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

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Are you an Amazon FBA, Walmart, or Ecommerce Seller, or someone interested in becoming one? The Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10 is an unscripted, unrehearsed, BS-free, organic conversation between host Bradley Sutton, and real life sellers and thought leaders in the ecommerce world, where they share the top strategies that will help sellers of all levels succeed. In addition, every week there is an episode of the ”Weekly Buzz” which gives a rundown of the latest news in the Ecommerce world. ► 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

Episodes

Saturday Oct 26, 2024

#608 - Improve Your Amazon Brand with AI

Saturday Oct 26, 2024

In this episode, we speak with Mark DeGrasse who shares his deep insights on AI's role in building a strong brand identity and ultimately fostering stronger customer connections for sustainable growth.

Join us as we engage with digital marketing expert Mark DeGrasse, former CEO of Digital Marketer and the Founder of AI-Branding Academy, to explore the transformative role of branding in e-commerce and the significant impact of AI on marketing strategies. Mark shares his insights on why branding is more crucial than ever for Amazon and e-commerce sellers, as the market shifts focus from merely acquiring new customers to retaining them. Discover how AI tools can refine branding elements such as product development, logos, and messaging, and learn why building a strong brand identity is essential for thriving in today's competitive landscape.

Listen in as we uncover the power of branding in securing long-term success and stability for businesses. Drawing parallels to the spread of major concepts throughout history, we discuss the importance of consistent messaging and vision for brand sustainability. Using examples of iconic companies like Apple, Amazon, and Coca-Cola, we highlight how strong branding can serve as a protective shield against changing technologies and increasing competition. Moreover, we emphasize the importance of ensuring that every customer interaction is an opportunity for brand recognition and instilling brand values in all employees.

Finally, we navigate the future of branding and marketing strategies in a rapidly changing digital landscape. As reliance on paid media and easy attribution has overshadowed customer relationships and innovation, we examine the challenges posed by AI and potential platform bans. Discover how leveraging AI to create original content and streamline brand management can secure your business's future. Mark discusses how employing AI to guide decision-making based on brand values and company performance can transform traditional marketing methods, fostering stronger customer connections and sustainable growth.

In episode 608 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Carrie, Kevin, and Mark discuss:

00:00 - AI Branding and Customer Retention For Amazon Brands
06:26 - Building Brand Trust With Customers
10:04 - The Power of Branding in E-commerce
16:35 - Consistency Over Perfection in Branding
18:55 - Navigating the Future of Branding
21:22 - Building Brands With AI Content Strategy
27:43 - Evaluating Brand Strength and Improvement
32:02 - Building a Strong Amazon Brand Strategy
32:11 - AI Branding Academy Maximizes Marketing Potential
36:46 - Maximizing Earnings Through Brand Extension
37:04 - Expanding Product Offerings with a Solid Brand

► 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

Thursday Oct 24, 2024

Helium 10 Buzz 10/24/24: Big Amazon Shipping Delays | Amazon Temu-Ish Service Rumors

Thursday Oct 24, 2024

Amazon warehouses on the West Coast are full. More details about the potential Amazon Team Wish service have leaked. These buzzing stories and more on this week's episode!

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

00:49 - Big Amazon Logistics Problems
06:20 - Amazon Temu Clone Details
08:08 - Deferred Transactions
09:00 - Amazon Today Closing
10:23 - Image Manager
11:03 - Amazon Gas Savings
12:08 - FBA Shipment Notifications
12:44 - Amazon Homepage Update
14:05 - Amazon Seller Story
15:33 - X-Ray For Amazon Influencers
18:50 - Keyword Tracker Heat Maps + PPC Data
24:45 - Sydney Australia Event
25:17 - Milan Italy Event

► 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:

Amazon warehouses on the West Coast are full. More details about the potential Amazon Team Wish service have leaked. Find out how, if you have Amazon Prime, you can get up to $70 of free gas. These stories and more on this week's Weekly Buzz. 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 am your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show that is our Helium 10 weekly buzz, where we give you a rundown of all the goings on in the Amazon TikTok shop and e-commerce world. We give you training tips of the week and also let you know what new features Helium 10 has. That will give you serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. Let's see what's buzzing. We've got tons of news articles today, lots going on, so let's go ahead and hop right into it. All right, the first news article of the day actually starts off from Amazon Seller Central. I've got some additional information that Amazon sent over that you sellers need to know. It's kind of like important, especially those of you trying to get inventory in here in q4. Uh, it's entitled updates to support us. FBA peak inventory shipments says we understand this is from amazon that many of you are experiencing longer receive times that are affecting your shipments. High demand has led to longer receive times at some of our west coast inbound locations and for palletized freight. It says they're trying to actively take steps to resolve the situation, including rerouting shipments to other regions. So, effective immediately, they're making the following adjustments to inbound requirements. Number one they've extended the automatic closure window to 90 days for shipments created after August 7th through October 31st. Okay, you know, usually it's a little bit shorter where they automatically close a shipment that hasn't been received and they're extending the abandoned shipment window from 30 to 45 days for shipments in that same time period. All right, so now that's kind of like the official notice that went out to sellers, you know, on your Seller Central dashboard.

Bradley Sutton:

But I got my hands on some other information here that Amazon wanted sellers to know about and it was kind of like a frequently asked questions about what's going on. So maybe some of these questions you've actually have actually had and maybe this answers it all right. So the first question is why is this happening? Well, it says hey, there's an increased demand to send inventory to the West Coast facilities and it's resulting in longer p times or lead times. Right, so, so we already got that. But then they said, hey, is amazon rerouting non-partnered carriers to inbound locations? The answer is no. So if you're not using an amazon partner, they're not telling, like your own freight company, hey, you need to go to Texas or something you know to deliver. No, if you're shipping your inventory with a third-party carrier and you have longer receive times, you could actually still reach out to your carrier, amazon says, and get a new appointment through Carrier Central.

Bradley Sutton:

What changes are you making to the inbound placement service fee? Inbound placement service fee? Amazon says hey, effective immediately, where we've temporarily reduced the rate range for the inbound placement fees for minimal shipments into the East region by 5 cents. Better than nothing, guys, right, 5 cents per unit, okay. So you know, like, if before you had to ship to the East coast and you had to, you know, have certain placement fees that were, you know, 30, 40 cents each, you get a 5 cent discount. Now, because of these issues, what are the temporary fee changes to help move out of the West? Same thing 5 cents in reduction in fees for the minimal shipment split option to the East region. Next question says if inbounding to the east region still is the most expensive, even with this five cents difference, what should I do? Amazon says we recommend that you use the Amazon optimized shipment splits or select central or east regions under the partial shipment splits or the minimal shipment splits options.

Bradley Sutton:

Another general question that some are asking hey, my shipment is still showing delivered status, but the inventory has not been received. What should we do? It says most delivered shipments are received within a week of delivery to ensure placement of your inventory. Now, if you're using a non-partnered carrier, communicate with the carrier to get progress reports. If you're using Amazon Freight, they can help locate your shipment by submitting If you submit a carrier, missed pickup request to Amazon and that'll help you get more information.

Bradley Sutton:

Another question are fulfillment centers equally affected by the long receipt times? In other words, we know the receipt, the inbound is having trouble, but are my customers going to start having issues on the West coast because of what's going on? The answer no. These longer receipt times are mainly affecting the West region because it's a popular location for inventory shipments, but fulfillment centers are not experiencing that issue. Why do I still not see the partial shipment split options to the West? Answer. The partial shipment splits inbound option will be provided if your shipment qualifies, but due to the busy holiday season and high demand, partial shipment splits to the West may not be available on send to Amazon. So you might be like wait a minute, how come? You know, normally when I create my shipment I usually see this the shipment split to the West available and now it's not like showing up at all. Well, this is the reason why, because of this, this issue that that we're talking about now. Hopefully that's not the case for you, but this is the answer If that is happening to you.

Bradley Sutton:

Now here's a funny one. Are there alternative shipping methods, ship mode, when possible, of course. Where'd that be? I mean, how do you use air all the time If it didn't cost five times as much as ocean shipping? So for most of us that might not be an option, but hey, at least Amazon's giving you an alternative. In case you didn't realize that you can ship your product via air. All right, so that's most of the information there about what's going on with Amazon West Coast. Let me know in the comments. Have you been affected by this? I actually haven't. Thankfully, knock on wood, I haven't had to ship anything in the last week and a half or two weeks I got most of my stuff in early. I'm about to send a shipment in tomorrow for my warehouse, so let's see how it goes. What about you? Let me know in the comments below if you guys have been affected by this.

Bradley Sutton:

Next article is from Reuters.com says Amazon sets ultra low pricing plans for Temu rival store. The information reports Now this is something we reported a couple of months ago how Amazon might be launching like a Temu-ish kind of service for sellers from China, where it's going to ship directly from China to customers might take 10 or 12 days. Well, some more information has come out. Supposedly there's going to be caps on what they can charge, uh, in the categories. So if it's jewelry, if it's going to be part of the service, it's $8. If it's a guitar a guitar it's 13. If it's a sofa, the most expensive sofa you can ship is $20. I mean a Lego sofa, like what in the world sofa costs under $20. Now I saw other reports that said, hey, the total price is $20. I saw some reports that said, hey, it had to be less than a pound or less than 14 inches long. If it's less than 14 inches long. How are you going to have a sofa even in there? So there's so much information and misinformation out there right now, like I'm not sure what to trust yet. I'm just throwing out information as I get it. This is an actual article in Reuters.

Bradley Sutton:

Now, what do you guys think about this? I know the last time when we first announced this, people were upset. They're like man, this is not good. So, like, my biggest question still is are US-based sellers European-based sellers? If we have a factory in China, will we be able to use this service to at least have an equal playing field, or only Chinese manufacturers are going to have access to this shipment? So let's see how things go. I think a story I saw where it said maybe somebody said hey, only you can't even have branded products here and it's going to be separate from Amazon's websites like a sub site. Who knows Can't have branded products, you only can say generic. There's all kinds of stories, but as they keep coming out, we'll let you know and hopefully there'll be some clarity on what exactly is going to happen with this program soon.

Bradley Sutton:

Next up is article from the Seller Central and it's called view your reserve payments in the new deferred transaction report. All right, so if you get a sale, you don't get the money from that sale right away. Like, let's say, your disbursement is every two weeks and it's on the second Monday of the month or whatever. Well, if you've got an order on the second Sunday of the month that those orders, you're probably not going to get that money the next day. All right, because there's usually kind of like a reserve Right In addition to your account level reserve, take a look at this article because now they're saying that, hey, you're going to have more visibility into which exactly which orders exactly are being deferred until the next pay period. You're going to be able to see this in your payments reports repository. If this is something you're curious about I'm not going to go too much into detail Go into your Seller Central News. You'll have the link right there of how you can find this new deferred transaction report.

Bradley Sutton:

Next article is from CNBC. It's kind of interesting because we've been doing the buzz so long, that stuff that we broke as stories about what was going on amazon before. It's like now being defunct, like we announced the release and now, a couple years later now it's going away. So CNBC says amazon to shut down speedy brick and mortar delivery service. This was called amazon today and if you remember that weekly buzz years ago. Basically what it means is like if there's a amazon seller who actually has a brick and mortar store, kind of like.

Bradley Sutton:

I think what the example gave was like GNC and if it's sold products, it would allow fulfillment of the products directly from the local GNC, like a neighborhood. So if somebody orders from GNC on Amazon and they have inventory at that local GNC, then Amazon would hire these local drivers to go pick it up at that GNC and then deliver it to the customer down the street. Whatever, you might not even know that existed. Good for you, because now it doesn't exist anymore anyways. In reality. So Amazon's laying off all the employees that were part of that system. It would have been interesting to see if that played out more Like. I could have seen how you know. Maybe it could eventually roll out to you know sellers who have warehouses in certain you know localities. You know, maybe they could have just delivered to local customers on their own, but that service is gone.

Bradley Sutton:

Next up, an article from seller central fix image issues fast with a new image manager feature. All right, so this is a new feature that you can go in your seller central. You go to catalog and then manage your images and then you're going to come up to this page and basically, if there's image issues, you're going to see in the bottom left like a, like a red flag, and then, instead of having to go one by one into your listings and edit the listing and then try and fix your images from this one page the image manager any issues that Amazon has with your images you can just fix them directly on this interface here. So if you want more information on that, check your seller central news dashboard.

Bradley Sutton:

Next article is a press release from Amazon. It's kind of interesting because this is not really for sellers. But if you're an Amazon member, guess what? You can now save up to 10 cents a gallon at Amoco or AMPM locations, all right, so I'm assuming AMPM is like Arco, right, like that's what Arco, that's what AMPM is here in California. But anyways, you can save 10 cents a gallon, which averages like $70 a year on gas. Again, maybe this doesn't affect you. It does if you live in America and I just got you $70 right now. But I always like reporting on any benefits that, like Walmart Plus or Amazon Prime give, because it's just going to make our customers more sticky to Amazon Prime, right? Because if they're getting this $70 of free gas, if you want to see how to activate this, real easy, if you're an Amazon Prime member, go to amazon.com/fuelsavings. It's a one-time setup and then next time you go to an ARCO or AMPM you'll save 10 cents a gallon.

Bradley Sutton:

Next article, again from Seller Central. This is called New FBA Shipment Notifications for Better Visibility. So if you are using a partner carrier pickups and you're experiencing FBA shipment delivery disruptions, you're now going to get an email from Amazon. So this is something that you are going to need to opt in or opt out of, depending on if you want a whole bunch of emails about what's going on with your partner carrier deliveries. So make sure to go into settings and to notification preferences and then go to FBA inbound shipment status notifications and make sure toggle on or off if you want to get these notifications or not.

Bradley Sutton:

Speaking of Amazon and the website on the front side of the website, not seller central, amazon has been testing new homepage new homepage on amazon.com. Also on the app. This is an article from about amazon.com and it says improvements include personalized recommendations, improve browsing and streamline reordering in time for the holiday shopping season. Now, I did not see any of these updates on my personal Amazon that I use for my Prime account, but they showed some pictures here where there's kind of like a new interface with big images, kind of like tailor-made, I guess, supposedly for the people who are buying, and more intuitive design. It says here it's called a window display, like there's these big tiles or windows of products that it's showing. Um, the other addition is that there's a improved buy again hub. All right, so you're going to see this buy again section, or amazon buyers are going to see that and then products they bought before real easy to almost kind of like one click and get it in the shopping cart. So it'll be interesting to monitor this because, like, is this going? You know, like those of us with replenishable products, could this potentially help increase our repeat orders? You know could be so. So let let's see uh, how this, this new Amazon website and app, uh might help or hurt some of our sales.

Bradley Sutton:

All right, last article of the day. It's from Amazon's website. They're selling partners website. It's funny because Helium 10 members a lot of times are featured on Amazon's ad page and I was like, wait a minute, I know this guy. So if you go to the link is in the comments below. But if you go to this Amazon website, it's entitled. One Man's Mission to Save His Sick Dog Sparked a Thriving Pet Probiotic Business on Amazon, and some of you might recognize this. This is Santiago Galvez. He's a Helium 10 member. He comes to our elite workshops, he's been at a lot of our events and he's actually been on the Helium 10 Serious Sellers podcast en Español. All right, so take a look at the link here. It's a really cool story about how he came up with his brand. It has to do with his pets and everything. And then if you speak Spanish and you want to hear more of his story, check out episode 147 of the Serious Sellers Podcast en Español. That's not this one. You can search it on whatever you have Si habla en Español. And his podcast title was Así Lance Mi Marca en Amazon. So it sounds like it's the same kind of like story he talked about in this one, as he told to Amazon.

Bradley Sutton:

So pretty cool to see Helium 10 members being featured on Amazon's main website. All right, that's it for the news this week. Let's go ahead and hop into some new feature alerts. All right, we're not going to do a training tip of the week this week, because the new feature alerts kind of doubles as a training tip. It's going to be pretty cool. Now you're going to see a lot more content from Helium 10 about the Amazon Influencer Program. All right, amazon Influencer Program is a really cool way for Amazon sellers to get some money initially to build up to be able to do private label. It's a great way for maybe your family members to kind of like get involved in Amazon, or even you yourself, if you want to make some extra money.

Bradley Sutton:

So one of the first things that we are going to have in the for Amazon influencers, if you have updated the new version of the Helium 10 Chrome extension, go to any search result page or any product page and then run X-Ray like normal. Ok, so once you hit X-Ray, it'll pull up on the page, just like you know any other time. And now what's going to happen, though, once you pull up x-ray, is that there is a toggle on the very top right. You're going to see, and I'll say standard. That's the default for Amazon sellers. But let's say you wanted to dabble in the influence. If you're a Amazon affiliate Amazon influencer, you hit the button on the top right and then select influencer version. Now what happens is X-Ray now is going to show some data that is interesting to Amazon influencers, who? Those are the ones who create videos that go on listings and then those videos end up showing up in the carousel in the bottom row and then if a buyer watches the video, right, and then they buy the product, guess what that Amazon influencer has? The video is going to go ahead and get commission on that.

Bradley Sutton:

So now the kind of things that you can see in Helium 10 Chrome extension x-ray is you'll be able to see stuff like what's the opportunity score for an influencer? How many videos are in the upper carousel, like look how many products on the coffin shelf page have no videos? I mean that could be interesting to Amazon sellers at all. I just want to see who's got videos in their carousel right. How many videos are in the lower carousel, the one that's kind of like at the bottom of the page? That's also where influencer videos, customer review videos, can go. How many of these videos are influencer videos on the page. The one that's opportunity for Amazon influencers is when there's like one or zero influencer videos. That means you're kind of have a better chance perhaps at getting your video featured in that upper or lower carousel, meaning that if you're the only video there, every time somebody watches the video and then they buy the product, you're getting commission on that product. This shows how many brand videos All right.

Bradley Sutton:

So again, this is for Amazon sellers or influencers. You want to know the brand itself. How many videos did they put on their own page? You can see here. There's some here that have six and even eight, oh my goodness. And some have two and some have zero. What is the commission rate for an influencer for the product? The commission rate for Amazon influencers varies across different categories. You can now see that right here. And then, even if it's your product, maybe you're curious how much is Amazon giving to influencers who are promoting my product? Well, here you can see that. You can also see the affiliate commission. Affiliate commission is different than influencer commission rates. And then the affiliate commission actual dollar amount. So some cool information here now is showing up in the Chrome extension. This is just the first of a lot of things we might have for Amazon influencers out there, but some of it is still relevant to Amazon sellers as well.

Bradley Sutton:

Another update that Helium 10 Elite members have had for a while but now it's being released, even all the way down to the platinum plan is some new features inside of keyword tracker. All right, so in keyword tracker you probably noticed that a few weeks ago the new interface already, but now you are going to have additional features. All right, so here's a new interface. You can see the keywords here, and I've done videos before I talk about how now you can add competitors and kind of see where your competitors are ranking, like all on a certain grid, so that you can see for each keyword you know who's got the best rank with those keyword harvesting, where we're going to like follow up based on what you're saying and tell you what keywords that your competitors are ranked for in the top 10 that maybe you're not ranking for, or keywords that you weren't even tracking that you're ranking for because you didn't even know that you're ranking for. Right.

Bradley Sutton:

But some of the newest things this week, uh, one of them is a heat map. You know we've always had uh in market tracker 360 heat maps for our keyword tracker there for like two years and users were like man, we want this to be in the regular keyword tracker. And it took us a couple of years, guys, but now we have it. So we brought the Market Tracker 360 feature of heat maps into the regular keyword tracker and you're going to be able to also not only see the day of week like maybe you want to see, hey, every Sunday does my rank change? But also there's going to be little gift boxes that you see on some dates on this keyword tracker graph. This is indicating like a holiday. Like maybe you want to kind of like eyeball in and say, hey, did something happen to my rank on if there was a holiday? So here on October 14th, I can see that was Columbus Day. I can take a look at my ranks. I can change this to go from left to right to right to left. I can also change like hey, maybe I don't want to see the exact rank, but I'm just curious what page am I showing up? Page one, page two, page three, page four.

Bradley Sutton:

Don't forget that helium 10 is one of the only keyword trackers that actually checks all pages. A lot of popular keyword trackers out there, you'll notice it only goes up to like 100 or 150. That means it's only giving you two page of search results. We're giving you all pages of search results, all 306 locations or or positions. Seven, the full seven pages that appears in search results. You can see in helium 10 keyword tracker. But this is the heat maps. It's kind of like a different way to visualize what's going on. And then, don't forget, if you see this red dot in any of this, that means that you had boost on during that time. Again, that's another thing that only helium 10 has. Well, we're checking in one day, if I have boost on, 24 different browsing scenarios 24 times a day. It's checking different browsing scenarios in Edge or Chrome or Safari. And then what if the zip code is over here? What if the address like even in the same zip code it's an address across the street over here, an address over in Florida or whatever, like it's doing a lot of random things, so that you can really have an idea about what is going on with your rank and then you'll be able to see what happened throughout the day if you have that boost on. So that's the heat maps.

Bradley Sutton:

And then now, if you have. For those of you who have Atomic remember Atomic is now in the diamond plan You're going to have access to this ad section. That means we're ready to have you all your PPC and your advertising information and now you're going to be able to see some super cool things about what's going on with your keyword rank as it relates to your advertising. So, for example, I can see hey, how many campaigns did I have active where I got at least one impression or a click of coffin shelf? I've got four exact match campaigns where it came up. I've got zero auto campaigns where it came up.

Bradley Sutton:

I can change the date range. I can see all right, how many PPC sales did I have during this time? How many units did I sell? What was my spend during this time on this keyword? What was my ACoS? What was my ROAS? How many PPC clicks did I have? What was my impressions overall? Like here, I got 8,000 impressions in PPC for the word coffin shelf. But then, guys, the reason why this is in Keyword Tr tracker is it's now tying in all of this information.

Bradley Sutton:

So if I hit this graph next to coffin shelf, now all of a sudden I can start graphing different metrics where I can say let me graph my organic rank and graph it versus my cost per click, right? So now here I'm looking at this graph and I'm like, okay, here's my cost per click. As it decreased, my impressions increased somehow, and then, as my cost per click increased, my impressions, for whatever reason, went down on that same day. However, that's just one way to look at it. The other way to look at it is no, things don't happen exactly on the same day. However, that's just one way to look at it. The other way to look at it is no, things don't happen exactly on the same day. But look, every time that my cost per click increased, the very next day, my impressions increased. My organic rank. Maybe I want to you know what? I want to see how it changed my sponsored rank. Take a look at this. My cost per click was 55 cents. I increase it to 55 cents. What happened to my sponsored rank the next day? Uh, it started going up from 17 all the way to five. Take a look over here. My, you know, I decreased my, my bid, potentially, or just whatever Amazon was giving me as cost per click, and my rank increase. Uh, my, my rank decrease. So this is really interesting to kind of see what effects does what you're doing in PPC have on what is going on in your organic and sponsored keyword rank. So make sure again, if whatever plan of Helium 10 you are on, make sure to dive into keyword tracker and play around with some of these new functions. Well, I'm going to have some more detailed training in the future podcast where I'm going to go deep into tracking keywords and all the new features that Keyword Tracker has.

