Shopify vs Etsy, Amazon vs Shopify – The Skill Differences between Selling on marketplaces and Direct to Consumer

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If you sell on Amazon or eBay, you probably aspire to having direct-to-consumer your own direct to consumer site. And well you should. When you look at the , concentration risk that comes from being on Amazon, it’s enough to keep you awake at night. Of course the worst case is Amazon account suspension. While that is not so common, there is of course still Amazon listing suspension, which can crater your sales. And that’s if you’re selling your own products. If you are selling somebody else’s products, there is no guarantee that they will continue to make them available to you. Or even allow them to be sold on Amazon.go

But, the skills needed to sell on a marketplace are not the same as those needed for your own DTC site. From visual design and visual taste to being found by shoppers, the whole game is different. There is also the danger of solving the wrong equation on the backend when considering your profit strategy. And then there’s a fundamental marketing issue. Why should a shopper use your site? Why not go to the trusted marketplace like Amazon?

These and more are the topics in today’s hot take by The E-Commerce Leader expert panel.

What you’ll learn

  • Why you might want to consider DTC in the first place
  • The artificial distinction that ecommerce sellers fall into 
  • The technical skills that DTC site owners often lack
  • The biggest difference between the focus for DTC owners and marketplace operators
  • Why the customer lifecycle is critical for a Direct to Consumer site operator 
  • The “Sharecropping” danger 
  • Why Amazon sellers are often trying to solve the wrong equation with their DTC site – and what they should do differently
  • The one thing Amazon and eBay have spent billions of dollars building that your site needs too
  • Why delivery promises matter – and how you can leverage Amazon’s Prime on your  own site
  • Why this is a golden era for ecommerce operators

Some of the resources on this page may be affiliate links, meaning we receive a commission (at no extra cost to you) if you use that link to make a purchase. We only promote those products or services that we have investigated and truly feel deliver value to you.

[00:00:00] Kyle: Don’t try to do too many things at one time. I think that’s where, you are gonna struggle unless you have a lot of experience already doing it because doing that at the same time can really be a detriment.
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[00:01:03] Michael: We’re live on callin for the hot takes of the, how do you go live podcast? The, of the eCommerce with our expert panel, both sides of the Atlantic. We have Kyle Hamer and Jason Miles over in the west coast. Chris green over on the east coast and myself.
[00:01:19] I’m on, I’m not on any coast. I’m in London, England. Everyone else is in the United States of America and we are talking today about the differences in scales between marketplace selling and DTC selling really important topics. One that got discussed recently in the mastermind here in London, amongst other places.
[00:01:34] So that’s how are we doing? We are ready to rock and roll on this topic.
[00:01:37] Jason: Good, man. Yeah. Love it. Love this one. This is a great topic.
[00:01:40] Michael: It is. Yeah, definitely. , something I think, Is an aspiration for a lot of people sending on marketplaces to get into the DTC world. And then they put their tone in the water and discover it’s very different world to mix my metaphor.
[00:01:50] So let’s start off with you, Jason, cuz I know a lot of the clients that you and Kyle talk to are stuck between these worlds sometimes or sometimes transitioning successfully. So what do you see? The differences are in the skills.
[00:01:59] Jason: Yeah. Yeah. I’ll mention one thing that I think stands out. , and we like both though, just to be completely candid about it.
[00:02:07] I don’t think it’s either, or I think it’s both. And, , as an approach for sellers, , we started on eBay as were power sellers back in the day. Not that was hard, but, , and then, , switched to Shopify direct to consumer in 2013, we’ve done over 3 million transactions in our Shopify store. And then we also sell on Etsy..
[00:02:23] , and I think, I just look, we had, we’ve had 52,000 transactions in total on our Etsy store. So we like both, but one difference between the two that I would say is, your, , willingness to execute live in front of an audience is, is a requirement in a direct to consumer Shopify site in particular and the willingness.
[00:02:46] To actually aggressively, focus on presentation, sliders photography, all of the images and video content related to consumer engagement. Front and center on direct to consumer much more so than on marketplaces. And I think the willingness to execute, and that some people can have a challenge in doing that.
