In this episode of “The Marketing Nerdz Podcast”, “Karan Dharamsi”, CEO of The Marketing Nerdz will be speaking about his personal experience in the field of eCommerce and he shares one of the “E-Commerce Business Mistakes” to be avoided.

According to Karan, every mistake that you make, is a great learning experience and for what most of the people think, not every mistake is a failure. Mistakes are in fact a great way to learn and keep moving ahead!

So, without further ado, here is Karan’s personal experience of starting an eCommerce business and the “eCommerce Business Mistake” to avoid:

Having started a new eCommerce partnership business with the drop-shipping model, Karan and his Partner had managed to scale and grow the company from zero to a good six figures per month in just 5 months!
Even with the net profit margin as low as 15%, the business managed to grow at such a rapid pace and this called for a change, a change to enhance the end customer experience.

With an aim to enhance the end user experience and to start private labelling instead of the drop-shipping model, they invested all the profits earned so far to get in more inventory, found warehouses locally to stock up the inventory and reduce the delivery time, changed the packaging and increased the marketing budget to promote the product and get even more sales!

To anyone, it looked like the absolute right plan of action, the right procedure to go about to expand your Business and increase the number of sales. However, the sales dropped down instead of the expected growth and for a couple of weeks together, there we no sales at all.

From 6 figures a months to no sales…

If you too are wondering what could have possibly gone wrong, here is the eCommerce Business Mistake that led to the drop in sales:

The mistake was that the product which sold so well initially and dropped to almost no sales, was a seasonal product. There was a huge demand for it in the marketing for a good 6-7 months and that’s when the Business was started and it hit the right cords.

But not considering the nature of the product and it’s demand in the market place was the reason that led the Business to a standstill. It wasn’t a product that the consumers needed throughout the year and hence, until the next time when it would be back in demand, there were hardly any purchases.

Thus, putting in all the investment to stock up a huge inventory, to have warehouses and to have private labelling was a good idea from the growth point of view but not considering the nature of the product and it’s demand was the biggest mistake!

The only reason to share this mistake is to make sure everyone out there who is looking to start their own eCommerce business does not have to go through the same and they too get to learn from it, just the way he did.

So, here’s the summary on the “eCommerce Business Mistake”:

• Every product and service has a season, a time when it’s at the highest peak of demand in the market place. It is highly important to recognise the “on season” and “off season” of the products before getting into it’s marketing and promotion.
• Strategic Inventory Planning is a very crucial part of the eCommerce Business Model.

And to conclude, Karan and his partner did sell away all the inventory eventually, when the product was back in season. It did take some waiting for the same. And yes, unfortunately, the Business went from 6 figures a month to practically no profits by the end because of the mistake.

However, the drive home point through this entire experience is to learn from your mistakes and never give up!
Momentarily, it may look like a bad thing, but if you are willing to take it as a learning experience, you will learn from the mistakes and remember not repeat the same in future and move ahead in the right direction.

So, Grow from your mistakes. Mistakes are a sign that you are growing and moving towards your goal, they will make you a smarter person.

And, if you too are looking at starting or growing your business, but wondering where to start from, drop a comment below to get in touch with someone from the team and we would be glad to help you out with the details.