15 Lessons That Made Millions

Over my 18 years in eCommerce, I had to learn how to be profitable the hard way. Whether you’re new to the industry or running a business, there are many potential risks and challenges you’ll face down the road. With my accumulated experiences and knowledge, my goal is to help you eliminate those risks for an easier eCommerce journey.

Since 2007, I’ve built numerous stores myself and helped build many. So, I’ll share 15 high-level and game-changing points to help you build and run a profitable business. From deciding what product to sell to eliminating risks, learn how to save your time, money, and effort.

Focus on selling expensive items with an average order value (AOV) of $1000 or more. High-ticket eCommerce might sound risky, but based on experience, it’s easier to run a profitable business with expensive products. For every sale you make, you’ll be getting more real money and profit, which you can then invest more into your business—like running ads to get more sales.

Tracking is everything in eCommerce—apply this to your business ASAP. Track your website visitors: find out who’s turning into sales and identify what’s making them customers. Even if you’re getting traffic from different sources, what really matters is which of these sources is bringing in actual customers.

Accurate data will help you identify which marketing efforts are working and making you money. You’ll know where to invest more money. It can be Google Ads or content optimization for ranking and appearing in search engines (SEO), and the only way to know is by tracking. You don’t need expensive tools for this—Google Analytics 4 with Shopify integration is enough.

This doesn’t mean outsourcing from day one. Always do everything yourself at the beginning. Outsource once it gets painful for you. For example, I started outsourcing when I couldn’t stay on top of my customer service on my own.

When I finally hired somebody, customers were actually happier—faster replies and better service. Outsourcing will also give you more time to invest in things that actually matter, like tracking and lead value optimization.

Whether you’re new or already in eCommerce, you should learn sales. But don’t sign up for sales courses online. Instead, buy books on sales and buyer psychology and learn new things to enhance your copywriting and funnel strategies. For example, you can learn what psychological triggers turn people into customers. Understanding buyer behavior will help you make customers buy more from your store.

In Drop Ship Lifestyle, we call this lead value optimization (LVO). Ask yourself this: What else would my customers want with the product they’re buying? This will help you identify what complimentary things you can sell to them. It can be add-on products, an affiliate, expedited shipping, and even extended warranties.

For example, if you’re selling high-ticket drum sets, you can add an option to buy low-ticket drumsticks on the checkout page as an add-on. There’s a high chance that they’ll buy them together. This way, you’re making more money without having to advertise the low-ticket product.

You can also affiliate with other businesses. Again, if you’re selling drum sets, you can offer your customers, especially drumming beginners, an online drum course. This way, you’re making a sale and earning a commission at the same time.

Do this early: form an LLC and elect to have it taxed as an S corporation. This will separate you and your business from each other for liability and tax purposes. It will keep your business expenses separate from your personal expenses.

If you do this the right way, you’ll save money and pay less compared to if you’re running your business as a sole proprietor. It will also be advantageous if you decide to sell your business in the future—it makes the whole selling process easier.

Perform periodic reviews of your costs and identify areas where you can cut back. This can include shipping, the cost of goods, operating expenses, etc. The small dollar amount that you will save will definitely compound over time, resulting in massive savings. This has helped you acquire thousands and even millions of dollars in savings.

Block out a time, between three and seven days, to run a promotion. This can be for a bonus gift, a percent off, or free expedited shipping. Plan these out and block out the times on your calendar. Then, write copies that you will use for the promotions and schedule them out. This will give your email list, your customers, and even social media followers constant reasons to come to your store and buy.

Your competitors’ weaknesses are your strengths. To become better in your niche market, identify the weaknesses of all your competitors and turn them into your store’s strengths. Look side by side, analyze their stores, and determine the possible reasons buyers would choose them over yours.

Better pricing? Do they offer bonus gifts? Do they indicate how long the delivery will take? If not, you can take advantage of those and do it in your store. At the same time, if their support options aren’t shown off on their pages, make sure yours are present. This strategy will make you a clear option for customers.

Ensure that you’re consistently asking the majority of your customers, who had good experiences, for reviews. These reviews are going to help you increase your conversion rate and make you stand out as an authority in your niche. Ensure that you’re giving them a reason to leave reviews.:

Set extremely specific goals and focus on one thing. It can be turning your 10x return on ad spend into a 15x return on ad spend. I recommend setting a North Star goal, which is your main goal, and doing it for each quarter. Then, list down all the things you would do to achieve each specific goal. 

For example, your goal is to improve your return on ad spend. Lay out tasks you want to try, like consulting an outside ad agency to review all the ads you have. Another sample task is experimenting with different types of ads for keywords that you’re already converting.

A change log is a list of every change you’ve made that could affect outcomes. Track the date you made the change, what you did, some notes on your expected results, and lastly, track how it actually affected things. This helps you keep track of the decisions you make and measure their impacts, whether good or bad. This way, if things don’t go as expected, it will be easier to go back and revert the change.

You want to have very segmented, small remarketing campaigns that show up for your most recent and frequent website visitors. Recent visitors are more likely to convert into customers, so prioritize those who visited within the past 24-48 hours.

Start with 24-hour remarketing, then 48-remarketing excluding the 24-hour, then a 5-day one excluding the previous ones, and so on. The more recent and frequent you can get people into your remarketing audience, the higher the return on ad spend.

When you run a business, communication is everything. Don’t leave your suppliers and customers in the dark. Always over-communicate with everyone to keep them updated. This will also help you keep them happy and your business thriving.

One way to eliminate risks in eCommerce is by not putting all your eggs in one basket. This applies to the products you sell and the suppliers you sell for. In DSL, we try to partner with multiple suppliers and try to sell for every quality brand in our niche. This way, you’re not reliant on just one company. It diversifies your risks in case some issues arise with one supplier—you’ll still be making money.

These proven strategies are designed to improve how you build, manage, and run your eCommerce. Whether you’re new to the industry or a seasoned entrepreneur, these tips will help you optimize your overall profitability and success. From selling the right products from different suppliers to tracking everything and up to remarketing, use them to build new, enhanced systems for a successful business.

For a deeper dive into my proven strategies, visit Drop Ship Lifestyle or check out my free training. If you have any questions or found value in this article, leave a comment below.