Fernando Sustaita has the distinction of being “one of the first successful Amazon Custom sellers in the world.” This distinction earned him the privilege of being invited by Amazon as an insider, along with 5 other sellers, to the global company’s Golden Ticket get together. After the event, he realized that he had to share the secrets of his e-commerce success to other prospective sellers. He had to share his e-commerce journey with everyone who listens and wants to build their own business.
Currently, Fernando Sustaita has built his own brand, Print on Demand, and he also runs his own Amazon business, as well as stores on Shopify and Etsy. Since he believes that e-commerce has no limits, he also dabbles in Ebay.
Fernando Sustaita credits e-commerce for saving him from a “boring and unsatisfactory corporate career that also never would have paid me as much,” even though he has made billions upon billions of dollars for the companies he had worked for.
As an entrepreneur, Fernando Sustaita owns Ginial Collectibles, a company “focused on sourcing via retail and online arbitrage.” He has also founded The Print on Demand University, which is “focused on helping business owners and entrepreneurs launch, maintain and scale a successful print on demand business.”
Check out more interviews with e-commerce experts here. You can also take a look at Fernando Sustaita’s YouTube channel here.
Jerome Knyszewski: Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?
Fernando Sustaita: My passion for E-Commerce began in 1998 when I discovered EBay. I am a toy collector and as any college student it was an expensive hobby to maintain. One day I learned about EBay and I began selling toys as well other random products I found while shopping. It was a hobby that was profiting me a couple of thousand dollars a month while I was working at my family’s business.
Moving forward to 2003, I was ready to start a family and decided to find a corporate job. After 8 years in the Oil and Gas Industry, I got promoted to manage my own team. In 2015, funny enough I got laid off 2 months after when the company I worked for went bankrupt. During all this years, every time I needed money I always sold something online I was good at it and it was fast. So, the obvious move after I got laid off is to be a full time E-Commerce Seller.
Time forward 5 years, I sell on Amazon, Etsy, have my own Shopify stores and have helped hundreds of people do the same.
Jerome Knyszewski: What was the “Aha Moment” that led to the idea for your current company? Can you share that story with us?
Fernando Sustaita: To become an online coach/influencer was never in my plans. To be honest, my plan was to business owner and selling products on my own Amazon. Yet, as I began to help people I began getting more and more attracted to the idea. The problem is that it was actually costing me money. I had no idea how to do it. I had a few successful course launches, and followed what others were doing in my industry but with no plan in hand.
So, first I hired a mindset coach, I was serving two masters at the time, my home that I needed to support and my students. I needed to make a decision of what was important to me. My coached helped me focus and set goals and an agenda to do things more efficiently.
One day, I was having a call with my business coach and he told me something like why don’t you create a University? Later that day, I shared the idea with my wife. She told me “Fernando universities have more than one professor” and at Moment, I said I am doing this. My mind a thousand miles per hour, I had my epiphany. I reached out to a couple of content creators I know and invited to be part of the project. That day the Print on Demand University came to exist.
Jerome Knyszewski: Can you tell us a story about the hard times that you faced when you first started your journey? Did you ever consider giving up? Where did you get the drive to continue even though things were so hard?
Fernando Sustaita: Hell, more than once… Being and influencer is not easy. As an influencer, you get attacked all the time. People don’t like that you charge for your knowledge, people want what you know for Free. They accuse you of trying to get rich out of their needs to get better in life. It is a very vicious cycle, but I have learned to accept that is part of the business. To only focus on the people that want to be helped.
When I created my first course, I had no idea how to create one. Members of an old Facebook group I used to manage kept asking for one. So, I invested on camera, lights, software and began recording. As I was completing my course, I began getting serious Impostor Syndrome. I was like how in hell am I dare to teach this people when I am not certified to educate? Why would they want to learn from someone that has only been selling for a year? So I began asking other people if they would help me promote and if they wanted to be part of the course. About 20 people agreed, and I named the course Mastering Print on Demand.
When it was time to promote none of they did. I had priced my course at $147 and they thought it was too expensive. The day I launched I only sold 3 copies and my course died. After 3 Months of recordings, editing, interviewing people it was all for nothing?
Jerome Knyszewski: So, how are things going today? How did your grit and resilience lead to your eventual success?
Fernando Sustaita: Well, I was about to get there with my previous story, A couple of days later, I opened a new Facebook Group, named it Mastering Print on Demand and in a few months I sold over 300 of those courses, the same course nobody wanted to promote… Today that course is outdated and out of the market. The success of my first launch set me as a person to follow in the Industry. Now, I have 4 courses, a Membership program, coaching and a thankful community.
