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Jan 17 2022

Tips For Building Your E-Commerce Store


Here are my favorite tools for building a great e-commerce store:

1. Shopify has always been my preferred platform e-comm. This is because it has excellent functionality, a ton of flexibility in terms of how your store is laid out, and connects easily with thousands of apps and tools.

2. No matter how DIY a website builder claims to be, most people need at least some custom coding to get a professional-looking store. If you need affordable, task-based developers for your Shopify store try Hey Carson and Storetasker. And check out Fiverr if you are using another platform.

3. Images are everything! Find a solution like Soona that offers stylish product photography and videos at reasonable prices.

4. Clear, persuasive messaging is also key. I recommend reading the book Building A Storybrand by Donald Miller. The “storybrand” framework is helpful when crafting your messaging. We also have an e-commerce copywriting template here you can use for inspiration.

5. Packing and shipping your own orders is fine in the beginning. It should be outsourced ASAP as your business grows though! Shipmonk, Easyship, and Deliverr are all companies who offer order fulfillment, freeing up your time to focus on other things.

6. Automated email sequences will supercharge your store. Examples include a welcome sequence to educate new customers about your brand, an abandoned checkout flow to get people to complete their purchase, and review request emails to build social proof. Klaviyo is the best software for e-commerce entrepreneurs because of it’s focus on physical products.

I hope you find this list useful!

Liz

None of these companies have asked us to promote their products. While some pay an affiliate commission, all of these resources are suggestions we would share with clients regardless. We hope this list helps you grow your business!

Written by Liz Long · Categorized: Branding

May 30 2018

4 Ways To Build A Movement (Not Just A Brand)

This article originally appeared on our Forbes blog

A well-developed brand engenders feelings of affinity, belonging, and trust. It communicates a specific set of values–think quality, health, convenience, and more–so that a customer is ultimately motivated to make a purchase, preferably more than once! Many companies are great at this type of brand-building, but few take it a step further to focus on building a movement.

In simple terms, this means building a business that is capable of changing societal norms, beliefs or behaviors, while simultaneously selling products. By aligning with a movement and not just a brand identity, companies have the opportunity to inspire both purchasing and positive social change.

Mamava, a start-up that sells “nursing pods” for offices and public spaces, is an excellent example of a company building a movement on top of a brand. Their product line consists of pre-fabricated, freestanding spaces that allow women to pump or breastfeed while at work or on the go. You might find one of their colorful pods in a corporate office, a concert stadium, on a school campus, or at a trade show.

Mamava Nursing Pod in airport

While the product line provides much-needed comfort and privacy for moms (whose only option is often a cramped restroom stall!), the Mamava brand aims to be more than a practical solution to the challenge of nursing in public. Instead, their bigger goal is to “transform the culture of breastfeeding” and change collective attitudes (and policies) around the act itself. Through the growth of their business, Mamava wants to normalize breastfeeding and make the world more accommodating to nursing moms.

Here are four ways Mamava is successfully building a movement around their products, with takeaways that can be applied to any business:

Use Movement-Building Language

Mamava’s mission statement to change the culture of breastfeeding clearly communicates their vision for social change. This is not the only place the brand uses “movement-building language” however. When speaking about their inspiration for starting the company, founders Christine Dodson and Sascha Mayer regularly cite the sentiment that “nursing should be a right, not a privilege.” When you sign up for Mamava’s newsletter you’re invited to “Become a Lactivist.” Such verbiage, when used consistently across platforms, reminds customers that they are aligning with something greater than the company itself.  

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Written by Liz Long · Categorized: Branding, Manufacturing, Product Design · Tagged: Entreprenuership

Apr 22 2018

15 Partners & Platforms To Grow Your Product-Based Business

If you are manufacturing and selling physical products, you’ll need various partners and platforms to run your business.

Here are some of the most popular tools used by e-commerce entrepreneurs in the Learn To Make A Product community:

