195: Ensuring Profitability on Shopify and Amazon

Tyler Jefcoat is the founder of Seller Accountant, which helps Amazon sellers achieve maximum profitability through bookkeeping and CFO services. He has been behind 9 figures in Amazon sales and 9 figures in exits, and that’s after he founded a company himself that grew to 120 employees before being acquired. Today, Tyler is going to share valuable knowledge for inventors, startups, and small manufacturers on what direct-to-consumer selling online is, the pros and cons of Shopify vs Amazon and eBay, and the keys to success when scaling sales through direct-to-consumer selling online. 

Here are the key takeaways from the episode:

• What is Direct to Consumer selling?
• Funneling your customers from various platforms
• Marketplace strategy to get customers to your shopping cart
• Shopify vs Amazon/Ebay
• Well designed, differentiated product sells very well on Shopify
• A direct connection to many customers that have a number of problem solved.
• Have your own website and drive Shopify to your website
• Tips to Amazon profit
• Staple products typically are better suited to Amazon
• Product design strategy to ensure success of product sales
• Which community is important for a customer buying something online.
• It’s okay to be the type of product that fits your brand
• Amazon fees are high, they take a lot of fees for each sale.
• Amazon logistics (pick, pack, delivery), also have fees
• Marketing on Amazon also has fees.
• COGS is the leading indicator to how well you can market your product
• The more margin, the more freedom you have to build an audience through advertising.
• The less margin the more you have to be efficient for getting product to move.
• 20% to 25% net margin is a very viable product. 30% is big for scaling. 15% is dead.
• Know that your accounting is giving you real-time information on profitability of your hardware product sales.
• Each of your sales channels needs to be profitable
• Each product you have needs to be profitable.

Tyler Jefcoat Links:

LinkedIn

The Product Startup Podcast Links:

https://www.ProductStartup.com/

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Mako Design Links:

https://www.makodesign.com/

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Kevin Mako Links:

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