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Ellen from Scuba Choice sells everything to do with scuba diving and started her eCommerce business in 2011 with her father, she is now running the multi-channel eCommerce business with 8 people on a day to day business all from starting from business from scratch in the garage.
Hi everyone, Ellen from Scuba Choice shares her incredible journey on SellingOnlineToday! Download Link
Some thoughts from the interview
“In 2009 the American economy crashed so my father’s traditional wholesale business wasn’t in the best shape. So we wanted to turn this disadvantage into an advantage of selling stuff online instead of just doing a traditional wholesale. He came to me and asked me to help to start this new venture in 2011. In the beginning we were just starting it from our garage.”
“For those people who are not sure and who are concerned about needing a lot of money to start a business, you can start a business with $1000 or even less than that.”
“My father was in the wholesale business for scuba gear and we knew all the vendors for that so we thought we should just start an ecommerce business for Scuba Diving gear.”
“I think you don’t have to be an expert for your business for you have to be an expert for your selling technique, that is how you get your sales boosted every year.”
“We sell on eBay USA, eBay UK, Amazon USA, Amazon UK and Amazon Japan.”
“Our sales to Amazon UK are pretty good. I assume that the products in the UK, especially the scuba diving products, are more expensive than in the USA market. The only thing that is a little bit pricey are the shipping fees but people in the UK are willing to pay the lower product cost plus some shipping fee for them to get the stuff.”
“I’m not sure about Amazon Japan as we have just launched it early this year and we have only had 40 products translated. So we don’t have the whole catalogue on Amazon Japan so we don’t get as much sales as we do from Amazon UK.”
“At first we listed separately but we are trying to integrate it with channel advisor so we can get everything, all the market places, synced together.”
“We started integrating from March 2015.”
“I think it is the most powerful platform we have seen online out there.”
“If you can see it as hiring an assistant you wouldn’t think the price is that high.”
“We have 15,000 SKUs.”
“I like Amazon the best just because the service is fast and it is easier to manage all the SKUs. You can use an excel sheet to upload a template.”
“It is better if you have a lot of products. If you have under 10 products, you can use Amazon’s seller central.”
“For all the new products I am uploading into channel advisor first and they will synchronise them to all the platforms.”
“Our revenue last year was $1.07 million.”
“The UK market is definitely growing so I suggest people to go with that.”
“We are actually the vendor of Amazon so we are not using any FBA. The platform is called Vendor Central.”
“It is ok; it does generate a lot of revenue for us but they do have a lot of technical issues with in Vendor Central. Some times when they received certain products they mark it as they haven’t received it and they deduct money so that is a main concern.”
“You should try Vendor Central if you have a lot of stock in you inventory, if you have good cash flow and if you costs are really low so it is ok if they deduct the items from you.”
“Most of the products are manufactured by us, we call them Scuba Choice brand. We also carry a big brand from Italy called Cressi.”
“It does take to build up the brand but in the long term you have to have your long term you have to have your own brand to do the manufacture yourself as you have control on inventory and control on the price.”
“Sometimes there are dive shops that approach us for our products and we do supply them.”
“I have an inventory system called inflo inventory which is the best.”
“Customer service is definitely the key to online business as the customer service represents the company reputation. They don’t get to see you so the only way they can find out about you is by your customer service either by phone or in email.”
“We have about maybe 5 return packages every day but it is quite a small amount compared to the products sold. For scuba products we don’t size variations for many products just colour variations so we don’t have too much of a return problem.”
“We hire an SEO assistant and it definitely brings a lot of sales through that.”
“Give customers a coupon code for your website.”
“It’s rebuilt my passion and my salary boosted so fast so I have total financial freedom, I can travel whenever I want and I treat this job as my baby.”
Best Advice: “Understand the concept you either grow or die, you need find a new way to constantly develop new items, bring new products or find a new way to market your business because if you don’t do that your competitors will out run you and you will fade out. You need to get on that and try to upgrade and improve your business. If you want to find out how I did this I started a website called ellenpro.com to help people.”
Book Recommendation: The Success System That Never Fails – William Clement Stone
What do they offer?
The Scuba Choice mission is to provide beginners and experienced divers worldwide with an informative, convenient, and reliable one-stop shopping environment where they can buy extensive water sports equipment ranging from personal snorkeling gears to advanced scuba gear at unbeatable prices. Their success stems from long-term, organic growth as a result of total customer satisfaction, teamwork, and an overall commitment to being the leading authorized distributor through their value-added services. Their team works after hours to provide prompt and satisfied answers to customers.
How to contact Scuba Choice!
Twitter Website Facebook Or email: customer@scuba-choice.com
Resources
Check out my list of resources, free tools and great advice: Resources Here
I offer strategic consultations for your own eCommerce business: Consultation Here
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