Serious Sellers Podcast: Learn How To Sell On Amazon FBA & Walmart

Helium 10 Buzz 6/27/24: Prime Day Dates Announced | Amazon Becoming Temu-ish | Target Partnering with Shopify

lk about Helium 10’s newest features, and provide a training tip for the week for serious sellers of any level.

Amazon’s 10th Prime Day Event Returns July 16 & 17, With Millions of Exclusive Deals for Prime Members
https://press.aboutamazon.com/2024/6/amazons-10th-prime-day-event-returns-july-16-17-with-millions-of-exclusive-deals-for-prime-members

Walmart's 'largest deals event ever' to rival Amazon Prime Day
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/walmarts-largest-deals-event-ever-to-rival-amazon-prime-day--plus-sales-to-shop-now-215140714.html

Amazon to launch discount section with direct shipping from China, the Information reports
https://www.reuters.com/technology/amazon-launch-discount-section-with-direct-shipping-china-information-reports-2024-06-26/

Target and Shopify Partner to Help Consumers Discover and Shop an Expanded Assortment on Target.com
https://corporate.target.com/press/release/2024/06/target-and-shopify-partner-to-help-consumers-discover-and-shop-an-expanded-assortment-on-target-com

Buy with Prime is helping this rapid hydration brand not only increase shopper conversion, but also bring in new customers.
https://buywithprime.amazon.com/customer-stories/case-study-hydralyte

Amazon is working on a ChatGPT competitor
https://qz.com/amazon-generative-ai-chatbot-chatgpt-metis-1851558879

Stay ahead of the curve with insights on the latest updates within Adtomic, especially the game-changing brand performance dashboard that offers critical data for making savvy pay-per-click advertising decisions. Our training tip of the week emphasizes the importance of leveraging historical data to boost profits during Prime Day, illustrated vividly with a real-world example of a Tyneco vacuum. Tune in to gain actionable advice that will help you optimize your advertising efforts and dominate search results as Prime Day approaches.

In this episode of the Weekly Buzz by Helium 10, Carrie talks about:

• 00:49 - Prime Day Dates Announced
• 01:35 - Walmart Summer Deals
• 02:20 - Amazon Temu-ish Service?
• 04:49 - Target and Shopify Partner
• 05:45 - Buy with Prime on Homepage
• 07:32 - Amazon Version of ChatGPT?
• 08:48 - Helium 10 New Feature Alerts
• 09:46 - Pro Training Tip: Leveraging Historical Data to Boost Prime Day Sales

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► 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

Transcript

Carrie Miller:

Prime Day Dates announced. Is Amazon trying to be like Temu and Amazon's new version of ChatGPT? This and more on this week's episode of the Weekly Buzz.

Bradley Sutton:

How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. 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 our Helium 10 Weekly Buzz, where we give you a rundown of all the news stories that are going on in the Amazon, Walmart, e-commerce world. We highlight the latest new feature alerts from Helium 10, and we review a training tip of the week that'll give you serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. Now, today, our host is going to be Keri Miller. So, Keri, take it away and let us know what's buzzing.

Carrie Miller:

Okay, let's go ahead and get into it. The first thing I want to talk about is the Prime Day dates were just announced. So Amazon officially announced Prime Day 2024 dates, which is going to be July 16th and 17th. And now something interesting about these dates is that Bradley Sutton actually on this very show, he actually predicted that Prime Day would be on these exact dates way back in April. So let's go ahead and go back to that clip and show Bradley's predictions for Prime Day.

Bradley Sutton:

Amazon hasn't necessarily announced the new Prime Day, but I'm like 95% sure I was able to figure out when it's going to be All right, so bear with me. Here's why I think that and by the way, spoiler alert, I that's just my rough guess.

Carrie Miller:

So there you have it. Bradley predicted these exact dates for Prime Day, so how cool is that? All right up next we have Walmart. Okay, so Walmart announced their largest deals ever, which is going to be from July 8th to July 11th. Now this is coming off of Walmart Plus week. That was last week, so during these days you can actually expect discounts on pretty much everything. Walmart Plus members are actually going to have early access to shop the best deals of the season by beginning at noon Eastern on July 8th, which is actually five hours before the rest of the public actually gets access, and this, I believe, is probably in competition with Amazon's prime day. So they're doing a lot of great deals over at Walmart. So not only as a consumer, that's gonna be helpful, but for sellers, it helps to attract a lot of people to the site, so really good for everyone all around.

Carrie Miller:

Okay, next, now this one. This next piece of news is a doozy. Okay, so Amazon plans to launch a section on its shopping site featuring cheap items that ship directly to overseas consumers from warehouses in China. Okay, so this seems to be a response to sites like Temu and Shein, and I actually asked some sellers what they thought about this move and they said they believe that Amazon is being more of a follower and not innovating and creating their own path. So they're basically trying to maybe catch up with Temu and Shein. I'm not really sure. Some other. Some other sellers also said that they think there will be an initial negative reaction, but buyers will probably try it out. So I'm curious to know what you think. Do you think buyers are going to be excited about this? I'm not really sure. Someone else mentioned that they think this could be what puts dollar stores kind of fully out of business. We've seen some of the dollar stores going out of business recently and they think that this would be a kind of a direct competition to more of the dollar store quality, so that that is another interesting perspective.

Carrie Miller:

The products in this program will be delivered from China directly from China to the consumer between nine and 11 days. So a big question in my mind would be will Amazon allow American third party sellers to drop ship from warehouses in China as well? Some sellers already store their products in China in warehouses, like with SKU Drop, and it's definitely something that they could do. Amazon said they are going to start signing up Chinese sellers in this summer and they're going to begin accepting inventory in the fall. This article also highlights that sellers in this program will be able to produce small batches to test the demand for any new products that they launch. So that's something else that we know that we have questions about. You know, a lot of third party sellers like to do the same thing. Will third party sellers have the same luxuries to be able to do this without losing rank, things like that? So really a lot of questions in my mind with this new development.

Carrie Miller:

This article also questions if these packages that are coming directly to a consumer from China, if they will be exempt from US customs, since there is a provision that exempts individual packages that are valued at less than $800 from taxation. Now, third-party sellers, you know, if they're not allowed to do this, they still have to pay the taxes that are coming in. You know, when we ship goods in from China. So that kind of defeats the whole purpose of the taxation there. It really is going to hinder, maybe, third party American sellers. So that's something to really think about too. All right, so I'm really curious to know what you all think. What do you think? This is a good thing? This is a bad thing. Are you enraged? Are you happy about it? What do you think? Please let us know in the comments.

Carrie Miller:

Okay, so that leads me to my next piece of news, and that is that Target and Shopify are partnering to offer a selection of targets Popular merchants, such as their true classic and caden lane, to offer their products on target plus. The new partnership with Shopify will expand target plus and will give consumers more options to purchase from these selected brands. Target will also be the first mass retailer to work with Shopify to bring select merchants products into their physical stores in the months to come. If you want to apply to sell online and target, you can actually go and apply on target plus through the marketplace connect app. I really do believe that, with everything that's happening, all the changes that are going on, I do think it's really important to diversify. So you know, getting on target and starting to sell on target might be a really good option for a lot of third party sellers. So check it out, if you haven't already done that, because it's potentially a good opportunity to not only sell on target but to get in target stores. All right.

Carrie Miller:

So the next piece of news is a case study out of Amazon and this is for buy with prime. Now, this is a company called Hydralight, and Buy with Prime showed how they actually helped this particular brand increase shopper conversion and bring in new customers. The study highlights and they have it down here a little bit it's highlighting 16% increase in conversion rate, 37% of new customers purchased through Buy with Prime and 90% of the Buy with Prime customers are new orders. So that's not even the most interesting part, though. I know if you haven't added this button to your site, it's probably a good idea to do so. But the most interesting thing is I actually saw a post from Destiny Wishun from Better Media on LinkedIn and she actually showed a screenshot of these buy with prime merchants and their ads on the homepage actually directing straight to their actual site. So they're direct to customer site, which is really interesting. So I think they might be testing this out and I'm not sure if it was actually an ad or if, what the whole situation was, but there is. If you're interested, you can look on her LinkedIn. There is a whole clip of it and she shows how these actual little icons on the homepage are leading customers to the direct to consumer sites. So that could be a really good motivation and reason to participate in Buy with Prime, if you haven't already done it. I think there's a lot of evidence to show that Buy with Prime is really helpful for your conversion rate on your own site. But then if Amazon is going to start promoting your products on actual Amazon and directing them to your website, that is something that could be really amazing. So my question is what do you all think about this, and have you added the Buy With Prime button to your website? Leave comments below on that.

Carrie Miller:

All right, so let's get into the last piece of news, and that is that Amazon is working on an AI chatbot, internally called Metis, to rival OpenAI's ChatGPT. Okay, the chatbot is going to be accessible through a web browser and it's going to be powered by one of the company's internal AI models called Olympus. Olympus is supposedly even more powerful than Amazon's publicly available AI model, which is called Titan. Now Metis can generate conversational texts and image-based answers, provide source links, suggest follow-up questions and generate images. Amazon also reportedly wants to use retrieval, augmented generation or the RAG method for Metis, meaning the chatbot would be able to reference knowledge outside of its original training data and therefore could provide more up-to-date answers. Metis is reportedly also meant to be an AI agent, I guess, kind of your like personal agent, I guess, capable of completing tasks such as turning on lights and booking flights.

Carrie Miller:

So the question I have for all of you is with this change, do you think that more people are going to be doing voice search through Alexa? Do you think this kind of AI integration is going to change the way shoppers find products on Amazon and other websites? I do believe it is going to kind of change the context and way people are searching for products, but I'm really curious to know what you all think out there. All right, in our next segment, we are going to be talking about the latest rollout within Atomic and this is really important. Going to be located in Atomic and you're going to go to the dashboard and then scroll all the way to the bottom where it says brand performance. So what is being shown here is brand performance data and what you're going to be able to see is you can see the number of brand searches, you can see the detail page views and you can see the customer conversion rate. You can see the new percent of new to brand customers. You can see the shopper engagement rate. You can see all this great information all in one place and it's just really giving sellers more information that they need to make better data-driven decisions in their pay-per-click advertising. So it's going to allow you to see category comparisons how many clicks are within your category, how many detail page views are within that category and how you actually compare to the average. So I think this is huge in helping you to make better data-driven decisions in your pay-per-click advertising.

Carrie Miller:

Okay, so let's go ahead and get into this week's training tip of the week Now. I think this is one of the coolest things for Prime Day that you could utilize to help you make lots and lots of money this Prime Day, and it's going into historical data. So what I'm going to do, I'm just gonna go ahead and I'm gonna share my screen and show you how this strategy works and how it can help you to make tons of money this next Prime Day. Okay, so I did an example and I took an ASIN from Amazon and this is the Tyneco vacuum, because I know it does pretty well on Prime Day every year. I know I've purchased one and many people I know have purchased one, so I wanted to use this one as an example, and what we're going to do is I just did a reverse ASIN search on it and then what we're going to do is we're going to go into historical trend.

Carrie Miller:

Now, once I click on historical trend, you can see all of these months. This goes back 24 months of data and what I want to do is I want to go back to the month of July of 2023, which is last year's prime day. So I'm going to click on that pillar right there with July of 2023. And then I'm going to click on apply filters. Now this is going to show basically all of the keywords that this ASIN was ranking for organic and sponsored and you can also see the search volume. So if we look through here, you can see their organic rank in here for a lot of these different words. Now, one thing that I like to do is okay, I can see these great keywords and where they were ranked and all of that, but I want to look at Prime Day specific keywords. So I look at, I go into the filter phrases containing and I put in Prime and I hit apply filters.

Carrie Miller:

Now this is going to show you all of the kind of Prime Day related terms that you're going to be able to utilize and maybe do pay-per-click advertising on, and you could even do an evergreen cap campaign on this, maybe even throughout the next year, to make sure that you can kind of start ranking and stay on top of these. But we've got Prime Day vacuum here and that they are organically ranked 230. Okay, they're not even doing any sponsored ads. This has an 8,500 search volume. That definitely looks like it's wide open. If you hover over this you can actually see who is ranked in the top for that keyword. But if you go down you can see all of these different keywords where this main competitor is not even ranking organically in the first page for these keywords and they're not even doing many sponsored ads. They've got one sponsored ad here, one there as well, so they're kind of probably just guessing.

Carrie Miller:

But you can utilize this historical search volume, historical searches, to do some exact campaigns and start, you know, making sure to capitalize on these keyword searches, cause it looks like a lot of people are doing even just stick vacuum cleaner, cordless, prime day deals got 1800 searches. So you know really good opportunities to do some exact campaigns to really win all of this where lots and lots of traffic is going to be. So if you haven't already checked out the historical trend, go ahead and check it out. It is an incredible tool and I do believe it can make you lots of money. Right now, some of those keywords are very, very low search volume, and so if you start advertising now, you could potentially get to the top of the search and start ranking for those before prime day. You still have some time, so go ahead and start trying to dominate those incredible prime day keywords. All right, and that is all that we have for this week's episode of the Weekly Buzz, and we will see you again next week to see what's buzzing. Bye everyone.

#573 - Amazon Prime Day Prep Checklist

Want to crush Prime Day 2024? We reveal game-changing strategies to maximize your sales! From prepping your inventory to harnessing the power of influencers and email lists, this episode is packed with actionable strategies. Discover how to optimize your pay-per-click ads by tweaking budgets, targeting your own ASINs, and leveraging the Cerebro Historical Trend Tool to stay ahead of the competition. We'll also guide you on adding last-minute coupons, and provide a Prime Day checklist to ensure your success. 

Learn how to launch new ASINs effectively, set up a brand website, and improve conversion rates through split-testing. We discuss the importance of fast delivery and the advantages of using FBA and the "Buy with Prime" button for seamless order fulfillment. You'll also get tips on building an email list for future events, and hear recommendations for resources like Bradley Sutton's Maldives Honeymoon podcasts for comprehensive product launch strategies. Tune in now to make Prime Day your biggest sales event ever!

In episode 573 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Carrie talks about:

• 00:00 - Prime Day 2024 Strategies and Tips
• 03:15 - Driving Traffic for Prime Day
• 09:33 - Cerebro Historical Trend Tool Overview
• 14:00 -  Download The Checklist Here
• 14:21 - Building an Email List Strategies
• 17:12 - Split Testing A+ Content Conversion Factors 
• 17:40 - Launching Strategies and Fulfillment Tips
• 20:50 - Expanding Into Walmart From Australia

► 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

Transcript

Carrie Miller:

Did you know that you can make Prime Day 2024 your biggest Prime Day ever by implementing a few different strategies? That's right. Today, I'm going to be talking about some incredible strategies that can help you to make Prime Day 2024 your biggest Prime Day ever. I'm also going to be doing a live AMA. So stay tuned.

Bradley Sutton:

How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. 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 our monthly special training with Ask Me Anything session. And today's host is going to be Carrie and she's going to be going over some Prime Day strategies for you guys like, you know, we got Prime Day coming up, but even if you catch this on the replay, guys, guess what? Prime Day is something that comes kind of like twice a year because there's like a usually special other deal day. So still pay attention to this episode, even if you're watching this or listening to it after Prime Day, she's going to give some good strategies. And then also, you guys came in and gave some pretty good questions for her after that. That we're also airing live. So don't forget to join these sessions every month. These ask me anything sessions. I highly recommend it. Usually, I'm the one on there, sometimes Carrie will be on there, sometimes Shivali will be on there, but get your questions ready for us. It could be about any episode you've had or your Amazon business, and we'll get to those questions live.

Bradley Sutton:

One more thing, if you want more personalized help and don't want to air out your questions in public, don't forget there's a way to have one-on-ones with the Evangelism Team myself, Carrie, Shivali. Make sure to sign up for Helium 10 Elite h10.me/elite, h10.me/elite. If you've got the Diamond Plan, it's only $99 extra per month. You'll get special trains with Kevin King. You'll get a special trains with me and Carrie, and even one-on-ones once a month you can sign up for. So make sure to do that. But without further ado, let's go ahead and get into Carrie's training. Carrie, take it away.

Carrie Miller:

All right, thank you all for joining, and today we're gonna talk about Prime Day, and this is our monthly training, where we allow everyone into this, and it's about Prime Day. And Prime Day is coming up, and this could potentially be your biggest day of the year, and I wanna just give you some tactics and some strategies that are gonna help you to basically make it your biggest Prime Day ever. So, before I get started though, I wanted to make sure that you all know that you can put your questions in the comments, and I'm going to do my best to answer all of your questions for Prime Day because I want to make sure that, you know, you guys are all completely prepared for this. Okay, so this is my Prime Day prep strategies. Okay, so I'm going to go through you slowly, but again, if you have any questions, make sure that you drop them into the chat because I'm going to be answering questions at the end as well. If I see something, though, that relates over in the chat box then I'll make sure to answer that as I go.

Carrie Miller:

But okay, so here are some to do things now. In two days, your inventory should be at the Amazon warehouses, so hopefully you all have kind of prepared extra inventory and you've sent those in to the Amazon warehouses. If not, maybe you can just still try to get them in but it's going to be a lot harder. But just wanted to remind you. That's two days from now, so hopefully that's all done. And here's just some things to kind of think about ways that you can drive more traffic and have this to be a big Prime Day. You can create a discount code within Amazon and you can actually send that to your email list. So if you do have an email list that you want to give a special Prime Day discount to encourage them to purchase your products, then this is a good way to do it to kind of help keep traffic going. It can help with some outside traffic. Another thing is I personally always do this. I actually haven't done Prime Day deals, so Prime Day deals you already had to submit those, but I always add a coupon if I don't have a Prime Day deal going on, and they do very well. So I always make sure to have some sort of discount and coupons on there, on the actual listing itself.

Carrie Miller:

You can also utilize influencers. If you do work with some influencers, a lot of them really like to showcase products. So if you do have connections like that, then this is a really perfect time to start utilizing influencers. Here's some strategies for your pay-per-click ads. Okay, the first thing is you're going to want to increase your ads budget for the high performing campaigns.

Carrie Miller:

Now, obviously, if you're not really running any deals, you're not going to really want to do this for those products. This is for products that you're running deals that you know not going to really want to do this for those products. This is for products that you're running deals that, you know, are going to have deals like coupons or a prime day deal on. You want to increase to make sure that you don't run out of budget. And another thing is you want to run Product Targeting Ads against your own ASINS for defense. So you don't want to spend all this money for the clicks to get onto your listing, for then somebody just easily click away. So whatever you can do to kind of, you know, make sure that you are kind of defending your territory with those Product Targeting Ads against your own ASINs is a really good idea. And then you're going to also want to increase your bids for high converting products and then with deals, and then decrease your bids for those that don't have any deals because people are looking for deals on this day. So you don't want to waste a lot of PPC spend for products that you don't have any deals on. So just keep that in mind for just making sure that you stay in budget for Prime Day.

Carrie Miller:

Another thing is you're going to want to turn on the Sponsored Display Retargeting Campaigns to capture traffic that doesn't actually convert during Prime Day because you can retarget them. You can maybe continue some of your coupons or discounts going on for a few more days and then see if you can capture those sales. And then also you can update your headline copy to, you know, mention deals or you can add different photos based on whatever it is that you want to do for Prime Day. So, you know, I think headline definitely, you know, just headlining that you, you are running a deal is a good idea for your ads. Definitely you know just headlining that you, you are running a deal is a good idea for your ads, okay, so then make sure also that your listing is retail ready. So that means like when you're running all these ads, you want to make sure that it's done so that it's gonna convert.

Carrie Miller:

And there's a lot of things that you can do to make sure that you do optimize your listing and the first thing is you know if your brand registered, you want to make sure you have you’re A-plus content added with a brand story. I actually did this, I think, like when it came when brand story came out, I started adding my other products in the brand story and I started noticing people buying products that they don't normally buy together and that was pretty amazing. I really think that it's a really good opportunity to make sure that you have, you know those that brand story in there so that you can get those kind of like bundle deals, I guess you could say, without actually doing a virtual bundle. So I think if you aren't doing that, then you're really missing out. So when you do your brand story, you can write, you know, a little blurb about your brand and then you can actually add your products and people can scroll to the right, or is it to the left? They basically can scroll to see the other products that are available within your brand. You can also, once you've got brand, your brand story on all your A-plus content. Then you have access, you unlock access to premium A-plus content and so you can add a comparison chart on there and the comparison chart also allows you another placement to add more products from your line as well. So you can kind of cross sell and make sure to kind of like increase your cart value. Especially, you know, on Prime Day you're spending more on ads and you're spending, you're giving discounts, so you want to kind of increase those, those cart values.

Carrie Miller:

Also, add virtual bundles. Now I talked before about, you know, making sure that that you're doing those Product Targeting Ads to the ASIN Targeting Ads, to make sure that you're doing those product targeting ads to the ASIN targeting ads, to make sure that you're defending your products. But adding virtual bundles can also really help defend your listing because it takes up a whole row of where advertisements could be. So this is another way to defend your listing. So if you haven't had virtual bundles, definitely put them on. Some people are always like I put a virtual bundles and they didn't really sell. Well, honestly, for this purpose, the purpose is really to take up space and make sure that you're defending your position and your whole page from competitors advertising and getting those clicks away from your actual listing. Also, you're going to want to update your images, if needed.

Carrie Miller:

This is one of the most incredible tools for optimizing your images. I love that you can actually go on here to this little media comparison tool. So what I did was I put in a bunch of ASINs. You can put your ASIN in there. First, we put my ASIN in here first this is our Mania's Mysterious Oddities and then we put our competitors in here and you can see a bunch of things that are going on. You can even see if they're running coupons. So this is good to kind of keep track of them.

Carrie Miller:

But my favorite thing is, since you're preparing, is media comparison. So you're going to be able to see where what images your competitors are doing that maybe you're not. So you can see all the images all stacked on top of each other. So maybe some of your competitors have, you know, dimensions and you're like, oh, I didn't even do a dimensions photo, or they have a cool infographic that you want to kind of do a similar one like that, or lifestyle images that you hadn't thought of. That is a great way to kind of continue to optimize your images and you can also see, you know, which listings have videos. It'll show you this one has one video, so you can see okay, my competitors aren't even, they don't even have a video, and you can put up a video. That's another thing. If you haven't added a video to your listing, this actually unlocks for Amazon influencers to be able to post up in the upper carousel actual video reviews of your product and this can really help with your sales. So if you open up this by just adding a video in, I think that can really people that are doing the influencing program can kind of find you a little bit easier and then they can place their products or their review videos on your actual listing. So it's another great way to get more videos for free, basically.

Carrie Miller:

So the next thing I want to go back to my presentation here. I went all the way back to the beginning here. You want to update your keywords? Okay, so I'm going to show you a little bit about our Cerebro Historical Trend Tool, and I absolutely love the Historical Trend Tool. It's one of the coolest tools that I think we've come out with. You can go back in time and you can find where any, basically, you can go back at 24 months, okay. You can find out where any ASIN was ranking in the organic and the sponsored positions. You can also see the search volume history of any keywords so it’s really, really an amazing tool to, basically, you know, get ahead of the competition. So I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to show you that tool. Okay, so I already I already went into Cerebro and I actually took a product that I know sells super, super well on Prime Day and I put in the ace in here.

Carrie Miller:

And this is just a single search. When you're doing the Historical Trend, and what you're going to do is you're going to click on the show Historical Trend Tool and I think this is kind of hidden some people don't know where it is. It's literally right in the middle here and you click on this. You click on show historical trend. Last year, Prime Day was July, I believe, of 2023. So I'm gonna click on this July of 2023. You can see that it's highlighted here. So we're gonna click on July 2023 and then I'm gonna click apply filters and this is going to give me all of the keywords that this particular product was ranking for and sponsored and organic positioning. So one thing you could do is you could say, hey, I want to, like, I want to see where they were ranked between you know, in the sponsored position, between one and 20. And you can apply those filters, you can see where their, you know, main targets were for their sponsored ads, so you can kind of get some new keywords that way. Another thing is, once you're in here you can also kind of sort and filter for particular keywords and one of the ones I like to do for Prime Day is just prime. Okay, so I'm just going to see what keyword phrases have prime in it and I'm going to go down here and look okay, so this is kind of incredible because this vacuum literally I think is one of the top sellers for Prime Day and their organic rank for Prime Day vacuum is 230.

Carrie Miller:

So not even ranking. They're not even really Sponsored Rank. They have some Sponsored Rank, I do believe, on the Prime, Prime Day. Let's see if we can sort here. I think I saw them before on some sponsored. They have some some keywords. So they're ranking in the sponsored for Prime Day vacuums or they were cordless vacuum, Prime Day, but those are kind of, you know, smaller keywords. So this one actually is kind of incredible because Prime Day vacuum, you know, there's just a wide open opportunity to beat this particular competitor. You can usually see the top clicked and top converted keyword or products in there. So you can also kind of look, take a look at your other competitors and see what potential Prime Day keywords you have. So you can literally come up with a whole list. Maybe some people are shopping for gifts so you can see like gifts I don't know if this is really a gift item, but you could see if there'sany gifts. Okay, so you've got some gift keywords in here so you can do that for any ASIN and people are sometimes looking for gifts, you know. Even you know on Prime Day, for people start shopping early. So you can sort for gifts and see if there's any gift keywords that maybe you can target in your pay-per-click advertising.

Carrie Miller:

I was actually looking at some other, another historical search for our coffin shelf and there was a search that I did for May and I was like there must be something wrong with this. Witchy gifts for women had this huge spike and it went up to like from like 700 to 12,000. I went up to Bradley I was like there's got to be something wrong with this or something sort of glitch, but it's. He's like well, maybe this is for Mother's Day that people are searching which witchy gifts for women. So I thought that was kind of crazy, that like that's a crazy opportunity keyword for you know, this random month I not really random because it's Mother's Day but like I would have never thought Mother's Day would be kind of a gothic type search term.

Carrie Miller:

But you can, you know, look and find these types of keywords when you do these historical searches, and you can do that by filtering the different phrases. You can even just download the whole list and kind of take a look where they were ranking in the top 50 sponsored spots or the top 100 or whatever. You can look at all their sponsored rankings and you can see, okay, what keywords am I missing and that have a good search volume that maybe nobody else is really targeting. So I think it's a really, really incredible tool that if you have not started utilizing it, then it's really, really a great tool to use. I'm also going to share the. There's a link here that is for the Prime Day checklist that we actually made so you can download that and you can go through it again. There's actually some more details in there for Prime Day and we put it together. There's stuff with Helium 10 tools, there's stuff without Helium 10 tools. It really is geared towards giving you as much information as possible to help make Prime Day a really big day for you.

Carrie Miller:

So, all righty, I'm going to go back and I'm going to start answering questions. How do you build an email list? So this is something that takes a little bit of time and this is something that maybe you, if you want to do this for the next Prime Day or next holiday season, you can start now. But we do have a way. You can put QR codes into your products. Basically, you can create these little QR codes where people can kind of maybe register for a freebie, something or a warranty of your product or something like that, and basically that's kind of how you can start collecting email addresses in there, and that's a great way to do it. So that's one way or you can have a pop up at your website. I know you know, if you have like a Shopify site, make sure you have a pop up that goes up and then it can save a list of emails if you create that Shopify site now and I know not everyone has that but if you're selling just on Amazon, then these inserts are really the best way to do it. We do have different YouTube trainings that you can actually go and kind of search for our inserts trainings on our YouTube channel but that is a great way. We also, I think, did a freedom ticket extra episode on that. It would be in our freedom ticket 4.0. So that is another way that you can, you know, learn more about how to build an email list. But it's really, I think, a great tool.

Carrie Miller:

Somebody said I missed about the A-plus content and can you give me some more information? Yeah, so on the A-plus content, what I was mentioning was that you want to make sure that you add a brand story in you’re A-plus content because you can add more products on your carousel there so you can do a little blurb about your brandster, but there's a space where you can actually add products that are in your line. So I noticed that when I added a brand story, that more people were buying more of my products together when they're actually kind of different types of products, but they were kind of buying more like together. So it increased the cart order value and that was a really great thing for the brand story to help just kind of increase the cart value. But also, once you do a brand story for all of your A-plus content, then you can actually get access to the premium A-plus content and you can do a chart comparison and in there you can also add more products that you sell. So really good places to add, you know help to you know increase your cart order values, especially, like I said, you're paying more for ads. You know help to you know, increase your cart order values, especially, like I said, you're paying more for ads. You're doing some discounts. You want to kind of get some more bang for your buck.

