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

#592 - Tips To Save Money On Your Amazon Product Shipment and Logistics

Is your Amazon product logistics strategy ready for Q4? Join us as we sit down with Burak Yolga, Co-Founder & CEO at Forceget, a leading expert in global supply chain and logistics, who reveals crucial strategies that Amazon sellers need to thrive in the fast-approaching holiday season. Burak unpacks how to save money on logistics and explore new marketplaces amidst the rise of new players like TikTok Shop Temu, and Shein. As a special treat, Burak shares his favorite restaurants in Istanbul, just in time for Bradley who is heading to the upcoming conference in the city.

We break down the factors driving up international shipping prices, from reduced vessel schedules to container shortages and shifting market demands. High inflation and the growth of platforms such as Temu and AliExpress are reshaping e-commerce, creating new challenges for Amazon sellers. Learn how to navigate Amazon Global Logistics’ practices, adapt to the new fees, and optimize your shipment strategy to stay competitive in today’s volatile market.

This episode is a goldmine of insights for those grappling with the costs of selling large items on Amazon. Discover why more sellers are turning to third-party logistics providers and exploring multi-channel selling to maximize profitability. We highlight the benefits of early inventory planning, the impact of Amazon's new delivery rules, and the critical need for flexible fulfillment options. Plus, find out how expanding into physical retail stores like Walmart can be a game-changer for your business. Tune in for expert strategies that can transform your logistics approach and boost your bottom line this Q4.

In episode 593 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Burak discuss:

• 00:00 - Global Supply Chain Insights and Tips
• 04:11 - Impact of Rising International Shipping Prices
• 07:20 - Impact of New Amazon Fees
• 12:26 - Amazon Global Logistics vs Independent Freight Forwarder
• 16:38 - Maximizing Amazon Seller Profitability
• 17:31 - Expanding Sales Beyond Amazon 
• 23:00 - Diversifying Sales Channels and Maximizing Profits
• 24:03 - Saving on FBA Fees and Freight
• 30:11 - Benefits of Investing in Your Brand’s Website

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Transcript

Bradley Sutton:

Today we've got one of the world's leading experts on global supply chain and logistics and he's going to talk about a wide variety of topics, like things Amazon sellers can keep in mind for Q4, how they can save money on logistics and expanding to other marketplaces. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Black Box by Helium 10 House is 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. 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 for Serious Sellers of any level in the e-commerce world.  And we got somebody who helped Serious Seller all over the world, I think the third, maybe fourth time he's been on the Podcast. Burak, how's it going? Man? I'm great. Bradley, Thanks for having me again.

Burak:

I'm great. Bradley, Thanks for having me again.

Bradley Sutton:

Are you in Miami right now?

Burak:

Yes, Miami Florida.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay, I'm wearing my Miami hat. This is, like, I think, an older minor league baseball team or something. That's why I'm wearing my Miami hat today in your honor. But you're originally from Turkey. Did you know that I'm going to Istanbul in a little bit?

Burak:

I think you mentioned. Yes, I'm very excited. I wish I was there to take you to the best food restaurants, you know.

Bradley Sutton:

You'll have to tell me what the good ones are. Are there any in Istanbul that for sure I need to go to so I can maybe even by myself I can go?

Burak:

I think you should definitely visit Galata Port. It's a new place. It's right by the water. There are some good Kebab places and also definitely Baklava. You should try Gülolu, the best Baklava in the world.

Bradley Sutton:

Perfect, all right, I'm going to those places. By the way, I'm not sure when this podcast is going to go out, but if anybody is in Turkey and is down to meet me on September the 4th or 5th and you want to go with me to one of these restaurants or take me there. Conference I'm speaking at, you can get a link to it at h10.me forward slash Istanbul. H10.me forward slash Istanbul. It will forward you to the conference I'll be speaking at. So, I'd love to do like a little mini-Helium 10 meetup over there. Now. We're not here just to talk about Turkish food and Turkish delights. I'm sure we could spend a whole episode. You know as much as I love food to talk about that. But you know you're one of the leading experts in the world about, you know shipping and logistics and things like that, so let's just hop right into it. You know the last time you were on this show was episode 457. So, by the way, if anybody wants to get Burak's more of his backstory, actually go back to the very first episode he was on, which is episode 324. You can learn about his origin story. And then 457, we talked about some other topics, but what was 457? I think it was around, like you know, May, June of last year. So obviously you know things in logistics change month by month, even. What are some of the biggest changes that sellers should be aware of, just in general? First of all, in the logistics world, whether it's about pricing or taxes, what can you tell us has been different since the last time you were on the show?

Burak:

You know you're right, things sometimes change its daily base and you know, when we started ForceGet, it was probably five years ago, we were mainly focusing on international shipping, but we became more like a supply chain. Now there has been a lot of changes within our company as well as in the world. In the industry, with the e-commerce, especially with the Amazon FBA plus, the new players are coming into the market TikTok, Teemu, Shein and Shopify. According to the reports, they have lost some revenue. However, a lot of companies they're trying to enter omnichannel. That's something that I mentioned before we start recording. When it comes to international shipping, actually, international shipping prices increased. Compared to six months ago. I think we have seen the lowest shipping prices last probably a few decades. Full container price was almost uh 1500 dollars from China to Los Angeles. Now it went back up to seven, eight thousand dollars. Now we see the range of five thousand, five thousand, five hundred dollars, which is, I think, a hell to range for both um shipping lines, freight forwarders, as well as for f the um e-commerce and amazon sellers.

Bradley Sutton:

Prices went down but then prices have been going up again for different things. Obviously, there was that thing that happened last year in the Red Sea and things like that. So obviously there's always random things COVID, or there's a container ship blocking the whole Suez Canal or something like that. Those would obviously have an effect. But the recent price increases in shipping, like what is that attributed to? Because, like, is that because of the, the war that that's happening, or is it something else?

Burak:

Actually, this was uh sort of uh happened, I would say, inorganically. Uh, one of the reasons was the shipping lines. Uh, you know all these worldwide companies like Hyundai, Zim, Evergreen. I'm sure everybody's familiar with that big logo block less US channel they have canceled a lot of scheduled vessels because maybe 30%, 40% of the container vessel was not 100% fulfilled, vessel was not 100 percent fulfilled. Basically, they were losing a lot of money so they decided to roll over one of the week's shipping schedules to the next one. So basically, there was not enough demand but there is a lot of supply. Obviously then the prices start going down, basically in order to save money on the fuel, maybe the crew, maybe the insurance. So, they started to cancel a lot of scheduled vessels and obviously this caused a big chaos in the market. A lot of containers went, uh from China to other places like Europe, us did not come back. Then we start having container shortage. So, this is something uh started organically. Uh, there was not enough demand in the marketplaces, like in the US, like North America, USA, Canada, because of, I would say maybe, high inflation, or companies like Teemu, AliExpress start to do very cheap price Drop shipping from China, which is something interesting that we maybe talk later. Teemu is start entering US market. Start working with local 3PLs to acquire Amazon sellers to start selling the ones which are qualified OEC. Start selling on Teemu so they will start doing local deliveries with a shorter period of delivery times, which I believe they will try to attract Surplus. What is Surplus? The product that already has been sitting in the US for a long time. Amazon sellers or their wholesalers they cannot sell it, so they need to liquidate the product. So, Teemu was basically saying that hey, use our platform to liquidate them, not on the retail price, but heavily discounted price, maybe 60%, 70%. So, I think all these things happening last two years after COVID, when we saw a very big peak when the Amazon sellers were making really good money but then the sales dropped a couple of different reasons, and I see that it's the same thing is affecting the international shipping prices and fulfillment prices. Things are really very different right now compared to even six months ago.

Bradley Sutton:

Obviously, this has been the year of crazy Amazon, new fees and new announcements, you know, be it inbound, placement fees, and so I want to talk just a little bit about that. First, like in your you know you're handling both sides, you know, be it. You know shipping side, be it logistics side, warehousing and things. What have you seen as far as how this has changed, what Amazon sellers are doing, like, for example, me, I've got my own warehouse, but still now I'm being very mindful of how many you know, like, how many, you know what kind of boxes I'm putting in. Like, like, maybe before I was only trying to do you know a certain number of shipments, but now I'm like, no, I got to have minimum five, you know of one box or, oh, I need to try and increase a 15 because I got to avoid that placement fee. But what have you noticed as far as your clients? How are their practices different because of some of these new fees?

Burak:

Man. It's a really, really long topic actually when it comes to make it shorter version. When Amazon came up with this, the idea was start charging sellers for all those distribution fees that they need to ship to many small warehouses across fulfillment centers across the nation so the end user can receive the products not in two days but one day, even maybe sometimes half day. But we have seen a lot of case studies actually our customers. They created five shipments and when, let's say, 100 cartons, Amazon asked you to ship 50 cartons to Texas, we saw that the final delivery address Amazon distributed these products were still Pennsylvania or Florida or still North Carolina maybe. So what? Amazon was actually telling sellers in theory hey, split the shipments to five locations because that's going to be closer to the buyers. That was not really the case. Yeah, I guess they're still working on a lot of Optimization, uh structure. Obviously, this was like a new project for them. But there has been a lot of confusing for sellers. A lot of seller’s kind of felt like they have to use Amazon Global Logistics to avoid those uh placement. But then when they tried to book the shipment, amazon Global Logistics did not arrange to pick up. Three weeks, four weeks’ time Then they have charged people wrong HDS code. So, a lot of sellers they paid very high tax and duty instead of some other lower charges that they're supposed to receive. I mean, obviously we talked to a lot of people, some people they have good experience with Amazon Global Logistics, some people have bad experiences. But in my opinion that was not really fair for Amazon to tell people, hey, if you use AGL, then you will not be paying any of these fees, but then if you don't, then you have to pay for it. I guess I understand they have invested billions of dollars into this fulfillment center supply chain logistics, so they want to leverage the power of their seller the seller power, I would say. But I think I would not put all my eggs in the same basket, so I would not just use AGL and AWD, you know AWD also a new program Amazon has launched like two years. But since they're pushing a lot harder right now and I think the fourth quarter will be very tough uh test for Amazon with all the check-in processes, transferring uh products between the fulfillment centers and making sure that they become available and one of my I believe most of our customers now start looking into FBM options. Number one very high FBA fees. Number two all these delays with AGL, AWD, fulfillment center transfers. Obviously, amazon is going to prioritize. The products are already sitting in the fulfillment centers. They will prioritize to ship the products first, not receive the products first. So that always has been the case. So, if you ask my opinion, it's going to be a tough year for a lot of sellers to get and understand these FBA fees. But also try to be profitable. You know that's something that we've been talking about. It doesn't make sense anymore to say, hey, I'm seven, eight figure seller, but how much profit I'm making? So, I believe to make plan B, plan C is very, very important, Bradley.

Bradley Sutton:

Me having my own warehouse and obviously I can repack things and I do smaller quantities. I can easily make sure to send to four or five locations to get that, you know to skip the low inventory fee. But if I'm sending in containers and before I would send to Amazon directly, I pretty much have no option, right, like I am going to get that low inventory fee no matter what unless I send to a 3PL first and they divide it. Or am I thinking of that wrong, since I don't send containers directly to Amazon? I don't know, but is that correct? Like pretty much anybody who's sending full containers or containers that can't be broken up or shipments that can't be broken up, they're forced into this fee.

Burak:

Yes, kind of. But we have done some case studies to see what really makes sense, if it makes sense to ship, because Amazon Global Logistics is also not charging sellers the market fees. They're charging actually higher, a lot higher. So, if you're looking at door-to-door shipment from China to one of the most popular Amazon FBA fulfillment centers, let's say ONT8, which is in Los Angeles, California Riverside, if you use us it's going to cost $6,000, but with Amazon Global Logistics they're charging $8,000 or $9,000. So basically, they're kind of charging a little higher so that they can use probably that money to distribute the products within three to four different locations. And if it is LCL, then less than full container. Yes, you can actually choose to use your own freight forwarder and price is very similar. But one of the things that we realized; their FC transfer times a lot longer than using an independent Freight Forwarder. So, which means if you ship with AGL it will maybe be fully delivered to Amazon, fully check in, all received 90 days, versus you use your own Freight Forwarder, probably it will be delivered and checked in 45 to 50 days. So, does it matter for you? Maybe it doesn't really matter because the sales are not that fast right now, unfortunately, I don't see really much Amazon sales recently saying that, hey, I'm running out of inventory all the time. I hope it's a good problem. I hope some of the people having that problem. But majority of the people are saying, hey, I'm not in the rush, so I'm okay to take these fees. But then you should really understand the cost of actually paying everything in advance and your cash tied up to. If you're using a loan, if you're not using just cash, if you're, you know, withdrawing some money with, I don't know, amazon financing or third-party money, you get funding. So, you need to understand you may be paying monthly two to 3% because these are short term funds, so probably charging 20, 25% annually. So, every month you're paying two to 3% something that you're not selling. So that's basically three percent minus from your actual margin. So, there are so many things to consider. You know trying to explain as basic as possible. So definitely understand and see what is better for your business. And if I were a big seller, I wouldn't send all of my inventory FBA. I would keep some of my inventory in a 3pl close to amazon and send it in a you know, smaller batches and more frequent. This way I'm not going to be paying high inventory fees, the storage fees and, more importantly, I can test other marketplaces. You know, I can try to drive traffic. I will do FBM, I can do Tic Tac Shops or maybe even Walmart. So, it will give you more flexibility instead of sending everything to Amazon, FBA. And if one day somehow your listings get suspended or hijacked or your sales is down for some reason, then you'll be like, oh my God, what I'm going to do versus you have some inventory in a different location and you can start considering some other options.

Bradley Sutton:

We talked about new inventory fees that Amazon sellers are having to do, and then the question about whether to go AGL and things like that. But you also mentioned Fulfilled by Merchant. Now, for me, I do all of my products both. I have two SKUs for every product. I have FBM and FBA, and I always tell people to do that. Not necessarily anything to do with logistics, but just because there's still some people out there who don't have Amazon Prime and then, especially if we're talking about products that are priced below $25, they actually prime prices them out of it. So, like, if you're only FBA and you've got like a $24 product, when that person checks out, it's going to add like $8 shipping and now that $24 product became $32 product and you just lost that sale, probably you know, to somebody else and then so for, for that person, I can. I always have a skew. The buy box is actually the FBM skew, because it's only I'll do 2497, you know, with shipping, free shipping, I can, I can fulfill, uh, for almost the same as Amazon, considering that I don't have to pay, I don't have to send it to Amazon. I have to send Amazon pick and pack fees, but that's my reason for doing FBM, but are you saying that you're actually seeing some sellers go to Seller Fulfilled Prime and not do FBA, or you're just saying they're just forgetting Prime at all and having a listing that's strictly FBM?

Burak:

For larger items. We see sometimes only FBM, because some people say that, hey, Amazon is taking 50% to 55% of my sales price for large items. FBA is extremely expensive and I feel like a lot of people, a lot of buyers, are more price sensitive recently compared to two years ago. That's real. Most of our customers, they have both FBA and FBM. They do most likely what you do. Because you're right. I mean, some people they don't need the product in one day, they want to do the cheaper version. So why wouldn't you add an additional strategy to your listing? And it's your own money versus paying Amazon and 3pl will handle that a lot cheaper and then, if it is not a big item, your shipping price is not going to be that expensive. You can still buy the shipping within Amazon, which is great. You don't have to have your own ups FedEx account. But majority of our customers, they want to test new marketplaces. I  know that our some of our customer they're investing into their own websites and when they get the order, they drive traffic, they convert. Then it's much easier to launch a product with your own email marketing, like with your own email database which you've been talking about. You know how to launch a product, like all the honeymoon period, amazon changing the algorithms, a lot of our customers also they have problem with launching a brand-new product on Amazon. It's not that easy as it used to be like a few years ago. So, people are testing different marketplaces and different channels to see if they can get a better ROI. Obviously, amazon still has. It's very interesting actually, when we see the Amazon's quarterly earnings report, we see that Amazon is keep growing their profit, number of buyers, their revenue. We see a big part of it from the seller's fees revenue. But there is a fact that Amazon does not want to leave the market share to other players that aggressively come in, especially out of China. We see that a new Amazon program is going to roll out which is Dropshipping from China. I don't think that's a great idea, but I think just Amazon wants to keep it.

Bradley Sutton:

I don't think any Amazon seller is based in the US thinks that's a good idea.

Burak:

Not only Amazon sellers, but I think it's also not fair for other traditional importers who have, like a warehouse people in here. They're paying tax and payrolls. That's my personal opinion. Obviously, it's not a yes or no, white or black topic. A lot of people have their own opinion. But eventually I know that we have some importers, like traditional wholesalers, that their business is down 30 to 40% just because a lot of people buying products directly from China and those companies. Of course they have a cheaper price. They don't have local expenses, all these utility fees, the warehouse rents and et cetera. We all know that it all adds up. So, I think it's going to be a tough uh year for next year for a lot of amazon sellers. That's why I think it's a really good idea to start considering uh different strategies and different plans for uh increasing the revenue and profitability..

Bradley Sutton:

We're heading close to Q4. Um, amazon's made different announcements as far as hey, have your inventory in by. I think one of them was like, if you want it for Black Friday, you got to have it in by October 19th, or something like that. They had said what are your predictions as far as like? Is this year the same thing as every year, where Amazon has a deadline and you got to kind of stick to it, or do you notice anything from some of these announcements where you think there's something that sellers need to be aware of going into this year's Q4?

Burak:

I think last week they announced a new Q4's delivery structure and delivery rules. Some of them are the restriction with FBA delivery appointments, reduction in capacity limits, holiday peak fulfillment fees. So, all these are basically saying that the amazon sellers uh, need to plan better when they're going to send their inventory, how they're going to send it. And you know the thing. What amazon wants you to do is actually send your inventory as early as possible. So, this way they can charge you a lot higher for the fourth quarter, with the maximum amount of, you know, the low inventory fee. Because even if you don't ship it to Amazon, you still pay in that inventory because inventory fee, because Amazon thinks that, hey, I, I allocate some space for you according to your sales history. Now, whether you ship it or not, I'm going to still charge you that. So, we have a lot of sellers. We I think they still don't know exactly how this fee structure is going to work for seasonal products. We had a client they shipped like four or five containers for Christmas lights, Christmas tree decorations. So, they don't have enough space right now in Amazon FBA. So, I think that is a problem for sellers, like they sell seasonal products. So basically, like what amazon is saying versus what they are doing. I think it's a little bit opposite, um, because you cannot really ship as much as you want, but then amazon is saying, hey, send me all this product. I want to charge you more, but same time you cannot do it. So, I don't think there's going to be a big solution for these people. The best to do is create an FPM auction to make sure you don't get charged all these high FBA fees, especially for the long term, and, God forbid if you miss that season. You can't sell out everything and you have some inventory left over. In January you definitely need to take the product back, otherwise your fees are going to be very high.

Bradley Sutton:

In the past you've talked about ways that, without even doing anything, major Amazon sellers can possibly save money, like they're probably doing something wrong or not taking into consideration the right tariff and or you know they're letting their freight forward or take advantage of them in a certain way. Can you remind everybody out there what are some easy steps they can take to save money? You know, without having to completely overhaul their entire system of where they could save a little bit of money potentially here or there, just by maybe doing a little mini audit on their SOPs or something like that.

Burak:

You know, I really think that they should go download their FBA fees and to see how much they're spending on their storage. That's one thing that Amazon is going to hit everyone really bad this year, especially in the fourth quarter. And what is the average age of their inventory stays in the FBA before they sell out. I know that there are a lot of people their sales decrease. I think one of the best ways to do is have a 3PL option. Ship everything to your 3PL and then ship it frequently to Amazon FBA. Because, yes, you will be maybe paying that placement fees but at the same time you can manage your listings somehow. We have seen last year, last quarter, that a lot of shipments delivered to Amazon but Amazon took way longer to check them in. So, we had some clients that they ship product to Amazon FBA. It's delivered but Amazon never checked in. They waited the busy season to pass. So that was pretty bad for some people and they were selling like toys or I remember we had a client that we shipped for them puzzles but Amazon checked them in like very late, so they had to like sell it for a cheaper price. So, you should plan it. Send in your inventory as early as possible on FBA and keep constantly shipping to Amazon FBA to avoid the fees. I think the big saving this year can be from the FBA fees. Obviously check the Freight prices. Compare AGL with other Freight Forwarders to deliver the products instead of one place to five locations. That's a good way to do it. HTS code is a great way to check that. But I think this year's big jackpot is going to be FBA fees.

Bradley Sutton:

We've been going over some beginner strategies, some advanced strategy. But if some of this is a little bit over your head or you want to just get a nice overview for you or your team about logistics and shipping, Burak actually is in Freedom Ticket 4.0. So, if you guys want to have your team go over some of the basics and some advanced stuff, to go into your Freedom Ticket inside of Helium 10 and then click on the week or the group of modules called supply chain and logistics, and then you're going to see some different modules here that Burak has done. That will help you with that. So, make sure anybody who's a Helium 10 member make sure to go into Freedom Ticket and be able to see it. Do you remember some of the other things that you talked about in that module? Just to let people know what to expect in there.

Burak:

I think yes. One of the things that relates to FBA fees are the product size, whether you can make your product smaller so Amazon will charge you smaller tiers. I know that we used to do some free audits for the FBA fees that what we realize is actually customer products are a different size than what Amazon is actually charging them, so Amazon is supposed to charge them lower. So definitely, order your competitor's product to see their packaging so that you can redesign your, maybe package. This is a little bit of my background. I lived in China eight years. I've done a lot of sourcing so I'm kind of familiar with like how to make things like lighter, maybe smaller, maybe if you're paying too high for the duty and tax because your product has a different material. So definitely I would say, order your competitor's product to see the size of the box. Maybe they fold the product, they maybe made it smaller. It's definitely helping to see what are the product sizes, mustard cartons and maybe even labeling and maybe inserting some special cards from the competitors. Obviously not asking five-star reviews, but you could see some other maybe conversions that they are doing, maybe because you have other products in the same category. You don't know whether your customers have them. You know they love your brand or not, but you can actually let them know that you're selling some other products that can be related. So, I think it's a good idea to order a competitor's product to see if you can save anything on the size of the product which can save you money on shipping fulfillment in the 3PL as well as Amazon FBA. So, it could be up to 10% to 15%, which is going to be, when you look at it, annually. It's a huge saving.

Bradley Sutton:

What else do you have for us? We've got sellers of all levels here and I think nowadays maybe people are thinking about some of these newer marketplaces, like TikTok Shop, which now you know, has fulfilled by TikTok and then, and then Teemu is now trying to recruit, you know, US sellers. You know I'm trying to get on the Teemu platform just to just to see how the process goes myself. But what are some things you think you know? When we think multi-channel, you know, gone are the days where people can just say, hey, I'm only going to sell on Amazon, and then maybe there are some days where it's like, oh no, I only need to worry about Amazon and Walmart. So, 2024, 2025, we live. I think it's the year of the many marketplaces trying to make a name for themselves. What are some trends that you're seeing? What is some advice you have for other sellers?

Burak:

You know? I think the Teemu strategy is very different than Walmart. If I want my products because, if you think about it, Walmart has thousands of stores across US and Canada and even in Mexico. Now they're trying to acquire sellers and they have been very active. You know we go to a lot of different events Prosper Show and others. You see that all the time Walmart's booth there. They're trying to acquire D2C brand events like a shop talk and stuff. What I see is, if you want your products to be in a long term, maybe one day a big brand acquires you because you're in a niche category. Let's say you're in a cosmetic, you're doing something maybe just special for lips or for some special type of skin. I don't know. You could be acquired by a big brand if your product can be on the shelves like physical stores. We have so many customers in the past that they started only online but then they were invited to as a test run to start selling on the retailers. Like you know, it could be Dick's Sports, it could be Walmart. If you're in a sports category, you know those retailers are trying to get some good brands on their shelves which can add a lot of value to your branding and people who see you actually on the physical store. They can go and buy online, because I personally love to compare the price in a retailer versus online. It could be Target. It helps you to find and give your brand a big shout out and people can go and find you and then wholesalers can find you. Maybe, like a retailer chain can find you. So, there's actually both options. I think you're right. I mean, there's so many options. It makes really sense to enter all of these platforms to have reached out the maximum amount of audience. But obviously you need to understand how to manage that inventory because different market channels require maybe different UPC codes, which one of our customers? They had an issue. What the UPC codes the factory is putting actually has not been scanned by the retailer. So, the UPC codes was not valid, so they had to bring the products back, relabel it.

Uh, baby steps are good if you're a brand-new seller. Amazon FBA is very good way to start, but maybe it's not that profitable as it, as it used to be. Definitely look for the fpm options and then whatever makes more sense. But I would definitely keep one more sales channel, one more marketplace. Teemu is not the great one yet, because either you need to have a special invite, we have so many people actually asking about the Teemu. Either you have to be invited by a friend or referred by Teemu team directly so you can actually send an email to Temu. But I think in the long term it will be great to invest into your own website because you can easily launch different products. Great to invest into your own website uh, you can do it on Shopify and you know you will have definitely better margins in that and some people they have their own website. They even never want to go to Amazon because they want. They don't want to compete on the price. You, we all know that how amazon works, so it's really a long-term plan. I don't think anyone can really get rich that fast anymore through the e-commerce. I think it's all about branded strategy and it makes more sense to invest in your own website and Shopify. Obviously, amazon has the traffic. It's very hard to bring in traffic. It's not hard but it's going to be expensive in that converting. But, I know that Shopify is working a lot on how to convert more on the products they left in the cart how they can have better conversion. It's very interesting. Recently, I see that installment options pops up on many websites If you're selling an expensive product and I was going to buy a kayak for summertime, it was like $800. I'm like I don't want to pay $800. Then it pops up, hey, you want to pay six times. I was like, okay, but I still didn't buy. But it made me think about okay, that's doable,

Bradley Sutton:

You're a little bit more hesitant.

Burak:

Yes, exactly, you're a little bit more on the fence, exactly so looking for different channels definitely is a good strategy and eventually it's your own business. You know we have seen a lot of changes with Amazon algorithm. Maybe this new AI tool that Amazon is offering actually messes up a lot of people's listings. Have you heard? Have you tried using Amazon AI? Did it affect your ranking on keywords?

Bradley Sutton:

No, I'm not touching that, I don't want. I opted out of that immediately because I don't want Amazon doing anything, because the Amazon AI is nowhere near where it needs to be. All right. So, before we get into your last strategy of the day, just heads up for everybody out there. You want to get some more information about what ForceGet does. Go to h10.me forward slash ForceGet. That'll take you right to our hub website where you can open up a contact with them right there. How else, other than your website, can people find you on the interwebs like Instagram or LinkedIn you want to promote at all?

Burak:

Yes, absolutely, and they can subscribe to my YouTube channel. We are recording a lot of real case studies and scenarios, what's going on and we're going to a lot of different in-person events. We will be in Amazon Accelerate in Seattle. We will go to other events throughout the year so they can come and meet us in person at most of the events, as well as find us on forescan.com.

Bradley Sutton:

All right, what's your last 30 or 60 second tip for our sellers out there?

Burak:

Be careful about your lending costs. That's something that a lot of people they don't really pay attention. Profit is everything. Bad profit means bad cashflow and bad cash flow means that you can't be sustainable in your business. So, understand your lending cost. Look at your FBA fees, how you can save and what is the strategy. Are you paying too much for your international shipments? Are you paying too much for FBA fees? Are you paying too much for long-term storage? So, find out where you can make optimizations, where you can make savings. I believe this business is open to different optimizations and every different aspect you get closer you can find 1% or 2% saving, and if you find three to five different ways of savings, you can save up to 10%. So, talk to the experts. Don't forget to subscribe to the Helium 10's newsletter. I see a lot of interesting topics actually about that. So being part of the community, it's the most important things and whenever you have a problem, ask the right people, get the right answer to fix your problems.

Bradley Sutton:

Awesome. Well, Burak, thank you for coming on here. I'll let you know what I think about those restaurants you told me and then I'll see you at Amazon Accelerate in Seattle and hopefully some other sellers that are listening to this episode, and we'll definitely have you back on in 2025 and let's see what else has changed in the world of shipping logistics.

Burak:

Looking forward to see you, Bradley.

Helium 10 Buzz 8/29/24: Amazon Alexa Goes AI | Big Walmart WFS Updates

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

Amazon's revamped Alexa with generative AI to roll out in October
https://www.zdnet.com/home-and-office/smart-home/amazons-revamped-alexa-with-generative-ai-to-roll-out-in-october/

Walmart Marketplace Accelerates Growth; Launches Category Expansion, Multichannel Solutions and Omnichannel Innovations for Sellers
https://corporate.walmart.com/news/2024/08/27/walmart-marketplace-accelerates-growth-launches-category-expansion-multichannel-solutions-and-omnichannel-innovations-for-sellers

How customers are making more informed shopping decisions with Rufus, Amazon’s generative AI-powered shopping assistant
https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/retail/how-to-use-amazon-rufus

How Amazon is using AI to detect fake product reviews and ensure authentic customer feedback
https://www.aboutamazon.eu/news/customer-trust/how-amazon-is-using-ai-to-detect-fake-product-reviews-and-ensure-authentic-customer-feedback

China fast-fashion retailer Temu soared like a rocket for two years—in just a few hours, its parent company lost more than $50 billion in market value
https://fortune.com/2024/08/26/temu-pdd-stock-plunges-government-scrutiny-amazon-rivals/

Amazon India to cut down its selling fees by 12% ahead of festive season
https://www.livemint.com/companies/amazon-india-to-cut-down-its-selling-fees-by-12-ahead-of-festive-season-janmashtami-2024-11724471866431.html

Join Bradley and other Helium 10 Members for an informal meetup in Mumbai early in the morning on Friday the 6th! We will be in the Crystal Lounge networking and would love to see you there! For more details go to: h10.me/mumbai

Catch Bradley at the Istanbul Global E-Export Summit 2024 h10.me/istanbul and at the Amazon Global Selling Community Event PH Seller Bootcamp in Manila h10.me/manila

Lastly, are you leveraging Helium 10 to its fullest potential? We break down the newest features of Helium 10's Chrome extension, including the X-ray tool's suggested PPC bid column and clickable brand insights. Learn how to split-test product images and ideas with real Amazon buyer feedback using Helium 10's Audience tool powered by PickFu, and listen to a special use case from Kseniia that showcases its power in product development. Tune in for all these valuable insights and more to keep your e-commerce strategy ahead of the curve!

