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

Helium 10 Buzz 10/3/24: Dual Coupons on Amazon | Holiday FBA Fees | Sellers Sue Walmart

We’re back with another episode of the Weekly Buzz with Helium 10’s Senior Evangelist, Shivali Patel. 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 Multi-Channel fulfillment (MCF) can now automatically fulfill orders placed on social commerce channels like TikTok, Instagram, and Pinterest using your FBA inventory.

You can now offer Subscribe & Save and Reorder coupons on an ASIN at the same time. With this change, you can now offer both Subscribe & Save and Reorder coupons on an ASIN at the same time.

Effective September 30, 2024, if Amazon requires you to submit product compliance documents, these must be submitted and approved before you can list the product.

Amazon Pharmacy customers can have their medications pre-sorted into packets using this new PillPack feature
https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/retail/amazon-pharmacy-pillpack-feature

Inbound shipping is now easier with the Amazon Partner Carrier Program’s smart carrier options
https://sell.amazon.com/blog/announcements/partner-carrier-program-smart-carrier-options

Amazon marketplace sellers sue Walmart
https://www.nwaonline.com/news/2024/oct/01/amazon-marketplace-sellers-sue-walmart/

Amazon seller-fulfilled heavy and bulky returns
https://channelx.world/2024/10/amazon-seller-fulfilled-heavy-and-bulky-returns/

Amazon’s recyclable packaging push
https://www.packaging-gateway.com/news/amazons-recyclable-packaging-push/

Digital Domain Teams Up with AWS to Scale Autonomous Virtual Human Technology and Introduces Generative AI-Powered Features
https://press.aboutamazon.com/aws/2024/9/digital-domain-teams-up-with-aws-to-scale-autonomous-virtual-human-technology-and-introduces-generative-ai-powered-features

Amazon is launching its own Shark Tank where winners get to be Amazon sellers
https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/30/24258276/amazon-buy-it-now-show-trailer-shark-tank-jb-smoove

With the holiday season approaching, we arm you with strategic insights to capitalize on events like Prime Big Deals Day, including essential tips on using Cerebro for effective keyword research. Tune in and stay ahead with these buzzing news and strategies that help your business thrive in the competitive e-commerce landscape.

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

• 00:49 - MCF Expands to Social
• 02:04 - Dual Coupon Boosts Promotions
• 03:28 - Compliance Deadline Approaching
• 04:17 - Holiday Peak FBA Fees Set
• 05:48 - Pharmacy PillPack
• 07:00 - Smart Carrier Options Introduced
• 08:19 - Sellers x Walmart Lawsuit
• 09:54 - Updated Returns for Bulky Items
• 11:51 - Sustainable Packaging
• 12:58 - AWS Powers Autonomous Virtual Humans
• 15:04 - Shark Tank but for Prime
• 16:30 - Training: Finding Keywords Your Competitors Top Keywords

► 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

 

Shivali Patel:

Amazon's MCF fulfilling orders for popular social channels, incoming holiday peak fulfillment fees and, finally, that dual coupon feature you've requested being implemented. 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 am your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show. That is our Helium 10 Weekly Buzz, where we give you a rundown of all the new stories that are going on in the Amazon, Walmart and 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. Today, our host is going to be Shivali Patel and so Shivali, take it away and let us know what's buzzing.

 

Shivali Patel:

First up, we have a few news pieces directly from Seller Central News To start. An exciting enhancement to Amazon's Multi-Channel Fulfillment, or MCF. Amazon's MCF now enables sellers to automatically fulfill orders from popular social commerce platforms like TikTok, Instagram and Pinterest using your Fulfillment by Amazon inventory. This means, for those of you that were perhaps manually fulfilling orders up until now for TikTok shop can now transition to more effortlessly expanding your brands, maintaining accurate inventory tracking and quicker order processing. Or imagine just running a promotion on Instagram knowing that your orders are being handled seamlessly through Amazon's system. This can help you capture even more sales opportunities across different channels, keeping you ahead of your competitors. To streamline this process, amazon recommends that you utilize tools like Webby LingSing or Connector by Silk. These platforms can help you connect your social media accounts to your Amazon Seller Central with ease and, in my opinion, a great strategic move to enhance your order fulfillment capabilities, position your business for growth and encourage you to meet customers where they're most active, and that is social channels.

 

Shivali Patel:

Then we have Amazon actually just announced its new dual coupon feature that many of you have been requesting. You can now offer both subscribe and save and reorder coupons on the same ASIN. Previously, sellers could only use one coupon per ASIN, which limited promotional strategies, and now eligible customers can choose between a 10% off free order coupon for a one-time purchase or a 20% off subscribe and save coupon for those who want to subscribe for regular deliveries. I can see this making a dent in impacting the quantity of repeat purchases and facilitating brand loyalty, as well as, if you are a seller, the ability to now cater to different purchasing behaviors. This will help you effectively engage your audience. For instance, if a customer is hesitant to commit to a subscription, that reorder coupon can persuade them to try your product without long-term commitment. Meanwhile, customers who value convenience can opt for the subscribe and save option, benefiting from a greater discount. Remember, guys, at the end of the day, promotions are a really great way for you to attract new customers and retain existing ones. By leveraging these dual coupon offerings, you can enhance your marketing efforts, drive sustained sales growth and, at the end of the day, it's about making your customers feel valued and giving them the options that suit their needs.

 

Shivali Patel:

Okay, moving on, let's talk about an important compliance update that you need to be aware of, effective September 30th 2024, which is already passed, amazon will now require that any product needing compliance documentation to have these documents submitted and approved before it can be listed in order to uphold the highest safety standards for products sold on Amazon. This is just one additional way for them to ensure that customers are really receiving safe and compliant items. While existing product listings will remain unaffected, new listings cannot go live until the proper documentation has been approved. So make sure that you guys manage this process through your manage all inventory dashboard on seller central and, since they can ask for additional information to verify product safety and compliance at any time, you'll want to check back time to time.

 

Shivali Patel:

Speaking of time, as we gear up for the holiday shopping season specifically, there are upcoming 2024 holiday peak fulfillment fees for FBA that you will need to be aware of. From October 15th to January 14th of 2025, you're going to see these seasonal fees applied to all products, reflecting the increased fulfillment and transportation costs during this busy period. This fee structure is similar to what other major carriers charge and it will be consistent across items within the same size band, and this will affect US FBA, Canada FBA, north America remote fulfillment, us multi-channel fulfillment and buy with Prime. I recommend that you guys factor these fees into your pricing strategy. Okay, and especially during the holiday season, when consumer spending typically peaks. The average holiday peak fulfillment fee will remain consistent with last year. However, a new peak fee will apply to products priced below 10 USD. This is for US FBA specifically. While these fees might seem like a hurdle, I want you to keep in mind that Amazon's average FBA fulfillment fees are still about 70% lower than the comparable two-day shipping options offered by third-party logistic providers. And, if needed, the new section does have the detailed rates linked by size and weight on the relevant help pages. So check it out to plan out your inventory and maximize sales during the holiday rush, if you have not already.

 

Shivali Patel:

In other news and in an exciting expansion of its services, amazon Pharmacy is enhancing the way that customers manage their medications with the introduction of a new pill pack feature. This service allows customers to have their eligible medications three or more pre-sorted into convenient pill packets, which will then be delivered straight to their door. This updated offering continues the service from PillPackcom acquired by Amazon in 2018, but introduces new savings and a simplified sign of process. Each PillPack is organized and labeled by date and time, making it easier for individuals to adhere to their prescribed routines without the hassle of multiple pill bottles. I don't think any of us like that. Plus, customers can enjoy fast, free delivery right to their homes. I wanted to mention this as part of this week's buzz because, while perhaps it's not directly relevant to you as an e-com seller or service provider, this new service from Amazon Pharmacy could open avenues for partnership or product integration, especially if you offer health-related products. Later down the road, by keeping an eye on how the service evolves, perhaps you'll be able to identify opportunities to align your offerings with Amazon's growing healthcare initiatives.

 

Shivali Patel:

What else we also have? Amazon introducing new smart carrier options for sellers using FBA and Amazon Warehousing and Distribution, known as AWD, giving sellers more choice and flexibility when sending inventory to the Amazon network. Available through the Amazon Partner Carrier Program, these options allow sellers to choose their preferred partner carrier and transport method based on dynamic freight-ready dates and cost estimates. This update aims to help sellers like you and I optimize our logistics and expenses, and these new features are integrated into step four of both the send to Amazon workflow and send to Amazon warehousing and distribution workflow. That is a tongue twister when you're trying to say it all in one sentence For less than truckload and full truckload shipments. The Amazon partner carrier program, known for offering reliable shipping services, includes small parcel delivery, LTL, FTL and intermodal shipment options, with savings of up to 25% lower compared to alternatives. So sellers can benefit from lower costs, while those delivering to AWD received additional discounts of 25% on storage and 15% on processing and transportation. I hope that you guys can see this as a valuable opportunity to streamline your inventory management and reduce costs, improving efficiency.

 

Shivali Patel:

Okay, then, we have a significant legal development. Four Amazon Marketplace sellers have filed a class action lawsuit against Walmart, seeking $5 million in damages. The lawsuit alleges that Walmart has enabled organized retail crime and racketeering through its third-party vendors by not sufficiently vetting its Marketplace sellers. The complaint filed on September 17th, as written here in US District Court for the District of Delaware, claims that certain third-party sellers on Walmart's platform are engaging in fraudulent practices, buying and reselling products from Amazon vendors in a sophisticated scheme. This practice harms legitimate sellers and allows Walmart to profit from the fees that it collects from these sellers. So I think that this case really underscores the ongoing challenges in maintaining marketplace integrity and the responsibilities of platforms and managing selling ecosystems. So I hope that you're able to recognize, with this case, the importance of just being transparent and ethical in your business practices. It's vital that you guys keep up with the guidelines that these platforms have, and this way you can really protect your brand but also contribute to a healthier marketplace overall. Walmart has until October 10th to respond to a summons that was issued on September 19th and in their statement they indicated they're reviewing the complaint. So, regardless of the outcome, the lawsuit serves as a reminder of the potential risks and the need for the platform to maintain a robust vetting process.

 

Shivali Patel:

Reporting hot from channel x. Starting on October 30th 2024, we also have amazon updating the seller fulfilled returns policies for heavy and bulky items in Germany, France, Italy and Spain stores. This aligns with changes already implemented in the UK since August of 2024, and heavy and bulky items are defined as those that weigh over 31.5 kg or have a longest side exceeding 175 centimeters when packed. Sellers will now be required to offer a prepaid return label and home collection service for these returns, along with issuing refunds to customers, while the responsibility for covering return shipping costs remains unchanged. The refund amount will depend on the return reason and timeline, in line with Amazon's existing returns policy. So the introduction of home collection for heavy and bulky item returns aims to provide a consistent returns experience for customers across all those stores. As the service is already available for FBA and seller flex returns, amazon recommends that we review our carrier contracts to ensure that home collection is included and make any sort of necessary updates.

 

Shivali Patel:

As a seller, you may want to offer partial refunds or part replacements as an alternative to home collection, provided that it's shared the tracking ID of the replacement part with the customer and that you close out the return request with the reason code return request canceled. To avoid A to Z guarantee claims or impacts on order defect rates, sellers must authorize or deny return requests within 48 hours where the auto is not auto authorized. You also have these additional things to keep in mind, but as you can see here, you can just pause the screen and have a read. Otherwise you can reference this channel X article. I'd love to know do you guys think this will help reduce unnecessary customer claims and improve seller performance across amazon's European stores? Let me know in the chat. We do have just a few more things here.

 

Shivali Patel:

It's been a packed week of news as the e-commerce industry continues to expand. Concerns about packaging waste have come to the forefront, prompting amazon to take significant steps towards sustainability. And, in response to the mounting pressure from environmental groups and regulatory bodies, amazon's introduced various recyclable packaging initiatives, one of those being the Frustration-Free Packaging Initiative, designed to ship products in easy-to-open, recyclable packaging, often eliminating the need for additional boxes. Since its launch, amazon reports having removed over 1.5 million tons of waste. I mean that is impressive and it shows a tangible effort for them to reduce waste. Amazon has shifted towards recyclable materials, introducing paper-based mailers that can be easily recycled, curbside, and this shift is part of Amazon's broader commitment to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2040. As a seller, you can adopt sustainable packaging practices to align with Amazon's initiatives, but also appeal to eco-conscious consumers who prioritize environmental responsibility.

 

Shivali Patel:

Up next, we have an article directly from Amazon. According to Amazon's press center, digital Domain, a leader in visual effects and virtual human technology, has announced a collaboration with Amazon Web Services, AWS, to migrate its autonomous virtual human AVH technology to the cloud. This partnership aims to expand the reach and capabilities of AVH technology across industries such as entertainment, gaming, healthcare, hospitality and commercial applications, leveraging AWS's advanced cloud infrastructure, including Amazon's Bedrock for high-performing foundation models, amazon Polly, amongst others, for voice enhancements and for facial recognition. Digital domain is really poised to enhance real-time interaction with virtual humans. Aws's robust security and compliance features will also ensure the integrity and scalability of the AVH platform. This collaboration represents a significant milestone for digital domain following the success of Zoe in 2022. And, with the support of AWS and its cloud infrastructure, I think it's really going to offer AVH technology greater speed, efficiency and global accessibility in many sectors.

 

Shivali Patel:

This collaboration does offer potential relevancy for Amazon sellers, particularly in enhancing customer engagement and support For sellers who operate in industries such as e-com, hospitality or any customer-facing business. Integrating virtual human technology can revolutionize how we interact with customers, and so Amazon sellers can really leverage AVH technology for real-time, ai-driven customer interactions, offering personalized and immersive experiences similar to virtual concierge services. This can help improve the efficiency, manage inquiries, provide product recommendations, offer after-sales support. Even so, by utilizing this advanced technology, we can really, as sellers, go in and enhance our brand experiences, boost customer satisfaction and stay competitive in this growing market where AI and machine learning are really taking on a very pivotal role in customer interaction. Lastly, I figured you guys could also appreciate some fun news how many of you have ever watched Shark Tank and how many of you have seen the new trailer for Amazon Prime videos, buy it Now, hosted by JB Smoove?

 

Shivali Patel:

The Verge reports that in this unique competition, you're going to have contestants having the opportunity to present their product ideas to a panel of investors and an audience known as the 100, representing potential customers. If a contestant's product is well-received, it's going to be featured in a new section of the Amazon store called Buy it Now. The panel actually includes celebrity guests like Gwyneth Paltrow, Jamie Siminoff, who's the CEO of Door.com, serving as the resident judge, and others. Each episode features a $20,000 prize for one contestant, adding an exciting incentive to the competition. Viewers can access the buy it now store via a QR code shown during the episodes, allowing them to purchase featured products directly. The first three episodes will premiere on October 30th, with a total of 13 episodes airing weekly until January 8th of 2025. Additionally, a companion podcast this is Small Business Behind the Buy will be available starting the day after the show's launch. This initiative not only engages viewers, but also aims to drive sales on Amazon, showcasing products with greater transparency about their origins, their names, their brand story, and creating buzz and excitement around new product launches as the holiday shopping season approaches.

 

Shivali Patel:

With that. That is it for this week's news. And, by the way while I didn't mention it, since Bradley's already talked about this in a previous episode Amazon's Prime Big Deals Day sale is also coming up on October 8th and 9th. So I hope that you guys are all squared away to rank at the top of all the keywords you hope to generate sales from. In case you're not, let's just run through one strategy that you can use to capitalize during this time. Let me show you how you can find keywords where your competitors are outranking you. Let's say you're ranked on one of the lower pages, like pages four, five or even just the bottom of page one. Sure, customers searching for niche specific items like coffin shelves underneath the keyword gothic decor may ignore irrelevant results and focus only on the similar products. But also, most people don't even really scroll to page two, which is a clear indicator of why you would want to pay attention to the keywords where your direct competitors might be outperforming you and where you may want to tweak your strategy if you care to be listed at the top half of page one, where all that traffic is. Here's how You're going to want to pay attention to your relative rank against competitors. You can find this metric inside of Cerebro, which is our reverse ASIN keyword research tool, and you are going to begin by putting in a multi-ASIN search. So find a bunch of the Amazon standard identification numbers inside of your niche and go ahead and click get keywords.

 

Shivali Patel:

The second thing you're going to do is set a minimum for search volume. I went ahead and inputted in 300. Now the product I'm looking at is actually this automatic chicken water cup. In doing so, I can now filter out those keywords that don't have a lot of search volume associated. There's no right or wrong number for search volume. You can put in something that you feel is good for your niche. The next thing I'll do is input in a relative rank. I went ahead and added in three for minimum, and this is telling me that and this is basically saying that I'm at least number three amongst my competitors. Then go ahead and input in anything else you want and click apply filters. I actually added in a minimum for word count as well as the phrases containing chicken, because I was seeing some additional terms here.

 

Shivali Patel:

In doing so, I had a output of 38 filtered keywords and you guys can scroll all the way over to the right hand side and check out the relative rank. If you hover over the number for relative rank, it's actually going to showcase to you where you are stacked up next to your competitors as well as what ranking you are at. For example, for this particular keyword, which is automatic chicken watering system, you can see that our relative rank is position number six compared to our competitors. This means that your product ranks sixth in relative rank for this keyword, and this is the sort of thing that can help you identify keywords where competitors are ahead and make adjustments like increasing sponsored ad spend to improve your ranking, or adding that keyword to your title to rank a lot faster, to prepare for a day like Prime big deals day, or even just put in a CPR campaign into motion where you're selling those products at a discounted rate to rank. Happy sales, you guys.

#601 - Getting $30K Back From Amazon During This Episode!

What if you were missing out on hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars in reimbursements from Amazon? Join us as we reveal the game-changing strategies for reclaiming lost and damaged inventory funds from Amazon's FBA warehouses, just in time for the crucial update on October 23rd. We highlight the indispensable Helium 10 Refund Genie tool, providing you with a step-by-step guide and real-life success stories from sellers who have maximized their refunds without any commission fees.

Uncover the secrets to boosting your profitability by making the most of Helium 10's full suite of features. We'll walk you through how to handle active and suspended product listings, ensuring accurate and timely reimbursements for damaged items. Learn practical tips and tricks, including a thorough explanation of size tier optimization. By tweaking your product packaging and leveraging Helium 10 Alerts, you'll discover how to reduce shipping costs and significantly increase your bottom line.

Imagine saving $10 per unit with just a 0.2-inch reduction in packaging size. We provide compelling examples, such as a floor lamp that moved from an extra-large to a large bulky tier, saving $2 per unit. Through personal anecdotes and expert insights, we demonstrate how monitoring dimension changes and enabling alerts can lead to substantial financial recoveries. Don't miss this opportunity to reclaim your funds and optimize your Amazon business for greater profitability.

In episode 601 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley talks about:

• 00:00 - Maximizing Amazon FBA Reimbursements With Refund Genie
• 01:31 - Amazon Lost and Damaged Claims Guide
• 04:35 - Amazon Seller Refund Process
• 10:29 - Getting Refunds Using Helium 10 Refund Genie
• 10:48 - Amazon Refund Process and Strategies
• 19:54 - Maximizing Amazon FBA Reimbursements and Savings
• 22:41 - Helium10 Alerts for Size Tier Optimization
• 25:02 - Optimizing Packaging for Amazon Profits
• 29:26 - Identifying Dimension Changes for Amazon Reimbursement
• 31:18 - Amazon FBA Reimbursement for Dimensional Changes

► 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're doing a live workshop on how to get money back from Amazon and on this live broadcast there are four people on the call who are going to be able to get back over $30,000 live on the show back from Amazon. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Important message guys. On October 23rd, Amazon is changing the window for which you can look back and claim that they owe you reimbursements for lost and damaged products at FBA warehouses. It used to be 18 months, but now it's going down to only two months. So, if you have never used the reimbursement service or Refund Genie, now is the time. Last week I ran Refund Genie on two different accounts and got a total of over five thousand dollars back for those sellers. And don't forget, unlike a lot of services out there, Helium 10 doesn't take any commission on what we get back. If we say you're owed ten thousand dollars and you get back ten thousand dollars from Amazon, you keep ten thousand dollars with no commission to Helium 10 at all. Refund Genie is now available to anybody who has a Helium 10 Platinum annual plan or higher. So to get an estimate about on how much money you could get back, go to h10.me/refundgenie. If you've never used a Helium 10 coupon, use the code SSP10 to save money if you need to upgrade to a Platinum annual plan.

Bradley Sutton:

Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I'm your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show that's completely BS-free, unscripted and unrehearsed organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world, and today is our monthly live training that we do, along with an ask me anything, where we go over a certain aspect that can help you on Amazon, and then we take all your questions live, and we've got a great session for you today. Let's go ahead and hop into it. Let me just kind of like level set here what the situation is, so, for a lot of you, you might have seen the message already that you know, on October 23rd, Amazon is changing the look back period of when you can claim lost and damaged, so what that means is Amazon sometimes loses products at their warehouses of yours, they sometimes damage it, and they're supposed to, you know, refund your money when that happens, and you know, a lot of times they do. So what the problem is, though is sometimes, for whatever reason, they don't always refund the money like they're supposed to, and so when that happens, it's okay. It's not Amazon necessarily going and stealing all of your money. They allow you to like file claims if you are missing the money, all right, and then you know once, once they do their investigation sometimes it's instant then they will say, all right, yeah, we will give you the money back, and then they refund you like within days.

Bradley Sutton:

Now, if you have never used a service before, you know whether it's Helium 10, whether it's an outside service, if you have never used a service, uh that audits, or you don't audit your account completely to like look at all the uh, uh disbursement reports and the reimbursement reports and what Amazon has uh returned to you, what Amazon has lost. If you've never done that, you could be owed thousands of dollars, like, in my experience, half of your half of 1% of like what your gross revenue is. You could get back. All right so to 1%. I've seen some accounts get 1%. So let's say you've sold in the last 18 months a hundred thousand dollars worth of inventory. Basically that means that you might be owed a thousand dollars, potentially, all right. Or I should say 500 to a thousand dollars. If it's a million, you know you could be owed up to $5,000 if you've never audited. That's how much. And a lot of services out there, uh, which are great, the issue is that they'll take um, a percentage. They'll file all the claims for you and then take a percentage, like 25%, of whatever they find they keep.

Bradley Sutton:

Now the way I'm about to show you guys is a 100% free, as in whatever we find that Amazon owes you you keep. I wish I could take a commission on that. I'd be a rich man if I could just take 1% of what we find for you, because we've found millions and millions of dollars that Amazon owes you. So I'm going to show you guys how to look at the report. First of all, all right again, if those of you with a Diamond annual plan or Platinum annual plan, you've got full access to it. If not, well, just you know, stay watching this, because you'll need to know it. You need to like at least get the account. Those of you have done a lot of money and then you're going to need to know how to do this later on in the future. I saw a couple of you are newer sellers. You're probably not owed that much by Amazon. But guess what? Hopefully, you get to the point where you are owed money, not because you want Amazon to be taking the money that's owed to you, but because you're doing so much revenue that inevitably things are going to get lost things might get damaged and Amazon might owe you a lot of money. So this is important, no matter what stage of the journey you are on. All right, so now hop into your Amazon account and then some of you might have a banner at the top. Does anybody have a banner on the top that says, hey, you might be owed this amount of money? I don't have it on my screen because I already kind of like started this process already, but that banner would show up at the very top, all right.

Bradley Sutton:

So I am in one of the UK accounts that I have access to, and so, whether you have or not the banner again, this is if you're Platinum annual or Diamond annual, if not, just watch, all right, there's nothing for you to do. If you're not this, you're not gonna be able to do anything, but just watch, all right. So this is important. I'll give you, like, a coupon code. You can get it again, I'm not trying to sell you some service where we're going to take a percentage. We take zero percent. We actually have a service for those of you who are like $50 million sellers and you don't have the time to go one by one and do what I'm about to show you guys how to do. No problem, you can go sign up for that service and we'll take like 25% of it and we do all the work for you. That's h10.me/mrs. But that's not what I'm trying to talk about here. I'm just talking about how you can do it for free, all right. And then I'm going to give you three other ways that I have also gotten thousands of dollars back from Amazon. Okay. So let's go ahead and go for those of you who have the banner, click the banner. For those of you who don't have that banner, I want you to click on the tools and then go to Refund Genie. Neal says he's got a message here on his computer. It says last chance to claim 1600 bucks. All right, Neal, you are, you are set to go. So if you have a Platinum manual, Neal, you're going to be able to get $1,600 today in the next 30 minutes, potentially. All right. So Neal's got his Helium 10 account covered, almost right there. He's got anybody else have a message like that at the top of their screen. I'm just curious what message you guys are showing.

Bradley Sutton:

All right, now I'm going to go ahead and go into this Creative LG account. Okay, I'm going to hit details. You want to go to the ones that have stars and, as you can see, this account is selling in a lot of platforms. Selling in Germany, UK, Spain, France, Italy. Some of you might only be selling in one platform, doesn't matter, the process is completely the same. Now, as you can see, for a lot of these I have already requested reimbursement. You can see I hit processed. So I'm just going to go to the UK one. Let me see if I have any open. I hope I can find one that I have open. Yes, perfect, all right. So, as you can see, I've got a whole bunch of what's called uh, FN SKUs. All right, where Helium 10 found, where Amazon owes me money, all right. So if you're auditing, if, let's say, you don't have Helium 10 and the how, how can you get this? Well, you would download your transaction reports and the ledger report and then you're going to look back at any event that happened where you've got damaged or lost inventory, okay. And then now you're going to go back into your reimbursement report and you've got to cross check if Amazon already reimbursed you for that exact FN skew that went missing. And that's what Helium 10 is doing. Helium 10 has automated that process and that's why we are giving this report here in Refund Genie. All right, so you know there's nothing for you to do other than copy and paste. All right, so did anybody find an ASIN that has it?

Bradley Sutton:

Inbae says I see the screen lost items, but can't see damage items. Well, for you, if you don't have damage, that means Amazon hasn't damaged. That means Amazon has already refunded you for everything that they've damaged and, for whatever reason, Amazon is pretty good at reimbursing sellers with what's been damaged, but there's a lot more money that is owed to you from what's lost. All right, so don't worry if you have nothing damaged. All right, wow, oh, my goodness. Brad Dassow says he's got 24 guys. We might have a winner here today. Brad Dassow, I am going to help my namesake out there gvet $24,000. Live on the air. All right, Brad, you with me. Brad, what, what? What level of Helium 10 plan do you have? Do you have a Platinum manual or Diamond A plan? If so, you are going to get $24,000 potentially today. That are going to get $24,000 potentially today. That's crazy. I love it. I love it. We're making big dents, in a good way, to your bank account today guys. Maria, wait, look at Maria's here. Maria is owed $18,000. Wow, all right, Maria. What plan do you have, Maria? Guys, two people that are live on this call are going to learn how to get almost $40,000 back from Amazon 100% for free, and I don't get a commission on any of this. Gursharn says he's owed $7,600. Wow, you guys should be happy. You tuned in live today. Excellent, excellent. Joe says he already got 20,000 back per year. Great job, Helium 10. All right, Brad is Platinum Annual. You are good to go. Maria is Platinum Annual? Perfect, all right, now we're going to do this all together, all right.

Bradley Sutton:

So what I want Brad, Maria, anybody else who's doing this, and go and open in Seller Central. All right, go to your Seller Central account of whichever one that is, your owe the money in Helium 10. And then I want you guys to hit help and then get help and resources. Okay, Marie and Brad are ready on Platinum Annual. You guys are good to go. Look at that. They don't even have to pay any extra money and they're going to get all this money back. I love it. All right, Maria and Brad, I'm doing this with you. Oh, my goodness, Inbae Park. Inbae Park beat everybody. Inbae Park is owed $60,000. Guys, we're getting $100,000 live on this podcast today. Inbae, do you have a Platinum annual plan or above? Inbae, you're ready, all right. So, Inbae, Brad, Maria, get it ready. Lori says it, says they found it. Yeah, sometimes Amazon will say some of the ones they found, but for me, on my US accounts, 95% of what Helium 10 found, they returned to me. Yeah, and then contact the associate. Lori says it shows. Contact the associate, I'll show you what to do for that. All right, I'll show you what to do. Okay, Tony, you're good to go to. Tony, set this up. We Joe's on Diamond Set this up. All right, we're going crazy here, guys, we're getting a hundred thousand dollars live, all right.

Bradley Sutton:

So now, as you can see, I'm just going to do a couple of the small ones. Uh, by the way, if you are owed for one ASIN, any big amount, guys, I almost guarantee Amazon is going to require you to open a case, but they solve it within like 48 hours. Some of these little ones I'm going to get like it looks like 10 euros here, seven euros here. They're going to refund my money immediately. You're going to say hey, yep, we agree with you, you're good to go. But other ones, especially the bigger ones, or if some of my items like this, like this account. This account is a beauty account, and so there's a lot of products that are no longer on Amazon for whatever reason, like it got suspended in this account. If you have a product that is not currently live on Amazon, Amazon will deny your money. So that's what I said today, guys. Today we're not just talking about how to use Helium 10 Refund Genie. This is general information. Even if you're not a Helium 10 member, it's important. So just keep in mind. Usually, if you had a product that was suspended or is not active on Amazon, a lot of times they are going to use that as an excuse to not give you your money back. So if there's any way for you to get your product back on Amazon, do that first before making a claim on that product. I hope that makes sense, all right.

Bradley Sutton:

So, Brad, Inbae, Maria, the ones that I want you guys to start with are the ones that you know are pretty much active on Amazon and you're not going to have issue, all right. So let's go ahead together, guys, you three and whoever else, Tony, whoever's on this copy one of the first FN SKUs. All right, that's on one of your reports. Okay, you just hit this button that has copy and then, once you do that, hit processed, so that you know it is done right here in Refund Genie. Now switch over to your Seller Central tab and you are looking for something that might say inventory lost in FBA warehouse. If you see that, just click this and that's what you need to look for. Now if anybody's listening on the podcast or watching this on YouTube and you do not have a button in Amazon Seller Central support that says inventory lost in FBA warehouse, don't worry, some marketplaces, you don't see it. All you have to do is hit this button that says my issue is not listed and then just type in inventory lost in FBA warehouse and then the widget is going to show up. What shows up. Let me just show you by hitting this. All right, so, Brad Maria, paste. When the window comes up that says enter FN SKU, you paste the FN SKU that you copied from Refund Genie and then you hit continue.

Bradley Sutton:

Now here, as you can see, I have multiple SKUs. So if you have multiple SKUs, you have to pick which SKU. So I'm going to go back to my Refund Genie. Refund Genie has that here, too. I see which SKU it is. Let me copy that. And it is this SKU right here. So I'm going to hit this SKU and let's see what it has. Aha, this one got. This is one of those ones. I told you this is a restricted product, so I this is not my account, so I didn't get my money back on this one. Why? Because this product got restricted on Amazon. I told you this is a beauty product that I'm in. For Brad and Maria and Inbae. What did you guys find on yours? Did you guys get it? I'm going to try another one. I might have to do a few of them here. This account has a lot of restricted products, so I am going to go ahead and get help with a new issue and watch. I'm just going to do this really quick. I'm going to copy another one and I'm not sure the a lot of these. This is why they're probably not here. A lot of these might be already restricted, so let me just copy another ASIN in here. Hit inventory loss in FBA warehouse. Paste the FN SKU. Hit continue. Please don't be a restricted product. Let's see here. Boom goes the dynamite. All right, look what I just did in three seconds. Here I paste an FN SKU. This was not a restricted product that I had. How many units did Helium 10 say I was owed? I don't know if you guys caught that potential units one right here. And then how many did I get reimbursed right now? One unit, Helium 10 was a hundred percent accurate on that one. All right, perfect, perfect, all right. Next one let's see what did. Oh see, look at Brad. Brad did it Said. Brad said these items have been processed for reimbursement. Brad, how much was that one that you just did? I just did one that got me 10 euros. How much did you get? Who's done? A big one so far? Neal got $75 and he's got another one that said invalid, all right, so Neal might have some products that were not eligible, but Neal just got his whole month almost of Helium 10 covered.

Bradley Sutton:

Alright Inbae says I've got a difficulty on damage item reporting. All right, so I don't have any that's damaged here. But the difference, guys, on damage reporting, let me just show it for Inbae or anybody else who is trying to reconcile their damage you have to do the transaction ID. Okay, so this is. I don't have any here so I can't do it, but I'm just going to pretend I do, all right. So if anybody ever finds that Amazon owes them money from a damaged item, instead of the FN SKU, what Refund Genie has is the transaction ID. So, Inbae, if you have the transaction ID, you copy it. You go to Amazon, you get help with a new issue and, as you can see, there is not one for inventory damaged all right. So Inba, what you or anybody else, what you do is you hit my issue is not listed. And then you put here investigate inventory damaged at FBA warehouse All right. And then you hit continue, okay. Inventory damaged at FBA warehouse all right. And then you hit continue, okay. And then you select right here inventory damaged in FBA warehouse all right. So hit that one Inbae and look here it says enter up to 25 transaction IDs. So in Helium 10, again, I can't show this to you because this account I didn't have any damage that was owed, but there'll be just a button to select a whole bunch of transaction IDs together. You paste them here at once, no commas, no punctuation, things like that. You can paste up to 25, and then you hit continue and then that's how you get your money back on the damaged. So Inbae the transaction ID is in Helium 10 as well. So right here, as you can see, I am looking at the lost. But you need to go to the damaged section of Refund Genie and it will show the transaction ID. It's not on the same page as lost. All right for everybody else. While you're looking for that in bay, let me go to another, uh, another couple ones here, just to make sure everybody's got the process for lost inventory. Here's another one where it says I'm owed seven euros, about 10 bucks. Let's copy this. I'm going to hit processed and I go up here back to seller central I say get help with new issue Inventory lost in FBA warehouse, paste the FN SKU and this is either going to be. So this one it says create a case. So sometimes if it gets denied you have to create a case.

Bradley Sutton:

So everybody don't just go copying and pasting these and not reading what it says. If you ever see one that says create a case, hit that button. Okay, sometimes you have to take an extra step with Amazon to get your money back. So I'm going to hit create a case and then they'll get back to me if I'm owed that money? Ah! Neal says I just noticed that I was not clicking the copy and just highlighting the FN SKU and pasting. It pastes with a space. Yes, make sure to hit the button that just says copy and it'll highlight the right one. Maria, you did the exact right thing. That's exactly what I just did. Maria says hey, I got a message that said resolve your issue. It requires additional investigation in the case has been transferred. That's exactly what you need to do. So, guys, do not, when you guys are trying to do this fast, whether you're using Helium 10 or not don't just blindly do it and then go to the next one. Read the message, because if there's a button that says a new case needs to be made, you have to hit that button or else Amazon will say oh, too bad, you didn't say you didn't, you didn't do the case. Dmytro says I got a message that says upgrade to a plan that includes refund. Yeah, so, Dmytro, you need to get on the Platinum annual plan. How much money are you owed, Dmytro? All right, how's it going? Inbae, Brad, Maria, how much money have you guys got so far? Neal says when it says that one is found, do you have to choose my issuers. No, the only time you ever need to hit something is if you see if there's a button that says create a case or you might have to create a case. They're doing an audit on everything. Helium 10 just tells you how much you're owed, but then they'll let you know how much was lost, how much was found and how much was never reimbursed. And then you're looking for the one that says, oh, this is reimbursable, but they'll tell you how many they found too. Just to you know, try and be proud of themselves. I guess on Amazon, here.

Bradley Sutton:

Dan says what do you suggest for sellers who are on Platinum or a few hundred, Dan, if, if you're on the regular Platinum plan, you'll be able to see how much money we're estimating your owed. And if it's like 400 bucks or 600 bucks, you know I'm not going to sit here and tell you, oh yeah, you need to go ahead and upgrade to the Diamond or to the Platinum annual plan. No, because that's going to cost you money. So you know, I'll tell it to you straight. You have no need to upgrade to the Platinum annual plan. You just kind of like I would say, try and take the time to figure out how to do those reimbursements on your own by doing all those reports. But if any of you are seeing something, I mean. That being said, Dan, if you're planning to be a Helium 10 member for a long time and you're paying monthly right now $99 a month, don't forget, if you do go to the annual plan, you get two months free. All right, you're getting two months free if you switch the annual plan. So if you're planning to be a Helium 10 member for a while, even if you're only owed $400, I mean theoretically I guess it's still worth it for you, Dan, to upgrade, because you're gonna be paying us anyways and now you save two months and now you get $400 back. So that's like getting four months for free or six months for free, because you're getting two months free plus the four months if you're over 400 bucks, all right. So yeah, it's up to you, Dan. But anybody out there who has a message where Refund Genie says hey, you're owed $1,500. You're owed uh, you know 2000, $10,000. It's a no brainer just instantly upgrade and then you're going to make that money back and more.

