Ever wonder how an Amazon seller jumps from zero to hero with a product that defies the odds? In our first-ever Seller’s Edge Series episode, let’s explore success stories, product journeys, and every tactic that will help you find your first or next E-commerce product. Special guest Shivali Patel, brand evangelist at Helium 10,  joins us bringing the heat with a story of how a $45,000 revenue bomb was dropped in just two weeks after launching in Q4, proving that with the right strategies, such as leveraging BlackBox for product research and adding unique value, anyone can stand out in the crowded Amazon marketplace. Finally, for those ready to expand their horizons, our brand, Manny’s Mysterious Oddities, is branching out into the bat niche, where opportunities lurk in the shadows. Using Amazon’s Product Opportunity Explorer and Helium 10’s BlackBox, we dissect how to scout and validate new product extensions for your Amazon brand. This episode isn’t just about telling you what worked; it's about showing you how to pivot and roll with the punches, finding those hidden gems in the market, such as bat-shaped bath mats, that could become your next big win. And for the cherry on top, resources and podcast episodes are flagged to help you turn these insights into action. Join us to learn about these actionable strategies, and let's raise the stakes in your Amazon selling game.   In episode 533 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Shivali discuss: 00:00 - Sellers Edge Monthly 00:31 - Strategies for Finding Profitable Amazon Products 04:50 - Discover New Business Opportunities at Trade Shows 15:55 - Profit Margin and Sales Success  19:16 - Discovering Product Opportunities on Amazon  24:16 - Bat Niche Product Opportunities Exploration 30:47 - Launch New Product At A Higher Price 31:29 - Advanced Keyword Research and Product Opportunities 37:27 - Combining Amazon Brand Analytics and Helium 10 BlackBox Data 42:36 - Brand Analytics and Launch Strategies 43:38 - Accessing and Listening to Podcast Episodes Transcript Bradley Sutton: Today is our first ever Sellers Edge Monthly Training. In this episode we're going to go over how I found a brand new product that I can come in at a price point twice as much as the competition, and how Shivali was able to sell $45,000 on her brand new product in only two weeks. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. One, two, three, four. 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, as mentioned, this is the first in a new series that we're going to do monthly where we go over a different topic in our sellers edge training webinar. I actually recorded this in front of a live audience, so this episode might have a little bit different sound than normally and there's definitely some interactions there, but we have here cut up the highlights from that training and basically I'm going to show you how Shivali took some steps to have a product that nobody can compete with her in and it was over $100 and she was able to get 40% profit and sell $45,000, even though she launched right after Black Friday Kind of crazy. And then how I am launching a product like in the next couple of weeks and I'm going through all the steps on exactly how I found it and how I can have a higher price point as well, and we go over some other product research strategies that I think will definitely be able to help you guys. So this is a new series. Hope you enjoy it. Bradley Sutton: This is 100% based on value that can help you find your first or next product to sell on Amazon. Here we go, welcome to our new monthly workshop. We call it Sellers Edge Monthly Series, and this one is entitled how to Find your First or Next Product to Sell in 2024. So we are going to start off with a real life experience. I'm going to interview somebody right now who launched a product and had a lot of success on Amazon, especially in Q4, which is kind of like when people say, oh, you should never launch a product during that time. So we're going to ask Shivali to come on the show right now. Shivali, you there? Shivali Patel: Yes, I am Awesome. Bradley Sutton: I want to talk to you about your product launch. We had you on the podcast a few months ago and you were talking about this long journey of getting it ready, but then you actually launched in December. But for those who maybe didn't hear that podcast, let's start on this. You were selling on Amazon years ago and then you've always been selling for years, like books, but you really wanted to have a physical product to sell. A lot of people here they're looking for their first product, so they might have been kind of like in a it wasn't your first product but you were restarting it, so there might be a similar situation to you. So how do you tackle it? First, like, were you like hey, I want to try to find a product that just there's a lot of demand for it. Or you like hey, I want to find a lot of demand, but it's got to be something that maybe I'm passionate about. What was your thought process when you first started? Shivali Patel: I was quite open to whatever opportunity I was finding. I was using Blackbox, which I love because I come my first brand I launched years ago. I did manually. I was inside of Amazon, going through best sellers list, looking at BSRs, trying to understand the reviews, figure out what I could do better, and that's great, it works. But it takes a long time, and so that's where software like Blackbox is really, really helpful, because the process is over 2 billion data points daily right, Something that you can't actually do. So going in I was pretty open. I did many, many searches inside of Blackbox and then from there, started narrowing things down based off of different parameters. So whether that was profitability I mean all these things are important but profitability, what I can add? Value creation, the price point, checking out the market, the competition, what sort of reviews there are yeah, and I also did go to trade shows as well, so I went. I actually flew out. At the time I was considering a cocktail smoker kit. Bradley Sutton: What is a cocktail smoker kit. Shivali Patel: It's those for anybody who drinks. I mean you don't have to necessarily have it be a cocktail but a mocktail or even smoking. Your food comes with a little blow torch and then a different oak piece. Bradley Sutton: Yeah, I see that. Shivali Patel: Yeah, it's really nice. But I was considering that and a supplier ended up saying, hey, I'm actually in the US, and so I flew out to meet that supplier in person, which is a really, really cool experience. There was many vendors there, people that have flown in from Indonesia, from China. I got to see actual products, field them, try to negotiate a price point, get a basic understanding. Cool Enough is I ended up meeting somebody who helped me design a brand new product which I'm hoping to launch eventually as well. Bradley Sutton: This was at the trade show that you went to. Shivali Patel: At the trade show. Yeah, so they designed in a completely new style of a product for me. Bradley Sutton: Okay, so that's the first thing that's probably interesting to. Maybe some of you guys haven't thought about that, but you know, maybe you think that, oh, the only place you can go to trade shows which is 100% accurate, like it's a great place to go, is like in China. But what she's always talking about, I believe, was in Chicago or somewhere in the United States. So sometimes you know a lot of Chinese factories, indian factories and other factories. They'll come to US based trade shows and it's also a place where you can go and meet a supplier. Maybe you've been talking to online, like she was doing, but also you might meet somebody else. That is completely not even why you went there. So in her situation, she met somebody who's helping her design another product. So then that original product, the Smoker Kit you went to that trade show. You kind of like I'm probably not going to do this. How did you land on this makeup bag that you ended up going with? Shivali Patel: I found it inside a black box and I saw many different keywords. Actually, I was using the keywords tab. I went through and I did a few other things. I did the regular products tab, I did the keywords tab, I went into product opportunity explorer inside of Amazon. I was looking at Etsy and Pinterest trends as well. Anytime I was scrolling on social media. I mean the list was massive. And then eventually I found, I think, five to six different keywords inside of the keywords tab that were all related to the bag, so obviously there was a growing demand for it. And then from there went into the product validation and I felt like I could actually contribute something to that space, because I grew up in fashion and in the beauty personal care sector. I guess is something that I've taken time to educate myself on and spent many hours with, and so when I started having conversations after that with you, I think we also had a very unique pitching point that I felt I could go onto the market with a premium price point, because anytime I'm selling something, the value of creation is important, but you also want to make it worth the person's while. So if I'm going in with a premium price, I want to over, deliver on it, and I think this bag really hit all those spots. Bradley Sutton: And this was a high. The current the market was kind of high, aren't most products there like 80, 100 bucks or so? Shivali Patel: Now. So when I was looking at this product, everything was 30 bucks and I wanted to sell it for 120. And I knew I wanted to sell it for somewhere between 120 and like 140. But by the time that I actually launched, there was a couple bags on the market that were selling for 160 with a lot less value. In my opinion, they're nice, but also, if you think about anything else in the world you have your cars, you have your coach bags there's always a market for something. So I suppose at that point it's just what you're planning to or who you're really getting. Bradley Sutton: So then you know a lot of people here in this room. You know they might not be able to afford a product that requires an investment, you know pretty high, because you know if you're having a 100, $120 product, you know your costs might be like 30 bucks or 40 bucks a unit. And then, if you're, what was your MOQ, by the way? Shivali Patel: My MOQ was 500. Bradley Sutton: 500, all right. So, like, you guys can do the math, if you're buying a product that costs $30 and you have to order 500 or 1000, you know you're already talking about 15, $20, $30,000 before you even consider shipping. However, on the flip side is if you can afford that. This is just by itself a way that you can differentiate yourself from from these saturated niches, because not that many people can afford to go into a niche like that. So you're immediately kind of like disqualifying a lot of the potential people that you might that you might, you know, be going up again. So let's fast forward. You know, you took a few months. You started designing the product. You're looking at different, different needs and you actually built in like your own program. Since you're kind of like your own influencer, you're like, hey, I'm going to sell this product with also like this course, and so just, you know, briefly, like in a minute or so, can you talk about how that idea came? And then what's the deliverable? Like, like, are people getting this, this card inside the thing that says, hey, sign up for my beauty course, or how did that work? Shivali Patel: I have always sold physical and digital products separately, and I thought it would be interesting to combine the two, especially because a lot of the competitors inside of the makeup bag market were selling, essentially as the add-on, a 10x magnifier. It was like a bonus piece that people throw in for bundling options. And I know for me, while a magnifying mirror is helpful, I don't actually use one on a day-to-day basis, so it has no real value for me as a consumer, not to say that it doesn't for somebody else, but for me. Outside of that, they also had these little travel jewelry compartments, which is great, but again, what's something that would be more of an experience, right, that would justify $120 price point. And so I started looking at the intersection of a digital course or a live coaching element, which one increases your touch points with the customer you get to hopefully get with, of course, in like, I'm not saying anything, black hat, I'm just saying that you can get to know, maybe, your customer a little bit better and then you'll know their order number so you can ask them to request a review a little bit later on. But yeah, the delivery aspect of it for the actual course is the product insert, which I created a QR code using Helium 10s portals and then just put that in so they get access to exclusive course that pretty much no other competitors can replicate, right? Because it takes a significant amount of time to go through and film a bunch of videos and then also end up taking time to do live coaching as well. Bradley Sutton: Yeah, hold on. I want to pause you right there because this is important. I want to make sure people understood the main point here. We hear so much and maybe you who haven't started on Amazon yet you've probably heard oh my goodness, it's too late to sell on Amazon, or there's just too much competition, or no matter what I sell, everybody's going to copy me. And then everybody's going to do it and have a low price. And, guys, let me tell you that's, first of all, that's not true. Like in some, you know, like categories, maybe, okay, maybe that's true. Like, if you just have a generic product, could everybody copy you? There's not much room for differentiation? Sure, but there are so many opportunities out there where you as, like you know, if you're selling in Europe, you're Europe based. You're selling in America, you're US based. There's things that you can do, there's skills that you have, or maybe, utilizing the network you have, that you can kind of like competition proof what you're trying to make. So, Shivali, she was like what can I do that? You know, probably the bakeries that are trying to sell direct on Amazon can't do All right. And one of them was like, hey, she's like let me make an actual course that nobody you know no Chinese factory or Indian factory or any other country that makes this are going to take the time to find an American based influencer and film this whole course and have that be a threat. Bradley Sutton: Like literally nobody is going to do that. So this is something that she has like a 100% exclusivity on that she never has to worry about competing with other people and it's going to allow her to keep a higher price point as well, because there's this added bonus. So don't let people tell you, oh it's, it's impossible to compete on Amazon because of the competition. No, you, absolutely, you know, can do that. Now let's just fast forward. Now you launched on what doesn't have to be the exact date, but when did you actually launch your product? November 30th or right, wait, November 30th. Was that during Black Friday weekend or? Shivali Patel: Okay, I was trying to get ahead of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but the issue was it's an electronics item and I had some sort of request that they asked for like an MSDS safety sheet, and then it got classified as a dangerous good. So all my inventory was at the facilities but it was in reserve. I couldn't access it, I couldn't sell it. And then eventually, when it finally happened, I pretty much didn't know when it like went live. I was checking but I couldn't tell because it was like some of the products looked okay and then I made the stupid blunder of trying to check if it was available by buying, but then it wouldn't let me buy because I'm a seller. I didn't process that. But finally, November 30th, I had my first sale. It went live and I had my first sale and then I actually discounted that product for I think it was like 20 bucks or not 20 bucks, 20%, and then I had like that nice strike through price so I dropped from 120 to $90 and then went back up because my end of the November. Bradley Sutton: You're doing all this which, by the way, guys, she's talking about like what we call the Maldives honeymoon strategy. I'll give you, guys, links to how to launch your product. You know, based on the Maldives honeymoon strategy. It has to do with PPC and putting a heavy discount on your product. Now some people in the chat are asking about if they can see the product. I can throw it up here. Is it out of stock right now? Like, did you sell out or is it actually live still? Shivali Patel: No, it's still live. radley Sutton: Fast forward guys. She kind of like was doing stuff that some people say, oh, you should never do, like never launch a product in Q4., don't launch a product during Black Friday weekend. But she did that and then, right away, what did you get your kind of like daily sales up to? 70 units a day 70 units a day at $100 price point. But, guys, this is the product that we're talking about. It's a live, real live product that was just launched on Amazon a couple months ago. Here we go, brand new. She doesn't even have the video on here yet, like she even didn't even do the brand registry at first, I remember, because she just like got this, got this up, but where does it? Man, these are some nice images. So here's the image that talked about her makeup lessons. Okay, there she is. She's her own influencer. Totally fine, you're not going to see me put my picture on a coffin shelf, which is the product. Shivali Patel: I sell. I don't know. I think a lot of people right now that are watching would buy things if you were the influencer. Bradley Sutton: I don't know, I don't know. That's not the way I roll, but you can see, like if you go back in her BSR like when she launched the product and look at these crazy BSRs that she was having. Now obviously the sales have gone down after Christmas. This was a heavy, heavy item in Christmas. But long story short, like how much money did you sell in December of this product? What was your gross sales at? Shivali Patel: $46,000. Bradley Sutton: $46,000. Shivali Patel: And what kind of profit margins? Bradley Sutton: did you have? Shivali Patel: So after all the time, I originally thought I had like a 57% profit margin, but after all the calculations I think it was closer to 45% profit margin 45. Bradley Sutton: Now, guys, we're not going to be here and say that, oh, everybody who sells on Amazon using her strategies and using Helium 10, it's going to be able to sell $45,000 in three weeks and 40% profit margins. She obviously worked really hard to do this, but it shows that what is possible. Because she didn't use any special hack because she's a Helium 10 employee or some backdoor into Amazon. She just used the same exact strategies that you could have it. And somebody asked hey, after ad spend, what was the margin? No, that is after everything, after her cost, after PPC, after everything, 40%. Yeah, Ron says she doesn't even have A plus content. Yeah, she didn't have brand registry. She got this out so fast. She didn't even have brand registry yet and she just sold out almost completely. All right, well, that's a cool story. I'm going to give one of mine. So let me give you guys one more story about something that hasn't even launched yet. But let me walk you through the process, and this has a. She talked about how she found her opportunity in helium 10. Bradley Sutton: Let me show you something where I found an opportunity, and originally it came not from black box, but another tool that's not even designed for product research? All right. So does anybody in here use the regular market tracker? All right, this is not market tracker. You know 360 regular market tracker. Let me show you guys, let me retrace, what I did a few months ago. This is the regular market tracker and, as you guys may or may not know, so if you're new to, if you're new to helium 10, you probably haven't seen Project X, but we launched this product called a, a coffin shelf. All right, and so I've been. I've sold hundreds of thousands of dollars of these coffin related items, and so I have this coffin shelf market and basically what it does is I'm tracking my market share, I'm tracking like where my market compared to the others, and actually I did so well in Q4. I sold out, until just like a week ago, of of coffin shelves. Bradley Sutton: Okay, now let me show you here what I was looking at, what the purpose of this tool is. It allows me to track what is going on with my direct coffin shelf competitors, right, but then it also suggests to me like, hey, there's a new coffin shelf or a new potential player that might be like coming into your niche, right, and so you can see here those of you watching this and if you're listening to this later, you might not see this visual here, but there's a button that says track or ignore. So it's saying like hey, here's a new player in this niche. Do you want to start tracking him to, to, to track how, how your market share is going, all right. And so I was scrolling on here and then look, do you guys see what this is? Let me know in the chat, do you guys? If you can see it, it's kind of hard. These two things that are not coffin shelves, what does it look like to you guys? Bats yes, exactly, these are bat shelves. Bradley Sutton: Okay, so now, all of a sudden, let me just explain how my thought process went. I'm like, wait a minute, this is kind of interesting. All right, like these people are not my direct competitors, but they must be ranking for similar keywords, and I'm like that makes sense. Like in in, coffin decor is like a bat shelf might be kind of like a kind of spooky thing, right? So I went into a, an Amazon tool. All right, that is the product opportunity explorer. Okay, this is another thing that anybody on this call should have access to. Whether or not you, whether or not you guys, have brand registry you should have product opportunity explorer. So I typed in the keyword coffin shelf because, again, that's what I was selling and I'm like all right, let's take a look at what are the top clicked products after coffin shelf. So after people search coffin shelf and the related search terms, what are people clicking on? Okay, now, this is. This is not helium 10. This is