Episodes
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Join us for a compelling conversation with Amazon expert Tomer Rabinovich as we uncover the secrets to increased profitability and mastery of the Amazon marketplace. Tomer brings invaluable insights on how to thrive amidst Amazon's ever-changing fees and storage strategies. Listen in as we discuss the benefits of remote business management and how sellers can adapt to maintain a resilient online presence.
Venture into the world of product development and discover strategies that are revolutionizing product launches. In this episode, we share the story of a product that's exceeding expectations with its innovative approach to packaging and marketing, highlighting the importance of giftable elements and catering to the mobile workforce. We also peel back the curtain on the evolution of launch tactics, from leveraging PPC to harnessing the power of Google ads and social media platforms. Hear firsthand from our community about what's currently making waves in the marketplace.
Wrapping up the conversation, we discuss the potency of various launch and Amazon advertising strategies, such as utilizing the Amazon Vine program and the importance of smart PPC campaign management. We navigate through the complexities of new coupon rules and their implications for product ranking, and share strategies for increasing profitability through supplier negotiations and the judicious use of funding. Additionally, we touch on the strategy of offering quantity discounts to incentivize multi-unit purchases. So, come along and gain valuable insights that could propel your Amazon business to new heights.
In episode 551 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Tomer discuss:
00:00 - Amazon Seller Strategies and Experiences03:28 - Amazon Sellers Discuss Marketplace Changes08:11 - Navigating Amazon Changes and Branding11:01 - Product Development and Launch Strategies14:37 - Amazon Listing Workarounds for Vine17:20 - Importance of Social Media in Branding20:43 - Amazon Advertising and Helium 10 Strategies21:18 - Optimal Pricing Strategy for Vine Reviews 27:49 - Enhancing Amazon Product Research Tools29:25 - Strategies for Increasing Profitability and Automation32:10 - Negotiating Bulk Purchase Discounts36:55 - Maturing Industry and Setting End Goals39:29 - Quantity Discounts for Multiple Units► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast
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Listen in as Bradley unpacks the latest twists for Amazon product launch strategies, which may have sent sellers back to the drawing board. Bradley’s tale with a bat bath mat launch illustrates the high stakes of this new game, and a PPC-centered approach has risen to the forefront. I'll guide you through the intricacies of setting introductory prices, navigating the minefield of buy box retention, and leveraging tools like Helium 10 to keep a finger on the pulse of your sales trajectory. This is an essential discussion for any seller aiming to crack the code of maintaining those coveted page one rankings in Amazon's ever-evolving marketplace.
As we continue, you'll discover the fine art of pricing strategy and the critical role it plays in the aftermath of a product launch. Sharing his personal experience, Bradley reveals how calculated PPC maneuvers, without the reliance on top of search modifiers, propelled this product to the top, only for an unforeseen buy box loss to threaten everything. We'll also discuss the Maldives honeymoon method, a savvy technique to capitalize on Amazon's honeymoon period, and offer advice on how to regain your Buy Box and rankings with swift pricing adjustments. Whether you're a seasoned seller or just starting out, this conversation is packed with insights on optimizing your Amazon journey.
In episode 550 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley discusses:
00:00 - Amazon Product Launch Strategy Changes00:57 - Amazon Product Launch Strategy Insights07:29 - Amazon Buy Box Pricing Strategy09:27 - Amazon Honeymoon Method Success 21:00 - Optimizing Amazon Product Launch Strategies27:42 - Safe Price for Buy Box Competition 29:54 - Tracking Amazon Variant Sales With Cerebro TranscriptBradley Sutton:
There's something new that Amazon has been testing that could completely change how we do product launches, and I'm going to tell you exactly how I got to page one in my recent product launch but then lost it instantly because of this change. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think.
Bradley Sutton:
Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Series Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I'm your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show that is our monthly Ask Me Anything, where we go and answer any and all of your Helium 10 questions, or even some general Amazon questions as well, and we usually go into a certain topic at first. Now, this time I didn't mention that I was going to go into a certain topic, but I want to show you guys something that could be happening when we're talking about Amazon product launches. That I think is very important.
Bradley Sutton:
I wanted to show you what happened with my recent product launch testing that I did, and this is going to be interesting because it could impact how we launch products, just as a kind of like a recap. What kind of launch strategy do I use and have I been showing other people? Well, it's mainly has to do with PPC. All right, so I'm like hey, you have a product that has no reviews at the beginning. Well, you need to convince people that they're going to buy your product if they see it at the top of search in PPC, and so my strategy has always been, you know, since Amazon turned off the search find, buy that people want, you know you should try and do or two-step URLs is I would create a listing and then I decide at what price point do people or are people going to buy my product even though it has no reviews, or only one or two reviews where they're just like you know what? I have never heard of this brand. I see other products on this page. I have a couple hundred reviews, but dang, at this price point, I've got to go ahead and buy this other product, even though I've never heard of it.
Bradley Sutton:
And so for some bath mats that I was selling for me, that price point was $9.99. All right, my list price is going to be $29 and my target price. I was like, hey, I want to start selling this around $24, if I can, right. And then so I was like you know what? At $9.95, I think, or $9.87, whatever I picked, I think that people are going to be like, well, this is a killer deal, I'm going to go ahead and buy it. And so what I've always taught is all right, well, you can either do a big coupon to get to that $9.95 price, like maybe a 50% off coupon if the price was like $19, right. Or the other thing is, do a sale price, because if I were to just change the regular price of the product and then try to raise it up, you guys know what would happen, right, the buy box would disappear after a certain point because Amazon would think that you're price gouging. So the way to get around that is using sale prices only, and the other thing that I was doing was trying to get the strike through pricing and in the past it would work like 80% of the time, where as long as I got one order at the regular price, the list price, then I did a sale price. I would usually like, again, 80% of the time I would get a, a strikethrough price on that list price.
Bradley Sutton:
So the first thing that I did for this launch, for this bat shaped bath mat say that five times fast was I created it at $9.97, like I said, and I did a sale price. All right, let me actually show you the listing. You guys can see this yourself. So if you type in bat bath mat, you'll probably see it. All right. So originally I put the price the first day I got some sales or I got one sale at the $29.97. You guys see right here, $29.97. You could see right down here. I actually had a sale on February 12th, all right, and then immediately I made a sale price of $9.97 and started getting sales. All right, let me let's actually look at the orders. By the way, maybe you guys didn't know you could do that. You could do it in Helium 10 here, where you look at your orders day by day and I also did the same thing for I tried some Tesla scenes for coffin shelves. So you see, February 22nd, I still have the price at $12.97. So I was like going up in price, but I want to find the first day that I actually had orders here. Here we go. You can see, February 19th. I was selling this for $9.97. Exactly like I said, but I know I got one at a higher price. Let's see if Helium 10 is going to show it for me. There's still $9.97 there. Hold on, what date are we on here? Let's see still 1697 for the coffin shelf. Now I'm at February 14th $9.97. Where was it? February? There it is. Look at that right there. Boom. Thank you, Helium 10 for showing me this right here. February. What is this date? This right here, February, what is this date? Uh, February 14th. I actually got sales at $29.97, but I did not get that strike through pricing. Now, immediately after I got that, look at that same day, I lowered the price as a sale price for $9.97. And, as you can see here, I was selling products left and right.
Bradley Sutton:
I did a PPC campaign. All right, I made a special launch campaign inside of Atomic. Where it was, it was specifically to rank for my main keywords and I was getting the orders. I'll show you the actual campaign that I made. Like I started from day one with this special launch campaign where I was targeting top of search, not using the bid algorithm, not using the top of search modifier, but I was just targeting in general the top of search, and let me show you what happened on the keyword. So, like, everything was a success. Like you know, I've launched hundreds of products and it's always I always have success, but it was always the same business as usual. Uh, let me show you the keyword rank so you guys could see how it was going. Let me show you like bat bath mat was one of the main ones, and let's look at my rank history here. I'm going to explain what happened here, but look at this, all right. So right there, remember I launched a product like February 12th, February 13th, I had those orders. See where I was ranking for bat bath mat right away because of my the Title Density on this keyword is low. Without even doing anything. Before I even got that first order, look, I was at position 126, 128, right. And then what I did was I started my PPC campaign on that day. Let me show you where that's at. What I did was I started my PPC campaign on that day.
Bradley Sutton:
All right. So I started my PPC. Remember? I got that first order on February 4th. Well, look at that. Why did I get that order? Look at this. On February 14th, I should say look at that. My position was number one, all right. So I was first. I was and this is why I don't use top of search modifiers. I could see from Helium 10 that every single hour almost, I was at the top of search on February 14th and 15th, all right. So now let me go into my Adtomic and see if I can find my original campaign that I did. So here's the exact campaign that I made in Adtomic and I don't think I'm running almost any of these anymore. I had a $40 a day. I had a $40 a day budget. And then the keywords that I was targeting are right here Bat bath mat, gothic bathroom rug, bat rug, bat bathroom rug. You see I just had these are like my main keywords and I did a high bid because I was trying to be top of search. And I didn't have to guess if I was going to be at top of search because I could see that in keyword tracker and even here in Adtomic under the search terms, it's showing me my keyword ranks right here. See, it's showing me my organic rank and my sponsored rank right here in Adtomic. And so, again, everything was business as usual. I started getting sales. Let's go back to my sales here. These are all organic. Organic in the sense that you know, I wasn't paying people to order my product or anything. These were just people seeing it in sponsored results. Look at this February 15th, I got one order, two orders. Let's keep going here. February 16th, I had two, three more or four organic orders, still at $9.97 price point. The February 17th, another two, three orders. So my PPC campaigns were working. How fast was I able to rank because of these one, two, three, four orders? Well, look here Bat bath mat in Helium 10 keyword tracker. Remember I was at position 125. We'll take a look here Within just two days, within one day, the very first day I got orders, I already jumped up to page one.
Bradley Sutton:
That's the beauty about the Maldives Honeymoon method, guys, and the honeymoon period on Amazon. You can just do ridiculous things, especially with lower search volume keywords like this. Page one, position 23, from day one of my first sale and then towards the next day, February 15th, page one, position 11, I jumped up after a few more orders. Look at this. February 16th, two days after I got my first order, I'm at page one, position four. And then shortly thereafter I am at the very top of the search right here, page one, position two, three, four, consistently. All right. So everything was great. I'm like, boom, this is so good. And you look at my orders, they started picking up and so, because they were picking up, I started raising the price. Let me see if I can see what day I raised the price I still had on the 19th I was still at $10. Let's take a look here. You guys can see. Still on the 20th I was at $10. When did I raise the price here? And then I started raising, I think to $10.97, first of all and that was on February, let's see or $12.97. I jumped up at $12.97, all right, on February. When was this? February 22nd, and I was still selling really well, I still didn't have any reviews.
Bradley Sutton:
So I wanted to keep that price low. But I started bringing that price gradually up and you can see that I did that actually here on the BSR graph, here on Helium 10. You can see that on oh there, it is right there. February 22nd I raised the price to $12.97. On February 28th I raised it to $14.97 because I'm like, hey, sales are still piling in, I don't need to keep that really low price point because I already got to page one for my main keywords. Alright, almost all my main keywords okay. Um, $14.97. I went to $15.97, $17.97. Uh, I did on March. What is this March 1st? But now all of a sudden take a look here, what happened? Where my BSR goes way down, all right here. Uh, at this point my BSR and sales went to almost zero. And look what happened in Keyword Tracker guys, all right, bat bath map, my main keyword, all of my main keywords on March 5th I lost the buy box. That's basically what happened, guys. All right, I lost the buy box. Now it dropped me to position 32. Look at this. It went from position 1 to 32 consistently for almost two weeks. I was doing it. Do you see here, guys, every single one of my keywords dropped to position 32. This is what we call the page 32 or position 32 glitch. But it's not really a glitch. This is like something Amazon has programmed in, where I lost the buy box. Now, why did I lose the buy box? This never happened before.
Bradley Sutton:
Basically, it seems like I mean, at least it could be a test. But I literally did this on four different product launches all at the same time, and the same exact thing happened, where Amazon, even though I was using a sale price, is now kind of like considering the sale price, the regular price, and then so if you raise the price too much, you are not going to get the buy box back. All right, because Amazon thinks that you are price gouging. And I was like this is just flabbergasting me. What is going on? So I even went to azrank.com and I was like, hey, I need to have 10 orders, buy 10 orders at this $24.97 price, which is my regular price to send Amazon signals. I was just doing a test. I'm not trying to break Amazon terms of service or anything. It wasn't like search, find, buy or anything like that. But I said AZRank, please have 10 people buy it. And the cool thing about using AZRank is they give you a whole bunch of like customer information on your product. You know, like they say, hey, how's the packaging and how's the search experience and what are the other products on the page that they're clicking on? So it's not just a matter of trying to get quote, unquote, fake orders or anything like that. No, there's a reason. You get customer intelligence from AZRank. But for this particular reason or for this particular case, all I wanted to do was ask, or was try and see, what do I have to do to get the buy box back? And here's the thing 10 orders at 24, it wasn't enough.
Bradley Sutton:
So it seems like Amazon has this rolling history now of price where they're going to suppress your buy box if they feel that you're price gouging. It's not like there's another listing somewhere else on Amazon or on another website that was at a certain price. No, so what I've been doing, little by little, I had to find out what price point I could get the buy box back, and that price point was at first, $17.97. All right, so I had to get the. I got the buy box back right here at $17.97. And then I'm like, okay, let me get some orders at $17.97. I did, and then I was like, all right, things are going good, let's go to $18.27. All right, so now I've been raising the price little by little, kind of like if you had to raise your regular price, and now I'm all the way at $20.97. I don't know why Amazon price history is saying is saying $27.97, but $20 and 97 cents, what is it, or no, $20.07.? And I still have, as you can see here, buy box. Even Amazon is throwing a coupon on here. Now I'm still getting sales, but now this means that I've been losing money for a little bit more time because, remember, my target price is $24.97. So what is my next thing that I am going to test here? Well, basically, if this is going to be permanent, if Amazon no longer allows you to do a sale price for too much, and then you're going to get buy box problems, and also, remember, amazon says you cannot run coupons anymore unless you have sales history. So if that's the case, you no longer are going to be able to do these crazy huge, deep discounts for too long to get people to buy your product. So what would be the strategy if this is the new normal? You guys let me know in the comments on the side have anybody been using this strategy in the last month and seen the same thing? Or you were able to discount 60% on a sales price, raise the price all the way up three weeks later and you'd be okay.
Bradley Sutton:
But anyways, what my strategy is going to have to be now is I really have to know how many units I want to sell at that price. I send in let's just say it's 60 units. I send in 60 units to a certain SKU and then I make another. I said SKU, I meant ASIN. I need to make another variation of the product with different images, even though it's the same product, and then make it like somehow a variation and then send in maybe 200 or 300 products there and then those 60 units or 100 units at that low price. I do all I can do to get the ranking up and then I keep that other listing closed and then, once I run out of inventory and that's good. I've got my ranking. I've got some reviews from Vine which, by the way, when you do Vine, it's actually good to do Vine when you have the $9 price or the $10 price or $12 price, because then sellers or buyers from the Vine it doesn't count too much to their monthly quota or whatever plus, it just psychologically will tell them even though they're not paying a high or they're not paying anything. They'll be like oh wow, this is such an amazing product for this deal, so you want to do your vine during that time too. But anyways, you have to, you know, have 50 or a hundred units there and then when that unit, when that, turns off, you turn on your other product or your other ASIN, your other variation, which is basically the same product, but it's a separate ASIN and that ASIN you never had at the lower price. Theoretically speaking, again, I haven't tested this out because this is all stuff I've been doing the last two weeks here. Theoretically speaking, now you shouldn't have buy box issues and I can go ahead and have that product be at $24.97, which is what I would do here. I've got like six almost five-star reviews. This would be the time where I'd be like I want to try and sell this at $24.97. But right now, if I sell it at $24.97, it is going to take. You know what guys, let's do this together.
Bradley Sutton:
I'm actually going to go ahead and see if I can put, if I can go ahead and um, put the price at 20, even $23.97. And let's see if I'm still getting that uh, still getting that block. So we're doing this together live guys. I am not making this stuff up. It's a live Amazon account. Let's go ahead and edit this listing and let's see in 15 minutes if I lost the buy box or not. All right, so I got my price $20.07. Let's go to, let's just go to $21.97. Maybe it's enough. Maybe I'll still be able to keep buy box at $21.97. So we will go ahead and do save and finish. Remind me, guys in a few minutes to refresh the Amazon page and let's see if I was able to keep the uh, to keep the buy box. But anyways, that's the issue of what's going on with launches right now. Really interesting stuff, in my opinion, how Amazon is changing stuff. But now this is your time for the rest of the show. So go ahead and give me some questions.
Bradley Sutton:
Karina says how many days did it take to get the first reviews? Yeah, all those reviews are organic. Like that wasn't any of the Vine reviews I forgot I'm dumb. I forgot to do the Vine thing, like in my first couple of days. So like it took me a week to start the Vine. So those I got my first review like a week and a half in 100% organic from one of my first orders and I did not do follow-up emails for the very first ones. I didn't want to send follow-up email when I had such a big discount price. That's just me. Some people do it, but I'm just trying to be safe.
Bradley Sutton:
Jennifer says what do you think is the best way to get reviews for new products? Absolutely Vine. Vine is definitely a good way. And then, of course, just having a good product right, have a good product and make sure that you know you're kind of over-delivering with quality and have a good unboxing experience and that's just going to give you a good chance to do, to do uh, to get a good review. And then, of course, use Follow-up, use Helium 10 Follow-up to do the request review and that'll increase your rate of review, usually at least five to 10%. Karina says I just got a bunch of two and three star reviews lately from the Vine community. Yeah, you gotta be careful If people don't like your product. I mean, if you got two and three stars from the Vine community, you might get two and three stars from regular people too. So that's why it's good to have a low price when they claim the product from Vine, because then it's going to give you a better chance, I should say, to have a good review. If you have a low price at the beginning, let's see if Amazon has updated the price yet.
Bradley Sutton:
Oh, that was fast. Look at that, guys. I guess. Look at that. See, look at that. Buy box is gone. That's crazy right. Buy box is gone. That's crazy right. Buy box is gone. Now. I think this one is too fast, but it takes like a day for the search results. I think let's go ahead and look at the search results. If it already put me to position 32, probably take like a few hours. Yeah, I'm still position 3 right there and I still have that first one. But that's the thing, guys, I forgot to tell you when you lose buy box, guess what? No more PPC. Look what happened to my PPC during this time. Look at this, guys. You see it. You see how there's no blue line. That's because I had no buy box. So it's a lot of badness that happens if you had no buy box. So it's a lot of badness that happens if you lose the buy box. All right, so let me go ahead and change that back, cause I want to get my buy box back. So let's go back to $20.07. Let's make it $20.09, $20.06. All right, let's see how long it takes to get my buy box. Uh, get my buy box back on that.
Bradley Sutton:
Karina says how do you set up the Follow-up emails for views? I just do the, the Amazon request or review template. All right, don't do the. I know helium 10 allows it and you can go ahead and try it, but to me, Amazon is so finicky these days with like language and saying it's against their terms of service for the Follow-up emails that it's not worth getting that 30-day ban from messaging your customers. I would just use the request to review one there. David says hey, Bradley, thanks for showing us how to keep track with your keywords.
However, when you run your campaigns, how do you compare them or make use of the tracking? So when I'm running a launch, my goal of course is on as many of my main keywords as possible. I want to get um top of search, you know, top five organic positions. So to get top of search, top five organic positions. So to get there I have to first be top of search in sponsored. I need to be in the first five, six sponsored locations. So the very first thing that I'm looking at, from the moment I create my PPC campaign and make it active, I turn boost on in Keyword Tracker, which is that red rocket ship, and then I'm looking at my sponsored rank. Am I showing up in the first five positions? If not, what does that mean? I've got to increase my bid on the keyword. Okay, and then I'm now. I'm at the top, I'm like good, all right. Now what's the next thing I'm looking at in keyword tracker after a couple of days I'm looking at all right, if I'm getting orders, which I can obviously see in Adtomic or Seller Central, if I'm getting orders for that keyword, is it having a positive effect on my organic placement and then, after my organic placement gets pretty strong, you know like I've been maybe top three, top four, top five, whatever I'm aiming for like five or six days. Now it's like, okay, now I don't have to be bidding so crazy. You know I do a down only, or no. I do a fixed bid when I do my launch campaigns in PPC and I do a crazy high amount. So then I start dialing back there. I still want to show up at the top of search and sponsored, but I don't do a fixed bid anymore and I start decreasing that until I know I can stay at the top in both situations.
Bradley Sutton:
Well, Janik says what would you consider? A low Title Density number below five? Or zero, yes, below five, anything below five is going to give you a really good chance. If you, if you've got that keyword in your title and less than five people have it on page one, then yeah, you're going to have a lot better or an easier path to page one. Let's do a quick test again, guys. Did I get my buy box back? Did I screw something there It is okay. That scared me. I got my buy box back at $20.06. There, it is right there, all right, thank goodness.
Bradley Sutton:
Ali says I see in Cerebro you are ranked for 677 organic keywords. Are you talking about my product? Are you running my product through Cerebro. Let's take a look here. What I just did is I went ahead and hit keywords right here on the page, maybe. Maybe Ali is looking at my product and let's see how many keywords we are ranked for. Yep, Ali is looking at my uh, my listing right here. You can do that with anybody's listing, all right. So it says 677 organic, 167 sponsored. How do we get ranked for so many keywords? Well, basically, yeah, it's through uh, either PPC is the sponsored ones. That's a hundred percent PPC. I've got some auto campaigns going. I don't have a manual campaign for 167 keywords. I can guarantee you that. But those 668 total keywords, that's just me ranking organically, like Amazon is gonna, if I get sales for bat bath mat, for example, right, I'm gonna start getting ranked, probably for bat bath mat for bathroom. I'm not saying that's an actual keyword, but longer tail versions of the keyword, even though I didn't get any sales for that one. It's like a kind of a flywheel effect there, all right, so the more, the more activity you get on your listing, the more keywords you are going to be ranked for.
Bradley Sutton:
Hassan says how much funds did you invest in launching this product? That's a great question. I forgot how much I paid. Let me look I think the product was $3.50, that I paid for it and then I bought 1,000. So that's $3,500. Maybe it was like $1,500 to ship to me, another $500 to ship to Amazon, or no, not that much like $200 to ship to Amazon. The little bit that I shipped and then my PPC spend has been about a thousand dollars maybe. So yeah, we're looking at about $6,000 only on this product.
Bradley Sutton:
Jennifer says what could be the safe price to increase percentage wise, to not lose the buy box. So it depends. So what I've been doing is just trying like five 10 cents at a time. Um, and you guys saw how fast it was. You'll know if you lose the buy box within like what, four, four minutes, five minutes of changing the price. So it's pretty easy to know what price is going to get you a buy box loss or not.
Bradley Sutton:
Andy says in your opinion, how many units need to be sold to finish with launch phase? That's where the CPR number comes in handy with Helium 10. All right, in Helium 10, we have if you go in Keyword Tracker, you'll see a column that says CPR and that's based on how many orders we think you would need over eight days for that keyword. So just add up all your keywords that you're trying to rank for and that's going to be a number that.
Bradley Sutton:
All right, let's bring Sobi on to the stage here. All right, go ahead. What's your question? You're live.
Sobi:
Hi. I was just researching 3PL last night and just comparing with the Amazon warehousing. Do you have any suggestion on which to use just to start a product?
Bradley Sutton:
It depends so with the Amazon fees. Like one of the ways to get around those Amazon fees is by using Amazon logistics and Amazon warehousing. But there's also drawbacks too. I don't know the price structure. You know you've also got to trust Amazon about how, if you're fully using their AWD, trust that they're going to drip your inventory into Amazon in the best way that is good for you. So that is another reason why some people don't do it. But is it going to save you fees on a regular three part, a third, a third party warehouse? Uh, if you're only shipping to one, two locations, a hundred percent because there is no fees. Like you get around that Now. That being said, me, um, I have my own warehouse, so I'm like my own three PL. I'm not even thinking about using Amazon because I'm totally fine with using the partner carrier. So if you're, at the end of the day, you know there's different third party carriers out there or third party warehouses, get a quote from them, see what the storage is, see what the per order fee is, then go into Amazon and just see, get a quote from them to kind of see what it would be. And that's the only way that you go. You know what's going to work out better for you, all right.
Bradley Sutton:
Next question here Jennifer says if a product is has more than one variant on Amazon, is there a way to know how much each variant is selling through Cerebro? Not Cerebro, I like using the Chrome Extension for that, all right. So in the Chrome Extension, hit review insights and then look at the breakdown of reviews by variation and then look at the estimated sales and then kind of like use that formula. So, if I see a coffin shelf with a black, green and blue version of it and then I look at the review insights with the Helium 10 Chrome Extension on that listing and I see the black one has 90% of the reviews and the green and the blue one have 5% each. I know, then that the black one is selling the best. That's just a. It's not an exact science, but at least gives you a rough estimate.
Bradley Sutton:
Andy says what's a good unit session percentage from the sales and traffic report. That's actually in Helium 10 as well, and does it include PPC traffic? That's all the traffic there and um, and it says I had some days zero sessions and still had spent on PPC. Remember the clicks might not be showing up on that exact date per se, uh, but the report also might have had errors. If it says you had zero sessions it was probably a bug, like I would look back at it. Usually, Amazon fixes those bugs. So if you had zero sessions, I highly doubt that you have any day with zero sessions on your listing. So it's probably just a bug on Amazon. Go look back after a few days and it probably is fixed.
Bradley Sutton:
Trab says is there a link where we can see Helium 10 live calls like this one? What type of these live calls are there and how are they scheduled? So this particular one is every week inside of Helium 10 Elite and our Serious Sellers Club, but once a month, like today, we open it up to YouTube. So if you guys want to know when we go live on YouTube or Facebook groups, hit subscribe right now in YouTube and then hit the notification button and then if we schedule a live, you'll get notified, if we have a live. But we also send it in our weekly seller update email. We send out a weekly seller update email, uh, and then we give people the links to these events that we're doing.
Bradley Sutton:
Karina says do you use AI for product photos or are they done by a professional photographer? I use AMZ OneStep for all those pictures you saw of the bath mat and they did it all for me and a couple of images I did use the Helium 10 AI generated image maker. I see somebody just bought the bath mat. I wonder if it's somebody who was on this call. But I'm looking at my Helium 10 orders here and somebody just bought the bath mat at $20.07. So was that somebody on this call? Let me know. Somebody is helping out the cause here. Karina says how much is about seven photos done by a professional photographer. It can be anywhere between like 500 and a thousand dollars for the whole thing. But you're not just getting seven images. You might be getting images for your A plus content. You might be getting variations of your images that they could send you, um, but a whole photo shoot usually about a thousand bucks, I would say, depending on the photographer, depending if they're using 3D and things like that.
Bradley Sutton:
All right, guys, that's all the time we have for today. Thank you so much for joining us this week. Uh appreciate, uh appreciate you the attendance and a lot of great questions week. Don't forget that every week we do this in our Helium 10 Elite group and our Serious Sellers Club group and then we also do this once a month on YouTube and LinkedIn and Facebook, so make sure to set notifications on there. If you guys want to comment further on it, you can do that on my Instagram for the podcast, which is Serious Sellers Podcast on Instagram. But thank you, guys for joining today and have a great rest of your week. See you guys later. Bye-bye now.
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We’re back with another episode of the Weekly Buzz with Helium 10’s Chief Brand Evangelist, Bradley Sutton. Every week, we cover the latest breaking news in the Amazon, Walmart, and E-commerce space, interview someone you need to hear from and provide a training tip for the week.TikTok Shop Is Raising Referral Fees After offering discounts that seemed too good to be true, the video app is reeling back its deals. Here's what businesses should expect.https://www.inc.com/sydney-sladovnik/tiktok-shop-is-raising-referral-fees.htmlThe article above puts a spotlight on TikTok Shop's uptick in seller fees, and we’re lifting the veil on Amazon A+ content's new direct purchasing prowess. We share tactical advice to manage your inventory like a pro and harness these updates to amplify your sales. Plus, we're taking a behind-the-scenes look at the Helium 10 Project X account to give you a clear picture of dodging potential fees and making the most of Amazon's fee credits.
But wait, there's more! We're not just talking shop about Amazon; we're wading into the latest seller must-knows, including the sleek, cost-saving product showcase cards and the mandatory third-party supplement testing that could make or break your listings. Then, we're switching aisles to Walmart Connect's advertising innovations, spotlighting the fusion of in-store and online with TV wall ads. And for those hungry for a taste of real-world selling strategies, I'm personally inviting you to saddle up and join me at the Seller Velocity Conference in the Big Apple. Don’t miss out as we also tease the latest features from Helium 10 that are poised to take your selling game to the next level.
In this episode of the Weekly Buzz by Helium 10, Bradley covers:
01:05 - FBA Low Inventory Fee Postponed!06:25 - Increased TikTok Shop Fees07:12 - Shoppable A+ Content09:45 - Dietary Supplements10:51 - Walmart Advertising Updates13:13 - Join Bradley at the Seller Velocity Conference14:05 - New Feature Alerts► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast
► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension
► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life)
► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft
► Watch The Podcasts On YouTube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos
TranscriptBradley Sutton:
Amazon saving sellers by delaying the low inventory fee. TikTok shop is raising their seller fees. Your customers can now purchase directly from your Amazon A-plus content. These new stories and more on today's episode of the Weekly Buzz. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I am your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show that is our Helium 10 Weekly Buzz, where we give you a rundown of all the goings on and news stories out there in the Amazon, Walmart, e-commerce world. We give you training tips as well as let you know what new features Helium 10 has. That gives you serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. Let's see what's buzzing. We got some pretty cool news articles. Like there's not that many, but I would say per capita. We got some good bang for the buck this week on our news articles, including one that I think you guys will especially like. Let's go ahead and hop right into that very first news article. It was an announcement on LinkedIn. It was also in your seller central a few days ago and it was entitled credit for low FBA, low inventory fees, incurred during April 2024. All right.
Bradley Sutton:
So for those who have just been sleeping somewhere and been in hibernation, don't know, amazon's been releasing new fees. They didn't just come out of the blue. This was announced way back in December of last year. Now this low inventory fee long story short, it's something where you're going to start getting charged on orders for items that Amazon considers you having a not sufficient inventory level. Now Amazon said hey, we've been getting a lot of information about, you know, sellers being unhappy with this. They're not understanding exactly what it goes into. You know, we here at Helium 10 have been in contact with Amazon trying to get to the bottom of some of these. You know use cases like some sellers are wondering what if it's a seasonal product? You know what if, you know I go completely out of stock for a couple of weeks? I mean, there's just a million different questions that sellers have.
Bradley Sutton:
So what Amazon is saying is they're still going to charge. You're going to see charges between April 1st and April 30th, but at the end of the month they're going to credit everything back. So if you do incur this low inventory fee, basically you're not going to have to pay anything. All right. So this gives you one month to kind of see all right, what's going on? Can I get some of these products out of the low inventory fee? All right? So, as it says right here, it says, hey, starting April 1st, which was obviously a few days ago, this transition period will begin and you're going to be charged the fee on eligible products with historical days of supply below 28 days. But then at the end of the month or in May actually, you're going to get credit for all of those units. Now, starting May 1st, the fee is going to be charged without the credit back. All right. So it says, hey, you can avoid that fee by ensuring that either the long-term historical days of supply, which means at least 90 days, or the short-term historical days of supply, which is the last 30 days, are above four weeks of inventory. All right.
Bradley Sutton:
So I highly suggest going to Seller Central, looking at this news article and then hitting this button here where it says low inventory level fee. It's going to bring you to some frequently asked questions so far about it, and then you're going to be able to at least see the charts. You know, like, hey, if you've got a small standard item and you actually have been having less than 14 historical days of inventory, you're going to get a whopping 89 cent charge per unit, all right. If it's between 14 and 21, it's going to be 63 cents a unit, or under 28 and over 21, it's going to be 32 cents. The largest charge is if you've got a large standard item and you have less than 14 days. You're going to get a whopping dollar and 11 cent charge per unit, all right. So check this page out. There's a lot of frequently asked questions.
Bradley Sutton:
Now, as Amazon said, you can actually go in and see if you're getting this charge. So, for example, here in the Helium 10 Project X account, you go to inventory and your FBA inventory and then look at this column where it says low inventory level fee. It's going to tell you if you are going to get a fee or not, and you can see most of my products here say, hey, no fees will be applied in the current week, and it'll tell you what your historical days of supply is, all right. Now it's interesting because it's basing it on the parent ASIN, all right. So I got to do some digging to see what does that mean? You know, like, is it a combination of everything or what it is? I haven't looked into this too much because, as you can see from my account, it's not really affecting me at all.
Bradley Sutton:
That being said, there is one item. It's kind of interesting. I'm discontinuing it. I'm purposely letting it run out because it was just a test. You know, in project X, amazon account, I do lots of testing, you know, to see what's going on with ranking, and so here is a coffin shelf that I had launched a few weeks ago. I'm lending it right out of stock. There's only like seven units left, and so obviously, amazon is like oh no, this is a low inventory, so if Amazon did not, wasn't crediting me. It's saying that, hey, fees will be applied to current week and it says applies to units shipped in current week.
Bradley Sutton:
How would I know how much I'm being charged? I scroll over here to the right and on the section where it says hey, where is your Amazon fee? 1195 includes $8 and 20 cents FBA fee. Hit that button and this calculator is going to come up and it's going to tell you what my low inventory level fee is. And, as you guys can see right here, my low inventory level fee is 87 cents. It's actually a little bit off screen. You can't really see it here. So for me, I would have had to pay 87 cents a unit, even though I was trying to discontinue that product, which kind of sucks. But thankfully Amazon made that call where they're like hey, we're not charging you this month. So as of now, it looks like I'm not paying a single cent of this low inventory fee throughout the whole account. All right, you guys, I want you to check yours. Let me know what you see in your account, how many of your products are going to get that fee and how much do you estimate it's going to be for the end of this month? If Amazon was charging, let me know in the in the comments below. It's going to be for the end of this month. If Amazon was charging, let me know in the comments below.
Bradley Sutton:
The next article is from Inc.com and it's about TikTok shop. We're talking about Amazon doing away with some fees for this month. Well, TikTok shop is actually raising their fees, but it's not that bad because of what TikTok shop was out. So, starting a few days ago, referral fees for products sold in TikTok shop are increasing from 2% to 6%. Now you might think, oh, my goodness, that's like 300% increase, right, but just remember that's 6% overall. Still, what is Amazon? What's Walmart? It's about what? 15%, right? So it's still like a fraction of what other marketplaces are. So that's interesting. Are you selling on TikTok shop yet? Did you take advantage of when it was 0% and then 2%? You're probably still making money even at the 6% and 8%, all right.
Bradley Sutton:
The next news article is actually again from Amazon Seller Central and it's entitled shoppable basic A+ Content modules now available for brands. All right, so this was from about a week ago. Amazon announced this and it says shoppable content modules are now available for brands that use basic A+ Content, so your customers can add an item to cart directly from the standard comparison chart module. So this is especially great. If you've got multiple products in your brand. You want to cross promote on a pages. It's almost kind of like an addition to your virtual bundles, right? Virtual bundle takes up a lot of space on the page and doesn't cost anything for people to go ahead and buy from it, and I'm assuming you know this wouldn't either. So if you want to you know, see how it looks go into your A-plus content. All right, create a new A-plus content, hit add module and then take a look at where it says standard comparison chart. You can kind of see how it would look. This is available, you know, not for premium A+ Content, like maybe before you had to have premium. This is available even as just regular A+ Content, all right. So it's not too difficult to get a premium anyways. But still, if you just have maybe one or two or three products, you haven't qualified for A+ premium yet. You still have access to this. People can see a number of reviews, uh, etc.
Bradley Sutton:
Now, Michael from one of the slack groups uh, I'm in Michael V. He actually talked about another link that's coming to some sellers and you can actually you can't really, I don't think you can really do anything yet with this link, but it's available for many sellers and you'll see something new that's coming. Uh, product showcase cards. Uh, Michael brought out this URL that you might see on my, my screen here, where you could actually have, uh, instead of just a comparison, you can just kind of like have this really cool graphical interface where you're showcasing different products or even have a single image and then put products in this kind of like mini carousel here and then, where it's almost like a virtual bundle where you can just add like all three of them, all three products your shopping cart. So again, new and exciting things coming to A+ Content. And the beauty about it is not pay-per-click, all right. So these are free modules that you can do and don't expect your sales to skyrocket. But hey, if you can get an extra sale every day per product or an extra sale every other day across your product line just because of this 1% conversion increase, who wouldn't want that? So cool things that Amazon is announcing.
Bradley Sutton:
On the flip side, if you're selling dietary supplements, you might be a little bit more restricted than before. So a couple of days ago, amazon announced on their dashboard that there's going to be changes to dietary supplements. All right, I used to sell, I used to work for company. I sold dietary supplements before I worked at Helium Town, and now I'm assuming that that company is having to deal with this. But it says, hey, we've updated the policy on dietary supplements to meet safety standards in our store, Effective in April. Dietary supplement products need to be verified through a third party testing, inspection and certification organization. Third-party testing, inspection and certification organization All right. So you need to go If you sell a dietary supplement. Guys, go to manage your compliance dashboard and make sure that you've got all your ducks in a row as far as your third-party testing goes. And if you don't have it there, it's very possible that Amazon might suppress your listing. All right, so there's going to be a webinar that Amazon might suppress your listing. All right, so there's going to be a webinar that Amazon's going to have in April where they're going to talk about it. If you want to see more information on this, just go to your seller central news dashboard and click on that link.
Bradley Sutton:
Next article is from Walmart and it says how Walmart Connect is putting Walmart's purpose in motion. So Walmart Connect is one of the things that they do is that's like their advertising. All right, so Walmart's advertising kind of like portal there, right, and some interesting things are right that they have launched or are launching. First of all, an interesting stat in their advertisers marketplace sellers. You know, third-party sellers like you and me are the fastest-growing advertisers the sponsored search advertising that we have done. It grew by 63% in one year, doubling on their self-service platform. Now, interesting things that they are doing. There's going to be non-endemic brands now advertising on Walmart, so maybe you've got a product that's not. I highly doubt. They're going to allow you to advertise Amazon products on Walmart but outside of Amazon maybe you're not on Walmart but you'll be able to advertise on Walmart there's going to be increased international support. Now here's.
Bradley Sutton:
I always like looking at things that is very unique to Walmart that Amazon can't really compete on. You know things that have to do with Walmart store network. Amazon can't compete with that. You know, like picking up your Walmart order at a Walmart store that's down the street from Amazon can't really compete with that, right. Another thing you know how there's lots of like TVs in Walmart's. You know, like a whole TV section. Well, now, this is this is called an in-store experience or self-serve capability, where you can have in-store campaign management to the Walmart ad center, starting with TV wall ads. So I know you guys listening to this in the podcast maybe can't see my screen here, but you know, imagine your ad of your product showing across all of the flat screen TVs in the Walmart. You know like TV section, right, kind of like a unique idea, your ad potentially coming up in thousands of Walmart stores at the same time, you know, and then maybe it would drive them to go to Walmart and order your product, or, uh, I'm not sure how that would work, or if you have to have your product in store. But again, something unique that Amazon can't really compete on, a type of advertising.
Bradley Sutton:
All right, that's it for the news today. Like I said, not that many articles, but pretty, pretty impactful ones. Uh, I would have to say so speaking of impactful, if you guys want to have an impact on your business and you live on the East coast or actually you can be living anywhere Join me at the seller velocity conference in New York the first week of May. All right, so I'm going to be speaking there. A lot of great speakers, I'm going to be talking about a lot of my launches, that I've been doing and what worked and what didn't work. You guys saw I was getting hit with a low inventory fee on another product because I was launching it. All right, I learned a lot of stuff. There's a reason why I'm letting that product run out. Something is changing in launching in my experience, and I'm going to show you what that is at this conference. So, if you guys want to hang out with me and a bunch of other cool speakers in New York for a couple of days. Go to h10.me/velocity for more information.
Bradley Sutton:
Let's go ahead and now switch over to our Helium 10 New Feature Alerts, and we've got a couple of really cool updates, you know, for everybody, all right. So this very first one is called product launchpad completely new tool from scratch here at Helium 10. Guys, like it's amazing how every week we have New Feature Alerts. You know, I don't know anybody in this game who is innovating with new tools and new features at even one-tenth of the velocity of Helium 10. So this is thanks to you guys. You guys are letting us know what you want. So this first tool is called Product Launchpad, all right. So this has been available to Elite members for a while and diamond, but now it's available to platinum, diamond and elite and it's still in beta. The way you can get to it is hit your tools bar and then go to product launchpad.
Bradley Sutton:
Now this is kind of like, for if you want to just kind of organize your thoughts as far as your product research projects, a lot of times when we're looking for products, we might come up with 10, 15 different ideas. Maybe one comes from Blackbox that we found, maybe one comes from Etsy, maybe one comes from just we were shopping in the market or we just had some idea, and then we all have our own little ways of how we kind of like validate that product idea, you know, checking out the demand and things like that. Well, now this is an AI powered tool that can help us organize our thoughts and then kind of like summarize it for us. So how you use it is by going into product launchpad. I'm going to show you one that I that I actually made here for a coffin makeup shelf. But you first enter keywords like hey, what are the main keywords in this listing or in this niche that are driving sales for existing products? All right, so once you enter those keywords, you'll have down here a lot of cool information like Amazon search volume in the history, the Walmart search volume, the estimated keyword sales, you know, the brand analytics, click share, a lot of data that you would get in multiple Helium 10 tools. It's now going to be in one place.
Bradley Sutton:
As I am researching this niche, I'm putting notes in this notepad where I'm saying, hey, there's a lot of irrelevant products on page one and I've got this opportunity to differentiate and a lot of bad reviews about this or that. You just start putting your notes in there instead of trying to remember all these things. This or that. You just start putting your notes in there instead of trying to remember all these things. The next thing you do is you click on competitors and then you throw in all right, who would I be competing with if I get into this niche? Right? And so you know, here I did a coffin makeup shelf, which, who knows, maybe I will, you know, launch a coffin makeup shelf down the road.
Bradley Sutton:
But now, right here I can. I have all the competitors and there's a lot of historical information here. You know the average price, the sales, the historical sales, average number of ratings and reviews that these sellers have. You know where the sellers countries again, stuff that normally you might have to pull from the Chrome extension, maybe from black box, maybe some listing analyzer it's now kind of like in one place here. And then, after you enter in the competitors, now you go to what we call the idea scorecard, where it asks you to put in some other information, like maybe you were able to find some suppliers, how many suppliers did you find what?
Bradley Sutton:
But Helium 10 is using AI in order to give you like an assessment of what is going on in this niche. Like it starts looking at stuff like the search volume trends, the sales trends, and say you know what? This is trending down, this is trending up. You know, now, this is not meant to be like some go or no go thing here on. Hey, I see that AI told me to launch this, or AI said not to launch it, so I'm not going to do it. I lost $15,000. It's just meant to summarize and in the future you're going to be able to go in there and adjust how we score this. It's kind of just based on some common principles that a focused group of sellers had wanted. You've got to, obviously, at the end of the day, make your own decision, but the number one use of this tool is now you can finally organize how you do your product research and how you validate it all the way up until your decision-making, and then also, for the first time ever in Helium 10, using AI to kind of like look deeper than maybe the naked eye could, by looking at trends across multiple products, multiple keywords, to give you some recommendations based on those trends and then based on your own notes that you might have entered. So pretty cool feature. Let us know what you like and don't like. Like I said, this is in beta, so the future of this tool, how it's going to go, is going to be based on your feedback. So make sure to let customer service know what you like and don't like about that tool. The next feature alert is in Listing Builder. Now this one is available for Diamond members.
Bradley Sutton:
We've talked in recent weeks about how we had a scoring system here in Listing Builder. This is one of the top things that people have been asking us for a while, and we went ahead and made a scoring system. But some customers were like, hey, we want to see what goes into the score. I want to see on a more granular level what is affecting the score and how my competitors are doing. So what we have added here is the competitor comparison. So what's new here is we've got two buttons at the top of your keyword bank and listing builder. The first one is open keyword performance.
Bradley Sutton:
Now what you're going to see here is that same list of keywords that are like the individual keywords from your keyword phrases that you entered. Now you can see you like. You can click on one of these, like coffin. And now I can see, all right, all here on the right side, all of the keywords in my listing that had coffin in it that I had targeted as important keyword. I can now see, all right, how is, are these coffin keywords optimized in my listing? Oh, in my title I've got an exact phrase. In my description I've got an exact phrase. All right, so you can see what exactly goes into your score for your listing, right? The second button here is open competitor comparison.
Bradley Sutton:
Now for those keyword phrases that I have in my keyword bank. I can see everywhere where I uh, myself or a competitor has that keyword and in what phrase it has it like. For example, you can see everybody has coffin shelf in exact phrase in their title, all right. But then some of these keywords here you could see that there might be opportunity, like curio shelf All right, curio shelf.
Bradley Sutton:
Down here is here's a keyword in my list, like you can see it's blank. Like I don't even have that keyword in my listing but a couple other competitors out there have it and they're ranking for it. So that might be something I'm like. Hey, I might need to optimize my listing a little bit more for this word curio shelf All right. So again, a lot of uh visibility into what's going in in your score, what's going into your competitors a score and then where there might be gaps that you could potentially take advantage of. So thank you guys for giving us this um suggestions and we hope you like this. We hope this is what you were looking for. Keep, keep those suggestions coming in. What else do you guys want to see in listing builder? We will get it done as long as there's enough people asking for it. Well, guys, that's it for our helium 10 weekly buzz this week. Hope you guys enjoyed this episode. Carrie will be back next week and she's going to let you know what's buzzing.
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Elevate your Amazon selling game and witness your profits soar as we unpack Kevin King's strategic genius for e-commerce success. Brace yourself for a rollercoaster of advanced tactics, with Kevin dropping a bombshell technique that astonishingly generated a million dollars in just five days. It's all about agility in this game. Kevin's insights into cash flow management are pure gold: learn to spin inventory faster than ever, and keep your business lean to dodge the dangers of overstocking.
Navigating the ever-tightening maze of Amazon's rising fees and e-commerce complexities is no small feat, but Kevin's expertise shines a beacon of hope. He meticulously dissects the anatomy of a winning Amazon presence, from optimizing your supply chain to perfecting that crucial main product image – it's your ticket to making a splash in a sea of competitors. And let's not overlook his emphasis on the three cash flow commandments: gross profit rate, growth rate, and inventory cycle mastery – these are non-negotiables if you're serious about your bottom line.
Finally, we're serving up the inside scoop on Helium 10 Elite’s treasure chest of tools, training, and opportunities that could catapult your business into the stratosphere. Picture this: monthly trainings, exclusive software, and networking with the crème de la crème – it's a game-changer. Plus, we're letting you in on Kevin's sneaky, yet effective, title optimization loophole that's a total game-changer during those high-stakes shopping seasons. So buckle up, sellers, Kevin King is about to take you on a journey to the peak of your Amazon selling potential!
In episode 549 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Kevin discuss:
01:51 - Maximize Amazon Profit With Efficient Cashflow08:09 - Maximizing Amazon Profit Margins14:14 - Optimizing Product Launch With Helium 1017:38 - Learning About Helium 10 Elite Features 21:12 - Helium 10 Elite Program Benefits21:32 - Outrank Competitors, Increase Profit27:26 - Kevin Teaches Advanced Strategies28:05 - Amazon Title Optimization Loophole31:20 - Amazon Title Optimization Techniques35:04 - Intellectual Property Rights in AI36:28 - Helium 10 Elite Sign-Up Process -
Listen in as we team up with e-commerce maestro Kevin King to uncover some of his most closely guarded Amazon strategies and hacks, designed to both save you money and significantly boost your profits. In this first installment of a two-part series, Kevin generously shares insights from our new and latest version of the Freedom Ticket course, revealing the fundamentals of branding, product selection, and customer service—essential knowledge for any serious Amazon seller. Not only do we cover these basics, but we also tease some of Kevin's 'ninja' strategies, giving you a taste of the powerful tactics he discusses in the Helium 10 Elite Mastermind Program.
Our conversation with Kevin continues as we tackle the world of Amazon PPC, emphasizing the crucial role of conversion rates in successful campaigns. We delve into the importance of understanding and optimizing your brand entity score and the innovative ways you can leverage tools like Amazon Comprehend within your Q&A sections to boost product rankings. The dialogue shifts to the evolving landscape of AI, examining its transformative effects on e-commerce. Kevin and I discuss how savvy sellers are utilizing AI tools to generate everything from compelling images to high-quality video content, and even crafting targeted ads with platforms like AdGen AI.
Wrapping up this content-rich session, we focus on strategies to maximize conversions and enhance the overall customer experience on Amazon. Kevin shares practical tips on pricing strategies for attracting product reviews, the psychological impact of using an 'index image' to display product benefits, and the importance of establishing a unique guarantee that resonates with your audience. Moreover, Kevin illuminates the potential goldmine of including optional insurance charges in direct-to-consumer sales and the art of presentation in online retail. Tune in to hear how these tactics, along with high-quality visuals, can revolutionize your approach to online sales in the era of AI-driven e-commerce. Stay tuned for part 2!