Bradley Sutton:

Maria says I have two reimbursements, so far, $178, and the others need cases. Excellent, Maria, did you have any line item where just one item was like a really big amount? Usually if it's like $300 or more for one item. Amazon says oh, I got to investigate it. Neal says I assume that means everything is good. If it says these items were found, if they're always going to tell you which one is found, but there should be one or two, if Helium 10 says so that's reimbursable. Oh, Brad said I've got a couple thousand dollars so far. Very easy process. Thanks, Helium 10. That's great. Brad just made just got two years of Helium 10 subscription paid for. It's like he never has to pay Helium 10 for two years because he just got that money back in the last 15 minutes. I love it. I love to see it. Inbae says I've done a few hundred so far. Excellent, excellent. Look guys, how many live calls do we actually literally make people money on the call for free? And people are making thousands of dollars out there that they're going to get in their account. I love it, I love it. Maria says our items are a bit expensive. Just one is over $300 and an expensive one is around two grand. Yeah, I almost guarantee Maria. I bet you. Amazon said oh, we need to open investigation for those expensive ones. Let me know. I bet you they did.

Bradley Sutton:

All right, Neal says I'm about 10 out of 12 process, perfect, all right. While you guys are still doing that, Brad, Maria, Inbae, keep going. Let me give you remember. I said I was going to talk about different ways you can get money back from Amazon. Here's another way, and this I've never done any of these accounts. I have no idea what I'm about to find. All right. So for the rest of you guys, and this is plan of Helium 10. The Refund Genie. You got to be on a Platinum annual plan at the least. All right, and again, really quick. If anybody was like hey, I am not a Platinum annual member and I want to take advantage of this, don't pay full price. Use the code SSP10 to upgrade to that Platinum annual and then you'll be able to get those Refund Genie reports SSP, as in Serious Sellers Podcast 10. All right, now I want everybody else, regardless of what plan you have, to go into Helium 10 Alerts. That is, in Operations, okay, operations. And then hit Alerts oh, my goodness, there is. Oh, this is juicy stuff. See, this is not an account I manage all the time. So take a look here, guys, all right. So here at the top, does anybody else see this? I would say most of you probably don't have this, but this account does. Does anybody at the top left of your alerts see a message that says products with size tier optimization suggestions? This is rare, but this is the number two way that I've gotten thousands, or I'm getting thousands of dollars back from Amazon.

Bradley Sutton:

Wow, Brad is just like making money left and right from Helium 10. He's got seven suggestions. All right, let me explain what this is. So anybody with any Helium 10 plan who has Alerts, go to your Alerts and on the top left, if you see products with size tier optimization suggestions. This doesn't mean 100%. Oh, you're going gonna be able to take advantage of this and make a lot of money. But let me explain what this means. This means that we detected one of your items that has a package size that is within like one or two inches on just one side. That will help you go from one size tier to another. Let me give you a quick anecdote of what I did recently In one of my accounts one of the coffin shelves I sell I had this message and my package is fine, like the package that I have is like hey, it's not like I have a whole bunch of empty space in there, but I saw that if I take away one inch off of one side, guess how much money I save per package on my shipping fees. Guys to Amazon? $3 and 50 cents. All right, let's just calculate that out here. All right, so if I sell 10 units a day of this coffin shelf, that means that if I make this package adjustment, I'm going to go from large standard size to standard size and save 350 per unit. Times that by 10. Every day I'm going to save in Amazon fees $35. Now I can't just snap my fingers like I did with Refund Genie and get this money back from Amazon. No, that means the next time that I am ordering this product from my manufacturer in China. I redesigned the package and redesigned the actual product a little bit. Not everybody can do this, right, but I. You know the coffin shelf is like you know. I can make it an inch smaller and it's still a good coffin shelf, right? So that's what I did. And then this I did this two months ago. This order is now on the water, on the way to me, okay. So remember I said that's $35 a day. Might not seem like a lot. This is only a product. I sell 10 units a day. Now times that by 365.

Bradley Sutton:

Guys, this one alert that I got. How much is that saving me? Anybody? Do the math right there $12,700 guys. I am going to get extra per year on my profitability for this product because I was able to reduce my packaging by one inch on one side. All right, so how does this come up? Helium 10 is analyzing your account and if they see you have a package that is really close to one of the big size here, I mean, one inch doesn't always make that, um, doesn't always make that big of a difference, but we are looking for the ones where it's the literally the difference of going from one size tier to the next size tier. That's why not all of you are going to have something here Alerts. Hopefully none of you I mean not none of you. Hopefully most of you don't have this, because that means you've been kind of like throwing away money for a long time right. But if it is so, those of you who have this, Brad and the others, click on it and let's go to those products and let's just take a look here, it is right here. This is a floor lamp, right, this is a floor lamp here. And what is the message saying? You see here how there is a big red info sign. Okay, so this one, I could go from extra large to large bulky. What about this one? This one, I can go from extra large. Look at this. If I just take width by 1.1 inches, I go from extra large to large bulky and the FBA fulfillment cost goes from $21 to $19. Boom, in this account they will get $2 back if they can change their size by one inch. Okay, oh, my goodness, Brad, are you sure you're reading this right, Brad? That's crazy. Brad says on one of his he just has to reduce the height by 0.2 inches good grief, 0.2 inches and he can go from large bulky to large standard size, decreasing FBA fulfillment from $17 to $7. What in the world by 0.2?, Brad, are you sure you copied and pasted that right? That's insane. How many units, Brad, do you sell of that product? Brad is making ridiculous money off of Helium 10 today. He's making thousands of dollars from refunding. He already did thousands of dollars. He got back. I think he said or was that Inbae? I forgot, but now he might have somebody ask how many units of that do you have?

Bradley Sutton:

Rob. By the way, Rob asked a great question does Amazon remeasure the dimension automatically or do you have to ask them to do it? You have to ask them to do it. Alright, so once your new inventory with a new dimension is in Amazon, you have to ask for remeasurement and just say you change your package. Going back to a question from Inbae, he says I downloaded the damage item spreadsheet. Inbae, that tells me you're doing the wrong thing. You might be looking at the old Refund Genie. The new Refund Genie has zero downloads. So if there was nothing that had a star that allowed you to go to see the damage, then you're looking at the wrong thing. That means Amazon already, uh, reimbursed you for everything. All right, the only thing you guys should not be downloading anything in Refund Genie. Everything is in the app, the, the downloadable things. Those are from the old Refund Genie, all right, so those are. The time is probably already ended on when you can get your money back on those, or Amazon already reimbursed. Well, Brad, how many units of that do you sell a month or a day? Brad might have just made thousands of dollars here I'm not sure if Brad's still with us here, but that is another way you get money back and that I am getting $12,000 back from Amazon because I saw that I could change my package by such a tiny bit and it's going to save me $3 per unit. Now I've never, ever seen one like Brad's where he says he has a message where he is so close, only 0.2 inches away, and then he can go down to $7. That's insane, um for his packaging fee. So that would be crazy if he can do that, all right. So that's number two.

Bradley Sutton:

Number three, another way, is just Alerts by itself, all right. So one of the alerts guys, one of the things that Alerts is doing, it's monitoring if Amazon changes your dimensions, okay, if Amazon is changing your dimensions. So pay close attention to this, everybody. I once got $5,000 back from Amazon, but I never should have given Amazon that money in the first place. Helium 10 helped me get $5,000 back, but it never should have happened, because the instant that Amazon changed my dimensions erroneously, like some random employee in some FBA warehouse, I don't know, they were like drinking on the job or something, and they measured it in a ridiculous way and they increased my package size by like two inches, right. And so I'm like, okay, I just expect Amazon to do the right thing. All the time I wasn't paying attention and Helium 10 gave me the alert, but I didn't notice it. I don't know what I was thinking. This was like three years ago, and then what happened was I was looking through my alerts and then I looked here in event history. So, guys, go through your event history, okay, and then see, did something change for your dimensions? And then, if it is, and it's the wrong dimensions, you can go and file a claim.

Bradley Sutton:

This part has nothing to do with Helium 10. Helium 10 tells you what happened. But the next part, you go on your own and just open up a case and just say, hey, Amazon, you guys changed my dimensions erroneously on this date. That's the beauty about Helium 10 is it's going to tell you the date that this happened. Like, look at this we sent this person a message that on October 23rd, their product description changed, all right. So when, when something happens, an image changes, a product description changes, dimensions change. Helium 10 is notifying you on that date. So then let's just pretend that in this situation they had a dimension change. That was wrong and it happened October 23rd. So what I'm doing right now is I have a limited time. I'm not going to be able to get money back all the way back to October 23rd. You can only get money on dimensional changes within the last six months. So what I would do in this make-believe world where Amazon changed this whatever the heck, this is this piece of furniture here I would say, hey, Amazon, on October 23rd, you changed my dimension from this to this, causing me extra Amazon FBA fulfillment fees. Please reimburse me for this amount and remeasure, because this is the wrong dimensions. And then, obviously, you have to be a hundred percent correct. Like you, you gotta be sure that you've got the right dimensions and you can't like just tell them that it's this size, because what is Amazon going to do? They're going to go and remeasure it and then to check if what you're saying is true and then, if it is, then yeah, they're going to refund you, like thousands of dollars potentially, if that's how much extra they've been charging, and, of course, depending on how much extra, you know how much your sales have been. If you're only, if you only sold 10 units, well they're only going to charge. You know, they're only going to reimburse you the 20 bucks or whatever is the difference. But on this one product it was my main coffin shelf I was selling hundreds and hundreds of units and I was you know doing it at a price that I was getting charged extra every single unit for shipping because they had the wrong dimensions all right. So that's a third way that you can look and where Helium 10 can help get you money back by notifying you if that's happened.

Bradley Sutton:

Now, let's say you've got lots of products and you're not sure you didn't have Alerts on. By the way, guys, the only way you're going to get notified is if you hit this on button for your product. So what everybody should do right now who has a Platinum plan. You don't need an annual plan. Just, even if you're on the monthly plan, go into Alerts one by one guys, turn it on all right, otherwise this tool is useless to you If you don't turn it on. You got to turn it on, all right, for all your products so that you will get notified if you have a dimensional change. But let me show you something on how you can, um, how you can do it just on the fly. All right, this is like a little hack, all right, and this is the fourth way that you can kind of like, look and get money back. Watch this, go to your, go to one of your products on Amazon. I'm going to go to this one right here. Let me see if this even works here. Yeah, this product, this product is not even being sold right now. But watch this, go to any product, guys, on Amazon. I'm going to show you a little hack right here, a little Helium 10 hack. That's kind of hidden. All right, now, watch this. You see how, right here, under the BSR chart, it says revenue calculator and sales estimator. This is a hidden thing. This is like a. This is like one of those video game hacks where you have to like hit a couple buttons to release something. So hit revenue calculator and then hit sales estimator again and look what happens. Look what comes up. All of a sudden, this new little widget shows where it shows the package dimensions and the item dimensions. Now, this, this guys, is only going to work if you have a product that is very close in size to the package size, right? Like, for example, it's not something that you have to assemble or otherwise. This doesn't work. Like, for example, I've got this water bottle right here, right, you can just imagine that you know what the dimensions of this water bottle is. Let's just say it's 12 inches by  five inches by five inches, right? Well, this is a solid product. The package that it's going to go in is very close, right, like, maybe there's a little bit of packaging. So I know that if this water bottle is 12 by five by five, the package it goes into is only should be slightly. I know my own package, right, it's only going to be like maybe 12 and a half by five and a half by five and a half. Does that make sense, guys? It's like the package dimension should be very close to this because I know there's very little packaging.

Bradley Sutton:

So then what I do with this hack is I am Helium 10 is surfacing the item dimensions and the package dimension. So if you've got something like this, where I see, all right, item dimensions 12 by five by five, but then I see package dimension 14 by five and a half by five and a half. What do I know? I know that probably Amazon has got the wrong dimensions, because I'm like, no, there's not like a two inch gap inside the height of my package. And then I might go back and look at my history of what this package dimensions was, and this is another way, even if I didn't have Alerts on this is the way I can kind of audit a lot of my products and see did Amazon somewhere change my dimensions? Because there's no way that there's like a three inch gap in my package. I hope that makes sense, guys. All right, so this is the same thing. Let me show you a better product. I'm going to actually show you the Helium 10 coffin shelf. Here we go. Here's Helium 10 coffin shelf. Let's run it on here. Now the Helium 10 coffin shelf has a box very similar to the size of the of the package. All right, so I go down here. I'm here on the Amazon listing page for the coffin shelf. I do the little hack where I hit revenue calculator and then I hit sales estimator and then the widget comes up and this is exactly what I'm looking at. All right, I am looking, if one side, one dimension is way too big, all right, 14 long, the package 15. That, that sounds reasonable. 3.5,. Uh, wide, the package 4.13. That's reasonable. 7.5 deep and the package 7.68. So you see how, in this case, no, my package is the right size. What would I have been looking for? I would have been looking for a discrepancy on one side, like if it says my item dimension is 7.5 and it said my package was 9.5. Well, guess what? I bet you, Amazon owes me a thousand bucks because that means sometime that they added a couple of inches to my package, even though it's not true, and I would have been able to reclaim that from Amazon. So that's the fourth way, guys, that potentially you can get thousands of dollars, uh, uh back.

Bradley Sutton:

Donia says I love the photos in the listing. Who did them? That was a AMZ one step did. Did these uh listings or did these images? Did they do all of them? Yeah, all of these were from AMZOneStep, who's in the hub.Helium10.com Originally. On the original listing I did the images with, or my team did the images in Helium 10, but this one I sent to AMZOneStep's photo studio in Bali for that. So yeah, this is a good question by Shubham says we had a similar dimension issue where Amazon changed the package dimensions and we had to pay more in FBA fee. We raised the case and they did rechecking and they said they are correct, even though they are not, because we have checked it on our side. Our 3PL checked. In fact, suppliers also checked. So you need to have the package in hand, okay, and then show them the pictures of every dimension. Now here's the thing. If it's a rigid box, like a cardboard box, then if you show them the size and nothing is bulging out on anything they should accept it. If you show them the size of you actually measuring it on each side, now here's what I've had. I sell bat-shaped bath mats. It just comes in like this poly bag. Now, the poly bag, it's different sizes because not no two are the same, all right, so, and they, they will measure to the very end of the plastic, though, even if it's not the package and it's not technically the width, they'll, they'll screw you in that way. So like I'm doing something new for my new shipment because of that. So the only time where you can pretty much be like hey, Amazon, you guys are full of it is if it's a rigid box that's square or rectangle and you could show the exact dimensions with a tape measure and you don't have boxes that are bulging out because they count that If it bulges out, they're not measuring to the edge, they're measuring to the bulge. Inbae says I did so many I count, calculate, I love it. Inbae says I did so many I can't calculate, I love it.

Bradley Sutton:

Inbae made thousands of dollars today on the call guys, Maria has 17 cases still pending. I think Maria was owed about over $10,000 total. So hopefully those cases Let us know Maria. Like send a message to customer support when you get notification by next week of all the money you're owed. I want to like see how much money you got total from Amazon. That would be great. Your next reimbursement or reimbursement disbursement from Amazon is going to be huge. Thank you guys for joining us and send me messages. I want everybody who has gotten a lot of money back follow me on Instagram serious sellers podcast right, serious sellers podcast. Follow me on Instagram. And I want you to tag me in a story or  message me, uh with a screenshot or uh, maybe just a note that says hey, I got this much back from Amazon Thanks to Refund Genie. Uh, I would love to hear the stories about how much money you guys made today. Per my calculations, you know, I know you know Brad and Inbae probably have more that they have to get reimbursed for, but we could have made maybe 30, $40,000 live in this hour, just from like three, four members right there. So that is maybe 30, $40,000 live in this hour just from like three, four members right there. So that is uh, I had a lot of fun doing this. Um, for the rest of you, don't forget, this is not some eternal thing. You're always going to be able to do.

Bradley Sutton:

Uh, after October 22nd, you're only in it. There's not going to be any more $30,000 or $40,000. The money's going to be a lot smaller because it's only going to be a two-month window instead of 18 months. The reason why Brad and Maria and Inbae got so much money today is because it was looking at an 18 month window, but that's shrinking down. So this is like your last chance. So if you guys it says you owe, owed a lot of money right now, go into Helium 10 and make sure to get your Platinum annual plan and get that money back. All right, use the discount code SSP 10. If you guys want more information on that, go to H or use a calculator to see how much money you might be owed. If you're not even a Helium 10 member, go to h10.me/refundgenie. Thank you guys for tuning in and we'll see you in the next episode. Bye, bye now.

#600 - Maldives Honeymoon Amazon Launch Strategy

Join Bradley Sutton, as he explores the intricacies of Amazon product launches with the updated Maldives Honeymoon Launch Strategy. He’ll walk you through optimizing your product launches during Amazon's critical honeymoon period, sharing his hands-on experience and the latest insights from his recent testing. Learn how to utilize Helium 10's Blackbox tool for effective product research, identifying opportunities with low title density to give your product a competitive edge. We address the evolving landscape of AI and algorithm changes in Amazon, reassuring you that the fundamental principles of successful launches remain robust.

Discover advanced keyword research strategies using Helium 10's Cerebro tool to enhance your product's visibility from day one. We explain how to identify crucial keywords by examining competitors' rankings and uncovering hidden opportunities through niche keywords. By focusing on keywords where top competitors are already advertising, you'll ensure comprehensive keyword coverage and improve your product's relevancy signals on Amazon. Additionally, Bradley shows you how to leverage thematically related products frequently bought together with your competitors' items to optimize your listings and advertising efforts.

Finally, he'll guide you through creating compelling Amazon listings that resonate with potential buyers. Learn to prioritize relevant keywords based on competitor performance, avoid keyword stuffing, and craft emotionally engaging content. Bradley emphasizes the importance of customer reviews and the effective use of images and bullet points to highlight product benefits. Plus, he shares his experiences with test listings to ensure a smooth launch and offers strategies for balancing expenditure and maximizing ranking during the critical launch period. Whether you're launching a new product on Amazon or optimizing an existing one, these insights and strategies are designed to help you succeed in the Amazon marketplace.

 

In episode 600 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley talks about:

• 00:00 - Maldives Honeymoon Amazon Product Launch Strategy
• 08:33 - Keyword Research for Amazon Launch Success
• 16:16 - Utilizing Cerebro Historical Trends for Keywords
• 20:30 - Identifying Related, Non-Competing Products
• 20:37 - Strategic Keywords for Amazon Product Optimization
• 23:57 - Effective Amazon Listing Optimization Strategy
• 28:04 - Optimizing Amazon Listings for Success
• 28:54 - Launching a Test Listing Strategy
• 34:04 - Setting List Price Strategy for Sales
• 36:13 - Amazon Product Launch Strategy and Pricing
• 37:10 - Amazon PPC Strategy and Optimization
• 41:18 - Strategies for Amazon Discounts & Price Management
• 45:13 - Amazon Listing Relevancy and Ranking Strategy
• 49:36 - Product Launch Success With Amazon Relevancy 
• 53:26 - Annual Amazon Launch Strategy Review

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Transcript

Bradley Sutton:

All right, guys, it's episode 600. You know what that means. It's time for another Maldives Honeymoon Launch Strategy. I'm going to be giving you guys, step by step, what you need to do in order to have the best launch that you can have for your Amazon products. How cool, is that? Pretty cool, I think. Black Box by Helium 10 houses the largest database of Amazon products and keywords in the world. Outside of Amazon itself. We have over 2 billion products and many millions more keywords from different Amazon marketplaces, from USA to Australia to Germany and more. Use our powerful filters to search through this database for pockets of opportunity that you might want to get into with your first or next product to sell on Amazon. For more information, go to h10.me/blackbox. Don't forget you can save 10% off for life on Helium 10 by using our special code SSP10.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I'm your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show that's completely BS free, unscripted and unrehearsed, organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers, as of any level in the e-commerce world. All right, and for you guys watching this on YouTube. You saw me do a dramatic transition from the pool. I'm here in the Maldives at a new resort that I've never been in, and I'm recording this as I do every year the Maldives Honeymoon Launch episode. This is now like the eighth version, I think. We used to do it every 50 episodes on the on the like the hundred and the 50. Uh, now we only do it every 100 episodes. So about once a year I come out here to the Maldives on my own dime I'm paying for this myself, and then I just take a couple of day’s vacation and also record the episode for Maldives Honeymoon Launch Strategy. All right, so if this is your first time listening to one of these, you don't need to go back and listen to the others, because every year I update it.

 

Bradley Sutton:

But basically, just a brief history is I started really focusing on what can give you the best bang for your buck for launches, and we all know about the so-called Amazon honeymoon period, where you get a little bit more bang for your buck when your product is just coming out. But then I started noticing things that gave me like that extra oomph, like a very special honeymoon, which is how I came up with the name Maldives Honeymoon, and that's why I am here and, for dramatic effect. I always come here to Maldives. I'm here at a resort I've never been it's the Huvafen Fushi Hilton, I believe it's called, but really great resort out here. And I'm here on my last day and I wanted to go ahead and share with you guys the new strategy.

 

Bradley Sutton:

So what we're going to be going over today is I'm going to go over, first of all, this is like version 6.0 of this strategy, where we are going to just break down what are the steps. And this isn't just me coming up with these steps. I've been testing it the last year. I've been testing stuff this month, last month, the previous month. I'm constantly doing tests to make sure, hey, what is the best strategy? And guess what, guys, if you listen to episode 500, the last time I did one of these episodes it's different than what I'm going to talk about today, because things on Amazon do change over time and that's why I do these every 100 episodes. So we're going to first go over the list of what makes up this strategy right now and then I'll give you guys, I'll show you guys, some examples of some things that I did, you know, show how I even came up with this, why it works. All right.

 

Bradley Sutton:

So first let's talk about product research. You know, the Maldives Honeymoon Strategy actually can doesn't always have to, but it can start with your product research when you're finding a new product to operate. I don't always just have the Maldives Honeymoon Launch Strategy in mind, but it's something that allows me to kind of like, pick the cream of the crop. Okay, so one of those features that I look for is a low title density. In Helium 10 Black Box, you use the filter under keywords for a title density. That means how many listings on page one, um, have this exact search keyword in the title? Uh, now, first of all, hold on.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Let me just back up really quick, and one elephant that's in some people's rooms, not in everybody's, is hey, wait a minute, isn't launch and creating listings and things completely different now, here, towards the end of 2024, because of Cosmo Algorithm and Rufus and this and that. And first of all, just spoiler, no, 100% the same. I'm not doing anything differently, differently. That being said, I'm going to go deep into I might have already been dependent on when I'm recording this, but I'm going to go deep into another episode where we talk about, uh, what the future holds because of you know, AI and different things. But the beauty is that don't listen to people who are trying to say that, hey, everything has changed right now because it hasn't, I am not doing anything differently because of AI and I'm having the exact same successes now.

 

Bradley Sutton:

The reason is because I have never been one somebody just focusing on keyword stuffing or keyword relevancy as the be all filter and stuff. If you're doing that, yeah, your launch strategies would have gone out of fashion years ago, because Amazon searches evolved before AI, before so-called Cosmo or Rufus and things like that. No, you got to do more than just stuff your keywords or your listings with keywords. Right, we've been teaching that you have to have the customer in mind when you guys are coming up with your listing, when you're choosing keywords, and not just have the Amazon algorithm in mind. Okay, and that's what we've always, even though the kind of strategies have changed. That's what we've always focused on in the Maldives Honeymoon Strategy is you're balancing Amazon algorithm with the customer and, again, nothing has changed, even though there's Rufus now and there's, you know, develop algorithms. If you're still doing that, you are a hundred percent fine. So don't get confused with people telling you that, hey, you've got to completely change everything you do or else you're completely irrelevant to the Amazon algorithm. Now, that being said, I hope nothing changes in the three weeks that from the time I'm recording this to the time I am releasing this, because I actually am recording this before Amazon Accelerate. Who knows, maybe something will come up from Amazon Accelerate that completely changes this.

 

Bradley Sutton:

I was teaching the Maldives Honeymoon Strategy to do refunds and giveaways for a year, year, for like two years. So the Maldives Honeymoon Strategy, you do a giveaway and you rebate them. Why? Because that was allowed by Amazon until the. I was teaching that till the very day it wasn't um. So, like I don't like to be the one who speculates about what could change, what does change. I'm going to tell you what's working, and you know we can, you know, kind of have in mind, hey, well, what could, but not to the point where it distracts you from what is working. And so that's what I'm always going to do. I'm going to give you the facts, guys, without speculation or things about what might change. And then the instant that something does change, or Amazon announces some policy shift or they announce something that you know the different way that you have to make your listings, we'll go ahead and shift them all these honeymoon strategy, right. So just keep that in mind. Everything I talk about right now has nothing to do with AI and different things, because these strategies are working right now, even though there's, you know, Rufus and different things like that. All right.

 

Bradley Sutton:

So again, going back to the product research, low title density is something I look at because that gives me an idea. If some of the main keywords in a niche have a low title density number, that means it's going to be really easy for me to get to page one of those search results, because that's just one of the ways that Amazon algorithm works. How it says that something is relevant for a keyword is like hey, is that keyword in the title? And if there's not that many listings that have that keyword in the title, well, it's like okay, well, maybe this listing isn't that important for this keyword, all right. So that's one of the factors I look at. Another thing I could look at again, not like I'm only looking for this, but it's just stuff that gives me more confidence when I do launch, especially if I have like five or six options and I'm like all right, I only want to launch one or two products, which are the one or two that I'm going to do first. Well, these are the things I'm looking at. So another one is I look at Brand Analytics and I'm looking total domination of one or two products, you know, because they're getting the majority of the clicks, the majority of the purchases, or, on the flip side, is the top three clicks. Do they only make up like 10% of the conversions, meaning 90% is wide open. I can go either way and it'll give me some confidence. It says, hey, if just one listing is dominating the clicks and the purchases, that that and I don't think that listing is that great or that product is that great that gives me some confidence that, hey, maybe I can go in right away and from day one, maybe dominate a little bit. Right On the flip side, maybe, if it's wide open, I'm like, oh shoot, people are just buying all kinds of products here on page one, the top three click products only make up 10% of the sales. That could give me some confidence too that, hey, I can have a lot better conversion share than these top three click products. That's just one of the things I look at as well.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Another thing I like looking at is in Amazon not even Helium 10, but in Amazon product opportunity explore. I look at the conversion rate for the keyword. All right, so in the conversion rate, if it has like less than 1%, I'm like, wow, this is great. That means that out of every 100 searches, less than one person actually buy something when they search at that could be an indication that there's opportunity, that people aren't finding what they're looking for. I can actually I said not in Helium 10, but for those of you who don't have Helium 10, yeah, use Product Opportunity Explorer. You can do that inside of Helium 10 with the keyword sales metric. All right, so we have estimated sales, and so if you have a huge differentiation between search volume and keyword sales, guess what? You found a keyword where it not many people are seeing what they're looking for and thus people aren't buying it. And so that means, if you can figure out what's the gap, why are people searching for this, but why aren't they buying anything on the page? Now, all of a sudden, you've got a huge advantage and that could be a great opportunity to get in a certain niche. So these are some of the things I look at, even before we're talking about launch, even though I know this is a launch episode. Those are some of the things that help me decide which keywords I'm going to launch.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Second step, before we even get to the launch, is the keyword research, and this is the key right. This is super key, and this is where I really think that you know, even though you can do launches without Helium 10. Guys, if you're using another tool that doesn't have these things I'm about to mention, you are leaving lots of money on the table with potential keywords, and so let me go over those. Now. The first thing I like to do is I'll put in 10 or 15 of the top competitors into Cerebro. Okay, so I'll take a baseline product, throw in 10 competitors, 15 competitors, minimum five, unless I'm in a brand-new niche where there's not much to look at. Let's just pretend that we're talking about something where there are at least five competitors that I can look at.

 

Bradley Sutton:

First thing I do is I just hit the one click button top keywords in Cerebro. That gives me all of the keywords that most of the top competitors, or most of these top competitors are all ranking for, and they're ranking highly for, instantly. These, I know, are my keywords and so I'll take that, put it to you know, like a keyword list, that I have my keyword list. Next thing I do is I look at the opportunity keywords. It's another one click button. I hit opportunity keywords and now that shows me, hey, where the keywords were a maximum of only one or two products are crushing it and the others, like, are not even in the ballgame. Because that gives me a list of keywords that you know I'm going to go ahead and not have some. You know as much competition. You know those top keywords, everybody's competing for it. That's great. I need to know that. Those are the most relevant keywords, usually to a niche. But these opportunity keywords the reason why we call it opportunity is because, hey, these are getting sales for maybe one, max, two products. The others might not even know about this keyword. They're not even ranking for it really. So that could be an opportunity for you to come in.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Instead of having a keyword that you're competing with all 10 or 15 top competitors You're just competing with, you know, like three or three, one or two, right, all right, so that's another one, Now, by the way, guys, I like setting up two different keyword lists. I put everything into a main keyword list, all right, inside of Helium 10. But then I set up a second keyword list. Now, this is something new, I haven't done this in the past but where I'm putting in some of my like outlier keywords, where I'm like hey, this is not going to be one of the top keywords, but I want to make sure I have this in phrase form, all right. So, like I'm looking for another like 10, 15 keywords that I'm going to put in this special list, 15 to 20, maybe even more, maybe I can go up to 30. I still want to put my main keywords in phrase form, but these are the ones where it's not going to have a highly competitive performance score. I'll talk to you a little bit about that later, but I still want to make sure it's like making a mental note hey, these are the keywords I want to put in phrase form, even though they might not be one of my main keywords. I'll explain a little bit more why later.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Now the next step I do in Cerebro again. I do in Cerebro again, we're still looking at those keywords where I did 10 to 15, is. I want to look at where one competitor is ranking in the top 10, at least just one. Forget about what the other guys are ranking for. What are all the keywords where one guy is ranking the top 10 out of those 5, 10, 15 competitors? Copy those keywords to my keyword list because hey, those are keywords getting sales for one of my competitors. Why can't I get sales for it? It's not always going to be the most relevant keyword, right? So some of them are random. Obviously, a lot of brand names are going to come up. I'm not putting in brand names, keywords into my  listing. I would obviously exclude those. The next step is hey, where is just one competitor ranking in the top 50? It's making it a little bit more broad, like it's not going to be hated for it. And, by the way, the more keywords that you put in your listing that you share ranking with these other competitors, it's setting you up for success from day one as far as relevancy to the Amazon algorithm, because Amazon remember, if you have a brand new product, amazon doesn't know what your product is, it just can go by what's in your listing, and so the more that you can relate yourself to other products with established histories. It means from day one it's going to be like, okay, we're going to give a shot to this product for these other keywords, because it looks similar to this other listing, right, but uh, you know it, or because it has the same keywords, but you know, we're not exactly sure it's relevant for this. But let's give it a try. That's. That's kind of like how the honeymoon period even works.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Uh, the next step is I'm going to go for, uh, something new-ish I've been doing just to get more keywords is 75% of the top competitors are ranking for a keyword, just ranking at all, all right, so obviously this is some keywords. I could have some completely off the wall keywords here, but here's the thing 75% of the top competitors. That means if I had 10 competitors that I put in Cerebro, I need at least seven or eight competitors all ranking for it, anywhere between one and 306. And the reason is maybe people aren't getting sales for it, but there's a reason. Most keywords have 1,000, 10,000 products indexed for the keyword. That means searchable, but only seven pages of search results come up. Right, only 306 listings come up. Now, if you can find keywords where maybe nobody's even ranking that high for it, but they're all in the top 306. Now, all of a sudden it's like, hey, this is probably somewhat relevant. Maybe it's not to the customer yet, but to Amazon. There's signs that Amazon has said, hey, this deserves ranking.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Now there's where Helium 10 comes in. You use other tools like Jungle Scout or Data Dive, which is driven by Jungle Scout. They're only looking at the top, I think, 100 or 150 ranks, so you're going to miss out on tons of keywords. I'll be doing another podcast later where I talk a little bit more about how many keywords you miss out if you're using another tool. But that's one of the main advantages or not one of the main, but one of the many advantages I should say of Helium 10 is we're looking at all the ranks, all right. So if you're only looking at the top 150, you can miss out on some valuable keywords, on some valuable keywords.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Next thing is another Amazon or Helium 10 only metric of Amazon recommended rank. Remember, Helium 10 has a direct connection with Amazon for the relevancy score, which we call Amazon recommended rank. It's because it's what Amazon recommends that you advertise for due to relevancy, all right. So I want to see what are the keywords that 75% of the listings again, seven out of 10, three out of five, you know, 10 out of 15, uh, 11 out of 15, actually I should say are all have or are all on this Amazon recommended rank. That means they're all on Amazon's relevancy radar and it's a top 200 average. All right. In helium 10, you can pick the Amazon recommended rank average. So that means across the board that on average it's one of the top 200 keywords that Amazon thinks is relevant, all right. So again, these are keywords that you're not going to find in other tools, but these can help you get these little sales, like one or two sales here or there. With some of these keywords. That's really going to help you get ahead of the competition.

 

Bradley Sutton:

The last thing I'm doing in Cerebro with those top 15, 10, 5, 10, 15 listings is I'm looking for where 75% of the competitors are all advertising for the keyword. Now I might go take it a little bit narrow and say, hey, show me where at least three competitors are advertising in the top 10 positions. Then I know they're spending money and sure I'll run that. But at the very least I want to see where, hey, at least seven out of 10, at least 11 out of 15 of my top competitors. They're all showing up in the sponsor results, right up to 105 locations. Again, this is not something that all tools have. Some tools are only showing you where the top 40 or top 50 sponsored ads, but again, I'm looking, I like to look at the top seven pages, because if they're showing up in the top seven pages, their bid has got to be somewhat high, where it's even in the in the ballpark, and so if you're not looking at all seven pages, you could be leaving money on the table. So by now, at this point, I've got like a good two, three hundred or even more keywords. Not all I'm gonna be able to get in my listing, not all, definitely in phrase form, but this gets me on a good start.

