Plan & Launch Your Online Business in the U.S

Your Online Business in the U.S.
PLAN AND LAUNCH
Your Online Business in the U.S.
Presented by

PLAN & LAUNCH YOUR ONLINE BUSINESS IN THE U.S.
BROUGHT TO YOU BY:

Founder of Lucid Fusion, a full-service digital agency,
co-founder of LFPR, a full-service public relations firm,
and Departure, an electronic dance band.
ZUBIN MOWLAVI
Entrepreneur, musician, and innovator

As an award-winning PMP, Mika fights for intuitive design,
great content, and innovative thinking at every step of the
customer journey. She is a strong advocate for brand
messaging, big thinking, and information architecture.
MIKA NAGASHIMA
Director of Strategy at Lucid Fusion

Driver of new business and revenue by providing innovative
solutions, creating strong client, brand, and agency
relationships, and establishing dynamic, high-performance work
environments. Cofounder of Lucid Fusion and LFPR.
ZAYNAB BEHZADNIA
Storyteller, problem solver, connector, entertainer, and entrepreneur

Prior to joining Avalara in January 2014, Sacha spent more than 20 years in sales and management at
companies such as Amazon, Arcelor-Mittal, British Aerospace and several dotcom start-ups. His last 11
years were spent at Amazon recruiting high street retailers to sell on Amazon’s Marketplace, managing
sales, account management and marketing teams and launching new seller programmes including
Fulfilment by Amazon, Amazon Payments and Product Ads. He brings a depth in understanding of
ecommerce and the tax issues facing European businesses involved in global trade.
SACHA WILSON
Director of Sales EMEA at Avalara

eCommerce has helped make the world a smaller place.
The real global marketplace is online,
where connected consumers are reshaping the retail landscape.

U.S. eCommerce sales exceeded $341.7 billion in 2015,
a 14.6% increase over 2014, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce.
OVERALL retail sales grew 1.4% to $4.69 trillion.
Online sales accounted for 7.3% of total retail sales in 2015 versus 6.4% in 2014.
Source: http://www.census.gov/retail/index.html

This means
eCommerce accounted for
66.4% of total retail sales growth in 2015.

This begs the question:
Is your company selling online
in the U.S.?

81% of consumers
research online before
making purchases
93% of people
who research online go
on to make a purchase
62% of them make those
purchases directly online via
desktops, tablets, or smartphones
Source: http://www.lucidfusion.com/blog/3-reasons-ecommerce-is-your-global-marketplace-gateway
BUY NOW

WHAT IS YOUR
INDUSTRY SEGMENT?
This space isn’t defined by square footage.
It’s defined by keywords.
1

Not everything has changed during this
online shift. You still need to have a deep
understanding of how your competitors
operate to find success.
Google AdWords Keyword Planner
lets you gauge keyword search volume
and competition when analyzing a market
landscape, and allows for testing of targeted
keywords before you launch.
Google AdWords Keyword Planner
1 WHAT IS YOUR INDUSTRY SEGMENT?

IDENTIFY YOUR TOP COMPETITORS
Maximize your efforts with these simple tips:
Make sure you’re browsing incognito and you’re in the appropriate region.
Add &gl=us to the end of the URL.
Note who is ranking on the first page.
You should also type related:www.yourURL.com in the search field to get a list of
companies ranking for keywords similar to yours.
1
2
3

Known competitors: look for frequency of
appearance in your searches.
Retailers and industry-specific keywords:
location-based keyword searches are
extremely useful. (Trendsmap)
General and industry publications: be
aware of your competition’s ads as well as
their keywords. (Spyfu, What Runs Where)
1
2
3
Trendsmap helps you find relevant hashtags by location.
PINPOINT THE COMPETITION

What Runs Where alerts you when your competitors run ads.Spyfu helps you hone in on your competitor’s ads and keywords.
PINPOINT THE COMPETITION

COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
2
Prices can be adjusted. First impressions cannot.

