Learnings from Managing Ecommerce

This is the final required post for the Managing Ecommerce course. However, I liked 

writing a blog so I’ll continue. I don’t consider myself tech savvy or having that natural 

tendency to keep up-to-date with technology, but I’m conscious of its increasingly huge 

importance and that was the main reason for taking this course. 


Doing research for this blog, allowed me to catch up on current trends such as Apple 

Pay, Shopify and Alibaba, and share it with that anonymous audience of 179 people 

that Internet allowed me to reach. After all, technology is not something you learn 

once; you need the curiosity to keep learning by yourself as it evolves. I 

developed that curiosity attending the classes and writing these posts.


Even though as future managers and entrepreneurs we will probably rely on experts to 

take care of the IT aspect of the business, it is extremely necessary to know the tools 

that are available and the basic functioning of them. This allows you–at the very 

least—to know what questions to ask. (I’ll put in italics some of the most important 

concepts I learned and if you’re still not familiar with them, you should definitely 

Google). 


Knowing the basics behind the “magic” of the Internet (client-server model, HTTP, 

TCP/IP, gateways); the use of some IT business tools (CRM, ERP, Open source 

software, Cloud computing, BI); and how to protect yourself against the risks involved 

with the dependence on technology (firewalls, BCP and DRP), gave me the high-level 

understanding on how to take better decisions about which tool to use.

Brief takeaways of an excellent article from Entrepreneur.com

A couple of weeks ago, Pano (my E-commerce prof), shared with us an article called “5 Ecommerce Mistakes to Avoid: A Newbie’s Guide”. I wish I had read that before a started to sell online some merchandise from my dad’s ex business –with not so much success-. Here are the main takeaways:

-          “Everyone that starts a business has big dreams, ambitions and excitement”.

-          In the same page of Croll’s “Don’t sell what you can make, make what you can sell”, Lin –an author quoted in the article-, says “do your homework beforehand and make sure you’re selling something people will buy”. You can start by looking for products similar to yours that are sold online.

-          Don’t forget to make use of social media. It’ll help you to communicate with your customers and understand what they want.

-          Don’t try to appeal everyone by offering too many different types of products. It’s better to find a niche market, preferable a category not seen anywhere else.

-          Avoid unsold inventory by getting a sense of the demand of your products. Search for them in different marketplaces to see home many are being sold.

-         As any entrepreneur you’ll have a big “To do list”. Since it’s impossible to so everything at the same time, prioritize the tasks that will help you keep customers and have a healthy business

To put you in context

Indeed the main reason for starting this blog is as a requirement of a new marketing course I’m taking this semester as part of my MBA at McGill University, called Managing E-commerce. But I thought that it’d actually be a great opportunity to join those 6.7 million people who publish blogs on blogging websites[i]. A huge number right? That’s just another sign of the reason why I picked that course: Online is the new way and everybody knows it.

The idea is to share concepts covered in our class. However, since this is going to be my first and maybe only blog (at least until I finish my time consuming MBA while working at the same time), I decided to add a personal touch to it and take this first entry as an introductory one (and I hope the professor Pano Xinos -who’s teaching the course and will be evaluating the content- finds that ok!).

Last class we had an outstanding guest speaker. His name’s Alistair Croll. He has been involved in the online/technology world since 1993, has been part of 16 companies/initiatives (according to his LinkedIn page), and in 2013 wrote a book along with Ben Yoskovitz called Lean Analytics (which I plan to buy ASAP).

I don’t have more space to explain some of the main takeaways of his presentation (these blog entries have a limit of 250 words) so I will do it next week.

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[i] The Nielsen Company, “Buzz in the blogosphere: Millions more bloggers and blog readers”, http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2012/buzz-in-the-blogosphere-millions-more-bloggers-and-blog-readers.html. 09/17/14