Bradley Sutton:

One more thing, guys, A couple events in the next couple of weeks. Next week I'll be in Australia. So if you're anywhere near Sydney, come to the Amazon advertising event. I'll be speaking there. There'll be a Helium 10 booth. We can come hang out, maybe the night before. I know a lot of you are already coming out, h10.me/sydney for information on that. And then also the following in a couple of weeks we're going to be in Italy First time. We're doing a Helium 10 event in Italy and I would love to see you guys go. I'm going to go ahead and throw out a discount code too for you. Anybody is open to this. It's normally an elite workshop but we're opening up to everybody h10.me/milan. It's on November 11th, if you want to save 50%. So it's going to be less than $40 to even attend for a full day of great training and networking, h10.me/milan. Use the code Helium50, no spaces, and save 50% off your registration. I would love to see you either in Sydney or in Milan, Italy. All right, guys. That's it for the news this week. Uh, don't forget to tune in next week. I will have Shivali back here to let you know what's buzzing.

Tuesday Oct 22, 2024

#607 - What is the Best Amazon Keyword Research Tool?

Tuesday Oct 22, 2024

In this episode, we do a live case study as we compare Helium 10, Product Opportunity Explorer, Jungle Scout, and Data Dive for Amazon keyword research. See how Helium 10 uncovers more keywords and boosts potential sales by $6,000!

Can unlocking the true potential of Amazon keyword research tools lead to a significant boost in your sales? In this episode, Bradley Sutton dissects, with a live case study, the Amazon keyword research capabilities of tools like Helium 10, Jungle Scout, Data Dive, and Amazon's Product Opportunity Explorer, revealing why Helium 10 might just be the game-changer you've been searching for. Through a live case study, Bradley showcases how Helium 10 stands head and shoulders above its rivals by uncovering a staggering number of relevant keywords that could translate into thousands of dollars in additional sales. With a focus on transparency, we promise an unfiltered look into how effective keyword research can transform your Amazon SEO strategy.

Our journey into the art of keyword research begins with launching a Tamago Yaki pan on Amazon. We guide you through the crucial steps of identifying top competitors and selecting the right keywords to ensure success, even if you don't have access to advanced tools. You'll learn how to interpret search volumes and conversion rates to identify purchase trends and refine your keyword lists by exploring related niches like "square pan" and "omelet pan." With personal anecdotes and insights sprinkled throughout, this episode offers practical advice for sellers at every level.

As we peel back the layers of keyword analysis, discover how tools like Helium 10 can help you sift through the noise and focus on keywords with true potential. We emphasize the importance of aligning with Amazon's algorithm and the role of sponsored ads in securing product visibility. By exploring tactics like creating comprehensive keyword lists and leveraging Helium 10's unique features, you'll understand why our Amazon keyword research tools are an indispensable ally for serious sellers. So, let’s enhance your product's visibility and sales potential on Amazon, one keyword at a time.

In episode 607 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley talks about:

00:00 - Amazon Keyword Research Tool Battle Royale
07:41 - Amazon Keyword Research Strategies Using Tools
13:28 - Amazon Keyword Research Tutorial
16:41 - Amazon Keyword Research Tools Comparison
19:23 - Product Opportunity Explorer Niche Research
25:16 - Data Dive and Jungle Scout Keyword Research
26:42 - Amazon Keyword Research Tools Analysis
33:42 - Keyword Ranking Analysis and Competitor Evaluation
39:03 - Amazon Keyword Research Tactics and Strategies
41:35 - Keyword Research and Analysis Strategy
49:32 - Keyword Analysis for Listing Optimization
52:45 - Keyword Research Comparison and Analysis
56:05 - Keyword Research for Amazon Products
1:00:55 - The Importance of Getting Enough Keywords
1:08:14 - Keyword Analysis Comparison POE, Jungle Scout/Data Dive, & Helium 10
1:14:57 - Amazon Keyword Research With Helium 10
1:18:02 - Conclusion: What is the Best Keyword Research Tool For Amazon Sellers?

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Saturday Oct 19, 2024

#606 - There Is No Such Thing As The COSMO Algorithm!

Saturday Oct 19, 2024

In this episode, our guest is an expert on AI and Amazon Science papers. He'll talk about Rufus, COSMO, Project Amelia, and all other AI advancements from the Amazon side and beyond.

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Join us for an engaging discussion with Kevin Dolan from Pacvue AI Labs as we explore the cutting-edge advancements in AI and Amazon's pivotal role in shaping this dynamic landscape. We'll unravel the mysteries behind intriguing names like Rufus, COSMO, and Project Amelia, representing Amazon's ongoing AI initiatives. Kevin shares his expertise on the evolution of AI from its early conceptual roots in the 80s to the transformative impact of transformer models around 2019, which paved the way for groundbreaking applications like ChatGPT. Discover how Amazon's increased investment in AI research is manifesting in published papers and sophisticated models that are revolutionizing customer interactions.

We also explore Amazon's integration of AI in tools for sellers, highlighting the launch of advertising AI that optimizes campaigns with precision. The potential of AI in enhancing tools like Helium 10’s Adtomic and Cerebro for more efficient Amazon PPC campaigns and keyword filtering is discussed, along with the impact of Amazon's Rufus on the shopping experience. While Rufus aims to improve customer interactions, we critically assess its current limitations and ponder its potential to shift some search activities directly to Amazon from platforms like Google and Pinterest. Additionally, we dive into Amazon's transition from lexical to semantic search, emphasizing the importance for sellers to align their product listings with customer needs for visibility and success in an AI-driven environment.

Lastly, we examine AI-driven tools like Project Amelia in Amazon's Seller Central and their potential impact on brands and sellers. While chat-oriented interfaces may translate vague intentions into useful actions, skepticism remains regarding their revolutionary potential. We emphasize the importance of exploring third-party tools like Helium 10 for added value and addressing the hype surrounding changes in seller practices, reassuring listeners that successful strategies remain largely unchanged. Kevin's insights and our conversation shed light on the future of AI in e-commerce, leaving us excited for what's to come in this rapidly evolving field.

In episode 606 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Kevin discuss:

00:00 - Advancements in AI and Amazon Science
00:41 - Decoding the Amazon COSMO Algorithm
08:42 - AI Model Cost Efficiency Advancements
09:48 - Amazon's AI Innovations and Rufus
14:59 - Implementing AI Chatbots Inside Online Marketplaces
20:29 - Enhancing Amazon's Semantic Search Capabilities
21:12 - Leveraging Rufus and COSMO for Selling Success
26:59 - Impact of Science on Amazon Practices
28:10 - Enhancing Amazon's Product Understanding With AI
30:01 - Customer Preferences for Pregnant Women
35:22 - Amazon's Data and Product Listings
37:30 - Amazon's Project Amelia in Seller Central
38:42 - Amazon's AI Recommendations for Sellers

Transcript:

Bradley Sutton:

Today we talk to the person who knows more about AI and Amazon science papers than maybe anyone else in the world, and he's going to talk about all things Rufus, COSMO, Amelia and all other AI advancements from the Amazon side and beyond. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Series Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I'm your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show that's completely BS-free, unscripted and unrehearsed organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world.

Bradley Sutton:

I'm not exactly 100% sure what I'm titling this episode, but I might have done something kind of clickbaity and say something. There is no such thing as the COSMO algorithm or something to get people to click on this. But let me just quickly explain that. Now. I don't mean that there's no such thing as Cosmo. There's a lot of documents out there from Amazon that talk about it, but there's nothing that says, hey, Cosmo is the new A9 algorithm, or there's nothing official from Amazon that says, hey, Cosmo is now in full effect across 75% of searches, or anything like that.

Contrast that with all the articles from Amazon that talk about Rufus. I mean, Rufus is a thing you can actually see in everything. So I just wanted to do a clickbaity title like that and we'll definitely get into Cosmo and things like that later. But I've got back on the show probably one of the persons who's the highest expert in the world as far as AI and also what Amazon has been doing as far as on the AI front, and that's Kevin from our own Pacvue AI Labs. That's why I'm wearing this. It's actually a Brazilian soccer team, Palmeiras, I think.

Bradley Sutton:

I wanted to get something with a P on it. Yeah there you go.

Bradley Sutton:

I have a Padres P hat too, but since I'm a Dodgers fan, it hurts every time I even wear that hat. So I was like, no, I'm not going to do it, considering the times that we're in right now. But anyways, Kevin, welcome back. It's been a little over a year since you've been on the show.

Kevin Dolan:

Yeah, thanks for having me back. Last year was a lot of fun and we've been seeing a lot of things happen in the last year in AI, especially around Amazon's implementations of AI, so excited to talk about those updates.

Bradley Sutton:

Cool. Now let's just talk about AI in general, general. You know, like AI is kind of like, I guess, like about two years, I mean, people have been talking about AI for years but as far as the, the more recent trendy version of the topic, AI, um, it's really been, you know, like you know, ChatGPT and things like that over the last couple of years. And let's just talk about what's happened in general over the last year. You know the improvement

Kevin Dolan:

Okay, sure, yeah, I mean, like you said, AI has been around forever. We've been using the term at least since the 80 s in terms of technologies that we can actually use for actual production purposes. As we're using the term today, its meaning has shifted to largely refer to this current generation of models that we're seeing. That began in around 2019 with the introduction of what was called the Transformers model. This led eventually to a variant of that model called Large Language Models, popularized by Open AI's ChatGPT, and we've been seeing a sort of explosion in AI technology and investment into hardware, investment into research as a result of some of these findings. That has become sort of the current modern label of what is AI. We're talking primarily about transformer-based models that perform language or other modalities, including image generation, and we're talking about basically whatever is that front line of research that's happening right now. So you see this explosion happen with the release of the paper around 2018, 2019. And then you see the proliferation of training hardware that led to innovations like ChachGPT, where we're starting to see these emergent behaviors, where these models do start to exhibit something that you can really call intelligence. These models do start to exhibit something that you can really call intelligence.

I came on here last year to talk about all of the different papers I had read from the prior four to five years at Amazon Research. You can tell, when you look at the number of papers that Amazon is releasing, that around that time around 2021, 2022, they started to invest a lot more in their research department. When they started releasing papers in Amazon Science in 2018, there were five papers about search. The following year, in 2019, there were 18. By 2021, there were 40. And then the next year there were almost 70 papers. That seems to have leveled off at this point. We saw about 70 papers last year and so far in this year we've seen about 60 papers. So we're probably going to end up in the same realm.

So the number of papers that Amazon is releasing isn't really changing. What is changing is the complexity of the models that they're using is much more sophisticated and they're being targeted for much more practical use cases. You're seeing larger A-B tests where they're being run on material percentages of traffic on Amazon. You're seeing Amazon release actual AI features that are customer-facing, like Rufus, and we're seeing investments in hardware that make some of these models that used to be impossible to run in production now very conceivable. So I think we are seeing confirmation that Amazon is taking these technologies seriously. They're implementing it in production and it is starting to impact customer behaviors.

Bradley Sutton:

What about non-Amazon AI Like what you know? ChatGPT, imagery you? Know, like a couple of years ago it was just hallucinating nonstop, and then last year a little bit better. You know images. You could not create humans, you know, or products in there without seven fingers and stuff in the general world of AI. How has that come along in the last year?

Kevin Dolan:

Yeah, so I mean we are seeing continued investments in research and continued improvements on these models. The transfer model really revolutionized things, but the initial results that we were seeing out of those transformer models were a little disappointing. For the first time, we were starting to see computers understand language, computers being able to generate images, and our initial reaction was holy cow. We didn't know computers could do this, and then, as we started to use it a little bit more, we became really disappointed, because we're like, oh you know, all the people have six fingers. It's making up facts. You know, the things that it's saying don't really make sense. And so there's been a lot of people who have looked at this potential and started to invest material dollars in improving it to basically get to the point where now these technologies produce more reliable, more consistent results. There's still really major shortfalls, there's still issues, and I think you're going to see continued investment in this. The optimistic projections that you're getting from OpenAI. You know I'm personally a little bit cold on those, but who can predict the future? Who could have predicted that this would have happened? Yes, you are seeing improvements in image generation models, where the images that they're producing are now closer to reality. We're starting to see these used widely in industry, especially in fields like advertising, where you need to produce high volume creative. If you look at the features that Photoshop has released related to their Firefly AI image generation model, we're starting to see not only improved models but improved workflows for creatives to actually be using these tools in a way where, instead of just somebody typing some random prompt and getting whatever the system decides to give you now, people are actually able to control the output and get the output that they're looking for. So, between all of these things, you're seeing a lot of development to make these tools more practical to use. I'd say the biggest and most recent news is OpenAI's release of its strawberry model, which they call O1 in their release vernacular. The O1 model from OpenAI is performing thinking steps before it answers the question and hiding that thinking from you, the way that if you're asked a question, you might think about it a little bit before you answer it, and they're seeing really, really impressive results from that. You know we're getting closer to the place where these AI models might be able to do something that's a little bit more functional, a little bit more capable of actually interacting with real life data and real-life processes, you know, but we're still a little bit far away.

Another issue that we keep running into is the dollar cost of running these models. Towards the end of last year, at Helium 10, we developed a review sentiment analysis model that basically would read thousands and thousands of reviews for your Amazon products and produce some analysis and produce an analysis of what people are saying about your product. You know Amazon has a similar product. Ours goes a little bit deeper than that but the idea is essentially the same. You know what are people saying about your product, what can you learn about it in order to improve your product, improve your listing, etc. And one of the things that we ran into with that model is just how prohibitively costly these models can be to run on large sets of data, and so we're starting to see investments in making models smaller and more special purpose, and we're also seeing improvements in hardware that make running these models more cost effective. This is really going to start to unlock production capabilities, and that companies will now be able to run AI models profitably.

Bradley Sutton:

Interesting, interesting. Now, yeah, we're always looking to add things that can utilize AI that helps Amazon sellers. You know we are launching this week advertising AI on our Atomic side, which is allow somebody to just enter in an ASIN and then our AI engine will kind of just create all the campaigns on its own and optimize them on its own. That's something that we've been using at Pacvue for a while, and we're integrating some AI things into tools like Cerebro, where you could have a prompt that allows you to filter out keywords or say, hey, can you please remove any Spanish keywords from the results? Or, hey, can you remove any branded? You know search terms, you know things that you know you could probably do on your own, but it just takes a lot longer. So, so, definitely, we're, we're keeping track of what AI can do, because anything that is doable. We want to go ahead and bring it into Helium 10.

Bradley Sutton:

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Bradley Sutton:

Now going back to the main topic, amazon. Before we get into the science more detailed, into whatever science documents have been released and things this year, let's talk about what is 100% already out there or talked about, which is like the Rufus and so Rufus, Cosmo I've got some personal opinions on it and that's all. A lot of this is, you know, until Amazon actually publishes something for sure, like you can't even say that, oh, a science document said this or that, because the great majority of the content of science documents actually doesn't actually get into production on Amazon. You know per se. You know so just because Amazon talked about in a science document. It's just a research paper, you know. But let's first about talk about the stuff that you know Amazon announced at Accelerate or has already rolled out to customers, like Rufus.

And then my general thought on that and again I could be wrong and I'll be happy to switch my thinking when Amazon does make some different announcements is that Amazon is always about the customer. Right, they want to give a better result for the customer. And then I don't feel that, like Rufus, for example. Fyi, in my opinion it's terrible as a buyer where I'm like, hey, what did the review say about this product and it gives me an answer. And guess what? There's no reviews on that product. So, as a consumer, being kind of skeptical about some of these AI things, I just can't use it. And now the other part of it is I don't think anytime soon the traditional way of searching on Amazon is going to be improved in that if I know I want to buy and I talked about this in a previous episode recently if I want to buy a coffin shelf, there is no better process than me opening my Amazon app and typing the word towards coffin shelf and looking at the results like there is nothing unless amazon connects my brain to, to the app. That is going to ever be better than that where? In other words, I am not going to go and have a conversation with Rufus with my thumbs, you know, like taking typing in a whole bunch of I used to be a secretary. I type like a hundred words a minute. So like, let's say, I was on the desktop app, I'm still. I'm a lazy person, as all human beings are. I am not going to say what do you think, Rufus, about coffin shelves out there? Like, like, no, I'm going to type in nine letters and then. So that part. I almost don't think Amazon is necessarily trying to change that part, because they know that it's already the most optimized experience for people who know what they're looking for.

Now here's the thing, though how did I get to that decision that I wanted a coffin shelf, like maybe I just knew it. But another thing is, maybe I'm just browsing like, hey, I want to uh, search on google what are trending, um, trending gifts in 2024 for teenagers with a gothic inclination, or something like that. Like, right now, I'm not doing that in Amazon, or, historically, I'm doing that like in Google, maybe Pinterest, you know, or maybe these other websites where I'm trying to get ideas. And then, all of a sudden, I read a blog, or I arrive on a TikTok or whatever, and I see, ooh, Coffin Shelf. I didn't even know that existed. Now let me go and type in coffin shelf on Amazon.

So I think the potential of, of a fundamental change in the way we shop could be that maybe some of these searches that people would normally start on a Pinterest or on a Google, maybe now you can start in the Amazon app, where what I would have typed for the Google AI or things like it's just going to go ahead and, and, and I can start the Amazon app where what I would have typed for the Google AI or things like it's just going to go ahead and I can start, you know, just browsing, browsing things, and at the end of it, you know like Amazon might, or Rufus might, tell me yeah, you know, like we see some spooky families by coffin shelves, and then here are the coffin shelves Now. Anyways, I normally don't talk very much when I interview somebody, but I'm very passionate about this. But are we on the same page here, or what? Correct me if I'm wrong or if you have different ideas.

Kevin Dolan:

I mean totally with Rufus.

You know Rufus is out, it's public, it's something that anybody can interact with. So we know it's been implemented and if you've actually used it, I'm sure you found the experience a little bit disappointing. You know it does two main things it helps you to figure out what search you might have wanted to type in if you weren't completely sure, and it answers questions about a product once you're looking at a particular product. I think that those two things could be useful. You know, I think that it's certainly early in the implementation of chatbots to say that these things are fully capable, but I think what you're seeing with Rufus is mainly two things here. The first is there's intense industry pressure to implement AI in a visible way that all companies are feeling. After ChatGPT was released, no major tech company wanted to fall behind on that trend, and so you started to see these types of very visible generative AI features implemented in tech platforms across all industries. If you've got a website, there's a good chance you've got a chatbot at this point, and so it's hard to imagine a world where Amazon was not going to release something like this. They really, really had to because there was so much pressure to at least try it, see if it works, see how customers respond to it. Also, we know that Amazon looks towards other retail experiences to try and understand what ways they can improve the e-commerce experience.

It was not always the case that Amazon's primary vehicle for finding a product was a search bar. When Amazon was first released, it was largely node browse based. You would search through a series of categories and get to the product you're looking for, which is much akin to going to a store, looking at the different aisles, walking down the aisle that has your type of product and getting there. It was a major innovation for them to create a search engine that could search through any type of product and understand at some level what a person was looking for, and they've been making continuous improvements to that over the entire development of their company. I think with Rufus, the corollary in real life retail is going to a store and talking to an associate. If you go to a nice store where they have a more curated shopping experience, you might want to go and just talk to a person and ask them questions about the products that they're experts on. I think that's a sort of natural corollary to try to implement in an online context, but when I go to a store, if somebody comes up to me and starts telling me about their products, I'm personally not the type of person to respond to that, and so you know it's natural for me to look at Rufus with a little bit more skepticism than you know somebody who might enjoy that real life experience.

I think that there are shortcomings with Rufus. I don't think it's going to materially impact the majority of purchase paths for the majority of customers. I agree with you. There is no easier user interface that I can imagine. When you are looking for something, you want to just go to Amazon, type it in a search box, a brief description of what you're looking for and then yeah, all right, I've got a list of things to look at. I've got some pictures. I can scan some results.

I do find some utility with Rufus with respect to answering questions about products. You have to take it with a grain of salt because it can hallucinate. It can produce unactual information. However, I have used it in some context to ask a specific question about you know, can this product be compatible with some other product? And it will give you some kind of information that you can then verify using the listing, using the questions and I think that's helpful in order to use Rufus to come up with search ideas and things like that.

I found that those features are a little bit less useful but, like you're saying, if they start to integrate the experience of asking these questions in a more core way, in a way that feels less bolted on and gives you more than just a text output with links if it were to give you, say, a sort of a Pinterest board for product discovery, help you to better understand how to get to the listings that you want to find.

I could see a world where those user interfaces become material for less targeted searches, where you aren't really sure exactly what you want to buy off the bat. One of the things that they point out in the blog post about Rufus because they haven't released a scientific paper about it detailing the implementation. But one of the things they point out is, if you are going to involve yourself in some kind of activity like, let's say, ongoing camping in Joshua Tree, I might use a tool like Rufus to answer the question of what types of things do I need? You know the kinds of things that you might talk to a store associate at a camping store about and it can start to give you some ideas about this. But I think we're pretty far from the point where you would give it the same kind of trust as you would give as somebody who has put their body in a camping experience routinely.

Bradley Sutton:

I agree. I think Rufus definitely has some potential to help things if the hallucinations stop, because there are things that as consumers, we do that takes time. After I land on a couple of products, I might start looking at the reviews. I might start looking at details of the bullet points and descriptions to see use cases and try and find out material. I might look at the images to see the stats and the ingredients of something, and these are all things that can take a lot of time, especially if I'm not sure where to look.

Like I don't know where a seller has put in their listing. You know which material to use, so I can definitely see Rufus helping there. But then, you see, my thing is then you know and this kind of goes now into the Cosmo discussion is I materially do not believe that sellers should be doing anything differently right now. To me, the people who Rufus and Cosmo might help, if anything, is the people. It's kind of like maybe leverage or leveling the playing field a little bit for some of the people maybe who are not doing the best practices.