directly from Amazon. All right, I like to kind of validate to see a little bit deeper what's going on. Bradley Sutton: Once I saw that, initially inside of helium 10, and then, sure enough, look here in the top 10 products after my products. A lot of these are my products that I'm selling. I saw I start seeing these bat related products and so I'm like, okay, that's interesting, but I want to. I want to take it a step further, like I could launch a bat shelf and I still might do a bat shelf, but are there any other bat related items? Maybe I could start a line of bat related items. Bradley Sutton: So here's what I did, all right. So Shivali situation was kind of like hey, she was looking for her first product on a new brand. A lot of you guys haven't found your first product yet. You follow that technique, right? I'm talking about what, if you're ready, are selling a brand, how can you expand it out? And this is the kind of process for you guys. Bradley Sutton: All right, so I went back into helium 10 black box. Okay, let's go ahead and go into that tool. So now this is what I want you guys to do. We're literally retracing my steps. I'm going to try and remember what I did. I'm selling, you know, there's probably a lot of bat related products that maybe you might be in the pet niche, like people making bat houses and stuff like that. There's probably a lot of Batman stuff in the memorabilia, right. But I wanted to do stuff in my niche. So hit the category and subcategory, drop down in black box and select home and kitchen All right. Bradley Sutton: So I wanted to find products in the home and kitchen niche, all right, okay. The next thing I wanted to do was I wanted to make sure that you know we weren't going to have some like $5 products or, at the same time, products that cost, like you know, $60 or more. So I put in the sales price field minimum 10, maximum 60. I wanted to find products that we're selling already, like is there a product in this bat niche that is selling pretty decently already. So under monthly sales okay, under monthly sales I put minimum 100 per month. All right, that means, hey, here's a bat related product that is in the home and kitchen that's priced between 10 and $60. And it is 100, selling at least 100 units per month. I didn't want to have a bunch of variations, like a product that had a whole bunch of sizes. So what I put, I think again, I'm trying to retrace this, I'm doing this live here, guys, I think I put a maximum one under variation count. Bradley Sutton: Okay, now what else do I do? Okay, you might be wondering well, how in the world am I looking for bat related products? All right, well, what I did was, like, I figured if it's a bat related product, it's probably got bat in the title. Okay, and Nicole says variation yes, max should be in the max right here under one. This is the minimum. I don't put anything, max, I put one. Okay, that's why, that's why the, the, the min is blank, all right. So under title keywords I put bat. So like, that means that I'm trying to find a product that had the word bat in it. Because I like again, couple steps back, I saw in market tracker, there's bat related products showing up in my market. I looked and validated that in Amazon opportunity explore. There's bat related products and I'm just wondering is the only bat related products shelves, or are there other bat related products? Okay, I'm not sure if I, if I entered more things, I'll know by the number. Go ahead and hit search now, guys, and let's see how many, how many things come up. Let's see 14 items. Okay, this is probably it. Bradley Sutton: And then I started seeing some super interesting things. Now, of course, some things were completely unrelated, because obviously a baseball bat, you know, might, might show up. But take a look at this, guys, a bat, I don't know what. This is like a remote control holder or a decor box. Look at this one a bat shaped wine and beer opener. Now, all of a sudden, my like creative juices were flowing. Here is a bat shelf. And then, as I was scrolling down, boom, I was like, wow, look at this, a bat Bath mat or bath rug. I was like that is such a novel idea. And so I started looking at this. I'm like, hey, there is some opportunity here to make a bat bath mat. But here's the problem. When I looked on Amazon, I was like the price is a little bit low, all right, compared to my cost. So I was like, is there any way I can differentiate this? So let me just show you what I was looking at. Um, let's just go here to Amazon and let's type in bat bath mat. Bradley Sutton: Now, at the time the prices were actually higher. But let me just walk you through, kind of like my thought process here. Okay, so take a look here. I started seeing this and, by the way, when I was looking at this, I think it was kind of like around the Halloween time and there were like hundreds and hundreds of these being sold, like now there's only a couple, that there's like a hundred or so being sold, but I'm like this is a super cool product. What I like to see is like the number one product, like the one who, who is selling the most. Bradley Sutton: What can somebody in the chat tell me about? What is wrong with this? Like, what are they doing wrong that could get them literally suspended they're listening, suspended at any time. Yes, alexander says no white background. Everybody, a lot of you professional stuff. I was like I love to see this. We're the number one seller in the niche Probably doesn't even know how to sell on Amazon because they've got this ugly image of a tile floor and it. This literally could get suspended by Amazon at any time because it's not white background. Bradley Sutton: And then, as I scroll down here, this is what I love to see. I'm already like, not even halfway down the page. All right, these, these are organic results. What do you guys notice here about these organic results? Is this one a bath, a bat bath mat? No, it's unrelated results. Who said that? Jonathan says that unreal. I'm not even halfway down page one and I have completely different results, like, like, here is somebody who's advertising here with a stone bath mat has nothing to do with this. Here's some spider web bath mats. This is what I love to see. Now, guys, this is now four months later. Bradley Sutton: It was even more drastic when I was looking at this, where I like nobody had bath bath mats but at that time that all of these were like around 20 bucks and I'm like, ah, man, this is like this is. You know, I want to have some higher Profit margins. I'm like, look at, some of these guys are just blowing stuff out because, because you know, they probably had overstock. But I'm like, how am I gonna have a product that's gonna go for like 20 to 30 dollars when people have, at the time, like 16 17 dollars? So this is what I what I looked at. I was like, let me just look at regular bath mats. All right, bath mat. Okay, this is has nothing to do with bat shaped or coffin shaped or anything. And then this is what I saw, like a lot of people had it for cheap prices. I'm like, okay, fine, but you know, since I have a bat one, I I don't have that much competition. Bradley Sutton: But look at this, I didn't know much of Beth Matz at the time, but look at this. Do you guys anybody see the difference between these and those ones that were the bat, the bat ones? Anybody know about bath mats and like could see instantly I know I'm zooming in here the difference. So what the difference is is the material. Do you guys see how thick this is? This is what's called and I don't know if I'm pronouncing this right this is what's called chenille, if I, if I'm mispronouncing that, I apologize. I literally know nothing about this. This niche Chenille. This is a lot more expensive material than I thought it would be. This, this niche Chenille. This is a lot more expensive material and it is like it's kind of cool, like your foot sinks into it and your foot almost disappears into this material and it's much more absorbent and I'm like, okay, all right. So here's the thing I want to make some bat bath mats and that could launch some other products, like maybe some coffin bath mats and everything, but everybody's selling for this cheap price. So what I want to do is sell a bat shaped bath mat, and I'm going to be the only one that's going to make it Chenille. So let me show you. Bradley Sutton: I went to, I got the product made and then I went to AMZ One Step and paid them to go ahead and have a photo shoot done at their factory, and my product is not yet launched. Guys. I just got this. I'm gonna open up a Google Drive, guys. This is like real stuff. This is just a Google Drive that was sent to me two days ago. I got the images ready and take a look at the products that I was able to develop based on all of these steps that I went. Here's a same thing Chenille bat shaped Bath mat. Let me show some more images here. I did some research and I'm like all right, some of these are not machine washable. I'm going to make sure to have an image where people can clearly see that this is machine washable. That's another way that I can differentiate my myself with the other competitors. Bradley Sutton: What else did I put here? I made some detail about how the non-slip you know backing right. What else did I have in the images? I did like a really expensive photo shoot, guys. I really wanted to go out. Look at this, this is not 3D, this is like a real. This is a real Airbnb, not Airbnb. I don't know if it was Airbnb, but it might have been Airbnb. But they literally rented a house to have this that had like these kind of like minimalistic, gothic vibes and we did a photo shoot to really kind of like differentiate. Now take a look at some of these images and compare it to the images that we saw on the bath you know, bath mat over there. All right, completely different. Right, very high quality. So basically, guys, this is a product that I am going to launch either maybe this week or next week, and I'm going to launch at over $20, when everybody else was selling it for um for a lot cheaper. All right, so there's two different cases. Shivali will open up a brand new brand. Bradley Sutton: Here's me. I was selling coffin shelves and I wanted to open up a kind of new line of products that aren't coffin related but are from the same kind of like um customer profile. I guess you could say you know somebody who's weird enough to buy a coffin shaped thing, probably weird enough to buy a bat shaped thing. So those are a couple of techniques. Let me give you guys a couple more techniques that those are real life examples. Let's go back into black box, guys. All right, let's go back into black I can't even say that right back into black box. And then everybody, let me know in the chat if you're with me. We're going to do something together. We're going to pick a imaginary product research situation right now and somebody said will the US consumer buy this all year long? Absolutely, believe it or not, people buy coffin shelves all year round. They would absolutely buy this. The people who are into Gothic decor, they just love this kind of stuff. All right, everybody's ready. Bradley Sutton: Now I want you guys to click into keywords. This is the keywords tab. All right, now, everybody, give me some sample ideas of categories to choose. I'm going to give you kind of like an advanced technique and I'm going to do one more advanced technique and then we're going to open up to Q&A for about five minutes here. Somebody says kitchen, somebody says pet, a bunch of people saying pets. Okay, let's go with those. So everybody. Go ahead in your black box keywords select kitchen, kitchen and dining, home and kitchen just for kicks and giggles. And then what was the other thing that people started? Yeah, pet supplies. All right, select pet supplies. Now I'm on a tool that looks at keywords. So who can tell me in the chat what signifies demand for a keyword? Is it sales? What is the metric that signifies demand for keywords? All right, it is search volume, exactly. So I'm going to say, hey, let me see a keyword that has at least 2000 search volume, maybe a maximum of 10,000. And I might have to like, lessen these because I might be doing something a little bit too narrow here. All right, and let's go into a price range where the average product on the search results, on average of the top products, are between, let's say, 20 and 50 dollars. All right. Bradley Sutton: Now here's what I like to do. I'd like to go to the very bottom of black box keywords and, under competitor revenue, I'm going to do something that's opposite from logic. All right, this is opposite from the way that you might have learned how to do this tool. I'm going to say competitor revenue more than $5,000, a maximum of four and a minimum of one. Traditionally you might. And, by the way, guys, there's not a right way and a wrong way here. I'm just trying to show you that you can have an opposite technique and you could still get a good result. The traditional teaching here is you want to find a keyword where most of the products are selling at least $5,000. I'm trying to do something different, where maybe only a couple products are really doing well and the rest are just kind of like throwaways. Why do you think, guys, why do you think this could give me something that might be opportunity? Let me know what you think in the chat. Why would I want to see when a keyword where not that many products in the top 10 are making good sales? Bradley Sutton: Ritu says improvement opportunity. Max says bad listings yes. Kl says try to be in the top yes, very good. Louis says low PPC. Guess what, guys? Everybody's correct. These are all reasons on why I'm doing this. Now, it doesn't mean that the opposite way is not going to get me good results too, but this is what I'm doing for this one. Now, competitor reviews out of the top 10, what I'm going to say is hey, I want to see a minimum of, let's just say, six products have less than 150 reviews. So that's what I'm doing in black box keywords Again competitor reviews at less than 150, minimum six. Now there might be either a whole bunch or not enough. Bradley Sutton: I'm not sure what's going to come up here. Yeah, I have too much hair. Oh, my goodness gracious, I found a pretty cool product right away, guys. I've never looked at, I've never seen this keyword in my life Goat blankets for winter Search for 3,000 times a month. Like there are 3,000 people out there trying to find blankets for their goats. Or is it blankets made from goat fur? I don't know. We can take a look at that. What else do we see here? Oyster shells, cat collar, camera, wedding table numbers, tree wall art guys, these are all Good opportunity stuff. Pottery apron like I guess a pottery apron would be different than a regular apron. Like it maybe needs to be more thick. Alright, to Taylor Swift Betty, I'm not gonna do that one, because that's probably Branded there, trademarked, I should say. Bulldog storage decoration what the heck like storage that? Is that a brand name or is that, like people want storage with pictures of bulldogs on it? Table numbers for wedding reception here's a Vietnamese keyword that I don't know. A Heart-shaped charcuterie board. Bradley Sutton: Guys, I literally just came up with one search. I came up with about 15 product opportunity ideas that all of these are pretty good. Jonathan says these are blankets for goats. I used to have goats myself, believe it or not, like here in San Diego County. I have one acre here property. I used to raise goats. I I never bought them blankets. You know, I'm sorry, sorry to say, but I guess I was, you know. But but I'm in Southern California so it doesn't get too cold so I think my goats were doing fine. But anyways, guys, that was just one search I just did with you guys right here and we found 10 Opportunities that could be worth looking at. Bradley Sutton: One last quick one I wanted to do before we get five minutes of of Q&A. Another new tool here in black box. Now, those of you who have the diamond plan, you'll be able to see this. It's a BA top search terms. All right, this is combining Helium 10 data with what's we're called Amazon brand analytics. Okay, amazon brand analytics is something directly from Amazon and we could see in here what are the top three clicked items by any keyword. This is directly from Amazon. This is not a helium 10 metric. I mean you're looking at it in helium, but that's what this is. So, right here, guys. Bradley Sutton: Um, this is Gold because, like, for example, I could say, hey, show me something, let's say a keyword that has the word bat in it. Going back to my original example, but where? If I take a look at the top three clicked ASINs, okay, I want to see their total click share, maybe at least 50%, meaning that let's just let's just see if anything comes up. That might be nothing, might come up here, let's just take a look. But what that means is, if I take the three products that have the most clicks after this keyword, it makes up more than 50% of the clicks overall. Okay, so that's what I would want to do phrases containing bats and look at that. I might do the top three conversion share. That's another thing that I could look at as as well, but these are unique data points that somebody could use, where you combine Amazon data with helium 10 data to find something completely new and different. Bradley Sutton: Alright, I've got five minutes now, maybe less, for question and answer. Let me take a look in the Documents here in the chat, what you guys have sent in. Alright, here we go. This is from Frank what is better to use a coupon or discounted price? Great question, frank. So he's talking about when you launch a product, like she volley did, either. Or yeah, I personally use discounted price. I try and get a strike through and have a big discount and then sometimes it's like it'll put a little red symbol that says, like you know, 50% off. But then other times, if that doesn't happen, using a coupon might be better because it gives you that green bar in the search results. Bradley Sutton: Alexandra says what was the product photography company? Oh, the one that did the batch of that was AMZ One Step. So you can see them at. Go to hub.helium10.com, Alexandra. hub.helium10.com and you can contact them right inside helium 10. Just type in AMZ and then one step. And then Make sure that. Make sure that you say that helium. You know you learned or heard from a helium 10 or from Bradley on this workshop. Shivali, who can you let us know? Who made your images? Alright, so I think you. One step, Shivali. So James is wondering who? Who did you use? I? Shivali Patel: Used myself. Bradley Sutton: You actually took yourself for like your phone. Shivali Patel: I did my own images. I also made my own infographics. Wow, I did the only. I did the course on my own. Bradley Sutton: I you had to have outsourced something, though, like anything. I've outsourced nothing wait, you know how to do Photoshop and stuff like that. Yeah. Shivali Patel: I didn't even Know. I make all my own videos for TikTok, for Instagram. Anything I post, I do. I did my own product photography with a camera I have at home. Although I For social, I typically just I phone it and then use Canva for Infographics. So that's free, which contributes to the very high profit margins. Bradley Sutton: Yeah Well, yeah, that definitely helps. Like me, me, I have no Photoshop skills. Maybe a lot of you don't have Photoshop skills, so you've got an outsource. Shivali Patel: I Didn't use that much Photoshop, all I did like. If you wanted to do this yourself, they actually the same thing that you pay $1,000 for you can do on your own. All I did is take a white sheet, put it up on Like a wall at home, got a phone I ordered like a 20 or $30 circular thing, but that was for video, it wasn't even for just photography and then I put it on to like a white table and then threw it into a free app free iPhone app for background remover and then put everything into Canva. Okay, so canva Able to do a pretty, pretty impressive if you guys want to do this on your own, you can also. I believe we have a module in Freedom Ticket For making your own product images, so you guys can watch that too. I filmed that one. Bradley Sutton: If you are at all artistically inclined, it doesn't even take Photoshop to do this. But you could be like me and be completely Illiterate from artistic sense, and that's why I outsource my stuff to different companies who are the Professional. So there's not a right or a wrong way to go about it. Hosam asked how does brand analytics help you? Could you please explain with an example? So, brand analytics that the number one benefit of brand analytics is that Amazon is telling you, after the search of a keyword, which three products are click the most and of those three products, what kind of sales share do they have of the people who end up buying a product after that, after searching that keyword. Super, super valuable information that you can see inside of helium 10. That comes directly from brand analytics. Um Frank says I would like to some launch help, for example, vying coupons, giveaways what would you recommend these days? So if you're talking about, like the old school Giveaways, you know that that's against terms of service. Now, on Amazon, what Shivali did, what I'm gonna do is Fully within terms of service is mainly just using PPC, all right. So if you guys want to know the three episodes, you guys have some homework. You guys want to know how to launch a product in the same exact way that Shivali and I launch our product. This is what I'm gonna leave you guys with. Bradley Sutton: Right this time, everybody have a pen and paper ready. All right, right down these three episodes h10.me/466, all right. Or it's Serious Sellers Podcast, episode 466. You can look it up on your. I want everybody actually typing it in right now go into your Apple iPhone and go to Apple podcast and go into Serious sellers podcast and hit subscribe the three episodes you want to look at for how to launch your product, to get ready for it is 466 and 467, so you can go on your podcast. Or you can just type in h10.me forward, slash 466 or 467. The one to actually launch, it is 500, all right. So there's three episodes that you want you guys to listen to 466, 467 and 500. Thank you guys for joining and we'll see you later. Bye, now you.