  1. Shopify– Get a super-professional, functional website – easy to manage on the backend – and that connects with a bunch of helpful shipping and promo apps!
  2. Fiverr – Fiverr is great for accomplishing low-cost, project-based work, such as simple graphic design projects, product photography, or keyword research for SEO.
  3. Pickfu – Want consumer feedback in minutes? Pickfu makes it easy to get feedback about your product, logo, packaging and more.
  4. Storetasker – Need help building and managing your Shopify store? Find affordable taskers who can assist you.
  5. Packlane – The most beautiful custom shipping boxes! Wow your customers with a branded delivery experience plus get $25 off your first order
  6. Creative Market – Beautiful, easy to use templates for pitch decks, social media graphics, landing pages and more
  7. Design Contest – Let graphic designers compete for your business! Host a design contest for logos, branding guides, product artwork and more.
  8. Aliexpress– Search for things like hang tags, hardware and other components from international suppliers. Lots of private label products too.
  9. Shipstation – Want to make money while you sleep? Use a site like Shipstation to handle all your fulfillment. Just ship finished product to their warehouse and they’ll do the rest.
  10. Shipmonk – Shipmonk is another great way to fulfill customer orders. Just send them your inventory and they’ll ship to your customers so you don’t have to.
  11. Incfile – Planning on trademarking your logo or product name? Incfile handles Trademark applications at a reasonable price.
  12. RocketLawyer  – Customize important legal docs like Non-Disclosure Agreements, Provisional Patent Applications, and a host of incorporation materials. You can also use their ‘Ask A Lawyer’ program to get affordable legal guidance.
  13. Quickbooks Online – It’s VERY important to track your expenses, even when you’re just starting out. Plus, if you’re an LLC, you’ll need to submit a P&L and Balance Sheet to your accountant when it’s time to do taxes. Quickbooks automatically connects to your bank account as well as selling platforms like Shopify and Paypal.
  14. Convertkit – Manage email marketing like a pro. When someone checks out with a product on your website, you can assign them a certain tag, and then trigger a series of automated emails (i.e suggest more products, collect feedback etc) over days, weeks or months.
  15. Build a StoryBrand – Clarify your brand message so that people buy your product. Enough said!
Please note: none of these companies have asked us to promote their products. While some pay a commission since we send a lot of people their way, all of these resources are things we would 100% share regardless. We hope this list helps you grow your business!

Written by Liz Long · Categorized: Branding, Manufacturing, Product Design, Quality Control, Shipping, Sourcing · Tagged: Account, Graphic Design, Intellectual Property, Legal Etc, Suggested Vendors

Oct 23 2017

Payal Singhal and The Desai Foundation Share 3 Steps For Making Products That ‘Give Back’

This article originally appeared on our Forbes blog

When leading Indian fashion designer Payal Singhal and New York-based nonprofit president Megha Desai connected at a Mumbai fashion event last year, a conversation around women’s empowerment spurred an idea: could they create beautifully designed products that would delight clients and improve the livelihoods of the women responsible for making them? The answer, it turns out, is yes.

Social entrepreneurship is a growing field that all business leaders can explore. Here we breakdown how Singhal and Desai combined forces to produce “bags for good” and how their success is giving socially-conscious product entrepreneurs (and entrepreneurial nonprofit leaders!) an inspiration to follow in the process.

Step 1: Start With A Great Idea

The Desai Foundation’s mission is to empower women and children in India and the US through various community initiatives, while the Payal Singhal brand is known for its fashion-forward dresses, sarees, and other special occasion attire. In preliminary discussions about their partnership, Singhal and Desai decided the foundation’s vocational sewing program would naturally be the focal point. Training sewers to produce produce certain Payal Singhal products would provide the women with skill-based work while adding a philanthropic component to the brand’s supply chain.

The final result is the PS x Desai Foundation collection, which includes lenghas, scarves, and tote and makeup bags in a stylish lotus print reminiscent of the nonprofit’s logo. The proceeds from the bags go directly to the Foundation (along with a portion of revenue from the rest of the line), and the sewers making them receive fair wage compensation, in fair working conditions, as well as flexible hours to meet the needs of village life.

Step 2: Build A Solid Team

To set up the supply chain, the pair traveled to one of the Desai Foundation’s sewing centers in Valsad, Gujarat with Monica Dogra, the face of the partnership. Once there, they hosted a communal event to introduce the sewers to the leadership team, brief them on the purpose and scope of the project, and explain the specific benefits they would receive by participating. “We wanted to ensure that they felt like they were a part of the process, so we had a great launch day which got the whole community excited,” said Desai.

To ensure technical expertise, the sewing team completed a 3-month preparatory program, during which an American seamstress was flown in to teach high-end cutting, sewing, and finishing techniques that would satisfy the brand’s international audience. While quality control on the products is of the utmost importance, the Desai Foundation is equally committed to ensuring a high quality of life for each worker. Maintaining open channels of communication with the women to ensure their financial, emotional and physical needs are being met is essential to their production process.

That said, the logistics of any production operation can present challenges. For example, shipping to and from the center, which is located in a rural village, can take a long time. Setting up a successful joint venture requires communicating about these potential pain points up front and ensuring both parties are on the same page. Doing so will help nurture a collaborative attitude towards challenges should they arise.

Step 3: Make It Sustainable

“Great partnerships happen when both parties have shared values and shared goals,” says Desai. The lasting power of such a partnership comes when those principles and aims are part of a self-sustaining system, which the PS x Desai collaboration executes perfectly.

By joining forces, Singhal has access to a transparent, ethical production solution (a challenge for many apparel brands) and can offer her clientele beautifully-crafted products while simultaneously making a philanthropic contribution.

The Desai Foundation’s mission is equally supported, as the union creates exactly the type of jobs women in their program need. And since the foundation receives a percentage of all PS X Desai Foundation sales, this built-in revenue stream sustains and grows the initiative.

This is social entrepreneurship at its best: a great idea, a sustainable business model, and clear benefits for all parties involved.

Written by admin · Categorized: Branding, Manufacturing, Product Design, Sourcing · Tagged: Entreprenuership, Overseas Suppliers

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