[00:03:10] We client Kyle and I work with clients that literally just can’t get their homepage. Slider changed. Or can’t, can’t get product photography done, systematically for new products on their, Shopify site though. And sometimes those are just style challenges where they’re, they’re not, not driven to do that.
[00:03:27] They don’t see an urgency in it. And other times they don’t have the technical skills. But I think that stands out as a requirement. If you’re gonna be a kitchen table, entrepreneur on a direct to consumer Shopify site is you’ve gotta be able to pull the trigger on your site, visuals, effectively and often.
[00:03:43] And I think that’s probably the main difference in my view because that’s not really requirement in a marketplace. You have to have product photography, but you don’t have to have overall site presentations strategies. That kind of thing. So I think that’s probably the first thing that stands out to me the most.
[00:03:58] Yeah.
[00:04:00] Michael: Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. It, what it makes you realize is that a lot of the work that Amazon or anyone else, but particularly Amazon does that they make a lot of decisions up front for you rather like a difference between a Mac and a sort of PC world, right? The Mac is ready, made decision made like that.
[00:04:14] You may not, but they’ve put a lot of effort and research into them. Then you’re suddenly out on your own in the DTC world. Absolutely. Kyle, you obviously work alongside Jason. A lot of the time with people transitioning from Amazon to, DTC. What so transitioning from, or adding to rather than from too, maybe is both.
[00:04:30] And to tell me what things you see there that people from the Amazon world struggle with in the DC new skillset. I think one
[00:04:38] Kyle: of the key fundamental differences is. On the marketplace, you really are product focused and which is good. You need to be right, because you’re essentially trying to figure out if you have good product market fit.
[00:04:50] As soon as you switch to a direct consumer platform like Shopify, you have to become very audience focused. It’s not just about the product, because previously you could just, if you had a great product and you did your research properly, you put your product up on the marketplace, it compete. potentially with the other products that are on that marketplace and you can get some sales and some win cause all the buyers are coming directly to buy.
[00:05:13] So I think it’s really incumbent upon the D to C marketer to understand their audience more effectively and really be able to market across the entire life. Cycle right. That the customer buying journey becomes much more important on your direct consumer site. Like you need to not only just try to win the buy box, like you would on Amazon, and get the sale, but you have to be speaking to them, through your content, through your, to Jason’s point to your visual presentation on your site to, deep, further back in the funnel, to get people’s attention about your brand and brand a. That you don’t have to do at least you haven’t had to do historically.
[00:05:46] I think you’re having to do more of that now on Amazon. And some of these marketplaces that are becoming more competitive, but you could essentially focus directly on the sale. You didn’t really care who was buying your product. You just wanted people to buy it. And I think as you switched to direct consumer and like Shopify, you start to care definitely about who they are, where they’re at and, how cheaply you can get them to your site and get them to convert.
[00:06:08] Michael: yeah. All good stuff. Yeah. Interesting about the focus, implies the skillset focus as well. Isn’t it? I guess it’s just broader on DC. And to your point, as Jason has said to me in the past new way that starting with the product focus and then on the marketplace is not the worst place to start.
[00:06:22] Let’s put it that way. It’s not for everybody, but it’s not a bad start. Chris, obviously you’ll kind of Mr. Amazon. I dunno if you really would classify yourself as a DTC seller as well, or where are you with this stuff?
[00:06:31] Chris: I got a lot to say on this one. So I hope I can compact it enough because I’ve done this long enough and I’ve done it with enough people and I’ve done it at enough, different levels, different like experience levels that I think I have a pretty good idea.
[00:06:44] And also based on my own experience, someone who came to eBay by accident to oh, this is cool. I can do this. And oh, Amazon’s here. Let me play around with that. Not only knowing what I was doing and like kind learning as you go. And then when you can look. You can be like, oh, I see what worked.
[00:06:57] I see what didn’t work. I see where I messed up. I see where I didn’t have enough information. I see where I made incorrect assumptions about what was actually working. And it becomes very clear in hindsight, especially the differences between marketplaces and direct to consumer and as someone who teaches.
