Chris Malta’s
EBiz Insider Blog
Successful Business Owners Know HOW and WHY Things Work
Welcome to How and Why.

Be Very Careful with AI For EBiz!
They lie about Amazon. They lie about eBay. They lie about ‘Retail Arbitrage’, Private Labeling, SEO, Importing, Site Builders, Sales Funnels, Importing from China, what

EEK! It’s Another Google Update!
According to them, everything is changing (yet again!) The earth’s magnetic poles are reversing, cats and dogs are going out for drinks together, and the

How EBiz Scams Affect YOU
Everybody who decides to open a home-based ECommerce business is going to come across a huge variety of scams. It’s unavoidable; there are literally thousands

Why You Need a Blog
If your ecommerce site doesn’t have a blog, you’re handing free traffic and trust to your competitors. A blog isn’t optional. It’s one of the

How Your Gut Lets Scammers Win
Funny thing about instincts. They’re supposed to protect people from danger, right? But when a scam is in the air, that same gut turns into

Why AI Isn’t Magic
Let’s kill the fantasy right now. AI is not a wizard, a genie, or your digital business partner who’s going to turn your online store

Let Someone Else Do It Brain
There’s this weird idea floating around in online business land that success just shows up if you hire the right people, buy the right tools,

Using AI Website Builders
You’re finally getting serious about launching your own online store. Maybe it’s fitness trackers, maybe it’s camping gear, maybe it’s smart home gadgets. Whatever it

Handling Supplier Mistakes
Every ecommerce business hits bumps in the road. Orders get messed up. Paperwork gets misplaced. Shipments arrive late. Mistakes happen, and wholesalers know it. What

Turn Your Calendar Into a Superpower
Ever seen a home biz calendar that looks like a dumping ground for every supplier call, customer ping, and “quick check-in” that’s anything but quick?

Why Blind Shipping is Important
You’re running a home-based ecommerce business, maybe from your kitchen table while your cat judges your life choices. You’re dropshipping, which means you’re SMART, and

Audit Your Subscription Stack
Most home-based ecommerce sellers think they’ve beaten the overhead game. No warehouse lease. No payroll. No electric bill the size of a mortgage. That’s great.

Write Like You Mean It
Let’s cut through the static: content still rules. Yeah, yeah, you’ve heard “content is king” since dial-up was a thing, but here’s what nobody tells

The $37K YouTube Guru Con
So here we go again. Another “business opportunity,” another flashy pitch, another pile of wreckage left behind. This time, it’s Mark from Houston, who just

Paid Advertising?
We have a saying around here at “The People Who Know What We’re Doing Online” clubhouse, and it goes like this:

Selling Online: Avoid Seasonality
People jump headfirst into selling online with zero long-term thinking. They find a product, get excited, and convince themselves it’s the perfect way to make

If It Sucks On Mobile, Forget It
If your store is a nightmare on a phone, you’re not just missing sales. You’re practically handing them to someone else. Bad mobile experience? That’s

Loyalty Programs Burn Cash
Ah yes, the loyalty program. Nothing says “I’m a serious business now” like rewarding customers with points, discounts, and VIP tiers. You set it up.

Threads Might Actually Be Useful
Let’s just call it what it is. X is chaos in a trench coat. Half the accounts are bots, the other half are yelling, and

First Impressions in ECommerce
You know that feeling when you walk into a store and immediately feel like turning around? Maybe the lighting is weird, maybe it smells like

Scheduling Content Cross-Channel
If you’re posting to your blog, Facebook, Instagram, or email list whenever you feel like it, you’re basically a kid throwing spaghetti at the wall

Bundle Pricing = Inflation Hack
Let’s be honest. Inflation doesn’t care about your supply chain. It doesn’t care about your margins, your email list, or how long it took you

When Customers Ghost You
You put months into your store. The layout’s clean, the products look good, the checkout works, and traffic’s actually showing up. You finally think, “Okay,

Branding Your Site
Have you ever seen a business and just know, within two seconds, that it’s gonna fail? Maybe the name is something ridiculous like “SuperDuperSavingsOnline4U” or