 

Bradley Sutton:

And one more thing that I like to do is I like to look at the historical trend. All right, this is another Helium 10 exclusive where, like, let's say, I'm doing looking into egg racks. Maybe, I think that in February, march, when Easter is coming, a lot of people are searching for different keywords. So I can hit this show historical trend and then I could look either at the product level or the entire niche level. Hey, what's going on in like February of the last couple of years and where were these products getting sales in February? And then it's kind of like taking a time machine in Cerebro, going back and looking all right, let me go ahead and pull all the important keywords in February and then I can see, oh, there's a whole bunch of keywords maybe that are not showing up right now. So, super important. This is something that is going to get you a lot of the historical keywords and the seasonal keywords that other tools just aren't going to show you, because it's only showing you what's going on now.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Now the next thing I do is I'll take maybe three or four of those top keywords, the ones that had the highest competitor performance score in Cerebro. What I'm going to do is I'm going to go ahead and throw those one by one into Magnet and then I'm going to filter down for Smart Complete. Smart Complete is showing me the long tail versions of that keyword in various forms. So in other words, for example, coffin shelf. All right, so that's for my coffin shelf. That's the main keyword. I put that in Magnet. Hit Smart Complete. It's going to show me probably not that many, because coffin shelf is in a huge keyword, I'm going to get a good 15, 20 keywords where it'll be like coffin shelf for men, spooky coffin shelf, Halloween coffin shelf, whatever things like that. But those ones might not have a lot of ranking yet for whatever reason. But I'm going to go ahead and copy those keywords. A lot of it probably came up in my Cerebro, but there's always going to be like two or three keywords that probably didn't come up in Cerebro but that there's searches for, especially if I'm using a search volume filter, and I want to get those in my listing too, because, hey, if my product is a coffin shelf, I want to know what are the different forms of coffin shelf that people are searching for. Let me get those in my listing as long as they're relevant. So I'll go ahead and do that in Magnet.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Next step is I can do this either in Helium 10, which is actually easier, or I can do this in top search terms Brand Analytics in Amazon. I'm going to take some of those top competitors all right, those top five, those top 10, and I am going to go back in history and I want to see any time that they were one of the top three clicked and they had purchases. It's not just a matter of being one of the top three clicked. They could be one of the top three clicked forever, but if they never had purchases, well, is that really a valuable keyword for them? Most of the keywords I'm going to come up with here are going to have already been what I found in Cerebro, but every now and then you'll find some random keyword because maybe they just randomly were ranking for it one day, or they just randomly got shown in an auto campaign. They never even realized it, so they never had you know, other sales again other weeks. But I'm going to go back and look a week by week for the past six months or so. Now this is kind of a tedious task. Now, soon, Helium 10 in our Brand Analytics Black Box tool, you're going to be able to look at multiple date ranges, so it's going to be just a couple of clicks, a button. But right now, whether you're using Helium 10 or Amazon, it's going to be kind of tedious. You're going to have to go week by week over the past six months. If you really want to do this right and just look at all the keywords where they were one of the top three clicked your top competitors maybe only your top five and where they actually had more than 0% conversion share, meaning they actually had purchases for it. I'm going to put that to my keyword list. Some of those I might actually put to that special keyword list where it's my top keywords.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Next thing here is something that's been in my Maldives Honeymoon for a while very unique once again to Helium 10, is you want to look at the frequently bought together of some of your top competitors? I'm not going to do this to all 15, but I'll put in my top five competitors into Black Box product targeting. Now, what this is going to do is it's going to show me for these products I can do it one by one or I can put them all in where what other products have shown up in the frequently bought together for these products. Remember Amazon, frequently bought together is showing you products that people bought in the same purchase experience. So, for example, it's not like the old metric that was customer also bought, you know where. Like maybe Monday I bought a coffin shelf and Wednesday I bought diapers, right, you know like, yeah, sure, that's one competitor or one competitor, one customer who bought those two things. But are those relevant? No, but then if something is frequently bought together in the same shopping cart experience, it's usually because they're kind of relevant towards each other, like maybe it's a coffin shelf plus like a spider web shelf or something like that, or it's a coffin shelf plus some spooky decor item, because somebody's you know like decorating their Halloween haunted house or something like that. Right? So what I'm looking for is not other coffin shelves and other coffin shelves are going to come up, because sometimes people buy two of the same products or whatever your product is.

 

Bradley Sutton:

I'm looking for what are the products that are showing up and frequently bought together with my competitors or my future competitors that are completely different? Not, I don't want to say completely different, but I mean it's not a coffin shelf. So, in other words, I want to look for a product that's like a coffin shelf with a you know, bat shaped bath rug or something, where it's like oh yeah, obviously this person is buying this kind of themed stuff, but it's not a competitor. You know, a bat-shaped bat rug is not a competitor with coffin shelf. All right, it's two separate products, but there's relevance, there's a history of people buying the two. Now, the reason I'm doing that is because now I'm going to take those products. Maybe there are five products that are commonly showing up with my competitors, maybe it's 10. It's up to you, and then I'm one or two keywords of each of those products, all right.

 

Bradley Sutton:

So let's say that, to my coffin shelf, one of the other top products that showed up in frequently bought together was a coffin-shaped light cover, like a light switch right, or a coffin-shaped toilet paper dispenser, whatever. It is right. What is the main keyword of that? Well, it's going to be coffin-shaped light cover or something like that. Right, I want that keyword in my listing. They're number one and they're number two keywords, like the most relevant keywords. If I were to flip this and somebody had a coffin bath mat and my product is a coffin shelf, what keywords are they going to choose for me? Well, they would choose coffin shelf, right, you know for them. Now, why is this? This is something unique. All right, I want to be related to these products from day one. I don't I'm not making some wild guess that people who are interested in coffin shelves are also going to be interested in this coffin shape, like I know Amazon is telling me people are buying these products together.

 

Bradley Sutton:

So how does it benefit me by having this kind of, this other product, which is doesn't describe my product, being indexed for that keyword? Well, it just sends that little relevancy signal to amazon saying, hey, Amazon, you know this, this product has this keyword in here. You know when I'm doing now, when I'm doing my product targeting, from day one usually I'm going to be able to target that other product. You know those are the products you want to target. If you just have, if you, if I have a coffin shelf and I don't have any of those, uh, coffin, you know light cover keywords in my listing eventually will I show up pin product targeting. You know sponsor display ads and things like that probably. You know when I went in an auto campaign, you know Amazon might one day just show it or you know, in some other kind of product targeting maybe you know I'll get impressions. But I want to start getting those impressions from like day one of my list and then, if I actually am indexed for that keyword, it's like it's going to give me a lot better chance from day one to start showing up in product targeting and then, uh, you know, I I'm hopefully going to get sales from those product targeting ads because I see a history of frequently bought together. So that's another uh set of keywords that I'm going to go ahead and want to put in my listing.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Now another part, uh that doesn't have to do with Helium 10 is using Product Opportunity Explorer. Probably 98% of the keywords I'm going to see in product opportunity to explore I already got from Cerebro or Magnet or Brand Analytics or one of these others, but every now and then there's maybe some new up and coming keyword that might not be in the other ones. So this is kind of like a nice little bookend. And obviously, for those of you who don't have Helium 10 for whatever strange reason out there you're one of the few top sellers who don't use it Well, you kind of have to use only Product Opportunity Explorer. But I'll put my competitors into Product Opportunity Explorer and check what niches they're in, or if my main keyword has a niche on Product Opportunity Explorer not all main keywords do. I'm going to look at the other niche keywords and I'm going to get that and go ahead and put it in my keyword list as well.

 

Bradley Sutton:

All right, next up is the Listing Optimization. This is key. All right, all those keywords from my two lists I'm throwing into Listing Builder. Okay, it could be 300, 400 phrases, I'm not sure. Well, Listing Builder immediately is gonna break down my phrases with my individual keywords. Now, remember the top keywords. By the way, at the same time I'm gonna bring in all of my competitors, those 10, 15 top competitors. I'm importing them into my Listing Builder. I think this is only a diamond in a plan so that you can see those competitor performance scores that you see in Cerebro. So now I know what are the most relevant keywords. What are those top keywords is because those probably have a CPS score of like eight, nine or 10. And how I'm going to prioritize this now is hey, even though it says 400 phrases or 300 or 100, there's no one number that's right or wrong. But however, many phrases I have, now I know, hey, I'm only picking, like a top 10 or 15 phrases, the ones that are the most relevant with that high score, to make sure I have in phrase form, plus any of those other keywords that I'm like.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Hey, I you know, maybe I found this keyword in Brand Analytics, or maybe it's one of those opportunity keywords, or maybe it's something I'm going to go ahead and, you know, make sure those get in phrase form. The rest of it, guess what? All I have to do is make sure that those individual keywords are in there once. And where am I listening? Because if I have 300 phrases, they're probably you know, that's probably. You know three, maybe let's just say they have three words each. There's probably 900 words in those 300 phrases, right? It doesn't mean I have to put 900 different individual words. Those 900 words. There's probably only like 200 or 300 individual words that are unique. The rest are just duplicates of each other, right? So then what I would do is, hey, the Helium 10 Listing Builder is already taking out those duplicates. I just got to make sure each of those individual keywords I have somewhere in my listing. Now, at this point I can have AI and Listing Builder, kind of just like you know, make me a rough listing, or I could just write the listing.

 

Bradley Sutton:

A couple things, remember when you're making the title all right, pick, put your best keyword in the title for me Coffin Shelf. Coffin Shelf is going to be there. If it's an egg holder, maybe egg holder countertop. But then what I'm going to do is there another top keyword like Gothic Decor? I'll stick that. It's the Coffin Shelf and Gothic Decor. They're not even nested keywords. But if I've got two top keywords I can usually find a way to put two top keywords in my listing. But here's the thing Once you do that, now use the helium 10 to see what are those root phrases. That, if it's a two-word root or more, now what happens is now I'm going to be like hey, what are some nested keywords I can use? You know, an example I've always used is maybe I have my main keyword is egg holder and then additional keyword egg holder, countertop. Egg holder, countertop for kitchen. Rustic egg holder, rustic egg holder, countertop for kitchen. If I put the keyword in my title rustic egg holder, countertop for kitchen, I've got like five, six phrases in phrase form right there, because Amazon is not making me you know it looks at those phrases just in the order of the words that it's at. It's not. It's not making me put those phrases all separately. So that's what you should do. Pick your two top keywords and then see what other nested keywords can you put in there, so you can kill a couple birds with one stone, for you know, sending those relevancy signals to Amazon that, hey, this is what my product is about. Now the rest of my listing again, I'm focusing on trying to get those key phrases in phrase form in my listing.

 

Bradley Sutton:

But again, do not just keyword stuff. It's not just about, hey, I need to put these keywords this many times, et cetera. Listing builder we have some tool or some scoring that will help you to know what kind of score you have, but you have really got to write to connect to the customer when you're ranking your listing. This doesn't have to do with the launch per se, but again, this isn't necessarily about it. This is nothing new, guys. We've been taught. I've been talking about this for six years since I've worked at Helium 10. You have got to use review insights in Helium 10 to look at your competitors, reviews. What do people like about it, what do people not like about it? Talk about it in their coffee, right? Is that a keyword? No, but I'm going to write about that. I'm going to put that in my image. I'm going to show if I had collagen peptides, somebody at a kitchen table, you know, pouring it into their coffee, because that's how people are using. I'm going to talk about that in the bullet points.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Again, not to send a relevancy signal for a certain keyword or to rank for in my coffee. I'm not trying to rank for in my coffee, but I'm trying to connect with the customer. And, by the way, guys, going back to what I said before, if something changed, you know, as things change with AI and Rufus and things like that, you know somebody might ask a question like hey, how can I find the best you know collagen peptides that'll fit in my coffee? Well, guess what? You're going to be the one that has that in your listing. So the Amazon AI is going to relate it to your product. But again, that's not the reason to do it. It's not because, oh yeah, Rufus is out there now. That's why you should put this. No, I've been talking about this for six years, even before there was a such thing as Rufus, right? So, again, make sure you are talking to the customer in your listing as well. Make those emotional connections with your customer. What problems does your product solve? What are the use cases? And I'm talking about images, I'm talking about your bullet points, your description, your A plus content. Speak to the customer, then you don't have to worry about fancy stuff, about AI and whatnot, because you're already covering your basis.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Now the next aspect here is something I just released last year in episode 500, which I hadn't talked about before, and that's making a test listing. The reason why I want to make a test listing nowadays is because I don't know what's going on, but there are so many times where it seems like Amazon gets confused about products from the get go. I've talked about this before, but how this came up or how I discovered it, was because I was launching these coffee socks. And then what happened was, when I say coffee socks, it's socks that had a message on the bottom where it says hey, if you can read this, bring me coffee. And so I wanted to rank for coffee gifts for women or gifts for coffee lovers and things like that, and I couldn't even get impressions in PPC.

 

Bradley Sutton:

And then when I ran the relevancy test that only you can get in Helium 10 with Amazon recommended rank, the coffee keywords were not even in its top 20. All the top 20 keywords was like oh, you know, black sock and pink sock and black shoe. And I'm like, oh man, amazon is completely confused about this product and I was like, well, it kind of makes sense because you know coffee is in the grocery category, right? My product? It's a sock, it's in the fashion category. Amazon probably thinks that. You know why does this product need to be relevant for the coffee related keywords, right? So this is what happens sometimes when you just launch a listing and then you usually have to like all right, I need to opt to reoptimize my listing. I need to send traffic.

 

Bradley Sutton:

By the way, one of the best ways to get relevancy for keywords you are indexed for is using the old school two-step field ASIN URLs. All right, you can. You can pull one of those eight field ASIN two-step URLs by using index checker and then just give that to like four or five people. This is not against Amazon terms of service. Am I trying to rank? Am I trying to increase my ranking for a certain keyword? No, that's against Amazon terms of service. We used to do that all day long, you know, five years ago, that used to be part of them all these honeymoon strategy. The reason why this is not against terms of services I couldn't care less about ranking. I mean, maybe later I want to rank is just get a couple of orders for using one of those URLs to send that relevancy signal.

 

Bradley Sutton:

I'm going to show you some examples about how amazing that works, where, in two days, I can get that Amazon relevancy for that keyword. That I didn't, and so that's what I did for my coffee listing. I do it for other listings. But anyways, these are things that you're testing. Maybe that doesn't work, maybe you have to do send a search find by which, again, is against Amazon terms of service if you're trying to rank. But if you're just trying to send relevancy, there's nothing against terms of service for that for now. But anyways, if you're trying to launch a product and you're in the honeymoon period and you're trying to figure stuff out and test and like, all right, let me check back tomorrow. Did this affect my relevancy? Do I get PPC impressions? Now you’re losing days of your honeymoon.

 

Bradley Sutton:

You want to hit the ground running from day one of your listing, right, and so it's important to make a test listing to see, hey, if, is Amazon confused? Oh, yes, if, yes, well, now what steps do I have to take to fix it? And then now you know, when you make your real listing, you know exactly on day one, exactly what you have to do, instead of trying to run these experiments. The other reason to do test listings is you can test your PPC. Are you getting PPC impressions from day one on all your keywords? If not, again you might have to do some relevancy switches on there. What PPC bid gets you in the top four positions? If you launch your product without this, it's fine. You'll know within four hours thanks to Helium 10's keyword tracker that has boost. You'll know in four hours. Oh, I need to raise or lower the bid, but since you're doing this anyways, might as well figure out what that exact bid is. That gets you to the top of search, right. And now, once you've got that bid, hey, when you make your real listing and you make your real PPC campaign, your launch campaign, you'll know from day one exactly the bids. That's going to get you at the top of the.

 

Bradley Sutton:

A throwaway ASIN. I use similar images. I don't want to use the exact same images. All right, I have to use a throwaway UPC like throw a, fulfilled by merchant listing up. All right, you know, put one inventory in, I'll put a high price, cause I didn't want to get purchases, maybe, right, and then? And then I just start playing with these things and testing. You know I run it through Cerebro. What is the Amazon recommended rank? Start my PPC campaign for it. Where is it showing me? You know I run my keyword tracker. I get all of this data so that when I make my quote unquote real listing from day one I have all my ducks lined up in a row where I know exactly what I have to do.

 

Bradley Sutton:

When you make your real listing but your product isn't ready to in Amazon yet, you know, make sure to put a future date. All right. Now be careful, though. All right, be careful. There's some listings that have this thing called street date, all right. So if you see four different dates, be very careful which dates you do. Before I used to just say, oh yeah, wherever you see a date for listing launch date and merchant, go live date or whatever just put some random date in the future and then, once the product actually gets there, then go ahead and change the date. But there's one of these things I'm going to talk a little bit about it later when I show you some real-life examples there's one of these dates that you can't change unless maybe use like a special flat file, which I haven't tested yet, but you can't change it, so you're locked into a pre-buy until then. So just be very careful when setting the date in the future.

 

Bradley Sutton:

But you don't want to just create your listing and have your listing potentially active where other people can find that ASIN and like make it active in their, in their Seller Central, and now it's like counting days against your honeymoon period for you. You don't want to do that. So put your date in the future or just create the listing the same day. You're going to launch it. Those of you who have warehouses in the United States, like me, that's what I do. I don't put a future date always because I got the product in my warehouse. I turn on my Fulfilled by Merchant listing the same day and then I send the inventory to Amazon and I'm getting orders from day one. All right, you got to do one of those things. You've got your regular listing, everything is set up. It's launch date, all right.

 

Bradley Sutton:

What do you do? I keep my product at what I want my list price to be. Maybe I want my list price to be above what my regular price is going to be. Um, let's just say your regular price. You want to target a 39 99. I want to maybe set a list price at 43 99. Just give me some leeway down the road price, set that as a baseline price and give me the best chance to get that strikethrough pricing. Okay, so if it's going to be $43.99, I have five people lined up, not giving them, like you know, search, find, buy. I'm not giving them, you know, URLs to try and rank for, unless you know it's to send those relevancy signals. Maybe I can do it as a combined thing, but I get five people to buy at a full price and then that sets that baseline price. It gives me the best chance to be able to have that strike through price because I want to do a big discount in the beginning.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Now, other things that don't work to get the strike through price. I tried once to use a social media coupon code. I did a social media coupon code and I was like all right, $43.99. And then I had people use the social media coupon code, do it. Five of them didn't work to get the strike through price and it doesn't set that off and on. When it does work, is doing a coupon, all right, I can do a coupon, um, you know. Or a promotion, promotional price, where it's a clippable coupon, uh or uh, a promotion, that's on the page right when they click it. That sometimes works. But if you're just worried about like, oh, I'm not sure it's going to work out, the best thing to do is just get the full price. Uh orders five of them.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Now, once that's ready, I immediately go ahead and start my PPC campaigns. Now, what I've been doing is I have one PPC campaign. It's going to be a throwaway campaign, as in. It's only going to last for maybe one month. I call it my launch campaign and in there I put my top five or 10 keywords that I'm trying to rank for. Again, it includes maybe only two or three main keywords that I'm really trying to rank for and then six to 10 of the supplementary keywords, using that same principle about how you make the title having keywords nested together, like, if the keyword is egg holder countertop, then I'll have large egg holder countertop, egg holder countertop, kitchen, et cetera, et cetera. I'm launching all these at once and I'm doing a fixed bid, no bid modifiers, just a fixed bid down only. No, just a fixed bid.

 

Bradley Sutton:

And then what I'm doing is I put that PPC bid that I know is going to get me those first four PPC positions. And if I didn't do that test listing, no problem. I just put those keywords in keyword tracker, turn boost on. Within four hours I'll know did it get me that top ranking or a sponsored rank or not? Now what I'm doing here? The whole point of this is I'm trying to get enough orders for the CPR number that's in Helium 10, which is how many products you have to sell after the search of a keyword over eight days to give me the best chance. Now do you have to do all of the CPR number to get on page one? No, sometimes I'll do it with even half or even 25% of that CPR number. I'll go ahead and be on page one already, but the full CPR gives you the best chance at sticking on page one afterwards. All right, and now I've got that PPC campaign set up, I'll go ahead and set up in Helium 10 Adtomic my other campaigns as well, but with lower bids. That's my exact match campaign my research, which is a broad match campaign. My auto campaign, my sponsor display targeting campaign, my sponsor brand video campaign. Sometimes I start from day one, two, just with lower bids, just because I want to get some residual sales, but other people don't like to do those right away. Either way works.

 

Bradley Sutton:

There's reasons to do it and not to do it. The reasons to do it is like, hey, when you're in your honeymoon period, you just get so much love from Amazon, it's going to show you across the board for all these keywords, right? So that's why I do it. But then the drawback is, if you have this huge, huge discount on your listing, you don't want just a random keywords where your product is showing up and then you're getting conversions and it doesn't even really. You're not even trying to rank for those keywords per se. Right off the bat. You know you're focused on those five 10 keywords. So then you know, maybe you don't want all your spend going to there. So that way I've done both ways before. You guys choose what works best for you.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Now one thing as since I'm doing, you know I'm losing, but you're going to lose money, guys. I lose money my first month of selling, that's just that's for six years of launch. You lose. It takes money to make money, right? So you, you don't want to be losing more than you need to. So let's say, the CPR number for a keyword is 80, meaning I need 80 over eight days. That's like an average of 10 a day, like if I get 10 orders in one day for one keyword I'm monitoring those PPC numbers I'm going to go in and pause that bid for the rest of the day and then restart the next day until I get 10. All right, so that's just something to keep in mind that it's not going to help you rank. Stick your leg in anymore. If you get 25 orders that first day, right, and then that's not giving you a better chance. All you need is those 10, and then I'm going to pause it because I don't want to keep losing money when I've already done what I need to do to rank for that keyword. When I'm losing money on every order right Now, how do you do that big discount price?

 

Bradley Sutton:

Well, what's the thought process here? The thought process of even doing a huge discount at the beginning? It's for two reasons. Number one is your product has no reviews. People might not even know your brand. You're trying to compete with products that do have reviews, even if they only got 50 or a hundred or more. Maybe you're doing a competitive niche. What reason would somebody have to buy your product if your price is the same, zero reviews. Maybe you had something in your image. This isn't guaranteed that you have to do it like this. Maybe you're the only product that has a laser that everybody needs on the water bottle or some weird thing like that. Well yeah, you don't even need to do any discount If everybody wants that because that's what they saw on TikTok, it went viral they're only going to buy your product.

 

Bradley Sutton:

You can have your product more expensive than others. Those have thousands of reviews. You've got zero reviews and you'll get all the orders because you've got some special thing. But if you don't have that special thing, if you're just kind of similar, you just got a little bit better product than everybody else you've got to give incentives to people to buy your product without that trust, without that social proof of reviews, and to do that usually it's finding that price where it's like a person might not trust you yet but they're like shoot at this price. I'll go ahead and get it. All right for a couple of my products. You know like I had one product that my target price is going to be 24 bucks. To me that was like 12 bucks. It was like an egg tray for my coffin letter board that I was doing. My target price is going to be like $39. I had to launch at 17 because I just wanted to like make it a no brainer for people to get it all right. The other reason to have this low price, uh, is that's when I start my Vine, which is the next step of the honeymoon period is, start your Vine as soon as your low price goes active.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Now, the reason is because the Amazon Vine reviewers there's two reasons, there's two reasons of this reason. Right, Amazon Vine reviewers, they only have so many products they can get for free before they have to start declaring tax or something like that. So, even though they're not paying for the product, they sometimes prioritize the lower price products so that it doesn't count so much to that monthly total that they have to hit or that they can't hit unless they hit that tax threshold. The other reason is it gives you a better chance to have a positive review from Vine. The Vine reviewers can see the product price and so if your product is full price $39, and they just a little bit kind of don't like the product, well, they might give you three or four stars when you're trying to get five stars because they're like ah, the value is not that great. I was expecting more. But now think about it. If they had the product, maybe they, they, they didn't like it too much. But then they remember oh shoot, this product is like $13. And I'm going to go ahead and give it five stars because it was $13. You like, like that, it's still a good value, all right. So you see how it could be a difference not always, but it could be the difference of you getting a three and a four star or a four and a five star, right. So those are the two reasons why I do a low price.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Now the question is how to do low prices. All right, there's different ways, but you got to be careful because nowadays Amazon change again. This year we'll have you lose the buy box If you had a certain price using the sale price and then later you keep trying to raise it up. Like, at that price, I want to raise the $34. I started at 13. Maybe I go to 15. Once I hit like 22 or something, there's like no, no, you're you number of purchases at that new price point before I can go to something else. All right. So that's where you got to be careful. So there's different ways to do discounts. You can do a big coupon when you first launch, so you might want to do the coupon first, see how it works. You can just do a promotional price. All right, now you got to be careful.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Sometimes those don't show up that that noticeable in the search results. You could just do a sale price on the product, right, especially that works if you get that strikethrough. Or you could do the discount. That's like something newish that Amazon just launched this year, the price discount section. But here's the thing If you're going to be doing this in phases, right, if you're doing a price discount, you're locked in at that discount and then the next thing you have to do is just go to that regular price, because you cannot go and say, all right, I'm going to do a 50-price discount now, in two weeks let me make that a 40. No, you can only go the other direction with price discounts. Amazon sets that as the cheapest price in 30 days and you can't just keep going a little bit higher. It's gonna say no, it's got to be at least 51 discounts now or something, something like that if your discount was 50. So then that's why sometimes maybe the first thing you do is a coupon and then the next thing you do is the price discount and then the next thing you do is like the sale price and then hope that Amazon gives you your buy box. But sometimes it doesn't. You're going to have to just grin and bear it and start raising that price up, little by little by getting those orders and raising that average price velocity. That whatever sets off Amazon's price. Um, you know, price matching, a buy box suppression that they do.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Now, again, the whole reason of this, of this big discount whether it's 50%, 60%, whatever you're doing is you're trying to get that sales velocity on those keywords, on those PPC keywords, those launch PPC campaign that you're doing, you're showing up at the top of the search results. Somebody searched that keyword. They see you at the top, they click it, they buy it. That's going to help your organic ranking. All right. So just keep doing that until you can get reach organic rank that you're trying to reach. Now, once you hit that eight-day CPR mark or once you're just happy with your organic ranking, you turn off that fixed bid, turn off that target for that keyword, that you reach your ranking, that you like it. And then that's when I switched to that keyword, to my down, my down, only, my down only regular performance campaign. Because you know that fixed bid, I'm paying a lot of money for that position I want to dial back a little bit and just kind of, like you know, find what my evergreen bid is going to be. So you want to do that, one by one as you start achieving your organic ranks or your CPR number, until all of those in your launch campaign are finished, and then you just close, not archive, but just pause that entire launch campaign with all of those individual targets that are paused, all right. So that's pretty much the Maldives Honeymoon Strategy.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Now let's go ahead and hop in and show you some of these things in action and what kind of results I had. Here's an example of one of the products I launched an 18-egg rack launch, all right. Here's my PPC campaign that I did, my launch campaign, and you can see that now they're all paused. But I had put a fixed bid and I had a very high bid here. Now look at this problem. This was like all the way back in June 14 to 16, three days. This was on my actual listing. I didn't do a test listing on this. Look at this for some of my keywords I was getting no impressions almost in three days. And for egg holder countertop my main keyword only 131 impressions in three days. I got this shows when my listing actually started was 614. All right, so this was terrible for the first three days of my listing. So I took the listing, I threw in a Cerebro, I ran it and I checked Amazon recommended rank. It only had me relevant, for whatever reason, for two stinking keywords. All right, kitchen decor and kitchen rack. Not even what my product is. And so now it's like okay, there's no doubt. Like obviously Amazon's confused.

 

Bradley Sutton:

So then what I did was like I sent in my little Slack on June 16th. I'm like all right, I sent this to a couple employees here at Helium 10. I'm like hey guys, tomorrow, tonight or tomorrow can, can you guys do something for this case study? And it's also about my release date. You know I was testing something on my release date and I said hey, search egg holder countertop and then you'll see this product in the sponsored ads. Hopefully it's not. It's not showing you impressions. So it's like way down the line, you might have to go to another page because it's not giving me many impressions, but try to find it, click on that sponsored ad and purchase it. All right, and so that's what they did.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Now, meantime, I had other issues with this listing Again. This is why I'm like saying you've got to do these test listings. Is, the pre-buy wasn't even like allowing me to launch this product and so, like I had to, I had this whole case I had with seller support, where I was trying to get that fixed, all at the same time that I was messing with my relevancy. So this, all of this, I should have done on a test listing if I had followed my own advice, but I was doing this on a live listing. Now, as you guys can see, right on June 16th, as soon as they started doing those orders, now, all of a sudden, I started showing up at the top. On June 14th and 15th, I was barely showing up, I was barely getting impressions. I was showing up in like number 50, number 55 for sponsored rank, right Now. Finally, I got my relevancy fixed, but then that's when I had this other problem where my listing just completely went dead and I had to fight for like two or three days to even get it working. And then I finally got it working back on June 16, June 17, around there, and so that's why you can see the sponsored rank increase.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Now what was the result of those search find by? In order to send those relevancy signals Again, not for rank, but to send those relevancy signals to Amazon. Take a look at this to send those relevancy signals to Amazon. Take a look at this when I ran in Cerebro on June 19th, just three days after they did that relevancy signal push those three coworkers here at Helium 10. Take a look now at the Amazon recommended rank. Remember how it was only showing two keywords for Amazon recommended rank. Now it was showing multiple ones and it put that keyword that I sent the relevancy signal for egg holder countertop it had Amazon recommended rank number three, which basically means that that was the third most important keyword according to Amazon for this product.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Now do you remember what I was getting for impressions in PPC? Like 200 total impressions over three days? What did sending those relevant signals to Amazon do for my PPC impressions? Take a look at this the next three-day period from June 19th when my relevancy got fixed to June 21st instead of 200 impressions, 5,000 impressions, 4,000 of that. What keyword was it for? Egg holder countertop, that one that I sent those relevancy signals to Amazon for. This works, guys. Now what happened to my organic rank now that I was able to finally start getting some impressions in PPC and really doing my Maldives Honeymoon Strategy? Look at my organic rank Now that I was able to finally start, you know, getting some impressions in PPC and really doing my Maldives Honeymoon Strategy.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Look at my organic rank. I was on page two, you know, on the first few days of my listing, by June 20th, I was already on page one only one day later. And then by June 23rd, I was like in the top five on page one for my main keyword egg holder countertop. Uh, remember I was targeting other longer tail versions of that Fresh egg holder countertop. June 23rd in the top six positions. Another keyword fresh egg holder. All right, so that's part of egg holder countertop fresh egg holder. By June 23rd in the top 10 positions for that keyword. And I was able to stick the landing there Because of some of those sales velocity that I got. I got this new arrival pick badge. Sometimes I'll get the new arrival pick, sometimes I'll get other badges like the top new seller. These kind of will help your conversions as well. If you can get these badges, you can also see because I got those five orders at regular price Amazon gave me a strike through price and it said list price $33.97, my price $24.97.

 

Bradley Sutton:

I did the same exact thing for a very similar product that was a 36-egg holder. I did now one for 24 egg holder. I was like pick the same exact keywords like a month or two later, do the same exact thing, just to make sure. Hey, I got to make sure this strategy wasn't just a fluke. Can I reproduce these results? And sure enough, the same thing happened. Before doing anything, I launched the product. I only had Amazon relevancy for kitchen rack, kitchen holder, kitchen decor, a little bit more, but still no egg holder countertop. But this time I was ready. So from day one I had more employees at Helium 10 said hey, go ahead. Instead of doing a search, find, buy, do a two-step URL using a field, ASIN URL. And I gave them that link and I even gave them a discount code or a coupon. And that not only did it work, but it still gave me that strike through price, even though I was using a discount code on it. And what did it do for my relevancy? Take a look here On July 19th I got egg holder countertop to be the number five most Amazon recommended rank keyword for my product.

 

Bradley Sutton:

So again, I completely reproduced the results, which kind of just proves this strategy. But at the end of the day, what happened to my organic rank? Same thing, you know. The middle of July, when I didn't have that relevancy, I was, you know, rank page two, page three. As soon as I made those relevancy hits, within a day or two it put me into the top three positions organically even so that I could maintain one of the top ranks for this new product. Here's another product I recently launched in the last month Coffin Letterboard. A little bit more of a competitive niche on Amazon than some of these A-Racks. I was able to get the number one new release in changeable letterboards category due to this launch. Doing this launch got me within one week on all of my main phase one launch keywords every single one that I had targeted I got top three and then one of them had top eight only for organic rank. Within one week of my launch, I even got brand analytics the number two clicked keyword for the whole keyword for this brand-new product launch.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Here's another product I launched in another category. I was able to get the number one new release. Here you can see I got a nice red negative 58% discount off of a typical price $44.97. I was able to do that with five full price buys and then doing the discount price here, the price discount to 1897. It gave me a big, nice red minus 58% off. So, guys, these strategies work all right. This is something that I obsess over Now. Is Amazon going to change the algorithm and are you going to have to start doing new things later on for ranking? Of course, every single year I've done this Maldives, sun, moon strategy. I always have new things because Amazon is always changing. The way the Amazon algorithm works is always changing, but the fundamental principles, guys, have not changed. The fundamental principles are you've got to play to the Amazon algorithm and you've got to play to your target customer. If you're doing these things, you don't have to worry about what might change with AI and not, because, at the end of the day, amazon is trying to serve the customer. It's going to have machine learning, it's going to have AI, it's going to have whatever. But what is Amazon trying to do at the end of the day? Make sure they're showing relevant products to the customer so that Amazon can get its commission and its.

 

Bradley Sutton:

With doing your Listing Optimization, your keyword research, keep these fundamentals. Know the right keywords. All right, even if things change to AI in the future, amazon still needs to know from day one what your listing is. If you don't have the right keywords in there, it's not like AI is going to magically make you relevant for keywords or for use cases that you don't even have anywhere in your listing. All right, so you have got to be able to create your listings in a way that makes the Amazon algorithm happy and that makes a customer happy, because it's later on uh, after that launch phase. It's customer interactions with your product, the ways that customers find your product, the way that they click, the way that they add to cart, the way that they actually purchase it, the reviews they leave about your product. This is what's going to sustain you, these things that I show. This helps you get to page one, you know. But then, if you don't convert, if Amazon buyers don't leave you good reviews, if they're returning their product a lot, if they click on your product and they don't like your listing, so they click off of it and buy another one. Your organic rank is not going to stick. You're not going to have success.

 

Bradley Sutton:

So, guys, I love doing this episode every year, not just because I get to come to cool places like the Maldives, like this, but it's because launch is my passion and I'm always going to be doing lots of tests. I only showed you about three or four different tests, but I've launched over 10 products in the last six months or so where I've been testing different things, and I'm going to continue to keep launching new products to make sure what's working, what's not working. Now, if anything huge happens, I might have to come back to the Maldives or something before episode 700, I guess that's a big sacrifice I'll have to make to have to come back here. But otherwise, consider this your go to launch strategy for the next year or so and then we'll come back for episode 700, to maybe another resort here in the Maldives, and then I'll try and let you know what's new that's going to work with launch. Well, guys, I hope you guys are able to use these strategies and I wish you the most of success using these Maldives Honeymoon Launch Strategies for your next Amazon product launch. We'll see you in the next episode.

 

Helium 10 Buzz 9/27/24: TikTok Search Ads | New Chinese Tariffs | Amazon, Walmart, and Target Deals

We’re back with another episode of the Weekly Buzz with Helium 10’s Sr 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.

TikTok Search Ads Campaign launch in U.S.
https://searchengineland.com/tiktok-search-ads-campaign-launch-us-446927

Tariffs Targeting Chinese E-commerce Brands
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/tariffs-targeting-chinese-e-commerce-could-dampen-demand

Google Search Tests Shopping E-Commerce Card
https://www.seroundtable.com/google-shopping-e-commerce-card-card-38105.html

Experience Amazon Accelerate 2024 on demand
https://sell.amazon.com/blog/announcements/amazon-accelerate-on-demand-content

Target Circle Week 2024
https://www.today.com/shop/target-circle-week-details-dates-deals-2024-rcna171858

Lastly, in our training tip of the week, Carrie walks us through how you can take an FNSKU and create a custom barcode labels to give to your factories.

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

• 00:51 - TikTok Search Ads
• 02:48 - New Chinese Tariffs
• 05:59 - Google Search Tests
• 07:09 - Accelerate on Demand
• 07:50  - Target Circle Week
• 09:39 - Walmart Lending
• 10:14 - Walmart Repricer Dash
• 11:14 - Helium 10 New Features
• 13:07 - Easy Barcodes

► 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:

TikTok shop ads launch in the US new potential tariffs targeting Chinese e-commerce sellers, and Amazon, Walmart and Target are battling it out for deals in October. All of this and more on this week's episode of the Weekly Buzz.

Bradley Sutton:

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

Carrie Miller:

Okay. So the first story is that TikTok search ads campaigns have launched in the US, and I'll go ahead and show the article here. It's basically allowing for keyword based search ads that target users directly in the search results. Now if you're a TikTok user, you know a lot of the ads actually come on your For you page when you're kind of scrolling. So it's kind of a more generic approach. But now sellers can actually target keywords when consumers are actually searching in TikTok for something specific. So this is potentially stepping up competition with Google Ads, as TikTok is becoming a go-to search engine, in addition to becoming a social media platform. So let's go ahead and take a look at this article. If we scroll down a little bit, it says previously ads on the TikTok search page were more generic, but now brands can tailor their ads to align with specific search behaviors. Now it goes on to further say why this matters. It says that TikTok has a growing role as a search engine for younger users. 57% of users use the app's search function, according to internal TikTok data, and this new feature lets you capture attention at critical moments of intent. TikTok's move could threaten Google's dominance, as younger users are increasingly using social media for search instead of traditional search engines. So, if you recall, last week Bradley actually did talk about this on the Weekly Buzz and he said that there's a report that says over 50% of Gen Zers are going to be shopping on TikTok for the holiday season. So that's very interesting and very good numbers if you really wanted to start targeting on TikTok. And let's talk about the actual numbers of these actual ads. TikTok's testing shows that combining search ads with in-feed ads boost conversion by 20%, with users who don't engage with an ad initially more likely to interact with after seeing a related ad in the search. So that's very interesting information. So definitely something to consider when you are going into Q4 and wanna really boost your sales this holiday season.