[00:07:11] A lot of newbies, a lot of people getting started. A lot of times people get started doing arbitrage, retail, arbitrage, online arbitrage, they’re selling other people’s products. And they’re also doing that on a marketplace and they don’t really understand the dynamics that really go into that you’re selling other people’s products, right?
[00:07:26] So there’s demand created for you. There’s people who want the products without you doing anything. And in the marketplace, the big thing that they’re bringing to the table and the transaction that people don’t often realize, at least at the beginning is the trust. People are buying from Amazon because they trust Amazon.
[00:07:40] They buy from eBay because they trust eBay and Amazon have spent decades and billions of dollars establishing that trust so that customers will come and spend money and buy products from their website. So when you sell other people’s products on a marketplace and they sell and you’re like, this is easy.
[00:07:54] Like why isn’t everybody doing? This is like the easiest thing that I’ve ever seen. And then it’s okay. Yeah, it’s easy. But it doesn’t have the actual value on the back end. You’re not actually building a business of repeat customers and a customer base. You can go back to if selling your own product that you control and you have just agency over the entire process.
[00:08:10] Cause that’s a very different skillset. It’s a very different game. It’s a much more valuable game long. To play, but you can certainly play the easy game as long as you want. You can flip other people’s products on other people’s marketplaces, as long as you want. But remember, if you can’t get those products anymore, or if Amazon or eBay puts in new rules, so say you can’t do this, or you’re gonna limit, as much as you can do this, you’re at their mercy.
[00:08:31] It’s you’re like, but the share cropping, like you’re farming other people’s land. Like when like Facebook and social media, all of these different things. I just think people need to understand where they are in the entire process. So they don’t wake up one day and. Oh, I didn’t realize that Amazon could terminate me for no reason, even though I broke a rollbacks and yeah, they could, which is why you might wanna invest some time in direct to consumer your own website, Shopify, building your own email list, building things that you actually control.
[00:08:54] It’s better. It’s more valuable, but it’s also harder, which is why few people do it, but it’s a different skill that anybody can learn. Not everybody wants to learn it. So I don’t wanna also put people in a box and say, look, you need to do this. If you’re happy doing this, just understand the difference.
[00:09:07] So if you’re in a place where you don’t want to be, and you wanna be somewhere else, you realize that you know that. So you can make, to take the actions and take the steps to get to where you want to go. Instead of waking up one day and be like, I didn’t realize I was just selling Disney products on Amazon and that there’s not actually that much value in that process.
[00:09:23] If I can’t get that product anymore. I mean that, I say that from experience, that was me. I was like, I am amazing seller. Look, I went to big lots and I flipped this product. I am the best. And instead looking back at me like, no, I took advantage of an inefficient market and I was in the right place at the right time.
[00:09:37] And thankfully Amazon brought the customers and I thought it was hot stuff. Looking back. It was like, oh, I see if I really wanna build value. These are the things I, I need to.
[00:09:46] Michael: . Interesting. I think there’s a few themes out of that. So I piggyback on what everyone has been saying. I think.
[00:09:50] And just one other thing that strikes me, first of all, Share cropping farming on other people’s land is a very important point. And one reason why a lot of people do D to C marketing and I think. It’s both very valid. And I would just add a little caution to that. Yes, if you own the site, I guess you own the domain and you have a relationship with the people who do the, the hosting.
[00:10:08] And I guess you could shift over if they, for some reason band you it’s very unusual, but I guess that one thing that strikes as you’re always on somebody else’s platform to some degree, because where you’re gonna get your traffic from Google while that’s somebody else’s platform. Facebook. That’s somebody else’s platform.
[00:10:21] Pinterest. That’s somebody else’s platform. So particularly when it comes to the traffic side, I guess we’re all vulnerable. But what a DTC does give you is I suppose, the ability to control the actual side experience and to directly contact your customers, which is the main frustration as an Amazon satellite.
[00:10:36] Think so the difference in skillset that strikes. From conversations with pretty intelligent and successful. Sometimes multi-generation business owners in the mastermind is that they try to treat D to C kind of as a bit of an extra add on to Amazon, as opposed to seeing that as for my money, the equation you’re solving for is different.
