What is it Really Like To Own an Ecommerce Business?

In this video, Matt is finally relieved to watch a video that goes over some of the downsides of being in ecommerce. While ecommerce could be a good business to start, it’s always good to have all sides in mind before starting. And that includes the bad parts of being an ecommerce business. 

There are tons of people out on social media giving business advice. Some of it is good advice, but most of it isn’t good. In this series watch CapForge’s owner react to different advice videos. He’s an expert in all things business and has 20+ years of experience under his belt. Some of the things he reacts to might even surprise you!

Video Transcript: 

Business Advice Video:

Here’s everything that sucks about having e-commerce business. You can be selling multi-millions a year but still have cash flow issues. This is because all the money you’re making is reinvested back into buying more inventory. No matter how perfect your item is, there will always be some level of return and defects. As a business owner there’s always something that you can improve on and there’s no days off.

Matt’s Review:

So I appreciate that he is sharing the downside of this. Because almost all the videos that we see, including some I just watched today, talk about how amazing and easy and simple it is to start an e-commerce business. Anyone can do it. Anyone can make money, you know, no big deal at all. Low barrier to entry, whatever. Here’s somebody who is talking about the realities of it from the other side. Which is all things I agree with, right? The more you grow the more cash it takes to continue to buy inventory and ramp up. And just because you’re selling seven figures or even eight figures doesn’t mean you’re not in a cash crunch, and things can be really tight. It also is a fair amount of work. It’s a whole logistics and supply chain business. You have a lot of moving parts that you gotta stay on top of. It’s not something you can do in a couple hours a week on the weekend from the beach with a laptop. Those kinds of fantasies that people sell are just not the reality for the vast majority of entrepreneurs. If you’re at that level of monitoring stuff from a laptop on the beach, chances are you already sold the business or you have a full-time management team running it. And you’re a very high level of success which is very rare for most people to get to it. Can certainly be done, but it is not something that you’re gonna expect anywhere early on. And he talks about long hours. I think any entrepreneur has to be careful of working too much and not keeping the work-life balance. The work’s always gonna be there. You have to set your own limits of how much time and effort you wanna put in and when you wanna take a break. If you don’t take a break, you do get burned out and you do wanna quit or sell the business or walk away and do something else. So keeping that balance is a good idea. And part of what helps you keep balance is growing your team. Being able to delegate. Setting up processes and procedures. Having other people that help you grow. There is a limit to what you can do as one person. So the way you grow through that limit is you plan to grow. you plan to have a team. You plan to delegate. You put, you know, again processes, procedures in place. Set clear expectations for the people who are gonna help you. What you need from them. What they need to do. What success looks like for them. And you can build a team. And you can manage successfully and you can grow. But it all definitely takes work. And even when you’re not working it’s almost impossible not to be thinking about the business on some level all the time. I certainly do. Every entrepreneur I know does. Even on weekends, even on evenings. But you don’t have to actually be at the office working on it all the time. You need to set boundaries and limits. And enjoy time with your family, or doing hobbies, or with friends, or just not doing the business. Even though you’ll still be thinking about it. At least you don’t have to be actively doing it all the time. Or you will find that it’s taken over your life not in a good way.