Backorders: The Butterfly Effect
When you’re selling online, whether you use Drop Shipping or you physically stock and ship your products, wholesale backorders from your supplier are always a

Trust Through Trade Shows
Let’s be blunt. The internet is full of supplier roulette. You’re one click away from a legit operation or a garage full of repackaged junk,

The Psychology of Scarcity
If you’re not using scarcity tactics in your online store, you’re basically handing money back to the internet. Scarcity isn’t sleazy. It’s not about being

What Wholesalers Really Want
New sellers love to imagine wholesale as a velvet rope club where you stroll in, smile, and start scooping up products at giveaway prices. Cute

Gold Rush
If you’ve decided to get in on this by starting your own home-based ECommerce business, the first thing you need to know is that you’re

Simple Sells. Clutter Kills.
If your ecommerce site looks like a slot machine exploded, flashing banners, seizure-inducing colors, pop-ups screaming for attention, congrats, you just sent your buyer straight

Negotiate, Don’t Burn Bridges
Every seller wants better pricing. That’s obvious. The problem is that too many rookies treat negotiation like they’re hustling at a garage sale. They think

Multiple Streams of Income
I wanna get into this whole “multiple streams of income” thing because, honestly, it’s one of the biggest traps out there. You hear people pushing

Smart Low Inventory Alerts
There’s nothing like the 3 a.m. panic when you realize your best seller just sold out and you didn’t even see it coming. That’s ecommerce

How Scam Clowns Hammer You
Ever feel like a scam’s stuck on repeat, beating your skull ‘til you cave? That’s repetition, the con man’s sledgehammer, and it’s why sharp people

The Myth of Always Available
This obsession with being available all the time usually comes from comparison. You look at massive ecommerce platforms with teams and automation and think you

When Your Store Looks Dated
You ever visit a site and feel like you just time traveled? Fuzzy logo, cramped text, colors that hurt your eyes, and a spinning banner

How Fast Growth Breaks You
There’s this myth that growth is always good. You hear it everywhere: “Scale up!” “Double your sales!” “Crush your goals!” Sounds inspiring, right? Except in

When Research Becomes Avoidance
Research has a great reputation. It sounds smart. It looks disciplined. Nobody ever got mocked for “doing more homework.” In ecommerce, research is the one

Fix Your Product Descriptions
If your product descriptions read like someone copied a tech manual into your store, you’re not just boring people. You’re driving them away. Nobody wants

Alt Text That Works
Most sellers treat alt text like that weird broccoli side dish you push around your plate to make it look like you ate some. They

Setting Smart ECommerce Policies
Disputes are the silent killer of ecommerce. They don’t just cost you money – they damage your reputation with customers and with your payment processor.

Why Segment Your Email List?
Sending identical emails to every subscriber is like shouting random pickup lines into a crowded coffee shop. Sure, someone might bite, but mostly you’re just

Top 20 Wholesale Tips
I’ve been running my own businesses in wholesale and retail for nearly 50 years (yes, I started very young!), and I’ve spent about 30 of

What’s a Crawl Budget?
I know, it sounds boring, but it’s actually pretty important. Not exactly the kind of thing that makes people jump out of their seats with

Still room to compete?
Here are some things I hear from people all the time. “How can my online business compete with eBay and Amazon?” “How can I compete

The ‘Easy Money’ Brain
Ever convince yourself an online biz is like hitting the lotto, where you just toss some cash and watch the millions roll in? That’s your

Perils of the Second Coffee
There’s a moment, usually around 2:37 PM, when you start eyeing the coffee pot like it’s going to save your entire career. You’ve hit the

Handling Negative Feedback
Getting a bad review sucks. But ignoring it, brushing it off, or clapping back will cost you more than your ego. It will cost you

Google Still Shows Up
You’ve posted on X. You’ve hash tagged on Instagram. You’ve danced with your dog on TikTok. And what did you get? Crickets. Maybe a pity

