Latest / Beyond Fulfillment Podcast / Strategies for E-commerce Success and Growth with Adam Yuro

Transcript

Strategies for E-commerce Success and Growth with Adam Yuro · Beyond Fulfillment Podcast

• 0:00
  Adam Euro is the founder and CEO of Euro, an all in one white glove e commerce agency.
• 0:09
  In this episode, Adam dives into his unique journey from an e commerce warehouse to the helm of his own successful company.
• 0:17
  He'll share his innovative approach to testing and trust, revealing how he helps businesses thrive by embracing experimentation and forming strategic partnerships.
• 0:29
  Adam also discusses the significant shift in his business focus from selling products online to growing brands and assisting other companies in achieving their goals.
• 0:40
  With firsthand insights on the challenge of starting out client acquisition strategies and practical advice on improving online presence, Adam offers invaluable advice for anyone in e commerce space.
• 0:54
  He'll highlight overlooked opportunities in smaller marketplaces like Wish, Newegg and Statcommerce, and cautions against over reliance on the giant like Amazon.
• 1:05
  Stay tuned as we explore Adam's comprehensive service model at Euro, the market gaps he's identified and his personal journey towards professional fulfillment and brand building.
• 1:17
  Whether you're an e commerce novice or a seasoned seller, today's episode is packed with actionable insights and strategies to help you succeed in the ever evolving world of online sales.
• 1:30
  As always, if you found value from this content, please like and subscribe now.
• 1:35
  Here's my conversation with Adam Uro.
• 1:38
  Enjoy.
• 1:39
  Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Beyond Fulfillment podcast.
• 1:44
  I'm your host, Dave Gulas, and this week my guest is the founder and CEO of Euro, Adam Euro.
• 1:52
  Welcome Adam.
• 1:54
  Thank you for having me.
• 1:55
  Yeah, thanks so much for being here.
• 1:58
  If you could, for everyone, can you just tell us what Euro is and how it got started?
• 2:03
  Yeah.
• 2:04
  So Euro is an all in one white glove e commerce agency.
• 2:09
  So unlike other e commerce agencies that focus purely on one marketplace, we help e commerce companies with every aspect of their business, whether it's listing creation, marketing, account management, customer service, accounting, or anything else you could think of.
• 2:26
  With our deep connections throughout the industry and our vast knowledge of everything e commerce, we can help any company get up and running without any additional stress.
• 2:35
  Additionally, we have our own storefronts on all major marketplaces, as well as our own website to list their products on, if that's the route they would prefer to take.
• 2:45
  Overall, Euro makes selling online simple.
• 2:49
  The whole reason we decided to start this, well, I decided to start this was because over my e commerce journey over the past decade or so, I've realized that a lot of the outsourcing that companies did that I
• 3:07
  worked for, we would end up having to hire multiple different agencies to handle different aspects of the e commerce business.
• 3:19
  And instead of doing that, I figured why not just start a company that could handle all of it for somebody that might not have a team already set up to do so for them.
• 3:29
  Clay.
• 3:29
  Okay, now, you've been in e commerce for, like you said, over a decade and long history with a bunch of different companies that I saw.
• 3:39
  When you're doing the all in one service, did you find that that's like a gap in the market that's not really out there en masse?
• 3:46
  Yeah, I've noticed that there's a lot of companies that purely focus on Amazon or purely focus on Walmart.
• 3:54
  And in my experience, yeah, those are two of the biggest online marketplaces.
• 4:01
  But there's the smaller ones that never get focused on.
• 4:06
  And from my experience, those smaller ones could end up being one of your biggest.
• 4:12
  Just because you may not think they will be or haven't had luck in the past with them doesn't mean that they're someone you should just look over.
• 4:24
  I primarily focus on the smaller marketplaces when I was actually working for companies.
• 4:32
  And through that is how I learned that these smaller marketplaces actually held a lot of value.
• 4:39
  And by those companies not listing on them and marketing their products, they were missing out on a ton of sales.
• 4:47
  And I understand that Amazon's always going to be number one, but at the same time, number two and three could be making up a good 50% of your business if you allowed the right people to focus on it.
