Mixergy is a great online hub for entrepreneurs, where speakers are invited to live events and online interviews to share their knowledge of navigating the business world today. One of their featured speakers recently was Tobias Lütke, CEO of Shopify. Shopify is a Shipwire partner and our two platforms are deeply integrated.

Tobias started Shopify after struggling to get his own small business off the ground. He wanted to follow his passion and start a snowboarding store but was having trouble navigating the ecommerce software available to get it off the ground. So he turned to his other passion, programming, to help him get to where he wanted to be. Tobias and his team made their own ecommerce software to help themselves and a slew of other people in the same situation. Tobias explains, “We were our own customers. We extrapolated that there were more people like us. More people who would appreciate the same thing.”

What came of all of Tobias and team’s hard work, passion, and diligence is the application and company that is Shopify. Shopify provides a platform which makes it easy for anyone to open up an online store. “…our software essentially is a modern take that idea that the online world can have boutique stores. If you could go downtown just for the fun of shopping, lots of people like shopping, they tend to go into the nice area of downtown region where the little boutique stores are….We want to bring this art of the shopping world back to the internet where people go top have fun shopping and trust the store that they choose good products. That’s where Shopify came from.”

Towards the end of his Mixergy interview, Tobias drops some nuggets of wisdom on us. “There are so many amazing opportunities out there. The most important thing is it is really not so hard… The most important thing is, once you start concentrate on nothing. Incredible services, services like Shipwire for example, that is a service where you get some space in a warehouse, you send your entire product there, and they ship to your customer directly. That means who can take your iPhone, use your mobile app, go backpacking, check it out on your cell phone, check ship, it goes to Shipwire, and it ships out. You click email you talk to your customers. You click call and you talk directly with them. You really don’t even need to sit anywhere. It’s ridiculous. You can build an entire great business without putting that much work into it. It’s something a lot of people should do. We have some customers who are running stores as side businesses. They have a full time job at a Fortune 500 company. They are doing more sales in this side business. It is absolutely crazy.”

Thank you Toby and Mixergy for the shoutout! There are some crazy good ideas in this interview. Listen or read the full interview here.

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Every year it seems like Christmas comes earlier and earlier. For small business owners this is true every year, well almost true. You may see decorations being put up early, but planning for a successful holiday season for small business owners usually starts in early summer every year. This is because it takes planning ahead to make sure all the details are covered before a busy selling and shipping season kicks in. We here at Shipwire have been tracking holiday season sales and shipping for many years and have written about it numerous times. We just posted a bunch of holiday e-commerce tips.

We wanted to put out a few more holiday tips and remind readers of the interesting findings from our shipping survey results back in May.

2009 Holiday E-Commerce Order Volume was Up; But, With Smaller Average Order Amounts

The Shipwire survey reinforces a general growth in e-commerce, as indicated by holiday season shipping trends. Between the 2008 and 2009 holiday seasons, the average order volume per merchant grew 44 percent; however, the average number of units shipped by merchants for the holiday season increased by 26 percent. So, while merchants shipped more product, they sold a lesser amount to each buyer (the average unit size decreased while the total shipments increased).

“This shows that while merchants did ship 26% more product, they shipped it in more orders; this seems to indicate that there were more online shoppers; but, the average customer bought slightly less product per order in 2009 over 2008,” stated Mr. Schechter. “It appears that there is a growing comfort with making impulse purchases online. This is a trend I would expect to continue with a global recession butting heads with the pricing efficiency and convenience of online and mobile commerce.”

Here are some other interesting holiday tidbits we’ve accumulated from around the web:

• Searches for “buy online, pick up in store” were up by as much as 100% this past December 2009 and Searches for ‘promo codes’ increased by as much as 55% year-over-year. consider putting a promo code section on your website today!
• Half of all new internet connections will come from mobile phones. So bake in your mobile communications strategy into the larger communications strategy now.
• Black Friday (the Friday following Thanksgiving): Searches rose 20% year-over-year as consumers flock online during the traditionally offline shopping event.
• In 2009 consumer interest in apparel, electronics and toys was revived, as searches in the apparel and toys categories rose about 50% and searches in the consumer electronics category more than tripled over last year. Did you know that Shipwire specializes in fulfillment for these industries?
• The period between Thanksgiving and Christmas is when retailers make most of their money.
• Two of the top three days for purchases from Retail websites were Mondays, including Cyber Monday (the Monday after Thanksgiving, which will fall on November 30th this year).
• The week before Christmas 2009 accounted for a surprising 20% of post-Black Friday online sales.
• 42% of consumers plan to complete the majority of their purchases in early/mid December while 6% plan to wait until the last minute. (Nate in our office is one of the 6%)
• In the final days before Christmas, expect consumers to continue their deal-seeking ways as they hunt for the hottest items and where to buy them. Ensure your online presence is strong to reach these consumers during this final push.
• Conversion rates to top retail sites rebounded immediately following the holidays, reaching November levels.