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

• 01:17 - Alexa With AI
• 03:13 - Walmart Big Announcements
• 09:09 - Amazon Rufus
• 12:19 - Amazon Fake Reviews
• 12:55 - Shipping Time Settings
• 13:32 - Temu Trouble
• 14:21 - India Fee Reductions
• 14:54 - Meet Bradley on the Following Events
• 16:03 - Helium 10 New Feature Alerts
• 18:06 - Training Tip: How To Use Helium 10 Audience

#591 - Amazon Keyword Tracker Tool Revamped!

Join us on this episode as we explore the exciting new updates to Helium 10's Keyword Tracker tool. Our host, Bradley Sutton, takes you through the revamped interface, showcasing features like customizable columns and the ability to add notes for tracking changes over time. We also highlight the importance of adding competitors and introduce new functionalities such as the instant index checker and automated Cerebro runs on competitors. Discover how to monitor organic and sponsored keyword ranks over time and leverage brand analytics for top keywords to enhance your keyword-tracking strategy.

Additionally, we navigate the advanced functionalities within the keyword tracking tools, focusing on features like boosting keywords, tagging them for various phases of product launches, and examining keyword sales metrics versus search volume. Learn about the significance of the CPR number tailored to your product, and explore new features like Amazon Brand Analytics for click and conversion shares, as well as tracking keywords by department. We also tackle an open AMA session, answering questions about managing inventory during the honeymoon phase and strategies for maintaining sales momentum. Tune in for valuable insights and practical tips to optimize your Amazon selling experience using Helium 10's powerful tools.

In episode 591 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley discusses:

• 00:00 - Helium 10 Keyword Tracker Revamped!
• 03:00 - Tracking Product Changes in Keyword Tracker
• 06:30 - New Helium 10 Keyword Tracker Feature Updates
• 07:06 - Managing Keywords and Notes in Tracker
• 11:08 - New Keyword Tracker Features Introduced
• 13:58 - Automating Competitor Analysis in Keyword Tracker
• 17:27 - Ask Me Anything with Bradley Sutton
• 22:53 - Adtomic For Amazon KDP
• 25:38 - Competitor Keyword Sales Analysis With Cerebro

► 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:

Did you notice something new lately in Helium 10? Keyword Tracker got a complete makeover with exciting new features like instant index checker, a list of your top brand analytics keywords, automated Cerebro runs on your competitors in Keyword Tracker, and more. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Did you know that just because you have a keyword in your listing, that does not mean that you are automatically guaranteed to be searchable or, as we say, indexed for that keyword? Well, how can you know what you are indexed for and not? You can actually use Helium 10's index checker to check any keywords you want. For more information, go to h10.me/indexchecker.

 

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 is our monthly Ask Me Anything and special training, and this month we have a special reveal about phase one of our new Keyword Tracker launch. So let's go ahead and hop into this. This was recorded live, so I'm also going to have some of the questions that you guys answered. Let's go ahead and hop into it. We are going to now get into the new Helium 10 Keyword Tracker. This is just the beginning. All right, I've been teasing this for months and months. Now there's some symbolism going with my wardrobe today for those watching this on YouTube or watching this out there. You'll notice I have the OG Helium 10 logo. Okay, so this is the original Helium 10 logo from you know that got started in 2016, 2017. And then my hat is the new Helium 10 logo right? And that's symbolic, because Keyword Tracker is one of the first tools that came out in 2017 and hasn't had, like any earth shattering design changes or things like that for a long time. And now you know, now we're bringing it to the new Helium 10. What are the new features? Let's go ahead and hop right into it.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Let me go ahead and share my screen, okay. So here we go guys, you should already have this new Keyword Tracker window. All right, this is how Keyword Tracker should look. What is new? The first of all, obviously, the whole look and feel of Keyword Tracker is different. If you don't have that, you should have a button up here that says try the new Keyword Tracker or something like that. All right, for a little bit of time. You're going to see a button that says go back to the previous Keyword Tracker. I wouldn't recommend doing that, because you know it's, you're going to have to go to this new one. Anyways, you can see up here at the top, just like before, how many keywords according to your plan you've used, and I have 30 out of my 500 boost used. You still have similar buttons up here like customize. Actually, this is new. If you hit the customize button, you can now choose which columns. You see you couldn't do that in the old Keyword Tracker, so I right now I have everything included. All right, I'm looking at all columns and there are some new columns that Keyword Tracker has never had. All right, so that customize button put what you want, like maybe you don't care about when, the date that it was added, all right, well, you can go ahead and take that column off now with the new Keyword Tracker. If you want to add a new product to Keyword Tracker, just right here, at the very top right of Keyword Tracker, there's a button that says add products. All right.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Now, once you have all of your products here, without expanding it out, you've got a lot of information. First of all, something that I highly recommend, something brand new you can add notes, okay. So adding notes is important because now you can like tag it on a certain day, all right. So I could say, hey, today is 8/13 on this ASIN, I am doing a certain kind of test in PPC, or I lowered my price and then I can make a description here. And so now, later on, if you're tracking your keyword ranks and things like that, now you can see oh, on this date, I raised my price. What happened to my keyword rank after? Oh, on this date, I increased my sponsored ad target bid and did that improve my sponsored rank? Did it make my sponsored rank worse? You can start tracking a lot of these things. I mean, hopefully you guys were tracking this stuff already, but now it's a little bit easier because you're going to be able to graph it. All right, this is going to show me the track keywords. If I want to add more keywords, I just hit this edit button right here. Adding competitors all right. This is if you didn't add competitors before. Guys, I highly highly recommend adding competitors to your Keyword Tracker. It doesn't cost you any more money and I'm going to show you why that is so important.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Moving forward, here's something that is still the same as the old Keyword Tracker. It's going to show you the number of organic keywords in the top 10 and their combined search volume, and the number of organic keywords in top 50. You can actually now hit a graph and see the history over time. How many top, how many of your track keywords have you had in the top 10 over over time? How many have you had sponsored over time? You can see that right here. Now, here's another thing you can see now how many Amazon's choice keywords you have. The last time Helium 10 checked that's something that's net new, I believe, where it's going to let you know hey, for this product, six of your keywords have Amazon's choice badge for that keyword. Pretty cool, right. Another cool new thing brand analytics top click keyword. How many of your keywords that you're tracking, were you last week one of the top three clicked in all of Amazon for that keyword? That's pretty cool, right. And then not only that, now you hit this button you're going to see a history of that for your product and the keyword. So now you can see, like all right, hey, every week I'm usually one of the top three clicked on 10 products or 12. And now, all of a sudden, one week, you see you're down to three. Well, what would that make me do? I'm going to go in there and see where did I lose being one of the top three? Click what's going on? Did I lose my keyword rank? That's brand new. Another thing is going to be keyword suggestions. I'm going to talk about that in a little bit. That's something new and that is why you guys need to put your competitors in there. I'm going to talk about why.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Now, another cool thing you're going to start seeing now the category and subcategory BSR of your product. If you're tracking your product or your competitor's product as the seed product, you're going to now see the graph of BSR right here and you're also can now tag your keywords here with different tags. This is a tag for product. Okay, there we go, guys. This tag here is for the product. So maybe, watch this. I'm going to be like hey, Manny's mysterious oddities, I want to add that tag. All right, so now I'm going to be able to tag this coffin letter board as Manny's mysterious oddities and then, with this one click at the top, now I'm going to be able to go to those products. All right. The other thing I can have here and I can sort by is the date that I added this product to Keyword Tracker. This is another thing that's kind of net new. Okay, now let's dive into the actual keywords. All right, so you hit this button right. Or, by the way, you could actually run Cerebro from Keyword Tracker. Now you just hit these three dots that are right next to the picture and you can actually run in Cerebro. All right, and you can run your product in listing analyzer as well. But right now we're going to hit this down arrow so we can see all of these new tabs right here in the keyword details.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Okay, and here we go. All right, so first of all, you'll see, I don't know why it's blue. I've been telling him to change that to red, so hopefully they're going to change the boost back to red. But you can see, here in blue I have a few keywords on boost. Boost is still working the same way. Now, another thing you notice is do you see that there's a number here for each one? What this is is like the number of when I added this keyword to Keyword Tracker. If I want to change the order of how it is and I don't want it to go by alphabetical or I don't want to sort it by this, I don't want to sort it by that. This is pretty cool because now I can just change this number right here. Okay, and then now that is going to change the order in which the keywords appear in Keyword Tracker. All right, so pretty cool. Another thing I can add the notes at the keyword level. All right, so I can add notes at the product level. I showed you guys that I can add notes at the keyword level now. So again, marking when I change something on a certain keyword, like maybe sometimes I'll do tests where I'm like you know what I want to insert this keyword into my title and then does that help my rank over a week or so. Well, I'm going to add that as a note, the date and time that I actually did that, so then I can go back and graph and see what happened.

 

Bradley Sutton:

I mentioned tags for keywords. We had tags for products. This is tags for keywords. So this is a product. This is a coffin letter board. You guys can see this on Amazon. Now I'm going to do a whole podcast about it in Maldives, about the Maldives honeymoon strategy. But you can see, I'm literally in launch right now in my fate, what I call phase one launch. So I gave a tag to all of these keywords. So then later I could just hit this button right here this is my tags and then it's only going to show the keywords that I have a certain tag on it. So maybe I have phase one launch, maybe I have a group of keywords that I'm doing a PPC test on, or whatever. This will allow you to quickly go and go directly to whatever group of keywords that you have Search volume, competing products, organic rank history these are all pretty much the same. The graphs might look a little bit different, but it's basically the same thing. Let's go in and take a look at one of the graphs here just to see how different it is. All right, yeah, it's pretty much the same. You can see here I can click and drag and zoom in. It's pretty much the Keyword Tracker that you guys know and love. We've got keyword sales. Remember, guys, last week I talked in depth in our weekly buzz about why this keyword sales metric is more important sometimes than the search volume metric.

 

Bradley Sutton:

We've got the CPR number here. The CPR number is based on your product, your exact product. This is where the CPR number is based on your product. If you look at CPR and Cerebro, it's just a general CPR number. This one is based on your product. We've got the suggested PPC bid in here, and then something new we've got the brand analytics total click share and total conversion share. Okay, so this is directly from Amazon brand analytics. Now you can see the history of what are the top three clicked products for this keyword that you are tracking in Keyword Tracker. What was the top three click products share of the conversions? In addition, another net new thing here is the department. So you know how sometimes you're on Amazon and you type in a search. You know what. Let's look at that now. Let's actually type, or let's go to Amazon. Let's hit Gothic Decor. By the way, guys, if you guys were watching, if you want to look at the search results of any keyword that you're tracking, just hit this arrow button right next to the keyword and it's going to take you to the search right there on Amazon. Okay, now you can see here how, in Gothic decor, it now shows which departments the results are in. Well, we are now showing that in Keyword Tracker. And so what happens is is we are taking that into consideration. Right here on the last column you will see it say under departments how many categories it's under and which categories those are. So it gives you a little bit of extra kind of like you know information there.

 

Bradley Sutton:

There's a whole bunch that's coming. I'm not done here, but we're going to have an index checker button. Like, for example, if you notice all of a sudden you are not ranking organically, you are not ranking and sponsoring, what is the next step? Well, the next step is usually hey, I need to see, did I lose indexing for this keyword? Have I lost indexing? Well, there's going to be a one-click button. Instead of having to copy those keywords, export it to index checker, you are going to have an index checker right here in Keyword Tracker so that you can, within seconds, know is it just that you lost ranking or did you lose indexing as well? Super, super important. All right, so that's coming, we're going to have. I told you guys, a long time ago people were asking for those heat maps of ranks, just like our Market Tracker 360 tool has. Well, heat maps are coming here. But one thing that's important oh, by the way. There's a customize for which columns you want in your Keyword Tracker and watch this. Here is something that is new for organic rank. Maybe you want to see the rank, like you always have. Now you can toggle what page are you showing up. Maybe you don't care about your specific rank, but you're just like hey, I want to see how many keywords I have on page one, how many are on page two, how many are on page three. Take a look, you can toggle your rank to go from rank to page. That's pretty cool, right? That's something that a lot of our not a lot, but you know, otherwise we would have done it earlier, but a number of you were asking us and it finally got done. It was on our list for a lime, all right.

 

Bradley Sutton:

So one thing that I want to go over is the suggestions, all right. So first of all, here's, let me go to a product that I actually have suggestions for. Yes, here we go. I've got one competitor for some reason. Here's. Here's one that I have five competitors. This will be a better one, all right. So, again, make sure to add the competitors. That should be one of the first things you guys do. Here we go for the bat shelf. I've got compared. Let me just take a look at who my competitors are Other bat shelves. Okay Now, by the way, remember how I told you that we are showing you which keywords, or how many keywords, you have. That is one of the top three clicked. Well, the way that you know it is, there's going to be an ABA and a number one, number two or number three. That's the symbol that lets you know if last week you were one of the top one, two or three products that were clicked from that search page. But anyways, this is showing me the ranks of all of my competitors. You guys see that here, all of my competitors, I know it's kind of hard to see, all right, so this is my bat bath mat and here are all of my competitors, and now I can see if they are ranking or not. Where is their average rank? How many of them are ranking? Like, for example, this is a keyword that's pretty important, right? Bat mat. This is a bat shaped bath mat. Bat mat obviously is a keyword I want to check and so I can see only three out of my six competitors are ranking for it, but the average rank is 25. So they're pretty much maybe most of them are on page one, if not all.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Okay, I also have the competitor performance score. This is the key. This is the way that I can see which are the most important keywords to my niche. Right, it's the same metric that comes from Cerebro, and so the high competitor performance score means that most of your competitors that you entered are all ranking for that keyword, and they're all ranking highly. That's what gets you a 10 out of 10. All right, so look at that. These are all completely new things that Keyword Tracker has never had. Okay, now let's go right here to suggested keywords. By the way, you saw that I was looking at organic rank for my competitors. I can also look at their sponsored rank too, under suggested keywords. This is going to be something pretty cool. This is very similar to what we had in our insights dashboard. Once I add my competitors, now I can customize my settings and I can almost kind of like automate Cerebro guys right here in Keyword Tracker. So I could be like hey, you know what my competitors? I got five of them. I want to know if there is a keyword that has at least 500 search volume and my rank is between zero and zero meaning I'm not ranked at all and at least one of my competitors right here minimum one has the organic rank between one and 20. I want a suggestion. So, in other words, what this means is I'm basically automating Cerebro and I'm telling Keyword Tracker hey, watch my competitors, so I don't have to run them in Cerebro, and if they start ranking for a keyword on the first page in the first 20 positions and I'm not ranking at all, give me a notification. That's just an example. I could put any anything in here. I could be like hey, give me a notification if my rank is between 40 and 300, but but their rank is one in 40 or one in 39. Right? So in other words, hey, show me the keywords where I'm not on page one and where they are right. I could do a lot of those options.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Another thing is I could run Cerebro on my own product in the background, like I. Obviously, when I started Keyword Tracker, I probably had a good idea of what my main keywords are. But, as you know, I hope you run Cerebro on your own product like once every two weeks or once a month to see hey, you run Cerebro on your own product, like once every two weeks or once a month, to see, hey, am I ranking for new keywords that I didn't even realize I was relevant for? Is Amazon showing me highly in sponsored rank, where I didn't even know that the auto campaign was showing me for? Well, you know what? Go ahead and set this notification in Keyword Tracker where you can say hey for any keyword that has at least 300 search volume, where my organic rank is between one and 30, give me a notification that tells me that I should probably track this keyword and we'll give you that notification as a suggestion. All right, so that's what suggestion means. And then. So now I can look at the suggestion, knowing that the only way that it was triggered is if something hit those rules that I put. All right, but right here I'm going to be able to see hey, which keywords do I want to start tracking? There's probably some, some more things that I'm missing here, but this is just the beginning. Make sure you are using this new Keyword Tracker and the new features. Every single one of the new features I went over is designed to give you insights that can help you make more money, help you optimize your listing more, help you track what is going on with your competitors. So I want you guys to make sure to use all of those features.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Now, this part of the show when we do this once a month is a completely open AMA. So you guys can ask me anything about Helium 10, maybe even a couple Amazon questions, if you, if you want, if I, if we've got the time, um. Or it could be about this new Keyword Tracker. Okay, let me see we've got one from Jay here. It says for someone starting again selling on Amazon after five years oh, wow, what a what a long time between selling Um, where would you recommend to start from in order to learn how to use a software? I'm really lost with this. All right. So, Jay, if, if, if you're talking about where to learn how to sell on Amazon, we just barely launched a brand new Freedom Ticket. So even if you were selling five years ago, trust me so much has changed on Amazon I highly recommend going through the Freedom Ticket. So if you're a Helium 10 member, which I'm assuming you are it sounds like when you say software, there you have access 100% to Freedom Ticket. Five years ago when you remember you probably had to pay a thousand dollars for Freedom Ticket. Not anymore. You have. You have it covered for free. So go into Freedom Ticket. Take that to see what's new on Amazon.

 

Bradley Sutton:

The second thing to learn how to use the tools, go into the learn button in every tool. All right, just take a refresher course. Or if you just want to knock it all out in like three hours, you can go to a completely free website, academy.helium10.com. academy.helium10.com it has all of our tool software training videos all in one place. You could probably knock it out in two hours. Maybe three hours if you're just watching at one X speed, uh, but if you're two X in me, you can probably watch it in like one hour or an hour and a half. All of those videos and I'll give you a good refresher course on how to get reacquainted with Helium 10. And then, like I said, Freedom Ticket is going to give you a nice uh refresher course on how to get reacquainted with selling on Amazon and Walmart, and we even have now stuff that we definitely didn't have years ago, when you were around, Jay, like um, lessons on how to sell on tick tock shop, so pretty cool. Christopher says what's the best strategy for running out of inventory, especially if you're still in the honeymoon phase? Is there a module about it in the new Freedom Ticket? I don't remember if I put a module about it. But basically, um, obviously you don't want to run out, but do not try to slow your sales and slow your momentum or raise your price if your conversion rate goes down Now. If you can raise your price and still get the same amount of sales I mean regardless of if you have inventory now of course you should raise your price and get more profit, right. But don't be the kind of people who try to raise your price in order to slow sales because you're shooting yourself in the foot just to not run out of stock.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Amazon is really good lately. If you run out of stock and you're only if you're out of stock for like eight months, I mean, first of all, slowing sales down. To run out three weeks later than you would have is not going to help you anyways. But yeah, if you're going to be out of stock for eight months. You're kind of screwed anyways because, yeah, you know Amazon, it might not put you back to where you were, but if you're out of stock for a couple weeks a month even I've been out of stock for two months, even recently because I just had a crazy amount of sales that I wasn't expecting or I had some shipping delays Amazon remembers what you've done. All right, if you're in your forties or fifties, you remember that song from Janet Jackson in the eighties what have you done for me lately? Amazon asked that question. They know what you've done for Amazon lately. If you are a high performing keyword or a high performing product for a certain keyword, Amazon remembers that and you're not. If you're a page one, position three and you're out of stock for a month and a half, does that mean you're immediately going back to page one position three? No, probably not. But it just takes a couple of orders, like in PPC, at the top of search, and Amazon will put you like right back up. A lot of times Now, on some of those products where it might be like 300,000 search volume or some crazy amount of sales, right Okay, that one might be a little bit hard to get back to top. It's not going to get to the top with just two or three orders, but, yeah, like it's not as critical as it was in the past where you lose your ranking permanently or something crazy. That would happen to some people, like five, six years ago, if you went out of stock.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Another thing to keep in mind, too, is you run out of stock fast. It's not always a bad thing, remember, if you have a lot of sales, you have a period of time where you have low stock. That's actually a bad thing. You are going to get a low inventory fee. That's one of the new fees that Amazon put out is, if your inventory total for a certain time period dips under a threshold, you're going to get charged for every order that you have. Okay, if you have zero inventory, you run out. Well, at least you're not being charged. You know that fee. Again, don't get me wrong, don't run out. You know you should not run out, but don't do things to slow your sales. If you're going to run out, go ahead and run out at the whatever velocity you have, because that's what helping your keyword rank, how you convert for that keyword and then, um, as soon as you get back, you know, do a big push like don't put your, your product live until it's distributed across the country. So make sure to use Helium 10 inventory heat maps so you can see as Amazon distributed amongst other warehouses. And then go live, go heavy on PPC, maybe have a big discount a little bit to like really get that momentum going to remind amazon who you were and you should get back to page one for your keywords that you were page one for before.

 

Bradley Sutton:

 

Kyle says can you talk a little bit Adtomic and how I can use it as KDP? So I don't think you can use it yet on KDP, but when you can, as long as the API is very similar, it's going to be very similar. Like I run 200 campaigns on my Adtomic for regular products, not KDP products, regular physical products. And the beauty about it is I can have suggestions where I'm like hey, if I have an auto campaign going and I get two keyword conversions at a certain ACoS, I want you to tell me to move that to my manual campaign. Hey, if I get, I can put rules. Or I can be like hey, if I get 20 clicks on this keyword and no sales right and I've spent more than ten dollars, you know what I want a negative match that keyword. I can automate that or I can just have it, uh, set a rule where it tells me hey, you got 20 clicks over this period of time that you specified. You wanted me to let you know that this happened. Do you want a negative matches, yes or no? I just hit one button and I say yes, now it's negative match.

 

Bradley Sutton:

I can run analytics across all of my campaigns. You know, like I said, I've got 200 campaigns where I can put a query saying, hey, show me all of the search terms that I have less than four, or all the targets where I have less than 4% ACOS. Right, with at least one sale. Obviously you have to have a sale to have ACOS. But you know, then, now, instantly, all of those keywords across all 200, 200 of my campaigns will show up. I can just go ahead and just blanket re increase the bid on all those I'll be like ahead and just blanket re increase the bid on all those I'll be like you know what, raise the bid on all of these that I'm below 4% a cost. Raise my bid by 20%. Two clicks of a button, I mean, these kind of things take forever to do by yourself or something kind of stuff. You have to pay agencies, you know $1,000 a month to do. You can have that kind of like all inside of Adtomic. So that's how I use Adtomic and I would assume that once it's fully integrated with our KDP community, you're going to have very similar features as well.

 

Bradley Sutton:

All right, what other questions, guys? We got about five minutes left here I can go. It's 11.15 PM, so if anybody's in the US at this time of day? Thank you so much for joining. I used to do this back in the day. We used to call it midnight madness. I would just go randomly live at like midnight. Um, today was half accident. This was supposed to be at 10:15 am and my team said it at 10:15 pm. So that's why I'm up at this at this time of day. But I'm happy that I could uh talk to different people, because usually it's a lot of the same people I see in the chat, but today's all new people. Kyle says can you tell me a little bit about the CPR score and how accurate is is in Cerebro. So the CPR is basically the number of units over eight days that you should sell after somebody finds your product in search for that keyword either organic or sponsored over eight days, that gives you the best chance to stick on page one. Doesn't guarantee it, but it gives you the best chance. It was a formula that I came up with, uh, two years ago. The latest version I I did, or no, it was last year, uh, a year ago was the latest version. We've updated it three or four times in the last six years, um, but basically it's gives you a guide of like, hey, what is it going to take to get on the top, as close to the top of page one as possible for the keyword that you're trying to rank for? That's as easy as I can kind of like dumb it down of what it is, and it's a number over eight days. So if you have a keyword like I'm looking at a keyword right now, um, batmat and the CPR number is eight, that means you know the search volume is so low. If I get eight purchases, if somebody searched the word batman and bought a product eight different people over eight days I have a pretty darn good chance to get to page one. That's basically what it means there.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Here's a question from Instagram. Grow with Daniel says is there a possibility to check on which keyword per competitor is getting sales? Which keyword per competitor? Yes, so I mean, if I'm understanding Daniel, your question is like hey, uh, which keywords are driving sales to your competitor? Absolutely, you just run Cerebro. Okay, there's two, there's two ways you can. You can know about it. You run Cerebro for your competitor and look at anything over 500 search volume where they're ranked between like one and 10, you know they're getting sales for that keyword or they have gotten sales for the keyword, unless it's a brand new product. You don't get on the top 10 search results without at some time having you know some sales and the higher the search volume, the more sales it is that it took to get there. You can also run it in brand analytics. We have that in Black Box, brand analytics, where you put the ace in and now you can see, hey, your competitor, where were they one of the top three clicked? And then, if they were one of the top three click, did they have conversions for that keyword and how much percent of those conversions? You can have that fully in Helium 10 as well. Oh, and now he says, except using Cerebro I mean Cerebro and Black Box. Uh, those are the two ways to do it inside of Helium 10.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Jeffrey says, like Cerebro, Black Box, Magnet to see the ABA and keyword sales sold now for ABA. You now have access to that, Jeffrey. Like that's, we always bring stuff down to platinum. So that used to be diamond. Only the brand analytics data in Cerebro and Magnet now is in platinum. So you've fully got access to that. Now black. There's one tool in Black Box, yes, that that platinum members don't have access to, and that is the Black Box brand analytics tool. So, yeah, that is not available separately currently, but you know, who knows, maybe in the future it could be. And I swear that keyword sales also was brought down to platinum. I think you might check it, Jeffrey, you might have keyword sales. If you're based in the US and you're looking at Amazon USA data, you might have the keyword sales there.

 

Bradley Sutton:

This presentation is what we do once a month where we have a training on some kind of aspect of Helium 10. And then we have an open. Ask Me Anything. So when you guys see the invite to this. Make sure to join up next time those of you listening to this on the replay or watching this on the podcast or on YouTube later on. We'll probably do one or no, probably. We will do one in probably late September or middle of September, so make sure to sign up early. That one will probably be like in the AM Pacific time instead of PM, like this time, but we, you know, make sure to join live so you can get your questions answered. This is what I do for Helium 10 Elite twice a week at times, but once a month we go ahead and open this up to everybody. So I really appreciate everybody joining us at this time of day and I wish you guys the best of success and please let us know what you think of phase one of our new Keyword Tracker. Thanks a lot, guys.

#590 - Who has the Most Accurate Amazon Search Volume?

Join Bradley Sutton in this episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast as we explore the vital importance of search volume metrics for Amazon sellers. We'll reveal why accurate search volume data is crucial for making informed decisions on listing optimization, PPC campaigns, and more. We'll discuss how to gauge demand in a niche and prioritize keywords effectively, while also addressing the limitations of Amazon's own search volume metrics.

Listen in as Bradley addresses the misinformation circulating in the industry, particularly a misleading LinkedIn post comparing search volumes from Helium 10, Data Dive, and Jungle Scout. The episode highlights the flawed methodologies used in such comparisons and the significant differences between normalized and denormalized search volumes. Bradley clarifies the historical changes Amazon made to its search volume data and emphasizes the importance of fact-checking and accurate representation in tool comparisons.

Lastly, we'll highlight the importance of maintaining civility in discussions about Amazon tools, particularly when it comes to the accuracy of search volume data. After conducting comparison tests, where we matched Helium 10's data against Amazon's only normalized search data, Brand Analytics, Helium 10 achieved an impressive 93.5% accuracy rate. In comparison, Jungle Scout scored 41.9% accuracy when evaluated against Search Query Performance, which uses a denormalized search metric. It's crucial that we provide our audience with reliable information. We are committed to addressing misleading information in future episodes, ensuring that our listeners receive the most insightful and accurate information. Thank you for your support, and stay tuned for more in-depth analysis.

In episode 590 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley talks about:

• 01:52 - Accurate Amazon Search Volume Metric Importance
• 06:30 - Keyword Sales Is The Best Metric
• 07:11 - Addressing Misleading Information
• 12:19 - Debunking Jungle Scout’s Blog On Keyword Accuracy Analysis
• 17:30 - Search Frequency Rank And Why It’s Important
• 20:27 - Normalized vs. Denormalized Searches
• 20:58 - The History Of Search Volume In Amazon
• 21:22 - Understanding Normalized and Denormalized Searches
• 25:31 - Stop Comparing Apples to Oranges
• 26:20 - Let’s Do A Real Test
• 27:42 - How Accurate Is Helium 10’s Search Volume?
• 29:18 - Jungle Scout and Data Dive vs Search Query Performance Data
• 32:20 - Confusion Over Jungle Scout Search Volume History
• 35:45 - Bradley’s Final Message

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Transcript

Bradley Sutton:

Search volume is one of the most important metrics for Amazon sellers to help make decisions like Listing, Optimization, PPC and more. Now, who has the most accurate search volume out there Jungle Scout and Data Dive or Helium 10? Well, spoiler alert in today's case. Today I'm going to show you that Helium 10 wins with a 93.5% accuracy, with Jungle Scout coming in second at 41.9%. How cool is that? Pretty cool. I think. You want to know what keywords are driving the most sales for listings on Amazon. To do that, you need to know what highly searched for keywords the product is ranking for, maybe at the top of page one. You can actually find that out in seconds by using Helium 10's keyword research tool, Cerebro. Now, that's just one of the many, many functions that make this tool my favorite tool in the whole suite, and it's the most powerful keyword research tool ever created for e-commerce sellers. For more information, go to h10.me/cerebro. Don't forget to use the Serious Sellers Podcast discount coupon SSP10.

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 today, guys, we are going to have a special episode where I'm going deep. I spent a couple of nights without sleep working on this because things got me real riled up on this. All right, this is an important topic to me, and there's just so much misinformation out there that I was like I got to set the record straight.

Bradley Sutton:

Now the question is who has the most accurate search one? Well, of course, the first answer would be Amazon itself has the most accurate, because they're the ones who are providing information. Now, sometimes, though, it's not always the most useful though, like, for example hey, I'm trying to do research into a niche that I'm not selling in. Yet you're a little bit limited with being able to see search volume in Amazon. Search Query Performance for an existing listing. Great, all right. Uh, that shows you denormalized numbers. We're going to talk about what that means a little bit later. But if you're looking at, hey, well, the keywords that I'm getting traction for already, what is my search volume? There's nothing better out of a great apples to apples comparison as that. Now, the drawback there is you can only see what you're already ranking for you can't really like, put in your competitors and see their search volume. But again, obviously this is Amazon's platform. They've got the most accurate search volume. I'm sure they have multiple search volume metrics, some of which Amazon sellers can get at.