Join us in this episode as we unfold the remarkable e-commerce tale of Josh and Jenna Coleman, a powerhouse couple who turned their online sales venture into a resounding success. They take us on a journey from their beginnings in marketing and finance to dominating Amazon and TikTok Shop, sharing the strategic decisions and personal pivots that propelled them into the limelight. Their story is a masterclass in leveraging life's twists – from raising kids to career transitions – to build a thriving business that resonates with the potential of passive income. Listen in as the conversation turns to the nitty-gritty of starting with side gigs and progressing to Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) and Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA). Josh and Jenna provide valuable insights into using platforms like Helium 10 for market research and how they used their design acumen to create products that captivate both digital and physical markets. Discover how they utilized KDP as a testing ground for market interest, leading to a booming workbook series that soared in popularity, thanks to smart social media strategies. Finally, our chat takes a deeper look at the couple's viral breakthroughs and how they utilized TikTok Shop and Shopify to amplify their business. They share the behind-the-scenes of managing a small business through the highs of viral sales spikes and the challenges of inventory and listing protection. The duo also reflects on the profound impact that Amazon and TikTok Shop have had on their lives and the lives of influencers who have joined them on this journey. Tune in for a dose of inspiration and practical advice that could set you on your own path to e-commerce success.   In episode 532 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley, Josh, and Jenna discuss: 00:00 - Married Couple's E-Commerce Success Story 05:05 - Transitioning to E-Commerce  09:17 - Side Jobs to KDP and Amazon FBA 08:24 - Hooking With Software and Numbers 12:48 - Comparing Opportunities in FBA and KDP 17:40 - Transitioning to Full-Time E-commerce 20:53 - Viral Success on TikTok and Amazon 27:31 - Start Small Business With TikTok 31:50 - Learning in the Space 34:39 - Promoting Business With TikTok and Shopify 37:30 - Strategies for Promoting Products on TikTok 44:21 - The Importance of Branding in Strategy 45:19 - Amazon and TikTok's Impact on Lives ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast ► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension ► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup  (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life) ► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft ► Watch The Podcasts On Youtube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos Transcript Bradley Sutton: Today we've got a married couple with an incredible story. In not even their first full year on Amazon, they've grossed over half a million dollars. And in not even their first full month on TikTok Shop, they've grossed over a quarter of a million dollars. And they're going to share how it's possible to set up a TikTok Shop account in only 10 minutes. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Are you browsing a Shopify, Walmart, Esty, Alibaba or Pinterest page and maybe you see a cool product that you want to get some more data on? Well, while you're on those pages, you can actually use the Helium 10 Chrome extension Demand Analyzer to get instant data about what's happening on Amazon for those keywords on these other websites. Or maybe you want to then follow up and get an actual supplier quote from a company on Alibaba.com in order to see if you can get this product produced. You can do that also with the Helium 10 Demand Analyzer. Both of these are part of the Helium 10 Chrome extension, which you can download for free at h10.me/extension. Bradley Sutton: Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Series Sellers podcast by Helium 10. I'm your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show. It's a completely BS free, unscripted and unrehearsed organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. We've got a husband and wife dynamic, serious seller duo here for the first time on the show the double J crew, josh and Jenna. How's it going, guys? Josh: Good. Jenna: Pretty well Thanks for having us.  Bradley Sutton: Yeah, Awesome. Now where are you guys located? Jenna: We are right outside Philly. 0:01:45 - Bradley Sutton: Okay, so you're on the East Coast, all right. So you guys were born and raised, or are you transplants from somewhere else? Jenna: So well, I'm a transplant. He is born and raised out here. I'm originally from the Midwest, the suburbs of Chicago. Bradley Sutton: In West Philadelphia born and raised. Oh sorry, probably back. Josh: Yes, yeah, oh she could sing it with you the whole thing. Jenna: Oh, yes, I could, yeah. We met in college out here and I kind of fell in love with the East Coast so we knew we wanted to raise our kids out here. So yeah, then we ended up out here. Bradley Sutton: You're supposed to say you fell in love with him and then you fell in love with the East Coast. Jenna: Right, yes. Bradley Sutton: Okay, in that order there. Exactly what college did you guys meet? Jenna: We went to Nova Villanova. Bradley Sutton: Villanova Okay, yes, I knew one of my favorite Clippers was Kerry Kittles way back in the 90s. Jenna: Yeah, 85 here they won yeah. Bradley Sutton: Yeah, so the reason I know him is funny. Here's just a really crazy story. You guys may or may not know. I used to be a Zumba fitness influencer and in my channel that I created on Zumba that had 30 million views. It was called CrazySockTV and I created that. It's kind of like a branding kind of thing. I wanted to be memorable so that people in memory is my brand, and just not to be some random person dancing Zumba, which was a million people. So what I would do is I would have a crazy like one sock on one leg and then one sock on an arm, and that was what I came up with. It was always a crazy sock, but where I originally got that idea was Kerry Kittles. He would just have one sock when he played with the Clippers, which is which is my team, and I'm like that is the most weirdest thing I've ever seen. I'm going to roll with that idea. And that went to tens of millions of Zumba video views and so, yeah, that's my Villanova tie right there. Anyways, all right. So you guys, what did each of you major in there? Jenna: My bachelor's was in marketing and he was finance. Math and finance yeah, I mean he took everything for fun math, he loves math. So like that, my fine classes were like astronomy and his were, I don't know, derivatives and anything he could with math. Bradley Sutton: What did you guys do after graduation then? Did you, either of you, enter into that world that you guys were studying? Jenna: We did. We did a little bit. So I did marketing for my dad's financial planning firm and then I decided I wanted to be a teacher. I got my master's of education, went down that route and then we were actually living in Chicago for the beginning of our first quarters. And then we had our twins and moved back out to the East coast and I definitely took a good break there for like the better part of a decade and didn't really jump back into anything until like until this. I mean not really fully into anything, until this. Bradley Sutton: And then, Josh, what were you doing all this, all this time? I'm assuming you were the income, then if she was taking a break, so what were you doing? Josh: Yep. All sorts of things in finance Consulting. Jenna: Yeah, so working too many hours a week Josh: Flying a hundred thousand miles a year, like domestically only, which you. You probably fly that in four trips, but around the world domestically, that's a harder target to hit. Bradley Sutton: So, yeah, this doesn't sound like an exciting job. So what? What was the thought process on, like how you guys ended up with e-commerce? Was it just like all right, I don't want to do this always? Or were you looking for a side hustle? Or how do you go from the finance and marketing world to and the stay at home you know world, to switch to e-commerce? Jenna: So I mean that was definitely part of it. The time constraints and I think the idea that there could be some passive component to e-commerce was interesting. But I really was. I mean, josh knows I would. I was admiring e-commerce for like the better part of a decade. I was that person that everything I looked at I was like, oh, I could create this, I can make it better, even with educational stuff and tools and resources. I was making my own and kind of like just admiring it from afar and saying, you know, when it's the right time, then then I'll go into it, cause we are not like the dip your toe in type of people. We are like the 50 foot cannonball jump ball in. It's not like we're just going to try, you know, like a product and see how it goes. When we I knew when we were going to go in it was going to be all in. So I was waiting for life to slow down and it was really like actually the craziest, the easiest time of our life and I kind of just had this like epiphany that life doesn't really slow down, no matter how old your kids get. So if I don't do it now, it's probably now or never. Jenna: I can remember I think it was like a month after we got out of the hospital with my son. So our oldest son has epilepsy and he had about a year of failed anti seizure meds and treatments and it was just in and out of the hospital and they eventually came up. So they have this all over the country but it's the medical ketogenic diet for epilepsy. So they put him on that and we had to go to the hospital and we had to learn all about it and I kind of had this moment of I was like this is more intense and exhausting than twins. This has been my dream forever. I'm like if I don't jump in now, I'm never going to do it. Bradley Sutton: Well, was there something that made you that's still not a natural thing to just like jump into, like, like? Did you get hit with an ad somewhere, or where you're searching how to make money at home? Or how did you land on Ecom? Jenna: So I definitely found a couple ads there, because there were. I did take a couple courses that were teaching you how you can sell on Amazon and I had already had ideas and I kind of thought selling an Amazon? I didn't understand the process of it. So I was like, all right, so I think I can figure this out. There's courses to do it. So I took the courses, I downloaded like a ton of podcasts and he knew I kind of like dug into this whole of like just learning and education and I didn't want to bring it to him until I was like I can do great. Yeah, you're like you're doing great, you're doing your own thing. Like I said, we're not like a dip your toe in type of person. I didn't want to bring it to him until I thought this is something he would like to. So I really just kind of like dug in on the courses and I already knew the things I wanted to create, but I didn't understand like the science, the research behind it and it's funny we were talking about this. I was like, okay, so I listened to your Serious Sellers Podcast before I could understand 10% of what you said and I remember like listening to one of your podcasts and a few others like it and I was like this is amazing, this part I don't understand creating design innovation. I understand the numbers. Bradley Sutton: We're here talking, by the way, about more or less 2019, 2020, 2021. Last year, fall of  2022. Jenna: Yeah, yeah. So I listened to one of your episodes and a couple others and I was like, oh, my goodness, josh would love this. There's software, there's research, there's numbers that can go into this. So basically I hooked him by showing him that kind of stuff. I was like, look, if you can do the product research and you can tell me the numbers and you can do this, I will design and create their products. And look, they have software like Helium 10, he was like lit up. He's like this is fantastic, I can play. I mean, he was playing around in it before we even had our first product like that. Yeah, like before we even really knew if we were going to do a product yet. Josh: And now I'm like now we're here. What happened yeah? Jenna: So I hooked him with that kind of stuff. We're very different, very different in terms of like, our interest and what we like, and I think it actually helps in this industry. So yeah, that's it. I knew I wanted to for a long time. I don't think he knew we wanted to until he saw that aspect of the business that I could kind of hook him in. Bradley Sutton: So at this time you still weren't working yourself. Only Josh was. Jenna: I've done a lot of things on the side, like I would just say side jobs and stuff. Like you know, I've done network marketing and coaching and stuff like that. Josh: Coaching sports yes. Jenna: Yeah. Bradley Sutton: What sport did you coach? Jenna: I coached volleyball. I played volleyball in college, so I just here whenever. I could camps and helped at schools and stuff. Bradley Sutton: But you had, you had the kind of bandwidth, but. But, but, josh, you know, you know traveling everything. If it was up to him it probably might not have gotten done because he was pretty busy then. So that's an important thing to know. Like, hey, maybe it's the husband, maybe it's a wife, but but you know you got to have somebody who's able to dedicate some time to this, or else you might never get started. So then you guys, you know, started dipping yourselves into Two courses and now the very first product that you launched, uh, are you still selling that product now? Jenna: Yeah, but well, I mean it's of our FBA product we have, yeah, we have. We launched our first ones for KDP books and then our first product we launched last summer. Bradley Sutton: Talk about that for a second. What made you go that route? Jenna: So KDP, I mean, well, it's inexpensive. And I already was creating designs and things like that and I knew that was something that we could do while we're learning, because we wanted to. When we wanted to launch products, we knew that we wanted to launch more than one at a time and we wanted to make sure we had the research into it and we knew they were going to take a while, especially, coming up to you know, the timing of the year that we were looking at sourcing products was a little tricky. Josh: It was January, right, yeah, it was a year ago, yeah a year ago was when we launched our first KDP book in February of last year and it was Really based on. She knew the audience that she wanted to serve, but we had to test the content and we felt like KDP was a good place to test the content of like a meal planner and fitness type Trackers and budget planner, and then on the education side, cursive workbooks and you know things of that nature. Because when you look at the you know audience that she wanted to serve, my Research coming out of it was trying to find you know products that interested or that, um, that Audience wanted at the time. And so that's why we used KDP is we got to kind of test content and then we also got to test PPC, play with it and learn it and in a in a real experimental way, instead of With an FBA product that was going to require a you know a large Upfront investment and inventory and all that kind of stuff and we had started that process. But it takes a while. Bradley Sutton: So, but basically you use a lot of the similar strategies, like using Helium 10 to see demand and, and that's how you like landed on what KDP thing you were going to uh, launch and how to optimize your listing things like that. at what point then Were you like hey, not a lot, I want to do physical products. Jenna: So some of our designs that went into the KDP books are actually used in our physical products. Um, we edited them, made them a little bit better. We were able to use some reviews. So, for example, we have a meal planner, fitness tracker, or I think we call that the advanced meal planner and fitness tracker in KDP, um, and then we were able to make some improvements on that to make it into one of our vegan leather planners, um, but yeah, so, like we, those designs took me A lot of time to focus on and creating those. So we just had to make some adjustments to make those doable and we were able to get samples and stuff as we put out that KDP book. We were getting samples because we knew we wanted to eventually make it in FBA. We knew that there was more money obviously in FBA than KDP. Bradley Sutton: Were you able to do things by going, you know, directly to somebody who actually physically produced this? That was not an option with KDP, like a certain kind of Cover or something like that that you just literally could not even do KDP Uh, what are some of those things? Jenna: the KDP books. You can only do paperback or hardcover. You can have limited size Um and, as you know, with FBA you can do anything you want, really. I mean, you can create any material, cover, um things in our meal planner, fitness tracker. One of the things that I wanted was that they could tear off their grocery list and take it with them. You can't have perforated pages in a KDP book, um, and that's also, I think, where you can get seen on KDP versus you're. You're shown everywhere on amazon right and isn't KDP, I believe it's just the books that you're shown in yeah, you, you're shown in. Josh: You're shown in search To an extent, but it's an ISPN Then identified a product, not an ASIN, not a traditional like ASIN Uh product. So, yeah, you're definitely Limited as to where you show up. 0:13:50 - Bradley Sutton: Do you use it kind of like as a like an incubator almost for some of your FBA, like if it really takes off with KDP, then that's what you maybe double down on and make a physical uh copy. Josh: I will. I will say yes, and our most successful product, which we launched in December, that that most recently, um, fortunately exploded on like TikTok and such, is really a culmination of like a case study in that it's a handwriting set of handwriting workbooks that have disappearing ink and such and Most of that content you know. She built over time and we released in A variety of different like KDP workbooks while she was. You know, we kind of in always in mind had man, it would be great to do this one thing. The keyword always looked great, there were so many things about it that we felt like we could improve and we were so excited about it. But we knew it would take a lot of time and KDP's content kind of feeling and seeing how things worked was really a huge part of the design over like a nine month period before we released those in December. Jenna: And we're still using our KDP designs into new things. We have our newest product coming out, the bible verse mapping that. We're working on getting those out by spring and they were in KDP and now we're able to get those and a linen cover. A different thing for spring, for FBA products. Bradley Sutton: What's your, what's your average Retail price on the KDP side? And then, of those, how much do you take home? Josh: well, our average, every one of our products on KDP is 999, except for the homeschool planner, which is 1499, and on the, the Products that are nine, that call it ten dollars. On the products that are ten dollars, we take home about $2 and 60 cents A sale, and then on the homeschool planner, we take home about $3 and 80 cents, 90 cents give or take. Bradley Sutton: And then are you doing PBC for this at all, or it's just all organic? Josh: Yeah, we do. I think our total PBC spend on KDP is about $15 a day maybe. So it's small. Obviously it's all relative, but um, but that 1500 a month is net of you know PBC charges specifically. So it's a pretty low a cost Process. As long as you don't get sucked into chasing physical products, you stay in your lane, recognize that you're a KDP product and not try to go after FBA products not that I ever tried that then you can. You can do fine. Bradley Sutton: It's separate log on for KDP and you're a seller central, because that that's kind of like a different. It's not seller central, I know, but how different is the interface for advertising? I know Shavali you know probably knows this but I've never done Advertising for KDP Is it very similar, like you know, you can do, you know, phrase match and Sponsored and campaigns. Josh: Almost an hour, Bradley Sutton: Okay. Okay, cool. Were you selling the entirety of 2023, or did you start later, not January? Josh: KDP. Our first one was February, and then our second one was like April, and then our first FBA product was July 1. Bradley Sutton: Okay, so not a full year of KDP, not a full year, obviously, of FBA. What would you say if you were to combine the gross sales of both on Amazon, only For your planners and things? What? What would you say? It was total at the end of the end of the year in the past year, Since well we haven't been out of here, but yeah okay, yeah, so total 2023? Josh: About 400,000. Bradley Sutton: Are you still doing your day job or did you at some point last year that go all in on the Ecom? Josh: It took about like eight days to realize that there's no chance I was gonna not be able to To like go all in into this. Jenna: it was too much fun. Yeah, you and, and the hours you worked, and the time you worked, I mean, I mean not to say that you don't right now, where it has, we're starting everything up, but uh, yeah, I mean we're trying to launch a good amount of stuff. Josh: It's a lot different being on a plane a hundred thousand Miles a year than it is being, you know, up late at night talking with manufacturers or something, but still in your own house. It's a little different. Bradley Sutton: Was this your first year? In a few years that you're, you didn't make your high status on your travel? Josh: I absolutely it was a second year, but it was the first year I haven't been on an airplane in like my entire life. Jenna: Really amazing yeah, when was.  