Vino Cards has been on Amazon for about 3 months now, and today we’ll show you how it’s doing and other plans in the future on how to grow it.

We’ve made some big mistakes in the last few months, and the last month or two, the sales have dropped down. These last two months have been a bit of a struggle for Ariana and it’s been hard for her to find the motivation to start working hard on the product, especially after the holidays. Also at the beginning of the year with a lot of things coming up plus working full time, it’s been really tough coming home and spending that extra time working on Vino Cards

Why sales have been down for the last 2 months?

Ariana admits not putting much effort into it as the reason. If she spent a lot more time trying to reach out to people and get influencers to really hype it up, it would’ve brought the sales up and awareness of the product.

The fact that sales were down, how did that feel? Did that scare you?

Ariana has anticipated the sales going down a little more after the holidays because we know, Christmas is a peak season. In fact, Vino Cards did really great during Christmas because a lot of people are looking for a unique product to give as a present, and this product is perfect for that.
And after the holidays, it did make it seem it would be a lot more work this time.

Plans for the coming months to grow the sales:

Directly communicating with people and see what they want from the product and keeping them engaged. Interaction meant a lot in the FB launch group, and if we continue that on Instagram, that will help spread the (more…)

In this video, I will share with you three different things that I’ve learned during my first year of selling on Amazon.

My Actual Numbers
I sold 13,739 units of my product last year. With that, I made $365,082.65 in revenue in Amazon alone. Minus the different expenses, it made $120,920.22 in profit which is absolutely amazing. In Shopify, I made $16,918.39 in revenue.

One quick tip: when you are launching any product on Amazon, create a Product Launch Group. This is a Facebook group where you get a bunch of friends and other people who are interested in buying your product before you launch it. When you launch it, you tell everyone in the group and you’ll have tons of sales and reviews right away.

How I Did It?
When I quit my corporate job six years ago, I went into selling dance clothes with my mom. However, it was really draining as it was something I know nothing about. At that moment, I realized that I want to sell something that I’m passionate about. That’s where I came up with the idea of this Passion Product.

For me, I have always been interested in eating healthy and athletic performance. I noticed that there was a trend in eating more healthy fat and with myself, I am eating more nut butter. I tried different types of nut butter but I realized that there was no high-end, premium nut butter that was targeted to the athletic community. That led me to the idea of creating my own product. It’s a macadamia, cashew, coconut blend of nut butter. I then started getting people into a Facebook group and all of them helped me create a better product.

The Big Mistake
There are three mistakes that I made for the past year and all of them stemmed down from one (more…)

In this video, I will be sharing with you the different steps on how to create your own unique product that you can sell on Amazon that you are actually passionate about. I call this the Passion Product Formula.

There are seven steps in the Passion Product Formula:

1. Idea
The first step is coming up with an idea for a passion product. Every successful entrepreneur found a problem and created something to solve that problem. In other words, they scratch their own itch. What do you wish existed in the world and how do you make something better? If you do not have an idea yet, you can start writing down one idea a day. Start looking at everything you interact with and ask yourself how it could be better. You want to create something new and unique and it can be as simple as taking an existing product and making it better.

2. Brand
This is different from private label. Most private labels are just doing something generic. For Passion Product, you need to dive deeper on who your target customers are and you brand it perfectly for them. You need to niche down and be specific on who you want to brand your product for.

3. Launch Group
This is the most useful thing I’ve ever done. A product launch group is where you get potential customers into a Facebook group or other type of community. From there, you start asking their opinion. You can show them your logo or packaging and you can ask for feedback. When you finally go to launch your product on Amazon, the people in your launch group will be the first ones to buy your product and leave reviews. You can grow a product launch group through Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Podcast or Blogs.

4. Build a Business
In this step, you (more…)

In this video, I will be showing you how to create a Product Launch Group. It is the secret to properly launching a product on Amazon and how I was able to get 75 reviews and $15,000 in revenue during my first month with my first product on Amazon.

What is a Product Launch Group?
It is basically where you get a group of people that are potential customers into a Facebook group. You have them help you develop the product and when you launch it, they are going to be the first in line to buy it and leave reviews. This shows Amazon that you have a really good product and it will create a spike in sales that will lead to more sales.