Bradley Sutton:

But let's just talk about this. Take a step back. Why is search volume important? Why do Amazon sellers rely on this metric so much? Well, there's a lot of different reasons. Maybe you're just looking for demand in a certain niche, for example. Hey, I'm looking into selling in this category. I don't see many products here with sales, so I can't really estimate demand because there's not enough sales. Maybe it's something newer, but there's a lot of search volume, right, because you could have a lot of search volume for something, but no sales yet because there's no competitors yet. All right, so that's something exciting. That's where search volume could be important. What about you've already decided to make a product right? The number one reason that we need search volume is prioritization. What do I mean by that? Let's say I've identified 200 equally relevant keywords. Obviously, all keywords aren't equally relevant. Let's just play devil's advocate and say we've got 200 keywords. That we've done in all of our keyword research and I need to put them in my listing.

Bradley Sutton:

Now, can you put 200 unique phrases in phrase form in your listing to send those relevancy signals to Amazon, to let Amazon know hey, this is my product. You know, you always want to put your most important keywords in phrase form in your listing. No, you don't have room for 200 separate phrases. You maybe have room for 15, 20, 25. Well, how do you prioritize? Which ones you're going to put in phrase form, which ones you're going to concentrate on? Right, if all things were equal, the one thing that is different is search volume, right? Hey, my most search ones of these equally relevant keywords. That's what I'm putting in phrase form. The most search ones of the most relevant. That's what's going in my title, right? Similar with you. Know, when you're deciding what you're going to do for PPC, hey, am I going to try to equally target all 200 words? No, I might try and like target 20 words at first, 30 words at first. Again, relevancy is the most important. But then the next metric is search volume. All right, you know, I'm not going to try and put a whole bunch of 1 million search volume keywords in one campaign and then another campaign with an equal number of keywords that have 100 search volume. That just wouldn't make sense, right? So, I'm sure all of you would agree with me that a search volume is something that is important. Helps us in many different ways as Amazon sellers.

Bradley Sutton:

Now here's the interesting thing. It's not always the number itself as the most important. When you think about search volume for prioritization, it's really the order in which they're in, right? That's one of the factors, not just the number itself, like, for example, um, you look at google trends, uh, google trends is not search volume, right? People have been using google trends for years and it's a scale of one to 100. Helps you prioritize, right? Brand Analytics, which you guys know I love. You know there's no search volume number in Brand Analytics. That's the data point that amazon gives and has been giving for like what, four or five years now. There's no search volume in there. It's just giving you an order. It gives you search frequency rank.

Bradley Sutton:

You're totally able to prioritize keywords not based on a search volume number. Like, if all you had was Brand Analytics and zero search volume number, guess what You'd be able to do almost everything you do right now, right? Even if there was no Helium 10, no Jungle Scout, no, anything. You just had Brand Analytics, no search volume numbers at all. That's enough information to prioritize. Now you might have to make your own little formulas or something like that to try and see hey, I only want the search frequency rank from, from, you know, 500,000 and up, or 500,000 below, I should say, you know. Or a hundred thousand and below, you know. Of course, you know you might have to do something, but still, you could get around, uh, get along without the actual search volume number. So, it's not necessarily the search volume number that's the most important. Again, it is which ones are searched more in comparison with whatever other keywords you have, right?

Bradley Sutton:

Now, of course, the best way to prioritize even more than just search volume itself or search order, is keyword sales, right? Not all keywords are created equal, right? You could have a 500,000-search volume keyword that generates, you know, the products on the page generate a hundred sales only because there's low, low buyer intent. You could have another keyword that's 500,000-search volume and it could generate a thousand sales because there's a lot more buyer intent. So actually, the best metric, of course, to prioritize if you're talking about, hey, what's going to potentially bring me the most sales is keyword sales.

Bradley Sutton:

Now, are you able to see estimated keyword sales by keyword? Yeah, Helium 10 can help you with that. Jungle Scout doesn't have that. I would assume that Data Dive doesn't. I have access to a Jungle Scout account. I don't have access to a Jungle Scout account. I don't have access to data. I can only monitor the biggest competitors out there. So, Jungle Scout, the last time I checked, no keyword sales. I would assume data doesn't. But if I'm mistaken, I apologize.

Bradley Sutton:

Now, why am I even doing this episode? How did this drama all get started and why am I so worked up?  Now, before I even get into this, let me just give a kind of disclaimer here. I'm pretty passionate about this subject. I might get a little worked up in this episode. I hope nobody takes anything personal. I'm even going to blur names over here. People can probably figure out by looking at posts and stuff where the party's involved. But again, I'm not trying to call somebody in particular out. So, I hope this doesn't come off as oh, I'm trying to like fight somebody in the backyard or something like that. All right, I just really get worked up about this kind of topic and when people are throwing Helium 10 under the bus, or when people are misleading others, intentionally or not, who are you know? Known figures like it just bothers me, all right. So again, I'm not going to try and throw any name, drop here personal names. I apologize if anybody ahead of time, if anybody gets offended. I'm just stating the facts. All right, just the facts, ma'am. All right.

Bradley Sutton:

Now, how did this all get started? It all got started with this LinkedIn post. Uh, that's somebody. I have no idea who this person is, I'm not connected to them, but somebody I think they tagged me. Uh, people tag me all the time on LinkedIn. I'm not that great on LinkedIn. I don't do the whole, you know, interaction with other people's posts, like I'm supposed to. But anyway, somehow this post did get on my radar and I have nothing against this guy who made this post. He, he's not an influencer in this space where I could say, oh, he should definitely know better, whatever. But anyways, here is how this post looks like on LinkedIn.

Bradley Sutton:

He was like hey, Helium 10 versus Jungle Scout versus Search Query Performance, comparison of search form. So, when I saw it, I barely skimmed it, because I get so many of these tags every day. I don't interact with hardly any of them, but he was like hey, why does helium 10 display three to four times lower search volume compare to Jungle Scout and Search Query Performance? Bradley, what are your thoughts? Blah, blah, blah. I use 80 keywords to compile the data, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Now, at the time I didn't really even look very closely at this, because I think I saw this graph that he gave and it didn't even show the keywords or anything. I'm like okay, it is what it is. This is just one of those things that I get tagged like on a million times.

Bradley Sutton:

But then what happened later is at the top of my feed, somebody who I am connected to and again is at the top of my feed. Somebody who I am connected to and again who I think is a very, one of the most respectable, uh, respected, people in the space, put out this message where he reposted it and was like hey, this, this dude did an analysis where he did 80 keywords that analyze with Data Dive and Jungle Scout compared to Helium 10. And he was questioning which one is most accurate and I told him to check Search Query Performance. All right, so there's strike one. I'm like why would you do that? What does Helium 10 have to do with Search Query Performance? All right, we're going to talk about that. Why? Why, this is such like a no brainer. Like why in the world is this person doing that? But let me keep going here. He says oh, after doing this, he found that Data Dive was within 5% accuracy for this keyword and Helium 10 had a deviation of 70. All right, this data is crucial.

Bradley Sutton:

So now, all of a sudden, I'm starting to get pissed. I'm like this this is ridiculous. Helium 10 has nothing to do with Search Query Performance. Uh, you know whether Data Dive or Jungle Scout is. You know, we'll talk about that in a little bit. But like, why are you even bringing Helium 10 into this conversation? It's ridiculous that this other guy had mistakenly compared the two, thinking it was the same. But again, he doesn't work for a SaaS company. He doesn't know. You know the ins and outs of he's not monitoring. You know other companies and knows what they base their search volume. But I wouldn’t expect this individual to have no. And I even, when this like, I think you probably want to delete this post, you know, couple of times. I said, I was like, I don’t think this is a good look you know for you to like put out misinformation like trying to say that, oh Data Dive, Jungle Scout is 5% off of this amazon data point, but Helium 10 somehow has that 70% off. But they never took down the post. I’m like alright, that’s when I started not sleeping, like two nights in a row of just like data crunching and preparing for this episode. I'm like all right, you asked for it. Now, again, I told you guys, I wouldn't make it personal, but I get worked up about this.

Bradley Sutton:

Anyways, it wasn't just this, things were escalating even more. Like a high-level executive from Jungle Scout hops on this thread and says, oh, we consistently see similar results in our own validation and hear similar feedback from customers, you know, basically talking about, oh, that Jungle Scout is so close to this Search Query Performance, but then Helium 10 is so far off. Supposedly they validate this all the time. And this is what and they hear this from customers all the time. Like what is going on? More misinformation from somebody who's respected in the industry. Like why are you saying this nonsense? This is happening now.

Bradley Sutton:

But then a couple of months ago, uh, somebody forwarded me a blog, uh, on March 21st, that Jungle Scout put out Jungle Scout versus Helium 10, a comprehensive review. Uh, march 21st, 2024. You see it right here, dun, dun, dun. Like you see the big logos you know, versus each other. Now this blog, anyways, was just, oh, my goodness, there were so many inaccurate things in there, it just boggled my mind, really got me upset, but like I never did anything at that time, it was just all of this now together, kind of like put me over the edge.

Bradley Sutton:

But the one part, that of that blog that has to do with this, was a big section they had on Keyword Accuracy Analysis. Who is more accurate Jungle Scout or Helium 10 for search volume? Keyword search volume information? And look at what they said in this blog. They're like hey, amazon provides Search Query Performance and we found that Jungle Scout was way more accurate than Helium 10's keyword tool. On average, keyword Scout showed a positive 10.93% difference from the search volume provided by Amazon and Helium 10 showed a negative 58% difference. See the info below. And we chose keywords from Search Query Performance. And again, so like hey, if Jungle Scout wants to compare themselves to Search Query Performance, fine, if that's what they're basing their search volume on, go ahead. But why are you bringing Helium 10 into this conversation? Helium 10, uh search volume has nothing to do with Search Query Performance search volume.

Bradley Sutton:

But then I'm looking at this, this, this case study that they supposedly did, and it just didn't make sense. It was like potty pads Helium 10, 11, three, 93 search volume. All right, this is, this is like their big expose to show how Helium 10 is different. Now, first of all, the number is just super weird here. Even according to them, uh, Amazon had 10,000, Helium 10 had 11,000, but somehow the difference was negative, 8%, like we were under. Like that, that's not right, like we're over according to this, but anyways, that's not important.

Bradley Sutton:

I was trying to find out okay, in in Helium 10, we, we have history that goes back five years for a search volume. Okay, I think Jungle Scouts got only has two years, but anyways, Helium 10, 393. I was like, let me try to find where that is. And I kept having to go back and back in time to try and find out when in the heck they were pulling this data. And, lo and behold, I found this 11,393 number on 9/24, wait for it, guys 2022. So, this is a new blog. The date is 2024. And they're pulling some data point from September, like two years ago, two years, literally two years ago. So, I was like, well, that's weird, it did really Jungle Scouts numbers uh, you know, look like this way.

Bradley Sutton:

Back then. Now that's where things started getting weird. I was like this whole article just doesn't make sense because, uh, again, you know, they were saying that, hey, Jungle Scout said 10,800. And so, if they were taking Helium 10 in September of 2022, I was like, well, what really Jungle Scout said, such a close number to search, create performance. So, I look back in Jungle Scout to that same date of September of 2022 and started adding the numbers up. I was like no, look, these are weekly search volume that Jungle Scout is giving and it's like 6,000, 6,000, 5,000. I mean, we're talking like 20, 30,000. Where in the world is Jungle Scout saying that they were 10,800.

Bradley Sutton:

Now I think maybe what happened was, later Jungle Scout changed, you know, after 2022 changed our whole search volume a model, because they made announced that they were trying to follow the search, create performance. So, I'm assuming they did go to like the denormalized number. I didn't realize at the time that they actually backdated and went back in time and maybe changed all their search volume numbers from before Helium 10 numbers don't change once we have the search one. That's there permanently. But anyways, I'm not sure that's the reason, but I could not find where Jungle Scout was 10,800. Because if I went back in time right now using Jungle Scout, it's way more than that.

Bradley Sutton:

But anyways, these things were just like oh, really making me mad. Like LinkedIn, a bunch of people saying these crazy things, and then here's Jungle Scout blogs again. That's what kind of upsets me when people with authority you know who people trust is putting out misinformation to try and pump themselves up. Like, no, if you want to pump yourself up, pump yourself up with facts. Like why are you pulling in wrong information? So now that's when I was like, ok, fine, let me go and do a deep dive no pun intended, on this original guy's post. Well, again, I don't know who he is, I have nothing against him personally, but I'm looking here and, like I said, there was no even keywords mentioned here. So, I was like, well, I can't even double check this information and then just weird things were happening. First of all, you know, remember the other individual who I respect was trying to say, oh yeah, Helium 10 is off by 70%. That's not even what this guy was saying in his post. He was saying Helium 10 was off by 70% from Jungle Scout. I'm like why are we even doing it? Why are you comparing Jungle Scout with Amazon? But then you're just comparing Helium 10 with Jungle Scout.

Bradley Sutton:

And then take a look at this, the way they were calculating the numbers for some of these. He's saying Search Query Performance says zero and Helium 10 and Jungle Scout are saying a certain number, but then somehow that means a Jungle Scout is a hundred percent off. So, if Search Query Performance is saying zero and Jungle Scout says a certain number, that's infinity percent off. You know, like you shouldn't even have counted that, bro, like I don't even know what. That's not the way you do. I'm not a data scientist, I'm not a mathematician at all, but I'm pretty sure you can't just say it's 100% off when you're comparing something with the number zero. But anyway, so his numbers of 5% off for Jungle Scout and 70% off of Helium 10, the whole thing is bogus, right. Like it wasn't an accurate test and he shouldn't have even done it anyways, as I'm going to show in a little bit, because Helium 10, again has nothing to do with Search Query Performance. Now Jungle Scout has said multiple times, even in this thread hey, you know, we're close at Search Query Performance, so go ahead and compare Jungle Scout to Search Query Performance. Guess what I'm about to do that you know in a few minutes here. Uh, so that part was fine. But again, why are you all trying to bring Helium 10 into this conversation? Now you might be wondering well, what is Helium 10 search? I'm going to get to that in a little bit.

Bradley Sutton:

Now, another funny thing about this one you know graph that this guy came up with is the numbers. Instead of showing that, you know, Jungle Scout is so close If you can take this numbers for granted it actually shows that Jungle Scout is way off. Remember I told you, what's more important than the actual number is the order in which, uh, the number of searches is presented. Right, the order, the search frequency, rank. That's the important thing. Take a look at this guy's own graph, like, for example again, I don't know the keywords here because he didn't put it but look at this keyword a, let's just call this keyword a. He's saying Search Query Performance was 6,000. Okay, and this keyword B was 5,000 something. Okay.

Bradley Sutton:

So, you know, if you were going to prioritize one keyword over the other, which one would be the priority. With the actual Amazon data, it would be keyword A right Because it says it has 6,000 search volume. But then look at in his own chart, the Jungle Scout numbers. Or for those same keywords, keyword A only 3,000 search volume. So, the number is far, way, far off. But again, nothing wrong with a number being off. That's not what's important. The importance is the order. But his keyword B Jungle Scouts, keyword B was 4,000 search volume. So, it actually not only was way off in the search form. It was prioritizing the wrong order. So, if you were going by Jungle Scouts, you would have prioritized keyword B, because keyword B has 4,000 search volume and keyword A only had 3000, but guess what? Search Query Performance was completely opposite. So, he thought he was like maybe trying to hype up Jungle Scouts supposedly 5% accuracy but actually he was exposing something where it's off.

Bradley Sutton:

Now, as I started reading this more and I found you know what this entire thing was off because he was taking Jungle Scouts search volume from right now, or you know the last time Jungle Scout checked, which was August 10th. Okay, he was comparing it to Search Query performance all the way from July 1st through the end of July. So, we're not even talking about an apples versus apples comparison here. So, like again this whole original post, kind of like a waste of time here. But what happened was is people started jumping on this and that was what. That was what made me mad and nobody, nobody checked this.

Bradley Sutton:

It's like all these people jumping on this post and say, yeah, this is exactly what we see and we find the same numbers ourselves, and another person said, you know is reposting this and saying look at you know, uh, how accurate Jungle Scout and Data Dive are. But this whole thing was just a ridiculous post in the first place and none of these respected people should have been posting this information. I'm sure maybe I'll do that sometimes, maybe I'll just get so happy that somebody is hyping up Helium 10 and maybe I don't fact check, fact check, uh. But if it has to do with, like throwing a competitor under the bus, you're never going to find me throwing a competitor under the bus If I haven't, like, fact checked everything, like I literally spent the last 48 hours fact checking all of this before I make this podcast here to make sure I'm doing my due diligence and I'm not putting out misinformation, and that's what I would expect others to do as well. But again, you know, regardless of all these numbers being wrong, the whole premise of this was wrong, even if he picked the perfect numbers, because he's trying to compare things to Helium 10, which is based on normalized searches, and Search Query Performance is based on denormalized, and Jungle Scout is denormalized too in day to day because they've been open to say, hey, we're comparing ourselves to Search Query Performance, so they actually said that they were changing to denormalized a couple of like about a year and a half ago. Now let's get a little bit more into the history of search volume on Amazon so you can kind of understand how we got to this normalized versus denormalized. Now Amazon years ago like 2018 around there actually made a search volume that is normalized the actual number that Helium 10 designed its algorithm after it was available in the API to like software tools, and Helium 10 was the very first one to get access to it, and so we've got the most historic search volume data out there Now.

Bradley Sutton:

Normalized means how many times pretty much somebody typed in a search term. So, if I search coffin shelf right now, that's one search. But then if I search that same keyword 10 hours from now, you know within 24 hours the search volume that Amazon counts as normal. Normalized means it still only counts as one. If I click to page two, it only counts for one. If I click back on my browser after I was on page two, it still only counts as one. There's only one search that somebody did in 24 hours.

Bradley Sutton:

Now, denormalized means hey, I search coffin shelf right now, there's one search. I click on a product on that page, I click back on my browser. Guess what that's? Another search. I click another product and I click back. There's another search. There’re three searches. Now I click to page two of the search results. Guess what that's counted as a search. Now we're up to four. Five hours later I come back to my computer and I search again that same exact keyword. Guess what that's five? I hit refresh on my browser for whatever reason. Guess what that's six? So, D? Uh, norm, denormalized means it's counting six searches, six search volume for that one individual, whereas normalized, which is what the original Amazon search volume is based off of, it's only counting one.

Bradley Sutton:

Now, before, when Amazon first started product opportunity explore and Search Query Performance, amazon still was basing their search volume on normalized searches. But then they made this big announcement all over the place in about April May of 2023, that says, hey, we are changing our model. This was plastered all over the place in Search Query Performance we're changing our model to be denormalized, and they explained exactly what denormalized meant, and that was like what I was talking about. And so, what was the difference in the search volume number Once Amazon moved it? I actually have some screenshots. Take a look at this. This is from a post I made because I used to talk about denormalized and normalized all the time. So, here's a post I made in one of our Facebook groups If you look at the coffin shelf niche, all of the keywords put together for 360 days was 85,000 searches. That's the normalized search volume. But then Amazon changed Search Query Performance and opportunity explorer to denormalized and now what was a 360-day search volume? Take a look at this screenshot here 406,000. It was like a five to one difference. Almost you see how big of a difference that made it. When they went to the Dean uh, normalized. And so again, this is why I was thinking that hey, like, hey, every all these respected, you know executives in the industry, they know this stuff. I mean that was all over Amazon. Um, I'm sure they've got to know these things and we weren't keeping, we were not hiding this.

Bradley Sutton:

I would just talk about this nonstop Episode 433 of this podcast. You'll see I talked about the normalized versus denormalized Episode 435 of the podcast, episode 485. I actually had the Search Query Performance team from Amazon come on the podcast and they did a complete breakdown of what normalized versus denormalized meant. Even up to like a month ago I had Mansoor on the podcast he was talking about normalize versus denormalized in episode 584. So, this is not like some industry secret. All right, everybody should know what normalize versus denormalized means and that Helium 10 has always been based on the normalized.

Bradley Sutton:

Now you might ask me like which one is better? Now, that's a subjective thing. Everybody can like their own kind of search volume. But for me I like the normalized searches better because to me that's more of an indication of what I'm trying to get at. I want to, I'm trying to find out how many customers are searching for this product and the normalized will count that one, that search volume, as one, but the denormalized counts it as five or six, just because they're clicking around on the browser. So, to me the more accurate number is the normalized search because you know it tells me hey, in this one instance there's one customer who is looking for it, or there was 100 customers who are looking for it, whereas on the other one I'm not sure how many times somebody was clicking around. That number just is kind of inflated. So that's why I personally like normalized. But hey, if somebody might have a use case for denormalized, I'm not sure what it would be, but let me know why you think that one might be better. Either way, you're still going to be able to prioritize it's. It shouldn't be that far off. But yes, Search Query Performance is going to be different than Brand Analytics, Amazon versus Amazon data, even though it's both from Amazon, because it's normalized versus denormalized. That's why the order is actually different, even when you're comparing those two.

Bradley Sutton:

So again, that's one of the reasons why I was getting so upset that they were all posting about this is because it's not. We're not even talking about comparing apples to apples. It's kind of like in this post, everybody was jumping on the bandwagon and saying, hey, look at, Jungle Scout is a tangerine orange, very close to a blood orange, right, ooh, that's very nice that they're close. Great, you're comparing an orange to an orange, good on you. But then they're coming in and saying, oh, but look, Helium 10 is an apple or a Granny Smith apple. Look how far off it is from this blood navel orange. Like, why are we even comparing this Granny Smith apple? We're not even trying to be an orange, or if there were Jungle Scout orange.

Bradley Sutton:

Anyways, where not even trying to be an orange, were just trying to be an apple that’s all were tying to do. So, why are you trying to bring us into this conversation about oranges, right. So, that was when I became so upset. But now, looks like, you know what, let’s go and let’s do a real test. You know like here, ah, I think we all agree that how bogus is this test that was done was and how useless it is. But like, all right, let’s go ahead and take Brand Analytics. Let’s compare that to Helium 10. Let’s take Search Query Performance, let’s compare it to Jungle Scout. And who has the most accurate search volume. Who has the most actionable search order.

Bradley Sutton:

So, what I did was I spent like much of the last 48 hours just like diving deep into their information. All right, I pulled in the Brand Analytics search frequency rank for 31 keywords that have to do with like coffin shelves and stuff. All right, I took the Search Query Performance from each week though the exact week that matched the Brand Analytics, and then, four weeks, I pulled out all of these keywords one by one, because I'm an idiot who doesn't know how to use pivot tables and V lookups and stuff. So, I took these one by one, the search ones, because remember that one guy's test was based on a number from July. I'm like, no, let's make it apples to apples. Here's Jungle Scouts number as of eight, 10, which is a full month number. Let's take the eight, three to eight, 10 search rate performance. Let's take the seven, 28 to eight, three. Let's add up those four weeks and make it a month and let's compare it. All right. So, I took all of that, I went in and I took all of the Jungle Scout numbers.

Bradley Sutton:

I went into Helium 10 and I took all of the magnet numbers for the search volume and I was like, all right, let's go ahead, put this stuff to the test and then so let's take a look, all right. So, first of all, why do I say, where did I get that 93.5 accuracy for Helium 10? Well, remember, there is no public search volume that you can compare one V one, the number of Helium 10, but what kind of normalized search do we have in Amazon that we can compare with Helium 10 Brand Analytics? So here, the first test I did was I took the Brand Analytics 31 keywords that have to do with coffin shelves and then I took Helium 10 and I got all the search volume of those same exact keywords. And then I sorted Brand Analytics keywords in the search frequency rank order, because that means you know the higher or the lower the number of search frequency rank, the more that it's searched Right. And then I ordered the Helium 10 one in the order of descending search volume order and guess what? It was almost identical. The first 29 keywords was 100% the exact same order. Only on the 20 or the 30th keyword here did things, uh, get out of whack and two of them were flipped coffin pet bed and glass coffin. Helium 10 had in the wrong order compared to Amazon Brand Analytics. So that is a 93.5% accuracy. How cool is that? All right, only two off. So, can you trust Helium 10 search volume? Is Helium 10 accurate a hundred percent? Well, maybe not a hundred percent 93.5%, all right. So there that part of the story is done. Helium 10, 93.5% accuracy. If you're comparing it to the only normalized data point we have, which is Brand Analytics.

Bradley Sutton:

Now what about Jungle Scout? With Jungle Scout, what I did was I took the all of the Search Query Performance for four weeks. Right, I took four exact weeks and added it all up, so we have a full 30 day or one month search volume number uh goth, uh 121,000. Uh, gothic decor a hundred thousand, so on and so forth. And then I took the Jungle Scout search volume from the tool, their 30-day search volume. So here in Jungle Scout you can see where I got that information of 83,903. This is the exact search volume 30 day for the keyword goth. And if I actually click on their details, I can see when that date was from, because the very last date that they have in the system is August 10th. Okay, so we are like on a apples to apples comparison here, because search group performance was also based on the week, the month ending October or August 10th.

Bradley Sutton:

And so, the first thing, remember Jungle Scout data dive. Everybody loves to compare. Jungle Scout is so accurate compared to a Search Query Performance. Let's look at the raw number. Remember, spoiler, like I said before, like I don't think the number is the most important thing, but if you guys are going to flaunt your uh accuracy, is that really true? Let's take a look. If you compare the month search volume of Search Query Performance versus Jungle Scout, on average, look at this it's 44% off, 46% off, 44% off, 71% off, 84% off. As a matter of fact, on average, it's a total of 34.5% off. Okay, 34.5% off is the number, but what? What if you say, okay, forget about the search volume number? You know search volume, you know? Actually, I don't think that 34.5% is that bad. If something has 10,000 searches and then it really has 7,000, is that the end of the day? You know, probably not right, but again, I'm just calling this out because they're trying to say, oh, our numbers and our data shows that we're 5% off. You know always. No, all right.

Bradley Sutton:

Now the other thing is remembered I said that search position, the order of search, is actually arguably more important than the search volume. So how off was Jungle Scout compared to Search Query Performance? The very first 11 keywords, Jungle Scout was 100% on, but then things got off the rail, and almost every other keyword was out of order. For example, coffin box was the 17th most searched term for Jungle Scout, but it was the 12th most searched term for Search Query Performance. And that is where I got the number of 41.9% accurate, because only 13 out of 31 had the right order of keywords 41.9%. How many did Helium 10 have when compared to Brand Analytics? 29 out of 31, which is the 93.5%. So again, whose search volume is more accurate between Data Dive and Jungle Scout and Helium 10? Helium 10 wins with 93.5% and Jungle Scout with 41.9%.

Bradley Sutton:

But then something was bothering me. Let me show you exactly what I mean. So, what was bothering me was when I looked at the Jungle Scout search volume history, I noticed that week by week, they actually had a weekly search volume, which I thought was actually pretty cool. I was like, oh, that's nice, they give the exact search volume for 30 days, but then weekly. But then it didn't add up. Like if you add up these last four weeks it does not add up on Gothic Decor to 68 000. Like wait a minute, this doesn't make any sense. How can the week uh be different? I was thinking, oh, maybe, maybe you know it's 28 days and so they need to. You know there's two days extra and I couldn't get it to like Jive.

Bradley Sutton:

But then I figured out what Jungle Scouts doing and they're actually doing something similar to Helium 10. They're actually basing their monthly search volume on a weekly velocity of the last day, the seven days, which is actually, actually, like I said, that's what Helium 10 is doing and that's good on Jungle Scout for figuring that out. That’s the best way to present it. But you know you might be confused if you might think that Jungle Scout was doing something weird in the numbers, because the monthly doesn't add up to what the weekly is. But watch this. This is what I figured out. Look at, the very last week of this Gothic Decor keyword had 15,982. If we take 15,982 divided by seven days, and then we multiply that by 30 days seven days, right. And then we multiply that by 30 days, that is the number 68,494. And that's what their exact search volume for the full month is.

Bradley Sutton:

So, then I thought, wait a minute, maybe I was shortchanging Jungle Scout on this. I was just taking their, their number at raw data, their exact 30-day number, and comparing it to 30-day Search Query Performance. But if the real number is the week search volume because that's what it seems like they're basing their whole month off, I should just be comparing apples to apples and compare their latest week to Search Query Performance, latest week, right, again, if they're trying to be Search Query Performance, that would be a better comparison. So, I was like, oh, who knows, maybe the numbers are going to look better, did it? Let's take a look.

Bradley Sutton:

The first thing that I tested was just the percentage off on the week. So again, I'm comparing the Jungle Scout super specific week number with the Search Query Performance week number and it was off 48%. It was 48% lower than Search Query Performance. I'm like, nope, no help there, this is actually worse. This actually made it worse Now that I got the real number because, remember, their month data, for whatever reason, was only off by 34%. This is off by 48%. So, then the next thing, I was like, okay, well, let me go and maybe the order is a little bit better. You know how? For from the, if I'm comparing the one week to the other week, is the order of the search volume at least better than before? Nope, 35.4% accuracy.

Bradley Sutton:

Jungle Scout and Data Dive versus Search Query Performance, even when you're just comparing the week. So, no matter what way you spin this around, well, no matter what way you look at it, Jungle Scout and data diver just way off from Search Query Performance. Now, I don't mean to sound like I'm exaggerating. I've said this a few times before. I don't think numbers being far off is that big of a deal. Like, if you're 30% off, you're within the realm of possibility. But again, I'm bringing this out because, oh my God, do you know how many, how many blogs Jungle Scout has come out with saying oh, we are 5% more accurate than Helium 10, 11%. This is a big deal. And they're making a big deal out of 11% or something which I don't agree with those numbers in the first place. But even so, how can they be saying that when all their search volume numbers are literally 30% off and Helium 10 is 93% accurate? So anyways, guys, hope you guys stuck with me to the end.

Bradley Sutton:

I usually don't get so worked up like this, but I used to argue on the internet all the time. That was how I got discovered at Helium 10 was. I would always go on Facebook groups and start arguing with people who had misinformation, and I I've kept to myself for a while, but I just this, this just latest uh episode just kind of upset me and I was just like I just want to set the record straight again. I don't have anything personal against anybody involved in this this. You know people writing the blogs or the, or the people you know posting on LinkedIn and stuff. But it's my advice to every you know people out there who are respecting you know like there are people you know I guess I'm one of them Like is it still kind of strange for me to think like that?