I mean I guess, so yeah, no, we've really. Josh: Because after COVID we actually started driving Everyone like if we went somewhere, love it to the kids, like it and and frankly it's fun for the two of us. Jenna: And the things we like to do. I mean we love to go to the mountains and snowboard. They're all close enough here the ocean, the beach, all that stuff is driving distance from here, which, growing up in the Midwest, that's not possible. So I love that we can just get to anything within a couple hours by the way, it was great, great story. Josh: We're in the Midwest and after school and she's like, oh, we, you can snowboard here. And I was like, awesome, where? And we she's like I'll take you this place. And we're driving and the nav you know those old Tom Tom. Things right is like this is when we live in Chicago over after we got married two miles you're at your destination and I'm like Jen, I can see about 15 miles in any direction right now there is nowhere to. Actually I don't believe. I like kind of I want to believe you. Yeah, I was like this is like a sled. Jenna: We found a hill somewhere that we turn into is yeah, so yeah, we like the mountains out here. Bradley Sutton: Yeah, well, don't got much of that here exactly in my town when I live, few miles from the beach here in California. But all right now, at what point did you guys discover TikTok shop? Josh: one of your serious seller podcasts in the. In the fall you had on a create some, a creator who did a video, a viral video that went viral for, I think, one of Lizzie's products, but I forget exactly which one it was might have been the body suit One of them, but you had someone on that was explaining, kind of somehow some of the worked and it was super intriguing. And then we went to the meeting in New York where Lizzie spoke and Jenna drove home and you set it up in New York City and I set up the. I set up our TikTok shop in the car on the hot spot. Bradley Sutton: Well, what they're talking about, guys, by the way, is we have their helium-10 elite members and we have a quarterly in-person workshop for Helium 10 members and we did one in New York and we brought somebody Elizabeth, who's been on the podcast before talking about TikTok shop, and she kind of broke down exactly what she did, and I remember you guys at that it was like light bulbs were going off in your head as you guys were watching. We're like wait, wait a minute, we've got a perfect Kind of product that would do well on TikTok shop. So then you got home or he said on the way home, not even you weren't even home yet, you're already setting it up on the way home in the car, yeah, I feel like in the car, because the kids are with my great, with their, my parents. Jenna: They're great kids for a couple days, but you draw like literally on the drive. I mean, what is it? That's less than three hours from New York, oh yeah it's a couple hours. He was done by the time we got back. He's like we're set up, let's go. I was like are you kidding me? Bradley Sutton: Now, at what point there were you like oh man, we're on to something like what was your first kind of like viral day, or? Josh: Frankly, Christmas was our first viral day. On Christmas Day, you know, I had Alerts on, like sale alerts on TikTok, because we didn't get too many before that. So we had sales, but not compared to Amazon. And so our phone. I'm like it's Christmas, leave me alone, who is bothering me? And I was like not that many family and friends are trying to say Merry Christmas. And so it was sales. And we had no idea what was going on. And it was a you know video that was about 10 seconds long, that someone had posted, that had picked up and had, you know, half a million views that day and a million by the next, and the following day, sold us out of our meal planners. I was about 500 on TikTok and about 800 on Amazon so at that point. Bradley Sutton: Sold out in like two days. Josh: Yeah, it generated more Amazon Sales than TikTok shop, even though it was from TikTok shop for that first product. Bradley Sutton: Yeah, as well as our website, so you didn't have like a link. It was just like it got sold out and then people were just trying to search for it on Amazon, you know, to try and get it, and they found your product through there. Josh: Yep and our website, yeah, and we found where they found it was be banner ads, like sponsored display ads, because they recognized the Products or if they would search for something meal planner or fitness or whatever. Our banner ads had like a you know 6% a cost. I remember we're looking at them and I was like, oh, that's what. Like they didn't necessarily know what to search because I didn't really think about it at the time. We just had the title as Grace will buy design meal planner or fitness tracker or something, whereas all the conversions, PPC were happening from there. And that's when we kind of realized you know, there's something to this, to your point about your question about when did we realize like this was a thing, when we realized how well these markets could play off each other and help each other. That was when that day, Christmas in the day after, is when I was like oh yeah, oh wow, like this is, this is a thing. Jenna: I think you were pretty excited about it pretty early though, yeah. Josh: I was excited. Jenna: I'm the pessimist, I was the one that was like I don't know. I mean, we're still. We just had our second product go viral, even more so, and I'm still like I don't know if we should we get the inventory. Is it gonna repeat? Josh: Yeah, it probably won't work. Yeah. Bradley Sutton: So now the planners on Amazon. This is not, this wasn't your KDP, this is a physical one. So what's the retail price on these? On Amazon? Josh: $19.99 Bradley Sutton: $It was 19.99, and then so what? What kind of profit margin on Amazon? Josh: Actually before PPC about 50%. So they're 240 landed plus small stand. We we made sure that packaged their point seven, four inches thick so that we can fit in Small standard. So basically about a 50% or shade above 50% margin and then with PPC, with. PPC, like if you take launch and everything in the consideration. The first, you know Three, four months which was the end of last year, where you know we 20% net margins on, including launch. Bradley Sutton: So about 20%, probably more. You know if we're not considering launch in there now. I yeah. Now if, what kind of retail price did you have it on TikTok shop? Did you still keep it at 1999 or did you take advantage of how you can just add shipping and TikTok pays for it? Or at least they were before? Josh: So we did not do that where we lower the price, because so TikTok shop for Sellers who use seller shipping which is what we were doing, because we are fulfilling some of it from our Amazon inventory, for example, all of it from our Amazon inventory that if you spent $20 as a customer, they would pay for shipping, TikTok shop meaning so the the customer would get it for free for shipping and then TikTok shop would reimburse us and Basically, the $7.99 it's like for one item Quantity of one is what they would do. So we would make the product $20 and shipping $7.99 and as long as we do that, the customer doesn't pay shipping and we get the $20 and reimbursed for shipping at $7.99. So 27. Bradley Sutton: So on Amazon, let's say that you were taking home, you know, after PPC and stuff you know like, let's say, six bucks or something like that. You know maybe five, six dollars or so, which is which is pretty decent on Amazon. Not many people can say that. But then, for that same order, on TikTok shop, how much money were you taking due to TikTok, like subsidizing your, your fees and all this other stuff?  Josh: Yep. So basically, to break it down, so we would get the $20 Minus the 20% commission that went to that creator, right, so we would get $16 for the product Plus the $7.99 for the shipping reimbursement, so $23.99 that we would receive, and TikTok pays the influencer directly. We don't have to do all that accounting, thank goodness. So 2399 that we would receive, it's 240 landed and our MCF fee to like ship and deliver an item to a customer is $8 and change but eight, call it $8. So $23.99 in and Around $11 and 50 cents out, so double plus. Bradley Sutton: Yeah, double or more the profit margin for the exact same product on TikTok shop. Now what's this, Jenna? Are you doing some kind of Like? Are you the influencer for your own product to like? Are you doing like lives or videos or some? Or am I getting you guys Confused with somebody? Jenna: I mean I do it, I do it, um, it's you know, I really More so. I mean they had different promotions that they were running that you could get ad credits for doing lives. That's why I don't think I get a lot of traffic and that's really not, in my opinion, where we get a large amount of sales, the sales I mean especially with our group books. That's well, that was all because of videos and influencers. So it gave us ad credits, which was great, um, but personally I'm not. I do it for the business, but I'm not a fan of being in front of the camera any more than I need to. But I was all for, you know, starting up a small business. When they were like I think it was like $1500 in ad credits, I was like I'll do it, let's do it, you know that's what it was. Josh: No, you're right. During December, if you went live, you know a certain amount of time and Spent 1500, they would give you 1500 an ad credit. And so we basically did that, and the day the promotion ended, they deposited 15 like they were exactly as they Said it would be, and she was tortured every minute that she was live. Jenna: So I would never classify myself as an influencer. I that's what I love about take talk shop that you can use the professionals that that do that as your influencers. Bradley Sutton: Okay. So now you guys I mean technically, if you know Christmas was, was around. You know was around where you really started taking off. You know, by the time that we're recording this podcast, you know, maybe you, like you, can talk about your first full month of TikTok shop. What were the gross sales on that platform? Josh: Since, if you include Christmas in that time, there 250,000 dollars. Bradley Sutton: In one week in one, in one month, in one month in one month in one thirty 70-72 hour period. Josh: They were 180,000 dollars. Jenna: That was that group books viral video, which was crazy yeah and it's amazing to me still, because we had a few large influencers that were, like you know, half a million followers. That I'm like I was the optimist for those. I'm like this is gonna be the one, and they did great videos and the video that took off. That's what I like 9 million views, knowing I don't know, I mean she had, I think, just under 40,000 and which is still big, but it's not like the half million or, you know, near a million followers, that we had other people. So you just don't know and I mean the video was good. Bradley Sutton: So the fact that you guys did a 250 or quarter of a million, does that mean that your influencers took home like 50 grand themselves for doing videos, so that that influencers specifically. Josh: Generated, yeah, single mom she's like the nicest person and we were so happy because she sent a message. You know that the commission was like life-changing, she was ready to get to be done with this and it was 30,000 and change in commission income that she generated based on her post and that, just like that's again when further, it has furthered this point of like you don't have to be the influencer because you know Jenna can be Jenna and Talk to the influencers, which again we try to do like on it, like we write Cards to them when they make content, like all of those types of things, and then it's so much more natural and the creators love doing posts on Jenna's products because she can relate to them and she cares, like she genuinely cares, and it was so cool to see that from a couple of the moms that I've had really successful posts on our products, that you just sit there and you're like this is a great, great business model, that even though they're increasing TikTok shop, increasing their referral fees, no problem, worth every penny. Bradley Sutton: You know you guys have some hijackers on some. You must have be out of stock or something. You guys know about that. I'm just looking at your day, your story now. Josh: Yep all right, you guys need to take care of that. Bradley Sutton: do some tests we already those guys offers that, do you mind if I show people your product page here.? Josh: Yeah, all right, let me um they're the worst because the shipping is like weeks and weeks and weeks that we ordered it right. Yeah, it's killing. Bradley Sutton: I mean the fact you know that that's when you that, by the way, that that's when it's like you know, until you get it fixed, you know where you might want to like suppress your listing, where you take out the images and then nobody can sell on it. You know, so that you know your Every day that somebody has it active. You're like losing your, your keyword ranking, your conversion rate and stuff like that. So if you don't think you're gonna fix that right away, you know, try and get your listing suppressed somehow, you know taking out the image is doing something. Josh: I said that this is where you're always learning in this space because, yeah, these are problems that you didn't know would be problems. Inventory management didn't know that was a problem till all of a sudden it was a Problem. So it's been great to have resources and help from people like you know, Helium 10 folks and other folks in the space, which is Such a help because you're going through for the first time. Bradley Sutton: So then, going back to your main product, which is in stock here, this is the main one that you sell on TikTok as well, right, and the ones that that went viral before. Josh: It was the first one that went viral. It's not the largest selling of our products anymore, but it's the second, and it was the one that was here first. This product released in August yeah, august. Bradley Sutton: Did this originally start as KDP or this was a from scratch? Josh: Oh yeah, you may yep, no, we did a version of this via KDP, which, if yeah, Jenna’s author page is like amazon.com/author/jennacoleman, and that's where KDP stuff is and there's a there's a 11. It's called like the advanced meal, the advanced weekly meal planner Yep, but yeah, we reached a PSR of like two and then it all went out of stock. Bradley Sutton: All right. So then this you know, and then this is, this is what you also have on your TikTok page, and so doing some cool numbers, all right. So so you, you showed me the other day like there is a for anybody who has a, an Amazon account and a Shopify account. They can literally start TikTok shop. I Within like what? 20 minutes, would you say, or less, or? Josh: Yeah, I mean we've had some people that have taken Time to like if they have a sole prop, like where they don't have a business in some ways, like where they don't have an EIN or some things. There's been some people. That has taken some time. But TikTok's due diligence on you as a company, the Shopify system, seems to Serve as enough validation for TikTok shop that they're good to go and you get set up pretty quick with a shop and Then an ad account on the business side. Then it pulls from their Amazon inventory. Bradley Sutton: Then it pulls from their Amazon inventory. So I, you know, I, you guys, don't have a way to share your screen, but maybe you can just verbally Walk through those steps. So somebody has their Amazon account and then do they need to have the Shopify account already tied to their Amazon through, like by with Prime? Josh: Yeah, so okay. So good question, but not by with Prime. For fulfilling on TikTok shop by with Prime can be used on your actual Shopify website, like if you have your website on Shopify but you don't actually need a website to do the TikTok Shopify Amazon integration as long as you have the program Shopify. There's two sides to it. There's the TikTok side and there is a native app. In other words, TikTok shop has built an app that sits on Shopify's Interface so you can download on Shopify the TikTok app that allows you to create your shop and Create your business center and ads manager. Right. So all from Shopify to TikTok shop so it can push To TikTok and then, if you have like a personal TikTok account, it Can link that to your store and convert it to a business account basically. Bradley Sutton: In Shopify. What? Where do they go and Shopify if they have their Shopify account? They got their Amazon account. What's the? If they're not tied together, how do you do? They need to get it from the Amazon app store, the Shopify app from the Amazon app store, to tie it to the Shopify account? Josh: In the Shopify app store, there is a TikTok app and an Amazon MCF app. They need both. Bradley Sutton: Okay, so you do it through Shopify instead of Amazon. We do it in the middle. Josh: Yeah, and then the Amazon MCF app is what pulls from Amazon and all they do really there is they have to sync up to skew right to make sure that the skew and Shopify matches the one in Amazon, which the app will say you're good, and then that your shipping map. So if you say standard shipping defaults to MCF standard, if you've ever done an MCF, the person has done an MCF order. Then it will say okay, when an order comes in and you fulfill it, it's gonna fulfill via Whichever MCF option, standard option. So that way TikTok shop syncs immediately to Shopify. Shopify pulls the inventory and ships it and then Shopify gives the tracking number back to TikTok shop Bradley Sutton: And then when you, when you, you know, set up your TikTok shop From your Shopify and if your Shopify is already pulling in your Amazon, you know Images and things like that, the Shopify Site, it publishes all your images and description and stuff to TikTok shop, right? Josh: Yep. Bradley Sutton: Wow. So, guys, this is not rocket science where you have to know coding and a bunch of crazy things in order to get up and running, but, at the same time, it's not something that, hey, you just turn it on and you make a quarter of a million dollars, you know, in a month. It requires you know it's heavily on influencers. So what's your guys' best suggestions of somebody's just setting up? They do everything you just said until now. They've got their Amazon store. Now they've got their Shopify set up. Now they set up their TikTok shop. It's pulling. It's all tied to Shopify and tied to Amazon. How do I get eyeballs in front of my product? Josh: The two biggest recommendations we would say is that. So I'll let her say on our account what we should have, because there are some things that you should have on your account when an influencer looks you up, it's kind of like having a website if they go to your shop and you don't have any posts or anything. So I'll let her cover that. But on the flip side, on the affiliate side, you know, you can go into the affiliate dashboard right inside TikTok shop and you have immediate, direct access to creators and that is really where you can do 50 at a time where you can reach out to. You can create a message, select a product that you want to offer them a commission to promote, and they'll receive your DM right in their affiliate dashboard that invites them to promote that product. And so being able to get in there and send 50 of those a day to reach out to folks that are relevant to at least your audience and be careful not just going after huge creators. You're able to see how each creator does. You're able to see their sales, their engagement, all that kind of stuff, and you can go and directly reach out and just use the hard work method instead of the blast or spend money just throwing money to be there, money to build your awareness. You can do manual reach outs, but then on our page. Jenna: So I would say I think in the beginning, no matter what, it's hard to get influencers to talk to you because you haven't had any product sales right. They can see how much they can see, so I think it's really important to focus on connecting with them and I think a lot of influencers, when they're sharing a product, they don't just want to know what it is and how much it is, they want to know the story behind it. So a lot of the ones that we connected with especially some of the bigger influencers where they have plenty of options of what to share they kind of want to know the story behind your product and a lot of people love to know when there is a small business owner behind it. Why did you create it? Who are you? What went into this? And that helps in connecting in the story. So a lot of them use that I've connected with the fact that I'm a homeschool parent and a lot of them are homeschool parents in terms of some of the educational stuff or other ones I've connected with. I'm a former public school teacher too and they connected the fact that we you know that we were both educators. Some of it is mom life and connecting with you know busy meal planning and just connecting in different ways. So if you're just honest about your story, sometimes it's the things that surprised me that we had connections on that. They were like, wow, that's really cool, I also have a kid, you know one with allergies on a specific diet that you know. I saw you, you know you created a meal planner or something and so different ways to connect the making of your products and sharing in those Like. Jenna: I try to do reels a little bit on that and sometimes that will help because I think when they're considering they go through and see some of your reels that you've created not just your products they don't just go to your storefront. I will notice they'll sometimes like my reels and my reels don't have many views. A lot of them have, like you know, like a hundred, a couple hundred, but the influencers were go and check to see, you know like, and sometimes I'll talk about why I made the product the way I did or the features of it. So I really tried to push on that in the beginning because I think that helped connect with influencers. But then once you do have a product that goes viral and they see that you, you know you have a business that could help them as well then they come to you but it doesn't start that way, then they come to you, right. So now it's different, which is nice, but I would say in the beginning, the pessimist in me, I was like, oh my goodness, how are we ever going to like get them to come to us? Or like we're a small business that haven't proven that we can, but it really does, yeah. It does change. Bradley Sutton: When you go into that portal you know there's probably a hundred thousand influencers, a million influencers, whatever, in there. How are you picking and choosing those 50 that you want to reach out to first? Jenna: Really the same way that I think they're choosing us Like. I try to find people that connect with our brand. So when they're talking about educational stuff or their kids or I see that they have an interest in in recipes and cooking and things like that we try to find ways that are natural connections. So that's part of it. Josh: Because you can search by interest. Yes, so in the affiliate dashboard you can search by interest. Jenna: Right and then and then you know that's the really cool part about it To have that background view into people that that are going to be sharing your products. You can like go see what they're all about on their page. So it doesn't take long. But you know we usually spend time checking out their page before we even message someone. Bradley Sutton: All right Now, before we get into you know some, some just quick hitting strategies from you guys. If people want to reach out to you, I mean, they can obviously see your, your brand, and I just showed it. You know, graceful by design. But if people want to reach out to you guys for more questions or help with either TikTok or KDP or any of your specialties, how can they find you guys on the interwebs out there? Josh: The interwebs. I would say the best place is, you know, jenna. jenna@gracefulbydesigncom. Jenna: I do check on graceful by design for TikTok or Instagram. It's at graceful by design LLC, but either one of those. I do check the messaging in there, but yeah, it is. Bradley Sutton: Let's go ahead and get into your,  SST 60 second tip or 60 second strategy. You know, maybe, maybe one each gives us any strategy that you think will be beneficial to our listeners. 0:42:51 - Josh: I'm going to do a quick strategy on folks who are newer or who are getting into, maybe wanting to get into the space, in case someone like that is watching. Um, cause, this has been, you know, a real thing for us over the past year from, you know, building this together, and I would say that the biggest thing in the e-com is that you have to remember is that cash flow timing and the business right, the real business aspects of any business, hold true in the Ecom right. So, cash flow timing, when you're thinking about getting into a business and you see, you know again some of the courses out there that just say you know, things are easy and things are this and you can make money quickly, and all those types of things, I just would say that, uh, from a cautionary perspective, that you know, remember, this is a business that costs money and when you sell more on something like Amazon or TikTok shop, you need more reserves that they hold and you have to spend more on inventory and so and so those. That's just like a fundamental business practice. That I wanted to make sure you know we said is that it's not a, you know, fairytale industry. It's a hard work. You know business, real business, and I feel like that gets blushed over a little bit with a lot of the things that are out there. So that that's just in general, a principle and uh, and then my less way, less than 60 second tip is that you know your. Your biggest strength still is your brand, and to build a strategy today without a brand, I think is just challenging, because then you can just be you. So when you're reaching out to influencers or you're designing product, you can really actually relate to it, in addition to it being good research and all that kind of stuff, because people know whether you care about what it is that you're selling or making. Bradley Sutton: Well, it's been really great to see your journey, you know, from just learning about TikTok shop at that conference. And then you know selling out and then, and then guys, they can hire me just out there. So I don't have any website or anything, but they're now my customers for my family running 3PLs Cause I have a warehouse here and I found out that they were, they were struggling with shipping. So I'm like, hey, let me take your planners here and let me have my family help you guys ship. So they're shipping. You know 20-30 of these planners all the time. So, like it's really cool to first hand see, see your growth and uh, and now you know you're putting a food on the table of that one influencer. Well, not, not now you're. You're employing my family as well. So, but yeah, you're changing lives here left and right. I'm sure you're changing lives with people who have listened to this episode learning about the potential uh on KDP um with uh TikTok shop as well. So we'll definitely want to, you know, reach back out to you guys next, uh, next year, and see how. You know, we just got with you on your first full month of TikTok shop. Let let's see what happens after a full year of Amazon and TikTok shop. You guys will be probably have some cool stories to share. So thank you so much for joining us.