Carrie Miller:

Does it make sense to adjust daytime parties short before and during Prime Day? So in terms of some people kind of stop running as many ads during the week before, but I actually don't and I've actually seen, you know, continuous sales. So I guess it really depends on your strategy. In terms of day parting, that's usually when you kind of like turn things off during certain times where you're maybe not converting as well and maybe increase it as when you are. But I think Prime Day may be different but it really is probably dependent on your product.

Carrie Miller:

Shivali says do you recommend split testing A-plus while we're still a few weeks out from the speculated day? Yes, there is actually a way that you can split test you’re A-plus content in Seller Central. So I would suggest, if we do have some time before, I think we have like probably four weeks so you can start split to see. It usually takes about four weeks to kind of give you some good information. So if you were to start, you know, you’re A-plus content today and get it all up, you could start doing two different versions and split testing.

Carrie Miller:

Helium 10 Serious Sellers Podcast and Freedom Ticket have been such a great partner in our journey best ever, awesome. I'm really glad to hear it. That's awesome. Okay, let's see here. Our ASIN has the fastest delivery of five to six days compared to others of one day. Not sure if this is affecting conversion, because we are getting tons of clicks but not converting or it has to be images and A+, so there's a lot of things that could be affecting your conversion, but definitely the speed of delivery is going to affect you. So you're going to see a lot less sales for sure in terms of that kind of a delivery. And then you also need to probably split test your images to see if there is a better image for your main image and maybe some of your copy. You can do that split testing within Seller Central.

Carrie Miller:

Somebody asked what are the best strategies for launching a new ASIN, I would recommend going to listen to the Maldives Honeymoon Podcasts from Bradley Sutton. Those are the podcasts where you can really learn how to launch a product that gives you tons and tons of information. When do you suggest to create a .com website for my brand on Amazon? My sister and I are about to launch our first product soon. I actually would say you could do it right away. Shopify is really cool because they have these templates. You can literally buy a website address and you can connect it to Shopify, and Shopify has templates that you can kind of click and drag and add photos.

Carrie Miller:

Personally, I created my own site myself. I took photos of my friends using my products and I went and just did the templates. I looked at all the templates that they had available and I purchased one that I thought was really cool and would work well for my product, and then you can also, you know, purchase stock images too if you needed to. There are places you can buy stock images for your website, but I would suggest just putting something together. You can do a very basic one there and that way you have kind of some brand recognition people looking for you. They can find you on that site. I think, you know, if you have some time to do it, you can do it right away. Bradley wants me to announce what is going on with Freedom Ticket as far as Walmart, we are actually working on our Walmart Freedom Ticket right now, so we're in the process of starting to film that and put it together, and it's going to be full of incredible Walmart content. So you're going to get everything you need to know to sell on Walmart and be successful.

 Carrie Miller:

Okay, can you fulfill Shopify orders via Amazon? You can use FBA to fulfill your orders. So you can. There's a little plugin that you can use to connect your FBA account to Shopify and so you can fulfill it. Just basically, you'll pay for the fulfillment fees. Another way you can do is there's a button you can get on your website. It's a little bit more challenging to get this, but it's called buy with Prime and people can literally just buy. It's really an easy click and they can just use their prime account to buy on your website. So that's another way that you can do it. I actually have that on my site and it works pretty well. I think it's also good for people you know if it's your site and they're like I don't know if I trust this site yet, but if you have one of those buy with prime buttons, they're like oh, I could just easily use my Amazon account and it's easy for them to do. And they don’t have to fill in anything. It’s a good way to go.

Carrie Miller:

Andy says is there any news on Walmart for  off shore entities. Actually, I have helped some Australian sellers I know you're in Australia get onto Walmart recently. What you have to have is an EIN and you have to have a business address in the US. So those are the main things that you need to have. They are expanding the country, so some countries that are not officially allowed to sell, you do need to have an EIN and a business address and they have to match. So, whatever your EIN, the business address there has to match the US business address in order to get accepted. So yeah, Andy says he knows that's my specialty. Yes, it is. Also Amazon. I mean Amazon, I've been an Amazon seller since 2016. So definitely Amazon is a specialty as well.

Carrie Miller:

With buy with prime, does it capture customer info to add things like an email list. They capture it too, but you can see it. You can see your customer information. That business address cannot be virtual. Some people use the 3PL, but there are some kind of like, you can pay for addresses and different companies allow you to do that. So that's another way to do that to get on to Walmart,.

Carrie Miller:

Someone said how should we launch a product with 50% off price offer coupons? There's a lot of different ways that you can do this. You can do a discount and then kind of gradually raise the price. But some people are saying now that you should do you know full price items. It really is kind of saying now that you should do you know full price items. It really is kind of depending on what you want to do but the discount does help you to convert more, especially if you don't have any reviews. So I would say you know, that is a good way to do. You know, to start off is to give a discount and then you can start getting those reviews coming in and you're obviously going to have to run pay-per-click advertising. You can run coupons and all of that stuff and all of that is going to be helpful for you to convert higher.

Carrie Miller:

If we need help from Walmart, how do we reach out to you? Is it possible to use Amazon to fulfill Walmart through Amazon? These are good questions. If you need help with Walmart, I do have a Walmart group you can tag me on Facebook. It's called Winning with Walmart, or Helium 10 Winning with Walmart. You can join that group. You can tag me with the questions there. I do go live every month in that group too and I answer questions.

Carrie Miller:

But you can just tag me there. But then also never fulfill Walmart orders with Amazon. They will shut you down. They're competing against each other. They do not want you to, you know, fulfill with Amazon, even if you do the MCF and it's like a plain box. Sometimes they make a mistake and it might be delivered in a Prime Box and it could be a problem. So I would suggest that you get a 3PL if you're going to do Walmart, or you can use Walmart fulfillment services. Walmart fulfillment services are, you know, pretty much the same thing as FBA.  You ship in some inventory to them and they will pick, pack and ship for you. So that is, I think, the best way to do that.

Carrie Miller:

Someone asked, I guess we have another one, is it wise to give away coupons to Amazon visitors for Amazon ASINs, in terms of listing a coupon on your site? Yes, I do believe that's a great thing to help with conversion.

Carrie Miller:

All right, everyone. Thank you all so much for joining this live about Prime Day and just ask me anything as well, and we will have this again live for everyone in a month again. Otherwise, if you're in the Serious Sellers Club, you can join every week. So thanks again, everyone, for joining and we will see you all again later. Bye everyone, bye, bye.

#572 - Avoiding Pitfalls In Sourcing & Importing

Join us as we explore crucial importing and inventory management strategies with Afolabi Oyerokun, a seasoned Amazon seller with over 20 years of experience. Afolabi takes us through his remarkable journey from Nigeria to the United States, where he transitioned from fashion design to computer animation before making his mark in e-commerce. Discover his insights on avoiding costly pitfalls when importing products from overseas, managing inventory effectively, and ensuring you don't run out or overstock.

In this engaging episode, Afolabi shares essential tips on navigating U.S. customs seizures and maintaining effective communication with overseas factories. Learn about the common reasons for customs stopping a container and the importance of accurate documentation to avoid severe penalties. He also highlights the risks of using email for factory communications and suggests using platforms like WeChat to prevent scams. Plus, get the lowdown on labeling requirements for imported goods to ensure compliance with U.S. and Amazon regulations.

Listen in as we discuss the critical role of third-party logistics (3PLs) in maintaining a diverse and efficient supply chain, despite Amazon's introduction of its AWD. Afolabi outlines the strategic advantages of using 3PLs for fulfilling orders across multiple marketplaces and offers practical tips for optimizing shipping. Additionally, we emphasize the importance of compliance with Customs and Border Protection (CBP) regulations and introduce a new tool to help track and ensure compliance with U.S. government regulations. Finally, get to know Afolabi a little better as we share contact information for his services and enjoy a light-hearted exchange about Nigerian cuisine.

In episode 572 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Afolabi discuss:

• 00:00 - Importing Products From Overseas
• 03:54 - From Fashion to Tech 
• 10:17 - Avoiding Customs Seizures in Online Selling 
• 11:20 - Customs Seizure, Communication, and Mold Ownership
• 22:45 - Factory Confiscates Mold During Dispute
• 25:27 - Supply Chain Visibility and Customs Compliance
• 28:52 - Importance of Taking CBP Seriously
• 31:06 - Online Contact Information for Tariff Services3

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Transcript

Bradley Sutton:

Today's guest has got tons of strategies to help you avoid potential pitfalls that would be extremely costly when importing products from overseas, but he's also got a wealth of experience since he started selling on Amazon over 20 years ago. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. 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 it's funny for the first time in like 570 episodes, I was recording an episode last week and then noticed that the recording wasn't working, so we're having to start all over again. So thanks to our guests for being accommodating, but at the same time, thanks to my terrible memory, I think I already forgot most of what we had talked about already. So it's going to be still new for me, just as it is for the audience right here. So, Afolabi, welcome to the show. How's it going this morning? Thank you again for coming on for a second time.

 

Afolabi:

I'm good. Thank you, Bradley, for having me over. Thanks a lot, I'm excited.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Awesome! Now we were talking about where I'm from right before this call, where I'm at right now. Where are you in the United States right now?

 

Afolabi:

I'm in Pennsylvania. I'm sitting at a 3PL here in Eastern PA.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Ah, so this is not your home, this is like where you work, your office.

 

Afolabi:

Correct. This is our office.

 

Bradley Sutton:

And where were you born and raised?

 

Afolabi:

Born in Nigeria, West Africa. I came into the US this January of 97.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Ah, okay, now hold on. This is something new already we didn't talk about last time, because this weekend I was at a church event and I met somebody from Nigeria and maybe I'll throw a picture up of that. But I asked him I'm a foodie, so I ask him if I find a good Nigerian restaurant here, what should I order? And he said something let's see if this is what you suggest too. He said fish, pepper soup. So is that a great cuisine that I should try for Nigerian food?

 

Afolabi:

Fish pepper soup is good, beef pepper soup is good and then you can. If you like rice, you can eat jollof rice. I love rice. It's spelled j-o-l-l-o-f. It's a traditional, uh, very nice, uh tasting rice. But I have to caution you on the fish pepper soup. If you don't like hot, spicy food, don't.

 

Bradley Sutton:

That's no problem. All right, the rest of the audience, you guys, beware. Me, I don't have to worry about that I love hot spicy food. So that makes it even more. That makes it even more exciting for me to taste it.

 

Afolabi:

Good.

 

Bradley Sutton:

All right, excellent. Anyways, we're not here to uh to talk about food. Otherwise, yeah, my diet is day one today and I'm already going to lose out on that if I get too hungry here. But let's talk about, let's go back more to your origin story. So did you attend university in the United States or back in Nigeria?

 

Afolabi:

Yes, so I had some university in Nigeria and then I transferred and came here to New York at the Fashion Institute of Technology, F.I.T. as everybody knew it, and I majored in fashion design for my first two years and then the final two years was in computer animation and interactive media. Weird right?

 

Bradley Sutton:

Yeah, that's a big contrast. Some people say oh, what's your major? Oh, I'm majoring in business and I minor in management or something like that or maybe a language, but your double major was IT and also fashion. So how did you end up like, what was your first dabble in e-commerce and what year, and what did you do?

 

Afolabi:

I did some little freelance work here and there, and then I came up with the shoe designs while I was doing freelance for a company in New York.

 

Bradley Sutton:

And there's your fashion design coming in already. I like it.

 

Afolabi:

Now, bear in mind, I did not do shoe designs, I didn't do footwear designs when I was doing fashion, but I just liked all these Nike shoes and all these really cool shoes. I was just inspired. So, I started designing my own shoes. And now, when I had a computer full of shoe designs, now the next stage is how do I make these shoes? So, I was looking all over. I couldn't find any shoe manufacturer, and then I sent inquiries out. Those were the days Alibaba was just coming up. It wasn't very popular at all. Anyway, I found some Mr. Johnson somewhere in Taiwan that replied to my email and it's like no, you have to come here. We can make your shoes, but you got to come here. I'm like okay, whatever.

 

Afolabi:

So I went to Taiwan with the last dollar in my hands. I didn't even have money for the hotel. My host had to pay for my hotel. So I went to and they didn't know I didn't have the hotel. They were just being, you know good host. So I went to Taiwan, met with Mr. Johnston and that was the beginning of me making my shoes. And after I made the shoes, I you know my wife reached out one way or the other. She reached out to Amazon that you know Amazon was just getting out of selling books, only to start it. They just opened up the platform for.

 

Bradley Sutton:

When was this? Early 2000s?

 

Afolabi:

2002.

 

Bradley Sutton:

2002.

 

Afolabi:

Yes, so that was 2002. And Amazon. You know, some rep in Amazon said oh wow, we like these shoes. You want, would you like, to come on board our platform? Like, yeah, I don't have any other choice. You know how come? You know? So I, uh, I started selling those shoes there and they were doing really good until we realized that they were made too small, they were like a size smaller and uh, by the way, these are some of the things, things I shared in the model, you know, in the Freedom Ticket. For people that are listening, you know, I would say for them to go get that and listen to my full story there.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Okay, interesting, all right, so now was that? So then Amazon kind of became your main income in the early two thousands? Or were you also selling online, or how? How did you end up, you know? Cause you're down to your last dollar when, when you got started here. So what happened?

 

Afolabi:

So, I was selling on Amazon but it wasn’t, there was no FBA right, so we were fulfilling it by ourselves. It was so hard and I had a side gig which I was doing, you know, graphics and web for people on the side, and I went to a footwear show in New York. It’s called Fanny, F-F-A-N-Y. And I met some people and they were like “How did you make these shoes?” And I told them and they said, oh, can you make us shoes too? So I started doing consulting for other individuals that want to make their own shoes. So that's how I kept on keeping the body and soul together while I was building the brand on Amazon and when the shoes were made small, so we started getting a lot of returns, people saying, oh, I have to return this and buy a higher size. So people were returning it, they'll buy a size eight, They'll return it and buy a size nine. And it was just a nightmare and I couldn't take it. So I found a liquidator or some guy out of Florida and he bought all my inventory and that's how I ended that part to sell off all my inventory.

 

Bradley Sutton:

So then, but now you kind of found out that, hey, I've got a thing for this, you know design, I've got a thing for importing. This is maybe something I can help out with.

 

Afolabi:

Correct.

 

Bradley Sutton:

And then, was that the kind of start of your consulting company?

 

Afolabi:

Yes.

 

Bradley Sutton:

That you've been doing ever since.

 

Afolabi:

Yes, so that's how sourcing and logistics started for me. I started sourcing for a lot of companies providing logistical support and then somehow, in 2014, my friend you know came to me and said, hey, let's sell on Amazon. I'm like I've done that before. You know, it was too hard. He's like no, no, no, it's different now. You know they have something called FBA. I said what's that? He's like no, they'll fulfill the order for you. You just ship it to their warehouse. They'll do the pick and pack and ship them. Oh, that's easy. So we came up. He came up with some cool designs and signs and banners and school supplies. So that's how we went back into Amazon. We were selling craft vinyl, we were selling anything we could lay our hands on. It was so easy to rank, it was so easy to launch. Those were the days that viral launch was also, you know, getting started and stuff. And so we were. We were growing really fast because, you know there was there were no competition. You know people hadn't woken up to Amazon. So selling on Amazon became our main income at that time.

 

Bradley Sutton:

OK, all right, interesting. Now you reference that you're in in Freedom Ticket. So, yes, anybody who has a Helium 10 and has a Starter plan, Platinum plan or above has full access to our full Freedom Ticket course, which is more than 20 hour course with every aspect of selling online that you would need and Afolabi 's module is under compliance and risk management. It's called mistakes to avoid when importing products. We're not going to do the whole thing today, but I want to give some highlights from here, just so that people can understand some of your expertise and you can go ahead and help people out with some things. But my first question is one of the things that you mentioned in your module was about custom seizures and how people can avoid that. So, first of all, what is a custom seizure? Sounds very dramatic. And then how can people avoid? Or, you know, nobody can 100% fully make themselves foolproof, but what are the things that people can do to make that less likely of happening?

 

Afolabi:

Yes, correct, thanks. So custom seizure is when the US customs just flags your container or flags a container containing your product for examination because they're suspecting something. It could be randomly done, or it might be that your freight forwarder or your broker has been under their watch list and they want to start looking deeper into all the imports that this cheaper or freight forwarder has been doing. So they would stop your container for examination, so they'll bring it to a yard and they will open it up and see what's in it. Now you cannot really protect yourself from being, you know, spotted or from your container being stopped, but when it gets stopped, that's what you can protect. What happens after it gets stopped is what you can protect. You can, you know, can help yourself out. Some of the things that make customs stop a container could be you're importing from a factory that has a forced child laborer. You are importing products under the anti-dumping laws or countervailing laws, whereby it's almost like you're smuggling those products because the quota for those products is already filled out and you're still bringing in those products. They don't want you coming to flood the US market with those products. Above all, the most annoying one is the False Claims Act, which is you're not paying the right duty. You are falsifying your duty classification of your product so that you can pay the lower duty. You are bringing in a pencil and then you're lying in your. It may not be you. Actually it would be your shipper. Unknowingly to you, your shipper may be falsifying your customs form to declare a lower value, or you're declaring a lower value than the amount you ordered the product for. So these are all the things.

 

Afolabi:

For me one time that my container was stopped and it was actually destroyed. The problem was that I had been ordering this giant industrial product for a long time and one time it was stopped at the port of Jacksonville and they looked at it. They said there was the power cable. Can you imagine the power cable that has the UL logo on it. They wanted me to prove that the cable came out of a UL certified factory. And then there's another capacitor in that product that has the logo CMA on it, which is a big association. And I went to my factory. I said, hey, you know my container was stopped. Can you send me certification and proof that your factory is a member or is approved by UL and you are also authorized to use the CMA logo and they ran away. They disappeared.

 

Afolabi:

So I told the customs can I come and just stick all these things out and I can cut out the cable. I can do this. They're like nope, it's going in the trash. So the whole container about who knows 50,000 worth of product was trashed. On top of all the penalties, examination, demurrage, all manner of fees climbed on top of it. So if I had falsified the document and say, oh, I'm bringing something else that is duty-free, the penalty would have been a lot severe. So those are some of the things you should watch out for as an importer. Make sure that you're using the right HTS code, the right tariff code, to correctly declare your goods, so that they will not penalize you under the False Claims Act.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Now, another thing you mentioned was that you do not suggest that anybody communicate with their factories using email and instead another means. So why is that? And then what? How do you think people should be doing 100% of their communication with their factories?

 

Afolabi:

Great, well, I learned that from experience. So I was using my Gmail account to talk to my factory. I didn't know that there was a scammer that intercepted my factory's email as acting to my factory's email, as acting to my factory's email address and hijacked our conversation. So all the while I was talking to the scammer, I didn't realize it was the scammer, because he was impersonating my factory through email and I was able to send money to the scammer. The scammer changed the bank account on the invoice and everything and I sent the money to him, not realizing that it was a scam. If I had been communicating with my factory through WeChat, I wouldn't have fallen for that, because from the very beginning of my conversation now when I'm talking to factories, I take it out of Alibaba, I take it out of every platform and I put it in my WeChat. That way, before I even start talking about sending money or whatever, I already have a communication directly with the factory from my WeChat. So if anybody hijacks that, I would know I will double check through WeChat. I can double check through both emails and WeChat and I also secure the transaction with the Alibaba trade assurance.

 

Bradley Sutton:

All right. Yeah, that's crazy. Your email might have been secure but not the uh. You know not the uh, not the suppliers there, okay. So, yeah, we chat is the way, uh, to go. Now, another thing that sometimes I struggle with and then you talk about in your module, is knowing which labels is a requirement of the country and then also what's requirement of Amazon. So, for example, united states at what? What kind of bags need that? No suffocation like, is it only a bag that has an opening, but if it's fully vacuum sealed bag, it doesn't. Or explain when I need to have that, that, those child warnings on my bagged products coming from China.

 

Afolabi:

Well, uh, for safety, I just put it in, uh, all kinds of anything. Anytime I'm bringing a product that has bags in general. Uh, I know for Amazon it has to have an opening that you put the product in. It's not like those uh uh bubble bags, but it is a bag you open and put a product in. But me, just for the sake of sanity and safety, I just put it on anytime. Anytime I'm bringing the product.

 

Bradley Sutton:

What does it say? What exactly does the label say that you're putting on these bags?

 

Afolabi:

Yeah the suffocation. It's a generic suffocation warning which you can find the text anywhere online.

 

Bradley Sutton:

All right, so that's important too. Another thing that was new to me that you talked about was mold ownership. Now, me, I don't have any molds, or actually I do for a couple of accounts. But obviously, project X, we know, we're doing egg trays, we're doing, we're doing, you know, coffin shelves and things like that Wooden products. It didn't require a mold like for plastic product. But a lot of people, when they're making original designs or you know, brand new product, that requires tooling and molds. Hey, this is a kind of a big investment at the beginning. What are some things that that sellers should avoid? Because one thing that you know some people might think is logical is well, maybe we can split costs or with the supplier on this mold, but you actually said that's not a good idea, right?

 

Afolabi:

Yes, correct. So when your, when your product involves or requires a mold and the supplier says, well, you know, we can share the mold cost with you, you know, so that we can make it easy and cheaper for you to get into production, it's a no-no, because the moment they share the mold cost with you, they jointly own that mold and you're bind and married to that factory forever. If you try to move that mold, they'll say no, it's our mold too. We paid for it together. Another thing is to always have a mold ownership agreement when mold comes into play, have it in writing, both in Mandarin and English or Cantonese and English, and say I own this mold and I can take it anytime I want. I can move it to any factory. Okay, what if this factory gets into trouble? Or what if they run out of capacity and they can't even? They don't even have the capacity to fulfill your production anymore. What are you going to do your stuck? So it's better to always have that clause in your mold that you own your mold 100% and you can take it anywhere you want.

 

Afolabi:

Another thing I tell importers or product innovators is that when you're doing mold, make sure you don't ask your factory for their input on your design, you say, hey, what do you think? This is the way I want to make this product. What do you think? The moment your factory contributes to your designs, then by Chinese law they are co-inventors with you. If they're co-inventors, they have legal claims on your idea and they can sell it to whoever they want. They can make that product for anybody they want because you jointly developed it together with them. So you got to be very careful on contribution or collaboration. You don't collaborate with your factory. Hire your own industrial engineering or structural engineer or whoever, and you guys talk about it, come up with your product and then you give it to the mold maker. Sometimes people use their factory to negotiate the mold. I don't do that, honestly. I take my molds to the mold maker. I go to a mold maker to make my mold and then I bring it from the mold maker and I bring it to the factory. Many factory will want to say, oh, this is our mold. It's $2,000 for the mold. You don't know where they made the mold from. And if you don't have the connection to the mold, how would you retrieve the mold. If something falls apart between you and the factory, right, they would tell you where the mold came from.

 

Afolabi:

I actually had a situation and this is one out of a million whereby we made a mold and we stopped production of that product and the factory thought we were going to move the production to another factory, but that was not the case. But he's like no, I'm not going to release this mold. We were like but we paid for it, it's ours. He says I know, but I'm not giving it back. Why? Because this mold was made from a mold maker that we don't even have a contact of, so we don't even know how to reach this mold maker. Only the factory knows how to get to them. And they said nope, we're not telling you nothing, we're not releasing the mold. We went back and forth. They said okay, we can pay you for the fraction of the mold. I'm like why would you want to pay us for the mold? We don't want you making it for anybody else. They said nope, we will pay you $600 and we'll take the mold. We're not making it for anybody, but we need to safeguard it, we need to make sure it doesn't go. I'm like that doesn't even make any sense. Yeah, we, we, unfortunately, we had to abandon the factory, abandon the mold and just get out. But the, the, the confiscated the mold. They did not release it.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Wow. Okay, so that's definitely something to keep in mind as well. Let's switch gears and talk about stuff that's not in your Freedom Ticket module. For the rest of what you're talking about there, the Freedom Ticket students definitely can and should go check it out, but I didn't even know until today, for some reason, that you also did the 3PL services. Now, since you said that you're in a 3PL right now you know, in 2024, obviously the biggest change you know you've been selling on Amazon for 20 years, but, uh, probably you'd agree that one of the bigger changes that Amazon sellers are worried about this year is the new um fees. You know, like, of course, we've got a high return product rate fee and there's also uh, but now there's inventory fee, low inventory fee, and then the big, the big one that affects literally everybody using FBA is the inbound cost when you are inbound placement fee. So, as a 3PL, what you know more than just one seller who only has their situation, you're dealing with many, many sellers and who are all navigating these things differently. Yes, what's the consensus Like? What are your clients doing? What are you suggesting to them to do in order to help alleviate the cost of these new fees? What are they doing differently than they did before these fees?

 

Afolabi:

Well, we have different customers that have unique situations. Many people think that when Amazon came out with the AWD, which is the warehouse distribution, that they go ahead and fire their 3PL. We don't need 3PLs anymore and stuff like that. But they're learning more and more that I think it's Amazon's way of controlling and maintaining visibility and shutting you out of visibility, where they kind of control your whole entire supply chain. So if you're selling in other marketplaces, I still feel that you need your 3PL for you to be able to diversify, sell at Walmart, Ebay, whatever anywhere else, Shopify your own store to be able to fulfill from all those places. I know Amazon wants to fulfill those places so that you can get access to your customer data, but I want to maintain visibility. But in terms of fees placement fees I know even the AWD is not for all products, it's only for a certain small number of you know product catalog I still believe that if you can be sending your product, if you time it really well and you're watching all your inventory very well, I think you can be. If you're on top of it, you send, you know, maybe case basis or pilot basis or using freight like here we use a lot of freight for our customers and it saves them a lot of money and the products get there on time, because we have UPS freight truck come here every time and when they come here they take it straight to the depot. When they take it straight to depot, it ends up in Amazon within a day or two, so they're able to save.

 

Afolabi:

Also, if you want to use Amazon Freight from your 3PL, that's also advisable. What do I mean by that? So if you're shipping sometimes more than 10 or 12 pallets of goods, it may be better to just request for Amazon to send you an empty truck from their freight service. So you go to freightAmazoncom, they will send you an empty truck and you pay for everything you fill that truck with. So the truck rate could be 750 bucks or 600 bucks, depending on where it's going to, but they send you that truck. You could fill it with either 15 pallets or up to maybe up to 26 pallets or something. It's the same 750 bucks, which saves you a lot of money when you're, you know, shipping your products to all the fulfillment warehouses. So that's what, uh, that's my number one way. I would, you know, number one thing that I'll tell uh uh sellers to make sure they're able to consolidate and sell box shipments in chunks like that. If you're not that big, you can just be sending. SPD is still okay, whereby you send a few boxes today, keep watching your inventory and then send another few boxes next week or two weeks time, based on your velocity.

 

Bradley Sutton:

What's your 30 or 60 second tip? We call this that 60 second tip of the day that you can give. You know you've been giving strategies throughout this whole episode, but if you were to have a quick hitting one that you think people should be following, what is it?

 

Afolabi:

What I would think would be good now is it's not sexy, but it's very important and is to start taking the CBP, which is Customs and Border Protection, to start taking them seriously, because they have started to check all these cargos, especially coming from China. They already know that people are rerouting their products. They already know that people are falsifying their documents and stuff like that. They're clamping on forced child labor a lot. I was just talking to somebody last week and his product had been stopped since December because one component in his product was made out of a region in China that was known for forced child labor and for that they sent his container back to China after detaining it for many months. They had to send it back and I see that popping up in Mexico as well.