Carrie Miller:

Okay, so let's go ahead and get into the next article Now. The next article is interesting and it's titled Tariffs Targeting Chinese E-commerce Could Damp Demand. Okay, so this is definitely something that is gonna be very interesting for a lot of e-commerce sellers because, as I don't know if anyone remembers if you've been watching I actually mentioned that Amazon is launching a direct-to-consumer program for Chinese sellers to sell directly to consumers in the US through the Amazon platform, and I mentioned this might make some US sellers a bit upset, you know, because a lot of the small parcels they're not taxed the same, you don't have to deal with the same logistics charges and things like that. So you know this basically gives Chinese sellers a much higher margins because of the lack of tariffs. You know, no warehouse and distribution costs associated with the traditional kind of container imports. There's a lot of other things that kind of go in with these small parcels. I know, for example, me as a consumer, I did order something on TikTok that I thought was gonna be great quality and it was actual garbage. It actually was shipped directly from China through customs. So really kind of is an interesting you know thing that we should really be considering for consumer protection as well as well. As you know, for US sellers, when you're providing quality, then it's going to help boost you a little bit more because it's going to kind of close off this way of kind of things that are come low quality coming into the US without having to even pay those taxes or being searched.

Carrie Miller:

So in this article, if I scroll down here, it says the White House this month said it would soon tighten eligibility and increase information requirements for low value imports that qualify for duty free status in an effort to prevent businesses from evading duty payments. It goes on to say a little bit further down it says the proposal is expected to result in higher consumer prices for small shipments. So that actually could be a better thing for US sellers who are offering the quality. But then if we go down further, this is really where it gets interesting for the consumer. Let's scroll all the way down. It says. Over the last 10 years the number of shipments entering the US claiming the de minimis exemption has exploded from about 140 million to more than 1 billion a year, according to the CBP figures, and the US is on track to import nearly 1.5 billion parcels in the current fiscal year, 4 million per day, and that is actually going to end on September 30th.

Carrie Miller:

The overwhelming volume of parcel shipments has made it difficult for us customs and other agencies to enforce trade laws, health and safety requirements, intellectual property rights, consumer protection rules and to block illicit synthetic drugs such as fentanyl and clothing made from forced labor from entering into the country illegally. That's kind of an interesting thing to to take a look at, especially as a consumer. You know, like I said, I actually it was like a hair oil that I ordered from TikTok and the quality was just garbage and it smelled funky. So you know, this is a consumer protection issue. You think should you know that shouldn't be coming into the US, are coming into the US because there's just an overwhelming amount. So this is definitely something that you know hopefully will happen and you, you know we can continue as our. You know, other sellers who are providing quality products can kind of beat out these sellers that are not doing the high quality products.

Carrie Miller:

Okay, the next article that we have here is about Google. Google is doing search tests in the shopping e-commerce card. So if we take a look at this article, you can actually see a little bit of what they're kind of testing. So the article is really stating that you can actually see a little bit of what they're kind of testing. So the article is really stating that you know Google's testing. It's using its top card format for shopping and ecommerce related queries and information and this shows product results with pricing on the left, with popular stores on the right and then some review content in the form of content and videos on the right side. So they're kind of moving maybe towards more video content and I'll scroll down a little bit more in this article because this is what it usually looks like, and you can probably Google this right now and still see this. But we've got, you know, the actual, the product with a picture and the price, as well as the reviews, whereas I think they're kind of moving more towards the kind of video reviews, since a lot of people are into seeing that kind of stuff on social media, so they might be kind of testing this out to see how they can compete with social media, and I think that's a really smart move on the part of, you know, Google’s, you know, just for Google, just because they are competing with these other social media platforms that are becoming more like search engines.

Carrie Miller:

All right, let's go into the next article, and that is basically, if you missed out, on Amazon Accelerate. I know a lot of people had FOMO because they didn't make it to Amazon Accelerate. You can actually experience it on demand. They are actually making all of the different sessions and everything that was recorded is available for on demand and it's for free. So you can just register, you can just download, you can just download all that stuff and kind of watch it as you're doing other things and, you know, just to kind of keep yourself up to date on the latest and greatest announcements from Amazon. So go ahead and register for that if you wanted to see some of those sessions and take advantage of that great content.

Carrie Miller:

And then next is another interesting thing and that is that Target is just launched their circle week Target Circle Week and it's going to be for seven days in October, from October 6. Okay, so it's starting October 6. And this is basically, you know, a seasonal seven day sales event that is going to feature holiday essentials, seasonal favorites, all this, that kind of stuff. What's really interesting is that you know, because of the dates, you know, this is going to be competing with Amazon, which is the eighth and the ninth, and then also Walmart that is going to be starting up that that week as well. So it's going to be interesting because Walmart starting up a little bit after Amazon. But if you're selling on target could be kind of interesting Because you might not get the buy box if you are selling at a discounted rate on target the few days before the big Prime Day event happens.

Carrie Miller:

So that's kind of an interesting thing to consider how you're going to be balancing out the pricing. And then there's also Walmart, because everyone wants to make sure that we have, you know, price parity along, you know, on all of the platforms, and that could cause you to lose the buy box. So could maybe be something to consider if you want to tighten up your strategy with any discounts or make sure you have the same exact discount across the board, kind of even before the Prime Day deal event starts. That could be a strategy. So I'm curious to know if anyone knows a strategy to deal with this and what you maybe did last year. If you want to put that in the comments below, I would love to hear your thoughts on that, because I think that's going to be kind of a big issue, especially as more sellers are in on Target, on Walmart, on Amazon, on TikTok, on all the different platforms. So really need to strategize when it comes to these big deal days.

Carrie Miller:

Okay, and the next thing, I actually don't have an article to share, but Walmart actually has announced that they have some cash advances with discounted fees going into Q4. I think mostly to help prepare for the holiday rush and to help with working capital. Especially, you know, cash flow is kind of a really challenging thing for sellers. So Walmart is going to be making some capital available through Capital by Paraffin and Payoneer and so, if you're eligible, you can actually go into Seller Center and you can, you know, figure out how to kind of get access to that funding. I think it will actually kind of pop up in there if you are eligible for it, but if not, you can also message seller support and see if you're eligible for some of their funding. And then they also have a pricing insights dashboard and I think that this is going to be very helpful going into the holidays. It's basically going to help you regularly monitor your pricing throughout the holidays and that is, you know, just to make sure that you stay competitive, and it's going to help kind of give you an insight on the pricing insights dashboard. That gives you, you know, pricing metrics, metrics at the SKU level, to help you make good decisions If you need to kind of discount your products further or, you know, if you're in, you know, in good competition with other sellers. Um, the dashboard is actually going to be refreshed regularly so that you can act quickly to update an item pricing, either individually or in bulk, and the dashboard also gives you flexibility to add items to the repricer or make price updates in the dashboard without having to submit spec files. So they're making it easy and fast for you to kind of see what you need to do in terms of pricing and then make those changes as quickly as possible. So that's kind of the latest and greatest updated news for Walmart. Okay, so we have a new Helium 10 update, which is very exciting.

Carrie Miller:

If you are in France, Germany, Spain, Italy or the UK markets, we are releasing keyword sales data in Cerebro, magnet, listing Builder, listing Analyzer, keyword Tracker, insights Dashboard and Product Launchpad for all of those countries. So again, those European countries are France, Germany, Spain, Italy and the UK. So I'm going to show you what that actually looks like. So here is a picture of. This is actually the US market, but this is what it'll look like in any of those markets that I just mentioned. You're gonna be able to see the keyword sales in the dashboard. So in your insights dashboard, right when you log in, you'll also be able to see them in Cerebro. So this keyword sales data for, again, all those other markets in Europe the France, Germany, Spain, Italy, in the UK, you'll also be able to see it in Magnet, as you can see here. So we've got magnet right here. You can see the keyword sales right here and then listing. So this is listing analyzer and at the very bottom, where you see the keywords, you can now see the keyword sales there as well. At listing builder, now when you go to open competitor comparison, when you actually look at this, you can see the keyword sales here. So that's really helpful for you to kind of like basically decide which are the most important keywords based on the keyword sales when you do that little competitor listing comparison there. And then you can also see it in product launchpad. So when you have your product launchpad open, you can actually see the keyword sales for all those different keywords that you added into your product launchpad idea. There's definitely a lot of really good stuff in there If you are in those markets. Those are. Those are huge updates for us to give you that data, especially because it's going to help you to kind of make sure you're targeting the most important keywords that have, you know, the higher keyword sales, maybe lower search volumes. So definitely take a look at that if you're in those markets. Really, really helpful information.

Carrie Miller:

Next, I'm going to be showing you portals in Helium 10, I'm going to show you how you can take an FNSKU and create a custom barcode label to give to your factory in China or other you know countries, and I'm going to walk you through the flow and show you how to do this. So the first thing you want to do is you want to log into Helium 10. And then you're going to go to this tools button at the very top and then we're going to go down and we're going to click on portals and then, once you're in portals, you're going to be able to see a bunch of different things, but what we're going to show you today is this barcode labels, and this is going to be how we're going to be able to create these labels for our factories. So click on new barcode and what you want to have in here is you want to have either an FN SKU, an ASIN or UPC code. I have a FNSKU here.

Carrie Miller:

I'm just going to paste in there, and then the next thing you want to do is you can put the product URL if you already have it launched, or you can create a custom product URL so you can put the product name, you can upload an image, you can say the condition, you can put the ASIN and the SKU in. But I'm just going to go and take our URL from Amazon here and I'm just going to go ahead and do it that way because it makes it a lot faster and then it's going to pull up all the information here so you can see it has the picture of the actual product it has, and then you can fill in the SKU. If it doesn't show up with the SKU, you can fill in your SKU there. But I'm just going to go ahead and hit save and continue and then we're going to look at the size. So you can actually choose the size, how you want to show it. You want to show it in inches, centimeters, millimeters. You can choose the different sizes here, and then you can do either portrait or landscape, and then hit save and continue and then you're going to choose the template. So I'm just going to choose this generic black one and since I already have I actually, in portals, have uploaded my logo here.

Carrie Miller:

You can see that we have all that information in here already and you can actually provide more information right here if you wanted to. Whatever it is that you want to type in there, if you need to, and then what you can do is hit save and finish, and then, if you want to download this, you can just hit the download button and then they we always recommend that you, you know, test these out before you send them. So make sure you test it out with a smartphone or you know any apps that you can scan any of these just to make sure that it's it works properly. And double, you know, always test before your mass produce, and then you can just download it and you'll see that as you download it here and there, it is right there. So that is basically super easy. How you can just create those little barcode labels. We made it super easy for you to do so go ahead and check that out If you haven't ever done that before. It makes it super fast and easy.

Carrie Miller:

Thank you all for joining me this week on the Weekly Buzz for all the latest and greatest news stories, as well as the Helium 10 updates and the training. We look forward to seeing you again next week. I do believe Bradley will be back next week for the Weekly Buzz, so we'll see you next week to see what's buzzing. Bye, everyone.

#599 - Secret Amazon Strategies from China

Howard Thai, the legendary "Professor of Amazon," is back to share his game-changing insights straight from the playbooks of top Chinese Amazon sellers. Curious about the secret tactics that can revolutionize your Amazon product launch? He'll reveal how to optimize your listings, uncover top-performing keywords, and navigate the surge of Chinese sellers on TikTok Shop following recent policy shifts. Plus, get a glimpse into Howard's unique journey, his time in the US, his return to China, and his passion for the epic anime Naruto.

Our conversation doesn't stop there. We'll dissect the global selling opportunities on TikTok Shop, highlighting the stark differences in ease of access for Chinese sellers compared to others. Learn the proven strategies for success on the platform, including the importance of daily multiple video postings, leveraging affiliates, and smart ad usage. Discover the potential of live shopping and the groundbreaking impact of AI influencers in China, and how US sellers can adopt these innovative practices.

Lastly, we'll tackle the escalating challenge of ranking products on Amazon amidst soaring PPC costs and the growing emphasis on external traffic. Howard shares actionable insights on using external deal sites like DealNews and Woot to drive traffic and boost product rankings. Dive into practical advice on securing initial reviews and sales through varied promotional tactics, including social media and PPC. Plus, get an insider look at different deal strategies to maximize visibility and sales, and hear about exciting travel plans to China with Howard, promising new adventures and networking.

In episode 599 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Howard discuss:

• 00:00 - Strategies From Top Chinese Amazon Sellers
• 05:13 - Global Selling Opportunities on TikTok Shop
• 07:33 - Strategies for Amazon-Selling Success
• 10:24 - Strategic Launch Using Outside Traffic
• 11:03 - Ranking Products With Deal Sites
• 21:03 - Inventory Management in Sales Transactions
• 23:05 - Amazon Inventory Strategy and Temu Marketplace
• 31:30 - Mastermind Event in China

► 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're going to talk to a seller who used to be one of the top 100 sellers all time at Amazon and even has the nickname Professor of Amazon. He's going to give us some inside strategies from top Chinese sellers, what they're using for launching that you've probably never heard of before, like using what deals and more. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Do you want to see how your listing or maybe competitors listing rates as to best practices for listing optimization? Or maybe you want to compare a group of ASINs or Amazon products to see how they compare to each other? Maybe you want to see within seconds the top keywords for a single listing or a group of listings? You can do that and more with the Helium 10 tool listing analyzer. For more information, go to h10.me forward slash listing analyzer.

 

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's completely BS free, unscripted and unrehearsed, organic conversation about serious strategies or serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. We are going on the other side of the world, completely different time zone, a different day. I think it's like Saturday over there. It's Friday night here at Helium 10. The whole entire Helium 10 had the day off today. Like, sometimes they give us random days off like a recharge, so they're like you know what? Everybody in the whole company, you guys, get the day off, but I'm having Howard have to record again because there's technical difficulties. So you know what? I'm coming in on my holiday, on my, my vacation day, at uh, what time is it? 8 pm on a Friday night and I'm like I'm here for you, Howard, because I need the world to know what you have to say. The professor of Amazon. Guys, Howard, welcome back to the show.

 

Howard:

Thank you very much Bradley. Nice to be back on.

 

Bradley Sutton:

You notice my shirt here?

 

Howard:

Oh wow, yep, Naruto. Well, I love Naruto.

 

Bradley Sutton:

You and I are about the same age, like literally months apart, and so I think we both grew up with some similar things. So you were probably in your UCSD really close to me days when you were into Naruto here, and I believe you went even to Japan and even got more into it, right?

 

Howard:

Yeah, I'm really into Naruto and I'm side by side with Japan when they released the translated version of it.

 

Bradley Sutton:

You're back in China. How long have you been back in China?

 

Howard:

I left the US on June 10th so I came back here around June. I was traveling around with uh in Beijing for the family, and then uh Xi'an for my mom, my wife's side. Then uh, I went to um, I went back to around like July 4th or 3rd or something like that and I'm here to stay.

 

Bradley Sutton:

So I've been back, been back like for good, back like like for good or like for a year, or what would you talk?

 

Howard:

well before before the whole covid stuff. I've been in China since 2009, so I'm like one of the first Chinese Amazon seller here, like I mean basically a China-owned company that is selling on Amazon.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Ah, that's right, I forgot about that. You were always based out there after you for a long time, but then you came back here because, yeah, China was not exactly a great place to be during COVID, so that's why you're out here, okay, okay. So yeah, in your honor. Anyways, you see I'm wearing my Chinese baseball team hat, even got the Chinese colors on the side here. So, yeah, there we go. All right, I'm right on theme with the Naruto and China hat. Now, first thing I want to ask you I've seen you talk a little bit more about it, um, lately is now that you've been back in China, maybe your eyes have been opened a little bit more uh, about the strength of Chinese sellers on TikTok shop. Because I think in the beginning, like TikTok shop was mainly like all right, us companies a little bit harder for foreign companies to get on. But now correct me if I'm wrong TikTok shop has kind of like opened up the floodgates where now, all of a sudden, there's a lot more Chinese sellers on there. Is that right?

 

Howard:

Okay so before, like TikTok shop was only for in China, right, US was only for sellers that are selling in Amazon over $2 million. Then after, like recently, like last month, like early, early last month, they opened a floodgate to everyone. But there is still requirements, so there are little requirements, they have to be a seller and so on. But uh, it was like it's like wide open kind of you could say.

 

Bradley Sutton:

And for like for you know,USs customers it's pretty strict, you know, not not too strict. Like team I've been trying to get on Tmula. That's just ridiculous. I got to take pictures of me holding up signs and the 17 different addresses have to match. It's crazy. But TikTok shop was not too too hard to get signed up for. I think I got denied the first time because an address didn't match but I got it hooked up pretty fast. But foreigners, you know, like if I'm in Estonia, if I'm in Argentina or wherever, it's impossible to sign up for TikTok shop unless I've got like a friend or a family member who's got a social security number who can tie to the account. But if you're Chinese they get to skip that requirement.

 

Howard:

Well, no, they get registered as a Chinese to get in.

 

Bradley Sutton:

That's what I mean. They don't need to have a friend or family who has a social security?

 

Howard:

So if you are a Chinese Hong Kong or Taiwan then you don't need that. Um, you know, you can just use your own nationality to get in and sell on TikTok shop US. And actually the good thing is about this. Oh, I'm not sure if it's good, but let's say, in China, I mean, it's always like, oh, everyone favors China, right, but the TikTok shop in China is global selling, meaning they open all the countries up US, UK, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam and also Thailand. Was it Thailand or Malaysia? I forgot, it was like all of the list of TikTok shop that you can actually sell on. So it's not just one and US is only for one right now, and I don't even think we can even open TikTok shop UK.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Yeah, yeah, I know UK was there before US, but I they're not. Really. It's not like Amazon, where your Amazon token is connected and then it's kind of like you just switch and then now you're on your UK token or something. You can't really do that on TikTok shop, that's. But you're saying Asia, you can, Okay. So now, now lot of uh sellers out there. Hey, that's not fair, why? Why is TikTok shop giving uh, giving advantage to Chinese sellers? Hey guys, it's a Chinese company, they can do whatever they. They can do whatever they want. Um, what are the majority of the Chinese TikTok shop sellers doing? Are they shipping from like Amazon inventory warehouses in US? Or are they doing the kind of like Temu-ish direct shipping, using those subsidies, uh, to customers who buy the product?

 

Howard:

So there was the old-fashioned TikTok. So right now mostly it's based in the US inventory for TikTok shop or fulfilled by TikTok mainly it's all fulfilled by TikTok. Or if you are a seller to open, probably just like a seller-fulfilled TikTok in the US, though You're not supposed to be. Yeah, mainly that's what it is.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Any like little mini hacks or or TikTok shops. You know, before we get onto our Amazon stuff, uh, that you can. You know that you've learned since you've been back there, like like, uh, I'm wearing my red hat today, but I could be wearing my white hat. No, I'm definitely not wearing a black hat. So no black hat strategies, but but what is a one you know quick? You know, I know we usually do 30 seconds, 60 seconds strategy at the end of the show. We'll do an Amazon one then. But what's a 30 60 second tip you can give us about TikTok shop?

 

Howard:

I'm not sure what level people out there are, but uh, from what I know is uh in the US they're pretty much getting started. So there's just, it's just like Amazon you got to spend money to get the velocity. You need to start making sure that you get a lot of uh affiliates and you're also making sure that you're posting, making sure that you're uh having more videos a day continuously and doing ads.

 

Bradley Sutton:

So that's multiple videos a day. Somebody should be posting uh to their like brand page and then, at the same time, don't just rely on that, but use, use affiliates, what? What about live Like? Like you know, should we be in the live streaming? Is that? Is that like a? I know it's obviously not on a level of of China, like I saw that one lady in China who has like this I don't know what, what you call it, but like a, like a conveyor belt, and then products are coming and she literally shows her product for two seconds, throws it away two seconds and she's making millions of dollars. I know America's not at that level yet for live shopping, but what should sellers be doing for live shopping? As far as TikTok shop goes?

 

Howard:

China still doesn't have the culture for the US side live shopping. So we still have in the US. We still have a chance to US. We still have like a chance to like really do a really good job on the live because the way they uh speak and so on. But right now it's getting more and more uh sophisticated in China they're doing using AI influencers, doing all the lives, so in 24/7 they could be doing live every single second. So that's something that we need to catch up on. And things like tools. All the tools you think about TikTok is made by China. Right, Douyin is from China, and then TikTok is a version of Douyin with a little less functionality, and all the tools out there that you can think of for TikTok is made by Chinese companies. So if you really want to learn more TikTok, you should probably learn from the Chinese first and see what you can get out of it.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Yeah, and then now, like I said mentioned before, Temu is also trying to recruit US sellers. I don't have much to say there, but I know Temu is actually last month was in some trouble. Chinese sellers were actually upset with Temu. They were storming the offices and stuff like that. So I'm not sure what the future is for Temu, but it's still a very strong marketplace. It's like number number two or three as far as app usage and stuff. So that's a that's one to to be on the lookout for too. But mainly we like to talk about Amazon here and uh, I didn't. I didn't get to see your last mastery call that you did in your Elite Sellers Society, but I saw the outline of it and it looked like it was all about how to use deals. So, first of all, what deals are you talking about? Is this like lightning deals, deals of the day, prime, exclusive discounts, all of the above? Or what was your major focus for this?

 

Howard:

topic. So the master call that we had regarding deals was mainly talking about outside traffic deals, because Amazon right now is. Why is it getting harder for it to do Amazon? It's because Amazon wants you to push external traffic. That's why it's harder. People are doing the old way. They're doing only the one that yo go to BBC and everyone's does BBC. Bbc costs are going up so you have to do outside external traffic and what the deal was talking about is using the high ranking, all the stick deals, deal news woods and those kind of deal sites to help you rank your products. Let me just talk about it. So those are deal sites. Probably most of you guys heard of it before. So these deal sites are where Anchors starts coming in right. Anchor is the first people that came in with the deal sites to rank products back in like the days uh. So what it is is that you put your product on the on the deal sites. You push it to. Either you push it to your uh uh Amazon or you push it to your website. So when, if you put it, put it on, if you push it on uh on Amazon, then you will be able to rank your product on Amazon with the sales velocities and so on, keywords as well, um, and you can even put uh. And then, if you put it on your website, you're able to make sure that your product is either, when people go onto the website is, either to buy it from your website or to Amazon directly, because there's a go to I won't buy on Amazon kind of like little tag or little uh, a little button so they can. Depending on if you are matured or not. If you're already matured, you're just going to go, uh, directly to Amazon. But if you're like already pretty well off and you're like kind of, um, not, you're not sure if you need to rank or not, they can turn on and off the button to go to Amazon. So based on if you need to..

 

Bradley Sutton:

Let me ask a quick question Is that going to the canonical URL or is it just going to the ASIN-based URL?

 

Howard:

It could be anything, any URL you want.

 

Bradley Sutton:

That's one thing I haven't tested, but whenever I tested it for years and years, it's not like, oh, I'm going to get to page one for keywords that are in my canonical URL. But you could always see if you ever did a deal site or some outside traffic or in Google just going to your base canonical URL, then if you had some good keywords in there, like coffin shelf or something, you would see a bump just on the velocity. Have you done any testing on that recently to see if, like, those words in your canonical still matter or it doesn't matter as much anymore?

 

Howard:

Canonical probably what matters, but we're talking about the URL in general, right? what you can put like some kind of special URL in there that would be able to uh to rank your product as well.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Well, yeah, I mean, once you start doing that, though, where were you? I mean? Yeah, I mean you could put a fake canonical URL, potentially, or even a two-step URL, but now you run the risk of getting on Amazon's bad side if you're doing that for the purpose of ranking, but then Amazon could never say anything about your regular canonical URL. Amazon is the one who provides that. You're all just curious to see if you still saw some residual bump. Okay, so then when you launch a new product, let's just say you don't are. Uh, let me give you a scenario. Let's just say that this is a new product for a new brand. Whether I'm a new seller, I'm a old seller, whatever, this is a new product for a new brand. So I don't have too much outside traffic. I don't have a huge email list that I can say go to this listing. What would your launch strategy be? Leveraging these deal sites and, if any, internal Amazon deals?

 

Howard:

So we could use we call it a strategic deals ranking style to get onto, to rank your Amazon product. First, we look at it, we have to make sure that we have at least 10 reviews and 10 uh, uh, 10 sales a day or something. So that goes from like doing like promotions, uh, social media, like those Amazon influencer coupons, uh, and also PPC. So as long as you get that 10 orders a day, we can actually put you into a special program. It's on Woot, right? So being able to first list..

 

Bradley Sutton:

W-O-O-T?

 

Howard:

Yeah, Woot is an Amazon-owned company, so they're able to be able to put your products on Woot. And Woot can do four things Like. One of the things was talking, was you talking about launching a product? The second thing is to be able to like uh, this, uh, uh, clear, clear on all the, all the discontinued items, uh. Third is, if you were like ranked top five you want to be, be, be aggressive and rank number one, or if you're stale, stagnant on like bottom of the page, or like on bottom of the BSR, 100 BSR or something, then you can do something to give yourself some momentum and kickstart the algorithm again and be back up and movable, you know, be able to be ranked again on those old listings. So if you qualify from the requirement that we just talked about, then we could be able to push you into a Woot kind of a special program. What it is is that Woot will be like buying from you, like a wholesaler, right? They're going to be buying your product and, based on your Amazon's average two weeks of sales, they will use that as an average and, with that said, they will then look at it and said, okay, we are able to do three best deals consecutively. So best deals is normally seven days, right? You could either pick seven days or 14 days. So if you want to rank your product on launch wise, we'll do a 14 days best deal, and so. But then in between each best deal, it has to be a seven day rest period. So all three of the all three of the best deals with 14 days could be um, the same price, right? I I mean the best deal price, right? Usually 15% off the normal price you're really selling on. So at that they're looking at oh, two weeks ago, how much sales have you gotten? And they're going to be holding your inventory most likely for 56 days of the for 56 days, meaning that 14 days, seven days, 14 days, seven days and 14 days. So there's three actually 14 day best deals. So then, within those times you are able to do, if you have option to do, deals like lightning deals, within that that seven days, you'll be able to do it with your own account. So they will take the buy box, they will be able to take the buy box from you. They'll take your.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Woot we're talking about?

 

Howard:

Yeah, what will take your buy box from you and it's just like moving your inventory to their account, right? So um.

 

Bradley Sutton:

So if they're using my FBA inventory, it's not like I have to send them inventory directly to some Woot warehouse or something.

 

Howard:

No, you just have to confirm and let them move those inventory over to their account and it'll just come off of your FBA inventory. From there it could be. So that's a lot of inventory, right? If you're looking at the average two weeks ago and then you have 56 days worth of inventory, that might be a lot. So they will then negotiate a price with you and if you're okay with it, there it is, they're going to start doing your best deals and then your best deals you will not get the buy box?

 

Bradley Sutton:

What do you mean by negotiate a price, what price the product is going to sell at, or what price we're kind of like selling to what?

 

Howard:

Selling to what? That's the wholesale price, right?

 

Bradley Sutton:

What do they? What do they usually like? Like, what's the range? Like, like percentage wise off of your retail price that they're they expect?

 

Howard:

So it matters a lot about velocity, how much sales you're getting and how much the price point of the product is. If the product is like a hundred dollars, then the percentage uh, like, uh, you're like it costs like uh, say a hundred dollars, right, your cost is a hundred dollars then they'll probably say, hey, I'll take like 70, I'll give you 70 of that. But if your product is a 10 item or 20 item, very cheap, they'll probably lower that to like uh, uh, making it like 40 percent, 30 percent, 40 or something like that. Uh, depending on I'm sorry the price of the deal the price of the deal, not not the cost of your product, but the price of the deal they'll lower it to down to 30 percent. So, depending on how much you remember you don't have to pay anything when they, there's no other extra cost.

 

Bradley Sutton:

So you're not paying Amazon fee and you're not paying the shipping and and stuff like that?

 

Howard:

Nothing. It's not even storage right, storage is on them, but the but the problem is PPC is on you. You still have to pay for your PPC, because if the product of brand is, it's still yours right.

 

Bradley Sutton:

But if they have the buy box? If Woot has the buy box? I'm still able to run the PPC, though it's still going to give me impressions and stuff?

 

Howard:

So a sponsored brand uh, you can always do, but the thing that you have to do special is you have to use Woot’s portal for PPC in order for you to see. But the great thing is that you can copy over, download your PPC uh report. You know how you like upload the PPC file. You can also download it and then upload it directly to Woot system using same format, the same campaign structure and so on. So it's pretty much like you're copying and pasting it.

 

Bradley Sutton:

So then let's say I had, you know, an ASIN or an FBA SKU, had 3000 units, and now I close a deal with Woot. I don't have to close my SKU, it just automatically transfers to Woot all 3,000, at least during the time that they're running the deal?

 

Howard:

They will agree on the amount of quantity to take from you based on your moving average of the two weeks, and you negotiate, say hey, I'm going maybe do more PPC at the time or I'll do other external traffic or something. Then they'll give you a quantity after the quantity and the cost that you're going to be selling to them. Then they will be using that to uh to push traffic and so on. So at the same time you can also use Woot’s website to post your product there. They will automatically be sending external traffic from their website to Woot uh for, to your deal on what uh on Amazon. So there's all that. So let me give you an example. Okay, you have a thousand pieces that you are selling to Woot at $10. And all of a sudden, everything sells out, except they only sold 900. You have 100 left. They will put that 100 back into stock in your inventory and that 100 that they put into stock will start from zero, zero storage date.

 

Bradley Sutton:

So even if it was there like three months or four months, it kind of resets after Woot gets their hands on it in other words?

 

Howard:

Yeah, so if you have like old inventory, that's great, because then it's like you can reset the storage date for those for the image getting held back and from the 900 pieces then they will. They will times uh, ten dollars that you're selling to them, so that that will be $9,000, right that they're going to give it to you after 20 days.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Some of these discounts. It's, it's, it's pretty heavy. It might be like what's your target when you help sellers do this Like, are you trying to pick a price where they can break even or where they only lose 20%? You know, let's say we don't use this strategy and we just do a traditional one like me, like just PPC launch, you know, like, of course I'm still losing money because I'll do like a 40 % off discount code or 50 % out, you know, just to get that momentum now with what you don't have to get that momentum because they're pushing so much. But, but what's your like, how do you help sellers budget for, for, hey, you're going to lose 20 % on this Woot deal but don't worry, it's going to make up for it, or are you actually trying to find a break-even point or what are you trying to do?

 

Howard:

Most of the time I would say that you would probably break even or lose money right, because you're trying to launch a product, you're going to do PPC, you're going to do hard, so that's not going to really make you money. You're just trying to get rid of inventory or doing velocity of sales for launching. And for the other side, where you're talking about like you're just trying to sell it and not do PPC, then I've seen the cases that you're actually making money because it's like an outlet deal, turbocharged. You have three of them and in between those seven days you can add extra lightning deals in there to even spike up the algorithm even more.

 

Bradley Sutton:

So Woot’s deals last seven days or?

 

Howard:

Woot's best deal lasts 14 days each time, right? So it has three of them.

 

Bradley Sutton:

And then you have to have a break for seven days?

 

Howard:

Within that seven day break, you can have lightning deals too, your own, or Woot's? That means that there's two lightning deals you can put in there in between. Huh, if you qualify for the deals at the time, you know.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Now you mentioned some other deal sites. So, like this lounge, like it just works by itself, all right, you go Amazon Woot, Amazon Woot, back and forth. Uh, but then like, in what situation would I use another website, like Slick deals or some of these others that you mentioned?

 

Howard:

Um, Slick deals is great, uh. If you even go to uh Slick deals and search your competitor, or search that, your keyword, you'll see a lot of your competitors are on there already that are selling you're talking about like tea or coffee, even like supplements are all in there. Like on on like uh Slick deals. Even Woot uses Woot, which is an Amazon company? Amazon also goes to Slick deals to advertise their products on there. The reason why is like the deal of the day or best top deal right now. They also use that to bring in traffic. That's where the traffic is coming from, right. Yes, they put you on a better position on their deal page as well as they bring external traffic into Amazon through like deal sites such as Slick Deals, deal news and Woot and Woot and themselves and other deal sites. Aggregator deals, aggregating sites.

 

Bradley Sutton:

What else is working for you on the Amazon side, be it advertising, if we're still talking about launch or you have more to talk about deals, what other nuggets can you give us today?

 

Howard:

Why we have this Temu thing right here. Right, Temu themselves. You can make money and you can also, if you want to really clear out inventory, which everyone else out here that does Amazon or does internet selling, e-commerce or something, has a problem. This is called overstock or like dead, discontinued items. You're using Temu to push out your dead, discontinued items. So, look, if you, if you just post it up there, it's not going to sell, most likely it's going to just be whatever. Right, but you have to work out a special agreement with with Temu. Hey, Temu, I want you to help push this product. I'm going to be at this price, a low price. So please, let's work out a deal, send traffic to this page and they will send traffic to this page, and we've seen 20,000 orders a day on that product, just almost like a top deal or deal of the day, which it's not as on Amazon, which is not as good as before. But now this is like really doing a really good job on clearing out your inventory. We're doing this with a lot of clients right now. The thing is Temu, yes, they're getting very a lot of criticism back in the day or last couple months ago. Uh, these are mainly factories. These are many factories that does not know how to sell. They're giving cheap products. So there's two ways. There's two problems that are that Temu had with those uh sellers. Those are the first generation sellers we call it uh first generation. And then those are the ones that are factory. They're giving Temu bad inventory and they're also very slow at giving shipping or something. So those are the two where they charge the supplier or the factory cost on that. That's why people are complaining.

 

Howard:

Second generation people which are based in the US that are selling and using their inventory in the US warehouses here now. So those are not having that kind of problem because they are like Temu has all most uh are are getting all the Chinese Amazon sellers into Temu right now to help themselves. So they getting ready for all the inventories in the US to sell on their website. So, yes, Amazon is trying to do the old-style Temu where they ship from China, but right now Temu is in US and recruiting all the Chinese sellers to put their products into Temu at a lower cost than on Amazon, because Amazon they and Temu they have to be 15 percent less than Amazon. That's one of the deals. So that's how they're rushing in and trying to get all the all the people to come in to uh sell on Temu, especially right now.

 

Bradley Sutton:

It's all all Chinese sellers yeah, like I said, I've been trying to get on there. Um, I know they're pushing, you know they approach me and, um, even me who they're trying you know, they know who I am and stuff and and they wanted to to help me get some accounts up so I can do some content on it and even despite that, so, so they already know I'm just like this is. So you know you would think that this might be a little bit better service. Uh, I still can't get approved. So so you just imagine if, if you know like you're trying to go to them, like it might be even harder. Um, all right, now you know a lot of your, your advanced strategies. You give out your special masterminds and you know, every year you try and do it, it seems like a little bit better. You know, like I remember, uh, first year I think you did it in Vegas you rented a mansion it was funny it was the exact mansion that we were about to rent a different year for for a Helium 10 party I saw it in the same place, probably that you did. And then the next year you like rented this huge castle in France. And then the next year, like, okay, we're gonna go ahead and rent an island in Thailand, and so this year, I believe you're taking the show to China. So tell us a little bit about what you have planned and where people can go to get more information.

 

Howard:

Uh you find the information on our website Uh, it's elitesellersociety.com/ess2024. It's two zero two four. Um, we're actually doing it in Ritz Carlton, Sun Zhen, Fu Tian Uh. So it's going to be really really cool. Uh, we're we're trying to get you into one of those. Uh, this is our third time, I believe, in Sun Zhen and we had it where we were thinking. Right now we're trying to plan where we can bring our attendees to some Chinese big Chinese seller's office and show them around as well as taking them out, as well as this two-day main event. Of course, it's on the 22nd and 23rd of October, so that's gonna be really good. We have like Temu there. We have TikTok there. We have uh, uh, other big, uh big people. I'm right now we're talking to Alibaba and and and Seller sprite and stuff. They're they're coming and stuff like that. So there's like so many like really cool people that that or not, people that you should network with there. So that's like uh, I believe we're getting the co-founder of uh Temu. That's gonna be there. So what I would say is there's a lot of opportunity. Uh, in China, everyone is doing the 996 or doing a lot of. It was really learning a lot. Okay, so they're like, doing like they're already at TikTok level. They're mastering that. They're going into, like Facebook, Google ads, they're going to the Shopify side.