Listen in as Bradley shares the latest on Project X and how we're shaking up the game with our coffin shelf product. He tackles the challenge of fierce competition and relentless price wars not by slashing our prices, but by creatively enhancing our product's value. With the inclusion of quirky accessories like mini skulls and pumpkins, we've managed to not only raise our price by $10 but also to give our product a unique edge that customers love. Bradley also opens up about our strategy for listing optimization using Helium 10's tools, which could revolutionize the way you manage your Amazon listings. This episode also takes you behind the scenes of our coffin shelf launch, revealing the thought process behind our unique packaging solution that has both charmed and intrigued our customers. Drawing inspiration from the concept of heart-shaped gift boxes, we introduced coffin-shaped gift boxes that serve a dual purpose, adding an innovative flair to the traditional storage functionality. As we unpack the hurdles of custom packaging and marketing tactics, you'll gain insights into how these elements contribute to our premium pricing model. Plus, don't miss out on the invaluable product validation and research techniques that could be the difference between success and failure in your Amazon ventures. Join us for a blend of practical advice, personal experiences, and strategic approaches to Amazon product differentiation and market success.   In episode 531 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley talks about: 00:00 - Revitalizing Project X With Product Differentiation 03:16 - Selling Out and Replacing Products 09:51 - Coffin Shelf Launch With Unique Packaging 10:54 - Two-in-One Coffin Product and Packaging Idea 17:47 - Watch Out For Future Episodes 20:43 - Recommendations for Beginners on Helium 10 21:42 - Product Validation and Research Techniques

Ever wondered what it takes to get your product to the top of Walmart's search results? We've cracked the code and our host, Carrie Miller, is here to share every inside tip and strategy you need to make your Walmart listings shine. In this episode, we discuss everything from the importance of choosing the right product type to mastering the listing quality score without resorting to the pitfalls of title stuffing. Compliance with Walmart's guidelines is key, and we talk about the balance between PPC campaigns and organic search enhancements that could transform your rankings. Plus, we can't forget the tactical use of Walmart's SEM tool to harness the power of Google ads—a game-changer for driving traffic to your listings. As we dive deeper into the ecosystem of Walmart's online presence, one thing is clear: the influence of digital word-of-mouth is not to be underestimated. We explore the emerging role of the Walmart Creator program and how influencers can catapult your products into the social media spotlight. Agencies like SellCord, Blue Ryse, and Ecom Creative Crew get a nod for their expertise in navigating listing challenges, and we remind sellers of the resources available through our Walmart.com tools inside Helium 10. Wrapping up, we send out an invitation to join the Winning with Walmart group—your go-to hub for community support and answers to all your Walmart-related queries. Remember, success at Walmart may be a podcast away, so tune in, get inspired, and let's make those sales numbers soar! In episode 530 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Carrie talks about: 00:00 - Ranking Strategies For Walmart Listings 04:22 - Walmart's SEM Offers Growth Opportunities 12:37 - Walmart Listing Optimization Guide 13:40 - Walmart Traffic, Influencers, Branding, and Agencies 16:54 - Walmart Application and Brand Registry 22:43 - Ranking Strategies For Walmart Products 24:16 - Join The Winning With Walmart Group ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast ► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension ► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup  (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life) ► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft ► Watch The Podcasts On YouTube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos Transcript Carrie Miller: In today's episode we're going to be talking about how to rank on Walmart, some new tools that Walmart is offering to help you with your sales and ranking, and also just how Helium 10 tools can help you with your PPC and also your listing optimization. Bradley Sutton: How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Carrie Miller: Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of this Serious Sellers podcast by Helium 10. My name is Keri and I'm going to be your host. This is our winning with Walmart episode, where we go live and give you some Walmart information and answer all of your Walmart questions live, alright. Somebody asked this is a great question how do you rank organically in Walmart? Is it the same algorithm as Amazon? There's actually a few different components to ranking on Walmart. The first one is product type. Your product type is really important because the product type is connected to the keywords for your actual product. If you're in the wrong product type, it's going to make it hard for you to actually rank. The first thing you want to do is go to your growth opportunities tab and check your product type. You can click on the details for each product listing and it'll tell you a product type up at the top. If the product type is definitely wrong, then you're going to want to make sure to fix that. Sometimes, what you can do is you can A B test the product types, because some product types include a lot more keywords. That means you're going to be able to rank and show up and basically index for any of those keywords. If you aren't in the right product type though with the most keywords, then it's going to be hard to rank for this. For example, I know someone did for supplements. It was nutritional supplements and herbal supplements or something like that. They changed their product type to nutritional supplements and that encompassed a lot more keywords than herbal supplements. You want to really take a look at those product types. Make sure that you have the right product type. That's first for ranking. The second thing is you want to make sure that you have a high listing score. You want to make sure you're in the 90s at least for your listing quality score. Look on that dashboard and make sure you're doing that. Carrie Miller: Things like stuffing your title. If you use the same titles that you do on Amazon a lot of times they'll suppress you a bit, because Walmart does not like stuffing titles. You want to make sure to follow the guidelines for the titles and just the entire listing. Make sure that you write the keywords that you want to rank for into your listing. If there's a specific phrase, if there's some targeted phrases, you're going to want to write those phrases in the exact form. Maybe there's 15 to 20. You want to write those throughout. Obviously, your most important phrase should be in the title. Those are the first things that you're going to want to do. The next thing is you're going to want to get sales. It is important to get some clicks ads to carts and conversions. I know some people do some search find by. There's some people who do different coupons. Sometimes people send traffic from TikTok and people will search on Walmart. They'll just search for the actual product through the keyword. There's a few different ways to do it, but really you're going to want to click add to cart and conversion. Carrie Miller: That's how you're going to help to rank. PPC is really, really helpful. If you're doing PPC along with that, that is a great way to rank. You really get some good ranking juice with PPC. Definitely try all of those things. Those are all the best combination of things to rank because it all goes together. Make sure that you're also putting in as many attributes in the backend as possible so you can rank for those as well. Those are the basics for ranking, but it's not really the same as Amazon, because Amazon's really giving you a lot of ranking juice for outside traffic. Walmart does have some outside traffic things that they have going on, but it's not necessarily helping with rank. There is something that I wanted to talk about. It's called SEM and it's on your growth opportunities tab. It's the very last one and it's basically Google ads. They used to do this for free and now it's. Unfortunately, you have to pay for it. What they're doing is they're giving you the ability to drive Google ads directly to your Walmart listings. That is a great way to get some outside traffic. That could potentially also help your rank because of the conversions and things like that. Check out the SEM at the very end. Very easy to set up those Google shopping ads and you can start showing it for Google shopping and get more conversions that way. Carrie Miller: I think we have another question Does Walmart take care of the shipping to the client? Can I ship products from China directly to the Walmart warehouse? I've actually never shipped directly from the China warehouse. The thing about it is I don't believe they're going to be receiving large shipments for you as your first starting out. So the best thing would probably be to ship your products to a 3PL and then ship them into the Walmart warehouses. That's what I would recommend in general, and then, if you don't sell out on Walmart, you can use it for Amazon, you can use it for TikTok shop, so that way you have better control over your inventory. So I think someone else said, no, you can't. So yeah, I know you can with Amazon and or used to be able to. You know we were shipping containers directly to Amazon and it's this little harder now. But you know, it sounds like somebody else said you can't ship directly from China, so ship to a 3PL, then ship into WFS, and that is the best way to go. Carrie Miller: I think something else that I wanted to kind of point out to everyone is that we actually do have some tools with Helium 10. And I did have some. I've had some meetings recently with some sellers and they are. You know, I think we're all kind of forgetting some of these tools that Helium 10 has and I wanted to kind of bring it back to your attention. So I'm going to just show you some keyword research tools and like, for example, garlic press. Okay, so we always use the garlic press kind of example. But what we want to do is what we can do here is we can actually pull our x-ray extension. We have x-ray for Walmart here and what we can do is we can copy the product IDs and do a reverse search on Cerebro for keywords. Now I like to look for kind of the main. You know things. Actually, I was looking at decorative pillow. I want to look at decorative pillows, decorative pillows. So I'm going to search for that and we'll see if we can find some. A lot of times these are kind of interesting and diverse. So let's go ahead and pull the Helium 10 extension. So, for anyone who's listening, I'm just pulling our Chrome extension for Helium 10. This is going to show revenue for each product. It's going to show the product IDs, it's going to show reviews. It's going to show a lot of great information to help you kind of better make good decisions, for not only you know what products to start selling on here, but also how to kind of position your own products. Carrie Miller: So what I usually like to do is kind of look for things that are selling pretty well. So it looks like this snow leopard pillow is selling pretty well. So what we can do is we can just paste that into Walmart for Cerebro. Now you have to choose. You have to scroll all the way down to Walmart Marketplace in Cerebro to choose the Walmart Marketplace to do this, and it's basically this product ID. Now, if you don't have, you know, the X-ray pulled up, you can actually find it on the listing page itself in the URL. It's the last digits on the URL, so you can do that as well. So I'll go ahead and actually just do this one search. Let's look at the keywords for this decorative pillow. So we're going to hit, get keywords, and what it's doing is it's basically showing all of the keywords that that particular product is ranking for, sponsored in Organic. So if we take a look, we can see a lot of different, you know, keyword phrases. We've got snow leopard decorative pillows, their organic rank number five, if you wanted. So if there's a competitor that's doing some advertising, what you can also do is you can do this single search product ID and you can sort by sponsored rank. It doesn't look like this one is doing any advertising, but if they were, then you would be able to see all of the keywords that they're advertising for. And with Walmart, a lot of times there's, you know, kind of like a 15 to 20 keyword phrase focus, and so you might be able to see the exact keyword strategy that your competitors have. So that's something that's really cool about doing a single search ascent, but you can see all of the different kind of keywords in here. You can see the search volume and it's going to be compared to the search volume on Amazon. It's a little bit different on Amazon. Carrie Miller: Now, on Walmart, there are a lot of filters that customers do use, so they kind of filter down to find the products that they want. But this is an incredible tool for your, for your listing optimization. So you want to make sure to write all of your most important keywords into your listing. Then you also want to, you know, use this for your pay per click advertising, because I have noticed that there's a little bit different keywords and keyword phrases Then on Amazon. So I always do keyword research separately for Walmart so that I can make sure that my pay per click advertising and my actual listing is optimized for Walmart. So that is one way to do this. We can also search magnet. You can search phrases. So if I put decorative pillow in here, it'll search on Walmart. Actually, you know what? I think? I didn't change the marketplace. Let's go all the way down to the Walmart marketplace here. This is the Walmart marketplace. We're going to hit, get keywords under the Walmart marketplace on magnet and what this will do is it's going to show you similar keywords to you know decorative pillow that you could use and give you. It'll give you more ideas of you know what kinds of keywords to target so you can sort by. Carrie Miller: You know search volume amounts. You can search by search search volume there. You can see it compared to Amazon there, and there's a lot of great keywords that you can focus on. Now, even the lower search volume keywords I've still made sales on those, especially if they're very relevant. So I don't ignore those really low search volume keywords either. So if you are ignoring some of those, I would highly recommend, you know, creating some campaigns for those lower search volume keywords as well. All right, so we've got Cerebro when we've got magnet. We also have a profits tool and I know there are a lot of people who are using profits to maintain just their whole profits view of Walmart and it's been been very, very helpful for a lot of people. So if you haven't started using profits, you want to connect your Walmart token to helium 10, so it'll automatically pull in that data. You can add in your costs of goods, you can add in any other expenses that you have in there and you can get a pretty good overview of your profits on Walmart. So that is something else to think about. Now. Carrie Miller: I did notice that there was kind of an announcement recently about video ads. They're doing some different testing, maybe just on the look of video ads and sponsored brand ads on Walmart. So if you are doing those, you might see that a little bit. But something I did notice is that a lot of brands are not even doing video ads or any kind of sponsored brand ads. So if you, you know, are in a kind of competitive category, you should check on those keywords and see if you can start doing some advertising on those. You know you have to be a registered brand in order to do that, but video ads and sponsored sponsored brand ads are going to be a great way for you to, you know, really get going with some sales, especially because you'll be right at the top and it's not as expensive as it is on on Amazon at this point. So it's really good thing to do. Coupons are still in beta, so I have talked to some people who are using the beta program for coupons and they've had a really good conversion rates for coupons. So I'm really, really hoping to see those come out soon for everyone. Maybe some of you have them, so you might want to check your dashboards, your growth opportunities wherever, to see if something appears about coupons, but I have heard very good things about them. Also, subscribe and save has been in some beta programs, so that those are some things to kind of look forward to. Brand stores are available, so if you are a brand registered seller, go ahead and check it, check that out, get your brand store all registered and ready to go. Carrie Miller: Okay, it looks like we have another question in here. Are there any guides for SEO, titles, description. Is it good to have keyword stuffing in the title? No, so I did mention this at the beginning. There are guides for very, very good guides, actually on Walmart. So if you go to the help center, you can find and search different for different things, and optimization is one of them. You can look for how you should set up your title, how you should set up your description and your bullets, and it's all in there. Now keyword stuffing is going to get your listing suppressed a bit. You want to follow the guidelines that Walmart sets and then, when you actually create your title and your whole listing on your growth opportunities tab. It's going to give you a listing quality score and if your title isn't the way they want it, it'll show you what you need to do to fix it. So that's very, very helpful. So any mistakes that you make on your actual listing, you can go back and fix them on the growth opportunities tab, which is a really, really great thing to utilize. So that's a great question. So thank you for that question. Carrie Miller: Another thing is I just wanted to talk a little bit about traffic to Walmart. So where is the traffic coming from? There are some things again I wanted to reiterate. If you haven't started using the SEM tab on the very end of your growth opportunities tab where you can do those Google ads, that's going to be a great place for traffic. I think a lot of traffic can come from Google. So if you can just get that that advertising going, that would really help help you there. Another thing is I have seen a very large uptick in influencers. Now I follow a lot of kind of female, kind of clothing influencers and I know there's a lot of home decor influencers. There are a lot of influencers that are now promoting Walmart products because there's a Walmart Creator program. They get commissions. Some of them are Walmart partners, so they're finding products on Walmart and promoting them through their Instagram, through their TikToks. So what you can do is, if you wanted to kind of reach out to some of these, you can search you know, walmart partner, walmart sponsored ad, or just search hashtags to see what creators within your space are, you know, basically promoting your types of products, and a lot of times you'll find those. Or if you're just following, you know people in your space and a lot of times they are already promoting Walmart stuff. So I think that's a really good opportunity to help them to not to be successful by, you know, giving them your product and then seeing if they'll promote it on Instagram, tiktok, you know, everywhere on social media. So I highly recommend looking into that. I think it's a great way of getting more traffic there. I also have noticed that you know Walmart is still really pushing for Walmart plus memberships. A lot of credit cards you get it for free, like American Express, platinum, for sure you get. You get it for free for the year. So there's a lot of great credit card perks that you can get Walmart plus memberships for free, which you know will incentivize people to you know shop at Walmart, especially if they see something that's the same thing on Walmart, they're like, oh, I might as well just go to Walmart because I get free shipping anyway. So those are some things about Walmart traffic, all right. So another question Do you know any I think, maybe trustworthy agencies to fix my listing problem for me? Yes, I do know some agencies. There is Michael LaBar at SellCord.co. They do a great job at fixing listing issues. I think they're probably the best for kind of like solving issues. There's also Ryan King from Blue Rise and there's also McCall Chapnick from Ecom Creative Crew. So Ecom Crew so sorry, Ecom Creative Crew team and so you can reach out to all of them. I know McCall has a great Walmart group, so if you haven't joined her group, it's a Walmart Marketplace Sellers group. She's pretty active in there too, so you can you can, you know connect with her there. So there's a lot of great agencies that you could reach out to. Somebody has a very long one here, let's see here, let's see. It's a very long question here. Thank you, my G, michael Thomas, says sorry, I had to step off for a minute so I may have missed this. Carrie Miller: Concerning the application process. What is your experience or anyone that you know who has submitted an application? I've actually been talking to a new seller of business development and Matt Turner said the fiscal year starts at the end of this month, so I think Walmart will start approving applications at that time. Also, how do you get a brand page on Walmart? Okay, so you should be able to apply to Walmart anytime. So if you're, you know, ready to sell on Walmart, I would recommend that you just go ahead and apply. Make sure that you have, you know, make sure that there's a list of countries that are approved. Now, if you don't live in the US and maybe your country is not approved, usually an LLC works and I know Michael from Cell Court can help get around those kinds of issues. But you do just need to have kind of an established business. Make sure that you have all your ducks in a row, you know of all the qualifications that they have listed out for your application and you should be good to go for the application. It takes usually 48 hours. Sometimes it can take a little bit longer, but you should be able to get that application going. The next thing is going to be brand registry. So there is a brand registry portal, so it's brand portal, portalonemarkcom, and you just click on register. You need to have a you know a red, a trademark. It says it right here on this screen here you need to have registered trademark and so make sure that you have that. You know all that in a, all those ducks in a row, basically, before you apply for that, so that you have access, that'll give you access to video ads, sponsor brand ads, the brand stores. A lot of the perks that are coming are going to be basically related to to the brand portal. So hopefully that answers your question. Let's see. Carrie Miller: Another question is it seems like Walmart is looking more for brands. Do you agree? I actually don't agree. What they are looking for and I've actually talked to a lot of these kind of the managers on Walmart they're looking for products that really complement what's already on Walmartcom, so things like accessories to products that are already on Walmart, so things that are complimentary that maybe aren't already on Walmart. They're looking for a well-rounded catalog. So it doesn't necessarily mean that you have to have a big brand, they just want complimentary products. There is an assortment growth tab on the back end of your Walmart seller center and sometimes you get some good suggestions on how to kind of grow things that might not be available on Walmart, that they want you to sell. But that is a great way to just look for things that are not necessarily available on Walmart but would be good complimentary accessory products to things that they have, and that might be a great way to go. But, yeah, they are accepting third-party sellers. They're really investing a lot of money to get third-party sellers to start selling on Walmart, so they are definitely wanting third-party sellers to come. Carrie Miller: Another thing that I wanted to bring up is that there is some rich media that's available for free and that's kind of like A-plus content If you go to the help and then go to get support when you're logged in to seller center. So go help get support, then click on items and inventory, click on rich media and then you'll see instructions on how you can upload a video or a 365 image and that'll be basically for free. Otherwise you have to pay for each thing to get hosted through an agency. But those are some free modules. If you don't have a video up, that's a great thing to put up there and I highly recommend you do that if you haven't done that yet. So another thing somebody asked is where can we create a brand store? This is going to be when you are registered, a brand registered, you go to your brand portal and that should. That is the place where you're going to be able to see all of that to create your brand store. Another thing I wanted to bring up is the review accelerator program is still going on. You can go do up to 10 reviews and basically how this works is it's not like Vine on Amazon, it's basically your actual customers. So whatever sales you get within a certain amount of time, they will actually send a request to that customer for a review and they'll pay them $3. You pay $10 for the whole review, but it's a great way to get some verified reviews of customers who are actually looking for your product already, not just somebody who's reviewing products. So review accelerator program if you don't have any reviews, you can go up to 10. So once you pass 10, you're no longer eligible for the review accelerator program, but that is a great way to get some reviews going if you don't have them going as well. Carrie Miller: And let's see. Here we have another question. Bradley's asking me what was my December sales? I actually don't know the actual number. I think it was around the 12,000 to 15,000 for my one main product. And I have to go look, I have a few different brands on there, so the one that I've been really focusing on I did about 15,000 for that one product. So not bad, especially since it's only one product. You kind of multiply that by 10, you've got a million dollars a year on Walmart. So that's something to consider. That's the one that I use mostly to kind of test things out and I try to see what's going on with Walmart with that particular product. And I've had the Proseller badge. I've had that for quite a while now and they've actually been giving me refunds on my referral fees and so that's pretty cool. So a lot of great things coming with Walmart. I think the coupons are going to be a really big deal, that we're going to be able to sell a lot more on with those coupons, because people do like deals, and I think that's going to be great. So let's see here Bradley is asking how have you been getting to page one for your Walmart launches? Carrie Miller: Now, I did talk about this a little bit earlier, right at the beginning, because somebody was asking how to rank, and that is basically the first thing obviously is your product type. You have to be in the right product type. First of all, you have to make sure you're listing it has about a 90% or above, and sometimes you'll rank to the top just with that listing quality score. A lot of times we'll just help optimize listings and it goes straight to the top with just the listing quality score. Don't stuff your title, but it's really clicks, adds to carts, conversions. Those are going to help to really get your ranking up, and that includes PPC. So if you're combining doing a search, find by type strategy along with pay-per-click advertising, you're going to get some really good results from that. So I know we talked with Kostin from AZ Rank last I think it was last month that we did and they actually have a whole way to help you rank. So if you do want to use their services, they're doing a good job of helping people to rank to the top. So check them out as well, because they've got some great strategies for ranking on Walmart too. Carrie Miller: All right, another thing that I wanted to point out is WFS. Make sure you have your products in WFS. That's another thing that's going to help you with your listing quality score and your rank. So Walmart fulfillment services are even if you want to just send in like 20 to 30 products at a time just to see how much it's going to how much is going to go, and I would suggest at least trying out WFS, and it's going to help you quite a bit. So if you haven't enrolled in WFS, you should do that. But other than that, I think that is all that I have for today, unless there's any more questions. But thank you all for these questions and if you haven't joined our winning with Walmart group, make sure that you go and join our winning with Walmart group. We have a lot of great sellers in there and people answering questions, and so you can also tag me in any questions that you have. On Facebook. Some people have sent me messages and so I would love to help you with any Walmart issues. So I will see you all on the next episode Next month, we'll have a special guest, so I'm excited for that one, and so stay tuned. Every month, usually on Wednesday. We had to reschedule this week, but usually on Wednesdays we do Winning with Walmart Wednesday and I hope to see you all there again and have a great rest of the day. Bye everyone.