The key is to look at your site and be honest on how it can be improved in order to
maximize your opportunity throughout the customer journey, not just on a few areas.
2 COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
This free Customer Journey Template will help you keep
track of your prospects.
Google’s Interactive Customer Journey Touchpoints
can help you map your customer journey.

Google sees approximately
3 billion search queries every day.
Surely, if you have enough of the right keywords,
someone will eventually see your site, right?
Unfortunately, it’s not that simple.
HOW ARE PEOPLE FINDING YOU?

This Nurture Email Workflow Template will help you map
relevant, timely, and targeted emails to convert more
prospective customers to buyers.
There are different types of online traffic that is heading to your page and there are different
tactics required to engage each group.
Let’s consider the types of traffic and
how you can secure their interest:
• Direct
• Organic search
• Paid search
• Referral (Taboola or Outbrain)
• Social
• Email (Nurture Email Workflow Template)

Content syndication tools such as Taboola or Outbrain help you reach your target audiences with your content.

HOW DOES YOUR SITE APPEAR
WHEN COMPARED TO THE COMPETITION?
GENTLEGIANTSRESCUE.COM*
*Note: our copywriter really buys this food for her dogs, much to our horror. She says her dogs really like it. It’s not because of the packaging, we’re sure.
IAMS.COM

WHAT IS THE RIGHT BALANCE OF PRODUCT AND PRICING OPTIONS?
SHOP.HERSCHELSUPPLY.COM
Does your site have one type of product, or several to choose from?
PUREFIXCYCLES.COM

IS YOUR PRODUCT KNOWLEDGE AND INDUSTRY
THOUGHT LEADERSHIP NOTICEABLE?
SEPHORA : “LEARN MORE ABOUT THIS PRODUCT”
It’s vital to have related content for products and services.

TAX CALCULATION
AND COMPLIANCE
3
There are more than 100,000+ rules
and boundary changes each year.

Never fear!
Let’s define the key areas of concern for new U.S. merchants, including:
• On which items do you charge sales tax?
• What is the difference between state, county, city and special taxes?
• Where do you need to file and remit sales tax?
• What records need to be kept in case of audit?
• How often do you file taxes and to which authority?
• What is nexus?
In short, you’re not alone.
3 TAX CALCULATION AND COMPLIANCE

Today, there are over
12,000 state, county and city jurisdictions
in the U.S. charging a sales tax.
In fact, the bulk of state government revenue is now
generated from sales taxes, not income taxes.

But...
there are five states
that do not have a
statewide general
sales tax.
OREGON
MONTANA
ALASKA
DELAWARE
NEW HAMPSHIRE

HOW DOES SALES TAX DIFFER FROM VALUE ADDED TAX (VAT)?
VAT is applied throughout the supply chain,
whereas sales tax is collected only at the
time of the final sale.
This changes if a seller maintains
a presence in a specific state (nexus).
If you meet this description, then you
must collect sales tax on all sales
regardless of the channel.

ABOUT AUDITS…
The average audit can cost as much as $100,000.
The short of it:
Good news:
Businesses must keep records of sales in each U.S. city, county
and state in which they sell.
If you just keep your records in order, you’ll be just fine.
(Avalara Sales Tax Calculator, AvaTax, LandedCost)

Avalara Sales Tax free sales tax
calculator.
AvaTax calculates sales tax for you. LandedCost calculates specific product
tariffs and international duties.
ABOUT AUDITS…

LOGISTICS
4
Shipping and fulfillment strategy is an
integral part of overall business profitability.

It usually contains components such as:
Inventory management
International fulfillment
How many carriers to use
Advantages and disadvantages
to using different carriers
4 LOGISTICS

There are certainly a number of tools and systems available to make it a more feasible task.
(ShipStation, Aftership)
Aftership can track all shipments, regardless of carrier, in a
single-screen, user-friendly display.
Use ShipStation to automate your shipping and eliminate
any concern of selecting carriers.
4 LOGISTICS

Don’t forget to plan the most important physical aspect of your business!
Optimize your supply chain with thorough supply chain, shipping, and CRM management.
(Narvar, Shipwire)
Shipwire handles supply chain logistics management with
international warehouses to store product and manage
shipping and operations.
Narvar will help you and your customers track all purchases
and returns through a best in class customer experience.
4 LOGISTICS

CREATING YOUR
ONLINE STORE
Alright, now we can get to the fun part—
setting up your actual store.
5

5 CREATING YOUR ONLINE STORE

CHOOSING AN ECOMMERCE PLATFORM
240,000+
merchants
$10 billion+
revenue
Shopify helps you create successful online businesses.