In episode 548 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Kevin discuss:
00:00 - Secret Amazon Hacks With Kevin King 04:41 - Helium 10 Elite Training Webinar Hacks 06:06 - Improving Amazon PPC and Brand Entity 09:41 - Maximizing Q&A for Keyword Ranking 13:53 - Answering Questions on Amazon for Ranking 17:03 - Maximizing Rewards With Business Credit Cards 21:38 - AI Tools for Amazon Sellers 26:05 - Maximizing Conversions With Product Indexing 26:49 - Maximizing Reviews With Dummy Listings 31:15 - Testing Guarantee Names With Helium 10 31:25 - Direct to Consumer $4 Insurance StrategyTranscriptBradley Sutton:
Today is part one in a two-part series with Kevin King, who's gonna open up some of his top Amazon hacks and strategies with you guys for the first time in a while. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think.
Bradley Sutton:
Are you looking to learn how to sell on Amazon? The Freedom Ticket course made by Kevin King is one of the most popular courses ever created for Amazon sellers. It's got over 90 modules and 40 hours of detailed, step-by-step training to help get you started on your entrepreneurial journey. Now this course costs $997 but Helium 10 actually covers that cost of the course for any Helium 10 member. Find out why tens of thousands of students love this program by going to h10.me/freedom ticket. Don't forget that if you do sign up for a Helium 10 account, don't pay full price. Use our podcast discount code SSP10 to save 10% off for life.
Bradley Sutton:
Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I’m your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show that’s completely BS free, unscripted and unrehearsed organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. And every year, every two years, Kevin King comes on and opens up with our audience some of our best hacks. And now, for the first time ever, we're actually opening that up right here on the podcast. So we are going to go ahead and have a recap of some of Kevin's top strategies that he opened up with a live audience and let's see what you guys think. There are some killer ones here. This was supposed to only be an hour, so I thought I could fit into one episode, but hey, Kevin had too much fire, so we're actually splitting this up into two different episodes. Here's part one. Hope you guys enjoy it.
Bradley Sutton:
We're going to be revealing some things that a lot of Amazon sellers maybe have never even heard of, and these are things that are designed to help you save money and make money. Two of the things that maybe is the reason why you're even in this Amazon game in the first place right. Now, something that's important, though we're going to be talking about hacks, if you want to call them that, or kind of ninja strategies you see that little ninja logo on the bottom right there but selling on Amazon is not just about knowing the latest hacks and tricks. These definitely can help but remember, we are not trying to take away from the very valid point that you have to know about branding, how to pick products, how to do keyword research, how to do your accounting, advertising, customer service. The fundamentals are still very important and so we've got the Freedom Ticket Program if you guys are interested in that. So some of you might, after watching this, be like, wow, you know what? I am not of this level yet. And don't worry, you're still going to be able to get value out of this regardless of the level you are. But if you're like man, a lot of this stuff is over my head. He's using terminology I haven't heard of. Freedom Ticket Program might be for you. That is something that beginners all the way to advanced sellers can take as a refresher course on the fundamentals of Amazon and we have a brand new one - brand new version first time in over two years. The fourth version of Freedom Ticket is coming out imminently, just in a couple of weeks. So make sure to stay tuned for that. Anybody who is already a Helium 10 member, you guys will be able to get access to that.
Bradley Sutton:
Now, I mentioned that Kevin is one of the main trainers of our Helium 10 Elite Mastermind Program-that's the one that I've been a part of since, way before I even worked at Helium 10 and probably the most popular thing that's part of this mastermind is every month, Kevin gives his ninja hacks. He gives like usually seven ninja hacks, and these are quick, actionable nuggets of knowledge that can help you immensely in your Amazon business. I think a lot of these hacks that he gives every month are valuable to the majority of Amazon sellers, and with those hacks, two guest speakers join him on these trainings and they share the latest strategies that's working right now. And so that is the basis of what Kevin is going to be talking about today. Today, instead of this being behind the closed doors of the Helium 10 Elite Mastermind, which most of the year is closed, he's opening up some of his favorite ones from the past doors of the Helium 10 Elite Mastermind, which most of the year is closed. He's opening up some of his favorite ones from the past couple of months with you, so you're going to get a sneak peek, without actually being Helium 10 Elite members, on the kind of level of knowledge that being part of this mastermind can help you.
Kevin King:
Welcome everybody to this webinar. Like Bradley said, we do this every single month, usually on a Thursday. It varies on the exact Thursday, sometimes around the middle of the month, but we do a Helium 10 Elite training and what I want to do today is basically, like Bradley says, open up the doors and share some of this with you. So I've gone through from the last few months, some of my favorite stuff. Then I'm going to share that with you today, absolutely free. So some of it will be the ninja hacks, the first six or so things that I have seven ninja hacks. That's what I do every single month. So I have seven of them here for you today as well. I'm going to share six of them with you, and then the seventh one, which is the one Bradley just talked about, where someone made a million dollars selling over a five-day weekend. I'm going to show you that hack. You've got Easter coming up, Mother's Day coming up. It could make a huge difference for some of you. So that'll be at the very end, so make sure you stay to that. If you leave earlier, you're going to miss the number one hack that could make you a lot of money and I've taken a few slides from some of the presenters that have been in the Helium 10, the guests and a couple. Just a little section of some of what they presented, and you know, when they presented it, they presented it their way and in their voice. I'm just going to give you a quick little summary of those, just so you can get a taste of the kind of stuff that you find in Helium 10 Elite and share that with you. And you're going to find some actionable, good stuff today.
Kevin:
Number one this is something that you're going to fail at. You know, everybody's always like PPC. I hate PPC. It just drives me crazy. You know, and you're going to actually fail at PPC unless you fix this metric. This is something that nobody really talks about. Aaron Cordova is actually the one that shared this, and I think Destaney Wishon has talked about it and a few other people have talked about it. But if you don't actually take a look at this metric, your PPC is just going to drive you crazy and cost you through the nose.
Kevin:
What you want to do is you want to check the benchmark conversion rate for your brand. Now you're going to need brand registry. So if you don't have a trademark filed and you're not brand registered, you won't be able. What you want to be checking for is, if you're not at the bare minimum median conversion rate for your category, you're most likely going to be spinning through the nose on your PPC and it's just not going to work like you want it to be. Your ACOS is going to go and your TACOS are going to go through the roof. This video here is about a minute video. I'm going to play it. I'm going to have to hold up a little speaker next to my microphone because for some reason the Zoom is not letting the sound, but Aaron is going to explain this to you on this video. Here we go.
Aaron:
Basically, you find your conversion rate compared to everybody else. You go to campaign manager okay, campaigns. If you know how to get the campaign manager that you have other problems, campaign manager, you go here. Then you go to the side it's called insights and reporting. You're going to get a brand metrics okay, the brand metrics are awesome. Okay, in here you're going to pick your brand. You're going to get brand metrics, okay, the brand metrics are awesome.
Aaron:
In here, you're going to pick your brand. You're going to pick a category. In this case, I'm going to pick sports water bottles. Okay, select that guy and continue. Okay, then you're going to go in here and you're going to press this little view detailed metrics for your brand in this category. This is going to be horrible. I apologize, this is something we haven't really worked on very well. Check out this. Customer conversion rates your brand 4.9%, category median 10 and sometimes a lot of them, they show the category top okay. This is an embarrassment. This listing is an embarrassment. Okay, it is half as less than half as good as the median, which, when you're just at the medium, your product probably will not even be profitable because you're literally average, essentially horrible. But this is how you open the door to see if you're going to have a best seller at the very, very, very, very minimum. You got to be at the category median.
Kevin:
If you're not, at that category median then you need to adjust your listing. You need to fix your product page. You need to fix your product page. You need to fix your listing so that you can convert higher. Otherwise you're going to be fighting an uphill battle on everything. All right, that's number one. Number two this is how you can boost your brand entity score. How many of you ever heard of a brand entity score? I bet there's hardly any of you out there. There might be a couple of you have heard of a brand entity score. Does anybody know what the brand entity score is? Everybody has one on Amazon.
Kevin:
If you're a seller on Amazon and this affects your rank, it's a score that Amazon does. There's a lot of factors in the A9 that affect your rank. There's a ton of factors but the brand entity score plays a major role in how do you rank and you can affect this with your Q&A section. Amazon doesn't just look at your keywords. They don't just look at your title and your bullet points and your back-end keywords. They're reading everything. They're reading the Q&A section. They're now using AI to analyze your images. They're taking a lot of stuff into account when they're going to rank you and the Q&A section plays a major role. So if your Q&A section is fairly empty, that's a problem. You section is fairly empty, that's a problem. You need to get that full. That's one of the ways that some people, when they first start out and they have no reviews, they fill their Q&A section and you watch what you can do. You can rank a lot quicker. But this brand entity score is something you want to pay attention to.
Kevin:
How do you find it? There's something called Amazon Comprehend. Now this was shared by Matt over at ClearAds, originally on LinkedIn, and then he presented it in detail at my recent Billion Dollar Seller Summit and then we've shared it here as a hack. He's allowed me to share part of it, so I can't show the whole thing, but he allowed me to share part of it in my newsletter and here.
Kevin:
But it's called Amazon Comprehend and what you want to do, you can access this. There's a link there at the bottom. It's on AWS, on Amazon AWS, and it's an API. So it takes a little bit of programming know-how or how to get into this thing. It's not too bad but it's not like straightforward.
Kevin:
But with this Amazon Comprehend, once you get access to the API, what you can do is you can maximize your Q&As for keyword ranking. So the Q&A section on Amazon on your product. You want to maximize that for keyword ranking. So what you want to do is you want to remove the bias from search. So your description and all the content on your listing, they have a bias towards the seller of the product. So Amazon knows that you're optimizing your listing like you're making this the best and you're like saying that my product is the greatest thing since sliced bread. But Amazon's like how do we know that Kevin can say his product's the best, but maybe it's actually not so good despite what he says or whatever claims he's making? So we want to know from the customer what do they actually think? And let's take what they actually think and factor that into how we're going to rank this product. So they use the Q&A section and reviews both of those to do this. So if you don't have reviews and Q&A, you have a bias.
Kevin:
So what you want to do is you want to come in and gather questions that people might be asking about your product. So how do you do that? If you don't know, if you don't have legitimate questions and people haven't asked real questions yet, you can go out to tools like Ahrefs or Semrush. Those are big SEO tools so they have a free aspect and there's a paid aspect. Or you can go to answerthepublic.com. That's Neil Patel's company. Neil spoke at the Sell and Scale Summit Helium 10 did about a year and a half ago. But answer the public and you can just type in a keyword. You can type in you know, if you're selling dog bowls, slow-feed dog bowls, you can type slow-feed dog bowl into answerthepublic.com and it'll spit back. It goes out and reads Reddit and all these different forums and says these are the questions people are asking about slow-feed dog bowls. So you can take those as a seed and you can then use those and have someone ask those on your Amazon listing and then you, as the seller, answer them just to get some in there. But you're going to answer them in such a way that you want to make sure that you answer yes or no. Amazon is looking for yes or no answers. Big answers are great, but if you can start, if someone says, does this slow feed dog bowl keep my dog from having diarrhea, you want to try to phrase your answer in the form that you say yes or no and then you can say other stuff and put additional keywords in there for ranking and all this.
Kevin:
But they're looking for yes and no answers to questions and that's how they can guide. Like, if someone types in slow-feed dog bowl stomach problems or something they're going to know, yes, this one actually helps it. So you want to get multiple questions in there and then what you're going to do is you're going to use Amazon Comprehend. Before you put these questions in, you're going to actually and the answers, you're going to use it to actually get a score. So it's going to return the sentiment. So you're going to ask the question, show that, upload that into Comprehend, put the answer and then make sure you're getting a high percentage of confidence. Amazon Comprehend will give you a score back. It's on like a zero to one scale and it will give you a score back and you want a high level of confidence towards Amazon interpreting your response as positive or negative.
Kevin:
Now you can also do this and go look at your competition's reviews. You can gather it from there. You don't have to go to answer the public. You can get what people are asking on other people's products and use those and once you find the ones that have the high confidence. Then what you want to do, uh, which one? Like I said, is zero to one, but one is the highest. Those are the ones that you want to get onto your listing and those are the ones you want to put onto your listing.
Kevin:
So what you're going to do is you're going to these newly found questions that score high on the confidence, using Amazon Comprehend. You're going to go and actually, either maybe you have a buyer account that you buy stuff from Amazon you can ask the question or you can get your friends or family or someone to ask a question. Remember, this is not review, so it's okay. You can get someone to ask a question. Or, if you're on a Facebook group, say, can you ask this question? And then you go in there as the seller this is important, it gives you a little bit more weight and answer the questions. Whenever someone asks a question, Amazon pings. I don't know what the number is now three to five, ten people says, hey, do you know the answer to this question? But one of them is always the seller. You want to be the first to try to get in there and answer before someone else does and messes it up. They may answer too but you want to get yours in there as quick as you can, so you go in and answer it with that yes or no or whatever. When you ran it through Amazon Comprehend whatever it gave you as the highest score and this is going to help you rank on Amazon. It's a pretty cool little technique.
Kevin:
Here's another way. Everybody's always got cash flow problems. Money, money, money, money, money. How do I pay for this? How do I pay for that? Not everybody has a rich uncle or deep pockets. If you have decent credit, this is a way that you can actually extend your supplier payments for 60 days with zero interest. It's pretty cool. It's called the Amazon Plum Card, so if you have decent credit I don't know if this is available to people in other countries. I'm not sure what their exact rules are on what countries you have to live in to get this. Obviously, US citizens can get it, but Amazon has a whole bunch of, I mean sorry, American Express has a whole bunch of different cards. The Plum Card actually gives you discounts for paying early. So if you charge all your PPC or you charge whatever you want to charge suppliers. Whatever you want to charge, if you pay it early they'll give you a 1.5% discount. Or they have an option where you can extend it for 60 days and don't have to pay any interest as long as you pay the minimum due. You got to make a minimum payment. As long as you pay the minimum due, they'll give you 60 days to pay that. So this can be a great way. If you're trying to juggle some cash is to use this card.
Kevin:
A lot of you are saying, Kevin, that's all great, but my supplier doesn't take credit cards. How am I supposed to pay my supplier with credit cards? I always have to wire money or use Alibaba Escrow or something or whatever. Actually, there's a service called Melio. This one right here, Melio Payments that allows you to actually pay by credit card anybody, so you can pay suppliers. They do charge a fee, so it costs you about 2.5% to 3% roughly. So they do charge a fee because they get hit with processing fees but that fee is often less than what you would pay in interest or to get a loan, or origination fees or something else, and so that is an option, especially if you combine this.
Kevin:
If you're really cash flowing, you can go to bankrate.com and you can do a search for 0% interest credit cards and there's a lot of credit cards that have 12, 15, 18 months of 0% interest. So if you go there and actually apply for one of those credit cards, you have decent credit. You can get a 0% interest credit card that you can ride out for a while, while you're growing your business and use Melio payments to pay it. You're basically paying a 3% fee, which is basically a 3% interest, which is dirt-cheap in today's world. Now another credit card you might want to consider, if you're already selling and you're running a lot of PPC especially, is the Amex Business Gold Card. This is not the regular gold card, not the consumer gold card. It has to be the business gold card but it gives you 4x points on all your PPC spend up to $150,000 per card. So you can get 600,000 points on one single card in a year.
Kevin:
And I know one of the guys that comes to one of my events, the Billion Dollar Seller Summit. He actually, and I'm not sure if he's in Helium 10 Elite or not, but he has like 10 of these cards. He lives in Brazil and he cycles through them, so as soon as one hits that $150,000 on his PPC spin, he just swaps out the card. He says he's flown first class everywhere in the world and hasn't paid for a plane ticket in years and flying first class with him, his wife, his family, that this card is an amazing card for that. So there's different credit cards for different purposes but those are two that you might want to consider and you can transfer these to different airlines. You can transfer them to hotels.
Kevin:
You know Bradley is always going out to the, he's always doing the Maldives honeymoon strategy. He's been out to the Maldives three or four times. A lot of you may not realize that's not Helium 10 sending him out there. They're not saying man Bradley, good job, dude, here's a free trip to the Maldives. No, he's using his miles and his points to go out there on his own and do this stuff for you. But this is one of the ways he knows how to do this. There's another site called points.me where you can see what's the best place to transfer stuff.
Kevin:
There's a ton of stuff around this but I just want to show you this. Really cool. We could talk about this for hours of all kinds of cool stuff you can do, but I just want to show you these really quick. Now here's some AI. AI is the hot thing right now. Everybody's AI, this AI, that. There's some stuff that everybody's just sticking AI on the end of everything, even if it's not really AI. But I want to show you 11 really cool tools. There's a lot more but these are just 11 tools that you may find useful in selling e-commerce, that may come in useful in helping you with your images or helping you with research, or helping you with a few different things. Before I do that, if you have not seen this, this is from Sora, S-O-R-A, and this is video. It's not publicly available yet, but karavideo.ai has a wait list right now and they're gonna be the first to offer this.
Kevin:
This is studio level quality imagery on by video by prompting. So you type in a text prompt, you type in a paragraph, say I want a video like this and it will make the video up to I think it's 30 or 45 seconds right now, maybe up to. It's going to get to where it can do much longer videos and entire movies, but it's amazing. I'm going to play this for you. There's no sound on this, so I'm going to play this for you.
Kevin:
But this video here of these mammoths walking and these people walking through a Tokyo with the cherry blossoms, this little animation here. This was all done in minutes by typing in a prompt. So, like those mammoths, this was the prompt that was used. That's the exact prompt. Several giant woolly mammoths this was the prompt that was used. That's the exact prompt. Several giant woolly mammoths approached, treading through a snowy meadow, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's what made that video.
Kevin:
In fact, there's movie producers now that are saying this is going to change everything. We're going to be able to do entire movies without movie studios. It's crazy. You're going to be able to do product videos and lifestyle stuff and all kinds of crazy stuff with it. So keep your eyes on this, and I would recommend you get on the list at karavideo.ai so when this opens up, you get some of the first access to it. They're a little bit worried about how authentic this is right now, so they're putting in some safeguards, but it's really cool technology.
Kevin:
Now, notice there was no sound on this one, because this doesn't make the sound, it just makes the video. So you need sound. So what has happened is ElevenLabs has a tool that will take a quiet video for example, that mammoth and it will analyze what's in the video and it will make the sound of, like the mammoths crunching the snow or making their horns their sound, you know. Whatever. This is an example of a video I'm about to play here. It may be a little bit hard to hear I'm going to hold the speaker up to it of a video I'm about to play here. It's maybe a little bit hard to hear, I'm going to hold the speaker up to it, but this video was made with a prompt, silent. And then this ElevenLabs went in, analyzed the video, what's in the video, and added all the sound effects using AI in a matter of minutes. So let me.
AI audio:
In a place beyond imagination, where the horizon kisses the heavens. One man dares to journey where few have ventured. Armed with nothing but his wit and an unyielding spirit, he seeks the answers to mysteries that lie beyond the stars.
Kevin:
This is pretty cool stuff. You're going to be able to do some amazing stuff with your products, with your advertising, with everything. This is coming and it's important to stay on the cutting edge of this, because if you're first mover in a lot of this stuff, you're going to have major, major advantages over your competition. Now there's more to this, though. It even gets cooler. You can actually now do ads with AI. These ads will go out and this adgen.ai will actually go to your Shopify site. It will go to your Amazon listing. You can put in the URL of your Amazon listing and it will create ads formatted perfectly for Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, everywhere, automatically based on that. Then you can do some modifications, but it's really cool. So you can give it a brand name, you can give it a URL, you can give it a subject and it will automatically create the ads for you. This is another one Pika Art which will take a still photo and add animation to it, and then you can automatically change it. You can just type in the background and it automatically changes. It's called pika.art. You can change your top. Here you have a monkey. Let's put some sunglasses on him. You can do this. You can just drop in a still image that doesn't move and you can add movement to it. It's really cool where this stuff is going. This is a prompt. You can take a screenshot of this. I'm not going to go through the whole thing or you'll get this in the replay. They'll show you actually how to use peak art to add movement, which can actually dramatically increase your engagement rate on social media or any kind of advertising you do. It's amazing stuff. There's crazy stuff that's out there.
Kevin:
Now some additional tools, Chad Rubin went through a bunch of AI tools and he said these are some of the ones that he considers to be the god mode of AI frameworks. I'm just going to buzz through them really quick. You can take notes and go check them out later. One is called booth.ai. It generates studio-quality product photos in minutes, so you don't even need a photographer anymore. Another one called CopyMonkey. This optimizes your Amazon listing. There's others like Shoelix, and there's quite a few out there that will do this, but CopyMonkey is one you might want to check out. There's ReviewScout, which, if you're a reseller or a wholesaler, it'll give you deep insights into the competition and buyer box trends for wholesalers or resellers. There's one called MContent, which also helps you do all kinds of great imagery change out backgrounds, put your product in special scenes. They just introduced some new cool tools just this week, so MContent is really good. He's presented on the Helium 10 Elite as well.
Kevin:
DoMyShoot’s another one that will help you do all your visual content. So basically it's AI as your photographer. Instead of spending $5,000 to take everybody to the beach, you can upload your product and put it in any kind of scene that you want. frequently.ai is another one that's really, really good. Another that has all kinds of answers to all kinds of questions. Another one is the valky.ai, or some people know it as Shoelix. That one's another one that's really popular. So these are all some cool Amazon or AI tools for Amazon sellers. Another one is iphoto.ai will help you create your listing images where you can upload your product and drop it into all kinds of scenes, modify it, do testing on different images and different backgrounds. It's really really cool. So those are some of the AI tools that are out there.
Kevin:
The number five here. This is from Ayana at YLT Translations. She presented on the Helium 10 Elite and she said you know, this is a cool little trick on how you can get more reviews. So you have to be selling in additional marketplaces. If you're just selling in the US marketplace, this won't work. But if you're set up to sell in other marketplaces, you know Amazon combines the listings. When you don't have a lot of combines the reviews, I'm sorry. When you don't have a lot of combines the reviews, I'm sorry when you don't have a lot of listings from other marketplaces. So what she's saying is you can create dummy ASINs and of your target products and then list them in all the different marketplaces. Now someone buys it, that's okay, but you can also create dummy ASINs and then what you do is you and each one of those make sure they're in all the same browse mode. She has the steps here make sure that the localized listing is live, at least the tile and some bullet points, so you put a legitimate you know it's localized and it's in the right language and it's written right and put a really low price so that viners don't get hit, because most people don't realize that sometimes, when your price is high, vine reviewers don't take your product even though they might want it, because once they hit $600, they have to pay taxes on it.
Kevin:
So a lot of people don't realize that in the United States that anything over $600 in gifts, they get a 1099 from Amazon at the end of the year. So if they got $10,000 worth of products at retail price and they then have to pay, Amazon says this is what we gave you in gifts. It's just like winning. If you went to the Price is Right or a game show or Jeopardy or something, you have to pay taxes on those winnings. Or if you went in Vegas over $10,000, you got to pay taxes. So this is a lot of times, they won't take your product if it's a $49 product because they're like ah, that's just going to add to my taxes. But if it's temporarily $9.95 while you're getting the vine reviews and then you put it back at $49.95 later, they might take it. So you want local low pricing and then you go out and you get.
Kevin:
You do vine reviews everywhere and then they'll all combine together. If you do them in multiple marketplaces and if you really get do this right, you can get up to 2,400 different ones. And some of the ways you can do these. You know these quote-unquote dummy listings that she's got on the right-hand side there. You just do different colors of a product. That's kind of like a dummy listing. It's like, okay, I have azure, I have a cobalt, I have a navy, a sapphire sky teal, and then you could have your supplier make just a couple of each of these colors and then you send those out. This is a really cool way to actually get your reviews up and then, once you get enough reviews in a marketplace, it wants to keep sharing these. It'll just share that marketplace usually, but this is a way that you can get a running start. It's a pretty cool little technique.
Kevin:
This is from Matt Koston. He presented a couple months ago on Helium 10 Elite and this is one of his tricks. That he showed is this is how you can convert like crazy with what he called an index image. This he calls it the. It's the image in your listing that will be the top reasons why your product is the best. This is not your main photo. This is not your photo number one. This is what he calls this photo number two, and it's an index of your products. Is why I think it's why he calls it the index damage, and what he says is you need to number the benefits. A lot of people are using call-outs, they use infographics but they don't number them. He runs a company that does testing and split testing and all kinds of stuff and he says that they've tested this to the end of the earth and back and this is what works. So you want to actually have numbers like this. So something like this should be your second image the five reasons you love, or the seven reasons, or the three reasons.
Kevin:
Odd numbers are always better than even numbers. Three, five or seven or nine always work the best. Why do I do seven ninja hacks every month for Helium 10 Elite? Seven is a magic number when it comes to psychology. But here he's got the five and look, there's numbers. That's important. He just doesn't list them. People like order and when they see numbers, their mind can sort it and they can read it quickly and it makes sense to them. So the numbering system here is critical, not just the fact that he put the main point, the main benefit and capital, and then explained it in bold and a little bit larger and then explained everything else below it in light blue. But he's got these numbers. That's the critical thing is numbering it.
Kevin:
And then you notice here. On the third one, there's a US flag. US flags for Americans can up your conversion rate dramatically. You don't have to have a product that was made in the USA. You can say you're a USA company. Now, if you're going to say it's made in the USA and put a flag, it needs to be made in the USA, don't lie. You can say we're a small US company and you can have a flag.
Kevin:
Now, I see people sometimes make mistakes where they put a flag and they put it inside their graphics or their photos and they don't put it in red, white and blue. They put it in green or they put it in some other color. Never, ever, do that. The flag always needs to be in red, white and blue and look like an American flag. Don't change the colors on it to make it fit the graphic it needs to look because that instantly says a message. But these little things can convert really really well for you.
Kevin:
It also says add a golden guarantee. Amazon automatically guarantees if they don't like the product they can return it. But you want a golden guarantee. You almost want to name it. Give it some sort of crazy name the PX22G guarantee or something. Don't just say it's money back guarantee or 100% money back or satisfaction guarantee. That's all just common. Give it some sort of crazy name - the dog barker, the tail wagging guarantee or something like that. The outlandish almost ridiculous in your guarantee name. So here's some examples 100%, no mosquito bites guarantee. Bottom of the bottle guarantee, lifetime never lost guarantee. Give it some sort of name like that, not just money back or your satisfaction guarantee or some general thing. Give it a name. It resonates with people and will help your conversions. Like I said here, the generic like 30 money-back guarantee gets just lost in the noise. Test your guarantee names too. You can use Helium 10 to do that. There's other tools out there, but Helium 10 has it built in. Where you can, actually they have a relationship with PickFu but you can do it through Helium 10 and test the guarantee names as well. The number of sales you make is far higher than the people who will take advantage of the guarantee. So don't worry about a guarantee.
Kevin:
I have something in one of my things I do direct to consumer and I have a $4 insurance charge. It's optional but it's automatically on the order form. They have to cross it out. If they don't want it, it fills it in, but then they cross it out and about 30% or 40% of the people pay that $4. And every year, if I send out 5,000 orders, I might have three people take me up on it. And so, out of 5,000 orders, if 40% take it, that's 2,000 people that pay me $4. That's eight grand and I had to replace three orders. There's big money in this. So don't worry about a lot of people taking advantage of it. Some will.
Kevin:
There's also something called the squeezed benefit test. You take a look on the left. This is the original graphic that someone had. Has all the bullet points. This is what you normally see and what most of you're probably doing. But look at the one on the right same type of stuff but much easier to read, numbered, organized with icons. This converts people on Amazon buy photos, they don't buy products. I think Perry Belcher originally said that they buy photos, they don't buy products. So your photos are crucial to your conversion and they're going to become even more crucial with AI. This is the test. And look at the difference, even of people, it's 76%. That's 100% certainty that this is a much better option. So this is a cool little tactic that you can do.
-
Could Amazon's reign be waning as headlines buzz about a shrinking user base? We're slicing through the noise to bring you the real score on Amazon versus Temu. This and more on today’s episode!
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► Watch The Podcasts On Youtube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videosWe’re back with another episode of the Weekly Buzz with Helium 10’s Chief Brand Evangelist, Bradley Sutton. Every week, we cover the latest breaking news in the Amazon, Walmart, and E-commerce space, interview someone you need to hear from and provide a training tip for the week.Down By 2.6 Million Users, Amazon Could Keep Losing Customers To Temuhttps://www.forbes.com/sites/petercohan/2024/03/21/down-by-26-million-users-amazon-could-keep-losing-customers-to-temu/Sellers who use FBA Donations now have access to donation certificateshttps://sell.amazon.com/blog/announcements/fba-donation-certificateWalmart's Beauty Aisle Blooms With New Products, Bigger Savingshttps://corporate.walmart.com/news/2024/03/27/walmarts-beauty-aisle-blooms-with-new-products-bigger-savingsAmazon’s latest Brand Protection Report: How we’re cracking down on counterfeit productshttps://www.aboutamazon.com/news/policy-news-views/amazon-brand-protection-report-2023-counterfeit-productsAmazon will have to publish an ads library in EU after allhttps://techcrunch.com/2024/03/27/amazon-dsa-ads-library-cjeu/If you're wondering about details on the Amazon Remote Fulfillment with FBA program, I should say formally the program formerly known as NARF. Let’s dive into the details on how you can be selling in the Amazon US marketplace and then, with a click of a button, start selling in Canada, Mexico and now even Brazil. Make sure to check this episode out.For savvy Amazon sellers looking to stay ahead of the curve, this episode is packed with insights on the latest features from Helium 10. Discover how 'most clicked' labels and the X-Ray Chrome extension can enhance your competitive analysis and advertising strategy. Plus, Carrie shares the good news for Helium 10 Platinum members who now have access to the ABA top search terms tool. Whether you're a new listener or a seasoned veteran seller, this episode promises to arm you with the knowledge and tools to refine your product strategies and make informed decisions in the bustling marketplace of Amazon and Walmart.
In this episode of the Weekly Buzz by Helium 10, Bradley talks about:
00:52 - Temu Up Amazon Down?03:06 - FBA Donations05:25 - Walmart Beauty07:07 - Amazon Brand Protection08:51 - Amazon Ads Library09:48 - SSP #547 - Amazon Remote Fulfillment with FBA Program10:50 - New Feature Alerts15:24 - Pro Training Tip: ABA Top Search Terms For PlatinumEnjoy this episode? Be sure to check out our previous episodes for even more content to propel you to Amazon FBA Seller success! And don’t forget to “Like” our Facebook page and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you listen to our podcast.
Get snippets from all episodes by following us on Instagram at @SeriousSellersPodcast
Want to absolutely start crushing it on Amazon? Here are few carefully curated resources to get you started:
Freedom Ticket: Taught by Amazon thought leader Kevin King, get A-Z Amazon strategies and techniques for establishing and solidifying your business.Helium 10: 30+ software tools to boost your entire sales pipeline from product research to customer communication and Amazon refund automation. Make running a successful Amazon or Walmart business easier with better data and insights. See what our customers have to say.Helium 10 Chrome Extension: Verify your Amazon product idea and validate how lucrative it can be with over a dozen data metrics and profitability estimation.SellerTrademarks.com: Trademarks are vital for protecting your Amazon brand from hijackers, and sellertrademarks.com provides a streamlined process for helping you get one. -
Ever dreamt of expanding your Amazon empire internationally with just a few clicks? That's exactly what we're unpacking with Jaisal Jivanji from Amazon Canada and Irais Garcia Enriquez from Amazon Mexico in our latest chat. We're tackling the Remote Fulfillment with FBA program head-on, discussing the seamless process of selling across borders using your US FBA inventory. You'll find out how this can lead to a significant boost in product visibility and sales in foreign markets, which now includes the vibrant landscape of Brazil.
Struggling with keyword research for an international audience? No sweat, because we also dissect how Helium 10's Magnet tool comes to the rescue, enhancing your targeting prowess. We spill the beans on Bradley’s journey leveraging the program, the automatic translations of listings for local markets, and the nuances of handling images and A+ content across different Amazon platforms. It's a great episode to watch for logistical insights, from managing shipping times to utilizing Amazon's metrics, complemented by third-party tools that could be the game-changer you've been looking for.
Now, let's talk money. Navigating the currency exchange and pricing strategies can be daunting, but we're breaking it down to make it practical and straightforward. With Amazon's handy Build International Listings (BIL) tool and Amazon Currency Converter for Sellers (ACCS), we explain how to keep your pricing strategies smart and your international profits in check, even with fluctuating exchange rates. Say goodbye to pricing headaches and hello to transparent, surprise-free customer experiences in Canada, Mexico, and Brazil. Big thanks to Jaisal and Irais for their expert insights—it's just what you need to consider taking the plunge into these exciting markets.
In episode 547 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley, Irais, and Jaisal discuss:
00:00 - Amazon Remote Fulfillment Program Discussion 03:45 - Expanding Your Amazon Selling Internationally 09:21 - Cross-Border Fulfillment Eligibility and Shipping 12:32 - International FBA Shipping and Localization 16:56 - Amazon Metrics and Marketplace Expansion 22:12 - International Sales and Tax Considerations 24:59 - Currency Exchange and International Pricing 27:20 - International Price Synchronization Options 32:09 - Amazon Fulfillment in International Markets 36:34 - International Sales Success in Project X 37:15 - Expanding Sales With Remote Fulfillment► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast
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TranscriptBradley Sutton:
Today we've got representatives from Amazon Canada and Mexico who are going to talk all about the remote fulfilling with FBA program, where just in three clicks you can instantly be selling your products in Canada, Mexico and now Brazil. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. I want to enter in an Amazon keyword and then within seconds get up to thousands of potentially related keywords that you could research. Then you need magnet by Helium 10. For more information, go to h10.me/magnet. Magnet works in most Amazon marketplaces, including USA, Mexico, Australia, Germany, UK, India and much more. Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers podcast by Helium 10. I'm your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show. That is a special episode because for the very first time, we have got somebody who is from Amazon Canada, also Amazon Mexico on the show. I've had people from Amazon USA, I think, Amazon Singapore and different places, but I'm just expanding out the marketplaces here. We've got Jaisal and Irais here. Welcome to the show, guys.
Irais:
Hello everyone. Thank you for inviting us.
Bradley Sutton:
Now, right before the show, I was like now the way you pronounce your name is Irais and that's how I would say it, but like that just sounds like so awkward. So I'm just going to go with Irais and she says she's not going to be offended there and Jaisal I couldn't even begin to exactly pronounce it, but so I'm going to start with Jaisal. What is the origin of your name?
Jaisal:
So my name is actually originated from a town in India called Rajasthan, and there was a princess back in the day whose name was Jaisal, and there's also a city called Jaisalmer, so that's kind of where my name came from.
Bradley Sutton:
See, I like knew there was a good story behind it. You know, Bradley, there's no, there's nothing going on there. You know, like Irais is or at least the English spelling is like a flower, you know kind of thing. So, all right, we've got. So I was already pronouncing it wrong, so it was Jaisal instead of Jaisal. I don't know why I was saying it the right. Okay, I got it now. Now, Jaisal, you we're in Canada, are you at right now?
Jaisal:
So I actually live in Dallas, Texas.
Bradley Sutton:
Dallas Texas, okay.
Jaisal:
Yeah, our team sits in Seattle and in Arlington, and then we also have a team out in Canada.
Bradley Sutton:
Okay, all right now. How long have you worked for Amazon?
Jaisal:
For a little over two years, so it's been a really fun ride so far.
Bradley Sutton:
Now, have you always worked on the? You like Amazon Canada in different marketplaces, or did you do something else like for Amazon USA, or what's going on there?
Jaisal:
Yeah, so the whole time I've been on Amazon Canada, I've been on the Remote Fulfillment expansion team for the entire time, so it's been I've definitely gotten really used to this team and I've learned a lot from the team as well.
Bradley Sutton:
Now we're gonna be talking, we're gonna go in depth here, but just something I've wanted to know. I always you just said Remote Fulfillment. Now I have always referred to this as NARF right North, because I swear it used to be called like North American Remote Fulfillment. But now I don't see that those initials anywhere on Amazon did it? Was that an official term or is that something I made up, or did you guys have that and then you just erased the NARF and now it's called something else.
Irais:
Yes, you're right, it was called North America Remote Fulfillment, but the thing is that the moment we are now expanding to other countries, it doesn't make sense to call it North America. That's why we only, we're only staying with Remote Fulfillment with it.
Bradley Sutton:
That's all. We're almost giving a spoiler alert right there about later on in the show. We're gonna be okay now. Okay now, I guess. So like I gotta start calling it something, but that's. That was such a cool name though, NARF, you know, it's so easy to remember that. All right, let's. Let's switch to Irais. Now, where are you located?
Irais:
So I am in Mexico City and I worked at the office that we have in Mexico City.
Bradley Sutton:
Is that where you're born and raised?
Irais:
Yes, yes, I haven't been living all my life here. I went to give my tour of the world for 10 years and came back to Mexico City, and I've been working at Amazon since four years now four years, and I hope.
Bradley Sutton:
Let's just start in an degree. You know the reason why I brought you on kind of like representing Amazon Canada. By the way, that's a really cool sweater you have on there. I haven't seen that one special edition, but is you know? I want to talk about Remote Fulfillment now in general. You know, I'm an Amazon seller in the USA now me personally, I don't remember when I enrolled, but I'm already enrolled in it. But there's probably a lot of people listening to this show maybe who haven't. This might be the first time they're even hearing about Remote Fulfillment. So you know what? Let me take a step back. What is Remote Fulfillment? Either of you can answer this.
Irais:
So Remote Fulfillment, it's a program that allows sellers to use their US FBA inventory to expand to other countries like Mexico, Canada and now Brazil. What we do is like the inventory that you are sending to the Remote Fulfillment Center, to the sorry, to the fulfillment centers in in US. Amazon uses to fulfill the orders internationally once there is a sale in another country.
Bradley Sutton:
Cool now. So that's just basically in a nutshell what it is. Now I'm a seller who's maybe hearing about this for the first time. How do I know if it's something that I should probably look into? Or maybe there's a kind of seller where it's like nah, this is probably not for you yet.
Irais:
Well, really, for I think, for any seller that is already selling in in US BISBA I think it's something really great to try, because you're already selling with FBA in US, you already have your products there. The only thing you need to do is enroll. Actually, we are I'll explain further down but we are doing automatically enrollment for some eligible sellers and once you're enrolled, you're basically instantly selling in other like internationally, because it's Amazon who takes care of the rest. We are basically, once we enroll you, we are going to duplicate your ASINs or your offers that's how we call it in Amazon ASINs and you're we're going to duplicate your offers and products to the other countries and then you will be offering those products to new clients and you will have more opportunities to sell right. So I think it's very easy. You don't really need to worry about sending inventory to other places, you don't need to invest on that and everything is taken care of by Amazon. So I think it's very easy. You don't really need to say, oh, am I ready?
Bradley Sutton:
I'm not ready, because Amazon takes care of everything now, Jaisal, you know, for me when I first enrolled in it, when it was called NARF like the very first one that I made sure to get into was Canada, would it be safe to say that probably most people are, you know, who are selling in the US probably make that one their first enrollment. And then how does somebody enroll in it these days?
Jaisal:
yeah, of course. So from the way to enroll standpoint, we do have that auto enrollment that I used to talking about earlier. But also if you want to double check to see if you are enrolled, you would go into your US Seller Central side and check the inventory tab and go to Remote Fulfillment and there will be. We have like a new UI as well and there you should be able to see like which countries you have launched in, and it's literally just like a click of a button all right.
Bradley Sutton:
So I'm here for those watching on YouTube. I'm going in one of my accounts right, I'm pretty sure it's enrolled inventory and then Remote Fulfillment with FBA, all right. And then here it is right here. So I would hit then marketplace enrollment, right, and then there it is All right. So then you would be able to see the three marketplaces and it says I'm enrolled. And if it wasn't enrolled I would have just selected it here and then hit update. So everybody who's listening if you guys are, you know, if you guys are running on a jog right now or you're in your car, you know, please Pull over to the side of the road or just wait till you get home, but go into your Seller Central, hit the Menu button on the left hand side, go to inventory, mouse over that and then select Remote Fulfillment by FBA and literally right after there It'll be just maybe a couple of clicks to enroll. If you are not now, let's say somebody wasn't like me and it said not enrolled, enrolled, just like. If I. From the moment right now they click on this, is it instantaneous that they're now in the program? Does it take 24 hours about? How long would it take them to get up and running?
Irais:
If you do it manually, you will go through a small flow like after this page. You have another flow when it will just let you know that we are duplicating your ASINs with building international listings tool and once you are enrolled it can be Instantly. It may take up to for you 24 hours, but most of the times it's on the same day.
Bradley Sutton:
Excellent, excellent. Now, for me, there were some of my products that, even though, as everybody just saw who saw my screen I am fully enrolled, but some of my products that weren't activated. So you know, that leads me to assume that, hey, some products maybe are not eligible. Um, I know, way back in the day, like six years ago, when I was working for seven years and when I was working for a different company, like they were doing Uh, a diet pills and like nothing was available for Canada because there was like regulations about that. But just, I don't sell any diet pills and this is where I sell coffin shelves and egg trays and stuff like that. But what are the kind of products that might not be just Able to qualify for this program with this click of the button?
Jaisal:
Yeah, so for each country they all have different importation roles. Um, products that are not eligible due to exportation rules Will not be copied to other stores by the build international listings tool, also known as the bill tool, and you'll generally see like an ineligibility message through that same UI that you were showing earlier. However, there are some cases where a product is eligible for cross-border fulfillment under a different fulfillment method, such as local FBA fulfillment or seller fulfilled, but it's not eligible for the Remote Fulfillment with FBA, and that could generally be because there are additional documentation requirements for customs or specific shipping or packaging requirements. Um, a good example is Remote Fulfillment does not export consumer goods, as those products often do need labeling in local languages. And if your product is not eligible for Remote Fulfillment and is not restricted for sale in the target store, you can still send it directly to the country for sale through FBA in each country, or you could list it as a seller fulfilled offer. Um, a good rule of thumb is like if you want to see a full list of restricted products per country, you can visit our Remote Fulfillment page and review what you can sell in the manager listing section now I think, oh, one of the most common or I have.
Bradley Sutton:
I have a list of common questions that, I gathered from people in our community, when you know, asking about this program, but I think that probably the number one thing that people want to understand is the, the shipping. So, first of all, if I turn this on and it's tied to my FBA US inventory which, by the way, I'm not, um, not sure if I want to make sure everybody understands that it's what we're talking about here, I am not sending inventory, physical inventory, to Canada warehouses or to Mexico warehouses or to Brazil warehouses, it's taking from my us inventory. So Somebody sees, though, a prime batch. If they're shopping on Amazon Mexico, like they, they search for a coffin shelf, how would you say something? The atahood right here and it says Amazon Prime right there.
Irais:
Yes, yeah, I think that's one of the main benefits of the program is that your ASINs have a prime batch when they are Distributed by Remote Fulfillment. So, although they might take longer, a little bit longer than the ones that are currently already in Mexico, but they are considered prime.
Bradley Sutton:
That was my next question there. So they see the Prime Badge. Now what is the average shipping time that they might see, assuming obviously even in America you could have a Prime Badge and it might say 10 days because the inventory is being checked in. But let's just assume that the inventory is completely checked in. You know I have got tons of inventory. What's the average shipping time somebody in Mexico or Canada might see on my listing?
Irais:
Yeah, uh. So On average to Mexico and Canada it takes Less than seven days. That's the time that the around you will see is that the target?
Bradley Sutton:
I know it's completely brand new this month of, but is that the target also for Brazil or might take a little bit longer for there?
Irais:
Yeah, so for Brazil, given the distance and obviously the size of the country, we are targeting now around 30 days, and which is also an average for products that are coming from other countries, locally Brazil.
Bradley Sutton:
Excellent, excellent. Now, obviously for Spain or for Mexico, it's automatically translating my listing into Spanish. For Canada, is it changing it at all to like Canadian English? Not that it's that different, but you know, like, like, for example, British English. You know a diaper is called a nappy or something like that. It's still English, but it's, it's different. Like is there any translation happening? Or like. Does it translate to French? For, like the people in in Quebec who view Amazon and French?
Jaisal:
Yes, it'll translate to French whenever you're looking in that for the French.
Bradley Sutton:
But not changing it to like a Canadian vernacular or anything like that, right, yeah, okay now. So that's my second part of my question. Is all right, so Amazon is automatically translating my listing to either French or Spanish or Portuguese, I'm assuming for Brazil. Now what if I, being a Helium 10 user, and I like might know the keyword that people are searching in Spanish and Portuguese and the keyword that Amazon translated might not be what I like? Am I able to go in and override that translation?
Jaisal:
Yeah, so it depends on the listing. If it already exists in the target country, just as it works in the US, you can propose changes and seller support will make the adjustment when they believe it's pertinent for the listing. However, if the listing is new in the target store and you're the first one to list it and you own the information, you'll be able to make changes as needed after localizing with the build international listings tool.
Bradley Sutton:
So then it wouldn't be editing the listing per se and, like manage inventory, I would need to go to the build international listings to change the. You know, like I want to change a couple words in the title, that that would be the tool I go into. Yeah okay, perfect, perfect. What about A+ Content? How does that translation work? I'm not. I don't think I've ever looked at my A+ Content. In my North American remote fulfill, or see, I keeps using the old term Remote Fulfillment by FBA Listings. I don't think I've ever even looked at how what's going on with my A+ Content.
Jaisal:
Yeah, so honestly, similar to how you do it in the US side for Canada or for the store that you're selling in, you can go exactly to where your A+ Content listings would be and upload it there. It doesn't automatically translate over, you may have to tweak some things, but it'll be in the Seller Central for that respective country speaking about localization, one thing, another thing I have not done is my change my images.
Bradley Sutton:
So, for example, I have some infographic images right where I might have some text on there. Obviously, Amazon is not changing. You know, editing my images for me, changing that to English, it is it possible? If I'm using the same as in and smart, it's my product, you know. I've got Brand Registry, you know and everything. Can I change the like a certain image in the Mexican marketplace to put Spanish? You know, if I have like the features you know listed in one of my images and I want to change the Spanish, am I able to change that image or it's now going to overwrite that to my US listing?
Jaisal:
It won't overwrite. So whatever you do on like, for example, if you do it on your Canada Seller Central, your Mexico Seller Central, it's not going to override or impact anything that you do on the US Seller Central side. It'll just stay for that target country.
Bradley Sutton:
Give me good stuff here, like I was worried about. I was worried I think a lot of sellers might have been worried about that one. You're telling us what we want to hear. Now one thing I noticed to you know, like I don't ship inventory directly to Canada, but something that's cool is I can. I can still see them. We have some high and cool metrics here. Let me just show my screen to the listeners who can see this. But, like search, career performance and things like that, I can actually go to Canada and Go to Mexico and see that, even though, like again, I never registered to just for FBA in Canada or Mexico, but since I am part of this Remote Fulfillment, I can actually see the really cool metrics that Amazon has been giving for these different Marketplaces. And then, obviously, you know, if anybody's using Helium 10, you guys all have access to the same functionality for Amazon, for Amazon USA, Amazon Canada, Amazon Mexico, Amazon Brazil, our tools like Cerebro work and magnet where you can do your keyword research and things like that. So in the past, a lot of stuff that Amazon USA sellers had, you know, like they didn't have it right away for Mexico and Canada and the other marketplaces about at least all of the main things, definitely has access here now, where you know I talked about this a little bit before. But for again, for the, for those just joining us, where, at what point Should I be like, hey, this is something that I need to go all in on, and then maybe I've been doing it for a while and then I'm like you know what I don't want to have 30 days for shipping to Brazil. I don't want to have those eight days to Mexico or something. Maybe I should consider actually doing the whole process of taking my inventory, some for a certain product and shipping it to FBA in those countries.
Irais:
I think that's a great point. It's really good considering at some point, migrating to local FBA Just because FBA has better seller experience, like you say, is like it has shorter shipping times, for example, and which can benefit the sellers. Conversion now. And but to the question one. I think it depends on multiple things. I think the minimum seller should consider is first, having a stable demand of the products they want to sell. You know to make sure the products you're going to send they are actually going to have a Sales. The second one is that sellers need to have figure out the export logistics. You need to have a Look for the information like what products can you send? You know that sometimes our Exportations about the materials that you can export and like maybe having the support of a broker sometimes. And finally, also making sure that you comply with the local laws of the country you're targeting right. Some countries and ask you to have, for example, a local tax ID, which is a process you need to do in in that country. Or some other countries, for example, they ask a specificity, a specificity story about labeling Products, know, and so all of those things we need to think about before, just like sending the inventory to the countries.