• 5:05
  And that's basically why I created Euro, to help companies that don't really want to necessarily spend the time on those marketplaces when I already have the connections there.
• 5:15
  I already know how to do those platforms and I'm able to get them up and running and selling very smoothly, as well as making sure their listings look great.
• 5:28
  Okay.
• 5:29
  So now when you talk about those platforms being more valuable, of course we can think of top line revenue.
• 5:35
  But I, one of the complaints I hear from just people I know or e commerce sellers that I deal with is just about Amazon and how it's so difficult to be profitable given the way the fees increase and
• 5:51
  the rules evolve and the pricing is so cutthroat and everything.
• 5:56
  Can you speak to that in your experience about what it's like trying to run a profitable business by being an Amazon seller versus some of these other platforms you're talking about?
• 6:06
  Oh, yeah, absolutely.
• 6:07
  Yeah.
• 6:08
  With Amazon, like you said, theyre constantly changing things, their fees are constantly going up.
• 6:14
  And it really just comes down to if the product is worth selling on Amazon, and if it is, how can you compete?
• 6:23
  Ive worked for brands and have helped brands that have products that are very similar in the marketplace to other brands.
• 6:31
  And their difficulty is making sure that customers know why they should be buying their product versus one of their competitors.
• 6:42
  With that, it really just comes down to really showing the part of the product that makes it worthwhile.
• 6:51
  One of the companies that im helping right now, thats actually part of our whole process when were onboarding new products.
• 6:59
  What makes you different in the market than all of your competitors that are selling the same product with a different logo on it essentially.
• 7:07
  And through that, it's helped grow their brand and the company I'm helping.
• 7:13
  And with that on Amazon specifically, it's very difficult to get your name out there and your brand out there without doing paid advertising and stuff like that.
• 7:26
  And with that, ive also pushed people to really focus a little bit more on their social presence, some kind of content marketing and stuff like that.
• 7:37
  Because yes, you might not be able to compete directly against them on Amazon, but by creating a buzz for your brand and your product on other platforms such as social media and through content marketing, youre able to build
• 7:51
  your brand and people will most likely go to Amazon to purchase it versus a third party seller or something like that that they're not really comfortable with.
• 8:02
  And I've realized that and my customers have realized that even though we're spending the money and not on Amazon to market the product, we're spending that money to market it via social media and content, that they're seeing a
• 8:20
  uptick in sales.
• 8:21
  Their reviews are going up and they're just overall selling more on Amazon.
• 8:28
  Even customers that I work with that we've set up on third party marketplaces that are not Amazon, they've realized that they might go to them, check out the product, but then come back and buy it actually on Amazon.
• 8:42
  Most customers nowadays, they feel that warm, fuzzy feeling when they purchase on Amazon because Amazon has their back if anything goes wrong.
• 8:52
  And that's why they'd rather pay $1.02 more, even $1015 more for a product on Amazon where they could get it somewhere else for cheaper.
• 9:02
  Okay, so it sounds like you're saying use personal branding to build an organic buzz.
• 9:08
  And then even if people are finding you first and then going to Amazon to buy, you're not going to be necessarily competing on price.
• 9:16
  If they just started looking on Amazon against similar products, right.
• 9:20
  It's like building the brand.
• 9:21
  So they just go to Amazon, they say, I know what I know, I want to buy this item.
• 9:25
  And they're not necessarily shopping price because they're going to look for your brand, right?
• 9:29
  Absolutely.
• 9:30
  Like, I know that, uh, from seeing, you know, new marketplaces bloom every day, like TikTok shop, you know, that's huge right now.
• 9:39
  That's going crazy.
• 9:41
  But there's a lot of, uh, consumers that might not necessarily feel the trust in the backing that they get from Amazon.
• 9:49
  So if even though it's a viral on TikTok right now, a lot of those consumers are still going to Amazon to purchase the product because they have that sense of security by buying it from Amazon more than they
• 10:03
  do from, you know, like the TikTok shop or something like that.
• 10:08
  Interesting.
• 10:08
  Okay, so now I want to switch gears and get into your journey a little bit more.
• 10:13
  So, like you said, you have a lot of experience working for other companies and handling these e commerce roles.