 

Howard:

So, uh, as, as a seller e-commerce it's not just only Amazon you need to expand yourself to social commerce. We're talking about social commerce. It's in TikTok and YouTube, YouTube has their own and also like Shopify, because you need to have Shopify, because people will bounce to your website to try to check you out and also multi-channel marketplaces such as Walmart and Amazon, and, uh, Ebay and other Etsy or or whatever it is. There's a lot of other channels that you should put in there yourself, as well as other countries, right, they, each country has their own, so you can expand. That way. You need to start looking into different channels, because it's getting even Amazon scared of TikToker. You see there were Temu, right? Yeah, they're trying to like, do their, do whatever they're doing, trying to catch up, because they're eating a big chunk of their pie and Temu is supposedly number ranked number two now as second marketplace.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Howard, I hope to see you. Maybe in China. I should be going to China sometime this year, I'm positive. Maybe I might be in Shanghai, but I have to take a trip down to Zhenzhen and we can go to Macau again or some other place. But it was great talking to you again and I hope to see you either here stateside or in China real soon.

 

Howard:

You do.

#598 - Amazon Product Marketing & Differentiation

Can your brand truly stand out in the crowded Amazon or e-commerce marketplace? This episode features Kevin King, a master of product differentiation, marketing, and branding, who shares game-changing strategies to elevate your business beyond the basics. Kevin walks us through the creation of his innovative Basecamp Apple Watch charging dock, illustrating how identifying market gaps and blending functionality with aesthetic appeal can help you craft a premium product that demands attention.

We then uncover the critical role of visual storytelling and emotional appeal in successful product marketing. Kevin shares compelling real-life examples, including a groundbreaking product launch during Christmas 2015 and the branding triumph of Liquid Death. We dive into the challenges and rewards of rebranding, drawing lessons from Kevin’s experience with his dog product line transformation. The conversation underscores the importance of innovative packaging and impactful imagery in driving sales and maintaining a brand's identity.

Finally, we explore unconventional marketing strategies that can turn an ordinary product into a thriving brand. Kevin recounts the phenomenal success of a hand sanitizer brand during the 2020 pandemic, revealing how creative tactics like catchy jingles and engaging public interactions led to remarkable sales figures. Whether you are an aspiring Amazon seller or a seasoned seller, this episode is packed with valuable insights and strategies to help you achieve a standout presence in a saturated market.

In episode 598 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Carrie and Kevin discuss:

• 00:00 - Product Differentiation Secrets With Kevin King
• 04:36 - Multi-Functional Charging Dock Design
• 06:57 - Product Development From Scratch
• 10:16 - Illustrating a Product's Transformation With Cartoons
• 10:54 - Product Innovation and Differentiation Strategies
• 14:33 - Brand Identity Success Through Innovation
• 15:48 - Premium Bully Sticks Differentiation Strategy
• 16:50 - Researching and Deciding on Bully Sticks
• 21:35 - Listing Strategy for Niche Keywords
• 27:09 - Differentiating Products for Marketplace Success
• 27:36 - Pet Product Influencer Partnership
• 31:24 - Building a Brand With Differentiation
• 35:19 - Hand Sanitizer Market Frustration and Innovation
• 41:52 - Unconventional Marketing Strategies for Brand Success
• 42:45 - Successful Million Dollar Marketing  Strategy

Transcript

Carrie Miller:

In today's episode, Kevin King is going to be sharing his secrets on how to differentiate your products so that you stand out from the competition.

 

Bradley Sutton:

How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Are you a six, seven or eight figure seller and want to network in a private mastermind group with other experienced sellers? Or maybe you want to take advantage of monthly advanced training sessions with Kevin King, an expert guest? Do you want to come to our quarterly in-person all-day trainings at Helium 10 headquarters? Or do you want the widest access to the Helium 10 set of tools? For all of these things, the Elite program might be for you. For more information on Helium 10 Elite, go to h10.me/elite. Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Serious Seller’s podcast by Helium 10. I am 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.

 

Kevin King:

You know, a lot of times people don't in the space, don't like to share their products. They're afraid people are going to copy them. I'm afraid like, oh, if I share this, this cool thing I found, I'm going to have a hundred different copiers on it. And that does happen. You know, Bradley’s had that with the coffin shelf, you know, here at series, and now there's I don't know how many coffin shelves that are A lot, a lot. Yeah, so it does happen. But I'm going to show you some ways to make that almost impossible today. I mean not to say that someone can't mimic you, because sometimes when people copy, that's a nice way of flattery. But there's a lot of things that you can do to differentiate your product and it's becoming super important. You know the days of when I first started. I know you've been doing this for a while 2015, 2016. You just go to Alibaba. You'd find a product look at Helium 10, see where the gaps are and just stick a different name on there and maybe create a logo, put it on there and put that up and sell it. Those days are long gone. I mean, can that still happen? Occasionally, someone can have success doing that, but it's extremely, extremely difficult. And branding true branding and true product differentiation is where it's at. And some people think, well, I'll just add a warranty or I'll add an eBook to my product or I'll bundle it with something else and that'll make it different enough. And that's usually not enough. And in today's world, you got to change your approach and that's what I'm going to show you today with real-life, real-world examples of my actual products. Some of these I'm not selling anymore for different reasons. Pricing got priced out of the market with raw supplies or something like that. But I'm going to show you exactly what I do and to try to give you some insights and some perspective on how you can approach this differently for what you're doing.

 

Carrie Miller:

Very nice, I'm excited.

 

Kevin King:

When it comes to business, there's really only two things that matter, and when you cut it to the core, that's innovation and marketing. I mean, yeah, there's all the details of finance and money and all this kind of stuff, but really, if you look at any business look at Apple, you look at Microsoft, you look at Tesla, you look at any of these. It's innovation and marketing. Those are the two fundamental things that you should be focusing on first. So, I'm going to start off with innovation. So the first thing I'm talking about is innovation. This is a product on screen called Basecamp. This is an Apple watch charging dock. It also charges your iPhone, charges your iPad. It has a night light on it. This is a really, really cool product that came out in 2015. It was launched in 2015.

 

Kevin King:

So almost nine years ago, right when the first Apple Watch came out, and where this product, how this originated. This is a product that I sold and I actually created this product from scratch. This was my actual product and I created it from scratch right when the first Apple Watch came out. And what happened is I went on Amazon to try to find some ideas for products and I saw that Apple Watch charging docks were trending at the time and most all of them were like these cheap bamboo kind of wooden docks for 15 to 20 bucks, all coming off of Alibaba, with just different names on them. Each one looks exactly the same, just had a different name, and I was like, if I'm going to spend 500 bucks for a watch or whatever the watch costs back then. I don't want some cheap, cheap stand to put it on, I want something that looks cool. So I developed this that I would want and I was like I don't want something where there's cables hanging across my desk, cables hanging across my nightstand, so I want to hide all the cables and I want to be able to charge like three things at once. And so that's what I developed, and so this particular product you can see here has a little light on it.

 

Kevin King:

I later added a Bluetooth speaker to it in a version two. It put the watch up on top, the phone would sit on the side and it had a. The charging was buried inside all the cables. Um, the back actually had two additional USB ports so that you could actually charge an iPad or put something else on the back of it. It had. The cables were all hidden underneath, so you'd wrap the cable around underneath so it's not like just all messing up your, your desktop or your, your nightstand or whatever the night light there you can see it. You can hit that button a few times and adjust it up in different levels. I created a really nice box for it and I had all the different adapters. I was prepared to sell this in the US market, and so I created one charging dock and then had them make the different adapters that go in the end, depending on if it's for the UK or for Europe, or for the US or for Australia the bigger markets. I later added a Bluetooth speaker to it. I changed that nightlight to not just a nightlight but actually a Bluetooth speaker so that you could this is the days before there was beats or any of that kind of stuff so it actually was a cool, cool thing to be able to have your phone sitting there charging and have a little speaker that would play your sound music or your wake-up call or whatever. You can see there are the little nightlights turned on. As an example, these are actually some of my listing photos that you're seeing on this. You can see that it would fit all kinds of different watch bands. I created a really nice box for the outside of it to differentiate it so that when you got it felt like you're paying 80 bucks for this thing.

 

Kevin King:

This was a little video that I had made. I found the way I got this made is I came up with the idea. I found a factory on Global Sources Comm. So I didn't even use Alibaba. I use a company called global sources comm, which is another alternate sourcing place. It's not as big as Alibaba, but you can find some better factories sometimes on there. So if you haven haven't checked that out, check it out. And I found a factory in Shenzhen, China, that would do this and I ended up paying them a thousand dollars for the design and so they had their internal guys do all the design and then the molding and everything. It was expensive. It cost me about 30 grand to do all the molding because it's electrical parts and USB and there's a chip in there. So this is not for everybody, but I spent about 30 grand on that.

 

Kevin King:

We've created all kinds of prototypes and they would send me these files, these 3D rendered files and these like SFP files, I think they're called. And then I took that actual file. So before this was ever manufactured, didn't even exist, there wasn't even a prototype yet. I sent it to a guy in Eastern Europe and he made this rendering from me from those files and this is a video. He made this entire video, this. The product did not exist so I could see it exactly as it was gonna be. He made these 360 degrees, basically before there was AI. AI video of the actual product. You can see this one only has one charging dock on a USB on the back.

 

Kevin King:

I had a second one, but I did this and then I sent this out and did some testing, like what do you guys think of this? And I was able to get the people at one of these big Apple insider blog posts. They're like, when this comes out, let us know, we'll publicize it. So right there I was, like they thought it was cool. So, I had my launch ready to go. Like I said this didn't come from Alibaba, this didn't come from the Iwo market or the Canton fair.

 

Kevin King:

The idea for this, this came from my head, and so I created this from scratch from my head. I've done that for a dog bowl and for some other products as well, and so I also. At the same time, back in 2015, I launched five different brands at once. Some of them were the traditional find something on Alibaba, change it up a little bit, change the packaging, put your logo on it and then send it out. But this one I actually designed from scratch. I think that's where you need to start thinking more and more about is designing things from scratch, and it's not always about a better mousetrap, it's about what the people want.

 

Kevin King:

With today's technology and with the AI, you can do so much that I couldn't do nine years ago when this was launched. That you can do now with iterations and these renderings, that you could have 20 different types of this and do all kinds of testing on PickFu. You can do so much more now with this. So this was the renderings that they would send me. So I would open this up, these EASM files, and I could play around with it on my computer and spin it and everything and say, oh, let's modify this or let's change this, or I don't like where this is positioned, put the logo over here. So this before we even made a prototype.

 

Kevin King:

And then what I did is I did 3D printing. So I had there's a guy in Austin where I live that had like 30 different 3D printers in his garage, literally, and so he had all kinds of different sizes and machines. I just took it. They followed him and he made this. This is a 3d printed uh sample. And then I took this to the Apple store in Austin and I said can, can you open up the drawer of all the watches. Uh, I want to make sure every watch, every band, fits on here and doesn't touch the light, and we'll make sure the cable fits through the, the fits through the, the channel on the back and everything. So, I had a total like piece of crap, basically, but 3d printed, but it's actually at least something that's I can hold and touch and feel, kind of get an idea of how it's going to be. And then we made modifications. So after I tested it with this, then I went through and I made modifications oh, we need to make the cable doesn't quite fit, it's not quite snug enough or it's crimping in the corner. So we went back and I, I, we made some modifications to it and then this was a prototype. So then they do what's a machine prototype? Um, there's a specific name for it, but it's a machine Like it's. They make like 20 of them before they make the mass run, and then I could actually test it and so I took it and that's what we created.

 

Kevin King:

This is one of the product photos for the actual that I used on Amazon that I had taken. This is one in my guest room and so we just put it on a nightstand and just showed it. They're actually charging three different devices and how it works. It works like magic. And for the listing also, I actually showed. You know, I create cartoons. I found someone on Upwork.com that would do this for 50 bucks and I had them actually said I want a before and after. I could shoot this with photography and it would be expensive. So I just had them make a cartoon and say, look, show the before. Because every product you need to be trying to solve pain points. I mean there's three or four different things you want to focus on when you're developing a product. One of those is solving someone's pain point. So you want to show them what it's like before your product and what it's like after your product. So that's what I did here. Instead of using photos, I used these cartoons.

 

Kevin King:

So I show on the left how you got all these cables everywhere and stuff all over the place taking up your whole nightstand just a mess. You're having trouble sleeping over there, the person you know. There’re all kinds of little hints all throughout this thing. You got a light that's flashing on it instead of a night light. That's all bright, keeping you up. And then then you got the one on the right. That's like you having a peaceful sleep, everything's organized, everything's nice, and so these are things that you want to think about when you're actually creating your images is show the before and the after. You can do it in photos, you can do it in, or you can do it in cartoons and like this one and this, it worked really, really well. You're going to see another example of this in a minute. So this is the way you can do an example of how you can do innovation.

 

Kevin King:

This product on 2015, Christmas of 2015, I was selling about $30,000, $40,000 a day of it at $89. And then what happened is the reason. I and I did a second version, I did a version two with feedback and put the Bluetooth speaker in, did some other changes, and then in March or April of the next year this is before there was Gatita, before there's any or Helium 10 that had the refund ability, and someone posted on a Facebook group, on the FBA High Rollers Facebook group on Helium 10, saying, oh, did you know that Amazon will refund you for damages and lost items? And so, I was like, oh, that's cool, they lost some of these things when I shipped them in. So, I filed a claim. And when I filed that claim for like 10 missing units, amazon suspended the listing and said, oh, we're going to do what's called a bend check. And they went and they actually said we're going to stop all sales. And we got to do a total inventory across all of our warehouses and I was like no, no, no, don't do that, don't do that, I don't care about the 10 units, just forget it, forget the claim. You're killing, you're crushing me on my momentum. Well, I was down about 10 days while they did this quote unquote Ben check worst decision I ever made and that basically killed the momentum of the product. But I was able to bring it back up, but never back to that level, because there's all kinds of other competition coming in. Um, and I sold this on uh, uh I forget the name of the website. Now it's kind of like a sharper image uh, website for dudes. I sold this in the best buy. I sold it a lot of places, but then the market started changing and I was able to ride this for a couple of years and it was good. So that's a way that you can think about doing innovation. That's an example of one that I did.

 

Kevin King:

Now let's talk about something on the marketing side. On the marketing side, you can differentiate with your packaging. A lot of people do that, you know. You could have just a generic bottle that you see on the right or a really nice bottle on the left and put your differentiating bullet points in your image how they're showing one's made from bamboo and no plastic or biodegrade super-fast. The other one's going to take hundreds of years, and so on. These are great ways you can do it in your, in your image, in your image stack, to actually show the difference. Because it remembers, on Amazon, people, people buy, buy photos. They don't buy products. My buddy, Perry Belcher, is actually the one that actually said that. But they can't touch the product, they can't hold it in their hands, so they're buying based on the photos. So you got to remember that so many people skimp on their photos or they don't spend enough time creating the right photos to create the right emotions. People buy on emotion and they buy on photos, and so by differentiating like this, you can do a lot of cool stuff in your infographics and your stack.

 

Kevin King:

Look at another one. I mean this is someone selling a commodity Liquid Death is water, it's just water. But look what they did with the branding and the way they actually packaged it. They put it into a can instead of a bottle. They had this liquid death name. All the graphics it's just most of the cans are actually oversized. Liquid Death is a great case study if you want to go and look at how someone actually has developed a brand on something that everybody else is selling and actually stand out. Now it's over a billion-dollar company and there's crushing. It's a really, really good case study. At some point I'll go into deep detail on this, but I want to show you one of my products where I did this. I had a brand that was originally called Tailwaggles and I made a mistake on this brand. I filed for trademarks to get brand registry and all that kind of stuff and about three months into the trademark process I get a note from the trademark office saying oh sorry, your name, Tailwaggles, is too close to something else. This is three months after filing and I'd already done the homework, but they found something in the system so I had to change it to Wag Haus. So I had to. Actually, I was already in production on some dog bowls and I actually had to call the factory, said throw away all those old molds and those imprints. We got to change the logo and logo and to change the whole name mid-production. It cost me a lot of money to Wag Haus, but one of the products that I sold under this this is the Wag Haus logo. Here it wore bully sticks.

 

Kevin King:

If you're not familiar with what bully sticks are, they're still popular today. It's a dog treat. It's made out of the penis of a cow, so they use every part of a cow to maximize the value when they when they butcher it for meat and they take the penis and they actually make bully sticks for dogs. It's a very popular dog treat. So, there's six inch versions, there's 12 inch versions. Those are two typical sizes, and it in 2016, 2017. I was doing some research of what's selling on Amazon. I saw that these things are just crushing it. I already had a dog bowl out, so I was looking for another type of product to accentuate my slow feed dog. Well, and bully sticks came up and back then there’s Helium 10 didn't have what was just getting going, so they didn't have Magnets and they didn't have Cerebro and all that stuff. So, I had to use this old program called amazing product validator. And so, I punched in bully sticks and look there, I was like boom, big green result thing saying that's a really good keyword, excellent BSR. You know, look at that search 359,000 search volume. I was like, all right, I'm going to do bully sticks.

 

Kevin King:

So I started researching bully sticks and I looked at these. This is another tool back then where it was popular, called merchant words, and these are results from Merchant Words. They showed these search volumes actually are probably not right but it's the best we had back then. We didn't have much more accurate stuff like Helium 10. So it showed 7 million. I was like, all right, all the different keywords are based off of that free range and those are beef bully sticks and bully sticks for dogs and all had some decent search volumes. So I like, all right, I'm going to go into bully sticks as my next product on this brand. So I pulled up and did a search and I see that, um, there's all these different brands that are selling bully sticks and a lot of them, this are selling for around 20 to 30 bucks and it's a pretty much a package like a plastic bag full of 20 30 bully sticks, all for around 30 bucks, so somewhere around a dollar and a half a stick is basically the cost to the consumer for these. And I was like, okay, that looks good. So I started calling some factories and I was like I need to differentiate. I don't want to be just another guy selling 30 bully sticks for 30 bucks. What can you do? What can you make special?

 

Kevin King:

And I started reading all the reviews on all the products and the reviews were coming back with like, oh, these bully sticks stink because you can just imagine it's the part of the cow that you know that area stinks sometimes and so people the it. My house has an odor to it. After my dog chews it or some liquid drips out onto my couch, my dog jumps up on the couch. It's just. And then people were worried about where are these bully sticks from. Is it US cows or is it some? There's a big scare of like Chinese beef back there. Are they Chinese cows? Are they from Brazil? Where are they from? And so, I was like I need to differentiate this product and I don't want to just put it in a plastic bag either. I want to put it in something really cool, and so the way I differentiated the product is I found this through tracking down. I wanted to make sure it was US made US beef, not imported, and I wanted to set it apart. And so, I found this guy who was a classically trained French chef, like worked in Michelin star restaurants and he was up in the New England area and I got in touch with him and said you make bully sticks. He's like oh yeah, I don't, but I don't do them on machines, I hand carve them, we smoke them in a certain way. We have a 15-step organic process that we do. I'm like this sounds perfect. This is like I can differentiate this from all these little cheap bully sticks.

 

Kevin King:

I was like, well, they cost. He said you're not going to like this part, they're very expensive. So, I ended up having to sell three bully sticks, three 12-inch ones for $54 and 95 cents, so 55 bucks for three bully sticks. Now remember everybody else on Amazon selling 30 for 30 bucks roughly. So, I'm like way crazy overpriced. I was like I don't know if this is going to work. You know everybody, everybody always says on Amazon it's all about the price, all about the value. And I'm like I don't know if this is going to work. But I'm like you know what? I think there's people on Amazon that don't care about the price. If you know the avatar of your customer, you know that there's a lot of pet owners that a pet is just a farm animal. You know they keep the dog out in the backyard and it's just a farm animal. But for other people a pet is part of their family, it's their best friend, it's their compadre. I just saw a story my dad just forwarded me a couple days ago about how people take care of their pet's health better than they take care of their own health. And it's true and I was like I can market to that. There's people that have dogs that are willing to spend really good money for their dogs to give them the best. So this is classically trained French chef. That's a good story. It's organic. I'm solving all the problems of the juice because the way he cooks these and he does the smoking and stuff. They don't have all that extra liquid in them, they don't stink. They're organic. It's from the US, I can solve all the review pain points, and this is before all the AI tools existed to analyze reviews.

 

Kevin King:

I was having to read reviews, so I was looking at how can I package these different, and so these were some of the packaging ideas I came with. But what I ended up doing is putting them in a cigar box. So I had a custom cigar box. I found a company in Brooklyn, New York, that's close to this guy, so I didn't have to pay shipping across the US or across the world. They'd make these boxes for me. I'd put a sticker on the outside with, like a cool textured label on the outside of it, and then we put them in the cigar boxes. So this is the six inch version. So there's five, six inches and those sold for 40, uh, 44, 95, I think it was. And the 12-inch version was only three sticks and sold for 54, 95. But I packaged it. So when you got it, you felt confirmed. You're like, if you just spent 44 bucks for five of these bully sticks, you're like, did I just get ripped off? But when it comes in the, in the, in the Amazon box, and you open it up, you're like, oh, this is a cool box. It's got a cool texture to it. It's all about the sensation when you feel the box. There's like a little edge on it, like a texture. The label had like a texture on it, so like, oh, this is kind of nice. So it helps justify in the mind that I'm getting value here. These are premium.

 

Kevin King:

I created the listing. This is actually the bullet points and the title for the listing. All the keywords are in there and what I focused on is I couldn't compete on the word bully sticks, because the word bully sticks, as you saw earlier, was super popular and almost everything on that page is cheap, and so I could do a launch. Back then you could do all these coupons and all these giveaways and rank to the top within a day or two. It's crazy stuff you could do back in the day and I would get there. But then as soon as I stopped doing these promotions, I would fall off to page two, page three. But on long tail keywords like bully sticks made in USA or bully sticks no odor or premium bully sticks, those I could stay on page one for and there was enough keyword depth on all those where I could stay ranked for those and it worked because there's enough niche, enough variation in the keywords where it actually worked.

 

Kevin King:

And so, then I created pictures. I went to a dog place, a dog kennel, where my dog would stay, sometimes like hey, can you get permission from some of the owners, I want to come in here and do a photo shoot with dogs? So we did a little cute little dog with a chef hat on, did another dog holding it. So actual, real pictures, not my iPhone, because a lot of other bully stick people were taking their iPhone, just taking a picture of a dog sitting on the ground or something. Just horrible pictures. So I create all these kind of cute pictures. Remember, selling is about emotion and so this creates emotion of oh look, how cute he is. And then I did a whole series of image stacks to show the difference. Because if you see something on Amazon for 50 bucks, you're like and it's three sticks, and you're like this guy's out of his freaking mind, $50, $55 for three sticks. I can just go buy 30 for 30. So I had to show the difference. Remember what I said people buy photos on Amazon, they don't buy products. And so, I showed them in the box to show that these are big. You know these aren't little skinny little things, they're like big honking sticks. I listed all the reasons people wouldn't buy, all the objections basically, and all the things that were important in all my research. You know these are kosher. You know you don't think about that, for a dog, I mean, but some people. That's important to them. So everything that was important I put on here. These are kosher sticks.

 

Kevin King:

I showed the comparison look, ours are full. The other guys they stretch theirs. That's how they can sell 30 for 30 bucks because they're stretched and they're hollow. I showed look, ours are wide, the other guys are skinny. I showed look, ours has no odor, it's glossy and smooth, but the other ones stink. I showed look, ours are with a knife and there's something sitting on the table there. They're hand cut. The other ones are on some nasty ass machine that's never cleaned. So I showed all the reasons why you don't want these cheap ones and why you want mine. And then I showed a comparison of ours versus others just to keep.

 

Kevin King:

I kept driving at home Like you're going through this image stack. You're like, all right, all right, all right, I get it, I get it. I showed them on a scale, like look, this is what they weigh. Don't just trust my, trust me. I mean, yeah, you could Photoshop this, but don't. I showed them. It validates it. So I showed everything. At the top here's some dogs driving through like a fast-food place and they're just getting some cheap, cheap, you know happy meal type of cheap hamburgers or something. And then I show in the bottom if you want Wag Haus sticks, you'd like go into a nice steakhouse where there's a maître d' with a bow tie on a serving these on a platter and just connotates that image and creates that emotion, creates that feel and helps justify why you should give these a try. And then I did another cartoon. I tested different cartoons, so I had another one go from fast food to Wag Haus Premium similar concept. Now it's still in a car, they're inside the restaurant and you look at the sign there. If you look at it, there's all kinds of details. If people blow this up, I know you can't see it very good here on the screen, but on Amazon if they blow it up, they would see. You know other, all these kinds of like making fun of the other sticks all in the menu and stuff. It works.

 

Kevin King:

And then I created, you know a put back. Then I was called EBC but now it's called a plus content. So I created a plus content and I used pretty people. You want to use pretty people. You want to use faces whenever you can, even though you have the dog use and faces. There's science that shows that's a 35% lift in conversion rate when you use faces. A lot of people don't use faces in their photos. They just show the hands or they show the dog. But you need to have people and showing that they're having fun, their dogs happy. You're creating that emotion. I went out. This is before. It was popular to find influencers, influencer. The whole influencer UGC game was just getting going at this time. But this guy I found him on I think it's called Fame Kit. I forget the name of the website. I don't even know if it still exists, but you could go and you could hire people to create UGC.

 

Kevin King:

I'm just going to play you a little bit of this video. I did not script this. I sent this to the guy. I sent him my bullet points to say, hey, this is kind of what I'm looking for. Can you do something? But I'm just going to play the first part of this because it's pretty cool what he did and you're going to see where he actually sniffs these things. He actually pulls them up to his nose yeah, they're right there. He actually pulls them up to his nose and does a demonstration of showing, look, there's really no smell, and I mean it just creates that trust and that yes, it's true. And then he's got playing with his dogs and he just did a really good job. Then I take a look at my reviews. Now these are some of the real reviews that were coming on the products. You know I was getting some fives and fours highly recommended. I would get the occasional one-star review. Someone like this is the biggest rip-off ever Three sticks for 50 bucks. You've got to be freaking, kidding me. But look, I got constant reviews. I had a 4.6, I think, average overall and it just worked really well. And I had one guy I subscribe and save. It had just begun back then, so I was on subscribe and save. One guy I think he did 86 or 87 times on subscribe and save Just kept buying them over and over like every, every. Every time that he would get renewed, he'd buy them. And he'd buy them in between too because he needed more. It just this work.

 

Kevin King:

This is how you differentiate a product, uh, and how you approach a market where it's saturated differently and don't always think it's always about the price. As long as there's long tail keywords, you can do some amazing stuff. There's just a few more the lifestyle pictures the on the right there's my actual dog, Zoe, when she was a little much younger, and what happened is the guys that owned the best bully sticks, which is the biggest brand on Amazon. They saw what I was doing and they're like how's this guy, this guy in Texas, selling $50 for three sticks? We need to reach out to him. So they reached out to me and they said hey, why don't we partner up? Why don't you actually sell some of our stuff? You can basically private label some of our other treats. We've got duck feet and we've got, uh, pig's ears and we've got all these, uh, you know, antlers and all this other kind of stuff. Why don't we, why don't we partner up and you just, you just use your brand and private label from us. We manufacture here in the States, we'll ship it to you. So I tried it and it didn't work. I actually I need to package it differently. So, instead of putting in a plastic bag. I had these custom bags made and we tried this. It just didn't work. But my other bully sticks because of differentiation, the way I marketed it, the opportunities there and appealing to the rabid pet owner wanting to take care of their best friend, their member of their family it worked. This is an example on pets.

 

Kevin King:

Now, if you want to get some ideas, if you're trying to ideate this oh, Kevin, this sounds good, but how do I do this? This is a really good link here that you can go to actually get an idea on how to position. This is a positioning, marketing positioning. I'm positioning the product against everybody else and this five-step process it's free at aprildunford.com that link there. Take a screenshot of this or maybe someone can post it in the chat. And this is a good five-step process to help you brainstorm through and to know how can you truly differentiate your product. So, I recommend you at least take a gander at that or have someone on your team take a gander at that. So, when you're trying to come up with your next product or differentiate what you've currently got, maybe something's kind of on the down and outs right now, but if you just re-engineer that product and come up from a different positioning point of view. You can do really well. So that's a resource for you there. That should be really good.

 

Kevin King:

Now let's take a look at another thing on differentiation how do you turn a commodity into a brand, a commodity? You got Temu coming in that's selling all these cheap things on Amazon. You got Amazon now going to start allowing factories to ship directly from China under this Amazon whatever. It's called Amazon Direct there's a name for it but where they're going to basically have their own version of Temu on Amazon. That is going to kill some people. You're going to see some people go out of business on Amazon because of this, because they're not differentiating. They're just another me too product. There's no differentiation other than maybe the price, and it's who can sell the cheapest price is going to win, and if you're competing on price, you you're playing a losing game. You're going to lose against these Chinese factories. They're going direct because they're going to sell it on Amazon for less than you're buying it from them for. Let me repeat that when Amazon launches this section, which is basically a Temu type of section, your factory will sell it for less on Amazon direct to the consumer for less than what the price they're willing to give you to buy it from them. That's going to happen.

 

Kevin King:

So if you don't differentiate your products or you're not thinking in terms of some of these examples I've given you, you're going to be. You may be in some high water and maybe going out of business, or if you're just starting, you may not have a chance to actually succeed. You've got to approach this game differently now. It's more complicated, it's harder, it's a real business. It takes thought, it takes effort. In some cases, it takes money, but this is how you can do it with a commodity product. This is a periodic table. It's a really good thing take a screenshot of this that when you're creating a brand, it's a periodic table of branding. You always remember most of us from school, you had to learn the periodic table of elements. This is a periodic table of branding and this is some of the things that all go into creating a brand.

 

Kevin King:

A brand is not just a logo. A lot of people think, well, I've got my brand on Amazon. You don't have a brand, dude, you have no brand. This is no brand. This is a logo and a name. A logo and a name does not make a brand. A brand connotates a feeling. It connotates a message. It connotates an identity, an affinity for people. There's a lot more to it, and these are some of the things. Does the type of type style you use matter? Yes, that's part of it. Does the logo matter? Yes, that's part of it, but every brand has a voice, every brand. The name is important yes, but that's not a brand. You've got to go way, way beyond that, and this shows you some of the elements in a really nice, concise way that you need to focus on when you're truly building your brand, and I'm going to show you an example of this right now on how to do this with a commodity product, with one of mine.

 

Kevin King:

We all remember the pandemic of 2020 and hand sanitizer was going nuts on Amazon. It was booming worldwide. Everybody's freaking out need to buy hand sanitizer. Around April of 2020, this was the SQP report, the Search Query Performance report on Amazon. It had just come out as a brand-new kind of thing on Amazon and hand sanitizer was number six, and some partners of mine and one of my other Amazon companies saw this and they're like we should do hand sanitizer and I'm like no dude, everybody and their brother's going to be doing hand sanitizer. This is going to be like hoverboards, going to be like fidget spinners. Everybody's going to be doing it. And they're like, no, we can do it. We got this, this company in India that can make this stuff for us. Yeah, I started doing homework on it. I'm like, well, okay, maybe there's something to it, but let me look into it. So I looked into it and I used some other tools. This is not Helium 10, it's a different tool. It's a private mastermind tool that shows showed me last week's sales volume and on the hand sanitizer it showed this was in April. It showed 129,000 units on Amazon on the word hand sanitizer alone just that single keyword. And then other ones. I was like all right. And then there's all these.

 

Kevin King:

The Polaris, this big market research company, came out and said this hand sanitizer thing, even if the COVID goes away, people are going to change their habits. And yeah, you're going to have a huge bump because everybody's now using hand sanitizer but a lot of places are going to install hand sanitizer machines. It's going to become more pervasive in society. And I was like, yeah, okay, so if this has a big boom, boom up, it's going to go down when COVID goes away, but it's going to probably be higher than what it was before COVID started, just because people have changed their habits or they're more aware of it. That's basically what this Polaris study said. So, I'm like, all right, let's look, let's look school.

 

Kevin King:

Then there's a story came out of this this kid that was in, uh, in in the middle of the United States I think he's in Tennessee or Kentucky or somewhere and he was going to all the dollar stores, uh, and buying out their hand sanitizer and then arbitraging it on Amazon for those crazy amounts. He ended up getting sued by the, by the uh, the state, uh, for price gouging and stuff. But I'm like, all right, and he's just crushing it. And so, you're all this stuff coming out. And then I look on Amazon and this is what was selling, because hand sensors, all the Perel and Germ Sharks, Germ X the two big brands in the US were hard to get.

 

Kevin King:

And then what Amazon did is they created something called the COVID store and they gated, basically Perel. They said all the first responders, all the hospitals need to have access to this, not you people at home. We need to save this for the people that really need it, that are dying in the hospitals. So in order to buy the big hand sanitizers, you had to go into the COVID store and get authorized, and so it took a lot of the competition away on Amazon. I saw that and I started seeing all these like weird hand sanitizer people are making almost like felt like in their backyard coming up on Amazon. Some of it was long shipping times is coming from China and you'd order it and take a month to get to you and it's just garbage. And you look at, look at the reviews on they’re just bad and they're selling for like crazy amounts it's $11.59 for these little bottles.

 

Kevin King:

And so I was like, alright, guys, let's do this. We're not gonna use this company in India. We're gonna get proper FDA approval, we're gonna. There were some rules where you could at the time, where you could actually make this without going through all the steps of FDA if you did certain things. We figured out all that's figured out, all the legal side. We came out with a brand name of germ shark. We came out with and this logo. So this is where the name Germ Shark and we started this company. It was me and four other guys. I was handling them Amazon side of things and all the branding and all the marketing. And there's other guys handling all the sourcing and dealing with the factories and all that. And then the other three guys were the money guys and these guys put in about a million and a half bucks, before it was all said and done, of their own money.

 

Kevin King:

Luckily, crypto was doing really well at the time. One of these guys was just making bank selling NFTs and on crypto, so he had a lot of extra cash just sitting around doing nothing. So he threw a bunch of that in and we started this brand, Germ Shark, and I was like, okay, if we're going to sell hand sanitizer in this super competitive commodity, hand sanitizer is like one to three ingredients, it's nothing. Anybody can do it. How do you differentiate a product that everything is basically the same? Yeah, you can put a smell in there or you can do a few things, but it's basically the same thing. How do you differentiate it? So, we came up with some bottles. We said we're gonna do a three pack of these small bottles and I tested it on Pick Fu and so I took R3, the ones that says winter there with the green box around it. Those were R3.

 

Kevin King:

And I tested against these no-name brands, like these Chinese no-name brands, and we won, hands down won. Everybody said we would buy this one. This one looks legit, the others are sketchy. And then I tested against the top brands, like Perel, which is a number one brand in the US, and I got my butt kicked. Perel beat me because that's a bigger brand, people trust it more. So I was like okay, as long as Perel is not on the main Amazon site and they're locked away in this COVID store where nobody can get in there, I can crush it, I can be number one on Amazon until Perel comes back. And when Perel comes back onto the normal Amazon website, I'll be okay in spot number two or spot number three, because I've positioned myself, I've gotten my rankings, I've gotten my reviews. There's still enough depth in the market share that even if I'm spot two or three or four, I'll still make some good money. So we're like all right, let's go forward with this.

 

Kevin King:

So then we create a whole line of products. We ended up going. We saw that there's wipes. We're having trouble. We had the big bottles to refill, like the canisters at, like the restaurants and malls and airports and stuff. We create little toys we actually created with our brand. We created like a little stuffed toy you see the little stuffed shark there. We create little holders. That little kind of turquoise looking thing in the middle is a holder for the clip onto your purse or onto your backpack or something for the small bottles, and then, oh, there's a better picture of it, these little guys here.

 

Kevin King:

We created this kind of stuff, and why did we create this? Not to sell it, but for branding and for promotional purposes. So what we did with it is we went out and we did a campaign to hospitals, and so we reached out to hospitals and we said, hey, we'd love to send you a free gift. Thanks for your service, thanks for everything you're doing. We'd love to send you a free gift. So we made this little brochure here thanking them for everything. And then we sent a package of like 25 in a nice like four-color box, like a gift box. We put some of that little like shredded paper in there that makes it all look kind of fancy. Put them all in there and then we included, like you know, there's some kids and stuff in the hospital. So here's some stuffed toys. You know along the branding. And then what did they do? These are the actual ones getting it. You can see the box there and they started posting it all over social media and we started actually getting sales and this legitimized us. It showed like, look, this is legitimate, doctors are using this and they're showing this stuff off.

