXBskincare.com Matt highlights 12 ways to improve a website to increase conversion.
Simon's takeaways in his own words:
"1. The site just looks like a bland L'Oreal site with pictures that have been nicked off of Unsplash.
2.There is no personality to it and nothing to convince person who knows nothing about me as to why they should buy my product.
3. It's doing a woeful job at sales.
4. The only bit of leverage that I have is the fact that I know the product and I know how good it is.
5. I need to put a bit more personality into this brand and make it a bit different, and make it stand for something.”
Links
Friday Mar 20, 2020
Friday Mar 20, 2020
Season 2 of The Kuriosity Podcast is almost here!
But before we officially kick it in an upcoming episode, let’s address the one thing that is on everyone's mind: coronavirus.
In the wake of coronavirus, we have all found ourselves on the war-path in one way or another. But instead of reacting to all that threatens to derail our businesses, now is the time to consider how we can re frame our businesses and be proactive in these unprecedented times.
Join Matt Edmundson as he reiterates Bill Gates’ five key steps to preparedness that society needs to put into place in order to be proactive in these uncertain times. Learn how Matt has put these steps into practice with his own businesses in order to protect them now and in the future.
Wednesday Nov 20, 2019
Wednesday Nov 20, 2019
Welcome my fellow eCommerce Entrepreneurs! My name is Matt Edmundson and this show is for those of us Kurious About eCommerce and who want to know how to get better at digital business.
- The least busy medium at the moment
- Popular medium because they grant easy access to listeners wherever they are - driving, working out, walking, doing chores, the list goes on.
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Being voice only means that the barriers to entry are much lower - especially if you don't like to be in front of a video camera
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Podcasting valuable content around the topic of your website will connect you to a wider audience and help drive traffic to your online store.
- Content creation becomes a whole lot easier. From a single podcast, you can aid your marketing efforts by creating a blog post and social media posts for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Linkedin etc. It's a great way to get exposure and to educate potential customers.
- Batch process a few episodes at a time to stay on top
- Break up the podcast with additional voices
- Give your best content and be transparent. The more real you are with your audience and the more value you bring the more likely the are to engage.
- Have fun with it! Being the energy and engage your audience.
- Vary the speed in which you talk and the amount of pauses. Even though when you are recording you will be talking to wall, make your podcast feel like a conversation.
What is coming in Season 2
We will be aiming to have a guest in each episode so that we can offer expert content and more helpful interviews. We are reaching out to people now and fully trust that this format will be far more fascinating.
Secondly, every time we record a podcast we will broadcast the interview on FB live. This will be far more interactive and interesting as listeners will be able to engage with comments and ask direct questions to the guest. The podcast will be recorded and uploaded onto the various social media platforms.
Connect with Matt Edmundson on Facebook and lookout for the events we create around each podcast.
Thanks for journeying with us so far. We appreciate you and love to hear your feed, reviews, questions and ideas so keep them coming. If you haven't already done so, please give us a review wherever it is that you listen in as this helps us connect with new folks.
Finally, if you want to be a guest on the show please head on over the to the Matt Edmundson website and apply to be a guest.