So start preparing now and get ready to profit later! And don’t forget to get ready for free shipping day.

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The U.S. Commercial Service (CS), the trade promotion arm of the U.S. Department of Commerce’s International Trade Administration, helps U.S. companies succeed in markets around the world. The impact of this work ripples throughout the U.S. economy—broadening and deepening the U.S. exporter base, removing obstacles to the export success of U.S. small and medium-sized companies, advancing U.S. business interests abroad, and supporting job creation here in the United States.

Below are upcoming U.S. Commercial Service initiatives this summer 2010 designed to connect you to business opportunities around the world. Please click “read more” to see all the seminars.

1)  Seminar: Complying with U.S. Export Controls

2)  Event: 5th Annual International Trade Conference – Hot Market Watch: Selling to Brazil, China and India

3) Event: The Americas Business Trade Mission to Mexico

4) Event: Boost Your Service Exports by Connecting with Chinese Investors

5)  Seminar: Incoterms® for Americans

6)  Are You Facing Barriers Exporting To China?

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You’re probably asking… who is this cute little kid? Meet Nathan, who may one day be giving his Oscar acceptance speech thanks to his parents dedication and newly found free time. Nathan just won a competition at The Swan Hotel at Disney for an acting spot and is on his way to pursuing an acting career.

Why are we blogging about this? Because, his chance for personal success came because his parents were able to spend more time pursuing the important things in their lives. His parents created time by outsourcing their business shipping and warehouse headaches.

Nathan’s parents are Marc and Michelle Blaiwes, owners of SeatGlovers, and Shipwire customers.

The Blaiwes now have enough spare time in between running their business to take Nathan to auditions and help him build his resume for what appears to be a very bright future in acting. It’s a beautiful thing to follow your passions, and that’s exactly what all three Blaiwes are doing.

Marc and Michelle Blaiwes began their entrepreneurial lifestyle back in 2001 by creating an eBay liquidator business that then flourished into their own niche product for which they created their own brand, SeatGlovers.com. Like many other small businesses they went through some serious growing pains. As their business took off they needed more inventory and opened up a warehouse in Florida to manage their inventory. Managing a warehouse brought a logistical nightmare of lost shipments, warehouse employee problems and scaling their sales to continue growing their business. They were also stuck in Florida, even when they were no longer interested in living there and wanted to live in the mountains.

“I was spending more time troubleshooting shipping problems and dealing with warehouse employee problems than I was spending in sales. We were just ‘spinning our wheels’ with shipping and warehousing issues” says Marc. Clearly they could not keep “spinning their wheels” for much longer.

They went looking for a solution to help them automate and get more time back for their life and to focus on growing their business rather than being controlled by their business. The Blaiwes found Shipwire and tested the free Free Trial. They have not looked back since. They outsourced their Florida facility to Shipwire locations in the U.S. This means the Blaiwes can live anywhere and they can use their Shipwire account to manage their business from anywhere in the world.

What did they do with their free time and new found flexibility? They moved to the mountains and focused on their family while continuing to grow their business and expand product lines.

Following your passions is a beautiful thing, if you are a small business owner that would like some of your precious time back why not do what the Blaiwes did, try Shipwire and realize that the sky’s the limit! And remember Nathan’s face… you may see it in a theater near you!

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Shipwire’s CEO Damon Schechter flew to New York to be interviewed by Fox’s Small Business Center on April 30, 2010. Damon spoke on the state of e-commerce and specifically small businesses using Shipwire to increase export sales. You can see that interview here at small business exports.

Later Fox taped another episode with the founders of a company called Dapple. Dapple was founded by two moms, Tamar Rosenthal and Dana Rubinstein, that noticed a need in the market for safe and green cleaning products for all those things babies put in their mouths; toys, bottles, and basically anything that isn’t out of reach or nailed down. As the interview was winding down the founders of Dapple were asked about sales. Tamar mentioned they could use some help with some automation,to which the reporter said, “We need to hook you up with Shipwire!” “I agree!” Tamar said, “We were actually chatting with Shipwire so you never know…”

Well, Tamar, we are certainly glad you met our fearless leader, Damon, and we do know that Shipwire can absolutely help you further grow your business.

Everybody here at Shipwire was thrilled to be mentioned as a possible solution by a Fox Small Business Center anchor. What we have noticed, after talking with thousands of people, that almost everybody has at least one friend that is involved with a business selling a widget online. These entrepreneurs are stressed, out of time and could always use a helpful recommendation. So please,

Gives us a try with our special Free Trial offer. We would love to take your small business to the next level by taking care of all your storage and fulfillment needs so you can focus on more important things, like doing more marketing and interviews!

Watch the entire Dapple interview here.

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UK Bank Holiday – Monday 3rd May

Due to the Bank Holiday on Monday 3 May, there will be no collection or delivery services in any part of the UK on Monday. Normal deliveries and collections will be made in all areas on Tuesday 4 May.

Further details about collection and delivery services around the time of all UK public holidays can be found at www.royalmail.com/ukbankholidays.

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