Ever wondered how the savviest of e-commerce entrepreneurs keep their profit margins healthy amidst rising industry costs? Buckle up as Benjamin Webber, a true maverick in the Amazon FBA realm, rides through the podcast to share his unique tactics. He's not just playing the game; he's changing it by using his own truck as an Amazon carrier, slashing his shipping expenses, and keeping his company's financials robust. With a 10% hike in gross sales and an ever-expanding team, Ben breaks down the logistics of becoming an Amazon carrier, the operational efficiencies that keep his business ahead, and why sometimes the best move is to quite literally take the wheel of your product distribution. The chessboard of global e-commerce is complex, but Ben is a grandmaster at maneuvering his pieces. He unveils his strategies for managing inventory across continents, discusses the art of optimizing check-in speeds, and serves wisdom on tackling geographic conversion issues. His narrative takes us through the meticulous dance of manufacturing diversification—from Asia to the Americas—and the savvy logistics of East Coast shipping. As Ben's company eyes a leap into Amazon's global marketplaces, he lays out his blueprint for facing the squeeze of shrinking margins, fortifying supplier relationships, and negotiating like a pro. In a world increasingly driven by AI, Ben has mastered fusing technology with human creativity. This episode isn't just about listing optimization and tweaking ad strategies—it's a glimpse into an advertising revolution dictated by sponsored rank and AI's role in it. And when it comes to product development, Ben and his team are tapping into AI to conjure up innovative solutions to everyday problems. It's a thrilling ride through the intersection of data, technology, and human insight, where Ben exemplifies the adventurous spirit of online selling. Join us, and let your e-commerce curiosity be captured by his exceptional vision and trailblazing tactics.   In episode 529 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Ben discuss: 00:00 - Amazon Carrier Strategies and Profit Margins 06:45 - Optimizing Amazon Stock Check-in and Distribution 09:08 - Inventory, Manufacturing, and Global Expansion 10:52 - Product Warehouse Benefits  15:43 - Amazon Advertising and Listing Optimization 16:52 - Analyzing Conversion Rates and Product Quality 24:31 - Factors for Retiring Products  25:33 - Warehouse Efficiency and Competitor Analysis 31:50 - Using AI for Product Development 33:52 - 2024 Tips and Unique Strategies ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast ► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension ► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup  (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life) ► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft ► Watch The Podcasts On Youtube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos Transcript Bradley Sutton: Today we've got a popular guest back on the show, Ben, who's got very unique strategies, such as he made himself an Amazon carrier so that he can deliver with his own truck his FBA replenishment orders 15 minutes away from him for free. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Sellers have lost thousands of dollars by not knowing that they were hijacked, perhaps on their Amazon listing, or maybe somebody changed their main image, or Amazon changed their shipping dimensions so they had to pay extra money every order. Helium 10 can actually send you a text message or email if any of these things or other critical events happen to your Amazon account. For more information, go to h10.me/alerts. 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. You've got a serious seller back for, I believe, the second time here on the show, Ben. How's it going, man?   Ben: Good, how about yourself?   Bradley Sutton: I'm doing just delightful. So I take your North Carolina, which is why I switched hats here at the last second rock in this Charlotte hat. Here Is Charlotte where you're at, or what part North Carolina are you on?   Ben: Yeah, I'm in Charlotte.   Bradley Sutton: Okay, been out there long yeah.   Ben: I came here in 2002 and never left.   Bradley Sutton: Okay, all right. So if you guys want to get more of his backstory, guys write this down episode 379. We went a little bit more into his background there, so we're not going to go too much. You know more into. You know how his superhero origin story, want to catch up and see what cool stuff he's been he's been working on. That was a great episode, by the way. In there he talked about how he had a three million dollars in retail arbitrage sales and he has his cult following now in the Amazon world on the speaker circuit. A lot of cool stuff we talked about in that episode, including you know how to hire for your Amazon businesses and whatnot. But let's just catch up. You know now we're in 2024. You know I think the last time you're on the show was like end of 2022 around there, so it's been, you know, full year. How was your 2023?   Ben: It was good. Our big priority was expanding obviously expanding product lines, and then just figuring out the best ways to manage what we have so that we can grow and scale as efficiently as possible.   Bradley Sutton: How many employees are you guys up to now?   Ben: So we have the warehouse and then we have an international team. So collectively we're between 60 and 70.   Bradley Sutton: Excellent. Now what was you know, just from a gross sales overall, all channels, if you were to compare 2023 with 2022, how did you guys do?   Ben: We're up maybe 10%, so it didn't really push too hard this year.   Bradley Sutton: Now, something that I think a lot of sellers might have said compared in 2023 to 2022, is profit margins were down due to increased cost, whether that be inflation or cost of goods, Amazon fees, PPC how was your profit margin?   Ben: Yeah, it definitely went down a little bit, not as bad as I guess a lot of people have. That I've talked to have run into. But one of the big things that helps us and I think we talked about this before is just that because we are in Charlotte and there's a CL2, the CL22 warehouse is in Charlotte we're able to deliver a lot of our own inventory. So we're a last mile delivery driver or delivery provider for Amazon. So we don't have to pay to ship in to Amazon. We pay somebody $15 an hour to drive a truck with 12 pallets and they're 20 minutes from our warehouse. So as far as the inbound shipping costs and those expenses, those don't really hurt us too badly.   Bradley Sutton: So that whole, so you ship everything then from your manufacturing to your warehouse and then so that that quote unquote landed cost that ends up being your cost to Amazon as well. Essentially, yeah, how did you even know that that was possible to do?   Ben: Several years ago we were about to stock out of. As you know, we sell a lot of fourth quarter products and kind of joke toy products, and we're about to stock out of one that we sold between 800 to 1000 units a day, which is a fairly substantial issue. So we actually loaded up a cargo van and drove the cargo van to Amazon, talked to us our way through the front gates to deliver it and they took it and so we did that once. Then we did it again and we got through again the third time. They're like no, you can't do this and so like, okay, but somehow we have to be able to do this. So we looked into Carrier Central and figure out how we could become a last mile carotter, which is incredibly easy. It takes about 15 minutes to fill out a form and then you have to show that you can back in and out of a parking spot Incredibly easy. So in that January we bought a truck and the rest is history from there. But it was. It came about because we were about to stock out and panic and we're like well, what's the worst that can happen?   Bradley Sutton: So then theoretically you can also do this service for other people, that you would be the carrier and then other people can just store their product here at warehouse and then you would deliver. But for now you just pretty much do it for yourself. Is there like was there any kind of minimums? Like, hey, you have to have a dock high truck, you have to, it has to be this size, it has to be order, you know, like it has to be at least X number of pallets, or what kind of requirements was it.   Ben: So basically it had to be palletized and it required a dock high truck, and I forget there was. There's a code you have to send them that you get for just having a truck, so it doesn't really matter, you're going to have it anyway. But dock high and palletized products. And what we did was we looked up what the largest truck that we could buy without having to have a CDL was, which in North Carolina, is a 26 foot box truck, and so that holds 12 pallets.   Bradley Sutton: Did you have to have, like a company that's a registered trucking company or something?   Ben: Nope, I actually had a friend who was trying to do this for some of their products because they were just the same issue where they're about to stock out and Amazon wasn't checking them in fast enough. And one of the benefits of what we do is and this is I don't know how long this will stay that way, so I'm probably going to jinx myself by saying it, but our stuff gets checked in faster than anybody else's. So, like this year, we had stuff that we delivered in December that was checked in three days late.   Bradley Sutton: We were able to pick that exact DC to get the stuff into when you're creating your transfer shipments.   Ben: There are a number of softwares that you can use that let you pick and direct where you want it to go to.   Bradley Sutton: But what is that? So that's not something that you can do on your own, just in seller central.   Ben: It. Well, yes and no, it's not something that you can directly do, but typically if you're sending case packs in, they're going to try to send that to the largest distributor center nearest you or distribution center nearest to you. At least that's what we've seen Even before, like when we weren't using a software for it. We're sending about 65 to 70% of our case packs all went to Charlotte, so they're still trying to keep stuff. As far as the case packs that, they're just sending them to the nearest large distribution center. At least that's how it worked out for us.   Bradley Sutton: Now, have you looked into, or do you know yet, how this change to their shipping program is going to affect you, if any at all, with this whole thing where people now have to pay if they're only sending it to one location? I mean, even if that's the case, it's still got to be better. I'm assuming that you'd still choose that.   Ben: Yeah, it'll cost us more now, but it's still better to deliver to ourselves. The bigger issue, honestly, was the minimum stock levels. Because we're able to deliver so quickly and because we know that Amazon is checking in so quickly, we've been able to run very, very, very lean, and that's going to get.   Bradley Sutton: They're going to punish you now, right?   Ben: So now we're going to have to put. Over the last month we've been having to send way more inventory than we ever had before in because we have to meet the minimum stock requirements to not get charged, though I had the fees there, so that's honestly the bigger issue for us.   Bradley Sutton: Have you ever taken a look at in Helium 10, at our inventory heat maps to see what they do with your inventory day by day and then how long it takes them to distribute? Because sure, you can get it checked in, but if everything just sits there in Charlotte for a week and then all of a sudden somebody's in Portland and their buy box says yeah, two weeks delivery date, then that might be conversion issue for certain geographic areas. Are they getting your inventory out to the country pretty fast?   Ben: Usually within two weeks, but it is something where there's definitely some gaps, where we have been not fulfilling the West Coast, for example, is efficiently, as we probably could be.   Bradley Sutton: Now, what about the fact that you're I mean I'm assuming you manufacture your stuff in China, India or where you?   Ben: manufacture it. So we have manufacturing in China, Mexico, India, Canada, the US and I want to say Vietnam as well.   Bradley Sutton: So what about the stuff coming from Asia, the fact that you're not, that you're sending it to you in the middle, not completely in the middle, but is it coming to the East Coast port first, or is it coming to California?   Ben: We send a lot of it through Savannah Georgia.   Bradley Sutton: Yeah, okay, and so, even if it wasn't going to your warehouse, is that where you're routing it? In the old days, if you were going directly to Amazon, it would still go to the East Coast first.   Ben: We always sent directly to our warehouse just for having the flexibility. For a lot of our products there are varying pack sizes and we'll repackage as needed in the warehouse to make sure that we're filling the ones that we need to. So we've always sent it to ourselves first For that reason. Then also just from a flexibility standpoint as far as inventory management, where if you send it from China you're basically going to have to send in 90 to 120 days to make sure that you're covered or just have constant orders going. If we send it to our warehouse first, we can keep the Amazon fees lower for storage by storing it. For what amounts to about? I think last time we calculated it we're paying like $6.50 a pallet or $7 a pallet, something like that, to store it at our warehouse. So the amount of money that we're saving off of the Amazon fees by storing it to ourselves and then sending in smaller shipments versus sending in the bulk ones that a lot of people do.   Bradley Sutton: All right, makes sense. Yeah, I was worried a little bit at least. Like, wait a minute, you know like some of your savings might be gone if you're still having a bring things into the port and like California. And then you got to ship it all the way Right, stick it on trains or trucks to go all the way to North Carolina. But the fact that it's coming into already on the East Coast, that doesn't make it too bad. Okay, so that's pretty cool.   Ben: Honestly, that's one of the things that we're looking into for 2024 is seeing if we want to find a 3PL out on the West Coast so we can send some inventory there for the heat map issues that you were bringing up, where we can send stuff to the West Coast DCs from there and then keep doing everything else from Charlotte so that we can make sure that we're covering the country. And also, if there's a way to bring stuff in and have it on the West Coast already, then it just makes things easier.   Bradley Sutton: Now what other you know? We've been talking about Amazon USA. What other Amazon marketplaces are you selling on worldwide? And what about other domestic here in the USA marketplaces like Walmart, tik Tok, etc.   Ben: Honestly, we haven't pushed that hard on the non-domestic Amazon sites just because our logic has kind of been well, the US is the largest market. If we're able to successfully sell something here, we're going to be more successful than selling something in another market. So we would rather come up with a new product to sell in the US versus taking the time and energy to push externally. But that is something that started to change over the last year. We are in Canada, we're in the UK and we're going to expand through Europe over the next year as far as Amazon, and then we have our own Shopify sites for all of our brands, and then we do a good bit through Walmart as well.   Bradley Sutton: What's your strategy, like you know, going into 2024, now that margins are decreasing, I mean, are you raising? Are you planning to raise prices? Have you raised prices? Trying to cut costs in unique ways? Pull back on advertising? How does somebody you know, because it's not like you know, this is just something that you're facing, like we talked about earlier. A lot of people are facing it, and some worse. Why do you think, other than the shipping thing, you haven't been hit as hard as others. And what's the plan to you know? It's not like costs are going to go down anytime soon. So how are you going to? You know, stay above water.   Ben: Yeah Well, I mean, one of the things is, before we started the podcast, you and I were discussing how you were just in China and like going and meeting with your manufacturers and actually having those conversations, you can get better rates, you can get better terms, you can get a lot of benefits. You can also see what they can and can't do and find a lot of products that you can make with the same manufacturer. And the more things you buy from one manufacturer, the better rates you're going to get on each of those orders. So going directly to your manufacturers and talking to them is a way that you can massively improve your, your costs and also the terms you have. Like, with some of our, some of our manufacturers, we don't pay until 90 days after the products has come to our warehouse.   Bradley Sutton: How long have you been with those manufacturers?   Ben: I like to ask for some Wow yeah.   Bradley Sutton: And have you visited them there in where they're at and got out to meet and stuff like it?   Ben: And met their family, took their kids presents like or we're very close with them. But it's something that you can like you, that's something that you can build. And again, even if it's somebody that you aren't close with, the more that you can, more you buy from them, the more likely they are to give you better rates, better terms etc. So that's one thing. As far as the advertising goes, one of the things we started really pushing over the last probably six months is just kind of figuring out what are where our product deserves to be ranked based off of price, quality, everything else compared to our competition on specific keywords, and adjusting our advertising based off of that. So if we look and we say like, okay, we're really the fourth best product on this keyword, we're not going to push heavily for our with our advertising to try and get to the number one spot, because eventually we're just going to drop back down to the number four or we're going to have to keep spending a ton of money. So we've adjusted our ad spend to match where we feel like we should be on that keyword and if we drop below that then we'll raise it. But if we're there we'll leave it basically where it is, and that's actually significantly improved our profitability, because we're not spending as much to rank up on something that we won't stick. Because you're not going to stick at the top, then why are you trying to get there? It's not going to, you're just wasting money.   Bradley Sutton: So are you like you know? Obviously, like you said, you know, price is an easy, easy one to know. If you quote unquote deserve to be there. You're looking at, like conversion rates by keyword and search, career performance or things like that, or what are some other factors other than just strictly price?   Ben: Yeah. So we'll buy every single product and bring it to our warehouse and do comparison tests so we'll look and see like okay, this one, like, let's say, we're selling a paper plate we can see like, okay, if we put sauce on this for an hour, it leaks through Ours doesn't. So for the sauce we rank better than them, or the size that it takes or the amount of weight they can hold. It can hold as far as food, things like that, where you're just testing to see the quality of your product versus theirs. So it's not just the quality of the listing and conversion, it's also the quality of what you're actually offering to the customer.   Bradley Sutton: That's interesting. I've never heard of somebody doing that. Where it's like at the keyword level, how do we stack up so that we deserve you know to. You know like, like a product could do really well, like in that situation, for like a keyword like heavy duty plates, or you know big meals or some, or for you know watery foods or something like that, whereas maybe another one would be, you know, floral looking plates, where it's more aesthetic and you could rank or you could rate, I should say, differently for each keyword.   Ben: Exactly and it also helps you figure out which way you want to direct your, the copy and photos and everything that you're putting out for the listing, as you see like, because I mean, everybody is doing competitor research before to figure out, okay, how can I say that I'm better than this one? But if you don't keep doing that throughout it, you're going to get passed off. But also, if you look at it on a keyword level, like we're doing, you're able to save a lot of money on advertising by not bidding on things you shouldn't.   Bradley Sutton: Now, speaking of listing optimization, you know that was one thing that we focused on the last episode I remember. You know you talked about. You've got some listings that are 100% puns and a different, you know, and that helps with your conversion and stickiness of customers. What are you like? Are you guys using AI? That's something that's just kind of blown up, probably since the last time we talked. What other listing optimization strategies you're doing in the last year?   Ben: Yeah, and, like you said, ai is massive. I mean the ability to identify a customer avatar immediately, to put the reviews in and pull whatever, extract whatever data you need to from it with like quickly, efficiently, and to have essentially a professional copywriter write your listings for you. One of the things that I enjoy doing, which has led to some good results and some terrible results is to pick like a few famous copywriters or famous advertisers that I find interesting and then have them have a conversation about the product. So if you say, like these four people discuss paper plates and why someone would buy them, and then they go through and the AI talks like those people and has a conversation, and you can see people who are way smarter than me discussing how they would sell it, why they would sell or what they think people would be directly interested in and how they would position it, and so I like doing that. Also for coming up with brand names If you have like the top branders in the world, you can just say have these people discuss what my brand should be if I'm selling X product. So kind of expanding outside of just saying write me a bullet point with the including these keywords with 250 characters or less and yada, yada, yada. Trying to like, think outside the box a bit more, to be more unique, because at this point anybody can use AI. It's trying to figure out ways to use it in ways that other people aren't yet and especially trying to get add to what the AI is doing, add emotional language to it, because AI is okay at emotional, but not great. So if you can put something in that appeals directly to the customer while still using the the pitches from the AI, we've had really good success with that.   Bradley Sutton: Now what, if anything is, would you say, is the biggest difference when you're taking one product from Amazon and making a listing on Walmart, Like, have you seen something that definitely works and something that you always have to change because it's completely different on Walmart, or is the general structure always pretty much the same and you're just doing the little things that you know, the little requirements that Walmart has, in order to differentiate it?   0:21:40 - Yeah, I mean we are trying to obviously match what Walmart says, but it just seems like on Walmart you want to be way more direct. Like, keyword stuffing doesn't work as well there. It seems like there, at least for us. It hasn't May for other people. But just being more readable and fluent with the way that we create the listings has led to better results versus just trying to stuff too many keywords into it as we possibly can.   Bradley Sutton: What else are you doing differently Something we haven't talked about in this episode or the last one, I mean, you know to manufacturing in USA and keeping respectable profit margins. Having 70 employees, this is not something that, you know, like any Amazon seller can achieve. There's got to be some more other unique things that have helped you reach this level. What do you think those are?   