 

Afolabi:

So start taking CBP seriously in terms of check with your broker. Check that your products are compliant to US government regulations. We're actually rolling out a product this end of this month that can actually help you track all your products and cross check it across all governmental agencies. If your supplier or if your product has something that the US government doesn't like, it will flag it so that can be found on a tariff terminator website. Very soon, like end of this month, you will start being able to track and monitor your ASINs to make sure that your risk of being stopped or your product being destroyed or being prohibited from coming into the US. You would be better prepared and know ahead of time to know all the watch lists, to be aware of the watch lists of all the people and factories and things that the government doesn't like, because it's not pretty for them to stop your goods and don't let it come in.

 

Bradley Sutton:

All right, Good to know. Good to know. Now, if people want to get more information from you or reach out to find out more about your services. How can people find you on the interwebs out there?

 

Afolabi:

So they can find us at honuworldwide.com or tariftaminator.com Tariff as in T-A-R-I-F-F-T-E-R-M-I-A-N-A-T-O-R. Tarifterminator.com, or Honu Worldwide as H-O-N-U Worldwide.com, or you can send us an email at savings at HonuWorldwide.com.

 

Bradley Sutton:

All right, Afolabi, thank you so much for coming on the show. I'll let you know what I think of the fish pepper soup and maybe we'll reach out to you next year to see what's new in your world. Knowing you, you'll probably be on five different things already in this short year. So thank you so much for sharing your knowledge with us.

 

Afolabi:

You're welcome. Let me know how the fish pepper soup tastes. I always want to. I'm curious.

 

Bradley Sutton:

All right, All right, I'll let you know. I'll let you know.

Helium 10 Buzz 6/21/24: Amazon AI Updates | New Walmart Video Tool | SQP Updates

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, talk about Helium 10’s newest features, and provide a training tip for the week for serious sellers of any level.

Amazon's new AI-powered tools
https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/innovation-at-amazon/amazon-ads-image-generator-adds-aspect-ratio-capability

https://www.aboutamazon.eu/news/empowering-small-business/amazon-announces-expansion-of-generative-ai-listing-tools-to-sellers-across-europe

Amazon Ditching Air Pillows

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/06/20/amazon-plastic-air-pillows-to-be-replaced-with-paper-filler.html

Imagine saving thousands annually on fulfillment costs by optimizing product dimensions. We explore the financial benefits of Helium 10’s size tier optimization feature and how reducing an item’s length by just one inch can lead to significant savings. Additionally, learn how Helium 10’s Listing Analyzer and media comparison tools can give you an edge over competitors by enhancing product listings. With actionable insights and practical examples, this episode is packed with strategies to help you stay ahead in the e-commerce landscape. Tune in for all these valuable strategies and stay ahead in the e-commerce game!

In this episode of the Weekly Buzz by Helium 10, Bradley covers:

• 00:45 - Amazon AI Power Tools
• 02:27 - Expansion of AI Tools in Europe
• 03:34 - Walmart+ Week
• 04:28 - Walmart Connect Video Module
• 05:22 - Amazon Air Pillows
• 06:35 - Affiliate Marketing Example
• 08:42 - SQP + BTP Updates
• 12:22 - Follow Serious Sellers Podcast
• 13:18 - New Feature Alert
• 16:34 - Training: Listing Analyzer

► 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

Transcript

Bradley Sutton:

AI tool expansion from Amazon, a Walmart new video feature, recap of new features in search, career performance and brand tailored promotions this 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 Serious Sellers podcast by Helium 10. I'm 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 that's going on in the Amazon, Walmart, e-commerce world. We give you training tips of the week and we also let you know what new Helium 10 features were released. That'll give you serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. Let's see what's buzzing Just a couple of news articles of the day, so let's go ahead and hop right in it.

Bradley Sutton:

The very first one is from Amazon. It's entitled Amazon's new AI powered tools help advertisers easily create engaging and vibrant images. All right, so this is, you know, been out for quite a while now in in sponsored ads how you can upload an image and then create different backgrounds for that image. And now there's a couple of new features. First of all, this kind of cool, this article that we have linked to, probably down below in the comments has some quotes from our very own Melissa, right here from Pacvue, and you know she talks a little bit about it. Now, one thing that's interesting is or a couple of things that I noticed new that they're releasing is, first of all, that I noticed. New that they're releasing is, first of all, instead of you just having to do the prompt in order to let Amazon's AI know what to do for the background, it's gonna start scanning your listing and maybe kind of add some of its own flavor, even without you having to specify every single thing. The other new thing is that you're now able, through Amazon's AI image generation, to do it in different formats. You know like not just one exact. You know 10, 80 by 720 or whatever the heck it is Right. But you can do different formats because obviously there's different ad types, different image sizes for different use cases inside of seller central for ads or other things. Now, obviously, if you've been using Helium 10, or you've been using it or not, you hopefully know that you have access to not only this image generator but also, in Listing, builder is another image generator that you can create images for Amazon post sizes, for different A plus content modules, et cetera. So a lot of new AI stuff that, um, you know can definitely help you from Amazon.

Bradley Sutton:

Speaking of AI from Amazon, one more update about this topic. Another article here is entitled Amazon announces expansion of generative AI listing tools to sellers across Europe. So you know, months and months ago, we reported how, in Amazon USA, there's like a listing content builder that they had and some other things that have been released to Amazon USA. But now, as of a few weeks ago and through today, they're fully announced or fully launched in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom for those AI listing building tools, amongst some other things. For those AI listing building tools, amongst some other things. Now, you know, the last time I used it, it's not as intuitive, maybe, as you need to really make a great listing because it's not going to include all of your main keywords that you're going to need. But it's a good way to kind of like see, hey, what does Amazon think is important for your listing to have? But to really make your listing, still definitely use the Helium 10 Listing Builder. Make sure you're using all of the keywords in your listing. But now some of those AI features that we, as US sellers have had for a while now it is available in Amazon Europe.

Bradley Sutton:

Next article not really an article, but just a reminder from Walmart. It's kind of like their version of Prime Day this week. All right, so that has been from June 17th and it's going to go for a couple more days. Walmart+ Week is what it's called, and so I'm just curious have you checked your Walmart sales, those of you selling on Walmart? What kind of bump did you see? And it did your Amazon sales? Maybe those of you who sell on Walmart and Amazon, did you see? Maybe Amazon get a little bit of a bump? I'm also wondering how did you manage now that Walmart+ week is in a different week than prime day? Um, you know, if your listings are tied together, you can't really discount on one site and not on the other. So those of you who did deals on Walmart+, did you go ahead and do those same deals on Amazon? Just curious as to what some of your strategies were. Let me know in the comments below.

Bradley Sutton:

Another announcement that actually comes from Walmart. This is an email that went out to Walmart sellers. Take a look here. It says Walmart Connect is pleased to announce the launch of a video module, an item and module reordering for brand shop via shop builder. All right. So it says here bring your brand to life like never before. Use the new video module to create an engaging narrative about your brand and educate customers on your unique offering. So there's a couple more things that they announced, but this is you know it's. It's a lot of stuff that you know maybe we take for granted on Amazon, but Walmart hasn't had these kind of things like being able to put videos on your brand page. I mean, Walmart hasn't even had a brand page for that long. So a lot of cool things coming to Walmart that you're probably used to on Amazon, but now hopefully that'll help you get a little bit more, maybe some better conversion, maybe some more sales on the Walmart platform.

Bradley Sutton:

Next news article is from CNBC and it's entitled Amazon is ditching the plastic air pillows in its boxes. How many of you have gotten Amazon packages or maybe even gotten samples of your own shipments and maybe Amazon used like a big box and it had those like bags filled with air, right, airbags, I guess you can maybe call it. They call it air pillows right here in this article. But that is going away, all right, because they want to use 15 billion fewer plastic pillows annually, and now they're going to be adding paper fillers that are made from recyclable materials. All right. Now, from a customer standpoint, what I'm worried about is, depending on what this, this paper fillers is, is. If it's what I think it is, it's like those stuff that almost looks like comes from a shredder. I'm just worried it's going to be like that and then customers are going to complain that all this stuff got all over their packaging and all over their house and it's a little bit messy. You know, those air bubbles, just like you know, explode it and for a bad or worse experience for the unboxing part of it Does it make a big mess. You know, might, might be worth looking into. Hopefully not.

Bradley Sutton:

Next article is not really an article, or it was an article. It's by in style, but I brought it up to kind of like show an example of what happens because of affiliate marketers out there for Amazon. So this is actually something that just came up in the news and it really uh. You know, sometimes when I, when I'm looking for e-commerce news, I type in just regular keywords like Amazon and stuff, and this has nothing to do with e-commerce sellers, but it's something that got a lot of views. All right, this is an article by in style and it's entitled Priyanka Chopra just unlocked my new go-to airport outfit and it's $15 at Amazon.

Bradley Sutton:

All right, so this is a person who just made this article, you know, a couple days ago, and then you know she doesn't know this actress, right, but she just like saw, she just took an image from this actress's Instagram, put it on here, and then what she did was she found different sets from Amazon and other websites that look like what this actress was wearing, and then the links I noticed here were like Amazon affiliate links. Now, the one that was $15, I went to that listing here on Amazon. All right, so this is a. It says B T, f, B M woman's pajama set. Right Now, take a look before the article came out yesterday or two days ago now, on this on the 19th, this pajama set or whatever the heck it is, um, had a BSR of 453,000. All right, now this article comes out on the 20th yesterday and the BSR goes from 450,000 down to 6,000. I think you can probably see that that's a big sales increase.

Bradley Sutton:

So, again, a cool strategy for you is. You know, can you make your own article. That gets picked up. You know, the show starts showing up in news. Can you get your products? You know, somehow that come out in some of these blogs and articles and it could drive tons and tons of traffic to your list. I thought that was just a cool example of something that literally was just released yesterday, and then you can see the effect that something like that has on an Amazon listing A couple of things that actually were released like a month, two months ago. But when I look on LinkedIn and other places, I don't see too many people who know about it, and a couple of people I talked to like hey, did you know that brand analytics and brand seller promotions has this and that? And they said no. So I wanted to just go ahead and highlight, even though it's not like brand new news. Like I said, this was probably released a month ago. But just a reminder to check those of you who have brand registry go into your search query performance and then go into your monthly view at the brand level. You know, choose a month. You know, maybe choose May. That's the most recent month. And now, when you go all the way over to the right hand side and you hit the generate download button over here you are going to get some new options that maybe you haven't seen. So the ones you've seen before is simple view, comprehensive view, but now you've got a couple other reports here that maybe you knew about these. If you did, great. If not, go ahead and check it out. One is called Amazon's Choice Badge Data. All right, so it's going to show you, hey, how did your catalog performance go when you had an Amazon's Choice Badge, as opposed to when you didn't have it? The other one is Search funnel outliers data and it says search funnel metrics that include your top and bottom performing queries or outliers, and this allows you to focus on specific search query performance without the need to review thousands of queries. This data is only available at the monthly reporting range, so go ahead and take a look at your search query performance at the monthly level and at the brand level If you have not taken a look at this before.

Bradley Sutton:

Another thing that was launched a couple months ago or about a month ago that I don't see too many people talking about. You know we talked months and months ago about brand tailored promotions, and now there's a few new audiences that are available in brand tailored promotion, the ones that there's a few here that you know Amazon has had for forever right, or at least since it launched. I forgot if it was like late last year or early this year, but you know you've got your at risk audience, which is customers who haven't purchased recently nor frequently, with varied spend. You've got what I think is one of the one of most powerful ones here the brand cart abandoners. You know people who added your product to the cart but didn't actually purchase. You've got your brand followers here, but now you know there there's some other ones here that maybe you haven't seen, depending on the last time you check this, but you're able to make. Remember, the whole point of this page is you're able to make special promotions that go directly to these audiences.

Bradley Sutton:

So one is declining, promising All right. You ever heard of that one. It says customers from your brand's promising audience who are predicted to spend less with your brand in the next year. Uh, declining top tier. This is customers from your brand's top tier audience who are predicted to spend less. You've got your high spend customers. That's always been there. You've got potential new customers. What is that made of? It says customers who have clicked on your brand or your storefront or products, added products to their cart but have not purchased from your brand in the last year. Okay, so they never even purchased from you. You've got promising. All right, these are customers who purchased recently. They buy occasionally and they spend above average. All right, they've you've got recent customers. This is just a five percent sampling of your brand's customers. You search group performance. Those of you who are brand registered, go in there, take a look, play around some of these things. Maybe there's some potential for you to make some more sales, either by looking at some different data points or by targeting a new group of buyers.

Bradley Sutton:

I just wanted to show you, if you're watching this on YouTube guys, you know maybe getting this a little bit late this version of the news, the news, always comes first, as well as all of our podcasts. It comes out first on your podcast player. So if you have an iPhone, go into the Apple podcast app right now. All right, and those of you who are already following, just scroll down a little bit and pass the first few episodes. You'll see this. Ratings and reviews Do me a solid. Why don't you go ahead and give a rating, and if you're listening to this on the podcast already, you're on the Apple podcast player hit this ratings and review, and make sure to go ahead and leave a review right here by clicking on that. Just hit the tap to rate and then put the stars that you like. I would really appreciate it. Now, if you have Spotify, it's actually the same exact thing. Just type in serious sellers podcast, make sure to hit the follow button and then you'll be subscribed. You'll be the first to get these news each week. All right, that's it for the news this week.

Bradley Sutton:

Now we're going to hop into the Helium 10 new feature alerts, and it is a doozy, guys. This is pretty cool. I guarantee that none of you even knew we had this. Maybe a couple of you might've seen it in your alerts, but basically, this is something that could save you tons and tons of money. So it's called the the size tier optimization suggestion. I think it's going to be called. But basically, what you guys want to do, I want everybody who's got Helium 10, go into your dashboard and then go to your alerts page and then look if you have a message that says products with size tier optimization suggestions and then hit this button with the number. Basically, in a nutshell, what this is is if you have a box or a package in your entire catalog that is super close to like, maybe going from one size tier to the next, like if you could just take away a half inch or an inch and then you go from large standard size to standard size or something like that. We're going to give you a notification because a lot of you might not realize you're right on the border and maybe you can go ahead and shave like a half inch on your box, your next production run.

Bradley Sutton:

Let me just illustrate how much money this could make you. All right, this is one of my Project 5k account. So I'm going to go ahead and click on this number three because it says I have three products. That has size to your optimization. So when I hit that it takes me to those products and then I put my mouse over this information. You can see, look at this. It says we've identified an opportunity to optimize your fulfillment costs. If you reduce the length by one inch, you could go from large bulky to large standard size, likely decreasing the FBA fulfillment costs from 1075 to $7 per unit. Guys, my computer, like mine, tells me that that is $3.75 difference if I just take one inch off of one side of my product. Now let's just say that, uh, actually I know what, what, what this product is. This product sells an average of about five units a day, all right, so it's not like a top seller, but that's five, five units a day for the entire year. So let's, let's just take five units a day and times that by $3.75. Okay, that's $18.75 a day extra I could be getting or less in fees right Now we times that by 365.

Bradley Sutton:

This one alert guys that Helium 10 just gave me, if I actually act on it and obviously if I am able to shave an inch off $7,000 for the year, is that a valuable enough alert for you guys? And this is an item that only sells five? This is not one of my top sellers, obviously, right? What if you guys, if this was your item and you sold 25 units a day, all right, instead of five, that means that this alert potentially just made you $35,000. Are you guys rushing to your alerts page yet? I hope so. So again, go to your alerts page. Take a look at the top left. Does it say, products with size tier optimization suggestion. If so, take a look. You can't always shave an inch off of your package. Sometimes you can, sometimes you can't, but I think you'd agree with me it's definitely worth a look.

Bradley Sutton:

All right, now let's go to our Helium 10 training tip of the week, something that will give you serious strategies for serious sellers. Let's say you're looking at X-Ray at your niche and you just want to kind of like really get a quick look at what's going on with the top competitors, because you're about to launch a new product I'm about to launch this new egg rack, or I am did launch this egg rack this week as a test on project X. And so, like I'm here in the Amazon search results and you guys maybe have selected different ASINs here. And what do you normally do when you select ASINs from X-Ray? You probably hit the run Cerebro button to go check on their keywords. That's great and all, but did you notice, right next to the run Cerebro button is a run listing analyzer button. So let me show you how this can be useful. So maybe let's just say these are all my direct competitors, these stackable egg racks.

Bradley Sutton:

Once I hit run with listing analyzer, it's going to take me to the listing analyzer tool and of course here in the middle I can see just some general stats about these other products and check their listing quality score and see you know who's ranking for the most important keywords and stuff like that. But there's a hidden button here that a lot of you do not look at. Now this is for those of you with a diamond plan, but it is called the media comparison button. So once you hit media comparison it takes you to a page where it shows all of the images that are in all of your competitors listings in a nice little format that you can download as a PDF. And first of all, I'm just going to look at this and see do I see common themes? This is this is nothing new. This strategy we've been talking about for years comes from Tomer Rabinovich. Shout out to Tomer. But it's like you should be looking at your competitors' images to see what common themes are working Like.

Bradley Sutton:

For example, I noticed that so many of these showed the stackability right. It showed how you put different egg racks and stack them up together. I see four out of the five. They've got human models in their listing. But basically you use this and kind of work, your photo shoot strategy, if you're using like a photography studio or maybe just somebody who's going to do 3D design or something like that just go ahead and print this, export this as a PDF and then now you've got all these images right here on one page instead of, you know, like trying to print off you know seven, eight different Amazon listings and then, you know, trying to coordinate that way with PowerPoint or something like that with your graphic designer.

Bradley Sutton:

So really cool tool that I think a lot of people are sleeping on right here in Listing Analyzer. But you can import listings directly from Xray in your Chrome extensions so that you can hit that media comparison button. All right, guys. That's it for the news this week. Thank you so much for tuning in. We'll see you next week to see what's buzzing.

#571 - Amazon PPC Deep Dive with Destaney

week’s Tacos Tuesday show is brimming with expert advice on leveraging Amazon's new data rollouts, like brand metrics and category insights, now seamlessly integrated into Helium 10’s Adtomic tool. Discover how these new metrics can help you understand both organic and sponsored performance, offering a pathway to improved conversion rates by analyzing category averages. Plus, we dive into innovative advertising elements, including AI and sponsored TV, to future-proof your Amazon PPC strategies.

Launching a new product on Amazon and unsure about the best PPC tactics? Destaney breaks down the nuances between phrase, broad, and exact match campaigns, emphasizing the necessity of bid evaluation and search term analysis to boost exact match performance. Learn about keyword isolation and its potential to enhance relevancy and campaign success. With actionable tips on using our Keyword Tracker to analyze Amazon's recommended rank, you’ll find out how to significantly improve your organic ranking during the crucial launch phase.

As Prime Day approaches, how can you keep your ad campaigns sharp and your sales soaring? We explore effective strategies to drive extra traffic while overcoming eligibility issues, such as running sponsor brands to subpages and utilizing alternative platforms like TikTok and Google. Our discussion includes crucial advice on building landing pages for optimal conversions and making savvy budget adjustments for Prime Day. Balancing defensive campaigns with organic sales is key, and Destaney shares her wisdom on maintaining a competitive edge without cannibalizing your organic presence. Join us for this insightful episode packed with practical tips to elevate your Amazon advertising game!

In episode 571 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Destaney discuss:

• 00:00 - Amazon Advertising Strategy Session & AMA With Expert Guest
• 03:11 - Brand Metrics in Advertising Strategy
• 05:31 - Value of Amazon's Search Query Performance
• 08:48 - Understanding Repeat Purchases for Supplements
• 13:44 - Keyword Isolation Debate and Strategy
• 17:13 - Amazon Relevancy and Ranking Insights
• 20:45 - Optimizing Pricing Strategy for Prime Day
• 22:43 - Optimizing Amazon Advertising Budget Allocation
• 23:59 - Alternative Traffic Sources and Prime Day
• 30:22 - Amazon Advertising Strategies and Tips
• 31:31 - Planning for Prime Day Success

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Transcript

Bradley Sutton:

Today we've got expert guest Destaney back on TACoS Tuesday and she's going to be answering a lot of advertising questions on a variety of topics such as keyword isolation, sponsor display strategy, Prime Day, PPC tips and more. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. 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 ad’s 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. 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 our monthly TACoS Tuesday show, where we talk about anything and everything Amazon advertising related. And as always, we have special guests on with us each month and every other month we have the specialist of guest here. So, without further ado, let me go ahead and introduce her Destaney welcome, welcome back. How's it going?

 

Destaney Wishon:

It is going incredible. Super excited to be here.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Can you believe we are in the middle of June of 2024 already? It's like I don't know what's going on here.

 

Destaney Wishon:

We're already being thrown straight into Prime Day planning, like it never stops.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Yeah, it's never ends and, like I think the last few years that I've been in the Amazon world, it has been the fastest years of my life, like it's just going by. There's always so many things to do. So, just right off the bat, let's, let's just kick it off with anything new in the Amazon advertising world. Over the last couple months since you've been on here, you know like new reports from Amazon or your team has been trying out some new strategies or trying out some new ad types or different things, anything you can update us on.

 

Destaney Wishon:

I think the two biggest things Amazon's given us a lot more data lately. Helium 10 and Adtomic have already been pulling in some of that data from like a category perspective, so insights and planning brand metrics, which is being tied directly into Adtomic now, is one of the best rollouts in my opinion, and they've recently updated it to add even more data around like subscribe and save and lifetime value and repeat purchases, which is always a conversation for sellers, as well as allowing us to see category comparisons how many clicks are within our category, how many detailed page views are within our category and how are we comparing to average. I think that was a huge rollout. And then the second big rollout is just all the creative elements we've gotten recently, either from an AI perspective or like sponsored TV. I think those are really big and even if you're not ready for them yet, it's showing the direction Amazon's going, which is the important part.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Yes, now I was on some kind of training yesterday or day before and somebody actually asked about that the brand metrics that is showing in advertising, and so that brand metrics page that's showing all you know the data there is across organic and sponsored, or it's only showing you what's happening in sponsor. Okay, good, yeah, I was like there's a 50-50 chance. Somebody asked me which one and I'm like I'm going to, because I saw there was some like fine print and it just made it seem like it was across the board. So how are you, which parts of that are you using and how is that affecting your ad strategy?

 

Destaney Wishon:

I think the biggest thing is again, it's showing you retail and advertising, organic and advertising combined so we don't really have a lot of resources for that anywhere else. Those are two different API’s from a technical perspective. So, amazon doesn't usually give us that data. But you know there's a lot of questions already in the comments asking about conversion rate and performance and efficiency. And Amazon advertising is amazing for driving clicks. That is its job. Think about it as a customer. If you click on a sponsored ad, you're ready to purchase and if you don't purchase, it's because the price was wrong or the listing was poor, the reviews were poor. If the ad drove the click, it was successful. The reason brand metrics is important is because brand metrics gives us conversion rate compared to the category. So, you can pull up brand metrics right now and like, let's say, I'm selling dog toys, I can see that my conversion rate is a 23%, but the category median is a 30%. If I'm converting less than the category, my PPC is not going to be near as efficient, because people are going to click, but they're going to buy a category product and not mine. So that's probably the biggest thing that I'm using it for.

 

 

Bradley Sutton:

Okay, cool, cool. Now you know. Speaking of conversion rates, you know obviously there's search create performance that can help you with your conversion rates at the even keyword level. But then there's also the counterpoint that sometimes people do is that, hey, you know, the data there is so limited compared to overall. You know, like anybody can just see the number of sales and compare it, because there's only a certain kind of, you know a certain set of situations where it's going to register in search query performance. You know, like if somebody clicks something today and then 25 hours later, they actually buy it, it doesn't count. They click on something, they click something else, they hit back on their browser and they purchase. It doesn't count. You know, like I don't know about your experience. My experience sometimes is between twenty-five to forty percent of overall purchases, but my opinion I just want to get yours is that it's still valuable because it's still apples to apples it's not giving you the whole picture but valuable because it's still apples to apples. It's not giving you the whole picture, but you can at least benchmark what's happening with you at the keyword level compared to the exact same situation for other competitors. Is that how you feel, or are you kind of ignoring that data.

 

Destaney Wishon:

A hundred percent. From a volume perspective, like a sales volume or an impression, I don't use it because, like you said, it's a smaller data set, but from a conversion rate perspective it's probably still showing you. You know 30% to 40% of your overall data set, but from a conversion rate perspective it's probably still showing you. You know 30% to 40% of your overall data set. Here's how it converts. So that actually scales out pretty well in my opinion, and that is super, super valuable to understand. Because, again, if someone else is converting better than you, they're going to get the same amount of clicks but drive more orders. That's what conversion rate is at the end of the day. So. when you're able to dive into SQP, you can actually see those comparisons on the search term level.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Yes, absolutely. All right. Now, going back to Atomic, you had talked a little bit about Adtomic and some of the newer features, but something that's been out for a while now is the custom bid rules. Have you, for any of your clients that you're using Atomic for, have you started at all with the custom bid rules? or are you still using, like,  just the Adtomic algorithm and making decisions based on that?

 

Destaney Wishon:

Anyone who, I think, has followed me knows that I'm a pretty big fan of breaking out by strategy.  So, that's where we recommend implementing custom bid rules is because there are certain keywords that maybe you are willing to take a loss on at the end of the day from a keyword level. Again, be clear. I don't want to say you know, go run your overall amazon advertising at a 400 ACoS but there's certain strategies that are going to need different rules and that's why it's so important not to have a set it and forget it automation running. In my opinion, now if your only goal is a 20% ACoS, you don't care about anything else. Your only goal is profitability for your business, for your solopreneur endeavors. That's fine, but if you're really building a brand that's going to scale, it's so competitive in the category and CPCs are kind of increasing that you're going to need to have some keywords that maybe you target at a 50% ACoS because they're your top sales driving keywords, and then maybe you're creating a campaign targeting competitor ASINs that you want to run at a different ACoS. That's where it gets really important to start building out those segments and strategies. We also do it on the lifecycle level. So, if you have an established product with hundreds of reviews, you can run at a lower ACoS because your conversion rates higher. If you have a new product launch, you don't want to set a low ACoS or else you're going to drive zero sales and your honeymoon period is going to flop because you have no data.

 

Bradley Sutton:

So, there's a lot of people, maybe even watching, who are for the. If they're just getting into supplements, they're. They probably have some crazy sticker shock of what kind of cost per clicks they have, but you know how, how do you count? You know how, how do you calculate LTV? You know, with the data that Amazon you know gives and tools available and where is your like, like, how do you, you know help brands like that really focus to make sure long term they're profitable?

 

Destaney Wishon:

Historically, this has been a really vague area in Amazon. They haven't given us a lot of insights. I know that we have a lot of plans on the Helium 10 side here, but the first thing that you need to consider is just that repeat purchase rate. In supplements we consistently see $20 to $40 cost per clicks for a $20 to $40 product. And the part that people need to remember is, if you get a customer to buy your supplements and you believe in your product, your supplement should be good enough that they buy it the next month and the month after and the month after. So, that's why lifetime value is so important to understand, because if they end up buying your $20 supplement four times, that's $80. So, even though you paid $20 cost per click, the product you sold was actually $80, because ideally, they come back and repeat purchase from you. So, it's super important. I think. When it comes to actually coming up and finding those insights, the majority of people rely on typically their DTC information because that's where you have it most easily accessible. Amazon gives you subscribe and save data within brand metrics, insights and planning. Amazon gives you subscribe and subscribe and save data within brand metrics, insights and planning, like I mentioned, and also through DSP, you can have a pretty clear indicator of what you subscribe and save or your repeat purchase rate is, and that's what helps you justify those high cost per clicks and that's why you see them as well. People know that someone comes back five to six times. They're going to be willing to pay for that first purchase because they have a great product.

 

Bradley Sutton:

All right, we got the first question from Joan. Joan says it's a pretty common question. I would say what's the best strategy to control ad spend? For a $21 item in a competitive niche, cost per click is often over $2. Some of those supplement sellers wish they had cost per clicks at $2. But we're selling product but we're only helping Jeff buy more rockets. We aren't profitable unless I can improve ad spend efficiency. So, right off the bat, if at $2 on a $20 product they're not profitable, probably their conversion rate is not very high. I'm assuming on some of these keywords.