Automate With Control
Ah, automation. The siren song of lazy entrepreneurs everywhere. Push a button, sit back, and let the robots run your business while you sip iced

The Biggest Pricing Mistake
If you’re pricing your products so low that you barely make lunch money on each sale, you’re not being competitive. You’re being reckless. Underpricing isn’t

The Product Trap
Every new seller thinks their first product idea is brilliant. They picture it selling out. They picture five star reviews. They picture themselves casually checking

Platform vs Discretionary Shoppers
Have you noticed how some people only shop in the same big stores over and over, like their Amazon account is the only thing keeping

Habits Not Apps
There’s a certain kind of hope that shows up when you install a new productivity app. For five glorious minutes, you believe this is the

The Supplier Sniff Test
Let’s talk about supplier scams for a minute. Not in theory. In the real-life, “your PayPal account is still mad” kind of way. If you’ve

Selecting 10 Perfect Keywords
So, keywords. You know, those magical little words that determine whether someone finds your business online or ends up watching cat videos instead. Everyone treats

Why Traffic Isn’t Your Problem
If there’s one thing beginners panic about in December, it’s traffic. Something about the holidays flips a switch in people’s brains and suddenly every new

The EBiz Fog You Don’t Notice
Most new sellers think confusion announces itself. They expect some big flashing sign that says “You don’t get this yet.” That’s not how it works.

SearchGPT – Should You Worry?
Every few months, there’s some big, dramatic announcement about how SEO is dead, Google’s crumbling, and some new technology’s about to rewrite the internet as

Your Traffics Not Dead, It Moved
If your ecommerce traffic flatlined overnight, there’s a good chance your audience didn’t vanish. They just moved down the street while you were still yelling

Following Up With Suppliers
One of the fastest ways to kill a supplier relationship is by being the seller who doesn’t follow up at all. The second fastest way?

Fixing Lousy Supplier Photos
This is a problem that every online seller has faced at least once; lousy supplier photos. You spend all this time picking the perfect product,

Content AI Can’t Copy
There’s a weird belief floating around right now that AI’s going to rewrite the entire internet, flatten every unique voice, and turn every page into

Choose The Right Bank For Your Business
Ever feel like banks are all running some kind of secret game? They’ve got the big signs, the marble floors, the fancy pens they don’t

Awards: Don’t Believe Everything You See
So, I get this email today from some big-name eCommerce marketer, and they’re all hyped up about winning an award from the United Nations. Yeah,

Q & A Sections Build Trust
A Q & A section isn’t just a “nice to have.” It’s a sales tool that works around the clock. It makes shoppers feel like

Tomorrow Isn’t Flexible
December 30th is a strange day in ecommerce. It feels quiet, almost polite. The inbox slows down. Social feeds soften. People tell themselves they still

Don’t Outsource Easy Things
You’re not lazy. You’re overloaded. You’ve got 73 tabs open, your cat just knocked over your shipping scale, and there’s a customer asking if their

Shopify Does It BACKWARDS
When you do it right, there’s a specific, step by step process for building an online business if you want it to actually make money

The Lazy Shortcut Habit
Ever get that itch to skip the hard part and just scoop up the wins? That little voice whispering there’s gotta be a shortcut to

Product Choice – Stop Guessing
There’s a myth in ECommerce that’s like glitter at a kid’s birthday party. No matter how many times you clean it up, it keeps coming

Price Myths That Break You
There’s a special kind of optimism that hits when you see a low wholesale price. It’s like finding a twenty in your old jeans. You

Browser Tabs Are Killing You
You think you’re being efficient. Bouncing between supplier sites, customer emails, research tools, and some half-loaded blog you forgot to finish yesterday. You’ve got fifteen

Just One More Thing…
Let’s set the scene. You’ve brushed your teeth, turned off the lights, and you’re about to crawl into bed like a responsible adult who has

The Dreaded Staring Contest
Let’s talk about the absolute disaster that is bad eCommerce design. We both know you’ve seen websites that make you just sit there, staring at