...when it comes to design, that is.
When it comes to eCommerce, it is perfectly okay to judge a book by its cover.
And know that this is exactly what will happen when customers arrive at your site.
DON’T LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER!
LINGSCARS.COM SUZANNECOLLINS.COM

THIS WON’T BE A CONCERN WITH A PROPER,
SUPPORTED ECOMMERCE PLATFORM.
Shopify Themes help you customize your store for the best shopping experience.

It’s important to add as much detail as possible about your products—not just for SEO, but to
ensure customers feel 100% comfortable choosing you as a merchant.
Don’t forget to include:
• Pricing
• Shipping information
• Type of product
• Vendor
• Related products / “Customers also purchased…”
• High-resolution, uniform, close-up images to showcase your products
ADDING PRODUCTS

PAYMENT METHODS
The best online stores provide
multiple payment methods so
customers can conveniently make
transactions using their preferred
payment method.
(Having too many options can
actually create buyer anxiety,
leading to potential cart abandonment.)

SOCIAL MEDIA AND YOUR ECOMMERCE SHOP
Customers: Use social media to increase your
customer base, period. (Nimble)
Content: Teach the public about your
products and offerings.
Transparency: Give customers a view into
your business operations and demonstrate
how you interact with customers.
Nimble allows you to develop solid social CRM.

SOCIAL MEDIA AND YOUR ECOMMERCE SHOP
Product Insights: Nothing is more powerful
than real user advocates for your products.
(Yotpo)
Targeting: Target specific demographics to
get your name in front of the exact group of
people right for your products.
Yotpo allows you to track and display social reviews, success,
and growth.

Q&A slide
“Still with me?”
sleeping puppy or something. still with me?

IDENTIFYING YOUR
PRIMARY DEMOGRAPHIC
In order to develop a marketing plan to reach new customers,
you need to better understand who you’re already selling to.
6

6 IDENTIFYING YOUR PRIMARY DEMOGRAPHIC
1 2 3

For the data-obsessed, Clicky offers real-time information
on every action a user is taking on your site.
Implement Crazyegg on your current website to use
heatmaps and scrollmaps for the best understanding of your
current audience and how they interact with your product.
CREATING CUSTOMER PROFILES BASED ON COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
The first step you should take in assembling your customer base
is to create personas for each ideal customer.

CREATING CUSTOMER PROFILES BASED ON COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
These profiles can then be used to target audiences with similar attributes—
audiences that behave like your best customers.
1 2 3

DEFINING IDEAL BUYER ACTIONS FOR EACH PROFILE
The most important information to identify
in step two is:
User goals for each customer type
Features that may affect their
willingness to purchase from you
Turn on eCommerce tracking in Google Analytics to get the
most information on how potential customers become buyers.
1
2

There are certain key elements that you must identify during this process:
What websites does a target customer already visit?
What are likely search terms they will use?
What sort of content appeals to them the most?
FINDING WHERE YOUR CUSTOMERS “LIVE”

TRACKING SITE VISITS AND ACTIONS
Duh.
Set up Event Tracking in Google Analytics to gain the most
insight on what users click, hover over, and scroll to on your page.

