This week’s CHAT WITH EXPERT we talked with Nick Peroni the creator of largest and most engaged eCommerce community Ecom Empire. Nick shares his journey as an entrepreneur and how he is helping people with Ecom Empire. He shares some thoughts and insights on ever-changing eCommerce industry, hope you’ll enjoy that and take action based on his advice.
ABOUT NICK PERONI:
Nick is an online entrepreneur, international speaker, and the creator ofEcom Empires. Through his group where he actively leads over 40,000 entrepreneurs worldwide, he’s already helped thousands find success building an online business. He now travels the world to speak and host events in different countries, while building his brands and promoting success with ecommerce.

Hey! What’s your background, and what gets you out of bed every morning?
I’ve always wanted to find a way to be different and follow my own path. I dropped out of college to join the Army because I didn’t feel connected with institutional education, and I wanted to challenge myself to become something more.
The idea of being an entrepreneur was always appealing to me, because I wanted to build something for myself and work for myself. That’s what gets me out of bed in the morning. The idea that if I don’t get out of bed to create something for me, then I’ll be forced to get out of bed to create something for someone else.
When I discovered the opportunity of building an online business, and the freedom and limitless possibilities that can come as rewards of this business model and lifestyle, I fell in love with the idea and never looked back.
What motivated you to start Ecom Empires?
I always wanted to have an impact in the world, and have a platform to help coach and inspire others to reach success.
Like most people in the online marketing world, I had become really tired of fake “gurus” and hyped-up pitches, people selling over-priced information courses, and sharing very little value to really help others.
Ecom Empires was an idea to do something different in the industry, and build a community based around free education available to anyone in the world.
I understood that by helping others first, without asking for anything in return, that I would be able to build a platform that could reach thousands.
Zig Ziglar has a quote- “You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want.”
That had a really big influence on me. And that was the foundation for building Ecom Empires as a community to help others become successful by giving lots of value for free.
“You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want.”
How long have you been in the business of helping ecommerce retailers for? What have your platform/company goals been?
Ecom Empires started at the end of 2016. It’s been around 16 months now since starting, and we’ve grown to about 44,000 members as I write this.
My goals, in the beginning, were to build a community and create lots of success stories and goodwill within the industry. I wanted to build a brand, but I realized I just needed to focus on helping people first.
I needed to help produce success in others and create a thriving community.
Once the group started to grow and testimonials of real success stories started to happen, I started to focus on how to take the community to the next level of becoming a brand and an education platform.
That’s where I wanted to start making this a business, by aligning with partnerships and areas that would serve the community and also provide revenue to the brand.
Next, I started to focus on taking Ecom Empires around the world and connecting with people in a very real way- with something I call the Worldwide Ecom Tour.
I’m currently traveling the world to host masterminds, speak at events, and form partnerships in the eCommerce industry.
My goals are to make Ecom Empires a leading brand in the eCommerce education space.
Which eCommerce platform you prefer and why?
I prefer Shopify, simply because of its ease of use, user-friendliness, and amazing app ecosystem for store owners.
A common problem in ecommerce is retailers having traffic but no conversions. If they’re gathering traffic but not making any sales what would you recommend?
I think the most important thing for people to understand is their ecommerce funnel. Most people don’t have a strategy, or a plan to track things across their funnel to improve conversions.
When you look at each step in a traditional ecommerce funnel from advertisement to product page to cart page to checkout- you can track metrics at each step of the way.
For example, if someone’s advertisement is getting great engagement and good click through rate, but they are not getting any add to carts- then we know the problem is somewhere within the product page that their funnel is broken.
On a product page, the whole job of marketing is to make the perceived value of the item higher than the cost value being asked.
When someone does not purchase, it generally means that perceived value was not high enough to justify the action of buying that item.
So our job is to focus on the things that we can test and improve- like site speed, user experience, product description, trust values- to bring that perceived value higher.
Also, it’s important to remember that most visitors will not convert the first time visiting an ecommerce store. That’s why it’s important to have solid remarketing strategies in place, and multiple channels of communication to bring people back to the site to convert.
Do you see mobile users as being the ‘future’ of eCommerce retailers? What are your personal experiences while using mobile shopping, if at all?
Mobile traffic is king now. And will continue to be the dominant way people interact with their first experience to an online store.
I think mobile traffic is where people should focus their efforts on the front of their advertising.
However, not all traffic converts the first time. And many times conversions rates are actually higher when people are on their desktop/laptop.
So I believe in having multiple points of communication across both mobile and desktop. Because someone may visit on mobile but come back to purchase on desktop.
It’s also why your store should be highly optimized for mobile, but still be optimized for desktop as well.
Where do you think the future of ecommerce marketing is heading? Is it chatbots, IoT, more personalized content, big data?
I think the future of ecommerce for the average Shopify store is definitely going to be building a brand across multiple channels of communication. That includes chat bots with Messenger, push notifications, Instagram, Facebook, Google, Pinterest, Youtube, etc.
It’s not enough to just be on Facebook. When you build a brand, you can diversify your communication channels and reach people with the same products and message.
Chatbots and push notifications are definitely great ways to increase conversions.
Personalized and custom shopping experiences are another big trend, and where I see teh future of ecommerce.
This is why custom merchandise with apps like Teelaunch and Custom Cat is such a massive opportunity right now. Because the potential for branding into passionate niches with unique items is something that a Shopify store can do really well, as opposed to big brands focusing on mass audience apparel and accessories.
Do you think a branded eCommerce store help merchants to stay in top?
Yes, definitely. With the flood of Shopify stores hitting the market, and the continuing rise in Facebook advertisers using the newsfeed to push products, it’s important to stand out.
Building a brand and being unique, offering value, and having a funnel not just focused on front end profits, are the differentiators for the stores that will last and be consistent.
What’s your thought on data driven marketing?
I think data driven marketing is really powerful when used correctly to understand trends and benchmarks of how you can better build your brand and find opportunities in the marketplace.
For example, looking at what channels are popular for people to purchase from in certain industries. Or using trends from one marketing channel to get ideas for how you can better improve another.
Data is important no matter what, it’s the life of successful marketing. But when looking at big data, I think it’s important just to find strategic ways to use what can help you become better. Because not all of it will be relevant to the type of business you are building.