Irais:
But, like I said, it's a good Option to think about it because it will. It will help yourselves and also one another point that I want to mention is that you don't need to decide of Removal filming or FBA. You can always choose both. Actually, it's something that we recommend because, for example, you can use FBA for the ASINs that they have a high turnover rate or they have a stable demand, but if you want to try new ASINs, you can enroll them first in removal filming and so that you can try you know the demand, see how it hits, how they work, and you can use be using both Programs at the same time. Also, FBA is a good option and for the products, like Jason said, for the products that are not Eligible in removal filming, you know, like, for example, if you also sell consumables, you can try to sell consumables via FBA and the rest of your products in removal filming.
Bradley Sutton:
Interesting now. Now, Jaisal, you know, one question I had was you know she just mentioned about like tax implications and things like that, for when you're actually sending inventory there. I think that's a very top of mind Topic for sellers is like, wait a minute, like anything has to do with another country, like, alright, my product is crossing the border, am I gonna get tax? Like do I? I'm doing Remote Fulfillment? Am I gonna get a separate tax bill? Or do I have to clear customs for each order? Like all these, all these questions they might have, like which might be holding them back? Um, but correct me if I'm wrong, but in removal filming, is it true that I really don't have to worry about those things?
Jaisal:
This is probably, like our, one of our top five questions that we always get. So when customers buy products through Remote Fulfillment with FBA, the buyer is actually the importer of record and must pay any import duties, taxes and fees. Amazon kind of simplifies the import duties process by estimating the amount that will be due and adding it to the amount the customer pays at checkout. You also do not have to present income taxes in other countries, since your sale is occurring in the United States, so sellers may continue with their tax-specific obligations in the US in the same way as before joining Remote Fulfillment.
Bradley Sutton:
If I'm looking in Helium temp profits or in Seller Central, when I'm downloading my financial reports and everything, the order might show that it went to Canada or something. But is everything pretty much the same as far as the numbers go? My shipping, my fulfillment cost is the same and there's no extra fees. That's affecting my profitability. Is it almost 100% the same?
Irais:
We can talk about also the fees. I can already explain how it works. So in Remote Fulfillment the products have two fees, just the same as any product in USFBA. So the first fee is Remote Fulfillment fee, which replaces the USFBA fee it's the same one. And we have the second fee, which is the category referral fee, which depends on the kind of product that you're selling and that will be. It varies depending on the country where the sale is occurring. So, besides these two fees although they can be higher because, for example, in Remote Fulfillment, fees varies depending on the size of the product, the weight and also the country to which you are sending the product Although these fees may be higher we have the tool bill that we have mentioned. But the tool does is it adjusts the prices in the targeted countries with those fees, including those fees in the price and any other extra costs that you might have, so that the price already includes all these additional costs and sellers will get a similar profit as they get in US. So to the question what we are doing with PIL is protecting the margin of the sellers so that they have a similar profit as they get in US, and that's how we can comfortable say that you will be having almost the same profits as you have in US.
Bradley Sutton:
Okay. So let's say for whatever reason, the currency exchange rate is fluctuating greatly, day by day or week by week. Is once a week or once a day? Is the price maybe showing up as something like is BIL changing my price to reflect the currency fluctuations?
Irais:
Yeah, so maybe it's easier if I give an example. But for example, so what BIL is going to do is have your US price as a base. It will stay connected to the other listings or to your products in Canada, Mexico and Brazil and the moment that you do, for example, a manual adjust price in the US, it will adjust all other countries, considering the fees difference in each of those countries and it will also consider, like you say, exchange rates for each of the countries. One point that I want to make sure is clear and that sellers know is that if sellers do a change manually to the price in the target country for example, they go and they make a change manually in the price in Mexico that will break the connection with the US price. So BIL will not be connected anymore, and that's something that selling partners need to be careful with. Sellers can totally go and manually change prices in the targeted countries, but that will be breaking the connection. So there is a way to connect the sellers, the listings, again through the BIL international listing tool, which is in global selling. You can reconnect all your listings, but it's just to have this in mind. You know, like not making manual adjustments if you want to maintain the connection with your US prices.
Bradley Sutton:
That's super interesting. So if I never have touched it, it's going to go ahead and edit that for me, but if I mess with the price once, just like in Seller Central or something, then that breaks the connection. I literally have not seen this page in probably years, but I'm looking right now on my BIL international listings page and, for example I guess at one point I selected these things as default, but it's interesting. Like it says here for Canada, it tells me what the exchange rate is right now. And then it says, for price synchronization, I can choose the list price and the sale price, or list price only. So that's good to know. If I'm doing a sale in the US, that means, if I have this selected, it'll go ahead and reflect as well in Canada. And then it says here I can for Remote Fulfillment with FBA. The choices I have are same as the source marketplace adjust for fees, which is what I have. The other options, though, are same as just same as the source marketplace percentage above the source marketplace, or percentage below the source marketplace, or fixed amount above. So very interesting. And then I also have self-fulfilled options here. Like me, I have a lot of skews that I actually self-fulfilled myself, and I don't know why I put $25. I guess I didn't want anybody ordering from Canada or something. I put a markup of $25 here. But, interesting, I had not been on this page at all. I had no idea about these things. So, as a matter of fact, you just told me I'm working on something with our product team where we can do prices, and I didn't realize. So if I'm manually editing a price, it is no longer gonna go by these rules.
Irais:
then yeah, just to be clear, it's manually adjusting the price in the target country. So if you change to the store of Mexico and then you change the price in pesos, no, if you change it in US, obviously it will stay connected, and exactly that's how the tool helps to change accordingly the prices in the other countries.
Bradley Sutton:
Okay, all right, interesting, interesting. Now here we're talking about all these foreign currencies and things like that. Jesso, If I'm trying to open this up, do I need a Canadian bank to get my disbursements from? If I'm just an American seller, do I need a Mexican bank to be able to receive the payments, or how does that work?
Jaisal:
Yeah, so now actually, Amazon will manage this for you through a tool called Amazon Currency Converter for Sellers, or otherwise known as ACCS, that you can set up in Seller Central as a deposit method. That way, your funds from other countries are transferred to your assigned bank account to receive deposits in the US.
Bradley Sutton:
So literally at that moment that we talked about earlier in the show, when I'm enrolling, that's it, like there's not a bunch of other steps I'm going to have to jump through. All right, we talked about the cost. We talked about taxes and fees and banks and disbursements. I'm sure I'm forgetting some other things, but just in my just thinking about this program, a couple other questions a seller might have is maybe on the customer side. You said that they're the importer of records. So just out of curiosity, you're no tax code expert or anything, but on average, is it a lot of fees that they're having to pay? Like if they're buying my coffin shelf back there for 25 bucks that's the base price with shipping. The typical Canadian customer, though, what's their bill going to be like? Is it going to be double that? Is it just a certain percentage of that?
Jaisal:
Yeah, I mean, I think it's an important aspect. But what we really want to highlight is that with the Remote Fulfillment program, buyer will be charged for the taxes.
Bradley Sutton:
The price that the customer sees, though, is it just the listed price, you know, after the currency conversion, or is Amazon automatically building those you know taxes and things like that, into that retail price?
Jaisal:
Yeah, so whenever the seller is going on to Amazon.ca and they want to buy your product, they will see actually what the price point is plus the tax and the shipping fee. Ah, so that's good.
Bradley Sutton:
So it's not like you know like, see, that that's, that's a worry, like when I used to export to Canada and other countries, you know, off of Amazon. You know, maybe 15 years ago or 20 years ago, I would get some customers that would sometimes reject the shipments because they're like, I got this crazy tax bill that I had no idea you know this is how much, but kind of like, there's no surprises because Amazon is telling them how much, how much it's going to cost. Oh, that's a comfort to hear.
Irais:
I was just going to compliment that. For example, for Mexico, the price of the AC versus US is very similar. It will only get adjusted by the, by the shipping fee which is going to be added to the price if there is no taxes, Amazon is not going to add any, any extra fees and, like you say, it's really convenient, for example, for me when I'm like I want to buy a brand that is not available in my country and that I want to bring it, and it's really nice to have you know like a exact date when I'm going to get it and that I don't have surprises of when the package arrives. Like you say like, oh, I am due another 50 bucks for what I am ordering.
Bradley Sutton:
Okay, good to know. Good to know. What about returns? So you know, Amazon obviously has a generous return policy. Is it kind of like the same for people who buy through mobile film? I don't even know what it is like. You know 30, let's just say 30 days. They have 30 days, is it the same? And then what's the process? You know, like for like, I had to return something from Amazon the other day and it's just like all right here, go drop it off at UPS or we'll send you a label to return. How does it work if it's a Remote Fulfillment product?
Irais:
Yeah, it's exactly the same from a buyer's perspective. You also have the Amazon promise that you can return items within a certain time First, I think Mexico is 30 days and you'll get a label, a shipping label, that you can paste on your package and you'll deliver it to the same place, where, or even you can also call for someone to pick it up at home, and it works exactly the same way. Amazon will take care of bringing back the product to the US. So that's I think it's important for sellers to know. We don't bring the product to the FCS and locally, we take it back to your inventory in US. So once it gets to the US, it will be re added to your inventory.
Bradley Sutton:
Now, what are some educational resources that people can search for, maybe in Seller Central If they want to find out more about this? How would you suggest people can learn more?
Irais:
inside Seller Central. I think there is two main resources sellers can use. One is the help page of Remote Fulfillment with FBA that you can search by using the search bar. You can place Remote Fulfillment. You will find the help page. We also have a revenue calculator that sellers can use. Also, by typing revenue calculator, you will find it in the search menu. The only thing you need to make sure is that once you are in the revenue calculator, you need to choose the store where you are targeting and the store where your inventory is in, and you will see the option of calculating fees with Remote Fulfillment so that you are able to compare what is the best channel for you or what will be your net profits using one channel or the other one. And finally, you always have seller support, which is a really good resource for a lot of sellers.
Jaisal:
Just like sending your question or requesting a call, and they will be able to help you, yeah, and also just to add on to that as a seller, if you do have any country specific questions, one piece of advice that I like to give is search for those questions in your Seller Central that is accounted for that country. So if you have a question, for example, on Canada right and you're looking on how do I expand into FBA in Canada, you would literally go into your Seller Central side for your Canada account and type in selling in Canada from the US with FBA and you'll get information on how to expand that way.
Bradley Sutton:
Excellent, excellent. Now just to give people an idea of what this could mean for you and everybody's accounts is different, but I have literally done no optimization. I haven't even edited my keywords or anything to make it right. All I did last year in one of my accounts is just turn on the Remote Fulfillment. Let me just show you, guys, my Helium 10 profits window here. But in one time period in Project X, my Project X account, I did $132,000 in USA and by never even looking at it, not even touching it at all, never having to ship something myself to Canada, I did $10,000 in Canada. So is that going to make me a millionaire by selling in Canada? Mexico only did a couple of hundred dollars, but still that's almost getting to 10% of my revenue by not even lifting a finger, just clicking a couple of buttons to enroll, and I was able to increase my sales in this one time period by $10,000. So, guys, if you haven't enrolled into this program, definitely do it. Not only are you going to be able to sell in Canada, but also Mexico. And now the newest member of the team is Amazon Brazil to really tap into that marketplace. So, Jaisal and Irais, thank you so much for joining us today and giving us all this knowledge about this program. I hope that all of our listeners are going to be enrolled by the end of this episode and maybe we'll bring you back next year and see what's new with the Remote Fulfillment program. So thank you so much for joining us.
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Ever wonder what it takes to turn your Walmart product listings from lackluster to lucrative? Ryan King, the savvy CEO of BlueRyse, joins us on the airwaves to share his expert strategies for maximizing your presence on Walmart's digital shelves. Together, we navigate the intricacies of PPC, the subtleties of listing optimization, and the crucial metrics that could make or break your profits. Ryan's advice, drawn from the cutting-edge tools of Helium 10, affords a masterclass in finessing your financials and leveraging Walmart's ever-growing online platform for unparalleled brand growth and diversification.
In the vast sea of selling at Walmart, standing out is an art form, and we've got the brushes and palette to help you paint a masterpiece with your product listings. Our journey reveals how to ensure your offerings are not just indexed, but also scoring high on Walmart's listing quality score. We cover all bases from the precision of backend attributes to the finesse required in product type optimization. We also dissect the importance of competitive pricing and swift delivery, how to ace the A/B testing game, and even how Walmart's fulfillment services can provide a much-needed boost in ranking.
As the curtain falls on this episode, we've left no stone unturned in the realm of Walmart PPC and the emerging tactics of brand conquesting. Imagine targeting competitor brand terms, a concept newly possible on Walmart, and the advantage it hands you in the grand chessboard of ecommerce. Wrapping up with a flourish, we dabble in the complexities of SEM strategies and the nuances of bidding wars, closing with a heartfelt word of thanks to Ryan for his insights. So, tune in and equip yourself with the secrets to selling success on one of the world's most formidable marketplaces.
In episode 546 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Carrie and Ryan discuss:
00:00 - Walmart Listing Optimization for Increased Sales01:47 - Expert Insights on Walmart Brand Performance04:54 - Leveraging Social Proof in E-Commerce08:58 - Optimizing Search Terms on E-Commerce Platforms12:48 - Maximizing eCommerce Channel Expansion18:07 - PPC Strategies & Updates for Walmart24:19 - Untapped Brand Defense Opportunities29:42 - Expanding Opportunities in Walmart Marketplace32:36 - Optimizing Walmart PPC Bidding Strategies36:26 - Tips for Completing Applications Successfully40:00 - Secret Strategies Ryan Uses► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast
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► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life)
► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft
► Watch The Podcasts On Youtube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos
TranscriptCarrie Miller:
Walmart PPC and Listing Optimization Strategies to increase sales on the Walmart marketplace. This and so much more on today's episode.
Bradley Sutton:
How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. What was your gross sales yesterday, last week, last year? More importantly, what are your profits after all your cost of selling on Amazon? Did you pay any storage charges to Amazon? How much did you spend on PPC? Find out these key metrics and more by using the Helium 10 tool Profits For more information, go to H10.me/profits.
Carrie Miller:
Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast brought to you by Helium 10. My name is Carrie and I will be your host, and this is our Winning with Walmart Wednesday, where we go over all things Walmart, we tell you the latest and greatest news about Walmart, we answer your questions and we have an amazing Walmart expert guest. I'm going to just tell you a little bit about some Helium 10 tools, because I haven't really mentioned these a lot lately. I wanted to make sure that everyone is aware that Helium 10 does have a lot of amazing tools that support Walmart. So we have X-Ray. It's going to help you with sales estimates and so much more. We have our Cerebro and Magnet tools that help you find amazing keywords for your listings. We also have our Profits tool and our Keyword Tracking tool. In addition to that, we have Adtomic, which is our paper click advertising management software, so that is extremely helpful. We've added day parting and a lot of other amazing things to Adtomic, so it's definitely the best it's ever been and highly recommend checking that out if you haven't checked it out. All right. So today I want to bring on our guest, and I'm really, really excited to have him on today and his name is Ryan King, and so thanks so much for being on. Ryan is a CEO and co-founder of BlueRyse, which is a Walmart agency, and I've actually known Ryan for a few years now. We met at the Billion Dollar Seller Summit and we definitely connected on Walmart stuff, so he's definitely an expert in the field and I'm really excited for him to share all of his knowledge with everyone today. I know he was on last year, but for anyone, Ryan, that doesn't know you, can you go ahead and tell a little bit about yourself to the audience?
Ryan:
Certainly. Yeah, thanks for having me on here, Carrie. Glad to be on this episode here of the Serious Sellers Podcast, specifically talking about Walmart. So yeah, BlueRyse is a full managed service agency focused specifically on Walmart. We've been operating with third party and first party brands since early 2020. And our focus is on everything from content optimization, ad management, catalog management, interfacing with Walmart personnel, all these other elements with regard to, ultimately, the focus of maximizing Walmart brand's performance on Walmart.com.
Carrie Miller:
I want to first start out and just ask you, because you've been in this Walmart game for quite some time, what do you think the main advantages are for third party sellers to start selling on Walmart and do you think it's a really good opportunity?
Ryan:
Yeah, absolutely. It's a great opportunity. I think the advantages have continued to grow over the years. They haven't diminished. One of the reasons we saw the opportunity on Walmart was as brand owners ourselves. We began and launched and grew brands on Amazon back in the day, starting in early 2013. And we were looking for ways to, as brand owners, de-risk a bit, diversify revenues back during the aggregator boom. Part of the factor was how do we increase multiples, all those kind of elements? I think all the principles remain the same as to why those would be advantages. If you're truly building a brand, then you're looking to identify what are the channels that make sense to increase sales, increase profits overall and to de-risk. So that's one advantage of finding other marketplaces, other channels to sell through. Beyond that, there's just the fact that Walmart is pushing heavy and has been pushing heavy into the online marketplace space. They understand that for them as a business, as a retailer, while they're the number one retailer in the world, e-commerce certainly has been a major growth factor for others competitors like Amazon and everybody else, and so Walmart understands that they need to compete in the digital shelf. That means they want more sellers, they want a broader assortment, they want great products so that more shoppers come and have a great experience. So that has led to Walmart heavily focusing on building out their third-party marketplace over the last several years. I would say a couple other that come to mind social proof and reviews and ratings have been always on the forefront of e-commerce sellers' minds, especially in the Amazon space, such large motes. I haven't looked at this example in a while, but earbuds, Bluetooth earbuds. When I looked at it, probably two years ago, the average review count for Bluetooth earbuds on page one for Amazon was somewhere around 40,000. At the time, the average review count for that keyword, which was a high volume keyword, on Walmart was around 800. And so just the opportunity to enter the market. You know, if you had wished you had. You know the buzz for a long time was Walmart is Amazon of 2012 or whatever it may be. Walmart is in its own right of maturing marketplace these days, but the opportunity still exists. In that way, I think, the other ones. There is a bit of a different shopper base, and so if you have a broader assortment, your heroes on Amazon or other marketplaces may also translate to be your heroes on Walmart and you can just get a continued growth of that assortment. However, we also do see because it is a different shopper, a different marketplace, sometimes some other products that may not be performing as well in your catalog on Amazon might be your top performers on Walmart for various reasons, and so it breeds new life into your catalog, potentially. And then, finally, if you really want to identify ways of growing the brand, and maybe brick and mortar retail is a desire of yours at some point, then there is a credible pathway to getting products into brick and mortar. We work with brands all the time. Who that is part of their play, whether they've begun with conversations with merchants first, and it's a let's test and see and let's get it in, or if they're native e-commerce or D to C first, and they're, they're engaging with us in order to optimize and maximize performance planning on that conversation in the future. We see those dots connect quite consistently to at least get a conversation. So all the above and then, for those who have FOMO you know, to kind of trigger the FOMO, that it's, it's a bit of this is the opportunity to get in now, even if it's maybe a mid to longer term play for some brands. Get in now while you, while the opportunity is there, while there's more access to account managers and others who are aligned incentives with you, to get your assortment online on their marketplace.
Carrie Miller:
Yeah, amazing, yeah, those are all really amazing reasons. The next question I have for you is you know, people are always wanting to know how can I, you know, increase my sales on Walmart. So what are some strategies you have for listing, optimization and just increasing sales on Walmart?
Ryan:
Yeah, you know, I know a lot of these have probably been covered repeated ways, but it bears repeating again would be step number 1 is making sure you're not just If you're gonna, if it is a secondary or tertiary marketplace in your mindset and strategy and you're not paying attention to the unique ways you need to optimize for Walmart, then unless you're kind of the you hit the trend at the right time in the in the search volume at the right time, Walmart with an optimized listing, you're not gonna see great sales lift. And so Step one would be, know the Walmart marketplace. Understand how the algorithm works, understand what product listing optimization means, understand that it needs to be original for Walmart's marketplace and how that impacts sales. And so if I was looking and we can talk about I know we've talked about this several times in the past to some key things to look at, let's just jump forward and assume you're on the marketplace, you're trying to grow sales in your troubleshooting, first step I go to is on the listing itself. Or actually the first step would be double check search term volumes, and this is easy. Segue into talking more about Helium 10 tools, because that's what we use is look at your category. One simple way to do it you can either start with your own listing or you start with competitive listings. But one way we like to do it is as well as you go to Walmart.com, go to the category and sort by bestseller, you'll probably get a lot of 1P brands, meaning in store brands, those they're popping up at the top list. But go ahead and pull up X-ray if you have Helium 10 X-ray and scrape the Top 10 out of there and then plug those in, analyze them through Cerebral and get that, that search term volume list, and identify where are the search volumes? Are you optimized for those? One thing to call out if you're in a consumable space or anything that might be more related to grocery, for example, Amazon search volumes, you might have found success with different types of search terms. But there might be high volume search terms on Walmart you haven't even optimized for Because Amazon wasn't a grocery first type marketplace or that type of place. So there's, there can be high volume keywords that would not even exist really On the Amazon marketplace that are going to be high drivers on Walmart. So identify, get, make sure you're looking at the right search terms. Secondly is just make sure you're indexing and ranking before you even think about ranking. Are you indexing? And one of the fundamental areas that you've got to look at to make sure you're indexing properly is your category. Are you on the right shelf path? But if you go into growth opportunities and you click on your listing in your kind of table of products that show up there product type widget will show up and look at that product type and I didn't try and identify. Is this the right? Does this fit? Product type determines what the back end attributes are on your listing that you need to fill out and, just as a quick aside, you need to fill those out as exhaustively as possible. It's only getting more and more important to do so. While your listing quality score is not as heavily Impacted by attributes as it used to be, your visibility and relevance are, and they only increase increasingly. Be so. So fill those all out. If, even if it's a not applicable, you know, even if it's saying sports team and you're a toothpaste brand, you know, make sure you just say none are not applicable, whatever is there, and then test the product type. We've talked about this in the past and we can talk about it again if you like. But testing that makes sure your listings are optimized. So the algorithm on Walmart's giving you quantitative feedback Between your content, which is your back end attributes, your title, images of long and short descriptions, and are you at? You get mostly ranking benefits around 80%. But if your long term play is really to be best in class and to open up other doors with potential features and other things, 95% or higher is your goal offer. So price parity with other marketplaces is key, and speed of delivery. So, whether it's using something like a deliver, we heavily recommend just using Walmart fulfillment services. They continue to get broader distribution. You're instantly credited in the score with utilizing theirs and getting 2 day delivery. So use the levers that Walmart’s given you on the marketplace, and we can talk further about other ways. If someone's listening saying I've done all that, I'm at 95%. I don't know what else to optimize. We're using WFS. There are other things to continue to do. We could talk about whether that's how do you look at imagery in a way to convert? How do you utilize advertising? How do you drive external traffic to listings? What's its impact? We go a variety of ways. Maybe the last thing I'll say, though, is the first question. The last thing I'll say is maybe the first question you should ask yourself is what's your overall business case? So sometimes we have sellers come to us and they're saying I don't want to do anything, Amazon's my main channel. I would like to sell in Walmart. What can I do? And there's going to be certain limitations. If you're saying I don't, price is going to be determined by my other marketplace, not by Walmart, or something like that, you've got to be aware of those and what you're long, how the impacts, the levers you can pull on Wal-Mart. Now there's some interesting features coming out, like couponing and different things that can maybe allow for greater flexibility there.
Carrie Miller:
Can you talk a little bit about how to product AB test your product type, because I know you mentioned that In there. Just how to optimize, because I know you know certain product types reach more keywords. So how do you just keep track of the keywords that you? Maybe you Get impressions for an ad or like how do you really determine which one has better keyword reach?
Ryan:
You can do. There's various methods. It's whether you're doing advertising. You're just saying we're not. We're not getting on to your goal when you're running advertising for any keyword. Really, if you're using search and grid, which is a sponsored product, that's what most people are thinking about when they're leveraging advertising on Walmart, you're competing for Page 1. It makes sense that from a conversion standpoint, most people aren't going to Page 2, Page 3, but literally you're competing for Page 1 because the Top 4 positions are awarded potentially for the keywords in the categories for sponsored product and the next 2 out of every 10. But you've got, on average, around 40 products on Page 1 of the listing of the search results. Those same positions are being repeated across every page. There is no, I didn't get position 1 Page 1. Maybe I'll get position 1, Page 2. Position 1, Page 1 is repeated across every page. You've got to compete for those top positions. In order to do that, keyword relevancy matters. You'll get the signals If I'm showing up and position 200 from my ad reports or whatever. Or if you're using Helium 10 again and Keyword Ranking Tracking and maybe turn on boost for those keywords where it may be and track on a real-time basis best you can, how you're performing on those keywords. Obviously, make sure it's in your title. Title has the highest ranking, has historically had the highest ranking influence on keywords. You can only get about 1 or 2 in there because you don't want keyword stuff. Then in your description both points, all those things as well. Make sure it's in your listing. If it's in description and key features, repeated just a couple of times, make sure it's readable and flows naturally. Once you've made sure it's in there, then track, get your baseline. It's not truly an experiment if you didn't really record ahead of time. Am I running an experiment? Otherwise, we use the word experiment like when we just tried something and failed but we don't know what we learned. Get your baseline, see what your rankings were. Before you try something, use Helium 10's Keyword Tracker. Then go into growth opportunities, go into pick that listing, get to that middle widget that says product type. Make sure you record which one you are right now. I've used this example in the past with you, Carrie, I believe. But one case study we did was involving a client who was in herbal supplements. Their product type it was an herbal supplement and their product type was actually an herbal supplement. The product type was a one-to-one exact match. You would assume this is the best product type to be in, but we weren't indexing for them, no matter what we did for probably 10 to 15 major keywords that we knew they should get. We went to that widget. You pick. I think it's a reporting issue. It doesn't say switch product type or anything. You have to click the link that says reporting issue. It'll give you usually 4 to 5 choices of other product type. You think it is. Basically what it's doing is creating a support ticket for you and you can submit that request of change. It's not a guarantee that it'll happen, but persistence pays off. We recommend making requests of that change once you've been informed that changes happen. Then watch for us. What we saw was in that product, all the keywords we needed were instantly indexing for and began ranking within the first couple of pages of results. That was the beginning of the journey. That's a general standard practice for us in making sure we're in the right product type as well.
Carrie Miller:
All right, that's really good. Yeah, that's a really good strategy. I've used your example many times because people ask me about that a lot. Usually, when they get in the right product type, they start to see a lot more traction. Thanks for sharing that. I want to get into advertising because we haven't talked a lot about PPC on Walmart, on our podcast here for Walmart. I think a lot of people have questions about it. I wanted to just get your. I know you have some basic strategies or just thoughts about PPC and then also some new things that are coming that you think people should take advantage of. Then, once we're done with that, we'll get into some questions from the audience.
Ryan:
By way of really brief recap for those that have been around the Walmart space, I've heard of it over the past couple of years. A lot of people were shy about getting into Walmart PPC in the earlier days because it used to be a first bid auction, which meant fundamentally different than how you would be used to utilizing Amazon. Whatever you bid is what you paid. People were just blowing through their entire budget because they were trying to figure out if they could get a keyword to rank and they thought if I just spend more, I'll get placement. In those cases they were bidding $4 a click and they were winning position 40. They were getting the click and they were spending $4 for a click on position 40. The good news is shift to second bid auction. That's been around for quite a bit now. Really, what you're talking about when we're talking about PPC is fundamentally you've got a sponsored product, which is broken down into two types of campaigns: auto and manual. You've got search and grid placement. You've got item carousels that you can get in search results. You can get item carousels on product detail pages as well as next to the buy box placement. You've got on the manual campaigns, you've got exact match, phrase match and broad match, then auto campaign is what it sounds like. You're letting the algorithm do its thing. You've got some placement modifiers. You can do modifiers for app, desktop and mobile. In some other ways you can tweak things. The big thing to know still with Walmart PPC is it's heavily influenced by algorithms. Determination of are you relevant for those keywords, and so that has a. I mean that's common practice and most ad retail media platforms. But it's a heavy influencer on Walmart. So you do need to approach it from an organic signal, cell signals as well as PPC. When you're trying to rank through PPC you just can't spend your way to the top. You need to be in striking distance. The top 256 organic ranking results qualify for placement and searching grid, but you're ultimately trying to outperform whoever's in position at least 40, or at least position 30. And so it's usually a hand and glove kind of operation of how you're going to drive signals to the platform for purchase intent, showing that relevancy, and then continue increase your PPC so that you're stair stepping your way up to, ideally, somewhere in those first four positions or somewhere on that page 1.
Carrie Miller:
How do you get to those 200 and it's 256?, like if you're at spot 300, how do you get down to that spot?
Ryan:
Yeah, it depends. It's really specific on the categories. You know, the one other element when we're talking about keywords and search volumes on Walmart is there's not as many long tail keywords. The keywords just don't go as long. So you're probably going to see a significant drop off on volumes after some of the major keywords in a lot of categories. Maybe long tails, around two to three keywords long, are going to start dropping off significantly. As kind of a frame of reference, we would say, if you can find keywords up over, if you're finding 10 keywords in your category that are relevant to you, up over 7000 in search volume, that's pretty good. There's. There are ones way bigger, but identifying those to go for to get in the top 256, you may pretty quickly already appear there. I would say pick your, maybe not the biggest keyword to put in your title right away, but maybe that second tier keyword to put it in your title and some other places, and then plan on changing it over time as you grow. But some ways to drive traffic you know whether a lot of sellers already have, whether it's influencer traffic, whether it's Google ads traffic, whatever else, if you already have a traffic funnel that's leaning to DTC or anywhere else. Consider splitting a little bit of that traffic over for a period of time to Walmart at least, and you'll be rewarded. A lot of the signals of external traffic are rewarded heavily on Walmart behaviors like certainly purchase, but even behaviors like we've, you know, add to cart purchase. Any of those elements are signals that register with the algorithm and help sending signals of relevancy to get you in that top 256. The biggest one being someone searches, finds your products and purchases. So anything you can do to do that is a big help to get that going.
Carrie Miller:
All right, that's very interesting. And then also, you've mentioned conquesting as something everyone should be doing. Could you just explain what that is on Walmart and you know how people can start utilizing this?
Ryan:
Historically you could not do brand cron questing on Walmart. You can't. You obviously can't put trademark terms in your listings. That's just a copyright issue but an advertising. Until just very recently you haven't even been able to brand conquest. Really, there's kind of some ways around that. But now you can kind of the headline. So what we'd recommend is for those brands that are starting to show some relevancy or do things and you know there are heavily branded search terms on Walmart. We've noticed Walmart is leans typically more in a lot of categories towards branded search terms with high volume. So this has been untapped opportunity for a lot of brands. Unless you're running an auto campaign to get you, you get buy box placement, you know, just under their buy box on their PDP. So now you can actually set up a manual search, a manual campaign, and you have to have, you have to use exact match keywords and you can use. Just put in every variation of that brand name in there and you can win. You can't win position 1 or 2 with that brand, but you can get beyond position 2. In most cases you're eligible to actually show up in grid for their terms and so that's one that most brands that have not been playing defense as much may still be asleep on right now. So it's a good opportunity, at least for now, until some of those brands start allocating defensive budget in that way, those brands will be again because of relevancy and how it impacts how much you have to pay to win versus someone else that's more relevant. Brands are going to effectively get a discount for defending themselves because they're the most relevant one, so they're going to have to pay less than you to defend. But if they're not really bidding on it at all, this is a great opportunity.
Carrie Miller:
I think that's really exciting because I haven't actually done that strategy at all yet. So I'm going to definitely get on that today and see what I can find, because I have found so many branded search terms that I think would be really great to target in the past, but I wasn't able to. So that's really good, okay, so let's go ahead and get into questions from the audience. So I'm going to start with this question here. It says I have two questions. So what type of keywords are better for sponsored and manual campaigns? And I guess that's one.
Ryan:
I would kind of say what I said earlier probably is it depends on what stage of the lifecycle you're in at Walmart. So if you're trying to build relevancy and it's a new product without much sales history yet, I would probably recommend starting with exact and maybe phrase in a manual campaign of those kind of second tier keywords. Go after the long, the longer tail, build the relevancy there. Every conversion is going to help with relevancy of other keywords in your listings. So begin and stair step up. Another great strategy is at the same time you might want to often will will wait a little bit to do auto campaigns or maybe do it also at the at the same time that we're starting some manuals, but with a low spin threshold, so it doesn't go crazy and pick unirrelevant keywords, irrelevant keywords, but using ultimately gold. Also be using automatic keyword campaigns or automatic campaigns to harvest the performing keywords into your manual and put those into exact match. And then the last tip I would give is using the bid modifiers in manual campaigns to really kind of take over. If you have auto campaigns as well, manual campaigns are going to perform really well in search grid and so you want your manual campaigns really doing the work for those high, high volume keywords in your grid versus maybe your auto. So that'd be a few of the tips I'd give you.
Carrie Miller:
Let's go to the next one. It says I heard you say that more 1P sellers for more might be moving to 3P. Is that good or bad for other sellers?
Ryan:
I certainly thought I didn't. I don't recall saying it, but I made up. Yeah, so the Walmart basically is leveraging the third party marketplace for a lot of reasons. One of those is historically with 1P Brands, meaning brands that Walmart has entered into a contract relationship with, where they're owning inventory and setting the retail price, those things. One of the ways that Walmart wanted to test out more of the assortment with a brand, develop a meaningful relationship, would be they would select a small subset of the products, get them in-store and distribute or online and Walmart would manage everything. Then they used to tell brands that they would do. Another program called DSV. I won't go into all of it, but it was still in an owned relationship. What we've seen is a shift more towards merchants, buyers, telling brands to put the remainder of their catalog on the third party marketplace now that it's become more mature. Is it good or bad for sellers? On one hand, good in that as you have more recognizable established brands continue to increase their assortment on the marketplace. That's bringing more shoppers, more eyeballs to the marketplace. That's good for everybody. Bad, meaning more competitive. Advertising on keywords, certainly retail media ad spend we've seen increase year over year as Walmart grows the program. That's the natural life cycle of any platform. It will certainly get more competitive. Margin's may decrease over time. If you maybe have had your business model has been dropshipping and just trying to find those places where 1P brands are there's gaps, where 1P brands aren't really owning the marketplace. I still think there's a lot of opportunity there on the third party marketplace, but they're starting to catch wind of it on Walmart as well. There's challenges there bit of both. I think there's plenty of opportunity as Walmart's marketplace continues to grow. I don't think we need to be worried right now about, are you getting squeezed out of any opportunity? This is still early stages on Walmart's marketplace.
Carrie Miller:
I agree there's still tons of opportunity. The next thing is is there a way to get your products from WFS or Walmart probably into in-store? Do you have to apply or be invited to have your products in Walmart stores? I think this is a good question because it seems like with open call, it's just US products, but is there a way for products that are made in other countries? If you can expand on just that whole process, I think a lot of people are curious about this.
Ryan:
Yeah, you mentioned open call, which is for US manufacturers. There's been different times where I think two years ago, two to three years ago, they gave FirstBot at the Apple to Walmart marketplace sellers. They got to apply first and got an opportunity. Outside of that opportunity there is if you're growing an account, if you're seeing sales and showing volume, showing growth. Some of the stepping stones would be identifying if you could get an account manager or a strategic account manager to work with on your account, identifying category manager, somebody else to begin discussions with. That starts with usually getting opportunities turned on and growth opportunities, whether that's seasonal promotions, whether that's flash picks, other elements as you continue to invest and show performance there. Walmart's team they are brick and mortar team and they're a marketplace team or basically one team. A lot of buyers and merchants will look across their whole category, even on the third party marketplace, as they're evaluating opportunity. These conversations could happen and you could ask for an introduction. We've had clients that have just a category manager. Somebody else has reached out and said would you be interested in talking with a merchant about potential opportunity for in-store? There's a lot of pathways. I don't think there's a defined Walmart's probably not going to lay out for you. Here's how every marketplace seller can contact a merchant but continue to invest in sales and growth on Walmart marketplace and those conversations certainly can happen.
Carrie Miller:
Yeah, that's exactly what I always hear from Walmart directly. They say to prove it on the marketplace, basically All right. Next, this is a good question: Any insights on the new SEM feature? Will that feature help ranking or index on keywords used as a GG search, maybe Google search?
Ryan:
We've had a few that we've worked, we've tested out. Sem. Vertic is still out right now in the early stages. Any kind of early testing. As far as depending on the goal, if the goal was measured by, do we see direct conversion at a higher row, as than you would for sponsored products, which is lower in the ads funnel, more towards conversion anyway than earlier consideration steps in the funnel. It's a lower conversion at this point but there are potential advantages. I'm still waiting to clarify this element. I believe it's true, but again because we haven't worked with a lot of resellers or people that are competing with others for their own buy box. I did hear in a recent webinar and I haven't been able to go back and fact check again by one of the product developers for SEM that one of the impacts of SEM is that you could run SEM even when you're not presently in the buy box and you could drive traffic to your instance to get the sale. For those who are struggling to win buy box, that may be a pathway to getting more sales and conversions by ads aren't going to serve on marketplace when you don't have buy box but if you're running SEM. It sounded like and again I need to. I try and fact check everything before I say it and I heard it said once and I want to make sure I heard it specifically, but that definitely perked me up and I need to go back and verify. I believe what was communicated was you can run SEM through Walmart when you're not in the buy box and direct to your instance of you owning the buy box when traffic gets there. That's one opportunity.
Carrie Miller:
Let's see. I've only been selling on Amazon since October. I have 9 reviews and 1 seller feedback. Is this enough to apply to sell on Walmart?
Ryan:
The exact criteria aren't shared publicly as to what is in that decision factor. There's a lot of factors. I'll see you all next video. What ultimate? I think that the safest thing to say is what Walmart's looking for is that you have established yourself as a company that shows that you're making good products, strong history of seller satisfaction, so customer support, and that you're a legitimate company looking to do business. The other factors they're looking for are your products, a meaningful addition to the marketplace? So are you adding products to the marketplace that makes sense to them? That's a really broad filter and subjective maybe. So I can't tell you what that looks like. If you have 9 reviews, maybe on one product and it hasn't been as long I'd probably have a lot more questions as to why you want to jump to Walmart at the moment. Maybe you see the opportunity and that might be the primary marketplace that you want to pivot to. Those are my initial thoughts. It'd be hard to answer further without knowing more context. Carrie, I don't know if you have any things.
Carrie Miller:
Well, they said something, too, about that. They have one product with multiple variations, and I actually have seen other sellers that have one product with multiple variations get on there as well because it's a new, interesting product or really something that would work well on Walmart. So it is really dependent on that, and I've seen some people get on very easily, having not sold for very long, and then others have a harder time. So it is kind of interesting how it's a little bit subjective on there.
Ryan:
And what?
Carrie Miller:
Definitely want to be established. Make sure all of your stuff is matching. That's the biggest thing. Your address needs to match and everything needs to be tight on your application. But yeah, anything else that you want to add.
Ryan:
Yeah, no, sorry for stepping on you there. Yeah, no, that was basically what I was going to say too. If you get an initial reject, don't assume that is because a human looked at your application and determined you were not a fit. A lot of the rejections can happen because the bot has looked at, maybe your information, has did not match between what you submitted and what maybe is included in your business documentation. To illustrate the point is we talked about 1P brands coming over to a three P marketplace at the request of merchants. We still get 1P brands that get rejected when they've applied on their own to 3P marketplace after they've been through even more rigorous vetting because they're in a 1P relationship already. So the bots may trip on it and it's worth reaching back out to try and appeal if you need. Even if you get the message of there is no appeal, there are usually ways to find out.
Carrie Miller:
And I'm going to just take one last question. We've had a lot of amazing questions. We're kind of running out of time here, so this one is what bidding strategies have you found most effective for optimizing Walmart PPC campaigns, and why?
Ryan:
Big question yeah.
Carrie Miller:
That's all I'd like to just answer.
Ryan:
We could do a whole another episode on this one Bidding strategy found most effective optimizing PPC campaigns. So depends again what your goal. What do you mean by optimizing? Do you mean optimizing for growth, which is going to be a lower TACos, ACoS, low RoAS, potentially because you're looking to increase market share and it's a longer play? In that case, that sponsored brand, sponsored video. I didn't talk about sponsored video. If you're looking for what's the quick wins with a higher ROAS, things like look in your category, look at the search terms Our other brands are already using sponsored video. There'll be one placement on mobile or on desktop for that search term on any page, and if you're not seeing those, that's low hanging fruit. I would go for a sponsored brand. You've got to be brand registered first, but once you're brand registered, you can create sponsored video ads. So that's one way out. Optimize I would just make sure that to optimize a PPC campaign, I think that the basics of making sure your listing is relevant and make sure your listing is optimized first, and so that'd be one major factor that we see just a lot of brands miss. They think they've got the bid strategy right and that they've got the campaign architecture correct. But if you don't have high relevancy already for those keywords, you're not going to take a lot of ground. So in general I would say you want to, in any given campaign, not oversaturate your ad groups and not oversaturate with keywords in each ad group. So maybe up to five keywords in an ad group and maybe three to five ad groups in a campaign so that you can be tracking where that spend is really going and tweaking from there. But then I'd also say the biggest level ups we've seen is when you combine really the PPC optimization with organic. So blend consider offsite traffic advertising as well in some way to blend and improve the performance of PPC. So PPC will get cheaper for you when your relevancy grows and you'll be able to maintain it more. So that's often an efficient way to optimize a bit more. No otherwise to that. But I'll end there for now.
Carrie Miller:
Thank you again so much for joining us. I think this has been a really fantastic episode full of a lot of information for everyone. I'm sure everyone that's listening will want to go back and listen to this again. But thanks again for all of your expertise in sharing the secretive strategies and we really appreciate you and we'll probably hope to have you on again another time soon.
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Join us as we unpack the latest buzz in the Amazon and Walmart world, from their exciting announcement of their conferences to TikTok Shop's strategic enhancements amidst shutdown rumors.
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► Watch The Podcasts On Youtube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videosWe’re back with another episode of the Weekly Buzz with Helium 10’s Principal Brand Evangelist and Walmart Expert, Carrie Miller. Every week, we cover the latest breaking news in the Amazon, Walmart, and E-commerce space, interview someone you need to hear from and provide a training tip for the week.Mark your calendar—Amazon Accelerate, our fifth annual selling partner conference, is returning to Seattle from September 17 to 19, 2024!https://sell.amazon.com/blog/announcements/amazon-accelerate-2024-save-the-dateWith a Ban Looming, TikTok Pushes Forward with New Commerce Featureshttps://www.retailtouchpoints.com/topics/digital-commerce/with-a-ban-looming-tiktok-pushes-forward-with-new-commerce-featuresWalmart replaces plastic e-commerce envelopes with recyclable paperhttps://www.greenbiz.com/article/walmart-replaces-plastic-e-commerce-envelopes-recyclable-paperWalmart Seller Summit 2024 Announcementhttps://www.walmartmarketplacesellersummit.com/Switching gears, we talk about how you can get discounts on your Helium 10 membership with the refer a friend feature. We also share a handy tip on leveraging historical search data to capitalize on seasonal trends, proving that strategic advertising on low-volume keywords can give sellers an edge before peak season hits. So, join us for a riveting exploration of these developments and take away actionable strategies to enhance your Amazon and Walmart selling journey.
In this episode of the Weekly Buzz by Helium 10, Carrie covers:
00:41 - Amazon Accelerate Dates01:45 - TikTok Shop New Features03:58 - Walmart Replaces Plastic with Paper05:02 - Walmart Seller Summit06:23 - Helium 10 Refer a Friend07:25 - Pro Training Tip: Historical Ranks And Search VolumeEnjoy this episode? Be sure to check out our previous episodes for even more content to propel you to Amazon FBA Seller success! And don’t forget to “Like” our Facebook page and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you listen to our podcast.
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Want to absolutely start crushing it on Amazon? Here are few carefully curated resources to get you started:
Freedom Ticket: Taught by Amazon thought leader Kevin King, get A-Z Amazon strategies and techniques for establishing and solidifying your business.Helium 10: 30+ software tools to boost your entire sales pipeline from product research to customer communication and Amazon refund automation. Make running a successful Amazon or Walmart business easier with better data and insights. See what our customers have to say.Helium 10 Chrome Extension: Verify your Amazon product idea and validate how lucrative it can be with over a dozen data metrics and profitability estimation.SellerTrademarks.com: Trademarks are vital for protecting your Amazon brand from hijackers, and sellertrademarks.com provides a streamlined process for helping you get one.
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Unlock the full potential of your Amazon advertising efforts with the expertise of PPC maestro Destaney Wishon of BTR Media, who brings a wealth of knowledge to our illuminating discussion on Amazon PPC strategies. Listen as we dissect the limitations of relying solely on ACoS metrics, advocate for sales volume and profitability harmony, and delve into her firsthand experiences with Helium 10’s powerhouse Amazon PPC tool, Adtomic. The conversation takes a turn into the synergy of PPC and organic ranking approaches, providing you with actionable insights to enhance your ad campaigns and achieve success in the Amazon marketplace.
Get ready to navigate the tricky waters of Amazon PPC campaigns for non-repeat purchase products, where we tackle the tactical acceptance of losses to build organic rank and the criticality of budget allocation for long-term gains. The episode is packed with rich strategies, including leveraging Amazon's Search Query Performance reports and optimizing bids with precision. Discover the art of juggling multiple product variants in PPC and the effectiveness of single keyword campaigns, all while managing to maintain a robust presence in a competitive niche market, like supplements.
Our TACoS Tuesday program culminates in a robust discussion on keyword match types, revealing how exact and phrase matches can coexist without cannibalizing each other's potential. Destaney shares her valuable insights on sponsored brand video ads, the finesse of managing bids outside of Amazon's console, and the tactics for handling unprofitable long-tail search terms. From the strategic considerations for small-budget brands to the nuances of keyword research and Amazon PPC tips for new sellers, this podcast episode is a great resource for anyone looking to elevate their Amazon advertising game and carve out their brand's success.
In episode 545 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Destaney discuss:
00:00 - Amazon PPC Strategy Q&A With Destaney02:44 - Understanding PPC Strategy and Metrics06:06 - Custom Bidding Rules in Adtomic10:00 - Amazon's Impact on Organic Ranking13:08 - Establishing Product With Profitable Keywords16:11 - Maximizing Amazon Product Visibility 19:24 - Controlling Bids for Amazon Search Results21:05 - Amazon Advertising Strategy and Optimization23:39 - Day Parting Strategies on Amazon25:22 - Amazon PPC Strategy and Keyword Research26:47 - Amazon Seller Strategy and Consumer Behavior30:25 - Improving Product Visibility on Amazon35:56 - More Amazon PPC Strategy and Tips42:18 - Understanding Amazon Suggested Bids► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast
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TranscriptBradley Sutton:
Today we've got one of the top minds in all the Amazon PPC world, Destaney, back on the show and she answered all of your live questions on Amazon advertising that, actually, this was no doubt the best set of questions we've ever had on the show. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think.
Bradley Sutton:
If you're like me, maybe you were intimidated about learning how to do Amazon PPC or maybe you think you just don't have the hours and hours that it takes to download and sort through all of those sponsored ads reports that Amazon produces for you. Adtomic for me allowed me to learn PPC for the first time, and now I'm managing over 150 PPC campaigns across all of my accounts in only two hours a week. Find out how Adtomic can help you level up your PPC game. Visit h10.me/adtomic for more information. That's h10.me/adtomic.
Bradley Sutton:
Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I am your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show that is our live monthly TACoS Tuesday program, where you go over anything and everything Amazon PPC related, and we throw in a little bit of Walmart here and there, as well. And so, for those who this is your first time to the show. What we do is we bring on an outside expert once a month to answer live on all of our platforms, your top PPC questions. There's no question that's too basic or no question, hopefully, that's too advanced. We'll answer them all. So let's go ahead and invite our very special guest. For the first time since last year from BTR media, we've got Destaney in the house. Destaney, how's it going?
Destaney:
Whoa. Well, now you have me a little nervous. You said you know, hopefully we don't have any questions too advanced. We'll see what happens.
Bradley Sutton:
Well, for you, like, I might not say that for all of our guests, but you know, since Destaney's on here, it's like, nah, like you can ask anything.
Destaney:
We'll see what happens.
Bradley Sutton:
Give us a quick bio of yourself for those who might not have heard your previous episodes and previous years here and this is the first time I'm listening to you.
Destaney:
Yeah, of course. So I've been in this space for seven years, worked everything from some of the largest brands on the platform to also the small sellers. I feel like we've worked with a lot of people that have gotten up and gotten ready and launched, and I've done nothing but Amazon advertising for seven years straight. So I think personally, I've managed over $500 million worth of spend, every category, every scenario I think I've dealt with this point. Used to be founder of better AMS, we've now rebranded to BTR media.
Bradley Sutton:
Now that we've established, you know, what you're talking about, we're just going to hop right into it. Before I get to the user's questions, I had some things I wanted to ask. I'm going to ask some questions about Adtomic. I have got some general questions, but actually, first let me get to the general question. So I know there's been a, I don't want to call it a movement lately, but maybe there's more awareness of in the industry about, hey, it's not always just about ACoS when you are trying to, you know, determine or strategize with your PPC. But my question first of all is there a certain level that that statement applies to? Like, if I'm a brand new seller and you know I don't have, you know, this big budget to and I'm not trying to build this humongous brand and try to get awareness out there, should I still be maybe using that as my primary metric? Or if so, is there a certain level where all of a sudden, I need to be shifting my metrics I'm looking at?