 

Destaney Wishon:

A hundred percent. The first thing is to realize whether or not you have a conversion rate problem or an Amazon advertising problem. So, going back to our initial kind of call out, I recommend going into Adtomic, going into your account overview. A few people later on have asked this question on where you find the data I mentioned Adtomic, account overview, brand performance and then, once you're within brand performance, you can niche down and figure out how you're performing compared to the category. If you're converting better than the category, then it is an ad efficiency issue. It means you need to improve the keywords you're targeting. Instead of going after dog toy, which may be too broad for your dog toy, go after soft dog toy for small dogs, where you're going to be sacrificing lower volume but a higher conversion rate because the keywords are a lot more related to the product you're selling. So, you can justify that $2 cost per click. The other answer is to just lower your bids. If you can't afford $2 because you're not converting, well, lower your bids. What's going to happen when you lower your bid is your ad's going to show up in less premium real estate at the bottom of the page, or page two and page three, but it's going to be cheaper and more profitable for you. So that's the trade-off you're going to have to make until you improve your conversion rate.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Jay Smith says hello from the UK I recently launched should I be doing this in a British accent? I recently launched a new product and I'm finding my phrase and broad match campaigns are performing much capital, much better than exact match. Are there any scenarios where you would suggest pausing exact match campaigns and only running phrase and broad during the first few weeks of launch? I don't think I've seen this question before.

 

Destaney Wishon:

Yeah, I wouldn't recommend pausing them. I think the first thing you need to realize is do you have different bids across all three of them? More than likely your exact match bids are higher, so it's maybe just a little bit more expensive for you. The other thing to consider is, again, if I'm targeting dog toys, an exact match that's really broad from a term itself right, so it can be a little bit competitive targeting just dog toys. But if I run dog toys and broad, I'm showing up for dog toys for small dogs, dog toys for this, this and this. So, sometimes your broad and phrase match are going to be a little bit more profitable because they're targeting longer tail terms that are more aligned with your product. So, open up your campaign, open up your ad group, look at the search terms that those broad and phrase matches are performing on and if they're long tail, take out those long tails and put them into exact match and you can control the performance just as well. Easy answer is lower your bid on exact match to find the conversion ACoS point. But the longer answer and the better long-term solutions to figure out why the search terms and your broad and phrase match are performing that much better and then move them to an exact so you can control a bit precisely within your exact match campaign.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Excellent. On the flip side, here's one that we get all the time and this is, you know, the eternal debate. this is an eternal debate here. Uh, it's from hey, hey there. When you use a search term from an auto ad for an exact or product ad, should you move it to negative in the auto to avoid redundancy? Is there any cost per bid difference that could affect impression and conversion between those ads? So, this is also called keyword isolation and Destaney, what's your philosophy on that?

 

Destaney Wishon:

I am very familiar with why people isolate keywords. We personally don't isolate keywords because we find that when you move them from an auto campaign to a manual campaign, you're starting from scratch from a relevancy perspective. So, within your auto campaign you got to think, your bids are typically lower. They're typically slowly focused on profitability, so you're casting a really wide net. So, the ASIN or the search term you're converting on within the auto campaign could be on page seven and page eight. It could be within the frequently bought together section that's a new sponsored section or anywhere else on the page and it's running well for a reason because Amazon has, you know, the shopper history and they're targeting those placements because they have a lot of data. When you pull it out, if you negate it, there's pretty much a hundred percent chance it's not going to perform the exact same when you put it into a manual campaign. Most people kind of almost restart that relevancy journey that they were on and find that their manual campaign does not perform as well, especially in the first six to eight weeks because you have to refine that sweet spot. We continue to run them separately and just control the bids.

 

Destaney Wishon:

There's a few scenarios where I could recommend isolation. If it's your core keyword, eating up all of your impressions and sales in your auto campaign, sure move it over to a manual. But then also the second part of your question is there a cost per bid difference? Yes, typically there is per bid difference. Yes, typically there is. We find autos are typically winning inventory for lower CPCs and impression conversions. Also, a yes, your manual campaigns typically higher impression because you're typically running a bid specifically for that keyword.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Excellent, excellent. All right, a question I think I can handle. I'll do this one that's from Jay Smith. During the first week of launch, my sales have been really high, especially on top keywords, but my organic rank is not moving much on many of the top keywords. Any tips for improving organic rank during launch, or does it just take time and consistent sales? My BSR is top 10 in my subcategories when my sales are good. So, a couple of things. First of all, make sure that you have boost on in keyword tracker so that we're checking 24 hours a day and rotating browsing scenarios just to see you know, who knows, maybe your rank is improving in some locations, just not, uh, others or some browsing scenario. So, make sure you have that boost on. That's that rocket ship. The other thing is look at the CPR number inside of keyword tracker. Once you have you know you already said you have the keywords in Keyword Tracker there's a customized CPR number. It's actually different than the one that's in Cerebro and Magnet because it's specific to your listing, takes into consideration the age of it, your Title Density and things like that, and then see what that number is. If that number is, let's just say, 50, that means that, hey, over a week, week and a half, you would need around 50 people to search, find and buy your product, whether it's organic, whether it's in PPC. Probably it's going to be PPC. If you're not organically ranked very high, it's 100% from PPC and so you can clearly see how many conversions you're getting on that keyword and that's the best chance, that number of getting you to stick to page one. So, if you're not at that number yet, well, there's another reason.

 

Bradley Sutton:

The other thing to look at is you could have a relevancy issue to Amazon. So run your product in Cerebro and then sort it by Amazon recommended rank. All right, this to me is the most slept on mini feature in all of Helium 10. It's a direct link to the Amazon API. This is not a Helium 10 estimation or an algorithm or anything like that. It's directly to the actual Amazon advertising API. But it gives you a look into what Amazon thinks your product is. So just sort that in ascending order, meaning it's, you're going to see the Amazon recommended rank one, two, three, four, five, six, seven and just take a look at the general uh, those, those general keywords. It tells you what Amazon thinks your product is. And so, if it does, if some of the keywords you're trying to increase your rank on are very specific and none of them even appear, like in the top 20, 30, 40, 50 words, well, yeah, it might take you. It might take more effort, to get to page one. Or you need to re-optimize your listing to kind of like show Amazon what your product is. But I've had issues like that where my listing was fine but Amazon was confused about it and so, even though I was getting sales, it wasn't increasing my organic rank. So, there's three things that you can try there. Kim says is there any magic mojo way to control profitability? When bids quickly rise due to an upcoming event like Prime Day, I often find that the increase in sales rarely offsets the lost profit. So, if I could find an automated way to control bidding, it'd be helpful. There's some good questions today.

 

Destaney Wishon:

There is. Your bids don't change unless you're changing them is the first thing that I'll say. So, unless you're using a software with rules that you're changing them is the first thing that I'll say so. Unless you're using a software with rules that you're not controlling or you have aggressive placement modifiers on, your bids will stay the same, regardless of what-?

 

Bradley Sutton:

She's probably talking about cost per click. I bet you she mistyped that probably.

 

Destaney Wishon:

CPCs. So, if we're talking about CPCs, it's also related. You're not going to see a major change. You can keep your bids low during Prime Day if you want. Just know that you're probably not going to get as much traffic because the rest of the market is increasing their bids. So as everyone else is bidding higher and higher and higher, it's like bidding on real estate. You're going to be showing up lower, lower on the page, so you're just going to get less sales and some people are okay with that on Prime Day. I will say personally, across the board, as an agency, we find that the increase in conversion rate almost always offsets the increase in bids when we're really strategic. That being said, the majority of our brands do have some type of promotion or deal or discount, so their conversion rates inflated because customers think that they're getting a deal. So, short answer is don't rely on placement modifiers and keep your bid management software set to a target ACoS and you're probably not going to see that big of a change in bids on the day of.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Shubham says what's our launch strategy for 50 product? Prime day is also coming up, we wanted to reduce the price to where our customer buys, but how many keywords shall we run in? Launch PPC? But let's just take the other part of that, you know, those people who might have some products that are going to be ready in the next, uh, month, month and a half. Should they just go ahead and launch? Should they wait until actual prime day and take advantage of that? Should they wait until after prime day? What's your general strategy as far as timing goes?

 

Destaney Wishon:

The first brand that I managed on my own as a consultant was a prime day launch and it was incredibly successful, but this was seven years ago. The thing to consider is how much you're going to lean into Bradley's point. If you don't reduce the price, you are going to drown in Prime Day and not do incredibly well, and you may not anyways, because you don't have a lot of reviews. That being said, if you plan on doing a pretty heavy discount on Prime Day, it is a fantastic way to get inflated traffic from people who are ready to buy, and customers on Prime Day are a lot less sensitive to reviews, in my opinion, and a lot more sensitive to price. So, I always hate this question because I feel like it's so dependent on budget and financing and all these other variables. But if you want to heavily reduce your price and stand out, then Prime Day is the way to go. There's no other industry that drives this amount of traffic on any specific day. I don't think, so definitely take advantage of that.

 

Bradley Sutton:

He had a follow-up question. He or she had a follow-up question. At what point should we start using Adtomic? We're new launching our very first product, so is there, like you know? Is this something that somebody should be using from day one, should they reach a certain advertising spend figure? What's your personal opinion?

 

Destaney Wishon:

Personal opinion is it's really dependent on, I think, what your skill set is internally and where your time's going. PPC is a major efficiency time suck. I think it's probably one of the most hands-on, consistent, redundant tasks and that's where everybody needs a bid management solution, no matter if that's you going in every day and managing bids by hand or relying on a tool like Adtomic. I'll leave that up to you. But if you're running any Amazon advertising campaigns and you're not managing your bids, that is the biggest mistake you can make. So, I think the convenience of Adtomic, incorporating directly into category insights and like Market Tracker 360, is the biggest value add in my opinion. But if you're in your first few weeks and you have time to go in and optimize bids manually, then that's perfectly fine.

 

Bradley Sutton:

David says what metric do you look at to determine where a budget needs to be increased or decreased across your campaign types? Sponsor brand, sponsor product and sponsor display?

 

Destaney Wishon:

Love this question. As a whole, we typically see sponsor products drive around 70 to 80% of sales because they make up the most real estate on the page. Sponsor brand. Sponsor brand's video is 10 to 15%. Sponsor display is the least amount of budget, only because most people aren't fully utilizing it appropriately. At the end of the day, sponsored brands and sponsored products, RoAS and ACoS should be almost the same if you're running them appropriately. I've pulled this across hundreds of millions of spend and it's still just targeting keywords and setting bids. So, for those two ad types, you should increase or decrease based off RoAS, for the most part, or ACoS, but your ACoS and RoAS should be the same. That being said, if you are managing a brand that has a good DTC presence or a meta presence and you have amazing video assets and amazing lifestyle images, sometimes we'll shift more budget to sponsor brand and sponsor display because we want to educate our customer with those videos before we convert them with sponsored products.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Chris says if you've got an eligibility issue, what are other ways to drive traffic aside?

 

Destaney Wishon:

A great question. If one thing we'll see is some brands will only have certain products running into eligibility issues, but all their other products will be okay. If that's the case, we recommend still running sponsor brands to the store. You can create a subpage with some of your products that are ineligible and some of them are eligible and continue to run sponsor brand traffic as a really quick workaround. Beyond that, I think it really depends on product type. Like TikTok can be fantastic if you're great at the videography and the UGC needed to make TikTok successful. Google can be good, but typically you need to build a landing page between your Google and your Amazon ads so that way you have your conversion increase still, Bradley, do you have any other recommendations here?

 

Bradley Sutton:

No, you kind of hit it, you know. And then, plus two, you know there's other platforms that you know might be able to drive some traffic. And then you know, the more your branded search increases, the more organic, you know, eyeballs you guys are going to get without, you know, sponsored, but you know that goes for anybody. You know whether you are eligible or not. That's kind of like the goal is to is to get a lot of organic eyeballs on your products without having to spend, without having to spend. Brendan. A lot of people think about Prime Day coming up, how do you approach prime day, lead in, lead out? When it comes to budgeting also, what's a fair estimate for cost per click lift? So, like, is there a rule of thumb where, hey, usually you need to increase your, your budgets this amount, you know to make sure you have enough, or usually you need to you know boost your cost per click X percentage.

 

Destaney Wishon:

I'm going to start with the lead in, lead out. That one's super easy to kind of answer. Typically, the seven days leading into prime day are historically the worst performance in all of Amazon advertising. End of story. That being said, the part that people forget is that customers are shopping. They're just not buying. That's why your clicks are up but your sales are down is because customers are starting to build their carts for Prime Day. They know that Prime Day is now a national holiday, so in the back of their mind, they may go onto a platform and say, hey, shoot, I need my toilet paper that I always buy. Oh wait, I'm not going to buy it until prime day, so I'm going to hold off.

 

Destaney Wishon:

So, some people like to lower their bids and budgets on the week leading up. I prefer to continue to run at the same strategy if I'm running a dealer discount, because those customers are going to add to cart and click and then when they see my discount the next week, they're going to check out. So, I am still building my funnel and attracting my shoppers the weekend, even though they're not buying until seven days later. That is one really important key to mention. Again, if you're not running deals or discounts, maybe it's worth it lowering your bids and budgets on lead in lead out. The last two years has been some of the strongest conversion rates we have seen across the board even stronger than prime day in a few instances. And that's because prime day is no longer prime day, it's prime week and it's being challenged by Walmart and every off platform. So, customers are still continuing to shop on the days after.

 

Destaney Wishon:

So, lead out, we continue to keep bids and budgets high and we'll also run a lot of retargeting if we're running any type of DSP or sponsored display, because sponsored display and DSP allows us to capture all of the traffic and all the clicks from Prime Day and then continue to retarget that audience after Prime Day. So that's super important and super valuable. And then estimate for CPC lifts. There's really not one because it's like every agency or software that releases CPC insights is skewed by the type of brands they're managing. Right, pack view always cracks me up. When pack view does like their insights, it's going to be skewed by a lot of enterprise brands. So, their CPC lifts could be 50% because they're running crazy discounts and have crazy marketing budgets. But maybe a smaller software won't increase their bids because they don't believe in Prime Day right, so we personally do 20% to 30% increase in bids if we're running deals or discounts and just go from there.

 

 

Bradley Sutton:

All right. Last question of the day before we get maybe into just your closing comments or your closing tip. This is from somebody new who hasn't asked a question today. Zee says does sponsored products and sponsor display defensive campaigns eat up organic sales? Does it affect my TACoS in the long run?

 

Destaney Wishon:

The answer is yes. There's some level of defensive campaigns. That would have happened anyways, but that's really hard to prove because the way Amazon is set up as a platform what happens if you do not advertise there? Someone else will. So, you need to decide on the balance of do you have a strong enough competitive advantage that a customer's going to stay on your page and not go to your competitor's page, and is it that big of a deal if you do cannibalize some of your organic presence? I would rather cannibalize some of my organic presence than lose a customer to a competitor. So, it's just deciding. Now, that being said, Celis, who is on the Helium 10 podcast, at one point he runs Lego, or used to run Lego. He was one of my great friends in the space and he tried to convince me that, like, branded defenses never need it. And I was like Celis, Lego doesn't have competitors, like, of course you don't need to bid on Lego. Who the heck's gonna try to compete? So, it's definitely a little bit dependent on depending on your category. I like the. I'm enjoying the conversation here on if it's niche or niche.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Andre says it's niche in the UK, all right, niche in the USA, he says so as well. Okay, yeah, we have started a big debate here this is the one takeaway that people have from today. But in order to make that the not the one takeaway people have, can you give us like a 30 or 60 second uh strategy to close this out, something you think that could uh help sellers, maybe leading up to Prime Day? Or it could be just a general advertising strategy or a metric that you think people are sleeping on, or an ad type anything at all that you can think of that quick hitting and people can take away from today?

 

Destaney Wishon:

I'll give two really big ones. Start viewing your Amazon advertising by strategy. Have some keywords solely focused on profitability, where your goal is to lower your bids and have an amazing ACoS and RoAS. Have some campaigns that are all about sales and driving volume and organic rank. Have some that are for brand defense. And when you segment out these campaigns, that gives you budget control. So, to Zee's question earlier of like hey, maybe I do realize my brand defense campaigns are eating up my budget. Lower your budget and shift your budget over to your organic rank campaigns. When you segment, it gives you maximum control. The second thing I'm going to shout out is the last webinar we did on ad type expansion. This is a hundred percent. The second biggest issue I see within accounts is not expanding to sponsor brands because they don't think it's right for them. At the end of the day, sponsor brands will perform almost identical to your sponsor products with good bid management and good campaign setup. But it's more real estate on the page that's unique real estate. So, you're going to show up at the very top of the page. You're going to show up on product detail pages in placements that sponsor products does not win.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Awesome, all right. Well, Destaney, thank you for sharing your knowledge with us. You're not going to be back here on TACoS Tuesday, at least before Prime Day. Maybe we can. We can talk offline about doing something Prime Day related, since there are so many Prime Day questions. It's obvious that it's top of mind and, unlike inventory and other things you know, PPC is something that you can kind of like up to the day before prime day, kind of like, you know, lock in your, your strategy, uh. So that is something maybe we can think about doing next month right before prime day. But, Destaney, thank you so much for joining us and thank you all for such great questions. It seems like every show, the questions get better and better. So, thank you guys for tuning in and we'll see you next month for TACoS Tuesday.

 

#570 - Amazon Listing Optimization Workshop

Join us in this episode as we bring you an exciting update on Project X, where we gear up to launch a new product on Amazon. We walk you through our meticulous process for keyword research, listing optimization, and advanced photography techniques, essential for any Amazon seller looking to boost their e-commerce game. Utilizing tools like Helium 10's Xray and Cerebro, we identify top-performing competitors and extract valuable keywords to build a successful product listing. This episode is packed with actionable insights, including expert advice from Lailama Hasan, Helium 10’s marketing content manager, and Tayyaba Hasan, project manager at AMZ Onestep.

Next, we explore the significance of competitor analysis in optimizing your Amazon listings. Using Helium 10 Listing Builder’s Competitor Performance Score (CPS), we highlight the importance of identifying high-performing keywords that competitors are ranking for, such as "coffin letterboard" and "coffin decor." We also discuss how to enhance product descriptions by addressing common customer pain points and incorporating unique product characteristics. By reviewing competitor images and customer use cases, we gather valuable insights to improve our own product's features and marketing strategies.

Finally, we dive into the art of creating impactful product images to boost conversions. With expert guidance from our expert guests, we explore the three main types of images required by Amazon: main images, infographic images, and lifestyle images. Practical tips on lighting, equipment, and setting up backgrounds are shared to help you capture high-resolution, detailed images. Additionally, Tayyaba Hasan explains our four-step approach to creative image development, from research to optimization, and the importance of A-B testing and updating creatives based on customer feedback. Stay tuned as we wrap up with a sneak peek into next week’s webinar about TikTok Shop.

In episode 570 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley, Lailama, and Tayyaba discuss:

• 00:00 - Listing Optimization Workshop for Amazon Sellers
• 02:12 - Amazon Product Keyword Analysis Strategy
• 09:06 - Optimizing Amazon Listings With Competitor Analysis
• 11:09 - Using AI to Write Product Listings
• 20:21 - Optimizing Amazon Listing Images for Conversions
• 21:16 - Product Photography
• 32:51 - Listing Image Optimization for Amazon
• 33:04 - Optimizing Listing Images for Conversions
• 36:24 - Image Concept for Pre-Cut Letter Boards
• 41:23 - Product Sizing and Reviews
• 43:38 - Stay Tuned For Our TikTok Shop Webinar

Transcript

 

Bradley Sutton:

Today's a deep dive update into Project X, where we're going to launch a new product soon and together we're going to go over how I found the keywords and how I make the listing for this product plus get guest expert advice on photography, A+ Content and more. How cool is that? Pretty cool. I think

 

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 you guys can see that I've got all my Project X gear on today because this is a Project X update where you know for those of you who don't know Project X was this case study we did where we found coffin shelves and a whole bunch of other products that we started selling on a real Amazon account and we've kept it going throughout the years. And so I decided to launch a new product, a coffin letter board and I'm going to open up my strategies into how I find the keywords a little bit of a generalization on it, but how I find the keywords, how I put together my listing, and then we're going to talk about some advanced strategies for photography, like when you should use a agency, when you can do it on your own, and how you should tackle things like A+ Content, and how you can look at competitors to get ideas, et cetera. So we're going to go deep into this. This is a recording of a live training that we actually did a few days ago, and so we've cut it up so that you guy s can get the best of those strategies and hopefully you can take some of this and apply it to your next product launch or maybe your first product launch out there. So hope you enjoy this listing optimization workshop.

 

Bradley Sutton:

And I'm going to take you from ground zero, getting the keywords first. So here is on Amazon. First of all, let's go to the main keyword for this product coffin letter board. All right, and this is just a easy way in which we can get the main keywords. Okay, once I get to this page, I like to run Xray on the page to see who are the top sellers. All right, so who is really making the most money in this coffin letter board niche? And this is a niche that you know. I've been watching this for a while. You know like I wish I would have been one of the first ones to sell this, like I was for the coffin shelf, but unfortunately, I wasn't. All right. But that's all right. I wanted to show you guys hey, you don't always have to be the very first to the market.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Now, when you're running Cerebro on a product that you don't even have yet. Like me, I don't have a coffin letter board yet. I need to choose another product to be the baseline product, all right. So I'm just going to pick one here from like around the bottom of the page. It's not selling. Well, let's go ahead and pick this. So that's the first one that you click on. Needs to be a product that is not going to be one of the main competitors. And now what I want to do is I want to select the like five, six, seven or eight top competitors for this product. All right, that are very similar to my product informant function. So this is the number one guy. This, this nom new coffin letter board. All right, believe it or not, this guy is selling 500 of these coffin letter boards a month. Kind of crazy. Uh, here's another one. They're only selling about 29, but we'll go ahead and throw them in, uh in there as well. Here's another one. They're selling 119 units a month. So I definitely want to see what's going on with them. I'm not going to choose this LED one, all right. So this is interesting. This is a. Is this a coffin letter board? Yes, but because it's got this LED like and it's very small, I can tell because of the price is $12. I am not going to look at the keywords for this product, all right, because I don't think that it's going to be super relevant, uh, to me. I want to get hyper relevant products to my product. All right, let's go ahead and choose a couple more here. This one's selling 65 units a month. Here's another one that's selling 29 units a month. All right, this is good. Let's go ahead and enroll with this, all right, so we're going to hit run Cerebro.

 

Bradley Sutton:

What am I doing? What did I just do? Why is this an important step? I want to analyze the competition right. That's where I'm going to get my keywords. What are the keywords that are driving sales, and some of them are doing incredible sales, and these are the keywords that are going to form the base of my listing. And now what I'm looking for is I want to get like the top 10, 15 keywords and make sure those are in phrase form in my listing. All right, and listing builder is going to help with that. But then I don't only want to be relative or indexed for 15 keywords, these uh products. There might be 50, there might be a hundred, there might be more than that of keywords that they might be getting sales from, uh, or that they might be ranking on page one for, and that means that I probably should be able to rank on page one for these, for these keywords. So this is going to be what I'm looking for what are all of the relevant keywords to all of the products, or at least some of the products that I want to be indexed for or searchable for? Okay, so let's go ahead and see the results here. All right, so 8,000 keywords. I know there's a lot better way to find this in 8,000 keywords. Now what I'm going to just do is I'm just going to show you a quick one that I can do, but again, this should take like about an hour by itself. I'm going to do this in five minutes. I'm going to say minimum search volume 200. And then I'm going to go to these advanced rank filters and the number of competitors. I'm going to say minimum one is between rank one and 30 under competitor rank. So basically, what I'm saying is show me all of the keywords Helium 10, where this product, these products, one of these letter boards is ranked between one and 30. That means they're on page one.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Okay, and so I have a whole bunch of keywords that have come up here. You can see some of these coffin letter board sign. Here's a keyword that's a brand name. I always delete those. I don't want to have a brand names on here. I don't want to. You know that's against Amazon terms of service to put brand names in your listing. Okay, um, so I probably should take a lot more time to see if there's any other brand names, but let's just go with this as is. Again, we have videos that have very detailed a strategy on keyword research, but you guys can watch that. We're just going to pretend that we already vetted all of these keywords.

 

Bradley Sutton:

So now, what I'm going to do is I'm going to export this to the clipboard, okay, and then, the next thing I'm going to do is I'm actually going to go into listing builder and I am going to put these keywords in. Now, this is the. This is where listing builder comes in. I could just have this list of keywords, right, and you know, have it in a Google doc or an Excel file or something, right? But I want to be able to make sure that I'm indexed for my important phrases. Plus, I want to make sure that I'm indexed for the phrases that maybe I don't have room for. But I need those individual keywords, and if you're trying to do that just with a naked eye, you know, like that, that's almost impossible to make sure. All right, I'm going to show you how Listing Builder is going to help with that.

 

Bradley Sutton:

So, here in listing builder, um, I'm going to add a new, a new listing. All right, I'm going to say create from scratch and let's just start building. Okay, the very first thing is I need to put in my keywords. So I'm going to hit manually add keywords and I'm just going to paste all of those 114 phrases. Now there's a lot. I know I probably don't want to see like I already see another one that has that brand name. I'll just go ahead and delete that. But again, we're just kind of like fast forwarding this process. But whatever tools that you use to get all of your keywords that you want to rank for, go ahead and make sure that they are all here in your keyword bank and then hit the word add to bank. Ok, now it's going to show me all of these keywords plus their search volume, and now I'm pretty much ready to start going with my listing.

 

Bradley Sutton:

So I'm going to go ahead and hit next and now you can see here that I've got all my 112 keyword phrases and I've got all of the one word roots that come from it, the two word roots, et cetera. So this is the important thing because, as you see, if I were just to write my listing right now, if I were to type in Halloween decor, okay, do you see what happened here on the left-hand side, Halloween decor as a phrase got checked off because I just put it in my listing, and then those individual words of Halloween and decor both got checked off, and so this is important, because this is how you're able to make your listing and know that you have used all of the keywords that you want. So, at the end of the day, my top keywords, I want to make sure I've got in the phrase form. There's no way I can get 112 phrases right into my listing in phrase form, but at least my top 10 or 15, plus every single one of these individual ones that and these are the words that make up these phrases here.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Okay, so let's go ahead and go to the next step. You'll notice that this CPS is blank. Okay, so CPS is blank. This is very important. This is what tells me which of my keywords are the most important, because they're getting sales for most of my competitors. So what do I have to do? What do you guys have to do when you're making your listing like this? I have to go down here and I click keyword performance rank, okay, and now I have to hit add competitors. And so what competitors am I going to put in here? I'm going to put the same, the same competitors that I had in Cerebro, okay, now I want to. I want you guys to see what's going to happen when I do that. What's going to happen now is this competitor performance score, which actually is the same thing that was from Cerebro. If you look in Cerebro, the very last column in Cerebro, guys, is competitor performance score. This is not new to Helium 10. This has been in Helium 10 for years. This is what tells you the strength of the keywords compared to the competitors. All right, so this really helps you understand which are the keywords that most of the competitors are ranking for. Okay, and there, I did it there.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Now everybody's got a score. All right, I got to take away this because it was still giving me a score, even though I only had one keyword in there. But look at these scores. All right, so this is the number one, uh, one, and sure enough, they're the number one seller. You look at that, guys. The number one seller happens to have the number one listing SEO score. All right, so this is based on all of the keywords, how many of the keywords they're using, how many in phrase form, and how they have it optimized throughout the listing. All right, right now, what is my score? My score is seventh out of seventh, I have a zero because I haven't put anything in my listing, all right, so now I can sort this, my keyword phrases, by competitor performance score. All right, now I can see some of the top keywords here. Coffin letter board is a 10 out of 10. Coffin letter board sign. All right, uh. Coffin decoration, coffin decor All right. So these are some of the keywords that I know I have to have in phrase for my listing. So what's the next step? I'm actually going to do this, where I'm going to get some help from AI to actually write some of this listing. And again, these steps, you guys should take at least 30 to 45 minutes. I'm going to try and do it in like less than five minutes here.