 

Kevin King:

We create our A-plus content page and actually did some really good stuff with A-plus and we showed how, for every bottle, every package you buy, we donate a bottle. So we had a cause with it, too is we donated a bottle to charities. We created memes and graphics for social media that would actually show play off of different things. During that time, we ran huge campaigns on this. We did actual physical postcards in the mail. A lot of people was like, oh, the mail is dead, nobody checks the mail, bs. We did these physical postcards through the mail and sent them to hospitals, sent them to people that previously bought sanitizers. We got some lists. We got editorial recommendations because of our branding. People love the branding and the mission that we're giving a bottle for every three sold. And then we did stuff like jingles. We actually created a jingle for the brand because, remember I said, selling is emotional and this is a really good study here. You should take a look at this sometimes.

 

But sound is the most important thing to our brain, not visuals. So you can be watching a YouTube video and if the YouTube video is grainy or jumping around a little bit, then you might accept it, but as long as the sound quality is good. If the sound quality is good, you can deal with lesser quality video, but if the sound quality is bad, you're going to skip this. You're going to move on to something else and it's an area of your brain called Broca's area, and it's an interesting science. If you take a look at this from a branding point of view, if you can reach Broca's area, you can do things, really amazing things. Think of old jingles like the Oscar Mayer Wiener jingle, if you're old enough to remember that, or some of the old jingles that you see on TV now you know the State Farm jingles or some of the other ones that are out there. That's all branding and marketing and it's creating these visual images. There's a really. There's a lot more to this.

 

Kevin King:

We could go and do a whole presentation just on this, but so we dialed in on Broca’s area and to use influence, and so what we did is we created a jingle and then we created a video. I had, uh, one of the amazon companies that does these nice videos. I had a couple of them actually do it. I actually had a contest with pick food to be to be on water. I had four different companies doing and competing and we create these jingles and just this is not the best singing, so don't worry about the singing, but the music in the song. It will stick in your head. I'm here to help you, uh, keep your germs away. I'll bring the bottle to you. I've got the germ charge for you. Rub it, rub it, rub it, rub it. Germ charge protection. Peel your hand, catch the germs away. Brother, strength, the best protection, no matter where you are. It can't be too far.

 

Kevin King:

Anyway, this was a really cool jingle that had all these lyrics to it and I sent this to Bradley here at Helium 10, and he watched it and he was like damn, dude, I can't get that out of my head now. I was like that's the point. So the next time that you want to get hand sanitizer, that comes to your mind. And it worked really well. So we had a couple of them. We also went out man on the street, we had these costumes and we would go down to a park and walk around, give them out and we'd go mess with people and we'd create all this stuff. We went to a grocery store and grabbed grocery carts and had like 10 of these sharks walking into this grocery store and freaking people out and just, we did all this kind of marketing to help differentiate and it didn't sell a lot locally but it helps us create the content that we could put out there worldwide. And it really worked really well.

 

Kevin King:

These were our sales on seven, you know, $40,000 on one single skew on that day. And you can see, we just started crushing it and we started standing out, and this is how you take a commodity and you truly make it into a real brand. These were some sales, the first we started selling in July of 2020. We went live so this is basically the first month. Sales was a million bucks on a brand-new product, and so this stuff works, but you got to come at it from a different point of view. So, what I'm trying to do today is just show you a different way of thinking of this. Can you do everything I did? Maybe, maybe not, but you can start thinking in this direction and start moving in that direction, and that's what we have for you today. Thanks everybody for joining us.

 

Helium 10 Buzz 9/20/24: Amazon Accelerate 2024 Recap | Prime Big Deal Days | Walmart Holiday Deals

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

Amazon just announced dates for its October Prime Day sale — here’s what to know
https://www.nbcnews.com/select/shopping/amazon-october-prime-day-2024-dates-rcna171355

Walmart announced an anti-Prime Day sale and it’s no joke—learn about Walmart Holiday Deals now
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/reviewed/2024/09/19/walmart-holiday-deals/75289574007/

More than half of US Gen Zers are headed to TikTok Shop this season
https://www.retaildive.com/news/gen-z-tik-tok-shop-social-media-holiday-purchases/726139/

Amazon small oversize FBA fee reductions
https://channelx.world/2024/09/amazon-small-oversize-fba-fee-reductions/

Maximize your brand goals efficiently with goal-based bidding in Amazon DSP
https://advertising.amazon.com/en-us/resources/whats-new/amazon-dsp-goal-based-bidding/

5 new generative AI tools to accelerate seller growth and enhance the customer shopping experience
https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/innovation-at-amazon/amazon-generative-ai-seller-growth-shopping-experience

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

• 01:07 - Prime Big Deal Days
• 03:31 - Walmart Holiday Deals
• 05:14 - Gen Z Shopping on TikTok
• 06:25 - FBA Fee Reductions?
• 07:23 - Goal-Based Bidding in DSP
• 08:16 - Amazon Supply Chain Updates
• 09:50 - Buy with Prime Integrations
• 12:33 - Amazon Shipping App
• 13:00 - Faster MCF Shipments
• 13:37 - New Amazon AI Tools
• 22:11 - New Amazon Analytics Tools
• 23:24 - More Accelerate Updates
• 28:17 - Meet Bradley in South Korea
• 28:30 - More Upcoming Events

► 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:

Prime Big Deal Days has been officially announced for specific dates. In October, amazon Accelerate had more than 20 new releases and announcements and we're going to go over almost all of them today. This and more on this week's Weekly Buzz. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Series Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I am your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show that is our Helium 10 Weekly Buzz, where we give you a rundown of all the new stories and goings on in the Amazon, Walmart, e-commerce world. We also give you training tips of the week and let you know what new things that 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. As a matter of fact, today I don't think we're going to be able to get to any new releases or training tips, because this was the week of Amazon Accelerate. I just got back a couple hours ago and I want to try and like get everything out there while it's fresh in my mind. Hopefully I'm not going to miss anything, but we have got tons and tons to go over today.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Let's actually first hop into just non-Accelerate related news. All right, let's go ahead Now. The first news story is from NBC News and it's entitled Amazon just announced dates for its October Prime Day sale. Here's what to know Now. You guys remember a while back, a few months ago, I had predicted when the regular Prime Day was going to be. Somehow, you know, I like use some just I used some just common sense and mathematical things based on dates that Amazon had, and I hit the exact date two months in advance, actually, three months in advance, I think. I hit it Now again. A month ago, I was like you know what, I'm going to go out on a limb and try and guess when Prime big deal days are. Take a look at what I said in August. If, again, I had to pick a date, it would be around October 9th. Now let me show you why. I noticed here that one of my products was eligible for prime big deal days window. So when I went in there, you'll notice and you guys probably have seen this yourself is that there's weeks for regular deals right All the way up to October 6th. Okay, and then the very next one it says is prime big deal days window. So first of all, it pretty much guarantees that prime big deal days is not going to be before October 6th.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Now, historically prime big deal days, I think there was another it was called something different in 2022. It was kind of like on the second Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday of the month. So that's why I'm thinking that, hey, it could be around October 9th, 8th, 9th, 10th, around there We'll see. You've got a lot of time to plan, but at least, again, it is now confirmed. There is another prime big deal days coming. Well, guys, Nostradamus Bradley back at it again, because, look at this prime big deal days was. Well, guys, north stardom is Bradley back at it again, because, look at this prime big deal days was announced on October 8th and 9th.

 

Guess what? I'm gonna make another prediction. I think I know when Black Friday is gonna be hint, hint, wink, wink. That's not a great, uh prediction. I think my prediction days are over two for two, that's it. But anyways, prime big deal days, guys.

 

Bradley Sutton:

It's kind of like the second prime day of the year is coming on October 8th and 9th and hopefully you have gone ahead and applied for some deals. If you're going to do it, this might be the time to do Prime Exclusive Discounts. Don't forget, prime Exclusive Discounts aren't free anymore, as we reported on the Weekly Buzz. But whatever the case is, there's going to be a lot more traffic shopping online, and when I say shopping online, it is not just shopping on Amazon for this special day, because take a look at this new story from USA Today. It says Walmart announced an Anti-Prime Day sale, and it's no joke. Learn about Walmart holiday deals now, all right.

 

Bradley Sutton:

So this is a new or special kind of discounts that Walmart is putting on. What date is going to be for these deals that will have up to 70% off? You guessed it starting October 8th. So it's kind of funny. Sometimes this Amazon and Walmart are going back and forth, trying to one up each other and make sure they don't have special days. But I think this is actually good for sellers that it's on the same day, because if you're doing deals on one site, you almost have to do deals on the other site because of price matching and things like that. So when Amazon and Walmart dates coincide, it allows you to go ahead and put the same discounts on both, and now you don't have to worry about things like buy box suppression and things like that. Now one difference, though, between prime big deal days and Walmart holiday days is this article says that it starts on the 8th, but it's set to continue through Sunday, October 13th. Now, this is important because, just like I just said, while the first couple of days are going to coincident have to worry about buy box issues. If you keep your Walmart deals going after the 9th and you have like the same maybe product identifier, like a UPC or something like that, it's possible that your buy box on Amazon might suffer if Amazon is price matching Walmart or price checking Walmart, I should say, and they could see that you have a special going on a Walmart but not on Amazon. So something to keep in mind. First couple of days you're good to go. It's kind of good that it's coinciding, but after the 9th, definitely check if you're going to stop your deal on Amazon but not on Walmart.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Speaking of holiday deals, there's an interesting article from retaildive.com I guess they did this kind of survey and it says more than half of US Gen Zers are headed to TikTok shop this weekend. It said about 43% of Gen Z shoppers are planning to spend more for their holidays this year compared to 37% of millennials. However, going down deeper, it says, in the US, nearly 54% of Gen Z will find gifts on TikTok shop alone. A third of US respondents will shop for gifts seen on Facebook and Instagram ads. I don't know how that's a poll Like. Do you actually answer a poll saying yes, I plan on buying stuff from ads? So that was kind of weird for me. But however they got this information sounds pretty exact. So they're putting it out there and it says almost a quarter 24% of US Gen Zers will make their purchase through influencer recommendations. So just you know, it's kind of interesting how much the whole landscape of holiday shopping has changed. You know, a couple years ago there was no such thing as TikTok shop, right, you know. So the fact that a lot of people are going to be you know, more than half of a certain demographic are going to be looking on this platform that literally didn't even exist last year is just kind of interesting to me.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Next article is coming from Channel X World. It actually has to do with Europe and it's an FBA fee reduction. All right, yeah, I did not say that wrong. It is an FBA fee reduction, not an addition. You know, usually when you hear me talking about FBA fees, it's about some new fee that we're going to have to do. That we're going to have to do. But if you're in selling in pan EU fulfillment, you're going to be able to save from 1.60 pounds up to 1 pound 87 for small oversized products across UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain. So in those locations, what signifies a small oversize? So Amazon's definition of small oversize is 61 by 46 by 46 centimeters and unit weight has to be less than 1.76 kilograms. And then in Germany there's another set. But hey guys, take a look at this If your product is in this small oversize, you might actually be getting a reduction in fees, believe it or not.

 

Bradley Sutton:

One more non-accelerate announcement this week was done by Amazon Advertising, so entitled Maximize Brand Goals Efficiently with Goal-Based Bidding in Amazon DSP. All right. So now when you're doing your brand awareness campaigns, you're going to be able to specify reach and frequency goals and DSP is going to optimize bids automatically in real time to maximize these goals. So, for example, how you get started is you set the goal in DSP to awareness, you set your KPI to reach or frequency, and then you're going to choose a weekly target frequency and then you set your optimization strategy to prioritize spending, full budget and then you hit save. So now you're going to be able to, you know, test out this goal-based bidding. So, um, I know not too many of you are using DSP, but something that maybe talk to your amazon rep to get more information on. Or, if you're using an agency, talk to them to see if this might be good for you all.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Right now, let us get into amazon accelerate. Uh, this was my second accelerate um, and there was just tons and tons and tons of things that were released over the three days. Now, on some of these, we're actually going to get a little bit more in depth. I was able to interview some of the product managers at Amazon responsible for some of these, so we're going to go in depth on things like the customer loyalty dashboard and gen AI videos and different things like that in future episodes, but for now, let's just give a brief overview of a lot of the updates.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Now, first up, we had supply chain by Amazon updates, all right. So first they were talking about hey, they're unlocking faster delivery speeds that increase sales an average of 20%, they said and now there is an Amazon fully managed option for US sellers to automate the entire supply chain process, so I'm not going to go too much into detail about that. We've talked a little bit about this in previous episodes. Now, multi-channel distribution for Amazon warehousing and distribution, also known as AWD it says it now offers the ability to do custom labeling, allowing you to distribute products in bulk to different sales channels, including other marketplace services. All right, so you know this is something that before you know, like you might not have thought that Amazon would be down to do like helping you, kind of basically like drop ship to other channels, and they're cool with it, with it going to other marketplaces. That's going to be a kind of a theme on some of these announcements I'm going to talk about from Amazon Accelerate.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Now, speaking of Amazon logistics and supply chain, there is a lot of MCF and buy with prime announcements. All right, a lot of different enhancements. First of all, if you are using buy with prime on your website, now you are going to be able to accept PayPal payments. All right, you can't do that yet in Amazon, but if you're using the Amazon Buy With Prime, like on your Shopify, WooCommerce, you're going to be able to accept PayPal checkout. So that's going to be pretty cool. And then, actually, starting next year, if you're a Prime member, they're going to be able to link their Amazon account to their PayPal account so that Prime free shipping benefits are available automatically. Another update was, if you are doing Amazon DSP, like we just talked about, you're going to be able to now run ads on Google Shopping ads and TikTok ads all right to drive more traffic to your Buy With Prime enabled options. All right.

 

Bradley Sutton:

So here's how this works, if I'm understanding this correctly. So let's say you've got Buy With Prime listings set up. Now, if you recall, buy With Prime it's been around for a while. It's so you can have on your website a literal Buy With Prime badge and you are able to see the shipping time. So, basically, your Shopify customers, if they purchase on your website, they're going to get it delivered from your FBA inventory or MCF inventory. But now if you're running DSP ads the cool thing is they showed a couple examples of this is like in the Google shopping. You know what? You can't link directly to an Amazon listing, all right, you can't put Amazon listings per se into Google shopping. But if you've got your Shopify or WooCommerce or whatever listing there that has the buy with Prime, which basically goes your Amazon inventory. Anyways, you're going to be able to see the shipping time, all right. So, like you know, two, three days shipping. It's going to actually show up in Google Shopping Right, which has not been done before, and also in TikTok advertising. All right, not TikTok shop. We're not talking about buy with Prime inside of TikTok shop. We're talking about that. If you run a TikTok ad, it'll overlay onto a TikTok right. You're going to see that Prime badge right there where it'll say like two days, three days shipping and people can just go ahead and buy it right from that TikTok ad and again, that's going directly to your Amazon Prime inventory. So, pretty cool enhancement.

 

Bradley Sutton:

You know, like a few years ago you wouldn't have thought that Amazon is down to like help sellers. You know, sell on other platforms and things like that. You know, like last year, amazon accelerate. The big announcement was how you could have, you know, Shopify integration. You're like that was would have been unheard of just two years ago, you know. And then now we're talking about, you know, integrations now with google shopping, integrations with TikTok shop. So this is, I think, a move in the good uh, in a good direction here.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Another supply chain announcement. You know we've talked on the weekly buzz before about how amazon's really pushing their own shipping methods, and so now Amazon has released a new Amazon shipping mobile app. So you know, with these you're going to be able to schedule pickups from your warehouse, oversee inventory across multiple warehouses, receive real time updates on delivery, delivery vehicles and everything. So that's like for those of you who are kind of like using Amazon now, as like you maybe have used UPS or something like that before. Another update was if you're using MCF multi-channel fulfillment you know, historically I think that like the fastest shipping was like four days, but usually five days or more. Now MCF is going to qualify for three day shipping, so pretty cool. If you're using MCF is going to qualify for three day shipping, so pretty cool. If you're using MCF to maybe run your TikTok shop or for your Shopify website, and that's how you're shipping you can now get three day shipping, which is a huge update.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Now, that was the main announcements for day one. Let's go skip to day two now, which had a lot more announcements. Go skip to day two now, which had a lot more announcements, and the first one was like five new generative AI tools that are going to be designed for sellers. Let's go over them Now. The first one was a Amazon code name. Right, it says Project Amelia. It says adds a personalized Amazon selling expert for every seller.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Now what this new app is going to be doing inside of Seller Central is it's going to be a generative, ai based tool where you can like have conversations with it, like you can say, hey, amazon or Amelia I'm not sure if you have to call it Amelia or you call it Amazon, or whatever the case is. You can be able to ask simple questions like how is my business doing? Which products of mine have sales been down year over year? You can be able to ask simple questions like how is my business doing? Which products of mine? Have sales been down year over year? You're going to be able to ask questions like what is the status of the shipment that I sent to Amazon yesterday? So basically, the things that you would normally do in Seller Central that you would just have to go around on menus to find, and things. A lot more of it now over time. You know it's not going to be rolling out all these things at once, but you're going to be able to start asking this Amelia, uh, project Amelia app, uh, these questions that it's going to go ahead and respond just like generative AI does. Now, not everything is something that I think that all sellers are super excited about. But hey, I'm, I'm, I'm here to just report the news and let's you know, let's give some honest feedback on it and let's see how things play out Now. And let's give some honest feedback on it and let's see how things play out Now.

 

Bradley Sutton:

The next thing it was entitled Expanding Generative AI Product Listing Capabilities to Get More Products in Front of Customers Faster. So this is nothing new per se. Amazon had announced last year generative AI ability to just get a picture from a picture or from a brief description, make a listing. Now, the last time I tested it, let's be honest, let's keep it real. Well, this is a no BS podcast, right? Well, it was not that great and I would never actually recommend somebody using that, because you know, like we know, how important keyword optimization, listing optimization with the right keywords is for getting indexed, for being able to run ads, and you're you know the ai back then when it started. There's no way it was going to be able to ever get all of the right keywords from day one in your listing if you're just using it right now. That being said, that was a while back that I use it.

 

Bradley Sutton:

I'm very curious as to how it has uh, perhaps improved over time. I still don't understand. I guess can't picture any world in which you, uploading just a picture or two of a product and maybe even one line of text, is going to make sure that Amazon gets all the right keywords. I just can't imagine it, you know, knowing what the status of Gen, you know Gen AI is now, but I got to give it a fair shot, so I'm going to go give it a try in like a little mini case study soon. But anyways, what was released yesterday at Accelerate was now you're going to be able to, even if you do trust the Amazon AI listing creator, instead of just making one listing, you can like have some minimal information on a bulk upload file, and then you can create up to like 10, 20, 30, 50 listings or more, all with generative AI.

 

Bradley Sutton:

The next gen AI thing that they talked about was A plus content automatically creates brand storylines that attract customers. So with this, it's actually allowing you to take, like, maybe just your images or your listing, and it's gonna use gen AI to create a plus content just from an image, so like, for example you can see here those of you watching this on YouTube it just took a couple of pictures of some shoe and then now it like put it in these lifestyle setting kind of images, automatically designed directly for your a plus content, for your listing. Not only that, it's generating the text that comes in on the captions inside of A-plus content. So you know, like for people like me, who you know, I use agencies like professionals like AMZ One Step, to make my A+ Content and you know, some people might not be able to afford that. So if you're not able to afford professional agencies to shoot specific content, now you might be able to dabble into this A-plus content. Don't forget that even in Helium 10, we have an A-plus or not an A-plus content generator, but an image generator that you can output in the format of different A-plus content modules as well. But now Amazon is going to have this completely for free. So this is kind of like a cool update that Amazon is going to offer Now.

 

Bradley Sutton:

The next one I think most sellers I talk to, and myself too, are the most skeptical about basically it's an announcement where they're saying, hey, they're going to use gen AI to personalize product recommendations that part is cool and descriptions for customers including the title. So, as far as the recommendations go, you know that that's totally fine. Like, like, I don't think that's going to affect us negatively. I think it might be a positive thing. Like, for example, it's going to start basing more things off of the customer shopping activity instead of just offering customers more, like this. Like you've probably seen that when you're shopping on Amazon, it's going to give more specific recommendations, such as gift boxes for Mother's Day or cool deals to improve your curling game. That's the example that they give. Who in the world outside of Canada needs improvement on their curling game? But anyways, this is something that's going to be interesting for their recommendations.

 

Bradley Sutton:

But as part of this, there was a kind of like a demo, given that Amazon is going to kind of like redo titles in the search experience. Okay, so it's not necessarily rewriting your titles. You know that that was an announcement done before how Amazon is going to sometimes, you know, change up your title if it doesn't think it's, it's good enough and you can opt out of that program. But this is different. It's like if somebody searches a certain keyword, the way that it sees your title in the search results. Again, this is just the way it's displaying in the search results. It's not actually changing your listing. It could change some words around based on if it thinks that it could cause the customer to be more likely to purchase.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Now, this is the one where people are like I'm not sure if we can trust Amazon, you know, to change the title of my product that I spent a lot of work on. So this is one I think we're definitely going to have to see an action, start tracking it to see you know once this starts rolling out. Is this going to negatively or positively affect sellers? Is it going to help your conversion, your click-through rate, or could it potentially hurt it because it just starts putting these random, hallucinating AI words there? This is one of those ones that we're going to have to wait and see the A+ Content. I'm like, hey, go ahead and start using that right now. Guys, I think it's available in most people's accounts. Let's start playing around with that. But anything that has to do with changing titles and keywords, obviously I think a lot of us sellers are a little bit more skeptical about. So let's see how that one works out. Now, another cool thing that you know maybe you're skeptical or not, but I think it's pretty cool because I saw some of it in action is the fifth thing that they're using.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Ai is creating highly engaging video ads. So it gave a couple examples, like there was just like a speaker and then it put it in this crazy background with, you know, like a beach, and then not only that, it actually made a video like with waves crashing on the shore. The other example that I really like that it gave was it showed a cup of tea, a pitcher just a pitcher of a cup of tea, with steam coming out of it. Showed a cup of tea, a pitcher, just a pitcher of a cup of tea, with steam coming out of it. But then it totally made it a video Like the background was dynamic and the steam you could actually see it coming out of the cup. So you know, for those of you doing like special video ads sponsor display, sponsor brand ads this is going to be cool. You know like videos work better than just still images. It really conveys emotion better. And now, instead of having to pay tons and tons of money to an agency or have some special 3d modeling. You're going to be able to use generative AI to generate these ads, so that's definitely going to be pretty cool.

 

Bradley Sutton:

One thing I neglected to mention from day one I forgot was the drone delivery. All right, so that was a pretty cool announcement where they're like hey, by the end of this decade I'm assuming 2029 or 2030, whatever they assume is the end of the decade they said they expect to have done 500 million drone deliveries. I mean, there hasn't been barely any yet because it's not fully launched, but they're aiming for one hour drone deliveries and to be able to make 500 million of those in the next five years or so. So that's going to be pretty cool to see your you know, maybe coffin shelves being delivered by drone to people's porches. All right, that's going to be pretty cool. Release Next up is something that I'm not going to go too in depth today on, because I actually interviewed the product manager for this tool and it's going to come out in a future podcast in a few weeks.

 

Bradley Sutton:

But there's a few new analytical tools that Amazon is launching. You can see some of this information in your dashboard. But one of the cool things is customer journey analytics. It says it helps you spot trends and pain points so you can create strategies to optimize the shopping experience. It says this tool maps an end-to-end view of the customer journey, from awareness to consideration, to intent and purchase. Right, there's going to be enhanced audience tailoring. Right, we've been doing brand tailored promotions for, like you know, abandoned cart customers and different things like that, but now there's going to be even more opportunity to tailor make your promotions to certain audiences. And then the last tool that they announced under this was business planner, an AI power tool that helps you identify opportunities for sales growth. And again the first two like hey, let's go for it. This next one is probably the one that some sellers are a little bit more skeptical on until they actually see it in action, the one that some sellers are a little bit more skeptical on until they actually see it in action, but it's basing it off of what Amazon is going to recommend, that for actions that you might take to help your account.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Now there's some other various announcements made after this. I don't have a bunch of slides on it or news articles, but there was somebody who talked about. You know how the counterfeit crimes unit are really cracking down on a review. You know manipulation and sellers who are, you know, opening up fraudulent accounts and attacking other sellers and fake reviews, and it was really cool. A lot of people were applauding over some of the announcements that they made about how they're really trying to crack down on a lot of these black hatters out there, so that was pretty cool.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Another department that came up on stage was the customer service department. You know the for seller support, the support department, and you know, at the first part, you know, I think a lot of sellers like, oh, brother, you know what are these guys going to say? This is like the one of the most I hate to use the word, but almost hated departments at Amazon. But I think they got probably some of the most applause during their presentation because they launched a few things where, like now, you can 100% of the time do these chat customer supports where you can get resolution right away instead of going back and forth making emails all the time, and this is going to be pretty cool. Along with the live chat, you're going to be able to share your screen, even live, with an Amazon customer support rep, instead of them asking you to take a screenshot, then you send it and then five hours later you get a reply and they ask for another screenshot. You're going to be able to take care of that stuff live, because it is going to be right there with a share your screen. So that's going to be something I think pretty cool.

 

Bradley Sutton:

A lot of sellers were excited about that, and then probably one of the biggest announcements was that there's going to be the ability to connect to specialists. All right, so from what I hear from people that have had a bit in the beta, it's almost like going to Amazon Accelerate and having a seller cafe appointment. By the way, that's like one of the reasons to go to Amazon Accelerate. You can get some of your issues solved in real time with like a specialist, like somebody who really knows what they're doing, as opposed to somebody who I'm sure we've all had experience with, where they're just copying and pasting answers from a knowledge base or something right. But you're going to be able to connect with a specialist and it's going to be able to connect with a specialist and it's going to be way more likely that they're going to know what you're. You know how to fix your problem, because that's like all they deal with, as opposed to they're trying to be jack of all trades. They're going to be specialists with a certain thing, like maybe compliance or something else. By the way, there's a lot of announcements based on compliance too, but that I think a lot of sellers were really applauding about, because you know how many of us have had that frustrating situation where we're trying to get our point across to a customer support rep and it's obvious they have no idea what the heck we're talking about. And then we're having to, like go back and forth over days where now you might be able to get your stuff resolved in minutes with just one person from start to finish. So that was something definitely really cool to look forward to. So that was something definitely really cool to look forward to.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Other things is like generative AI, where there's going to be potentially again I talk about good things where it's like, hey, show me the money, like this is great, let's start on this right away. And then there's, you know, some things that are kind of like hey, we maybe need to take a wait and see approach, but there's going to be some generative AI things where you might be able to get stuff solved with just a bot, kind of right, and I know that kind of like is a turnoff for some people. But you know, ai is helping bots get a lot better. But one of the examples they gave was you could like say, hey, I need to change the product dimensions on my product to this by this, by this, and then that gen AI bot, as it were, is going to say, oh yeah, let me go ahead and take care of that for you, all right, without even having to open up a case, without even having to maybe go into your listing to change it there. So that could be pretty cool, but let's see how that works, all right. So that's about it.

 

Bradley Sutton:

I probably knocked out about 15, 20 of those announcements. Like I said, in the future, two or three podcast episodes, we're going to go a little bit more in depth on some of these. I also did a recap video with Andrea Marquez, who is the host of the this Is Small Business podcast that's the Amazon hosted podcast and we went over a couple more of these in depth. And then I brought on some Amazon product managers, thanks to the Amazon team, and we're going to go a lot more in depth on some of those analytical tools and some of the gen AI tools. So a lot of exciting things coming to the podcast, a lot of exciting things coming to Amazon.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Right, highly recommend guys, if you've never been to an accelerate, mark your calendars. I'm sure it's going to be around the same time next year, maybe around September. You have got to go to this event to like be the first to hear about these, to hear about these special things that are being released by Amazon, to be able to network with 4,000 other sellers. It's kind of like a really unique experience and I had a great time thanks to the Amazon team and thanks to all of you. I met so many of you out there at our Helium 10 booth, and just walking around is really great to connect with a lot of you. So I hope to see you at some future events.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Don't forget, next week I'll be at the seller kingdom event in Seoul, Korea, h10.me/sellerkingdom. You'll be able to register for that event at the at the end of October. October 31st, there's going to be an Amazon advertising event in Sydney, Australia, so make sure to come out to that. And then November 11th, we're doing an elite workshop in Milan, Italy. So mark your calendar. If you're in Europe, that is another event you can go to. So, guys, thank you so much for joining us this week. We'll be back next week to see what's buzzing.

#597 - Expert Tips for Dominating Amazon PPC

Join us for an insightful TACoS Tuesday with Amazon PPC expert Destaney Wishon of Btr Media, as she shares her expertise on Amazon advertising strategies. We explore the key benefits and features of Adtomic, a powerful tool for managing Amazon PPC campaigns, focusing on bid management, keyword research, and holistic performance tracking. Destaney emphasizes the importance of understanding market dynamics, competitor actions, and customer behavior to effectively manage ACoS fluctuations. She also offers strategies for handling high CPC in competitive niches, including evaluating repeat purchase rates and the impact of ad spending for organic placement.

Next, we cover essential Amazon PPC campaign strategies tailored for businesses of all sizes. Discover how to kickstart your keyword research with low-bid, low-budget auto campaigns, and the importance of profitability-focused campaigns optimized for ACOS or ROAS objectives. We also discuss organic ranking campaigns, the nuanced application of sponsored brands and sponsored display ads, and the comparison between CPC and CPM models for sponsored display. Learn about optimal product launch strategies and effective product targeting strategies that focus on competitive advantages and thoughtful ASIN grouping based on budget and objectives.

Finally, we dive into advanced Amazon PPC optimization strategies, especially for those with limited budgets. Listen as we discuss the benefits of using broad and phrase match keywords over auto campaigns, targeting long-tail search terms, and leveraging customer demographics. Destaney also addresses challenges such as campaigns not receiving impressions and the effects of pausing campaigns versus lowering bids when using day parting. Additionally, we highlight the importance of bid management during off-peak hours, understanding customer purchase behavior, and using the refine feature in category targeting campaigns for more precise ad placements. Don’t miss our interactive Q&A session with Destaney, where she answers a range of insightful questions from our audience.

In episode 597 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Carrie and Destaney discuss:

• 00:01 - Amazon PPC Strategies With Destaney Wishon
• 01:52 - Maximizing Amazon Advertising With Helium 10's Adtomic
• 06:15 - Optimizing External Traffic for E-Commerce
• 07:43 - Essential Amazon PPC Campaign Strategies
• 09:19 - Choosing Between CPC and CPM
• 12:27 - Optimizing Keywords for Amazon Sales
• 13:35 - Amazon PPC Optimization Strategies
• 20:50 - Optimizing Bids Frequency and Bulk Strategy
• 24:32 - Interactive Q&A Session With Destaney

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Transcript

Carrie Miller:

On today's episode we have PPC expert Destaney Wishon and she's going to be answering all of your PPC related questions.

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 a show that's completely BS-free, unscripted and unrehearsed, organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. And this episode is our monthly live TACoS Tuesday show, where we talk about anything and everything Amazon and Walmart, PPC and advertising related with different guests, and today's host is going to be Carrie Miller. So, Carrie, take it away.

Carrie Miller:

We have back with us Destaney Wishon, who is an expert and everyone loves asking questions too. So welcome again, and her kitty.

Destaney:

Destaney and Luna today.

Carrie Miller:

I'm really excited to see you know, to have another TACoS Tuesday with you and ask you some great questions. First question I had for Destaney today is for anyone who might be starting out with Adtomic to manage their PPC ads, what kind of things do you think that they should pay attention to? That are kind of benefits and features of Adtomic or just kind of strategies to get started with it?

Destaney:

It's funny when you have a conversation around Amazon advertising softwares in general, it's always going to be bid management and keyword research. That's what it comes down to in order to drive success. No tool can provide a huge competitive advantage in those areas because we're all given the same levers to pull. But, that being said, I think the area that I've seen drive a lot of success for brands and sellers is having everything in one portal, so like something that we've been playing around with a lot and done a few presentations on is like something like Market Tracker 360. Being able to directly influence your Amazon advertising based off what you're seeing within the market. Same thing as utilizing, like brand metrics, conversion rate data or I know a lot of people use Helium 10 for tracking performance and BSR and organic rank. You can easily track that and then open up Adtomic and make adjustments and allocations based directly off what you're seeing in some of the other categories. That, in my opinion, is like the biggest value add. Beyond that, I think some of the features that I think really stand out are just the utilization from like an ad type. Expansion standpoint is really important because I think with an ad console it can be a little bit complicated when you get into sponsor brands and sponsor display as well as some of the day partying mechanisms of really being able to understand time of day and hour performance.

Bradley Sutton:

If you're like me, maybe you were intimidated about learning how to do Amazon PPC, or maybe you think you just don't have the hours and hours that it takes to download and sort through all of those sponsored ads reports that Amazon produces for you. Adtomic for me allowed me to learn PPC for the first time, and now I'm managing over 150 PPC campaigns across all of my accounts in only two hours a week. Find out how Adtomic can help you level up your PPC game. Visit h10.me/adtomic for more information. That's h10.me forward slash A-D-T-O-M-I-C.

Carrie Miller:

I'm going to go ahead and get into some of these questions from the audience. I noticed a ton are flooding in because they let's go ahead and start with the first one. My ACOS over the last month on a week-to-week basis has fluctuated between 21% on some weeks to 35% on other weeks. I haven't changed or adjusted bids much at all. Is that normal to have that type of fluctuation?

Destaney:

I would say 100%. Yes. The problem with PPC is it's a pay per click model, so that can be fantastic because we're only getting charged when someone clicks. But it also means that if the industry or your audience changes, there can be fluctuations. A good example is, let's say, your number one competitor goes out of budget during one week. That means that the overall CPCs in the category could decrease because your competitor is no longer bidding them up. And if your CPC decreases and you're paying less for a click, then you could see a lower ACOS. So it's pretty normal to see fluctuations, either from changes in CPC that's kind of the first thing you need to look at or changes in conversion rate. If your conversion rate changes, that typically means your customer habits have changed. If your CPC changes, it typically means your competitor habits have changed.

Carrie Miller:

What is your strategy for this. You've got a relatively popular $20 item which is in a competitive niche. CPC is often over $2, giving COGS, my max bid is set around $125. Looking at Amazon's SKU economics over the last six months, on a per unit basis, the sponsored product cost is $18.25. Click-through rate is 0.81%, Cost per click $2.20. Conversion rate 7.85% on one campaign average of all campaigns. So that's a lot of numbers. Here ACOS is 90%, Click-through rate is 0.61. CVR 6.10. And then CPC is $1.23. Looks like a very expensive hobby. What would you do?

Destaney:

I have three quick call-outs for this. One do you have repeat purchases? If you have high repeat purchases and high LTV like maybe you're selling trash bags and they come back every six to eight weeks then this is completely different. You need to view all of your metrics on what that lifetime value looks like. A lot of people in the supplement space, for example, will pay $20 a click and have a 200% ACOS because they know that customer is going to return four to five times and not click on an ad the fourth, fifth time. If you don't have a high repeat value, I think there's kind of two other options you need to consider. One if you spend more on ads, does your organic placement improve? If the answer is yes and you have that dialed in really cleanly because there is direct correlation if you run your ads appropriately, then sometimes it's worth spending on your advertising and taking a loss because you know you're going to move up on the page and when you get ranked in the top eight you can pull back slightly on ads, focus on profitability, but you're going to drive so much overall revenue because your organic ranking improved. That's the second thing you ask yourself. The third if you're not in a position of focusing on organic rank and it's more of an expensive hobby than a brand building exercise for you. I would consider looking at external traffic and see if there's cheaper avenues to drive traffic to your listing outside of PPC, because PPC can be relatively expensive because it is the highest intent traffic we see in e-commerce.

Carrie Miller:

An interesting question that he has, because I've actually seen a lot of people with this kind of question after they've launched and so that product research is a really, really important part of the whole process and just determining if you have the money to kind of compete in those. But I have seen kind of a shift in this because of TikTok. I've seen people launch in really competitive categories but do extremely well because of that outside traffic from TikTok and like that promotion on, you know just content. So those are all different, different things to look at and you know consider as well. All right, next question is from Eric. He's asking for brand tailored promotions. Do you recommend applying a coupon for top tier audiences?

Destaney:

There's hundreds of different conversations we can have and it really depends on your product. I think in general we've seen a lot of success with brand tailored promotions. I think that there's been some arguments that that customer maybe would have already came back, depending on what audience you're selecting. So you're just giving them a coupon or a discount, but we don't have to get into the psychology behind that. I think in general we've seen a lot of success applying them. But you can also consider some of these applications on the DSP side of targeting those same audiences without a coupon but serving them another ad, depending on their purchase habits.