Destaney:
I think, in simplest answers, you should always be shifting your metrics. In the beginning, cash flow is king. That's what matters the most, right, especially as a individual seller. You are financing every next round of inventory and if you can't afford that inventory, you're not going to have a brand. And how do you make sure you can afford that inventory while making sure that, marginally, you're in a good spot, which is where ACoS comes into play, right, you can't just hemorrhage money.
Destaney:
That being said, when you're launching, you also need to make sure you're driving volume and improving your organic rank and getting more review. So I think, in the very beginning, ACoS may be less important as you're driving that velocity. It's more about margin. So, all that to say, I think there's a million different variables. We have brands that come to us and like hey, our only goal is a $3 row. As this is a marketing budget, it doesn't influence anything else. We have brands that come to us that are solely focused on profit margin at scale. So we need to make considerations for what that looks like.
Bradley Sutton:
Love it. Love it. All right, excellent. Now let's go hop in Adtomic because, you know, for the first time you and your agency are getting into, you know, using Adtomic and using it for some of your clients. You've only been doing it for a couple of months now. What are some of your initial kind of reactions, like how, what are the strengths that you guys have been noticing about it?
Destaney:
Well, I think there's a few things I want to hit on here is one, our agency has always used Helium 10 from like a keyword research, organic rank, BSR tracking perspective, which is why I was like, hey, let's see if there's better integrations we can do.
Destaney:
Everyone who's been following me knows I preach the relationship between PPC and your organic rank. So that was what was really insightful for us is like okay, let's see what it looks like. Managing it all within one tool and being able to track that overall relationship. At its simplest, I think Adtomic drives a lot of value. And giving you one view of all of that, I mean, you can go immediately into your search terms tabs and pull up search volume, and that you know. As anyone who's managed a brand, I get millions of questions of why are my sales down week over week, and being able to overlay things like search volume is super important, I mean beyond that. Day parting hourly parting is always a hot topic within the industry and being able to stay in tune with all of those new rollouts or generative AI. Those are things that most of the industry is behind on right and you've always relied on native ad console to make those adjustments. But now having in a tool that allows the simplicity of scale has been a major value add.
Bradley Sutton:
Awesome. Awesome. Now, one of the things that Adtomic has released in the last few months or so is the ability to make your own custom rules. You know, we always allowed you to make a certain level of custom rules but now even for your bid management. And so you know, as we just mentioned, you know, obviously you know some people might still be doing ACoS, people might be doing RoAS impressions. There's so many different things and we pretty much allow anybody to choose like, hey, whatever you do, this is what you should.
Bradley Sutton:
This is, you know, you can go ahead and implement it in Adtomic. Now, you know, having, you know, spent some time in there, what would be your suggestion First of all for, like you know, maybe a newer seller or, you know, medium sized seller, if I'm looking to, like, create my own rules for bidding. There's literally a million possibilities so I might be overwhelmed. I know there's no one size fit all answer here, but maybe can you give a couple ideas about what you would suggest somebody to do to put in Atomic so that it manages their bids effectively.
Destaney:
Yeah. I'm going to start philosophically here, in that I always say that anytime a software opens up the Black Box and allows for rule creation, they're putting themselves in a risky position because, in my opinion, most sellers don't actually understand bid management appropriately, right. It's only like the advanced sellers that can really hop in and truly understand bid management. So the fact that you all have opened it up for everything and taken that risk is huge in my opinion because that is the biggest flaw of some of the softwares in the space is they don't give you that customization. All of that to say everyone who's like hey, I have all of the power to, you know, give myself a 5% ACoS. Be careful, because a tool is only as good as your ability to use it. Like, truly. I've audited and vetted almost every single platform.
Destaney:
I feel like we've gone through building our own rules customizations. Most people don't actually know bid management well enough to build their own rules, but if you do, I think the biggest things that we look at is we create rules for the different outcomes we want. If we're launching a brand new product, then we're creating rules that are based off sales. So we're going to be taking a deep dive into hey, what is the conversion rate and what is the sales? And we're going to build rules for maximizing that increased bid when I have a certain conversion rate.
Destaney:
On the flip side, if our goal is profitability, we're going to work backwards from our ACoS or our RoAS goal. We're going to say, hey, let's build rules that are based on lowering bids when our ACoS is too high and maybe layering in our conversion rates also low, let's go even lower, right. So those are the two simplest ones that we look at, but it really needs to be strategic. You can create rules that are based off the phase your product's in, whether it's launch, consistency, profitability, organic rank. You can create rules based off your overall business outcomes, which is always an important one is what is that key RoAS that you're going to optimize for all of your campaigns, but just making sure not to over complicate it in the beginning. And once you start to understand the correlation between CPC and RoAS, then you can start building in a little bit more customization around lifecycle and things like that.
Bradley Sutton:
One more of my questions. I get to be selfish and stop in the host here and decide when to bring in the user's questions. But just going back to that topic of ACoS versus other metrics, I think there's so many people who have for years, just that's all they've thought about and they're like well, doesn't it make sense? Like hey, if I'm losing profitability because I'm spending more for my advertising and this is how much it's costing me per sale, like should I always just automatically lower my bids because I need to be profitable? But can you explain why? No, that's not always the case. That might actually be hurting you in the long run.
Destaney:
So the reason it's become so much more important to not always focus on a low ACoS is because Amazon's search results have become more saturated with ads. I think everyone amen right from the pews here. The reason being is obviously Amazon's making a lot of revenue off their advertising but also they've done a great job of their relevancy and still having a clean customer experience. The problem with that is if you start slipping an organic rank and you fall to page two or page three. There's a joke of, you know, the best place to bury a dead body is page two of Google. Well, Amazon's very similar right. A lot of people don't go to page two and page three. So if your organic rank starts slipping, you're going to be in a tough spot. Now, why does your organic rank slip? Well, you either have a decrease in conversion rate or you're not driving the amount of sales or units as your competitors, right?
Destaney:
Anyone who's watched Bradley's honeymoon period philosophy knows that a lot of these factors influence your organic rank. So there's a level of Amazon advertising that just drives sales, and we know sales improve your organic rank. So your PPC directly correlates with your total sales, right. The more sales you drive, the better your organic rank is the more reviews that are going to be left, which is going to improve your conversion rate, which is going to drive more sales, which is going to thus spin the flywheel. So that is why it's really important to understand the PPC relationship between your total sales. You know some people we've had quite a few clients say I'm going to stop PPC completely, which is fine for 30 days. Your profit's amazing. And then 60 days or 90 days or 45 days later, their rank starts dropping and now their total sales are decreasing even more. And, as we know, with profit there's economies of scale. You may want to drive a lot more units at a lower profit margin, but still end up with a higher overall profit if you improve your organic rank.
Bradley Sutton:
Let's go ahead and hop into the live questions we've got from YouTube. RH says we're optimizing a mature campaign. How frequent should I do it and what is the look back window you prefer?
Destaney:
I'm going to start with look back window. That one's easier to answer. We typically look at last 30 days. The reason being is you don't want to really look longer than that because there's a lot of variables that are going to affect your look back window. If you start going to 60 and 90 days, you're going to be getting into seasonality. You could have major conversion rate changes over that time frame. So we like to look at last 30. Last seven's almost too small because of your attribution window. That being said, if you lower your price or you have something crazy going on that changes your conversion rate, you probably need to look at a smaller look back window.
Destaney:
When it comes to how frequently do you optimize, there's a lot of different opinions in this space and I don't think it matters too much. If we're being honest, we optimize when we have enough data to optimize. So once I get a certain threshold of clicks, I typically start making bid optimization decisions based off that click threshold, which is something that you can build out again within Adtomic. So if you have $100 price point product, you're going to need more clicks to have enough data right, because customers like to think and click and take a longer time to purchase, so really depends.
Bradley Sutton:
Next question here. This is from Steven from YouTube. How long do you think you should run PPC at a loss to establish a product? It's not a repeatable purchase product.
Destaney:
That second part of that question is super valuable. If it's not a repeat purchase product, we typically run on a loss during the organic rank period, right. When we're trying to get up to closer to the top of the page. So that way, as we go higher up on the page, that means we don't have to rely on PPC as much to drive all of our views. So that is what we use as our lever of success. If we get into the top 40 for some of our top keywords, then maybe we're going to start focusing more on profitability. Again, it also depends on what your general margins are. If you have $50,000 set aside where you can focus on organic rank, then maybe it makes sense to start from the beginning at a loss. But if you don't have that money set aside cash flow is important then maybe you need to focus on layering in more profitability-focused keywords and bid optimization.
Bradley Sutton:
And Amazon Girl says do you have a strategy to increase brand share in Amazon using PPC and what do you recommend?
Destaney:
100%. So Pacvue actually released a study, I think, two years ago, that 70% of click share goes to the top placements on the page, which, as we know, are typically sponsored ads. So we've ran this for a lot of our original CPG brands. We'll create campaigns specifically focused on top of search for two to three of our top keywords that we want to increase brand share for. So we're creating campaigns that are solely focused on brand share. That's what the name is in the campaign title. We only focus on the exact match.
Destaney:
So we have really good control and we just bid really high. We bid high enough that we're winning as much impression share as possible. Now we may not be able to afford to win that impression share 100% of the time. It can be really expensive at top of search. But we have those campaigns set aside so we can increase and decrease our budget as needed. Then you can go into your search query performance report and say, hey, for this keyword that I'm focusing on brand share. What is my search query performance and am I actually increasing brand share in that scenario?
Bradley Sutton:
Yeah, I think search query performance is amazing, that Amazon has released that data first of all, and so powerful, I think, for sellers. But I think one popular strategy let me just get your viewpoint on this is like hey, let me see where my conversion rate for a keyword is better than the average since Amazon shows that. And then hey, if I'm not doubling down on or if I'm not showing up at the top of search, I need to go ahead and double down on that, increase my bid, whereas on the flip side, would your strategy be like? Maybe my overall conversion rate is not as good as my competitors, maybe I should even consider pulling back a spend. I know that's a kind of over-generalization, but is that kind of like your general strategy there?
Destaney:
100%, especially on the advertising side, like that's where a lot of people waste spend. They're saying you know, I'm selling a purple pin, this is a maroon pin, right, and maybe they bid on purple pin and their conversion rate is terrible and they're like let me keep spending on that turn, let me drive more people to there, because maybe they're going to start converting. They're not right, unless you adjust your listing to say, hey, this is purple and not maroon, and it'll hurt your organic rank if you drive a ton of traffic to terms that are converting really poorly because Amazon's saying, hey, customers are landing on this page but they're not buying. They don't need to be at the top of the page. I want to put products at the top of the page that are going to drive sales.
Bradley Sutton:
A YouTube question from Silver Arrow says how, on sponsored products, can we promote all variants to take up real estate to dominate the niche? Amazon only allows one variant to display. This might be promoting all colors on PPC, so yeah, in most categories.
Destaney:
Most, I was going to call that out.
Bradley Sutton:
You know, like you can only show up organically for one. You know, I've seen like energy drinks.
Destaney:
Yep.
Bradley Sutton:
You know like I've seen other categories too, or every single variant, but on PPC it's usually the same. For sponsored product, yep, but would I mean, I'm not saying I suggest this strategy, but theoretically, if somebody's really just concerned about real estate on page one and they are in a category where only one sponsored product or one organic can show up, would it be all right? Here's my organic rank and then maybe my sponsored product for that keyword is another variation, maybe my three. I put three sponsored brand headline, you know, ads for three different products, maybe a sponsored video for another one or something like that. I mean like other than that. Is there a way that you can force Amazon to get multiple things when it's not natural?
Destaney:
There's no way to really force it. Like you said, there's also a lot of inconsistency in Amazon testing how they're breaking out variations, so we've never found a great way to do it. Sponsored brand headline search ads the best way to show all of your variants. We do have a few brands that have actually split up, especially if it's like flavor variations chocolate protein versus vanilla protein. They've seen a lot of success splitting those up. That's not for everyone because now you're having to put PPC costs behind two different variations, right. It gets a lot more costly even though you are making up more market share. The only other small thing I would say is like from a cannibalization perspective, like you said, make sure you're running different ads at the top than what you're organically ranked for and make sure you're running brand defense ads on your product detail page.
Bradley Sutton:
Jalil says when using a single keyword campaign, do you use a top of search modifier, and what percentage do you find the best results with? I usually do 10% to 20% when using a top of search.
Destaney:
This one's a difficult, right, if you're coming from some of the other software companies in the space whose placement modifiers to optimize all of their bids. We don't recommend that strategy at BTR media because it gets really complex. If my only goal is to win top of search, I just bid really high and then also put a modifier on.
Bradley Sutton:
Thank you. Thank you. If somebody else says I like that, I always felt like it's not so popular to say that and I'm like man. Am I in the minority here? Like, why am I the only one still old school?
Destaney:
I will go a tiny bit deeper. The problem with modifiers and a lot of people haven't probably dove into the documentation on this is there's a little asterisk that says Amazon will only apply the modifier based off the likelihood of a sell. So a lot of people are assuming that every single time the click happens that modifier was applied, and that's not true. So it just, in my opinion, causes a lot of inconsistency. You want to win top of search? Go bid $50. Within five minutes you'll see you're at it, top of search, and then you'll see the CPC. It took you to get there.
Bradley Sutton:
What I tell people is, you know, maybe without Helium 10, I might do that. But the reason why I always stayed old school and just was controlling my bid was I don't need a top of search modifier. I'm not going to give Amazon the wheel in cases where I don't have to. You know like and just trust that Amazon's going to do exactly the right thing. I'm going to fully control the bid because I just put that keyword in Keyword Tracker, or actually in Adtomic, you can actually see the keyword ranks too, and within three hours I'm going to see three consecutive ranks where I can see oh, I obviously need to increase my bid, or, man, I'm already at the very top of search, you know, naturally, on sponsors, so maybe I can pull back and just see where it is. So it's like you don't have to guess where you're showing up because you just put in Keyword Tracker, put boost on, you'll know right away. It's refreshing to hear somebody else say the same thing here.
Bradley Sutton:
Another question from YouTube, Rebecca says is it still recommended to put the same keyword in all three match types? And also, does it hurt your organic rank to pause keywords that aren't relevant to your product but are not performing?
Destaney:
This is a great question. We run in all three match types for our brands because there's different purposes. Our exact match we know exactly where they're showing up on the page. We have a lot of control. Our phrase match opens up a little bit more opportunity for keyword research. So if I'm bidding on Chapstick, I'm going to start finding oh, people are typing in I don't know peppermint Chapstick or vanilla Chapstick, so it helps me expand that. Broad match does the same. It's a good keyword research methodology for us and if you have good bid management, it's going to allow you to harvest a lot of new keywords.
Destaney:
If I'm a really small brand and I don't have a big budget, I would probably only focus on exact match and phrase match internally. They do not compete. That's a misconception and I pulled our agency data yesterday on this. Exact match has driven $9 million in sales for us at a 15% conversion rate. Phrase match is also driven $8.9 million in sales at a 13.5% conversion rate and broad match was a little bit under that because we lower our bids on broad match conversion rate I think was the lowest at maybe 12%, but because we had good bid management. Our RoAS and ACoS was the same on almost all of them so they act in a different manner.
Destaney:
Right, it's still expanding. And then the other quick question is does it hurt your organic rank? Not necessarily, but you got to think it's slowing your sales volume down so it could in the long term hurt your organic rank. The better answer is just lower your bids. Right, if it's a great keyword with a great conversion rate you can't afford, maybe top of search, lower your bid to make that term profitable, even if sales slow down.
Bradley Sutton:
A lot of great questions say this is pretty cool.
Destaney:
Good questions.
Bradley Sutton:
Gregori says my ad sales are driven by 60 to 70% by a sponsor brand video. Because of that, I'm not well ranked on my main keywords our sponsor brand ads. I'm assuming he's talking about both sponsor brand and sponsor brand video. Are these helping with ranking at all? So I think what he's talking about is like maybe he's got a video and it's showing up on the Coffin Shelf page or a Coffin Shelf search results. Somebody typed in Coffin Shelf now if it was just regular sponsored product ad, that's definitely going to help the algorithm. But if somebody clicks the sponsored brand video ad from that same search. Me personally, when I tested this maybe one year, two years ago, it didn't have as much impact, if anything at all. What are you seeing lately?
Destaney:
Pretty much the same. So sponsor brands video has almost no impact from what we've seen, other than the fact that again, you're still driving sales. So there's a small factor there. But let's talk about why, really fast, sponsored products make up 70% of your sales, when ran appropriately, because they have more real estate on the page than anything else. Sponsored brands video have two placements on the search results and one on the product detail page so their real estate is so much less that they don't really drive enough overall volume to make a difference. And then when they do drive sales, it's being distributed across multiple ASINs typically. So if you just look at like the math, they drive a lot less sales to specific keywords and that's why and then sponsor brands video again is considering all of your brand halo, not necessarily correlating a keyword to a product from an organic rank perspective.
Bradley Sutton:
All right. Rebecca said hey, do you think there will be a chance to create bid rules where we can lower the bids on certain days and times? You can do that in Adtomic, so make sure to do that. We call that schedules. A lot of people just call that day parting. But Amazon, I mean, do you think Amazon will allow or will have that in seller central?
Destaney:
I do. I think it's on the roadmap. Actually, one thing I'll throw out there is I don't recommend using Advertising Console for this. So put this in the shortest way possible. Amazon has an API called Amazon Marketing Stream that actually shows you hourly insights on spend and sales. Adtomic uses that all the software providers use it. From an API perspective, Advertising Console does not give you that access into the insights. So within ad console, you cannot see when someone clicked on an ad at 3pm on Tuesday but purchased on Wednesday at 9am. Adtomic’s giving you that so you can actually day part appropriately. Advertising Consoles not. That being said, what you can do in this scenario lower your bids to the level that you need 100% of the time and then increase your bid when you're performing best right. So just inverse what a typical day parting is. Lower the hours that you think you're performing poorly, increase when you do incredibly well and just run the inverse of day parting.
Bradley Sutton:
My buddy DotadaSilva says he's got a two part question here. So what's your suggestion on a bunch of my unprofitable long tail search term reports? If he combines it all he sees $9,000 in spend with zero sales, but they have less than 15 clicks. So maybe he's got some rule that says, hey, if I find a search term that has 25 clicks, let's go ahead and negative, but this doesn't qualify as that. He says all are very relevant keywords impression is good. So what should I do? Should I lower the bid or should I negate them, or should I put them in a separate campaign?
Destaney:
If your brand is only focused on profitability, I would just pause them. I would not negate. I don't think so. And this is again. This is a difficult situation to pin on the brand. My personal opinion is 10 to 15 clicks is not enough clicks to actually make a decision. What I would do is I would lower your bid on all of those data collection long tail keywords so that way, even if you have 200 of them each getting 10 clicks each, you're not spending enough money to really make a big enough difference. You're slowly collecting data until you figure out whether or not that keyword converts at a $1 bid. It's going to be really costly to collect that data across 200 keywords and 15 clicks, right? I don't really know if it'd be valuable putting them in a separate campaign. I would just lower bid.
Bradley Sutton:
Do you skip the last two days of the look back window?
Destaney:
Yeah. That's traditionally recommended 100%. If something crazy happens then no, it's not necessary. You could still look. But fun fact, I believe the window Amazon last presented between the time that someone searches for a product and makes a purchase is over five days, right, which is crazy. So if you run an ad and you see your spending driving law spend on Monday, there's a good chance that person's not checking out until Friday, which is my whole day parting soapbox. But we don't need to get into that.
Bradley Sutton:
Yeah. It's kind of, you know, like it's funny, because this is why, as Amazon sellers and this is a completely generalized statement, but we as Amazon sellers should not be looking at our strategy based on what we do as consumers, because me personally, if I click on something, I'm buying it. And then what opened up a whole world to me was when search crew performance ran. I was like, why are these numbers so low? And then, yeah, I talked to Amazon about they're like no, this is only looking at those who take action in a 24-hour window after a click. I'm like and like who doesn't buy something when they add it to the cart? And then I, all of a sudden, I started asking people and I was the weird one. You know, people are like.
Destaney:
Yeah, yeah, like.
Bradley Sutton:
I had a whole bunch of stuff to my cart and I think about it for a couple days and then I'm like what? So? So like again. This is not necessarily just PPC, but if you guys are running your businesses based on your own consumer behavior, guys, that's not the majority out there. You got it. You got to have strategy that applies to more people.
Destaney:
Yep.
Bradley Sutton:
Get the next question we got or do our first one from LinkedIn, from Tobias. What is your approach about auto campaigns? Do you just use them for keyword harvesting, or is there something more about it?
Destaney:
Auto campaigns do win unique inventory, like in stop, so they actually influence the frequently bought together section. Occasionally, you'll see a sponsored ad there. Sometimes you'll see a sponsored ads and like the lightning deal section. So that's a good reason to continue to run auto campaign. So we do continue to run them for almost all of our products. We also aggressively keyword harvest. Like all of our systems are built out for quick keyword harvesting, so we run them in segmented close match, loose match, compliments, substitutes in order to go ahead and make sure we're consistently getting great keyword research. We don't really recommend running your auto campaigns with more than 10% of your spend historically because you don't have a lot of control. But we do continue to run them because of the unique inventory.
Bradley Sutton:
Any circumstances for which you would recreate a new exact match campaign, or why a key phrase would do well under broad match but not exact. So I'm not sure this is what she's asking. But, like you know, sometimes I've heard people say, hey, I've got a good keyword. It's in my, my exact manual campaign. It just gets like very low Impressions. But then I put it in a new one and all of a sudden it gets impressions which doesn't, you know, make sense. But is that just what we should do? If we don't see it have good impressions, just try it again in a new one.
Destaney:
Yeah. It's definitely worth testing. I think you know let's talk about Chevalier's. Second point here is sometimes when you harvest a keyword from your auto campaigns or broad match and you put it into exact match, it doesn't perform as well, or the reverse. The reason being is your campaigns and your keywords attract or collect relevancy, right, Amazon's an algorithm, so they like to make database decisions. So maybe you have the keyword Chapstick in an auto campaign.
Destaney:
That's always done amazingly well for you, and the reason it did well is because it was a 17-cent bid on page 5. And then you go ahead and you pull it out and you decide to try to put it in a manual campaign at a $2 bid and all of a sudden it does terrible, and that's because it's showing up a different placement on the page. You put it into a new campaign and now you're showing up at the top of page one and all of your competitors have 50,000 reviews. So your conversion rate looks worse, right? So all of that to say test like we definitely move our keywords around and harvest a hundred percent. We also will create exact match campaigns for different purposes. We have ranking campaigns then we have profitability campaigns. They're both bidding on exact match. One of them is just focused on ranked ones, on profitability, so we do recommend that.
Bradley Sutton:
Okay then just one other tip out there for people who maybe it's on a brand new product and, no matter what you do, you can't get many impressions when you know that there's search volume for this. It could be a relevancy issue where Amazon just doesn't think that your product is what it is and the way you can kind of have visibility and not using Helium 10. Guys, put the product in Cerebro and then look at the column that I would say 99% of Cerebro users don't look at, but in my opinion it might be one of the top three things in the entirety of Helium 10 is look at the Amazon recommended rank for it. This is a live pool directly from this one thing that, for whatever reason, Helium 10 is the only one that's been showing this for like years, but it's what Amazon thinks the product is.
Bradley Sutton:
So if you see Amazon recommended rank one through 20 and it's a bunch of keywords that aren't really what your product is, it means Amazon is confused. And if that keyword is like at number 300 or maybe not even on the list, then yeah, you're not gonna get impressions for it because that's literally how Amazon decides what it's going to show you for. So that's just another way you can get some visibility at least into that. Steven says how do you, oh, it's a good one, how do you approach keywords that used to convert very well but they've fallen off for a month or more?
Destaney:
I want. I'd be very curious if conversion rate is the metric Steven's actually calling out here, or if he's looking at it for, or if he's saying ACoS used to be better and now it's not. If your conversion rate has changed, the biggest thing I'll take a look at is did your listing change? Did you have a drop in review count to review quality? Did you make a change to your images? Why? Like?
Destaney:
The real question you're asking, Steven, is why did customers stop buying my product after landing on my page, which isn't necessarily a PPC issue, right, that's a listing issue. Now there is a small portion of this which could be a PPC issue, and that's maybe. You used to show up at the top of the page and now you're showing up at the bottom of the page and your conversion has changed slightly because share of shelf is different. You're now being compared to different products depending on where your ads are, but more than likely, if it's a conversion issue, that is a listing issue. It's rarely a PPC issue. When you talk about conversion, if it was an ACoS or a RoAS issue, then more than likely your bid management changed or your conversion rate changed.
Bradley Sutton:
Jillil says, when dealing with supplements that are in a, that are a complex and not just a singular ingredient, how would you do your keyword research and PPC strategy? For example, a joint support supplement with five ingredients versus something like vitamin C, which is a singular ingredient? Destaney, what is up with these good questions?
Destaney:
I know it's a great. . .
Bradley Sutton:
I don't know like you just attract, I gotta have you on all the time you can track some of the best stuff.
Destaney:
This is a great question. I'm very familiar with this category and the core answer is Stop getting caught up in just the keyword research, right? This is one of those things where, to Bradley's point earlier, stop thinking as a seller and start thinking as a customer. No one is typically tight. Well, that's a lie. Most people are typing in joint supplements. Most people are typing in vitamin C supplement, right? So target those.
Destaney:
The problem is knowing that category. Your CPCs for both of those are typically around $20. I've worked in them very familiar. You can't afford those usually. So you do start layering in more ingredients because if a customer types in vitamin C, they don't know what they want. Right, they want some type of vitamin C. But if they type in vitamin C deficiency for so and so and so it's going to be a lot lower search volume, but they're going to convert much higher because they've done their research and they know your product is what they're looking for. So just create campaigns for both. Create campaigns for your top singular keywords that you probably can't afford but you're going to give a low budget to anyways, and then create campaigns based off the ingredients. Maybe it's one ingredient, maybe it's probiotics with fiber, I don't know I'm totally making that up and then create another campaign for probiotics with vitamins or collagen and then figure out what's performing best and scale what's best and pull back on what's not.
Bradley Sutton:
Toseef says I'm getting good sales of the good ACoS on a keyword. Should I always keep on increasing the bit of that keyword or not?
Destaney:
It depends, really. You know you're looking at this on a micro level. If your overall account is within your ACoS, then maybe just keep it. If you have a little bit room to grow, then raise your bid and drive more sales.
Bradley Sutton:
But looking at the keyword rank also is good too. If you're already at the top of the page, you know there's no sense to necessarily, you know, increase your rank because then maybe somebody else is just going to do the same thing and now you're everybody's just driving the cost up needlessly. Brent says I've got multiple products that I'm targeting the same search terms. If I have multiple campaigns for multiple products bidding on the same search terms, am I artificially driving up the bids?
Destaney:
No, the only time you have to worry about this is if you're running out of separate seller central accounts and then competing.
Bradley Sutton:
Were you surprised when the keyword report added for ASIN targeting? What's your approach about ASIN targeting and how much sales do you need for extra campaigns for specific ASINs to push them separately?
Destaney:
Not surprised. This has actually been a thing for quite some time and pretty much it's saying, hey, I'm targeting this product, but this product also indexes for these top five keywords, so let me show up there. In general, you got to consider, Amazon is moving into a more AI model. It's going to be a lot less paper click and a lot more shopper intent. That's included. I, theoretically, have seen sponsored products also run retargeting. So when things are out of my control, I try not to worry about it and what I do instead is be more concise with my campaign structure so that way I can break out my reporting.
Bradley Sutton:
Matt says I've got a variation listing. I got a 10 pack and a 20 pack. Should I drive people traffic to the cheaper option which tends to sell better?
Destaney:
Yeah, I would. So you got to think about it from a PPC goal. The only thing you want is to bring people into your listing. The lower price point is going to bring them into your listing. That doesn't mean they're not going to buy the 20 pack. We almost always recommend running on the lower price point even though your margins are going to look a little bit worse or your performance is going to look a little bit worse RoAS wise. You're going to bring them into the listing and then they're still going to buy the more expensive if they want it.
Bradley Sutton:
Tracy says how many keywords per campaign or ad group and what's a good way to structure.
Destaney:
So one thing I'm going to run through really quickly is we personally run one campaign, one ad group. We run multiple ad groups because your budget is on the campaign level. Amazon makes you set a hundred dollar budget, whatever that number is, and then, if you have multiple ad groups, you can't control if this ad group is getting $50 or $20 or $30. So I run one campaign, one ad group and then we typically put 10 to 15 keywords. There's no perfect answer. There's a lot of myths in the space. The end of the day, it's however much budget you have. I have brands that have millions of dollars of budget so I can set 200 keywords in a campaign because I know I have enough budget to collect data on all those keywords. For most people, we recommend anywhere from one keyword for your top driving to 20 keywords and not going over that.
Bradley Sutton:
Just a quick one before I forget. This is one of my questions. Obviously, one of the rules that we can do for keyword harvesting in Adtomic is like say hey, this is, if I find a keyword in an auto or broad or phrase campaign at this threshold, I want you, as an Adtomic to move this to my exact manual campaign. What is? Obviously there's different strokes for different folks, but is it two purchases? Is it three purchases? Is it two purchases or three purchases, or four purchases plus a certain ACoS? What is a decent rule of thumb?
Destaney:
When I originally started, so I'm going to throw that out there from simplicity's sake. I think I did two sales under like a 100% ACoS. The reason I kept my ACoS high is because I knew when I harvested that keyword I could just lower my bid at the end of the day. What really matters is that it's driving sales. Conversion rates another important one to layer in is like your average conversion rate. As long as it's higher than that, you're fine.
Bradley Sutton:
Sandy says we're thinking of lowering retail to. I'm assuming he means maybe the retail price to improve conversion rate. Have you seen a better conversion rate when using a lower everyday low price or a coupon?
Destaney:
It depends on your competitors. Of course, a lower price is probably going to improve your conversion rate. At the end of the day, would you be better off optimizing your listing better and maintaining a high price? Would you be better off adding more value to your product? Those are things you can consider, because the problem with lowering your price is you get into a race of chasing the bottom. All of your competitors can also lower their price. The real value add is improving your product.
Bradley Sutton:
What's been working for BTR media and your clients as far as custom images in sponsored brand campaigns and types of sponsored brand video campaigns because I feel like this changes year over year what performs best.
Destaney:
Yeah, I think the biggest thing is obviously CPCs have gotten a lot more competitive with video and creative, as people are doing it more and more.
Destaney:
So, yeah, I think that's it, thank you. I have gotten into arguments about the generative AI sponsor brands and a lot of people are like, yeah, and you know it's not working, it's terrible, but we've seen amazing performance. We've actually split test against commercial grade creatives that, like, professional brands have used, and generative AI is in line with it. Of course, it's up to your prompt, but don't over complicate it. When customers are on Amazon, they're not looking to click on commercials, they're looking to click on something that looks native to the platform, which is where I think AI does a decent job of simplicity. So, you know, for Christmas last year, we took a brand that has like 2000 ASINs and we used AI to make every single ASIN like Christmas. We just added a little Christmas tree and it did incredibly, incredibly well because people knew it was a seasonal item.
Bradley Sutton:
All right. Last question of the day, it's from a brand new person to the Amazon. I'm sure there's a lot of brand new people out there. Maybe they were too shy to ask a question, but real simple. Hey, Ashlyn says I'm a first time seller. Just give me some tips about what I should be thinking about when starting with PPC.
Destaney:
I think the first and foremost is obviously going through all of the resources available for Helium 10. I don't know if people actually deep dive on everything that's available, even if it's as simple as going through like the Adtomic training. I know Travis. I watched a few videos where he was like training on concepts, not just the software itself. Amazon advertising also has an amazing accreditation program I have to shout out. We send, we've hired interns out of high school, sent them through the accreditation program and they've been managing accounts after like three months. Obviously, we also do a lot of training on top of that but Amazon's invested a ton in their accreditation program. So when you log into Amazon advertising, you can see their learning console. Highly recommended. Every brand owner, every team needs to get certified in Amazon advertising accreditation.
Bradley Sutton:
Last thing of the day is just a hey, what's your 30 or 60 second tip, PPC related that you can share with the audience. Could be about anything you want.
Destaney:
Everybody needs to better understand the correlation between your bid and CPC and your CPC and ACoS and RoAS. That is like one of the most important things as a brand owner to understand if my increase, my bid, what happens? Right, our bid is the number one we can control. To Bradley's point, you have accessibility with the Adtomic. Dive into those resources and start understanding bid management. If you don't learn anything else, learn bid management within your tools and your brand.
Bradley Sutton:
Well, Destaney, thank you so much for joining us again. We're definitely going to be seeing a lot of videos that have training that we've been filming, that you're going to help users out there, you know, expand their knowledge in PPC. And if I saw some questions in chat asking about Adtomic, so if again the website to get a free demo, h10.me/adtomic, and then how can people find you on the interwebs out there If they'd like to reach out directly to you?
Destaney:
Can I answer a bonus question, just because it came up. Okay, so I'm going to talk about suggested bids because I see it nonstop in the Helium 10 groups and it just came up here. When Amazon's giving you a suggested bid, they're taking the average of what every single competitor's bidding and the placements on the page top of search could be $30, bottom of search could be $2. So their suggested bids are an average of all of those placements. So, yes, you can bid a lot lower and still win impressions, because you're probably showing up on page two or page three or the PDP, and you may not. You may bid the suggested bid and still not show up on page one. You may have to bid 20 times higher because you have one person increasing the auction, which doesn't influence the average. So keep that in mind. If you want to learn more, find more, I post a ton of content in the groups, on Facebook, on LinkedIn. I think is where we post the majority of our content and you know, check us out btrmedia.com.
Bradley Sutton:
All right. Thank you so much, Destaney, for joining us, and we'll see you in a little bit.
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Listen in as we welcome Delaney Del Mundo, a veritable goldmine of e-commerce expertise with a rich background from Walmart to the pulsing beat of TikTok Shop and the competitive arena of Amazon. Our conversation traverses her journey from the sunny streets of Los Angeles to the pioneering days at Walmart.com post their Jet acquisition. Delaney is now the Director of the Amazon strategy team at Vendo, where she masterfully balances profit and loss management, SEO support, and listing optimization. As we explore her current role, you'll discover the ins and outs of her approach to fostering brand success across diverse marketplaces.
Tune in to hear Delaney shed light on the complexities of affiliate networks and content-creator partnerships that can make or break a brand's profitability. With the ever-evolving landscape of e-commerce, we tackle TikTok Shop's growing influence on content strategies, emphasizing the critical shift from keywords to engagement. Delaney also provides valuable insights into Amazon's new inventory fees, offering strategic advice for navigating these changes without sacrificing the bottom line. The conversation pivots to a holistic view of business health, focusing on the vital lifetime value to customer acquisition cost ratio.In our discussion, Delaney takes us through the intricate process of using Amazon’s Search Query Performance, revealing how strategic analysis can lead to improved visibility and sales. By leveraging tools like Helium 10’s Cerebro and Market Tracker 360 for competitor analysis tools, she unveils techniques to stay ahead in the competitive e-commerce landscape. Delaney's enthusiasm for these tools' potential to revolutionize market analysis and her anticipation for future enhancements are infectious. Whether you're a seasoned seller or just starting, this episode is packed with strategies to propel your brand forward in the dynamic world of selling on Amazon.
In episode 544 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Delaney discuss:
00:00 - Strategies for E-Commerce Success04:14 - Strategic Amazon Management and Planning10:32 - Walmart Marketplace vs. Walmart Stores13:09 - E-Commerce Strategies and Amazon Inventory Fees20:58 - Search Query Performance for Sellers21:09 - Search Query Optimization and Market Analysis26:16 - Market Analysis Tools and Travel Tales28:04 - Utilizing Time Tracker for Competitive Advantage32:00 - Maximizing Brand Visibility and Cross-Sales36:05 - Upcoming Event in Manila► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast
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TranscriptBradley Sutton:
Today we've got an industry expert with a lot of experience on Walmart, TikTok shop and Amazon who's gonna be giving us tons of cool strategies, including some that no one has ever talked about on this show before. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Sellers have lost thousands of dollars by not knowing that they were hijacked, perhaps on their Amazon listing, or maybe somebody changed their main image or Amazon changed their shipping dimension so they had to pay extra money every order. Helium 10 can actually send you a text message or email if any of these things or other critical events happen to your Amazon account. For more information, go to h10.me/alerts.
Bradley Sutton:
Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers podcast by Helium 10. I'm your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show that's completely BS free, unscripted and unrehearsed organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. And now we are having for the first time in the show, Delaney. Welcome to the show.
Delaney:
Thanks, Bradley, happy to be here. I think it's long awaited on my side, so glad to be joining you today.
Bradley Sutton:
Yes, yes, Now we first met at least you know, I've known about you because we've worked with Vendo a lot in the past, and I think I met you first at the maybe in Puerto Rico, at the billion dollar seller summit, and I looked across the room. I was like she looks like a white flip like me, which, for those who don't know us, half Filipino and half American, and that's what I am. I don't look like it. She does, and so I was like are you just what Filipinos do? Like? There's that Jokoy’s joke where they're like oh yeah, my mom was Filipino when she sees somebody. But I did that exact same thing. I'm like Filipino, American. And she's like, yep, I'm like, oh, I could. Then me too. And anyways, we bonded there and I was like all right, a fellow Filipino American in the Amazon world, we got to have you on the podcast. So no, that's not the reason why I had you on the podcast. I heard from your boss that you are an A player and know your stuff and I'm like that's the kind of person we want on the show. But anyways, Delaney, enough about me and my rambling here. Let's just start with where I mean we met Puerto Rico, but where in the world are you right now? Where do you live?
Delaney:
Yes, Bradley, I'm out in Los Angeles, so actually not too far away from you today. But speaking of the Filipino American, yes, you're right, it seems like my mom's genes might be stronger than your Filipino side. I got the Sinigang and the Adobo in the fridge. Don't worry, I'm more than I think.
Bradley Sutton:
Yes. There we go.
Delaney:
But yes, I'm out in LA.
Bradley Sutton:
Awesome, is that where you were born and raised?
Delaney:
Yep, born and raised in LA, lived for a few years out in New York but made my way back here. So, plans, where do you live? In New York? I lived in the city for a few years and then also in the upstate New York area, so Nice.
Bradley Sutton:
I lived in Brooklyn myself for a couple years. Where'd you go to high school? In LA?
Delaney:
High school. I went to Burroughs High School out in Burbank.
Bradley Sutton:
In Burbank? Okay, nice. And then how about college?
Delaney:
College, Hamilton College in upstate New York.
Bradley Sutton:
So a really very rare that somebody gives me a college or university I have never, ever heard of.
Delaney:
Yeah, there were 1800 kids in the entire school. So super small community, but small and tight.
Bradley Sutton:
Well, what do you study?
Delaney:
I studied economics.
Bradley Sutton:
Interesting Now, when you graduated, did you work at all into there, or did you already find e-commerce by that time? Or what's your journey to e-commerce like?
Delaney:
Yeah, so I actually got my start over on the Walmart side of the business, so working for Walmart.com as soon as Walmart had acquired Jet. So I was part of that group of individuals and then found my way on the brand side for a few years working at Walmart.
Bradley Sutton:
What did you do at Walmart?
Delaney:
So you might have told me that, but I forgot it. No, no, no, I managed the beauty category there. So on the dot-com side worked closely with the store merchants and grew the beauty channel.
Bradley Sutton:
Interesting, okay, and then how did you get to the Amazon side of things?
Delaney:
Yeah. So then from there, ended up shifting over to the brand side. For a few years worked for a beauty brand and at that beauty brand managed all their retailer.com channels, so Zulily, eBay, Walmart.com, Amazon.com, etc. So a bit more full circle. And now here at Vendo, leading, of course, the Amazon team as well as TikTok shop, which is one of our newer channels that we launched just a few months ago now. And then, of course, as you know, Bradley, you've had some of our Walmart.com teammates on the podcast as well.
Bradley Sutton:
Okay, and then what do you specifically do, like what's your specialties? I guess what's your daily? I know actually you actually do a podcast as well, but outside of the podcast, what are you doing for clients?
Delaney:
Yeah, so I'm the director of Amazon strategy, so I lead our team of account strategists here. But in terms of what Vendo does everything from P&L and forecast management towards direct management of the Amazon channel, managing advertising, marketing etc I'm more on the strategic side. So a lot of what you would look at from listing optimizations, SEO support, ranking, impact and really just understanding what strategies were implementing to hit brands top line and bottom line goals, both on the three-piece side and our one-piece side of the business through vendor central.
Bradley Sutton:
Awesome, awesome. All right, we're going to start broad here and then go narrow as we go on. But you know, since you have, you know, your company and you yourself have dabbled, I guess you could say, in a lot of different marketplaces. Be it, you know, amazon, Walmart, TikTok shop is kind of like the top three. What's just your state of the union in 2024 about the trajectory of each of these? Are all still going up. Is one skyrocketing over the other? Is one of them going down, one of them staying flat? What's your outlook for this year?
Delaney:
So I think, as far as trajectory, TikTok shop has the greatest potential Just being. Their affiliate network is so strong and the platform itself is extremely simplified, so it's not hard for a lot of sellers to join TikTok shop right now, and just in terms of their affiliate network. We obviously know that creator connections on the Amazon side has been in beta for quite some time, but I think TikTok shop has the upper hand when it comes specifically down to affiliate, just because of the ease of the platform and the fact that you can set these targeted collaborations per item, per creator that you reach out to. So Vendo has an in-house influencer and affiliate team which we're able to leverage, of course, but that allows us to glean great insights on the targeted collaborations and the open collaborations on TikTok shop.
Delaney:
Amazon specifically, I mean we'll see. I think they're always on an upward trajectory, given the amount of data that they have access to and just as far as shipping and logistics, they're always ahead of the curve there. But we have to look out for specific categories. If we look at platforms like Temu, which I know generated a ton of buzz after the Super Bowl with how much they're investing in different ads, Fashion categories, we know that Amazon referral fees are dropping in some of those categories. So we'll see. Right, I think Amazon's going to probably have to take some action across categories if Temu starts to undercut price and we'll see if Amazon also starts matching there.
Delaney:
And then Walmart.com is a silent killer. I mean, they have their stores that they're able to leverage. So with their store specifically, that opens up a ton of opportunity. I think that oftentimes a lot of Walmart.com sellers don't realize that if they are, or if they have the potential to sell on the one-piece side of the business, that opens up a whole new avenue with online pickup and delivery. And many times Walmart.com sales are grossly underreported because unless you're investing in to illuminate, you don't see those OPD sales naturally. So you might think the channel is smaller than it is, but it's really larger than what it appears to be on paper, just given the level of data that Walmart actually has versus what it discloses.
Bradley Sutton:
All right, I know you're a little bit out of the Walmart game, but I'm going to ask you a Walmart-specific question because I just want to see how relevant this is. This is something that I've been telling people, but my experience is about six, seven years old now. So I used to work for this company that does supplements and they're kind of like a famous company. They would do infomercials and things like that and I was their sales manager and people don't understand the size of Walmart brick and mortar because it was like, you know, like I was so proud of myself, I grew their Amazon sales from like $500,000 a year to like $3 million. I would have Walmart PO. That was for 20 SKUs, by the way. I would have Walmart POs for their one SKU that were like in the one to $2 million, just because of how many stores you know Walmart has, etc. So it was like it dwarfs Amazon, you know, unless you're like a huge whale on Amazon. Now, that being said, like what I, a couple of things I did was I started a couple brands or not a couple of brands a couple of products on the brand on Amazon, and then I moved it to Walmart. First of all, we already had a somewhat of a relationship with Walmart and then Walmart.com buyer, you know saw that I was dominating one of the subcategories and they're like all right, let's bring this I don't remember what it was called, but it's kind of like what Amazon calls vendors, a vendor central or something, where it's like, hey, we'll buy this from you, so that's shipped and fulfilled by Walmart because it's doing well. And they're like cool.
Bradley Sutton:
And then they're like hey, it started doing well there. And they're like, hey, let's take this and let's add this to brick and mortar. And that's when, obviously, you know, sales blow up. Now For me that's what I tell people of that story about like, how, why? Even though maybe if you just start something on Amazon or Walmart, you know sales could be 10 to 150 to one Amazon or Walmart. But the reason to start on Walmart is if you start, you know, making some waves, you can start selling to Walmart and then potentially, you can just get in front of a buyer because you can't, you know, just come in off the street and say, hey, I've got this cool new product, you know, would you just put it in Walmart brick and mortar? You know, unless you've got connections, is that still valid in 2024? Like is that kind of like the process that could potentially not guaranteed, obviously, but that could potentially happen.
Delaney:
Absolutely 100%. And I think that is sometimes what a lot of brands make a mistake with on Walmart.com or just in Walmart stores in general, is they go to Walmart stores too early. And if you go to Walmart stores too early then that really does a number to your brand from a profitability standpoint. So that's why Walmart marketplace is a great avenue for you to start, because you can even get Sam support, which is a strategic account manager on the Walmart three P side of the business who can help you and make sure that you're pulling those levers and in growing your brand on Walmart.com to go to stores. So yes, Bradley, 100% a great avenue to start. And looking at again just Amazon versus Walmart strategy, it isn't just let's go bring all of our Amazon's use over to Walmart, because both algorithms are getting a lot better from a pricing standpoint at identifying different prices. So we've seen pricing down to the price per ounce standpoint. So it doesn't even matter sometimes if you're launching completely different UPCs, they're still matching. So it's really important that before you launch on Walmart.com even if you've been selling on Amazon for quite some time you think about maybe differentiating different pack sizes or just different flavors of your product. That way there is a difference there that you can grow a completely new set of products.
Bradley Sutton:
Before we get to your specialty, which is Amazon, let's talk a little bit about TikTok shop. It's a different marketplace in that I've never sold in TikTok shop, so please feel free to correct me if any of what I'm saying is wrong, but to me it's different because it's not like something that you could do traditional keyword research. I know there's some tools and helium tents working on some things now that can analyze hashtags and things like that, but you don't really have control over what's necessarily indexed or getting to page one. It's like so just dependent on just the virality of something or a famous influencer showing it. Is that kind of what you see? It's kind of like completely hit or miss, where you have the least amount of control over your success. As far as on just regular TikTok shop, obviously you have control over how you advertise and how many impressions you get, but as far as just a post going viral and getting a lot of sales from it, do you feel like you have not as much control as on other platforms, or is that changed?
Delaney:
No, 100%. You're correct in that as well. I think that's why the affiliate network is so powerful, but is also. You need a defined strategy there. You need to know your exact demographic. You need to know which subset of creators you're looking to target, based on their engagement rate, their follower count, et cetera and you really need to do a deep dive into their content to make sure that they fit the brand, because you can reach out to as many creators as you want to through there, but at the end of the day, if they're not gonna generate sales from your brand, you're now giving away free samples and that could impact your bottom line. So I think yes as a whole. Definitely from a ranking standpoint, I think TikTok shop's going to evolve in that sense. When you're setting up items, there's specific keywords that they want you to be focusing on, but those are all of the benefit driven keywords or the main claims and the listings, so it doesn't appear that, from a ranking standpoint, those hold as much weight. It's literally how many pieces of content are you pushing out and how is the engagement of that content? So it is incredibly important that you have a solidified content strategy, and TikTok shop allows you to. There's like a get inspired section and you can see a bunch of content that's currently working on the platform that you could pull from in different categories and get ideas on how you can be capitalizing on that for your brand too.
Bradley Sutton:
Moving to Amazon. I'm not sure if you have experience in this much at all or if you've looked into it, but last night I for the first time, kind of like, took a deep dive into the new inventory placement fees that are coming. I was just seeing here and there, like some I don't know, I don't want to say horror stories but people are getting really scared, like, oh my goodness, my shipping is going to be 2x, mine's going to be 3x. I'm like what, for reals? So I went and what I did was I looked in my own account and by the time this episode is airing it's going to be in full effect. So I'm sure we'll know more. But I was like, yeah, there was a shipment that I had sent to one location only. I didn't choose to just, amazon had me do it. I guess it was like a hundred units of some coffin shelves, right, and it was like 77 bucks or something, because it was like shipping from San Diego to LA and so you know like it's obviously 77 cents per unit. And then I was looking all right in under the new world if I shipped to one location in California, which is obviously my preference, because it took probably a day to get there right. And it was cheaper. It was like a 68 cents per unit charge. So I was like, wait a minute, it is like double. You know what it is Like. Have you looked into this at all and started like thinking about for your clients, like what you're going to have to suggest to them to do or if they're going to have to change the way that they send replenishment?
Delaney:
Yeah, I mean most of them right now don't send to a single location, but it is very category dependent and so that's what we've seen. So for some categories specifically, there's actually a savings attached to it, but others, like yours, of course, Bradley, you're seeing a steeper charge there. So I think it does 100% matter and that's something in which we keep PNLs on an item level and are updating those PNLs whenever a new FBA fee is introduced, whenever a new inventory placement fee is introduced, just so we can understand the impact of some of these newer fees. But majority across the board, we are seeing increases due to the inventory placement fee. So it's just something that now a lot of our brands that do ship to a single location they're really going to have to evaluate whether that is worth it for their business or not 2024, what is different than a couple years ago or even then, then last year?