Jerome Knyszewski: Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘takeaways’ you learned from that?
Fernando Sustaita: When I was recording my first course, I made a lot of mistakes. While editing the videos I was able to extract a lot of material to make a blooper video for laughs. I thought about adding it to the course but I didn’t. One day, I was trying to upload a video for my YouTube channel to promote the course. I ended up uploading this video my mistake. What came next was surprising; I sold about 20 courses in 3 days. It wasn’t until people began commenting on my group. The comments ranged from how funny I was to how down to earth I was when compared to other “Gurus”. I had no idea what they meant until they pointed me to the video. It was the whole reason they purchased.
That day I learned I didn’t have to be perfect, that I had to be myself, relaxed and give the best I can when I am coaching.
Jerome Knyszewski: Can you share a few examples of tools or software that you think can dramatically empower emerging ecommerce brands to be more effective and more successful?
Fernando Sustaita: I wouldn’t have a business without being able to capture emails. To me not having an auto-responder like Active campaign is unimaginable. I use Acuity for scheduling my prospect and coaching calls. Google calendar is a free option that helps me stay organized.
Jerome Knyszewski: As you know, “conversion” means to convert a visit into a sale. In your experience what are the best strategies an ecommerce business should use to increase conversion rates?
Fernando Sustaita: Running Facebook Ads is all good and stuff but is a small part of the equation. Being able to retarget the potential customers that visit your stores is essential. Being able to capture e-mails to re-engage them back to our stores is must. Conversion rates are a small percentage of all the visitors on our store. Even a small variance on the conversion rate could mean thousands of dollars more on sales.
Jerome Knyszewski: Of course, the main way to increase conversion rates is to create a trusted and beloved brand. Can you share a few ways that an ecommerce business can earn a reputation as a trusted and beloved brand?
Fernando Sustaita: Besides product quality, what customers appreciate the most is timely customer service. Investing on quality training on how to keep customers happy is fundamental to keep them coming back. A brand is useless unless you can get a costumer back to buy more.
Jerome Knyszewski: Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. Based on your experience and success, what are the five most important things one should know in order to create a very successful e-commerce business? Please share a story or an example for each.
Fernando Sustaita:
- Find your Niche. When I began selling Print on Demand shirts with horse designs were hot, people love their horses. I had my designer made a few horse designs. After putting them on sale, the amount of negative comments on my listings was nonstop. I had no idea a horse looked different from other races. To find a winning product, you have to first find the niche you are passionate about. You cannot focus on selling something you don’t believe on. Creating content on something you know nothing about can end of causing exhaustion and eventually quitting.
- Do your Research. Before you even begin selling something, always do some research and see if there is a market. Creating a product because you think it will be a success is always bound to fail.
Knowing how much people pay for similar products. Also, identifying if such product will be profitable. 2 Years ago, Laser etched Tumblers were the hottest product on Etsy. I used to sell them for $35 each plus shipping. Today, you are lucky if you get $19.99. Sellers are making the tumblers from home. Eliminating the middle men hence the cost of goods sold. Sellers still try to get the $35 but no sales, less than that would be unprofitable if using a production partner.
- Build an Email List. An E-Commerce business without an Email list is bad business. You cannot build a business without growing your list. You need it invite your customers to come back. Yes, you can run ads and bring new ones, but ads are costly. Emails are the most affordable marketing technique with the greatest return on investment.
- Read the terms and conditions of the marketplace or tools you are using for your business. One of the most common causes a person gets their accounts terminated at Marketplaces like Etsy or Amazon is because they infringe on their Terms and Conditions. Mostly because of silly reasons but nonetheless a breach. Knowing what is and what is not allowed will help you stay in business for the long term. Every day I learn of people whose accounts got shutdown claiming there was no reason for it. Yet, after digging a little deeper there always a reason.
- Outsource. It is difficult to be an Entrepreneur but is even more to be a Solopreneur. Most people I coach are exhausted because they cannot keep up with their schedule. It gets overwhelming with all they have to do. Hiring a Virtual Assistant “VA” to do simple tasks can release a lot of stress from your day to day operations. I have 2 VA helping me with tasks I don’t want to do or that are too time consuming and a little value to my daily operations.
Jerome Knyszewski: How can our readers further follow you online?
Fernando Sustaita: They can learn more about my business here. And they can follow me on Facebook.
Jerome Knyszewski: This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent with this!