[00:10:54] The cost of acquiring a customer is so much bigger, potentially off Amazon, that it comes down, cost customer acquiring a customer versus the long term customer value, which to your point, Kyle is a completely different gain, cuz it means you’ve gotta try and gain. Loyalty and keep selling multiple products to the same person, as opposed to sell one product to lots of different people once and then move on to the next person, which is the kind of Amazon game.
[00:11:14] I think. So that’s my take on it. Any responses to that or new thoughts?
[00:11:19] Jason: Yeah, I totally agree. I think one thing you’ve sussed out together is the fact that the traffic strategies, for, direct to consumer are just more comprehensive.
[00:11:28] You can do, advertising on all of the big marketplaces now and getting really good at that is vital. If you’re a marketplace seller, but more comprehensively traffic strategies are important. If you have a direct to consumer site, I would just say that. One of the primary questions every entrepreneur has to answer is where can I actually sell my product effectively?
[00:11:49] And it’s certainly true that some products just don’t do well on their own direct to consumer or standalone site. Kyle and I worked with a lot of people and some. Brands are easily poured into Shopify off of the other marketplaces. And it’s boom, it just it’s like it, it blossoms, it’s on Shopify.
[00:12:07] And then it just, takes off other people have a product that just, frankly isn’t generally sold on a website by itself. And it’s most commonly found in a marketplace, almost how a product would most commonly be found in a grocery. And that’s a big, thing to think through as a, seller, where is your product best suited to be sold?
[00:12:29] And, there’s a lot of pain involved in trying to make a direct to consumer website work when it just won’t or when the customer’s mind is not to find you on your own website. And we’ve seen people go through that cycle and as business coaches, it can be really frustrating cuz they’ve had.
[00:12:43] The presupposition that they can sell direct to consumer on their own website. And then through the brutal pain of experience over six months, 12 months, a year and a half, they realize, oh yeah, actually people just wanna put this in their shopping cart when they buy four other things on Amazon and on best, positioned.
[00:13:01] Alongside other generalized products or category products on Amazon. And that’s a hard lesson to learn. And sometimes, upfront, sometimes you don’t sometimes, you think it won’t work and it does. Sometimes you think it won’t work or whatever, vice versa you get my point. And so I think that’s something to think through and, and really figure out the other thing I would just say, quickly is that sometimes a direct to consumer website is.
[00:13:24] Used as a branding and positioning tool. We’ve had people who have really had a hard time selling on a direct to consumer website and then business owners started buying from them in bulk. And then what they realized was they have a B to B opportunity, not a direct to consumer opportunity. So they pivot their Shopify site to be a tool for, brand building and awareness building for, for other businesses to find.
[00:13:50] And buy in bulk. And that is, an interesting dynamic that can occur sometimes. So these are the nuances and differences between how a direct to consumer site can or can’t serve you best, Yeah,
[00:14:01] Michael: very interesting. I’ve certainly seen that Amazon sellers that end up using their Shopify sites, effectively as, a lead capture or lead reassurance from Amazon.
[00:14:12] So the customer journey goes something like Amazon. Find a product that they think looks good, but it’s got a high enough price point or it’s important enough to them or critical in life that they have a Google. They find the sites that, that is owned by my client. They’re reassured they go back to than they buy.
[00:14:25] So that’s a slightly different customer journey. And then the B2B positioning is very interesting opportunity actually, which I think is often missed. Partly as you say, because of the name DTC implies that you should have your blinkers and I’ll only be sending to end units users. It can be very lucrative to sell, to business where one, one of my clients has really got that dialed in.
[00:14:41] I think. So Kyle, let’s get you back in any other thoughts on the back of that or other thoughts that are you’re burning to share?
[00:14:47] Kyle: Yeah, no, I think just building off like Jason instead about using the. Using the website as a branding tool, it also to a crisp, layered into that about trust. It’s that is a fundamental thing you have to overcome, right?