 

Bradley Sutton:

So, right, here I want to start putting in some of the characteristics of this product. So let me go ahead and do that here. Let's go ahead and say hey, this is 17 inches by 10.5 inches. This product, our product, actually includes a special coffin-shaped um chalkboard as well, includes mini coffin shaped chalkboard. So I'm going to write that as a characteristic. That's something that's I chose so that I can differentiate it. So  that I can differentiate it from what's uh, what's going on. Let's uh with the competition. All right, what else do we see? Well, can I put includes wooden stand. Can hang on wall. What are some other places that I can get ideas on what to put here? Let me show you really quick. Let's say, I go into that top selling coffin letterboard right here I'm going to run Helium 10 review insights. Now, the first thing I'm just going to look, though. I want to look at the images. This is important for all of you guys. Look at the images of what people are leaving reviews for. Take a look here at some of these. This really gives you a good idea about what's going on, about how people are using this product. So you should do this for your competitors.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Okay, so I'm going to look here at the review images that people have been doing. So now, look at this. I can see that people are using. Guys, this is a crazy product. Like I cannot believe how many people are buying this and how many people love this kind of product. It's kind of crazy. But you can see here this is something that I identified early on in the process that I didn't want to do. Do you guys see these letters and how you have to, like, twist them to take them off. So our product is going to have pre-cut and pre-sorted letters. So you know what? That's a good thing to put right here. So let's go ahead and do that. Includes 500 character or letters and spooky emojis. Letters are pre-cut and pre-sorted, all right. So that's like a definitely a key feature, because these images people are complaining about this how you know, like, like this is like impossible to one by one take away these letters. But now I can see, um, you know some, somebody did one for like a divorce party. It says 99 problems, but a husband ain't, one is one. So there there's a little like humor I can find to do here. I see some people have this for coffee shops. Some people, a lot of people, have it for looks like a wedding and birthday party. So there's all of a sudden, just in seconds here I'm getting tons of use cases and guess what, guys, we're going to talk about this later. This is also the kind of thing you should be looking at when you're trying to plan your images that you're going to take. Don't just look at the images that the other sellers made, but now go ahead and take some cues from what customers, actual customers of this product, are using this as use cases, you know, because there's tons of stuff I never would have thought about, you know, like I wouldn't have thought about a divorce party having it. Look at this. Somebody has says on their coffin letter board tips appreciated, normal is boring, stay weird. I mean, some of these are pretty ingenious, right. So this is some great ideas.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Now the other thing that I can do is I want to run review insights here. Okay, and this is going to tell me what are some of the two, three, four word phrases that people are mentioning a lot in the reviews. All right, so the way you can do that is you click here on keywords once it loads all these reviews, and now I'm going to get some instant insight into what are people concerned about with this product and hit keywords, and then here we go. So look at this, a lot of people are saying so many letters. So maybe I want to see what are people saying when they say so many letters. Oh, it comes with so many letters. Perfect size comes with so many letters. So this one had 500 letters, and so this is. This is again something I should have looked at before, which I did, which is why I wanted to make sure mine had 500 letters, because I could see that a lot of people like that it had a lot of letters, right. But now I want to see what else that people are complaining about letters off, what is that? All right. I recommend use a sharp scissor to cut the letters off. This person says it's pretty easy to pull the letters up, but a lot of people are concerned about their having to pull the letters off or cut the letters off. That's why I made sure to call out in my listing that, hey, our letters are pre-cut and pre sorted, all right. I'm going to go ahead and analyze these and get even more points that I can put in my listing. All right, uh, let's say here good for parties and weddings, all right.

 

Bradley Sutton:

So now let's go ahead and put our brand name, Manny's Mysterious Oddities, and I want to put that at the beginning of the title. What is the product name? I'm going to say coffin letter board sign. Now, this is really important because I saw here that two of my most important keywords are coffin letter board and coffin letter board sign. Now, if I just put coffin letter board sign in the title, that means I get two keywords for the price of one in my title and it's going to help me on my bang for my buck, for my SEO, my SEO title. All right, let's go ahead and pick a tone here. Let's pick humorous. This is a humorous product, right? Um and again, I? I should be filling this completely up with a whole bunch of information. I only filled up 200 out of 500 characters, but you guys get the uh, the picture. Now I'm just going to hit hey, write it, write it for me. But look at this in seconds. Now I have a title that says Manny's Mysterious Oddities coffin letter board sign. There it is. That was exactly I wanted to get two keywords in one. Beetlejuice decor, Halloween party decorations with mini coffin chalkboard. You see, the AI knew what I had in here 500 pre-cut letters and spooky emojis, perfect for parties and weddings. It got so much of my stuff just in the title. All we have done here is the title, and now I can see that once I say use suggestion, look at this. I was able to knock out a lot of my individual keywords and keywords, and that's basically how I do the rest of the listing, guys, what I'm going to do is just say, write it for me, and now AI is going to give me some suggestions. And then the point is I want to try and use up all of these individual keywords as much as possible so I can be indexed for all of these phrases. And then anything that has a high competitor performance score I definitely want to make sure that I have in phrase form in my listing.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Okay, so that's how you make a listing. Again, this this took me 20 minutes to explain. It should probably take you an hour or two hours because you should be doing a lot more work on this. I would probably go in here and I'm going to just I'm not going to just go with the AI um, suggestion for it. The AI can really give me a good start with using the keywords and having like a certain theme or vibe to it. Like I, in this case, I put a, um, you know, humorous vibe, right, and now I just finished writing my listing up and I make sure that I use these uh keywords, uh, make sure that I use these keywords up. So this is important, guys. This is just a simple way of doing your listing.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Now, speaking of SEO, what if English is not your first language and you're trying to write a listing here in Amazon USA or me? I don't speak perfect Japanese and I want to write a listing for Amazon Japan. I'm not going to use my own knowledge of Japanese to try and write that. No, you can write these prompts here in Listing Builder in whatever is your native tongue, and then you tell Helium 10, hey, this listing is going to be for Amazon Japan. This listing is going to be for Amazon Spain, and it will write the listing in a common language of where that marketplace is, and when I say common language, I mean, like common grammar. Right, it's not, like you know, Google Translate, which is all weird and everything right. So this is really a great way to make your listing and, like I said, I did this in 20 minutes and I almost have a better listing than most of these competitors already. Imagine how good I can make it if I just spent an hour or two hours, and this is the beauty about listing builder right. So that is how you can go from keyword research to actually making the structure of your listing and then making sure that you are optimized for it based on the score.

 

Bradley Sutton:

One last thing I just want to quickly show you is, as you write your listing, you want to see how your score is going on, right? So here is my listing. Let's go ahead and rewrite these bullet points. My score is going to start changing as I start utilizing this, and the goal is hey, I want to be more optimized for the main keywords than my competitors. I want to be number one here, and so that's what you kind of shoot for when you are doing this. Image copy is just one aspect, right, it's just one aspect of the listing. The rest of it is what images? It's A+ Content. So I brought in some experts to talk a little bit about the photography aspect of things and some other listing optimization aspects. So let's go ahead and invite our first guest up here is Lailama Hasan. Welcome, how's it going?

 

Lailama:

Hello, thank you for having me on. I'm just going to quickly introduce myself. I'm Lailama and I'm currently working as a Marketing Content Manager at Helium 10, where I plan and execute social media strategies. I have a background in Amazon selling and as a commercial photographer specializing mostly in Amazon brands. I've also consulted these brands on optimizing their listings with the goal to boost conversions optimizing their listings with the goal to boost conversions. So here I am, back on this webinar with Bradley talking some more about product photography, how to do it yourself, and then whether it makes sense for you to outsource to an agency or not. And if it does not make sense for you to outsource, then how do you go about conducting research for those images that you will create out of the pictures that you've taken?

 

Lailama:

Now, a lot of people are overwhelmed by photography, right? A lot of people say I don't have the creativity to take my own pictures. Well, where do you begin? I just want to start by saying simplify, you know, let's break it down into the three image types that are required by Amazon. So every listing has three types of images and each image requires a different photography approach. So we'll go over each image separately to understand, like what is the goal of these images and how to go about photographing them? The first one is your main image. It's going to be a white background image. You need bright lighting. The main purpose is to bring people onto your listing, so you want to give them all the information possible about your product. Maybe there's a USP that you want to highlight, so make sure you put it in bright white lighting. People are able to see the color, the textures so they can make an informed decision and go on to your listing.

 

Lailama:

And then the next one we have is infographic images. So these are usually the second type of image that you see in the middle. These are going to be like your hero shots. These are really functionality or USP focused shots. You might need to throw in some reference items for sizing or explain to people how to use these products. So that's the goal you want to keep in mind. And so take pictures from every angle. Explain how to use it. If it's not a simple product, what benefits and features it's going to give you. So you want to. When you're doing the photography, you want to keep these goals in mind.

 

Lailama:

And then, lastly, you have the lifestyle images. So here you're selling your brand a lifestyle. You want to have models in it. You want to have the models that are representative of your target audience and so usually like have the product you know, show the use case of your product here. And then you know, just before when you're taking the pictures, you just want to, again, keep the goal of the image in mind. So once you have that, it's gonna make the task of photography a lot easier for you. Now the next question that comes up is okay, there's so many options out there. What equipment do I use? You just need a few items to get started. So I'll break it down again by image types just to make it easier for you to. You know, pick out your equipment. The first one for main image, you simply need a camera. This can be your phone. If you have a good quality camera or you, you could also rent out a DSLR and put it on auto setting. Again, there's no really preference here, but if you want a higher quality image, then I would recommend renting a DSLR camera. And then the second thing you want to have is two sets of lighting. These can be, you know, any lights around the house. Make sure that it has a white hue to it and then you can mix it with natural lighting. If you can photograph next to a window or outdoors, that's going to, you know, really bring up the quality of your image.

 

Lailama:

I do recommend again renting out Godox lights just for that professional look, so that you can have a higher quality of image. The reason I talk about higher quality is because when you're uploading these images to Amazon and finally when people come to your listing, they're going to have that zoom in feature and so if your image quality is high, they'll be able to see the details. But if the quality isn't high enough, then your image can look a bit blurry. So just to like mitigate that risk, I would say rent out equipment, and just for the DSLR camera and for the two lights, the rentals might be $150 max if you're not going for anything new or fancy. But again, phone and regular lighting will do as well. Next, you, for your main image, you want a solid white background, so for that I'd recommend going for like a sturdy piece of paper. This could be a construction paper that you can find at any stationery shop, and then, if you have a bigger product, I would say, go for like a white cloth. The only reason I wouldn't take, you know, pick that as my first choice is because that'll need to be ironed out and that's more work. We want to make things easier, so, you know, a piece of paper might just work better.

 

Lailama:

Okay, and now for infographics. Of course you're going to need the same camera, the same lights, but for backgrounds, you know, these are your hero shots, so you want to show your product and its functionality, and so these are going to be like really clear images of your product, but also looking aesthetic. So you want to pick out a background that might be like a solid color that is a part of your branding palette. Or you can pick out like a linen cloth, a wooden textured, you know, paper or something. So let's say it's a kitchen product like this example here. You can go for a marble background, a wooden texture, you know, switch it up whatever looks aesthetically pleasing but also like doesn't take away from your product. And if you don't want to go through any of this hassle, then you can also just take a picture on a white background, just like you would for your main image, and then overlay it on top of an artificial background with apps like Canva. And then, lastly, we have our lifestyle images. For this, you're really just gonna need your product put onto like a relevant lifestyle setup. So in this case, we have a yoga mat, and they've literally this could have literally been shot in your living room. Um, if you have like an outdoor sport product, let's say it's like um, soccer ball or something, then you might want to go to a park. So there's like lots of options for like free locations where you can do your photo shoot. And so, once you've done your photography, you figured it out.

 

Lailama:

A lot of people are also thinking, okay, well, should I do it myself? Is it worth it, or should I simply outsource it? Like, what is it gonna? How do you decide that? How do you make that decision? I think it's all a matter of time, money and effort. So you know, these are all three of them are resources, because time and effort is also a big resource when you have to move fast, when you're launching your product, and it really just a lot of the times boils down to what your budget is. So if you have a low budget, then you're going to have to pay with more time and effort, and that's when you go the DIY photography route. But you know again, the question is okay, are there any other factors that I should consider outsourcing to an agency? Well, you are going to be a one man army versus the agency is a whole team. So you're going to need the expertise of a photographer, videographer if you're making a video a creative director, an Amazon specialist editor. You're going to need models. So it's a lot of moving pieces and this can take a lot of time and effort on your part, and maybe even some freelancers to put all this together. The agency has it all figured out. They have a blueprint, a process of how they're going to go about executing this project for you.

 

Lailama:

So you can save time and effort. Um, by outsourcing. And that's why I say outsourcing isn't just a cost-saving measure, the cost being your time and effort. It's also a strategic move that empowers you to focus on your core competencies. And so, let's say you've decided against outsourcing to an agency. Well, you're going to have to create these photos into listing images. And how do you go about that? There's a lot of research that goes behind it to make sure that these images actually convert, because it's not just a matter of putting these images up. They need to resonate with the buyer, they need to give the buyer the information that they need in order to convert them from a view to a sale, right? So how do you turn these images photos, into listing images? Well, it's usually you know it is a time consuming process, but you can use something like it's one of my favorite tools. It's called Listing Analyzer by Helium 10. And they have this feature called media comparison where you get a holistic view of all of the pictures that your competitors have put up, and so you can really see, okay, what are the best ways that I can showcase the features of my product? And, you know, make a decision once you've looked at all the visuals and you pick out the maybe seven best images out of that. So, now that you know how to showcase each features, but which features should really take priority, and that's where your customer comes in.

 

Lailama:

And so you're going to have to do review analysis, the Q&A analysis, go on to your, you know, trying to figure out like what are the burning questions, what are the common misconceptions within your product niche? So pick out your top 10 competitors five might be the best, five might be average and run Review Insights which is again a Helium 10 tool on each listing and dive into the one star, the two star, the three star rated reviews and find out what these misconceptions are and incorporate that information into your image. And then, another thing that I like to do when running research for images is outside marketplace analysis and this is your external inspiration. Um, that'll help you elevate your brand because you're looking at the best players in your niche, but outside of the Amazon marketplace. This could be Pinterest, you know, and you'll see, like a mood board, like this, or it could simply be a Google search and you go on to like the best companies that are in your niche. These companies will usually have strong branding, so you can really learn how to present your brand and its messaging from these top brands.

 

Lailama:

And lastly, you can never predict what image will perform better, which one's going to resonate with your audience, and that is why I recommend doing split testing, so you can showcase the same information in multiple ways, but you'll never know which image is going to communicate your message the best, and this is especially true for main images like here you know it's the same dog leash, but is it better to use a model? Is it better to use to showcase your variations? If yes, then do you show all of them in one picture or do you focus on the main variation? So these are the questions you'll have answered through a split test. I really like using Helium 10's audience, which will allow you to split test your images and make that decision pre-launch, which is the biggest advantage here. So run the split test and see which one will convert the best.

 

Bradley Sutton:

All right, let's go ahead and go into our next speaker, who's going to talk a little bit about something. Some other aspects that you need to be thinking about when you're doing your listing optimization. All right, well, take it away, Tayyaba.

 

Tayyaba:

Sure. Well, hi guys, how's it all going? I am Tayyaba Hasan and I'm going to be talking about the creatives and the image aspect of Listing Optimization. And we're a Canadian company, so that is optimization with an S I'm going to be giving you some insight into how we created the listing images for the coffin letter board. I'll discuss a little bit about our approach and get into the process and maybe you can take some tips and tricks and apply it for your own business.

 

Tayyaba:

So a little bit more about myself. So I work as a Creative Director. I worked as a Creative Director at AMZ One Step and now I work as a Project Manager. So we work with Amazon sellers to scale their business with data-driven creatives that convert, and we do all things creative. So images storefront everything in between.

 

Tayyaba:

Now I do want to talk a little bit about our process and kind of how we approach creating some images and these creatives that convert. So there's a few steps, four steps that we typically take. So the first one, of course, is that research. Lailama and Bradley went into some good detail about how to do that research, but the main part, the main takeaway, is really just to identify the unique features and benefits of your product. This can be done using all of the tools and the strategies that were discussed. And then the next plan. The next step would be just to create that plan. So gather all of your ideas together and put yourself in the shopper's mind and really create like a storyboard outline for the images. This is really just a fine balance of knowing you know what sets my product apart, what questions would the shopper have, and then how can we just show the two visually. Now, after that's all done and you've got a really good idea of what you want each of the images to kind of portray and what the text is gonna say, you're gonna get into production. So, of course, that is just the shooting and executing the design. Whether you do that yourself or you outsource it to an agency, that's up to you. And the fourth step would, of course, be that optimization. So Lailama did touch a little bit on A-B testing. So if your creatives are done by a professional agency, ideally there's less chance of misrepresentation and negative reviews, but every so years, in any case, if you decide to upgrade your product, change something about the features, improve it, you're going to need to update the creatives, and a few years. Even if you don't update your product, a few years will give you enough data to really spot any trends in your customer reviews and adjust accordingly.

 

Tayyaba:

The research aspect, like I mentioned, is pretty much dependent on understanding the difference between a feature and a benefit. So a feature is very straightforward it's that specific attribute or the functionality of the product. But the benefit is actually the value that that feature is going to offer the customer. This is the part where we're going to address their needs or, you know, solve a problem. We're going to tell them that this is how this product is going to optimize their life in any way, or how it can play a role. So how does this apply to that coffin letter board? Well, when Bradley came to us, he let us know that there was a very key feature and that, of course, was that 500 plus, you know, pre-cut and sorted letters. That's an amazing feature, but the benefit to the customer is really what you want to relay. So what is the benefit? It's going to be the fact that it's that hassle-free. It's that hassle-free message creating and you have uniform and polished letters every time, as opposed to where you had to cut them. It saves you time and, of course, it reduces mess.

 

Tayyaba:

So first we sort of came up with the image concept to tackle the image that's going to portray this feature. So we wanted to show the polished look of the pre-cut letters with someone using our product and maybe show that versus a competitor. We want to show this in a way where it shows also a common use. So in this case, the header very straightforward. You can even ask ChatGPT give me a header for an image like this, give me 10 headers and they'll do that. So pre-cut for hassle free decorating very straightforward, and some icons or text that really are going to drive the benefit home is the fact that there is a uniform and a polished look and it's mess free. And then we also have to consider the common uses. So, if you recall, one common use was that these coffin letter boards are used in Halloween themed parties, kind of like a welcome board with a punny or a clever text. So this was sort of a screenshot and we just sort of analyzed all of the images of the competitors so we can see if you were to zoom in, you'd be able to see that a lot of them have that punny text and a lot of them you can see actually have they're not pre-cut, they're all just you've got to cut those letters out. So these images that you see in between, that's all showing you the letters that don't arrive pre-cut.

 

Tayyaba:

So the common uses we want to consider this and then apply that to our products. So we want to look at these trends. We see that there's, you know, messages written on the board. They're all sort of a play on words. It's either Gothic or Halloween themed. We see the we want to show how the polished look of the pre-cut letters is better than, as opposed to just the mess of dealing with competitor products which are not pre-cut. And then we sort of applied that into a rough kind of a sketch. So we created a plan. Now this plan, we knew that we wanted to use the relevant setting right. So this is sort of like a Halloween gothic themed party. We know that we want to showcase the coffin letter with something punny, and so I just wanted to chatGPT and said you know, give me a quirky, punny message for a Halloween party letter board. And then I know that I wanted to showcase the competitor image as well. So if, ideally, you can order the product of the competitors, but if not, you can use some Photoshop magic to manipulate it. So this is the actual image that we came up with in the end, so to give you a little bit of an idea. So, tying all of those together, this is a Halloween theme. The chatGPT said something very cute like eat, drink and be scary. So we let our production team know to write that message on the board.

 

Tayyaba:

And this is actually white background photography. So, just for the sake of simplicity, I'm just showing you what it looks like when you do white background photography and you Photoshop that into a Halloween sort of a background and it's not really, you know, necessary. You could recreate this in a real life setting. You could get the props, but this is just a more budget friendly option. So if you look at the text, it really drives that point home and we were not actually able to order the competitor product. So what we did was we just took a close up of the existing one and if you look at that. It's a bit torn, which is pretty accurate as to how it might look when you know when you're removing it yourself from a competitor product. So we just sort of fake the fact that the competitor's product is not nearly as polished or uniform as ours is, and then those icons, like we mentioned, really drive that point home. So uniform and polished look and mess free. So that's what that image looked like.

Tayyaba:

Now it's not all about just the features and the benefits and manipulating the visuals. Sometimes it can be just a lot more simple, and so you have to put yourself in the headspace of a shopper. You know what questions would the shopper have, and so the other approach is just to sort of tackle, tackle, that kind of um question. So Bradley did mention that while most of the competitors are selling coffin letter boards with a stand um, you know, for for a niche like this there's not that many like bundled items. So maybe the shopper is just a little bit going to be curious as to what exactly am I getting? I see there's a letter, I see there's a smaller chopper, what does this mean? And so we want to just answer that question for them. You know exactly how big is each item? How much space is it going to take up in my home, especially the fact that these are bundled items and one is bigger, one is smaller? So the review insights tool is a pretty good way just to get like an idea as to exactly what questions do they have.

 

Tayyaba:

If you don't have the access to look at all of these you know three thousand reviews, two hundred and seventy nine reviews, nine thousand reviews and just really analyze them and look for the trends. That's where AI comes in, so you can use the review insights tool, export all of those, copy the Excel sheet into ChatGPT and ask it to analyze the questions so you can say something as simple as, like you know, look at the negative reviews, what trends do you see? What are customers complaining about? Where does this product fall short of expectations? And that's really where you want to address something. Or you could take a much more sort of simpler approach and even just look at the very quickly, just look at the tags. So this is actually something that I saw off of the competitors. So one thing that they were talking about was sizing. Now there are overall positive reviews, but if you look at what I've highlighted here, Amazon has sort of summarized that it fits. You know it's good, but it's larger than they thought that it would be. So that is something you know you could ignore it because it's such a positive overall review 57 positive and five negative but it's really important to just catch that and then use that to your advantage.

 

Tayyaba:

So when we look at the competitor images and I look at the way that they've approached the dimensions image, it's pretty easy to see why there might be confusion. You know, yes, the numbers are right there. In fact, some of them even go into two decimal places. But the reality is shoppers are not going to pull out a measuring tape and you can't really rely on that. So I'm going to give you a little bit of insight into how we approach creating the dimensions image and how we can went about maybe mitigating these negative reviews. So, instead of just giving them the numbers, what we did was we threw in hands in there and so immediately you can sort of picture just how big the bigger one is and how big the smaller one is. And hopefully I can already imagine that shoppers without an image like this and just going back and you know if we should show the chalkboard like this, I can imagine already negative reviews saying you know, the chalkboard is way too small, it's a lot smaller than I expected. Which it is it's about? You know, three inches wide and that's about the length of my pinky. So what this does is it really gives them the idea of they can picture it basically in their home. So this is just one way that we approach creating images to avoid negative reviews. And that brings me to the end of my presentation. I hope this has provided you guys with a little bit of insight and thank you guys so much.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Tayyaba for you. If anybody wants to reach out to you for more information or to get more help or to utilize your services, like I contracted you guys out to do this coffin letter board, how can they find you on the interwebs out there?

 

Tayyaba:

Absolutely amzonestep.com, and if you've got any inquiries, any sort of creatives that you'd like to get done, feel free to reach out.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Okay, and then also you can. If some of you have different plans, I suggest contacting them through hubhelium10.com and look for AMZOneStep, because they sometimes give different coupons for different members out there as well. All right, guys. That's all the time we have for today. Thanks for staying here to the end. Thank you to Leilama and Tayyaba. We will see you later next month with another new topic that's going to be in Freedom Ticket. Actually, next week it's all going to be about TikTok Shop. So look out for an invite for special training on TikTok shop and until then, we'll see you guys later. Bye-bye now.

Helium 10 Buzz 6/13/24: Amazon Subscribe & Save Update | Walmart.com New Features

Could this single change to Amazon's Subscribe and Save program revolutionize your Amazon selling strategy? Listen as we unpack all the latest buzzing news in the E-commerce space!

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, talk about Helium 10’s newest features, and provide a training tip for the week for serious sellers of any level.

Registration is now live for Amazon's premier selling partner conference: Amazon Accelerate.
Go to: h10.me/accelerate to get your tickets and use the code “HELIUM10SELLER” to get additional discounts

Virtual Packs Are Available on Walmart.com
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/david-milstein-53692611a_walmart-walmartmarketplace-ecommerce-activity-7205970821775822850-m-0y/

TikTok Shop is huge for the beauty industry
https://www.theverge.com/2024/6/11/24176221/tiktok-shop-beauty-wellness-industry-growth-ecommerce

Amazon Is a Top Destination for Brand-Focused Beauty Shoppers
https://civicscience.com/amazon-is-a-top-destination-for-brand-focused-beauty-shoppers/

Temu Attracts More Repeat Buyers than eBay, Challenges Amazon
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/temu-attracts-more-repeat-buyers-than-ebay-challenges-amazon/ar-BB1o4ili

TikTok comes for Google as it quietly rolls out image search capabilities in TikTok Shop
https://techcrunch.com/2024/06/11/tiktok-comes-for-google-as-it-quietly-rolls-out-image-search-capabilities-in-tiktok-shop/

Finally, gear up for some valuable training sessions, including a free TikTok Shop webinar and strategies for making the most of Prime Day with Amazon’s latest advertising tools. Plus, a cool new update to Helium 10’s Demand Analyzer tool. Don’t miss out on these essential updates and strategies to boost your e-commerce success!

In this episode of the Weekly Buzz by Helium 10, Bradley covers:

• 00:50 - Amazon Subscribe & Save
• 03:12 - Amazon Accelerate
• 04:32 - Walmart Virtual Packs
• 05:26 - TikTok Shop Beauty
• 06:38 - Amazon Beauty
• 07:57 - Temu Vs. Ebay
• 10:03 - OX Insights
• 11:34 - Walmart 4 Star +
• 12:46 - TikTok Image Search
• 13:53 - TikTok Shop Webinar with Helium 10
• 14:20 - Prime PPC Webinar
• 14:51 - New Feature Alert & Training: Demand Analyzer
  
  

► 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

Transcript

Bradley Sutton:

A big Amazon subscribe and save change. Walmart's got two new features coming. TikTok shop is skyrocketing. The beauty niche 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 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 news stories that are going on the Amazon, Walmart e-commerce world. We also give you training tips of the week and we also let you know what new features that Helium 10 has. That'll give you serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. Let's see what's buzzing.

Bradley Sutton:

We got a number of news articles and things to go over today, so let's go ahead and hop right into our very first story, and this one is actually just directly from the Amazon seller central dashboard and it's for me, it's a, it's a big change. For some of you this might not affect at all, but basically this is entitled. Subscribe and save will launch for seller fulfilled orders on June 27th, All right. So those of you who are just using FBA, this is meaningless to you. For those of you who are like me and every single one of your products is FBA and you have an FBM SKU because you've got your own warehouse or you've got 3PL. Well, this is kind of big because until now you can only enroll FBA SKUs into subscribe and save. But now those of you who do both, like me or maybe there's some of you who just, for whatever reason, for regulatory reasons maybe there's some products that's not allowed in FBA, like meltable products or other things at certain times of year, guess what you can now keep that subscribe and save going, even if you are FBM.

Bradley Sutton:

All right, so this article talks about how they're automatically going to enroll all of your eligible replenishable products at the default discount set in your subscribe and save settings. All right, so the whole percentage discount thing is going to apply, like the you know, the 5% discount, uh, et cetera. Now, remember, you know these subscribe and save orders normally are just generated automatically for FBA, but now in your FBM pending orders you're going to start seeing subscribe and save order. So make sure to take a look at that. And if you, for whatever reason, don't want to, um, have this automatically set up, I don't know why you wouldn't want to if you have subscribe and save on. But maybe there's a reason why you don't Like, maybe you're not confident in your FBM inventory. Well, you can go to growth and hit explore programs, click increase conversion and then, under subscribe and save, click learn more and you'll have a dashboard there where you can opt out from this automatic enrollment or, as it says, set your discount funding for each product after the June 27 launch. So some pretty cool stuff that is coming to subscribe and save. And don't forget that on the Helium 10 insights dashboard, you can actually add a module or widget for your subscribe and save metrics. So if you haven't done that, make sure to go ahead and do that. You could start seeing the rate your units sold, the amount of sales and the total discount for your subscribe and save orders.