Bradley Sutton:
like what are your? You and your clients having to do a lot differently. There's a lot that's the same. Hey, keyword research is keyword research. Sure, I you know there's some people who might are predicting changes that might happen when Amazon rolls out new AI stuff. My personal opinion is that might, may or may not happen, and even it does happen. I still think traditional, like you know, keyword research and stuff is still going to be important, because you still have to let Amazon know what the product is. But, aside from speculation and stuff, just what are you having to do differently nowadays, whether it's advertising, whether it's listing optimization, whether it's a plus content, whatever that you weren't doing last year, maybe a year ago or two years ago?
Delaney:
The biggest change, I think, has just been the continued focus on profitability. I think that into last year as well, profitability was at the forefront of the business, where maybe a couple years ago it was more so focused on top line growth. But now really, as brands diversify their channel strategy, their understanding that, you know, with some rising Amazon fees, their bottom line maybe doesn't look as good as it did a couple years ago. And that's where, on the vendor side of the business, we're really looking at LTV to cat ratios, because a lot of our brands might be more hesitant to discount.
Bradley Sutton:
I know what that means, but explain it to everybody else out there.
Delaney:
Yeah. So LTV lifetime value, cat customer acquisition costs. So you want the LTV versus cat ratio to be healthy. A lot of agencies will probably tell you a three to one ratio is more so on the healthy side, which basically just means that what you're paying to acquire for a new customer, they're generating at least three times that rate in their overall lifetime value. In other words, they're coming back to repeat purchase from your brand. And I think that as we run promotions and we participate in some of these tent pull events, we're getting more and more pushback from brands who don't want to engage in, let's say, a Prime Day or a Black Friday, cyber Monday or any other tent pull moment that exists for their brand. But we're able to pull reports in which we analyze okay, how many new customers are we generating during these periods? And then for that cohort of new customers, what is their lifetime value in the next six, nine, 12 months? And in many cases that metric is healthy. And if you look at Helium 10 Market Tracker 360, Search Query Performance, keyword tracker, you'll see that in keyword tracker, your non branded keywords are experiencing an increase in overall organic rank during that time. Because of that increase in organic rank Search Query Performance, your purchase share is growing on that particular subset of keywords. And then you pull back a larger time horizon and for many of our brands looking at Market Tracker 360, they're doubling overall market share, while brands that aren't participating are decreasing in market share, and for extended periods of time. So thanks, Bradley, for all the innovation on that side, because that has helped tremendously. But it's really understanding what are the dynamics in the market and when we're not participating in these events, how does our market share change?
Bradley Sutton:
Okay, let's definitely talk in a little bit about some Helium 10 tools like Market Tracker 360, but Before then you mentioned, like Search Query Performance, how what's your best use cases for Search Query Performance? And or, if you're using it, product opportunity explorer in Amazon, because I think it's so cool that Amazon has is releasing so much more data than back in the old days. Some people say, what at Helium 10, aren't you scared of like? No, it's great. Like every time Amazon releases something, it helps us make even our tools better and actually validate some of the things that we've always shown. So we love it when Amazon opens up new data points. So, how are you using like what's the? You know you could probably have a whole episode about Search Query Performance or OX, but maybe the top, like one or two things that that you think sellers can be getting value out of.
Delaney:
Yeah. So on the Search Query Performance side, it's really identifying. First and foremost we look at where is your click share greater than your impression share? This is going to be your probably subset of keywords in which there's a ton of opportunity. There just might be a visibility standpoint You're not showing up. Let's see what we can do in terms of optimizing our listings for these keywords. Looking again into Cerebro and doing a reverse look up there to see what are my opportunity keywords in which I can improve my ranking on page one four and then tying that into okay, once I do that, how is Search Query Performance cleaning insights into changes in my overall click share, impression share, add to cart share, purchase share and what does that look like over a prolonged period of time? So a lot of people might look at okay, I want to look at a larger subset of keywords to go after, but really you should narrow this down to probably your top five to 15 at the onset subset of keywords that you're tracking regularly in keyword tracker and also in Search Query Performance to see how that changes. So in Search Query Performance again, just understanding, is my purchase share growing on these terms as I prioritize them more and then putting that back into our ads. And where am I ranked in terms of my top of search impression share for these particular terms? Is my top of search impression share now growing as I want to invest more and two and more relevant for these terms? And then three, let's look back at Search Query Performance and see how my purchase share is growing.
Delaney:
And then, on the opportunity explorer side, I think that's a great tool. Just understanding, okay, how saturated is my niche? Looking at the top 90% of clicks, is there opportunity in this niche? If my brand is looking to launch a new item, that's where we see the most value in it is okay. How many products have been launched more recently within this niche? What does the opportunity look like for pricing? What does the opportunity look like for reviews? Where do we need to be at within that particular niche to be at the category average so that our conversion rate is benchmarked within the category average? And then I really love the review aspect of things, so being able to really update your content to see positive review sentiments, negative review sentiments, and how are we tackling some of these things that are going wrong within the category as it exists? So, as you said, brad, that we could talk about it for probably three episodes, but that's the basis.
Bradley Sutton:
Good stuff there. I'm just waiting in anticipation for it to be available, like in the API. Then that's going to allow Helium 10 to do a lot more, even fun things, and combining it even more with Helium 10 data points I love looking at. For example, what is your impressions compared to the search volume? Because theoretically, the impression should be a little bit higher than the search volume, because if you're showing up at the top of the page, maybe an organic and in sponsored, you would have that more. But then it's like all right, let me bring in the exact two graphs of sponsored and organic over the last week or month and like oh okay, this is why it's not where I need it to be. I need to improve. You know there's just like so much fun stuff that that could definitely happen.
Now, another tool you mentioned Market Tracker 360, a lot of you know, or some of Helium 10 users out there, might not be familiar with that tool, because it's actually one of the first tools that I think Helium 10 has. That's kind of like really for large sellers or agencies. You know, like you guys like almost everything Helium 10 has. You know we've got billion dollar companies like Lego or something using it, and it's just as applicable to a brand new seller. But this is one of the probably the first tools where I was like wow, I'm not sure I need this. Personally, I'm not that huge of a seller anymore, like maybe only I think I might have only done like half a million or 750,000 last year. I'm like I'm not sure this is for me, but some people just like yourself, you really get a lot of use. So for most people they've never even seen what it does. Can you just briefly talk about how you guys use Market Tracker 360 and how it helps you guys?
Delaney:
Yeah, absolutely so. In Market Tracker 360, you can either choose a subset of products so oftentimes you're going to choose your competitors or you choose some top keywords within the space. Those are the two most heavily used use cases that we use here. So we'll choose a bunch of the non-branded keywords within the space and we'll put those into Market Tracker 360. And then what it will do is it will pull a bunch of competitors and also your product that are relevant for those specific keywords and literally build a market for you. So, using this market, you can see what is the percentage of overall sales that each competitor is generating, as well as what is this track back to a dollar value. And, yes, we have spot checked that multiple times and it is a pretty accurate there in terms of the sales that it's pulling. So what we do is we'll include that in our product launch phase.
When we receive a new brand into the Vendo pipeline, we look at okay, how are they situated within the market right now compared to these top competitors? And of course, we know who the top competitors are. The brand has shared that with us, and then you can dive deeper into different filters that you can set so you can say, okay, I only want to filter this to a title that includes this keyword, like, let's say, the title includes protein powder or it is situated in this specific category or subcategory. That way you can really define that market even more so, and now you don't have as broader of a set of different competitors in that market. It is a lot more specific to your overall market. Or, if you only want to benchmark it towards like five competitors versus the entire market, you can do that too and exclude specific competitors from showing up there. So that's the basis of Market Tracker 360 and how we use it. But then it goes even further deeper into there's different keyword insights that you can see through Market Tracker 360. And where are those competitors now winning? How has the ranking of those competitors on the organic and the sponsored standpoint changed with time? So that's probably my favorite tool in Helium 10, Bradley.
Bradley Sutton:
Nice, nice. What about the regular side of Helium 10, which I know you have a lot of experience with? What's your favorite tool? And then my secondary and it's use case. And my secondary question would be if you had a wish list of your top thing that Helium 10 doesn't have currently, doesn't have to be Amazon, could be about Walmart, could be something about TikTok shop. What would be the number one thing? If you were like, hey, I can be the Helium 10 director of product for a day, what would you make our team get started on working for you?
Delaney:
Yes. So I'll start with your first question related to my favorite tool. It has to be Cerebro. Just going back to the roots, looking at the time tracker function that you guys have more recently added, it's probably been probably not even a year yet, right, Bradley? But that tool is extremely powerful because, again, if you have a brand that experiences a ton of seasonality, you can go back to those specific periods in time to see how you were ranked on specific terms, as well as how your competition is and also what are seasonal terms that you need to be taking advantage of. And I think that is often something that a lot of brands miss is hey, there might be 500 searches per month for this particular keyword now, but three months from now there's going to be 5,000. So what are you doing with that information? How are you getting ahead of it from a creative standpoint? How are you optimizing your listings to make sure that those specific keywords are being highlighted? And then, on the advertising side, your competitors probably aren't going to know to be winning on those specific keywords either. So you could get the upper hand by understanding I need to be ranked on page one at this exact moment of time, on the top half of page one, ideally in the top three to five slots. And once I can get there, then I know that when this search volume hits its peak I'll be the competitor that's getting a majority of the conversion share there. So that's got to be my by far my favorite aspect there.
Delaney:
And then apologies, Bradley, I'm on the second question, related to what I would like to see from an agency side. My vendor central experience probably speaks to including a few more vendor central aspects in there, just because from a purchase order standpoint that is a huge area that we would leverage. But honestly, I think from an FBA standpoint I would have to say forecasting, because I think that inventory management is a huge challenge for a lot of brands and forecasting allows us to better understand what our projections and what our inventory demand is going to look like throughout the year. And then my second one, if we're throwing things in here, would just be variations. So I know with inventory protector you can update maximum order values and things like that. If we could directly change variations in Helium 10 or really be able to decipher, maybe even submit cases for variations that are wrong some more technical things there, but all things that I feel like would be extremely powerful, because that's where a lot of time is spent trying to update things that maybe Amazon is using. It's not updating, even after multiple cases.
Bradley Sutton:
Cool, cool. Now, before we get into some of your final strategies of the day, if people want to reach out to Vendo Commerce guys, one of the easiest ways is just go to hubhelium10.com and type in Vendo, which is Spanish for I sell. So whoever made that company name is a genius and you can reach out to them there. But if people want to follow you or reach out to you, how can they find you on the interwebs out there?
Delaney:
Yes, you could find me at [email protected] and, as Bradley said, also have a podcast that I know Bradley will be joining me on in a couple weeks Vendo Commerce Velocity as well as on LinkedIn. I'm on there, [email protected].
Bradley Sutton:
A couple, maybe quick hitting SST, what I call my 60-second strategies. By the way, that's also something that comes from my Filipino side, because I think that's how our mothers or grandparents would call us when they're trying to. You know, come over here. But anyways, for everybody else, that just stands for a 60-second tip. So what is a couple of 60-second tips or strategies that you can talk about that our sellers can influence?
Delaney:
Yeah. So, from a more data-centric standpoint, make sure you're leveraging both Helium 10, Search Query Performance and product opportunity. Explorer tons of insights and the way in which you're telling a cohesive story for your brand. If you combine those tools, they're not meant to be used in silo, they're meant to be used together, but also from a competitive aspect, using the video placement aspect and sending videos. Putting videos on your competitive ASINs is something that's really fundamental, but at the basis of it is just more organic visibility for your listings. So, again, you can add your own branded videos onto competitors listings within the video manager. A lot of brands don't do this, but they will show up if the full video stack is not filled by your competitors. So something to look out for.
Delaney:
Also, from a cross-sale standpoint, a lot of brands aren't currently leveraging things like targeted cross promotions in which you buy one product and you get 5% to 10% off another product, or the add an accessory widget. A lot of brands think that, yes, that's probably only a SaaS core function if you are investing in that program, but we've seen through filing of multiple cases, you can have that add an accessory widget pop up there and then, just in terms of prime, exclusive discounts. I know that sometimes, and more often, you're seeing that when you add SKUs and prime exclusive discounts they might be getting rejected. So for that I would suggest creating a new SKU, and what we've seen that is that if a SKU is being flagged specifically for FBM or for internal policies, then you can create a new SKU. Add that new SKU instead to your prime exclusive discount and it will still run because that history won't be tied to that new SKU. So those are a few things, but on a larger basis. For a 60-second hack let's say a very not even hack, but tip is to know your PNL, and Amazon has a lot of different tools. Helium 10 has a profits tool to help you understand that. But you do need to understand how much margin you have to work with and evaluate your PNL on a weekly and even a monthly basis.
Bradley Sutton:
All right. Well, this has definitely been a strategy field episode. Now, on the personal side, you got married last year, so congratulations. Where was your honeymoon? I was living vicariously through your Instagram honeymoon, but where was it Wasn't Maldives. It wasn't the Maldives honeymoon.
Delaney:
I know, but where'd you guys go? You're going to need to change the name of your honeymoon launch strategy, Bradley, but we went to Italy and then we ended up in Santorini. So a bunch of different spots in Italy and then Santorini in Greece was my favorite.
Bradley Sutton:
What's some of, overall, your favorite travel spots. Is that something you do, or was that you know? Do you travel with any kind of frequency, or are you more of a homebody?
Delaney:
Trying to travel more usually, stay stateside, go to Hawaii a decent amount. I can't really get tired of Hawaii, but in terms of some of my favorite places I've been, probably Spain is at the top of the list. So many great places in Europe. But I would say if you haven't been to Santorini, I don't think I'd ever be able to go back, but it is definitely worth a visit.
Bradley Sutton:
Speaking of Spain, you got to get Darren to send you in May, probably our next Helium 10 Elite workshop. You know we do a quarterly workshop is probably going to be in Madrid in May. So business, business trips/second honeymoon bring your hubby along and, you know, soak up the nightlife in Madrid and the museum. I like, I like how it's both. You know like I can hit those like really cool museums and architecture, and you know they've got good restaurants and nightlife over there. So tell Darren, I'll put in the good word for you. Let's, let's hang out in Madrid next year.
Delaney:
Yeah, we'll put in the good. I will definitely be bringing that one up to him. So thanks for that, Radley. And then we'll have to make a trip to the Philippines.
Bradley Sutton:
Yes, well, I'm actually going soon. The Amazon is doing their first event, or not? For the I missed their first event, actually in March, but or in February, I should say. But they're actually doing another event in a couple of months, so, offline, I'll give you some details that they haven't finalized a date on that. But yeah, there's second every event in Manila, and so there we go. You can go and visit some family too and support the community out there.
Delaney:
There we go. That sounds great. I definitely need to go back.
Bradley Sutton:
Awesome, all right, well, thank you so much for joining us and it was great to see my sister from another mister right here on this show, and I look forward to being on your show in a couple of weeks.
-
We’re back with another episode of the Weekly Buzz with Helium 10’s Chief Brand Evangelist, Bradley Sutton. Every week, we cover the latest breaking news in the Amazon, Walmart, and E-commerce space, interview someone you need to hear from and provide a training tip for the week.Amazon’s new Big Spring Sale is coming March 20-25—here’s everything you need to know to shop deals on spring essentialshttps://www.aboutamazon.com/news/retail/amazon-big-spring-sale-faqAmazon now lets sellers create listings through a URL by using AIhttps://techcrunch.com/2024/03/13/amazon-now-lets-sellers-create-listings-through-a-url-by-using-ai/Exclusive: The FTC is probing Amazon’s new controversial fees in its $140 billion seller businesshttps://fortune.com/2024/03/08/ftc-amazon-seller-fees-inbound-placement-low-inventory-antitrust/Everything you need to know about Amazon Business, one of Amazon’s fastest-growing ventureshttps://www.aboutamazon.com/news/company-news/what-is-amazon-businessNEW Store Spotlight format - Custom Image links to store subpages!!Also on the docket is Kevin King's upcoming free live strategy webinar which promises to be an invaluable resource for Amazon sellers of all levels. Discover new earning avenues with Helium 10, and get the scoop on the expanded day-parting schedules for ads that could change how you place your ads based on time-of-day performance data. Plus our training tips of the week talk about how to use the Helium 10 Profits tool’s Expenses tab and the Inventory Heat Maps tool. Don't miss out on these insights that could make all the difference to your e-commerce success.
In this episode of the Weekly Buzz by Helium 10, Bradley covers:
00:56 - Amazon Big Spring Sale02:20 - Amazon AI Listing Tool03:24 - FTC Investigating Fees04:44 - 2 Factor Sign On05:35 - Amazon Business06:53 - New AD Type07:34 - Meltable Inventory08:31 - Live Webinar with Kevin King09:32 - New Feature Alerts13:15 - Pro Training Tip: Profits Expenses Tab & Inventory Heat Maps► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast
► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension
► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life)
► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft
► Watch The Podcasts On YouTube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos
TranscriptBradley Sutton:
A non-Prime Day event was announced by Amazon. You can use Amazon AI to create your listings. If you've got a website. Soon, you have to use two-factor sign-in for signing into Seller Central. These stories and more on today's episode of the Helium 10 Weekly Buzz. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Series Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I am your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show that is our Helium 10 Weekly Buzz, where we give you a rundown of all the new stories and going on in the Amazon, Walmart, and e-commerce world. We let you know what new tools and features Helium 10 has come out with and we give you training tips of the week that will give you serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. Let's see what's buzzing Couple news articles that might be of note, and something that just kind of came out of left field that I didn't even know about was that Amazon has this sale event that's coming up out of nowhere next week.
Bradley Sutton:
It's not really a prime day, but it's kind of like a prime day. It's called the Big Spring Sale. It's going from March 20th to 25th. Now, I haven't been paying much attention to announcements. As far as deals and my deals dashboard, was there something announced about this? Could be, but maybe I missed it, my bad. But basically this is not a Prime Day because it's not only for prime members. Now, some prime people get exclusive discounts on some things, but this is the very first ever event of its kind and there's going to be all kinds of different discounts. Amazon says here People are going to be able to shop these deals at Amazon.com forward slash big spring sale starting on March 20th. Now again, I don't know too many details about this, but Amazon is really pushing this out. It was all over the news. So even if you didn't jump in and run a deal during this time, well, first of all, you might be able, you might want to do some kind of deal during the 20th to 25th or, at the very least, be on the lookout for increased traffic during this time, all right, so it might be a time to do a coupon if you were so inclined, or might want to check your PPC budgets a little closer, just in case there's a lot of extra traffic that might be happening due to Amazon promoting this event.
Bradley Sutton:
Next article is from TechCrunch and it's entitled Amazon now let sellers create listings through a URL by using AI. All right, so in the list your products basically let's say you haven't sold on Amazon before, or at least you haven't sold a certain product Instead of just putting the name of the product in the search bar. You know, like normal, let's say you've got a Shopify website or your own.com website where that product is listed, you can paste the URL of your product into the Amazon Create Listing page and it's going to use generative AI to kind of like extract the details of the listing and create like a description for you. So it's interesting, you know, if you're somebody who trusts AI a lot for this kind of thing, this is a completely free service. From what I understand, it might be worth a try. So I know Amazon really wants to promote off Amazon brands, to get on Amazon. I think that this is one of those things that could definitely help them.
Bradley Sutton:
On the flip side of Amazon news, fortune.com is reporting that the FTC is probing Amazon's new controversial fees in its $140 billion seller business. All right, so this is the fees we've been talking about on this show for the last few weeks, and so many sellers are in an uproar. First of all, don't forget, guys, check back on our weekly buzz. The last couple of weeks, we show how it's not as bad for many sellers as it seems to be due to the reduced FBA fees. But, yeah, like there's some serious stuff going on, especially for those people who are doing pallets and truckloads and containers and things like that. I'm seeing people having to pay thousands of dollars more for shipping. Now the funny thing is, what have I been saying for like a year about this FTC case? The FTC case is like full of nonsense that not one Amazon seller could care less about. They think that they were pulling a gotcha on Amazon for this, that and this, and literally they have no clue how Amazon sellers feel, because there are so many other things that Amazon sellers are concerned about, the things that the FTC was trying to like focus in on. However, that being said, for the first time, hey, this is something that is concerning to Amazon sellers, and so it's going to be interesting how this plays out. For the first time, the FTC might actually have something that Amazon sellers are worried about, and so let's see how this investigation pans out.
Bradley Sutton:
Next article is from your Seller Central dashboard and it's entitled to factor authentication will be required for Seller Central sign in. Some of you guys have that already, but this is going to go in on March 28th and you're going to have to use a mobile number or authenticator app to do it. All right, so this, guys, is is, in my opinion, highly recommended even before March 28th. There's so much like hacking going on out there and password hacking and things like that. I think on most critical websites, especially your Seller Central account, you should have two factor authentication. On matter of fact, you should have two factor authentication on a helium 10. All right, guys, you know the helium 10 always has that available. So if you don't have that on Seller Central or helium 10, go in there, turn on two factor authentication to keep your accounts secure.
Bradley Sutton:
Next article is from Amazon. Now, this was interesting to me because it says everything you need to know about Amazon business, one of Amazon's fastest growing ventures. All right, so I think most of us have known about the Amazon business program, where you can kind of, or businesses who are registered with Amazon, when they shop, they have a little bit different experience. They can get like quantity discounts and just business discounts and they see different things. It actually reached $35 billion of sales in 2023. All right, so this is quite interesting. This article goes on and say more than 6 million customers are now buying on Amazon business. This includes small and medium sized companies, and also Fortune 100 companies use Amazon business, such as Intel and City and John Hopkins University, et cetera. Now if you want to get more information to see, are your listings, are you enrolled in Amazon business? You know what's going on there. Just just going to Seller Central guys and type in Amazon business and you'll go to this dashboard where it talks about the Amazon business Seller program, all right, and has a whole bunch of frequently asked questions, tons of details about the ins and outs of this program. But it's kind of a surprise. It was kind of surprising to me to find out that that is actually one of the fastest growing programs that Amazon has.
Bradley Sutton:
Next article is not really an article, just a post from Destaney’s LinkedIn, where she discovered, or her team discovered, a new ad format. All right. So this is something that she says combines the traditional sponsored brand format of showcASINg three ASINS with a custom image, but also layering them in the value out of a store, spotlight add and the sub page navigation and she put here a sample of that where you can see like the different links here in that custom image. So that is going to be interesting if this is going to be rolled out to everybody. Has anybody actually had access to this and been able to test it out? Let me know. In the comments below Last article, something that we have now reported on, I think four years in a row that's how long we've been doing the weekly buzz. Always around this time of year the same little article comes out, just as a reminder. So I'm just going to go ahead and throw it out there again.
Bradley Sutton:
By April 15th, guys, you have to remove multiple inventory from Amazon. Now, a funny thing is is when I was typing out, the little ticker that you see here on the side, meltable, doesn't seem to be a word that my spell checker understands, like I always thought meltables are. Anyways, I digress, meltable is a word to Amazon and you should know what your multiple inventory is Heat-sensitive products, you know, chocolate, gummies, jelly and wax based products. You have to get those out from April 15th to October 15th or else Amazon's going to toss it All right. So just make sure to go ahead and take care of that. All right.
Bradley Sutton:
One thing I wanted to give you guys a heads up on is that Kevin King is doing a live strategy session. He hasn't done this in probably over a year from helium 10. It's going to be a live webinar and you guys can actually tune in. H 10.me forward slash Kevin King live. All right, so you can register there. H 10.me forward slash Kevin King live 100% free webinar that he's giving on March 21st, Thursday at 9am. All right, this is so important. I'm going to be doing it at midnight from the Philippines. I'm going to be on the webinar with him and he's going to give such strategies as two proven techniques to make a million dollar main image, seven AI tools Every Amazon seller should be familiar with and a lot more high level strategy. So, regardless what level Amazon seller you are, make sure to register for that workshop. h10.me/kevinkinglive.
Bradley Sutton:
Let's go ahead and hop into the Helium 10 New Feature Alerts of the week. The first one is a way to make money now with helium 10. Just as a regular user. There's two different ways, all right. The first way is you guys can actually go to your dashboard and on the on the very right hand side where it has your name. Might be hard to see it here on my window, but if you click on your name on the right hand side of helium 10, you're going to see a button that says become an affiliate, all right. So that's, if you have, like a community or you know, YouTube channel and you think you've got people who are, who are following you out there, well, becoming an affiliate, you could get 25% commission for life, all right. So somebody clicks on your ad for helium 10 or a video or a link that you put out for helium 10. They sign up for helium 10. You don't even know who they are. You've never talked to them and you never talked to them again for the rest of your life, four years from now. If they're paying helium 10, a hundred bucks a month, guess what? You're getting a check for $25 every single month for life, all right. So that's a pretty cool thing. There's also, for some reason it's not in my account, but I think most everybody else if you click on that your name you also have something that says refer a friend or something like that, or refer a customer, where it's not an affiliate whole plan. But if you just have, you know, like a buddy who wants to start learning Amazon, you want to get him started. In the freedom ticket program you can get discounts on your own membership by signing people up. So there's two new ways to make money with helium 10 becoming an affiliate or doing the customer referral. So again, check that out on the right hand side of your dashboard.
Bradley Sutton:
Next update is in our tool inventory management. All right, so something that people have wanted for a long time is the ability to have multiple warehouses, multiple 3PLs A lot of people they have, they don't have or they're not like me, and they have all of their inventory in one warehouse. They might have a East Coast warehouse, a Texas warehouse, a West Coast warehouse. Well, now, if you go to your inventory, you're going to have the ability to add multiple warehouses. So it's right here on your warehouses page, you can add as many as you want and then put the specify the inventory that is in each of those warehouses and then, basically, when you send inventory to Amazon, you choose which warehouse is coming from. The inventory is going to be drawn out from there. So remember, last week we announced that we now have inventory management for all of the European marketplaces. Well, now we have multi warehouse management for this tool. Anything else that you guys would want for inventory management, please let us know.
Bradley Sutton:
Last Helium 10 New Feature Alert is in atomic and it's our day parting schedules now released for all ad types. And then it's also across all of North America, all of Europe and all of Asia. All right, so you can look at your sponsored product, sponsored brand and even sponsored display, heat day parting, like heat maps if you were. So that's like. Here I can see, hey, for my whole account. Oh, my goodness, my a-cost at 3 am Is absolutely abysmal. You know, maybe I want to turn off my ads or lower my bids at that time, but hey, my a-cost at this other time might be pretty good. Maybe I want to increase my bids, maybe I want to pause my bids, maybe I want to increase my budgets. All these things that you want to do, you need to do it based on information, and so what helium 10 is showing you is the performance of your PPC by Time, hour of the day and by day of the week, and even by your Campaign. So make sure to check that out. If you have atomic day parting across all marketplaces, all ad types. All right, let's get into our training tip of the week. There's actually two things you know.
Bradley Sutton:
Thinking about the Amazon fees, I think that a lot of sellers are very conscious about, hey, I need to save pennies wherever I can. I need to know where my money is going. So there's a couple things that I want to show you that every single helium 10 member has, whether you have platinum or diamond, or even if you have the starter plan. All right, so these tools are in profits. Now the first thing I'm going to show you is your expenses, all right.
Bradley Sutton:
So did you know that with it, just a couple of clicks, you can find out how much you are paying Amazon per month, like, for example, my FBA fee charge for storage in February last month? I can see right here is a hundred and eleven dollars. That was actually up by forty dollars over the previous month. If I'm wondering which are my products that are getting those storage fees, I just hit that button for the February month and I can see at the ASIN level everything that I am paying storage on. I can see Wow, I got fifty dollars worth of storage for these bat bath mats that I just launched. All right, kind of sucks I shouldn't have, maybe. I'm like why do they have to pay fifty dollars? When I just launched it? You know How's that, but whatever, if I think it's right or wrong, at least I have visibility and I'm not just throwing money at Amazon Without knowing where it's going. All right. So make sure to check that out and then, as you guys might have seen from my workshop last week that, or a few days ago that we did you have a way to automate this where, if you're getting more storage fees or more refunds, things like that, you can actually Automate this alert and have helium 10 let you know that your storage fees are going up. All right, so that's on your insights dashboard. One more thing that is going to help, like when you're launching and help me when I was launching is Are the heat maps inside of helium 10? All right?
Bradley Sutton:
So, for any of your products, if you are just about to launch, you might want to make sure that your inventory is Distributed across the country. So the way you can do that is go down to one of your product tables like I'll go ahead and pull it up here for the bat bath Matt and then you want to hit inventory maps. Okay, and then now you're going to see the map of everywhere where your inventory is, and I can see here. I don't even have any in Texas, maybe they. That seems weird to me. You know Austin has some of the most bats in the world. Why don't they send any inventory to Austin? You know, for for my bat shaped coffin mat, but tons of inventory here in New Jersey, more inventory in Maryland, over here, Utah and Florida, and then I could also see my sales distribution based on certain times of the of the month, or I can look at it at the state level, or in the past week, in the past month, whatever, and I can see wow, okay, I've got a lot of sales in Florida during this couple day time period, so maybe that's why there's they sent so much of my inventory to Florida. So make sure to check out those heat maps.
Bradley Sutton:
Sometimes, when you're launching a product, you want to wait until Amazon distributes that inventory a little bit more evenly across the country, so you might have your maybe listing closed for a couple days until they distribute it more. And then that's when you turn on your PPC. Well, instead of being blind about where Amazon has distributed your inventory or trying to find some hard to find report inside of seller central. Just go into profits. Go into inventory heat maps and see every single warehouse when your inventory is across the country. All right, guys. Thank you so much for tuning in this week. That's all for the news and feature alerts. Make sure to tune in next week to see what's buzzing.
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Join us on this episode, as we sit down with Jerome de Guigne, a seasoned expert in international business and Amazon marketplace strategies. We take a trip across Jerome's impressive business career, which stretches from France to Luxembourg, and uncover the crucial steps he took to carve a niche in the world of Amazon. Listen in as Jerome lays out the intricate process of aiding brands in scaling their operations and mastering the art of value creation on this global platform.
This conversation also welcomes Jacob McQuoid from Avask and throws light on the hurdles U.S. companies face when stretching their commercial footprint to European shores, such as VAT intricacies, regulatory hoops, and the ever-present language barriers. But it's not a one-way street; European entities eyeing the U.S. market have their fair share of VAT tax complexity to navigate. We bring in perspectives from professionals at firms like Avask and explore tools like Pacvue and Helium 10, providing a lot of insights for Amazon brands planning to cross these transatlantic bridges.
Finally, we touch upon the wisdom of starting small and testing the waters when it comes to international expansion. This approach allows businesses to minimize risks and optimize for market receptivity, a strategy underscored by the shared knowledge from this episode. So whether you're an experienced Amazon seller or new to this realm, this episode is packed with invaluable advice and strategies for taking your Amazon business to new international heights.
In episode 543 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley, Jerome, and Jacob discuss:
00:01 - Expanding Amazon Sales With European Experts02:49 - Value Creation Through Amazon Specialization06:45 - International Expansion Strategies for Amazon Sellers09:25 - IRS and European Tax Authority Comparison16:51 - Navigating International Business and Online Presence20:10 - Navigating VAT and E-Commerce Expansion22:38 - Understanding VAT for American Sellers29:39 - US Sellers' VAT Number in Europe31:08 - Comparing Import Tariffs35:24 - Starting Small for Market Testing► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast
► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension
► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life)
► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft
► Watch The Podcasts On YouTube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos
TranscriptBradley Sutton:
Are you a North American seller interested to expand to Amazon Europe, or maybe vice versa? Are you interested in advanced Amazon advertising strategies? Well, today, I went to Germany to interview in person two experts on these topics. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think.
Bradley Sutton:
Want to keep up to date with trending topics in the e-commerce world? Make sure to subscribe to our blog. We regularly release articles that talk about things such as shipping and logistics, e-commerce in other countries, the latest changes to Amazon Seller Central, how to get set up on new platforms like New Egg, how to write and publish a book on Amazon KDP and much, much more. Check these articles out at h10.me/blog.
Bradley Sutton:
Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I'm Bradley Sutton and this is the show that's completely BS-free, unscripted and unrehearsed organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. Another episode here coming from the opposite side of the world. I'm in Frankfurt, Germany and was able to interview a lot of different people. For the first time on the show, we've got Jerome here. Jerome, welcome.
Jerome:
Thank you very much. I'm super happy to be here and it's nice to see you on this part of the world.
Bradley Sutton:
Excellent. So you know, like I do with first time guests, we need to find out about you. And this is important too, because, like I don't know much about your back stories. What country in Europe are you from? Germany, France, so I have.
Jerome:
I'm all about going international, so my background is international also. I was born and raised in France but my mom is British. My dad is French. I lived in France but I also lived in Turkey. I lived a bit in Germany, in the UK and now I'm office design Luxembourg. So a lot of different experiences all over the world.
Bradley Sutton:
Okay, excellent, excellent. Now, what did you? Where did you go to university? In what country?
Jerome:
So I went to university mainly in France, so first in the nice city of Grenoble, which is not too far from Lyon. It's in the Alps Mountains, really nice to do like business and management. And then afterwards I did an MBA in a school in Basin Paris but had campuses in Germany and in the UK and also in the States. I did a week in Texas, for example. It was really interesting. So like multinational is really my thing.
Bradley Sutton:
Okay, excellent. Now, upon graduation, did you enter right into the business world and what you had studied, or what did you do?
Jerome:
So I went to work two years into the chemical business at that time it was called Atofina Archema. Now, it's like I was helping the head of the subsidiary there. So doing a lot of things, helping on IT topics, on business topics for two years. And then I came back and I worked for 10 years for a Chinese group and that's where I started to work in Luxembourg. And then afterwards, I was looking for a job and couldn't find one. So I said I'll start my own company.
Bradley Sutton:
Okay, and what was that company?
Jerome:
So at the beginning my idea was say, okay, I want to bring value, because when I did my MBA it was all about okay, how do you create value for your ecosystem? Because value has a price and you know, and then you can sell. So my first idea was to help people expand and grow in terms of sales. But I had been doing a lot of Amazon business in my previous company and like, step by step, I found out that a big pain point for people in Europe at that time so 10 years ago was not understanding Amazon and I said, oh people, it's simple, let me explain to you. So I went into step by step into the Amazon business and that's where we become specialized in Amazon.
Bradley Sutton:
Amazon is not a typical segue from somebody just coming from the business world. How did you first, just you know, think about that as a good aspect, you know, like Google or friends?
Jerome:
So my background was really distribution, since I was head of Europe and EMEA for this Chinese brand and we were expanding into countries having subsidiaries, having distributors, and so it's about selling right and then I started to work with companies and helping them expand and actually even 10 years ago, the or even more 10 years ago, the fastest way to expand was Amazon and it actually really started when a German brand I knew from before told me okay, take care of the international distribution of our brand, which was binoculars, and I said, okay, well, you know, the best way is really Amazon and that's where we really started to go there. So we mostly started from vendor background because bigger brands were working on vendor and now we have probably 70% seller, 30% vendor in terms of people we help.
Bradley Sutton:
So what about you? During this time, were you selling on Amazon yourself as well?
Jerome:
So I never sold on Amazon myself. I was always selling in the name of a company and, like I said, I started as a vendor, so selling to Amazon rather than selling on Amazon, and I've been helping a lot of sellers but never sold myself. Help friends. But, yeah, never went into it. It's a bit of a dream at some point to do that.
Bradley Sutton:
For your agency for the last few years, are you focused on any particular aspect of Amazon or like PPC, for example, or it's A to Z? What is your focus on? What you help sellers with?
Jerome:
It's very much A to Z we focus. We've got three main topics we focus on. One is global expansion, so it's helping anyone to go from Europe to the US, from US to Europe to US to Japan, to anywhere in the world, and it's really whatever they need. That's the first thing we focus on. The second thing is retail media. It's one of the big topics we do is like how do we help them expand better thanks to retail media. So advertising, PPC, DSP, AMC, whatever there is. And the last thing is technology.
Jerome:
So we're not a SaaS company but we use a lot of tools. So Helium 10 is one, Pacvue is another one. We also partner with SalSify, for example, on the PIM side, and we have built our own dashboard. So those three topics Global Expansion, Retail Media, technology are three topics we're very focused on and we try to help people through those different things. So it's really, for me, it's A to Z especially in those aspects. So anybody, for example, we've started to sell on our own accounts for brands who can't sell. So for me, it's like an additional. We're not really a distributor, but if a brand can't sell themselves, it's okay. We'll set up a seller account and we have one in the US. We have a seller account in Europe and we have one in India also, for example. So anyone who wants to expand in any way, we are here to help them.
Bradley Sutton:
Let's talk about the first thing you mentioned about the international expansion. I mean, there's probably 35 different combinations you can have. You know, Japanese person selling on America, European person selling in Japan, a person from Dubai selling in Mexico, you know, etc. etc. Let's talk about some of the more common ones. Probably the most common for our listeners would be I'm a US-based company doing pretty well. Now I want to get started in Europe because that's the second and third biggest marketplaces, UK and Germany. The thing the elephant in the room for a lot of people is like oh my goodness, VAT and things like that. So what are some of the main obstacles and maybe difficult things to navigate for an American company who wants to get started in Europe?
Jerome:
Great question. For me, the three things. The first thing is regulations and taxes. Regulations. So the thing is like am I allowed to sell those products in Europe? We're talking with a supplements brand, for example, in the States, and it's like okay, the way you talk probiotics, for example, or can you have that keyword on your listing all of that? So that's a first hurdle. We today were speaking with AVASK and AVASK is a great partner. We partner with to deliver, like VAT services and also help on regulation.
Jerome:
The second thing is languages. Obviously, you need to have a great service and you need to have great content for the local people and that's something we are partnering also with a company, YLT Yanak Krekic, who's delivering great service, for example. So typically, we create a hub of people we work with. And the third part is logistics, supply chain. It's like, okay, how do we? Will you get your products to Europe? Like, will you have a warehouse in Holland? Will you go directly to FBA? Who will be your importer of record? That also we work with AVASK and some logistics company. So, even before going into advertising, content and everything, you've got those three things as regulation, translations, in a sense and supply chain.
Bradley Sutton:
What are some of the steps that somebody needs to take as far as the basics that everybody needs to do? Like you know, there are some things that are kind of like nice to have. There's some things that are need to have. For example, let's talk, you know, let's talk about the need to have for getting started in Europe. I don't need to form a company in Europe. I can use my US company, but I need to. What something that everybody has to do? Is it the VAT register for VAT?
Jerome:
Yeah. So one thing you can't. Well, same way as in the US you can't play around with IRS, right, and in Europe you can't play around with the tax authority. So VAT is a must and my recommendation is that, typically, Amazon tends to underplay and when they sell the service of expansion, they tend sometimes to be a bit optimistic about the simplicity of VAT. It's not that simple, it's not over complicated, but you need to speak with people who know this stuff. AVASK is a great example of people who really know this stuff. So that's the one thing you need to be set up in at least one country. I don't know, we want to go in all the details, but you need at least one country. Best is to be listed in or having VAT in every countries in Europe but you need at least one to be legal and compliant.
Bradley Sutton:
Let's do the opposite. I'm a European based company. I want to sell in the biggest marketplace in the world Amazon, USA. You know, I know like way in the old days and now on Walmart, you know, actually still for in some situations you do have to have like a US corporation, but nowadays I can. You know, I'm registered in Germany. I can go ahead and register as an individual or as a person. What are some things that I, absolutely, have to do that are in obstacle to some Europeans for selling in USA?
Jerome:
So our assumption as Europeans that everything is simple in the US and generally doing business in the US is much easier than in Europe. Like you have much less regulations, there's less hurdles. Now on the tax side, it's still quite complicated and as a European, I had to learn okay to navigate that. Because you can have a company in the States, in one state who's like, its addresses one state but if most of your sales is in another state, the other state where you're doing the sales might say no, no, I want you to pay your taxes where you're doing your turnover. Or if you have employees, it will start say no, then there's a fight between the different states.
Jerome:
For us in within one country, that doesn't happen. Like if I'm living France, you won't have the south of France trying to fight for you to pay your taxes and south of France doesn't make sense. Yes, so this you have to learn. So here again, you need to speak to the professionals, because taxes, you can't play around with and it's once you've understood, you've understood it or you have someone doing it for you it really goes smoothly. It's also that in some states in the US the tax accuration is automated between Amazon and the states, but in other states it's not. So it's like navigating that and understanding that is a bit complicated and if you're not an accountant, you'd rather work with someone who's a specialist and we work a lot with, like AVASK, for example, or specialists who will help you navigate that. So for me, it's focus on what you're good at and try to outsource what you're less good at to make sure you don't make mistakes.
Bradley Sutton:
What are you using Pacvue for? For your clients and maybe you know, some people out there might be wondering what kind of amazon seller or large corporate or large company might have use for Pacvue as opposed to Helium 10. So what are you using now Pacvue for?
Jerome:
So I think, we probably started to work with Pacvue and Helium 10 both the same time, a long time ago. So I think we started in 2019. I think, the first agency in Europe using Pacvue. Basically, we were looking for a tool and what I did is I asked the teams. I said I don't want to take the decision. I wanted the really the users to audit the different tools and decide which one they wanted to work with. And they decided to work with, at that time, to with Pacvue.
Jerome:
What we did is there's a lot of rules on a lot of features sorry on Pacvue, for example, rules to like improve your campaigns and as an agency, you've got you know 50, 70, 100 brands you work with. So you have a lot of campaigns and you have to have rules which help you optimize. You can't be checking every campaigns all the time. So you have rules really helping you optimize things. So we've been using Helium 10 from day one also to understand the market, make research, and we've used Pacvue really to optimize campaigns and do a better job in terms of advertising for our customers.
Bradley Sutton:
Are you using Pacvue for non-Amazon platforms at all?
Jerome:
Yeah, so we've started to go on Walmart, for example, in the US. So we are using Pacvue on Walmart on the platforms in Europe. Not all of them are linked on Pacvue because some of them are smaller. So it really depends. But on the major, we try to use Pacvue, as much as possible, because it's our sort of system of record today in the company.
Bradley Sutton:
And Helium 10, what is your team using Helium 10 like? What particular tools or what kind of strategies are you guys using?
Jerome:
So they are using it every day, I would say. So they are checking on the consulting side. Our consultants are checking, like the Market Tracker, for example, or the keyword researchers, like, example, when you were saying, okay, should we go into a new market? Okay, let's see what. You know how many researchers are done on the brand or on the type of product. Then the teams are also working when they're doing their SEO, like checking, you know, keywords and backing keywords and also campaign keywords. They checking all of the tools.
Jerome:
For me, Helium 10 is amazing because each time I go, it's like, wow, there's so many tools and I feel like there's a new one each time. So I have a hard time keeping track of all of them but I know they're using it daily to really on one or the other bit to improve things altogether. And because we have a content team, we have an advertising team, we have a consulting team, an analytics team, they check different things, each of them for different purposes and Helium 10 has always been amazing to me, like the amount of wealth and value they provide on so many things and that's as a day, as I said, a day to day tool we use.
Bradley Sutton:
Okay, excellent. Now what kind of, you know, strategy help that can you give to our users? We usually ask our guests like, hey, give us a tip or a strategy. You know it could be about international expansion, could be about PPC, could be about health, could be about which French football team to follow. Anything that you want to talk about. What some strategies you can give our listeners?
Jerome:
So, yeah, I'm not a big soccer man so I won't go there because I might embarrass myself. No, the thing I typically say when you talk about global expansion is there's a lot of potential but there's a lot of hurdles. So probably you want to start small or start focused. So if you're in the US and you want to go into Europe, maybe you start in Germany and or in the UK because language is easier. Just make a proof of concept, go there, be successful and then start to expand. Because if you start to go in six, five, six, seven countries, then you have five, six, seven campaigns to build, translations to do. There's a lot of work.
Jerome:
So probably do one, show that you can be successful in one of the European countries and then expand. Same in the US, you probably don't want to maybe take all of your catalog and take a smaller part of the catalog, make sure you're successful and then expand. So for me it's like start small and grow from there. Learn, try to learn. Because international we're talking about earlier with other people today is like, you know, we say they're saying culture eats strategy at breakfast is like cultural things are very strange, like what happens how customer behaviors are different. So get used to it and to start with something and build on it.
Bradley Sutton:
Love it, alright. Now, one way I know people can find and reach out to your company is if you go to hub.helium10.com type in E-C-O-M-A-S. Is that right? What are other ways that people can find you, your company, on the interwebs out there?
Jerome:
So we're very vocal on LinkedIn and the team produces a lot of content on retail media on the street topics like retail media, technology and global expansion, so we do try to share as much as possible with everyone. I was honored to be named one of the Amazon Retail Media Advertising Ambassadors, so one of our job is really to share as much content as possible on advertising specifically and one of the advice I gave it was about globalization. If I talk about retail media is like AMC. Amazon marketing cloud is one thing which today is open. Really, if you're doing DSP and PPC, hopefully tomorrow it will open to PPC also only. I would really recommend people to look into it. This is giving you advice, like learnings, which will get you to the next level in terms of advertising.
Bradley Sutton:
What is the first thing that somebody just getting into DSP or AMC? What is the first thing they should maybe if they're just getting their feet wet?
Jerome:
So one feature, for example, which is already in Pacvue, which is day parting with AMC you will get even more granular information, a bit like with Facebook. You will know we've run some studies for some of our brands where you get information on the persona, like who is buying your products, like is it you know male, what age, what location, and then you can tailor your messaging, your content, everything you're doing, to really focus on that target customer you have. So that's one example and there's many others you can bring on AMC. We're just starting and people are just starting to get like insights from it. So for me, it's like get first, get into it, and it's not super easy so there's a bit of a barrier to entry. So, once again, either you can, you have got enough knowledge to go in yourself or ask for people for support, and there's a lot of great people. We can help. But there's a lot of great people on AMC which can really help you. Pacvue, for example, has got embedded some AMC features already. So I really look into it because that will be a game changer and for me, like they will probably be a change of like a crossroads people getting into it and who will win? And the others lagging behind.
Bradley Sutton:
Okay, all right. Well, thank you so much for coming on and hopefully, see you on my side of the pond next time.
Jerome:
Indeed, thank you very much.
Bradley Sutton:
All right. So our next guest is one of the hosts for today from AVASK. We're in AVASK, Frankfurt office. This is not your main office. I believe the main office is in London.
Jacob:
Southampton, so it's about an hour south of London.
Bradley Sutton:
We're here in Frankfurt, Germany. And this is Jacob, who I met originally in Korea, spoke at an event that I did over there. And what is your title here?
Jacob:
So I'm the head of business development and commercial services, so responsible for client acquisition. You know have a team based here in Germany, in UK, in Spain and in Italy. So we're supporting, consulting clients, helping them expand.
Bradley Sutton:
Okay. Now, how did you get into the e-commerce world? Like, what's your backstory? What did you? Where did you go to university? What did you study? And then your entry into the job world.
Jacob:
Okay. So in terms of studying, I actually did Creative Media in college and then just directly went into working straight from there. So I started as an Account Manager for a finance company and then transitioned to AVASK. I've been here for five years. So that's the kind of a short background but yeah, been at the company for a good amount of time now.
Bradley Sutton:
Okay. Now, last time we had somebody from AVASK was Melanie, was on maybe, probably almost three years now ago. There's some people who might not know about you guys. So you know elevator pitch with an amazon seller and elevator. How do you tell them what you guys do?
Jacob:
Yeah, so we help people expand cross-border, so getting to different markets and try and make it as frictionless as possible. Kind of the biggest area for us and kind of the one we've been working in the longest is Europe. So supporting US sellers, you know, Chinese sellers, European sellers, sell all around Europe but that's not it. But like kind of in a nutshell, that's our main service, but essentially we help people get into different markets and make it as frictionless as possible.
Bradley Sutton:
Okay, so now you know, we just had Jerome on a couple minutes before you. He talked about some of the you know things that people need to be concerned about going from US to Europe, vice versa, maybe going to another marketplace. And he mentioned you guys too. So let's talk a little bit more in the weeds. About some of the you know, like this is what I call the unsexy side of e-commerce. You know the sexy side is PPC and Keyword Research and finding new products and developing your brand. The unsexy side is stuff that actually is arguably even more important, you know, getting your taxes in order and your business entity. So we touched a little bit with Jerome about the VAT and things like that.
Bradley Sutton:
But let's, let's dig into it because, like me, it just I've never sold. I've never done VAT here myself in Europe, and it's for a lot of, you know, US base sellers, like it's kind of like this monster of a thing that we have to worry about. Like, do I need to get it in every country? Do I have to report to every single country? Is it only if I am at a certain level of sale? So you are very familiar with what American sellers probably need to be educated on as far as this goes. So just take it away and let us know what we need to know about VAT in Europe to start, I would say, there's a bit of a, especially in the us.