You know, maybe I didn't put all the right keywords in my listing and so I wasn't indexed for it on day one, but then Cosmo or whatever, over time recognizes that the people who are buying my product are actually looking for it for this certain use case. It's kind of like what you and I showed last year on the podcast where noodle camera. Right, you know, noodle camera was not that keyword, was not at the time, I don't know about now, but was not in any listings on Amazon and it didn't have much search volume. So it's not like it was a big loss. But Amazon learned and we don't again. We don't know if this was Cosmo that did it or it's just Amazon algorithm, you know but Amazon learned that, hey, these people who are searching a noodle camera, they're actually looking for this stethoscope kind of camera that looks like a noodle, and so who don't? We don't know how long it took for that to actually become indexed as something, butthat's a benefit you know like. But at the end, if noodle camera was an important keyword, I, if I would have put that keyword in my listing from day one, I would have been the only one searchable. I wouldn't have had to wait for Cosmo or whatever A9, to kind of learn about that. And so again for the person who only keyword stuffs right, you're like, hey, I'm going to pull all my keywords from Cerebro and Magnet and just throw it in my listing and try and get it, each keyword four times.

Yeah, you know what? You probably should change your, your methodology, because that's not. That hasn't been the best way of doing things for years. But we've been teaching here at Helium 10 that you have got to talk about pain points to your product solves in your listing. You've got to show it in the images. You know what use cases. If you have collagen peptides, you've got to show people using it in their coffee. Not that they use the keyword coffee to search for collagen peptides, but that's how they are searching for it. They want something that is going to dissolve well in their coffee, and so you've got to be indexed from day one. You've got to talk about what pain points your product solves, and then that's what's going to put you on the radar of these Amazon AI things. And so in that sense, I don't think a seller's you know, most sellers should be changing their methodology at all because of any of these new things. What are your thoughts on that.?

Kevin Dolan:

Yeah Well, I mean, I think it'll first be helpful to talk about what Cosmo is and what Cosmo isn't, because I've been reading a lot of the blog articles, watching the videos and I'm seeing something that tends to happen in tech sometimes, where a word or a technology is being used as a stand-in for some broader movement within the space. I'm seeing a lot of people conflating Cosmo, which is a specific research paper, a specific tool that was built and was tested. It's described very specifically in a scientific paper. Cosmo is this tool, but I think it's being used more broadly to capture a shift into focusing more on semantic search and less on lexical search, which is exactly what I had come on last year to talk about.

Amazon has been working on this for years and years, improving their search algorithm to not rely on a listing creator to actually put a specific keyword in their listing and then find it based on the existence of that keyword in the listing. Instead, try to understand the meaning of a product, how people use it, what people think about the product and all of these kinds of details, so that when somebody types in a search, it can effectively find the product that they're going to want to buy. That is a shift that's been happening for years. That predates transformer models, but we have started to see for sure an increased ability to actually do these things on Amazon. I think that what you're saying is correct. You know the best practices and what sellers should be doing with their listings hasn't changed. But that really depends on what they were doing, whether they were following the best practices to begin with. You know like you said, if they were keyword stuffing trying to find as many keywords as people might type into a search box and stuff it into their listing in as literal a fashion as possible to make Sammy-looking listings that cover as much search volume as possible yeah, that's a bad practice, and as we move into a more semantically focused search world, that becomes an even worse practice. Semantically focused search world that becomes an even worse practice.

What it also tells us is that some of the efforts that are required today to create listings that do involve inserting specific keywords and things like that. You may be able to shift your focus to what would actually be more helpful to customers, which is accurately describing your product, accurately describing how your product will be used and targeting specific customers and specific pain points. The more specific you are and the clearer and more accurate you are, amazon wants you to be in front of the customers who want to buy your product. So that's always going to be a good practice and that's ultimately what Amazon is trying to do when they're doing these types of experiments.

Now the Cosmo paper is interesting. The Cosmo paper was tested on a really large chunk of Amazon traffic using a very heavy, large language model. Compared to prior research, which does tell us that Amazon has made investments in the server capabilities to be able to run these models in production and keep searches within their tight latency expectations, so that, I would say, is certainly significant, it tells us that Amazon does have the hardware capacities to run some of these more advanced models and it tells us that we are going to see an increased focus on semantic search. I think that does affect consumer behaviors, it does affect the way that we rank for keywords, but what it doesn't affect is that best practice of describing your products accurately.

Bradley Sutton:

Based on those scientific documents. What are some of the things where, again, just because it's in the science document doesn't mean that it's going to be implemented. But, you know, based on the results and sometimes you can kind of tell like, wow, this one had some pretty amazing results, so it's probably for sure going to be implemented. Can you talk a little bit more about the kind of things that maybe you've seen already implemented or you think will be based on all you know? Again, nobody has read more Amazon science documents than Kevin here. So what would you predict as far as the future, the next year or so?

Kevin Dolan:

I mean, Cosmo is a specific tool and I think that the function that it performs is valuable to enhancing Amazon's understanding of a listing. So I certainly would not be surprised to see Amazon implementing this in a production capacity on a large swath of searches. That would not be surprising to me, but it's not as massive as the shift that we've seen into semantic focused search. Cosmo in particular discusses essentially a mechanism for enhancing Amazon's understanding of a product by taking into consideration things that aren't expressed in the query and things that aren't expressed in the listing. The example that they use in the paper, the canonical example, is if you're looking for shoes for pregnant women, a listing might not literally say shoes for pregnant women. It might produce a specific type of open-toed shoe that has good support, good comfort. That might not literally be listed as a keyword in the listing, but it might be something that the system can infer based on its knowledge of the universe, about what it's like to be a pregnant woman and the types of products that they might benefit from.

Cosmo is essentially a mechanism for enhancing listings with additional information to get closer to the user's intent based on a particular search.

If you zoom out and you look at the broader task of semantic search. That's always been the focus. The goal is something might not be said in the same language in a query as it might be when it's written in a listing, when it's answered in a question or when it's written in a review be when it's written in a listing, when it's answered in a question or when it's written in a review, and so the domain of language that's used for these two different ways of expressing thought aren't the same, and so we need to create algorithms that better understand what a user actually means when they type in a search, and what a product actually does and what functions it performs. This idea of understanding deep intent and the actual composition of a product is essentially the goal, and we are seeing for sure that Amazon is making these changes. We're seeing more results come back for listings that do not literally have the keywords typed into search and better match what is a user's real intent on shopping.

Bradley Sutton:

But for it to learn that something is a good shoe for pregnant women, it basically would have to have some context, like maybe the reviews. Like somebody said, oh, I was in the second trimester and this was great. It's not going to pull that out of nothing unless, no, I was going to say maybe it knows that. Like, maybe somehow it knows the customer is pregnant and then, without even a review, it's a wow. We see an abnormally large number of pregnant women who are buying this. But I don't, I don't know. I mean, I think I big dad.

Kevin Dolan:

I could tell you that, Cosmo, the paper itself does. You're talking about what's usually called avatar personalization, based on your purchase history. I know some things about you. I can kind of put you in this category of person, and I know that these types of people tend to buy these types of products. The Cosmo paper doesn't actually explicitly discuss testing avatar personalization. Doesn't actually explicitly discuss testing avatar personalization. What it does talk about is using recent Search Queries to better contextualize later Search Queries. So like, for example, if I'm searching for camping gear and then I search for mattress after that, there's a good chance that I specifically mean a camping mattress or an inflatable mattress rather than a mattress for a bed in your home that weighs 200 pounds. It can better contextualize a particular search query based on the searches that you've been performing in the recent past.

Avatar personalization is another thing that Amazon is always investigating and we have yet to see any really material evidence that it's been implemented. Almost all of the studies that I've read relating to that type of personalization they talk about the potential of it, but in practice they tend to perform pretty poorly. They either reduce sales or they don't materially impact sales, which is a major problem. They don't materially impact sales, which is a major problem, especially considering that cost of performing that personalization. Amazon does a lot to make sure that the searches that come back are within a very tight latency. They need to come back as quickly as possible and that's very important to the shopping experience. The more personalized search results are, the more expensive those search queries are going to be to run and the longer it's going to take, which materially affects your experience as a purchaser. Yes, hardware is improving. Yes, technologies are improving, but if you can just reuse results, it's always going to be a lot faster than if you compute it on the fly.

Bradley Sutton:

But then, still, using the same example, I think, if you knew that, hey, your shoes have good cushioning and you designed it actually for pregnant women to be able to use, the best practice still is to put that keyboard in your listing for day one, so that at least you have a. You know, you don't have to wait for the AI to learn based on activity, you know. But then, if it's not something that's readily like, maybe you had no idea that people were using your shoes for gifts for people who are pregnant, like, maybe you had no idea. That's where, like, I think Cosmo, Rufus and stuff is going to help to uncover these sub-niches of people who are getting your product. But again, at the end of the day, this scenario, I don't think there's anything different that the seller needs to do as far as with their listing that we haven't already said. Now, at the same time, maybe they learn. I think this is going to open up some new potentials down the road. Like, let's say, Helium 10 starts seeing what the common Rufus things are being said about the product or what's the common queries. Maybe Amazon will make that available for sellers through some API that says, hey, this persona is buying your product.

Well, maybe I would go into my listing and change one of my images to show a pregnant person walking around with these shoes. But again, that's what you should have been doing for years. You know, like when you read your reviews and you notice like I used to sell this or I still do sell this egg tray, and I was reading the reviews one day and people were using this egg tray, this wooden egg tray, to as a serving platter for like sushi and also these chocolates, because you know the holes for an egg tray is very similar I was like I never would have thought that so in that situation, who knows, maybe Rufus would have seen the reviews and saw these images and now, all of a sudden, even though I don't have chocolates or sushi in my egg tray listing, I would be searchable for those keywords. But again, as soon as I would have seen that review or known that people are using my product in a way and this is what I did years before AI. You know cause this was years ago that I did this I went in and I did a reef photo shoot showing other use cases of it and I did one image, or like a quadrant of four images that showed somebody putting sushi in it, somebody putting chocolate in it, somebody putting this and that's, and then I put it in my listing too.

So, I was like I didn't want to wait for Amazon to hopefully index me for these keywords. So again, I just go back to the point that what Amazon is doing is not really making things where sellers are going to have to do something completely different, but they they're helping maybe the sellers who haven't been doing the best practices to get indexed for keywords that maybe they weren't smart enough to put in their listing. Yeah, I mean, I think so.

Kevin Dolan:

What you're ultimately seeing with Cosmo is taking information from Amazon's entire catalog, which includes billions of products, billions of product listings, billions of questions, billions of answers, billions of reviews.

There's a lot of information contained in all of that data, which starts to build a picture of how the universe works, and so, in a sense, you could think of it as Amazon using the information it's learned from existing listings to enhance all listings and build a more comprehensive picture of their catalog.

I totally agree with you that it doesn't change the best practices, and still, I would say it's now even more critical that you are taking into consideration the use cases for your products, the people who might be using it, and accurately describe these in your listings. I think that that is still absolutely the best way to rank for products. I think what it does is it shifts focus from some of those old school techniques that we were probably recommending 10 years ago. It's no longer necessary for you to enumerate all possible customers of a product, but instead focus on the key use cases and the key customers to your products, describe these things as accurately and as naturally as possible. It's not required for you to think of all the ways that you could possibly say pregnant woman. Instead, you can just describe the fact that this is useful for a person who is pregnant.

Bradley Sutton:

Outside of Cosmo, Rufus. Obviously, they announced a lot of things at Amazon Accelerate, like Amelia for Amazon sellers. Any comments on other things that Amazon have been working on the AI front? Yeah, I mean I would say Amelia is Amazon sellers. Any comments on other things that Amazon have been working on the AI front.?

0:36:59 - Speaker 2

Yeah, I mean I would say Amelia is certainly interesting. Amelia is Amazon's internal chatbot for Seller Central. You know, I've yet to play with it. I've yet to see anybody who's actually had access to it, so I think it's just an early announcement. Maybe some limited people have access, but I would imagine it's going to undergo the hype cycle that we see for most chatbots, including Rufus. There's going to be a lot of excitement. The initial version will be pretty terrible. It will slowly get better over time.

The question is whether it will continue to receive enough investment to make it into a chatbot product that is useful for people, and whether chat is as natural an interface.

As you know, Seller Central is in and of itself. You know, I think we've spent a lot of time over the past 30, 40 years developing software interaction paradigms, so we have a good idea of what is easy to use software. There is potential that we could be using these more chat oriented interfaces to get to our vague intents that we have in our head a little bit more quickly, but we haven't really proven that out yet, and so I would say Amelia has a very similar potential to Rufus in that it's something that I believe could be useful if it is properly invested in, but the jury's still out on whether or not it's going to be a material impacting to people's workflow as you start to get access to it. I do recommend that sellers give it a try, just like with any of these tools see if it's useful for their workflows, but I'm not really holding my breath on it being revolutionary.

Bradley Sutton:

A lot of the recommendations that Amazon gives in Seller Central is. I think a lot of sellers have learned to just ignore them because they're not exactly that useful.

And then. So, if this is, it's like putting lipstick on a pig, you know like sure you could put the AI word up, but if it's being based on something that you don't trust in the first place, you know, might be a little bit of time before we can implement it, but I think that Amazon is definitely moving in the right direction and that Amelia has nothing to do with the customer. You know, like we always say, Amazon is all about the customer, which is true, but I think that's just in itself is a step in the right direction, that, hey, Amazon is doing things that are going to try and help the seller, and that's a trend I've been seeing over the last few years. I think it's a very nice step in the right direction.

Kevin Dolan:

On that front, we've definitely been seeing Amazon release features in Seller Central using AI that are more seller oriented, that help sellers to understand their products. They've released their own features for review analysis, which does get some basic, surface level summary statistics that could be helpful for people. I think Amazon is making investments there. However, they're always going to be a little bit step removed from the customer. They're always, at the end of the day, competing with sellers to some degree. There are certain things that they can do, certain things that they're limited on in terms of where their interests lie versus where the sellers lie, and so that's where tools like Helium 10 become much more valuable to customers, and so I do recommend that you look at the full suite of tools that you have available to you, because there's going to be things that Amazon will implement and there's going to be things that they're going to be hesitant to implement, for whatever reason.

Bradley Sutton:

All right. Well, Kevin, thank you so much for riffing on this with me. It's something I'm passionate about because I'm all about. I'm not like Amazon, I'm all about the sellers, not about the customers, and so anything that affects sellers or you, you know, if there's going to be some big inherent change in the way that sellers need to do things, then I get very passionate about it. And especially when I hear I don't want to, you know, use the word misinformation, you know out there, but almost like scare tactics or just clickbaity stuff, which I just did in this very podcast with the title of it but with at least, if you're in a clickbait, at least let people know that what the real situation is, because I don't want I've had so many sellers come up to me because of just hearing things where it's like, oh, my goodness, I've got to change everything I'm doing for my keyword research.

I've got to change everything I'm doing for my listing optimization. And right now, the fact of the matter is, no, I'm still doing the exact same things I did last year. There are some slightly different things because there's new rules at Amazon of what you can and can't do and of course, I've switched, but as far as the way I make my listings and I structure it and how I do my keyword research. Not one iota different am I doing it now, and I have had the exact same success with getting to page one on all my main keywords and getting sales for the keywords I think I'm relevant for.

And so I think that's just important to know, guys, that as AI evolves, I'm sure I'm positive there's going to be new things that we might have to do as sellers and stay tuned. We'll let you know what those are, but right now, as long as you've been paying attention to our tutorials the last few years, you're not having to do anything different, in my opinion. So, anyways, thanks, Kevin, let's definitely bring you on in 2025. And you know, who knows, maybe AI will be we'll be driving all of our cars and we're driving like the Jetsons or something. I don't know what's. What's going to happen, but we're going to find out with you next year.

Kevin Dolan:

Super excited. Thanks for having me.

Thursday Oct 17, 2024

Helium 10 Buzz 10/17/24: Amazon Unboxed Recap | Banned On Etsy! | Amazon Bundling Change

Thursday Oct 17, 2024

This week’s buzzing news: The Project X account was booted from Etsy, Amazon bundling has changed drastically, and 15 updates were announced at Amazon Unboxed this week!

Freedom Ticket Webinar - http://h10.me/ftoctober
Meganar - http://h10.me/meganar
Winning Amazon Advertising Strategies - http://h10.me/adsoctober
Sydney, Australia Event - http://h10.me/sydney
Milan, Italy Elite Workshop - http://h10.me/milan
Dubai, UAE Event - http://h10.me/dubai

Whether you're new to Amazon or running large-scale brands, these updates are sure to provide valuable insights and opportunities for growth. Listen in as I break down these developments and what they mean for you as a seller.

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

01:07 - Etsy is THE WORST!
05:38 - Amazon Bundling Change
06:44 - TikTok Influencers
08:23 - Amazon Shopping Test
09:59 - Compliance Fast Track
10:31 - FBA New Selection Perk
11:30 - Large & Heavy Returns
12:15 - Online Events
15:19 - Sydney, Australia
15:49 - Milan, Italy
16:30 - Dubai, UAE
16:51 - Amazon Unboxed Recap

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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

Bradley Sutton:

The Project X account was unceremoniously booted from Etsy this week. There's been a huge change. For those who do bundling on Amazon, a complete guide of the 15 updates announced at Amazon Box this week. This and more on this week's Weekly Buzz. 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 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 and goings on in the Amazon and e-commerce world. We also give you training tips of the week and give you serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. Let's see what's buzzing. Today is going to be almost all news, guys, because we've got like 24 different news articles to talk about due to the Unboxed conference that was held this week, and we're going to get to pretty much every single announcement that was done at Unboxed. And also we got some cool online events that you guys might want to participate in, so make sure to stay tuned for that. Let's go ahead and hop right into the news.

Bradley Sutton:

I wanted to tell you a story. I got this email this week from Etsy for the Project X account. So you guys know Project X is where we sell coffin shelves and egg trays and you know these. Actually, most of the products qualify for Etsy. All right, because you've got to either design it in the USA and slash or it's not. It doesn't have to be both. Or have you know a member of your own shop is the one who is putting it together and it's not like you know mass production, you know line and the products on project X that qualify.

Bradley Sutton:

Um, I've been selling on Etsy for like five years. You've probably heard me talk about it, sold maybe a hundred thousand dollars worth over the years, and so what happened was I got this email this week and it said the following hey, how cool is that store? We've reached out that you've got listings that were not in line with eBay's creativity standards. All right, blah, blah, blah, blah, your account has been permanently suspended. I'm like what? Like? First of all, you guys should know who we are. We're Helium 10, guys Like we're not trying to like game the system or something. We're trying to like actually promote Etsy by having an account. We're not trying to make money, we're trying to like, promote people to sell on Etsy Now, of course, and so you should let us do whatever we want. No, but we're 100% in compliance.

Bradley Sutton:

And they just send this list like nonstop or this just like big long thing of can't sell on Etsy anymore. You can still ship pending orders. You may see a delay of getting paid up to 180 days and at the very end it says if you think there's a mistake, duh, you may be able to file an appeal with Etsy. Here's how it works. So, of course, I filed appeal and then I went through the questionnaire. I send them video proof. I'm like, guys, we have not violated one policy. I mean, there's thousands, tens of thousands of products on Etsy that are clearly not in policy. Not how, not how cool is that project X stuff? So, uh, you know, I I showed them details, like showed that it was our shop making it.

Bradley Sutton:

You know, like even videos of myself. Uh, you know, I showed them details, like showed that it was our shop making it. You know, like even videos of myself, you know, helping to make some of the products. I actually showed the original Project X videos. I was like, hey, we actually did a reality TV shows that shows when we're designing this product in the USA. You know, kind of like your policy says got to be designed in the USA. Here's some proof of that.

Bradley Sutton:

And then I told them I was like no, maybe you didn't know, but like we're an educational platform here, we don't make tools for Etsy at Helium 10, but we liked helping people to sell online, submitted it and then two days later get this message. It says this is Etsy's trust and safety team and we're like Etsy's dumb and dumber team. But anyways, we appreciate you taking the time to file an appeal. No, no, you really don't. After careful consideration, no, I'm pretty sure you did not carefully consider anything. We've determined your account does not qualify for reinstatement. We performed a comprehensive review. No, you did not and we're unable to further reconsider. You know they don't allow me to say anything. I can't talk to anybody. There's like no, but no customer support to reach out to discuss I mean this whole process of this, not one person to reach out. So, anyways, my point is yeah, you're not going to see me here promoting etsy to for you guys to sell on etsy. I've done that before. But then also those of you who are selling on ety and you do get, like these notification warnings. You know, maybe do a little bit more than me as far as trying to get somebody on the line to talk to you to see why in the world you're getting these notifications when you're if you're fully in line with their requirements.

Bradley Sutton:

Who have bad? You know, I hear bad experiences all the time with Walmart, amazon customer service. Everybody always has complaints. Guys, it could be worse, right? I've not seen a worse experience with customer service than Etsy. It was kind of funny. At the bottom of the email it says their address and I was like wait a minute, 117 Adams Street, Brooklyn, new York. I looked it up Sure enough. Coincidentally, 27 years ago when I lived in New York, I actually worked down the street there in Brooklyn Heights and in that building, 117 Adams, where Etsy's headquarters is I used to give tours at that building. That was part of my job. It was a printery in those days and I'm like, wow, what are the odds of that? I live in California, that's on the other side, anyways, I digress. Wow, what are the odds of that? I live in California, that's on the other side, anyways, I digress, that doesn't even matter, I'd love to give a tour there. Now, look at this here we have customer service representatives who have no idea what Etsy's policies are. No, I'm sorry, I'm just a little bit bitter here, but anyways, let's move on to other news here, the first article of the day.

Bradley Sutton:

This is kind of big actually for a lot of people who do bundling. It says updated product bundling policy for consumables. All right, so, effective October 14th, you can only list bundles that are created and offered by the original manufacturer. So what does that mean? Let's say I've got a blue diamond almonds here and I've got Wetzel's pretzel nuts or pretzels, something right. Well, what you could do in the old days was you could go and put them and make a new bundle, all right, like Blue Diamond Almonds and Pretzels, and this is my Bradley's Amazing Snack Box brand, and there's no problem, I can have products. But now you can no longer do that going forward. All right, this was a big strategy by people who do bundles and didn't want to like have to compete with just the blue diamond. You know, uh, the blue diamond brand, right, you just put under your own brand and differentiate yourself by maybe offering other products. But you are no longer going to be able to do that. So check your seller central dashboard. That's kind of going to affect a lot of people out there who do, uh, certain kind of bundling.