Carrie Miller:

All right. Sean asks what are the essential PPC campaigns that you'd recommend getting started with?

Destaney:

Great question. I believe Helium 10 as a whole we're working on solving some of these questions in the space with a more actionable education. I think for this purpose the things that we really look at is we do typically recommend running a low bid, low budget auto campaign. Auto campaigns do win more unique placements than manual campaigns, but you can't control the bid and budget. So we run them for keyword research and unique placements. We typically run profitability focused campaigns where we're optimizing our bids solely for ACOS or RAS objectives and we focus on our keywords that we know have already converted through our auto campaigns or the work we've done with helium 10 keyword research. We recommend running some level of organic ranking campaigns as well. So we'll take our two to three keywords that we really care about improving our BSR on and we'll run them at a more aggressive, higher ACOS targets but focus on conversion rate and maximizing impression share. As we get into sponsor brands and sponsor display, it really depends on the stage of business that you're in. We almost always recommend running sponsor brands, especially if you have video assets, if you have lifestyle images, but brands don't always have those. We do recommend running sponsor display, product targeting in a really granular fashion and views remarketing. But if you only have a $500 a month budget, don't invest in those and all of these ins and outs and expectations is where it gets difficult in recommending what campaigns are essential. For a big brand. All of them are essential. For a small brand. Start with the first three I mentioned.

Carrie Miller:

All right. Pedro asks for sponsor display, when should we choose CPC versus CPM?

Destaney:

Great question. So there are two very different models and typically two different levels of targeting. CPC is the format we typically recommend starting with, so we like to run just CPC product targeting ads. When you start moving into retargeting and some of the other initiatives, CPM is an option. There will be a lot of people who will post view CPM results with a $29 return on ad spend or a 5% ACOS. But that's not actually that accurate. A CPC ad a customer clicked on it, so you know the ad did its job. A view CPM ad a customer can view it for one second and then purchase your product later and Amazon will give it credit. That doesn't mean it's bad. That just means the results sometimes look inflated or better than average, because think about how many times you scroll a product detail page and glance at an ad. You don't actually remember the ad, but you glanced at it and then maybe you bought it. Amazon's going to give that ad credit if it's view CPM. So they're both fantastic. They both have different targeting types, but understand that a view CPM can sometimes frequently be inflated.

Carrie Miller:

All right. The next one is what is the best launching strategy for a new product?

Destaney:

Yep, there's a ton of different opinions on this as well. Some people recommend doing auto campaigns so you can collect a ton of data really fast. An auto campaign will cast a really wide net and it'll rely on Amazon's algorithm to figure out where your product needs to be showcased. They're going to review your listing, review your backing keywords and say, hey, I think this product needs to be shown here, here, here. It can be really good for expanding your keyword research, but it's also casting a wide net, so sometimes they're not profitable during launch. So we recommend starting with a low bid auto campaign to collect data on the side and then taking all of the keywords that were prioritized from when we wrote our listing using Helium 10. And we put those in a specific campaign, typically an exact match. So we're really really controlled. And then, depending on our budget, depending on review acquisition how many reviews we get we'll start looking at expanding to broad match phrase match. We'll start looking at expanding into product targeting or into sponsor brands video, but it really depends on your review acquisition strategy at that point.

Carrie Miller:

Andrew asked when you're running a sponsored products product targeting campaign, is there an optimum number of ASINs to target and related? Can you have too many or too few ASINs in a product targeting campaign?

Destaney:

I love this question. Great question. So we typically recommend like 5 to 10 ASINs to target. Again, it also depends on our budget. What we've seen if you put in like 100 different ASINs, your budget's not distributed evenly and one to two drive the majority of your traffic, similar to keywords. We also find that if you were to do a sponsored product category targeting campaign, it almost goes too broad. It's very similar to an auto campaign again. What we recommend doing is grouping our targeting by competitive advantage. So we'll create a product targeting campaign targeting everyone with a higher price point than us. We'll put higher price in the title. We'll target everyone with worse reviews than us and put that in the title. Maybe I sell chocolate protein and I want to target everyone else who sells chocolate protein. We'll create those groups so we can understand our competitive advantage and create our copy in our images if it's sponsored display and sponsor brands to align with that as well.

Carrie Miller:

Namesh says for the product launch, should you go exclusively with the core 1520 keywords that you know, drive sales for sure for your competitors initially, or have auto broad phrase campaigns too for keyword research or keyword sourcing?

Destaney:

Great question. Another it depends on budget. And the reason it depends on budget is we always recommend going after those 15 or 20 core keywords, because you need to prove to Amazon that your product is relevant. That's how you're going to get ranked. The problem with that is those 15 to 20 keywords are almost always your most expensive If you're thinking to bid on them. So is everyone else, so your ACOS is usually poor. So we recommend creating those campaigns for organic rank purposes but then creating other campaigns and broad phrase and auto that are going to find your long tail terms that are cheaper, more profitable for you. So example if I'm selling a water bottle I know water bottles can be expensive. Everyone's going to think to target water bottle, but I have to bid on it because that's what's going to improve my organic rank, it's my most important keyword, so I'll create one campaign for that, but then I'll create another campaign where I'll target things like travel water bottle, cooler travel water bottle for kids, right, those long tail broad phrase terms that are more profitable for me.

Carrie Miller:

What do you think about especially for people who don't have good budgets just doing keyword research in Cerebro and instead of doing some of these like broad and phrase and auto campaigns?

Destaney:

I think instead of an auto campaign 100%, especially with a low budget, I do always recommend still typically running in broad and phrase if possible, because you're already going broad with your keyword research, so then putting it in broad match, we'll just go a little bit more broad, right? So sometimes it's okay because it's going to continue to find those long tail terms. I mean, I've seen some of the craziest search terms, like water bottle for preschool kids in Pennsylvania. I would have never been on that, but the person who selected it and saw my ad it's got like two clicks and maybe two orders. So it's really long tail and really cheap is typically what happens.

Carrie Miller:

Is there a way or a technique to target ads at customers by the year of birth? Say, I wanted to target people who were born between or in 1989, is there a way to do that?

Destaney:

With display. Yes, you may have too small of an audience, depending on like, let's say you wanted to use DSP and say I want to target everyone that was born in 1989 and loved whiskey. Like, maybe you're selling a whiskey glass with the name, your audience may be too small and Amazon won't allow you. But in general you can target based off that. Yes, it's just depending on the audience that you want to. How broad you want to go with your audience, I guess, may limit you?

Carrie Miller:

Why do some campaigns not have impressions?

Destaney:

If it's eligible, which we kind of discussed earlier. Check in your ad group. It's typically because you're bidding too low that you're not showing up anywhere.

Carrie Miller:

Does pausing a campaign with day parting temporarily affect its performance when it's reactivated? Is it better to pause campaigns or to lower bids with this feature?

Destaney:

Great question. Huge debate in that arena. If you're hourly parting throughout the day, we recommend lowering bids. If you are day parting as in, no ads on Saturday or Sunday. We've tested both. We don't see a huge detrimental effect. I personally prefer relying on bid management. If you have the capabilities to. I think bid management's the better recommendation, but I think pausing is the easier recommendation and they both drive a 5% difference from what we've seen, if that. So whatever you have the systems to do.

Carrie Miller:

Okay, what strategy would you advise for implementing day parting rules, especially during off-peak hours?

Destaney:

Really, again, bid management is the best solution, is to see where your conversion rate's decreasing and optimize your bids. For that I go on this soapbox every time. But the other thing to consider is that people don't buy the moment they click. So a lot of people will look at their ads and say, hey, I have a ton of clicks at 1am, turn off my ads at 1am. In reality, people are shopping and adding to cart at 1am but potentially not buying until 9am when they wake up again. So a day parting is really beneficial because Amazon marketing stream, from an API perspective, does allow you to optimize for these areas. But also I recommend like not getting incredibly caught up in it because of the length and purchase times. So, that being said, focus on conversion rate and optimizing your bids based off the conversion rate in certain hours. Or, if you need to oversimplify method, go ahead and turn them off if need be, but just test.

Carrie Miller:

That's a really good point that I haven't thought about is that people are browsing and they're saving them for when they're like oh, I can get my credit card tomorrow, or something.

Destaney:

Yeah. My question always is why did they click on your ad then? Because I personally don't go to Amazon unless I'm looking at purchasing something, whether then or in the future, like, oh, I have a birthday party coming up in two weeks, I'm looking now, and if I look now I'm still interested in buying. I just may not purchase until two weeks later. And I think people forget that part.

Carrie Miller:

All right, can you explain the refine feature in the category targeting campaign?

Destaney:

Well, we have some very hands-on keyboard. These people know what's going on in ad console. I don't typically get this level of detail and questions. Yeah, the refined feature basically takes the category and refines it. So I always explain a category targeting campaign is similar methodology to an auto campaign. Amazon's saying hey, this is Chapstick, let me serve an ad to everyone in the Chapstick aisle. Is what they're doing with the category targeting campaign? Right? The refine feature lets you get a little bit more precise. They're saying let's not target everyone in the Chapstick aisle, let's target every ASIN in the Chapstick aisle who is higher priced than me. That could be beneficial, right? If you're showing an ad on your competitor and you have a lower price point, that's competitive advantage. So that's one of the refinements. You can refine by reviews. You can say hey, I want to target everyone that has two-star reviews, because you know, if someone's looking at a two-star review listing, they're not going to buy it, but if they see your ad, they may buy your product. So the refine feature is just a really fantastic way to get a little bit more specific around the ASINs that you are targeting within your category targeting campaign.

Carrie Miller:

If the cost per click is $2 and the current bid is $1, should we wait until CPC is very close to bid, until we can increase or decrease the bid?

Destaney:

If your CPC was lower. Yes, you're on the right train of thought. Your CPC being higher than your bid tells me that you probably have some weird placement modifier applied that's causing your bid to be even higher than what you want it to be. Or you're looking at a different time frame, like maybe you're looking at two months, so your CPC is $2, but you lowered it over time because it wasn't working, and now your bid's a dollar. So maybe look at a smaller timeframe. Maybe look at what the performance was like after you made the bid change to $1. And then your CPC is closer. That'll help you understand the math quite a bit better. So I think you're on the right train of thought, absolutely.

Carrie Miller:

How long does it normally take to see ad performance improvement once you start using Adtomic, using Travis's full bid rule once?

Destaney:

That's a great question. I think it really depends. I think that it depends, as with everything else I'd said, if you're bleeding money, then it's going to be really quick. If you are running everything just to profitability, then it's not going to make a lot of changes upfront. It really kind of depends on the absolute structure. I've seen bid management take 24 hours to make a difference in an account but it's because they were hemorrhaging money at a 200% ACoS. I think the other thing that needs to be considered is PPC's only job is to drive clicks, like if someone clicked they were interested. People don't click into listings just for funsies not we do like as sellers and brands, but not actual customers. So the other thing you have to consider is like how your conversion rate affects your performance. I think that's always missed. One thing I'll see is, like I mentioned earlier, is a competitor will come into the category with a much lower price point. That's going to hurt your conversion rate because people are going to click into your product detail page and see a cheaper price and click out. So when something like that happens in the market, your PPC is now going to change, because your PPC is going to continue to drive the same amount of clicks, but now maybe they're not buying, so your ACOS is going to increase. So that's why it's really important to understand when there's a change in your performance. Is it a bid or is it a category conversion rate issue. So that was a little bit of a tangent, but I think it was kind of related.

Carrie Miller:

A lot of good questions and we don't have. We might not have time to do all of them, but maybe we can just do a few more. So how frequent should we optimize and what is the best look back window?

Destaney:

Look back window depends on how quickly you're collecting data. For example, I have worked in some very high traffic categories the term protein it would get 20,000 clicks in one day, which means their look back window needs to be almost every 30 minutes, pretty much, to optimize really quickly for all the clicks they're getting. If you're bidding on something that takes two weeks to get 10 clicks, then your look back window probably needs to be two weeks right. So I think it's more important to look at how frequently you need to check in. I usually baseline every 48 hours is a really good start and then, as you increase your traffic, make accommodations, sooner or slower depending on how many clicks you're receiving in that timeframe.

Carrie Miller:

All right. How can you optimize bids in bulk or manual?

Destaney:

Great question. The targeting tab is probably one of the best places to start nowadays. With an ad console that's really powerful. If you're using bulk, that is a whole YouTube lesson that I would recommend going to. There's a ton of content on YouTube for this and a ton of people teaching bulk. It's a lot more complicated than just a webinar response, so you can find that easily on the internet.

Carrie Miller:

Okay, for a mature listing. What percent of sales should come from organic, first PPC? What do you do when most sales come from PPC and PPC sales have no profit? That's a really good question.

Destaney:

So in general we recommend like a 50-50 split. If more than 50% of your sales are coming from ads, you're too reliant on ads and you probably have an organic ranking issue or poor organic rank, which is why you're having to rely on the ads at the top of the page to drive your visibility. That's the baseline. If I see that you know I have less than 50% of my sales coming from ads, there's an opportunity to grow. More than 50% of my sales coming from ads, opportunity to improve my organic rank. That's kind of my baseline question. What do you do when most of your sales come from PPC and PPC sales have no profit? You have to focus on your organic rank. That is why you're having to rely on PPC, because customers aren't scrolling to the bottom of the page where you are ranked. They're having to see it from an ad which is at the top of the page. So that's kind of the secondary thing that you need to focus on. The problem with that is is when you focus on organic rank, you're probably not going to have profit because it is very expensive to rank well organically. So you have to decide that line. You want to walk between long term increasing your organic rank and lowering your profit until you kind of hit that balance of I'm ranked really well, I can profit and pull back on ads.

Carrie Miller:

All right when starting to use Atomic. What criteria do you recommend for keyword harvesting rules and negative rules?

Destaney:

Great question. On the negative side, I typically don't negative aggressively because, again, if they clicked on it, it was a good ad, more than likely it brought them into my listing. Why didn't they purchase, is the question. Now, if I am selling an Apple iPhone charger, I would negate Android charger because maybe they look the same and that's why the customer clicked, but it's obviously not going to work at all. So that's kind of the rules I use for negating. I don't like basing my negating off conversion rate. I would rather lower my bid. So I'll throw that out there. When it comes to harvesting in general, though, we typically recommend harvesting based on orders. That's our biggest metric that we use internally. If a search term drove an order, we're going to put it into a manual campaign and harvest it, and we're just going to set the bid that's appropriate. If it's doing really well and converted on credible ACOS, it's doing really well and converted on Credible ACOS, it's going to be a high bid. If it was 100 clicks in one order, I'm going to set a 10 cent bid to make it profitable.

Carrie Miller:

Awesome. Well, that's the last question. I want to say thank you to everyone for asking really awesome questions. I think this was a really good discussion, and a special thanks to Destaney, too, for answering for about 42 minutes straight all those questions. That's a lot to answer those questions without really pausing. So thank you so much for doing that and everyone. We will have TACoS Tuesday again next month, so we hope you join us again. But again, thank you all for joining, thanks for participating and we'll see you again next time. Bye everyone!

Destaney:

Thank you all, see ya!

#596 - Amazon Influencer Program + Affiliate Earnings

innovative strategies from Gulsen Berkin Cinar and Michelle McLean, who are back after five years to share their secrets. From capitalizing on Amazon influencer opportunities to selling seasonal products, they reveal methods where people are earning up to $70,000 a month with no investment.

Join us as we explore the incredible journey of a family-run Amazon business that skyrocketed from modest beginnings to a seven-figure revenue before being sold. Gulsen shares the thrill of launching a new brand and expanding into platforms like Shopify and Walmart. Michelle, driven by her passion for seasonal products, recounts her success with Amazon products during Christmas, illustrating the excitement of spotting and profiting from trending items.

Dive into the world of Amazon influencers and affiliates with Michelle's expert tips on maximizing commission potential by reviewing higher ticket items. Discover how you can earn substantial income through Helium 10’s affiliate program, even if you’re just starting out. We’ll also guide you on signing up for this lucrative opportunity and highlight the benefits, including lifetime recurring commissions and other rewards. Don't miss this episode, which is packed with actionable insights and real-life success stories designed to help you thrive in the e-commerce world.

(Time Stamps) - 

In episode 596 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley, Gulsen, and Michelle discuss:

• 00:00 - Boss Ladies Making Money Online
• 03:09 - Amazon Influencer Affiliate Program
• 03:47 - Amazon Business Exit and Brand Scaling Success
• 10:23 - Influencer Program and Earning Commissions
• 14:17 - First Amazon Product Review Videos
• 20:08 - Product Sourcing and Market Research
• 22:48 - Amazon Affiliate and Reviewer Earning Potential
• 29:02 - Helium 10 Affiliate Earning Potential
• 32:47 - The Power of Consistent Growth
• 34:29 - Helium 10 Affiliate Discount Opportunities
• 38:01 - Affiliate Program Sign-Up and Benefits

► 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've got a couple of boss ladies on the show who haven't been in the podcast in five years and they're going to be talking about cool ways that they're making thousands of dollars in their spare time by being either an Amazon influencer or selling seasonal products, along with a way that some people with no investment are even being paid $70,000 a month from Helium 10. How cool is that? Pretty, I think. Important message, guys. On October 23rd, Amazon is changing the window for which you can look back and claim that they owe you reimbursements for lost and damaged products at FBA warehouses. It used to be 18 months, but now it's going down to only 2 months. So, if you have never used a reimbursement service or Refund Genie, now is the time. Last week, I ran Refund Genie on two different accounts and got a total of over $5,000 back for those sellers. And don't forget, unlike a lot of services out there, Helium 10 doesn't take any commission on what we get back. If we say you're owed ten thousand dollars and you get back ten thousand dollars from amazon, you keep ten thousand dollars with no commission to Helium 10 at all. Refund Genie is now available to anybody who has a Helium 10 Platinum Annual Plan or higher. So, to get an estimate about on how much money you could get back, go to h10.me/refundgenie. If you've never used a Helium 10 coupon, use the code SSP10 to save money if you need to upgrade to a Platinum Annual Plan.

 

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's a completely BS-free, unscripted and unrehearsed organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world, and we've got a couple of people here that are super, super old school here at Helium 10, including the one person, the only person who has been at the company here in United States side longer than me, and then another person who was one of my first hires here at Helium 10 just a couple months after I got started. So, Gulsen and Michelle, welcome back to the show.

 

Michelle:

Hello

 

Gulsen:

Hello

 

Michelle:

wow, I feel so old.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Well, hey, that's why I'm also I'm wearing the old school Helium 10 logo shirt here to kind of like reminisce about our old days, you know, way back then in the WeWork. Now I say welcome back to the show because there's been a huge gap since Michelle and Gulsen have been on the show the word now in episode I don't know like 580 something or 590 something. Their first time on the show was episode 86, way back in December of 2019. So, if you want to get a little bit more of their backstory, go ahead and see if you can find I don't even know if you can find such an old episode, but episode 86, where we had them and some of the other members of our crew all together on one episode. But I was like you know what? It's been years since you guys have come on and each of you have interesting things to talk about. So, let's go ahead and have you guys uh back on. So, first of all, um, let's start with uh, Gulsen. Now what about you? And you know you've since before you even worked at Helium 10. You know you've had like a family Amazon business. Um, ven offline, obviously you're my co-worker, but we've never really talked about that in a long time. Like, are you guys still selling on Amazon? You selling on other market? What have you guys been doing with that side of your things?

 

Gulsen:

Yes, so you don't know this, but you know we were running that Amazon business with my husband and last year December we sold that one and the first call I received. Now my husband is building another brand.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Well, hold on. I want to talk about that. I didn't know that you were right, I had brand and I want to talk about that. I didn't know that. You're right, I had no idea. So how did you find a buyer for the business? What was it like through an aggregator? Did you use a service or just networking?

 

Gulsen:

Yeah, he was with a partner and um, he was always getting those questions like, um, if he ever likes to sell his shares and stuff, but at the time it was very good season to do that move last year December. So yeah, and it. You know it was very stressful and long journey for years but I'm so happy that we came to that ending and he took like a few weeks refresh and now he's on top of it another brand by himself right now.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Okay, so what did he scale that brand to like? what was the peak yearly sales like approximately?

 

Gulsen:

Yeah, so by the time he started it was about four hundred dollars per month.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Four hundred thousand dollars ?

 

Gulsen:

Four hundred Dollars.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Four hundred. Oh, when he started, you said yeah, okay, I was like about to say well, who is buying an amazon business that grosses $400 a month, like good grief? Okay, that makes sense now. So that was when he started, and then he scaled it to what?

 

Gulsen:

Yeah, the time he moved out that they were at monthly six figures.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Oh wow. So definitely a seven-figure brand, oh yeah, that is pretty cool and then and then. So now he's starting from scratch or like something similar, or, and he's already launched, or he's just in the planning stage right now.

 

Gulsen:

From scratch it's already launched and now, um, this time we just wanted to want it to be more on like brand side. We still use, of course, amazon and we will try to start selling on Walmart as well, but now we're just trying to be so heavy on Shopify, building the brand awareness, and then, of course, the goal is the goal again, selling it. But to me, you remember my Amazon account. I was so like a Grand Bazaar Amazon account. I still have it and still is my passion to find those seasonal items.

 

Bradley Sutton:

But you're not still. Have you been off and on selling products on that account?

 

Gulsen:

Yes, yes.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Oh okay, I didn't know that. Okay, cool, but only seasonal.

 

Gulsen:

Only seasonal and I know you don't really like it when you do Amazon for patient. But that account you saw that it's such a passionate account only the products I really like to spend my time on and not really that profitable, but still nice. And I feel like I still like to spend a lot of time on Black Box trying to find products and then search them on Alibaba, even if I'm not going to invest. I think it started to be like a habit for my life. And, yeah, the last time I found something it was a toy product. I never recommend anyone to, you know, join a toy business, but this one was crazy because, like it was selling on Amazon about like $26, the price to import and everything was about 450. So now it's just, you know, um, making my mind so busy like should I really launch a toy product? But it's so competitive and, yeah, I might be needing to pick your brain about it very soon.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Okay, I thought you were saying you already did this. I was waiting for the results. This is what you're planning. What is something you've already done in the last year or so that really was a good experience? When you just found some random product and then it was able to sell during the season. Can you give an example?

 

Gulsen:

Yeah, I can give you an example. What's so funny is I really like to look around a lot while shopping, like actual shopping, Like I'm touring the Costco, Sam's Club, these places and like Bluetooth Beanies. I don't know if you remember them.

 

Bradley Sutton:

It's like you have a beanie, but then there's like headphones or something inside. Oh, okay.

 

Gulsen:

Inside the beanie there were headphones and the first time I saw them like we were shopping on Sam's Club. The first time I saw them, we were shopping on Sam's Club and Charlie, my husband, he was telling me you know what? This product will go viral. And then we sourced it and, oh my God, it was such an amazing experience because that product really went viral.

 

Bradley Sutton:

So, you sourced it, not to piggyback on the listing, but you made your own listing a brand new. You just found it in Alibaba. So how much did you sell of that product?

 

Gulsen:

Yeah, during Christmas time we sold close to 1,000 units

 

Bradley Sutton:

1,000 units at what price?

 

Gulsen:

I believe it was about $14,000, $14,000, $15,000.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Okay, so a nice little five-figure a month there on one product or two.

 

Gulsen:

yeah, it was amazing but, like I said, it was seasonal and now like I don't even think anyone is going to search for Bluetooth beanie, but we were one of the first listings on amazon selling that product.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Nice so finding products at Sam’s Club in Costco. I just go there for like free samples and a dollar 50 hot dog and stuff. But now, now I know I need to start looking out for products. All right, let's switch to Michelle now. So, Michelle, you know, in the beginning at Helium 10 and the last time you were on the podcast you like, like your experience with Amazon was pretty much just interacting with Helium 10 and interacting with, interacting with our customers. But now you're not necessarily an Amazon private label seller. But tell us what you are now in that definitely has to do with the Amazon ecosystem.

 

Michelle:

Yeah, of course you know really quick. I wanted to say how far back I've been, you know, just to give some clarity for people listening. When I first started Helium 10, my daughter was eight months. She's going to be seven years old in November. So, this just goes to show like how old I am.

 

Bradley Sutton:

I don't need any reminders for that.

 

Michelle:

Yeah, I was just thinking about that and I was like, oh my gosh, it's been almost six going on seven years, so that's insane.

 

Bradley Sutton:

That's crazy, that's great. And then I remember how it was like your desk was like behind mine, so I need to check on what you're doing. I just like turn around, we're all in that little, we work there. And then I got to move to like this little, literally a closet. You know, the affiliate team office was like this little that used to be a storage closet and then it became my office.

 

Michelle:

And then what? Six or been very exciting, and I honestly love building relationships and speaking with different people around the world. It's awesome. So now what I'm doing is I've learned and I've kind of just jumped on ships with the Amazon. Influencers program is something that you don't need to really invest money in. It's more of just investing your time and basically you are reviewing products and then when you review them, you upload them to Amazon and Amazon does all the work for you and you just earn commission off anyone that watches your video.

 

Bradley Sutton:

How do you even find out about that people are doing that, because I think nowadays some more and more people know about it, but like I didn't really know about it until somebody like I don't know maybe I saw a video on it or something but how do you even know that this was something that people do?

 

Michelle:

Yeah, it's actually really funny. So, I was just searching, looking for new influence affiliates to join Helium 10 and you know, the algorithm just picks up and all of a sudden, you're seeing like people selling you courses and it's like, hey, the Amazon review program. And I was like, what is this? So, I dived into it and I just started following and I was like you know what? I've never been one to just like jump and, you know, spend a lot of money on products, but this seems like something I can do. And I did it kind of just more of like as a test and, um, it was, yeah, I got like approved right away and then I did the second approval and I got approved in that and now it's just putting videos up on Amazon and the more videos you put there, the more commission you make. And you know it really just depends on the type of video you make as well, of course, the quality and everything. But it's really fun and I feel like for me being like a really busy full-time mom um, and you know, working full-time this is something that I can do, that I don't have to just like run a business. It's just more of yeah fun on the side.

 

Bradley Sutton:

yeah, like even us, you know amazon sellers, like we all have families, like this is something, and maybe your daughter is a little bit too young still, but you know this is something, is something that you know you got like teenagers or even, um, you know, maybe preteens a little bit. You could almost have them like make some of these uh videos and it's like something super simple. Obviously, you know adult needs to set it all up, but it's not like rocket science where you have to be a pro influencer. Uh, you know, in order to make these review videos, a lot of them are just like kind of like unboxing and how you're using it right.

 

Michelle:

Yeah, you know what Funny thing is? My daughter got her first brand deal.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Oh well, okay. Well, maybe she is old enough, I guess. Okay, my bad.

 

Michelle:

Yeah, so there's. There's Amazon sellers looking for people to or, you know, other people to review their product. And one was a mom who just came out with a kid's face wash and she was like hey, I saw your daughter on Instagram. I would love for her to review my product. My daughter is all about skincare because of YouTube and she absolutely loved it. She did it and I just got another email yesterday from another seller who saw her video on that listing asking if they can review her skincare product now and I'm like wait, she's starting to get all these deals, she's only six.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Wow.

 

Michelle:

It is really cool. Of course, you know you need to be in it as a parent, but it is really fun and I've seen a lot of married couples, even like a husband will have his own and then the wife has her own and they just capitalize on that extra income.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Interesting. Now, what's the? I mean, there's a difference, necessarily, between like, almost anybody can sign up to be an Amazon affiliate but then to be an Amazon influencer. Do they still require that you have some kind of social media account that has X number of followers? And then, if so, like what is that requirement?

 

Michelle:

Yeah, so that's a great question. So many people get confused between the Amazon Associates program and that is basically offsite commission. You have to have a website; you get the affiliate link and then you basically drive traffic from your website to Amazon with the Amazon reviewers’ program. That's onsite commission and you necessarily don't need a huge following on social media. You just need to have good engagement for the first two steps. So as long as you get engagement, you build your, your engagement, you sign up and you get approved, you don't even need to worry about that social platform anymore. It's just like building up that reviewer’s videos and then just letting Amazon do that for you.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Okay, excellent, excellent. Now, um, what was the very first video that you did Like? What was it for? Do you remember what it was?

 

Michelle:

Yeah, so, amazon. In order for you to get approved for the second step you actually need very first video that you did like what was it for? Do you remember what it was? Yeah, so amazon. In order for you to get approved for the second step, you actually need to submit three product review videos. So, it's not only one, it's three. So, I did a dog uh feeder, so it's basically a dog bowl but like it has a puzzle inside for your dogs, um, to slow their feeding. And then then I did a Spanish book, and then I did a I don't want to say dupe, but I did a smart watch that you know looks like a brand name like Apple, and that actually got approval. So that got me three. That got my first three approvals for the Amazon reviewers’ program.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Your style of doing Amazon business, like why do you think this is kind of good? Like it's obviously not for the kind of person who's like trying to build up a brand and, you know, be able to exit like your husband did with his brand. But what kind of person is what your model is of? Like these seasonal products in here or there? Like are you even putting it on a brand registry or you're just doing generic brands? Or how are you doing these listings?

 

Gulsen:

No, no brand. How are you doing these listings? No brand registry. And I think that what I'm doing is great for who is working like typical 9 to 5 that would like to get extra site income. And also, like you know, before working at Helium 10, I did supply chain my entire life, so I'm so close to those sourcing agencies or the places in like. I'm originally from Turkey. I know a lot of Turkish manufacturers. Plus, I have very good experience in Far East so it's so easy for me to source products. So, I feel like it is mixed for me. If you really like sourcing trying to find new people on the manufacturing end or sourcing end and if it's giving you pleasure, then that's great because then the money comes itself. But it's not something that you can quit working on your corporate and rely on those seasonal items.

 

Bradley Sutton:

now, for example, that, what do you say? beanie, Bluetooth, Bluetooth, beanie, whatever it's called? Um, you know, you, you grossed I don't know fifteen thousand dollars, twenty thousand dollars or whatever from it. Yeah, was that all one order from the manufacturer and you only did one? And then, if so, like what was that initial investment? Like landed to amazon, like the price of the products and then the importation, and landed to Amazon, like, how much did you invest in that project?

 

Gulsen:

It was like we created two orders the first order, it's like it was gone like in the very first month and a half, and then, since we foresee it, we had to place another order and we did the same quantity and I think we invested about maybe $7,000 in total.

 

Bradley Sutton:

In the first order and both orders together.

 

Gulsen:

The first order, like both orders together, could be around 14K, but it includes everything. Everything like it's includes about two thousand of those Bluetooth beanies and the import and the shipping. So, we had to act quick so we couldn't really do a vessel.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Wait, the first order was 2,000 units

 

Gulsen:

It was 1,000 and 1,000.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Okay so you have, you sold all of them?

 

Gulsen:

yeah, so the first.

 

Bradley Sutton:

I thought you only sold 1000 units. You actually sold 2000 units.

 

Gulsen:

it was during Christmas time. We sold about 1000 and that's why we were so high and excited. We ordered the second order and then those um the remainders. I think we have left about like 300 pieces left and then we started to get orders, maybe once a week and like bi-weekly.

 

Bradley Sutton:

No, not so yeah you sold way more than like 20. You know like we're talking more like 20, 30 000, so seven thousand dollars to invest. And then are you just doing the regular private label ways to get on page one like, hey, I'm gonna run some PPC and try, I mean like that's how you did it.

 

Gulsen:

Yeah, we were so lucky because we were one of the first listings, as I said, and organic, we were already on the page one for that Bluetooth beanie. But then of course you know how it goes Competition comes so crucially and we had to run PPC but still it wasn't that competitive because we were there at the beginning and we sent all inventory to FBA but then we had to take some inventory back and started to sell the rest as FBM.

 

Bradley Sutton:

You should see me about those. I'll start shipping them for you. You can pay my kids to do that. Okay, so then I mean, that's fascinating. I don't know how I didn't know all of this stuff that you're doing. Yeah, you know what.

 

Gulsen:

Funny enough. Actually, it's not about me, but again, like with my husband. Do you remember those fidget spinners?

 

Bradley Sutton:

Yes, yes.

 

Gulsen:

Yeah, he was also like one of the first listings with those fidget spinners on Amazon. Like I think he has a good sense of finding what will come to be a buy.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Well, how did you and he validate that thing? Because you know like it's different when you're trying to be the first kind of like we were kind of like the first coffin shelf. You know there's not like a bunch of data where it's like oh, I know all the main competitors and what they're ranking for and stuff. So, what did you guys use to validate? Like, did you buy some from Costco and just put it up and do a test listing to see how it goes? Or how did you have the con? I mean, cause $7,000 is still $7,000. You know that's a lot of money. Like you got to have some kind of confidence that you're going to be successful. So, if you couldn't see other beanie uh, Bluetooth, Bluetooth beanies, people having confidence what numbers or what were you looking at that made you go ahead and pull the trigger on that order?

 

Gulsen:

Yeah, the thing is I can source those products so quickly because of my connections. So, with that fidget spinner we didn't really do any drop shipping. We just found the manufacturer and I still doubt it was the manufacturer. I still feel like we were talking to a trader at that time. But we got the products in like in 10 days when we decided to go.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Oh, no, the beanie, though that's the one I'm wondering. Yeah, the beanie, you saw it in Sam's Club. It's not like hey, let me go to. Oh, there's a nice product Sam's Club, let me go ahead and drop $7,000. I'm sure you must have done some kind of research or something to take a look.

 

Gulsen:

Yeah, so, uh, what was really very surprising to me when you go to Alibaba or like, let's say, DHgate, and search for some products, you would see tons of manufacturer putting the same picture of the product and selling them. That time, when we check for the Bluetooth beanies, we only sold two, two manufacturers on Alibaba and at that time I was like wow, like this is amazing, because the manufacturers are not just saturating the market. Yes, so it was one of the insights for me. And the second one was it was I believe it was right before the Halloween and you know, like during Christmas times. It's amazing product that you can put in those stockings and not very expensive, but still, it would make your grandchildren so happy to have a gadget like that. It's great if you're like, if you do ski, snowboarding and stuff, you don't really worry about you. So, we believe in the product too.

 

Bradley Sutton:

But was there a search volume at the time, like was anybody searching that at all in Helium 10? Or there wasn't even search volume for that keyword yet.

 

Gulsen:

I don't remember that we saw a huge amount of search volume.

 

Bradley Sutton:

interesting, all right. So, hey, like that's really getting ahead of the, you know, similar to like what we did with the wooden egg tray in project X, where there was nobody searching for wooden egg tray but we're like, hey, I think this is going to be a hot product. All right, that's very interesting, I like that method. Now going back to Michelle, um, let's say I start my, my um influencer account. Would you suggest the first thing to do which actually is me I've had, because, I don't know, I'm lazy, I guess, but like should is the first thing I should do is just go around my house and look at stuff that I bought from Amazon or that stuff that exists on Amazon and start making videos of those things? Is that like a good first step for somebody just getting started?

 

Michelle:

yeah, so not a lot of people know this, but Amazon has it. Use your phone, the Amazon scanner app, and you can go around your house and scan anything and then you find stuff that are actually being sold on Amazon. And I do that. And when I first started, I did a lot of my higher ticket items. So, like my bed frame I got on that wasn't on Amazon and I checked and it was. I'm sorry I didn't get it from Amazon, but when I checked it was on Amazon and so I reviewed it. And then I reviewed like my sofa. My couch was there. I got my couch from an outlet and my couch was also on Amazon. So, I would say to focus on like your higher ticket items, but then also mix it up and do some mid-level, like $20, $30, $40, because those are what's going to give you commission. And if you start a lot of people focus on like really small items, like $10, $12, you're only going to see change. So, you want to have a mix of both and the more videos you bring in, the better. I would also say to look at your like how many influencer videos are there right? Like you don't want to review a product and there's so many review videos that you're not even going to be seen, so that's something else to look out for.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Like what's the best opportunity? Like obvious, it's like, is it something that's selling really well, so that you know there's a lot of you know people getting on that page, and at the same time, maybe like there's not that many influencer videos on that page? Like, is that how you prioritize it? Like, let's say, you could do like 30 things and you're like, okay, how do I know which ones I should do first Because I can get the most money? Would that be what you're looking at, or is there other factors involved too?

