Mar 04 2025 86 mins
Today, Mike is joined by Sabir Semerkant, a top E-commerce growth strategist, with 25+ years of experience. Over the years he has helped brands like Coca Cola, Canon and Tommy Hilfiger to achieve massive growth. Sabir has turned that expertise into his 8D Method - a step-by-step framework for unlocking scalable, profitable e-commerce growth. His rapid 2x program has helped brands grow by an average of 108% in just 21 days
In this episode, Sabir breaks down pricing, marketing, product research and profitability strategies that will transform your online business. He also shares what not to do, his e-commerce sins.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- 90% of e-commerce startups fail within 120 days. Sabir knows why and how to stop that from happening to you.
- Be sceptical, there are a lot of scammers actively selling things that will kill your business e.g., toxic backlinks that will mean your business disappears from the search results.
- Sabir teaches his students to take care of all of the 8 dimensions an E-commerce business needs.
- Step 1 is optimising your site for customer attention. You have 1.7 seconds to stop the scroll.
- Landing page speed is critical. Optimise it for your market and the devices they use.
- Be laser focused and tackle one vital thing at a time. After addressing customer attention, your bestselling product landing pages are next.
- Master marketing across multiple platforms.
- Use your data to understand your customers and turn them into repeat buyers.
- You need to get people to buy from you at least once every 6 months.
- Your product pages need to be optimized structurally, for SEO and content. For e-commerce, SEO is vital.
- You have to put your face on your brand and tell your story.
- Couponing works, but constantly using promos will bankrupt you.
- Even small incremental improvements can have a massive cumulative impact, e.g. If you improve by 40% your sales actually increase 3x.
BEST MOMENTS
00:39 "E-commerce in 2025 is a battlefield."
02.14 "Tech actually is the thing that helps you elevate and accelerate your growth profitably."
13:25 "As an entrepreneur, you need to have a healthy dose of scepticism.."
21:00 “Don't dwell in the past, … the realities of 2025, are very different from the realities of 2020, and 2022 ."
30.00 “What is the consumer attention span in 2025? - 1.7 seconds.”
41.03 “Most Shopify owners don't know the behaviour of their consumers.”
54.30 “If you're not correcting these problems, it's de-ranking you.”
1.01.36 “When you are doing couponing to that extent, you're robbing yourself of your future.”
1.20.23 “I'm Mr. Miyagi … I'm telling you how to wax on, wax off.”
ABOUT THE GUEST
https://growthbysabir.com/masteringtechgrowth
Harvard Business School article - https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=62855
ABOUT THE HOST
Meet Mike, a seasoned tech entrepreneur and visionary with over two and a half decades of invaluable experience in founding and scaling successful tech start-ups. Mike brings a wealth of firsthand knowledge, and a deep understanding of the challenges faced by entrepreneurs and tech professionals.
As a host, Mike is dedicated to sharing actionable insights, strategies, and stories gathered from conversations with industry leaders, innovators, and experts. With a remarkable ability to distil practical wisdom from guests, Mike curates engaging discussions that resonate with both aspiring entrepreneurs and seasoned professionals.