The More Moving Parts, the More Time Required to Manage Them

It’s simple math really, the more moving parts you place into your eCommerce business the more complex things become and the more time required for you to manage everything.  This isn’t rocket science however I fear very few eCommerce sellers spend enough time understanding this principle so I want to bring it to your attention as a friendly reminder.

Are you selling on multiple marketplaces and websites? Are you managing your SEO, PPC and email campaigns.  Are you posting things on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest?  Are you buying, warehousing and shipping your orders?  Are you answering emails, instant chat and phone calls from customers? Are you taking product photos, building titles and descriptions?  I have a feeling you’re doing all of the above and more.  One of the reasons you’re working so hard is because your business has too many moving parts for you to manage.

What happens when you add more SKU’s to the mix?  It multiplies all these steps x-fold by the number of SKU’s you are adding.  That means more photos, more descriptions and more titles.

I have 3 business model scenarios for you to consider.

Scenario 1: You’re selling a product mix that’s very wide and shallow where you have 1,000’s of SKU’s but only sell a small quantity of each, should you be making a high margin or low margin?

Scenario 2: You’re selling a product mix that’s very narrow and very deep were you have a limited number of SKU’s and you sell the same models over and over, should you be making a high margin or low margin In this scenario?

Scenario 3: You’re selling a product mix that’s very narrow and very shallow where you have a limited number of SKU’s and you only sell a small quantity over and over, should you be making a high margin or low margin in this scenario?

Which scenario has the least moving parts?  Scenario 3 of course.  You have the lowest number of SKU’s so you have less time spent on photos, descriptions and titles and you also have less volume of sales so you also have less emails, less customer chats and less phone calls as well as less boxes to receive, pack and ship as well.

I watch so many sellers enter the eCommerce space and they focus their energy on adding as many SKU’s to their mix as they can either deep or shallow trapping themselves into scenario 1 or 2. They work super hard at descriptions, photos and product titles.  They spread their inventory offering across multiple websites and marketplaces and worry about having accurate inventory control across all the sales channels.  They stress themselves out about technology, massive data management, tons of moving parts to find themselves eventually in the high volume / low margin business.  Ultimately, working very hard for very little.

If you’re looking to build an eCommerce Money for Nothing style business, you need to throw away all the eCommerce books you purchased and scratch the blogs you’re reading telling you to go down these paths because they’re telling you the exact opposite of what you should be doing and how you should structure your eCommerce business.  They’re building you into another eCommerce hamster and throwing you into the wheel then yelling at you to run faster and faster…..

With the eCommerce Money for Nothing system you’re focus is to keep thing stupid simple.  That’s right, you want to build a business that’s focused on quality over quantity.  You want to sell a product that offers a much higher margin on every sale and you don’t need to sell a wide variety of products to build momentum.  You want a limited product offering that you can specialize in, one you can become an expert on in the eyes of the customer.  A product line where people come to you for advice, for guidance and eventually for their purchase because you know more about this product than anyone else.  You want to position your business into scenario 3 with low volume (lower than average) and the high margin (much higher than average)!

If you’re ready to re-position your business into an eCommerce Money for Nothing style business, I’m ready to help.  I’m coaching eCommerce sellers on these principles and I have room for a few more sellers.

Hire Brandon as Your One on One eCommerce Coach

Cheers to selling smarter!

Brandon