Bradley Sutton:

Next up, an announcement from Amazon. This is not like not some breaking news, but now the Amazon Accelerate Conference, which, in my opinion, is the premier event Amazon event in the entire world to go to, like. If people ask me uh, what is one event I have to go to? 10 out of 10 Amazon accelerate amazing event, the only time outside of Helium 10 cell and scale summit that we had a couple of years ago where you could actually go up to high quality uh or high ranking reps from Amazon and get your problems fixed. But anyways, as of yesterday, you can now register for Amazon Accelerate. It's going to be September 17th to 19th To get tickets. Go to h10.me/accelerate. There's already a hundred dollar discount right now and then you can use the coupon code. I'm not sure what kind of discount or if any discount it gives, but give it a try. Helium 10 seller no spaces, but you already get a hundred dollars off if you go ahead and register now, and then that Helium 10 seller might give you another extra discount. But again, I'm going to be there. The whole entire team is going to be there. What feels like the whole entire Amazon seller community is going to be there. Thousands of sellers there. Make sure to go. If you're a Helium 10 Elite member, get your tickets a day early, because September 16th we're going to do an event as well, so be there from the 16th through the 19th.

Bradley Sutton:

Next news article is actually not really a news article, but it's from LinkedIn, a post by David from Cell Quarter. He's been on the podcast a few times before and he's actually going to be on the podcast in a couple of weeks. He's been on the podcast a few times before and he actually is actually going to be on the podcast in a couple of weeks, but now he announced hey, virtual packs are available on Walmart.com. It's kind of similar to what we know as virtual bundles on Amazon, but it has a couple of advantages, according to David. All right. So, like you know, on Amazon, when you do virtual bundles, you don't get any kind of discounts on your fulfillment fees, right. But according to this for WFS, you are actually going to get discounts on your fulfillment for multiple packs, all right, and you also don't have to seemingly create listings one by one. So that is something that is going to be pretty cool for you Walmart sellers who want to do virtual bundles or virtual packs. I guess Looks like there's some cool stuff coming to Walmart.

Bradley Sutton:

Switching to another marketplace now, TikTok Shop. This article is from theverge.com and it's entitled TikTok Shop is huge for the beauty industry, all right. And there is this article where it says hey, TikTok Shop is the ninth biggest online beauty and wellness retailer in the United States. You might think ninth. My goodness, I can't even name nine marketplaces, you know. There's Amazon, there's Walmart, there's Target. No, it's not marketplaces. I mean, that's any website. You know people go to Sephora.com. People go to Ulta Beauty whatever the heck that website is right. People go to the. You know Maybelline or whatever. You know actual companies. Including all of those websites, TikTok shop is already number nine out of everything. So that's kind of crazy. This article talks about beauty. Content is one of the most popular types of videos on TikTok, with some creators making a living by sharing tips or testing out products. All right, so this is kind of you know, impetus, I would say for the few of you maybe in the beauty category who have been completely ignoring TikTok shop might want to jump on that bandwagon because it's blown up in the beauty category.

Bradley Sutton:

Next article Along those same lines how is Amazon Beauty doing? Well, you know this is an article from civicscience.com and you know, to no surprise, amazon, according to this article, has 68% of US adults buy beauty and personal care products on Amazon, at least on some of their purchases. So yeah, they are by far. Amazon is by far number one. However, there's distinct differences when it comes to how beauty buyers shop on Amazon. It says official brand storefronts are the most popular destinations among Amazon beauty shoppers. It says shoppers are twice as likely to purchase a beauty or personal care item from an official store than from an independent third party seller. All right, it says many prestige and luxury beauty brands are partnering with Amazon's premium beauty storefront. So this is something to think about. All right, you know, we just talked about hey, make sure your beauty products are on TikTok shop. You should probably make sure your beauty products are on Amazon, of course, but you know, branding is important in the beauty category on Amazon, right, if you're a no name brand, that doesn't mean you have zero chance at making sales, but there seems to be more of a skew toward more branded, you know, or brands that are more well-known in the beauty category on Amazon.

Bradley Sutton:

The next article is from MSN, and this one, you know, to be honest, I'm a little bit skeptical about All right. So now the title of this from MSN is Temu attracts more repeat buyers than eBay challenges Amazon. Now, this article had a general statement that seemed pretty legit, says hey, you know, we see that Temu is making more, or customers in the US are making more repeat purchases on Temu than on eBay. Maybe, all right, but here is what I'm just like flabbergasted by All right, let me quote this directly. It says the survey, which pulled 1000 consumers, revealed that 34% of respondents made purchases from Temu at least once a month. Hmm, you guys know what my initials are? Right, my name is Bradley Sutton. You know what my initials are. I'm raising my initials flag on this one. Okay, I don't know one person in the last year who has bought even one thing from Temu.

Bradley Sutton:

Now, don't get me wrong. I understand Teemu is the thing. I know there's people who buy stuff out there, but I'm just finding it hard to believe. 34% of people of 1000 people, 340 out of 1,000 people bought something on Temu. And I don't know one freaking person who bought something from Temu. I'm just not. This made me a little bit skeptical on this article. You know like I'm not the one who made this poll, but again, I'm just throwing that out there. Now. It says Amazon dominates the field, with 76% of the respondents shopping there at least monthly. That number seems almost low for me. What? Only double the amount of sellers or buyers bought something on Amazon to Temu? Only 76%. I mean, like I think every single person I know buys something from Amazon. You know I'm not talking about, obviously, people in the Amazon industry. I'm talking about, just, you know, people here in my community, you know. But anyways, this might be an article you want to take a look at. I still maintain whether it's right or wrong that that Temu is no real threat to Amazon, maybe outside of the the you know clothes, you know low price clothing category, but hey, who knows, maybe Temu is making moves that I'm just not aware of.

Bradley Sutton:

Next article is from going back to Amazon Seller Central and it's entitled Use Reviews to Improve Product Launches with New Customer Review Insights. So customer review insights is nothing new. This has been in Amazon Product Opportunity Explorer for a while now, but they have new features in there. So there's something new called review trends that show shift in customer sentiment. There's Parent ASIN Insights, so it gives insights at the parent level of products. As you know, Helium 10 Review Insights has been doing that for seven years now almost six years. It takes Amazon a little bit to get caught up, but no, this is cool that Amazon is doing this. They've got some other cool stuff that Review Insights doesn't have. They've got ASIN benchmarking, where it compares your product star rating now to the category average star rating. All right, that's new. And then also they have topic drill down. So like here's a picture, like I'm looking here in Product Opportunity Explorer at one of the competitor coffin shelves and then I could see some of these new features that they have here where they break it down to the child level and they show some topics. So a lot of this you know is available in Helium 10, you know the review insights tool for Helium 10, elite members. We've also had an advanced AI review sentiment tool that you guys have had access to. I'm not sure when or if that's going to be released at Diamond and Platinum, but elite members, make sure you're using that. If that's going to be released a diamond and platinum, but elite members, make sure you're using that. And if you don't have Helium 10, we'll make sure to use for free the review insights tool inside of seller central product opportunity explore.

Bradley Sutton:

Next article. It's not really an article, it's an email update from Walmart connect. All right, kind of cool announcement, but very, maybe it's going to be very similar to something you know. But basically Walmart Connect says, hey, we're launching an A-B test on item pages that introduces an additional carousel called drumroll, please four-star and above items. All right, does that sound familiar? I think we've seen four-star and above before. Nothing wrong with that. But this is going to start on June 17th and it's going to be a test that they're going to run for about four weeks and it's a carousel that's offering prominent placement opportunity that can promote inspiration for shoppers. Now the difference here is it looks like you can actually target this carousel. As we know, the four star and above on Amazon it's just kind of random. It's not like I can just choose to my product to show up in this four star and above place. There are some that are automatic, according to Walmart, so it's not all manual, but you can automatically get in there or you can manually get in there. So this Walmart Connect if you guys are a Walmart seller, you should have gotten this Walmart Connect email. Make sure to check it out and see if you can get in on this test.

Bradley Sutton:

Last article of the day is from techcrunch.com and it's entitled TikTok comes for Google as it quietly rolls out image search capabilities in TikTok shop. So it's pretty much this article is just as that title sounds. So you know how you on Amazon and Google you can like take a picture of something. I do this on eBay a lot too. You take a picture of something with the app and then search by picture instead of searching by the keyword. I use that on eBay all the time when I'm like trying to like price match baseball cards and different things like that. That's how I. That's how I do it, instead of actually searching with words. Well, uh, you can now do that on Tik TOK shop. Now, to me, this is a notable because it took years for, like Amazon and eBay and other apps, even Google, to have something like that, and now TikTok shop in the US hasn't even been around for a full year and it already has it. So that's kind of cool that that TikTok shop is making these kind of moves, and anything that makes it easier to find your products on TikTok shop actually obviously would be, um, you know, beneficial for us.

Bradley Sutton:

Now, speaking of TikTok shop, um, we've got a TikTok shop freedom ticket training coming up next week, okay, so if you haven't registered for it completely free of charge, make sure you're joining. We're bringing a guest expert and they're going to be talking about how to get set up on TikTok shop. This is going to be a module that's going to be in Freedom Ticket. So if you want to register for that, make sure to go to h10.me/tiktokwebinar. Also, you know we've got Prime Day coming up next week. I did a special training on advertising for Prime Day and beyond with Amazon Advertising Headquarters in New York. If you guys didn't catch that live, make sure to catch the replay. You might have to do a free registry. It's completely free, though. If it asks you to register, just go ahead and register for free and you'll get access to it. The link to get to that training is h10.me/primeppc.

Bradley Sutton:

All right, let's get into our New Feature Alerts. Now, this is actually going to be new feature alerts slash training tip of the week, because it's we're re-releasing a tool that we had to redesign of. For the last six months. You haven't been able to use it, and so let me show you what that tool is and then show you how to use it. So we're combining two for the price of one. Let's say you're on any other website on the internet off of Amazon. You're on Etsy, you're on a Shopify website, or watch this. Maybe you're going to be on Alibaba, okay. So maybe I'm searching for coffin shelves and here, as you can see, I see a whole bunch of factories offering, offering coffin shelves. Let's just go ahead and pick a random one here. And then something that I like to do, um is I like to sometimes check other products that the factories have. So I'll hit their factory name and then I'll just start browsing their product catalog to see what kind of stuff they have. So let's just take a look. I'm here looking at this Alibaba store called Shangdong Junji Trading Company, all right, and I'm just going to start taking a look if anything jumps off of the page, all right. So I see they've got a lot of bamboo products. I actually have a bamboo brand and one of my Amazon accounts, so let's go ahead and look at some of their stuff.

Bradley Sutton:

So here, sofa arm tray I'm not sure if that's the main keyword, but maybe I'm wondering hey, is there any demand for this kind of product on Amazon? Instead of having to go now into Helium 10, instead of having to maybe go to Amazon and run x-ray, watch what I can do, I'm going to use this re-release tool from Helium 10 called demand analyzer. How you can access is in just the Chrome extension button. Hit that and then select demand analyzer and now all I have to do is type in the keyword that I think is what they're talking about. So let's do sofa. I forgot what even when I said sofa arm tray.

Bradley Sutton:

Let's see, is there any search volume for this keyword on Amazon? And lo and behold, holy cow, a keyword I never heard of until right now. There's actually 3,000, as you can see here, 400 searches a month. Revenue on the main page is almost $600,000. And I can see some of these top sellers and actually, look at this guys. I did not even look at this. I found the exact same product that is being sold here in this Alibaba store for $6 and on Amazon it's selling for $24. Now, right off the bat, I can tell you I don't think that's enough profit margin, but right here I can just instantly see what is going on with his demand. I'm still on the Alibaba website right now. I'm not on Amazon. I'm not on Helium 10, but I'm able to get this Amazon data Thanks to the Helium 10 Chrome extension. I can see other keywords that are in this niche, such as sofa, tray, table, and I can just dive a little bit deeper into it. So this is a great tool.

Bradley Sutton:

Guys, maybe you're searching for product ideas, or you're doing just something on any random website at all whether it's Etsy, whether it's Pinterest, whether it's Alibaba something comes to in your mind. Don't think that, yeah, oh, let me go log into my Helium 10 account or let me go to Amazon and start searching an Xray and stuff like that. No, but you're one click away from getting Amazon and Helium 10 data by using this new tool that we're releasing Amazon Demand Analyzer. So it's going to work, should work on any page. Make sure to start using it now. All right, guys. That's it for this week's Weekly Buzz. Don't forget to tune in next week to see what's buzzing.

 

#569 - How To Scale Your Amazon Business

Join us for an insightful episode where we sit down with Christi Michelle, an expert in scaling Amazon businesses and the founder of The COO Integrator. Christi shares her fascinating journey from running an Amazon brand management agency to becoming a fractional Chief Operating Officer. Discover how she blends visionary ideas with tactical strategies, and hear about her comprehensive competitive analysis of 25 brand management agencies, revealing the importance of understanding unique value propositions. Christi's wealth of experience provides valuable lessons for e-commerce entrepreneurs looking to scale their businesses effectively.

In another segment, we explore key strategies for measuring business health and scaling effectively. Learn how to assess your business's performance through crucial data metrics like PPC statistics and P&L statements. Understand the significance of evaluating employee performance and fitting within your organization. We also discuss Tony Robbins' 10 life cycle stages and their relevance in identifying your business's current strengths and weaknesses. Practical tools such as the EOS organizational checkup and core values exercises are highlighted to help you align your company's direction and goals for balanced growth.

Finally, we tackle the challenges of managing remote teams and maintaining productivity in the e-commerce world. Discover strategies for fostering a strong company culture and maintaining relationships. Learn the importance of holding productive meetings that drive progress without creating unnecessary busy work. Additionally, Christi shares her transformative experience at a two-week water fasting retreat in Costa Rica, offering insights into personal growth through struggle and simplicity. Whether you're looking to scale your business or find balance in your entrepreneurial journey, this episode is packed with actionable advice and inspiration.

In episode 569 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Christi discuss:

• 00:00 - Scaling Amazon Businesses With Expert Guidance
• 04:34 - Brand Management for Major Brands
• 08:03 - Business Evolution and Maturity Stages
• 09:32 - Measuring Business Health and Scaling
• 14:27 - Navigating Amazon's Rising Costs and Fees
• 20:11 - Key Role of HR in Business
• 21:03 - Effective Remote Business Operation
• 23:52 - Creating Constructive Meetings for Company Culture
• 25:33 - Costa Rica Spiritual Retreat Experience
• 29:20 - Business Growth and Simplification

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► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension

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► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft

► Watch The Podcasts On YouTube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos

Transcript

Bradley Sutton:

So many Amazon sellers don't treat their Amazon businesses like a real business. So, we brought on somebody today who's an expert in this and she's helped countless number of businesses really scale up, and there's going to be great points that you're going to be able to glean from this as well. 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. Hello everybody, 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 I'm still here recording in Spain, Madrid, Spain. I'm here at the Avosk office and we are here with somebody who has not been on the podcast in like two, maybe even three years, over three years Christy in the house. How's it going?

Christi Michelle:

Hi, doing well. How are you?

Bradley Sutton:

I'm doing just ducky. I recorded Leo earlier today, but he did his presentation already, so I was able to ask him some stuff on it. But I don't know what you're going to talk about yet, so I'll ask you that in a little bit. But since it's been so long since you've been on the podcast, what in the world have you been up to?

Christi Michelle:

I think the last time I was on I was running an Amazon brand management agency, and so that was the first one that I was running at the time. And after that we merged, slash, sold to a larger agency where I was the head of operations as well. We had about 100 clients, about 90-ish employees, so really kind of scaled up, which turns out that's kind of my forte, and I was there for a little while and then I left and apparently, I just can't get enough of the agency world. So, for the last about two and a half years I've been running what's my new agency? The COO Integrator, and so I am a fractional chief operating officer. So, it's that second in command. It's the one that says, OK, here's the big vision of what the visionary wants, the CEO wants, and OK, now how do we turn that into tactical strategies that we can, implement and get everybody rowing in the same direction? For so I do that.

Bradley Sutton:

Hold on. So, you're the CEO of this company or you're, like, a CEO of many companies.

Christi Michelle:

I'm the CEO of my company, my agency, but I play the role of the COO, which actually quite works for me because I'm a good blend of both the visionary and also the integrator. I like taking the really big concepts. That's a lot of fun for me, but I need to distill it down and make it very practical, set some goals around it, and I use a lot of my business strategies to make sure everything gets executed. So, it's both.

Bradley Sutton:

Went out to dinner last night and I remember you Vincenzo was there and you found out he worked at a PPC agency and you're like, oh man, a couple of years ago I did I looked into like 25 PPC agencies was it?

Christi Michelle:

It was a brand management agency. So, I was trying to do a competitive analysis. I wanted to understand. So, one of the things that I think a lot of companies, especially when they're getting started or they're so kind of single focused you don't realize that they don't understand their unique value proposition. And so, what makes you different? Why, if I were looking at two different agencies, why would I choose yours over someone else?

And most folks, unfortunately, they're oh, it's you know, we've got great customer support or we're so good with our clients, and it's very generic and they all kind of say the same thing. And so, I really wanted to understand okay, well, who are my competitors in the space? And I find it to be a very non-competitive space in the sense that we're all very friendly, it's very open. What I love about the e-commerce space is that it has kind of that good feel to it as an industry personality. But theoretically, these are my competitors and I wanted to see, well, okay, what are they offering? What do they charge, what are their contract terms? So, I really, I called dozens of them and I just said, hey, this is what I'm doing. I'm just I called dozens of them and I just said, hey, this is what I'm doing, I'm just what's unique about you? I just want to know these different things. So, it was a competitive analysis. It was just sort of a landscape.

Bradley Sutton:

And you know, obviously you don't have to mention any names, but what was just some things that stuck out to you about, I don't know, maybe price point or something that you saw was a hole in the industry or something that everybody had, or what were some of your big takeaways, I guess, like I'm asking.

Christi Michelle:

You know that most companies actually did have something that was quite unique. I would say more than half the companies. They would tell me something and I'm like I haven't heard that before. That's really unique, like that is. Do you know that as unique to you? So, in a way I was kind of helping them with their marketing like go ahead and highlight that. So, some folks you know they would specialize in major brands like big Fortune 100 company kind of brands. That's not typically what an Amazon brand management agency, but if you think about it those are. Most of those companies are kind of dinosaurs so they don't know how to kind of pivot and get online. So that was a unique one. A lot of companies had different contract terms but most of them were a flat fee plus once you had a certain point. Then we take a percentage. Unique ones were maybe it was a contract they just go month to month, and other ones they said we just went two years because we're going to invest with you. So really, I think knowing what those are, what your differentiators are and what's important to you, can help you, I guess, decide what type of clients, your ideal client, who you want to go after. Some clients are just like I just want to test this out, is this going to be good? So, they would probably want to go with an agency that has a lower fee and month to month contracts. But other ones who want to deep dive, they know they're going to invest in this, they know where they want to go build that partnership. So, it helps, you kind of weed out the clients that you do want and get rid of the ones that you don't. So, I don't know what really stood out. There was a lot.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay, now let's just flip the script a little bit. I'm an Amazon seller, I'm new or I'm big, I'm a seven-figure seller, eight-figure seller? Who is the persona or what type of person should be looking for a brand management agency as opposed to you know what? You probably should just try and handle things on your own at your stage.

Christi Michelle:

That's a loaded question. I would say that it actually depends on your personality type. So, there are people who want to understand there's a level of control that says I want to bring all of this in house, I want to bring in an expert who is a good PPC expert, someone who does graphic design. I want it to be so customized because it's my business. If that is your personality type, you probably want to build in house. But if it's not and you really just want kind of the simple life, you can find a partner partnering with an agency that has all of that already in-house. I would go that route. But it really depends on how you want to run your business in general. So, it's more of a personal decision on your lifestyle. With that there is an influx point, especially because, like I said, a lot of agencies will have sort of a flat fee to start with for the first 90 days or whatever, and they get to a point and they say, okay, wait, we expect to build traction at this point.

Christi Michelle:

So, from that we want to, once we hit this threshold, we want to flip and we want to take a percentage of sales. Well, that's fantastic, especially if they're doing a really good job. But if you go from doing, 50,000 in sales and then a hundred thousand in sales and then 500,000 in sales, and suddenly you’re doing millions in sales that you know taking 5% or whatever that is, at some point you're going to be paying the agency hundreds of thousands of dollars that it makes more sense than to just bring it in house. So, there is a scaling point that I would say unless you're super comfortable and you just love working with them and you don't care to give away that percentage as long as you don't have to think about it, because clearly, they've done a good job, then at some point you would probably want to bring it in house.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay, all right. Now I think, looking now I remember looking at the title of your talk today like wasn't one thing about helping people scale, all right, so we have listeners of this podcast, from newer sellers all the way to maybe seven, eight figure sellers. What are some? I know a lot of the stuff you talk about is targeted, you know, depending on their exact persona, but maybe there's some general things that you could, some tips that you can give out about, because I think everybody wants to scale, unless they're just like trying to do this in their hobby. That hey, I'm very happy at my level of the rest of my life. My, my day job is this. That's probably like 3% of people. I think 97% wants to scale. So, what are some tips you can give?

Christi Michelle:

It's very customized because it depends on where your maturity of your company is. And so, I use the word maturity and the evolution of your business because most people say, well, I'm a million-dollar company or I'm a $5 million company or I'm a $40 million company, that really doesn't matter, because I've had clients that are 40 million, I've had clients that are 2 million and they're at the same stage. They experienced the same influx of issues. So, I like to identify them. So, Tony Robbins has a really good. He has a really good model that's called the evolutionary 10 stages of your business and it starts literally from like a child. It's like birth. You have infancy, you have toddler, teenager, young adult, and then you're in your prime and then eventually, at some point things always kind of deteriorate and you kind of go down that path. So, I like for people to be able to identify where they are. That helps them understand what their bottlenecks are. Able to identify where they are. That helps them understand what their bottlenecks are. So, one tip would be figure out where do you stand like, where is your evolution of your company and what is it going to take for you to go from a teenager to a young adult, or a young adult to get to you when you're in your prime. So, understanding that about yourself. Another thing that I would say is most companies, you're just very focused. Most people don't understand this. If you didn't get an MBA, you don't understand all the facets of business, right? They think, well, I've got a product and I've got a or a service. This is what I'm doing. Understand that if you want to scale, you kind of need to do it. The best way to do it is very, is as balanced as possible, and so another exercise that I do is based off of EOS, which is the Entrepreneur Operating System. They have a model. So, this is that's a business blueprint.

Christi Michelle:

Every company should be working from a business blueprint, and so, if you can do that, there's a several questions that kind of prompt you well, how well are you in each of these categories of your business? So, you can say, okay, well, how is my data measurables Like? Do I know what I'm measuring? Do I know what my PPC statistics are? Do I know what my P&L looks like? Do I know what my turn rate is? Do I know? There's lots of things to know. So, understanding that category, understanding your people. Do I have the right people? Have I hired you know? Are they doing the best that they can? So, there's lots of different ways that you can measure the health of your business. You can take it as a 20-point questionnaire. You can go to EOS I think it's called; I don't know. You can download it for free. In five minutes, you can kind of figure out sort of like a general health of your business. That will also tell you OKAY, here are the areas that I'm unbalanced. These are my strengths and these are my weaknesses. But as you want to scale, you want to scale as balanced as possible. Also, understanding different personality types. You start off as the visionary of your company and different visionaries and I kind of have had several different buckets that I would put them in. But there's different visionaries, create different problems, create different solutions and problems in their companies. So, you get the ones that are.

Christi Michelle:

They're just very what is it Gregarious? Like, very like outgoing and big and let's try all the things, and they don't have a big sense of risk. They don't have a correct sense of risk. They go above and beyond and that's really fun. They're usually very grateful. They're a lot of fun to work with, but there's very little. The opposite side of that is they don't come with a lot of accountabilities they just trust you. Yeah, go do the thing. I like you. You seem smart, let's go. And they won’t’ve that type of leader. Understand what your strengths are and also understand what your weaknesses are. Right, because that can create a lot of uncertainty in your employees, and a lot of employees love you, but they just feel like they're constantly concerned about what's happening with their job. So, I could go down a whole rabbit hole on different personality types, but those are the things is understood who you are, what you bring to the company and kind of the health of the business overall. I mean there's tons of tools out there that in five minutes. I love doing workshops because I want people to learn about themselves, where they stand relative to who they are, what they bring to the table and you know what they're going to need to balance them, because everybody has strengths and weaknesses.

Bradley Sutton:

Now I'm looking here. I'm guessing this is part of, like, your workshops that you're going to be doing,

Christi Michelle:

Yes.

Bradley Sutton:

Or is this a handout that people are going to have?

Christi Michelle:

Yes. Okay, very tactical hands-on.

Bradley Sutton:

Maybe you can describe some of this so that people can maybe do this at home even without you. At least get started on this framework here.

Christi Michelle:

Sure, well, I mean, I kind of did mention a little bit, so I would look up Tony Robbins. So, business mastery he has the 10 life cycle stages of your evolution of your business. So, if you can look that up, he kind of gives a definition, as I said earlier. So, you have birth, you have infancy, you have the toddler, you have the teenager, you have the young adult. What are those? What are the pros and cons of each one of those? So go look that up and if you could do that, read there, help yourself identify. Once you identify, let's say, you figure out that you're in a teenage stage. That's a very exciting stage. It's also one of the most dangerous stages and a lot of people get stuck there, a lot of visionaries get stuck there, and so I won't have time to go into detail about it. But if you are able to identify yeah, that kind of sounds like where I am going ahead and look at what the next stage is after that. What is it going to take for me? So, the teenager stage I think it's usually fun and reckless, right? Teenagers? I think of them as driving 100 miles an hour down the highway that they've got their sports car because cash flow at that point is less of an issue. But they say yes to everything and they don't know how to say no. Everything looks like an opportunity, so they pull resources from everywhere. It's very unfocused. So, I think about that teenager driving 100 miles an hour down the highway. If they take one wrong turn, they could seriously wound the business. They don't really recognize that. There's a sense of overconfidence with that. So, if you look that some of those are usually the signature problems that you have as a teenager, then look and see okay, well, what is it going to take to get to be a young adult? And I kind of like quote that as a young adult would be a rebirth. You grow up right. You're like okay, we have to have some responsibility. We're going to bring in some professional staff at this point. We're going to so anyway. So really good way.

Christi Michelle:

Another thing that I have here, as I said, sort of this grading. I turn it into sort of a wheel exercise so you can kind of self-grade. And it's the EOS, I think it's organizational checkup. Go there, it's 20 questions, it's Likert scale one through 10. Grade yourself. You can share that with all the other people in your company, so that you get a collective grading for everyone. And it comes back and it says okay, well, your score is a 57 out of a hundred. Okay, well, what areas do we need to work on? So, it will quickly highlight for you some of those pieces. But I core values exercise, creating your one page, your business blueprint. Who are we? Where are we going? Why are we doing what we do? What makes us unique? What's our ideal client? Really, building on a business blueprint? Because when you look at going back to the stages, if you look at the when you're in your prime, this is like, this is like Apple. I mean, there's just, there's a. You just know that they come out with excellence at all times. Right, and you can be in your prime for decades. You can be in a prime for a long time. When you understand what that looks like, you want to strive to get to those levels of like. What's the pros of each one of those? So, self-education.

Bradley Sutton:

Taking it back to, I think, something that is at the top of mind of a lot of Amazon sellers nowadays. You know you started selling on Amazon and kind of like the glory days where you could just like fall into making tons of money by accident, not even knowing anything. You're doing right Nowadays I'm sure you talked about this with Amazon sellers. I think I see so much more fear and anxiety over all the new fees that Amazon has. You know rising PPC costs, rising logistics, this and that and now many people are stressing about how I mean not only just how to scale, but just how to stay afloat. And so, some of your successful people you talk to what are their characteristics or what are they doing to? Because it's still very viable to make money on Amazon. So, what are the successful people? How are they navigating all of these fees and increased costs?