Ben: Now you're putting me on the spot. I think the you know that I have three main partners that I've worked with from the start and I think one of the things that we've done really well is division of labor and creating the SOPs and the backbone for everything that we need in order to run the business, so that we don't have to be involved in the day to day as much as we used to and had to at the start. So we are able to look into things like Amazon fee changes. Look into things like okay, how can we get to China and improve our costs and fees there. Like having the flexibility by building a powerful team to and like our team is. I mean, I would say our VA's are probably smarter than me, so they're better at the job that I am at this point. So like being able to get to that point where you're able to have the flexibility to scale mentally going forward has been massive and we actually like, from the start, the way that we kind of divided it was, we had one of my partners was focused on incoming products. The other was focused on running the warehouse. My role was mostly building the products on the marketing side, and then we had one person whose role was essentially figuring out how we're going forward. His job has always been to push things forward, to figure out what we need to do and then having him he is very, very good at systems so he'll be able to come in and look at what we've done and see the systems we built and say, no, you all are idiots, change these three things. That's going to be much better.   Ben: So, like, being willing to constantly, always, constantly be improving on what you're doing Is one aspect of it, but also always looking forward. So figuring out, like, how do we dodge whatever the next big thing is and I mean, if you look at the and I know you know Steve Simonson, but like whenever he's talking, he's always talking about, okay, what's happening in China now and how is that going to impact things? A year for now, it's two years, or now five years or now.   Bradley Sutton: So even just looking ahead at stuff like that, where You're able to make decisions that mean that you're not going to be Sure changing yourself in the long run for a bigger game, now, I think something that successful sellers also have to know how to do is when to pull the plug on on products and everybody and this is one of those things that there's not one size fits all, everybody has their own criteria. How do you guys decide what to what to retire as far as the product goes? Is it strictly just you know a profit margin? Is there a certain sales velocity that you need to to maintain? Is it you know? If the reviews dip below a certain you know point, what's your decision-making factors on it?   Ben: Honestly, one of the the biggest things we care about is how annoying it is to deal with. So just just being perfectly honest, because we do have, we do have a very wide catalog at this point Counting our kind of variations. We have over a thousand skews. So when we're looking at things and figuring out what we want to do, if the way, if we're sending it to the warehouse and the warehouse has to touch it four times, even if it's making more money, we may want to cut that faster than something the warehouse doesn't have to touch. So we look into not just the profitability of the product but also the profitability of the product compared to the labor, how labor intensive it is. And Also, if the warehouse people don't like dealing with it, then and we're not making much money on it and why keep dealing? Why keep doing it? So that that is one of the big things. But beyond that it is Almost exclusively profit, profitability. Like I don't really care if I'm selling something a hundred, a hundred units a day, if I'm making $12 a day on it. I would rather sell one thing for $12 and a hundred things on the flip side, what is?   Bradley Sutton: are the triggers where it's like, hey, we need to Launch this product, or we need to launch this you know new thing for this brand, or hey, we need to launch a new variation? Are you guys just? Do you have a department that's just constantly looking at new opportunities per brand, or or you're looking for certain signals in a market? How's that work?   Ben: Yeah. So I mean we do look at every single review that we get and and. So if we see a lot of reviews come against saying I wish this were larger, I wish this were a different color, like the obvious things like that Are things that we that play into it, or we're getting negative feedback saying there are all these issues, then solving the issues is a very easy way to improve on that. But the the other aspects of it are Just. If we look and we see a competitor come in and they're doing something different and it looks better, it's doing better, it's taking sales away from us, then we figure out, okay, how do we beat that? What can we do differently? So a lot of it is competitor and customer driven, as opposed to Keyword or sales velocity driven you know you talked about.   Bradley Sutton: You know you've Use helium 10 for years and your team has what. What is the number one thing you're using helium 10 now for? And if you were to Join our product team for a few days let's say you were to you were to be in charge of our product team what would be on your wish list on, like, how you would add something to helium-10 that we don't have right now. That would make your lives as on the Amazon side, yeah, easier the conversion rate trends for that keyword For each individual product.   Ben: So if you're looking at it, you can see like, okay, this one is selling this number this month a day, but being able to go in and figure out if their conversion rate is moving up and down month over month, as opposed to just sales moving up and down month over month, because I think that the Conversion rate is just getting more and more important and at the keyword level, not just the overall conversion rate, but even at the keyword level.   Bradley Sutton: Yeah, yeah, I'm dead. That's definitely the top of my list as well. You know, once Amazon, you know, make search query performance available in the API, then then that's like yeah, to me that's like a must-have for sure. All right, so now I knew you. You know you were like a nationally ranked tennis player back in a. You still get on the courts every now and then. What were your main hobbies last year of? You know like, hey, you need to get away from the Amazon world and just, you know, enjoy yourself. Yeah, what were you doing?   Ben: So the US National Whitewater Training Center is in Charlotte so I learned how to whitewater kayak so I got a membership there. It's a closed course that they controlled the the flow of the water, so it could be anywhere from a class 1 to a class 5, depending on the day that you're out there with the rappers they're going to be. So that was my kind of fun. It was a 10-minute drive from our warehouse. So go Do some kayaking and then they have Like. On Thursdays they had concerts and stuff so you can go Hang out and be around people.   Bradley Sutton: Now Is that just a local hobby for you, but or or? Now that you know I knew you travel sometimes too, or have you know when you travel? Have you ever gone real like a whitewater kayaking?   Ben: I have once and it's way more terrifying. That's what I was about to say.   Bradley Sutton: That would be a little bit scary if you're just doing a controlled environment one thing, but then to Be out there Okay.   Ben: Yeah, when it's big stuff of a controlled water flow, if you flip over it's like, okay, I can handle this. If it's not controlled, we're the rocks. I don't know what's happening. I'm about to die, so that's not quite as good. But one of the things I've tried to do Well traveling is trying to try and go fishing Everywhere I go.   Bradley Sutton: What were some of your cool places you've been to in 2023?   Ben: Yeah, so I went to Fiji for the first time, Wow did you stay in over water like a over? Sadly, no, that was. I was not on an island that was conducive to that, so I'll have to. They'll have to be added to my next trip.   Bradley Sutton: That's on my bucket list, fiji I've never been there.   Ben: Yeah, it's, it's a beautiful place. I went to Estonia To the ambition event there, which I'd never, never been to Really Eastern Europe before, so that was a lot of fun to get to go and meet a lot of the sellers there and get to explore An area in a culture that I'd never gotten to experience. So I always enjoy getting to do stuff like that. Try to think of one more. I started in Greece in college and I got to go back there this year, so I'm going to go back and see what I saw in college and appreciated a bit more as an adult, from a historical perspective. Yeah, as opposed to the 21 year old kid who's just like if alcohol here, I need all of it.   Bradley Sutton: Yes, your priorities are a little bit different at that age, I think it's like getting to go on an adult trip there was.   Ben: It was a nice change.   Bradley Sutton: You know, before we get into your final strategy of the day, if people wanted to reach you or find you on the interwebs, how can they find you out there?   Ben: Facebook is probably the easiest. It's just Benjamin Weber and I think I don't have a picture of myself there. I think it's a picture of the Frank Lloyd Wright falling waters house. So if you, if you see a Benjamin Weber with a house, that's probably me.   Bradley Sutton: Now we're at the stage where we asked for your 30 or 60 second tip. You already gave us a doozy, you know, with that, looking at the how you rank at the keyword level as far as how you deserve to rank. So do you have another one for us?   Ben: I mean, obviously everybody's talking about AI now, but using that within your product development to expand on what you're doing. So one of the things that we used to do with our Entire staff was, every day, as a kind of learning, mental strength, mental training exercise Say what are 10 things that you would pay $50 to never have to deal with again. Then we look to see if we can make products out of those, and so we had this massive list of Thousands of these. Now we do that with AI. So we're going into AI and saying what are problems like, let's say you're in the kitchen category. You would say what are 1020, however many things you want to say things that people would pay 30 dollar, 10, what are 10 problems that people would pay $30 to solve In the kitchen, so they don't have to deal with that every time they're doing it and then see what results come back from that and look at the products that come from it. So it's a way to get essentially consumer research via questions with AI, versus having to go in and look things up. So just using the, the AI as a creativity exercise can be Incredibly huge for coming up with new product ideas, and that's where the last, like seven products that we've made have come from us Just typing questions like that into AI, and there are things that no one is selling on the market right now.   Bradley Sutton: All right. Well, ben, thank you so much for joining us Again. You've definitely given us some insightful tips and you've got some very unique things that nobody else is doing, you know, like being your own Amazon last mile carrier, and everything is less, less great, and so I'll love to see what you do in 2024, and then we'll bring you back in 2025 and see how things are going.   Ben: It sounds good. Thanks for having me.

Navigating the unpredictable rapids of Amazon and Walmart marketplace selling, we had the pleasure of being joined by Lesley, a maestro with a flair for reviving online seller accounts from the depths of suspension. In our conversation, we uncover the labyrinth of issues that can snag unsuspecting sellers, from the snares set by underhanded competitors to the resurgence of 'inauthentic' item flags. Lesley, drawing on her rich tapestry of experience that spans from journalism to digital marketplaces, guides us through the complexities of maintaining a pristine account on platforms like Amazon and Walmart, while also sharing her own transition from traditional business consulting to the fast-paced e-commerce arena. The episode takes a turn into the shadowy alleys of the online marketplace, exposing the black hat tactics of less scrupulous sellers who resort to fraudulent reviews and other deceptive maneuvers to gain an edge. Stories of sabotage and extortion unfold, revealing the lengths to which some will go to undermine their competition and the sophisticated strategies Amazon employs to counter these threats. Lesley's insights prove invaluable for those looking to safeguard their ventures in this cutthroat environment, ensuring your business not only survives but thrives among the giants of the digital retail world.   In episode 528 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Lesley discuss: 00:00 - Strategies for Amazon Account Reinstatement & Protection 05:00 - Common Suspensions and Appeals on Walmart  07:59 - Amazon KDP Issues and IP Theft  11:10 - Amazon Account Suspensions and Prevention Tips 17:18 - More On Account Suspensions on Amazon 23:25 - Amazon TOS Compliance, Fraud, Extortion, and Black Hat Tactics 23:45 - Fake Orders and Amazon Locker Strategy  34:20 - Lesley's New Book And The Importance of SOPs in Business

Listen in as Gefen from Vendocommerce joins us in this month’s TACoS Tuesday episode to share expert insights on the evolving landscape of Amazon PPC advertising. We're unwrapping the tactics that have driven success in 2023 and looking ahead to what 2024 holds, with a keen eye on the emerging trend of vertical video ads. Discover how an integrated approach to advertising, factoring in the halo effect on overall sales and product rankings, can amplify your brand's presence during crucial retail events. We also delve into how to use Helium 10 to easily optimize and track these strategies for superior performance in the year to come. In our conversation, we compare the accessibility of Sponsored TV with the robust control offered by Amazon DSP, especially for smaller brands looking to maximize their advertising efforts. Learn why testing and patience are critical when navigating these platforms, and understand the strategic organization of sponsored product campaigns to optimize ad groupings. Plus, Gefen imparts valuable advice on marketing products with different attributes and the potential pitfalls of violating terms of service when it comes to product hang tags on Amazon and Walmart. Tune in for an enlightening discussion that could reshape your approach to Amazon advertising. In episode 527 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Carrie and Gefen discuss: 00:00 - Amazon Advertising in 2023 and 2024 03:10 - Vertical Video Ads Trend 09:29 - E-Commerce Behavior on TikTok Shop and Amazon  13:13 - Amazon's Sponsored TV and Publisher Ads 14:25 - Comparing Sponsored TV and Self-Serve DSP 16:51 - TikTok and Amazon Trust and Fulfillment 19:19 - Amazon Advertising and Product Attributes 20:46 - Optimizing Advertising Creatives on Amazon 30:10 - Helium 10 Tool 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 Carrie Miller: Sponsored TV ads. What worked for ads in 2023 on Amazon and what to look forward to in 2024 with Amazon ads. This and so much more on today's episode of the Serious Sellers podcast.   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   Carrie Miller: Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers podcast by Helium 10. My name is Carrie Miller and I will be your host, and this is our TACoS Tuesday, where we talk about all things Amazon advertising, and we have an expert guest today. So this is Geffen from Vendo. So welcome, Geffen.   Gefen: Hey, Carrie, it's a pleasure to be here.   Carrie Miller: Thanks so much for joining us today. I'm very excited to have you on. I know you've been on here before and a lot of people really liked your episode, so we have some more good content for everyone today. And so for those of you, for those of the people in the audience that don't know you or know about Vendo, could you tell us a little bit about yourself and your experience, and then also about Vendo?   Gefen: Yeah, 100%. So I'm the VP of advertising here at Vendo. So just a background on what Vendo, who and what Vendo is. So we are a full service e-commerce agency specializing in Amazon and Walmart, full service management From an advertising perspective. We have kind of brought in those services across Amazon and Walmart also to bring in things like programmatic, various retail media networks, as well as other marketplaces too, and so those have been incredibly, incredibly growth focused. I mean, 2023 was a very crazy year. The team did an incredible job from a strategic standpoint, from a number standpoint, to grow across the board and when it comes to PPC, as most of the people I hope know, on this call, a lot of those different strategies rhyme. So we've been able to replicate the immense success that we've had on Amazon. We brought it over to Walmart and then we brought that over towards the various retail media networks, as well as things like Page Search and Social with Google, facebook, tiktok, etc. Amazing.   Carrie Miller: Yeah, so you guys are into everything. That's awesome. So I guess, since you were talking about 2023, what are some things that you think worked really really well Specifically in 2023 that you might carry into 2024? And then maybe some new things on the horizon because of just the changing landscape and things that Amazon is introducing right now.   Gefen: Yeah, yeah. Well, I'll start with the second half of that question, because I think that vertical video is going to be a really big push for Amazon this year. I know that everybody's talking about that in the space. I'm very curious to see how it's going to be rolled out. I mean, if you think about it from a practical standpoint, it's going to take up more page real estate than the, than the former video format. Now they might have both horizontal and vertical in play. We also don't know where on the search engine results page it's going to show up. Is it going to show up on row four, which would be row four, five, six on mobile, potentially even row seven, depending on how, you know, zoomed in your screen is, or is it going to be at the bottom of the page? And I think those are big questions because that's going to place a big emphasis on where you're ranking. And so I think that that leads into the first part of your question, which is something that worked really well for us, because we don't look at ads in a vacuum, right?   Gefen: So you know, ACoS is great, but obviously this is TACoS Tuesday and taco of your sales, yes, and so when we're looking at total sales, something that we brought in and I know it's a little vague, but we really looked at the halo impact of ad strategies and how they impacted ranking, ranking and total sales, right. And so when we focused our ad strategy maybe on a cost per customer acquisition model, maybe on a taco's model, and we look to really prioritize, hey, where are we showing up, right? So if, if we're driving all this traffic and we have a 20% conversion rate, let's say, on this keyword, are we tracking, using a Helium 10? Of course, are we tracking that ranking properly? To say, hey, we started running these ads aggressively on August 1st and if we've been tracking ranking on that keyword for the last two months since going aggressive on that term, where are we ranking now and how has it changed?   Gefen: And are there broader KPIs that we're measuring outside of just direct ad revenue? And that worked really well for us because we centered that around 10 poll events and this is a really big strategy of ours. That is incredibly complex, it takes a whole village to actually execute. But when we, when we focus our customer acquisition and ranking models around major times in the year so think Prime Day, think fall Prime Day, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Holiday, and then, of course, if you're a one off brand, if you I don't know are ski related, then obviously your season is January to March. You know like there are differences, but really peak seasons. If you're able to focus your growth model around the times that are going to give you the most reward, then that worked really well for us last year and we expect to see a lot more of that this year, especially as we all expect people are going to be more deal oriented, the constant battle for margins. So the better ranks you are, the more organic sales you drive, the better your TACoS is.   Carrie Miller: Yeah, so are you. Are you also maybe sending a lot of outside traffic for that ranking as well, or just utilizing? Can you tell us a little bit about that and what your strategy is there? That kind of goes in with what you were just talking about?   Gefen: Yeah, absolutely so. One of the verticals that I oversee is paid search and social, and so that's going to be met in Google primarily. There's Pinterest, there's Reddit, there's now TikTok. That can drive back to Amazon as well. I think there's two buckets. I think you have the always on external strategy right, which is the constant drip of, say, a Facebook campaign that's driving, whatever the budget is $200 a day, $150 a day, whatever it is back to Amazon. We all know that Amazon is going to reward external conversion a little bit more. Also, the Amazon attribution program gives you a bit of a boost with getting up to 10% back usually around 5% to 7%, but up to 10% back on each sale, which is nice. And then you also get a boost in your actual ranking. The influencer programs that we've run specifically for 10 poll events again, to go back to that first point, those are the ones that have really kind of set themselves apart or set those brands apart, the ones that are willing to have very strategic and targeted strategies towards high return on investment periods. And so you have the always on, which is great, that is a constant, and we run that for many brands. And then we have a few brands, usually on the larger side, that are willing to invest some serious cash into some of the of Amazon programs that are just going to drive as much traffic as possible. Those are the ones that see big gains, and it's not necessarily that you have to hit a home run with one TikTok influencer. You can have 10, you can have 20, you can have 30 micro. That actually get you the same result potentially for cheaper. But you have less risk with putting all of your eggs into one basket, and so that external traffic has been really helpful.   Carrie Miller: Yeah, I actually know some people in our elite group said that their ranking just organically just shot up just from their TikTok stuff that they were doing. They were focusing on certain keywords in their title and they just all the traffic from TikTok was really bad, yeah, and now there's actually a TikTok shop, so that's actually going to compete with Amazon.   Gefen: We've actually launched multiple brands on TikTok shop. We're seeing phenomenal success with those. It doesn't necessarily directly translate to Amazon sales, but what we always say at Vendo and it's the approach we've taken that has been very successful for all of our brands is you can't separate your customers anymore, right, you can say that an Amazon customer is in its own bucket and they're never going to be a DTC customer, and vice versa. Yeah, every customer everywhere you're exposed is a form of advertising and you can't force a customer to buy in a certain place. So if you're available on TikTok shop and that's where they find you, maybe next time they're going to buy an Amazon, right? Or maybe they're going to buy your DTC. As long as you're looking at the business holistically and Amazon is a piece of that pie, or TikTok is a piece of that pie, then, and your business is growing, then you know that your efforts are pushing the whole business up.   Carrie Miller: Yeah, I was saying that I think that a lot of people aren't necessarily comfortable yet purchasing on TikTok, so I think that's why a lot of people are just going to Amazon. They might be like, oh, I saw this on TikTok, but maybe it'll change eventually, because I think we're still seeing quite a bit of traffic on Amazon, even though TikTok is like not wanting anyone to do that. Have you seen that same thing?   