• 10:19
  Uh, what made you decide to go out on your own?
• 10:23
  So I always enjoyed, uh, being on a team and growing a company.
• 10:30
  My first role in e commerce, I actually started in the warehouse, and I helped build their warehouse into and streamline it to where everything was running smoothly.
• 10:42
  And the owner said, you're too smart to just be in the warehouse.
• 10:46
  Let me teach you the sales side of things.
• 10:48
  And from there, I learned the smaller marketplaces had power and stuff like that.
• 10:54
  But over the years, e commerce is very fickle.
• 10:59
  Companies come and go, and I realized that if I wanted something stable and I wanted to continue growing as a person and in my career, it was time that I just ventured out and started my own company.
• 11:15
  I was working for a huge company before I started my own.
• 11:20
  And the direction that they were going with their company, yes, theyre still very successful.
• 11:27
  Theyre still a huge company, but the e commerce arm of their company just wasnt getting there where they wanted it.
• 11:33
  And I saw a lot of things that could have been changed, but I was lower on the totem pole, so I wasnt able to change them myself.
• 11:40
  But by opening up my own company when the inevitability of that division being shut down, I already had something going.
• 11:52
  I was already working with other companies and getting them up and running.
• 11:57
  And through that, I've seen a lot more joy myself and a lot more.
• 12:04
  I got my spark back basically because I'm able to handle it the way that I think it should be handled.
• 12:10
  And these companies that hire me are also trusting my ability to do it for them.
• 12:18
  And I'm not getting as much pushback on, hey, we need to test these three things, and one of them's going to work.
• 12:26
  The other two are most likely going to fail.
• 12:28
  Are you willing to let me try all three, though?
• 12:31
  And through that, these companies trust me, they let me try all three for them and then I find a successful route for them.
• 12:38
  And by doing that, it opens the door to a lot more possibilities.
• 12:45
  And originally when I started Euro, I was just going to be another online seller, just like I've done for years.
• 12:55
  And I realized that my expertise was more in growing brands and growing other people and maybe nothing.
• 13:04
  Selling the products all on my own and sourcing and all of that.
• 13:09
  Yes, I do have an online marketplace.
• 13:12
  I do have a storefront where you can buy and purchase things.
• 13:15
  But my focus has been more on helping other companies grow and succeed.
• 13:19
  And the ones that have hired us and have worked with us have grown substantially and are very happy.
• 13:29
  I have reviews across the web showing that it's just getting my foot in the door is a little bit harder when you're not as well known as the bigger guys that have been around for so long doing this.
• 13:44
  But once I get in the door, they realize that my pricing is better and the quality is better.
• 13:50
  Okay, so when you first started out, right, and you obviously had a lot of contacts from your time in the industry, but what was it like getting started in landing those first, you know, group of clients and getting
• 14:04
  them to really trust you to handle it as a new agency?
• 14:09
  So I'll fully admit it was a few months before I even landed my first client.
• 14:14
  It was very stressful.
• 14:15
  It made me feel like I was, you know, maybe doing something wrong.
• 14:21
  But then once what happened was one of my former colleagues actually needed help with something and he reached out, asked me if I would come on board.
• 14:32
  And I came on board and I was actually able to get them where they needed to faster than they thought they were going to.
• 14:40
  And through that they suggested someone else who suggested someone else and it ended up becoming more of a word of mouth type thing, which through that, I ended up starting a whole affiliate partnership program because I realized that,
• 14:54
  you know, the cold emails and the cold calls and everything like that, yeah, that is generating leads, that is helping opening the door to some.
• 15:02
  But the word of mouth was where I was getting most of my clientele from because those people actually knew what I can do and already gave a raving review for me before the people even walked through the door.
• 15:20
  And as a small business just starting out, it really helps a lot with that because there's only so much I can say and do over the phone or via Google Meets or Zoom.
• 15:35
  But when it comes to actually showing them how to do it.
• 15:39
  I know that that's the best part.
• 15:41
  And for me, I always do a free 30 minutes that they can pick my brain, ask me questions, and if there's something I could help with them with, that's not going to take a ton of my time.