[00:15:00] As a G to seed seller is you have to build brand trust and to Chris’s point. Amazon has it right? They have, everyone has their credit card. They understand the customer service process, the return process. They know what they’re gonna get out of it. So if given an opportunity, and a selection of buying your product on Amazon or buying on your website, most of the 80, 90% of the people are gonna go to Amazon to actually buy that product.
[00:15:26] So I think it’s really clear. You have to have a distinct reason for your Shopify store or your director consumer website to exist. That’s outside of just selling the product. And I think that was another big mistake that we’ve seen with clients is they’re just like, ah, just put the product up on my site, drive some traffic to it.
[00:15:42] And now I’m making say, Hey, it’s it’s gonna be the same as Amazon, but it’s not because there’s no reason. For the consumer to go to that site, unless you give them a reason. And there’s a lot of creative ways you can do that. There’s VIP programs and membership programs and digital products that you could attach and sell to it.
[00:15:59] So there’s a lot of value that you can add to your brand on these direct consumer sites, you can’t do an Amazon, but you have to be there and doing that intentionally. And that’s where some people don’t hit that next step. They don’t make it to that next level in their thinking around.
[00:16:13] Yeah,
[00:16:13] Michael: it’s a great point. A direct seat consumer. Site’s not just a way of buying things anymore. Is it just not about the mechanics, I guess is what you’re saying? Chris, more thoughts,
[00:16:23] Chris: Kyle. I love what you just said about, reasons. And I think people forget that and it goes back to the arbitrage.
[00:16:29] Days of just selling on Amazon. What’s the reason people are buying this from you. It’s oh, it’s available on Amazon. I can’t get it locally. What, whatever it might be. And people aren’t analyzing those reasons to say, okay, what reasons can I use to get people to buy from my own site?
[00:16:41] I think that’s where people need to get creative. I think that’s where people need to maybe hire an agency or consultant to be like, Hey, this is what we wanna do. What do you think we can add oh, we can add digital products and a membership area, VIP and coupon and repeat customers, all these different things.
[00:16:53] And I think people also need to kinda reverse it a little bit and. If you’re trying to build trust, Amazon already has that eBay already has that. But part of that trust is the buying process. Just like Kyle said, they understand the checkout, they understand the returns and there’s something that people, I can’t believe people overlook this as often as they do, but it’s Amazon prime.
[00:17:10] Amazon prime gives the free shipping, the fast shipping people know it’s gonna come quickly around here. I get stuff like the next. Before the suns up people are, they’re delivering packages at my door. I like that. I want that. And if I go to another site and I don’t see that, I’m like, you know what? I might actually pay more from Amazon.
[00:17:25] And that’s why it’s important to listen, to shows like this and keep up to date with the things that are going on because Amazon knows this. And Amazon has a new program. I don’t even know if you guys have heard of it’s called buy with prime and you can apply to be in the part of this program. Buy with prime.amazon.com.
[00:17:37] It allows you to put your products on your own. With prime benefits with prime checkout. So you can, and you get the customer information. So this isn’t just, you’ll put it here and Amazon’s gonna fulfill you get the customer information from your own website, but the customer still gets the prime experience.
[00:17:51] So now you’re giving people a reason to buy from you, and they’re still getting the experience that they come to know love and trust from a marketplace such as Amazon and. This stuff is changing so fast. So you have to keep up with this stuff. It’s exciting and it’s fun. And the people who do are gonna see a lot of benefits, but it’s complicated.
[00:18:07] It’s a lot more complicated than buying Disney products from Walmart and selling them on Amazon through FBA that’s easy. Anybody can do that. You wanna build something real value. You have to do the harder stuff and keep up with it. But for some people keeping up with is fun. So I hope everybody listening to this.
[00:18:20] Wait, I can go prime on my own site. I’m going right now. Buy with prime.amazon.com and sign up. It’s a waiting list right now. So you might as well get on it, but can you imagine being able to put prime on your own site and collect customer data? Like the golden part of Amazon that we don’t get customer data that we can now remarket to?