Christi Michelle:

Well, first of all, they're treating it the successful ones are treating it like a holistic business. It's not just I'm going to throw up a product, make some money and then maybe I figure out a little bit of PPC with that right. There is an evolution to actually truly building something like a business, and so I say that in tandem. When I think of truly building a business, it's you have to look at all aspects, so it's not just the single focus of what are my resources within the Amazon or e-commerce space. So, for example, so when we talk about fees, one of my clients you know is has nothing to do with this, but it overlaps he gets the best rates on UPS and FedEx that you can imagine. Okay, well, maybe we can't. If you're doing FBA, then you can't necessarily use those right, because you're not going to get better fees. But if you are diversifying and if you are going, if you want to do FBM or if you want to do Shopify and you want to go to other places, those fees you can offset them by getting unbelievable discounts for those and you can kind of offset the cost of what Amazon is rising by decreasing the costs of other platforms in your Shopify store, let's say. So, that requires that you step out that you would not know that this person, this type of service exists, because it's not really talked about here, because most people go FBA if they're going to be selling on Amazon. But being resourceful and looking at just look at the problem plainly Okay, amazon fees are going up.

Christi Michelle:

What is my? If you look at your balance sheet, if you look at your P&L and you say these are all the costs that are associated with my business, what are ways that I can offset each one of these? Like I look at it, I like put my little MacGyver hat on and I'm like, okay, what else can I do? What else can I bring to the table? What else is working in completely different industries? What are they doing that I can kind of take and then bring that over into my space? So, I say two things. They treat it like a business, like it's holistic, it's not. I'm not just selling a product. They know that they're building a brand, they know that they're trying to. And if they try, if they know in two years they've got their vision, two or three years we want to sell for X amount, okay, well, you start working with folks, that will help you kind of get you set up for a sale. We'll do that a year and a half in advance. There's some brilliant tactics for how you can set for decisions you need to make today that 18 months from now will greatly pay off so that you can find the right buyer. So, these are all different ways that are just it's not just looking at selling a company or your business, it's what are all the resources that you're going to need in the future. So, thinking in advance, treating it like a business and looking for resources outside of space.

Bradley Sutton:

I think what you said is important, because there's a lot of Amazon sellers, I would say that this is probably the first business they've run. Maybe they came from the corporate world or they came from working a nine to five and so they don't have that experience. And there's a tendency, it's because it's such a different beast, on one hand, where it's like, oh no, it's not a real business, but then all of a sudden, they're like wait, this is a business doing seven figures a year. In your experience, when you first talk to people like that, what are they doing wrong? As far as not treating it like a business, like what's the most common things that you're like, okay, we got to get this fixed right away, okay.

Christi Michelle:

Okay, I'm going to answer this in sort of an evolutionary piece. So, most people, when they start a business, it's just you in your basement or wherever, and you're selling either your product or service, but probably your product, right, if you're not going to do an agency style and you figure that out. So, you go through that and it's just you, it's you're trying to do everything, and then you kind of get that going and then maybe you hire a customer service person or maybe you hire someone to help you out with the day-to-day operations. Okay, let's bump up the sales, let's do the marketing, let's get in some PPC how else can I get a lot more sales? So, then you switch your focus next to the department I'm going to put that in air quotes the department of marketing and sales, and you try to figure out let's pour some gas on this. We've got your product and service. Then you have your marketing and sales, okay. So finally, then we've got that flowing, we've got that going, we know what we're doing there. Oh crap, I'm making a lot of money. Now, what's my P&L look like? What's my balance sheet look like? What does my profit look like? What is margins? What is this about? So, then you start taking okay, do I have the right people? Okay, am I like doing the best that I can, and do I have a high turnover? So, then it gets to HR. So, my answer is actually HR.

Christi Michelle:

People ignore HR because in the evolution, it's the last, it's, we call it like crisis by management by crisis. Most, every one of those stages you're saying what's the biggest crisis that I need to focus on? So, HR doesn't feel like it's crisis, but it actually is like the underpinning of everything. So, most people ignore HR. So, one of the very first things that I do when I come in is I say what do our people? What does it look like? Do we have the right staff? Do you trust your people? Because a lot of times they'll hire someone but they don't trust them and so then they micromanage them and they never let them flourish. And then you have it keeps growing and growing and growing. And then you have this owner who now has like 15 employees. They've technically become successful, but they've got golden handcuffs because they can't leave, because they haven't figured out how to actually delegate and trust. That is one example.

So, when I come in, the first thing I do is. I say what does HR look like? Because usually and, by the way, the whole time, whether you're doing the you're, you're doing your product surface, your operations, your marketing sales, your finance, you're still hiring people along the way. But that always tends to fall on the visionary, which most people didn't go to HR school. They don't know how to interview, they don't know how to hire the right people, they don't know how to manage and make sure that they're setting those expectations.

Christi Michelle:

So, I tend to think of that as I will come in first. I'll look at HR, because I know that that's one of the number one thing that's going to make or break a company. But it feels like it's the underpinning. It doesn't feel like it because it's not so much a big crisis loud thing usually, but that's the underpinning and it always falls on the visionary and that's not necessarily going to be their forte. So, if I can teach them how to do that and we can kind of clean house and get the right people in the right place and get the systems and all of that, that's typically what I see.

Bradley Sutton:

All right Now. You and I were just talking to elevator about. How Helium 10 are remote company. I would say nowadays most Amazon businesses as they scale and become a real business, it's almost all remote. Either they're hiring people within the United States remotely or in most cases hiring people from other countries, be it Philippines, Pakistan, et cetera. What are some things that Amazon, business owners can do to. In a remote lifestyle where they can just make sure, hey, everybody's on task. Like Helium 10, we started as an in-office company so it was easy for us to know like oh wait, this person is slipping when we run remote or like we know what. But, Amazon sellers from day one. They're kind of a remote company. So, how do they structure it to make sure that it's still operating as a well-oiled machine, even though maybe they've never even met some of their employees in person?

Christi Michelle:

Sure. I mean, I think it's a really good question. I think there’s a lot of challenges the people have because it’s not a natural state if you think about humans and how it all interactive with each other coming from villages that living, but this is very new thing. Covid did not help but it really exacerbated the fact that we so I would say the same way that you would handle a social situation if you moved away from your friends and family you, it takes effort. You actually have to put in conscious effort to reach out and create a relationship with. You can't like, if you moved away and you have all of your best friends and your family that lives back in your hometown, you no longer it's not. You have to actually put in the energy and effort to ask them how they're doing, see what they're up to, have constructive conversations. When you're in person, you just don't really think about it. You kind of take it for granted. You're like, oh, I'll just go bump into you at the water cooler. Hey, just pop in my office. That kind of thing. It's so much, it happens kind of effortlessly. It takes effort to actually maintain relationships and you have to build. You kind of have to rebuild your social skills. So, I would say that, from a culture perspective, is that you need to figure out what that looks like. So, I have a lot of clients where we'll implement. Just, you know, we do like happy hour Fridays where everybody, at three o'clock or four o'clock, we're like hey, let's all get on here, we’ll share, we’ll do trivia, they’ll do things. So, there's lots of things you can do from a culture perspective.

Christi Michelle:

But in terms of just operations, of business, cadence of meetings and I say that carefully because I think a lot of people roll their eyes, I have a lot of meetings, lot of meetings. A lot of people roll their eyes at me because they hate meetings. Most people hate meetings because they're not productive meetings. I, like I said, I am a hands-on, tactical person. I don't want homework after a meeting. Don't make me do anything. As soon as we're over the phone, I'm done, I did my job. So, the moment that I get on meetings, I know what we're working at, I know what we're trying to solve and if it's, we don't know the answer. I'm building a matrix. I'm building, we're typing it out, we're having a constructive conversation and leading it. I'm constantly monitoring people to say okay, what are we trying to solve? You have this question how can you get our audience to solve? What do you need to move forward? So being you just have to be more cognizant about having constructive meetings. So, it's a lot more communication in that sense. But that more communication does not need to be waste of time.

Christi Michelle:

I think a lot of people have that sort of this equals that? Not true at all. Just have productive. So, learn how to have. So, I had to summarize one. Decide how you want the culture of the company to be and put an effort to make sure that that happens, that you are making building relationships again, whether that's a happy hour, you guys do like a weekly, like shout outs or something like that. And then the second one is learn how to have productive meetings. Learn how to have constructive meetings where you actually get work done during the meeting while everyone's together. They can put in their input if that is needed. Learn how to have constructive meetings that you don't have to have a lot of busy work on the other side and then you guys are learning and building and growing together, which just creates more camaraderie.

Bradley Sutton:

Awesome, awesome, all right, any last words of wisdom like a message you want to get out to Amazon sellers around the world here, what can you help them with? Like I sometimes call this like a 60 second strategy, but I'm not going to tie you down to a certain time, but just anything you want to close this out with.

Christi Michelle:

Oh goodness, I mean I think I've harped on the fact that treat it like it's a business. Truly, if you're not working on a business blueprint, you know EOS is a good one, it's. It's a limited. It's very, very good, but it's limited. There's, you have system and soul. There's lots of different ones. Get like, find, a business blueprint to work from, because most people don't understand strategic frameworks and it's not anybody's fault If you didn't go get an MBA, if you didn't know this, but you have the entrepreneurial spirit. You do have to educate yourself on how to run a business. So, treat it like it's a business, that there are all different components and aspects to it and I think that you will find that scaling and growing and educating you will be more balanced and less stress and you'll have less of those true deep pitfalls that I see a lot of people having.

Bradley Sutton:

All right, one more thing. At dinner last night I kind of got a little bit of this. But Boyan was telling me you went to Costa Rica and you didn't eat food for like two weeks or something. So, tell me a little bit about what prompt cause? You never. there are some people out there who are I'm not trying to throw anybody under the bus, but like the whole very spiritual and touchy, feely and yoga every morning, and let me go find my, my inner priestess, or whatever.  You never struck me as that kind of person, but so I'm wondering what prompted you to do this retreat, what did it involve and what did you get out of it?

Christi Michelle:

So, funny that you said that, and I don't think that I used to be, but I'm happy to openly admit I'm actually quite a spiritual person. I'm not a religious person, but I am a very spiritual person. And so, what prompted it? Two things I could say. We grow by the most through our struggles, and I've read this in a lot of different places and people talk about I wanted to go do something that was challenging. I wanted to do something that pushes you, because in this particular retreat I was in Costa Rica, definitely out with the bugs. Every night I had to look for spiders and scorpions and snakes. In my bed, on top of not eating at all, you had a one job and that was to drink as much water as humanly possible.

Bradley Sutton:

So, I was doing you ever have those things in your bed?

Christi Michelle:

Not in my bed but, I definitely have a situation a very large spider that was a.

Bradley Sutton:

Crossing Costa Rica off my bucket list.

Christi Michelle:

But it's so beautiful there, but you're there and it's. You know, I meditate a lot, I mean. So, I thought I was. Oh, I'm just going to go there, I'm going to meditate for a couple of hours every day. I'll take some naps. No, you had one job to do and that was to drink as much water as possible. So, I was drinking up to 1.75 gallons a day. But the thing is, when you're not eating, when you're not eating, you're not replenishing the electrolytes, so you have to drink 16. You can't drink any more than 16 so that you don't flush it, so it's little sips. So, from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to bed, so from 7 am to about 10, 10.30 at night, all you have to do is drink, and you're not supposed to. There's no internet, there's no WIFI, there's, I mean, you can have your phone, but there's nothing that you can't, like you know, download anything. No one tells you physically purging. Most people that went there I was very different. Most people who went there had very much had cancer, had different things. Cleansing of your body is. It's fantastic. I recommend anybody research what fasting like water fasting can do. It's one of the best things I think you can do for your body, but so there was a combination of wanting to kind of do a good cleanse, but it challenges you mentally, emotionally and physically to be uncomfortable, to be in a space you don't have any.

Christi Michelle:

Most people use food for comfort or to repress I mean, we all do it right or to repress some feeling, or to kind of just enhance. I mean we use food almost like it. I mean it truly is kind of like a drug where you don't have that to rely on. So, then you're sitting there by yourself, no one really to talk to, nothing to entertain you in traditional ways. You're stuck with your thoughts and you go through a lot through that. So, I like to do pretty strong challenges and so that was one of my big challenges for this year. Can I do it? And I would probably not ever do it again, I mean, unless I got very, very sick, and I thought this would. If I did, I thought that would be the best thing that it could do. But, it's just to, to challenge myself, to grow to do something different.

Bradley Sutton:

All right, cool. All right, man, we'll see. I've tried a lot of different things. Maybe, maybe I can try that, just minus the scorpions and snakes and spiders. Yeah, all right. Well, how can people find your company, or are you out there on the interwebs these days?

Christi Michelle:

I am in fact on the interwebs. I think that we have so I am right now. So, my main is I'm the coo integrator that is my agency, so that's just coo for chief operating officer, the coo integrator, that is my website. And right now, I mean, the truth is I I'm extremely fortunate that I do have a backlog of clients. And, funny enough, I don't really scale my company of all the things. Who don't she helps people scale, but she doesn't when you've had so many companies and you're responsible for hundreds, you know dozens, if not a hundred, plus people there comes a point in your life where you're like I think I'm just good with keeping things simple, but you kind of have to go through that to appreciate this. It's kind of like water fasting you have to go without food before you can appreciate the food there. but yeah, so I'd love to. I usually do free analysis with people, thank you, thank you, just to kind of help them and I can point them in the right direction. So, I'm always just kind of happy to help guide people, and anymore now I spend some time on boards of companies and I do other investments and things. So, I love the game of business. I'm always happy to talk about it. So please reach out to me, Christy, at the CEO integrator, and I'm happy to chat.

Bradley Sutton:

Awesome. Well, hope to see you sooner than later and I don't have to travel around the world just to be able to see you. Like Karen Spade,

Christi Michelle:

Yeah, going to Europe, right All right, we'll see you guys in the next episode.

#568 - Amazon Semantic Search & Google Indexing with Leo Sgovio

Join us in this episode as we sit down with Leo Segovio, a top expert in the space, to discuss a wide range of topics that are essential for E-commerce sellers. Leo shares his unique insights on how optimizing Amazon images can significantly impact indexing and ranking. He also opens up about his recent ventures, including a software project for influencer and affiliate marketing, and an intriguing Airbnb project in Italy. Additionally, Leo provides valuable tips for Amazon sellers looking to diversify their income by investing in real estate, highlighting the importance of strategic investments to complement a thriving Amazon business.

Listen in as we explore the evolving landscape of influencer and affiliate marketing strategies. We discuss how leveraging platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube can empower brands by building robust affiliate networks. We highlight successful brands and share advanced techniques for optimizing listings to ensure better visibility on Google and Amazon. Practical tips for using press releases on high-authority domains to improve Google indexing are also discussed, offering listeners actionable advice to enhance their marketing efforts.

Finally, we talk about the significance of Google indexing for Amazon sellers and the benefits of driving traffic from Google to boost Amazon rankings. We discuss the theory that paid traffic may hold more weight and the value of optimizing images with keywords to enhance discoverability. Additionally, we examine Amazon's evolving search algorithms and how intent-based optimization is changing the way products are discovered on the platform. This episode is packed with valuable insights and strategies to help Amazon sellers navigate the complexities of e-commerce and achieve greater success.

In episode 568 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Leo discuss:

• 04:14 - Investing In Real Estate Investments
• 09:41 - Leveraging Creator Marketplace for Affiliate Networks
• 15:56 - Google Indexing for Amazon Sellers
• 18:16 - Google Traffic Boosts Amazon Ranking
• 24:01 - Google Indexing Boosts Product Visibility
• 26:46 - Search Algorithm Evolution and Intent-Based Optimization
• 29:13 - Optimizing Amazon Listings for Intent-Based Search

Transcript

Bradley Sutton:

Today we've got one of the top minds in the entire Amazon game back on the show, Leo Segovia. He's going to be talking about a wide variety of topics, such as the impact on indexing and ranking by optimizing your Amazon images, and much, much more. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Hello everybody, 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 speaking of the e-commerce world, I'm on the other side of the world right now. For those of you listening, maybe I sound a little different. We are in the AVASK office here in Madrid, Spain, right in the middle of our Elite Workshop, and just about 15 minutes ago we had our very first speaker. All the other speakers are very mad at him because he started off and he set the bar really high with his talk, but we've got no stranger to the show, Leo Segovia. Leo, how's it going?

 

Leo:

Bradley, good morning. How are you doing?

 

Bradley Sutton:

Doing great, doing great.

 

Leo:

Awesome. Yeah, this morning was great. I'm actually happy this is my first time in Madrid. Yes, I actually just stopped once. I think I was on my way to Puerto Rico, but yes, I got to enjoy the city. Today I'm here at the AVASK office in Madrid, so happy to be here and happy to be your guest again.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Awesome, awesome. So now you know it's been a while since Leo's been on the show, so let's first just catch up with what you've been up to. Have you been launching products on Amazon? You've just been focused on building software. What have you been up to the last couple of years since you've been on the show?

 

Leo:

Yeah, it's been a crazy year for me actually. I've been involved in a couple of different projects. We are obviously always looking for new products to launch. What kept me very busy in the past year has been software that I've been working on for influencer and affiliate marketing, and actually this Airbnb project in the south of Italy, which has been kind of a roller coaster. Yeah.

 

Bradley Sutton:

So, you actually moved, I remember you went from Canada to Florida and then a few months ago you moved back to your home, uh, country of Italy, but then this was always meant to be kind of just like a like a winter, uh or summer home for you.

 

Leo:

Yeah, that is correct. Uh, I have a family in Italy. So, and recently their area of Italy is called Puglia, it's in the southeast was becoming more and more popular and more expensive, and so I decided to buy a property there so that we could spend a week or a month in the summertime, perhaps, when in Florida is too hot, you know, go inside of Italy. Invite some of my Amazon friends, you know, mastermind, and so that's the plan. Now, I was supposed to be there only for a couple of months, just to see what was going on, but when I got the keys, I realized that the place needed a lot of work, and so I've been stuck in Italy since November, actually, of last year, and I'll probably stay there until for two more months before going back to Miami.

 

Bradley Sutton:

What passport do you have? What country passports? I have Italian and Canadian passport. Okay, so then, when you bought this house, you use your like Italian citizenship?

 

Leo:

No, actually I well, I could participate to an auction because I bought this place at an auction. Not the $1 ones, it was more than that. But yes, because of my Italian citizenship it allowed me to participate to an auction. But everything that I'm doing is as a Canadian citizen. It works out better from tax perspective and all that.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Okay. So that's why I was asking about this, because I think this is, you know, like somebody might be jumping on the show. What are we talking about? Airbnb here? But as e-commerce entrepreneurs, Amazon sellers, maybe we make a little money, maybe we're not interested in exiting our business, but now we have extra money, like do we start other businesses? You know, maybe something that has nothing to do with Amazon, but I hear of more Amazon sellers doing something similar. Where they go you know, not necessarily Italy, but another country, buy a house and then so, as a Canadian citizen or as an American citizen I would assume it's about the same. What's the process of participating, like in this Italian auction to be able to buy this house?

 

Leo:

I think you need to have someone in Italy or a friend, someone with an Italian citizenship, in order to buy a place at auction. Otherwise, you just have to go to a real estate agent and buy a regular place. The reason for me it was convenient is because it was a good deal. If I was able to win the auction, and so in real estate, you make money when you buy, not when you sell. Right, if you buy for less, that's most likely guaranteed revenue or earnings whenever you sell, and so that's the reason why I did this. Now, I don't know exactly the process if I didn't have any Italian citizenship, but yeah, a lot of entrepreneurs you know, especially Amazon sellers whether, when they exit or you know if they're already doing quite well and they have good cashflow, they normally tend to invest in real estate Airbnb’s. You secure yourself passive income from that, and it's always a good investment.

 

Bradley Sutton:

So then would I have to have all cash though to once the auction closed, I can finance over there.

 

Leo:

Okay. So that's an interesting thing. I was going to finance the project. I ended up buying a cash because it just made more sense for me, but in Italy they actually give you a mortgage as long as you can prove that you have income outside of Italy.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Okay. And then so you calculated out, like how much you can maybe get an Airbnb. And then so have you calculated hey, for the other months of the year where I'm not staying here, I need to rent this place out x amount of time of the year. And it's going to be worth it, have you like, and did that analysis?

 

Leo:

Yeah, so in this specific region of Italy and the location of what I bought in August for a place with a pool and four or five bedrooms, you can charge 5,000 to 6,000 euros a week. So you make your money in the summertime. Ideally, as an investor, you don't want to go and spend time in the summertime there, but you want to go, perhaps either early, like May or September, when the season starts to kind of slow down and so you don't take out money from your profits, right? So my plan is to rent it out June, July and August. If I have some good offers in September, maybe I'll rent it out, otherwise I'll go myself there in September or May, but, yeah, normally throughout the year.

 

Leo:

You know Italy is a destination where you have a lot of tourism during summertime, unless you're in Rome or Venice or Florence, which is always busy throughout the year. You know south it's a summer destination, right. So you get a lot of tourism summertime. Wintertime dies down, so you probably can get us or what you can get in the summer. But you know it works out well because if you have a small apartment, for example, in a big city, and you are charging, you know, 200, 300 a night? Um, at the end of the year you make the same money. So with this kind of properties is a little bit of a different um investment. I went more on the luxury kind of market, hoping to work only with Americans. You know foreign tourism, but in my opinion it's a great one.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Okay, so there you have it, guys. You know, like, maybe you've had some success on Amazon and you're thinking of what kind of things to invest in. You know, getting a property at a low price and maybe fixing it up even though it's a headache a little bit, you know could be the route that you want to go. Now you know we're going to talk a lot about some really cool Amazon strategy coming up, but you've been developing some software lately for a while now. That's not necessarily for on Amazon, but it helps Amazon sellers. Can you talk about that a little bit?

 

Leo:

Yeah, I've been working. The software is called Spliced. I've been working on this for about two years now and I was supposed to be already in market, and the reason why I'm late is because of what I just explained. It took me, you know, it took resources and energy a little bit off the other project, but now we're ready to go, and the reason why I built this software is, you know, Bradley, you know I have Convomat, which was my first software that I built, and then Amazon changed it to iOS, and so I had to find a way to pivot. But I already knew that influencer and affiliate marketing was the way to go, also for us Amazon sellers, in order to have a little bit more control over the traffic, over the business and the revenue that we drive to our brands. And so, with Spliced, my goal is to leverage the creator's marketplace, which is huge between TikTok and Instagram and YouTube, and leverage that to build affiliate networks for your own brand.

 

Leo:

There are already a lot of sellers out there that are doing a good job when it comes to affiliate marketing. Look at a brand like Goalie. Goalie, one of the key strategies for Goalie was actually the affiliate marketing, and so with Spliced, my goal is to allow brands to look up into our marketplace, which has already been built with we have over 20 million creators and then approach them with an affiliate partnership instead of just UGC content. This is the reason why we didn't build in Spliced, just UGC campaigns. There's already plenty out there of softwares that you can use for UGC, but in my opinion, if you have a solid affiliate network, you can keep launching new products, relaunching the same products. We use it for reviews. If you need something like that and you have more control over your business, and if you decide to launch your D2C website, you can leverage the same network and start pushing traffic off of Amazon. So there are a lot of reasons why I believe people should use a platform like that. It's like building an email list, but instead you're actually leveraging the creator marketplace.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Okay, yeah, interesting, I think TikTok how it works, people's eyes are really open to more of influencer marketing. I mean, it's basically influencer marketing. There's not really SEO on TikTok, or it's not even. Even if you understand the hashtags, it doesn't necessarily guarantee the rally. It's a numbers game like getting you know. You get out to 25 influencers and maybe 24 do nothing, and then one person, even though they're small, they get on the For you page or something like that and literally can bring thousands and thousands of dollars. There's somebody I've been helping with, you know, shipping their products and they're you know they're doing me sometimes some days a thousand fifteen hundred units of sales for like this planner and it was a hundred. They didn't spend any for PPC on TikTok 100%. You know they just push the product to influencers and then one here and one there just goes viral and it just means a lot of business.

 

Leo:

Yeah, I think you know it's probably right now a big hype. I mean the TikTok shops everyone is talking about them working with affiliates and it's probably one of the oldest marketing strategies, if we want to call it that way. You know the affiliate marketing works because of the power that the individual creator in this case has to influence people right, and so people want to buy from people, and if you, as a brand, do a good job in recruiting a few super affiliates in this case we're talking about good creators that will turn into affiliates, then you have to worry less about that promotion part of you know launching new products.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Interesting, interesting. Okay, now let's move a little bit back towards the Amazon world and actually I'm going to go a little bit off of Amazon, but it's something that you talked about today in your speech and we're not going to go too deep into it. If you guys want to really hear his presentation, you have to be an Elite member. So you Elite members definitely make sure to look out for the recording on that. But one thing you were talking about when it comes to images, but the way you discovered this was you said you were checking indexing on Google. So we know, on Amazon, if you want to check indexing, you just use Helium 10 index checker, right? Or if you don't have Helium 10, you can use the old school method of put the ASIN plus the keyword and then search and see if it comes up. For just rudimentary index checking for keywords. If you want to see if your Amazon product is indexed on Google, how do you even see if you are?

 

Leo:

Yeah, so normally on Google you will copy your URL, search it on Google. You can also do a site column with your URL and then Google will show only search results that are related to the domain you're searching. But if you type the whole domain, the whole URL, the canonical URL of your Amazon listing, if you are indexed, it will show there.

 

Bradley Sutton:

But what about if you're? Can you look if you're indexed for a specific keyword?

 

Leo:

So if you're indexed for a specific keyword, then you want to put that URL plus the keyword and then or amazon.com/dp/your ASIN, or you can also do ASIN in quotes plus the keyword and then you will see if you get, if you're indexed on Google from that keyword. It works in a similar way. Um, but yeah, the presentation we touched a lot on you know the details of what was going on Google which was dependent on, uh, the way that the listing was optimized on Amazon.

 

Bradley Sutton:

You talked about some advanced strategy. We'll talk a little bit about that, about like images and stuff. But without the images, is there a way to force yourself to be indexed on Google, like, for example, if you create a custom canonical URL, just insert the keywords and then if you actually happen to you know, like maybe run some Google ads, get some conversions on that, will that index you for that keyword on Google?

 

Leo:

Yeah, so, based on some experiments that I've done, the easiest way to get indexed on Google is to publish some press releases on domains with good authority score domain rank and have your you know pointing a link to your listing with the anchor text that you potentially also want to rank for using that specific canonical tag that you get from your Amazon listing. So the reason why this works better is because normally Google indexes across these websites. Like you know, if you publish through PR, news or something like that, they will be crawled, and so Google will find these links and then follow your Amazon listing, which obviously, as a consequence, would be indexed.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Okay, interesting. Now, taking it a step further, why should an Amazon seller even be concerned about indexing on Google like, um? Obviously, if you're running Google ads, you know your goal is to get direct sales from it. But just being ranked organically, um, what kind of bumps do you see on sales? Or how does it help a to be ranked high? I'm not just index. I mean index doesn't do much if you're ranked on page 30 or something, but how does ranking organically for a keyword? What's the potential there for helping sales?

 

Leo:

So there, are a few reasons why you want to be indexed on Google, and for the most, let's start from the most advanced ones, right? Advanced sellers they normally try to send traffic to Amazon, especially during the launch period, using external traffic, right? So Google, we know, is a good referral that tends to help your rankings, and so Amazon tends to reward you if they see traffic coming from Google. So if you're not indexed, you lose a chance to show Amazon that you are getting traffic from Google. Now, I have a theory that paid traffic has a little bit more weight than organic, but the reason why you want to be indexed and the reason why you might want to be indexed for certain keywords is so that when you drive traffic through the URL to Amazon, you can actually give attribution to that keyword. That's number one, right? So you can actually use these URLs as your two-step.