• 15:56
  Like, if it's something that I know I can fix within like a 510 minutes period, like, I'll give them the steps on how to fix it without even having to pay me, because then, you know, down the line
• 16:07
  they know, oh, he helped me.
• 16:10
  I actually have a bigger problem now that, you know, is going to take time, but he was able to help me with this smaller problem, and then they come back to me.
• 16:18
  And I've gotten a lot of clients by just giving out that free ten to 15 minutes of my time just to help them out get started where, you know, they didn't necessarily know, like, there was a simple solution
• 16:32
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• 17:26
  That's interesting because I've been on the phone with other agencies or people that try to solicit me for, I mean, other services.
• 17:35
  And, you know, it's not, it's a 30 minutes call, let's say, or whatnot, but it's basically a sales pitch.
• 17:41
  So you're saying you give, you give a free 30 minutes, like, hey, it's as if you're engaging me.
• 17:46
  What do you need help with?
• 17:47
  And you just do, do some, some work or give some advice for free right off the bat?
• 17:52
  Yeah, because, you know, overall, you know, yes, I am a business.
• 17:57
  Yes, I want to make money at the end of the day.
• 17:59
  But, you know, these people are looking for help.
• 18:03
  They're reaching out to me.
• 18:04
  I have, you know, the ability to help them and get at least point them in the right direction.
• 18:11
  You know, I've had a lot of people reach out to me that are just starting out and that's why they're trying to find someone to help them out.
• 18:18
  And if I'm charging them an arm and a leg to, you know, get these things done for them, they're never going to get started out.
• 18:26
  They're never going to need me down the line because I already charged them for services where they weren't at the point in their own journey where they could really afford those services.
• 18:38
  So if it's a quick 1520 minutes fix for them in that 30 minutes call, I'd rather give them as much advice on how to be successful versus being like, yeah, I can do all that, but this is what
• 18:50
  it's going to cost you.
• 18:52
  And after that 30 minutes, yes, if they want more time and stuff like that, I will charge for my time, but they get a free 30 minutes of just asking me basically any question.
• 19:03
  And if it's something that I can help them with, I'll help them with it during the call.
• 19:07
  And if it's something that's a little bit more complex that I have to send them an email after with like the steps or links to how to do it, I'd rather do that and see them be successful and,
• 19:20
  you know, down the line, you know, they might need me, they may not have, but that's a risk that I take doing that.
• 19:27
  But I do know that if they have somebody down the line that's like, hey, I'm trying to figure this out and I can't really get wrap my head around it.
• 19:37
  They're going to suggest setting up a 30 minutes call with me, get the advice from me.
• 19:42
  And that seems to be working for me because I've gotten a lot of clientele by doing that.
• 19:48
  Wow, excellent.
• 19:50
  All right, so now, speaking of e commerce, like you, like you said, you work with many brands that are just starting out and people that are trying to just get off the ground.
• 20:00
  What are some of the most common challenges you see that e commerce sellers are having today?
• 20:05
  From what I've seen with a lot of these sellers that are just starting out is they're thinking that anybody and everybody can sell online.
• 20:16
  They're not really focusing on how to actually source the products, get the products live, get their, especially their website.
• 20:25
  I get reached out by a lot of people that, you know, they have abcmail.com and I'm like, do you have a website yet?
• 20:34
  And they're like, no, I don't.
• 20:36
  And I'm like, even if you don't build a website and you just use that URL to redirect to your Amazon or your eBay, you know, that professional looking email is going to open the door to a lot of
• 20:48
  different things.
• 20:49
  Like myself, I have like 50 different URL's that I own.
• 20:53
  They all redirect to my main page because, you know, those are future projects and stuff like that.
• 21:00
  But just the initial getting set up and finding the foundation that they need to get set up, there's a lot of people, they'll just start on eBay because it's the simplest, there's a lot less red tape.
• 21:16
  And I'm looking at their listings and it literally looks like they're working out of their garage.
• 21:22
  Instead of trying to build a business and taking a professional photo on a white background or writing a good product description or even a good product title, I've realized that some of the items that people are trying to
• 21:41
  sell just aren't good online items because they're just low weight, low cost, low retail price items that are not items that you could really bundle together and sell as a pack because they're really just single type items.