Bradley Sutton:

But if you're a public figure in the Amazon world or any world, be careful what you post. You know, like be proud of your company. Nothing wrong with that. I mean you, you you've worked really hard to build up your company in the Amazon ecosystem. By all means, be proud of it. You know, um, I'm proud of my company.

Bradley Sutton:

Otherwise, why would I put a Helium 10 logo on my basketball court and do all the other crazy stuff? I do nothing wrong with being proud of your company, but don't put out misinformation just to. You know, kind of like elevate your company, or I would hope that nobody even here is doing that purposely, but then the alternative if it wasn't on purpose. It means that you're just like not even fact-checking and not even making sure that you're putting out the correct information, because you just want to, you know, hype yourselves up and try and throw Helium 10 to the bus. It doesn't even have to be Helium 10.

Bradley Sutton:

I don't care who we're talking about. It could be Jungle Scout versus Data Dive or whatever comparison you're going to do. Guys, just let's keep it civilized. Talk about facts if you want to talk about facts, but don't try and sensationalize certain things and paint the wrong picture, because people listen to those of us who have these kinds of platforms on the internet and they take our word at face value, and so that's a heavy responsibility.

Bradley Sutton:

And I'm not saying to totally misrepresent the entire way that a company does things or misrepresent my own accuracy, you know, and just hope that nobody calls me out on it. But anyways, um hope you guys found this interesting because, like I said before, search volume is important and you got to know who you can trust, and I think it's hands down. This has proven that. Hey, you are going to be able to trust Helium 10 with your search form, because we've got the most accurate out there at 93.5%. So, um, thank you guys for tuning in, and I'm going to do some other exposés now because I'm still riled up about some of these crazy blogs. It's time to set the record straight. But hope you guys enjoyed this episode and we'll see you in the next one.

Helium 10 Buzz 8/23/24: Big Amazon Coupon Update | FTC Fake Review Crackdown

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.

YouTube takes on TikTok Shop with expanded Shopify partnership
https://techcrunch.com/2024/08/20/youtube-takes-on-tiktok-shop-with-expanded-shopify-partnership/

Walmart adds a Burger King benefit to its membership program
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/08/22/walmart-plus-burger-king-benefit.html

Shein sues Temu over copyright infringement, alleges rival loses money on every sale
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/08/20/shein-sues-temu-over-copyright-infringement-trade-secret-theft.html

FTC finally makes a sneaky online shopping tactic illegal
https://www.thestreet.com/retail/ftc-online-shopping-tactic

Temu’s Semi-Hosted Japan Site Will Officially Launch on August 27
https://pandaily.com/temus-semi-hosted-japan-site-will-officially-launch-on-august-27/

50% of Amazon Prime, Walmart+ Subscribers Step Up During Sales Events
https://www.pymnts.com/news/retail/2024/50-of-amazon-prime-walmart-subscribers-step-up-during-sales-events/

How Amazon supports Black-owned businesses during Black Business Month—and all year long
https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/small-business/how-amazon-supports-black-owned-businesses-during-black-business-month-and-all-year-long

Make sure to watch this week’s training tip in our Helium 10 Alerts tool, this is something that could potentially save you thousands, if not tens of thousands, of dollars. That's how valuable this tip is. Lastly, don't miss our insights into Helium 10 Adtomic's new features for creating custom bid rules in PPC management, designed to optimize your campaigns effectively.

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

• 00:50 - Big Amazon Coupon Change
• 03:05 - Youtube x Shopify
• 04:47 - FBA Inventory Deadlines
• 05:36 - Walmart x Burger King
• 07:07 - International Return Update
• 08:08 - Temu vs. Shein
• 09:48 - FTC vs Fake Reviews
• 12:48 - Temu Japan
• 13:11 - Prime / Walmart+ Stats
• 14:33 - Black Business Accelerator
• 15:10 - Subscribe to Helium 10’s YouTube Channel
• 15:40 - Training Tip: An Alert That Can Save you $1000’s
• 19:07 - Helium 10 New Feature Alerts

► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast

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

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

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

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

Transcript

Bradley Sutton:

Amazon has made a big update to coupons and promotions that could save you from some expensive mistakes. YouTube's trying to pull off some TikTok shop type moves. Walmart's giving away free Burger King Whoppers these stories and more on this edition of the Weekly Buzz. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. 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 is our Helium 10 weekly buzz. We give you a rundown of all the news stories and goings on in the Amazon, Walmart, TikTok shop and e-commerce world. We let you know what new Helium 10 features have and also give you a training tip of the week that will give you serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. Let's see what's buzzing. I've got a number of articles this week, so let's go ahead and hop right into it. First one coming up here is actually I was adding a coupon to this new product launch I'm doing of a coffin letter board and look what we found here on the coupon page. Anybody else notice this? In your browsers when you're trying to do coupons, there's this section that says stack promotions and it says do you want to allow this coupon to stack with percentage off or buy one get one. Promotions yes, allow stacking or no? Allow stacking. Now, this is pretty important because, as you know, in the past, like promotions stack with coupons and vice versa, meaning like let's say you had like a 20% off coupon on your page but then you had a 20% off promotion, that customer who's savvy could pick up both of those and apply it to your order, get 40% off right. But now, finally, you have the option to have it not stack If you're creating the coupon. Next, in the new help document about this, under stack promotions, amazon says here, based on your input provided on if you are going to stack or not, either one or both of the coupons or percentage off or buy one get one, free promotions will apply at checkout. So, for example, gave an example here it says let's say that you create a coupon 10% off and a percentage off coupon 20% off on the same ASIN, same duration. Now, if you say yes, I'm going to allow stacking during this promotion creation. Now both of these promotions are going to stack and the customer is going to get now 30% off at the checkout, right, the 10% plus the 30%. But if you select. No, I do not want them to stack. These promotions won't stack, and so the customer maybe they might see it and try and clip the coupon and do the promotion, but it says they're only going to get the higher benefit of the two promotions. So, like in that case there was a 20% off coupon and a 10% off promotion, they would get the 20% off coupon. So that's something that's pretty cool. I highly recommend doing that, for you know, usually people don't want to stack, and then when people have had stuff stacked, it's by accident and they end up losing a lot of money that they didn't realize. So if you're one of those who do not want your promotion stack, make sure to always click that no stacking.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Next article is from TechCrunch and it's entitled YouTube takes on TikTok shop with expanded Shopify partnership. All right, we talked a little bit about this, oh, I want to say, about four or five months ago, but now it looks like YouTube is ramping up efforts. It says, as TikTok shop is gaining traction, YouTube is expanding its partnership with Shopify to onboard more brands for its YouTube shopping affiliate program. All right, so now creators and influencers are going to get access to 1000s of new brands. It wasn't, like you know, before. We're just like 10 brands or something like very small number of brands you could actually promote for in a shopping experience on YouTube. Now it says 1000s of new brands are going to allow those products to be tagged in shopping videos. So you know, generating a lot of affiliate commission for these YouTube creators. Now if you're wondering, hey, what is the potential of this, well, YouTube actually had a pretty interesting stat. They said that people watched more than 30 billion hours of shopping related videos on YouTube last year and that the platform saw a 25% increase in watch time for videos that help people shop. And so you know, traditionally, the only option is okay, here I'm an influencer, I'm going to make a video about something and I'm directing people to Amazon, or I'm directing people to TikTok, or I'm directing people to Walmart or whatever, right. But now the YouTube influencers are going to be able to create content and then, right in there, link directly to Shopify products and people are going to be able to buy directly from YouTube or in the YouTube platform. And then these influencers are going to be incentivized because they now can get affiliate commission on YouTube.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Next article is from your Seller Central dashboard. Just a reminder of some important dates coming up. All right, prime big deal days is coming up in October. So now they announced that, hey, the last day that you can get inventory in to make sure that you have the Prime Ready badge is going to be September 13th. And then they reiterated again we already announced this a couple weeks ago Black Friday and Cyber Monday you've got to have your product in by October 19th. One other update they gave was hey, if you are using, you are going to get 25% off the base rate for e-storage fees and 15% off the base rate for AWD processing and transportation fees. All right, so this is going to be a limited time offer. If you're using a, amazon is giving putting some money back in your pocket for a change. What, what? What a novel concept. That is all right. Usually we're used to the uh, the other, the other side of things, right.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Next article is from CNBC. This one gave me a chuckle here. You know we've talked before about how amazon will come out with something. Wal. Walmart will come out with something. Vice versa, Walmart is now a pioneer in doing something new. Now we've always talked about the benefits that Amazon Prime starts adding, the benefits that Walmart Plus starts adding et cetera. Because the more Walmart Plus, the more Amazon Prime members, the better it is for us sellers, right, the more likely it is that we're gonna get sales increase. Well, now Walmart is doing a first. They're the first ones in this. They're adding Burger King as a benefit to the Walmart plus program. All right. So now, if you've got Walmart plus, you're going to be able to save 25% off of any Burger King order made through the Burger King app. All right. In addition, members will also be eligible for a free Whopper every three months, starting in September with a purchase. All right.

 

Bradley Sutton:

So first of all, you know it's painful to do this article. I've been on a crazy diet this week before I go traveling, lost already like eight pounds, and I'm looking at these hamburgers and fries. I'm like, oh my goodness, my stomach is growling. But anyways, I digress. What I really want to see now is all right, amazon, the ball's in your court. Let's see you make a similar deal with, like a fat burger in and out, Jollibee, something like that, and I'm going to be there. I need something for my Burger King. I'm not too much of a fan of, so. So, amazon, please hook us up with some good fast food and I am there to take advantage of it.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Next article is going back to the amazon dashboard. It's an update just on international returns, all right. So seller fulfilled international returns is going to be updated starting September 16th. So if you're an international seller who's selling in the US but you're overseas and you don't have a default US return address in Seller Central, now you are going to be required to issue a return less refund or provide a prepaid international return shipping label. So this is kind of interesting. This might seem like one of those articles. Maybe you just completely skip over, but read this in detail. But read this in detail. You know, those of you who are overseas, check do you have a U S return? Because, trust me, guys, that's going to get expensive. All of a sudden, you know your customers start getting you know returned without even you being consulted, and you don't realize it. Or you have to go pay for some international shipping which is crazy expensive, all right. So take a look at this article in your dashboard, see if that affects you, those of you overseas sellers out there.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Let's go back now to CNBC for another article, and this one's entitled Sheen sues Temu over copyright infringement, alleges rival losses money on every sale. So you know people are talking about oh man, Temu is trying to be like Amazon, you know, because they're trying to recruit US sellers and fulfilled in the US. You know, amazon trying to be like Temu. You know, trying to get Chinese sellers to ship directly with subsidized shipping. And then you know they're scared of each other for taking market share. You know, stories like that here and there have been coming up. But now it's Temu versus Sheen. All right, so this is something that was actually filed in the US. All right, this isn't some internal battle going on in the streets of Beijing or something right in China. This is happening in the US, in Washington DC.

 

Bradley Sutton:

A civil complaint where Sheen accused Temu of stealing its designs and also that an employee stole confidential trade secrets. They also say, hey, Temu is losing money on every single sale it makes and it uses trademark infringement to make up for the losses. This, this fight, you know, talks about a lot of different things, but it's kind of interesting because it kind of paints a picture of how sheen and Temu are making money and it makes you wonder, like, is that model sustainable? Like, if they are losing money in every order. How in the world can they keep that going, right? So, if you're interested in in these other marketplaces, I'm trying to get my Temu account set up just to test it out. I'm having a heck of a time getting approved on there, so so I'm still working on. I still want to be able to give you guys an update about Temu. So we'll see how it goes and let's see what if this lawsuit, ever you know, results in anything.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Next up article from the Street. It's entitled FTC finally makes a sneaky online shopping tactic illegal. Now, this article kind of confused me a little bit. I need to do some more research on this, because I'm not 100% sure that this article is going to happen the way it thinks it's going to happen. Okay, but this is a step in the right direction, all right. The article starts out hey, if you've ever read an online review for a product and thought, hey, this is too good to be true, you're probably right. It says that 30 or 40% of online reviews have been fake. But then here we go. But that will soon change, as the era of fake online reviews is about to come to an abrupt end. No, guys, I'm sorry. I don't care what FTC or Amazon or anybody, there is no way that you're going to clean up bad reviews, you know, like super fast, all right, it's just I'm sorry it's not going to happen. But again, I'm not trying to badmouth this. This is a move in the right direction, all right.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Now this new rule that's going to go in effect in October from the FTC, it's going to ban fake online reviews in several different ways. All right, the first rule says it's going to prohibit reviews from people who don't exist. Like wait, how can people who don't exist make review? No, obviously, what it's referring to is people making fake, you know. Can people who don't exist make review? No, obviously. What it's referring to is people making fake you know, profiles and leaving reviews, doing brushing and things like that, and also reviews generated by artificial intelligence. It's kind of saying that it's inferring that it's not going to be allowed. And now the interesting thing here maybe the most interesting for me is it says reviews from individuals who never experienced the product, business or service will be banned as well.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Now, why do you think I found that interesting? Because to me I'm now wondering does that mean that they're going to require Amazon, you know, Walmart, other platforms, to not accept any reviews other than verified reviews. You know, right now I can just go on any product and leave a review, right. But that almost makes me think, right that that Amazon might, or FTC might, ban that. The non-verified review is interesting. Now the rule also blocked businesses from providing compensation for positive or negative reviews. Okay, so I mean up until a few years ago that was even allowed on Amazon. It's still not illegal per se. Like I if I have McDonald’s, I can go pay somebody right now to leave a good review on my google profile. I guess you know, but that that's not going to be allowed anymore. So it's not just amazon's getting bad. It looks like that's going to be banned across the board. It says insider reviews, like by those who work for the company, is going to be prohibited. And here's a funny one, a funny statement. It says businesses will also no longer be allowed to use legal, groundless legal threats, physical threats, intimidation, to prevent a negative review. It says no longer be allowed. Does this mean that until now you've been allowed to use physical threats to get people to change? I don't know what this article is trying to say, or the FTC, I mean it is supposedly it was just quoted here but interesting stuff coming to the world of reviews.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Next article up here is from pandaily.com. Quick note Teemu is opening up a new marketplace in Japan on August 27th. Go look up information on that. Take a look at this article. It might be a good opportunity to get in a brand new marketplace. You know, right before it gets too big, who knows? If you're selling in Amazon Japan, you could probably get your stuff on the new Temu marketplace pretty fast if you hurry.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Next article is from payments.com. It was another one of these surveys. Some of these surveys are pretty interesting. It says 50% of Amazon Prime and Walmart Plus subscribers step up during sales events. Now, based on this study, they had some interesting data points here, all right. For example, it says shopper spending climbed 11% to 14 billion on this Amazon prime day. Now, 40% of all consumers participated in prime day. 20% participated in Walmart plus week, which is like their version of prime day. Now, this is pretty interesting because that Walmart number is still lagging way behind Amazon, but that surged 71% from 2022. It was only at 12% in 2022. So interesting Walmart Plus might be catching up. Walmart Plus subscriptions have increased 30%, especially among millennials and individuals earning less than $100,000 annually. But it says here Walmart Plus still lags way behind Amazon Prime, and both events saw a 50% participation rate from their subscribers. So interesting little stats that maybe you want to check this article out. Walmart plus is is still way, way, way behind amazon, according to this article, but they are catching up, maybe at a little bit faster rate than you might have expected.

 

Bradley Sutton:

All right, the last article of the day is just from amazon. Remind sellers that this month is black business month, all right. And then it talks here in this article about the Black Business Accelerator, a program that we've talked about right here on the podcast. It talks about a lot of the features they have for black owned businesses. It has some quotes here from Rod. You might remember right here he used to be. He was on the Serious Sellers podcast before. So if you have a black owned business, make sure that you get certified so you can get that badge, and then you're actually going to qualify for some special programs inside of the black business accelerator that Amazon has. Make sure to check out the article link to below for that.

 

Bradley Sutton:

So I want you guys to do is to go to YouTube search Helium 10, and make sure to hit this subscribe, the subscribe button right here at the top, and then make sure that you put notification on all, all notifications, so you know when we come out, weekly buzz and other articles. If you guys are watching a video right now, you're watching this on YouTube itself. Right under the actual video there's that subscribe button. Make sure to hit it, make sure you're subscribed, make sure it says all so that you get notified when we have new videos.

 

Bradley Sutton:

All right, let's get into our training tip of the week, and this is something that could potentially save you thousands, if not tens of thousands, of dollars. That's how valuable this tip is, all right. So a lot of sellers have said oh man, you know, I wish that I could be able to know if I'm on the border, what am my packaging on the border of one of these size tier changes like bulky to standard size, you know, or small oversize to just regular oversize? If I'm on the border, that could actually mean a lot of dollars to your bottom line. How are you going to find that? Whether you have a Platinum Diamond, whatever plan you have, watch this, what I want everybody to do right after this video or you can do it right now If you're at home. Go to Helium 10 Alerts. So go to your Alerts page you can find it in the tool menu and it is under operations hit Alerts and then check out on the top left-hand side under the overview section.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Normally, under overview, most sellers only have three lines of notifications talking about the buy box, monitoring slots et cetera. But if you have a package that is near the border of one of these size tiers, you are going to have a fourth line of Alerts here and it's going to say products with size tier automate optimization suggestions. And, as you can see, it says I've got three. So I click this button and it's going to take me to those suggestions. So take, you can see it says I've got three. So I click this button and it's going to take me to those suggestions. So take a look here. It took me to the place that has my dimensions and there's a big red little icon and then it's giving me a message. It says we've identified an opportunity to optimize your FBA fulfillment costs. By reducing the link by one inch, you could potentially move from size tier large bulky to large standard size, decreasing the FBA fulfillment costs from $10.75 to $7 per unit.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Guys, do the math really quick. All right, let's that. That's a whopping $3 whopping. You see, I was thinking about the Whopper that I talked about in the weekly buzz earlier. Yeah, $3.75 is nothing to scoff at. Let's do some math here. All right, so let's say I sell of this product 15 units a day, and now on my next shipment or maybe I can just change the packaging now on my next package and I can go take that one inch off, and now I save $3.75. Let's say, what did I say? Let's just say I sell 15 units a day, all right, so $3.75 times 15 units a day, that means every day. This could mean $56.25 to my bottom line. Times that by 365.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Guys, this one alert from Helium 10 has the potential to get me $20,000. I think that's a pretty valuable thing that Helium 10 is offering. So I hope everybody rushes to their computer. Check your Alerts page, check If you've got that size to your optimization active. Go to it and then take it. Take a look Now. You know some of you who are selling products that are a set size like because you have a mold or something it's not like. You can just snap your fingers and change your packaging. But, like me, if this is like one of my coffin shelves, I can easily redesign my next shipment where I can just shave off a half inch off the product itself and maybe shave it another half inch off of the packaging inside so I can cut down to that size All right. So that's a really cool update. Guys, make sure to go check that out. I said update. This has actually been around for about three or four months, but I think a lot of you guys didn't realize we had that. Now we are going to get into our Helium 10 new feature Alerts. Last week we had a huge one with a completely redesigned keyword tracker. This week I've got a lot of Adtomic updates for you.

 

Bradley Sutton:

All right. The very first one is the ability for ad Adtomic now to run sponsored ad TV ads. The first one here is now ad Adtomic is pulling in your sponsored TV campaigns. You're gonna be able to make rules in Adtomic for your sponsored TV ads. You're going to be able to see the metrics and run analytics. All of you can see me like I don't have any sponsored TV ads. It’s going to be able to see the metrics and run analytics. All of you can see me like I don't have any sponsored TV ads. It says zero right here, but now it is importing. How many of you guys out there are using sponsored TV? I'm just very curious. I'm not sure you know, like how much this is being used out there in the Amazon world. Let me know, are you, are you running sponsored TV ads? Have it? Has it worked out? Well, regardless, if you're using Adtomic, you can now make AI rules and bid rules and a whole bunch of cool keyword harvesting and things from those campaigns directly from Adtomic.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Another thing we have in Adtomic is a new way to make bid rules. Okay, so in Adtomic you can create your own custom rules. You can say, hey for my bid. If, if my ACOS is over this amount and my ROAS is less than this amount, then I want you to take the bid and increase it by 10%. Like it can get super, super granular and very complicated, and rightfully so. I mean PPC is complicated. A lot of our customers out there use a lot of different methods when they're running their PPC, so you need this level of granularity to be able to make rules. But other people you might be like overwhelmed, like oh man, I don't got time to make all these rules. I really like some templates and so you know, now we actually have some templates. So if you go to add Tomic and hit add new rule, you know you choose all the products that you want to apply to this rule. Now, on the right hand side, you choose all the products that you want to apply to this rule. Now on the right hand side you are going to see this button that says apply template. So hit that and you'll be able to choose from some bid templates that we have, and we're going to keep adding more.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Like I believe destiny from better media is working on some. But, for example, you've got one that says high a cost bid window and current bid safety net set up to lower a cost. That sounds like a mouthful right there, but basically what it means is like hey, you're decreasing bids on a high a cost target within a window based on certain kinds of criteria. Another one is decrease when cost per click is lower than the bid. So some people are like hey, I've got a bid that's $4, but if I'm getting cost per click for only three, I don't need to be at $4. You know somebody could bid me up and I could lose money. I want to go decrease it. You can just create a rule and all the little algorithms instead of having to, you know, come up with the actual rule step by step, it's going to just automatically create that for you. You've got an automatic bid rule, that's that takes away your wasted spend who doesn't want that? And then another automatic or another template that increases your exposure and resets your bid if you feel that there's a certain you know threshold that you're not reaching.

 

Bradley Sutton:

So a couple cool updates right there in Adtomic. Now, the coolest one of them all is now you can do paw. You can set a rule to pause your targets. Okay now, why is? Why is this important? I have rules in Adtomic where, for my search terms, I'm like, hey, if I get 20 orders and, by the way, guys, you know whether you use Adtomic or not this is something that I hope you guys are doing with your own software or with your own spreadsheets but basically I have rules where I'm like, hey, if I get 30 clicks or something like that 25 clicks, 30 clicks, 20 clicks with no sales I want to pause this or I want a negative match, right, this search term.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Now, I've always suggested do not negative match search terms in your performance manual campaigns, your, your exact manual campaigns, because now it's going to look like you have a target active but you really pause it in the background and then you might be like, oh no, I can't add any more keywords or targets to this campaign, cause I have so many, but in actuality you had pause all of them. You just don't realize it. So because of that, now we have the ability to make a rule. Let me show you guys how to do that here in Adtomic. I can go in here and I can select a new rule type and I'm going to put bid. All right, I hit next. Now it's going to take me to the new bid rule page and then watch this from here.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Under the criteria, I can say, hey, if my ACoS is greater than I don't know, 50%, right, I can actually now choose to pause targeting. All right, so it's going to pause the target. So if you've got an exact manual product targeting, ASIN targeting campaign, a keyword, exact campaign, and you've never and you always had to pause the targets manually, one by one, because you couldn't do a negative match or you didn't want to do a negative match. Now you can set that as a rule in your Adtomic. Another super cool thing that saves you tons of time and, as we know, time is money. So if you guys haven't gotten into Adtomic, make sure to go to h10.me/adtomic and sign up now, because this is what I use to manage all my campaigns and it's just getting better and better as we go along. All right, guys. That's it for this week. Thank you so much for and tuning in. We'll see you next week to see what's buzzing.

#589 - Amazon PPC for Product Launch and Campaign Optimization

Are you still using the same Amazon PPC strategies you started with? Join us as Vincenzo Toscano from Ecomcy breaks down the evolution of Amazon PPC campaigns, sharing expert tips for launching and optimizing campaigns for maximum profitability. Vincenzo offers insights on how to adapt your strategies as your business grows and reveals common mistakes sellers make, like applying the same tactics across different stages of a product's lifecycle. From keyword adjustments to bid optimization, you’ll get a comprehensive guide to staying competitive.

Explore the crucial role of keyword optimization during a product launch with Vincenzo's actionable advice. Discover how focusing on exact-match keywords and leveraging tools like Helium 10’s Cerebro can amplify your product’s success. Learn about the importance of the honeymoon period, and why organic positioning should be prioritized to build a solid foundation for future campaigns. With Vincenzo's guidance, you'll be armed with the knowledge to set up effective campaigns right from the start.

Get to grips with the hierarchy of PPC campaign types and how to set ACoS goals tailored to your product's lifecycle with Vincenzo’s expert insights. Dive into strategies for targeting specific ASINs, managing product variations, and maintaining higher bids for exact-match keywords to ensure visibility. Vincenzo also shares his approach to handling irrelevant search terms and optimizing campaign performance. To wrap up, learn how to connect with Vincenzo and his agency, Ecomcy, for further consultation and support, making this episode an invaluable resource for serious Amazon sellers.

In episode 589 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Carrie and Vincenzo discuss:

• 00:00 - Strategies for Launching With Amazon PPC
• 02:52 - PPC Tips for Successful Launch
• 04:08 - Optimizing Amazon PPC Keywords for Success
• 10:47 - Keyword Research and Profitability Analysis
• 15:07 - PPC Strategy Hierarchy and ACoS Goals
• 19:23 - Optimizing ACoS for Amazon Sales
• 25:20 - Scaling Product With PPC Campaigns
• 26:48 - Optimizing ASIN Targeting for PPC
• 29:33 - Keyword Variation Strategy for Campaigns
• 30:49 - Connecting With Vincenzo and Ecomcy

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

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

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

Transcript

Carrie Miller:

Today we're talking with Vincenzo Toscano from Ecomcy and he's going to be sharing tips and strategies for launching with PPC. He's also going to give you some tips and tricks on how to best optimize for profitability and he's going to give you ways to find the best keywords for those launch campaigns.

Bradley Sutton:

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

I'm going to go ahead and bring on our guest, who is a friend of mine and I'm very excited to have him today, and it's Vincenzo Toscano. Hey, Vincenzo.

Vincenzo:

Hello Carrie. Thank you so much for having me and a pleasure to be here. How are you doing?

Carrie Miller:

Yes, I'm doing great. Tell everyone where you're at. You're a world traveler, so.

Vincenzo:

Right now I'm in London, so August for me is been kind of like a slower month. I mean, I still did like two, three trips but it’s lower than usual. And then in September, I retake the traveling around, yeah.

Carrie Miller:

Yeah, you're always somewhere, so it's always fun to hear where you're at. Vincenzo, can you just tell everyone a little bit about yourself and also your agency, Ecomcy?

Vincenzo:

So, essentially, at Ecomcy, we are a full Amazon and Walmart brand management agency. So we specialize on everything in terms of listing optimization, PPC, brand creative, international expansion, everything that has to do in terms of all the tasks that your business needs to successfully get scaled into these two marketplaces. So we've got teams across the world. We've got teams in the US, in Latin America, Europe, Middle East and Asia, so, effectively, we're able to cover the full spectrum where, specifically, Amazon is allocated. And, yeah, our main core offering to brands is essentially your one-stop solution when it comes to scaling your brand into these two marketplaces. So, yeah, we do everything from A to Z for you.

Carrie Miller:

Okay, let's go ahead and get into it. Then I'll ask the first question and I want to just get some some of your best tips for PPC. What are some tips that you usually share with people?

Vincenzo:

Of course. So I would say something that I'm very basically been pushing in terms of content is how PPC evolves over time. Right, I feel I have seen this mistake so many times, unfortunately that when we do audits on a daily basis and we have a look at accounts from people that you know are really struggling, I usually identify that one of the main reasons is because the strategy they basically decided to use for the launch is the same one they've been using effectively for scale and also the same strategy they've been using for reaching profitability. So I would say that's one of the main things sellers have to start understanding that PPC is not something that you sit and forget and in fact, I guess so many times this conversation from people that, let's say, want to work with us and say oh, what if you do the campaign once and then I just leave it there and then they're on their own. It's like it doesn't work like that. Your PPC is going to change constantly, especially in markets such as the US that's so competitive If you're not on top of the game and you're practically, you know, adjusting the type of targeting, the type of keywords, the type of beats, the type of ads that you can do sponsor brand, sponsor a product, sponsor display. It can get very, very, very difficult. Now in terms of tips. So I will say one of the first thing and I'm going to focus now a little bit on the launch side of things, because I know that's where most of the sellers really struggle is you have to understand the setup of campaigns that you do throughout a launch of your product. It's completely different when you're on a profitability mode, right, and that's where I want to really give you as much basically actionable steps so you can then go after this live and implement it throughout your next launch. So, when it comes to launching a product on Amazon the other day, guys, we need to understand that PPC is basically a tool that is there to amplify the success of your product on Amazon, right? Why do I say this like that? Because I feel, if your product is the type of product that you feel is gonna require all its PPC to be a successful product, unfortunately I have the bad news for you that is the wrong product, right? PPC is only there as a tool to, of course, get the momentum going, but where the money really is gonna come is from your organic position. Once you understand that initial fundamental, that's going to completely shift your focus in terms of why you do your PPC from day one. We have heard so many times, even from Bradley, like the honeymoon period is the most important thing of your listing on Amazon. Right, it's really the foundation of how Amazon basically goes from knowing zero about your product to building a very mature understanding about where your product is basically reflected within a category and what connotation has to specific keywords. So one of the tip I always give to people when launching a product try to not get distracted by shiny objects, right? So many times I feel people launching their PPC and they try to do all type of the campaigns from day one. They try to do Excel, phrase, automatic, tons of brands, also display.  And the issue with that is that because your product is not mature at all and it doesn't have a really good indexation in the system yet, at the end of the day you can actually do worse than actually helping. You're confusing the system with so much data from day one. So the tip is usually the first 14 days to 30 days. I only focus on exact match keywords in terms of the way I target them and I also try to only focus on my 10 to 20 keywords max. I try to not spread myself so thin, because the other mistake and this is a tip as well If you start spreading your budget too thin across multiple keywords, you also dilute your efforts In terms of, when I say dilute your efforts, your budget runs out very fast or you don't show very high on that specific keyword. Well, effectively what happens is that you don't even get enough clicks to make a proper optimization. Therefore, from those initial two weeks to four weeks, you really want to build a strong link between the fact that your product has zero information on Amazon eyes to the point that once you start targeting this keyword aggressively with exact match, you create a link and then that's when you start launching your phrase, your product, your other campaigns and so on and you start creating that momentum. I'm going to make a small pause, so I don't know if you're going to ask something next, but that's a little bit of one of the initial tips I want to give you. Like focus on exact match, try to not dilute your budget across many keywords. That means focus on the core keywords that are really going to position yourself for success in the future and, at the end of the day, that's going to allow you to create that initial foundation to them with the rest of the campaigns forward and also create basically a face in front of Amazon eyes of what your pro actually is and what are the keywords you want to get positioned for.