 

Michelle:

Yeah, so I try to see how many product listings there are. So, I'll give you an example. Like the smartwatch that I did, that was one of my like it's still actually selling really well and because there's multiple, actually there's only like 50 or 100 people buying it per month from what Amazon showed, but there's a lot of sellers that had it as well, and so I realized that people were watching my video and then they were going on to another listing and then they were like, okay, I really want to get this watch, and then they were just purchasing it. So that's one way. So, you also just want to make sure that there's demand for it, like people are buying it. Right, if you have a rug and you're going to review it and you go in and like there's bad reviews, it says from Amazon, this product is most likely going to get returned, probably not the best one you want to start with.

 

Bradley Sutton:

My next question, uh, would be is just, you know, to give people an idea of the potential here? um, what are some success stories you've heard about, like how much money people are making? And then you, your exact example. You obviously work full-time for Helium 10, so it's not like you're just sitting in your house all day doing video I hope not, otherwise our boss might not be happy about that but you're just doing it here and there in your spare time. Since you already have a full-time job, how much are you grossing every month from this?

 

Michelle:

Yeah, so Amazon's commission is uncapped. You can basically make as much. I just recently started, June, and I'm already about last month I made $600 and then all together it's probably about a thousand, but it hasn't even been a full three months. So, you know, with and I only have a hundred and like 60 videos on my Amazon storefront. So of course, the more videos I'm going to have, the more I'm going to be able to make. I I'm in a lot of Amazon reviewer groups and people make who've been there for like 12 months a year two years can make at least three to $6,000. So, like my goal is to put as many videos as possible and I'm trying to get to like 500 videos for Christmas, because I know that during Christmas time it's going to be really busy. So, I'm really excited to see if I can get at least up to two to three thousand dollars by Christmas in a month.

 

Bradley Sutton:

How much time does it take you to make these videos? Because I know like they actually don't necessarily need like super crazy professional video production and seven different scenes and Steven Spielberg quality. But it's like you just use your cell phone, if I'm not mistaken, right, and then and then what program are using for like cut it up and then put some like captions, and is that basically it? So, what's the time constraint? And then, what are the tools you're using to, to, to put it all together?

 

Michelle:

So that's a great question. Because I'm such a you know I'm busy, everything. I try not to put as much time into this and you really don't because people want to see reviews that are very authentic. They don't want to see like commercials or advertisements, they want to see real people making reviews. So, I just scan it. If I see that it's on Amazon, I will quickly get my water bottle, or if it's a product of a water bottle, quickly get it. Put my phone, place it so I can see myself in it and make a quick 30 to 45 second review video. Make sure the audio is good and I use CapCut. Capcut is free. You can also purchase it and I purchased it because you can enhance your audio, you can clean it up and you can also slice it up. So, in all, it takes me maybe like five minutes per video per product, because you get better as you go and then you just float.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Awesome, awesome, okay, cool, I'm going to get my kids started on that then. Now let's switch gears and talk about what you guys do here, because this is another way that people can make money without having to invest too much money and that's being an affiliate. And so, let's just talk about the extreme, just to get people excited here. Some affiliates here at the company how much money are they grossing? How much money is Helium 10 paying them per month in additional things like cars and stuff like that? So just like get people excited about this subject.

 

Gulsen:

It's really crazy, because some affiliates are making about $70,000 per month.

 

Bradley Sutton:

From Helium 10? Okay, I might be in the wrong position here. What in the actual heck? I had no idea.

 

Gulsen:

But it's not that, so we also pay for their cars.

 

Bradley Sutton:

What are some cars that we're paying for people.

 

Gulsen:

What I remember, we have like one, I believe, Tesla Model S and G-Wagon and a Mercedes, RV minibus and yeah, these are the ones.

 

Bradley Sutton:

In addition, making tens of thousands, even up to 70,000, that okay. Now I think we have you got my attention already, like I didn't even know that we were at that level yet, and so okay. So, what about you know what? What are the ways that that that people are getting to that level? Obviously, no, we're not going to sit here and say, hey, anybody can just make $70,000 a month from Helium 10. But basically, how are they doing something like that? Either of you can answer this.

 

Gulsen:

Yeah, it is. If you have an audience this is only what matters engaged audience you can be a very popular YouTuber, you can be running a course, you can be a great blogger, or you're just someone spreading the word about how to sell on Amazon and the software that's helping with it. Because we pay lifetime recurring commission 25% and on top of the commission we have extra rewards. I'd like Michelle to talk about them yeah.

 

Michelle:

So I will say, some of our top affiliate, like producers, that we pay out high commission, it's because our program is so lucrative and, again, it's 25 lifetime commission. So, some of our affiliates have been here for three, four years and they're still making commission with us on top of the extra bonus program rewards that we're paying for their cars or we're paying for their restaurant dinners, like we pay for so many things. And I also want to clarify, like we don't only pay out top affiliates, like we have a bonus reward program that also pays our smaller guys, like if you're just starting out, we're actually going to update our program, so you're going to receive $500 just for bringing in 10 new subs.

 

Bradley Sutton:

I think what you know, one thing that I want to double click on right there that you said is like the lifetime commission. So, theoretically, you know, let's say, I have this channel where I'm talking about Amazon, but, for whatever reason, I'm like you know what? YouTube shut me down. I no longer have a YouTube channel; I'm just going to stop this. But I had signed up 100 people to Helium 10. Let's just say it's the cheapest plan, so they're paying Helium 10. Those 100 people are paying Helium 10 100 times $100. Okay, all right. So hey, wait, wait, hold on, I'm going to. I'm about to do some advanced math here. So those customers are paying helium 10, $10,000 a month, but every month the affiliate is getting 25%, right? Yeah, so then that's a wait 0.25 times 10,000 is they're getting a check for $2,500 a month. But let's say, today my YouTube channel shut down and it shut down for a year, next year. Let's just say, if those hundred people are still paying Helium 10, they never even did anything, they didn't make one more video, they didn't like help these people at all. They're still getting a check for $2,500 a month, every month from now until infinity, as long as those members. So that that that's that. That that's what I think is really good about our, our system.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Now, uh, Michelle, you know, we obviously talked about one side of the spectrum where it's big influencers or people who have this big course or big YouTube channel or something. Obviously, it's a no brainer to sign up, you know, to be an affiliate, because instantly they're probably going to start making tons of money just because they're going to be able to sign up people. But again, we're talking this episode is kind of like about making money without too much investment. What if I'm just an average Joe? Maybe I'm just an average Joe Helium 10 user out there I know Helium 10 well or I'm just listening to this podcast somehow and I don't have a YouTube channel. I don't have a big popular blog or, you know, Instagram, with a hundred thousand followers. What's a way that I can scale up? I mean, I can still be an affiliate even if I have nobody just at least get started. But how can I scale up my platform in order to start building up? How much Helium 10 is paying me?

 

Michelle:

Yeah, so that's a really good question. I would say consistency, and that goes for everything that you do, right. If you are an average girl, like we've seen this. Like we have people sign up and they don't have like a big platform. However, like they're consistent with growing their audience, whether they you know what I decided I'm going to be a YouTuber. Now I'm going to start posting YouTube videos consistently and on top of that, I'm going to start posting Helium 10 demos, because I am a Helium 10 wizard, so why not share my knowledge? Or I'm going to start my own community on Facebook. Um, and they're consistent with growing their audience. They can eventually start growing commission, because all it takes is one person to get inspired and sign up for Helium 10 with your affiliate link and then, all of a sudden, it's three months in, you're like 10, 15, 20. And you're already, like you said, grossing like $2,500. And you haven't even done much. And you know, like I said, it's really about consistency and it's really fun, because I enjoy speaking with a lot of these smaller affiliates and encouraging them and then seeing their growth. It's insane.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Maybe I don't even have plans for making a community, but I mean, I guess theoretically, hey, I'm in, I'm in Facebook groups or uh, I post in in in X, uh, you know, like threads about, you know, formerly Twitter and as far as Amazon, I'm on Reddit and stuff like I could just share the coupon code here and there when people talk about it, and even without either, like being an influencer, I could be making commission. I just sign up. One person sees that code. You know that maybe my Reddit post is indexed by Google and then somehow somebody lands on it and I never even touched that person or had anything to do with them. They thought they use my code. I've got that revenue for life. So that's, that's something guys out there. You know you don't have to be some big influencer. If you're just a regular Helium 10 user and you know you have friends interested in Helium 10, give them a discount. You know, get a discount code Affiliates get discount codes that other people can't get and you're helping your friend out and now you're going to you know what.

 

Michelle:

Let me just join, for instance we just had a webinar and Riley was in it and he taught, talked all about q4 and how to you know create a good listing for q4, how to prepare. That was a webinar and now they have the opportunity to share an affiliate link with their friends or family there and who, anyone else that they know who's selling on Amazon. And if that person decides like hey, this was a really great webinar, I, I really need Helium 10 now because I want to make sure my listing is great, like, oh, now there's a coupon code attached, so just like that, just by sharing a resource and how Helium 10 can help, they can easily earn and make money with it.

 

Bradley Sutton:

that's a good point because it's not like, oh, I need to be a Helium 10 expert or an Amazon expert. If you've got the audience, like actual evangelists like myself, Carrie, Shivali, we'll go on the channel like, hey, we'll do a video and you don't even need to bring the expertise, because we've got it and you just provide the audience. And then I wish I need to arrange something. These affiliates are making so much money and I'm the one who's doing these videos and I'm not seeing any part of this. Something doesn't feel fair there. But anyways, take advantage of it guys. Take advantage of it. I'm not getting any money, but I'll be supporting there. Gulsen. Anything else to say about our affiliate program?

 

Gulsen:

Yeah, I think our affiliate program is offering money and also offering a bunch of information and the trends. So, we're like at Helium 10, we are not just like, hey, promote us and get the commission. We are helping a lot for our affiliates to grow. So, some real-life experiences like one of our affiliate’s accounts get hacked and he was having hard time dealing with Google so we were there for him and we helped him to get his account back. Or I was on a call with one of our affiliates chief marketing officers because he was curious about the latest trends and I was giving him my two cents about what they should be else doing to boost their reach, like getting more students.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Haven't some like giving you access to like their YouTube channel and you go in there and optimize. Like you're literally in their YouTube and fixing for them and stuff like that.

 

Gulsen:

I didn't want to talk about that one, but yes, this happened as well. Yeah, so, like Helium 10 is the only platform where you have your dedicated account manager. We are not a platform like your account is managed by a team of VAs or you're just talking to some AI generated chat box, so it's like you work with us and you also have a marketing manager that you don't need to pay. So that's why I really find it very beneficial for our affiliates. And the other thing is we work with thousands of affiliates and we know we see what's working, and we see what used to be working before but not anymore, or what's failing. So, it's good that we have this experience without really facing the actual work. So, it's always good to share what's working with our other partners to help them grow and win together.

 

Bradley Sutton:

So, if you guys want more information, want to sign up right away there's no sign-up charge or no entry fee or anything like that. Just go to h10.me forward, slash, crush it, crush it. Two words, but it's together, no spaces. H10.me forward, slash, crush it and sign up. If there might be a little box that says, how did you find out about this or something, make sure to say that you heard about it on the podcast. Right before I started at Helium 10, I actually had signed up to be a Helium 10 affiliate and then Michelle was like my affiliate manager and stuff. So, yeah, we've come full circle here, but I want you guys to go ahead and crush it as well on there. So that's super cool. And then remember, guys, it doesn't matter where you are in the world. You know we've got affiliates in in Pakistan and Tajikistan and Japan and Korea, and I think the only country we don't have affiliates is North Korea. So, every other country in the world we've got affiliates because you know you've got an audience everywhere there and obviously Helium 10 works in so many different countries. So, make sure to sign up, all right, guys.

 

Bradley Sutton:

So, uh, one more note is where you know Michelle is actually going to be doing like a little mini course in helium tend to help people learn more about being an Amazon influencer, so be on the lookout for when that, uh, when that comes out, and Gulsen is going to be working on the course of Turkish cooking for Helium 10. I'm just playing, but, uh, we'll have to think of a course that you can, uh, you can make for us too. But, thank you, thank you both, so much for uh coming on here. It's great to see, uh, you know people who were there from almost day one, uh, from when I started here at Helium 10, and, and we're the, we're, we're going to be like the trio here who keeps on going to, are doing.

 

Michelle:

Thanks, Bradley, thank you for having us.

Helium 10 Buzz 9/13/24: Amazon 1P Accounts Terminated | Etsy Seller Updates | How I got $6K Back From Amazon

Amazon launches new Amazon Saver private label to help shoppers save, take on Walmart, Target
https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Food/amazon-launches-new-amazon-saver-private-label-shoppers/story?id=113581546

US seeks to slam shut Shein, Temu trade loophole
https://asiatimes.com/2024/09/us-seeks-to-slam-shut-shein-temu-trade-loophole/

Brand Registry Protection
https://brandregistry.amazon.com/protection/dashboard?ref=brnav_to_impactdashboard

Etsy Offers Subscribers Free Shipping While Aiming for ‘Tremendous’ Growth
https://www.pymnts.com/news/ecommerce/2024/etsy-offers-subscribers-free-shipping-while-aiming-for-tremendous-growth/

Finally, maximize your Amazon FBA reimbursements with the newly revamped Helium 10 Refund Genie tool — a resource that could potentially reclaim thousands of dollars for your business.

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

• 01:00 - 1P Account Termination
• 02:13 - Ads in Amazon Rufus
• 03:25 - Amazon / Temu Brushing
• 05:10 - Amazon Coupon Update
• 05:37 - Etsy Seller Updates
• 07:14 - Amazon Export Central
• 08:47 - Amazon 3D Images
• 09:54 - Amazon Saver Groceries
• 11:35 - No More Cheap Chinese Imports?
• 13:24 - Brand Registry Protection
• 14:55 - Etsy Insider
• 16:10 - Walmart Ads Update
• 17:12 - How To Get Reimbursed By Amazon FBA

► 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 is terminating a lot of one-piece seller accounts, rufus is going to start showing Amazon ads, Esty is adding new features to its Prime-like service. These stories and more plus State of the End, to find out how I'm getting $6,000 back on a couple of accounts from Amazon for free how cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I'm your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show. That is our Helium 10 Weekly Buzz, where we give you a rundown of all the new stories that are going on in the Amazon, Walmart, TikTok shop and e-commerce world. We also give you training tips of the week and let you know what new features there are at Helium 10 that will give you serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. Let's see what's buzzing. I'd said a few weeks ago that, leading up to Accelerate, usually there's not much articles and, yeah, for a couple of weeks there were slim pickings for news, but today, all of a sudden, a bunch of stuff coming out of the woodwork. So we've got a number of stories to get into. Let's go ahead and hop right into it.

 

Bradley Sutton:

First story is just something you probably saw on LinkedIn all over the place the last week. I'll go ahead and highlight a previous podcast, guest LinkedIn, right here. Grace, she talked about it here where it's hey, there was a message that went out to a lot of 1P sellers that said hey, we're going to stop sourcing products. This is from Amazon. You know the way that 1P works. You know like Vendor Central is. Amazon actually buys product from vendors and then you see it says shipped and sold by Amazon. So, effective November 9th, our vendor relationship will be terminated. So a lot of people had noticed and gotten these messages. So that means it might be time, as Grace says here, to hey start getting your ducks in a row for those who want to keep selling Amazon and move to three P. You know seller central. Um, you know some of you might reach out to an agency to do that or just start on your own. Obviously, hey, if you, if you're going to be controlling more of your own stuff instead of Amazon, definitely going to be really intense help. So make sure to utilize our tools to help you with that transition to controlling more of your own listings and things like that. Did anybody out there get a notice? I'm just curious Were your sales down or why do you think Amazon sent that notice?

 

Bradley Sutton:

Next article up here is from Amazon Advertising, a little message that came out early last week and it said sponsored ads may begin appearing in Rufus-related placements. Okay, rufus related placements. Okay, rufus, is that AI tool that it's still tripping out for me? Like I don't think I can use it as a buyer. I saw a couple listings this week where it says the reviews state this and I'm like there's only one review here. It doesn't even say anything, it's only a rating. Like how could the review state something? But anyways, that's a side note for now. It says Amazon ads might start showing up in Rufus related placements. It says Rufus may generate accompanying text based on the context of the conversation. But here's the kicker your campaign reports won't include Rufus metrics. I guess you won't even know what's showing up in Rufus or not. So just you know, I haven't seen it in the wild yet. Again, I'm not using Rufus too much as a buyer, so maybe it is showing up out there, but that's going to be interesting. What part of this is going to be showing up in ads? And, like, how is it going to display if this is supposed to be an organic experience to help the seller or to help the buyers. We'll see, I'm sure, in the coming weeks. I'm sure Amazon Accelerate some things might be announced about that in the future.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Now, you know, a common thing that comes up every couple of years is brushing. So for those who don't know, brushing is what happens when all of a sudden you start getting these Amazon packages or other packages and you didn't even order it. And usually what happens is these you know sellers out there on Amazon, other platforms. They want to build up the reviews. So they get, like these you know fake buyer accounts. They have addresses and they just send to you know free product, to, to to people out there so that they can, you know, set those accounts up to leave them fake reviews. Right now this seems to be making a case, or a comeback.

 

Bradley Sutton:

This news nationnow.com article says that, hey, more Americans are receiving delivered package containing goods they didn't order and this is a scam known as brushing. Now something interesting says here in Illinois, one family told a local TV news station they receive one or two packages a day from Temu. So it looks like Temu is now getting in, or Temu sellers are getting in on brushing and so they said at first the constant deliveries were like experiencing Christmas every day. But then over time the family said the daily delivery simply became too much. Another customer, like a woman in Minnesota it says she received a box full of baby reveal balloons that she didn't order Packages delivered from Amazon and also included cupcake stands she didn't order. So like people are just getting random products here and there, didn't order. So like people are just getting random products here and there. Now you know sellers or amazon has said, hey, if you get brushing packages, first make sure that it's not just like a friend or relative giving you a gift you didn't know about, but says, hey, report the delivered package to the company, include the number of packages were delivered, along with the tracking number from the shipping label and any other information that could be pertinent, and that amazon investigate this. So I'm not sure how you can report it with Temu, but Amazon has a availability to report brushing scams. So something that came up early last week on your dashboard, if you in case you missed it, is the duration for coupons is going to be updated, all right. So, starting in last week, the maximum duration of three different kinds of coupons are going to be changed from 90 days, which is previously the max you could do, to now for standard coupons 30 days, reorder coupons 180 days, subscribe and save coupons 365 days.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Next article is actually from payments.com, from Etsy says Etsy's new search tools aim to elevate quality listings and enhance seller success. All right, so now you know, Etsy has been trying to make a push to become a little bit, I guess, more relevant in the, the e-commerce game. And now that they have, uh, it says we are optimizing our search results to showcase a broader range of items for more sellers. We also want to make it easier and more fun to explore the depth our marketplace has to offer. And they say, hey, these changes that they've been making for Etsy listings have led to approximately 70% of shops on Etsy having more visibility in search. And sellers also now have a Etsy search visibility page and this basically gives sellers more insights into recommendations on how they appear in search. And they said, hey, you know, sellers have told us they want more transparency into what goes into Etsy search. So, guys, if you haven't, if you're selling on Etsy like myself, I haven't looked at this thing you probably should go in and look for your Etsy search visibility page. Get more information on this link to this article here that we have in the comments below. But you know you got to keep up on whatever platform you're selling on. Obviously, with Amazon you've got Helium 10 at the forefront giving you all kinds of tools, and Amazon itself is giving you tools for how to show up and search better. But don't sleep on these other platforms as well. You got to go on these other platforms to make sure that you still stay relevant and Etsy is trying to make some moves out there in e-commerce and so you can benefit from it.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Going back to Amazon, actually going to Europe, now there's an article released by Amazon says Amazon launches Export Central, allowing sellers to export to 39 countries in Europe with just three clicks. All right, you know. So Amazon is not in. There's not an Amazon marketplace in every country. You know you've got Spain and UK and France and some of the major ones and some of the newer ones like Sweden and Netherlands, Belgium, et cetera, but now you can ship to those other countries, all right. So this article says sellers can reach millions of customers even in countries without an Amazon store. Today, amazon announced the launch of our Export Central tool, which allows sellers who are part of MFN Merchant Fulfilled Network to expand their reach to customers in 39 countries in Europe. Now, some of these you know places that don't have Amazon stores as mentioned here, like Austria, Portugal and Greece. Now you're going to be able to ship there from your inventory, that is, in your existing marketplaces, like UK and Germany, et cetera. Now this is going to be available to all sellers, even if they're not even FBA. If you're just part of the Merchant Fulfilled Network or FBA, you'll be able to utilize this service. Now FBA sellers are automatically enrolled into this program at no extra cost, and says that, hey, sellers who have enabled export from their EU stores have seen an average sales uplift of up to 10%. So if you guys are selling in Europe, take a look at this article that I have linked below and check your own Seller Central to see if you're enrolled in it and the implications if you're not, and, if you are, and see if it's right for you and let me know how it works out for you.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Now, going back to the Seller Central dashboard, there was another update last week. It talks about uploading 3D models to help drive conversions. All right. So in some categories, such as home furniture, consumer electronics, shoes and eyewear categories, it actually supports 3D content and so you can go to Catalog in your Seller Central, hit Upload Images and then go to the Image Manager tab and then now there is going to be those products you have eligible for 3D. You can select your product and then check for the Register Brand Owner icon and then on the right page it says go to 3D models and select upload 3D model. All right, so you know, for some of these categories, you know having a 3D image there is very good for helping you know drive conversion. So take a look in Seller Central if you are eligible for that, and then obviously, your next step is you know there's a button there that talks about well, what are the 3D model? You know requirements for getting you know these images up there and you'll be able to get that information.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Next article is from ABC News and at first glance it might not seem like it's impactful for Amazon sellers. Let me explain why I'm including this article. It says Amazon launches new Amazon saver private label to help shop shoppers save. Take on Walmart and Target. So you know how Walmart and Target have like their own brands. You know, like Costco's got Kirkland right. Well, amazon now is going to have Amazon saver right. Almost looks like Target products because it's all red here, but basically what the definition is it says Amazon's new private label brand, amazon saver, will offer an array of grocery staples, from crackers and cookies to canned food and condiments, and most Amazon saver items will be priced at $1,000. Under $5 and prime members will get an additional 10% off of these products.

 

Bradley Sutton:

All right, so you might be wondering like well, that's terrible. Like, if I'm selling in this category, I'm never going to be able to sell again with these cheap products. But here, here's why I put this is Amazon historically has not done great in the grocery category. You know, like Walmart, I think, has them beat there. But then if Amazon is providing more of these cheaper products, you know like some of the products here is pancake syrup and sweet peas and coffee creamer and things like that for cheap, if more people are looking, are going to, you know, go ahead and start buying those things. Well, maybe you are in the grocery category and you have some other products, like some Korean snacks or Vita cup coffee out there, and, and maybe the people who wouldn't have bought your product just by itself. But now they're like, hey, I'm buying groceries anyways, let me go ahead and add these others to the cart. That's how I think it could potentially help Amazon sellers who are selling in the grocery category.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Next article is from asiatimes.com and it's entitled us seeks to slam shut sheen and Temu trade loophole. So this is talking about the, the uh de minimis trade loophole hole that allows Chinese e-commerce firms like sheen, Temu and others to not have to pay tariffs. And then, you know, it allows them to just like ship stuff to the us where sellers are paying like three, four dollars and there's no tariffs, no, nothing, and that's why team machine are so popular, that's why Amazon is even opening this up, but there's some, uh, us representatives uh who are calling on us president to try to end this loophole. All right, so you know, check out this article if you want to go into into details. But a lot of us-based sellers probably would like that, because they're like man, how are we going to compete with some of these Temu products where it's just factory shipping direct? They don't have to ship their item to FBA? Temu has like minimal fees, and so that's why you know like you'll see a coffin shelf for like 10 bucks. I haven't seen my sales go down. You know too much, but you know other sellers might be affected by it.

 

Bradley Sutton:

But an interesting thing that this article said was it quoted a professor at Shanghai University who said that if this is tightened, this loophole it actually could long-term benefit Chinese manufacturers by pushing them up the value ladder, it says. It said hey, if they tighten this rule in the future, they're going to have to change their strategy from selling low-priced items to high-quality ones. This is going to create new opportunities for many Chinese consumer brands. So what do you guys think out there? Do you want the US to close this loophole or do you feel like this Chinese professor says? You know what that actually could cause Chinese companies to up their game and be even more competitive in the future? I'm kind of leaning personally on the let's just close this loophole and make it a fair playing ground between US sellers and foreign sellers. But curious to see what you guys think. Let me know in the comments below.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Next article is not really an article but it is again highlighting a former podcast guest here, leo Segovia. In his LinkedIn post he said he reminded sellers hey, you guys can actually see how many infringement and copycat attempts are on your listings, all right, so he showed some of them. He had like 2,000 attempts in the last six months on his products and 151 in September. This is like what's happening is like people trying to do something to your listing or create listings that copy yours, et cetera, et cetera. So he gave a link here that you guys can go to in order to see this. Like, this is not some special link. Everybody has access to it, but most of you probably didn't even realize you had it. So check the links in the comments section of this podcast and you'll be able to go to your dashboard. All right, it says it's called the Impact Dashboard, proactive Protections.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Here's one of my accounts, the how Cool Is that? For Project X. I stay under the radar and I don't sell in niches that are super, highly competitive and that kind of keeps me away from some of those attempts. You know like, right, like if I'm trying to sell a product that's selling 500 units a day, I guarantee it's probably like Leo is going to have thousands of people trying, bad actors trying to attack me. But take a look, you know, like for me, from April to September, I've only had 110 cases, total for 2024. I've had 410, but still that's kind of crazy. For just my coffin shelves and an egg trace, 410 people have tried to do something. But that probably pales into comparison to some of you out there who have much bigger accounts than the. How cool is that account?

 

Bradley Sutton:

Next article, going back to payments.com and going back to Etsy, it says Etsy offers subscribers free shipping while aiming for tremendous growth. Like I said, you've been seeing signs that Etsy is trying to like, you know, like hey, I see Amazon, Walmart, TikTok shop pulling away. We got to, we got to catch up Now. First of all, the funny thing is, if you read this article, it says CEO and CFO of Etsy said at a conference that Etsy seeks to distinguish itself from rivals like Amazon. But one of the company's recently launched initiatives is Etsy Insider, a paid subscription that will provide free shipping to members. I don't know how that's distinguishing. You're literally doing the exact same thing as Amazon, which is fine. I mean you should do free shipping, but it's funny that that statement came right after. Oh, we're trying to be different, you know, um than amazon. But one thing they are unique on is check this out something that does distinguish them from amazon, says. Other new efforts include an Etsy gift mode that lets shoppers send a message to the recipient before the gift even arrives. A plan to raise the percentage of shoppers using the Etsy mobile app from 40 to 75. All right, so take a look at this article. There's more interesting things, but, yeah, Etsy's trying to go ahead and up their game.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Next article for those of you selling on Walmart.com you probably got this email from Walmart connect and it says unlock new brand term strategies to help increase your share of voice. So Walmart connect brand term targeting is now available for sponsored search automatic campaigns, in addition to exact match keyword campaigns, which launched earlier this year. Says that brand term targeting helps you to increase brand visibility by empowering you to strategically bid on keywords associated with your brand and those of your competitors. All right, so take a look at that email. If you guys are selling on Walmart and do Walmart advertising, I guarantee you've got that email somewhere. Check your junk if not, but make sure that you know what's going on. What's the new features? Walmart is always adding new features to its advertising platform and we implement as many as possible as well. For those who want help with Walmart advertising, we have atomic for Walmart, we have, obviously, research tools for Walmart, but make sure you're taking advantage of these things to you know. Keep your share of voice high on the Walmart platform.

 

Bradley Sutton:

All right, that's it for the news this week, guys, but now I've got a question for you how to get reimbursed by Amazon FBA. This is a question that a lot of sellers are asking, because they got that notice they heard here on the Weekly Buzz. That window is closing could cost you thousands of dollars. All right. So you've probably seen ads from different services from saying, hey, we'll, we'll help you get those. You got to take action now, which is true, but almost all of those ads are for companies that are going to take 20, 25% or more of any money they find for you.

 

Bradley Sutton:

How would you like to know how to get your money back for free? Now, don't get me wrong. Even Helium 10 has a service where we'll do the work, like all of the work, for you. It's called MRS, and if you're a big company who's owed maybe tens of thousands of dollars and you don't have time to submit all the claims yourself, yeah, we'll go ahead and do it for you for a fee. Go to h10.me/mrs, and you'll get a quote on that. But what I'm about to show you is 100% free for Helium 10 Platinum annual members and above, and this is the best way to get Amazon FBA to reimburse you money that you are owed. And it's your last chance to do it, because in October 23rd, that timeline is going to go away, costing you potentially thousands. In October 23rd, that timeline is going to go away, costing you potentially thousands.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Let me show you a couple of the accounts I have access to and how I'm going to be able to get over $6,000 in just a couple of counts back from Amazon FBA, how I'm getting them to reimburse me, all right. So, first of all, the next time you sign into your Helium 10 dashboard, take a look at this banner on the top. All right, it'll say, hey, it's your last chance to claim. I look at this. This is one of my accounts here. I got $5,000 because I haven't been keeping up to date with my Refund Genie. So for those of you who have never used a FBA reimbursement service, you're going to see probably a big number right there. All right, so go there and hit open Refund Genie. Now, when you hit that it's going to go up to your regular Refund Genie dashboard. But you need to look at the stars, all right. So in this account I've actually got a few accounts connected and actually I had more than $6,000 original. I've already refund. I've already got a lot refunded by. I kept a few here's just so I can show you guys the process. But I've got like three accounts connected here. So let's go ahead and open up this first one creative, lg, household and healthcare.

 

Bradley Sutton:

But what you guys need to do is look for the ones that say loss and damage and has a star next to it. Forget about all the old ones. If you see that there now really, really quick. If you guys don't have access to this, it means you're probably on like a like a Helium 10 free plan or starter plan or maybe just a platinum monthly. All you need this it's this is a completely revamped Refund Genie tool. So that's why this is like actually our training tip of the week and our Helium 10 new feature request. This is a newly revamped tool to get this. You can have access to it now if you're a platinum annual above. So if you're on a platinum monthly um. You can just upgrade to a platinum annual and you'll get instant access to this.

 

Bradley Sutton:

So, anyways, what I'm going to do right here is click on this EU one. So I'm going to show you one from EU. I click details on one of these ones that have star, and then now I have all the marketplaces show up in this account. I'm selling in Germany, Spain, France, Italy, UK, Sweden and Poland, and so let's go right here to the UK one. All right, so now I have to open up seller central into the UK account. So go ahead, I'm going to go ahead and do that right now.

 

Bradley Sutton:

And then what I need to do is I'm going to hit help and then go to get help and resources, and then now this is different for different people, but sometimes on your page you'll see a widget that says inventory lost in FBA warehouse. All right, that's what you have to click on to get your amazon reimbursement from Amazon FBA. But if you don't see that, you can just hit my issue is not listed and then just type in investigate inventory missing in FBA warehouse, and then it's going to come up. What's about to come up right here? If I hit this button, it's basically just a FN SKU button and then now all I have to do is copy the ASIN or the FN SKU. I should say, and this one is going to be a potential refund of 600 euros, I'm going to get 600 euros back in like a couple seconds here, and then I'm going to hit continue. Once I paste the ASIN or the FN SKU into, I either get the money back instantly or I have to open up a case, and so in this one I'm going to open up a case because this was 600 euros worth and so they require a case to be open. So I hit create case and I create the case and they're going to get me back that money probably within a couple of days.

 

Bradley Sutton:

I go back to Helium 10 and then I hit processed. And then let's go ahead and go on another one. Let me just find one of these smaller ones Like here's, one that is only three items and 28 euros, all right, so let's go ahead and copy this one. Let's go to Amazon. I'm going to go back to get help with a new issue. I hit inventory loss and FBA warehouse paste the FN skew. I hit continue and let's see what it says. Boom goes a dynamite right here. You remember how Helium 10 told me that I was owed three units and 28 euros. Well, look what Amazon just told me. In this case, yes, you are right, three units reimbursable. These items have been processed for reimbursement. I'm going to get that money. I just made 28 euros in about five seconds here. So I'm going to go one by one on all of these cases and I'm going to get hundreds thousands of dollars back on this one account.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Let me just show how it looks in a US account. So I'm back here on the Refund Genie page and here's one of my North American accounts. It says Dial Cash let's go ahead and hit the details here and here we go. And it says US I got nine lost items, potential refund of $1,223. Oh, my goodness gracious. Again, I need to go to the correct seller central account and then I hit the help button and I hit get help and resources. And then how do I ask for reimbursement from Amazon FBA? Let me go ahead. And oh my goodness, let me open up this one. Here's one where there's five conference chairs that looks like Amazon lost and that's a total of $1,100. Oh, my goodness gracious, I'm going to copy that FN skew and go ahead and paste it over here.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Inventory loss and FBA warehouse. Let's paste that FN skew, hit continue and let's see what Amazon says. I almost like want a drum roll right here or something. Boom, it says, hey, this you know, probably cause it's a thousand dollars I'm about to get back in one click. It says here well, we opened up a case and this can be transferred to an associate and there's a case already open, but I guarantee I'm going to get that money back.

 

Bradley Sutton:

I everything that the new Refund Genie has been showing, I've been getting it back a hundred percent of the time. Sometimes even more I'm getting back than Refund Genie. Let's go ahead and do one of these smaller ones that they can refund me instantly on. Here is one product that is for $29.99. Let's go ahead and copy this FN SKU over. I'm going to hit get help with a new issue Inventory loss in FBA warehouse. I paste the FN SKU, I hit continue and let's see if Amazon instantly refunds me. Boom, there it is.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Remember Helium 10 said I was owed one unit and Amazon says you are absolutely correct. Allow four to five days for this reimbursement to come into this account. So, as you can see I've got a lot more I have to do. I said $6,000. It's actually going to be across all my accounts about $8,000. And that's in two of my accounts. I've already been keeping up with the Refund Genie so it probably would have been been over $10,000 for me if I wasn't. But, guys, this is money in your bank account.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Now, how much can you possibly get? It depends. If you've only been selling for a couple of months and you've sold maybe $20,000, amazon might owe you $20 or $100 or something like that. Probably not that much. But if you've been selling for 18 months and you're a six figure seller, you could be owed thousands of dollars. You know, potentially we are a seven figure seller. It's almost guaranteed If you've never done a audit, you it's almost guaranteed that you're owed thousands of dollars by Amazon of what they owe to you. And Refund Genie can help you know what that is. So if you have never used Helium 10 at all and you want to do a free calculator to see how much potentially you might owe, just go to h10.me forward slash Refund Genie h10.me forward slash Refund Genie. We've got a calculator here where you can just enter in your you know rough estimate of your sales and then we'll calculate how much could be owed for you.

 

Bradley Sutton:

But again, how to get reimbursed by Amazon FBA? It is super easy. You just have to open up a case with Amazon, copy and paste the FNSKUs that were lost. There's also another thing that Refund Genie does is allows you to see the transaction IDs of damaged items. All right, so if products have been damaged at Amazon FBA warehouses, you can enter in all the transaction IDs and get reimbursed for those, for the ones that Amazon hasn't reimbursed for you. So you could get thousands of dollars back from Amazon FBA reimbursements on stuff that they have lost and they didn't reimburse you, just by submitting these reports. But you don't have to go searching, hey, what could you be reimbursed on or not? Helium 10 is doing all that work for you. And again, remember, this service is 100% free. We are not taking any commission on it because you're the one who's doing half of the work. All right, if you want Helium 10 to do all the work for you, like some of the other services, go to h10.me/mrs, and you know for the.

 

Bradley Sutton:

You know I saw some. I was looking at a report. There's a lot of you guys out there who are owed potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars, like literally, like I'm like looking at Helium 10 customers like, guys, you are owed hundreds of thousands of dollars and you haven't asked for reimbursement yet. So you have like thousands of transactions and maybe you want you don't want to do one by one what I was just showing you how to do go to h10.me/mrs, we'll take care of all of it for you and, uh, you know we'll charge your fee, but for what I showed you today, guys, there is no fee at all. So make sure those of you who have a Helium 10 Platinum annual account or higher get in there and start getting your money back. And then let me know in the comments below how much did you guys get back Thanks to Helium 10 Refund Genie from Amazon FBA reimbursements. All right, guys, that's it for today's episode. We'll see you in the next one to see what's buzzing.