Electric Tobacconist’s Pascal Culverhouse on SEO, retailing and getting to 7-figures in 2 years (episode 012)
Pascal Culverhouse launched Electric Tobacconist in 2013, now well into the second full year Pascal & his team are on track for a 7-figure turnover this year. The Electric Tobacconist is an Online Only eCommerce business, and the UK’s number one e-tobacconist. Selling a wide range of e-cigarattes and supplies. They are all about fast-growth, in the first 6 months taking 800 orders and 10x ing that for the second 6 months to take it to 8,000 orders.
Click to Tweet: Hear how Electric Tobacconist focuses on content and the long tail to 10x #eCommerce Growth on @eComMasterPlan #podcast
Subscribe on your Favourite Podcast App
About the business
- eCommerce Business Structure – Online Only
- Product Range Scale – VERY niche, electric cigarettes and vapours. 3,000+ skus, but only one product
- On Visualsoft
- 7 people in the business, 6 in the UK, 1 in the USA
- Outsource to one agency, offsite SEO, Email, and Affiliates
- Based in the UK selling about 5-10% to Europe. Recently opened American office.
- Key widgets in the website:
- Reviews.co.uk – but don’t turn on reviews until you’re good at customer service!
- Lots of “1%ers”, those little pieces of code/method that improve sales just 1%
- Other useful things Pascal mentioned:
- Google Trends
- Google Keyword Tools => Google Keyword Planner
Most Awesome Thing Right Now
- The Team
Everyone is committed to the aim to be the biggest ecig retailer in the world - Recruited all of them on the free recruitment site indeed.co.uk
On the Radar for the Coming Months
- Get the USA business up and running
- Install the new stock management system into the warehouse to speed things up and reduce pick and pack errors
eCommerce Book Top Tip
- One Click: Jeff Bezos and the Rise of Amazon.com by Richard L Brandt
All the other books Pascal mentioned…
- Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion and Purpose by Tony Hsieh (the Zappos story)
- The Long Tail: How Endless Choice is Creating Unlimited Demand by Chris Anderson (although you probably only need to read one chapter to get it)
eCommerce Traffic Top Tip
- The Long Tail
Write content that your customer wants to read. Pascal does this for 2 hours every weekday. - The podcast Chloë mentioned “Your Brain’s Ideal Schedule” from the HBR Ideacast
Tool Top Tip
- Google Talk for quick conversations with the team
Also mentioned:
- Hootsuite for social media scheduling
- Dropbox for file storage
- VOIP Phones – an online alternative that works really well
Start Up Top Tip
- Research and learn about all aspects of how your website works. Search, content, social media, etc so that you understand the lingo to better run your team and business.
If your business didn’t exist, which eCommerce Business Would you like to be Running?
- Moonpig – no stock, high margin, and great fun
sells personalised greetings cards – well worth a look if you’ve not seen it before