Carrie Miller:

I think that's really good. Those are good tips because people are always asking me how many keywords they should focus on for launching and how many per campaign. So that's really really good info. So, in terms of keywords, what is the best way to find those keywords that they should? And then you know what kinds of keywords should they be looking for?

Vincenzo:

Yeah Well, the answer is let's see Helium 10.

Carrie Miller:

Very nice.

Vincenzo:

So that's the best way of finding the keywords. Like I mean, we use Helium 10 on our daily basis for finding keywords for our clients, one of the things that is definitely going to be your best tool for that is Cerebro. Cerebro is like the best tool out there when it comes to really filtering down and finding those winning keywords that's actually going to give you the ROAS that you want on your investment. Why that's important? Because another day, when you start researching a specific category, it's very easy to fall into a trap that you come across 50, 100, 200 keywords and you start falling into the mindset oh, if I target all these keywords at once, my chances of success is actually big. And that's actually the opposite. By multiple studies and even case studies we have done internally, usually 70 to 80% of your sales are going to come from 10 keywords most of the time, right? So therefore, once you start understanding that most of the time, 10 to 20 keywords are going to be the backbone of your business, if you start diluting yourself on things that effectively which is what we call the 80 to 20 rule you put your efforts on something that's not going to give you the best outcome. That is not going to create the momentum that you want. So we use Helium 10 by analyzing the top 10 competitors on a specific keyword and once we identify the top 10 competitors, then we use a Cerebro to say, okay, find me the keywords where these competitors are on page one. Okay, and this keywords is consistent across this many number of products. Right, because by using the specific initial filtering, then I'm basically removing a ton of keywords that I know. Yes, these competitors are ranking there, but not necessarily they're on page one and on a consistent basis, because if you're on page one, most likely by nature you got there because you got multiple sales organically and therefore that's why also that keyword, by being repeated across other competitors, is giving you a validation that the keyword is essentially one of the main keywords of that specific category. So once you find those keywords, that's then where you have to also have some of your insights in terms of what you know about the market. What do I mean by that? If you come across a specific category I'm going to put you on an example like yoga mats, which, by the way, very competitive pro guys, so don't do yoga mats. Okay, let's say you come across yoga mat and you do an analysis of the top competitors and then on your top 10 to 20 keywords, you start seeing keywords that, yes, they are very high in search volume and relevancy. But then you start identify that some of those keywords have things embedded that your product doesn't have, maybe a specific material, specific shape, specific color. You have to be careful with that, because if you only go blindly by data and then you don't use your analytical mind to then see it's actually that has some kind of relevancy to my product, you can also fall into the trap of targeting the wrong keywords. So that's how we find the keywords. Then, of course, we can start going deeper into the strategy in terms of, okay, what kind of CPC I want to go for, for example, with the healing term. You also get certain averages. So you can say, at the moment I can only afford this keyword or I can afford that keyword, but you can go even an extra layer and focus on title density, so to focus on keywords that are less competitive. So there are many verticals you can take from there. But the basics is that top 10 competitors finding them where a decent page one on a consistent basis, at least 40 or 50% of those products, and those are usually my starting point, to then go deeper and filter down.

Carrie Miller:

This question from Eric kind of goes along with what you're saying. What if the first 15 to 20 keywords for exact match don't get enough traffic? Also, the bid can get very expensive as well.

Vincenzo:

Yeah. So if you come across that, essentially, the search volume is not high enough, first of all, that's a red flag, because this is actually something, guys, that you should do from the very beginning. Like all this process I've been describing in terms of keyword research has to be part of your product research. Like something I do with all the products that we launch, and I launch beef. Even if the product is a super winning Amazon in terms of the data and I also validate with Helium 10, I still need to figure out my profitability at some point. So what do I mean? Answering your cost per click question, if I then have a look at the cost per click average, right, and that cost per click average in correlation to the average of the conversion, which you might ask yourself, how do we get access to this data? You have brand analytics. You can, with brand analytics, have an understanding of what is the average of conversion With that. If you start making the math of this is the cost per click, this is the average conversion, and I pay X amount of dollar for a product. You know sometimes, mathematically, even if your position number one on all the keywords and you put a minimum in your PPC, you're never gonna be profitable. So that's the first thing you have to do before launch any problem making sure that within your margin, even in the ideal a scenario, you have the best compression, your rank and everything the margin allows for the average of CPC. Now, when it comes to search volume, you're gonna find sometimes products that are gonna be surprising in terms of why this product, for example, is doing $20,000-$30,000. But then when I have a look at the keywords, the keywords don't really resemble the level of demand. It's like very small keywords. Usually that happens because you're going to find a term in the Amazon space called outlier keywords, right, keywords that go beyond the scope of the product itself. So I'm going to give an example. There was this specific product we were working with which was like a key to things in the kitchen, right, like doing a specific type of cakes here and there and all of that. But when you go around the actual keywords of the product, the search volume wasn't high enough. And then we started to see but yes, these two or three competitors are doing high revenue. How are they getting all these sales? When we went deeper into the research, we identified that they were ranking for things such as gift for mom, gift for girlfriend, cooking, cooking accessories. Words are very broad and when you go on those broad, we're talking thousands of search volumes. So that's also something you have to be very careful when you do product research because if not, you might feel, oh yes, this product do x amount of revenue with this, very easy to get keywords. But most of the time, I can guarantee you, is because they have some of these outlier keywords that are pushing the level revenue. And to conclude, if the search volume you feel is not high enough to you know, create the momentum themselves. Something I will try to do is try to attack, for example, accessories that go along with your product. When I have limitation on the keyword level, my best friend is acing targeting Because, for example, let's say you're selling again a yoga mat and let's assume the search volume is very low. Then you're struggling, like, okay, all the keywords have to be yoga mats. Like have a low search volume. I'm really struggling to scale this product. What should I do? Then you start using your money and say, okay, but actually people are buying yoga mats, but they buy yoga blocks or they buy yoga water bottles or they buy leggings, you name it. So what you do is you start targeting with AC, targeting those products, and then you try to, essentially, even if you cannot win at the QLA, you can try to create some kind of profitability by targeting accessories that go with your niche. So that's usually a way you can mitigate that. But again, in conclusion, you're going to find that if then the search fund is really to a point that's super, super minimal, the only savior if I'm honest with you, is going for all of your keywords, which that by itself means you're going to require a higher budget that you anticipated, because usually those are like very big keywords you have to attack.

Carrie Miller:

Yeah, those are all really good points. Keyword research is super important and you know when you're doing product research for sure. If I have a well-performing search terms in an auto campaign that I want to start exact campaigns for, should I negate those keywords in the auto campaign or keep them active in the auto campaign?

Vincenzo:

Yeah, I always get this question. So essentially what happens is that as you start running your other campaigns and, as I say, I usually recommend touring your other campaigns at least two weeks or four weeks after launching your product in fact, you can do this exercise. If you try to create a phrase broad other campaigns from day one, it won't excite much campaign. You go to the suggested keyword tab which amazon generic gives for you. You're gonna see that's right and that's effectively the theory and the behavior we have identified. If Amazon doesn't have history about your product, why are you going to give them basically an empty field for them to run like crazy and not really have a direction? What is the real path towards success, right? So once you generate that with exact match, a keyword campaigns when it comes to other campaigns, those are gonna be your best friends. When it comes to keyword that sometimes you're gonna struggle to find, for example, within them, and that's normal, because sometimes other campaign what it's gonna do is it's gonna find like very, very small long tails that have a lower search volume or very specific that sometimes a. The reason why they are so specific is that they come with specific trends throughout the year or they just come and go, so the auto campaign is going to ensure that catch, basically the low hanging fruit. And once you identify these keywords, let's say you start identifying one that start to become very repetitive in sales, like when I say repetitive is at least three to five sales. If it's only one sale, like I, wouldn't necessarily move it to exact much campaign yet because I want to allow it to prove itself right. Once I move it something you want to do and this applies to all your PPC strategy you have to follow always a hierarchy. Exact is the king right, then you have rest, then you have broad, then you have auto campaigns. Why this is important? Because the other mistake I see a lot is let's say you have a bid in your other campaigns of $1, right, and then you move that keyword to an exact match campaign. You put it 50 cents right by nature. The other campaign on Amazon are still gonna have high priority across your whole account and it's gonna hit most of the budget and most likely it's gonna have priority in terms of placement visibility compared to the exact version of that keyword. So that's very important. If you move it, the bids on those new campaigns have to be higher than your other campaigns. Once you move it I usually don't like to negate it. I'm gonna tell you why. You're gonna find that your other campaigns usually you end up in placements that you don't end on manual campaigns. And this is because Amazon essentially when you work with lower bids they have like what we call like lower tier actually placements that they usually are attributed more to auto campaigns. So you're gonna find that for some specific keywords and this happened to us all the time we move the same keyword to a manual campaign and we start getting a higher CPC or conversion drop significantly. Because even if you think you're targeting the same keyword and it goes an extra layer, it's not only about targeting the keywords, it's about how Amazon actually showcased those impressions in different placements. Therefore, for me I don't negate it because if, let's say, I had Yoga Mat at $1, it came at a $1 average CPC on my other campaigns, then I move that to my manual exact. I will start at least at 120. So I have that hierarchy defined. But then I wouldn't fully remove from my other campaigns, at least at the beginning, because I want to see if the behavior of my new campaign is effectively reflecting the reason I moved the queue in the first place. If I see that after a while that behavior start to happen, then usually yes, I like to negate on my other campaigns I move it to exact. But the reason for that is because some of the, when it comes to optimization that we haven't really got deep as of now. One of the things that can get very confusing, especially when you start targeting multiple listings on your account and so on, is the illusion of essentially data that will define clear KPIs. What do I mean by that? Let's say you're targeting Yoga Mart from another campaign and then you're targeting Yoga Mart from an exact match campaign. The same queue is being targeted from two fronts, but then when you're going to do optimization, in Amazon eyes they are seen as two different search terms because they are under different campaigns. So you're not quantifying the real success of the keyword combined, right. You are seeing them separated and if you start doing that across multiple campaigns, what is going to happen is you might fall into the trap of sometimes thinking a keyword is a loser when actually it's a winner where you combine the efforts of all their impressions is having across all the campaigns. So therefore you want to make sure over time if the campaign is performing better for a specific keyword on a specific placement. That's the one you leverage and then over time you start negating the rest until you have a single point of contact for every single keyword.

Carrie Miller:

I'm starting to build campaigns and bid rules in Adtomic. When looking at ACoS and setting goals, should I look at ACoS data from our past campaigns or is there a set percentage for ACoS for certain products?

Vincenzo:

Yeah, so ACoS, at the end of the day it goes a little bit with the tip I was saying in the beginning. It has to be teletraining your strategy in terms of your journey, launching scale, profitability, because it's different, the echoes you're going to target as a brand when essentially the product is completely new compared to when it's very stable, and I'm going to give an example so you can essentially visualize what I'm going to explain next. So let's assume, when you go start selling on Amazon, you had an ACoS of 80% which, again when you launch on Amazon, being over 50% is normal. 50-100% is usually the bandwidth I try to build when launching. Usually, the thing that is most important throughout this phase is actually not even the ACoS, it's conversion right, because when you're launching on Amazon eyes it's not about making money, it's about the new traffic I'm giving to the new kid in the block. How is this person behaving with this new set of traffic? And therefore, in Amazon eyes, if I get as many conversions as possible, which effectively is sales, that is gonna allow me to get a more and more placement organically, indifferently of the ACoS. That's why the initial ACoS of the initial two months I wouldn't use that as a baseline to do what I'm gonna do next, after my scale and profitability because here the focus is not ACoS is making sure I get position organically. Therefore, long-term, I can dilute my efforts for my PPC perspective so I have lower expenses and at the same time, the cells start coming organically, I'm gonna make my order revenue bigger and therefore my TACoS, which is my true ACoS, is gonna get lower and lower and therefore that's what the profitability kicks in. Now, when it comes to setting the goal, something you have to also be mindful is ACoS is highly related as well to your profitability. Okay, why? Because it's not the same delivery aggressiveness I'm going to do with a product that have 50% margin. That product have 10% margin, right, because that defines by itself like how much extra room you can allow to lose money for a specific period of time and you can budget for it. Therefore, the first question you have to ask yourself like do a P&L see what is the basically margin you can allow yourself in terms of, let's say, you identify that your margin is 20%. Once you identify that your margin is 20%, usually a good rule of thumb is that if my margin is 20%, then I should be my ideal ACoS for breaking even, for example, is 20%, but usually what I do as a rule of thumb towards launch, I double it. So whatever is my breaking point, I do 2 to 3 times. So that means I can afford a 40 to 60 percent ACoS and usually that's gonna be like your bandwidth, you need to play in between right and then you, of course, you start diluting, diluting until you get back to 20% and then eventually, with organic sales, they're going to kick in. That's going to make it lower and it's going to make you profitable, yeah.

Carrie Miller:

Next question what search volume of keywords should I target for launching? Some keywords have huge search volume and are hard to rank on page one immediately.

Vincenzo:

Search volume, something that you have to do and this is also another tip, guys when it comes to creating your PPC campaigns. Something that is key is segmentation at the volume level. I have seen this mistake so many times and this is one of the reasons why sometimes your PPC is not working. You should never put on the same campaign a keyword that has a search volume of 10,000 with a keyword that has a search volume of 10,000 with a keyword that has a search volume of 1,000. Why? Because the ratio in terms of difference is so big that, in Amazon eyes, given that this queue has a much higher search volume and therefore relevancy for this specific product, all the budget is going to go to that specific keyword and therefore, if you don't do campaigns that is, for high search volume, medium search volume or low search, low search volume you're going to find the phenomenon which I'm sure a lot of you are going to find if you go right now on your PPC dashboard that only 3 or 4 keywords are getting all the spend and the rest are getting no impressions and clicks. That's the first thing about search volume. Second thing the way you define what search volume you can attack is also highly dependent on what is the budget that you have allocated toward launch, because the higher the search volume is, the higher is going to be the cost per click because, by nature, there's more competition attached to it. That's why this is a question that should actually be asked even before launching the product, throughout the product development phase. But let's say we come across and say, okay, I have an identified that the search volume average is, I'm gonna make you now, basically a bandwidth of what usually you see between 1,000 and 10,000 and usually I have, let's say, 20 keywords in between. Right, usually that's a very similar behavior you're going to find what I usually try to do is most likely if you also go under the 1,000 mark. You're going to find a lot of keywords that have lower search volume, but usually the list is going to go from 20 keywords to maybe 1,500 keywords, because you're going to find a lot of keywords that have a low search volume. Now what is going to happen is usually by norm, I only focus on the top 15 to 20 that define the ratio of the search for us. Therefore, if between 1000 and 10,000 is where I find the top 20 keywords, that's usually the bound where I would stay, from the best keyword to the 15 or 20, right? Because if you start going below that, you're going to dilute the effort. What is going to happen? Your budget is going to spread two things and sometimes, given that you're not competitive enough on the main keywords, most of the budget is also going to go, by nature, on the less competitive keywords. And, yes, maybe you start getting more sales on the less competitive keywords, but, at the end of the day, that's not what is going to set your business for success in the long term. So I rather forget the ones that I know are not going to create the backbone of my business. Focus on those top 10 to 20 keywords, define that as the ratio of search volume and then, from there, start going down as the momentum itself is getting built up.

Carrie Miller:

All right, this next one is a pretty good one that I've been asked this a few times too. How do I scale a product with PPC? I've got good results with the campaign for the past 30 days. ACoS is under control, click-through rate is good. Should I increase the budget or duplicate the campaign? Thank you.

Vincenzo:

So, let's say, your PPC is already performing and your click-through rate is good, which is one of the main metrics I keep mentioning. Some of the things you have to do next is okay, this is a the keywords I'm pretty much getting most of my sales from in terms of my PPC, and you want to start isolating those keywords as much as possible, because what you're going to identify most likely on those campaigns when you start going deeper and deeper most likely the ones that are driving most of the success is like five keywords, right. Therefore, usually, if you follow the strategy of adding multiple keywords on a campaign, you're gonna find that other keywords are diluting the efforts of going tunnel vision on the keywords that giving you the ROAS that you need. Therefore, I will go on all my campaigns making sure the keywords have the good click-through rate and performance I need are kept in the legacy campaigns, which means the ones already have history, and the keywords that haven't performed I move them into new campaigns and therefore rinse and repeat. Usually, winners stay in the campaigns where they're being winners. The losers I remove and, based on how bad they perform, I might retry them on a new campaign or I might remove them altogether and re-engage on a new keyword research perspective. Yeah.

Carrie Miller:

All right, we actually have a question from Bradley Sutton.

Vincenzo:

Oh, there you go.

Carrie Miller:

I don't have too many search terms showing up on my ASIN product targeting campaigns, but I heard others get a lot of irrelevant search terms. Now instead of only ASINs Is the only way to stop this is to put search terms in negative match or at the campaign level.

Vincenzo:

Yes, yeah, thank you for that question, Bradley. Yeah, at the moment it will be at the campaign level. Yeah, so this for those that might not know when you actually target a specific ASIN, for whatever reason, that actually also shows you for search terms right and therefore you know you appear for a specific search term. The issue with that is that it appears as a search term. It doesn't appear as a keyword. Therefore, if you negate it at the R group level, essentially you're not negating it because this is not even a keyword you're targeting in the first place, you're targeting an ASIN. So one way we have found I mean in between to you, Bradley, because sometimes we still see by passing that it will be at the campaign level you negate at the campaign level so that ASIN the search term that it generates, it doesn't basically get repeated.

Carrie Miller:

Lots of my products have several variations. When I create a PPC campaign, should I only select one variation for the campaign to target, or should I select multiple or all of the variations?

Vincenzo:

Good. So some of the things I usually do is, if you have historical I'm going to give you two scenarios, because usually there's two scenarios you have the scenario where you've been selling for a while and you have historical data. Therefore, that's very simple you just go have a look which variation is the one that has the best conversion and you go for that one. Now the second approach is what most people go across, which is you're going to launch this product with multiple color sizes and all of that, and you know which one to go for. Usually, your best friends for this is having a look at and I'm sure by then, if you're launching the project, you already understand the market having a look at reviews of your competitors, which you can do with Helium 10, and then figure out what is the ratio of the color or the variation that sold the most. So you start having some educated guess. That's one way of doing it. Then the second way of doing it is also a brand analytics. You can have a look at the specific ASIN that's been sold the most on the specific a category. You can also use proper to an explorer to get some insights around a specific a variation that sell the most. So there's different, different sources of data. You can combine and make this guess and if you still Somehow not decisive, because maybe all these sources doesn't really give you a clear answer, then the way I will go for it is initially only I will pull them all within the same campaign to see how this performs, because by nature, Amazon is gonna most likely start selecting one over other based on KPI. So who click the mouse and who convert the mouse? And then that's gonna be my winner and my baseline for my rest of the campaigns are gonna create. Forward, now, forward. Now another thing, guys when you start creating campaigns and you define a clear variation, let's say you define the clear winner is color, red, red, yoga mats right, that's going to be the one you're going to use on all your generic keywords. Still, if you have blue, white, black all these are colors you still want to create the same resembles of these keywords, but with the variation embedded in it, right? So, for example, let's say, as I gave you the example, red, blue, black yoga mats. Then you want to have, for example, a campaign for red, red yoga mat, red, exercise mat, red, and you name it and you do that with every single color and then you can also mix the order. And all of that because that's what it's going to allow you to do is, while the main variation takes the pull of the sales from the generic keywords, you still want to have a very strong presence on the long tail and more niche keywords that people are going to try to look for, that specific variation, even if it's lower than that. So you have a full spectrum control of the main market, the main market, the mainstream market, and they have control of the more niche market at the keyword specific level.

Carrie Miller:

Thank you so much, Vincenzo, for joining us on this TACoS Tuesday. It's always great to have you. You have so much knowledge, so much to share. Every time I've seen you speak or just share everyone, there's always some great info that people can take and, do you know, basically put things right to work with their PPC. So thank you for doing that. Thank you for doing that, thank you for sharing, answering all these questions, and hopefully we'll see you again soon. Where can anyone find you? If they want to find you and reach you and maybe ask you questions or connect with your agency.

Vincenzo:

Sure, so you can find me as Vincenzo just counting all the social media channels Like. Luckily, I'm the only one in the industry called Vincenzo, so it's going to be very easy to find me. When it comes to the agency, you can find Ecomcy, also in all the channels, or go to our website, ecomcy.com, where you're more than welcome to book a free consultation with our team and hopefully we can answer some questions and explore future partnerships.

Carrie Miller:

Awesome. Well, thanks again so much and thank you everyone for joining and asking questions and hopefully this was very helpful for you all in the audience and we'll see you again next time. Thank you, guys.

#588 - E-commerce Compliance & Amazon EU Expansion

Ever wondered how to navigate the complex world of tax and compliance as an Amazon seller? Join us as we chat with Bojan Gajic, the former CEO of Helium 10 and now CEO of Avask, who brings a wealth of knowledge and fresh perspectives on scaling your Amazon, Walmart, and e-commerce business. Bojan shares his experience from recent Avask x Helium 10 workshops in Europe, offering valuable insights into the benefits of advanced content and the irreplaceable value of in-person networking.

Balancing work, family, and personal interests while striving for business growth can be a tough juggle. We'll explore the current landscape for Amazon sellers, highlighting the increasing challenges in the saturated U.S. market and the promising opportunities in Europe. Learn practical strategies for maintaining healthy margins and adapting to market shifts, ensuring your business not only survives but thrives.

Expanding into the European market can be a daunting task, fraught with regulatory hurdles and compliance issues. We dive into the intricacies of choosing the right country for importing goods and the critical role of sophisticated compliance providers like Avask. Plus, we discuss the transition of Avalara’s tax support in Europe and offer guidance on selecting new service providers. Tune in for a rich discussion that also touches on the joys and heartbreaks of Serbian basketball and offers tips for your next trip to the UK.

In episode 588 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Bojan discuss:

• 00:00 - Amazon Sellers, Avask CEO Discussion
• 03:32 - Upcoming Avask x Helium 10 Workshop Announcement 
• 07:53 - E-Commerce Seller Profitability Trends in Amazon
• 11:02 - Amazon's Marketplace Expansion Strategy in Europe
• 17:24 - Optimizing European Logistics for Amazon Sellers
• 25:27 - Global E-Commerce Compliance and Expansion
• 29:13 - Transitioning E-Commerce Tax Compliance Providers
• 30:40 - Transitioning to Avask for Tax Solutions
• 32:46 - Discussion on Serbian and UK Culture

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

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

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

Transcript

Bradley Sutton:

Today we've got on the show the former CEO of Helium 10, who's now the CEO of Avask, the leading company in the world for tax and compliance for Amazon sellers. We're going to talk on a wide variety of topics, including new Amazon incentives for some marketplaces, how sellers can help their profitability, and even Serbian basketball. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Want to enter in an Amazon keyword and then within seconds get up to thousands of potentially related keywords that you could research? Then you need Magnet by Helium 10. For more information, go to h10.me/magnet. Magnet works in most Amazon marketplaces, including USA, Mexico, Australia, Germany, UK, India and much more. Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I 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. So we have got somebody who is no stranger to the show. He's been on the podcast multiple times, former CTO and CEO of Helium 10, now current CEO of Avask, Bojan. Welcome back.

 

Bojan:

Thank you, Bradley. It's good to be back. It's always great to have a conversation with you and on Serious Seller Podcast, even better.

 

Bradley Sutton:

And especially, you now have this Walter White Heisenberg era. Look to you, you got the goatee and shaved heads. A little bit different look than when you had here at Helium 10. I like it. I like it. You got that Avask gear. I've got some of Avask gear. I got this Real Madrid jersey. For those who are watching this on YouTube a Real Madrid, Avask jersey that I got at our workshop. So let's just talk about that real quick. You know we've been doing these workshops over there together a Avask and Helium 10 in Europe. For the first time we did one in in Germany near the Avask office, and then we did another one in Spain and so, like what's been the feedback as far as these events that we’ve been doing?

 

Bojan:

There's excitement internally and externally. You were there, obviously, and I met people who woke up at 3am and then drove for four hours to meet you. So the level of excitement that you generate around the world is astonishing. I was familiar with that, but always impressed to see the level of excitement, the commitment that people have and are ready to make to exchange experiences with you. So that was great. Feedback was positive all across the board. So sellers that attended, they're saying that this kind of experience, this kind of focused content that is not beginner content but sort of content that allows you to move your business beyond proof of concept, beyond the early stages of something that is missing or was missing. There are opportunities to learn things wherever you are obviously interns, being global, et cetera but interacting in person, interacting, networking with other sellers that are in similar kind of stage that's a value that's really hard to reproduce and Europe sort. So fragmentation in Europe led to a lack of organized events like that. The two events that we ran together were very well received. There's a lot of demand for the next one, so I know we have something planned out. Maybe we don't want to share at the moment, but there will be another one coming soon. So, before the end of the year, be ready to join us again in the United Nations. So we have some activity for you.

 

Bradley Sutton:

So if you're in Europe, I mean, actually you don't have to be in Europe. There was somebody who went to the Germany one who flew from South Africa. I don't know if you met that gentleman, but he flew from South Africa to go to the event. But obviously, if you're in Europe you're like a 40 euro Ryanair flight away from wherever we're going to have our next workshops. Make sure to join. Now, real quick. I'm wearing this soccer jersey. I'm wearing my MLS actually LA Galaxy hat here. So you know, Bojan is a sports fan too. That was a close game between Serbia and the United States in basketball. I thought Serbia was going to take it. There's a lot of maybe disappointed people from your home country.

 

Bojan:

Just for you, sir, I'm wearing a jersey as well.

 

0:04:08 - Bradley Sutton:

You got the Helium 10. I love it. He just did a Superman, you know, like opening up his shirt right there. I love it.

 

Bojan:

So Split Allegiance is an investor. Oh here, I got a Helium 10 in the last cup.

 

Bradley Sutton:

I love it. I love it.

 

Bojan:

So, it's the game. Yesterday Serbia, US. It was a heartbreak, because I'm deep down rooting for Serbia, obviously, and I have no expectations whatsoever. I hope to not be blown out after losing two games within two weeks by 26. So I was like okay, hopefully it's not embarrassment. And then first quarter, second quarter, third quarter, I'm like yeah. I know things will turn around, but when the results were 75-63, I actually allowed myself to start hoping that things might end up the way I would like them to end up. And then you have KD and Booker score two threes within like three seconds and it goes from 11 to five and the game kind of falls apart. It's like man. But that's sort of the beauty of being a fan of small nation or underdog team you lose a lot of times and you sort of learn to find happiness in small successes and then from time to time there'll be a big win and you really enjoy that. 

 

Bradley Sutton:

Makes it that much sweeter. That's why I'm a Clippers fan. I'm still waiting for that big moment, but switching gears, kind of on a personal note, like this too, but I think it's something that's important for entrepreneurs out there. I get this question a lot. I'm not sure if you get it a lot, but you're going to get it today. But people ask me sometimes. They say, hey Bradley you’ve got your family, you know I don’t have small kids anymore but they’re still in Home.  And how do you manage it when you’re travelling so much for business and now you are working in a company based in UK, and I know you're going around and you've got offices all over the world too and you're probably traveling, I would assume, more than you did when you were at Helium 10. What is it, you know? And there's entrepreneurs out there like, hey, I need to, I need to spend a month in my factory in China, or I need to go to these conferences and stuff. How do entrepreneurs? What advice can you give them about juggling family life with travel? How do you make it work?

 

Bojan:

I tried everything I could think of. I tried commingling these two and bringing my family along. Even this summer, I spent three months in Europe visiting different offices and trying to combine that with family time and what I learned over years is that it doesn't really work out. If you're trying to split your attention between work and family and God forbid, you have sort of personal hobbies, you're most likely going to end up frustrating everyone. I would be frustrated by not being present for the family, where I want to be present for the family, and also not being on top of my game professionally. What I would recommend is accepting that there is a difference between your personal time and your professional time and being present for the topic that requires attention at the moment. So, when your family, when you're doing something for you personally, then try to create a big enough box where you can focus and enjoy that time and be there for your family and do that for yourself. When you focus on work, try to focus on work, and it's not trivial. I would assume that through failure rates from marriages that entrepreneurs will have probably second to military families. It's not trivial for sure, but my recommendation would be accept that there are sacrifices that need to be made on both sides and start from there, like make sure that you're maximizing the value of time that you do have and you can spend it without.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Let's talk about some strategies and things that are going on in the e-commerce world. You've got now a new kind of maybe perspective on things Obviously working here at Helium 10, you could see a lot, but now you're a little bit more on the accounting and regulations and things like that side. I think the top of thing on Amazon sellers in the USA right now in mind is like profitability, especially this year. I mean, obviously everybody should be worried about profitability. But when I say that it's like hey, no, they're worried about it's going down because of all these new fees, like what are you seeing? You know, obviously you have customers in Europe. You've got customers in US. Are there any trends? Like, do you see profitability going down amongst American sellers or more worry on that side? Is it the same worries that Europeans sellers are facing? What's the kind of like state of affairs as far as profitability goes amongst Amazon sellers that you have dealings with?