Below are a few reasons why a Product Launch Group works:
Help you develop a product – As you’re creating your unique product, you are already getting a bunch of people together that would buy your product. You are getting new feedback on everything. They could tell you which logo or packaging is the best and other things that will help improve your product.
Spread the word – To create a launch group, you just need a way to get people’s emails, get their information, and ultimately, get them into the Facebook group. You can do this through a blog, Facebook, YouTube, or any other way that you can figure out to give people value and get their emails. My personal favorite way of doing this is Instagram.
Create a tribe – You can do this in a Facebook group or any form where everyone has an equal say. Ultimately, what you are trying to do is create a tribe of people that love your product. The benefit of a Facebook group is when you post something on a launch group, everybody (more…)

In today’s episode, Matt Loberstein and I will be interviewing Samer Brax about the world of ManyChat. It’s basically an automated messenger bot of your brand that will be talking with customers. Samer is a ManyChat wizard in the Amazon and E-commerce space and he will share with us the different things that are involved in it.

Some of the things that Samer covers in this video is how to use ManyChat for Amazon, including how to do it for pre-sale and after-sale. He also talks about how he used ManyChat for launching his product and how it helped grow his Facebook group.

Pre-sale – You can use to run ads, to try to get customers to buy. Samer used this when he was about to launch his product. He ran an ad for a contest where the only way to know the winner was to go to his ManyChat account. The winner was then directed to his Facebook group. Through this, he was able to grow his ManyChat list as well as his Facebook group.

After-sale – You give them more added value. He does it through a Thank You card that the customers could find inside the box. It could say “Do you like to get a video guide on how to use this product?,” “Do like 30% off?” or any other things that you could give that they would be interested in. They scan the card and get a message that says “Click below to get the videos” and you can direct them to a landing page.

Samer also delves into the specific things that need to be done to create and work a ManyChat account, what are its advantages, and how to effectively use it to drive more sales and traffic to your brand.

FULL Passion Product Amazon FBA Course Wait List:
https://www.effectiveecommerce.com/ppf/

Get Your Free Online Store Success Pack Here: https://www.effectiveecommerce.com/ESS…

It’s been a month since Ariana launched her passion product, Vino Cards, on Amazon and we will share with you the real results. While it did well, it wasn’t as much as we expected it to be. In this video, we will go over three things that we’ve done to launch Vino Cards and the mistakes we realized we’ve made along the way.

How to Launch a Product?
Ariana wanted to create passive income for herself. Apart from her full-time job, she wanted to pursue something a little more fun. A lot of people teach Private Labeling on Amazon and what I do is something similar to that. I call it creating a Passion Product. Private Labeling is taking an already existing product and slapping your own label on it. Passion Product, on the other hand, is creating something unique, different, and does not exist. It is something that you’re excited about. It’s something that is new and is missing from someone’s life and you want to create that.

One of the benefits of doing a Passion Product is you can do a Kickstarter. It’s a great platform where you can share your idea, even a prototype of it, to raise money for the actual product. In Ariana’s case, she set a goal of $5,000, which she hit, and used the money for the first production run of Vino Cards.

Another part of this is creating a product launch group. The product launch group will support you on Kickstarter. They will also be the first ones in line to buy your product and they will leave reviews on Amazon.

Actual Numbers
In the first month, Ariana sold 147 units. This is pretty good, but we expected it to be more. It (more…)

In this video, I will be showing you the different things you need to do to set up your Woocommerce store.

 

Below are the six steps that you will go through in setting up Woocommerce:

 

1. Buy the Domain Name

You can go to GoDaddy or Namecheap to get your domain name. For your domain name, remember to keep it short, easy to spell and easy to remember. It’s also a plus if your domain name includes keywords. A keyword is something that a user enters into Google to find your company.

 

1. Choose a Host

Once you have purchased your domain name, you need to choose a company that is going to host your website. Although Woocommerce is free, it is not free to host a website. You need to host it yourself or pay someone to host it. I personally prefer Siteground. It is one of the three companies that WordPress themselves recommend to be used for hosting WordPress. It is also cheap and offers SSL Certificate.

 

1. Install WordPress

This is the easiest thing to do. You can install it with just one click. It used to be very difficult but sites like Siteground have made it easier.

 

1. Install Woocommerce

Once you’ve installed WordPress, you need to go into the backend and install Woocommerce. It is free and very easy to do.

 

1. Set Up a Payment Provider

The next step is to find a payment processor. This is a system is going to process all your payments. You can use PayPal and Stripe.

 

1. Create Your First Product

Once you’ve set up the payment processor, it is time to add you first product. You only need to add the product title, description, images and price. Make sure that you also design your site so it looks good.