Jacob:
I've been at the company for five years. Especially now over the last few years, has been a lot more regulation introduced in Europe. So when I first started at the company, there was a lot more US sellers who were interested in expanding because there was less regulation and people weren't as advised. But governments have caught up a little bit. There was a lot of that fraud so people weren't actually paying VAT. And that's not just you know American sellers, that, sellers from all over the world. But now marketplaces are Amazon a lot more regular, regulated, so they have to enforce it. So it stops people from wanting to expand. You know a lot of Americans they say, okay, VAT, how do I do of that? Okay, they don't worry about it, and I think that's quite a lot of the story in America.
Jacob:
For a lot of clients that I've spoken to, essentially VAT, like the system that we have in Europe, and in lots of other places as well, is completely different to the US system. Obviously, the US system, you have tax added on at checkout so you only have to worry about pricing your product and then in the majority of places, i.e. Amazon, and they're going to add the tax on, whereas here in Europe, you are responsible for adding the tax. So when you're listing your product, so you know, if you create a new listing and you need to make sure you include VAT. So I've had lots of customers who want to expand into Europe. They've gone for it. They didn't consider that the VAT would be part of the price that they actually put on the listing. And then you know, a month later, two months later, they've got the VAT bill and they have to pay that and they hadn't actually priced it into the product.
Bradley Sutton:
So like you're saying, like the buy box price should indicate it or it needs to be, it's separate?
Jacob:
No, it's just inclusive. So like, if you list your product for 24 pounds, for example in the UK, that 24 pounds is inclusive of the VAT. That's not going to add any VAT at the end.
Bradley Sutton:
What is the approximate VAT?
Jacob:
So for the UK, it’s 20%.
Bradley Sutton:
So that means if I've got a product that I'm selling for the equivalent of 25 dollars, let's just say, I need to make that at least like 30, 31, 32 dollars, to include that VAT, because that's what I'm going to end up paying the government.
Jacob:
Yeah, exactly. So you have to look at the net price. So 25 dollars add to the 20 percent, so add another five dollars to get it to 30. And then out of that 30 dollar sale, once it's converted, the portion which was the five dollars would be paid to the government and the rates are there or there about. So like we're here in Germany right now, the rate here in Germany is 19% so slightly different, but there are there abouts.
Bradley Sutton:
Now in America, you know, after three years ago or so, we have the Marketplace Facilitator Rax. You know, like that was a huge headache before, where people didn't know in America. Like, all right, I live in California, I know I got to pay California Sales Tax, but you know, do I have a Nexus or whatever we call it in all the different states. And then Amazon's like or actually all online marketplaces were like there's some law passed or something where it's like, all right, you guys are the ones who have to collect it. Now we as Amazon sellers, hopefully we don't have to. That's what I've been doing. We don't have to worry anything about it. We don't add it to our price or anything. The customer is paying for it but Amazon collects it. They remit it. Now in Europe, what it sounds like number one, we do have to add it to the price, as you just said. And also, Amazon is not remitting that. I've got to hold on to that money.
Jacob:
And then so previously that would have been correct. But as of a couple of years ago, Amazon and now and marketplaces are responsible for collecting and remitting VAT for non-European and non-EU sellers in the EU. You still need to price it so, like in that example we had, that was $30. That $5 would actually be deducted from you and be paid to the government on your behalf. However, you still need to report all of those sales via VAT returns in different countries where you've got different liability, like similar to Nexus. Nexus means you've got a liability, basically. You'll have to get a VAT number when you have a liability and you can create different liabilities and free different kinds of means, but the actual money will be deducted and paid by Amazon but you still have to report it.
Bradley Sutton:
So that's at least one burden off. And then now is Amazon withholding that from your disbursement? Then each two weeks?
Jacob:
Yeah. So that would get completely withheld. So Amazon should be withholding it and then paying it on your behalf.
Bradley Sutton:
Okay. Scenario A, I plan to open in all European marketplaces plus UK. So UK, Germany, France, Netherlands, Spain, Italy, et cetera, et cetera. How many VATs am I needing to register for?
Jacob:
Depends. So you've got options. So with Amazon, you've got options for how you can actually use the FBA system. So, like obviously, in US, you send to a single FBA center. You have no control over where they're good to go. Amazon can transfer them to different warehouses. It's one country. It's lots of different states, lots of different tax laws, but it is one country, whereas with Europe you've got many different countries. So UK, we separated from the European Union the free flow of moving goods essentially. So whenever good to travel from UK to EU, they need to go through official borders. So customs checks, there needs to be paperwork, there needs to be declarations, et cetera. A lot of sellers now treat the UK separately and they just have their own separate supply chain directly into the UK. You need a VAT number there as a US seller so you can store your products there and sell your products, whereas in Europe, for FBA purposes, you've got options.
Jacob:
Amazon have their main fulfillment centers in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Poland and the Czech Republic. You can select which ones you want to have your goods in. Whichever country you decide, you allow Amazon to store. You've got an Enable Infantry Replacement on a Seller Central so you can disable and enable. If it's enabled, you have to have a VAT number because Amazon store your products there and that's creating a Nexus. Essentially, you create a liability. You've got to have a VAT number there.
Jacob:
So you could just start with one for the EU and you can list your products. So you could say right, I'm going to store my products in Germany, I'm going to list them in Italy, I'm going to list them in France, I'm going to list them in Spain, but they will all be fulfilled from Germany. Now the pitfall to doing that is Amazon charges you a significantly larger fee for fulfillment. So whenever I speak to sellers as long as they understand that because I've got people who you know they only want to get the one VAT number, because getting six or seven or however many you need to get is complicated and it means a lot of paperwork et cetera to get set up but at the same time, they don't quite realize the Amazon fees that you get charged. And I've come across cases where, yeah, it was an extra three or 4,000 pounds to get the VAT numbers but they ended up spending extra 40,000 pounds in fulfillment fees. So, like understanding, that's quite clear, but you can start off with not too many, which makes it easier for sellers.
Bradley Sutton:
A lot of American sellers are very familiar with rough costs of like tariffs and importing custom duties from China to the United States. Some have more. That's why you know maybe some people are moving their factory to India or other places. How does it compare, though, because most I would say 90% of Amazon sellers are probably manufacturing their products in China or India? How does the custom duties and tariffs compare on a percentage wise importing to the US as opposed to importing to Europe? Are there differences between like UK and EU?
Jacob:
Yeah. Depending on the products, the UK and EU used to have the same tariffs because of the UK separation. We've got the UK Global Trade Tariff and EU's got what's called the TARIC system. The rates for those two systems I would say probably 99% of the same and that will change over the course of time, but it wasn't going to all change immediately. There is some differences but you might find certain products have much higher rates in Europe. So you also get anti-dumping duty.
Jacob:
I'm not too sure if there is anti-dumping duty in the US, but this can be products that might be damaging to the environment or harmful to the environment so they put the rates up really high. But understanding it before you actually start shipping the products is easy to do. As long as you've got the right people to do it. You can understand the rates, understand if there's a difference between the rate. One thing you do need to be careful of, especially as a US-based business, not just US as a non-EU-based business, the particular country we're in right now, Germany the way that they look at imports for non-EU-based companies is sometimes different to an EU-based company. So I've had a lot of clients who they've imported stock directly from their supplier in China or in India into Germany, and the German customs office have revalued that stock. So instead of using the transactional value, so the cost of your products, the insurance and the freight, say €10,000, they've looked at it and they've taken the retail price and then minus Amazon fees, minus VAT, so to say 60% of retail, which then that 10,000 does end up getting to 50,000, and then they've been charged 5% on the 50,000 instead of 10,000, so suddenly you've got five extra costs. So that's something to look out for and be aware of, because I've seen it happen quite a few times.
Bradley Sutton:
Okay. Now, before we get into your last strategy of the day, just as a reminder, if this is all overwhelming to you, it's not something that you just can't ignore and pretend that it's not there. It's stuff that you have to take care of if you're doing cross-border or getting into new marketplaces. If you guys want to reach out to AVASK, the easiest way to remember to contact them just go to hub.helium10.com and then just type in AVASK, A-V-A-S-K right there inside there you can have the portal. There might be some specials depending on your level of Helium 10 membership that you might have available to you. Other ways that people can find you guys on the interwebs out there.
Jacob:
Yeah, so all the general means like LinkedIn, Instagram or just avaskgroup.com, so A-V-A-S-K group.com, and yeah, you can contact us directly for those means.
Bradley Sutton:
Okay, all right. Now what's your last, you know, something I like to ask some guests is like a 30 or 60 second tip or strategy, that it could be about any topic you've talked about today.
Jacob:
Yeah, okay. So I would say, first of all, do consider Europe, but maybe take it slow, because there's a lot of red tape and there's a lot of history with American sellers in Europe and people getting stung by governments because of certain situations that happened in the past. Things are different now, so there's a lot more regulation that makes it easier for sellers to make sure they're doing the right thing, but it also puts more barriers to entry. You can start small. Like I said, you don't have to go for all of the countries. Start small with one.
Start looking at the other countries, so like if you wanted to start in Germany, what are the biggest markets? Open your listings in the other markets and see if you start getting sales trickle in and then kind of make targeted decisions based on where you start to see growth. And that's what I think is good because we get a lot of people that are like right, I need to go for everything, I need to go for it straight away. Some cases really good, some cases they don't get the sales they expect and then they have to attract. So, depending on your position, obviously, would depend on what you decided to do, but if you're just considering it, you're not sure. Try that way because you're limiting your exposure in terms of compliance. You can start off small, your costs are lower and you can just see how the market goes.
Bradley Sutton:
Alright. Well, thank you very much for sharing your knowledge and thank you for hosting us here for our first onsite podcast here in Germany and our AVASK and Helium 10 Elite event, and maybe we'll be seeing you at a future conference again.
Jacob:
Thanks, Bradley.
-
They say the best businesses are built on the foundations of friendship, and that's exactly what Samuel Loo and Singchuen Chiam, childhood pals, prove with their journey from elementary school to dominating the matcha scene on Amazon. Their tale is not just about the green goodness of matcha but a story of two friends who took divergent paths—law and business—only to converge into a powerhouse duo. With Sam's sharp legal acumen and Sing's Alibaba experience finesse, they've brewed up Naoki Matcha, a brand that resonates with quality and customer delight, nurturing it from a side hustle to a multi-million dollar success.
Our conversation steers through the meticulous craft of standing out in a saturated market, with Sam and Sing revealing their three-year grind to perfecting their matcha blend. They share the trials of juggling full-time jobs while planting the seeds for Naoki Matcha, a testament to their enduring patience and entrepreneurial spirit. Their business acumen shines as they discuss the potency of Amazon PPC in propelling their revenue growth, and the strategic decision to maintain a premium on their product—ensuring Naoki Matcha is not just another tea on the shelf, but a premium experience for the discerning consumer.As we wrap up, the future of Naoki Matcha gleams with potential, from its lean operational approach to its plans for product diversification and international expansion. Their story isn't just an inspiration for Amazon FBA sellers and matcha aficionados but to anyone with entrepreneurial dreams, demonstrating that with the right blend of passion and strategy, even the smallest idea can grow into a thriving E-commerce empire. Join us as we toast to the success of Sam and Sing, and keep an eye on your social media feeds—you might just catch the upcoming viral sensation of Bradley Sutton’s matcha flan!
In episode 542 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley, Samuel, and Singchuen discuss:
00:00 - Childhood Friends Start Successful Matcha Business08:35 - Exploring Opportunities With Macha Tea 11:33 - Journey to Success14:50 - Product Growth From Gradual to Significant20:46 - Brand Growth Through Market Analysis21:26 - Strategic Growth of Naoki Matcha Brand24:37 - Matcha Market Segmentation and Competition28:56 - Success in their Amazon Business30:15 - Amazon PPC Advertising Strategy Effectiveness33:37 - Matcha Success Story and Plans For Future Growth► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast
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TranscriptBradley Sutton:
Today, we've got two childhood best friends from elementary school who linked up as adults and started a matcha Amazon business that now does millions of dollars a year. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think.
Bradley Sutton:
Black Box by Helium 10 houses the largest database of Amazon products and keywords in the world. Outside of Amazon itself, we have over 2 billion products and many millions more keywords from different Amazon marketplaces, from USA to Australia to Germany and more. Use our powerful filters to search through this database for pockets of opportunity that you might want to get into with your first or next product to sell on Amazon. For more information, go to h10.me/blackbox. Don't forget you can save 10% off for life on Helium 10 by using our special code SSP10.
Bradley Sutton:
Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I'm your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show that's completely BS free, unscripted and unrehearsed organic conversation about serious strategies or serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. And we are going to the opposite side of the world today, to I believe they're in Singapore, and it's funny because the way they were introduced to me by Crystal and somebody else from Amazon she was like oh yeah, I want you to meet the Macha Bros, but I don't think that's their official name, so I'll let you guys go ahead and introduce yourselves to our audience. This is the first time we'll be on the show
Sam:
Sure. So my name is Sam and this is my business partner, Singchuen. We're not actually brothers, but we work together quite closely on a business that we started together. Our business is called Naoki matcha and, as the name suggests, we sell matcha green tea powder in the United States, in the United Kingdom and in Singapore.
Bradley Sutton:
You know what I've known you, of you or about you? I literally thought you guys were blood brothers entire time, not just because of that name, and so I've already learned something new. I literally thought, you guys were.
Sam:
No, no. We get that a lot. We get that a lot.
Bradley Sutton:
Brothers from other mothers.
Sam:
Yes, I think we can go with that, yeah.
Bradley Sutton:
Okay, all right, hold on now. Let's you know like I already learned something new, so let's just take it. Take it way back, both of you born and raised in Singapore.
Sam and Singchuen:
Yep.
Bradley Sutton:
How did you guys meet? Did you meet like some story, like you met in university, or how did you guys meet each other?
Singchuen:
Sam and I met oh, this is Singchuen, by the way, so I'm the business partner. Sam and I met in primary school, so we have known each other for quite a long time.
Bradley Sutton:
So that is a good story, all right. And then you just went to that. You went to the same one, or? Or you just met in the neighborhood, or what?
Sam:
We went to the same one and we actually were in the same school so like 10 years, and then our paths kind of diverged for a little while. But we reconnected in university because we were both interested in like business and entrepreneurship and I think that's how it kind of like reconnected and we started exploring different things and that's how we started working together again.
Bradley Sutton:
What did both of you major in in university?
Singchuen:
I studied business and Sam, he was actually a lawyer.
Sam:
Yeah, I studied law at university.
Bradley Sutton:
Upon graduation, did both of you guys go into that field that you had studied law and business?
Singchuen:
I guess in a sense that because we started a business, business would be quite relevant. But in that in another, in another complete sense, it wasn't really that relevant because the things that you studied in school were geared to get you a role in a company, so it wasn't very practical. But the concepts, they were useful.
Sam:
Yeah, so after graduation I did practice law for like a couple of years and then, while doing this business, and then at the end of the two years, I realized that, like you know there was I had two opportunities and like this one kind of showed itself to be a bit more, have more potential, so I left the law and I went into e-commerce.
Bradley Sutton:
Who discovered e-commerce first? Was it you, Sam?
Sam:
Yeah. So I think I really found out about this opportunity on Amazon and FBA the ability to like sell in another country that is not yours. I think back in like 2015-2016 this is like early days, right but at that point in time I was still like a university student at Seoul 6th year, so we really didn't have like the kind of resources that we needed to really tackle this, this, this opportunity, right. So we spent some time like learning about how to approach it and we only really launched it like late 2016 and from then we went on our careers. We kind of like grew it slowly along the way and then after a few years, we realized that okay, the time is right, this is a good time to go all in.
Bradley Sutton:
Okay. So in 2016 you guys had reconnecting, like, hey, let's do something together while still having day jobs at that time.
Singchuen:
Yeah, exactly, Sam was a lawyer. I actually worked in e-commerce as well. I worked in Alibaba for quite a number of years, so it helped that I could bring a certain kind of context to how the Amazon platform worked, and so we decided to start this sort of like to see where this would be going, because it was exciting, it was an opportunity and we always wanted to have our own business. So that was sort of like the paradigm in which we started off on.
Bradley Sutton:
And so at the time in 2016, when you first just started dabbling in e-commerce, it sounds like you weren't all in. Was it matcha that you got into? Was that your first thing, or was it other things?
Sam:
Yeah, so when we first started, we started, as most people do, with like a search query on Alibaba.com. The first products we actually sold were like these glass teapots, so we realized that they were not too bad to sell. Actually, we reached like five figures in multi-revenue by like within a year, but we met the same problems that I think a lot of people encounter, which is that after a while, people see that you're somewhat successful and then they'll try to launch a complicated product and therefore, when we found that happened to us and we found it very difficult to grow, so we really were like scratching our heads to think about like what other types of products or categories that we could do, and that's why we landed on matcha.
Bradley Sutton:
Okay, so when you landed on matcha, were you still working your day jobs, or by that time you were all in on Amazon already?
Sam:
No, we were still working out day jobs because for matcha category and the grocery category we found that, like you know, it's not so much of like a quick win kind of situation. You need to invest the time and energy and you need to have quite a lot of patience before your results actually bear fruit, and for us that took actually a number of years because you need to kind of like build your credibility and gain experience in what you're selling as well.
Bradley Sutton:
Are we still talking 2016? Are we already now in 2017 in the timeline, or where are we at when you guys decided matcha?
Sam:
Right. So in 2016, we dabbled in matcha and then we spent the next two years essentially trying to improve the product and better understand the category and the product market fit as it is in the US, and we took like a couple of years to do that properly, and I think it was only about 2020, you know, right after COVID hit, when we realized that, okay, the product is good, we have a good product that can stand up against the other competitors in the space, and you're going to go all in and grow this thing.
Singchuen:
On the side of this, because our matcha green tea is from Japan and there was a requirement I want to say it's a hard requirement, but there is an understanding that in order to get the good product in Japan, especially from suppliers, you kind of need to cultivate the relationship a little bit and take some time for them to trust you. And so it's not as though, as we didn't want the best product right in 2016. Number one it's not. It's a learning process, right, especially when what the market is telling you of a certain kind of taste that they prefer. But it's also bringing back those requirements to the suppliers and the factories to let them know this is the taste that we want and, barring communication barriers, there's still that they need to feel, feel each other out to exactly ascertain what we're looking for. And that took quite a bit more time than what you would be doing on Alibaba.
Bradley Sutton:
That's what has been curious. This is not something you would just like find on Alibaba. So where did the like, how did you guys land on matcha? Was it something you guys just liked? Was it because you were doing tea cups and you just like it was a side thing? Like how in the world? Or did you find it in Helium 10? Or how in the world did you say you know what? I think there's opportunity in matcha. Let's go ahead and examine this further.
Singchuen:
In Singapore, generally we are exposed to Japanese culture quite a little bit already, but more closely, I guess it's also because I liked green tea. So at the point of time I didn't drink a lot of matcha, but I knew about it. So we explored that as a potential item to try to sell and in a sense it checked all the other boxes as well right. Whether it is for the economics, the logistics, the business, fit, branding, pricing. And that's how we started off on like taking the first step.
Sam:
I think also at that point in time this is like 2015, 2016, right, I think matcha was just beginning to get popular in the US. So, yeah, that's when I think the craze started, right. So I think we were also at like the right time in the right place and we realized that, you know, we could marry like our interests and the market opportunity in front of us, and that's how we really landed on matcha.
Bradley Sutton:
I don't have any matcha shirts or anything, but you mentioned like Japanese culture. So I got my Astro Boy jacket here. I got my old school Japanese Tokyo Giants hat here. You know, I used to live in Japan when I was younger and and that was why you know, like matcha is not exactly a natural thing for an American person to like, but I kind of liked it. Before it was cool and now, now, like you said, it's just like booming. Everybody's like, hey, matcha, you know you can go to Starbucks and get matcha, this and you can get matcha, and you know non Asian markets, which before it was different. So that was, you know, a little bit of foresight. Now, when you first started with the matcha, you know you had said, until then you were doing dabbling in other things, were you profitable on the Amazon side? Or, up to that point, you still hadn't made profit in the first year or so of your Amazon business.
Singchuen:
We tended to search for products that were more profitable on the first sale. So in that sense, the first products that we went to more like glass cups, g-ports, things like that they were already profitable. So it's not as though, as we were dabbling in things that were really difficult to do, low priced or otherwise.
Bradley Sutton:
Your first matcha product that you launched? Was that the one that was successful, or did it take a couple of tries before things really started taking off?
Sam:
Well, I think it is still the first product that we launched, but what we had to do was tweak the formulation over the years several times and each time we're trying to improve it and fine tune it to better suit, like the feedback that we were getting. So it is the same product, it looks the same, but they're always like tweaks over the years and this kind of like helps build that, I guess, average review score. That goes up because, like you know, you're getting closer to what people like with each iteration.
Bradley Sutton:
To find that like perfect blend and everything. You kind of mentioned it and I know this about your history. So can you talk a little bit about, like we just said, this wasn't something. Oh, let me find something in Alibaba, let me just put my sticker on it. How did you look for I don't even want to call it factories, but producers of matcha in Japan like we said, it's not on Alibaba and then talk about the long process of? Actually, I believe you would fly to Japan and meet different places and try things. Talk about that long process how long did it take and what were the steps involved in that.
Singchuen:
At the start, we asked for samples from willing factories and once we tasted them and we realized that this was something that could be in a ball pack of what's considered as good tasting to the market, we would ask the supplier whether they are willing to sell us a certain volume of matcha. So there are several factories in Japan that do just green tea, and their idea was sort of branch out to selling matcha as well, because there was where the growing market was, and these were the factories that were more suitable for us to go into, and once we spoke to them their experience with matcha may not be the best at the point of time, mind you, but they were willing to work with us and over a period of time, once we let them know exactly what we're looking for and they were willing to tweak to our preferences, that's when we got a good fit and from then, as our volume started going up, more and more, various factories started.
Bradley Sutton:
Until that part, though. How long was that? Were we talking a month? Were we talking multiple months?
Singchuen:
No, that actually took quite a long time. I think about three years at least so around 2016 to 2019,. On the marketing side, Sam was trying to define a market fit, but on the supply side, we were just trying to make sure that factories produce what we needed and the trust and formulation. That takes a while.
Bradley Sutton:
How can somebody have that kind of patience? That's very rare, not just in matcha industry, but just Amazon or business industry to have that kind of patience to you know to like, hey, I'm spending two or three years to get this right. Like, is that just in your nature or what's going on there?
Singchuen:
To be fair, I think we were not so much in a hurry, just to share a little bit. Personally, it's a little bit more of we always wanted to get a business eventually, but the timeline wasn't so important. We weren’t in a rush. Sam, as Sam has mentioned just now, both of us had decent careers, so we were optimizing on that front as well and we're happy to wait.
Bradley Sutton:
Like you said, you still had your day jobs, you know, for a time. So it wasn't like you know, like you were about to go out of business and I think that's important. You know, like people sometimes just like, all right, I'm going to quit my job before they even have like a viable business and that's what you know. That's not going to allow somebody to have the patience. That's interesting. Now, at what point in this three years did you finally have like a product just start taking off? And was it just random, like it was just one day that it started going viral and never looked back? Or was this something where it was like, all right, you know, over a few months you were selling 10 units a day, then 15 units, then 20, was it a gradual thing? Or when did what? Was that moment where it's like, oh shoot, we got this right and this is going to take off.
Sam:
Yeah, I think it was really like a gradual process. But that point for us, I think, when the old shoot moment, I think, was when we realized that, like the monthly sales for this Macha product alone was quite significant and this was enough to basically sustain ourselves, number one and number two provide a good base and recurring cash flow to kind of grow the business from there. Yeah, and this was really about, like you know, as I said, 2020, mid 2020, early to mid 2020, after COVID started, where we realized that, hey, this thing has snowballed into something quite significant. So it was really a gradual process.
Bradley Sutton:
If you can recall either of you, what was your sales the year before, in 2019, when you were still just dabbling in Macha and maybe still had some of the other products?
Sam:
I would say that it was like maybe like six figures a year, low six figures a year, and then, okay, yeah, we was at that point in time. We were, we were often optimistic about, about close to doubling each year. So that was, that was where we were at.
Bradley Sutton:
And then. So at that point, obviously still working full time jobs. And then it was at 2020, when it took off, and then you quit in 2020, your jobs or you still, even though it started taking off, you still were working your full time.
Sam:
I wouldn't say it took off right. It was just at that point in time with, like, the good momentum that like we know that there's some something to stand on. So that was when we decided, okay, time to go all in. And then we know that the product was ready. And then we started doubling down on marketing in order to kind of know that, you know, this optimized product is available to everyone. And then that's how we kind of grew from there.
Bradley Sutton:
What kind of marketing? I mean, obviously Amazon PPC is part of it. Was that it or other things as well?
Sam:
So we did try a bunch of things at first, but by the late by late 2020, we realized that Amazon advertising PPC mainly is that engine that's going to give us the growth for the next few years, because we realized that, like on a cost acquisition basis, like you just can't beat it.
Bradley Sutton:
You said 2019, low six figures. What about 2020, that your first really good year. What did you end approximately with?
Sam:
I think we were just under seven.
Bradley Sutton:
And then how about 2021?
Sam:
Yes, somewhere, seven.
Bradley Sutton:
All right. So now it's like you guys knew you had something. It wasn't just a fluke, you know. You had some consistency. Do you mind if I show your product on screen right now? For those watching this on YouTube?
Sam:
Oh yeah, go ahead.
Bradley Sutton:
So let me pull it up here. Was this variation family here of the superior ceremonial blend it says here, was this like your first product that you got into?
Sam:
Yes, it was.
Bradley Sutton:
Okay, now I'm looking. Now it's like you know, according to Amazon, according to Helium 10, you are selling throughout this variation family here, thousands of units, multiple six figures per month, just with this, with this fam variation family. So this is the one that is your, your big seller. So I mean, if I'm looking at these numbers correctly, unless this is just a very nice month here, you're like what in the you know mid seven figures now, or higher?
Sam:
I think that's fantastic yeah.
Bradley Sutton:
Okay and explain this product. You know there's a lot I like matcha. I understand it, but there's a lot of people who might like think like what? Like? Do you just like dump this in tea or do you actually use it to cook something? Like what? Like? How in the world are you selling almost 10,000 units of this a month? Like, what are the people buying this to use?
Sam:
Right, I think the way to look at this product is that it's a form of tea and in Japan it's enjoyed as a form of tea. Now in America it's usually enjoyed in a, in a form of a latte. So imagine you have a tea and then I think in some parts of the US, like milk tea is popular, right. So in the same way you can add milk to matcha and then you get a Matcha Latte. So because people find that coffee is not working for them for various reasons whether like they feel, like you know, nervous or anxiety after that they try to find something else, right. So matcha kind of ticks all the boxes because it's got a little bit of caffeine, so you don't feel that like that anxiety that you get with coffee sometimes, and also there are like amino acids inside that help you stay alert for a longer time. So that was kind of like the health food appeal of matcha. But that's, I think, why it got popular and that's why people drink it. So we also wanted to kind of share a bit of that Japanese heritage of matcha in our product, which is why it looks the way it does, because in Japan actually the traditional way of preparing it is to take like a teaspoon of the powder, add some water and then whisk it up with this bamboo whisk until it becomes like nice and froth.
Bradley Sutton:
I see that here in your A plus, your premium A plus content, so I can see a little bit of that here. You're telling that story. Really great branding here, I like that.
Sam:
So they whip it up into like this frothy little mixture and I guess if you could kind of relate it back to coffee culture, I would say like it's like a Matcha Americano. That's the way that they would drink it and that's the main way it's consumed in Japan.
Bradley Sutton:
Okay, now you've got just a beautiful listing here. You know, looks like premium A plus content. You're educating people here. You have a frequently asked questions, and then obviously you've got some great pictures here where you've got infographics. You've got, you know, like kind of like a history lesson of matcha. You have pictures of it. I mean what else? Like you even show the origin. I think I saw somewhere there's like different cities where this comes from. Where is that here, here? It is here Like you're like oh hey, this one is from Kyoto, this one's from Fukuoka. You have the city. So like I'm assuming that I mean, did you start this from like day one such in depth like information here, or is this just gradually how you were able to kind of hone your branding?
Sam:
I think we didn't know that it would take this form at the very start. We knew that, like you know, instinctively this is the branding angle that we want to work with. But as we grew with time we know we were reacting to what's happening in the market right and how we need to kind of distinguish our brand and our product from other people and to make sure that, even though, like, they like the product but they need to have like some visual reference to kind of like make that association, to know that like, oh okay, this is now Kimatcha and I like now Kimatcha.
Bradley Sutton:
You know what I'm going to check something. Hold on, let me see, I'm actually gonna run Cerebro on one of your products. I'm curious, you know you mentioned, hey, people are actually searching for Naoki Matcha. I'm just curious, like, what kind of brand recognition you have. So I'm just running Cerebro on here on our YouTube and podcast version. We'll speed this up. Let's see here, because I have a feeling, you know you've been selling for a while now and you're doing so well that there are literally people who just search for your brand name. So let's take a look at how many people are searching for your brand name here. Hold on, all right, here in Cerebro I'm gonna put phrases containing Naoki and let's apply that filter and wow, there's 45 different keywords that have Naoki in it and with thousands of search volume a month. So people like know your brand. You know just Naoki Matcha by itself has 1200 search volume and there's 45 other versions that people are actually searching for. So I mean that's kind of like what the goal is. When you're selling on Amazon, hey, sure you want people to buy you on the generic searches, like you know, Matcha Tea or Matcha Powder or something. But you know you've kind of made it when there's actually search volume for your brand.
Bradley Sutton:
You guys are getting, you know, using expensive you know matcha directly from the source in Japan. You know I'm sure there maybe are some competitors going like a cheaper route. Or maybe you know, like I'm just looking here in the search for Matcha Tea and I even see you know listings that are like $9, you know $9.95. And you guys are at like $40, $39. I see some that are, well, that's a different product, but like $7, you know $15. How can you guys stay at around the top? Like I'm looking at the BSR, you're like one of the top three in the whole Matcha category. Like some people think, oh, I have to. You know, like if cheaper sources come on, I'm just going to have to try and price match and then you know race to the bottom and I like to tell people no, no, no, there's ways to still succeed even at a higher price point. What's your guys secret where you can stay at this $40 price point and still make a lot of sales despite these cheaper alternatives coming into the market?
Sam:
Well, I think it's all about getting people to try it once. And once the person tries it once, right, and then they compare it to like the cheaper one that they bought before they realize, like you know, the difference is like night and day, right. So what we want to do is to make sure that they realize that they're getting like a good price for this level of quality, and once that kind of barrier is unlocked and then they realize that, hey, actually, if I pay $25 for one ounce, right, I'm getting a lot more value if I'm paying $40 for like 3.5 ounces, so the $40 one actually becomes like a good idea, even though, like it's like four times whatever is available on. You know the results when you search for matcha.
Singchuen:
Just to add on to that, the cheaper matcha products are by nature of how it's grown and how it's produced. It tastes incredibly different from how matcha products of a certain price level are like because of how much more expensive it is to produce. So matcha is actually in quite a bit of a supply crunch and so there is actually not that much matcha supply to go around at the higher quality price range. In that sense, because it's so expensive, it's not possible to match the quality level if you're to go below the price. So the market kind of like segmented itself in a way. So we, as Sam has just mentioned just now, as long as we are sort of value for the price that we are offering, it's good enough for us and that's how we managed to stay above the competition. If you notice that there are other competitors that are also doing well with high BSR and they are similarly high priced. But once you do the math you realize that in addition to our better tasting product our price per gram, if you want to put it that way it's still much better than our competitors.
Sam:
It's pretty competitive still.
Bradley Sutton:
What's the future hold? Now you actually have Naoki Matcha in the brand name. So if you just stay with this brand, you're kind of I don't want to say limited, but it's not like you can start selling something completely off the wall under this brand, like do you have are there still enough new kinds of variations and blends that you can come up with to keep this brand going? Or have you considered, like maybe we should start something completely different, like I start a new brand? Or what's your goal for growing the business?
Sam:
Right. I think for this brand there's still some room for growth, because actually so far we haven't touched the whole products that deal with, like matcha accessories. We're just starting that this year and also there are different grades of matcha right. So honestly, we are really at like that middle to high kind of grade, but we haven't really touched the other grade so far. So those are kind of like the growth opportunities that are available to us, yeah, but of course, once we hit there's a ceiling for category, once we hit that, yeah, I think you do have to choose another brand.
Bradley Sutton:
Obviously, Amazon USA is your main market. Are you selling on other Amazon marketplaces? If so, which? And then also other marketplaces at all, like Walmart, Shopify or other websites?
Singchuen:
We are in the UK. We're selling the exact same brand in the UK as well. It's sort of like an offshoot. We started it because some fans who have tasted it in America have gone back to the UK and so they are wondering why aren't you in the UK? So we decided to launch it over there as well, and so far the growth is okay, but not as high as in America, obviously, and in Singapore. We are on e-commerce platforms as well, and I'm not too sure we can confidently say this, but we are in the top few brands on those platforms selling decently well too.
Bradley Sutton:
You know, talk about some specific strategies that you guys think have helped you get to where you are, because it's not just like I mean somebody could spend 10 years and develop like the most perfect, pure form of matcha known to mankind in history and it's meaningless, you know, without the strategy that is going to get it in front of people. So what are some of the things that set you apart from maybe the 10 other matcha people who maybe have started and gone out of business, you know, because they didn't have your strategy? What do you think set you apart from others?
Sam:
Well, I think a handful of things. The first one is okay, so I think you can use. You can rely on Amazon PPC. You can look at your search term impression share reports. You can look at your keyword ranking and all that kind of stuff and that will help you in the short run. But honestly, the thing that really helped us the most was patience and making sure that your product is on a sensory level it's actually good and people like it. Once you have those two things covered, then you know you just need to get people to try to get them to tell their friends, and then, like people, their friends who are interested in matcha will buy, and then they are buying again and then this whole thing kind of grows by itself. Your PPC and all of these other tools that you have are really just like fuel that you add to this engine
Singchuen:
And on the other side of things is obviously you kind of need to make sure that you treat your supplier well as well. Make sure that they understand what you're going through and make sure that you try to understand what they're going through. If language is a barrier, hire an interpreter, right, it's not too difficult. Decency goes both ways. So you may be pressed, but you got to recognize that the factories themselves, they, are pressed as well. So working together for compromise, understanding each other and not drawing too much, just to be a little bit more understanding towards each other, goes a long way. I think what tends to happen is that if you're not patient, as Sam has mentioned, you may cut off communications with factories that may help you in the future, and you don't want to do that.
Bradley Sutton:
Now I'm looking, speaking of PPC, I'm looking at just what I see on Amazon and I see everything. I see sponsored product ASIN targeting campaigns right here on this one page I see you're targeting your own ASIN and sponsored display ad. I see sponsored brand ads in the search for Matcha tea. I saw sponsored brand video, regular sponsored products. So you guys are just like going all out with all the different kinds of PPC that Amazon provides. Any one of those, like you think, has performed better for you or gives you the best ROI, or is it kind of just kind of even across the board?
Sam:
Well, I think at the start sponsored products perform very well, but as you get more and more ad types and different you know SV, SD, SP you mix that in. You have some DSP thrown in. The attribution for which ad actually did the sale for you gets a bit more tricky.
Bradley Sutton:
That's true. That's true, yeah, because you know. But the good thing about that is you're just your top of mind because you're advertising everywhere you can. You know, like sure, maybe you don't know exactly what got the attribution, but the point is you have such a big share of voice you know, potentially, maybe compared to your competitors, that you're your top of mind for your, for your customers. Okay, so PPC is important for what's on Amazon. I'm sure you use Amazon data points as well. What about Helium 10? What's your favorite tool in Helium 10 and how has it helped you?
Sam:
I think, honestly, the keyword coverage and Cerebro is still like my favorite tool. I've been using it since like 2017, when it first launched.
Singchuen:
As you use, you search on Amazon and you search on other platforms take a look at how Helium 10’s are like compared to others. You always use that. There's a certain sense that Helium 10’s information is letting you after it. It's more of a sense. I can't really explain it, and then that really goes a long way, I think.
Bradley Sutton:
Now for either of you. If there was something on your wish list for Helium 10, like, like something, maybe we don't do right now, you're like, wow, it would be so cool if Helium 10 could do this. Here's your chance to tell me what is on the matcha bros top wish list, for what Helium 10 can help now give matcha with?
Sam:
Right. So I think my number one wish list would be cohort analytics. So if, for example, I can see in January how many new customers are acquired and how much, and how much of that repeat over the next 12, 24, 36 months, that would be awesome. I don't think there's none of the big analytics platforms do this. There are some specialized ones that do it that we subscribe to, but they're expensive and I'm pretty sure that you guys can do a better job.
Bradley Sutton:
Awesome, awesome. Now my last question is just, you know, you guys have reached this level of success, selling millions of dollars. Obviously you two are working together. How many people total does it take to run the Naoki Matcha machine? You know like, are you guys doing 100% of the work? Do you have virtual assistants? Do you have, you know, in Singapore staff? How many people does it take to run your business?
Singchuen:
Right now we are actually quite an entity, Sam, as I'm sure you can tell from this conversation. Sam does most of the marketing and I do more of the supply side operations kind of activities. So in total we have about five people running the entire business.
Bradley Sutton:
Well, this has been very enlightening. I've you know, despite knowing about you guys, almost 95% of this I think was completely new information to me and obviously new to our audience. It's great to see this success story. I love matcha, so I'm going to have to purchase your, your product, and make some. I'll be your influencer. Make some matcha, some kind of matcha. Let's see I'm going to. I wanted to make a matcha flan flan like a. I don't know if you guys know what that is. That's like a Mexican dish. So that's, I'm going to make something and then it's going to go viral on TikTok and make you guys another few million dollars just for me.
Singchuen:
Thank you for your support.
Bradley Sutton:
You could take me out to dinner
Sam:
Yeah. Thank you and looking forward to that.
Bradley Sutton:
Thank you so much for coming on, and let's have you guys back on the podcast in 2025 and let's see how you guys have grown at that time.
-
Get ready to navigate the buzzing twists and turns of e-commerce from some curious buzz around the COSMO document to the significant Amazon FBA fee hikes, we break down what sellers need to know to stay ahead.
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► Watch The Podcasts On Youtube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videosWe’re back with another episode of the Weekly Buzz with Helium 10’s Chief Brand Evangelist, Bradley Sutton. Every week, we cover the latest breaking news in the Amazon, Walmart, and E-commerce space, interview someone you need to hear from and provide a training tip for the week.COSMO: A large-scale e-commerce common sense knowledge generation and serving system at Amazonhttps://www.amazon.science/publications/cosmo-a-large-scale-e-commerce-common-sense-knowledge-generation-and-serving-system-at-amazonTarget will launch unlimited rush shipping subscription to rival Amazon Primehttps://www.theverge.com/2024/3/6/24092880/target-circle-360-free-delivery-shipping-annual-planWalmart and Amazon Race to Provide Best Virtual Try-On Experienceshttps://www.pymnts.com/news/retail/2024/walmart-and-amazon-race-to-provide-best-virtual-try-on-experiences/We tested Amazon’s new shopping chatbot. It’s not good.https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/03/05/amazon-ai-chatbot-rufus-review/Exclusive: Walmart opens new front in same-day delivery warhttps://www.axios.com/2024/03/07/walmart-hours-delivery-early-morning-online-ordersUse persona builder to create and get insights on your personashttps://advertising.amazon.com/en-us/resources/whats-new/use-persona-builder-to-create-and-get-insights-on-personas/Amazon will no longer underwrite loans for sellers in its $140 billion Marketplace businesshttps://fortune.com/2024/03/07/amazon-lending-loans-sellers-marketplace-discontinuing/My name is Alexa and I loved it until Amazon's smart assistant came along and ruined ithttps://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-ruined-name-alexa-2024-3Cap the episode off with an inside look at how Amazon's FBA fee changes are reshaping the game for sellers. Discover how you could turn the tide on FBA fees with savvy shipping strategies. We also dive into Helium 10's latest feature alerts that promise to bestow an edge to Platinum Plan users and European sellers. Join the conversation, test out these new tools, and let's tackle these changes together.
In this episode of the Weekly Buzz by Helium 10, Bradley talks about:
01:27 - Amazon Cosmo - Sellers Panic?07:39 - Target Prime+08:36 - Amazon / Walmart Augmented Reality09:35 - Amazon AI Chatbot10:44 - Walmart 1 Hour Delivery11:58 - Persona Builder13:05 - No More MYCE14:29 - Voice of Customer15:34 - Amazon Lending16:08 - Coupon Requirements17:42 - Amazon Alexa19:35 - FBA Inventory Fees...SAVE Money?30:20 - New Feature Alerts -
Ever feel like you're playing a game of chess with the Amazon algorithm, constantly striving for that checkmate which is a perfectly optimized Amazon listing? We're peeling back the curtain on the new secret weapon that the Listing Builder by Helium 10 has that could give you that winning edge on the Amazon battlefield. Prepare to be armed with knowledge as we take you through a live optimization of the Project X "coffin shelf" listing, dissecting the art of keyword research to uncover those high-traffic phrases that could propel your product to page one of the marketplace.
Marinate your brain in the sauce of Amazon seller strategies as we stir in the nuances of listing optimization and the significance of performance scores to outsmart your competition. The Helium 10 score may not be part of Amazon's official playbook, but it's a valuable benchmark we explain in detail, showing you how to leverage different types of keyword matches to boost that all-important performance score. And it doesn't stop there; we dive deeper, sharing actionable tips on how to strategically position those keywords for maximum impact, ensuring your listing is as tantalizing to Amazon's search algorithm as it is to potential buyers inside the online shopping platform.
In episode 541 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley discusses:
00:00 - Optimizing Amazon Listings With Helium 1007:11 - Keyword Analysis for Listing Optimization 14:17 - Amazon Listing Optimization Ranking Score22:43 - Optimizing Keywords and Phrases on Amazon25:26 - Analyzing Title Density for Ranking -
Join us as we explore the intricate art of keyword research with Jason Mclellan, the mastermind behind Vitacup's impressive $20 million e-commerce achievement. This episode is a great resource for anyone looking to enhance their Amazon selling skills, where we unravel sophisticated strategies to optimize your Amazon product’s online presence. With tools like Helium 10, Amazon’s Brand Analytics, and Product Opportunity Explorer at our disposal, we dissect the methodologies that lead to keyword research excellence, pinpoint niche markets, and boost your brand's visibility.
This is not just another chat about keywords—it's an immersive experience of how big sellers operate their Amazon business. We navigate through the ever-changing landscape of consumer trends, driven by the influence of social media platforms like TikTok, to keep your listings fresh and relevant. Together with Jason, we dissect the strategies that make products rank for the keyword "extra shot coffee" stand out in a crowded space. It's about refining, optimizing, and capturing the essence of what your customer is looking for, turning clicks into conversions, and conversions into Subscribe and Save loyal customers.
Wrapping up the conversation, we dive into actionable insights for harnessing the full potential of keyword strategies on Amazon and Walmart. It's about more than just being seen—it’s about resonating with your audience. We share how to weave the benefits of your products into descriptions that speak directly to your niche and discuss the significant impact of organic search success on platforms like Amazon. So pour yourself a cup of Rapid Fire Protein Coffee, pull up a chair, and let's unlock the secrets to catapulting your products to the top of the search results.
In episode 540 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Jason discuss:
00:00 - Deep Dive Into Advanced Keyword Research00:50 - Keyword Research Strategies for E-Commerce Sellers 04:44 - Learning From Successful Amazon Sellers 06:45 - Product Research and Optimization Methodology07:20 - Product Refinement for Increased Sales 14:38 - Identifying Top Search Terms for Niche 20:37 - Understanding Product Placement Strategies22:57 - Amazon Keyword Strategy for Coffee Products24:26 - Amazon Seller Keyword Strategies Training28:56 - Advanced Keyword Research Strategies for Amazon34:52 - Top Keywords for Platinum Account Success40:33 - Keyword Research Strategy Discussion43:02 - Importance of High Search Volume Keywords44:27 - Optimizing Amazon Listing for Spanish Keywords► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast
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Transcript
Bradley Sutton: Today, we're going to have an advanced deep dive into some of the top keyword research strategies for 2024, including some strategies from a seller who does over $20 million on e-commerce per year. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Did you know that just because you have a keyword in your listing, that does not mean that you are automatically guaranteed to be searchable or, as we say, indexed for that keyword? Well, how can you know what you are indexed for and not? You can actually use Helium 10's Index Checker to check any keywords you want. For more information, go to h10.me/indexchecker. Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I'm your host, Bradley Sutton and this is the show. It’s a completely BS free, unscripted, and unrehearsed, organic conversation about serious strategies for Serious Sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. We're going to be talking today about Keyword Research. And just like last time, I'm not going to have a bunch of slides that I'm going to be showing. Basically, what we want to do is show you real life examples of how we have done keyword research for some of our products, how we would do keyword research in 2024, and not just in Helium 10, but also we're going to be showing you some things for those who have brand registry and are able to access search query performance. Okay, we're going to be showing you some things that even if you don't have brand registry, a way you can find good keywords for your listing using something called product opportunity explore. Now, a couple of things just really quick. I want you guys to bookmark this one page. I want you guys to go to forum.helium10.com. And that is our new Seller Connect Forum where you're going to be able to interact with different helium 10 members in addition to our Facebook groups that we've already had, we're going to have one where it's right inside of Helium 10. Okay. And so we've got some information already there. I posted some blogs, but make sure to bookmark that guys. And I want you to regularly connect. So before we get started into, I want to go ahead and introduce a special guest that we had teased on today, a real live person who is going to show us his products and his keywords and his keyword research too. You know, how many of you Amazon sellers out there, if I ask you in the chat, what is your product? That's how it is. People usually don't want, the majority don't wanna sell their product. Show their product. Today, we don't have that. So Jason, go ahead and come on and let's introduce Jason. He has been on the podcast before, but for those who haven't met you Jason or haven't seen your podcast episode, go ahead and introduce yourself, please, and brief history on Amazon and what company you work for.
Jason:
Hi, my name is Jason McCallum. I've been with the last five years of the company called VitaCup. We are a vitamin and superfood -infused coffee and tea. We're probably the number one functional coffee on Amazon right now, a wide variety of modalities. So, there's just always keeping us busy between the K -Cup format, instant copy and ground. So I've been in this market space since the early 2000, starting off in eBay. So I've kind of seen the evolution of the place from eBay to Amazon and where we're kind of going in the future with some other things that are developing on other marketplaces. And just... love online marketplaces. Bradley Sutton:All right, so I take his products too. Here's his VitaCup Extra Shot. This is very important for the morning. So I am running a little bit on empty. So we are gonna test this now because I've stayed up most of last night and then this morning, like I said, did back to back webinars. So I am actually taking this product and we are going to go ahead and I'm going to be drinking it live right here. First of all, stir it. Hold on. This is one of my tests for if products are good or not, like how easy it is to open this. How am I supposed to open this there? Oh, look at that. Easy, easy, open, easy, open.
Jason:
Much better than the other one you try..
Bradley Sutton:
Last year, I didn't like how to open it. It was like impossible. And it's sprayed all over my face. We won't mention it.
Jason:
And we're changing it just for you. No one asked for. Just for you. Yeah, Just for you.
Bradley Sutton:
All right. So now I'm making my instant coffee and stirring it up. So again, like I said, the reason why I'm just going overboard here in this product is like I said, hey, Jason is somebody who has opened up his product and listings to us before. And although most Amazon sellers don't want to do that, he is doing that. So we thank him. And now Jason, just as you know, you're kind of a humble guy. So people won't, you know it just by the way you talk. But what kind of gross revenue is your, is VitaCup doing on Amazon and Walmart, if you were to combine both of those marketplaces per year about?
Jason:
Around 20 million.
Bradley Sutton:About 20 million dollars, all right? So, you know, there might be a couple of people here on the call or on this call who do a little bit more, but I would say most of us, including myself, don't, aren't at that level. And that means we can probably learn a thing or two from Jason. Now, Jason does a lot of the same strategies, maybe that are common practice as far as finding new keywords for listings. But he also has got some unique things that he does as well on and off of Helium 10 on and off of Amazon. So I would like to I would like to go ahead and turn the stage a little bit over to you. What is the first keyword research strategy that you are going to help us? Give us the background first. Like, is this something that helps you find a product? Is it something that you already had the product and now you are like, all right, I got to find this, some keywords that are going to convert for me. Set up the stage here for this first one.
Jason:
So great question. The first thing I'm going to start off with is product opportunity, explore something that's been released for around the last four years. It's been evolving. I really call it at this point, the Swiss army knife of Seller Central. There's a wide variety of uses you can use for it. We look at it and research it for when we're developing new functional blends and flavors. I try and keep my process simple. A lot of people you know the more complex you get, the harder it is. Starting with product opportunity explore, we're researching and launching a new product. It's great to see what the market potential is, what customers like, what they don't like, sort of those keywords that are driving sales can start doing some research on what's the average CPC projected for those. Is it going to be something that we think we can do some conquesting on keywords and how much is it going to cost and is it even worth it? We started hitting over X amount of dollars for keywords. It really is not that viable. So, and then we also use for refinement, and the example I'm going to show right now is we start off in product opportunity explore and we're continually doing improvements and testing new things on our products and just how we go through and find those keywords and then the competing products on it we're going to be using. We'll use the extra shot coffee as example and then Bradley Sutton:What do you mean by refinement?
