What is EcomAlphas: Does it Make the Cut

Intro.

It always pays to do some due diligence, so well done researching EcomAlphas before considering a purchase. Now lets get into things and start discussing:

“What is EcomAlphas”

EcomAlphas is a drop shipping course created by Sebastian Ghiorghui, with help from a couple of his mates Max Rozhenko and Matthew Bolis. They claim to teach you everything about drop shipping through an eCommerce website, but does it live up to those claims? I’ll browse over the following sections:

What is EcomAlphas
EcomAlphas From The Inside
The Best of EcomAlphas
What Puts Me Off EcomAlphas
Would I Recommend EcomAlphas

What is EcomAlphas

If you’re searching for a course that teaches how to setup an online store, this is one such possibility. If you are looking for a program that will show you this and how to run the store, with customer service, organisational programs, promotional strategies, email marketing and more, you may want to look at the best ecommerce training course here.

EcomAlphas From The Inside

You’ll find multiple lessons with descriptions of what’s learned in each. Here’s a rundown of the EcomAlphas course, so you can compare it to other programs such as my preferred eCom recommendation.

#1 Education Review

Finding Golden Products – Basically, Sebastian runs through various methods of how you will find products that are trending. He uses Facebook, Twitter, Theive.co, Instagram, Google Trends and Google to search for items that he thinks will be great sellers. Some of these methods are fairly basic, but if you don’t know it, you soon will.

ADS! You Will Be A Pro After This – Here you’ll learn how to modify images to be used in your Instagram ads, although they’re done in a program you probably won’t have. Same goes for videos. I speak about this in the tools section below. Although you’ll also get a run-through of Canva, which you can easily find on YouTube.

Creating A Perfect Store – You’ll find 10 videos here that will show you how to set up a Shopify Store. I believe this should be shown before finding products, but never mind. You will learn a lot here, except for setting up payments and shipping, which I’d say are crucial parts to running an online store!

Your Complete Guide To Instagram – These guys focus a lot on Instagram, because Matthew is a master of Instagram. I do believe he knows his stuff, so you’ll learn some great Instagram tips here. I just don’t like his method of gaining fake followers. Well…I do, I just wouldn’t do it.

Understanding Facebook – Here, Sebastian goes through some figures on his whiteboard about what it takes to break even, and make profits through Facebook advertising.

In Depth Anatomy Of Facebook Testing – This is a good set of videos that explains how to setup your Facebook adverts. You’ll learn where to place the Facebook Pixel, but Sebastian doesn’t explain what it is and how it helps. I learned this from eCom Success Academy. As I say, Adrian Morrison runs through everything in clear detail in his course.

A Hand Held Walkthrough – Matthew runs through his own online store Royale Controllers, how it’s set up and which plugins he uses. He also goes through his Instagram statistics that have helped with his site.

#2 Tools Review

Whilst there are no actual tools to help you in this program, Sebastian does use some tools for animation purposes and plugins that help a Shopify store run smoothly.

He uses a program called Adobe Lightroom, which costs approximately $122 per year. This is for transforming his images to use on social media advertising. Another program he uses is called Animoto for modifying videos, which is even more expensive at $188 per year. If you’re making decent money from your store, it’s fine to outlay this money. If you’re a beginner however, I’d suggest not.

All Shopify stores require plugins to help with organisation, such as invoices and emails. Unfortunately, the majority of these plugins all costs a monthly fee.

#3 Support Review

You’ll find a Facebook Group called Ecom Alphas which, as I write this, has 285 members. That’s not a huge group of members, so I’d imagine the owners of this course could mentor you personally, if they are still active.

#4 The Cost

At $797 for the course, you’ll want to make sure it’s worth the money. You get what you pay for, and when you compare it to eCom Success Academy, it stacks up price wise. ECom Success Academy is the leading course for setting up an online store business from beginning to, as far as you can go really, there is no end. However, this course also includes things like dealing with customer service, complaints, returns etc. You may not like to learn this stuff but it is critical.

EcomAlphas main focus is setting up a Shopify store, sourcing products and advertising through Instagram.

The Best of EcomAlphas

#1 Knowledge

I’ve seen some reviews that discredit course creators, including this one. I’m not one of those, because I understand the work that has gone into this course, among others. I believe that Sebastian and his cohorts have done a reasonably good job with the knowledge they have. They do know how to setup a store and make money by doing so. I just feel they’ve left the course short, by not providing more administration tasks which the best platforms provide.

#2 GDRP

In mid 2018, a law was set up for the European Union to protect people’s data. Whilst this is a good thing for internet users, it means that store owners, bloggers and other website owners need to place GDPR compliance on their website.