Bradley Sutton:

Next article is from restoftheworld.org and it's entitled TikTok wants to turn millions of Americans into paid shopping influencers Super interesting article that talks about the promotions that TikTok is doing to get more influencers out there. And guys, let me just tell you that this thing works from sellers. It was funny. I was talking to my family the other day. I had set up a TikTok shop account on the Project 5K Not even the Project X one, my Project 5K Amazon account or products and I only put one on there and I just wanted to go through the process. It was like a month ago and I sent our product like a sample to some influencers. I chose maybe like a maximum of like eight different people, maybe it was only five and then I forgot about it. Right, I was just like, okay, whatever. Now again, as you guys know, I don't ship my own products for my factory, my family or my factory, my warehouse, my family handles all of that. And then I was just looking at some report and the TikTok was like what? We sold 23 of these products in the last couple of weeks. I didn't promote it at all, other than sending it out to these influencers on TikTok. So again, that is, the way to success on TikTok shop is through influencer marketing. It's kind of an interesting article that talks about that. There's going to be stuff you know from Helium 10. Look forward to that. That might help with that in the future, not only for TikTok but also Amazon influencers too. It's a great way to make extra money yourself as sellers or newer sellers trying to make extra money, or you're an experienced seller and you want to. You know you should want to reach out to these influencers that are on Amazon. They can make unboxing videos and things and other UGC for your products, all right.

Bradley Sutton:

Next article is from retail dive.com and it's entitled Amazon bundles online shopping of grocery and non food items. All right, so this is a test that they're doing. I think it was in Arizona where you could like actually order Amazon fresh products, whole foods and your Amazon in one shopping cart experience and then get like everything like a couple hours. Now, you know you might think, well, how does this? How is this going to affect me? I don't sell in Whole Foods, right, but it's an interesting advantage for Prime members and another benefit of being a Prime member. You know, in the past you'd have to physically go to Whole Foods perhaps. Maybe use the Amazon Fresh subsection to make just an Amazon Fresh grocery order. And then your third thing would be hey, let me order a couple of things from the Amazon Prime app, and then now there's three different deliveries and so Amazon is testing. Hey, can we give Prime members who live in certain regions the ability to just do it all in one shopping experience, saving customer time and money? This, I think, would be good for us Amazon sellers. Obviously, we're not selling Amazon Fresh or Whole Foods, but how many of orders maybe the person decided you know what? I'm just going to go in person to whole foods and let me just get my other items, like the snacks that maybe they could have gotten on Amazon, that maybe you carry. Or you know what? I'm going to go to a whole foods and let me go next door to Walmart to pick up. You know the toilet paper I need, right, maybe you sell toilet paper, but now your Amazon Prime order might get the order because people are trying to buy in this little bundle. So you know, this is not a hashtag game changer or anything like that, but I think, a good move by Amazon that will help sellers down the road if it's picked up by customers.

Bradley Sutton:

Next article is from your Seller Central dashboard and it's entitled Make Product Compliance Easier with Compliance Fast Track. We talked about this. This is one of those announcements at Amazon Accelerate, and now this is one of those ones that's now available. So check your dashboard, because now in such product categories as electronics, arts and crafts, you are now going to be able to get your compliance documentation in a more automated way instead of having to one by one do it. So for more information, if you're in one of those categories, make sure to check that on your dashboard.

Bradley Sutton:

Another program that you might not be aware of is called the FBA New Selection, and now there's a new benefit from this program and, effective last month, they're going to offer now a 25% discount. I don't know why they're just mentioning it now it was available last month, but it just got announced yesterday or day before where you can get a 25% discount on Vine for your eligible new products If you are in FBA new selection. Now I would go into that article and it actually links to the knowledge base about FBA new selection, like wait, who qualifies for FBA new selection? What are the other benefits? There's actually a lot of other benefits, more than just a discount on Vine. You can actually get a 10% rebate for sales on eligible ASINs. You can get free monthly storage, and so this is a program. If you have not heard about it, check your Seller Central dashboard. Go through to the knowledge base article on Amazon Seller Central about that and get some more information. Next article going back to the seller central dashboard, again, a seller fulfilled prepaid returns are now offered through UPS for large and heavy items, right, so that wasn't available to do UPS before, and so if you are selling a large and heavy item, make sure to check this article on your dashboard. This is like a product that weighs more than 90 pounds, et cetera. Check this article on your dashboard. This is like a product that weighs more than 90 pounds, et cetera. Amazon has some new programs in place that you need to be aware about, because now buyers are going to automatically be able to trigger some of these returns, and so you might all of a sudden start ending up with, you know, with like 50 refrigerators. If you sell refrigerators in your warehouse, you're like, where did all these return refrigerators come from? I never got returns before, but it might be part of this new program, so make sure to check that out if it affects you.

Bradley Sutton:

Now, before we get into Amazon Unbox, a few on and offline events I think are really good for you guys to know. About the online ones, obviously, anybody can register for All right. The first event is actually tomorrow, the 18th, at 11 am. It's going to be a our monthly freedom to get workshop where Kevin King brings on an expert to do an advanced training for Amazon sellers, and this one is going to be entitled why Branding has Always Been your Biggest Marketing Problem and how AI Will Solve it All right, so, completely free workshop. If you guys want to register and watch it live, completely free workshop. Um, if you guys want to register and watch it live, uh, you can go to h10.me/ftoctober. F T for freedom ticket.

Bradley Sutton:

Next online event is something I haven't done in years. How many of you guys out there remember Meganar? You guys remember that I did like a Meganar. It's like a mega webinar years ago. It's probably been like five years where I went live for 16 hours straight. It was insane. They wouldn't let me go live 16 hours again. But this Monday I am going to go live, this time with the help of Carrie and Shivali and others, and I'm going to have maybe 10, 20 guests on the show. We're going to go live from 7 am all the way into 2 pm Pacific time. So we tried to pick some times where different people can hop in, hop off, and the basic theme of it is tips from top sellers that we're going to be inviting on on how to really have a great Q4, have a great Black Friday to Cyber Monday, cyber Weekend, cyber 5, and some tips that are really going to help you in the coming weeks. I've invited a really wide variety of sellers with different experiences that they're going to be giving their top tips throughout that. We're also going to be trying to get money live back from Amazon because, remember, the deadline is going to be in a couple of days for that. So we're going to be doing some of that, like we're trying to get up to maybe $500,000 back. We're going to have prizes, like like trivias and giveaways with swag. It is going to be a fun time. So to register for that, go to h10.me/meganar.

Bradley Sutton:

All right One. The very next day, on Tuesday, we are going to have a special workshop with Destiny about AI advertising, something new that Helium 10 has, and Destiny has helped optimize a little bit and she has some cool templates that are going to help for Q4. So it's kind of like continuing the conversation about Q4 and how to get your advertising ready coming up, how you can now set up campaigns in seconds with a new tool that you might not know is available to you without even having to buy this tool separately. So it's going to be pretty cool. That's going to be Tuesday of next week. If you want to join that, go to h10.me/adsoctober.

Bradley Sutton:

Now some in-person events that I think are, uh, you should go to. I'll be at almost all of these and would love to meet you guys and hang out. The first one is coming up is going to be October 31st this month. I think that's Halloween. I'm not sure if they do Halloween in Australia, but it's October 31st in Sydney, Australia. Uh, I would love to see you guys there. It's an Amazon event, all right, this is like made by Amazon corporate in Australia, h10.me/sydney. If you guys are interested in going, I think it's a free event, all right. So would love to meet and hang out with you guys there my very first ever trip down under, so it'll be great to go there.

Bradley Sutton:

Next event will be in Milan, Italy, November 11th. This is an elite workshop, but it's open to everybody. Elite members go free, but instead of $400, we are doing a special where anybody can go to this high-end elite workshop for only 89 euros. It's going to be in Milan, Italy, h10.me/milan. It's going to be with Avast. We're going to have some great speakers. I'll be speaking there my first time speaking at Elite Workshop this year. We'll have Mansour from Incrementum Digital coming from Canada, We'll have George from ClearAds coming from the UK, Jana from Serbia we have a very international speaking group and I definitely think you guys, um, should make it out to that one. And then last will be a December, the 4th I believe and fifth in Dubai. I'll be speaking at a pretty big event over there and that is h10.me/dubai. It's called World EF, Dubai event, so there's going to be a bunch of people speaking there. It'd be great to meet you there.

Bradley Sutton:

All right, now let's get into Amazon Unboxed and this is probably going to be your biggest or the most comprehensive recap. I hope so. I wasn't even there, but I really tried to read up on all the articles and what people were writing to get a good kind of like picture of what happened at Amazon Unboxed. I was able to go last year, but this year didn't make it. So let's go ahead and hop into it. Some of this stuff, guys, is a little bit in the weeds. It's a little over my head, like I'm not a professional advertiser. Obviously, I spend $100,000 a year on advertising, but I don't consider myself, like you know, some advanced person who does DSP and all these things. As a matter of fact, I don't think I spend a hundred thousand dollars more. I'm probably down to like $70,000 this year. But anyways, let's go ahead and hop into it.

Bradley Sutton:

The very first announcement was Amazon Marketing Cloud, AMC. The next few ones are going to be all about AMC. That was like a big theme of. Unbox says AMC eligibility expanded to sponsored ads advertisers Me I have never used AMC Before. You would have to have DSP to be able to use that or work at an advanced agency and things. That wasn't me. Helium 10 didn't have AMC before. Helium 10 is going to have AMC, so be looking forward to that. But basically, what AMC is? We're going to have some training on it at that Destiny workshop for PPC next week.

Bradley Sutton:

It says AMC is a secure, privacy, safe and cloud-based clean room solution. Like you might be a clean room solution, what the heck I? My room is clean. It's not that kind of clean room, all right, so this is like I said. It's going to get into the weeds here for some of you, but make sure to stick through all of these announcements because they're important. A clean room solution in which advertisers can easily perform analytics and blind audience across. They're using like fancy language here pseudonymized. I love it. See, is that a word, guys? Pseudonymized. Come on, amazon, with your press releases. You got to use better words than this. Like us, illiterate, not well-educated people like myself don't understand words like pseudonymized signals, including Amazon ad signals as well as their own input.

Bradley Sutton:

But this is going to be interesting, guys, because, like here in this article, it says why is this important? It says with this launch, we're democratizing AMC insights and actions, because before it used to only be available in DSP, but now, basically, you guys are going to understand the buyer journey a lot more and it's going to allow you for different targeting. Speaking of AMC, another article that they announced was AMC marketing cloud audiences can now be used in sponsor ads. So that's critical. Like I said before, you could only use it for, like, DSP and things like that, or just, just, you know, like for data gathering, but now, uh, you're going to be able to take the audiences that come from AMC and actually use it as a target audience in sponsored ad campaigns. All right, so make sure to check, by the way, every single one of these articles I'm doing. I have linked in the comments below to the specific article where Amazon goes a little bit deeper into it. So make sure to read it.

Bradley Sutton:

But why? Amazon says it's important, says, with AMC, advertisers are going to get an in-depth understanding of customers journeys across Amazon ads, media and channels. This launch helps advertisers take action on these insights across Amazon ads versus media and channels. This launch helps advertisers take action on these insights across Amazon ads, versus previously only in Amazon DSP. It says, for example, an advertiser can build an audience similar to their high value shoppers to expand the reach of their campaigns or to re-engage audiences reached through Amazon streaming TV campaigns. Through this launch reach through Amazon streaming TV campaigns. Through this launch, advertisers can leverage granular AMC insights to more efficiently move customers along their journey down the funnel.

Bradley Sutton:

All right, so, again, like I said, some of this stuff might be a little bit over your head, some of it's over my head, but this is something that we're going to break down for you guys. We're going to be educating you guys a lot about what exactly is AMC, how can it be used, even by, you know, smaller sellers out there, where before it was only used by, like, very big companies? Next, unbox release increase engagement through audience bid boosting for sponsored products and sponsored brands All right, so this will allow advertisers to reach and engage audiences that they define and create. So, for example, you are going to be able to create custom audiences that you were not able to do before, such as shoppers who have not previously purchased their product, shoppers who are exposed to a streaming TV campaign. You're going to be able to adjust bids just like you would like in a regular campaign, and so this bid boosting is going to again be tapped. This is another one of those AMC announcements. This is part of this whole AMC. Remember, AMC is not just about this clean room thing, but it's about it's about, you know, seeing people throughout the funnel. All right, so I'm not going to go too much more in depth in this article. If you want to learn about all of these AMC stuff, make sure to check out the article that's linked to below.

Bradley Sutton:

Next one is introducing new product campaigns from Amazon ads now available in the U S. All right. Uh, it says brands selling on Amazon now have full funnel advertising solution to quickly introduce their latest product innovations to customers. So another way they referred to this, I guess that unbox was kind of like. This is a like a product launch, kind of like a campaign, and it says this managed service provides data driven media plans leveraging a curated set of 1P and 3P audio video device and display inventory. All right, so this is not for the faint at heart or for me. Maybe you know launching a coffin shelf that I want to sell maybe 10 units a day of no, this is obviously for bigger customers.

Bradley Sutton:

Now look, if you just look at this visual example those of you watching on YouTube you'll see here, here is this kitchen smart coffee maker, and then you see a huge ad, like on the Amazon homepage, right, and then now you see a ESPN app where you're going to see an ad. You can you can barely see it there, but you can see there's Caitlin Clark doing some kind of highlight right, and then right above that, you see an ad for this coffee maker. And then you see the ESPN desktop app on a computer and the customer is seeing that same ad. And then now it looks like somebody's watching streaming TV maybe Amazon Prime Video or something and then they see a full 15 second ad of this kitchen smart ad. And then to the right, now you see this Alexa device and that same ad is coming up there. And then, uh, the last one here. This looks like I guess it's like Twitch or something, so maybe they're watching a Twitch streamer and then they see that same ad. So now this is going to like be this, this, this thing that Amazon is like providing as a solution where you don't have to come up with. Hey, what, what's my strategy for getting my initial push out there. We're going to go ahead and handle all of that for you. So, again, if you want more information on that, make sure to check the article that is linked to below.

Bradley Sutton:

Speaking of sponsored TV, a new sponsored TV releases make it easier than ever to reach relevant audiences and measure performance. Was this next announcement All right? So last year at Unbox, they really talked about sponsored TV a lot, and now we're about a year into sponsored TV and now there's more features that are coming up here. So the new thing is that now there's going to be lifestyle and life stage audiences that advertisers are going to be able to use, audiences that advertisers are going to be able to use. So it's not like hey, let me just make an ad and let me just target replays of the walking dead or something like that. No, like, amazon has all these audiences that they have based on all their information. For example, a couple of things that they give here is like outdoor enthusiasts or environmentally conscious shoppers they give us an example of, and so it's not just a matter of like, hey, let me just throw up this TV ad and target TV shows. But then it's like let me target these TV shows, but then only the people watching it that are outdoor enthusiasts, right, so there's gonna be some really interesting stuff, as Amazon kind of like makes media advertising digital media advertising, uh, tv media, uh a little bit more accessible to the common folk like me. I'm still not sure I'm ready for that yet, but Amazon's getting it closer to make that more accessible to me.

Bradley Sutton:

Next one is deliver more relevant ads everywhere, independent of ad IDs, with ad relevance All right. So it says ad relevance. What is that? It's an innovative approach to deliver relevant ads for all products and services advertised through the Amazon. DSP All right. So since this is about DSP and I don't know too much about DSP and not many of you are using it, I'm not going to go too in depth here, but anybody who is using DSP out there make sure to check the article about some of the details on this one, because there are some new enhancements, definitely for you.

Bradley Sutton:

Next one here I think a lot of you might find interesting. It says understand the top combinations of ad touch points that drive conversions. All right, that's something I think everybody wants to know about. All right. So conversion path reporting shows the ad touch points on the customer's 30 day path path to conversion, starting with purchases. It's going to be available in both sponsored ads and DSP, all right, so it's going to be able to allow you to see the most frequent and efficient customer paths.

Bradley Sutton:

For example, some of the examples it gave was maybe the first time somebody got exposed to your brand was through a streaming TV ad, and then they happen to see next the display ad, and then they saw a sponsored brand video ad and then they saw a sponsor brand video ad and then they saw a sponsored product ad, then they saw a sponsored video display and then they purchased the product. Right? Maybe another kind of like flow is something different. Maybe it was a they only saw a sponsored video ad and then an audio ad from like audible or something, and then boom, went to purchase. Now let's say that that one was working a lot better. Well, that all of a sudden means like hey, you know what? I'm not going to go spend all this money trying to get that customer through that six stage step of the customer journey. Let me double down on this sponsored brand video to audio DSP ad, because that's like my quickest way to get to that purchase.

Bradley Sutton:

I mean, that's just a random example there, but before could, could we see this? No, like we, we we speculate, right, like sometimes, uh, we have sponsored brand video ads or display ads that you know, maybe, uh, RoAS or ACoS and things like that are not that great, right, but we still do it because it's more of a branding play. We're like no, I need to get in front of customers more. I want them to see my brand so that by the time they see my sponsored product ad or some like on page ad or just an organic purchase, it makes them more likely to go ahead and purchase my product, because they've been conditioned to kind of like, see my brand and think about purchasing it before, right, so, but you didn't really have visibility as a regular seller, at least we haven't had visibility to see how that purchase journey works through the ads, and so this is going to be something cool. I think that will allow us to do that. All right.

Bradley Sutton:

Now the next few. I'm just going to kind of skim over a little bit, because once I got to this stage, maybe your head is hurting as much as mine with some of this, how deep some of this stuff goes. But the next announcement was entitled build a holistic first party data strategy with ads data manager. All right, so ADM ads data manager is a new standalone offering that simplifies and streamlines the process of first party data management through Amazon ads tech. All right, um, this is going to be for DSP or AMC. Um, again, most of that doesn't affect you guys yet, so if you're interested in that, make sure to check out the article.

Bradley Sutton:

Speaking of DSP, one more article that they had talked about is entitled the Amazon DSP launches performance Plus. It's a little fancy name. Almost sounds like something that helium 10 would call something. This is your new Performance Plus Cerebro tool, but anyways, amazon took it before us Performance Plus Tactics into Beta. Now, for those of you who are doing display online video or streaming TV, with a conversion KPI of ROAS for endemic advertisers or CPA for non-endemic advertisers, you're going to have this performance plus tactic available, and if that was just sounded like a whole bunch of gibberish to you, this article is probably not for you, like it's not for me, but for those of you, I know we've got some nine figure sellers out there that are really into this stuff. Make sure to check out the article link to for that I wanted to make sure to include everything, because I know we have listeners out there that are brand new on Amazon. Keep listening, guys. We got stuff for you too. We have listeners who are nine figure sellers. I want to make sure I give stuff that is relevant to everybody. More unbox announcements.

Bradley Sutton:

Now, this was interesting and something I hadn't considered. I alluded to a little bit earlier about audio ads, right, so this is entitled Create Impactful Audio Ads in just a few clicks with Generator. So these next couple announcements have to do kind of like with AI. So Audio Generator leverages generative AI capabilities to turn products into interactive audio ads in minutes for the ad to cart call to action. All right, so you might not have thought about audio ads or thought about adding, you know, like, maybe, fancy audio to your, to your video ads. But with this audio generator, there's a cool demo here that you guys make sure to click on the article and then go watch this demo here. But you're going to be able to choose your product and then use AI to generate audio including, like you know, add copy, like you can get somebody with a British accent to read some kind of script that you have and you not have to go like go hire a professional voice actor for some of this stuff. So really interesting stuff.

Bradley Sutton:

Speaking of AI, another thing that Amazon announced uh, this was something that was actually originally announced at Amazon accelerate, so I'm not going to go too deep into this, but it says create high quality AI generated videos in minutes. And it says Amazon ads has introduced a new powered video generator, currently available for use in sponsored brands campaigns. You guys already heard us talk about this at Amazon Accelerate, but another cool demo is on this video in our link below, so make sure to check that out. The last AI update for Unbox is called make creative development a breeze with the AI creative Studiobox. Is called Make Creative Development a Breeze with the AI Creative Studio, which is in beta. So this is AI Creative Studio is a centralized experience that combines AI functionality with expert level controls All right.

Bradley Sutton:

So this is a new kind of like homepage where you're going to have the studio, the sandbox and the inspiration gallery In the studio. It says you're going to gain access to a suite of tools that can be used to transfer your concepts from in progress to design complete. You know, you can like start with a picture of a cup and then, all of a sudden, you put it in this like crazy background and choose different backgrounds you can have different effects and different lightings and then you're going to be able to generate that image. Now, with the sandbox, you're going to be able to test out new features, like, maybe you take one of those things that was just an image before and then now you're going to be able to animate the image. You know, like, if you remember, in Accelerate they showed how you can make smoke coming out of a or not smoke, but like steam coming out of, like a teacup or or coffee, right, so that's kind of cool. And there's also going to be the inspiration gallery where you're going to see examples of AI generated content. Uh, and then you can actually like, click these If you like, like, hey, like, I like this vibe right here. I like, I like this, the way that they did this headphones here I want to be able to do that to my product. And then you're going to be able to like, choose these kinds of like templated things or examples and then apply it to your own products. All right, so this is one of those ones. Guys, you do need to click into the article where this was announced, because I got the link for you in order. If you want to join the wait list, all right if you want to join the wait list for this AI creative studio, because not everybody's going to be able to get into this right away. So make sure to find whatever article this is about the AI creative studio in the comments below and check it out.

Bradley Sutton:

Only a couple more uh unbox announcements. Uh, the next one is called interactive ads expand availability across streaming TV into prime video. Right, this was, uh, we had an article about this before in the weekly buzz. But you know, sometimes you might think of when you see commercials on TV regular TV, right, that's all. It is a commercial, like a Superbowl commercial. You see a GoDaddy website, or you see you know, chips, or Michael Cera showing his CeraVe lotion, or whatever, right, but what, what does? How does that help the advertiser? Well, the only way it helps lead, leading to an immediate sale, is maybe they go on Amazon or they go somewhere else to the store later on the day and they go buy that product. Right, but now, on prime video, you still can do just generic ads, but now there's going to be shoppable ads, all right, so you can see a 15 second ad on prime video as an example here, and then it'll be like you know you're not in your computer but it'll say, hey, just hit OK on your TV remote and you're going to buy the product, like if it's connected to your Amazon account. So now, all of a sudden there's going to be like a direct connection where somebody doesn't have to go and pause the video to go buy a product. Just by hitting like OK on the remote they're going to be able to buy some products that you're advertising on Prime Video. So make sure to check this article. That could make streaming TV a little bit more lucrative for some of you.

Bradley Sutton:

Last couple, I'm just going to breeze through here. There's a couple new metrics here. One is called long-term sales, and long-term sales RoAS, is the acronym LTS RoAS. I guess they're getting crazy with these. These acronyms are already, like you know, 10 letters long here. But anyways, this is going to be interesting because it's a historical 12 month return of a given customer engagement with your brand, right, you know, like there's an attribution window right when you know like, let's say, something has a 14 day attribution window.

Bradley Sutton:

Somebody clicks on something on Monday and a week and a half later they buy it. That original click gets attributed with that sale from that ad. Right, but let's say somebody clicked on it but they don't buy it in two weeks, maybe they four months later or something. They buy the product. Have you ever had any visibility into that? That purchase can be tied all the way back to that original click. No, you have not been able to do that until now. All right, so this is going to be something cool. This LTS ROAS uh is going to be able to allow you to take a look back even, uh, throughout a year to see, like, how your ads are doing. So make sure to check the article for more information on that.

