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Starting my first venture with ecommerce (25)

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I read Amy's 2017 Report for whats working making money and what's not ( I've also read almost all through the newbie zone post) and she said eCommerce is doing very well at the moment and due to my lack of technical knowledge I figure this would be the best newbie way to get started.

I went ahead thus far started an account with Shopify (basic plan $29 mo.) and am using the oberlo app to import products from aliexpress on to my store (which i'm still building) and I want my store to be a theme as oppose to just a load of random products. I chose clothing and accessories for men. For images I will be using licensed images starting out to save some money and once the store takes off I will use the profit to buy stock images and replace them.

I am currently at the stage of importing products and setting up the website to look nice I have looked a couple of other eCommerce stores to get an idea of how to set up the look of my store. Once I complete the set up which should be today or tomorrow I will begin creating FB pages and ads which I have never done. Is photoshop a good tool to have when creating images for your FB ads?
My main question where I will REALLY need some help is creating highly targeted ads.

Again this is my first venture and I will appreciate all the help I can get thank you for reading.

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I think photoshop is definitely a good tool, but recently I found Canva to be really good as well. Its a lot easier to use if you are not familiar with photoshop. They give one month free trial for premium package.

I think targeting your specific audience is going to be really important and thats why so many people are using Niches to target more specifically.

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I will check out Canva as soon as my store is complete. Thanks alot! I agree I'm going to make it as theme/niche based as possible.

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Hello there! Glad you're giving ecommerce a try! Are you following caurmen's tutorial? If not you should at least check it out:

https://stmforum.com/forum/forumdisp...merce-Cookbook

I have it on good authority that more parts are coming out very soon!

As for tips on creating FB ads - we do have a forum section on FB:

https://stmforum.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?6-Facebook

Browse posts there for the info you're looking for. And feel free to start a new thread to ask specific questions!

Photoshop actually isn't hard to learn. I only know the very basics but they're enough for me to get by. You can learn it in 30 minutes:

https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...mplete-Newbies

Lastly - Would you like me to move this follow-along to the ecommerce section?



Amy

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Amy Thank you so much for responding to my post! I will absolutely check out Caurmen's tutorial immediately I wasn't even aware there was one on here and same goes for the eCommerce and FB ads section I wasn't aware STM had one I'm very new to STM.

I actually just completed my store it took longer than I expected but then again it was first time creating a store so I dealt with alot of unexpected minor details in a good way. At this moment I'm in the process of creating FB page for my store so you posted just in time when I will be needing Photoshop and FB ads help the most

your response has increased my chance of success 10 fold I highly appreciate it.

Lastly ABSOLUTELY please move this along to the ecommerce section and it would be great if you post a link for me to get there as I don't know how to reach the ecommerce section on STM. Thanks again!

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The next part of the eCommerce Cookbook will be specifically about FB ads. It was meant to come out this week but I'm not satisfied with the rigor of my approach yet, so I'm delaying it for a few days to run a live test or two. Expect it next week, probably.

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Thank you so much for responding to my post Caurmen and even more thanks for your stellar tutorial I now feel I have a very low chance of failure after going through it. One question, in part 2 you said "crack open your copy of cashvertising" to practise your copywriting skills. Is that a course that is offered here on STM?

Can't Wait for the FB ads article!

Thank you.

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Ca$hvertising is a book. Google it and read it, timeless knowledge.

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Thread moved as requested! Best of luck - I'll be following your progress and quietly learning alongside you!



Amy

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Thank you!

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@youareking

IMO, this is a waste of time.

This can all be done within 24 hours by using a service such as cutoutcow.com (which I use myself)

This is stuff I can't do myself, nor would want to. It's better left to people who can do this already, as it's so cheap to outsource.

Better spend your time on learning copywriting, because good copywriters are hard to find and / or expensive.

Just get this stuff done and move to the next phase.

Good luck!

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Why it's easy!

I suck at PS as well - only know the basics. What I show in my 30-minute PS tutorial is basically all I know:

https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...mplete-Newbies


All you want to do is take out the white background, correct? If so, here's a step-by-step:


1)Open the image in PS. Pikachu - I choose you!




2)Double-click on the lock icon and click "OK" on the "New Layer" popup to unlock the layer:






3)Click on the eraser icon in the left sidebar and choose the "Magic Eraser Tool":




4)Move the cursor to the image - it will change into an eraser. Click on the background (and don't forget to also remove the hole made by his tail) - and voila! You're left with the image:




Is this what you're looking for? Let me know if you need anything else!



Amy

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Thank you very much for your response and your suggestions! I went ahead and checked out cutoutcow.com and they allow the first three image editing for free which was great! I just received the results back

(they have a 24 hour turn around) and it seems they simply added a zoom in factor which the aliexpress images already include (most of the time) and a PNG file with a black back round A.K.A no back round. I

was under the impression that they add some visual features to the images such as Eiffel Tower backround (lol just an example) in addition to the product to make it seem more visually appealing than just a

plain white back round however if that is not necessary that will be even better for me as I would rather not spend vast amounts of time editing these images in PS because I would think such images will increase

conversion as oppose to a default type of image so my question to you is you don't think it is necessary to have a product image with a back round beyond a default white back round when running FB ads in

order to increase conversions? Thank you!