I do like that Sebastian shows you how to do this with a simple European Privacy plugin.

#3 Know the Training

Because of the way the course is designed and uploaded, it’s possible to read all the training courses before you pay any money. Whilst this is a good thing, some of the descriptions they’ve used may confuse you a little. But I do like the fact you can run through the course beforehand.

#4 Training Platform

The platform for EcomAlphas is the same as ‘Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing‘, an affiliate marketing course created by Michelle Schroeder-Gardner. This makes the course fairly easy to login, resume from a previous section and navigate to future sections should you need to.

#5 Pricing Disclaimer

I always like it when the cost of the course is displayed before forwarding your email address. If you scroll to the bottom of the sales page, you’ll see the price clearly stated.

What Puts Me Off EcomAlphas

#1 Genuine

While I do believe that these guys are knowledgeable, I’m don’t get the impression that they are genuine. In my opinion, I believe that they’ve created this course to make money before putting people first. Rather than supply all the information that makes up a full time online store business, they seem to have rushed it a bit.

One such instance in a video showed me the lack of commitment. Sebastian forgot to show you how to set up a payment system in the course. I do like the fact that he made a video explaining this, but instead of creating another video to show how this is done, he tried to quickly explain it. Because his target audience is newbies to online store creation, I’m not too sure this will go down too well.

#2 Unethical Practices

One of the methods that I’ve seen in this course, is to get fake followers on Instagram. I understand that displaying a large following is going to gain you more trust, but is this the ethical way to do it? I’m not so sure. They use a program called SMMCastle.com, where you can purchase 3500 followers for $3:50, Pretty good value actually.

There are some plugins that can display trust badges on your website. Maybe the practice of getting fake followers is in a similar vein to sticking trust badges on your site, which nearly all Shopify store owners do. This would be up to your own ethical standards.

I also don’t like the video that shows how to create videos for Facebook advertising. They suggest taking small snippets of other successful marketers videos, and combining them to create your own video. I wouldn’t want my advertising videos ripped off like this, so I’d advise against this.

#3 Quick Paced

Sebastian is an energetic young bloke who wears his cap back to front. Nothing against this, but his eagerness gets the better of him which makes him rush through some of the steps. While this may be fine for some students, other folk may find his style too quick.

#4 Crucial Missed Steps

This course has missed out on a few critical steps along the way. That is unless they’ve been added since I’ve done this review. Not only did Sebastian miss the step of setting up the payment system, there’s also these other pieces of the puzzle you’ll have to find out yourself.

Other courses show you how to set up shipping for different countries and various parcel weights. Adrian Morrison’s course also shows you intuitive methods to set up your shipping for ‘free + shipping’ products. Even basic Shopify setup courses should include a shipping video.

The other major component of setting up an online store, is administrative tasks, such as returned items, customer service and invoices. This should have all been covered in another full set of videos.

Would I Recommend EcomAlphas

There is some great information in this course, but not enough to navigate you through some of the more critical elements of running an online store. While the course is totally legitimate, I’d recommend a better option.

Is There a Better Option

As I’ve mentioned throughout this review, the best eCom course available is Adrian Morrison’s eCom Success Academy. I’ve done the course myself and can totally recommend it. Having said that, it does cost you a fair bit more.

As another great option, you can read my review of Ricky Hayes eCom Lifestyle University. This is the course I would choose if you cannot afford eCom Success Academy, and it only costs a fraction more than eComAlphas.

Is Running a Store for YOU?

Creating an online store is certainly achievable for anyone with a small amount of PC knowledge. But…it’s not for everyone. I found this out myself after I took Adrian Morrison’s course in 2017. Everything imaginable is encompassed in the program, but I wasn’t committed enough, and don’t want to deal with the following issues:

• Customer service
• Customer complaints
• Returned items
• Worldwide taxes
• Invoices
• Emailed receipts
• Out of stock products (through manufacturers)

There’s a lot to think about with an online store, and more so with drop shipping. Just think about what you’re getting into before diving in.

Wrapping Up

There are many online opportunities to make money these days, and creating a course is one of them. Whilst you’re searching for the best course to create wealth yourself, these guys are making money through the course you’re about to purchase. This is totally fine, they’ve taken the initiative so why not make money from a course. There’s no secret to making money online, it just takes hard work, which these guys have done.

As already mentioned, this course will explain a great deal of what it takes to setup an online drop shipping store, but it’s not the best out there.

If you’d prefer to sell products just like this, but have all the stress taken out, affiliate marketing may suit you better. You won’t make as much profit, but can still make a great income through commissions. Read on below if you’d like to learn more about this option.

I wouldn’t like to buy a course that seems to be missing some elements, but this is up to you.