 

Bojan:

So you've been in industry longer than I have. So I don't remember since what? 2016. Since I started operating this space, I don't remember a year where dominant sentiment was, oh, this year is better than the last year. It's always like, hey, it's harder than it was last year and it's fair to assume that next year will be more difficult than this year. So, it depends on who you ask, depends on where you look. So, there are challenges, there are always new challenges, but what I'm seeing in the US is maturing of the market. So, 5 years ago, 10 years ago, amazon was still in sort of explosive growth mode in the US. So Amazon was drawing in terms of GMB some more money being moved to the platform. Amazon was drawing in terms of customer count. Today, when you look at number of clients drivers 180 million in the US they're not making that many more people in the US, so that's already a fairly saturated market. Going back to history, Amazon US you had a handful of categories. 15, 20 years ago, Jeff Bezos was floating about the ability to expand beyond books and being successful in the electronics category. So as Amazon grew over the last 10, 15 years in the US, growth of Amazon drove growth of individual sellers. So, you essentially had to find a niche, find an opportunity and sort of continue to grow with Amazon. What you're seeing now is a slowdown in that kind of growth that you experienced over the last 10, 15 years, and every industry has similar kind of trajectory Google, Google advertising, similar kind of stuff happened there. It's natural that the margins will be compressed. For most, there might be sellers that are finding ways to keep their margins protected based on the IP or unique positionings that they have or just brand investment they're making. But the US is challenging and I don't expect that to change much. Amazon is still drawing in the US and when you look at the share of third-party sales, that's drawing in the US. So someone is making money. It's possible that the growth of seller base, for maybe the first time ever, is outstripping the growth of the market as it is in the US. Amazon, on the other hand, essentially fully saturated the market, so they don't have strong incentives to invest in expanding seller base as they bring on new categories. If they are expanding more into food or fast fashion, or they're expanding into drugs, like. Yes, there will be incentives, but those incentives will be more localized now than ever before you have a maturing of their advertising platform. So, when the new product, the new advertising product comes online, when they, when they start pushing ads through TikTok, there will be an opportunity window of opportunity. But first, world advantage is valid for only so long. So, us, I see, I can feel the squeeze. Your customers, my customers, sellers it's real, it's your margin compression is real and people are trying to figure out how to keep that margin positive. There will be winners, there'll be losers. Winners will be survivors. So, as the picture clears out as successful mid-sized, larger brands or survive the squeeze, there'll be less competition for them. What I'm seeing in Europe is still the sort of 2015, 2016, 2017 Amazon. So Amazon is drawing and bulk of the growth Amazon's corporation is actually happening in Europe and it's drawing in large, established countries. So Amazon still has material growth in countries like Germany, France, UK, where they've been present for more than a decade. But they're also bringing on new wealthy markets to Amazon. Not sure if you heard about that, but Sweden became part of their Pan-EU program now so you can store goods in Sweden, which makes it more affordable. Less expensive to distribute to Nordic countries Norway, Finland, Denmark but Amazon is actually actively investing in bringing sellers to that market. They need selection. So what used to be mantra in the US, that's now happening in Europe, and while in the US fees are going up and new fees are being levied, in Sweden, for example, Amazon is covering the cost of compliance, but there is cost. There's fixed costs for compliance. Amazon is covering cost of compliance for a certain amount of time and they're lowering FBA fees by 50% per year. So it's a sort of limited time promotion. It's not open to everyone, but that's the kind of investment that Amazon is making in Europe. They used to make the same kind of investment or similar kind of investment in the US, but that's no longer the case. As you think about expansion, as you think about growing your business, there are essentially four ways to grow your business. One is product innovation. So whatever your product portfolio looks like today, you have to continue to innovate. So that's a must do. If you stop innovating, if you start bringing new products to market, your growth will turn negative. It applies to Nike, it applies to someone who just started in business. You can grow by spending more money on acquiring customers, which is essentially Amazon advertising in our sense. But marginal value is being squeezed there as well, so that especially in the US, that's pretty saturated. So you can product innovation must do regardless of where you are find more eyeballs through spending on advertising getting more and more expensive, so marginal return diminishing. You can go into new channels, you can expand into new channels in your existing market. So if you're in the US you will go B2C or you'll go Walmart or you'll go to Chewy Home Depot, whatever the category is there. You're sort of betting that Amazon will shrink. So it's more like insurance. If Walmart manages to take some of Amazon's market shares, Amazon will be shrinking, Walmart will be expanding, so you will expand. So you're placing that bet that someone will win and take over Amazon's market share. So, when you go through those three, option number four is geo-expansion. So, it is non-trivial, so you have to be ready to make an investment. There's fixed costs associated with geographic expansion, but tools allow you to automate and offset some of those costs or minimize the cost. Allow you to automate and offset some of those costs or minimize the cost localizing listings. I'm not sure if Helium 10 has the tool, but I believe that there are capabilities that would allow you to programmatically localize your listing to German and Dutch and whatnot, with high degree of quality. It's like by that total you get 80% of value for 20% of effort. So once you satisfy all those essential needs, it becomes really good growth opportunity. But if you want to grow, if you want to take advantage of this marginal opportunity and sort of be agile because that's what small businesses have like ability to adjust in the moment, as opposed to large businesses that have long-term plans like lack of flexibility so leverage your agility to take advantage of new opportunities and geo expansion into a market that has sort of similar purchasing profile as one in US.

 

Bradley Sutton:

There's no great interest, okay well, there's a lot of the stuff you mentioned there that maybe you know can be considered a little bit of the sexy side of things like expanding to new marketplaces and localizing your listings and optimizing this and that. But then out of Avask there's a lot of non-sexy stuff too, because most people don't think accounting and taxes and all that stuff, taxes and all that stuff. I'm just curious, like, is there any like, when you onboard a new client or something, are you anecdotally seeing something where it's like oh, my goodness, you know you've been, you've been reporting this. This way you're wasting a lot of money or what you're not? You know, putting this and making it a business expense. You know, like, or hey, you're double paying this tax. You don't need to pay this, like. Are there things like that that you see that maybe you can tell sellers about that that maybe haven't gone to you yet and there may be losing money because of it.

 

Bojan:

So, I do my own personal taxes still, because I'm too lazy to keep track of all the expenses in a way that allow an accountant to do taxes for me. So, I'm sort of scrambling at the end of the year, at the end of the period, to do taxes, and I know that I leave a lot of money on the table by doing that. Same thing happens in this industry. So there are two ways where you can lose. There are obvious two ways where you can lose money. One is you're just making poor business decisions and moving goods in Europe while it's automated. So, especially if you're selling through Amazon, Amazon will take care of logistics for you the same way it does in the US, so you don't have to think about finding people that will pick it back. So Amazon takes care of all of that. But how do you bring goods into Europe can have a dramatic impact on your cash flow. You could import goods into Amazon's network through France, Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Italy, and it's like on the surface everything feels the same. But then there are various tax schemes that will impact not necessarily how much you pay, but it will impact when you pay. So it's a thing having to prepay your taxes based on estimated earnings for a year, versus holding off until you actually sell goods and then you pay taxes based on sales as opposed to based on income. So I would say, don't go through Germany, like get to Germany by going through France or Netherlands. That's the recipe for success. Don't go through Italy and Spain unless you're incorporated in Italy and Spain, because local governments can be not very forthcoming if there's money that they owe you, if there's money that you owe them, they will be very agile, but if they owe you some money, it's like Mañana, come back next year. So that's one way to lose money or overspend money on compliance is by just making poor, uninformed business decisions. Another one is not having a sophisticated enough provider, and that's another thing that you're seeing a lot, because for a lot of businesses, compliance is part of, as you said, not very sexy, not very exciting things, and it's usually handled by professionals that are competent in their lane. Think accountant that handles your corporate taxes and whatnot but they don't necessarily have the experience with international fixations and rules. We very often have things or have instances where, not due to lack of desire but more like lack of skill, our clients have been overpaying or not reclaiming what they were supposed to reclaim.

 

Bradley Sutton:

It's funny because I've had Melanie from Avask and others on before and I have a general understanding of what you do. But then somebody just this week was asking me like hey, I'm trying to, you know, I want to expand to Europe and I'm not sure about the regulations. And I was like, oh yeah, you know, maybe hit up Avask. But then I'm like I'm not. You know, I know they can handle VAT things and help you with some compliance. But as far as like setting up corporations, you know, it was kind of like I worked so much with you guys. I'm like it was kind of embarrassing moment for me. But then so I have you on here now, two days later. What is it exactly? Like who should be thinking about, you know, using Avask? I mean, it's a no brainer to me Like, hey, somebody who's confused about VAT and somebody who needs an accountant service, you know, of course I know that, but like, I'm an Amazon seller in ex -country, at what point? Or like, who is Avask right for in other words?

 

Bojan:

Businesses expanding into Europe, businesses that are trading across Europe, there's marketing side of needs sort of like what Helium 10 supports and not Helium 10 addresses. So, what is sizing the opportunity? And then creating all the collateral that's needed to address the situation. What's the size of this niche in Spain? Should I get into this or not? And if I decide to do it, what does it mean to get into this niche in Spain? Creating listing, thinking about advertising so that's where Helium 10 fits in. Now, how that really happens, how do you make it past the regulatory hurdles that every government will put in front of you? That's where Avast comes in. So, yes, we can help with incorporation and we can help give you an advice. Does it make sense for you to incorporate or not? So there's this advisory component that you're happy to provide. The core focus for the business is around regulatory compliance and you don't want to hear everything that happens there. There's tax compliance and then there's echo compliance. So now, if you sell goods like you live in California, when California, when you buy a bottle of water, you pay a recycling fee, in Europe, that is seller's responsibility. So if you're selling goods in Europe, you as a seller, you're responsible for end-of-life care for that product. So let's say you're selling a battery operated shaver in Germany, you have to think about packaging. So eventually that packaging will have to be disposed of. You have to think about electronic components. Electronic components have to be disposed of. And you have to think about batteries. If you include batteries in your product, then I recommend you do, because that has to be disposed of, and in Germany there are three different bodies that regulate this. So taking care of batteries is separate from taking care of electronic components, is separate from taking care of packaging. Some countries have even more category. When you go to France it's like there's a lot like textile and plastics and this and that. So that has nothing to do with corporate taxes and sales tax. That is essentially sales tax and wrapped in the final cost of product. But you still need to do it, otherwise you will not be able to sell. So what Avask does is take care of that compliance requirement without you having to do more than register. There is like going to the doctor for inoculation, so if you get a jab, there's a little bit of pain and then you're done. So it's a similar thing here we will help you, walk you, guide you through registration process. Once you're done with that process, we take care of that. Environmental customs so just movement of goods. If you make a mistake, if you misdeclare, if you import into wrong port, customs duties could be pretty expensive. Customs fees could be expensive. If you have goods that have limited shelf life, obviously it could go bad and it could be in trouble. So these are three main buckets tax compliance, environmental compliance and then cross-border movement to goods compliance. Not sexy and I don't recommend like it's non-differentiated knowledge. If I'm a seller, I don't benefit from understanding all of it like I learned about it because it's needed in order to support businesses, but as a seller I would not waste my time dealing with it like as a seller, I'm looking at new opportunities, I'm trying to understand the needs of the market, I'm trying to understand sourcing. But so all of this can make me more successful in my business. If I can find goods at 10% lower cost in wherever I'm sourcing, that's great. That's a better margin. If I can improve conversion rate by optimizing my listing, that's a great margin. If I spend hours doing some administrative work and then hopefully I don't get in trouble by forgetting to check the box, like best case scenario, I am where I was. Worst case scenario I'm in a deep hole because I made a mistake. So that's the. It's a long answer, but compliance, so operational compliance in European countries. We have sales tax team in the US as well. For businesses who need reporting criteria in the US. Let's say you're selling D2C or you're selling large enough volume, you also have to report sales tax in the US. We have that capability as well. The bulk of the focus at the moment is in Europe.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Speaking of some North American and European things, there's an announcement we gave on the Weekly Buzz where now there's some new digital service fees that you're going to have to pay if you're like a Spain based seller selling in the US or vice versa. So make sure you guys know about some of those, just in general. You know, you have a lot of sellers you work with. You mentioned Amazon Sweden before, but what other Amazon marketplaces are you seeing people expand to most lately? You know, maybe some of the more off the wall ones you know I'm not talking about. Oh yeah, obviously there's always going to be a lot of people expanding to Amazon Germany or France, but you know, like in my circles I've heard a lot more than before from Amazon Saudi Arabia for one, and then you know people are. I heard Amazon Australia is finally growing a little bit. It was so slow for a while and more people thinking about Japan, but there's plenty of other newer marketplaces. Do you have anything that sticks out, or pretty much all businesses as normal the last year or so?

 

Bojan:

Nothing major if you have any global evidence for various marketplaces like Dutch and Belgium. Apparently there's. There's something happening there where, in certain categories, sellers are finding success, but our core focus is Europe. We are seeing you're seeing anecdotal evidence, but that might not be particularly relevant for your audience. Those might be sort of huge reds that have name recognition that they're leveraging and extracting value as opposed to trying to build new presence. I think Kim Kardashian trying to monetize her name in Australia much easier than if you need to establish your brand. So, nothing, no nuggets sitting there beyond Sweden and that sort. Our Nordic region, where investments are, you have off Amazon. You have this belt in Central Europe like Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, but that also requires expansion beyond Amazon. There are others. You have Allegra that dominates that market, that sliver, which is a sizable market $15 to $20 billion but I would not recommend exploring that until you've mastered European markets in general and if you're an Amazon seller, that's where you would go. You can start with Amazon and ride the growth of Amazon. Huge positive things. Developments happening in terms Amazon and ride the growth of Amazon. Huge positive things. Developing is happening in terms of market growth in Europe for Amazon. I would just piggyback on that.

 

Bradley Sutton:

So you know you and I were talking, you know before something I hadn't heard of, because I don't sell in Europe, I don't deal with too many European sellers here in the States, but I believe that there was like one, a pretty large company that was helping hundreds, if not thousands, of sellers in Europe with some of their taxes and compliance, is trying to step away from the Amazon game. So can you elaborate on that and what those sellers need to know?

 

Bojan:

It's a huge company. It's one of those companies that are not well known to consumers or smaller businesses, but large businesses who recognize the name. Avalara is a company that provides sales tax calculation software in the US. Pretty much any company calculating sales tax in the US will use Avalara in some form on the back end. So you don't see it. But when they say hey, in this zip code it's 775, and that one over there is 7875, that most likely comes from Avalara. It used to be a private company but public, got bought by Pista Capital but potentially they can private again. So possibly due to optimization of their balance sheet, they left or they're leaving, and it's not a secret. They made it public. Both Avalara and Amazon communicated that to a larger audience. Avalara is leaving the market at the end of Q3 and they will stop providing bad support for sellers in Europe at the end of that quarter. So through the end of Q3, you're fine. After that if you're selling in Europe, you will need a different service provider. You can try to do this yourself. I'm not saying it's impossible, just not recommended. And there are a few other providers in the space. Avalara is sort of a big name because they're the first Amazon partner in this space. So, if you started selling in Europe when they were initially pushing Pan-EU and European expansion in 2016, 17, 18, you're most likely using Avalara for that, even if you were not aware of that. If you're interacting with Amazon, but on the back end, Avalara is actually providing services they're getting out. You didn't hear about it. On the other hand, in my world, that seems to be the only thing people talk about. So it's probably somewhere in the middle, like somewhere it's noise, somewhere it's signal. It can be very stressful for businesses, but obviously Avask is one company that provides alternative to that and the transition is pretty seamless. Starting with this can be painful. Getting registrations in place, et cetera, et cetera, used to be pretty challenging and painful. Now it's much easier because we have providers like Avask and also process of transitioning from one provider to another is not as painful as starting from scratch. So if you're a seller selling in Europe, then you have to pay taxes, obviously, and you might be impacted by this, but I don't want that level of stress to be particularly high, especially considering that you're getting into sort of prime day or whatever it's like prime selling. So prime of stress to be particularly high, especially considering that you're getting into Prime Day or whatever it's like Prime Selling. So Prime Day, number two, and then follow this Tax Staff will be taken care of. You just need to make a selection. You need to go to Amazon and select who will be handling your account. So could be me, absolutely, but we are not the only provider there.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Anyways, good segue into what I do at the end of episodes. Anyways, if anybody wants to, you know, get more information from Avask or reach out. You know one way they can do is just go to hub.helium10.com. You type in Avask and you'll be able to contact them right from within the Helium 10 portal. Here, you know, you can go to, to avaskgroup.com. How can people find you? Are you active on LinkedIn or how can they reach you out there?

 

Bojan:

LinkedIn is the best way to get a hold of me. I don't have a Facebook account. I actually spent a few minutes earlier today looking at my Facebook account, specifically some conversation on Helium 10 Elite. Someone remembered that you co-hosted AMA with Matt Benton yeah, I did a little trivia.

 

Bradley Sutton:

I did a little trivia there. Those are the old days and and that correct answer was Matt Benton, of who I used to co-host AMA’s was like six years ago and only one person got it right and that person won a free ticket to Amazon Accelerate.  

 

Bojan:

$600 worth of value there so that that trivia paid off. But yeah, yeah, Avask.com or Helium 10, affordable, but Avask.com easier to remember and for me personally find that LinkedIn always happy to connect.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Do you have any last 30 second strategy or 60 second strategy? For us, it could be about the best Serbian food or best places to eat in the UK, since you've spent a lot of time there Accounting. It could be about Amazon software. You've got a lot of expertise, so go ahead and knock it out, whatever you want to talk about.

 

Bojan:

UK is wonderful June through early September, so if you're going to visit, it's a great country, great place, great area to visit during summer. If you spend more time there September through May, you will understand why they built all those ships and conquered the world. And I thought that was original when I said this, but then I was told that's a meme. So I'm not sure how valuable this is Beautiful country, great people but whether June through August. That's Okay.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Yeah, all right, good to know because I've been putting off my trip over there. I haven't been back since before COVID, so now I know when I can go. Well, Bojan, it's been great to have you back on the shows, great to see you in person at these recent events and everybody else out there, like we said, look forward to, perhaps in another announcement of another event, that that we're going to do. Uh, maybe October, maybe November, not sure when, but be looking out for that announcement and you can hang out with us and we can talk, uh, Serbian sports. Um, don't talk about Serbian soccer. That was a very not great performance this year, that it's a sore point for boy on there. But we'll talk about Serbian basketball, because that's always a positive one to talk about.

Helium 10 Buzz 8/15/24: Prime Exclusive Discounts Now Cost $50 | Amazon Prime Big Deal Days Coming

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.

Let’s take a closer look at the anticipated Prime Big Deal Days and speculate on the potential dates for this high-stakes event. And just when you thought Walmart was keeping quiet, they've rolled out Walmart Cross Border, a service designed to challenge Amazon Global Logistics with efficient port-to-door shipping for goods manufactured in China. Tune in to understand how these changes might alter your business strategies in the upcoming shopping seasons.

Walmart opens ocean shipping network to marketplace sellers
https://www.retaildive.com/news/walmart-china-cross-border-shipping-service-marketplace-sellers/724202/

But that's not all—AI is revolutionizing the way we shop and sell online. From helping consumers find the best deals to potentially reducing the advertising burden for sellers, AI-powered search tools are transforming the e-commerce landscape. Whether you see AI as a friend or foe in your selling journey, it's crucial to stay informed. I've got all the insights you need, along with a must-read article linked in the description for a deeper dive.

Recent Google Ruling May Open Door to More AI-Powered eCommerce
https://www.pymnts.com/news/ecommerce/2024/recent-google-ruling-may-open-door-to-more-ai-powered-ecommerce/

Don't miss out on this week's buzzing news roundup that's packed with actionable advice and expert insights.

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

• 00:54 - Prime Exclusive Discounts FREE
• 02:56 - Prime Big Deal Days
• 04:38 - Walmart Cross Border
• 05:48 - Amazon Inbound Fees
• 08:55 - FBA Returnless Resolutions
• 11:45 - AI E-commerce

#587 - How to Scale 6, 7, & 8 Figure Amazon Brands

What if you could replace your corporate salary with millions in e-commerce sales? This inspiring episode brings together Robert Gomez, a former senior finance manager at Microsoft turned successful e-commerce entrepreneur, and Kseniia Reidel, an aspiring Amazon e-commerce star. Robert reveals his transformative journey from the corporate world to achieving over $10 million in sales on Amazon and Walmart brand called Kaffe. Kseniia, on the verge of hitting her first seven-figure mark using Project X methods, shares her innovative strategies and experiences in scaling up an Amazon business.

From facing the challenge of declining sales due to over-dependence on a single product to launching new product lines in Walmart, Robert and Kseniia provide invaluable insights into the world of e-commerce adaptability. They discuss the critical importance of diversifying product offerings and successfully managing logistics during peak seasons. The conversation underscores the significance of strategic retail placement and the rewards of being flexible in the ever-evolving online and retail marketplaces.

We also delve into the game-changing benefits of hiring Virtual Assistants (VAs) for essential tasks like product research. Learn how effective VA onboarding can propel business growth and the impact of diversifying sales channels beyond Amazon, including Walmart, Faire.com, and even TikTok Shop. With strategies for maximizing profit margins and leveraging social media for brand growth, this episode is packed with actionable insights for anyone looking to thrive in the competitive Amazon, Walmart, and e-commerce landscape.

In episode 587 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley, Kseniia, and Robert discuss:

• 01:08 - Amazon Seller Stories - Catching Up with Kseniia Reidel & Robert Gomez
• 10:17 - Dependence on Declining Kitchen Appliance Sales
• 10:24 - Navigating Brand Pivots and Retail Success
• 20:32 - Walmart Retail Expansion Success Story
• 22:52 - Product Expansion and Virtual Assistant Hiring Success
• 26:17 - High Margin Product Strategy Growth
• 29:01 - Product Launch Strategy at Walmart
• 36:55 - Amazon Seller VA Time Management
• 40:01 - Exploring TikTok Shop for their E-commerce Business
• 41:12 - Retail Expansion and Product Development
• 44:04 - Brand Expansion Strategy Discussion

► 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 two guests back on the show who've never met each other, but they've both been on here before Robert, who's generated over $10 million of sales with his brand on Amazon and Walmart, and Kseniia, who used Project X strategies to launch her first product, and now this year she's about to hit seven figures for the first time. How cool, is that? Pretty cool I think. Not sure on what main image you should choose from. Or maybe you don't know whether buyers would be interested in your product at a certain price point. Perhaps you want feedback on your new brand or company logo? Get instant and detailed market feedback from actual Amazon Prime members by using Helium 10 Audience. Just enter in your poll or questions and, within a short period of time, 50 to 100 or even more Amazon buyers will give you detailed feedback on what resonates with them the most. For more information, go to h10.me/audience.

 

Bradley Sutton:

forward slash audience. 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 we've got a couple of serious sellers back on the show Robert for the second time, Kseniia for the third and a half time. We had her on a little Prime Day special here. But welcome back to the show, guys, your first time meeting each other was today. Right, you had no idea who each other was.

 

Robert:

No idea.

 

Bradley Sutton:

I love doing that. I love bringing different sellers who maybe under other circumstances, might never have known each other. So it's really good to see that people from all walks of life have success on Amazon. Now, if you want to get the backstory of Robert, his first episode was on 448. So we're not going to go too much into his backstory here. Maybe we'll touch a little bit on it, but 448 is a good one to see his episode. And then Kseniia has been on. I think her first was episode 320. And then she was back on episode 441. So we're really close to Robert's episode there, talking about how she 10X her sales from that first episode today. I'm not sure what we're gonna completely know about. We're gonna catch up, completely know about. We're gonna catch up with them might be up, might be down, but hey, we keep it real here. We're not here to make it seem like, uh, everybody who comes on is gonna 10x their, their, their sales. That's not why we brought her on the last time. But uh, let's see, let's see what happens. So, first of all, Robert, you know, like, like I, you know, the one thing that maybe people who listen to your episode, uh, that stood out was how you were still working at I don't remember it was like Microsoft or something like that for years and years, even though you were already a successful Amazon seller and that you had just around. That time finally was like, all right, I'm going to quit the day job. So you know, you have a couple of years maybe under your belt not working for the man, as it were. So how has that been?

 

Robert:

How's that transition been from so long being like the corporate world and stuff and now being your own boss, kind of I think last time I was on was around that time that I had just quit or was about to quit or something. But yeah, I was at Microsoft for a few years. My background is in corporate finance and I started Amazon, kind of like a side venture, back in 2017, 2019. I launched the current brand that I have, but I sort of held on as long as I could, had a whole team and everything, before I finally quit. And around that time was when we were going into physical retail and we had got our first sort of big contract. So you know, it was kind of just time. The amount of time it was taking, the amount of efforts it took to execute that program just had to do it.

 

Robert:

And it's now been a little under two years and it's amazing, I mean just the fact. I mean I love I was there for a reason, you know, and corporate served this purpose. You know, I think I'm always able to say that I used to work for Microsoft and that's kind of level setting very easy to tell somebody. But at the same time, obviously it just wasn't for me. From the day I joined Microsoft, I already knew that I wanted to quit. I already had the Amazon business and everything. It was just, you know, really just the golden handcuffs, as they call them. But yeah, haven't thought about going back any single time in this past year plus. So, yeah, thankfully, you know, any day that I get to do this has really been a blessing. It really doesn't feel like work.

 

Bradley Sutton:

What would you say were the effects of it as far as on your Amazon business? Like having more time to focus? Like, did it stress you out more? Was it the opposite? Were you able to take care of things that might have slipped into their cracks? Were you able to scale faster? You think? What were the differences on that part of things?

 

Robert:

It's hard to quantify it in that sense. But basically you know the role I had at Microsoft. I was a senior finance manager. My team was in the west coast at the headquarters, but I I'm based in the east coast, so it wasn't the amount of necessarily time it was taking. Quite frankly, you know, I had a pretty sweet sort of setup where I didn't take a lot of time right, and that's what made it even harder, because the more you get paid and the less you kind of work.

 

Of course that just sounds like a dream, right, if I just, you know, mentioned it to friends or just talk to people about it, like what are you doing? What are you thinking of putting it for? But it was just the mental sort of real estate, the real estate it took in my mind, even if I only had one meeting that day or two meetings that day. It was just kind of thinking of like oh, I have that meeting coming up, or just like I have to do this, or the feeling of like not giving something.

 

Robert:

My all you know I'm kind of like all or nothing type of guy and so like just having to, like almost feel fake in the way that I showed up to work and it's. They still thought I was doing a good job. You know we had reviews and I was kind of doing OK and good on them, but internally I just felt terrible, you know, and then I just felt like if I could focus all the time, you know, on Cafe, it would unlock a lot of other things and it has, you know, like it has allowed me to get the team into more of a rhythm in the way that we run meetings and run cadences for certain product development, for sales, et cetera, whereas before it could have been interrupted at any given moment, right, because basically I had a job so I could always take that backseat.

 

Bradley Sutton:

So yeah, it's been a ride, All right. Interesting. I think that's something that Amazon sellers out there, once they hit a certain level if they were working, you know is like a universal question All right, at what point do I do I, you know, give up the steadiness of income and the reliability and the insurance and things like that and go, you know, you know, focus solely on my, my Amazon business? For the people who already are out of out of the, the people who already are out of the corporate world once they start their Amazon business, well, they're just all in from day one, kind of, so they don't have that option. But I think the answer is it's different strokes for different folks. You're probably waiting the longest, more than anybody I've known, wasn't it like, even after you started your, your amazon business? Like a good three, four years um?

 

Robert:

yeah, it was about ready to get multiple seven figures at that by that time yeah, yeah, um, we had sold a total of uh, maybe like 12 million or so, um, before I quit, and we rolled, I quit, we rolled out 4,000 Walmart stores and then I quit, basically yeah he was still rolling out 4,000 Walmart stores with his product.

 

Bradley Sutton:

He's like you know what. Yeah, I think it's time now, but that just shows you that's not the wrong choice.

 

Robert:

There's other people who wait after one month, and they're ready.

 

Bradley Sutton:

That's not necessarily the wrong choice. It's whatever works for you.

 

Robert:

There was no room for error. If I messed any of that up, not only would I need a job I would be way in that way, so there's one way to look at it but also the focus was there. That was my full time job. You know, I always say Amazon was my full time job, and then I had kind of a side side job in corporate.

 

Bradley Sutton:

All right. So now going back to Kseniia, first of all, I'm not sure you know I don't remember the kind of things we talk about all the time. My memory is so bad. But then you know, Mhel gave me some notes this wasn't on there but before you started on Amazon like I do have in my notes here that you were doing like selling collectibles on eBay from Russia and things like that, but at any point, while you were doing Amazon, did you also have a day job or you were 100% your e-commerce business from day one?

 

Kseniia:

100% e-commerce.

 

Bradley Sutton:

A great contrast I didn't even plan that, but is perfect. It is to have a. To have the contrast here now. I remember one thing that was, you know, kind of like the highlight of your old episodes is is the way that you discovered uh and launched some of those first products that brought you success was like using the project x uh method. So that brand that you started back in you know 2021, 2022, whenever it was uh are you still selling that brand today, the successful one?

 

Kseniia:

Yep, still selling. I've had to change a little bit the product line and expand it but, yeah, the first product since from which one it started still there, still selling. It was exactly three years ago, actually, in August 2021.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Wow, okay, perfect, perfect. Now, the last time we talked back, in 2023, uh, I think some of your closing comments about your goals was hey, you wanted to kind of like focus on, on building the brand a little bit more. I mean building the brand in the figurative sense, not, you know, not just expanding their products, but like actually building a, a brand. And how, what did you do to try to do that and how has that, those efforts, worked out?

 

Kseniia:

Well, the first thing I want to talk about is what happened after last we talked. Is that in 2023, I lost like 40 percent of my sales? Wow, let's keep it real here.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Let's keep it real Well, what was it an attack or just you know the competition? Did you make a huge mistake or what? What happened? Uh, did you make a huge mistake or what? What, what, what happened?

 

Kseniia:

yes, I made a huge mistake, totally my fault, because when I started building this brand, this brand was focused on accessories for a kitchen appliance, and what I didn't think about is that my sales are going to be totally dependent on the sales of that kitchen appliance. Under no, no, no circumstances I can sell more accessories than the appliances sold. And so what happened is, in 2021 and 2022, the appliance sales were growing and they were doing a lot of social media, so my sales were growing, with me not really doing anything, like I didn't do any social media for my brand. But in 2023, from the beginning of 2023, for whatever reason, their sales started dropping like every month, less and less and less, and by the end of the year, I think they also lost like 40 or 50 percent of their sales and your sales were 100 reliant on theirs, yeah, the same. And anything I was trying to do. I tried to do social media, I tried to do Google ads at an agency, but nothing really was just a waste of money, basically because their product wasn't selling, so my products were not selling and my brand was 100% focused on accessories around that kitchen appliance. Wow, okay, so like I had eight products, I think, by the end of 2022. And they all were related to that kitchen appliance.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Interesting, interesting. And so then you're like how do you pivot from something like that? It's like you know, your whole concept of your brand is around this one thing. And here you are trying to build your brand, but then like, wait a minute, this is not the direction I need to keep going, or else I'm going to keep going down yeah, I spent several months on trying to think about what to do about it.