Bradley Sutton:

And then, last one is DSP has a new experience. So if the whole DSP page for those are like UI of their homepage has been completely redone, I guess I wouldn't know the difference because I never saw the old DSP page part. But for those of you who use it, go ahead and check it out and see if you like their new UI. That is it. Believe it or not? Guys, for Amazon, unboxed and all of the news and events this week. Obviously no time to do our normal training tip of the week or our new feature alerts. We'll have to save that for next week. We actually got some pretty amazing things coming for you guys. By the way, as guys hope, you enjoyed this in-depth coverage of all the goings on in the news this week. Make sure to tune in next.

Tuesday Oct 15, 2024

#605 - 8-Figure Amazon Seller To ZERO?!

Tuesday Oct 15, 2024

In this episode, a former 8-figure Amazon seller shares how he lost millions and saw sales drop to zero. Learn key mistakes to avoid and protect your Amazon FBA business from disaster.

Join us for an insightful conversation as we welcome Brian Creager, a former eight-figure Amazon seller, who shares his rollercoaster journey through the world of Amazon FBA. Starting with a background in electrical engineering and transitioning into international sales, Brian eventually found his niche in the e-commerce space. Discover how a pivotal moment in his corporate career led him to build a successful seven-figure business in men's hair care. He opens up about the highs and lows of launching a brand in a competitive market, the remarkable margins he achieved, and the unexpected challenges he faced, such as being banned from selling a medical device on Amazon. Brian’s story offers valuable lessons for aspiring and seasoned Amazon sellers alike.

Listen in as we explore the significance of building relationships through networking events and the lasting impact of face-to-face interactions. Bradley and Brian share their own experiences with the Zonblast community and the early days of private-label selling. They discuss the importance of real-time monitoring of key performance indicators (KPIs), especially given the tighter margins and increased advertising costs today. Through anecdotes and personal experiences, we highlight the challenges faced during the pandemic, including product quality issues and tariffs, which led to significant changes in operations.

We also tackle the evolving landscape of selling on Amazon, emphasizing the need for unique products to maintain a competitive edge in the face of copycats. Strategies like failing quickly and strengthening supplier relationships are discussed as key tactics for handling product issues. As the Amazon marketplace evolves with new fees and AI integration, we touch on the growing importance of influencer marketing and niche product creation. Contemplate the future of product discovery and how AI might change consumer habits while considering how sellers can adapt to these shifts. This episode is packed with insights and strategies for navigating the ever-changing e-commerce landscape.

In episode 605 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Brian discuss:

00:00 - 8-Figure Amazon Seller's Journey and Lessons
03:29 - Men's Hair Care Launch Success
13:02 - Struggles and Lessons From Selling on Amazon
19:04 - Challenges in Paper Bag Production
22:44 - Losses, Inventory, and Chapter Seven
27:03 - Adapting to Changes in Amazon
30:02 - AI Impact on Product Discovery
33:47 - How To Reach Out To Brian Creager
36:12 - Competitor Analysis with Market Tracker 360

► 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

Saturday Oct 12, 2024

#604 - The Road to $30 Million of Amazon Sales

Saturday Oct 12, 2024

Join us for an insightful journey with Joe Sanhanga, a remarkable e-commerce entrepreneur generating millions annually through unique and high-priced products. Listen in as Joe shares his inspiring story from his roots in Zimbabwe to his educational pursuits in the UK and the US, ultimately landing in Las Vegas. His journey began on platforms like Shopify and WordPress, selling distinctive items such as African-style swimsuits and nano tape toys, before discovering the immense potential of Amazon's FBA and FBM models. Through their conversation, Bradley and Joe emphasized the transformative power of networking at conferences like Amazon Accelerate.

Explore the strategies behind Joe's successful transition to selling on Amazon, starting with assisting a soil business during the pandemic and leading to the creation of "Wonder Soil," a private-label product on Amazon. Joe's ventures into innovative products like tanning lamps, vitamin D lamps, and seasonal depression lamps highlight the importance of team collaboration and strategic Amazon sales optimization. With aspirations to surpass a $30 million run rate, Joe shares valuable insights into leveraging Amazon's platform to achieve extraordinary growth in niche markets.

Discover the challenges and tactics involved in marketing high-priced products, like a $599 lamp, in a competitive landscape dominated by lower-cost alternatives. We discuss the advantages of having larger margins for experimenting with keywords and bidding strategies, alongside the creative approaches necessary to maintain product visibility amidst Amazon's policies. Joe also shares his experiences optimizing advertising strategies, managing warehouse transitions to Amazon's Warehousing and Distribution system, and utilizing tools like Helium 10’s Adtomic to automate and enhance PPC strategies. This episode provides a comprehensive view of the perseverance and innovation required to thrive in e-commerce, offering inspiration and actionable advice for sellers at any level.

In episode 604 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Joe discuss:

00:28 - E-Commerce Strategies and Global Perspectives
04:54 - Amazon Product Sales Success Story
05:41 - Amazon Brand Growth During COVID
11:37 - Strategies for High Price Point Products
11:50 - Product Pricing and Brand Strategy
15:23 - Optimizing Keywords for Product Sales
18:21 - Amazon Advertising Strategy Discussion
19:14 - Managing $120,000 of Ad Spend With Adtomic
23:49 - Amazon PPC Management Strategies
27:52 - Optimizing Ad Placements to Lower ACoS
30:51 - Pricing Strategy Impact on Sales
32:45 - Warehouse Cost Savings and Amazon Advertising
34:28 - Inventory Management for Amazon Sellers
38:14 - Optimizing Amazon Listings for Conversion
41:17 - Online Presence and Networking

► 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:

Today we talked to a $30 million a year seller who is selling, and has sold, some of the most unique products I've ever heard of, including one at a $600 price point, when everybody else is priced at only 40 bucks. 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. In my travels recently, one of the things I like about going to conferences and it's what I always tell people about is that you know you can meet different people, network with people and find out about their story, and that's kind of like how I structure this whole podcast. But then I actually did that recently at Amazon Accelerate and I'm glad I did it, because I'm glad I did it. As I went to this one mixer that they organized and I was at first, I was like, oh man, I was so drained after that day and I'm like, oh man, it's gonna be a crowded place. I don't like to be in crowded places, but you know what? I'm going to hop on this little lime scooter from my hotel and go over to this restaurant where the event was and I was sitting down talking to some people at the table and then I met today's guest there, Joe. How's it going?

Joe:

I'm going good. Thanks for having me on.

Bradley Sutton:

Awesome, awesome. Now, you said you're in Vegas right now. Right?

Joe:

Yes, we're in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Bradley Sutton:

Now, that's not a typical Vegas accent you've got. So where were you born and raised?

Joe:

Yeah, so I was born in Zimbabwe, raised as well in Zimbabwe, then I moved out to England where I spent a lot of my time there doing some education and stuff and then I got tired of the cold being a Zimbabwean.

Bradley Sutton:

You went to the opposite, then if you went to Vegas, I cannot imagine a more opposite than cold place.

Joe:

Oh yeah, 100%. I just went on to Google and I was like okay, I want to go somewhere in America, but I need to find somewhere warm. And I think the first thing that came up on the search was Death Valley, but there was nothing over there. So the second thing was Phoenix and Las Vegas. So, I eventually found myself in Las Vegas just because of the ease of doing business. Ability to meet people here is really good.

Bradley Sutton:

And did you go to university uh over in UK or in the US?

Joe:

yes, I did university in the UK as well as in the US, so I got an accounting degree back in uh UK um and then in the US, I did a um was a business management degree with some entrepreneurship uh additional to that

Bradley Sutton:

was it like a unlv or?

Joe:

I know this was in um in Phoenix in ASU, yeah.

Bradley Sutton:

ASU, uh, Sun Devil right?

Joe:

yes, sir, okay, there, you see it.

Bradley Sutton:

I always test my I don't know. I'm not going to ask you any kind of mascot because from England I don't know anything about England schools, but I know most of the US schools have mascots here. Actually, I'm wearing a. We'll talk about this later. I'm wearing a mascot from a minor league baseball team is my hat. This is called from nearby to Arizona is Albuquerque Isotopes. But the reason I use this today was because this is very similar, this logo, to our Helium 10 Adtomic logo. I know you and I were talking about Adtomic, doesn't it look like the A from Adtomic yeah,

Joe:

it actually does. Now I see it when you mention it.

Bradley Sutton:

So that's why I wore this on purpose. There's a method to my madness, but anyways, before we get to Adtomic, talking about Adtomic, I just want to talk about your e-commerce journey. So when you graduated from, after you know, there at ASU, did you get into e-commerce at all, or at what kind of?

Joe:

So this was actually still back in England , around 2017 is when I kind of got first into my e-commerce kind of journey, which was on Shopify. Specifically, Shopify and WordPress was where I started out and I bought a random course of somebody online, learned all about basically advertising from like Facebook, from Instagram, from Google, sending it to this website and landing pages that we used to do. And then, within being in that realm, I started hearing this FBA term being thrown around.

Bradley Sutton:

What were you selling on Shopify in those days?

Joe:

Oh, so I remember we had to go at, we did these other swimsuits that we did African style print swimsuits, and then we also went on and started doing it was like these little tape toys, sort of like double-sided type tape. Yeah, exactly so we were doing those. It's called nano tape, um, so, yeah, that's basically how, how that started and then,

Bradley Sutton:

and then that's when you, when you kind of like, learned about the amazon, uh potential.

Joe:

So I heard, obviously, being in that space, I started hearing this word FBA being thrown around uh, the acronym, and you know. Then I went on Google, searched up, okay, what is FBA? And it's some sort of Amazon selling thing. Okay, and then there's FBM as well. So now I'm like, okay, there's these two terms, what is this all about? And that's basically when I started doing my research and I was like, okay, this Amazon thing seems to actually have some stuff to it. And at the time I think the platform is not the way. It's so different now, because sometimes I've got screenshots of my old dashboards and it just looks completely different. So, yeah, that's how I basically then started with Amazon.

Bradley Sutton:

Did you start selling like your own account, you know, on Amazon, start selling your own products, or did you just start working for other companies that were selling on Amazon?

Joe:

Yeah, so to begin with I was working with this other lady. She basically had soil and the way we actually started working together was I created a website for her, put on Shopify, to sell the soil, and then she was bagging up the soil to try and get it to consumers, because her business was mainly sending thousand-pound totes to farmers. But she said, how can I get this you know three-pound bag to people that are at home and want to grow some plants and what actually it was? This was around 20.

Bradley Sutton:

Soil on Amazon, man, when you think you've heard it all.

Joe:

It's called Wonder Soil. It's actually one of the rivals to Miracle-Gro and we actually I actually raised it to get the Amazon choice badge. We were on Business Insider as one of the top growing brands on amazon too, um, but basically the cool thing about it was we've tried to find a way to get the soil to consumers and everything worked well, because this was during covid, so people were at home, people had nothing to do, and you know people are growing stuff at home, people. You know we're just trying to, yeah, so the product hit at the right time uh, what year is this 2020.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay. 2020 okay yeah. Oh yeah, I mean that was a good time. Yeah, during covid, people were always are really trying to make their own gardens and stuff like grow their own vegetables and stuff like that okay yeah this is a private label brand or you're reselling um others?

Joe:

oh, so we actually have manufacturers in China. Uh, that we get all that product for We've actually gotten rid of our warehouse Now. We've gone full into AWD, so we're getting.

Bradley Sutton:

Let's talk about that a little bit later in the show too. I haven't talked to many people who are doing that, so I'll be interested in that, ok.

Joe:

Yeah, so that's, that's what that one. And then there's another lamp company, which is pretty funny, is tanning lamps and vitamin D lamps, so we run through those on Amazon as well. Those are actually the only there's a lamp that can give you vitamin D.

Bradley Sutton:

It's the only lamp the same like the sun.

Joe:

Yes, you spend five minutes every other day in front of it and it'll give you. And there's studies on YouTube. People use this lamp, where this lady her name is Carnival Doctor on YouTube. She did a study with a lamp for six weeks and her levels went from 20 something to 40 something vitamin D. She feels healthier than ever and it's perfect. It stopped her from having to buy, you know, vitamin D pills and, of course, all those sorts of things. So, yeah, it's the only one, and you get tan at the same time. So now, that's the difference. So, there's two lamps One gives you vitamin D and one gives you a tan, because there are some people that don't want the tanning effect. So that's what it is. So, it's-.

Bradley Sutton:

Now what if you put this tanning lamp over your miracle magic soil? Are you going to create some like hybrid plant? Oh my, you sell the most interesting things. All right, there's a third account too,

Joe:

yeah, so it's basically the third account is also in lighting, but this one is seasonal depression lamps where basically you look at it so that one is its own brand.

Bradley Sutton:

Did you say depression? Yes, depression lamp Like as in I'm very depressed and I'm sad like that word depression.

Joe:

Yeah, depression, you're sad. What does that have to do with a lamp? So, you look at this lamp for 30 minutes and you become happy. I know it sounds stupid, but minutes and you become happy. I know it sounds stupid, but that one doesn't give you vitamin D.

Bradley Sutton:

That one doesn't give you vitamin D. Nor a tan. Yeah, you see. Hey, there's a product idea. You got to combine all three and then, oh my goodness, you'd have the most amazing.

Joe:

That would be powerful. We've had people that have requested you know, do you have one that does both, or this, this, this? But because of FDA regulations, we've had to separate a lot of the things.

Bradley Sutton:

Is these three separate companies or is it like the same group of people who's all owning all three of these?

Joe:

So two of the companies is one group of people and the other one is one person.

Bradley Sutton:

And then, what do you do in these?

Joe:

So I run just an Amazon account. So I run just an Amazon account. So running the ads, running the listing optimization, making sure the account is obviously hitting the sales numbers, everything that just literally goes through Amazon and inventory everything.

Bradley Sutton:

What's the overall projected sales for all three combined on Amazon?

Joe:

So for all three combined, we're looking at 28. We're on pace to do 28 million this year on all three.

Bradley Sutton:

Will that be your best, our biggest year yet.

Joe:

Yeah, this would be our biggest year yet. We've seen record numbers in previous months. In previous, like this past quarter, we'd had record sales as well. I know we had our biggest. We had, I think, our first. We had two days in September where we had 100K sales days, which was the first time we've done that. We also had our highest sales days in the past two years. Nine of those days in our top 10 sales were all in September. So we've had record sales. Especially Q3 was really, really amazing. I think we were up about 800K across the board in Q3 alone. So we're on pace to do a really good year and it sets us up for our plan is to do a 2.5 million month at least once this year in total and that will set us up for a run rate for next year. We want to push over to that 30 million stage.

Bradley Sutton:

If you're like me, maybe you were intimidated about learning how to do Amazon PPC, or maybe you think you just don't have the hours and hours that it takes to download and sort through all of those sponsored ads reports that Amazon produces for you. Adtomic for me allowed me to learn PPC for the first time, and now I'm managing over 150 PPC campaigns across all of my accounts in only two hours a week. Find out how Adtomic can help you level up your PPC game. Visit h10.me forward slash Adtomic for more information. That's h10.me forward slash A-D-T-O-M-I-C. I'm just curious, before we get into some more details about, like, your advertising because I know that's one of the things that is your specialty these lamps that you're doing like, were these kind of like inventions, or? Or there was an existing market of vitamin D lamps or an existing market of lamps that make you happy Like was that an existing keyword or is this something that you're you guys invented and kind of like created the demand for?

Joe:

So it's actually crazy. You say that is because the first vitamin d lamp started in 1924. It was a guy by Dr. Sperti is his name. He's the guy who made it. He invented it and he started selling it throughout the US. It was a company in Kentucky, um, but he was just selling it out of his own like little warehouse and then eventually he got old um and then sold off for business and then basically that's where we put it online, um to run it through Amazon, and we first were going like, for example, the vitamin D one it's the only lamp that's there. The only competition are these vitamin D pills that you'll see on Amazon. But our price point for the lamp is like 599. And we're competing against people that can buy a bottle for four bucks, five bucks on Amazon. So it's been a pretty interesting game competing against people that can buy, you know, a bottle for four bucks, five bucks on amazon. So it's been a pretty interesting game. But it moves. It moves um on amazon. What's the price of the product?

Bradley Sutton:

you said 599 599, 599, yeah, wow, uh, I want to. I'm trying to look at, look for it on amazon right now. What's the brand name called?

Joe:

SpertI s-p-e-r-t-i, and then you'll see vitamin d we got to show the audience this.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay, oh, my goodness gracious, here it is. Hold on, this is incredible. All right.

Joe:

That's it and it's right. That's the first one that's popped up against our competition. All those are competitors on the right.

Bradley Sutton:

So 500 and Sperti. So that was what the doctor's name was. Who?

Joe:

made this up.

Bradley Sutton:

Yeah, Dr. Sperti, that was his name yeah, there was a ready demand for this out there.

Joe:

Oh, huge, because, if you think about it, vitamin D pills are basically the same target market as us. Yeah, so this is just a non-invasive way that you buy and you keep this for a very, very long time. So that's that. So something interesting. As you go through this, this listing, you're not going to see the word vitamin d anywhere on the listing and you'll notice our carousel images, our images on there. we have our box images because amazon actually took us down because our lamp has the word vitamin d on it.

Bradley Sutton:

ah, yeah, yeah, I see it in the video there, so you don't have vitamin d anywhere in there, but you probably got indexed for the keyword by Amazon.

Joe:

Exactly so. That's why we use UVB, which is basically the term for vitamin D. So Amazon is not allowing us to use it, even though we're FDA approved and everything. Amazon is just not letting us go for that.

Bradley Sutton:

I see some of your main keywords. Yeah, vitamin D lamp.

Joe:

Oh yeah, we can use them in the back. Vitamin D light.

Bradley Sutton:

Vitamin D therapy lamp, vitamin D light therapy. Now, I'm just curious. I don't talk very often with people who have this high price point. What is different about having a product that's in the hundreds of dollars? Like, do you approach advertising differently, cause it's not like where I mean. You might now you know you, you might get a hundred clicks with no sale, but still you just get one, the 101st click. All of a sudden, that's $600 of revenue. So, so, like, how is it different, uh, with something like this, compared to your, your other products, which I'm assuming is like more you know, regular pricing 10, 20, 30 bucks.

Joe:

So the cool thing about it is that across all the catalog that I, that I that I run, I have products starting at like five bucks, all the way to this one that has $5.99. So the landscape with this one is totally different. Like you said, you can set up an ad, you'll get 50 clicks at $1.20 CPC and, based on our margins, we're still clean on a sale. If we get one sale, we profit. So the cool thing about it is you just have to be a bit more patient. However, because we have such kind of should I say a big space for those clicks, it allows us to test a lot of keywords in this space and we really kind of exhaust any keyword that's there without having to really be careful, unlike if I was selling a smaller, less priced product, I can't just throw in all the keywords and just you know it'll go crazy if it's like a $60 product.

So with this, it gives me that comfortability to go out and bid higher and also it allows me to, like I said, like if you saw on that page where you searched, my competition were those pill bottles that are like five bucks, six bucks, seven bucks, so I can bid above all of those guys. So I ensure that every time you search the keyword I'm going to be first, because there's no way they're going to bid the same amount of dollars. I'm going to bid because their price points are different. However, they can take a loss on a sale because they have repeat products. So people finish that bottle, they come back and buy another With ours. That person buys a lamp and is done. So we obviously have to gauge it to a point whereby, okay, this is our ACOS target and at this A-cost target we're profitable. So that's now how more I manage that one. It's more ACOS targeting, but I'm basically trying to make sure I stand out for every single eyeball that's there because I have the room.

Bradley Sutton:

So this is interesting because, regardless of the price point, there are similar kind of scenarios where it would be like this they're probably actual keywords of how somebody who's searching for this exact thing is probably very limited Vitamin D lamp or lamp for tanning, you know for your other product, or it's not. Like oh there's you know 5,000 way, you know 5,000 ways that are going to come up in Cerebro to search for this one thing. You're like it's kind of like that way with coffin shelf. If you're looking exactly for a coffin shelf, that's pretty much it, that's it. Coffin shelf or shelf shaped like a coffin, like there's very limited number of words. The other keywords I get sales from is more like the, you know, gothic decor or spooky things. So how are you doing your keyword research? Like using Helium 10 or amazon, for you mentioned you do a lot of testing for targets. So like, where are you coming up with these keywords to test to see if any of them stick?

Joe:

So that's. It's more like said, I run Cerebro on a lot of those vitamin D bottle and pills and basically a lot of my. So, like I've said, I've exhausted the keyword vitamin D and the more you get long tail with this product, the less traffic you have. You know, for some of the products you can get long tail with a bunch of keywords and you still have traffic. Like, for example, if it's like a Ziploc bag, I can put Ziploc bag for Legos, Ziploc bag for sandwiches, Ziploc bag for this. You know the list is endless and you have traffic with this. Not many people even know this lamp exists.

So what I've actually done is sometimes I go and target competitor company names and key names. So if it's like some company that sells a bottle of vitamin D lamps or vitamin D pills, I'll actually target their brand because when I look at their keyword, it's people that are repeat purchases, so it always has traffic. And but because I can bid high on their own company name, I'm going to show up first and I have the room with my price point to show up consistently and eventually, if you're somebody that is very hooked on buying these products, for vitamin D pills, you're going to see my product and think, okay, what is this? Because it's coming up. I've seen it so many times when I come and buy this product that when you read about our process, you then be like, okay, so this is something that actually can benefit me and can work as an alternative for ingested pills and all the other disadvantages that come with that. So that's basically how I find other keywords and start going for those.

Bradley Sutton:

You know, price game is something nobody ever wants to play, and you're not playing at all, you’re doing the opposite. You know, like on some of these keywords I do see some like people ranking for, like vitamin D lamp, but they're, just like you know, $20 products and they're selling thousands of units. But then are you going after those people too, Like the people who are going after that or how? How, how do you still get sales when people can technically get something one 10th the price? People you just got to like, make sure that they know the value of what you, that yours is different.

Joe:

Yeah, so that's where we have to communicate that through the listing, and it's because a lot of those $20 lamps that you're seeing there, those are not actually vitamin D lamps, those are seasonal depression lamps. So if you're looking at, can you see that Alaska Northern Lights big box on the right where your mouse is? Yes, that's one of the lamps that I sell. That's for seasonal depression.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay, I was about to click on that, but no, I'm not going to click on the sponsored ad and charge you $3 right there. So good thing I didn't.