Jason:
Because we're continually refining your content and your images and we utilize the data to improve our images, which improves your conversion and increases your sales dramatically at this point, you got to consider 70, 80% of all Amazon shopping today is done via mobile experience. Your hero and your secondary images are actually more important than your product description, your bullet points and your A plus content at this point because of how everything's delivered. I mean, if everyone has their phone there, you can pull it out and at some point you can get ready by the cup, extra shot K Cups and we can take a look at that as we're going through and why. And so we're utilizing the keywords. We're pulling a product opportunity explorer and the keywords we're pulling in refinement. We're pulling out of Cerebro and we're directly addressing the data that we learned from that into our images, not just our bullet points, not just our titles, and because of that we're seeing a great conversion like extra shot. We just ran this through where we've seen it wasn't one of our stronger performing products, but we've seen in the last 30 days we've seen basically doubling the sales on that my lead, my number one product. In my rolling 30 day sales average over the last two weeks I'm up 16% on sales because we applied the same methodology. You continually have to be updating content. New words enter the ecosystem, Amazon new consumer trends are going on. TikTok drives a lot of different trends depending on the categories you're in, and that introduces a lot of search relevancy. People see things on TikTok or other social media forums. and they come to Amazon looking for it and necessarily you're not just trying to compete for your own space, but when these new trends come on board, sometimes that product isn't there and Amazon will see for those terms that your product is really relevant. And if you've been running for a while and you have some relevancy, you'll start getting delivery. And if you have sharp titles, bullet points and images, your conversion will be great and you'll continue to grow and accumulate on these new trends that are just kind of ancillary to what you're doing. So we see a lot of growth in that. So we're always just in a constant rotation of just testing out all content, all aspects, and then kind of refining and judging, through catalog performance, what your different points in the chain through click through to purchase, conversion, our improvements being made.
Bradley Sutton:
Now, a lot of your sales comes from subscribing, save and maybe certain things like sponsor display ads and a lot of other ways. Now, have you ever looked at search career performance for a week and looked at your brand's overall search career performance attributed sales, which is very limited? As far as hey, it has to be from a search, it can't be sponsored brand or sponsor display ad. They have to have clicked it, they have to have purchased it within 24 hours. Have you ever compared the amount of sales for a week that came through search career performance with your overall unit sales to see, like, hey, how much of your keywords or how much of your sales are coming from the normalized searches, which for some people it's 15%, some people it's 50%, some people more.
Jason:
You know I haven't broken it down that more when I generally start, because where I generally start to look at what branded searches and everything is what we're running off Amazon. Amazon, there's no like. Amazon actually is great, but if you use it for a while you understand that it's not capturing the full thing. Or if you're just doing, especially doing stuff on TikTok, it's not capturing hardly any of it. So I track by week, by month on branded searches to see if there's any spikes in overall, like wide a cup searched terms, and then we can start to correlate. And if there's a spike in sales we can start correlating. It is what we're running off traffic to educate the consumer about a particular blend or a particular product. Is that having a positive impact in customers coming back and searching for it? Because, as you're saying, like you know, we're running a lot of DSP, we're on search display and so we have all these lovers we're pulling. So we want consumers to touch our page, because we want to get them in the flow, because we want to acquire a new customer and move them to subscribe and save, and that's the way you kind of take the approach on it. So first one is is you're finding the niche in which your product exists, and so mine is looking at extra shot. I know it's already strong coffee. You can search by ASIN and the ASIN will generally allow you to select it. So you pin your product ASIN and sometimes there's enough affiliation. Where it can drive up.
So two niches under strong coffee is for the K-Cups and the high caffeine coffee. I've already been through both these. The keywords are kind of similar. We're selling in a K-Cup format so I wanted to focus on that one Initially. You kind of can see the total search volume over the last three, 60 days, kind of how the product niche has been growing, the estimated unit sales on an annualized basis. What we're starting to see more and more is really kind of interesting.
Is this return rate percentage. So for other, this is a consumable item and you're not technically supposed to be even be able to return it, so it's always going to be pretty low. But if you're looking at researching products that you're going to potentially get into, you can say, hey, does this statistically have a very high return rate, or does it have very low return rate? Because you're going to want to build that into your business model for the product. It gives the price range and then the kind of that sweet spot, the average price. So you know, from a pricing point of view, when you're thinking about pricing it, where do you fall in line? So we're going to select strong coffee K-Cups and then just there's such. They keep adding a wealth of information to this. What you're going to see on the first tab for products is all the ASINs that make up 90% of the volume that are associated with this strong coffee K-Cups. The second portion is the search term. These are going to be your top search terms for the niche. So this is where you can come up with a search term. So you can come up with a search term, your top search terms for the niche. So this is where you can kind of start getting an understanding of 90% of the volume that has been driven by the volume that's being driven by 90% of the search terms. So I tend to look at, what are the search terms that are non branded? so definitely, which I'd kind of ignore. But you know high caffeine, coffee, K-Cups. So everyone remember that term high caffeine, coffee, K-Cups, strong coffee K-Cups, extra caffeine coffee K-Cups, double caffeine coffee K-Cups, and then you start seeing some variations. So we've got strong coffee pods search less than strong coffee K-Cups, but still has relevancy. So you know that when people are coming to search they're not always necessarily searching for K-Cups, but they're also searching for coffee pods in some form or another High caffeine K-Cups, double caffeine K-Cups and etc. Also, it's really interesting as you can use this as a tool to monitor how you're performing within a product niche. So for this instance, if you're interested in going after high caffeine coffee K-Cups, this need. All the niches are updated once a week, so over time you can start seeing am I making headway into being one of the number one top click product on it, which is Deathwish, the number two, which is a variety pack of high caffeine coffee pods, or the number three clicked on is Wake the Hell Up, dark Roast. Keep that in mind. Like these are your top keywords. This is where I start with. I get my top keywords and then I'll eventually be going over Cerebro to find out what are those medium to low end keywords, and you're also gonna see these. The beauty of Cerebro is when we run the top three, our product with the top two products in it, we're gonna see a lot of the same keywords. It's gonna give a lot of validity. This real data that we're getting out of Amazon live, from the source, is being mirrored what's coming out of Cerebro, and so it's giving validity to Helium 10's authenticity, to those lower and mid keywords. You can then trust the data that, hey, for long tail keywords, I'm gonna grab these and build them into the text. For just some organic ranking. I wanna run some long tail keyword strategies on my Amazon PPC. I wanna build some of this content into my images. The next thing I go through and I look for keywords customer sentiment is on Customer Review Insights. This is amazing. So what it does, it takes all these products and starts aggregating that. We're on the product page. It starts aggregating the reviews together and looks for themes and looks for what consumers want. So the first one is aggregated haste. We can start seeing what customers are saying, and I love when I see things like just delicious, or the coffee is delicious. That tells me when we're communicating to the end consumer, we have to be communicating in the text, in the imagery, in the bullet points, in the A plus content that it's gonna be a delicious cup of coffee, so talks about flavor quality and we start smooth, so we start stripping this information out and that's what we're gonna use to help build. So in Cerebro what I do is I take my product extra shot plus two or three of the leading ASINs and I run it in Cerebro to get my top keywords.
Bradley Sutton:
And for those who aren't familiar with Cerebro, what this is doing is it's pulling up all the keywords where, in the last 30 days, any of these three products have shown up in the organic search results. They have shown up in sponsored search results or that, according to the Amazon algorithm, it suggests is relevant for the keywords, regardless if it's in organic or ranking. And so you know there's what? Oh my goodness, 24,000. 24,000.
Jason:
So we don't want yeah, that's pretty Two of the keywords. So, honestly, one of my favorite like filters is just the quick top keywords filter that's built into Cerebro, this, you know it at down to 83 filtered keywords. I do a little bit more refinement. I wanna exclude phrases like death, death wish, black rifle, pistachio and wake. For what I'm trying to do, regardless. This bumps it down to 59. So, and we'll search by search volume, things that are gonna be important we have a shot of espresso in our, so the espresso K cups, that's a great one. Blackout coffee I'm still trying to figure out how do you work out blackout within the text, cause blackout is a branded term, so utilizing it within blackout coffee Same as danger coffee. You're picking up a lot of these things, but then you start seeing like hey, strong coffee, k cups, high caffeine coffee, dark magic I know dark roast is really important to this, so that dark magic is a blend and so on. So you know, I'll go through and I'll delete out the ones that I don't like from this. I'll pull these out and I'll start using both these sets of data, to start building out what this should look like in as far as new content for both imagery and bullet points, and I-.
Bradley Sutton:
Now one cool thing. You know you might not have been looking at it, but just in this sense, guys, they're the column on. You guys see on the very right hand side, a match type. This also kind of shows you where if we have seen one of these products doing other placements. You know I said that Cerebro's showing keywords where you have shown up in organic results and sponsor results, but it's not just those two. If they're coming up in one of those widgets that says Amazon recommended, if you see something that says SBV, that means a Sponsored Brand video. So now you can know where your competitors are advertising in the video sections. Maybe the Sponsored Brand ad at the top, maybe if it comes up in highly recommended. So these are other ways where you can kind of look for holes in the market on the keyword side.
So right now Jason just showed us two ways. Hey, look at Product Opportunity Explorer. Look at which products are dominating the niche. Remember, like he said, Product Opportunity Explorer isn't the products that make up 90% of the clicks and also the keywords that make up 90% of the clicks of that market. Here he can round out his strategy, using Cerebro to find other keywords that maybe aren't part of that Product Opportunity Explorer niche, but the competitors are probably getting some sales here or there. Do you have anything else for us today, Jason?
Jason:
Yeah, I could run through how we're using manager experiments, where we popped it in that we're running experiment now on this board.
Bradley Sutton:
Oh yeah, why don't you show that to close things out, and then I'm gonna show some more strategies and then maybe we'll bring it back here for some Q&A.
Jason:
Right now we do take that details and we're running on through manager experiments and anyone who is brand registry has the ability to access and manage experiments and you can run A-B testing on titles, bullet points, A plus content and images. So right now we're running one for title and bullet points. As you can see, I totally just deconstructed my listing for this so you'll notice I've started to put in high caffeine coffee pods. Espresso shot. Through some other research I saw not just espresso but espresso shot was very important. Dark roast, strong coffee, espresso powder once again because powder it's a little bit different. People could have used espresso shot and espresso powder, but I saw, just because we had that included in it, there was actually some relevant high volume search relevancy on it. And then you start lacing some of these key words into your introduction double caffeine, strong, smooth and robust. We picked up on strong, smooth and robust dark roast all in like flavor profiles through product opportunity explorer. Customers were specifically using these keywords, so why not use them? They identify with them. It has meaning for them. Then we always have like a functional benefit to our. So we talk about our vitamin B12, there's a sub niche called healthy coffee that we dominate. So I always like layering in healthy coffee, and then we talk about our pods. All this is going to be baked in. It's going to start as we start driving advertising more and more focused on it, on these keywords. We're doubling down to try and gain organic relevancy. Amazon will pick on it, our AI will pick up on it, and this is kind of the process we use.
Bradley Sutton:
Love it. All right, Jason, thank you so much for sharing that. I want it. Instead of just being like, oh, this is going to be a Helium 10 training where just Helium 10 employees are showing stuff, I want to show, hey, Jason is a real live Amazon seller with a real live product, and these are the strategies that he's using to get ahead. You don't just randomly achieve the success of making 20 million a year on Amazon and Walmart without some solid keyword strategies, and those are some of the things that he has. Now I want to show you guys some common and some also maybe off the wall keyword research strategies in the next 10 minutes and then we'll open it up for Q&A. One of the things I want to show you and this I mentioned before some things you have to have a brand registry for the first thing that Jason was talking about Product Opportunity Explore. You don't need brand registry for the thing that he showed about how to use the experiments with his manager experiments and showing the alternate kinds of titles and bullet points that had different keywords in it. You need brand registry for that. This next one I'm going to show you also requires brand registry and it's because it's utilizing brand analytics. Now I could do this inside of Amazon, but it's much easier to do it inside of Helium 10, because I can search multiple weeks a lot faster. So let me go ahead and share my screen and while he was talking I just loaded up that search for one of the keywords yeah, strong coffee K cups. So I'm just going to take and look at VitaCup. Right here at the very top is advertising. Let's say I'm not VitaCup and I'm just going to copy him and copy his ASIN, and I want to go ahead and see where he is, has been ranking or one of the top three clicked. All right, now. What I want everybody to do is, right now, go into Black Box inside of Helium 10. And then, if you have a Diamond account, all right. I don't think it is available for Platinum just yet, hit this new tool called ABA top search terms. ABA stands for Amazon Brand Analytics and I'm going to be pasting in a few ASIN. So let's go ahead and put that ASIN in here. Did I copy it? I must not have copied it. Oh, there, it is. Okay, I pasted it and let's go ahead and take in the red alert coffee. This guy is selling about a thousand units a month and maybe a couple more ASIN’S here. Death wish, he was mentioning death wish, or there we got three ASIN’s from the top ones. All right, so now what I can do is I'm going to look, let's just say, going to February 4 to February 10. I'm going to hit apply filters and now what is going to come up is where any one of these products was one of the top three clicked products for that keyword. Now, not that many keywords came up, only 17, because I only put in three. But imagine I could have put here maybe 20 or 30 products and then for any week or any month I can say hey, show me where these are these products. At least one of them was one of the top three clicked and I could say I want to see the ones where at least maybe one ASIN had more than 1% of the conversions, meaning that there's got to be some conversions on there and theoretically, all keywords said have that, but there might be some like lower level keywords that have no conversion. Sure enough, there was one, because now there's only 16 keywords left here. But look at this I am now looking at any keyword where at least one of these products is one of the top three clicked, and I could start going in deep here and seeing all right, what is the history of how this product, who are the top three clicked? Like, for example, look at this one protein coffee K cups. All right, protein coffee k cups is not a branded term, and so I'm looking at the Search Volume All right, 735. This is not that much search volume. Is this something that's newer or is it trending? I personally have not seen this keyword before and I'm looking at the last year on Amazon and I could see that, hey, it's actually gone up from like in the 200s and 300s and slowly it's on the rise. So, right off the bat, you know this is not some crazy amazing keyword 735 searches but it's on the upper trending. You know I'm probably one of the ones who's trying to search for out because I'm looking for like hey, is it? Is there a chance to get some protein when I'm drinking coffee, you know? So I would keep looking at this keyword. Now I'm like all right, well, who has been some of the ones who are converting for this keyword? So I click the total click share chart in Helium 10 for the keyword. And now, if I'm looking on a month to month basis, I just put my mouse over and I could see who are the top three clicked products and are they similar to my product? Right, like, for example, look at here in the month of December, VitaCup Keto Coffee Pods was the top the sick, the third most clicked product. Now who is dominating, though? The rapid fire protein coffee. Right, they've got protein in their title of their product, so it's no doubt that somebody searching this is actually a great example. I completely just by chance, found this is a perfect example of keyword research and how it's important and how it actually kind of like will give you an idea about who's going to be one of the best products here. Think of somebody who is actually typing in protein coffee, k cups. All right, I look at the search results and I see all three of these products this Corelatte one, the VitaCup Keto one and the Rapid Fire Protein one. But just the fact that in their title and the name it just so happens to be the name of the product is protein coffee, it's going to get them a lot more clicks. And then, look at that. I don't have to guess if it did or not. Look, amazon is telling me this product got 28% of the clicks right and total makes total sense. The VitaCup one is just a keto. One might give some protein but it only got 6% of the click. It's still top three. But you can understand now all of a sudden why this product is dominating. So that means if I really wanted to dominate this product I might have to think I can just make up protein and say, oh yeah, my product is. You know, this extra shot. VitaCup is a protein coffee. If it's not a protein coffee, that's false advertising, right. But if I'm developing a product I really got to take that in consideration. Now this is how Keyword Research ties in even to your product development. Right, I've got to think about putting that keyword in my title if I want a chance at kind of like busting into this rapid fire proteins market share here. I can also see the history here on the right hand side about how organic and sponsored rank ties in to being one of the top three clicked. For example, this protein coffee in December, in January, in November, they, for this keyword, were not running any sponsored ads. Nowadays, you know, somebody might think you know you got to be running, you got to be having a high bid on this, on any keyword that you want to have a big sales, but for whatever reason, this protein coffee comes like nah, I'm good, I don't need to do sponsored after this keyword because I'm dominating without it right Now. What about VitaCup? VitaCup here in December. This is pretty cool, guys. All right, this is exactly why combining Helium 10 data with Amazon data is so cool. VitaCup was one of the top three clicked ASIN’s, right. The number one clicked ASIN was this protein coffee. Rapid Fire All these brands are really great, right,Rapid Fire. And then you're looking oh, no wonder they're the top click ASIN. They were Organic Rank one. Now, if you were just looking on Cerebro, right, and you saw our Keyword Tracker and you saw that VitaCup Genius Coffee was ranked 12th, you might think, oh, there's no way it's one of the top three clicked because it's kind of like towards the middle of page one. But this is one of the top three clicked and you don't have to wonder why or how. Look at the sponsored rank average. So in December of this month, this variation family was showing up on average right there on the top. So you see how, in some situations, organic rank is all is all that's needed, but if VitaCup was relying on their organic rank only to get clicks for this keyword, would they be one of the top three clicked? Absolutely not, because their organic rank is all the way down here, but they were able to be one of the top three clicked because of their high sponsored rank.
So this is, guys, this is like not your grandfather's keyword research strategy we're talking about today. This is like next, next, next level, where you're going into seeing who are the top click to try and like, understand, buy your intent, and then now you're reverse engineering the strategy with how these different companies were able to dominate this keyword. For this company, it's a matter of hey, they named this product after this keyword. It's in their title, right there at the beginning. They're able to dominate this. For VitaCup, it's completely opposite. Their path to being one of the top three clicked was through sponsored ads. So for every product there's always going to be different strategies, but this is the once you guys are experienced sellers, this is kind of the level of keyword research you need to do. It's not just hey, let me throw in an ASIN and a group of ASINs in a Cerebro. You obviously have to do that, exactly what Jason showed and find those 24,000 keywords and then whittle that down into what are the most important ones. But you also need to take a step farther and start using Product Opportunity Explorer and the Brand Analytics Data to kind of understand, well, what are companies doing after they find that keyword and how are they getting their sales. So that's Brand Analytics. For anybody that has the Diamond plan, I highly recommend it. Now let's say you're on the newer side and you just have a Platinum account, which is totally fine. What is the easiest way to get the top keywords? Let me just show that. Let's go back to that page that's Coffin shelves. Where are we at More Coffin shelves? Where's my coffee one? Here we go, all right. So I'm going to choose the top products on this page that I just want to go ahead and measure my success and my keywords versus them. Or maybe I'm just I don't have my own coffee product yet and I want to know what are the top products here. And, by the way, you can still see there's VitaCup still right there with their Genius Cup right there as one of the top three sponsored ranks, and this is kind of cool. I bet that Jason is actually spending slightly less than Deathwish Coffee and what is his wake the hell up Dark Roast, but he's probably getting a very similar click-through rate. You don't have to be position one or two on sponsored to be one of the top clicked or sponsored Dial back that spend, be the number three or number four and you'll still get almost the same kind of click-through rate and clicks. Let's go ahead and hit Red Alert. I got the Deathwish and I don't want to do Pete's. Let's do community coffee, right. And then what I'm going to do is I'm going to hit run Cerebro. Now this is going to open up in Cerebro, kind of like just what he showed. Now I wasn't paying attention to. If these products are all pods and if they're definitely competitors I'm assuming they are. But you guys need to really take a closer look at who you are putting into Cerebro and make sure that you're doing very similar competitors or that, like Jason was talking about, you're pulling it from Product Opportunity Explorer and you know by definition they're in the same niche. But I just picked four random ones just from the search results, but within seconds here, or a minute or so, I'm going to be able to get where all of these keywords or all of these products, the keywords that they are ranking for and that they're doing sponsored ads. The very first thing that I'm going to do once this shows up is I'm going to hit the button top keyword right here, top keywords so everybody can do this anytime they run Cerebro, and basically what it's doing is it's like hey, where are most of these keywords are ranking for, or most of these products ranking for on these keywords very highly? And look at that. I came up with 24 keywords and a lot of these are branded. But, just like Jason showed, there's a lot of non-branded keywords here as well, like, for example, high caffeine coffee cake. I'm almost positive. He literally found that in Product Opportunity Explorer and I guess randomly guys, this is the first time I've ever searched these things in my life. It just shows how Helium 10 is validated by the Amazon data. That exact keyword that he found is showing up right here Strong coffee. There's the other keyword that he found that came up right here Protein coffee K cups. That's the keyword that I had found just on my own that I put up here. So these are the top keywords. Another thing, though I like to do, this obviously, is going to just show tons and tons of branded ones. I like hitting this button Opportunity Keywords, because, instead of looking at the products or the keywords that everybody is ranking highly for, this button allows me to see, in seconds, products where only one or two of these competitors are ranking high and, by definition, of course, the majority of those are going to be branded. But every now and then I'm going to be able to see unique keywords that other competitors might not be able to see, they might not be paying attention to. Like here, instead of k cups, here's a keyword that I didn't realize. Some people are typing in kpods. Now why did this kpods keyword come up here? Let's take a look at the Relative Rank here. All right, perfect, look at this. I don't know who is who, but look at this Of these top competitors. Let's say these guys are all kind of equal, competing with each other. Do you see where everybody is ranked here on this page? One of them is 78, one is 107, 241, 245. There is only one of these competitors getting sales from this keyword cake pods with no spaces, and they're ranked on page one, position 12. What does that mean? That means that if I were to kind of like, do a campaign on this keyword. It potentially could be easier for me to rank for this because I'm not having to go up against all of my main competitors. So that's why this button, guys, is a sleeping giant of a button right here.
Opportunity keywords let's see if we can find any of the hidden gems in here that aren't branded keywords. Let's take a look here: Coffee pod, bulk k cups. Maybe some of these products think, well, we're not really bulk so we don't think we should put that in our listing. But there are some people, for one of these products at least, where they are heavily ranked for bulk k cups, even though they're not really a bulk and they're actually getting sales from it. So this is just another way to get some keywords that can help you. I want to give you guys some deep dive strategy sessions on keyword research. To kind of round out your on Amazon and off Amazon, your on Helium 10 and off Helium 10 strategy. So let me go pull up those episodes right now. We did a three-part keyword research series on Helium 10 a few months ago. That really is going to help you, in about three hours of time, get all of the keyword research tips that you need. So you guys got a pen handy, write this down. And the way you can find this is everybody, go ahead and pull out your phone. If you have an iPhone, type in podcast and open up the podcast app. Or Spotify if you have a Spotify and type in Serious Sellers Podcast, all right, type in serious sellers podcast, and then go ahead and hit subscribe. And then the ones I want you guys to look at are these three episodes here keyword research masterclass 100% free, doesn't it? And you don't have to be a Helium 10 member to listen to these. All right. Episode 506, 507, and 508. All right, so again, go to the podcast, Serious Sellers Podcast. Type in episode 506, 507, and 508. If you guys are more visual, it's h10.me/506 , h10.me/507, and h10.me/508 . If you go to those links you'll go to a page where you can actually even see the video too of it. But either way, subscribe to the podcast and go to those episodes and maybe next time you're on your treadmill or you're taking a drive or a run, listen to those and then go back later to the video to kind of like have the overview. But what Jason gave and what I gave are maybe only like six or seven different research strategies. We have over 33 in those videos that will help round out your knowledge, and not everything is Helium 10. Half of them just have to do with Seller Central. Liz says I'm a newbie to Helium 10. I want to know where to start. All right, the podcast is a great way to start. If you don't have your first product yet, product research is what you want to get into. I would go and go into Blackbox and look at hit the Learn button, Liz, and watch all the videos there. And definitely, if you're brand new to Amazon altogether, don't even go there first. Go into the Freedom Ticket, go into the Learning Hub. At the very top of your Helium 10 dashboard you'll see a button called Learning Hub or Freedom Ticket. Hit that and start going through the training there. That'll give you a good way to start. So, Jason, are you looking at what's more important that, a high search volume or not a high search volume, a trending up search volume, kind of like that protein K Cup, or a keyword that already has like 3000 searches? Compared to that one only had 700 and thus has a lot more sales. Which one is more important for you?
Jason:
It depends. So let's if we take protein. We actually released a protein coffee slim protein coffee back in December. That's because of the AI and the way Amazon runs broad and other campaigns, it started picking up on that search term. So it started delivering on Genius. Genius gets delivered on every new search term that gets in. It's trying to find relevancy just beyond what other one product you're carrying. So we developed slim protein coffee because we saw a high search increase on protein coffee in general, which was a trend off Amazon as well. So but I also have baked into our slim protein coffee high search terms such as instant coffee and some other ones. So it's kind of a mixture of both. I always like high search term keywords built into titles and bullet points because it's going to bake in some organic relevancy that it's gonna be cheaper for me to try and build long-term. That it is versus advertising on.
Bradley Sutton:
Okay, excellent. Does Amazon auto translate keywords from different languages? One of my organic ranked keywords is Spanish, but I never added to my listening Great question, and the answer is yes. So in America and different countries, it's different languages. In America, Spanish is the main second language that Amazon is on, and if you turn your Amazon browser into Spanish, it automatically translate your listening and then those keywords a lot of them you are already indexed for, and so sometimes, if it doesn't, I highly recommend looking for organic keywords that you're ranking for, and then what you might have to do is adjust your listing optimization, because the Amazon auto translator sometimes doesn't use the exact phrases, and so you might not be that relevant to the Amazon algorithm, even though you're indexed for it. So definitely look at what are the top Spanish keywords and then, if your translation is not good, talk to Amazon and see if you can get your translation updated with better keywords. Jason, thank you so much for joining us. Appreciate the extra shot I had today, and thanks to everybody for joining us today. Hope you guys enjoyed this session. We'll see you guys next time. Bye-bye now. I'll see you guys next time.
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We’re back with another episode of the Weekly Buzz with Helium 10’s Chief Brand Evangelist, Bradley Sutton. Every week, we cover the latest breaking news in the Amazon, Walmart, and E-commerce space, interview someone you need to hear from and provide a training tip for the week.TikTok Shop listings are surfacing on Google Shoppinghttps://www.modernretail.co/technology/tiktok-shop-listings-are-surfacing-on-google-shopping/New Feature: Now advertisers can convert high-performing Posts into Sponsored Brand Ads.https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7166461642057142272/Chinese TikTok experts are teaching Americans how to sellhttps://restofworld.org/2024/china-livestream-studios-train-tiktok-influencers-in-us/Top Amazon aggregator Thrasio files for bankruptcyhttps://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/28/top-amazon-aggregator-thrasio-files-for-bankruptcy.htmlMonthly Fees May Be Coming to Etsyhttps://www.ecommercebytes.com/2024/02/25/monthly-fees-may-be-coming-to-etsy/The episode continues to buzz with discussions around the benefits of the Helium 10 Elite program, including expert training and exclusive networking events. Plus, don't miss out on the insider scoop about Helium 10's new feature enabling price adjustments directly from the Insights Dashboard. We also encourage our community of Spanish and German speakers to connect through upcoming networking calls, ensuring a global touch to our Amazon selling conversation. Tune in for these fascinating updates and more, as we provide sellers with the tools and knowledge to thrive in the ever-evolving world of online commerce.
In this episode of the Weekly Buzz by Helium 10, Bradley covers:
01:10 - TikTok Shop On Google02:47 - Amazon Posts > SB Ads03:50 - TikTok Live Streaming07:46 - Thrasio Bankrupt09:23 - New Etsy Seller Fee?10:10 - Join Helium 10 Elite11:06 - Spanish Networking Calls11:47 - German Networking Calls12:00 - New Feature Alerts15:04 - Pro Training Tip: Reverse-Engineer Your Competitor's PPC Strategy► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast
► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension
► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life)
► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft
► Watch The Podcasts On YouTube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos
TranscriptBradley Sutton:
TikTok shop listings showing up in Google results. Amazon posts can be now made into sponsor brand ads. The most famous Amazon aggregator has filed for bankruptcy. These stories and more on this week's Weekly Buzz. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the series sellers podcast by Helium 10. I am your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show that is our Helium 10 Weekly Buzz, where we give you a rundown on all the news stories and goings on in the Amazon, Walmart, e-commerce world and we also let you know what new tools that Helium 10 has released. And we also give you a training tip of the week that'll give you serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. Let's see what's buzzing For two weeks in a row now. Not too many articles, couple of big ones out there, a couple of interesting ones for sure. We're gonna hop right into it, but make sure to stay to the end. We got a really cool training tip from Shivali and we also have a pretty cool new feature update from Helium 10.
Bradley Sutton:
So let's go ahead and go into the first article here, and this is from Modern Retail and it's entitled TikTok Shop Listings are surfacing on Google Shopping, right? Have you seen that in Google? This article talks about how listings from TikTok Shop have begun to pop up in Google Shopping, especially results for beauty and skincare products. So, through Google searches for trendy beauty products like Nail Art or Dior Lip Oil, dup results now feature links that go directly to smaller sellers on TikTok Shop, and the actual TikTok team did confirm that this is something that TikTok is dabbling in. Now this, to me, was a little bit interesting because you know, like traditional keyword research tools, you know, like Helium 10 for Amazon, don't necessarily like, don't have as much oomph. Right For TikTok Shop because it relies on so much virality, right, TikTok? You know kind of like influencers are the ones who have like these viral posts and that's what sends tons of traffic to videos. You know it's not like oh, let me get to page one for a certain hashtag on TikTok, right For TikTok Shop. But this could be interesting Depending on how Google is indexing some of these products and how TikTok Shop is integrating. Now, all of a sudden, it could open up a new thing for keyword research on TikTok Shop so you can get some maybe outside traffic that don't come from another TikTok videos directly to your TikTok Shop. So pretty interesting stuff. It'll be definitely worth taking a look at in the future.
Bradley Sutton:
Next article is actually not an article, but it was a post from our buddy, Jeff Cohen, from Amazon, and this was from his LinkedIn last week. Just in case you guys missed, it was from a few days ago, but I missed it the first couple of days that it came out. But you can now have high-performing Amazon Post which are free, as you guys know. You can now convert them into sponsored brand ads. All right. So right in the ads console in Post Manager, you can just take an Amazon post that's doing really well and make it a sponsored brand ad. Now, this hasn't been rolled out to everybody yet, so go ahead and check. Go into the Post Manager in your Seller Central ad console, click on the boost button if you see it, and then you're gonna be directed to the sponsored brand campaign builder to review the creative setting. So in his LinkedIn post that we'll link to below, you'll be able to see kind of like some graphics of how it might look. But that is gonna be interesting If you can turn your Amazon post into sponsored brand ads.
Bradley Sutton:
Next article is from restofworld.org I should say. Again about TikTok, and seems like I've been beating a dead horse for almost two years now about how US consumers haven't really adopted live shopping. Well, this article says Chinese TikTok experts are teaching Americans how to sell and it says, convinced, a live stream shopping boom in the West is inevitable. Entrepreneurs are sharing Chinese playbooks with aspiring US influencers. And there is just one kind of like tidbit here, guys, that blew me away. Listen to this quote right here In China, 25% of online sales in 2023 took place through live streams. Let that sink in, guys. 25% I mean, if you think about all of online sales in America, like the minor ones, you know, like Walmart and others is not even 25%, a lot, lot less. But out of every single thing that was sold online in China in 2023, again, let it sink in 25% were from live streams. Now, I don't think America will ever, ever get to that number absolutely not right. But I mean it would be kind of crazy if it even got up to like 5%. 10% might be asking for too much. If it gets up to 5%, that's gonna be, you know something, that's going to be pretty, I think, big, and that's what these people are making on.
Bradley Sutton:
So this article talks about how they've got these agencies that are training influencers on how to do like TikTok shop lives, perhaps some Amazon lives, et cetera. Here's one agency that has more than 10 streamers in the US. So these are kind of like streamer factories that they're pumping out and they're giving them the literal Chinese playbook. Like the documents they get is in Chinese and then it has English translation. Now one of these agencies said hey, on a regular day there's about 100 people watching simultaneous sales. This is even the agency. Just shows you how much it hasn't really taken off in America. The professionals can only get like 100 people watching a live stream live, but it says that some days the streams can attract over a thousand viewers at the same time.
Bradley Sutton:
Now, thinking about the cultural differences, of how different things work, you know one influencer said hey, I saw many Chinese live stream sellers screaming at the top of their lungs, counting down until a product is live to encourage rush buying. And this person said I don't think that's gonna work in the US. You know American customers don't like to be told what to do or just because somebody's yelling at them, right, but this influencer who has been doing lives here in America on TikTok shop. She says that she closed over 200 orders on her third day on the job, worth more than a hour with $11,000 worth of products in one afternoon. So again, it's not like completely, completely dead. It's just nothing compared to what's going on in China. But everybody keeps saying, hey, we expect this thing to take off in America sometime. So it's something that I think you know Amazon sellers, e-commerce sellers should be kind of paying attention to what's going on. You know, if we're selling on Amazon, amazon already has Amazon live. Walmart probably will come out with something if it kind of takes off, and then obviously it's a big part of TikTok shop. So do you have a plan ready to go for if live shopping starts taking off? I think it would be great because it's kind of something that's going to be net new. I think it's going to have a lot of impulse buying if it starts taking off and it's not like it's just going to take away from your sales that you already get during search. It's going to be like net new sales for Amazon sellers if this ever takes off.
Bradley Sutton:
Speaking of Amazon, you know some more sad news Going to. CNBC says top Amazon Aggregator Thrasio files for bankruptcy. Now, there wasn't too much information in this article. I don't understand the whole, you know bankruptcy thing. I know it's not good, but basically what it says here is that the company agreed with lenders to shave off about 495 million off of its debt loan. Doesn't take a bankruptcy specialist to understand. Half a billion dollars is a lot of money, and some creditors committed to provide it with up to 90 million dollars in fresh capital, which it said will go towards ongoing operations and enable to keep running brands as portfolio, so all the brands that it bought. You know it's not like, oh my goodness, they're all going to just run out of stock and go out of business. It still looks like it's going to keep going. But this is, like you know, for those of us who have been in the Amazon game for a few years. You know might be kind of. You know, for some of us maybe not a shock because we could see some things coming. But if somebody were to tell us three years ago or whenever Thrasio was at their peak, you know, hey, they're going to be bankrupt in a couple of years, like we, probably like no way. It seems like they've growing money on trees over there, right, but just the state of the world that we're in ice. There's still a lot of people who are buying and selling Amazon businesses. All right, the that model of buying and selling Amazon business is absolutely not dead. Make sure to check out a recent Kevin King podcast, amp and podcast, which talked about this this model still going strong.
Bradley Sutton:
Last article of the day is coming from e-commerce bites and for those of you, if you're like me and sell on Etsy Something real small it says monthly fees may be coming for Etsy sellers. I didn't realize there was no monthly fees, you know like. So I don't really think this is big. I mean, we're all used to it. You know we pay Walmart, right, we pay Amazon a monthly fee. I don't even know how much I pay Amazon right now. It's like what 30 bucks, 40 bucks, 50 bucks don't really care, because it Etsy sellers are kind of like scared that this is a fee might come. But if you're scared about $20 a month fee or $10 a month fee, you know you probably Shouldn't be selling on the platform, but still, hey, money is money. We got to count all our money. So this is something to watch out for. If you are an Etsy seller.
Bradley Sutton:
All right, a couple of things before we get into a really cool feature update I wanted to remind you of is. You know, a couple weeks ago, for the first time in over a year, helium 10 elite is open. So remember, with helium 10 elite, you can have one-on-one calls with me, one-on-one calls with Carrie and Shivali. Hop on private trains with Kevin King twice a month. You know one where he gives you the seven ninja hacks and brings on expert guests, and another would just him where you can literally Face-to-face, ask Kevin King anything. You want. A lot more perks, you know private networking, big events that we we do around the world. We just did one in Germany, we're gonna do one in Madrid, Spain, in a couple of months. So all of this for only $99 extra a month.
Bradley Sutton:
So if you're interested in more information about the helium 10 elite program, go to h10.me forward slash elite, h10.me forward slash elite, and Once you sign up for elite, make sure the first thing you do is go ahead and book a one-on-one call with me. I'd love to help you out with what you need. Now, if you speak other languages, we have some other networking calls coming up that are completely free, open to anybody. If you speak Spanish, we have our monthly networking zoom call coming up with Adriana, so make sure to sign up at h10.me/llamadaconadriana, and that's the link to go to that call, which is just gonna be in a couple of days. And if you speak in Deutsch, if you speak German, the one that you want to sign up for our monthly call happening this weekend is h10.me/elite-de.
Bradley Sutton:
All right, next up we have a new feature alert from Helium 10, pretty cool feature that a lot of people have been asking for. So you're in your Helium 10 account. You might see some insights from Insights Dashboard about your competitor has lowered their price, they've raised their price, competitors out of stock, competitors running a coupon. Your sales are going up, your inventory is going up, your inventory is going up. All these different things you can see inside of Helium 10's dashboard right, well, on some of these things, the action that you might want to take is you might wanna raise your price or lower your price that is appearing on Amazon, and sometimes you might want to go ahead and do that to a big group of products, like maybe you're selling leggings, like my buddy Yizhak in Israel. I mean, he's got hundreds and hundreds of SKUs. You know, some product lines have 100 SKUs with all the different colors and all the different sizes. When he wants to go change his price. It's like a very tedious task to do inside of Seller Central. Well, that's why I'm happy to introduce that on your Insights dashboard.
Bradley Sutton:
Now you can go ahead and change the price directly from your dashboard. So what you do is you go down to your product table, make sure that you're on the SKU view and then you can go to like listing and you will see this column that says price. So first of all, you click this button and you'll be able to see the history of the price. But right directly here in Helium 10, you can go ahead and, one by one, enter a price. So if you watch Carrie's training last week, maybe you saw how to do tags in your dashboard, where maybe you give all of your coffin shelves a tag. That's what I did here. So I can click on coffin shelf. All of my coffin shelves appear automatically here. I can select everything and then I can hit this button edit price and then go ahead and put the price that I want, to put all of them at once and it's going to go ahead and update in Seller Central.
Bradley Sutton:
There's a lot of use cases for this. I would think that the bulk one is especially appealing, because that really is not easy to do inside of Seller Central and especially for those of you who've got a lot of variations. You just wanna say, hey, all 60 of these variations. I want the new price to be $12.97 or whatever. Instead of going one by one, do it with just a couple clicks of the button. Let us know what you think of this product. Would you like to see some other feature? Me personally, when I saw it, I was like, hey, I wanna be able to see, or be able to maybe make a sale price. I don't wanna lower my price too much, but I would like to be able to make a sale price with a beginning and end date. Other people have asked for coupons. I'm not sure if that's even available for helium tend to do, but if that's something that you want us to try and investigate, make sure to reach out to customer support and let them know what you think of this new tool, but give it a try.
Bradley Sutton:
Next time you wanna change your price for one product or multi-products, go ahead and do it directly inside of helium tend without even having to go to Seller Central. So pretty cool update there, all right. Last up, we have got a really quick hitting tip from Shivali. So maybe you're examining some of your competitors and you wanna know what is their PPC strategy. How are they allocating their spend? Now, you might not be able to just hack into their account and see their seller central advertising console, right, but using Helium 10, there's a cool way that within seconds, you can pretty much see all of their strategy. Check it out in this video.
Shivali Patel:
Hi there, let's talk about how you can analyze your competitor's PPC strategy so you can figure out which keywords and phrases you want to go after. Theoretically, let's say, you found a good seller in your niche that's generating decent volume. What you could do is run a single search on Cerebro, as we've done here with this product, which is the Goer gift Woodcuff and Tray and then you could slide over to check out the keyword distribution. The keyword distribution tells us we have 646 paid terms for this ascent, of which, by hovering over the eye icon, we can see that 287 are for sponsored product placements, 41 are in highly rated spots and 318 are sponsored brand video. What's cool is we can filter for those match types. Let's say I wanted to check out which keywords or phrases is this ascent running sponsored brand videos on. I could go ahead and select that, tap out, click apply filters and you'll see that we have 318 filtered keywords right here. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Or let's say that instead of sponsored brand video, you are interested in just the regular PPC keywords and phrases. I could change out my match type to sponsored product, click apply and all of a sudden, the 287 placements for sponsored product are now visible. You could always further refine this search by inputting in something like a minimum of 200 for search volume and a sponsored filter of one to five. This is going to show us which keywords they seem to be concentrating their PPC spend on Applying just a couple more filters takes us from 287 filtered keywords down to a more feasible 22.
Shivali Patel:
Of course, as sellers, we wouldn't be bidding top of search unless those keywords are actually profitable. So now you can use this information to your own advantage. This contrasts to this other ascent we have here, where you can instantly see they're not running any paid ads. We have zero for all of these placements across the board. Now compare that to this last ascent, where we have 22 for paid search and, guys, anytime you see such few keywords underneath paid, then you're probably looking at an ascent that's not running any auto phrase or broad match campaigns and you can leverage this information. Especially if that ascent is in similar standing to your product, you can figure out whether that's something you want to duplicate or completely stay away from all this to say there is so much you can do with Cerebro. We have so many filters and I just showed you match type. Make sure that you go in and do this for your own products to figure out maybe how you want to change up your strategy or what are some new keywords and phrases you want to add. I'll see you next time.
Bradley Sutton:
All right, Thank you, Shivali, for that. That's actually pretty cool. Did you guys know that you can pretty much reverse engineer some of your Competitors Exact Strategy, especially those who aren't doing broad or phrase or auto campaigns? So make sure you guys are utilizing that. A lot of those features are available to any level of Helium 10. Well, that's it for this week's Weekly Buzz guys. We'll see you next week to see what's buzzing.
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As the landscape of Japanese e-commerce undergoes a seismic shift, we're fortunate to have e-commerce experts Nick Katz and Gary Huang join us again to unpack the transformation. It's a world where Amazon goes toe-to-toe over local stalwart Rakuten, a surprising twist given the resilience of Japan's physical storefronts during a pandemic that skipped a full lockdown. Their insights shed light on Rakuten's gamble to step away from their cornerstone points program, a move that has sellers keenly watching the horizon for its ripple effects.
Steering through the complexities of international logistics, this episode covers the strategic use of freight forwarding when entering the Japanese market, a journey our expert guests navigated firsthand. We dive into the benefits of Japan's proximity to China, the advantages of trade agreements with other Asian nations, and reminisce about the global hiccup caused by the Suez Canal crisis. These discussions are not just theoretical musings; they're actionable insights for bolstering your bottom line and carving out a niche in one of the world's most dynamic Amazon marketplaces.
Finally, we celebrate the cultural tapestry that is Japanese business ethos, examining the surprising competitive edge that international sellers can unleash with astute analytics and Amazon product reviews. These narratives of success and support—from local sellers to global players—culminate in an invitation to an upcoming event in Okinawa, promising to be an epicenter for networking amongst the entrepreneurial elite. It's here where the theoretical becomes tangible, and where the future of selling in Amazon Japan takes shape before our very eyes.
In episode 539 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley, Gary, and Nick discuss:
00:00 - Sell on Amazon Japan Expert Tips07:47 - E-Commerce Changes in Amazon Japan12:04 - Import Taxes and Duties Abroad 14:25 - Freight Forwarding and Japan Business Opportunities22:16 - Success Stories of Selling in Japan29:37 - Selling in Niche Markets - Japan33:49 - Leveraging Global Reviews for Success► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast
► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension
► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life)
► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft
► Watch The Podcasts On YouTube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos
TranscriptBradley Sutton:Today we've got two of the world's foremost experts on selling on the one Amazon marketplace that you probably aren't selling in, but you need to be Amazon Japan, where sellers are making more profit than all their other Amazon marketplaces. How cool is that? Pretty cool I think. We know that getting to page one on keyword search results is one of the most important goals that an Amazon seller might have. So track your progress on the way to page one and even get historical keyword ranking information and even see sponsored ad rank placement with keyword tracker by Helium 10. For more information, go to h10.me/keywordtracker. Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the series sellers podcast by Helium 10. I'm your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show. That's a completely BS free, unscripted and unrehearsed organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. And it's the middle of the night almost middle of the night here, so I'm in my normal attire of what I wear every night here in my house, but the only people that I can go ahead and keep this on and not have to change back to work clothes when I do something at this hour of the day is the two guests here because they are actually in Japan right now. So we are, makes me feel right at home here with what I'm wearing. We have a back on the show, Nick and Gary. Welcome back, guys.
Nick:Thank you.
Gary:It's great to be back and for those of you guys that are listening, I can see Bradley. He has like a black and white sumo themed what they call you could tell or like a robe, but he wears it very well. I love the Japanese motif you got going on. It's great to see you.
Bradley Sutton:Yes, thank you for that. Likewise I haven't seen Nick in a year. But, Gary, you know we saw each other. We had some nice Tonkatsu right there in Ginza a while back a few months ago with my favorite place to eat over there. So it was nice to see you there. But you know, for those who want to get the full backstory, go back guys to episode 426 was the first time Gary was on. Nick's been on before then as well. But 426 was from last year and we had a lot of updates on what's going on in Amazon Japan and since then there's been new things. So I wanted to, you know, invite you guys back. But I'm not saying this is the reason. But we were talking earlier about how my LA Dodgers was able to sign Ohtani and Yamamoto, my two favorite baseball players, both Japanese, but I'm looking on the 7 Figure Seller Japan Mastermind website at last year's event. Let me just show everybody this. All right, I'm not saying that the Dodgers have me to thank, but last year at this event I wore my Helium 10 Dodgers themed jersey and you can see me here in this picture. I'm explaining something. I'm like think about it, man Ohtani is going to come to the Dodgers. He's like oh, I'm not exactly sure, but I was telling him that the Dodgers are coming. Well, we're going to talk about your new event this year for sure. I just wanted to call that out, though. You know, dodgers, you know. Let me give you my address. My check should be in the mail. You have me to think I set the ground, I set the standard there last year early. Anyways, let's start with Nick. How many years, now total, have you been Japan? I know Gary's newer, but how many years do you have under your belt?
Nick:I can't even count how many years now, but I came in 1995. So whatever it is from then?
Bradley Sutton:1995. Yes, that's quite a while. Right after a few years, just after I moved out. Now You've been there so long. Just like you just said, the years kind of just bleed together. But if we were just to start off with one of the biggest changes in the e-commerce landscape in Japan in the last year, what would it be? This is maybe like the first kind of full year after COVID and dust is kind of settled. In America at least, there's a lot of the boom that was happening in e-commerce, I wouldn't say one crashing down. It's a steep decline to pre-COVID time. Something similar in Japan, or how do you view the landscape over there?
Nick:Yeah, well, I mean, e-commerce is very, very strong here. It still is very, very strong. Japan, unlike a lot of other countries, has always traditionally had very strong brick and mortar retail. People do like going to stores, but I mean, Japan never had a full-on lockdown, so most of the stores were open for most of the time. There were small periods where they weren't open, but because we also do retail, we actually do distribution to stores. We've seen that they are really starting to cut back. So there has been a real shift to online and I've noticed, certainly in the last year. I hope no one from Rakuten is hearing this, but I think they're starting to feel a little bit of pain. They've made a few adjustments and I think there is definitely more of a swing towards Amazon over Rakuten. They are pretty much half and half for the section of the market, no, of the section of the market, so they've both got about 20%.
Bradley Sutton:Yeah, no, I mean, I thought Rakuten was still way ahead.
Nick:No, I think Amazon has now overtaken Rakuten. It's kind of hard to compare apples to apples, but it does look like Amazon has overtaken Rakuten and Rakuten have started to do some strange things cut back on their points program, which has always been their main strategy. That it was their strongest point the fact that you can collect points. Japanese people get Rakuten points in their lives, doing everything, and even my company has a Rakuten bank account. People have Rakuten. They have Rakuten for everything for travel, for insurance, for everything and it's to get points. But Rakuten started to cut back on those points. I'm not entirely sure why, but I think that is going to encourage more people to move over. So that's kind of something that I'm seeing personally, all the Rakuten is still a very, very good marketplace here.
Bradley Sutton:All right, interesting. Now, going back to Gary, let's take a step back from e-commerce. This is only what is it? Second, third year in Japan for you?
Gary:Third year in Japan, one year in Tokyo.Bradley Sutton:Third year in Japan.Gary:Yeah, two and a half or two years in Okinawa.
Bradley Sutton:How has your family settled in now? Japanese speaking, culture, food. Is it home now or still feels a little bit foreign?
Gary:Well, I wish my Japanese was better. I mean, my son is 5, he's in pre-kindergarten. I'm pretty sure his Japanese is going to surpass mine very soon. But yeah, we're acclimating very well and we actually just got back from a trip from Hokkaido, which is in the north, really nice skiing. My wife had, they have this drift ice area in the northern part of Hokkaido like literally the ocean is like frozen, and my wife had that on her bucket list for many years and we were able to do that. So, yeah, very fortunate to be here and, yeah, very happy.