 

In this video, I will discuss the different steps on how to start a Shopify store. Below are the things that you will have to do:
1.Get a Domain Name
2.Sign Up to Shopify
3.Set Up Your Store
4.Set Up the Legal Things
5.Drive Traffic

Get a Domain Name
This is the first step to starting your Shopify store. Here are some keys to a good domain name: Short, Easy to Spell, and Easy to Remember. It’s a huge bonus if it includes a keyword to the product you are going to sell. You can buy your domain name from sites like GoDaddy and Namecheap.

Sign Up to Shopify
You can use this link (www.effectiveecommerce.com/shopify) to sign up to Shopify: When you do, you get a free 14-day trial and a one-on-one consultation with me.

Set Up Your Store
Setting up your Shopify store is easy. Below are the things you have to take note for this step:
1. Add Product
2. Make it pretty
3.Properly SEOd

Set Up the Legal Things
One of the things that people get pressured with is how to properly set up their business in a legal structure. Here are the steps you need to do:
1.EIN – Get an EIN number. It’s free if you are in the US.
2.Sellers Permit – Get some tax information from your local state. Apply for a sellers permit so you can pay your local state sales tax
3.Set Up LLC or DBA – This is your business structure. You can choose from a DBA or LLC. DBA is a lot cheaper to do but it does not offer much protection. LLC is more expensive than DBA. The price depends though on which state you are in. Personally, I go to LegalZoom for both of these and DBA costs about $100 while LLC costs about $300 plus your state’s local fees. The benefit of LLC is that people (more…)

 

This video will be about setting up WordPress in 5 minutes. I will take you through the different steps below:

 

1. Buy Hosting

The first step that you need to do is to look for a site that is going to host a WordPress website. I would personally go with SiteGround.

 

Go to www.effectiveecommerce.com/siteground, find WordPress Hosting and click Get Started. Choose from the different plans that would suit you. The StartUp plan is good if you only have one website while GrowBig and GoGeek are great if you have multiple websites. You can also upgrade your plan later on.

2. Buy Domain Name

After choosing your plan, you need to buy your domain name. You can use SiteGround or you can use other sites like Namecheap or GoDaddy. If you use another site to buy your domain name, enter the website in that you want to have the WordPress hosting on and click proceed. After this, you need to enter your account information. For the period, you can choose how long you want to lock-in the site.

3. Transfer Domain Name

After paying, you will be directed to another page. Go to My Accounts and click Launch Setup Wizard. Type in the domain name and click continue. Select Start a new website and click WordPress.

 

Once done, go to My Account and copy the Account DNS. Go to where you bought your domain name and log-in. In my case, I used Namecheap. Find the domain name that you will use and click Manage. Go to Nameservers and choose Custom DNS. Paste in the Account DNS from SiteGround.

4. Install WordPress

Go to My Accounts and click Go to cPanel. Scroll down to the WordPress installer. Click Install. Type in your Domain Name, Admin Name, and Admin Password. You can also tick those other options that apply. After that, click Install.

5. (more…)

This video will show you my trip to the Philippines to meet my virtual assistant. I will also show you how to hire and work with a virtual assistant. Plus, my virtual assistant, Dan, will also be sharing some tips and insights.

Here are some questions that I will be tackling about in this video:
Where to find a VA?
Why hire from the Philippines?
What task should you give a VA?

Where to find a VA?
I found my VA in Onlinejobs.ph. It is the system that I used in hiring my virtual assistants. You can check my detailed video about this.

Why hire from the Philippines?
Filipinos speak really good English and they have a good work ethic. It’s also just about $3/hour to hire someone from the Philippines. While it may sound cheap for others, Dan shares that this kind of rate is already a big thing in the Philippines.

What task should you give a VA?
Most of the tasks I give my VAs are those repetitive ones. I just write it down or do a screen recording of how I do it. From there, I then let my VAs do it. Over time, as you get comfortable with your VAs and you are able to find someone you can trust, you can give them bigger tasks.

Some of the tasks that Dan does are the following:
Invoice Checking – This was the first task he received which was for my first company, BDancewear.
Video Editing – At the start, Dan had no idea on how to edit videos. While I provided a tutorial at the beginning, he eventually learned to teach himself.
Bookkeeping
Collecting Emails
Hiring Other VAs – For Dan, one of the things to watch out for in hiring VAs is the way they answer the question. If they are uncertain with their answers, that will already raise a red (more…)