Jason G. Miles - E-Commerce Power

HOW THE LITTLE GUYS ARE BUILDING BRANDS

AND BEATING THE GIANTS AT E-COMMERCE

Jason G. Miles

NEW YORK

LONDON NASHVILLE MELBOURNE VANCOUVER

E-Commerce Power

How the Little Guys are Building Brands
and Beating the Giants at E-Commerce

2021 Jason G. Miles

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or otherexcept for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published in New York, New York, by Morgan James Publishing. Morgan James is a trademark of Morgan James, LLC.
www.MorganJamesPublishing.com

ISBN 9781631950582 paperback

ISBN 9781631950599 eBook

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020933133

Cover and Interior Design by:

Chris Treccani

www.3dogcreative.net

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Even a small amount of power can have a great effect when concentrated on a certain area.

Satoru Iwata

A s I write this introduction, we are in lock-down because of COVID-19. Many people are saying that the retail and e-commerce worlds will never be the same. I think they might be right. I just read a Forbes article, How COVID-19 Is Transforming E-commerce , that stated,

Stay-at-home orders will eventually be lifted state by state, but in the interim, there are millions of consumers creating and reinforcing new online buying behaviors and habits. In many families, online grocery, apparel, and entertainment shopping will replace store and mall visits permanently until a vaccine is available.

The shift to online shopping has been accelerated radically because of this pandemic. Are you ready to build a business that thrives in this new world? If so, then this book is for you. I am a huge fan of small e-commerce businesses and if you dont have one yet, its time to start. If you do have one, its time to scale up. This book will show you how.

The core premise behind this book is that the Internet is becoming increasingly good at making very small niches viable. When established, they frequently develop a winner-take-all characteristic that makes them hard to beat. Those small niches are a fantastic opportunity for us as small business operators.

I believe its never been easier to launch an online business, and the universe of possibilities is expanding rapidly, not shrinking. More niche opportunities are being generated all the time, as more and more people transition from offline to online life.

For a more in-depth study of this topic, I highly encourage you to pick up a copy of The Long-TailWhy the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More , by Chris Anderson. Its an excellent book that explains how the riches are in the niches.

Think of these niche topic opportunities like little castles sitting on their own islands. There are thousands of eager customers that are on the island, tooand they can happily move around. But to competitors, the islands are hard to invade. The castles have doors made of the strongest steel with giant moats around them filled with crocodiles, piranhas, and giant anaconda snakes. Outside the moat, there is a vast minefield. And beyond the field, there is an ocean, and its filled with giant Great White sharks. Get the picture?

So, again, the only question iscan you get set up in one of these small niches? If you can, you win. And you dont just winyou win big for the long term.

Now imagine one final mental image. Imagine island after island, each with this type of castle sitting vacant. Thousands of customers are on the island with you, but no tenant has moved into the castle yet. Everyone is just waiting for someone to set up shopand begin enjoying the benefits of the winner-take-all situation.

This is the world I seethe world of small niches, waiting for an e-commerce seller to take them seriously and move in, set up shop, and start to dominate the niche. I see eager customers by the thousands, ready to rally around the brand that dedicates itself to them. I see a billion new people still waiting for high-speed internet access, and when they get it, they are going to come calling. The unique and interesting products they need are your opportunity to win.

The error most e-commerce sellers make is that they dont identify a small niche to operate in that is available to them. Nor do they create a powerful brand to serve the customers in that niche with a vibrant and engaging website. Instead, they look at the big categories with envy and try to storm someone elses castle with copy-cat products in similar ways. They get slaughtered doing it, ending up over time with no profit, and no real business.

Al Reis and Jack Trout outlined the correct battle plan for e-commerce sellers in their classic book Marketing Warfare . They said,

Launch the attack on as narrow a front as possible.

Instead of trying to invade someone elses island, new sellers should work hard to identify a small opening in the market, then figure out how to dominate it professionally. Get a defensive foothold and learn to grow deeper and deeper into your small niche by serving customers well. Find, occupy, and dominate a small niche. Learn the ecommerce trade, rather than just the tricks of the trade. As time progresses, if you dominate a small niche well, youll discover additional opportunities and can take advantage of them from a position of strength. If you do this properly, you cannot be beaten very easily. Youll have the power of the Internets winner-take-all attributes working in your favor rather than against you.

The book follows a logical framework. We call it the Ecommerce Engine Flywheel . Weve used it in our coaching and consulting practice for several years now. We decided it was time to publish it and share it more broadly. Weve done our best to cover the topics chapter by chapter in this book.

Let me explain a little bit about how we developed the framework and give you a brief overview of each of the steps in the model. Ill start at the beginning by explaining how we work with ecommerce sellers. Then Ill explain the model itself, so you get a sneak peek of the upcoming chapters in this book. Finally, Ill share my ecommerce journey, so you understand my experience with these concepts.