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@Vortex Yes Amy that is exactly what I was trying to learn how to do I just did it and it worked! I can't believe it was so easy and I was spending all this time trying to precisely cut it out Thank you very much!

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I just finished reading Ca$hvertising PHENOMENAL book! (I should use a smaller word according to the book ) Now I'm getting ready to write copy/description for all my products.

First I will search for my products on amazon to check out their descriptions to give me a base of where to start and if I don't see them I will improvise. I will post screenshots

once I'm done to get your opinions, they will be very much appreciated. I would like to post my website URL so you all can check out the entire site and give me your opinion however

I'm not sure if that is recommended, Please let me know if that is a good idea.





After I'm done with writing all the product descriptions the next step will be to run FB ads. I would like to know your opinion on "Images" when running FB ads.

Does a plain white backround with the product " Image" make for a high converting FB ad or is it better to have a better back round

like a garden or Eiffel tower with the product in the middle? I'm asking this now because I got a great Idea from the book but I only want to use it if it's a MUST. The idea is to hire a freelancer

to edit the images for a better back round because according the book Ca$hvertising the image matters alot when running ads but then again the book isn't necessarily for E commerce stores.

Thank you very much for reading and I look forward to your feedback!



Special Thanks to @vortex @Caurmen @Equadox @Pekadis @leewingson for all your help tips and suggestions thus far they are really helping me along.

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Okay I have written copy for all my products and I believe it's ready for traffic.

Now I will be moving on the facebook ads section to learn how to create high converting ads.

If you have any tips to make this process easier for me that will be great.

In The meantime I would really appreciate if you can grill my store and give feedback. Thank you.

https://flashhype.com/

This is an urban fashion store for men

I would like feedback particularly on:

• Product Copy
• Store Design
• What I should Have OR Shouldn't Have
• Loading Speed
• Ease Of Navigation
• Does It Make You Want To Buy Now

Thanks Again

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Store looks great! I'm not an expert in this area - so will wait for others to chime in.

Thought I'd bump the thread to get more eyeballs on this!



Amy

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Thank you very much! That will help a lot.

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Store looks good! The only comment I have is that the featured image on the home page is too low-res. Makes the store feel like it's low quality/low effort.

Do you have any other online stores that you are modeling after? I suggest changing up the copy that's on top of the featured image and testing to see what gets the best response.

I'm new to e-commerce as well, so I'll defer to the experts around here, but those are my initial thoughts. Anyone else please feel free to critique my observations/suggestions if you feel they aren't pointing @youareking in the right direction.

Keep it up!

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Thank you! Yes I'm glad you caught that. I will be changing this image soon for that exact reason once I have a replacement.

I plan to get someone on Fiverr to make me a high res image once I start I running ad campaigns and seeing some data.

I don't want to spend money on something like this until I know I have in demand profitable products.

This is a model of a successful store.

Do you mean have a different copy for each featured image (I have 4)?

Thank you for your feedback.

Right now I'm in the FB section because I'm getting ready to run ads.

What I need are creatives. I'm on fiverr looking for the best freelancer to edit my product images.

I read that when you run ads you want 10 different images for each ad set. I'm trying to figure out whats a good dollar amount to spend per image.

The average quote I'm getting is $40 for 10 images and I know that's way too high before I even start running ads.

I found someone for $10 for 20 images however I don't know if it will be high quality. they showed me their portfolio

and it looked good but $10 for 20 images seems to good to be true so let's see

The next question I have is, Is the FB pixel enough to track all the necessary data or should also get Volumn as well?

Thank you in advance.

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This is really not bad for a first store.

I agree the featured images are too low res. Also there is not much of a call to action there. I think having a carousel type layout with some actual products would be better.

Also, I would suggest you play around with perceived pricing, for example, increase the list price for a lot of the items, so that it looks like your discounted price is 50% off or 75% off etc.

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Thank you! Can you please give me an example of what you mean when you say there is no call to actions?

Great Idea. I will change it. I thought about doing that in the beginning but I didn't want to make the list price seem outrageous.

Now that I got a confirmation I will do it.

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I just got my first order!

I haven't started running FB ads just yet so it's a little surprising.

In my Shopify back office under risk level it says the order risk level to be very high.

The reason is because the person's billing address is different from the billing address where their credit card was issued.

I called Shopify to ask what is the protocol for high risk transactions and they told me it's better to be safe than sorry.

send the customer an email asking them to confirm and show proof that it was them who placed order using their method of payment. If they fail to respond or show proof with in 24 hours send them another email saying the order will be cancelled immediately. If they're serious they will respond and if they still don't respond just go ahead and cancel the order and issue a refund.

I myself am a little skeptical because I haven't run any ads and this person placed an order for 5 items ($205) and ($54) shipping.

I would love your feedback and what do you think is the best course of action. take the money or be cautious and cancel the order if they don't respond.

I've already sent them the first about 24 hours ago and no response. getting ready to send email #2 shortly.

thinking what to do.

Thank you.

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Hey, great follow along!

Just wondered how things are going or if you have any updates?

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yeah how's your journey going?

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