Joe:

But then if you look at to the left, you've got that product. That's 19 bucks. Those are actually seasonal depression lamps, so they don't give off vitamin D. So somebody would purchase that and then they'll realize that doesn't give you vitamin D. So they'll probably return it and then come back to ours. But if they're looking for seasonal depression those would be those ones.

Bradley Sutton:

This is just an interesting niche. This is kind of fascinating to me. So then, overall, almost $30 million. What are you spending per month? Or what are you paying Amazon for advertising per month?

Joe:

So monthly. Right now we're spending total across the board with about 120K a month on advertising budget.

Bradley Sutton:

Advertising. And then, what's your TACoS then? At kind of, is it different per account? Are you looking at your TACoS?

Joe:

yeah, so the lamp TACoS are, like, I think, close to two percent um, and then uh, because that ACoS is really low, um. However, with uh, with the one that's got the majority of the products, our tacos right now we are sitting at a 5.38. That's what we just closed out at, okay. Okay, our ACoS is at 15 point. I think it was 15.5 is what we ended on in September. We brought that down from a 20 ACoS down to a 15. Our goal was to bring it down to 10, but obviously we've done about 50% of that target. Now, which is hard, you know, if you're spending, you know, over a hundred K. To bring down a cost by 5% is really difficult. So that's, that's where we are.

Bradley Sutton:

Are you using Adtomic for all of this spend, all of this $120,000 spend?

Joe:

We've launched. So with Adtomic, we've put in some rules for some SKUs and we're watching that and I actually had a call with Travis, like I said before, to try and we've got different rules for different products and we're trying to see how we can build out those rules in Adtomic.

Bradley Sutton:

Like rules that you were just using manually, like downloading search term reports. What are some of the rules? Tell me how you run your PPC.

Joe:

So most of my rules would come into the shipping product, one where basically first rule is identifying the product, pricing. So if it's a bag so let's say Ziploc bag, right, we've got a Ziploc bag, a four by six size. We have different variations. So we have a hundred pack, five hundred pack, thousand pack. The hundred pack could cost maybe 19 bucks, five hundred pack 50 bucks, other one 99 bucks.

So based on those, we make rules where if it's the $19 one, we want to start our bids at $0.40 or something like that. Somewhere it makes sense. But then if it's for the 1,000-pack one, we can start off our bidding at $2, $3. And that's because if somebody then buys it it's $99. So it's more of guiding based on that price threshold of the product and getting that rule in. And then, as we keep going, we want to make sure that if it's not getting any spend after two weeks it'll look back and add, you know, 10 cents to it if it's getting too many clicks. And if it gets like 10 clicks at that price, at that um, 44 cents, uh, whatever, 40 cents, um, and no sales, it'll dial it back by five cents or something like that, just to just to start, you know, bringing it back to see what we can get. So those are.

Bradley Sutton:

So then, instead of basing your rules in Adtomic, like, necessarily on ACoS, you're like doing it on the, the performance, like clicks and. Are you doing impressions at all, or just mainly clicks? Mainly clicks and then sales? What about your keyword harvesting? Did you set up any keyword harvesting rules on your auto or broad campaigns? Yes, and what's your thresholds there?

Joe:

So with there we do have our keyword harvesting set up and we usually just go in when it shows us. Then we'll add and accept whatever we want to Others we don't and we basically just throw them in. So we have one that right now has some rules and we've been working with the one that keeps the ACoS threshold in different margins. That's been looking good. So we've actually decided that when we've got launch ASINs because we're planning to launch another 42 products, I think it was soon is put those into the ACoS threshold, get those spending. Then, once we've gotten some traction with those, we start messing with the bids ourselves because we look at these in different silos as well in terms of market share.

So if it's like tapes, we might not be the biggest player in tapes, so we can't really go out the income on the market. But if it's like Ziploc bags, Celo bags, we have tons of market share. Our brand is known. The moment you see our packaging on our default listings, you know it's us. So we bid higher on those ones to really just take up and kill anybody that's coming in. And we're happy to take up that high bid because people repeat purchase on those ones so we can lose money on the first sale because we can look at the lifetime value of those customers and it makes sense.

Bradley Sutton:

How many targeting type, different targeting types are you doing per product? You know for me, sometimes a lot of some. I'll have three main keyword ones, at least, obviously, to start, because then I'll cap it and start new ones, but I'll have an exact, you know, like, like atomic calls, a performance campaign. I'll have a broad campaign with broad targets. I'll have an auto, but then I'll also a lot of times have an ASIN targeting campaign, product targeting campaign. I'll also do a sponsor display campaign. I might do a video, two video campaigns, like a keyword video campaign, an ASIN video campaign and then maybe, if I have, you know, three products in a certain brand, I might have a sponsor brand that's feeding a few of those. Like, are you doing all of those or just you're just keeping it to the basic keyword targeting campaigns? What do you guys do so?

Joe:

So for every ASIN we basically have five different ads and it starts off with broad, which is obviously our broad keywords, and then we'll go to exact keywords where basically we don't start off by putting keywords in the exact. We let you know, get it from helium and atomic and then we put those in uh based on what it's telling us, and then we've got auto testing. So we uh, or it's called a auto cam, just normal campaign, which is obviously we let that run in the order category. Then ASIN testing, where basically we're running targeting that specific category of that product. And the cool thing about those ascent testing is it helps us identify new markets. So let's say we have a variation in poly and plastic packaging and let's say this product is sitting at number two. We might actually take that product. And then let's say we have other products that are like three, four, five, six in that category. We might take the number two product and move it to mailbags. It'll drop the BSR because of its historical performance and its ability to perform. We might actually start testing a different category just to gain more market share in a different category because we know we've kind of succeeded in that one. So that's more for ASIN testing.

Then we have ASIN targeting, where we actually we use our Cerebro to get competitors, Black Box to get competitors Then we obviously target those competitors depending on how many reviews they have. So if it's somebody that's got anything less than four stars, what they're targeting you, because most of our products are sitting within the 4.5 to 4.89 range. So anybody below four stars we're targeting you, and then we also use what's it called. Then those are basically the five that we do per ASIN and then we also use what's it called. Then those are basically the five that we do per ASIN. And then we have started testing some display campaigns. We had VCPM running, which was a waste of money really. It was just the attribution was wrong. So what we're doing now is some display campaigns to actually do some retargeting and basically that's where we've got started going. We haven't done much sponsored brands. Things have just really been working in sponsored product for us.

Bradley Sutton:

Or the auto and maybe broad campaigns. Did you set any atomic rules as far as when to suggest a negative match or like a poor performing search term? Or how are you managing the spend on your auto campaigns? Because you know, sometimes if you just let Amazon do what they want, they'll just show you for all kinds of crazy stuff and they don't care about how much your spend is. So what are you doing to keep your auto campaigns under control?

Joe:

Yeah, so what we basically do, obviously we have the loose you select the loose substitute compliments and all that type of stuff. We have those like basic keyword rules that we set our bids at where, and we do that based on our pricing. So, depending on the product's price, we'll add in those rules and then basically when Adtomic starts showing whatever negative is in there, we'll go in and either accept the negative and or reject it. And I remember I don't know if it was Travis who told me we don't want to is it reject the negative or something, because it will completely kind of block it out forever or something like that In Adtomic. If you were to do that on a negative, I think it was if you fully approve a negative. So we kind of just watch it and see if it's really a negative and then we test it out. But that's how we kind of do it. So we haven't really put much rules on that side. It's more depending on the price of the product.

Bradley Sutton:

And then you said for like keyword harvesting, like if an auto finds something like is it just one for you? And then you, hey, I'll go ahead and move it to one of my manual campaigns. Or do you want to see like two or three orders of some new keyword before you put it to your exact campaigns, or what's your threshold there?

Joe:

Yeah, usually we try and get up to about five, five orders. Um, cause, that's that we've, we've, cause we've had keywords where you might get an order or two, and then it just starts burning money after that. So, yeah, um, we let whatever's winning win and then if something shows promise and you know it comes up with like five orders, uh, that'll be cool and then we'll add it back in. And the cool thing about it is, if it was obviously like the, the lamps, five orders is a bit too many for a keyword. But if it's the Ziploc bags, we know we can easily get those five orders and it justifies because you know that the, the traffic on those is way more than the people that are looking for the lamps. So it just depends on the product as well.

Bradley Sutton:

What is what brought you from, I forgot what you said like, from 20 to 15 a cost, like? What specific strategies you think? Like, was it something different? You were doing um, or, or you just change the rules, or what. What can you attribute that lowering of ACoS to?

Joe:

Okay. So basically, we started a KPI where we looked at the number of ACoS campaigns that are above 100% in our account, because I think we have about 4,000 something campaigns running. So basically, when we sorted that out, we would start off with, like, let's say, 40. Then of those 40, that's our priority for the month and basically, we'd look at what the ad type is. We'd look at what the ad type is, we'd look at where the you know impression share is going. Is it top of search, is it product key, is it product pages or is it in the categories? And then basically sometimes we would notice that, let's say, if it's product search for this specific ad, it's showing a way better ACoS but it's not getting as much spend and impressions as this one. But you know, the product page is just spending money. So what we'll do is we'll change the percentage on the impression share to show more on that specific placement that's actually performing the best.

And what we realized is a lot of our ACoS started just, you know, dropping for those campaigns where we doubled down. Yes, it might not spend as much, you might not as much traffic, but if our ACoS drops, you know, by 50% on that campaign, that's a win. So that's what we're doing. And then sometimes it's actually where you're getting a bunch of sales at like 60, 70% ACoS from top of search, but this product page placement is at 20% ACoS but it's not getting as much spend. So now we'll move our spend and our impression share more on that product page and reduce the top of search. Even though it cancels out some sales, the profitability of investing in that product placement on the product pages makes more sense. So that's how we've been kind of juggling the placements and it's been helping really well to cut ACoS.

Bradley Sutton:

When you launch new products. What's your strategy? Is it strictly I mean, like do you have this big audience that you're able to promote to and then they send a lot of traffic that way, or is it 100% with PPC that you're launching products? What's your strategy? Like?

Joe:

So 100% of PPC. We have been talking about, you know, starting to get an email list together, but, as you know, with Amazon you don't get that information of your customers, so it's very difficult. If we had like a website, then maybe we could leverage that side of it. But, like I said, 100% of all sales is Amazon and unfortunately, we don't have the customer data. So what we usually do is set up our PPC. Sometimes, depending on the market or the product, what we'll use are the deals, if it's promotions, and sometimes we've actually, you know how you can now put price, the strikethrough pricing. So sometimes when we launch a new product, we launch about a few bucks higher than we're actually planning to sell, and that's because we just want to get the featured offer pricing going. And then, once the featured offer has registered onto Amazon, we'll set a strikethrough price at the intended selling price that we want to and then we'll pump up our PPC. Why? Because now our product is showing amongst everybody else to have this discount of like 20% or whatever it is, and that increases our conversion rate because obviously people are seeing this discount. And then sometimes you might actually get the badge that says lowest price in 30 days and on a new launch. That helps quite a lot and basically that's what we do.

Then we start pumping PPC and then, once that ends, we actually noticed with another product where we were averaging about, I think it was 0.78 run rate so which is basically close to a sale a day on that product at 24 bucks. We raised the price to 28 bucks so that we could make a strike through at 24. And then at the end of the strike through because after 30 days when you set the strike through it stops the deal, we actually realized that our run rate went to 0.68 at 28 bucks. So we started noticing that the difference in sales were not actually bad from the price going back to four bucks. That's because we just had forgotten to change it back to that 24. So it actually helped us realize like wait, we were still selling at that 28 bucks, so now we just drop it back and when we drop it back to 24 with that strikethrough it just increases the sales and obviously the conversion rate and the ACoS, which allows us more dollars to spend on that product.

Bradley Sutton:

Before you switched to AWD, did you guys have your own warehouse? Did you have multiple 3PLs, One 3PL? What were you doing?

Joe:

So we had our own warehouse and basically obviously we're shipping it from China to our warehouse and then from our warehouse to Amazon, and then basically with AWD, and the fees just got out of hand. It kind of priced us out of obviously doing that route, which is why we went with AWD. And it's kind of been our first kind of-.

Bradley Sutton:

The new fees you're talking about, like the inbound inventory placement fees and things like that,

Joe:

all that type of stuff, yeah, it kind of really hit us hard. So we realized, and we priced everything up in Seoul, it's way more lucrative to go with AWD, and you have to have

Bradley Sutton:

Is that AGL too? Or just like? Are you actually having Amazon ship from China or you're shipping it into AWD?

Joe:

We're shipping it into AWD. Right now, we haven't fully gone into Amazon shipping it from China, but we're shipping it into AWD. And that's basically where we just noticed that economics-wise it just made way more sense to go with AWD. So we took that big step of obviously getting away with our warehouse and now just sending product into AWD. How big was your warehouse? It was pretty big. It was pretty big. I don't know how many square feet on the top of my head.

Bradley Sutton:

Do you know how much it costs per month? About?

Joe:

Yeah, it was close to about. I think it was like 25 grand.

Bradley Sutton:

Oh my goodness, yeah, so we're talking probably 20,000 square feet or above. They're in Vegas. Yeah, it was pretty big. And then how many full-time employees had to run it?

Joe:

So we had four people there

Bradley Sutton:

and then now you had to let them go after you close the warehouse. So then it's not just $25,000 a month, but then probably another $10,000 of salary you're saving.

Joe:

yeah, so there's a big saving, when you look at it, from everything. And we've kept one person I think it was that basically helps us with inventory forecasting and just helping manage kind of the inventory side of AWD. Because right now we've moved into AWD. But some issues we've had with AWD is when FBA goes out of stock there's like a two-week period we've seen that it takes for that transfer of inventory to go into FBA and that's because AWD hasn't learned our sell through rates yet. So right now, for example,

Bradley Sutton:

you can't control that at all. Like you can't just force AWD to say, hey, I know I'm going to sell more, send more to FBA. Like you have to wait for them to be able to see it.

Joe:

Yeah. So you can manually send more. But because we have a catalog of 900 products, it'll be very tenacious to look at FBA for all these products and then go to AWD and manually click one. So what we've done is we put the auto replenishment. But because Amazon hasn't learned our products yet, literally, we had a product that had a sell-through rate of I think it was it'll go through about 300, 400 products a month. We ran out of that product and AWD transferred 10 units to FBA and it took two weeks to get those 10 units and those sold out within a day. So it was just the worst and the worst.

Bradley Sutton:

I got to start you on Helium 10 inventory management, because helium 10 inventory management is created for people who have three PLs and then and then we tell you, all right, set up a new shipment. But theoretically somebody just asked me to say the other day we don't integrate yet with AWD. I know that's on the roadmap, but like a third-party warehouse, like you know how much inventory is there, so you put the number in and then you know what you know. Helium 10 knows what your inventory is in Amazon. And then so we would just tell you the same way hey, it's time to trigger, you know. So I know you said before like hey, yeah, you might not have time to, you know, be checking 800, but that's the whole point of inventory management where you just you know you better send, you know, 500 units in from your warehouse and so, yeah, we'll get you started on that.

Joe:

Yeah, that would be a lifesaver because this is how it's impacting my ads now. So you know back in the day, if you run out of stock on FBA, your listing is not showing anymore, your ads are not delivering. However, with AWD, if you've got stock, what it's done now is it changes our seller delivery date. So we realize that with this duct tape,

Bradley Sutton:

and you're conversion like tanks right, because it says like oh, delivery in three weeks or something crazy like that.

Joe:

So this duct tape product had delivery in two months. I'm not waiting two months to get duct tape.

Bradley Sutton:

So instead of the listing going dead, it still shows available, but then two months.

Joe:

So people are clicking on this sponsored ads and they're like, yeah, I'm not waiting two months to get a duct tape, I'm going to the alternative person which is their competitor. So, I'll add just hitting, hitting, hitting, hitting, no sales. And you're like what's going on? And then now when you look at it and it's fine detail, delivers in two months. You're like that's so. Now we've had to end the crazy thing about when you've got 4,000 ads, because you've got five ads SKUs, you can't go and manually turn all those off and then wait until it comes back in stock to turn it back on. So that's been a nightmare as well.

Bradley Sutton:

Now Interesting, okay. So yeah, it looks like AWD, like overall pretty decent. You save all those fees, probably thousands and thousands of dollars of fees. You're saving tens of thousands of dollars in warehouse, tens of thousands of dollars in warehouse. But on the flip side, you almost have to, you know if, if you're not using Helium 10, um for inventory management, you almost have to like hire another full-time employee just to manage that, depending on how many SKUs you have, or else, or else you're going to lose, you know too much money.

It's not just the lost sales, what's advertising, like you said, very good, very good, uh, very good point. Um, if I were to ask you like, all right, hey, end of the day, not everybody can, can have a business that does 30 million a year. What set? What has set you guys, uh, apart? Obviously, you know you have some cool patent and some product. You know for one of them that that nobody else can get. That's been around since 1920, but it's anybody you know. I'm sure there's billions of or millions of businesses that were made a century ago, that that technically you could sell, but that doesn't mean you're going to be a 30 million dollar seller. So what sets you guys apart, would you say?

Joe:

I think it's that consistency and never give up mentality when you start off a product, because a lot of things that I've seen with other sellers is they're quick to write off a product because they're not profitable with it within the first kind of initial launch phase. And what I've noticed is we stick out with the product and our launches are in strategies here. So we start off with a launch. So, let's say, we're doing zip bags right and we have these zip bags. They're heavy duty, so it's four mil size. When we start off with a zip bag, we're happy to lose some money on that because we know it's repeat purchases. So we now have to calculate and understand okay, this is the frequency of those sales, this is what we expect to come in, what sizes are winning, and basically having the consistency to keep pushing, even though it might not be profitable to start. Eventually, when you start getting those repeat sales, you'll see the profitability come in and that's where those products, when they start winning. You do the exact same thing with new launches and it's, like I said, that consistency to keep doing that with new launches and new launches and new launches has been a game changer. And then also just not being afraid to test Amazon. So you know, like I said with our vitamin D one, we've thrown different keywords in there, we've thrown different words in there, even at times where you get delisted because Amazon said these things don't work or this is, you can't put that writing, so it's.

It's helped us push our listing and appear in different places and we always do tracking to see if it's click-through rates, if it's the title. So, for example, some of our titles have our brand name, which is spot and industrial. That's a pretty long brand name and if you look at our uh, a product of ours on mobile devices, our brand name takes up should I? I say, 40% of the title. So a lot of our keywords and use cases don't actually show on mobile. So what we did test was removing the brand name and leading with the use cases and the product keywords and it started converting better because nobody cared what our brand name was.

But if they're seeing that zip bag for Legos, for this, for this, and it's heavy duty and it's waterproof, that's what people want to see and it increased our click-through rates, which increased our conversions as well. So stuff like that and they're minute tests. But if you do that on a catalog and with products at a volume, it can be a massive scale. And when you realize that from a potential of okay, we have 800 ASINs, 50% of them increase in conversion rates by just 10, 20% I mean in click-through rates you're bringing in even way more traffic and if you hold your conversion rates, that increases your sales without having to do any change in bids and anything like that. So those key changes allow you to save your dollars but still gain on all that traffic.

Bradley Sutton:

Now, if I were to ask you your favorite Helium 10 tool, is it Cerebro, is it Adtomic? Is it Magnet? Chrome extension, what is it?

Joe:

I would say I love the Chrome extension because it helps me. If I go onto a competitor, straight away I see what they're lacking If they don't have 150 characters in their titles, if they don't have enough bullets, if they don't have, you know, enough bullets, if they don't have enough images. So the moment I see a competitor that doesn't check all the boxes that the Helium tool shows, I'm targeting them. Why? Because if you look at my products I have 10, you know most optimized on your thing. Then at the same time I look at keywords and it gives me a breakdown of how much revenue is in this keyword, how much revenue is in this industry. So before we go launch a specific product like we were launching an anti-slip tape because we want to add to our tape ranges so just looking at that, you'll look at that keyword anti-slip tape. It brings in 600 million a month from all these different competitors.

Now I can run those competitors through Black Box and I love Black Box as well because it helps me really fine tune what I'm targeting and who I'm looking for. So, I can say they get X amount of revenue monthly with X amount of reviews. Like I said, if they have anything below four, Black Box shows me those people. Those are easy people I can add to my product targeting campaigns and I know, because our listings are optimized, we'll easily take some sales from those people. Campaigns and I know, because our listings are optimized, we'll easily take some sales from those people. So, I would say the listing Blackbox and also the Chrome extension will be my two favorite.

Bradley Sutton:

All right. If anybody wants to find you on the interwebs out there, like on LinkedIn or somewhere like you open to saying how they can find you guys out there.

Joe:

Oh yes, of course, on LinkedIn obviously it's just Joe Sanhanga, my name, and then on Instagram it's j.sanhanga, which is my last name, s-a-n-h-a-n-g-a, and that's mostly where I am on social media. But any questions or whatever I can on LinkedIn, you can just pop it in and I'll try and help where I can.

Bradley Sutton:

Awesome, awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show and hope to see you at an upcoming event soon then.

Friday Oct 11, 2024

Helium 10 Buzz 10/11/24: AWD at Capacity? | TikTok Auto Ads | New VISA VAT Requirement

Friday Oct 11, 2024

We’re back with another episode of the Weekly Buzz with Helium 10’s Principal Brand Evangelist and Walmart Expert, Carrie Miller. Every week, we cover the latest breaking news in the Amazon, Walmart, and E-commerce space, talk about Helium 10’s newest features, and provide a training tip for the week for serious sellers of any level.

Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days was the company’s biggest October shopping event ever
https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/retail/prime-big-deal-days-amazon-fall-october-prime-day

Amazon’s new AI Shopping Guides make it easier to research product types and buy smarter.
https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/retail/amazon-ai-shopping-guides-product-research-recommendations

TikTok Rolls Out Automated Ad Targeting Options for the Holidays
https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/tiktok-rolls-out-automated-ad-targeting-options-holidays/729142/

You can now reward customers for engaging with your Amazon ads
https://advertising.amazon.com/en-us/resources/whats-new/reward-customers-for-engaging-with-your-ads/

Exciting news from Helium 10 includes the integration of Adtomic into the Diamond plan, offering efficient PPC campaign management with Advertising AI, and introducing a new feature that Helium 10 customers have been asking for for years is finally here! Variation Sales Strength is basically showing you which of the variations have the most sales. And lastly, don't miss our training for the Inventory Heat Maps tool to optimize sales strategies during the holiday season

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

00:54 - Oct Prime Day Success
02:22 - AI Shopping Guides
03:47 - VISA Verification
04:40 - AWD Too Full?
05:30 - TikTok Auto Ads
07:24 - US-UK Shipment Rates
08:05 - Customer Reward Ads
10:21 - 2024 Holiday Returns
11:01 - Sponsored Display Depreciation
11:45 - New Feature Alerts
14:14 - Freedom Ticket Webinar
14:42 - Elite Workshop in Milan, Italy
15:26 - Training Tip: Inventory Heat Maps

► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast

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

► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life)

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

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

Transcript

Carrie Miller:

A new feature that Helium 10 customers have been asking for years is finally here. There is a new VAT tax policy that you need to pay attention to. Amazon warehouse distribution might be too full and TikTok rolls out new automated ad targeting 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 will give you serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. Now, today, our host is going to be Kerry Miller. So, Kerry, take it away and let us know what's buzzing.

