The ‘Not so secret life of an e-commerce entrepreneur’ continues…

What has the Statue of Liberty got in common with Kickstarter? Well in 1885 cash from more than 120,000 civic-minded Americans helped New York build the pedestal for the Statue of Liberty. That makes it the first record of ‘crowdfunding’ – comfortably beating Kickstarter by nearly 130 years.

Proving perhaps that not every good idea has been ‘discovered’ in the last 10 years. And to reinforce that point – I’m launching my e-commerce business, the Amano tongue cleanser – which is based on a 2,000-year-old Roman design for tongue cleaners. However, to pay for my slick digital and social media marketing campaign I first need to raise some finance. So I may need your help and advice (no please – put your wallets away for now)

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The not so secret life of an e-commerce entreprenueur continues…

Reading The Economist last year my attention was grabbed by these words of wonder from Aileen Lee, a partner at venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins:

“E-commerce has now matured to a point where specialty online retailers with excellent supply chains can mint money from such targeted offerings”.

That was my wake up call.

Within weeks I had resurrected my 1990’s Amano tongue cleanser passion project, put to rest in the pre digital age, but now I was on a mission to seek out some of that digital gold dust.

The two-fold trust of Aileen’s point is that:

1. Globalisation enables products to be sourced far more cost effectively (I could say ‘cheaper’ but that is only part of the story)

2. Plus websites and digital/social media enables the global footprint of a product to be far wider. It is as easy now for someone in Myanmar to see your London based product website, as it is someone in Shoreditch.

It can add up to better margins from a far larger potential target market = ‘mint money’. Read More »

I am about to start a new business venture, or to be more precise, I am going to re-launch a niche branded product, that I first put my heart and soul into in the 90s. Way back then I designed, commissioned the manufacture of, packaged, promoted and then sold this ‘niche product’ reasonably successfully in a number of retail stores and via mail order. All of this was done on a shoestring. This time around however I’m hoping for and expecting a better commercial result. The BIG difference between ‘the first time’ and ‘now’ is the advent of globalisation and digital marketing – and specifically e-commerce. Read More »

Part 1: If at first you don’t succeed” - Let me introduce myself with a much over-used and abused term. I am an entrepreneur.

I have had my share of modest success and even failure – mostly within small and medium sized creative enterprises. And along the way I have been fortunate enough to pick up an array of enriching skills and experiences – plus a few scars.

I am about to start a new business venture, or to be more precise, I am going to re-launch a niche branded product, that I first put my heart and soul into in the 90s. Read More »

According to a recent global survey by eMarketer, 2012 saw B2C ecommerce sales in the Asia-Pacific region grow more than 33% to $332.46 billion.

The same report predicts that this year, the region will see another sharp hike with sales increasing by more than 30% to over $433 billion—accounting for over one-third of all global B2C ecommerce sales. This will put the Asia-Pacific in pole position in global B2C ecommerce sales, for the first time, surpassing even North America. Read More »

China’s social media landscape is renowned for its complexity. As each social media platform looks to monetise faster and further than its competitors, brands are dealing with a constantly moving environment, and nailing a strategy across this can be extremely complicated.

Within this nebulous environment, brands have to learn to navigate and make use of the market size in the most efficient manner – setting quality over quantity. To help cut through the noise and complex social media structure in China, we have selected some key channels that are an essential starting place. Read More »

Deloitte estimates that by 2014 mobile devices will account for 14% of all in store sales. Mobile technology is undoubtedly the single biggest driver of today’s connected consumer, however Deloitte also envisage an eventual evolution of the physical store into a mere showroom, with the sole purpose of facilitating the research phase of the purchase journey.

Does this notion fail to attribute enough credit to retailers in acknowledging, addressing, and reacting to the challenges bought by the digitally connected consumer? Read More »

As Chinese New Year celebrations draw to a close, it is a great opportunity to reflect on what the Year of the Snake could mean for UK businesses looking to take advantage of the huge market potential in China.

Chinese wisdom states that the Snake brings good luck, and that the year ahead will be a period marked by ‘steady progress and attention to detail, where focus and discipline will be necessary for you to achieve what you set out to create’. Read More »

This post is provided by our partner Adobe

In their continuing fight to ride the wave of emerging technology and tame the data collected from social media, marketers have a new suite of tools to arm their brands with.

Focused on metrics, not myths, Adobe’s Marketing Cloud helps marketers turn their data into insight and actions quicker, providing a single service that pulls together data from social interactions and targeted advertising to help marketers get ahead. Read More »

According to the Centre of Economics and Business Research (CEBR) online prices are falling at their highest rate for five years. With the festive price war already in full flow, competition in the run-up to Christmas is fierce. With discounts everywhere a customer looks, whether they browse online or in store, how do brands compete for those all-important sales? Read More »