Store Builders Podcast
Helping business owners start their own ecommerce store
How can I take my ecommerce store to the next level?
We answer that question every episode with a little help from industry experts and successful store owners.
Hosted by Chris Lema, The Store Builders Podcast provides actionable advice for expanding your eCommerce empire.
Ryan Cowden
Ryan Cowden is a full-time podcast host and producer based in Los Angeles, California. Prior to his work as a podcaster, Ryan worked as a therapist with autistic children and spent seven years as a public school teacher. In 2018, Ryan launched his own podcast and eventually left teaching to pursue his love of podcasting and audio production. He is a podcast fanatic and doesn’t have enough hours in a week to listen to all his favorites.
Chris Lema
Chris Lema has been building ecommerce sites since 1997, back when it would take a lot of time, cost a lot of money, and still didn’t work perfectly. He's worked with WooCommerce since it was launched and helped fast-growing stores tweak it to deliver high performance. Today he is the CEO of Motivations AI.
James Sowers
James Sowers is a marketing consultant and digital product manager based in Cleveland, Ohio. He is passionate about helping other entrepreneurs build stronger, more sustainable businesses, which made him a great fit to be a co-host for our show.
Episode 30: An Introduction to Headless ECommerce
If you’ve been reading about Ecommerce and online store building over the past year or so you’ve probably heard about something called headless Ecommerce. Headless Ecommerce uncouples the online store element from the front-end client interphase. This provides store builders the freedom to extend beyond the traditional constraints that have provided structure to online shopping.
Episode 29: How to Compete with Amazon's Free Shipping
One of the many ways Amazon has changed the online retail market is by making free shipping an expectation for most consumers. Free shipping has gone from a perk to a requirement that consumers frequently expect when shopping online. In fact, the most-cited reason for leaving an online shopping cart is shipping fees.
Episode 28: Understanding the Evolving Tax Collection Landscape
In 2018, the United States Supreme Court ruled in South Dakota vs. Wayfair that states can charge sales tax on purchases made from out of state sellers who have no physical presence in the state of purchase. This was a landmark decision with sweeping implications for online sellers. In addition to considering tax laws where your business is based and where your items are stored, sellers now have to consider tax laws where their items are being purchased and shipped.
Episode 27: The Truth About Virtual Assistants
One of the truisms of our day is that scaling a successful business requires outsourcing work to virtual assistants (VA’s). If you want your business to grow and thrive, eventually it will grow to a workload that you cannot do on your own. Virtual assistants provide a great service by taking extra work off your hands, allowing you to focus on the essential work that will make your business grow.
Episode 26: Optimizing Your SEO
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is becoming an important if not essential feature of marketing and growth for online companies. Online customers often enter specific phrases and words into their preferred search engine in an attempt to find information, products, and sellers. These shoppers seldom scroll past the first page of results that pop up.
Episode 25: Deciding When to Use Amazon as a Channel
If it hasn’t happened already, the “Amazon Question” will come up at some point in your time as an online store builder. Should you consider putting your store, or part of your store on Amazon? What are you missing out on if you don’t? What will it cost you if you do?
Episode 24: Ensuring Consistent Shopper Experience Throughout and After Buying
When you consider the things your store needs, it’s easy to get caught up in technical concerns and online trends. You may hear that pop-up ads are good ways to grab attention. You may think analytics can answer every question. You may come across a list of things every website needs.
Episode 23: Effective Store Design for Non-Designers (and How to Get Help)
In a perfect world, we would each have the perfect skill set for our profession. We would have all the skills we would ever need for any client request that came our way. Our job description and our comfort zone would perfectly overlap.
Episode 22: Using Photos and Videos Effectively
The main purpose of the product pages you design and manage is to convert shoppers into customers. If you want more conversions, you’ll want to engineer your product page with the right content and presentation to move shoppers from lookers into buyers.
Episode 21: Building Your Ecommerce Portfolio
When you’re looking for a new job, you update your resume, right? You fill in the page with a list of titles, positions, and the most engaging adjectives to make your work experience “wow” and impress. However, simply listing your job experiences, especially as a builder or creator, just doesn’t prove your skill set like it used to.