Before Starting

Ecommerce is a two-headed beast with an angel and devil on each side.

It can change your life, make you unfathomably rich, and allow you to work from any beach in the world —- but it can also sell you snake oil, steal all your money, and ruin your life.

Don’t take this lightly. I’ve seen it and can share horror stories.

Luckily, after 6 years, I’d like to think I can see past (most) the bullshit. Let’s start by going through the most common ones.

1. Dropshipping

Dropshipping is to ecommerce what “6 Minute Abs” is to fitness.

If you want serious results, you have to be willing to put in serious effort.

I don’t care if you know someone who pulled dropshipping off. I do too. I also know people who eat junk food, rarely work out, and still somehow wake up with a 6 pack. This doesn’t mean I tell people to cancel their gym memberships.

The goal of Ecommerce for Artists is to provide practical, replicable methods of growing online businesses — not to sell you digital lotto tickets.

So if you’re here expecting to learn how to make hundreds of thousands of dollars while working 5 hours a week, I suggest you go to Barnes & Noble and find the fairytales section instead.

2. If someone says anything about +10x ROAS, hear alarm bells

Any channel that highlights +10x Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) shouldn’t be taken seriously.

While these numbers were once more-regularly achievable, in the current Post-iOS14 landscape, +10x ROAS results simply aren’t realistic and any channel stating otherwise is probably doing one of the three below things (or a combination of them).

One, they are reducing timeframes. For example, when a new collection drops, the same-day results will be amazing. But these results are inherently not sustainable, and presenting them creates a false story.

Second, if you run a small budget campaign (around $5/day in ad spend), and sell $50 worth of goods, you’ll report 10x results. And while this is great, quite often the total revenue numbers will be omitted. Plus, most people are aiming for more than $50/day in sales to survive.

Third, and last, often “gurus” just outright lie. There are, unfortunately, dozens of ways to manipulate sales data in both Facebook and Shopify, and many online “Ecom Gurus” use this to their advantage. My advice: don’t believe everything you see on the internet. And set your expectations properly.

3. There are no magic tricks.

Connecting points one and two, there are no magic “cure-all” techniques in ecommerce now.

Building a business online is like completing a puzzle.

Ensure you have all the pieces, and then start connecting them one piece at a time.