ADVERTISING
The success of any paid advertising campaign depends on
two highly interdependent factors: targeting and messaging.
7

7 ADVERTISING
Here’s a high-level overview of how we see the advertising landscape to drive sales:

7 ADVERTISING
Determine your target
margin per product.
Know your competition.
(Google Insights/Trends,
Facebook Graph Search)
Know your existing
audience outside of the U.S.
In order for you to be successful within this ecosystem, it’s important to:
Google Insights/Trends consolidates all
search trends across Google’s 3 billion
search queries a day.
Facebook Graph Search shows
personalized and relevant searches on
Facebook, that are up-to-the-minute.
1
2
3

7 ADVERTISING
Develop messaging and creative
for each audience.
Test advertising on Facebook
and Google AdWords.
(UnBounce)
Don’t be discouraged
by initial results.
(Adwords Remarketing, AdRoll)
In order for you to be successful within this ecosystem, it’s important to:
UnBounce is an easy way to create, publish, and test landing pages.
4
5
6

7 ADVERTISING
AdRoll will reach your customers across multiple devices to
retarget potential customers who have left your site.
Adwords Remarketing lets you show ads to people who have
left your website, providing another chance for conversion.

DRIVING
ORGANIC TRAFFIC
How can you help people find your online store?
8

UNDERSTANDING AND EMPLOYING LONG-TAIL KEYWORDS
8 DRIVING ORGANIC TRAFFIC
Long-tail keywords make up 75% of all internet searches online.
The SERPS.com keyword checker will check your keywords
and your SERP ranking.
Moz’ keyword toolbar lets you view SEO metrics as you’re
browsing, and see keyword rankings, in real-time.

CONSISTENT CONTENT CREATION AND ETHICAL LINK BUILDING
Getting backlinks from top sites is far more
effective than getting a wealth of backlinks
from a slew of lower-ranking blogs.
This includes:
• Boosts in search rankings
• Increases in overall search traffic
• Increases in subscribers and sales
MonitorBacklinks.com will check the validity and strength of
your (and your competitor!) backlinks.

BUT, DON’T BE TEMPTED BY THE LINK-BUYING SERPENTS
Here are few link schemes you need to avoid when link building.
Buying links:
Excessive
link exchanges:
Google crawlers will penalize your site.
Your site will also get penalized by near-future
Google algorithm updates.
1
2

USE THOUGHT LEADERSHIP TO ESTABLISH YOUR CREDIBILITY
Your job as a brand is to be a thought leader in your space.
This free Editorial Calendar will help you plan your marketing content touchpoints.

A | B SPLIT TESTING
Test, retest, optimize.
9

You really never know what will resonate
best until you test…and test again.
Optimizely allows you to make changes, see
potential results, then pit the two entities
head to head to see which will resonate
better with customers, in real-time.
Optimizely
9 A|B SPLIT TESTING

WHEN SHOULD AN A|B TEST BECOME A MULTIVARIATE TEST?
It all comes down to traffic.
A|B tests: little traffic required,
small experiments on a single page
Multivariate tests: more traffic per
page required, larger, site-wide
experiments
Optimizely’s Sample Size Calculator will help determine at
what level of traffic your experiments become significant.
9 A|B SPLIT TESTING

CUSTOMER SERVICE
We live in a real-time world.
10

To stay competitive, businesses must
be connected to their customers.
In fact, online and offline customer
service methods are merging.
Zendesk lets customers search its
knowledge base, submit help tickets,
and chat with customer service agents.
Zendesk
10 CUSTOMER SERVICE

Facebook Live Chat is a widely-used, low barrier of entry to
live chat with customers.
Your eCommerce platform should include a built-in
(or add-on) live chat tool, such as Shopify’s Tidio chat.
10 CUSTOMER SERVICE
Live chat allows for real-time communication with customers that might be hesitant
to place a call, or who are unable to risk wait times and awkward conversations.

10 CUSTOMER SERVICE
DON’T FORGET TO PAY ATTENTION TO PLATFORMS LIKE TWITTER.
By keeping a close eye on the proper channels you can often
intercept a problem before it escalates.

SCIENCE. STORYTELLING. PURPOSE.
Lucid Fusion is a digital agency, passionate about the power of innovation.
We’re a team of strategic and creative thinkers—scientists, storytellers,
artists, and builders—who leverage our role as digital innovators to concept,
design, develop, and implement actionable strategies quickly, helping you
stay ahead in this high velocity world of change.
Let’s do something great together.
Zubin Mowlavi | zubinm@lucidfusion.com
visit us at lucidfusion.com

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