 

Leo:

Number two if you do a good job with your indexation and your listing is optimized, you actually also appear in the images, right? And so if people are looking for specific products, sometimes I search on Google using images because I'm looking for specific products that might be hard to find on Amazon, but if I look through the Google images and I find the product, then I go to Amazon, and so if you're not indexed, you're also not going to be able to be found there, and Google images actually gets a ton of traffic. So here are some of the reasons why, two of the reasons why. I can think of many more, but the most important are these ones. Google is still one of the largest search engine, and so missing out on that opportunity, I'm afraid it causes a lot of missed visibility for an Amazon seller at a listing level.

 

Bradley Sutton:

And then you've done some tests before where you noticed that if that Amazon can read what the search was from Google, so that when you get sales from a keyword in Google, it also potentially could help your Amazon ranking for that keyword, right?

 

Leo:

Yeah, that is correct. There was a test that we have done two years ago where everyone was talking about Google traffic and so we drove traffic straight from Google paid to Amazon without using any keyword in the URL, and then we noticed that for the keywords that we were actually bidding on, we saw a lift in ranking. I remember going from position I think it was 35 or so to position seven or five. So surprisingly we saw that Amazon was able to attribute that search query on Google and then the ranking as a result for the keyword was actually improving on Amazon as well.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Okay, interesting, interesting. Now let's switch and talk a little bit about images, because this also has to do with ranking on Amazon. It has to do with ranking on Google, getting indexed in Google. What has more of an impact with getting discovered or being able to be read by Google? Is it if you have an infographic and the actual words appear in the infographic, you know on the actual image, or is it the metadata, or it only works the best if you're doing both?

 

Leo:

In my opinion, you have to do both, and the reason is that right now, every search engine uses AI to detect subjects, text and everything on an image. You know, if you look, if you're a Facebook advertiser, you probably know that they've had this for a long time. If you add more text on an image than the image, the visual itself, your ad wouldn't have been approved, and so AI detection for images has been going on for a while. But now, since you know, ChatGPT came out and you know Lama from Facebook, we have, you know. We know we have a lot more information about this topic, and what we found is that the search engines, including Amazon and Google, they scan the content of your image and they're able to rank these images based on the content of that image, including subjects, context and in the subjects and text. Did I say that?

 

Leo:

So, basically, what Google cares the most on top of that is also the metadata, because the metadata helps the search engine classify that image. So, while the content itself helps them understanding okay, this is what this image is about the actual metadata is more technical for the crawlers, the engine themselves so that they can place you in certain categories. And so when it comes to Amazon, the content on the image right now, I noticed that through some different experiments, that is being used for ranking reasons. And so if you look at some products that don't have, for example, keywords on the images, they are less. You know there are multiple factors. Obviously, they play when it comes to rankings, but if you put two products side by side same ranking, same ratings, same being on market for the same time period, timeframe and same price one has text on images and keywords and one doesn't. Most likely the one with keywords on images is going to rank better.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Okay. So then what Amazon sellers should be doing is for their main images, or you know, the in their image carousel and their A+ content is I mean, obviously you can't have text in your main image. You know that's against terms of surface, although if you can have the packaging there, that's a good, that's a good opportunity. But then to get, hey, you use the right keywords, but then also, if you're using like photoshop or something you have and we're not going to go into detail, it's like there's a bunch of crazy stuff about copyright and there's fields there that he talks about in his presentation. You'll have to watch the Elite workshop for that. But you've been doing testing where it one has, it one doesn't, and then it gets you indexed on Google. You've actually seen where the ones who did it, their Amazon sales were like way higher than the ones who did it.

 

Leo:

Yeah, that is correct. We analyzed an e-brace on Amazon and this is, you know work that I was doing with a friend of mine, and we were trying to understand why these competitors were actually indexed on Google and they were indexed for certain keywords. Not the main keyword, but a variation of them. And so what I did I created this Google sheet where I was helping me understand which ones were indexed and for what keywords they were indexed and that led me to see that the ASINs that actually were indexed on Google were indexed for keywords that were present on the A+ banners. And so when we did that, what happened, this happened within 48 hours, we noticed that Google indexed that specific product image and they were actually featuring it as a search result on Google for the main search query, so that image wasn't used as a snippet or thumbnail for the listing itself. So the URL wasn't amazon.com/dp/ASIN, it was amazon.com/ the search you know embrace.

 

Leo:

So it took me to the search results page, but the image that they took as a featured image was actually the one of my client, and so that was very interesting because Google detected a refinement and it detected an update in that listing. It saw that that image was very relevant for the search query because of the way that we optimized it using metadata and then they used it as the main image on the Google search results. Now this, to me, is fascinating and is very important, because if you are a shopper and you're searching on Google for an e-brace and then you see this image, most likely that's psychological,   most likely when you land on the Amazon search results page, you're going to go and find a product, you're going to go and click that product. So that added traffic, that added conversion rate, helped us recover the racing and the sales that we were losing. But that was a very interesting experiment that we did.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Interesting, okay. So again, if you guys want to get more information about that, that almost might be worth it just to subscribe to Helium 10 Elite for one week, just to get that presentation. So if you guys want to look into that, go to h10.me forward slash Elite and see it's only $99 extra, so make sure to sign up for that. Now, another thing that I think a lot of people have been talking about not just you, but you were one of the first ones to talk about semantic search and Cosmo and things like this, and we'll talk about what that means. But I think, just to set some groundwork, I think everybody understands that any search algorithm will evolve over time. That's the whole purpose. Like the companies who don't want to do well, they'll just keep their algorithm the same right. But anybody you know whether we're talking about Google, Facebook, TikTok has an amazing algorithm, Amazon. It changes over time and we've seen that.

 

Bradley Sutton:

You know, if we were searching five years ago on Amazon, it's different. And now if you've bought some how many of you who have bought something you search for a keyword that has to do with that and that thing that you bought is now at the top on your Amazon maybe not somebody else. That didn't happen like five, six years ago. Last year we showed an example of how you search a keyword that doesn't really exist. It's called noodle camera and no listing has the word noodle camera in it. But there was like maybe 30 listings that came up and it was like a stethoscope camera it looks like a noodle. So five years ago you put noodle camera it would say zero results because nobody has that in their listing and these listings don't have that keyword in there. But it's showing up because Amazon shows history that, oh, people don't know what this is called stethoscope camera but then they think it looks like a noodle. So now it's showing listing. So we've seen this even for a year. Now, first of all, Amazon science documents we've talked about it, but maybe 80%, 90%, never actually is 100% in production. Sometimes it goes into production, sometimes it doesn't. But what was it that made Cosmo so interesting these documents that talked about it, that you're like man. This is something that you think that Amazon is going to move towards.

 

Leo:

Yeah, the reason why, I think is something that would be applied at scale across the marketplace is because, as searchers, as buyers, as shoppers, our goal when we use a search engine is to find a product or information that we need in order to solve a problem. And so, as a technology company in this case we're talking about Amazon their goal is to improve, like Bradley said, the algorithm in order to simplify that search result and give you exactly what you're looking for, by burning some steps in the middle, right. And so that's what Cosmo is designed for. Cosmo is designed to be a man in the middle, between yourself and the search results, right, when you work together with it to give feedback back and forth. And so what they do right now they learn. You type a search query, they give you some result, you refine that result by clicking on some products that you think are relevant. And what they do with this information? They start building this knowledge graph, right. So a classic example if you go on Wikipedia and for something, Wikipedia normally links to other relevant sources. That's what they call the knowledge graph, right? They know that this is relevant to that right. And so what cosmo is trying to do, instead of you having to refine the search. They're refining it for you.

 

Leo:

So the example that I give in my presentation this morning is that, if someone is searching for winter coat, we saw a product that ranks number one on Amazon that doesn't have the word winter coat in the title. But yeah, they're ranked number one, and so this is shocking, right, like everyone's like oh come. Title is supposed to be the most important element on the page when it comes to optimization and some SEOs, but this time Amazon understood that you are looking for something that keeps you, to keep you warm, right. So now we're shifting from a keyword-based search to intent-based search, and so, as sellers, right now, what we need to do is understand what is the actual intent behind the person. What am I selling this to? I'm selling this to someone that wants to stay warm, right, that's what the purpose of a winter coat is, and so, with that intent in mind, we need to optimize listings so that we can convey the message through images, through the title, bullet points and description, so that Amazon, the new Cosmo, understands that this product is something that helps people stay warm.

 

Leo:

And what I think is going to happen also because of the shift in the way that these search results are built, which is more intent-based, is that Amazon then will start recommending also related products. So if you're looking for, if you type in winter coat, they say, okay, well, this person is trying to stay warm and so let me show them also some winter gloves and winter socks and maybe some winter boots, and that will change everything right. They will change the way we advertise, they will change the way we try to be associated with other products. They will change the way we also promote our listings. So that's very interesting and fascinating, but I think it's a good thing for the buyer, right, while for our sellers might be challenging to figure out again, how do we optimize our listings keeping this semantic concept in mind for the buyer? And they've already proven. If you look at the Amazon science document in the research papers, they're already saying that they're seeing a lift in conversion rate when Cosmo is applied to a search result page. So we must pay attention to these and monitor certain. It's challenging right now to understand where this is applied, but we need to monitor better the Amazon marketplace and then evolve and adapt as Cosmo gets released into more categories.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Not to be controversial here, but to me it's almost it's different, but it's not different. Like, at the end of the day, Amazon wants to make money, right, so that winter coat that became number one. It's not number one necessarily because of new algorithm, because it would not be number one unless that is one of the best converting ones, because that's what gives Amazon the best chance to make money. But I think where the difference here is, or what's something that's quote unquote new, is it gives people more at bats. Like maybe I never. Even if I didn't have winter coat in my title, it might've been almost impossible for me to get on page one. But now Amazon is all right, let's just throw it here. Oh, shoot, look at that, how well it's converting. Let's go ahead and push it all the way to the top, whereas maybe you know, four years ago, you know, unless you were super optimized for a certain keyword, you would never even have the ad back. Like you would never even be able to get on page one, you know, outside of PPC or something. So to me that's like the difference, but something also. Again, I keep saying I don't want to be controversial, but it's going to be because there's a lot of people I respect in the industry who have been talking a lot about things that and I agree mostly with them. But I completely disagree when they say things like, oh, tools like maybe Helium 10, if they don’t change it’s going to be out of date. To me, I cannot see a world where the traditional forms of keyword research, are going to be not as important In the future, if Amazon is super intuitive, of course that's going to evolve.

 

Bradley Sutton:

But the main reason we do keyword research is to get indexed and to also make our listing. Initially because the Amazon algorithm is based on buyer interaction, right. So once it's been out there for three, four weeks, they have so many data points and how people searched and what they clicked on and stuff that. Okay, now we can start doing advanced algorithms. But to even get it in the right pages you had to have done the regular keyword research to show Amazon. Because when you're brand new, day zero of your listing, Amazon has no idea what it is. It goes by the image, it goes by what you have in the title and how you have it. So my personal opinion is that no like. Of course, little things are going to change with keyword research here or there, but the main core of hey, let me find the most important keywords. That's not going to change because you have to tell Amazon on day one what is your product.

 

Leo:

So, Bradley, I agree with you and I think there is one important detail that is the link between what you're saying and what this all semantic stuff is about. Right, the reason why that winter coat might be ranking number one, even though the winter coat is not in the title is attributes of the winter coat. You know Amazon right now, which before they probably weren't doing before Cosmo, right, they're looking at the attributes. So most likely they are ranking this one very well because it contains, uh, goose feathers, or they have 300 grams of goose feathers per square meter or whatever foot, and so they now are using these attributes to understand is this product warmer than this one? So, while the keyword research tools are always going to be needed, what I think is an opportunity for companies like Helium 10 is now provide additional information to the seller together with the main keywords. That helps also the listing be more relevant for Cosmo, using attributes related to those keywords. So, if the keyword is winter coat, what are the main attributes of coats? Right? What does a coat have to have? Waterproof, has to be warm. What kind of feeling? Is it polyester? Is it goose feathers? Also, is it long or short? Things like that are going to be the difference between the traditional keyword research tools and the semantic powered keyword research tools. If you guys give the sellers the same list of keywords and, by the way, here are some attributes related to these keywords, that will help Amazon Cosmo understand more about your product. I think that's the winner, in my opinion.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Yeah, and in his presentation he talked a lot about different things you can do to be more semantically relevant and you know, using ChatGPT, so some really good features there. But that's important because you know, the it's not just, we're not just talking about Amazon SEO, it's also going to help you on Google and Bing and these, these other things and there's things that just the human mind we can't process, but a computer can process and tell you hey, this is, this is the keywords with the buyer intent and this is the most important, this is how you can relate yourself. So, regardless of how much of this Amazon develops, it's already important now for outside of Amazon indexing. Now, before we get into your last strategy, and I have just a couple of questions for you if people want to get more information, reach out to you, find out about your new project you're working on, or just reach out to you. How can they find you out there?

 

Leo:

I have my own website right now. It's leosgovio.com, so you can reach out to me on through my website.

 

Bradley Sutton:

And spell that, because it's not spelled exactly as you might think.

 

Leo:

It's l-e-o and then s as in Sam, g as in George, o, v as in Victor, i o. Yeah, over there I have some information also about the semantic SEO stuff. So if you're more interested about this, I'd be happy to share my knowledge in depth, and LinkedIn is one of the platforms that I use the most.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Excellent. All right Favorite Helium 10 tool?

 

Leo:

Magnet

 

Bradley Sutton:

If you were a head of product at Helium 10, what is one tool or function that you would bring that we do not have currently?

 

Leo:

I believe I will combine what we just discussed about into one tool, and so it's an hybrid between a listing analyzer powered with recommendation based on the semantic stuff.

 

Bradley Sutton:

And your 30 to 60 second tip can be about anything for sellers out there.

 

Leo:

Leverage. Try to think about your current strategy when it comes to product inserts. To leverage it for UGC.

 

Bradley Sutton:

All right guys. If you want more information, go to leosgovia.com. Check them out in the Helium 10 Elite, the Q2 workshop replay. But thank you, guys, so much for joining us and we'll definitely be reaching out to Leo next year to see what he's been up to.

 

Leo:

Thanks, Bradley, I appreciate you having me again and, yeah, looking forward to the next one.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Adios desde España.

Helium 10 Buzz 6/6/24: TikTok Shop Cancelled? | Walmart Review Mapping | Amazon Award Opportunity

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, talk about Helium 10’s newest features, and provide a training tip for the week for serious sellers of any level.

TikTok Shop Puts European Plans on Hold, Concentrates on US
https://www.pymnts.com/news/social-commerce/2024/tiktok-shop-puts-european-plans-on-hold-concentrates-on-us/

Amazon Small Business Report
https://sellingpartners.aboutamazon.com/impact

The Amazon 2024 Force for Good application is now open! Amazon is searching for mission-driven selling partners who drive positive change in their community.
https://sell.amazon.com/blog/force-for-good

 

Learn how Amazon uses AI to spot damaged products before they’re shipped to customers
https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/innovation-at-amazon/amazon-ai-sustainability-carbon-footprint-product-defects

But that’s not all! We’re also thrilled to announce Helium 10’s new Japanese version, designed to support Japanese users with native language navigation and subtitled tutorials. Plus, we've got a brand-new dashboard widget for tracking Amazon account metrics over time. Don't miss out on the hidden gems of our Chrome extension that could transform how you manage your Amazon business. And for those looking to optimize Amazon FBA fees, we share critical tips on monitoring package dimensions to save on unnecessary costs. Tune in as we unpack these game-changing updates and arm you with the tools to elevate your e-commerce game!

 

In this episode of the Weekly Buzz by Helium 10, Bradley covers:

• 00:52 - TikTok Shop Cancelled?
• 02:33 - Amazon Small Business Report
• 04:33 - Walmart Review Mapping
• 06:11 - Amazon Force For Good Awards
• 07:30 - Amazon Project PI
• 09:22 - Follow The AM/PM Podcast On LinkedIn
• 09:50 - Helium 10 New Feature Alerts
• 12:39 - Pro-Training Tip: Under The Radar Chrome Extensions Features

Transcript

 

Bradley Sutton:

TikTok shop plans canceled in some countries. A chance to win cash direct from Amazon. Walmart now allows you to tie reviews to orders. This and more on today's 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'm 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 in the Amazon, Walmart and e-commerce world. We give you what's new inside of Helium 10 as far as new feature goes, and we also give you training tips 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. We got a few news articles today and then we got some cool training tips that I want to get to as well. So let's go ahead and hop right into the news Now

 

Bradley Sutton:

The first news article of the day is from Payments.com and it's entitled TikTok Shop Puts European Plans on Hold. Concentrates on US. So it's full steam ahead here in the US. But if you remember, a few weeks ago on the Weekly Buzz, we had reported that, hey, a release in places like Europe and Mexico and Canada was imminent, but now it is backtracking. So it says here in this article that, hey, TikTok had planned to roll out shopping platforms Spain, Italy, Germany, France and Ireland as early as July, but they have put a pause on these expansion plans, along with intentions to bring the TikTok shop to Mexico and Brazil. Now this article says, hey, that this decision reflected ByteDance, which is TikTok's parent company, their strategy of focusing on the US market in order to avert a possible ban. Now, one of the other reasons that they did this it says that they were afraid that European expansion plans might run into potentially regulatory scrutiny, kind of like it has happened in the U? S. And so they are like, hey, we're not about to uh, deal with that at this time. So for those of you who are excited in Europe about being able to start TikTok shop, unfortunately it's a no-go Now if you are in another country. It's pretty difficult to sell on TikTok shop in the USA because you need a social security number. But if you're based in the USA, you want to learn more about how to sell on TikTok shop. Make sure to check out our workshop next week. We'll have signup information this weekend in your email where we give you a detailed training on getting set up with TikTok shop.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Now, the next article here is actually from Amazon, and there's some interesting stats that you might not have known. Right, you know, like before, in the past, 50% of sales came from third-party sellers. You know how much it is now 60%. Do you know how many employees Amazon USA sellers are employing? 1.8 million. That's crazy. 1.8 million people are employed by Amazon sellers out there. How many sellers hit the seven figure mark for the first time last year? 10,000. So 10,000 sellers hit that seven figure mark for the first time last year. Are you one of them? Well, where is all of this data coming? This is from a report that Amazon put out called the 2023 Small Business Empowerment Report, so linked somewhere here in this. You know, above or below. Wherever you're watching this on, make sure to download this report, because it is super detailed and it's got a lot of cool information Like did you know that? The five most shopped categories from US for third-party sellers, what do you think? Number one health and personal care. Two, beauty. Three, home. Four, grocery and five, apparel. It also has this interesting map here we can click on any state and see some stats Like, for example, I live in California. There are 77,000 sellers in California who sold 715 million items. Now if I go to New York, there's 37,000 sellers but almost sold the same amount as the California sellers 721 million. I was like just picking random states here to see, hey, which one really doesn't have that many sellers. And I hit South Dakota. South Dakota only 600 Amazon sellers and they only sold 5 million products. So it's a pretty cool article and also this download is super detailed, with a whole bunch of information on what Amazon has done last year and some stats that maybe you never knew, that you wanted to know.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Next article is actually not really an article, but it's an email I got from Walmart. Maybe some of you Walmart sellers got it and might make some Amazon sellers jealous. What have Amazon sellers always wanted to be able to see, as far as like, for example, negative reviews, I mean for years and years. This is what Amazon sellers asked for. Is what? Yes, it's like hey, can I see who is the one who left me this review, or can I see which order it was? And, as we know, that's not available on Amazon. In Amazon, you can, if you're a brand registered seller, contact people who have left you a negative review using the Amazon templates, but you still it's. You know, for the majority of orders you can't really tie the order or the review to an order. But check out this message from Walmart here. This says it's entitled Ratings and Reviews. This brand new dashboard serves as a centralized hub for monitoring and managing customer reviews. So it's a new review dashboard, it says. Now you can connect reviews to specific orders and pinpoint the products behind negative or positive feedback. This streamlined approach makes it easier to resolve issues with fulfillment, listing, quality or customer service. So if you guys didn't get this email, go check your dashboard in your seller center in Walmart and see if you can start mapping those reviews, both positive and negative, to exact orders. And then, are you, you know, does Walmart allow you to contact those buyers? Again, I think this is something that Amazon sellers definitely wish we had. But now, Walmart sellers, you can now tie reviews directly to orders.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Next article is actually a press release from Amazon. It's entitled Amazon 2024 Force for Good Applications is open, all right. So this is basically an award that you can possibly win be featured on Amazon Accelerate. You can win cash prizes. This is for, you know, those who are third party sellers who have you know good stories about. Hey, are you giving back to your community? Are you involved in charity? Are you doing something with the proceeds from your Amazon business? You know that is for your local, community or neighborhood. Last year, there were three individuals that won these prizes. We don't know exactly what they won, but they're also featured at Amazon Accelerate, so it's free to apply for this award. You only have until June 12th to apply for it, so check somewhere below. If you're watching this on YouTube or listening to this podcast on a podcast player, we should have the link there or you can find it in sellercentral.com. Just look up Amazon Force for Good Application and, who knows, maybe we'll get to see you on stage at Amazon Accelerate and you'll be able to treat me for dinner because you just won a whole bunch of cash for winning this award from Amazon. Actually, yeah, if you do win and you found out because of this podcast, I expect a nice dinner at Amazon Accelerate. On you, all right, all right. Last article of the day, also about Amazon, and it's entitled Learn. On you All right, all right. Last article of the day, also about Amazon, and it's entitled learn how Amazon uses AI to spot damaged products before they're shipped to customers.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Now, this, I think is kind of cool. First of all, this is something that Amazon is saying hey, we're actually doing this. You know there's a lot of speculation and a lot of change coming with AI and some things we see. You know, we see in seller central, where Amazon is allowing you to use AI sometimes to make your listings, which I don't think anybody's actually doing, um, because it's still not that great yet. Um, you know, there, there there's rumors about where Amazon search might be going with AI and the kind of roles that it's going to play. We don't know, but this is something that's a hundred percent confirmed. I mean Amazon is doing this. Um, but this is something that's 100% confirmed. I mean Amazon is doing this in certain warehouses. It's kind of interesting. There's like this tunnel now that Amazon is putting products through, and then you know this AI can, like, detect, like is the package broken or is it damaged or other things that this article talks about, and this it's called a project PI for private investigator. So I think this is, this is, overall, going to be good for us, for sellers. How many times have we lamented that we see a bad review and what we find out is that a customer got a product that was like return from another customer and it's in bad, it's in bad shape and we're like why in the world did Amazon even send this product, you know, in this shape, to the customer? Um, well, hopefully those kinds of situations are going to be decreased the more that Amazon uses this uh project PI here to kind of detect those things. So move in the right direction, I think, by Amazon are.

 

Bradley Sutton:

One last thing, last thing A lot of you guys have LinkedIn and you follow Helium 10. Great, you also see you follow me on LinkedIn. Excellent, make sure you're following Helium 10 and myself. Just look up Bradley Sutton on LinkedIn, but now also add the AM PM podcast. All right, so just type in AM slash PM podcast on LinkedIn and you'll be able to get some snippets from the AM PM podcast that you otherwise might have missed out on in some little nuggets from Kevin King here and there. So again, LinkedIn. Follow three accounts myself, helium 10, and then now also follow AM slash PM podcast. All right, let's get into the new feature alerts for Helium 10. All right, now this first announcement I'm actually going to give in another language. You'll see why in a second.

 

Bradley Sutton:

皆さん、お知らせがあります。 Helium 10の日本語版の正式にロンシー。. Basically, I just said all right, guys got an announcement. Helium 10 now has been launched in Japanese. Now this is kind of big, because this is not Helium 10 works for Amazon Japan. No, helium 10 has worked in Amazon Japan for years, but a lot of our Japanese customers were like, hey, that's great that we can use it, but we want to actually see Helium 10 in Japanese. So now for all Japanese users, you can go to the very top of Helium 10 and change a language. Japanese users, you can go to the very top of Helium 10 and change a language. You've been able to do English, German, Spanish, Italian and Chinese, and now you can do Japanese, so that all of the menus inside of Helium 10 and you know the columns and everything else is in the Japanese language. Also, you're going to be able to see all of the learn button videos in Japanese with Japanese subtitles. So I hope everybody is able to get use of that.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Now, the next new feature alert from Helium 10 is a new widget for your dashboard that allows you to view different metrics from your Amazon account over time. So let me show you how you're able to add that. So when you're on your dashboard, go to the very top right and where it says add a chart, hit that button and then select chart library. Now the very first preset that's going to come up is a brand new one. It's called performance over time. When you add that, it's going to show up here now at the bottom of your main Helium 10 dashboard, and now you can chart different things up to four different metrics over time.

 

Bradley Sutton:

For example, right here I have tracked day by day gross revenue on the same chart as net profit expenses and my cost of goods sold. I can actually change one of these and start tracking advertising costs or units sold maybe page views, sessions, unit session percentage and now you can see how different key metrics for your business might interact with each other. And I can do this at a daily level, a weekly level, monthly level, quarter or even a yearly level to see these charts. So at the bottom here you can also see alerts. So if something happened, like for example here on this day it says I got a new one-star product review, maybe I want to see did that have an effect on my sales or did it have an effect on my sessions. I can actually chart that here and see, hey, when it started and if it had an effect on any of these metrics. So, again, start playing with this. Add this chart, customize it however you want, and then you will be able to get some insights into your product performance.

 

Bradley Sutton:

All right, let's get now into our training tip of the week, and what I wanted to talk about is just a couple under the radar things that you can do with your Chrome extension that I bet 95% of you are not using. Here's the first one. All right, if you're on a product page, like maybe your product page or your competitor product page, I'd say do this to your product first. At the very top, there's this product summary widget that comes up right. Click the see more data right where it says all marketplaces. And now what this is going to do it's going to tell you this product, if it's yours or if it's your competitor's product. What other Amazon marketplaces is this product being sold in? Like? Look at this product. This product is being sold everywhere, from Amazon United Arab Emirates, amazon Saudi Arabia, amazon India. The only one where it's not being sold, it seems like, is Amazon Netherlands Right now If this was your product and you know you're only selling in US and Canada and all of a sudden you see active listings like this is showing, plus the stock of the inventory of the products, now you know what your product is. Your listing is being hijacked in other marketplaces and somebody else is selling your product, or maybe a facsimile of your product, and you might need to take action. So that's one thing that I think everybody should do with your own listing. Let's say you're on your own listing.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Another under the radar thing is kind of a hidden technique. Scroll down here to right underneath, where the Helium 10 BSR widget is All right, and underneath here you're going to see it says calculators and you're going to see revenue calculator and sales estimator. For this one you have to click on Revenue Calculator and then click back on Sales Estimator. And when you do that, this new secret widget comes up and I like it because it has the item dimensions and the package dimensions right here. Now how is this beneficial? Like, for example, this collagen peptides? Obviously it's not something that you fold or expand. You know the product itself is going to be really similar to the size of the package, right, and sure enough. You see that here Helium 10 is telling you the item dimensions is 7.3 by 4.4 by 4.4 and the package dimensions 7.2 by 4 by 4.4. So obviously it's a little bit wrong. You know how can you have the package dimensions a little bit smaller than the item, but you'd be happy if you saw that here. Where is this very crucial? Well, what if you know that your package should be about the same size as your item, but your item dimension length is 7.3, but all of a sudden the package length is something like nine inches or 10 inches.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Well, now you know that Amazon must have probably remeasured your product and you didn't know about it. And you could be wasting hundreds of dollars a week, if not more, on extra FBA fulfillment fees because Amazon has the wrong dimension. So this is kind of like a cool way to just use Helium 10 to see, hey, does my package dimensions make sense compared to my item dimensions? Or do I need to dive a little bit farther and then now go to Helium 10 Alerts to see, hey, when did Amazon change my package dimensions? I need to get some money back from Amazon. So there's a couple under the radar things you know everybody always talks about Cerebro, Magnet, Black Box, Xray, but these are a couple of things here in the Chrome extension that I bet a lot of you weren't using, and I hope you can get some use from it. All right, guys, thank you very much for tuning in this week. Don't forget to tune in next Thursday to see what's buzzing.