 

Kseniia:

I was like, oh, do I just dump it all and just start it all over? But then, like I had a patent pending for two of the products because they were selling really well and it was really my like design idea that I totally made from scratch, I was like I don't really want to dump it because, who knows, maybe like next year, their sales will go up again, you don't know. So I was thinking about it and I just decided to expand into the products that not a hundred percent related to this kitchen appliance that but can be used by the same people but also can be used by other people as well. So kind of exit the sub niche and get in a little higher niche. So they're still all related, but now I'm not tied to that kitchen appliance.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Now, did it help at all that you were in that niche already to launch these other products? Were you able to market to your existing customers at all, or was it almost like starting from scratch again?

 

Kseniia:

No, the first product that I launched after that was not 100 related to the other brand um was made for I actually got the idea from the customers of that brand, but it was also being bought by all other people. So and sometimes I see that the um, some of the purchases that are made, they're made like two products bought together yeah, the one for the brand and not not for the brand. So the first one kind of easy, and then I started expanding a little bit more outside of the something totally not related to that brand.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Okay all right. All right, we're going to come back to you because I want to uh, double click on a couple of those things you're talking about. But now back to Robert. You know you had mentioned how, in in around the timing of the last episode, you're launching Walmart and there are thousands of stores. Um, I would assume you know we're here in in august that it's been over a full year now of Walmart store sales. So how would you, how would you say that that's gone? Like what kind of gross sales we talking about just in in stores on Walmart, and are we only talking one skew?

 

Robert:

Yeah, so we launched, uh, maybe, yeah, 16 months ago or so, with two skews uh right away. Basically, one of those items was the intro offer. What they call that at walmart is basically the the cheapest option of that product at walmart right, in this case a coffee grinder, and from the time it went live it just started really selling. Just basically, we could see from the data like Nielsen data, which is like official retail data, not counting Amazon and e-commerce we could see that our product was the best-selling grinder in the us, like across all retail points, just because of that walmart placement, right like. So, imagine walmart being, you know, the kind of highest volume retailer and you're the cheapest in uh or the intro uh pricing there, so that that, you know, had what was kind of like a big boom.

 

Robert:

Uh, struggle to kind of just make sure you know, basically keeping up with their projections were a lot lower than we actually did end up selling. Uh, and you know I kind of had already predicted that we would sell, about you know, more than they predicted, just cause that product did well in any other channel that we put it Um, and so, yeah, just kind of stabilizing that right, so making sure that through the holidays.

 

Bradley Sutton:

I would always remember your uh, remember your Instagram post.

 

Robert:

You would be going around to Walmart’s all over the country you're on vacation stuff and go to the shelf where your product is and look it's empty, like we're sold out, like it's a fly, literally flying off the shelves yeah, so that's what was happening, you know, and so because it had one facing, meaning it's on the shelf once, instead of like having two, two of them and it would sell kind of fast enough that basically it wasn't. It wasn't able to maximize what it could do, right, because it wasn't available fully right. So we were missing, you know, maybe 20, 25 percent of sales there until, like, the Walmart kind of system catches up with it, like, uh, their forecasting system, um, but yeah, it's basically uh, it's bigger than an amazon business, uh, it's a high seven figures kind of deal and we're counting wholesale costs, so like not the actual retail, so it kind of would be bigger. And the thing with Walmart there is, you know it's compared to amazon it's huge. You know, like it's guaranteed you're a vendor, there's no middle sort of person there and just you know they place every week orders for 42 distribution centers, so like, basically every week we get 42 orders and it goes to other distribution centers, and then this May, so basically a year later or a little before that, they launched one additional item, so they added one more to the two and now there's three. And I also went to another line review for next May to hopefully add a couple more items. So it's just kind of working on the retail side there, but separately.

 

Robert:

I was actually in Puerto Rico yesterday. I was, as I was telling you, meeting with the Walmart Puerto Rico team because they're rolling out, uh, basically a whole section of like 15 items, um, like they're, they're actually like taking up a whole section, um, and that, you know, even though there's not that many stores in Puerto Rico, it's a, it's a huge kind of way of proving it out, like you know, hey, you know, we did this over there. How about, you know, over here, right, right, two other retailers in the us, and that's kind of where the strategy is. So certainly ups and downs, you know it's not always, uh, rainbows and butterflies, as they say. Uh, that side of the business is great. That's what we've been focusing on for a while. But, uh, there's amazon as well. Not such a pretty picture there, but we're still going at it strong, obviously we're gonna want to uh, you know, uh listen to your story on amazon.

 

Bradley Sutton:

But just going back to the Walmart you might have said this in the last episode but, like I said, I forget things how was it that you even got into Walmart before? Did you start to sell on Walmart.com? Did a buyer at Walmart take notice of you because you were crushing it on Amazon, amazon? You know that's probably the hardest thing for somebody who's interested to get in Walmart brick and mortar is getting on the radar of the buyers and actually getting you know in a media unless you'd, like you know, win a contest or do that uh open call or something like that. But how was it that you were even able to get your foot in the door with Walmart?

 

Robert:

Yeah, so a little combination of a couple of things you mentioned, but essentially we have a broker, okay, and a broker, what a broker does, and it wasn't the first broker we had, by the way, and we have one for Target we have. You know, these brokers kind of charge a single digit percentage of sales if they ever sort of get you in the door. Some charge a monthly retainer. In my opinion I wouldn't go with those. You know, the ones that are like serious in my opinion more are the ones that charge you a percentage only if they ever get you in the door, right, um, and so we had tried one. It didn't work out. I mean, it's the same as us reaching out to the buyers, which we had also done, you know, and they don't really reply. You know, like all these retailers at least the, the biggest retailers they have once a year kind of reviews, right. So if you kind of get invited to the review, then maybe you they'll review your product, but that has to do with whether they're wanting to change whatever they have on the shelves, whether they're open to whatever you have, just like a lot of different things. Like the most common thing to happen is that they don't change anything on the shelf Right If it's kind of working or. You know, their jobs depend on the performance of what's on the shelf Right. There's not unlimited amounts, so they're very picky on what they select in. So that's why it's kind of like an uphill battle to get into the retail shelves, and more nowadays that everyone's pushing for conf right. If anything, they'll tell you oh, go try conf first. That's just kind of like a cop out to say like we don't want you on the shelf at the moment.

 

Robert:

So how it worked with us is basically we had worked with a broker. It didn't kind of work out, just no motion there, and not to their fault. But another broker reached out and said hey, you know I can try to reach out, and he did, and it was regarding our coffee grinders and they basically said you know, you can come to Venville to present it at our line review in June of that year and they had seen the product on Amazon. So yeah, I think we were bestsellers or just doing really well compared to other things they had on the shelf and they invited us for that one product and of course when we went I presented other products Right. So you have like 30 minutes. You set up on a table and it's like go, go, go, and after that just kind of I thought it would be like a lesson learned sort of like. You know, maybe come back next year like a good job. You know, at least I learned how to do this thing. But they came back with, you know, questions that led me to believe that they were really interested, like, hey, you know, would you be able to like fulfill a large number of stores if we allocated you that? And, and you know, I just said yes, you know, I never.

 

Robert:

Even that was our first retailer. You know, usually they try you out with a hundred stores or you maybe get into another independent retailer and then you kind of work your way up. But it was one of a weird case where our first retailer was, you know, every Walmart. So it's kind of like you have to learn how to execute the biggest one first, and so now we feel confident that any other retailer, it's kind of like it'll be okay. You know, capacity, volume, just processing the orders. It was a beast at first but yeah, that's how it worked out. Okay, cool, a long sales cycle.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Yeah, Interesting, interesting. Now, switching back to Kseniia, you know, like in the old you know I remember some of your other products the way you would kind of find and or launch was, you know, like through Facebook groups and things like that. Like, are you still using that method to like? You know now that you kind of are going a different path, like, is this Facebook play a role, or how are you finding where the needs are to launch these new products? And then, how are you getting the initial eyeballs on your product once you do launch?

 

Kseniia:

Yeah, the first one that I launched after switching of being the accessories for other brand that was also from a Facebook group. That also was from the same people. But then after that I realized that I need to find a VA finally, because it was only me before that and it got kind of hard when I got to like almost close to seven figures.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Remind everybody what you did uh, you know to do that so they can kind of have a for those who didn't hear the last episode, so they can have a picture of your strategy here so before, uh, I was finding product ideas, I was on the Facebook groups for that kitchen appliance and I would just see what customers say.

 

Kseniia:

Sometimes, a lot of times, because it was a new brand and it was like, basically no accessories for this kitchen appliance they would just say, oh, have anybody, anybody seen this product or this product that we can't find anything like this on amazon? We really want it and I would go like Esty or eBay, I don't know. I check Pinterest and I would see people try to make it themselves from, like I don't know, pieces of wood or something like that. So I realized, okay, well, it's great, then you check the search terms and people actually searching for this product, but there is no options available on Amazon. So that's how all the other products before were and then.

 

Bradley Sutton:

So what did you hire the VA to do? Just start, you know, just be in all these Facebook groups and Reddits and stuff like that trying to get information, or what are they doing?

 

Kseniia:

no, the first thing that I did when I hired her, I told her she needs to learn the Project X.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Nice.

 

Kseniia:

I gave her the Project X because I told her that's exactly how I learned how to search for products. So the first thing we did is that she watched the whole Project X Love it. Because I wanted her to learn how to find products, the way how the Project X was done. Not starting from the product itself, but let's say starting from the product itself. But I'll say started from the keyword. Yes, so searching for the opportunities and not searching for something that already exists, and you'll be surprised. I think it's in two months I don't remember how many she actually found, but the one that we're actually going with in two months it's like 10 or 15 products, something like that that's already passed, like we're getting the samples.

 

Robert:

Oh, wow.

 

Kseniia:

So that's just not the product ideas. That's actually what we will be launching.

 

Bradley Sutton:

That's awesome.

 

Kseniia:

So yeah, she's really great Okay.

 

Bradley Sutton:

How did you find her? I think that's another thing that people wonder about is hey, how do I find good VAs who are actually going to produce, Like, did you go to a service? Did you just put a notice up, or?

 

Kseniia:

I just went on a website. I forgot how it's called like jobsph or something like that. And yeah, I just did a post that I'm looking for a VA with like a specific requirements and I actually did like a an attention test, let's say so. I put it a note and in the middle of the resume and tell them that's how they should name the email when they reach out to me. And you'll be surprised, out of maybe a hundred people or more that reached out to me, maybe like five only actually read yeah the joke post and they put it the and that was like the first test and then they did a task trying to find a product.

 

Bradley Sutton:

So hey, there you go, Robert. There's a tip for your, your next hiring thing. Like uh, dude, that's a good test to weed out half of the applications right there. I like it. I like it, okay, cool. So now you know, now that You've launched some products that kind of are not reliant on that one appliance, what do you project? Is your sales going to be by the end of this year on the trajectory you're going now?

 

Kseniia:

Yeah, I think we will definitely hit the seven figures this year, so it should be better than so. So far, the best year was in 2022, when we got very close. I think it ended with like nine80,000 or something like that, and I think we should be more. Yeah, it should be more this year.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Awesome, awesome, awesome Congrats.

 

Robert:

You got to buy $20,000 worth of goods at that point. Yeah, just at the end of the year just like buy your own product.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Come on, I mean you got to hit that number, but hey, that's good, you're going to do it without having to game the system like that this year. Awesome, Robert. Amazon. Let me look at my notes here. In your first year I saw you did $2 million on Amazon. You had grown it to like $4 million, which was pretty much Amazon.

 

Robert:

Only If we were just to take the Amazon, not the Walmart. Are you up down? We're probably slightly down. I would say maybe 15% or so, 10 to 20. Part of that was our own doing. We had to prioritize. If we ran out of stock, it's not going to be at Walmart stores, it's going to be at Amazon, and it's happened a couple of times and know, and that's kind of affected. We had a really kind of high margin sort of products that we've launched and one of them did extremely well and we just haven't been able to keep it in stock because it is a new item to our supplier. But, like as an example, we launched it basically like month one, with no reviews, you know, just like our branding and running ads. We did almost like a quarter million dollars of sales and it was profitable, which is crazy. You know, usually we're used to losing money, you know, even after a while sometimes, uh, but you know that kind of like margin. There's certain like we're basically focused more on things that make margin, you know, or things that will basically help us push sales through our website, through other products, or things like that, like our hero, where we include an insert card and they're able to buy other accessories from us. But yeah, certainly, strategy slightly changed.

 

Robert:

Within Amazon, advertising basically just kills a lot of the margins, but we see it as a brand awareness exercise as well. We have a lot of products on the roadmap that are higher margin and just kind of like uh, you know, complementary products and stuff that you know I think it's a survival of the fittest on amazon. You know, thankfully, we have always tried to open new channels. You know it wasn't just Walmart stores, you know, for a while we've done all the dot coms, you know, even as vendors like Target dot com, Walmart.com, Macy’s Home Depot, fair dot com If anyone out there listening, maybe I'll save it for the 60 second tip. But Fair dot com, yeah, just, you know, all the channels start adding up, you know, and those are higher margin than and where you don't have to run ads and stuff.

 

Bradley Sutton:

So how are you dealing with the year of the fees? It seems you know Amazon, you know 2024 new inbound fees and low inventory fees, which it sounds like you probably hit because you keep running out of stock, you know, on some items and refund fees and stuff like that. Like how have you been able to maintain your profitability? Or have you been able to maintain your profitability, you know? Have you had to raise prices or what's going?

 

 

Robert:

On no, we just, we have not maintained the profitability, it's just straight. But not on amazon wise. You know, thankfully, the retail side for us just, you know, pays the bills and more. You know thankfully. But uh, we see amazon, as hey it's, it's tough for everybody. You know, thankfully we have another side of the business that it's actually our priority and you know we're still focused on Amazon. But we didn't keep the profitability. Necessarily we can't always just raise prices because we are basically selling on a lot of other channels, so it disrupts a buy box potentially and it's just one of those things where we just have to optimize on the ad side and just straight up, not focus on some SKUs that are, you know, kind of loss leaders or could be loss leaders.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Now I'm looking, I'm just looking with Helium 10 here on your store page with X-Ray, and I see actually you know there's a number of products here that you've launched in the last year. Like I see it, says March of 2024. I see another one here, June of 2024, this coffee scale with a timer. Why, somebody, that's gotta be a serious person. You're weighing your coffee and you got a timer on it, but whatever. So there's all these unique products.

 

Kseniia:

It's at Walmart.

 

Robert:

So that product is at 3,000 Walmart stores. Wow so wait, hold on stores. Wow so wait, hold on, hold on.

 

Bradley Sutton:

It just says you launch this in June. So does that mean that you actually launched a product on Walmart before Amazon? I love that. You see, I keep trying to tell people that exists. Some people say, oh no, Walmart is the opposite. You can expect less sales unless you get into the stores. But there are definitely people out there who launch on Walmart first. But anyways, my point was I see at least four or five products here that were launches here. So obviously you're actively, you know um, trying to expand the brand, you know. I asked Kseniia the same question how are you finding these, these new opportunities, like? What are you doing to, like, do your market research to say you know what? This is the next product we're going to try.

 

Robert:

Yeah, so a lot to do with I mean doubling down on what works, for example, the categories that are working. We introduce either variations or new models if we see fit, and then we get a lot of feedback from retailers and pitches that we do to retailers. So we're in line reviews all the time with different retailers and they tell us we like this product, we don't like this product, or potentially, I think we launched maybe like 20 or 15 or 20 espresso sort of accessories, the scale being one of them this year, and that was from, basically, feedback from a Walmart buyer saying, hey, you know, it'd be nice in the future if we have some espresso tools you know that's kind of a trending category, or whatever. And we sort of said tools, you know that's kind of a trending category, whatever. And we sort of said you know, yeah, we have those kind of coming anyway. Yeah, you know. And then we went and looked for those. So we you know I have a lot of products that I've already tested and stuff, you know, every, basically everything. We're a coffee brand, so anything around the coffee categories, you know, are sort of constantly keeping my eye out and our factories also like innovating with us. Um, but yeah, it's, it's.

 

Robert:

It's a lot of prototyping for retailers, rather than launching on amazon and seeing if it works and then sort of uh, then going to pitch to the retailer. So it's a lot more capital efficient, just sort of prototyping things or final sampling and then uh, sort of having them available on your catalog and then if a retailer wants it, then of course you go to mass production, you go kind of bigger on that and double down on amazon um, but yeah, on the amazon side for us, you know one thing that you probably wouldn't see on the numbers there, but we're we've been working with a 1p partner where we basically have a lot of margin on but we don't necessarily account for the sales through our account, you know. So, like our item wouldn't necessarily show that but it says sold by amazon. So there's some. We just started that as of like a month and a half ago or so, uh, and it's been kind of working really well, um, certainly making a lot of profit, and they're selling uh as dot com, as amazoncom. So that is sort of how we're mitigating the risk, just sort of looking for ways where we're able to keep profitability, because you know categories that need our products. You know our brand fits in well.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Now one thing. The last question for you, before I go back to Xenia, is I don't know the specifics, but I used to supply Walmart to other companies I've worked at. But it's not like they pay you a month in advance or even they pay you up front. There's different terms that Walmart needs and then when they're ordering what? 50 units for 4,000 stores or 20 units for 4,000 stores everybody can do the math out there. We're talking a sizable chunk of change. How do you manage cash flow when you're almost having to front Walmart and some of these other things like and have such a big business with so much turnover? How do you have the capital to sustain, to keep it, to keep it going?

 

Robert:

yeah, that's the part that hasn't been easy for sure. You know, financing environment altogether has gotten, you know, tougher for everyone. You know, obviously, the higher interest rates and stuff. I just bootstrapped this so of course even harder right, and I'm in a sort of categories that are, you know, some would say commoditized, unless you have like strong brand but you definitely are competing against legacy brands that are sold by amazon. So basically a lot of competition in that way. Um, so, to scale it, it's not like I had extra sort of profit margins to just dump around and make mistakes and sort of, you know, go everywhere. So it definitely took some, you know, strategic there, partnering with the.

 

Robert:

I would say the biggest lever is our supply chain terms. You know our supplier terms are almost unheard of when I tell even you know bigger, much bigger sellers. Obviously I've taken on debt, you know, um, and that's been helpful, you know. You know decent amount of debt, but the largest chunk that allowed to scale at that point has been the supplier term. So think of uh, you know, usually you pay your suppliers maybe like 30 deposit and then the 70 maybe when the goods goods arrive at the US. You know if you're lucky, you know if not when it left China. We pay 15% deposit and then we don't pay the 85%, sometimes until 90 days after the goods arrive in the US. So basically, we sell it to Walmart.

 

Robert:

Walmart pays us in 55 days and then we go and pay our supplier essentially. So at any given time we owe our supplier so much money that it also makes a relationship so that we basically don't have to. We do, uh, at least once for all we don't have to do inspections on containers because they're not going to mess it up. You know, if they mess it up, we owe them so much money that it's in their best interest to not. You know, uh, so it keeps that relationship always kind of lopsided in in this way and, quite frankly, is the cheapest financing.

 

Robert:

You know that that one can get right. It's just basically your supplier taking on the brunt of it. So at some point earlier this year, yeah, like because of the terms with Walmart, basically Walmart owed us like maybe a million and a half dollars or something, which is crazy. You're like, okay, in the next 55 days every they're going to be paying some amount. But then we also owe the supplier like hundreds and hundreds of thousands, and then over there, this and then you have to order another container because you know Walmart's going to reorder and they're not telling you that, but if it's on the shelves they're going to start reordering as soon as it starts trickling in. So it's just a huge risk really. But when it's Walmart stores, I mean you just have to take it. You know I always said I'm either going to make this thing, you know work kind of do it big or leave a huge hole in the ground of where it was once. But it's business. You know, I try to remove the outcome from me. You know me, or my sort of self-worth, I guess

 

Bradley Sutton:

Now, Kseniia, a similar question to you is you, as a smaller up-and-coming seller, how have you been able to deal with all the new fees? Have you changed your strategy about how you send stuff to Amazon at all, or anything else like about how you send stuff to Amazon at all or anything else, or are you just kind of like you know, just taking the new fees and raising prices, or how are you dealing with it?

 

Kseniia:

Well, generally when I did the product research before and now we look only for the products that look at like 40% profit and obviously that was the profits that I had in 2022. And after all the fees, it just dropped to like 23, probably percent, 23, 25%. I'm very careful with PPC right now. I'm not trying to overspend on it Plus on the storage, so I'm basically storing for free the products in China after they're being manufactured, so I'm saving money on that.

 

Bradley Sutton:

I think this is interesting. A lot of sellers are kind of like maybe in your shoes right now, maybe just by themselves, or maybe they have one or two VAs. Tell me, how many hours a week are you putting to your Amazon business? How many hours a week is your VA doing? And then what are you guys doing? How does your week look? How do you break apart the responsibilities?

 

Kseniia:

So actually I hired the first VA in April, I think and I liked so much that I hired a second one, like a month ago. But she's only responsible for like social media because we started doing TikTok, uh and a lot of like UGC content, um. So the first VA she does a full time, so 40 hours um a week, and the second one is a part-time for now because I don't know how it's gonna go, because I don't think all the products are fit for like TikTok are you doing TikTok shop or just like promoting?

 

Bradley Sutton:

yeah, TikTok shop. Okay, how's that.

 

Robert:

How's that working out for you?

 

Bradley Sutton:

I'll go back to the employees or the time management one, but how's TikTok?

 

Kseniia:

Well nothing really. Yeah, we just we just started like three weeks ago, I think four weeks ago ago. So she's reaching out to a lot of influencers and through the affiliate program, through TikTok, so I don't know how many she probably reached out to like 200 a day or something like that. So some reply, some don't. So we've just been sending out some sample. I think we only got like one video or something like that yet posted, so not much yet.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Okay, one employee is specifically doing social media for you, including TikTok shop, and the other one is she just doing the product research, like you mentioned before, she has other tasks for you as well.

 

Kseniia:

Yeah, so the first one. She initially was hired specifically for product research, but then we got to the point where we got so many products that we found but there is not too much money, even though I've taken out the loan, but still there is not enough Like. But there is not too much money even though I've taken out the loan, but still there is not enough like. I don't feel confident yet to get like a huge loan. So we still have to launch like one or two products at a time. I can't do like go and launch all 15 at the same time, because the problem I ran into maybe six months ago is a launch product and it became. It started selling a lot better than I expected to.

 

Bradley Sutton:

So cash flow. Same thing we're talking about with uh, with Robert there, yeah yeah, of course.

 

Kseniia:

Well, at the moment where I started losing sales, obviously I didn't have any profits. So that's the moment when I had to decide what I'm gonna do if I'm just closing it all down or am I taking a loan. So I decided to get a loan and start launching new products, and then it got better. But also I use a lot of credit cards just because I get points. I figured out the right credit cards to use because I travel a lot. Then I honestly don't remember last time I paid for a ticket. It's all always done through points.

 

 Bradley Sutton:

So how do you, how are you paying your suppliers with a credit card? Cause not all, not everybody, knows how to do, how to do that.

 

Kseniia:

Uh, so I just do it through Alibaba, but I negotiated a terms with them where they covered Alibaba fee, so I'm not worried about that. Okay, cool, but that way I get a bunch of points every month.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Yeah, because I know you and your husband like to travel a lot too. So you're saying all those are. Are you business class on everything too? Most of the times, but not for the short flights.

 

Kseniia:

Okay cool, cool for the longer ones.

 

Bradley Sutton:

So, Robert, as I'm talking to Kseniia, she was talking about TikTok shop. Here I'm looking and I see you're on TikTok shop too. So how, how long have you been on there and how's that been working for you?

 

Robert:

yeah, I think we maybe, uh, earlier this year or something like that. Um, again, we have, uh, there's certain products that we know work a lot better for TikTok shop and we see it. You know, there's a concentration on a few products basically that work very well there. You have one of them pulled up. We just had inventory issues on those products. Basically, those products are really hot, kind of everywhere we put them and we really haven't been able to push as hard as we can on TikTok shop, but certainly everywhere we put them and we really haven't been able to push as hard as we can on tiktok shop but certainly are gathering a lot of affiliate content.

 

Robert:

Um, and sales are starting to come in. You know, uh, we see it as a big kind of big potential there. Um, certainly so. We're. We're reloading on inventory on those and, and for those that didn't know, uh, fulfilled by tick tock, I think basically, and for those that didn't know, fulfilled by TikTok, I think, basically they're subsidizing shipping. So you essentially make more margin on certain products as long as you get them above a certain threshold. So, yeah, it's one of the channels that we're focusing on. That's newer, okay.

 

Bradley Sutton:

You know we talked before about your goals. So, like what are your goals now for the future of your brand, now that you have like a different direction than the last time we were talking? Like what are you trying to accomplish at the end of this year other than hitting seven figures? What's next year look like for you?

 

Kseniia:

We're just going to try to launch as many products as we can. Our goal is probably two to three products every couple of months, so like a product a month. So that why we try to develop um. At the same time we're developing like five products, because you never know how it's gonna go um and, of course, do more social media, do more content, just to, you know, to get the, the brand name out there. Uh, we just started doing Shopify, like a month ago or no, a week ago, I think. I just started working on a website um.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Are you launching any other platforms? Obviously you're on amazon. You're on TikTok shop. You just said you're on Shopify. Are you on Walmart?

 

Kseniia:

or other places. Not yet, not yet.

 

Bradley Sutton:

But yeah, I'm thinking about going there too, as well, now you've got an inside connection at walmart if one of your product takes off somebody who can help you out here, Excellent. What is your favorite? Helium 10 tool, Kseniia or function of a tool.

 

Kseniia:

Probably the audience. That's the one that I use all the time. Is it called audience?

 

Bradley Sutton:

Yeah, the split where you ask the questions to the people and say, how are you using that Like for your images, or just for product ideas, or what are you using that?

 

Kseniia:

honestly for everything, for both for the product ideas, for the images, because I just think it's so easy. You know, when you're thinking about like the product we find, then I usually do um, like the drawing and uh, 3d you know the 3d image of the product that doesn't exist yet. Then usually all my products are like, really designed differently. That's what's on the market right now and I just upload the image there and I see what people say and ask them would you buy this product? And if you wouldn't buy this product, why not? Or what would you change in this product? And sometimes I see the things that I didn't even you know, I didn't even think about that.

 

Bradley Sutton:

So you're launching just the 3D rendering and just asking a question on that image, or you're launching it like, or you're launching it, you're putting it in a poll next to like existing products and asking them, or which one are you doing?

 

Kseniia:

I'm doing both. Actually, the first I just do the rendering and ask them would you buy this product? And if you would not buy this product, would you change like, how would you make it better for you? And then sometimes I also compare it to the other products that on the market and ask them which one would they buy? Interesting and a lot of times I do the changes on the product based on what the people say.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Yeah, yeah, I think it's important. I mean helium 10 audience, which is, you know, uh basically pick fu inside of Helium 10. I think is slept on by a lot of people. But that's, that's uh glad to see somebody's similar questions. To close out, uh, before we get to our final 30 second tips to Robert, like what's, what's your goals for the brand this year, next year and beyond?

 

Robert:

Yeah, so we're. We're really just doubling down on retail. We have a line reviews with different retailers. We're attending different trade shows, not like Amazon trade shows but like actually exhibiting. We did our first one in Chicago this year that had brought a lot of leads to basically regional retailers and all these new doors where we can just increase our distribution Within Amazon. Just continue to execute our roadmap. You know, basically double down on the products that are working and like higher margin products, but basically just doubling down on what's working. The brand, the angle of like being a go-to coffee brand versus legacy brands, that kind of just focus all over home, all over kitchen yeah, it's really, you know, seems to be really hitting a nerve with retail buyers. So that's kind of where we're going.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Nice, nice and your favorite Helium 10 tool for you or your team.

 

Robert:

Keyword Tracker. I use the Keyword Tracker a lot, market Tracker the original one. So those are my top two and that's because I have a lot of customization there. And I would say, to answer your other question on what could have maybe some improvement, although I like the interface a lot, is the profits. I think I talked to the team already but maybe there was some delay there with the advertising numbers being posted and so, like you know, profit being a tool that you want to look at almost like real time, you know, as opposed to like a few days back. But overall, you know, I love Helium 10. We use a lot of the tools the follow up tool, the you know I hadn't heard of the audience one we use PickFu from time to time, same thing.

 

Bradley Sutton:

It literally is PickFu just inside of Helium 10.

 

Robert:

Yeah, I didn't know that you guys had integrated like that. But, yeah, a lot of tools that help us keep an eye on the business, a lot of the notification stuff, the daily like keyword tracker emails that we get. You know, we really do use all those things Awesome.

 

Bradley Sutton:

All right. So now you know. Robert and Kseniia have been on this podcast for a while, so they know what's coming up next. What is your 30 or 60 second tip? Let's start with Robert.

 

Robert:

So my tip revolves around retail or going into retail. But first I want to talk about a channel called Faire like fair with an E at the end, dot com. To those who haven't heard it, especially if you're selling on Amazon or already on e-com, it's essentially a marketplace for independent stores all throughout the US, Europe, whatever, just sort of mom and pops, coffee shops, just any sort of stores that wants to source goods for their store, and it does really well for us. We've sold six figures through there, high margins, and we get pictures all the time from random friends and things like hey, how is your product that's in a random coffee shop in the middle of random city? Or just like in this little store, I saw your products. So you get actual feedback on what your products look like on the shelves and which products actually sell, Because those products, even though it's going to be a little store, it's going to be on the shelf, so you're going to see which products turn and why they do or do not turn, and that will kind of build up your first book of customers that are actual physical retails. Right, there's a lot of reorders on there and it's just a great way to get your feet wet into going to retail go ahead, you know, into going to retail.

 

Bradley Sutton:

So that's my tip there. Okay, cool, all right now. Now over to uh Kseniia. What is your uh 30 or 60 seconds? Uh tip or strategy for the sellers out there?

 

Kseniia:

I want to talk about the product development. I want to say that never stop product development. Uh, always have multiple products and a development at the same time. Um, even if your budget allowing launching only one at a time, because there is always going to be something that's going to go wrong, like the samples might not be made according to the drawings, suppliers might take a lot longer time to make the sample, or your packaging can get lost in the mail. So, and if something goes wrong with one of the products that you're developing, you always will have another options what to launch.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Cassini in the past. I know she kind of flies under the radar here, and that's why I love having people on the show. They don't come here with agendas, they're not trying to. You know like I'll have professionals, no problem. You know people who have agencies, people who do want to make a name for themselves no problem with that at all. I get good stories. But I also like having people on here who, who, hey, they're not on here for promotion, they're just trying to help other sellers out here. So, Kseniia, I know I don't even have to ask that that that she doesn't even have a you know any website or LinkedIn for people to reach out to. But, Robert, I think you do so like, if people want to, you know somehow find you on the interwebs out there. How can, how can they locate you?