Carrie Miller:

Let's go ahead and get into the first article. That's October Prime Day Big Deals, and we have an article that was released by Amazon and they announced that prime big deal days was its biggest October shopping event ever. Okay, so that's pretty exciting, especially going into Q4. Here. They said that more prime members shopped compared to last year and took advantage of early holiday deals, marking the kickoff to the holiday season with higher sales and more items sold during the two day event than any previous October shopping event. So that's very good news, I think, for a lot of us sellers. Globally, prime members saved more than $1 billion across millions of deals, including on seasonal merchandise and gifts, so it was definitely a good time for shoppers as well. And if we scroll down a little bit more in this article, it goes on to talk a little bit about the role that AI actually played in this event. So Rufus, which is the generative, ai powered conversational shopping assistant, helped millions of customers in the US answer questions on a variety of shopping needs and products in the Amazon store. Rufus can now help make tailored deal recommendations, making it easier to discover great gift ideas at a discount, and customers also use something else called inspire, which is an in app mobile experience that helps you discover new products with a personalized feed, amazon lens, which is a visual shopping tool that identifies objects and finds similar items on amazon, and then also they have something called the ai shopping guides, which basically leads us into our next article, which is amazon's new ai shopping guides that make it easier to research product types and buy smarter. So let's go ahead and talk a little bit about this.

Carrie Miller:

So Amazon has actually introduced AI shopping guides to simplify product research by consolidating key information and recommendations for over 100 product types. These guides use generative AI to deliver relevant details and product options quickly, making it generative AI to deliver relevant details and product options quickly, making it easier for customers to make informed purchase decisions. The AI guides are available on Amazon's mobile app and the website and are powered by Amazon's Bedrock large language models, enhancing their ability to offer personalized shopping results. So if you want to go ahead and take a look with me so we can see what this actually looks like, you can see right here that there's actually some recommendations to help shoppers to make better decisions. So, for example, if we go over to this one on the right, it says you know factors to consider the display type, the resolution, all of that great information so you can click on that and get more information about that. Or you can also go down. You can see that you can shop by popular brands, so you can click on the types of brands and then they'll also kind of have overview of the actual product. So this is quite interesting, making it, you know, kind of an interesting AI backed approach to this year's October event. So we'll probably see a lot more of this AI playing a part in the whole finding products, you know, on Amazon for customers. So we'll see how this goes and see how it improves our sales.

Carrie Miller:

So let's go ahead and get into the next thing and this is kind of word on the street Maybe there isn't really an article about it so I don't have anything to share with you but there are some changes to Amazon VAT or the Visa program. We do have some sources that say that Amazon has actually updated its VAT compliance requirements for sellers. So if you're part of the Amazon VAT information sharing agreement or visa program, amazon is no longer handling VAT compliance verification and now, even if you've already switched over to another provider, which I'm sure many of you already have. Sellers must actually inform Amazon about the change or you're gonna risk suspension, and this affects both US and European sellers, and it's similar to last year's seller verification process, where, when you fail to update the details, it led to account suspension. So you definitely want to take some action. If you need some more information about this, you can actually contact Avask. They're in our partner hub. You can find them at h10.me. Forward slash Avask and they can help answer any of your questions.

Carrie Miller:

All right, the next story is about Amazon warehouse distribution and whether or not it's actually full, and we're going to say AWD for short, which stands for Amazon warehouse distribution. We have heard from multiple customers in Amazon seller groups that they are getting messages from AWD saying things like this Sorry, this time we don't have enough space available for your inventory. We are unable to accept your shipment due to capacity limit. Try reducing your shipment volume or try again in seven days. Now I think this is a very big issue for AWD if they want sellers to start moving all of their logistics to AWD Now. I know a lot of sellers are trying to take advantage of this and Amazon maybe went pretty quick to market with this, but we really want to know in the comments if you've seen this message and what you're doing about it, and are you going to wait and send an inventory to the warehouse, or what are you going to do? What are your plans? Let us know in the comments below.

Carrie Miller:

All right for this next story, we have TikTok launching new automated ads. They're rolling them out for the holiday season, so let's go ahead and take a look at the article. So TikTok has announced a new fully automated ad solution called Smart Plus, which will take care of the whole creation from ad creation, placement and bidding process for you. So if we scroll down, you can see a little bit more about what actually the Smart Plus automated ads program is, so you can get more details there. But basically, tiktoks explained it as Smart Plus automates the performance advertising process across targeting, bidding and creative to deliver the right ad to the right person to offer the best performance. Advertisers simply input their assets, budget and targeting goals and smart plus automatically creates or selects the best creative asset. Okay, so basically they're kind of doing everything for you AI run, ai generated. I'm not sure how many of us feel about all this being kind of AI generated and not having any involvement in it, but it is kind of interesting to kind of run some of these ads in addition to the other ads that you might be advertising, and so let's go ahead and look at some of what they're saying. So advertisers using smart web campaigns to optimize for value have actually seen a 52% improvement in the return on ad spend. So that is actually really good news as well. And if we scroll down a little bit more, tiktok is also rolling out GMV Max, which automates TikTok shop campaign creation with the aim of increasing your TikTok shop gross merchandise value. And they further go on to say a little bit more about this down below here. They said GMV Max considerably simplifies ad operations, cutting campaign setup time in half, and allows sellers to reach their audience across all shoppable placements on TikTok, including the for you feed, shop tab and search within a single campaign. So go ahead and check those out. If you haven't checked out the TikTok ads. I definitely think it's a game changer and something you should really be taking advantage of in this Q4 season.

Carrie Miller:

Okay, next up, amazon global selling. Send rate rejection is happening for the US to UK shipments, so, in a bid to make international shipping more affordable, amazon has actually announced a reduction in send S E N D rates for FBA shipments from the US to the UK, and sellers can now save up to 15% compared to what it was in July. The program offers seamless seller central integration, custom support, competitive rates, door-to-door delivery and shipment tracking, and this move is set to streamline logistics for sellers looking to expand to the UK market, making it easier and more cost-effective to grow their business globally, so might be a really good time to think about expanding to the UK. Okay, this next article. It's from Amazon, and now you can actually reward customers for engaging with your ads. This is quite an interesting and exciting new kind of announcement and I will definitely answer some of your questions that you probably have about this. But Amazon is basically introducing a new feature that allows advertisers to reward customers for engaging with their ads, so now sellers can create campaigns that actually offer incentives like discounts or promotions when customers interact with their ads, making it easier to drive engagement and conversion. Now this innovative approach aims to enhance the customer experience while boosting ad performance, and the integration is designed to be seamless within the Amazon ads platform.

Carrie Miller:

So if we actually scroll down, you are going to be able to see what this creative looks like, and I'm going to just scroll. There's a little bit about the setup and I want to show you what it looks like. So, basically, what's going to happen is you're going to see within the searches or on your stores, there's these previews where you can get a $5 Amazon credit. So that is going to be kind of a big bold red thing on the actual. You know where people can click and you're going to be able to give that as an incentive for your products.

Carrie Miller:

And there are probably some questions, like I had. I had I said well, who's going to pay for the $5 credit? Well, the answer is definitely you. So at the very bottom, where it says where do I access it, it says the rewards ads experience is currently available via the Amazon DSP within a component-based creative ad template. Advertisers will be billed for the cost of the distributed or rewards. So there you go, you're going to be paying for those $5 credits or whatever it is that you're going to do. Advertisers also have access to two net new metrics, which is reward grants the number of rewards distributed and reward costs, which is the cost of rewards distributed. These metrics are currently available within the ADSP campaign builder dashboards, but are not available via public API. So definitely go ahead and check it out. That's where you're going to really find all that information. So I am really actually curious to know how many of you think you would use this and do you think you might raise your prices to be able to take advantage of this. It's kind of an interesting thing, especially with margins kind of being a lot lower for a lot of people. So we'll see how that actually turns out. So go ahead and check that out, if you haven't already checked it out.

Carrie Miller:

Okay, the next story is very important to know, and that is the returns window for Amazon is going to be extended for the 2024 holidays. So Amazon is actually extending its holiday returns window for 2024. Items purchased between November 1st and December 31st of 2024 can be returned until January 31st of 2025, except for Apple products, which have a return deadline of January 15th of 2025. This extended policy applies to all seller fulfilled FBA and Amazon retail orders. Now, while the returns window is longer, eligibility rules remain unchanged, and this extension is aiming to make holiday shopping more convenient for our customers. Okay, and the next piece of news there is a depreciation announcement reminder Sponsored display version two reporting endpoints will shut off October 31st 2024. So Amazon is set to depreciate its sponsored display version 2 reporting endpoints, with a complete shutdown planned for October 31st of 2024. Advertisers should transition to the new version 3 reporting endpoints to continue accessing sponsored display reports. Until then, expect increased throttling on the old version, and amazon encourages feedback on this change through its ads API support page on by October 15th of 2024. So for more details on all that, you can go to amazon's migration page.

Carrie Miller:

Okay, so all those news stories were very exciting, but I think we have even more exciting news within helium 10 with our new features now. This next feature is something that a lot of people have been asking for, and I am very, very excited to announce it, because I've been asked this question for years actually, and we've been working on it for a long time. So I'm going to go ahead and share my screen. So this is just a search of coffin shelf and what I'm going to do is I'm going to actually go ahead and I'm going to pull our x-ray extension. Okay, so what I want to show you, which is already kind of clearly here, is I basically take this is our Manny's Mysterious Oddities product and I'm just going to expand this down and it's basically going to show us the variation sales strength with a graph. Okay, so this is basically showing you which of the variations have the most sales. So, for example, variation sales strength for this black one is obviously the big seller for us, and then you can see that there's a very, very tiny sliver of the pie here for purple, and then also a very sliver piece of the pie, maybe a little bit more, for the pink. So we can see that the top seller is the black one, then the pink one and then the purple one. So this is some great news and it's really kind of actually a teaser. Really, this is going to be a teaser for something that we're even getting for you even more data. So stay tuned for the launch of that. But in the meantime now you can see which variation, or child variation ASINs have the most sales.

Carrie Miller:

This next feature announcement for Helium 10 is very exciting, and that is that Atomic is now included in the diamond plan. So now you don't have to pay separately for it, it's going to be all included with the diamond plan, and with that we've actually launched advertising AI. So you know, if you don't know a bunch about PPC or you don't feel very strongly about it, you can actually give Atomic your ASIN and your ACoS goals and that's it. And Helium 10 will create your campaigns and optimize them by itself. So I'm going to actually show you how this works by sharing my screen. Okay, so if you go into Atomic, you're going to click on Atomic and go down here to the bottom, where it's the AI advertising very bottom icon and all you would do is you would click on your product goal and you're going to select your ASIN, say, you're going to do this one, you're going to set your ACoS goal and your daily budget and, if you want to, you can add some keywords in there and then you're going to basically go ahead and launch that campaign. So we're going to go into detail on how sellers can use Adtomic and save time and money in a live workshop with expert Destiny with Sean on the 22nd of October, so mark your calendars for that. We're going to be doing an in-depth PPC webinar, you know, for beginners, to help you to understand and use ad atomic better and more efficiently.

Carrie Miller:

Next, we actually have an announcement. That is, our monthly freedom ticket training with Kevin King. So Kevin King is actually bringing on Mark Degrassi I'm not actually sure how you say his name, but Mark Degrassi, I think, is how you say it he's going to be actually talking about why branding has always been your biggest marketing problem and how AI is going to solve it. I actually did see him speak at one of Kevin's events and he's very, very good. So to register for this special training, you can go to the link below.

Carrie Miller:

Okay, and another announcement that we have which is very, very exciting is that our next Helium 10 Elite Workshop is going to be in Milan, Italy, on November 11th. Bradley is going to be speaking there, Mansour is going to be speaking, Jana, who also does kind of listing optimization in other languages, and a few more top level speakers are going to be in attendance and speaking at this event. Elite members actually can go for free. So elite members just need to check the Facebook group for their free code, but everyone else you can actually attend, still for a fee. So just go to h10.me forward slash Milan to get your tickets before it sells out Right now. We have it on an 80% of the regular price special right now. So if you want to buy those tickets. You can go ahead and get them for a reduced price.

Carrie Miller:

And, last but not least, I'm very excited to go into our training tip of the week, which is our inventory heat maps. Okay, so inventory heat maps are available in helium 10. I'm sharing my screen now and this is actually in profits, and what you would do is you go to the heat maps and you're going to click on inventory heat map. You can change what to whatever product you want. So this is our coffin shelf, so we have our coffin shelf selected and you can actually see where our inventory is located in every single part of the United States right here. So this is a really, really helpful tool, especially going into the holiday season, where you can actually, you know, see where your inventory is.

Carrie Miller:

And something else that we do have in conjunction with that is the sales heat map, so you can actually see where the majority of your sales are in this heat map and you can go back and say is my inventory kind of matching up with those areas? Or maybe there's some areas where your sales are kind of up or have been in the past, but maybe they are not stocked with inventory. So you can go ahead and stock them with inventory, but go ahead and check out this inventory heat maps. Maybe, if you need some more distribution, you can figure out ways to kind of push inventory to other areas of the US and so that you can expand your reach. That is basically all that we have for this week's episode of the Weekly Buzz.

Carrie Miller:

So what I would actually like for you to do if you have not done this, we do have a YouTube channel, and so we would love for you to go ahead and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We do lots of great updates, we do the Weekly Buzz on there, but we also have a lot of great training for helium 10 and just selling on Amazon in general. Lots of incredible information. So subscribe to our YouTube channel so that you can be the first to know the up-to-date information about selling on Amazon and other platforms. We look forward to seeing you next week again on the Weekly Buzz. I do believe Bradley will be back, so we'll see you again next week to see what's buzzing.

Tuesday Oct 08, 2024

#603 - Amazon Accelerate Recap & AI-Generated A+ Content

Tuesday Oct 08, 2024

What if you could revolutionize your Amazon business with cutting-edge AI tools? Join us as we uncover the latest advancements from the Amazon Accelerate event in Seattle, with exclusive insights from Andrea Marquez of Amazon’s This Is Small Business podcast. We dive into the game-changing world of AI-generated A+ content, as well as the exciting debut of Project Amelia, Amazon's generative AI that promises to transform seller capabilities.

Our discussion takes you to the heart of Amazon's evolution in supporting sellers, highlighting the critical role of video content and improved analytics. Explore new tools designed to help brands create high-quality video content, alongside a detailed look at the updates that brands can benefit from. We also shine a light on Amazon's "Sellers in Your Community" initiative and hear the inspiring stories of Amazon entrepreneurs and their impact on communities.

In the second part of this episode, let’s discover how A+ content has evolved, with insights from Lauren Coury, Senior Product Manager at Amazon, and learn how to utilize your basic, shoppable A+ content, premium, brand story A+ content and AI integration to elevate your brand storytelling. Get ready to explore this wealth of knowledge and uncover new ways to make your Amazon presence more engaging and impactful than ever before.

In episode 603 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley, Andrea, and Lauren discuss:

00:00 - Amazon Accelerate Highlights and A+ Content Powered By Generative AI
04:36 - Innovative Video Generation Revolutionizes Advertising
06:29 - Enhancing Amazon Seller Experience and Analytics
10:16 - Improved Amazon Seller Support Features
12:43 - Entrepreneurial Stories and Amazon Product Ideas
18:48 - Success Stories From The Amazon Accelerate Event
21:56 - Brand Experience and A+ Content Creation
25:19 - A+ Content and Brand Story
26:59 - Importance of A+ Content for Brands
32:50 - Shoppable A+ Content and AI Benefits
42:00 - Enhancing A+ Content With Graphics
46:23 - Leveraging A+ Content and Generative AI

► 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

Saturday Oct 05, 2024

#602 - Amazon Customer Loyalty Analytics & Business Planner

Saturday Oct 05, 2024

In this special episode, a couple of key players from Amazon Corporate join us to discuss some brand new functions released for sellers, including one that gives us unprecedented ability to identify and target our repeat customers.

What if harnessing the power of Amazon’s vast data pool could revolutionize your e-commerce strategy? In this episode recorded live from Amazon Accelerate, we introduce a couple of cutting-edge tools, Amazon Business Planner, Customer Loyalty Analytics, and Customer Journey Analytics, designed to transform Amazon brands’ approach to their operations marketing. Our special guests, James Casazza and Wei Li, prominent figures from Amazon Corporate, share how these new tools offer brands the ability to set goals, receive personalized action plans, and effectively manage their business data with self-service capabilities. This episode unpacks how brands can gain confidence and clarity amidst the overwhelming flow of information, aligning their strategies seamlessly with their business objectives.

Discover the magic of artificial intelligence as we explore a revolutionary business planning tool that’s setting new standards in the e-commerce landscape. This tool provides brands with AI-generated plans, pinpointing impactful goals like boosting ad-attributed sales and enhancing profitability. By offering step-by-step recommendations—from campaign strategies to keyword optimization—the tool updates dynamically, suggesting fresh opportunities and strategic enhancements beyond advertising. Join us as we dissect its ability to deliver transparent progress tracking with detailed visualizations, historical comparisons, and a focus on profitability through cost-reduction strategies and content optimization.

Get ready to dive into the world of customer analytics with Amazon’s latest tools aimed at understanding diverse shopper behaviors. We spotlight the Customer Loyalty Dashboard and Customer Journey Dashboard, key innovations that offer brands deeper insights into customer behavior. Our guest Wei, shares her role in developing tools like the Search Query Performance and Product Opportunity Explorer. These analytics resources empower brands to tailor promotions, prevent churn, and boost loyalty among customer segments. By leveraging predicted customer lifetime value and promotional strategies, brands can enhance engagement, conversion, and ultimately, customer loyalty.

In episode 602 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley, James, and Wei discuss:

00:54 - Amazon Accelerate New Tools Announced Overview
02:00 - Amazon Launches New Business Planner
05:07 - Simplifying Data for Amazon Business Planning
11:16 - AI-Powered Business Planning Tool
12:39 - Dynamic Business Planner Features and Benefits
16:42 - Data-Driven Amazon Customer Loyalty Analytics
20:08 - Amazon Department Provides Key Seller Tools
23:20 - Understanding Customer Audience Types
28:26 - Understanding Buyer Behavior and Cart Abandonment
35:13 - Unlocking Valuable Amazon Data Insights
37:29 - Thanking Amazon for Launches at Accelerate

► 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:

Today's a special episode, as a couple of key players from Amazon Corporate are with us on the show to talk about some brand new functions released for sellers, including one that gives us unprecedented ability to identify and target our repeat customers. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think Sellers have lost thousands of dollars by not knowing that they were hijacked, perhaps on their Amazon listing, or maybe somebody changed their main image, or Amazon changed their shipping dimension so they had to pay extra money every order. Helium 10 can actually send you a text message or email if any of these things or other critical events happen to your Amazon account. For more information, go to h10.me forward slash alerts.

Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers podcast by Helium 10. I'm your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show that is a special episode recorded live at Amazon Accelerate.

This was done in Seattle a few weeks ago and, as you probably have seen from other episodes, we had a lot of new releases, of new data points and new functionality that Amazon is releasing. Shout out, first of all, to Addy from Amazon, who helped us hook us up with some of these interviews but we had the privilege of being able to interview a couple of the key people that are involved in the ideation and implementation of some of these new tools, and so in this episode, we're going to go over a couple of things in from Business Planner, which is something new, and also customer loyalty analytics, which might blow your mind as far as the kind of targeting ability and being able to understand, you know, how your customers go through the funnel. I think it's going to be interesting because, you know, a few years ago we would have never thought that Amazon would release this kind of data to sellers, so it's really awesome that they're doing that and we get to talk to the person responsible for the creation of this. So let's go ahead and hop into the episode

Bradley Sutton:

So I'd like to first start off with just getting your background. We're obviously here in Seattle right now. Where were you born and raised?

James:

So I'm from New York originally. I grew up about an hour outside New York City, really close to my grandparents' dairy farm. But for the last 20 years, I've lived outside Detroit. After college, I moved up there.

Bradley Sutton:

Hold on a quick second. This is an important question. Somebody who lives in New York. They move somewhere else. Are you a New York sports fan or a Detroit sports fan?

James:

So I've kept loyal to my New York teams. It's a little difficult because especially now the football season started, keeping up after the Giants and Jets is keeping your head low and the Lions finally have something to be excited about. But I'm a proud father to three boys and I will say they all have their Aiden Hutchinson jerseys on. We're really excited last season and looking forward to this one.

Bradley Sutton:

Awesome, awesome. So you were talking about. You graduated university. What direction did your career take you in that?

James:

So early in my career, I worked in automotive, digital marketing, and then in the social media industry, and I really found a passion for using software and technology to help independent businesses reach their consumers, really connect, and ultimately drive their success, and that led me to Amazon. So I've been with Amazon for just over six years now. I'm currently a senior manager of product management in the Selling Partner Experience organization, and, while that's a bit of a mouthful, what it means is that I'm really working on building the tools that sellers are using to run their business and ultimately thrive in the Amazon store. Recently, my team worked on a complete redesign of the Seller Central homepage, which rolled out late last year, and today I'm excited to join you and talk about the next exciting tool that we're building, called Business Planner, which brings self-service capabilities to sellers to plan their business, set goals and objectives and receive a personalized action plan that will help them attain their goals in the store.

Bradley Sutton:

Awesome. Now, I think that most brands would agree with me in that there is no other mechanism of selling whether we're talking brick and mortar, whether we're talking online that provides as much data as Amazon does to its brands. It's really incredible. I think sometimes we're spoiled, those who start on Amazon. They don't know how it is or how it used to be when you're trying to make money, and so I can totally understand that. Hey, with all this data, there's going to be some insights that can come from it. So what about the timing? Why did you decide, hey, now is the right time to go ahead and launch this new tool.

James:

Yeah, so the idea for Business Planner actually started at Accelerate in 2023. I was talking to a number of different sellers and really this theme came out about the data that you're talking about. One seller likened it to being dying of thirst they're just so hungry to know what to do, and yet they're standing next to a fire hydrant. It's just spouting all this data at them. And so the question they had was like help me organize this, help me decide what's most important so that I can act confidently and know that that's aligned with the goals that I have for my business.