Why Product Ideas Die
Most product ideas don’t fail in a dramatic blaze of glory. There’s no crash, no angry emails, no obvious signal screaming that this was a

Spotting Fraudulent Orders
Fraudulent orders are like termites. You don’t notice them right away, but they quietly eat your profits from the inside. One day you think you’ve

Restarting Feels Responsible. It Isn’t.
One of the most expensive habits in ecommerce is how often people restart instead of fix. They rebuild a store. They rework listings. They relaunch

Home Based, Not Homebound
Working from home sounds like the dream, right? Pajamas all day, no commute, snacks within reach, and the ability to pretend you’re being productive while

When Tools Become the Job
At some point, a lot of online businesses quietly turn into tech support desks. Not on purpose. Not because anyone planned it. It just sort

Image Sizes for Ecommerce
When people shop online, they can’t touch, feel, or try on a product. The only thing they have to go by is your images. If

Finding Hidden Niche Insights with GKP
Every so often, some marketing guru pops up waving around some overpriced tool like it’s the holy grail of online success. They act like they’ve

Be A Hero To A Stranger
Every year, millions of people chase the dream of financial freedom by starting a home-based online business. It sounds simple enough. Set up a store,

Build It Yourself or Get Played
It’s tempting, right? Some fast-talking guru waves a shiny “done-for-you” store in front of your face and says, “You don’t have to lift a finger.

Build Trust with Transparent Pricing
Let’s talk about something most ecommerce sellers would rather fake their own death than do: explaining your prices. I’m not saying you should grab a

How You’ll Lose Your Store
One morning you’ll open your store, sip your coffee, and everything will look normal. Then you’ll click “update plugin,” and poof. Gone. Your site loads

Customer Service IS Marketing
If you think customer service is something you have to do after the sale, you’re already missing the whole point. For a small online business,

How Free Wholesale Directories Hurt You
Looking for a wholesale supplier you can use to sell online? Ever come across one of those “free wholesale directories” online and think, wow, what

Getting Supplier Accounts
Wholesalers aren’t running adoption agencies for dreamers. They don’t want to take a chance on you because you’re passionate and you’ve got a killer idea.

Submit Your Site to Google?
Some new store owners launch their site and instantly lose their minds because they haven’t “submitted it to Google” yet. They think they’re invisible until

How To Price for Maximum Sales
Sell high or sell low? There are plenty of people out there who’ll tell you to do either one or both, and they’re wrong.

Social Proof Boosts Sales
If your store doesn’t have a single customer review, you’re basically telling shoppers, “Trust me, I swear.” Spoiler: they won’t. Social proof isn’t optional. It’s

Every Tab Is a Trap
Be honest. You didn’t “just check one thing.” You opened your browser to grab a link, saw a notification, clicked it, remembered something you meant

Avoid The Point of Diminishing Returns
The point of diminishing returns is where so many eCommerce businesses go to die. It’s the invisible trap that sneaks up on you when you

Free Shipping
In the 30+ years I’ve been making money online (and in my 48+ years in business overall) I have never come across a shipping company

You’re Fixing the Wrong Thing
One of the quietest ways ecommerce eats an entire year is by convincing people they’re fixing problems that were never the real problem. Sales feel

Convenience Fees Bleed You Dry
You’re losing money. Not because of a bad product. Not because your prices are too low. You’re losing it quietly, one little transaction at a

Will AI Replace Small Sellers?
Every time some new tech rolls out, people start panicking that it’s the end of human business. Remember when everyone said the internet would kill

Giant AI Driven Stores Can’t Beat You
Let’s not pretend the ecommerce landscape isn’t full of giants. Amazon, Temu, AliExpress: they’re all using AI to crank out thousands of listings a day

Why Zero-Dollar Keywords Are Valuable
Everybody wants to rank on Google without spending a fortune on useless ads, but most people go about it completely wrong. They chase after the

How to Spot a DFY Scam
You’ve seen the ads.“We’ll build your business for you while you sleep. No experience needed. Just sit back and watch the money roll in.” Right.