• 21:59
  And through that I've helped them realize, hey, these are the steps you actually need to take to be successful.
• 22:05
  One guy that I spoke with recently, he was going to open up a storefront.
• 22:11
  So he bought like retail storefront stuff like a physical brick and mortar that ended up falling through.
• 22:18
  So he had a ton of inventory and deep inventory on all these products, but it just wasn't the right kind of product to try to start a business with online.
• 22:29
  And I helped him go through his inventory, find the ones that will actually be successful online and teach him how to sell those better.
• 22:38
  So those other products that might not necessarily be a good fit for an online sales channel, he can fit.
• 22:44
  He could, you know, either donate wholesale off and all of that, and through that he was able to be successful.
• 22:52
  You know, I know that there's certain aspects of business that I don't necessarily, you know, have the expertise in.
• 23:00
  And through that I've built many partnerships with other companies that if it's something like a wholesale buy, buy and sell or something like that, I have a guy that I can pass them over to.
• 23:13
  And that's what I did with him.
• 23:14
  I passed him over to my wholesale guy and he was actually able to purchase and offload all of that access inventory.
• 23:22
  And now the guy's doing extremely well because I taught him like, hey, not every product is the right fit for online.
• 23:30
  These are the ones that are good.
• 23:31
  These are the ones that are nothing.
• 23:33
  Its great that you bought all this stuff for a brick and mortar, but its not the same thing as selling online Preston okay.
• 23:41
  And with this were midway through 2024.
• 23:45
  Actually Q four is right around the corner here for 2024.
• 23:48
  I mean, where do you see the state of e commerce in terms of whats going on in the market, what the bigger players are doing and these smaller companies as well.
• 23:58
  Where do you see e commerce going in the next twelve months?
• 24:02
  E commerce is going to continue to grow.
• 24:04
  I know that it is actually probably at its lowest point that it's been in a few years other than Prime Day.
• 24:13
  Obviously drove tremendous sales for everybody.
• 24:16
  That was part of it.
• 24:18
  But from my experience and from what I've seen helping different clients, a lot of people are still in the mindset and started a lot of their businesses actually during the COVID era while during the lockdown and everything like
• 24:34
  that where everybody was buying online and everything was selling tremendously.
• 24:39
  So a lot of people have a lot of overstock.
• 24:42
  A lot of people actually ended up, you know, folding after Covid closed because, you know, they spent way more than they should have based off of that time period.
• 24:52
  But I do feel that it is in the process of going back into an upward trajectory where people are starting to buy online a lot more.
• 25:03
  Again, not as much during that time, but online sales are going nowhere.
• 25:08
  And with the rise of new marketplaces and new ways of shopping and just the overall experience that a lot of different people are having online now, you have to change the way that you do things.
• 25:24
  Like every business needs to change the way that they do things to be successful in e commerce and continue growing.
• 25:29
  I know a lot of companies that are strictly just Amazon companies and those companies, I always feel are risking their business because if Amazon suspends them, they're out of business.
• 25:44
  And there's also the rise of so many new marketplaces and the sales that are going through those marketplaces and then existing marketplaces that people just may not touch on that can help them grow.
• 25:57
  But from the numbers that I'm seeing with the clients that I work with, it was definitely going down.
• 26:04
  Over the past year, year and a half sales started slowing.
• 26:09
  But over the past two months I've noticed it going back up and that's a great thing.
• 26:16
  I've noticed growth, tremendous growth in different areas.
• 26:20
  It just really depends on the product line that these people are selling, on where the growth has been.
• 26:27
  But overall in the next twelve months, I do see it growing and becoming even bigger and stronger.
• 26:35
  And I do see that there's probably going to be more contenders that are coming into the market that aren't, that are going to be able to compete against Amazon directly.
• 26:47
  Okay.
• 26:48
  And so I know you mentioned earlier the smaller marketplaces give us like two or three of the maybe like the best smaller marketplaces in your opinion, that maybe people are neglecting to be on.
• 27:00
  So again, it really depends on the product lines that you're in.
• 27:05
  But my number one smaller marketplace that I continuously push for and I continuously tell people to work with is wish.
• 27:14
  Wish might be still have that stigma about it from when it first started out.