Bradley Sutton:That's awesome. Yeah, I used to live right south of there, in Aomori, for about a year and a half. Not quite as cold as Hokkaido, the oceans didn't get frozen over there but it was cold, I didn't mind that. I went back last year. Yeah, I went back to Aomori for the first time in like 20 years no, 25 years and so it was nice to go out there. My son actually went to Hokkaido. My son took his very first trip without his parents. He was friends and he actually went to Hokkaido before me. Now, what about e-commerce for you? Like, what have you noticed on your side that has changed? Maybe specifically more to Amazon Japan for your network of sellers there in the community?
Gary:Selling on Amazon. Amazon is still very strong. We can get deliveries very quickly. But, for example, when we went up to Hokkaido, rather than buying like a sled and like lugging it from Tokyo to Hokkaido, we just ordered off Amazon and shipped it to the hotel and you know my son was thrilled. He was ready to go, and so Amazon has that coverage. But one of the biggest changes for e-commerce sellers foreign sellers especially importing into Japan is there was a new import law change October of 2023. So previously you could use what they call a importer of record or IOR. I mean, you're not in Japan. If, let's say, you're a US seller with the LLC, previously you could use an IOR, a company that's importer of record to represent you to import the products. But now they changed the law because it seems the government is getting smarter when it comes to all of these e-commerce sellers. So now you have to go through ACP. I think that stands for Attorney of Customs Process. I might be getting the verbiage mixed up, but basically it's a different scheme and you may have to pay more in the taxes because you will be billed on the total selling cost. So that's the Amazon cost. So that's one of the big changes that we're seeing so far.
Bradley Sutton:So if somebody was already selling Japan, they don't need to convert to that. They can keep going with their importer of record. Or do they need now? They needed, you know, even if they already have tenure there, they got to switch to this new thing.
Nick:Yeah, so it's actually import base, so it's the time that you import. So if you're importing after October 1st, in theory you can't use IOR. I should probably stress the fact that this is all in theory. I can tell you that there are sellers who are still importing using Chinese freight forwarders, who are getting the goods into totally fine, but in theory there is no more IOR and so you have to use this. As Gary was mentioning ACP, which, although it's not so, the tax and duty is based on the selling price, which doesn't mean it's not exactly on the selling price. You're allowed to remove the cost, like Amazon fees and certain things, but the whole concept is that who is the purchaser of the goods. So if you're, if you're not a domestic company, if you're an international seller that don't have a registered business in Japan, then the goods being sent to Japan, going to Amazon, going to the customer the customer is the person purchasing the goods, so for tax and duty should be based on what they're paying, as opposed to, for example, for my company. We're based in Japan, so we actually do purchase the goods. We can show a paper trail back to the supplier. We are the purchaser, so we only pay tax and duty and what we buy it for and then we set it on Amazon. So it's just the way that the import office is just customs office is kind of interpreting. It's all a bit gray, to be honest, but that's kind of how they're interpreting it. The actual final buyer online is the kind of original purchaser of the goods. Therefore, tax and duty should be based off whatever they are paying.
Bradley Sutton:And then what? So is the customer paying for that then?
Nick:No, so the customer isn't paying it. So, but that is what they are using. So it's actually the ACP, or so you have to pay. So your company pays, so the customer isn't paying that, but that's what they're basing off and that's their reasoning for it. They are essentially, they're being almost regarded as the importer, which is obviously just ridiculous.
Bradley Sutton:Yeah, but it's not something like in Europe, where VAT is applied to what the customer's paying at the time of purchase and then the. I believe that I don't even sell in Europe, so I believe the seller has to remit that or Amazon keeps it, but it's like that price has to include that and so it's kind of like a surcharge. But how much are we talking about, like for somebody like me? I'm selling, let's say I sell in Japan and I'm importing. Like are my duties and all these taxes? Is it comparable to you know what I'm doing by importing from China to US and what I have to pay for customs? Or is it more? Is it less?
Nick:Well, it kind of depends on a few different things. Obviously depends on the categories and exactly what the products are, you have to remember. So in Japan the consumption tax is a lot lower than, for example, Europe. You mentioned Europe. So the tax is 10% in Japan, or it's 8% if it's, for example, food or drink. So, but because they base it on the price that you're selling as opposed to the price that you are actually purchasing the goods, for at that point it will be a bit higher. But there are. I say there are lots of ways actually around this and I don't know if Gary is going to mention it. There are a lot of countries that have agreements where you don't actually have to pay duty at all, for example. But it does kind of make things smoother and easier if it's a Japanese business doing the import as opposed to an international business. And one of the main ways around it is that you get a company in Japan to do the import for you and that kind of covers all of the problems. So all the large kind of import companies. That's what they're doing now. They're essentially importing themselves, paying the supplier, and then you only pay the tax and duty on basically the cost of goods, so it will become a lot cheaper. So you kind of have like a bit of a middleman in there.
Bradley Sutton:Yeah, makes sense. Now this question is for either of you. So at what point am I having to have my ducks in a row for this like am I? Do I need that already when I apply to sell in Japan? You know, I just go into my US, or if I'm a European seller, I go into my European seller central and apply to sell in Japan. Are they already asking me for this? You know ACP preview, the artist formerly known as IOR, or is that just something I need to take care of by the time?
Nick:It's something you need to take care of yourself. Amazon is not involved in this whatsoever. This is completely
Bradley Sutton:No. But are they asking me? for it, for like proof that I have that. Just to apply the account?
Nick:No. So basically, when you want to send goods to Japan, you just speak to your freight forwarder, whoever you use, and the freight forwarder will give you all the information and sort it out for you. It's not something that you really need to do yourself. The freight forwarder will do that. So the freight forwarder is traditionally done IOR. A lot of the Chinese freight forwarders, as I said, are still doing it and they seem to be getting the goods in quite fine. But there's something that you will do through your freight forwarder so whoever you use and to ship the goods, that. So it's not something you specifically need to kind of go out and do yourself in most circumstances.
Bradley Sutton:Yeah, all right, makes sense. That's good, like I thought it was something I had to, like, you know, find and or maybe you know, hire a company to handle it. But that's good to know that. You're like me. For example, when I import from from China to US, I actually don't worry about anything. Yes, there are obviously customs, yes, there's some kind of certification, but actually my sourcing agent, who's also my freight forwarder, she handles all that for me. I'm like, all right, you know apply, you know tell me what you need from me, but you take care of everything. That's nice to know that there's something like that, where you know I don't have to go searching in the Japanese yellow pages for people on my own, so that's good to know.
Nick:Yeah, I mean, if it's all set up, you don't? There isn't any extra work that needs to be done by you.
Bradley Sutton:Now, Gary, you know like speaking, you know we're talking about freight forwarding. You had mentioned something interesting. You know, in recent months, obviously many Sellers in Europe were affected and actually worldwide about. You know what was going on with the pirates of the Caribbean, there in the Suez Canal, like you know, the Red Sea, you know like that, that affected shipping prices worldwide because you know like ships couldn't go there. You know they didn't want to get shot down and things, and then obviously you know there are shipping delays and that increases prices. You know people felt it here in the States, people felt it in Europe, but you were saying kind of in Japan it was whatever, right, because it's so, so close.
Gary:Yeah, I mean the Suez Canal Crisis. It's really impacting ocean freight all over the world, like going from like 2000 something dollars or containers, who you know, over 5,000 and even more right, even if you're not, by passing through Suez canal, because it has a ripple effect, because it's taking longer for the ships to go around, like South of Africa, so it adds like two additional weeks and most people don't realize. You have to factor in for the containers as well, because the containers are used, so you have to have more empty containers to accommodate that. But if you look at the map, you know Japan is China's neighbor, right? So I mean a container from China to Japan can arrive in, you know, like a week, so it's really fast, I mean compared to China, USA, you know 30 to 45 days or even more right, so you can definitely save a lot of time shipping if you're selling in Amazon, Japan shipping from China. And also you can save a lot of money as well because distance wise is very close, I mean literally, I mean their neighbors, right, so you will save a lot of money as well. And then in terms of sellers, you know we were talking to with, you know, Brandon Young Last year and that was kind of like a light bulb moment for him, because if you can reduce the lead time you know from when the factory ships out the good until you land it, you know from you don't have to keep so much inventory, right? So rather than buying up like three, four months of the inventory just staying stock, you could cut that to, let's say, a month or two months inventory so that for the seller, that frees up your cash flow as well. If you were to sell in Japan, from China, Japan, given the shorter lead times. That's why we feel like there's, at least you know, this one big X factor for sellers. You know it would be an advantage to sell into Japan. If you're sourcing from China and actually not only China, because you know, as they could quickly touch upon just a few minutes ago. If you're sourcing from other countries in Asia, there's actually three trade agreements between India and Japan, Vietnam in Japan and Thailand in Japan. So it depends on your exact product, but your product could come in if it's made in India. If you're exporting Japan, if you land duty free right, I mean, it could be zero. So there's and obviously there's no trade war going on between you know, China, Japan. So there's no Trump tariffs and you could significantly reduce your landing cost and obviously that would help every seller, you know profit margins right if you're able to do that. So you know there's a lot of these type of logistical advantages that Japan has. Then not a lot of sellers are aware of, and you know that would it could. I mean you could land your product a lot cheaper, a lot faster. You know if your cash flow selling in Japan compared to other countries. So we feel like that's one big advantage.
Bradley Sutton:Yeah, I really need to get off my butt and do it. You know, like I've been saying I would, but I just been so busy at Helium 10 that I haven't been able to expand any of my Amazon business almost like this week. I'm finally launching like three products for the first time in probably a year and a half. But um, but yeah, I need to get.Gary:Can we do a Project X Japan?Bradley Sutton:We should do that, yeahGary:We should do a project here first.
Bradley Sutton:Yeah, Project X will be doing. All right, I like it, we'll do it. Anime with Japanese animation. We'll get Wit studios to do it for us yeah. Speaking of Japan and Japan. So we'll get back to the Amazon strategy. But let's talk a little bit about the 7 Figure Seller Japan Mastermind. I attended last year. I'm probably going to attend this year. I'm not going like it in the official capacity. I think I like it so much I think I'm going to pay my own way, you know, because we have a certain budget for events at Helium 10 and then, you know, usually they rotate things, or one year we'll do, you know, like last year we did Prague European one, this year we're not doing that one, in the next year we might do it again or something, but this one wasn't on the list for our travel budget. But you know I'm a points hacker, so, like I'm sure I could, you know, probably pay for a flight myself or make it not so much. And it's going to be in a place that I have been in Japan 40 times, lived in Japan, have never, ever been, and that's Okinawa. So, Gary, was it your decision to do it in Okinawa, since you had lived there before, or how did you decide that you're going to do this event in Okinawa?
Gary:Yeah, well, Okinawa I mean, for those that don't know, it's known as the Hawaii of Japan. So there's beautiful beaches, it's, you know, subtropical climate, and we were able to secure a fantastic resort hotel, that Hilton in Okinawa. So literally it's on the beach. I wanted to do it in Okinawa, and I was talking with Nick as well, because it's Japan, but it's a nice change of pace as well. So it's kind of like the Hawaii of Japan and then logistically, there's, you know, the airport. You can arrive there pretty conveniently at Naha Airport and basically everyone's going to be there at the same place. You know we have 8 figure sellers, 7 figure Japan sellers. We have, like, all these different experts. You know, every step of the way, right from compliance to shipping, localization etc. But yeah, and I kind of wanted to to give back to Okinawa as well, because during COVID I mean, some of you guys know my family story. We weren't able to because we were living in Shanghai before. You know, I'm American and I couldn't go back to Shanghai, even though my wife is Chinese. I lived there 11 years, I paid all my taxes. I couldn't go back because they closed the border and my visa had expired. But Okinawa, you know they allowed us to stay on a temporary tourist visa for two and a half years. So Okinawa also is like the poorest prefecture in Japan and they really suffered a lot during COVID. So I'm just happy that you know people can come visit and that's one of the reasons why I wanted to do in Okinawa, to kind of get back as well.
Bradley Sutton:Alright, yeah, I'm a history buff, I'm a travel buff, so, alright, guys, you heard it here first. Like I'm committing that I'm going to go, you know so, April 8th to 10th. If you guys want to join, like, I have a forwarding website here that make it easier. Remember, just go to h10.me/japan and that'll bring you to sign up and there will be, you know, a lot of great speakers talking about local. You know selling in Japan, strategies and, while I was there last year, you know there was a couple interesting success stories. I saw one I forgot his name, but one influencer who was doing 7 figures in Japan. I forgot his name, but, Nick, maybe you can give us some other success stories, maybe of either local Japanese sellers or maybe somebody from a foreign marketplace foreign to Japan. You know Europe or USA getting started in Japan and being successful? Any stories you can relate.
Nick:So one of our clients is an international brand, they're an American registered company and last year they cleared 7 figures and we're definitely looking to do a lot more this year and that's in two years. The sales currently are, so they're actually doing very, very well.
Bradley Sutton:Seven figures in US dollars, we're talking. Seven figures in Japanese Yen is not too much, but you're saying, you're saying US dollars, right.
Nick:No, we're doing 7 figures in Yen a month now. So, no, yeah, they're doing very, very well in America. They sell in Europe and they sell in Canada, but the Japanese sales are now almost comparable to the US sales, but the profit margins are a lot higher.Bradley Sutton:That was about to be my second question.
Nick:Yeah, because you know things like the PPC is a hell of a lot cheaper. The ACoS for the account is about, I think it's about 8, 9 percent now. The TACoS is about 3 or 4 percent and it's the kind of figures you can't really get in the US. So, actually in theory you could sell a lot less in Japan and still end up with the same kind of profit as you could in the US. But obviously, if you, if you're getting sales close to the US, you're probably going to have much, much higher margins. Japan really is cheaper. It's a cheaper tax as well. If you are off the threshold to pay tax. But if you're under 10 million Yen, which is probably about 60-70,000 US, if you're under that in sales, you don't have to pay consumption tax. There is no tax. So anybody like me selling in Europe who gets absolutely lost by the tax authorities there you know paying 19, 20, 21, 23 percent in some of the some of the regions in Europe, you could be selling, you know, 50-60,000 US in Japan and not have to pay any consumption tax whatsoever. So there are definite advantages to selling in Japan.
Bradley Sutton:Another advantage that I've seen is the kind of Amazon seller culture is a little bit different. So, for example, the Chinese sellers and the foreign sellers there they're used to. You know they're using a lot of Chinese tools. They're using Helium 10, you know to be able to do their keyword research. But one thing I noticed, you know at least last year or the year before, was a lot of the Japanese-based sellers, even some of the bigger ones, it's like not in their business culture to really use like tools, like they're not using Helium 10. They're not using the Chinese tools and so sometimes you can go in there and like you might have these insights about keywords. You know running Cerebro, you know they wouldn't have any idea what reverse ASIN means and you've got keywords that you can put in your listing that they might not even know because they're just maybe relying on PPC to find their keywords. Is that still kind of like the case where you know tool usage is not widespread amongst the local Japanese selling community?
Nick:Yeah, definitely. I think it comes from the fact that most of the sellers, most of the largest sellers, were originally on Rakuten and Rakuten there aren't really as many kind of tools available, so they just haven't really kind of built up the systems and kind of the processes to handle that kind of data. So no, I don't think they are using it. Obviously the Chinese sellers are, but the local sellers don't think are anywhere near as much.
Bradley Sutton:
Yeah, that's definitely what I've noticed. Now, Gary, back to you. You know you've probably heard a lot of excuses. You know I just gave you an excuse of I don't have any time, you know, to do it, but what are some of the myths or excuses that you hear about what people think? Maybe it's just a conception of how selling in Japan is, or obstacles that really aren't there. What are some things that maybe you can debunk for those who might be timid to dip their feet into the Japanese waters over there?
Gary:Yeah, I think one of the biggest ones is language, because obviously Japanese language is very different and you know I don't really speak Japanese and you know I figured out how to sell in Japan because you really you don't need to actually know Japanese to sell in Japan. I mean, obviously it helps, but the fact that the number 1 Amazon Seller Central Japan is all in English, so literally, if you know how to sell in the US or Europe, you instantly can sell in Japan. And number 2, in terms of the keyword research obviously we have tools like Helium 10 so sellers can get smart. They're already familiar with how to do reverse ASIN searches and you know all that good stuff. You can do the same thing in Japan. And number three now we have tools like AI, ChatGPT and the translation feature. I mean, it's like miles ahead of Google translate, like you know what we're using just two years ago. So I'm able to use ChatGPT to really get smart and even dissect some of the Japanese competitors listings to extract keywords to better understand that. So I feel like you know that's one big myth about Japan and I feel at the same time, you know like all of these obstacles. You know, talking about culture, talking about language. You know, I kind of. You know I like that book, The Obstacle Is the Way by Ryan Holiday. Like I don't know if you guys read that book, it's kind of like a stoicism book. But like these obstacles actually, if you look at it from the flip side, right, a lot of people are intimidated by Japan. But if the fact that you learn how to do this I mean, if you want to come to our conference, we'll literally guide you through it. You can leave no stone unturned; these obstacles actually become your moat, right, they're like a barrier against your competition, that they're intimidated by it. So I feel you know, for the certain seller that is motivated to do this especially, I mean this selling in Japan is really good, for sellers who are already selling in the US or already selling in EU. They have skews, let's say, with like 700 reviews, 1000 reviews. Why? Because you can actually carry over those reviews from Amazon US to Amazon Japan. So that way when you launch on day one, you don't launch with zero reviews, you launch with 700 reviews and like the review moat, I mean the review, like the average review is a lot lower, like review score is a lot lower in Japan as well. So I mean,Japan is the fourth biggest market, but it still seems like a lot of people are either too intimidated or, you know, they don't know about it. So I'm really trying to help sellers, and you know, Nick as well, right, we're trying to help sellers better, you know, take advantage of this opportunity, even though it's 2024, you know, like, what Nick said before, you know Japan is the niche, right? I mean, we're all talking about the riches are in the niches, I mean in Japan, like the best selling thick yoga mats, like I actually did. Like a comparison, in the US, the best selling thick yoga mat has 4.6 stars and has 75,000 reviews, so it's way too saturated, right? But in Japan, the best selling thick yoga mat only had 3.9 stars and only 370 reviews, right? So you think about it. I mean, which one would you rather compete against, right? The yoga mat with 4.6 stars, 75,000 reviews, or Japan, right? And if you're already selling the US, if you have a thousand reviews, you can actually carry them over to Japan and then you can be like, you know, the king right from day one. So there's all of these advantages that sellers can have if they know how to do this. Just sounds in Japan.
Bradley Sutton:What else that we haven't talked about yet are people going to be able to learn about at the conference in April?
Gary:I think something that's new that we talked about is Rakuten, because everyone knows Amazon, right, but Rakuten, like what Nick said, they're literally neck and neck with Amazon. So we're going to bring in a speaker to talk about how to sell on Rakuten and this way we can give the sellers, you know, a balanced perspective, right, Amazon and Rakuten. We didn't have this last year, so this way we want to give sellers more information, because certain products may sell better on Amazon or on Rakuten, so this way you can have more perspective there. And then we're also talking about how to get into offline retail in Japan as well, so we're going to have some content there as well. So I mean, if you're a seller, if you're going to make the investment to import your products into Japan, it kind of makes sense to maximize the different options that you have, right? So, beyond Amazon, Rakuten, getting into physical retail stores, and then we're also going to talk about external marketing strategies. There's social media, and you know Nick is really good at this, like using Japan social media platforms. eI think this is information You're not going to get anywhere else and you know we share, like real examples from real sellers. You know what they're doing, that you can take away, you can imitate. So, yeah, I think these are all great opportunities, and also AI as well. I mean AI is like super prevalent now you know Japan is trying to like push AI a lot as well because you know, with like the labor costs and you know Japan has kind of like fallen behind compared to the rest of the world. Right, but they're looking to amplify AI. So we're trying to help sellers use AI to scale your business in Japan, even if you don't speak the language.
Bradley Sutton:All right. So again, guys, if you didn't write down that address, how can you get more information on this conference, h10.me/japan. Nick, maybe any last words about selling Japan that you think foreign sellers need to know about the market, good or bad?
Nick:So I think one of the main things that people should really understand is that about half of the market in Amazon, Amazon Japan is made up of Chinese sellers. So, although you know we have these kind of podcasts and Gary is explaining to people about the fact that Amazon Japan is a very good marketplace, a lot of people who sell in Europe or the US, they might think about it, they might consider it. The Chinese they know. They know just how good it is because they know there is very little competition, there's very little branding, so they can ship products out to Japan and sell. They don't need to have very many reviews. If you are a brand that already has. Sorry. If you are a seller who already has a brand and you've already got reviews on your products, all you need to do is list them in Japan. Global review thinking has been a thing for probably about three years now. You can start in Japan with more reviews than all the other sellers combined. You don't even need to have very many, even if you've got 500, that might be more than all the people in the top 50. And so it's so much easier to launch in a marketplace where your main competition are Chinese, non-face brands. They aren't even brands, they aren't even brand registered, whereas you are a brand, you look good, you've got the assets, you've got the images, you've got the videos are more importantly, the most important thing you have the reviews. You are starting with more reviews than anybody else. I mean there isn't any other way, any other better way to sell. You'll have cheaper conversions, you'll have cheaper PPC than everybody else and I think that's probably the main thing.
Bradley Sutton:Awesome, all right guys. Well, if you're convinced already, well, hurry up and sign up for selling in Japan, and you could reach out to Nick and Gary for help from their network or attend in person the event and meet a lot of these people who can help you in person while enjoying the Hawaii of Japan. So I look forward to seeing you guys in Okinawa and month or so now, and it'll be great to see you there and hope to see some listeners there as well, so look forward to it.
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Listen in as Alvaro Lopez from Solo Stove shares this brand’s incredible entrepreneurial journey that began with two brothers with a vision and has since flourished into a significant role in the Amazon, Walmart, and e-commerce landscape. Our conversation paints a picture of how his academic pursuits in international studies set the stage for a career that expertly intersects with the Amazon-selling industry. We also unravel the story behind Solo Stove's creation by two brothers who dared to dream beyond the confines of their day jobs, skillfully navigating the supply chain from China to North America to deliver a product beloved by outdoor enthusiasts.
Join us as we dissect the intricate details of brand strategy and e-commerce optimization for Amazon and Walmart. From the leap of establishing a direct-to-consumer channel to strategic maneuvers post-IPO, our discussion with a global director of marketplaces offers many insights. We dive into the crucial role of consumer obsession and mastery over logistics, and we share invaluable tactics for brand defense on platforms like Amazon. The importance of rich content and keyword optimization to cut through the noise of a saturated marketplace is laid bare, providing a roadmap for e-commerce success.Wrapping up, our chat transitions from the tantalizing secrets of Peruvian chicken to strategic e-commerce maneuvers. We highlight the essential role of high-quality ingredients and cultural heritage in culinary success before shifting to the nuances of effective copywriting and the power of tools like Helium 10's Cerebro tool. Alvaro emphasizes the significance of localization in global branding and imparts wisdom on the 'action over perfection' philosophy that has fueled the growth of many successful brands. This episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to navigate the complex yet rewarding waters of e-commerce with agility and foresight.
In episode 538 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Franco discuss:
00:00 - Strategies for Solo Stove's E-commerce Success 07:58 - Solo Stove's Brand Defense Strategy In Amazon09:50 - E-Commerce Brand Strategy and Optimization12:05 - Strategies for Brand Protection15:01 - Emotional Branding in Marketplace Selling18:56 - Marketplace Performance Analysis and Expansion20:21 - Expanding Sales Channels and Branding Strategies25:57 - Peruvian Chicken's Secret & Other E-Commerce Strategies► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast
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TranscriptBradley Sutton:
You've probably heard of Solo Stove, a company that does almost half a billion dollars annually and does ads with people like Snoop Dogg and more. Now, today we're going to talk to one of the heads of their Amazon business to see what strategies that any Helium 10 user has access to that help them increase to this level. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think.
Kevin King:
Hey, what's up everybody? Kevin King here. You know, one of the number one questions I get is how can you connect to me? How can I, Kevin, get some advice or speak with you or learn more from you? The best way is with Helium 10 Elite. If you go to h10.me/elite, you can get all the information and sign up for Helium 10 Elite. Every month, I lead advanced training where I do Seven Ninja Hacks. We also have live masterminds and every single week, one of those weeks I jump on for a couple hours and we talk shop, we talk business, do in-person events. Helium 10 Elite is where you want to be. It's only $99 extra on your Helium 10 membership. It's h10.me/elite. Go check it out and I hope to see you there.
Bradley Sutton:
Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I'm your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show that's a completely BS free, unscripted and unrehearsed organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. And again I am here on the other side of the world, here in Frankfurt, Germany, and got to link up with somebody I've known virtually for a while but now got to meet in person Alvaro: from Solo Stove. Alvaro, how's it going?
Alvaro:
Good, Brad, thanks for having me. Good to be here.
Bradley Sutton:
Now, your accent is not a typical Swiss accent. I know you live in Switzerland. Where, so where were you born and raised? Let's talk about you, the person first of all.
Alvaro:
So I'm originally from Lima, Peru, my parents, but I grew up in Washington DC, which is why you hear the accent. So just outside of DC, you know, finished secondary school, started my undergrad in Utah and took a two-year break. During that undergrad, moved around Mexico, different parts of the states for an LDS mission at the time, and then, right after I got back and got into my undergrad, moved to Spain. That's where I met my wife, who's Swiss, German, and that's what really brought us to Southern Germany. This is why you're hearing American accent.
Bradley Sutton:
There you go. So how long have you been in Europe then?
Alvaro:
That was in 2014. So it's been. It's crazy to think it's been a decade. Yeah, but it's been a decade, a decade exactly this month.
Bradley Sutton:
Wow, where did you go to University?
Alvaro:
Utah State.
Bradley Sutton:
Utah State. Yeah, aggies, oh, I got it. Oh, yes, man I always try to like test myself.
Alvaro:
Right, it's like randomly in a very cold part of Utah the coldest part of Utah right on the border with Idaho but it's a pretty big undergrad campus, about 25,000 students, so don't keep me honest, but the international programs are amazing.
Bradley Sutton:
What do you study when you're there?
Alvaro:
I study International Studies. I'm really an honor trajectory to work for the State Department at the time, and I had already met my wife prior to finishing my undergrad, and so when I finished a foreign service exam right after my undergrad, she had got a gig in Basel. She works in the biotech pharmacy industry and Basel is mostly known for the pharma industry, and I took a job at the time in e-com through some friends in my network, and the rest is history, dude.
Bradley Sutton:
Yeah, what was? So when did you get into e-com?
Alvaro:
2016.
Bradley Sutton:
2016? So what? What part of e-com was that? Was that Amazon, or was that?
Alvaro:
Specifically, I was working through an agency at the time that was helping North American brands expand on Amazon generally, and I was a first European hire at the time to bring brands into Europe, and that's really we were able to successfully scale certain clients and from there moved around through other European companies, brought me into Luxembourg. I've worked back in between Germany and Switzerland for a few years and it's so now for almost four years. Great as a thing, yeah.
Bradley Sutton:
Alright, so that's Alvaro's background. Let's talk about Solo stuff. A lot of this is that household name. I've had all kinds of cool companies like. I just interviewed somebody from Lego here now. We got Solo, so yeah for those who don't know about Solo. So what's the background of Solo? So the company?
Alvaro:
Yeah, so you know, Solo stuff is a business. Of course we're in the consumer product goods industry but, like our whole goal as a brand and as a business is to help our customers connect with their loved ones and connect with the outdoors. So I'll kind of get back to that later if we go in detail. But the organization itself, two brothers founded the brand in 2010, as you see my t-shirt here I'm like repping well the company and really what they were looking. They were both entrepreneurs. They're both Chinese, Canadian origin, so both very familiar with the supply chain aspects in China, but, of course, going up in Canada, so many opportunities in terms of producing things in China and bringing it over with healthy profits in the Western market. So these two brothers were just looking for ways to find freedom from their day-to-day jobs. We're both were working at the time some pretty strenuous jobs. So they found a space and so I'm giving a lot of context. I think it's important to understand.
Alvaro:
As they were iterating different product lines, they created this ingenious. What was this mini, now known as the light? But it was the original, just only Solo Stove and it was really a camp stove designed to be able to light a little camp stove within 90 seconds from twigs to a burning fire that you could cook with, with just the stainless steel concept, and so that same design and engineering is ultimately what ended up being optimized into grow I almost spoke German there close into bigger camp stoves from the light. And then, back in 2018, we ran a kick starter that introduced the bonfire range, and that's really what helped accelerate our growth and our momentum as a brand. But originally started from two brothers wanting to just have freedom in their lives, to create products that create good moments that leads to lasting memories. And now here we are as a publicly traded business.
Bradley Sutton:
Public company having Snoop Dogg. Maybe some of you guys saw the ad campaign like I'm going smokeless.
Alvaro:
You did go smokeless. Yes.
Bradley Sutton:
So that's, that's pretty cool. Now, you're a publicly traded company. I know like I think you guys had published like in 2022. You've done over like 400 million across all platforms. Were you up last year, down last year, 2023?
Alvaro:
Yeah, so from a marketplace perspective, we were up, which you felt really grateful. Obviously, last year, 2023 was really interesting year. We’re kind of pretty much all brands in our sector are reconciling like post pandemic trends. So as a business, overall we were pretty flat, healthy, cash wise and profit wise, very strong marketplace and international saw tremendous growth, which we can talk about this in detail. But I view our partnership with Helium 10 as a core variable to that consistent performance. I'm really helping us understand where the market at scale really is and how we can continue to take part of that market share that we have and grow it. So, from a marketplace perspective, amazon specifically USA was up in Amazon global was up significantly year-over-year.
Bradley Sutton:
What percentage? You know what once you get to a certain level. This is similar to what I talked about, Silas, who formerly from Lego is, is like what percentage is from brand search? And then what percentage would you say is just coming from people typing in you know, smokeless Barbecue pit or something? Random keywords.
Alvaro:
It's a great question and actually you know it ties directly into what we can do within Helium 10 and tech stack. You guys simplify, but from what we've seen, both within the search query performance on brand analytics and seller central, and from the believe it's Frank and center said, able to remind me where we can find a search volume that I don't yep, yep, we see that the Solo Stove branded searches is almost three times bigger than smokeless fire pit. Wow, which is wow, which is unique, because there's not a lot of brands that can pretty much be synonymous to an entire market. I mean, yeah, of course. Yeah, Lego is.
Bradley Sutton:
One of the only examples where it's like I don't know what you would skate toy bricks right.
Alvaro:
Kleenex, I guess. So we've been really grateful that we can drive that. Obviously, in the US, Germany, Canada, UK, Amazon is definitely if not the biggest, one of the biggest search engine platforms for consumers looking for a product or looking into a product. So, naturally, the way we have our omni channel sales channels, I should say set up, we leverage Amazon as both, of course, a place where we can drive tremendous growth and profit, but also a place where we need to defend the brand. So I think from a percentage perspective, all over half of our sales come from branded search, which is really a strong attribution to our entire brand and marketing team and, of course, product development team. We can go into detail in this podcast, however you wish, but for us, a marketplace that's really critical is how are we defending the brand, how are we displaying the brand, how's our content, what's that consumer experience like and how are we defending the traffic that's looking for us so we're not losing them in the funnel? It's a critical component of our strategy.
Bradley Sutton:
Interesting. I definitely want to get into some specific strategies, but one just general question I'm curious about is from what I understand, Solo Stove in the States has been kind of like a household name for a while. You're a little bit newer here in Europe. What was your expansion strategy? Like, did Amazon play a big role in trying to get your brand out here, or was it a lot of just traditional marketing?
Alvaro:
Yes, so we officially. So. I was actually the first European hire fun fact for Solo Stove back in very end of 2020, going into 2021. Originally brought on as a director of marketplaces globally. First for Solo, this was pre acquisition of other brands, pre IPO, so then took that role as we acquire new brands right shout out to Oro, Kayak, Iel, Chubby Shorts. So it was really really interesting experience. And then that fall 2021 is when we launched direct to consumer.
Alvaro:
Now, we had a little bit of a head start. We had some great distribution partners, some that we still work with very closely with today, that we had some organic search and so really, from the circumstance in the car that we were playing, that really helped us define, specifically in Europe, the way we're going to market is like where to put our focus in terms of marketing spend and our focus in terms of channels, like where we're actually going to sell. So we immediately noticed that in Europe specifically Northern Europe to be most specific, right between the UK, Nordics, Benelux, the Dach region, right Germany, Austria, Switzerland we knew that would be our focus. So that definitely helped us define where our headquarter would be, which is today in Rotterdam. That was extremely critical. Make sure we staff that effectively.
Alvaro:
For us, consumer obsession is our fundamental. We want to make sure customers have a great experience and that logistically which we own our distribution out of Rotterdam we own all of our logistics. That's an extremely critical component. So, in terms of, like, the actual launch right, the setup is critical. Understanding which market we're going to play in.
Alvaro:
I mean, these were things that were important to set up, but once actually going live to market, we're a digitally native brand. So when we went live to market, it was an omnichannel mix digitally, meaning that we focused, hyper focused on our website and across Amazon Pan Europe, and we did more our first full year being live direct to consumer than it took solo, so 10 years to do it domestically. So it was, I would say, obviously and this is with the same profit constraints that we have in the US obviously, as public and traded business, we have a responsibility to shareholders, not only to drive top line but also to drive bottom line. So we're really, really proud of that story and we've just seen year over year growth, sustaining those same top and bottom line figures that I'm alluding to.
Bradley Sutton:
Awesome, awesome. All right, let's get back into some specific strategies. You alluded to like kind of like brand defense and putting a moat around your brand. And yes, of course, when you're that size of a company, like you guys are, it's important. But even smaller sellers, once they're building up their brand, there's going to be brand search and it might not be at the scale of a Solo Stove or Lego, but they would have to follow the same principles as kind of like you have. So what has been your strategy? I know, like Helium 10, maybe Adtomic and some others tools talk about that a little bit, but what's your strategy at protecting your brand?
Alvaro:
One of the most profound conversations I remember the last three years working with Solo Stove and solo brands is a conversation I had with our Chief Digital Officer at the time, who's also one of the founders of Chubbies, Tom Montgomery, who, like what an incredible experience working under his wing for over a year. We were talking one day about like specific tactics for operating on Amazon, and one of those things actually was brand registry, and I was going into detail and he, for lack of better terms or articulating this, he just kind of stopped me and said hey, Alvaro, this is a fundamental, we don't need to go into detail here. So, when it comes to like your defense on Amazon, like make sure that the resources Amazon provides you to defend your brand, be it like the most fundamental basics being like hey, get brand registered. Make sure it's basically like an Amazon trademark right. Or maybe it's a transparency program right If you're dealing with counterfeits or unauthorized resellers.
Alvaro:
Maybe it's project zero, which is a more robust element of transparency I'd say, make those fundamentals in your business. I would say that's an extremely critical component. Like, make the resources that Amazon has to give to you now, what Walmart's providing right through their seller platform, make those brand resources to defend your brand of fundamental and exhaust them right. If you're a bigger business and you need to make that cross I'd say cross department focus initiative, like with your legal team or your finance team or your CTO, do so, but just make it a fundamental like don't postpone any resource you have through brand registry. Okay, hope that kind of answers your question.
Bradley Sutton:
Yeah, absolutely, so definitely important. And again, you don't need to be a humongous seller. I would say brand new seller. Why not start with brand registry? You know, if you're just an arbitrage seller or something, of course, yeah, you don't even have to worry about that, but everybody should be protecting their brand. What about on the kind of like listing optimization, keyword strategy, advertising strategy? As far as protecting your brand in that sense, though.
Alvaro:
Yeah, I mean indexing is critical. You know, as I alluded to earlier, we have a lot more search for Solo Stove than someone who's probably looking for a product that we sell right, similar to our core product, I'd say. But as far as like what we do to defend a brand through the listing, going again back to the principle, fundamentals, we have hundreds and thousands of assets. So this to any brand that's serious about selling on marketplace, where I mean, look, cost of acquisition is more expensive, there's more sellers, there's more listings, you need to make sure that your content is rich, right? So for us, where you know anyone can buy like a random fire pit from Walmart or from Target for 50 bucks, 100 bucks, you know why are you gonna spend three, four, five times more on a solo, so fire pit? And it's because we want to evoke that emotion of creating good moments. And so, for us, part of the defense strategy is hey, is the content, the copy, your A plus for Amazon specifically, is it evoking that emotion that you want to be associated to your brand? Right for us, it's, of course we're selling fire pits, but the end to all these means is can we evoke the emotion on that session that a customer or potential customers having with our Brand, showing that they can create good moments with the brand. I think it's a really critical component of our brand and that defense strategy from a listing perspective.
Bradley Sutton:
Excellent. Yeah, I think that is something that smaller sellers sometimes think they don't have to worry about. But you know, people look at that stuff, you know, and in a cookie cutter world where maybe there's 15 people doing the same thing, similar prices, that's the kind of stuff that sets you apart and makes you memorable. What kind of advertising do you guys, you know, focus on? Do you just do pretty much everything that Amazon provides, whether it's sponsored, band, display, DSP, etc?
Alvaro:
It's a great question. You know, we actually just had some pretty high-level folks at Amazon in our offices last week in Great Vine. It's really grateful for that experience because we actually had some key members from the Amazon ads team coming to the office and really give us insights into some of the new products that Amazon ads is developing. And so for us, definitely it's part of a strategy broadly is to maximize the way we utilize resources that Amazon has to offer. But as far as like the going back to like the ad console and what we're executing highly and yeah, it's across the board right we obviously see best efficiency across sponsored product, right. And then the way we define that strategy top to bottom, the funnel is critical right, defensive to offensive, and we carry similar strategies across sponsored brand, sponsored display.
Alvaro:
And now we're getting to a point as a business where I mean you'll hear high-level team members from Solo, so speak about this over this coming year. But we're really trying to blur our performance digitally, right. Amazon is developing some products that is going to affect more positively performance outside of Amazon and we want to take part of that right through AMC or DSP. So that's gonna be a really critical component is leveraging the experience we have from the ad console right through the three core campaign types that we could have run into new products that they're developing and really blur both performance and our operations behind it with Amazing talent that we have in-house that historically been focused on, like paid social and Google, and trying to blur that operation, if that kind of makes sense.
Bradley Sutton:
On Amazon Advertising, how does your team leverage a Helium 10 Adtomic?
Alvaro:
You know the biggest, biggest benefit that we've seen with that Adtomic specifically is helping streamline extremely time-consuming things. I mean we're highly tactical, highly experienced and very, very detailed in terms of the, the campaigns and the way we're optimizing. I mean, you're probably looking at our account we have thousands of campaigns just in the US alone and then you can do the multiples of that because we put similar efforts across all of our channels on Amazon and we're in 15 Amazon stores a little bit under once you start to consider international. So what Adtomic has done really I can speak transparently with you here in person is helping a streamline, extremely time-consuming task like bulk changes, bulk edits, in a way that's not just to get it done to save time, but in a way that's it's insightful and data-driven. Yeah, to keep it simple.
Bradley Sutton:
Taking a step back, you just mentioned all the different marketplaces you sell in. If you were to say, you know, just gross revenue, top five, you know, I'm safe to say US number one, what would be? Germany, number two, UK.
Alvaro:
It's really interesting on Amazon. It's similar performance that we see between UK and Germany. It's funny because off Amazon our British business is more material. So it speaks a little bit to the power of, I think, of Amazon Germany, or maybe even the preference of consumer behavior. Maybe German is just again, we need to take a deeper dive in this but maybe our German customers just prefer to shop on Amazon Germany, for whatever their reason is I'll come back to your answer but an important fundamental as a brand is we want to meet our customer where they want to be met.
Alvaro:
That’s why omnichannel is so critical. But as far as Amazon, definitely the top four is Germany, UK after the US. Canada is up there and then in the rest of Europe between France, Italy, Spain and Holland. I think you have a pretty much flat performance competing for that fifth spot. We most definitely can scale our performance in Japan and Australia just from the data we can see in terms of search volume for our brand. But obviously Japan and Australia aren't necessarily right next to Europe, so it requires a bit more effort logistically. Yeah, that runs up the top five. I hope that helps.
Bradley Sutton:
Yeah, what about any non-Amazon marketplaces that you guys are doing well in, like you know, be it Walmart or TikTok shop?
Alvaro:
It’s a great question. You know, domestically, 100%, Walmart's been a really great partner of ours. Obviously, they as a business have been hyper focused on developing this marketplace that can, over time, become a pure competitor to Amazon. At the moment, from my understanding, at a macro level, it's still, you know, years away from really competing with Amazon, but they've been great partners in terms of giving us the human element and time and attention and placements that I think a brand like ours deserves, considering how much branded search goes into their marketplace. So that partnership with Walmart has been really important for us. Again, going back to the notion of meeting customers where they want to be met, we've found that there's a lot of customers that want to be met there, and so we're excited and eager to double down on the performance on Walmart marketplace.
Alvaro:
And yeah, man, look, I'm based in Basel, one of my favorite things about living in Basel is it's on the border with Germany, France and Switzerland, and so I have firsthand, daily I can see how fragmented consumer behavior is across those three countries and so in Europe, way more nuanced in terms of our marketplace approach. It's obviously Amazon Paniu is critical, but I mean we've got other really important sales channels to us, such as Bowl, right out of Netherlands and Belgium, Allegro, which we've heard a little bit about today in Poland, Manor in Switzerland, Galaxies something in our radar, so a few other marketplaces just because it's so much, so much more fragmented that are critical for us.
Bradley Sutton:
Do anything in Korea?
Alvaro:
At the moment? No, but we do have a great partner in Korea and we do have some pretty strong performance, not necessarily through marketplace.
Bradley Sutton:
It's got to be some Korean barbecue, a product you have. I mean, Korean barbecue is so popular worldwide. Yeah, you know, there's got to be something you can do there.
Alvaro:
Yeah, I know that for sure there. I mean, if you guys ever want to see like amazing engineering around a Solo, so I mean I hope I don't know of some of your audience if they're looking at Solo stuff. The aesthetics of the product is so simple. It's a beautiful product, but some of the things we see engineered around the Solo sale out of Japan and Korea and China not by our team is incredible. So owe them a lot of props in terms of like giving us definitely some inspiration.
Bradley Sutton:
If you make an in-house Korean barbecue table or device, I would be your first customer. You know, because, like you know, like what I do in my house, you know, none of us are Korean but like I've been eating Korean food my whole life and I just only watch Korean TV and everything. But you know, I just got like this burner with a little tank of whatever it is and it's not efficient. Smoke, like you know, everywhere. I got to open up all the windows and I got to, you know, replay. It's like there's got to be a better way and I think you guys would be the ones to do it. So let me, let me beta test.
Alvaro:
Don't challenge us. We're one of the key polar of ours is getting indoors, you know, with some of our core lines.
Bradley Sutton:
We mentioned earlier how you, you know, did something with Snoop Dogg. You know that now that's something that, no, not you know brand new sellers or even million dollar sellers, you know should be considering somebody of that stature. But at what point should an Amazon seller start reaching out to maybe micro influencers or just you know people, people to promote their product?
Alvaro:
Yeah, look, it's a much different answer today than it was even two years ago. Like, if you're coming on Amazon or you're like a newer brand on Amazon and you don't have a strategy to develop your brand off Amazon, you're going to lose. You're going to lose and it's going to make me. Maybe right now you're on a wave and trying to feel as good, but I promise you, the more you can flatten your reach as a brand holistically, the better you're going to be. In this case, like, the best example is we've been able to grow successfully on Amazon with further investments off Amazon by driving more organic search, because Amazon is a beast right, it's a massive search platform. So the more you can drive awareness off Amazon, you're still going to be technically driving awareness into Amazon. So I would say today, when you consider the basics of you, know, increased competition, increased cost, you know.
Alvaro:
Then you have some macroeconomic factors to implement in terms of how consumers feel about spending, you know, their own hard earned funds into brands that maybe they've never heard of. It's a lot more nuanced today and a lot more difficult, so you want to make sure you're definitely focused on developing a brand where consumers can not only connect but have awareness about what your brand is, so they can make a more. You know, feed the funnel earlier and get to that bottom much earlier than anticipated, because Amazon, of course, is the bottom of the funnel when it comes to sales channel. Like, people are ready to shop if they're on Amazon. So, yeah, I would just strongly recommend, like, make sure you invest as much time when it comes to branding off Amazon as you do on Amazon.
Bradley Sutton:
Alright, before we get into your final strategy of the day, just a couple somewhat off related topics. But first of all, if you guys want to find out more or find you know about their products, you know, just type in Solo Stove literally to any search engine or on Amazon or Walmart or anywhere. If people just want to find you on the interwebs out there is LinkedIn a good place to follow what you do.
Alvaro:
Yeah, LinkedIn is great. I'm pretty private on social media unless your part of our online community. My German wife has taught me well in terms of privacy, but LinkedIn is a great platform. If you just look up, there's only one Alvaro. Alvaro, it’s a very Spanish name, very difficult to Germanize or Anglicize. So if you just look up, Alvaro Lopez. All opus, you'll find me for Solo stuff. I think it's the best way.
Bradley Sutton:
Okay cool. Random question why in Peruvian restaurants is the chicken so good?
Alvaro:
Man, it's a great question. It's definitely a combination of the..
Bradley Sutton:
You got some secret spice that you all are using or what's going on?
Alvaro:
Well, actually it's funny because I was like in Utah recently and I know the owner of one of the biggest Peruvian chicken chain in Utah called a Red Fuego. If anyone's ever in Salt Lake City, I've got a couple of chains around Provo, Salt Lake City and he invested like his core investment was the kitchen and he imported it from Lima. So I think that's a core component. And then, of course, you get into the quality of the chicken.
Alvaro:
I'm pretty pro animal rights here, so make sure that chicken's well taken care of. It's gotta be a healthy chicken that you're going to be putting into your diet. And then just the seasoning. I mean Peru is like I'm very biased here, but it's definitely top five culinary countries, I think, in the planet because of our mix man. It's a great balance between the indigenous ingredients and culture from the yin and beyond that the Spanish, Italian immigrants, Japanese, Chinese immigrants that came through the 19th century and just made a perfect blend of spices and herbs and that's what goes into the marinade of the chicken man. So those three things man.
Bradley Sutton:
It's such good stuff, man. When I was living in LA I would always go. I forgot it was something, Inka was the name of the restaurant. Oh my goodness, so good. Yeah, um, favorite Helium 10 tool?
Alvaro:
That's very difficult. Yeah, I mean to be transparent, it's a very difficult answer. I want to say the one I'm just going to complete a correlate a tool to success, and I think the way we write our copy has been critical, right cause we do index very specific things that we know have high search volume on Amazon that don't necessarily appear on our website. I say Frankenstein has been very critical in terms of, not only providing a good copy for a customer, but also getting keywords that have attacked. You know, I've added new, uh, new customers that would have never found us anyway.
Bradley Sutton:
Awesome. And then if you were to have a wish list, like maybe something that Helium 10 doesn't do, or a feature or a filter or anything, what would you tell me? Because that's my goal this year is trying to get all the features we don't have yet.
Alvaro:
Yeah, that's a great question. I knew you were talking earlier. You're going to spend more time in Europe, I think I think for serious brands that have I mean, you've seen now like the proliferation of great brands that are focused on Amazon. Well, a lot of these brands are going to have global reach. So I think the more resources you can offer to better localize and translate within Helium 10, I think, there's a massive market for that the more you can automate maybe it's something with ChatGPT, but something to translate and effectively localized would be critical.
Bradley Sutton:
Got it, got it. All right. Something I asked the guest is like give a 30 or 60 second tip, strategy could be about anything in e-commerce or non e-commerce. Could be about anything.
Alvaro:
Go ahead, yeah, I mean let me put my consulting hat on, which have been a brand operator for the last few years. So just focus on action and I think one of the most again going back to lessons I've had from the executive leads at, one of the most important things I took away from, our former CEO, John Maris. He said he'd rather have me focus on doing twice the amount of things half as good than half the amount of things really good and that, really, to be transparent, that philosophy of just iterating different initiatives, obviously targeted initiatives that can drive business, drive top and bottom line, has been really critical. In terms of finding out what sticks, doubling down on those and then the ones that don't work, quickly offloading them, have been really good. So I think just purposefully actioning items that's going to grow your business is extremely critical. You need to be. If you're not waking up every Monday, if your business is good and you're not waking up the beginning of the week, if you're not obsessed about how to double down on that growth, you're on a track to lose. And if you're losing and you're not obsessed about how to offset those losses, then you're going to lose even more.
Bradley Sutton:
All right, well, Alvaro, thank you so much for coming on here. It's been great to meet you in person and thank you for taking the time out and wish you and the solo so best of success. Maybe we'll have you back on the show next year and see what you guys are doing.
Alvaro:
Yeah. Thanks Brad!
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