[00:18:36] Yeah, it’s amazing. It’s getting better and better. It also shows that Amazon has invested in distribu. And all of these things that we know customer wants, but they’re not doing it to keep it all in house and internal and force you to go through Amazon. You can, if you get the customer great, they’re happy to be a part of it and extend their economies of scale and give the shipping options and all these things.
[00:18:53] So the customers get a better experience. That mean it’s amazing time to be selling products online, but you have to be smart about it.
[00:18:59] Kyle: I do think that, yeah, that’s smart. Amazon has recognized the threat that Shopify poses, and now they’re making strategic moves in order to sort. But that right.
[00:19:09] And so I think that what, you just mentioned, the prime on your own site, I think them doing the brand referral bonus where they’re gonna, they’re gonna basically credit back some of your, the 15% referral fee that Amazon typically charges on all the products, depending on your category that just. Back up to 10% of that back, if you send external traffic that, that converts and buys your product, right?
[00:19:33] So from Google, Facebook TikTok. And so what they’re trying to do is eliminate that risk of people just running the traffic to their Shopify store. So I think, we talk a lot about the, Walmart and Amazon battling it out. And I think Shopify’s in that mix as well. I think them buying.
[00:19:47] For their upgrading their fulfillment network. And I think them using their shop app, which sort of consolidates all these independent marketplaces into a, an iPhone app smart moves. And I think we’ll see even more of that, battle. And I think it will ultimately benefit us as the, sellers, we’re gonna get better and cooler things that kind of come out of that battle.
[00:20:03] Michael: Really cool stuff. Those are two things that I vaguely aware of, but haven’t really been keeping an eye on. I certainly wasn’t aware that if you used prime on your own site, you could keep the customer data to your point, Chris, that’s really amazing because that is the missing piece for most Amazon sellers.
[00:20:16] So I think, what strikes me is two kind of big players that we need to keep in mind instead of monkey, see monkey do selling on Amazon because everyone else does it. Or cuz somebody told you two on a podcast, including in this one or same for DTC, it comes down to where’s your audience and knowing who they are.
[00:20:32] And to your point, Kyle, really gotta know that very sharply if you’re on DTC sites, and also understanding the other players on the selling side. So Amazon, eBay, Shopify, what’s the sort of. Competitive landscape. And if you align yourself with Amazon and where they wanna go with this, then we are, we’ve got, the wind at our back as it were.
[00:20:51] And I always think that’s super smart. There’s so many shows on podcasts about Amazon selling that seem to obsess about hacks. And I’m sure that’s true with Facebook ads or anything else, but I always feel like trying to beat Amazon is just a ridiculously terrible idea, cuz they are so smart and so powerful and so well financed.
[00:21:05] But if we go. Their general tendency. For example, if they’re obsessed about getting external traffic then, and integrate that into a DTC strategy, then suddenly it’s starting to look like, the winds are blowing in our favor is the way I’m seeing this so interesting, topic. This is a hot take show.
[00:21:21] So we better stick with it, even though I can heal, hear everyone thinking of a thousand things that they want to say, cuz it’s such a big topic. Let’s do our final round the table of our final thoughts on this. The skill differences between DC selling and selling on the market.
[00:21:33] Kyle: Jason
[00:21:33] Jason: place. Yeah, it’s a beautiful time to be in both.
[00:21:36] It’s just, this is the golden era of eCommerce, man. This is so amazing. You’ve got choices on the marketplace side that are amazing Etsy, eBay, Amazon, Walmart, Mac Carter, Libre on and on, and you’ve got, you’ve got a beautiful tool of Shopify to build your own direct to consumer side.
[00:21:53] That’s the platform of. Tool for me. And I think it’s an amazing tool for many, startup entrepreneurs of people who direct to sell consumer selling. And so I think it’s just a fantastic time. And, I just encourage everybody to jump in with both feet in one place or the other, get one thing sorted out, get it up and running, make it work, learn what you’re doing, and then build a team around that.
[00:22:14] And just add another thing, go from there.
[00:22:18] Michael: It’s so easy when you put all that, it still absolutely sounds strategic level advice for sure. Kyle plan faults.