• 27:20
  But from my experience, wish has grown tremendously and us sellers still have that thought process and that stigma of from when wish started out.
• 27:32
  But now if you're a us seller and you can offer that two day, three day shipping just like the Amazon people, it actually is beneficial to sell on there.
• 27:42
  Also.
• 27:43
  Wish is unlike other marketplaces where Amazon is very customer centric.
• 27:51
  They want to make sure the customer is happy and the vendors usually, and the sellers are usually the ones that eat all those costs.
• 27:59
  Wish, on the other hand, they play both sides of it if they want to help the customer and they want to help the vendor succeed.
• 28:06
  So there's no risk really on selling on wish.
• 28:11
  Because if you do get fraud or anything like that, wish has the merchants back versus you having to jump through hoops to get paid on those things.
• 28:20
  Then number two, if you're in the tech industry, definitely would be Newegg.
• 28:28
  Newegg is huge in the tech industry and a lot of people don't really think about Newegg as a strong competition.
• 28:36
  But being from an electronics background, I've done electronics, refurbished electronics for most of my career.
• 28:43
  Both of those did tremendously well on Newegg.
• 28:46
  And it's just making sure your listings look good on Newegg's platform, not just a copy and paste of Amazon.
• 28:56
  Newegg has its own way of doing things and you can be extremely successful on there if you have the right products.
• 29:04
  And then number three, I'm going to have to go with stack commerce.
• 29:09
  They're one of the people that I work with right now and they do content marketing.
• 29:15
  If you are a brand, they are going to be so helpful for you.
• 29:22
  They write articles across the web on well known publications and by doing that, like I said earlier, with the content marketing, they help build your brand and build your product across the web, which you know, gets it in
• 29:39
  front of more eyes and helps people know why your product is better than others.
• 29:46
  And through that, you know you're going to create a buzz about your product versus just listing it on a marketplace and hoping somebody stumbles across it.
• 29:55
  Okay.
• 29:56
  Yeah.
• 29:56
  Excellent advice.
• 29:57
  So there's three smaller, smaller marketplaces that people may be overlooking, but like you said, very valuable.
• 30:03
  They each have their own unique traits, and particularly for e commerce brands trying to grow.
• 30:07
  Right.
• 30:08
  You want to be everywhere you can and not just on the Amazons of the world.
• 30:13
  Absolutely.
• 30:13
  Like, you know, I did.
• 30:16
  Like, there's also, you know, plenty of others out there that have their own thing and do their own, you know, way.
• 30:24
  But those three were definitely the ones that I would focus on.
• 30:27
  If you're trying to expand, especially if you're trying to grow a brand without much risk involved on your end, all three of these help you know the seller a lot, as well as making sure the customers are taken
• 30:40
  care of.
• 30:41
  All right, outstanding.
• 30:43
  And Adam, if people want to get in touch with you, learn more about your services, or maybe take you up on a 30 minutes call, what's the best way people can, can get in touch with you?
• 30:53
  So the best way, if you want to see my schedule and be able to just throw time on my calendar, if you go to www.euroholdings.com, there's a schedule, a call link on there.
• 31:08
  It brings you directly to my calendar, and you can schedule a time for whenever is good for you.
• 31:17
  The calendar works perfectly.
• 31:18
  It shows your time zone and what's available in my time zone, just in case.
• 31:23
  But if you just want to shoot me an email, you know, it's adamurowoldings.com.
• 31:29
  and I will respond to you very quickly.
• 31:32
  Even if it's, you know, a, something I need to look into.
• 31:37
  I try to respond to everybody within a 24 to 48 hours period.
• 31:42
  If it is something that I need to look into a little bit more, it will take a little bit more time, but I will respond to you and let you know, like, hey, I'm looking into it.
• 31:52
  Just give me a few more days kind of thing.
• 31:55
  All right.
• 31:56
  And we'll link all that in the show notes for everyone as well.
• 31:59
  All right.
• 31:59
  Well, Adam, thank you so much for taking the time to be here and going over your journey and what you do.
• 32:04
  We really appreciate that.
• 32:05
  And that is all the time we have for now.
• 32:07
  We will see you next time.