 

Robert:

Gladly, we'll connect. I love just talking to sellers and helping in any way I can. I always learn as much as I give away at least. So gladly please reach out. LinkedIn would be fine, Robert Gomez, just search for me and glad to chat.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Awesome, awesome. Well, Robert and Kseniia, thank you so much for coming on and sharing what you guys have been up to, and we definitely want to reach out maybe in 2025 and maybe not together, because I like introducing people to new ones, but maybe we'll connect you with other sellers out there. But thank you so much for coming on and wish you the most of success in your e-commerce journeys.

#586 - AI tools & Remote Management Strategies for Amazon Sellers

Join us as we welcome back Steve Simonson, a renowned expert on sourcing and leveraging AI technology for Amazon sellers. This episode is packed with insights on a wide range of topics, from managing remote teams to the innovative use of voice AI in customer service. Steve shares his experiences over the past year, highlighting the rapid advancements in AI technology and how his team has been integrating these updates into their processes. We also discuss effective strategies for managing remote teams, emphasizing the importance of building management skills, fostering online collaboration, and maintaining team morale through regular communication and celebrations.

Listen in as we explore the evolving role of AI in enhancing workflows and customer interactions, particularly for Amazon sellers. Steve sheds light on how major companies like Google, Amazon, and Meta are advancing AI technologies, with mentions of Meta's open-source Lama model and Amazon's AI applications like Rufus. Despite ongoing concerns about AI accuracy, Steve assures us that issues like hallucinations are gradually diminishing. We discuss the successful deployment of AI chatbots in customer service and the growing importance of AI in managing brand websites and internal company processes, with specific resources within the Helium 10 software highlighted for deeper insights.

We also address the challenges facing Amazon sellers, including new fees, profitability issues, and competition. Steve offers reassurance by drawing parallels to past economic cycles and emphasizing persistence, sharing insights from Jeff Bezos' relentless approach. Additionally, we tackle the complexities of modern supply chain disruptions, offering practical tips for short-term problem-solving and long-term strategies such as resourcing and nearshoring. Finally, we highlight the significant opportunities that AI presents for small brands, encouraging businesses to embrace AI tools and look forward to upcoming events like Amazon Accelerate in Seattle.

In episode 586 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Steve discuss:

• 00:00 - Managing Remote Teams and Leveraging AI For Amazon Sellers
• 03:53 - International Team Leadership Reflection
• 10:27 - Emerging AI Tools for Ecommerce Sellers
• 16:05 - Accessing Freedom Ticket for Amazon Sellers
• 19:09 - AI Video Creation for Beginners
• 20:46 - Leveraging AI for Listing Generation
• 22:56 - Navigating Challenges in E-Commerce Business
• 28:24 - Talking About Retirement
• 31:29 - Navigating Supply Chain Disruptions
• 34:09 - Enterprise Software and AI Integration Advice
• 35:32 - Small Brands Embracing AI Opportunities

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

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

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

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

Transcript

Bradley Sutton:

Today we've got Steve Simonson back on the show, one of the most knowledgeable people in the world when it comes to leveraging AI for Amazon sellers. He's going to talk about a wide variety of topics, such as running remote teams, to sourcing, to voice AI that can actually be your customer service rep. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Are you afraid of running out of inventory before your next shipment comes in? Or maybe you're on the other side and you worry about having too much inventory, which could cap you out at the Amazon warehouses or even cost you storage fees? Stay on top of your inventory by using our robust inventory management tool. You can take advantage of our advanced forecasting algorithms, manage your 3PL inventory, create POs for your suppliers, create replenishment shipments and more all from inside Inventory Management by Helium 10. For more information, go to h10.me. Forward slash inventory management. Forward slash inventory management. And don't forget, you can sign up for a free Helium 10 account from there, or you can get 10% off for life by using our special podcast code SSP10.

 

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. You know, here at Helium 10, I don't know how this happened but we have a lot of S things. You know, we've got the Serious Sellers podcast, we did the Sell and Scale Summit. Now we've got Steve Simonson here and so I did have a hat with an S. This is actually a unique minor league baseball Sacramento hat here, but we're trying to keep the S theme together here. Steve, how's it going?

 

Steve:

Boy, I'm well, I love it. The alliteration does not stop. That is really impressive. If you look closely at my forehead, you'll see a giant S carved into the forehead. So everybody, get out your inspection equipment. But it's there, you can rest assured.

 

Bradley Sutton:

I love it. I love it All right, guys. Well, this is not the first rodeo of Steve here. He's been on the podcast before, so if you want to get back into a little bit more of his backstory and different things, some of the episodes he's been on is episode 38, episode 459. And we're going to talk a lot about AI today because I think that's what Steve is known for and that's what his module on Freedom Ticket is also about. But before I even, I just wanted to just see what you've been up to like the last year. It's been a year or so since you've been on the podcast. How's the back end of 2023 and 2024 been for you?

 

Steve:

Yeah, it's been good. I tell you it's a very fast-paced world we live in, and particularly as I focus on AI and how we integrate that into some of our enterprise-level software, it is just an endless train of upgrades, like every week somebody's got a new model and some new AI breakthrough has happened, and so we've been really quite busy at trying to figure out how to support these future frameworks within the same context of how can you build it once but allow it to be upgradable. So it's been exciting, it's been fun, but, no, no short of challenges as well.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Sure, sure, absolutely, absolutely. Now, one place in the last year or so that we caught up was in Bali. We went and spoke at this event and that was an amazing event. So anybody who has a chance to attend an event that Regina organizes, you should definitely, you should definitely try. We even had mud wrestling and everything. And I remember one thing you were talking about there. It's funny. I don't remember what I did yesterday, but then I'll just remember the strangest things or the most random things. I remember you had a big team across different countries and you were talking a little bit about that and it just, you know, across. You know across different countries, and you were talking a little bit about that. And it just got me thinking too. You know, as entrepreneurs most of us we don't have like an office and we've got, you know, in-office employees. You know we might start out hiring a VA here or there, and then you know the team scale. So you know somebody like yourself with experience, you know managing scores of employees at the same time. What are some tips you can give Amazon sellers out there or just entrepreneurs who have remote teams Like how do you, first of all, just what are some tips on managing a remote team where you're not there in person?

 

Steve:

Well, the first thing is it is. It's a skill that you have to learn right. So a lot of us think that somehow management is just built into all of us. I don't believe it is, and I think entrepreneurs are some of the worst at it, myself included, maybe first and foremost terrible manager, but I think you've got to build the skills, and so one of the things that we try to do is find ways of collaborating online that would be similar to an office environment. So, you know, our HR folks will have, you know, birthday celebrations or, you know, have monthly meetings to celebrate everybody's birthday or those types of things. We also have other things systemically that try to help, you know, remind everybody. Hey, celebrate your Wednesday weekly win. Everybody has at least one win every week, so let's share those amongst the company, because there's a lot of people in the company who may not know each other different locations, different parts of the world but I do want to just remind people that the basics really matter, like how you talk to people, you know understanding, you know where they're coming from, do they have the essentials that they need to, you know, perform the job.

 

Steve:

And the biggest I don't know revelation, especially dealing in the Amazon world is everybody expects a VA to be a unicorn. It's like you can do everything as the entrepreneur, so you just think you're going to delegate everything over to this unicorn. That's not going to happen. It's unfair, it's unrealistic and it shows that you're not yet a competent manager. And so my advice is you know, start slow, give very specific, task oriented things that have a beginning and an end, and then you know kind of work up from there and, as the internet says, educate yourself right. There's lots of books. One of my favorites is it's. It's the book name is called it's the manager. People don't quit jobs, they quit managers, and the faster we, as entrepreneurs, learn that, the better off we'll be.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Yeah for sure. Now, speaking of managers, you know, once you get more than a few employees in a foreign location, you know you might make some kind of managerial structure. So for the subordinates, hey, you know performance management, things like that, you know it's probably handled by the manager. But how do you, kind of like you know performance, evaluate the managers themselves? You know, because you don't have really a middleman, they're directly reporting to you. How do you know who's your stars? And then how do you know when you need to take, perhaps corrective action?

 

Steve:

Well, the number one thing that leads our decision making and I recommend this for anybody is data right. Let's start with what are the responsibilities this particular section manager, right? Are they in charge of marketing? All right, how are the leads going? What are the KPIs related to this? And people have a lot of trouble coming up. They ask all the time what are the KPIs? What are the KPIs? And you know we talk about AI a lot. Go ask ChatGPT. Here's the position. Give me a you know, general position description and give me good KPIs and then massage it right. It can't read your mind, but it can, you know, kind of move and groove with the suggestions you give it. So KPIs are absolutely doable. Now, sometimes getting the data is a little harder than you want it to be, but once you overcome that hurdle or at least come up with an alternative, then data should drive those conversations. And the question is like hey, you're doing really well this week. What's going right? Why is this going so well? We want to be able to understand and replicate it. Or hey, you're behind your numbers. What are the challenges you're facing? Maybe they got a bunch of people on vacation or maybe the Google credit card stopped charging. There's all kinds of things that happen in business, but numbers drive decisions and we like to say what's broken in the system, not what's broken in the people. The people want to do a good job In general. If you manage them and you're fair with them, then you're going to find that they want to perform well. They want to do a good job.

 

Bradley Sutton:

I'm sure we talked about more things. We had a good time there at the Balinese massage. That was my first one. I don't like those rough, those really rough ones. The Thai massages Guys, don't get Thai massages unless you like pain, oh my goodness. But I think they put you and Leo like in a couple's massage.

 

Steve:

Yeah, Leo, and I decided that you have the romantic couple's massage. Yeah, it was lovely.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Yeah, yeah like I had my room all to myself and then you're like oh, okay, well, I guess we're going to be here in this room.

 

Steve:

How did he get the room? Although we all had the room with no walls, which is like you know bugs and everything else but yeah, it was pretty neat. I think all of the you know for an hour it was nine bucks or something and it was a joy.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Yeah, you can't beat that.

 

Steve:

Yeah, it was a delight.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Can't beat that. Great food and everything else. All right. Now switching back to you know, one thing you talked about there and you've been known for the last couple of years is at the forefront of how Amazon sellers and e-commerce entrepreneurs should be leveraging AI, and so that's something that's changing on a weekly, monthly basis. The last year, what are some of the most notable advancements or differences in the world of AI as it relates to Amazon sellers?

 

Steve:

Well, first of all, you know, last year it was kind of the year of ChatGPT, right, everybody heard ChatGPT and this became a synonymous term with AI. But they're just one company. ChatGPT is led by OpenAI, which is ironically not open now. It's closed source, and over that they kind of led the tip of the spear into this new world of AI. There are plenty of others trying to get things done. Google has tried and has had a couple flubs. Amazon itself is now deploying AI for the customer-facing side, as I'm sure many sellers are recognizing. And then there's so many others, including Meta, which has allowed their stuff to go actually open source. The Lama model, which is a large language model built on, like you know, 400 billion or 40 billion, I can't even remember. The numbers get so insane. I think it's 400 billion data points in the Lama 3.1, which is as good as any closed source or paid service, and that is exciting. Groq is exciting. So there's a lot of these engines coming out. For sellers, what they, in my opinion, should be focused on is like how do I make my workflow today better, right, whether it's my own personal workflow which I use AI all the time, or the work, you know process of my colleagues. And it's really important to tell your team this is not to replace you, this is to enhance you. The AI will not replace you, but somebody who uses AI will replace you if you don't get your act together. Like this is really, really an important message. And so you know, the first step is just how do you improve those workflows, and then there are many other exciting steps coming up down the line. You know almost immediately.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Maybe it's because I'm an old fogey, as it were, as far as adopting new things sometimes, but a problem with AI I've had in the past is a similar one, which I remember you kind of talked about in some of your presentations. How you asked AI last year like who is Steve Simonson? And it had your birth date wrong and it said you had done this when you were some author or something like that and this and that. And so you know like, hey, you know, I guess we call those hallucinations. But then, like, you know somebody even you know we're a year later and I'm still seeing similar things like for example you mentioned the Amazon AI you know there's Rufus and then there's ones that summarize reviews and stuff like that, and some of it's just absolutely useless. You know like, no, yeah, customers love how large this seems and they also love how small it seems. I'm like, come on, like this doesn't even help me. So like, is that an accurate assessment or am I being biased? Like, say, hey, why is it taking so long to fix a lot of these hallucinations, or are you seeing a macro? Uh an improvement on those kinds of things?

 

Steve:

Yeah, no question it is improving. So if you start comparing you know ChatGPT three and a half to ChatGPT four to you know 4.0 and some of these other evolving models the hallucinations are shrinking. They won't go away until there's a large enough data set that is just more robust, honestly. So we should understand that it's still lying to you 20% to 25% of the time, just making stuff up out of thin air, and so that should be a real staunch warning to everybody. When you see the thing, tell you something. In my case it had the several book titles that I had written, that I had not written, and no one's written right. So, like I was very impressed with what it wrote, but it was unfortunately it was not me. So expect that hallucinations will continue, but they will continue to reduce over time as well. So don't use that as your obstacle. That ain't going to work. There's so much positive, good stuff. Now some of it has to do with how you structure the prompt or how you use the ins and outs of the data, and it's certainly not flawless. But you know, every day it's getting better, and I've seen like the voice stuff is incredibly good now and I suspect within, let's say, 12 months, all the early adopters will have on their their brand website. They'll have a brand, you know, a message bot that is completely trained on their stuff, right? So all your PDFs, all your products, all your company policies, return policies, shipping, whatever and it will be able to perform chats better than a human on average, right? And, by the way, this has already been proven.

 

Steve:

This year, a company sent 2 million live customers to their new AI chatbot and it had more first touch resolutions, it had higher customer satisfaction and obviously, the cost was less and it was the equivalent of 700 full-time people. So what we want is we want better customer experience and if you can do that with AI, people will come to expect that to be available. So, early adopters within 12 months, you know, and then other people over time, for sure. Message bot chat, you know, 24, seven live, educated bots about your stuff. We're doing this now. It's very powerful. By the way, the larger your company is, sometimes you need this internally, right? Hey, what's the HR policy? What's the vacation and where it can actually interact and go? Oh well, can I get this vacation off? And it will allow it to schedule and do other things. So very powerful stuff that's coming real quick.

 

Bradley Sutton:

We're not going to go into everything he talked about in our module, but just for those who have access to Freedom Ticket, which is pretty much any Helium 10 member let me just show you, guys, where you can go to see his information. Go into Freedom Ticket 4.0 under the module Product Research and Sourcing. Click on the Power of AI for Amazon. We got you in a very flattering screenshot right there.

 

Steve:

That's actually how I talk. My eyes are closed.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Love it, but, hey guys, he goes in-depth there on how it can help Amazon sellers. But let's just stay on this subject and talk about some specific use cases. I think one of the things that was terrible maybe a year and a half ago or a year ago that has gotten a lot better, in my opinion is images. You know, um, and obviously Helium 10 has integrated some things Amazon has integrated into their advertising. They actually require, um, you know, sellers to have a custom images now for, like, sponsored brand ads and things like that. So if you're not, if you don't have this humongous repertoire of, or a repository, I should say, of, all these images, well, AI is kind of like the only way to go. So what kind of different AI tools should Amazon sellers be using now as far as imagery? And then, what are the use cases that you see most useful?

 

Steve:

Well, the first is the idea of simply being able to scale up your images. Right? You can upscale images with very high fidelity that you could not do in the old days, right? I remember watching shows, you know, maybe as far back as the 80s, you know, and the cop shows like, zoom in and enhance, and it's like anybody's ever worked with photos or videos. It's like you could zoom in all you want. You're going to see giant pixels. There's no enhance available, right? But today you actually can upscale those images. So anybody who doesn't have giant zoomable images, I think that's a lost opportunity and within that module, I put in a couple options that will do that upscaling for you. The other thing is coming very fast down the line is, you know, beautiful room scenes or lifestyle shots. They might be called with your product in the shot itself, and so that gives you just unending abilities to position your product in natural life. You know style images. There's any number of other ways you can do it. You know we use, uh, AI images to make themes, right, so you may say well, gosh, I want to have my I don't know my little travel bag and I want to show it with a, a Washington state theme or a, you know, a California theme, and AI will make beautiful, beautiful background imagery. And there's your social media right. You can just do that for every single day or multiple per day. Really incredible. The ideation that this AI brings to the table, I think, is worthwhile, and the quality, as you said, Bradley, incredibly advanced compared to how it was, you know, even a year ago, especially two years ago. So really, really, you know, images should be a high priority for everybody.

 

Bradley Sutton:

I forgot it was a webinar. I was watching Kevin King. He showed some kind of like I'm not sure if it was released yet, but some previews of different AIs for video and it looked real. I was like, how is this not real? So what is available out there that you're not having to pay thousands, you know? Uh, obviously you can get super advanced stuff and you can make movies and everything you know with it, but something that's accessible to like Joe Amazon seller, um, who could you know, perhaps you know, make make a product video with just uploading an image or a short video and then and then make that into a nice video ad or something.

 

Steve:

Yeah, so one of my favorites for this type of purpose is called Invideo.io, and I believe I highlight it in the Helium 10 presentation. But basically you can either just give it a text prompt, right, and it'll make an entire video for you. You say how long do you want it? What's your? You know, are you going on a vertical short format or a horizontal long video format? Right, so you know, one might be more appropriate for TikTok and the other one for LinkedIn or YouTube. And then you can even upload images of your product or videos that you may already have, and it can incorporate those and it will do the music, it'll do the voiceover, it'll do the pulling in a bunch of videos around it, and it can be very, very effective. And so you'll. You know, we use that every single day to make videos that are mostly good quality. There's a couple little pieces. It's like I basically told my marketing folks. It's like it's more important to have the video and get it out there and show some content and then have the final little you know accent or the little you know relic that's on the screen solved, but in video is very, very powerful, and that's just one example. There are many like it.

 

Bradley Sutton:

What else. As far as you know, I think the number one thing for me that even I'm using AI and like even six months ago I probably still hadn't really used AI, but now I use it for almost every single one of my listings is like listing generation. You know, obviously, since Helium 10 has it, I get access to it for free. But hey, you know people, you know you can get free versions of ChatGPT. But that one is really powerful to me because I'm not just for you know, I'm, I'm obviously a native English speaker. I don't need help writing an English listing. But then sometimes I have writer's block and I'm like, hey, let me go ahead and say, hey, make a listing here's, here's my keywords, and I want it like in a funny tone. And then it's not the listing I end up with. But then I'm like, oh, this is a great direction. Let me just, you know, tweak a couple of things. But for me the power is like, hey, I'm going to make a listing in in UK and hey, I need to make one with British. You know English. Hey, I need to make a listing in Spanish. I can kind of speak Spanish, but I'm not a native speaker. So, uh, I can write all my prompts in English and then it'll go ahead and, and you know, make a listing in Spanish what. What are some things that you maybe think that sellers might be leaving money on the table as far as leveraging AI when it comes to their actual copy that they're doing, whether it's listings, whether it's, you know, blogs, et cetera.

 

Steve:

Well, the first thing is I believe that because AI is so new as a tool and a lot of people, myself included, we had negative experiences right. I would generate an image on mid-journey and the guy would have nine fingers right and I'm like so the clear thing that a lot of us said is this stuff is crap, it'll never work, I'm out right. And if you had hallucinations or you had kind of weird images and you haven't revisited it, you're making a mistake. So when you get in there, the next most common mistake is single dimension thinking. Right, you say I need a listing for Amazon for this product and it writes out something that's, you know, relatively generic because you gave it one single dimension listing Amazon, this product. But if you say you know I'm, I want to add a language, like you talked about Bradley, or I want to write this like Dan Kennedy, You know one of the you know very, very best copywriters, or maybe you don't know the name of great copywriters. You go who are the top five copywriters, right, that are direct response copywriters, or who's the best you know, fantasy writers, whatever and then write it in whatever style that you're looking for. So, having a writing style, having an audience that you're trying to reach, is just adding extra dimensions to that. You know, first, single dimension concept right, I just need a listing. No, you need a listing written in a style for a platform to an audience, in a tone, right. And the more of these dimensions you add and there are far more that you could go the more personality comes out of that and that's really what you're looking for. You want the AI to help bring forward your own personality and I highly recommend people add additional dimensional layers and they will have better results.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Switching gears a little bit and, who knows, maybe this conversation will, or the answer might be some version of AI. But you are in, you know you network a lot, you go to events, you talk to a lot of Amazon sellers and I'm sure you have felt the sentiment this year. It's probably, I would say, the most negative it's been in a while as far as new fees and profitability and competition. And hey, now there might be almost like Teemu-ish thing going on where Chinese sellers can sell directly and ship directly and stuff. And so what is your advice to those people who maybe have a little bit negative connotation compared to before as far as selling on Amazon, not sure how they're going to proceed?

 

Steve:

Well, the first is, if they can get on the screen, I'll just pat them on the head. Hey, little buddy, it's going to be okay. So you guys can line yourself up if you're feeling down, and go in for the pat. Listen, I've been around a long time, right? Dinosaur is you know? They're the young upstarts compared to me. So I've seen these patterns happen for multiple generations of e-com. Right, believe me, back in 99, 2000,. It was the glory days. Then 2001, 9-11 happened and it was a nightmare and everyone hated everything. And the dot-com crash happened. And then it got really good again in the mid-2000s and everybody's flying high. And then the housing crisis and financial crisis globally happened and everybody hates everything again. Right and so and again, these continue to happen. And so my, my mission for true entrepreneurs is if you're going to be persistent, if you're going to be in the game, expect ups and downs. Do not play that just straight up line. There is no line that looks like that, even those crazy hockey sticks that you see. That you know from companies there were little iterations of up and down all the way, and I just want people to know that. You know, persistence is really part of the game and you know if you go to relentless.com. Do you know where that goes, Bradley? I do not. It goes to Amazon. And the reason why is because Jeff Bezos said if you're going to be an entrepreneur, you better be relentless so you can check it out right now, relentless.com for anybody out there. That's what you got to be. And so listen, it's okay to. I always say take one lap and go. This sucks, I wish this didn't exist. These fees, this competition, this problem, this whatever. And then get to work and try to solve it or come up with a strategy to get over the obstacle. That's your choice deal with it or get out of the business, and I think serious people have to get serious about business, so they should listen to a podcast for serious sellers. I don't know. There you go.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Double clicking on your little dinosaur comment. You know, if I'm not mistaken, you even at one point kind of retired and got out of the game and then you got back in. How does somebody know when it's time to? You know, I'm not talking about the, you know long sail into the sunset or anything, but hey, it's time to just relax and enjoy life, or no, you know what? I still need something that drives me. You know, because it's not an age thing. You know like, I know people in their late 20s who retire because they've had enough success and they've accomplished what they want to. I know people in their 80s who are still working strong. So how does the entrepreneur get to a point where it's like you know what I'm ready to, kind of like, relax a little bit.

 

Steve:

Well, the first thing is, you know, everybody's got their own context of where they came from and where they want to go. So don't let me project my stuff onto you guys. But I can tell you retirement 1.0 sucked right. It was awful, and it's not a question of you know. Could I do anything I want? Yes, I could, but my friends couldn't come out and play right, and my family got tired of being on vacation. My kids were tired of being on vacation. Now people can go oh, crying me a river. What kind of first world problem is that? But it's still a real problem, right? Because I did not enjoy it. And then I felt guilty, because I'm living a life that anybody would kill for and that doesn't make you feel good. So my brain is not wired to kind of check out. And so retirement 2.0, which I've recently begun testing we're in beta is basically just trying to say well, listen, I don't want to work 80 hours and I don't want to work any hours on things that I don't like. So over time you'll find things that you like or don't like and start positioning even your role within your current company on the things that you like to do. By the way, somebody loves to do the thing that you hate the most. Right, and I had this realization. One of my finest team members she's been with me gosh, it's probably coming up on, you know, 25 or 30 years she loves the thing that I hate the most. So I kept doing the details and very complex Excel sheets and forecasts and inventory and things that I hated doing far too long. When I was able to turn it over to her kind of an exasperation because I'm a terrible manager and I don't know anything. She's like, oh, thank God, I've been dreaming about this and I just couldn't imagine in my own small brain that, like somebody else, would love to do this thing. So remember that there's so many different people. Somebody wants to do the things that you hate to do. So please, the faster you can excuse yourself from the things you hate, get the people who love to do those things and then you'll start to chart. You know, chart your course, whether it is a financial course or a lifestyle course or whatever it is, towards, you know that, that bright future. Me, I, I have to do stuff. My brain will not allow it to stop and you know, that's why I try to spend so much time helping entrepreneurs. I want them to come on vacation with me and let's go play.

 

Bradley Sutton:

That's good advice. You know I asked myself this question. You know, sometime of wondering, hey, well, when is it time to? You know, to hang it up, as it were. But I wouldn't be doing what I do if I wasn't feeling, you know, fulfillment and motivation from it. So as long as I still can, I'm still going to keep on trucking. Now, speaking of pre-retirement 1.0, one of your previous lives you were heavy into sourcing and things like that. I'm sure you keep your pulse on that industry as well. What should Amazon sellers these days be thinking about when it comes to, hey, I'm competing sometimes with Chinese factories. Now, hey, there's tariffs, you know, should I be considering India and Pakistan and Vietnam? Hey, you know, shipping prices are fluctuating like ridiculousness, you know, like as if it were still COVID. You know what's some just general advice you can give sellers who are, you know, thinking about those kinds of issues.

 

Steve:

General advice get in the bunker and prepare for war. It is yeah, it's we still the companies I sold, we still have me and my team still have some supply chain responsibilities. So we're interacting frequently in this space and I just got off the call with some sourcing folks I have in Pakistan just before our conversation, and all of the things you just brought up are annoyances. They're just part of the thing. I did not predict shipping getting spicy again, but I did predict some of what I call kinetic action over the last couple of years. We've said the people who follow geopolitics. We've said there's going to be more kinetic action, which is a nice way of saying people are shooting stuff at each other, which is terrible. What that means is these supply chain disruptions are unexpected. The fact that the Red Sea is kind of closed for business is insane. Nobody had that on the bingo card, right. So everybody's going around the South African. I just saw two ships going around the Arctic on their way to Holland. So from China around the Arctic to Holland, and at some point they'll need icebreakers there. So there are unique things and unique challenges that we face, but it's kind of like take a beat, look at the immediate picture. Right, you have your short term. I got a ship product. Now deal with that, overcome whatever the obstacles, pay what you have to, and then think about all right now, in six months, what does it look like? And is there a way I can avoid this, whether it's resourcing elsewhere, nearshoring or onshoring.

 

Steve:

But I can tell you like right now we have a very complex project and I've got people in Pakistan and India and it is very difficult to solve this problem. But that's why there's a moat right, and everybody who's complaining about how difficult or hard or whatever all of those are moats right. This is your advantage. We're, ultimately, most Amazon sellers are not manufacturing the product ourselves. We have somebody else do that. So what value do we add? We add all the value of solving the problems throughout that supply chain and then into the marketing side, like all of that is our value add, and we either add value and deserve what we make or we don't. And we deserve what we make right, and this is a very important point Our value that we're adding is overcoming all of these problems. So guess what? That's why they you know you get paid. You got to deal with the trouble.

 

Bradley Sutton:

All right, before we get into your final strategies of the day. How can people find you reach out to you on the interwebs out there?

 

Steve:

The awesomeers.com podcast still records videos from time to time and I have a whole founder series directed at folks. Just, it's almost like a little mini course for you. It's free, it doesn't, you know, doesn't take anything to do it. You can find me at parsimony.com just steve at parsimony.com. I spend most of my time on software and AI, trying to smash those things together in an enterprise way, right? So anybody who's doing you know 5 million, 10 million. If you're doing 10 million or more and you don't know what ERP is, you are unnecessarily driving yourself insane. But I recommend not going insane. Systems are better.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Usually better not to. Yeah, yeah, you know.

 

Steve:

I'm not a doctor, I'm just thinking.

 

Bradley Sutton:

There you go, all right. Now, you know, can you give us a couple of 30 or 60 second tips? Could be about traveling, could be about AI, could be about sourcing, anything you want.

 

Steve:

Well, one thing, I mentioned earlier that chat bots are going to be a big thing for early adopters in the next 12 months. But I want to call out one of my favorites, bland.AI is a voice customer service tool. And that company is an example of it. I'm saying this concept is coming to a voice line near you, and especially for brands who have the capacity to pay nine cents a minute to interact with customers. You train it on your own data and then this bot can be a sales person for you, a customer service person, and it's really really good. Bland.ai, amazing types of technology. I'm not suggesting this is the only company. There are many and many more.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Is that the one that at Billion Dollar Seller Summit we were waiting for the helicopter, and then you're like here I'm going to call this, Okay, yeah, yeah, I remember that. I remember that it was kind of it kind of blew me away, yeah.

 

Steve:

It's still the great example of what if you could just call a number and talk to a AI like a human, which is the ironic twist, and stop yelling representative a thousand times right, which is the ultimate nightmare. So all the big companies are moving this direction. I think small brands have this opportunity to, in the same way that AI can supercharge you know, a non-English speaker into beautiful English language listings, which should be a warning to everybody. Small guys can do what big guys do, right, whether it's video, voice messaging, AI levels of playing field. That is the most important point. So if you feel scared, if you feel nervous, talk to your friends, figure out those easy use cases, but don't be afraid of it. Embrace the fear and get to it.

 

Bradley Sutton:

Thank you so much for joining us. We're definitely going to have you back. You know, unless you're on retirement 3.0 and full launch mode, we'd love to have you back next year to see what you've been up to, and I'm sure I'll be seeing you at an event. Are you going to Amazon Accelerate?

 

Steve:

Yeah, yeah that one. I actually live in Seattle, so a good chance

 

Bradley Sutton:

I know, I was like about to say just maybe walk there, ride a bike or something.

 

Steve:

Yeah.

 

Bradley Sutton:

All right, well, I'll be seeing you at Amazon Accelerate along with everybody else and thanks a lot for joining us again.