And so, while Amazon is providing plenty of reports and recommendations, it's really difficult to summarize or interpret that and get to an action plan. And we know that because sellers are working with account managers or even finding really productive partnerships with third-party software providers to help make sense of this data. And so our goal is to help democratize this access to data and bring the type of planning that sellers do offline when they're setting quarterly or yearly objectives and then want to track that and some may have teams that are doing customer acquisition or operations. They might be the individual's performance goals. We want to bring that offline planning into our tools so that sellers can easily keep track of where they're at and act confidently to drive their success.

Bradley Sutton:

You know, obviously, as brands, we have a lot of our own data, but I believe that this tool is also bringing in aggregated data from other sources, not just what's happening with your own listings. Is that correct?

James:

That's right. So throughout this process we've talked to so many sellers and I've just been impressed with the passion they have and the interest and the different opportunities that they're taking to bring insights and data analysis to really help them decide how to act. So with Business Planner, we're bringing together the power of data from thousands of different listings and all the customer activity in the Amazon store to create personalized action plans that will help sellers to achieve their goals. So they'll have a single place to go to benchmark their performance, identify their largest opportunities and then to generate a step-by-step action plan that aligns with the things that matter most to them. So, whether you're a new seller just getting started out in the Amazon store or you're an established brand with a healthy business that is ready to go to the next level, they can get a personalized plan that's specific to them and the goals that they want to achieve in the Amazon store.

Bradley Sutton:

Now, you mentioned you worked on the Seller Central homepage. Now on the homepage there's already kind of like recommendations that might come through. There's a whole growth opportunity section. So how does this new feature here compare to what's already out there, and is it better?

James:

So we're trying to take a best of both worlds approach. So when I think about the recommendations on the homepage and growth opportunities, it makes me think of a buffet where there's so many different options and there'll be like lots of tasty treats and plenty of nourishment there. So there's lots of good things there. But if you're trying to take like a structured plan, maybe instead you work with a nutritionist who's going to first ask you some questions about what's important to you. Are you training for the Olympics? Are you trying to slim down by a few pounds, like what is really your goal here?

Bradley Sutton:

That's what I'm going to say. I'm going to say, hey, I'm training for the Olympics. That's why I'm eating so much food at this point.

James:

Exactly, exactly, no-transcript in those other experiences and then also providing you with detailed tracking so you can see as the days and weeks go by, are you actually getting towards that goal?

Bradley Sutton:

Let me piggyback on something you just mentioned there pulling data from some of those other recommendations. What exactly is driving other than just raw data? That's what does a lot of data there. I'm assuming maybe AI has some component of it, absolutely so.

James:

I think AI is a really powerful tool because it can crunch massive amounts of data and identify patterns and discrepancies. So perhaps the seller is underperforming in their ads campaigns. We might be able to come back with specific keyword optimization recommendations and then they can increase their ad attributed sales and grow revenue. Or we might spot a change in demand for key ASINs that would require a different inventory strategy and it might be an opportunity for the seller to reduce their FBA fees and reduce costs of maintaining their current business. And so by applying machine learning and AI to that massive amount of data, we can kind of slim that down into a specific plan of action for the seller and by starting with the goals that they set. We're no longer in this business of kind of predicting what the seller might want. We start by asking the question and then we have a lot more confidence that, because the seller has set the goal, that when we come back with an action plan it's actually right for them and where they want to take their business.

Bradley Sutton:

Awesome, awesome. Now for those who maybe haven't seen it yet in their Seller Central dashboard, where can they find this? Walk us through a little bit of a scenario, maybe, how they can see yeah, absolutely.

James:

So Business Planner is going to be rolling out in the US store in just a couple of weeks. So later this month you'll start to see a tile on the homepage in that recommendation section that you talked about. It'll also show up on the left side menu of growth opportunities. From there you can access Business Planner, which is your dashboard for action planning. When you first visit, we'll have some recommended goals. So that's where we've assessed how the seller's performing, set some benchmarks and looked for the strongest opportunities where they can improve their performance. We'll rank those based on how big the impact is. So the most impactful goal will be at kind of the top left of that page and if that goal aligns with the objective that the seller has, they can click on it and see details about the plan. So maybe it's a four-week plan or a 12-week plan to increase their ad-attributed sales, because we see that as the largest opportunity and they'll be able to review the details and if they want to move forward, they just click to create a plan.

And this is where the really exciting part happens. That's where the AI steps in and kind of scans across all those different recommendations, opportunities, and where we see the most potential to achieve that goal. So in this case seller is trying to increase their ad-attributed sales. We might come back with some specific product level ad campaign recommendations or keyword optimization. We put that into like a step-by-step plan and so the seller from the Business Planner can then look into that plan. There'll be graphs right on the page where they can see their current performance, what the target's going to be, and then a list of those recommendations that's organized and sorted for them.

One of the special things about Business Planner is that it's constantly updating as much as once a day. It'll pull in new recommendations or reprioritize what's there because of progress that the sellers made, new opportunities that emerge Perhaps all of a sudden keyword traffic and customers are searching for new products on Amazon and that might change.

The order of recommendations will reflect that in the business plan. So it's a it's a living thing that they can check back to and and going to show them that next best action they can take to ultimately achieve that objective. And then you know, once we've reached the end of the plan, we'll show that completed goal right and the experience with a record of all the things they did, and I think that's really important to sort of earn trust with the sellers that you know some of these things might require a little bit of an additional investment or might go against the common knowledge of how to be successful in the store. But I'm confident that, as we, you know, offer these plans because we're starting from what's most important to the sellers, that they'll see that that's helping them achieve their unique objectives and make their business as successful as possible in the store.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay. Now, when I was looking over some of the notes on this new tool, you mentioned a scenario with advertising, but I believe there's also another scenario where even it could get to something that has nothing to do with advertising, but like your A+ content. So I was trying to wrap my head around how that would work. So if I already I mean obviously, if I don't have A+ content the suggestion would be hey, get A+ content going. And now there's AI tools that help with that that we've talked about here at Amazon Accelerate this year. But if I already have A+ content, is this AI detecting like, hey, this might not be the most optimized and you need to tweak it, or what's it doing then?

James:

Yeah. So it's going to look throughout the sales funnel that you might see for a product. It might look at search activity glance views at the detail page and then I think a key lever for sellers is are they converting those views and visits to their products into sales? And so it might come back with a recommendation to tweak that content to better align with the search terms that customers are using. Or it might see a strategy where they could increase their featured offer win rate and ultimately convert more of those customers into buyers. And that's where the AI is powerful.

It's going to look across those different opportunities and see where can we create the most leverage, and it was important to us as we were building Business Pointer. It's not just going to come with recommendations that might require some additional investment from sellers. So at launch, one of the things that we're including is a set of cost reduction goals, and that's where we might look at inventory levels and fee structures and recommend either promotions and deals or a different stocking strategy to the seller that can help them reduce their costs to serve and be more profitable in the similar All right, excellent.

Bradley Sutton:

So, regardless of what it is, whether we're talking A+ content, whether we're talking advertised I set a goal, I implemented it. You mentioned tracking the progress. How can I see how I'm you know my road to that?

James:

Yeah, absolutely so. This is where we want to bring in some like detailed data visualization. So when you come back to Business Planner, you click into the goal that you're tracking against, we'll have a big chart on the page with your progress, the projection of where you're going to end up, and also allow you to do some comparisons against a historical period so that you can see am I really outperforming, am I getting the gains? So back to your training for the Olympics. We want to see that your sprint times are coming down or your weight lifts are increasing in weight, and it's the same thing here. So if we're trying to improve our ads attributed sales we want to make progress on that metric. If we want to reduce our costs, we should expect to see our inventory performance index improve and by providing that granular view into the metrics, we can show that the seller is progressing towards their objective.

Bradley Sutton:

Excellent, all right, so now I'm inspired by listening to this podcast and I'm ready to go in. Maybe by the time they're listening to this, maybe it is available already in Seller Central. If I'm just getting started, what's maybe the first thing I should do, or what's the best way to get started with this?

James:

Yeah. So we want Business Planner to be a regular thing and we think that sellers will start to use it as it aligns with their monthly or quarterly business planning. So my first recommendation is check it out. Either go through the recommendations on the Seller Central homepage or go to growth opportunities and look for Business Planner in that left menu and you can start browsing those recommended goals. Those will update at least once a week with the latest and greatest opportunities that we see for you as a specific seller and based on, like your business and your opportunity, and then, once you find the plan that makes sense to you and you kick that off, you know, check back regularly. Those action plan items might update as much as once a day. So we want this to be a kind of like a regular part of your journey as a seller and a regular part of the tools that you might use on Seller Central.

Bradley Sutton:

Well, thank you so much for bringing this tool, thank you so much for coming on the show and talking about it, and I'm excited to use it myself, and I'm sure a lot of the brands out there will be excited. And I can empathize with you about the New York teams. I mean, I'm a Chargers and Clippers fan, so I'm a glutton for punishment myself. So thanks a lot for doing it. Yeah, thank you so much for being here. This was fantastic actually. This she doesn't know I'm going to say this, but this was the highlight for me, for actually Amazon Accelerate was being able to interview our next guest, who I am super excited to meet her, not only her, but also especially what she's going to be talking about. So, Wei, welcome, welcome, thank you. Thank you for meeting with me.

Wei:

Thank you for having me.

Bradley Sutton:

Now let's what I do with all of my guests. I like to get the backstory a little bit, so where were you born and raised?

Wei:

Definitely. I was born and raised in Beijing. I moved from Beijing to Chicago actually in 2003 for graduate school, so before Amazon, I worked for some of the big names like Merrill Lynch, KPMG. I have also worked for a number of startup companies in the fintech, pharmaceutical and supply chain companies. I joined Amazon in 2011. I have spent most of my time here with a selling partner services organization. Currently, I lead the selling partner growth analytics team, and our team built a few that I was on.

Our team built a few seller-facing applications in Seller Central and your comment earlier. I actually I'm a mom of three outside of work and I have a seven-year-old, a six-year-old and a baby under one.

Bradley Sutton:

Yeah, wow, that's awesome, awesome. I miss those days. My kids are both. My kids are both in their twenties now and so, like I talked, when I talked to parents, when I talked to parents who still, I was like, oh man, you don't know how lucky you are to have kids at that age, because I wish I could go back in time Now, going back, one thing you said. You said you came to graduate school in Chicago. Which school did you go to?

Wei:

Yeah. So I got two masters, one from Illinois Institute of Technology and got my quantitative finance degree there.

Bradley Sutton:

And that's also Quantitative. I don't even know what that means.

Wei:

And then I received an MBA from UChicago.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay, excellent, excellent. You talk about your career there and on Amazon. You're very humble about the department you work at, but, guys, this is the department that I think not just me but every Amazon seller is so thankful for, which you're responsible for things like the search, career, performance and all these other amazing things that I think is so important, because brands, I think, have been spoiled by Amazon in the last couple of years with all the data that they get. They don't realize that if you were selling on Amazon, maybe like five, 10 years ago, some of the stuff that you guys are providing, you actually had to pay like thousands and thousands of dollars and most didn't even qualify to get it. So, first of all, again, thank you so much for what you do at your department. Now let's just talk about that a little bit Like how do you guys approach, what kind of analytical tools, what kind of information you're going to provide brands in?

Wei:

a few different domains. So, first of all, we provide a traffic and sales data through Business Report, which is one of the most visited tools in Seller Central. Additionally, we also provide this tool called Opportunity Explorer. So Opportunity Explorer is a selection analytics tool. It helps sellers identify new selection to sell in Amazon store. Additionally, we also provide this tool called Search Analytics Dashboard. That is where we can provide some of the data on traffic, with an emphasis on search keywords. Lastly, but not the least, is the Customer Analytics Dashboard. For Customer Analytics Dashboard, I'm actually very excited to announce some new launches here.

So we started out by building dashboards about customers and their purchase behavior. We have demographic dashboards to tell you who your customers are. We have repeat purchase dashboard that tells you how often customers purchase from your brand. Additionally, we have this third dashboard called Market Basket Dashboard. It tells you what products your customers would purchase together with your brands. It unlocks some of the cross-selling opportunities. Since then, we have also received feedback from your brands. It unlocks some of the cross-selling opportunities. Since then, we have also received feedback from the brands. They want to take a customer-centered approach. So last year we launched a customer loyalty dashboard. It gives the brand a segmented view to understand who are your existing customers, from top tier to promising to at risk and hibernating customers. And then this year we're launching customer journey dashboard that allows a brand to understand your customer's entire shopping journey, from first moment they start to search for your brand to the moment when they make that final purchase. With these two dashboards, our goal is to lower the customer acquisition cost as well as increase the customer lifetime value.

Bradley Sutton:

This is really important because actually, this part of all the analytical tools I probably know the least about. I'm so obsessive about search query performance and search volume and keyword data, but I think now 2024 and then going to 2025, brands really need to understand the customer and people are thinking too much just about the algorithm or things like that, but at the end of the day, we're not selling to the algorithm, we're selling to a human being, and so some of these data points that you're talking about is really important. I'm happy to, I'm really excited to learn about them today. Now, one thing you mentioned, you know, about different customers, like you mentioned, like top tier and things you know, like this might be familiar to some out there and I know you're probably going to talk about it, but we had the brand tailor promotions and we could see some of these different audience groups, now, those who might not be familiar with it. Can you talk a little bit about these customer audience types? You mentioned top tier, but there's a lot of other ones out there too.

Wei:

Absolutely so. We help brand segment your existing customer base and we actually use a pretty standard methodology, is called RFM. R stands for Recency it describes when did your customer make the last purchase from your brand. F stands for Frequency it describes how frequently customers purchase from your brand. And lastly, m stands for Monetary Spend it talks about how much does the customer spend purchasing your products.

We use a quantile-based approach and equally divide your customers into groups along these three dimensions recency, frequency as well as monetary spend. This allows us to group your customers into four segment top tier, promising, at risk, as well as a hibernating. By top tier customers those are the customers who purchased from your brand recently, but they may be purchasing at varying frequency and they spend varying amount. At risk customers they made a purchase but they don't purchase frequently. They also spend varying amount of money on your brand. And hibernating customers are those customers who have already churned. Equipped with this knowledge, brand can then deploy different promotion and marketing tools to re-engage these customers and thereby encourage repeat purchase and drive customer lifetime value.

Bradley Sutton:

Interesting.First of all, I was today years old when I heard the word quantile, so you're already teaching me new vocabulary lessons.

I realize how not smart I am when it comes to math and this kind of things, but what you know, I think the main thing that people can take away is how important it is to kind of like bucket your customers into these different brackets, because you know, somebody who's hibernating is obviously a different kind of customer, a different value to one as one who is at risk or some of the others that you mentioned, and so it's important to be able to just not consider all of our brands customers. Hey, they're exactly the same, and I think that's what a lot of brands, or especially newer brands, might be doing. Like, all my customers are the same, but no, not all customers are created equally. Let's talk about the new and potential customers. We've got the ones we've had existing, like Hibernating and things like that, and who have been part of your brand. But I think all brands are really especially concerned about hey, how do I bring new customers into the fold? And so talk to us about the new and potential customers.

Wei:

We show the new and potential customers in the brand view of the customer loyalty dashboard. New customers are the ones who have made the first purchase in the last 12 months and potential customers are those customers who have not made the purchase but has engaged with your brands in some ways. For example, they may have viewed your product detail page, read customer reviews or added your products to their shopping cart or save them for later. The idea there is we want to allow brands to set up uh promotion tools to target these potential customers and convert them all All right Now, about 40 years ago.

Bradley Sutton:

if we use this term cart abandoner, somebody might think of somebody who went to the grocery store and then took the cart home and then left it in the street. But when we're talking about cart abandoners on Amazon completely different meaning it's actually my favorite group of customers. For those who aren't familiar with that term, can you explain who that refers to?

Wei:

Yes, absolutely. It is actually one of the new audiences that we launched this year. Cart abandoners are those customers who added your products into their shopping cart but has not made the purchase in the last 90 days.

Bradley Sutton:

Now it's amazing, because this is why I think it's so important that somebody thinks, uh, more holistically about customers, because we can't think that everybody's like us as a buyer, like me, as an Amazon customer I am. I am never a cart abander, like if I add something to the cart, I buy it, like I add it to the cart and then I check out. But then I thought everybody was like me, but actually not. You're not like me, probably I'm the opposite.

Wei:

I actually, I actually added to the cart and I observe uh, when does the price drop?

Bradley Sutton:

and so many people are like you. Yes, I heard other people. You tell me if this is you too, but other people they're searching for like a teacup or something like that, and they'll actually add five different ones to the cart and then make the decision about do you do that one too? Sometimes, see, I don't do any of this, and so I was thinking when I first saw the numbers of this, it was just flabbergasting. I was like I cannot believe how many people are cart abandoners. And then I just started asking friends and family and I guess I was the weird one and you guys are the normal ones. But yeah, that is a huge audience and a very valuable audience. So all of these audience types, at the end of the day, what we're talking about here is we're trying to send promotions to them in different ones. So how do we send promotions to these different audiences?

Wei:

Absolutely so. Today, you're able to send tailored promotions to these different audiences, and promotions are then become available to customers through search result page. I do want to share with you that as a team, we're constantly thinking about new tools that sellers can leverage or brands can leverage. So in the future, we might incorporate new tools such as coupons, Amazon buying, A+, detail page, and Manage Your Experiments, so that brands can leverage different tools to engage with their customers and help them convert.

Bradley Sutton:

Excellent, excellent. Now I think one question I've gotten a lot before from different brands is hey, if I set up a promotion that's going to one of these audiences being the cart abandoners or some other audience, how do they actually see the promotions?

Wei:

Promotions will show up for these customers in the search results page or the product detail page.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay, so now we're looking at an example of one of these graphs here, and there's a part here that says trends. So can you explain what is this representing?

Wei:

Definitely. The trend graph actually allow you to compare different metrics, for example, your total customers, total sales, new-to-brand customers, new-to-brand sales. Brands can then compare and contrast and observe how these metrics change over time.

Bradley Sutton:

All right, next question. Here I can see we have a Segment view and a Brand view. Can you explain the difference between those?

Wei:

Absolutely so earlier we mentioned that we will share with brands about their existing customer base top tier customer, promising, customer at risk, as well as a hibernating customer. Brand view gives you data for the entire brand, and segment view actually allows you to dive deeper into each segment. On both brand view and segment view, we will provide recommended actions that you can take to drive conversion and increase repeat purchase. Additionally, one thing I would love to call out is segment view actually gives you a predicted customer lifetime value. We use a science model to predict how likely a customer is going to purchase from your brand again and we further segment each segment based on whether the customer lifetime value is going to grow, maintain or decline.

Bradley Sutton:

Wow, that's interesting. Let's talk a little bit more about this, because I think there's some brands out there who might have a product where you know what it's a vacuum. Maybe they're just going to buy the one vacuum and 10 years later maybe they'll buy another vacuum. There's others who have maybe are in the supplements, the health and household category, the beauty category, where they're very reliant on repeat purchases. So this, this lifetime value, is definitely something near and dear to their heart. But you're saying that using uh models, you can actually kind of predict some of the potential lifetime value. Can you talk a little bit more about that?

Wei:

Absolutely so. We use this size-based model, and the model input considers a variety of features such as customer's profile, their browsing behavior, how they have interacted with your brands or product in the past, and then the output of the model is how likely they're going to purchase from your brand again in the next 12 months, and we will then be able to say whether the customer lifetime value is going to grow, maintain or decline as a result of that. Brands will then have further segmentation within each customer segment each customer segment. So now brands can actually launch tailored promotion specifically targeting, for example, the top tier customers, those top tier customers where their lifetime value is predicted to decline. This will allow brands to prevent these customers from churning.

Bradley Sutton:
Interesting is that available already or that's coming later?

Wei:

This is available already today.

Bradley Sutton:

I've been missing the boat on that one. I need to go ahead and start implementing that, because that's very definitely invaluable. So what are the actions that brands should be doing that we do have available? I'm obviously missing that last one, but what are some more things that we need to be leveraging right now?

Wei:

So brands can achieve a number of different goals through customer loyalty dashboard, for example, if you're a brand who are trying to drive conversion and acquire new customers, it would be a good idea to think about advertising campaign and boost awareness. You can also launch a tailored promotion, as we talked about earlier, focusing, say, on cart abandoner to encourage customers to convert and make their purchase. And if your goal is to drive loyalty and encourage repeat purchases, it would be a good idea to focus on top tier customers as well as promising customers. And, additionally, we have these promotion tools where you can focus on those customers whose lifetime value is predicted to maintain or decline and encourage them to purchase more from your brand your brand.

Bradley Sutton:

Now I just want to take a moment to talk to the listeners out there who might not understand how crazy it is that this kind of data is being available. This is the kind of data that companies who are selling on other channels are paying a lot of agencies, tens and hundreds of thousand dollars and it's not even that great of information, because a lot of it is just trying to predict things where they might not have that information. It's just based on perhaps some surveys and things, but this is Amazon itself, who has access to all of this data and it's giving you firsthand this kind of information. Guys, if you are not leveraging this information, you are missing out on a ton of valuable information, so make sure to use this Now. This has been great. A lot of what you just mentioned is available as of now, but right here during Amazon Accelerate, you actually even announced some new and exciting more things that are coming to the platform. Can you talk about some of those launches coming to the platform?

Wei:

Can you talk about some of those launches? Absolutely, I am super, super excited. So customer loyalty dashboard the goal there is to help brands understand their existing customers so that brands can engage with these customers at the right time with a right product. However, brand frequently ask for information about what's happening in the upper funnel. We are launching this new dashboard called the Customer Journey Analytics. So Customer Journey Analytics allows brands to map the end-to-end customer journey with data and analytics, as well as recommendations. It allows brands to visualize how customers go from becoming aware of your brand all the way to consideration, maybe intent to purchase, to finally making that purchase and become a new customer to your brand.

Bradley Sutton:

Wow, I'm excited to see how that's gonna work, because I think that's what we would always have always wanted that kind of information, kind of guess about it, like, all right, that's how you know, that's why I'm doing my advertising in this sense, and it's going to pay back, uh, you know in this sense, and that's why I need to have them see it this many times but to be able to actually have real data to see, that's going to be, I think, a game changer for, uh, Amazon brands out there. Well, thank you so much for launching these things. Like I said, your department is my favorite. I was about to say the best, but then I have a lot of friends at Amazon so I can't completely say that or else they might get mad at me. But my personal favorite tools definitely come from your department, and so please, please, keep giving us brands this great information. We really, really appreciate it, and thank you so much for what you've launched this week at Amazon Accelerate. I'm sure all the brands are really gonna appreciate all of this data.

Wei:

Thank you.