[00:22:27] Kyle: Yeah. I’ll just echo what Jason said. I think that you’d have to pick a platform. It’s probably gonna be a marketplace if you’re just getting started most likely, because you’re probably gonna be coming from selling something on these marketplaces before your own product.
[00:22:40] And your kind of maybe experiences a reseller on eBay or Etsy or Amazon, and you want to build your own brand, build your own product development. So it makes a lot of sense for you to. Move into a marketplace to do that product market fit and where you’re testing, see where it goes.
[00:22:56] But outside of that get mastery, don’t try to do too many things at one time. I think that’s where, you are gonna struggle unless you have a lot of experience already doing it because to be able to do both. It really requires you to get a gain, a lot of mastery and a lot of skill sets and doing that at the same time can really be a, a detriment because you’re gonna be distracted and trying to build all these skills simultaneously and just better to get focused as much as possible.
[00:23:21] Michael: Here. Yeah. Focus is, number one skill, really for so much stuff. Isn’t it. Chris,
[00:23:25] Chris: just adding onto what Kyle saying, focusing, having an overall strategy, which includes understanding where you are and where you want to go and how long it’s gonna take to get there. And some people just wanna hop on and do some quick flips and make some extra bucks.
[00:23:38] And some people wanna Hey, I actually want to be still doing this in seven to 10 years. And this is where I wanna be. And cause if you don’t know where you are on the map, doesn’t matter which way you go. Get where you want to go. And I’ve just seen a lot of people get started, cuz they see this quick buck, they see this arbitrage and I’m probably guilty of promoting so much of it that way, which you can certainly hop in and make some money on marketplaces.
[00:23:57] But if you decide you wanna stick around. And build something real with directed consumer and building your own email list. That’s a different skillset that honestly takes time to not only learn, but also develop and execute. It’s not impossible. And for a lot of people, it ends up being fun, but, having an overall strategy from the beginning will help you prevent from wasting a lot of time at the beginning.
[00:24:15] Michael: Yeah, really that’s lots of great comments from everyone just to have my 2 cents, to your point, Kyle, having a solid reason for your audience to buy off your site. So the front end slash marketing side is really critical. I think that’s just generally true for all brands selling anyway.
[00:24:28] But you can particularly, you can get away with it to a degree on Amazon or you have been able to, I think that’s probably going away as you hinted, but I think in your DTC side, absolutely critical. For me, the flip side of that on the financial side, make sure you’re solving for the right equation.
[00:24:42] So getting a bunch of people to buy your stuff once works on Amazon, because you’ve got conversion rates of 25, 30, 40%, and you. Quotes free traffic. Okay. There’s a lot of Amazon ads in the mix, but it can work financially. Whereas I think the cost of acquiring the customer, this is the lifetime customer value.
[00:24:57] Hint being a lifetime, not like first of all, is the one you gotta solve for and final point to Jason’s point again, just to echo and underline that don’t miss the B2B opportunities. Don’t be purist. If you’re selling what you think is direct to consumer and you get one sale, a. To somebody who’s granny or something, and it’s no use to you.
[00:25:13] And then you get the odd sale to somebody who buys a hundred units in one go well, double down on that. There’s a lot of money to be made in that. And I think, one of my clients is probably making the majority of his profit from that, even though he didn’t start off with that intention. So if it comes across your plate, it’s a valuable thing.
[00:25:28] So final summary is to say, thank you so much for listen. If you’re on the call in app, if you haven’t called us on call in, do you come and check it out? It’s only available as I know, as far as I know on iPhone at the moment, I’m sure they’ll do a Android version, cetera windows phone as it comes to it, but also you can capture us on all the podcast channels, including apple podcast, Spotify, cetera.
[00:25:47] We’re trending up with nicely on most of those. So do come and join the party. And if you get a chance to leave us a rating at five stars on apple or Spotify podcast now, that will be amazing. Final thing is to say thanks to my lovely colleagues, over in the states always enjoy our chats, chance.
[00:26:01] Absolute pleasure, Jason Miles, Kyle Hamer, Chris Green. This has been Michael Veazey for the eCommerce leader show. Thanks for listening.
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