Gefen: Yeah, I can't remember what the exact term was. It was like I saw this on TikTok, or I found this on TikTok, or seen on TikTok, or something like that.   Carrie Miller: Yeah, TikTok.   Gefen: whatever the thing is, TikTok is game here, yeah it was one of the largest search terms a few months ago. And so, to your point, 100% right, yeah. And that is actually, I think, more proof to my previous point, which is, wherever they're seeing things, they're coming to other places, to their comfortable place to buy. And so if they're coming there and from an advertising perspective, we're showing up where we need to show up, then we're in a good place, right yeah, because then we're going to get that conversion and that you just you spent elsewhere. Maybe your customer acquisition was slightly higher, but you drove that conversion.   Carrie Miller: Yeah.   Gefen: And, at the end of the day, if you have a good product and your customers are loyal, then it's going to pay off in not even the long term.   Carrie Miller: Do you see that a lot, because I know you do a lot of DSP too. Do you see that a lot with DSP, where you're kind of putting a lot into Amazon and maybe you don't necessarily see the exact conversion on Amazon, but then all of a sudden their website goes way up or kind of other platforms.   Gefen: So a couple of points to that. So, when it comes to programmatic, there is there is native programmatic on Amazon, right so. And then there's also non-native programmatic, right, so we can use something like the trade desk that can kind of target any programmatic targeting across the entire internet. Basically, the latter, yes, right, so the latter we do see that kind of um, that kind of halo impact across either website, and you can, you can also measure that right. You can put in a pixel and you can actually, so you can also put in a pixel on the, on the um, on the Amazon DSP as well. So you can put a pixel on your website for Amazon DSP and even though traffic isn't necessarily driving to your website, it will still pick up if there are sales on your website or, at the very least, visits from that same campaign. And so the interconnectedness of this world is growing, where the advertising synergies are becoming a lot more um, a lot more intentional, and so you have to have the pixels on your DTC site, right. You have to be launching on TikTok, you have to be on Amazon, on Walmart, because if you're not measuring that, then you won't know if, if your sales are lifting across the board. And if they are lifting, then you don't know where you can take spend. Maybe you're bloated in one area and two lean in another and you can put those and so, uh, to your question, 100%. Um, we do see the halo impact from DSP with Amazon DSP specifically. I will say the biggest halo impact is actually in the performance of the PPC ads. Um, we usually tend to see, especially on our mid, mid to large size brands, um, when we launched DSP for them, their PPC ads tend to pick up in specifically in performance. So their, their ACOS tends to go down. Um, and that's probably because Amazon, as we all know, is a, uh, is a pay to pay platform, so they're just rewarding you with being further entrenched in their ecosystem.   Carrie Miller: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I did have actually another question, um, kind of about just some newer things that are going on with Amazon. Have you started the using the, the TV ads and then also just the sponsored um ads that go to uh like things like Buzzfeed and um, I forgot what the it's called, I think it's uh Sponsored Product Ads but they go to publishers. Have you started using those?   Gefen: So yeah, Sponsored TV.   Carrie Miller: And then also they're sponsored ads that go to like Buzzfeed or yeah, yeah.   Gefen: So two points. So, first off, Bradley’s point. We actually don't use Paki for Amazon. We uh use them for Walmart. Uh, we actually use software for Amazon, besides Helium 10, of course. But as far as management software goes, uh, it's, it's all manual, um, um, but, and we can talk, we can have a whole 10 podcasts just on that. Yes, there's a ton there, but as it pertains to sponsor TV, so that's something that Amazon launched at uh, unboxed this past year, um, and the goal is to create similar to how sponsored display is like DSP light, sponsored TV is like STV or CTV light, right, so they want to bring the, the, the TV portion of programmatic, into a self-serve area. There's pros and cons. The pro is that there's no minimum, there's no barrier to entry. You can throw up a video and it gets blasted out towards a bunch of different publishers at a um at a uh, fairly, fairly decent rate. It's a little bit more expensive, obviously, because you're not able to put your max CPMs or anything like that. At the same time, you have no control. So, similar to sponsor display, um, you know, if you work with and uh with an um, with an agency like Vendo, uh, we don't have any minimums on our uh, on our uh, on our DSP self-serve seat, so we're able to uh to say, hey, you know, if you want to spend a thousand or 2000 or 3000, you can, you don't have to spend 20.   Gefen: Um, and so my recommendation is, if you're a very small brand, you're starting out, definitely test out sponsored TV. Don't expect because they're usually non-engageable, or or, if they are engageable, um, the really the primary KPI and what they're optimized for internally is views. Um then, don't expect a strong row as treat that as a top of funnel approach. Yeah, at the same time, if you do have a little bit more budget and you want some more control, go into self-serve DSP. You're just going to get more. You can choose what your destinations are, what your publishers are, you can choose your audiences, you can choose your retargeting. You can't in sponsored TV too, but there's just a lot more control and so, similar to sponsored display, it's a great launching pad. But I wouldn't say, hey, if you're going to take 10 grand and throw it into there, take 10 grand and throw it in the DSP, you're going to see better results.   Carrie Miller: Yeah, that's very good advice for everyone, as far as the DSP, Very good advice for everyone, especially for smaller brands, Cause usually it's all you know, it's harder because a lot of people are focused on big brands with kind of strategies and smaller brands is like I don't know if it's time to do even DSP or the sponsored TV. So that's good advice about the TV and there is no real, like right time.   Gefen: I would just say hey, if you have some budget, if your ads are performing well, test it out.   Bradley Sutton: You know, we test as much as we can, I mean if it works, amazing.   Gefen: You know. If it doesn't, then we know it doesn't and maybe we'll test it out later on. But we can put that budget immediately into other areas.   Carrie Miller: How long do you usually test it for DSP? Two or three months or?   Gefen: Technically, DSP is a 14 day window before it's actually giving you proper data and usually DSP you'll know within a month.   Carrie Miller: Okay, that's good to know too. Okay, so then we have Chris Shipperling said to your point about trust people also want to see the product ASAP and Amazon owns product operations. I bought a product from TikTok which is from Shipbob. I'll say no more as a customer.   Gefen: Yes, you can technically fulfill with Amazon for TikTok shop. I don't have too many details on that, but I know it's possible. I don't know how much of that is being conveyed to the customer, and so that's a great point about trust from the. From the customer standpoint as a seller, it doesn't really take much more. I don't know the fees, I don't know what it kind of entails, but I know that I've heard that is possible.   Carrie Miller: I it is possible and that's definitely a better. You basically connected to your Shopify site and then use the fulfillment by Amazon. But I I did purchase something on TikTok and it was literally shipped all the way from China. So I didn't know that was happening when I bought it. So that is kind of the that's going to kind of ruin some trust, I think, with people. So something to think about moving forward.   Gefen: If you even talk about Temu here either, because that's a different ballgame.   Carrie Miller: Yeah, that's another one. All right, and let's see, Chris Shipperling has something else. He says, which, which is why you always KPI individual platform metrics, but blended CAC is so important when you do have several activities running to drive traffic and conversion. Completely agree with what you were saying, so yeah, 100%.   Gefen: We use a cat model for a ton of our brands. We track new to brand customers on Amazon very closely new and repeat as well, and we have we have a lifetime value graphs that we track over multiple years to see what the actual return is for our clients.   Carrie Miller: Amazing, that's awesome. Okay, so, Michael, would love to hear your thoughts on how to organize Hold on sponsored product campaigns. Thank you, you lost your audio there multiple skews in a category, independent skews, not variant ASINs that share many keywords. When is it better to combine ASINs into an ad group and let Amazon pick the best for separating each SKU into its own ad group or campaign?   Gefen: Thanks, it's a phenomenal question and this is where you're going to hear the variation in answers. You're going to hear shows that advertising still, to an extent, is a good amount of art versus science, because there are different opinions and I manage my own brands for Vendo as well, and I've actually done both in terms of separating out and then keeping them together. So a couple of different things. Number one there are always differing what's the word differing attributes to a product, right, whether it's a count, whether it's a size, whether it's a color, at the very least you can separate out by that. So, for instance, if you have TVs, right, you might have a smart TV. Right, so let's. But you could have a 45 inch, a 55 inch and a 65 inch smart TV. So, right off the bat, you can look at the search volume. For what is a 65 inch TV bring in in terms of search volume? Okay, that's, that's a separate campaign, right, 55 inch, separate campaign.   Gefen: And then to your question, my recommendation and best practice is you can never rank and and equally grow all of your products, right, you have to have a hero item or a hero couple of items. So, for instance, let's say you go back to these TVs. You've got, I don't know, 10 sizes, 354555, whatever it is. Some of those are going to be best sellers, right? More people search for 55 inch and 65 inch versus 24 inch, so you know that those are the ones that have the highest potential and those are the ones that you're going to want to rank. So you might as well take those, and maybe take three of them, and put them into their own hero term campaign, so smart TV, tv, etc. And then that way you're focusing the majority of your ranking spend on the highest search volume terms towards the few that are actually going to generate that sales and performance.   Gefen: And even within that, I mean usually think about it. I mean, how many brands do you see that have three products ranked on the top row? Right, it's usually one. And so at the end of the day, we are going to try and diversify our sales as much as possible, but at the same time, one product is going to win out. And so to the last part of your question, when it's better to combine a since into an ad group on Amazon, pick the best when it comes to your hero items. Let's say you've got three and that whole product line the three best selling colors, three best selling sizes, whatever it is, put those into their own ad group and then Amazon can choose. If you're again going back to smart TV, it's like, okay, someone's typing in smart TV, Amazon's going to eventually know whether or not someone typing in smart TV is more likely to buy 55 inch or 65 inch. And you'll be able to see the conversion rate, you'll be able to see the performance and you can say that's good, that's not good, etc.   Carrie Miller: We'll go into kind of ad creatives like videos and stuff. How do you optimize those? Are you doing a lot of tests and split testing? What is your process for creatives And so when it comes to the best. ?   Gefen: So, again, we have five ad verticals. Every vertical requires different size creatives. So we have a phenomenal team working on our creatives that can really customize to whatever it is that we want or need. A Facebook creative is going to be different from a DSP creative. It's going to be different from a, from a credo creative. But to backtrack for a sec, specifically on Amazon, specifically for something like sponsored brands because you're sponsored brand lifestyle imagery and sponsored brand video, right, those the two main creatives that you're going to be generating. And I will say, first and foremost well, first of all, by January 31, all of your product collection ads have to have a lifestyle image on them, if not, they're going to be paused. So that's a note to everybody that's selling you need to have a lifestyle image on your product and ads, if not, they're just not going to show up. That's by the end of this month, but I've found, from a video perspective, having a video versus not having a video gets you 80% of the way there. Of course, it needs to look like decent, right, but if you have any form of a decent video made by, made by a graphic designer or software, that's good enough to pass for you to be like okay, I'm fine with that. You're 70 to 80% of the way there. Obviously, that 20% for much larger brands matters.   Gefen: So that's where you bring in different testing, right, and usually that's at the discretion of the brand's creatives, right? We're not a full creative agency. We have creative support, and so what we like to do is we like to take their direction and actually make the asset. So usually they have a marketing team that's going to bring us either static imagery or video imagery, and then we're going to scale that into, let's say, three different videos from that static imagery of just like slideshows or whatever, and then maybe we'll test out those three. Now Amazon's sponsor brand video has different ad groups that you can test out, which is awesome. So you can do like three different ad groups there and whatever ends up working. Basically, from a CVR standpoint conversion rates going to be your primary KPI there Then that's the one that you go with.   Carrie Miller: All right, very good, we actually have something else from the audience. I sell yoga pants. Can I print my website on the product hang tag? Does it follow Amazon and Walmart terms of service?   Gefen: I don't think it does. I don't think that you're allowed to drive any form of traffic to off Amazon. Don't fully quote me. I am not an expert in all of Amazon terms of service. I know the ad portion. But if you were to ask me my two cents, I would say if you're referencing your website anywhere on your product and Amazon catches you, it's probably against TOS.   Carrie Miller: I do actually on mine, have on our packaging our website, because we use the same packaging for all different platforms and I know big brands also have their websites in there and they even have you know things where maybe it's not enforced. Yeah, I don't know if it's enforced as much, but I think it's if you kind of drive traffic to your website or you're kind of contacting people with their info. But it is kind of a gray area there. So yeah, that is a hard one.   Gefen: Yeah, it's tough. I know that on any assets you have on Amazon you can't do that. We've even made videos where, like at the end, like we've just taken a video from their website and put it onto sponsor brand video and it was like at the end, like the last slide was like buyonx.com.   Bradley Sutton: And it got taken down. Yeah, exactly.   Gefen: It just depends. I mean there's a lot of gray area. My guess is that's against TOS. Also to your point, Carrie if a lot of people are doing it, maybe it's not really a police stuff that much.   Carrie Miller: Yeah, I think. I think the kind of differentiator is are you trying to drive traffic away from Amazon, or you know? I think it's also when you think about big brands. I don't think they're all going to change their packaging just for Amazon?   Gefen: I guess that's going to not yeah, yeah, so that's also a good point.   Carrie Miller: It's not really. You know it's when you're like you've got an insert and you're like buy this on my side or you know something like that. That's kind of a difference, whereas if it's just on your packaging, I think it's, it should be fine.   Gefen: Yeah, um, that's actually a good question. So, do do branded campaigns help in the organic rank of your product? It's yes and no. So when you're launching, 100% yes If you're launching a new product line inside your existing product catalog, um to leverage your branded campaigns is huge. Or, excuse me, your branded traffic with branded campaigns is huge because that's how you build your sales velocity quickly. Same time, if you are seeing that you know a majority of your spend is going towards branded um, then I would look at the CPCs and I would say you're probably not um helping out with ranking as much as you could be for non-branded terms. Remember, amazon will rank you based on how you perform on non-branded terms. If you don't drive traffic to non-branded terms, you can't convert against them. If you can't convert, then you can't rank. Yeah, good point.   Carrie Miller: All right. Another question from Douda to Silva how do you harvest search term reports from a main keyword running as phase type, phrase type? That uh generate tons of variations of the main keywords. Those keywords are all different, with one clicks costing me a dollar.   Gefen: Yep, that's some. That's probably arguably the largest source of waste it's been. Um is phrase terminology, phrase terms, phrase keywords that generate one click, $1, no conversion. You have a thousand of them, you spend $1,000 and you didn't get anything as a result. Um, switch it to exact, pause it out and then test out them in like groups of 15 or 20. It's more manual work. It kind of sucks. But if you take the thousand dollars you spent, let's say over a month, and then you um, you take 500 of that, so you save yourself 500 and you put it towards 30 keywords and you test and let's say you generate sales after driving 10 clicks on each, on five of them, and then you use those as ranking campaigns. That's how you're able to scale the business. You're going to spend that money anyway. You might as well go deep rather than shallow, all right. Sounds like he was. He was testing me. He said correct.   Carrie Miller: Hmm, that's. That's an interesting test, all right.   Gefen: I'm glad I passed.   Carrie Miller: Yeah, yeah, you're definitely passing all these little tests here from people. Um, uh, just on a kind of an ending note um, are there any other kind of things you want to leave for people in 2024? Kind of final thoughts of you know what to look forward to, what, what people should be focused on, and uh, and yeah, just any final words of advice search volume trends.   Gefen: We use Helium 10, I mean hourly, but daily, obviously uh to to look at where the search volume trends are in the space. And when I talk about 10 poll planning, when I talk about uh, uh, high, high traffic times, um, it's just the nature of the beast that you are going to perform better at certain times of the year. Um, you need to have a strategy that is able to address low demand and high demand to what you need your business to do, and so the more demand you're tracking, um, the better, uh, you're going to be able to prepare for that. And just a very simple equation or a simple example, excuse me, is um, if you know that last year you did phenomenal in December, um, then take the steps in October and November to make sure you're ready for that. And if that might mean taking or spending less in August and September, if you do have an annualized budget, then make sure you're looking at December in February, so you know that by the time August and September comes, you know what you need to do to prepare for that time of year. And so you, you know, we have, for almost every term, we have four, five, six years of data. At this point. You know what the best times of the year are. Obviously, things change every year, but we do know that, hey, if you're a holiday or a gift brand, prepare for that Right. And if you, if you are a brand some brands don't, but if you are a brand that has a hard dollar budget, make sure you don't get to December and you're out of money.   Carrie Miller: Yeah, that's a good point. Something to point out too about the Helium 10 tools Cerebro. We have um. It has shows trending if of keywords trending up or if it's trending down. So you can constantly check the trends and how much, what percentage, they're trending up and down. But then you can also do historical keyword searches for 24 months in the past. So that'll really really help. You know, you can kind of see year over year in the last two years what happened. But then you can kind of project also moving forward based on kind of the difference there and track it that way. So definitely, you know that's a really good point. Is, you know, kind of projecting out and making sure you plan properly your budget in the right places, very good? Well, thank you so much for joining us on this episode of tACoS Tuesday. If somebody wants to reach out to you, how can they find you?   Gefen: They can find me by my email, geffen at vendor commercecom. Yeah, would be happy to talk anything. Advertising, um, we, like I said before, we run ads. If you can run ads on it, we do. But we take a different approach and that we make sure that we are looking at your business holistically and we're not just spending to spend, we spend to grow and so, um and so, because we spend to grow, we might recommend different strategies and say, hey, you know, even if it hurts us, right, because we take a cut from that, even if it hurts us. Say, hey, you know, you shouldn't spend 100 can meta. Maybe let's look at these different avenues or save that money for later on. We want to make sure that we are going to provide the best service for you guys.   Carrie Miller: That's amazing. Yeah, thanks so much. I love you guys. Want to reach out to Geffen or Vendo? You need somebody to help you with TikTok ads or Facebook or Amazon or Walmart Walmart especially. I get asked all the time about Walmart, and Vendo is definitely one of the uh the top uh players in the game for Walmart.   Gefen: So one of the largest advertisers on Walmart. Um, I think we have one of, if not the most, brands on Walmart advertising and um, we've just seen so much growth there.   Carrie Miller: And so, yeah, thanks again for joining and thank you everyone for your questions and for joining us live, and we will see you again on the next TACoS Tuesday, which will be next month, and we'll have a different guest. But thanks again, Gefen, for joining us.   Gefen: Of course, see you later.  

Have you ever wondered how the savviest Amazon sellers pinpoint products that skyrocket to success? Join us as we navigate the complex landscape of Amazon's seller tools with insights from our expert guest, Yi Zhen from Amazon Singapore, who unpacks the secrets of the Product Opportunity Explorer, Brand Analytics, and more. We tackle the nuts and bolts of metrics that matter—from sponsored ad percentages to the telling average age of selling partners—all to equip you with a map for mastering sales trends and strategic inventory decisions.  Unboxing the art of personalized promotions, this episode reveals how a deep dive into customer loyalty analytics can revolutionize your sales approach. We share real-life tales and tactics for waking up those hibernating buyers and how vital understanding customer lifetime value can be to your growth. From decoding top search terms to smart segmentation targeting, this is an arsenal of strategies you won't want to miss. Lastly, we journey with Helium 10 to find niche markets where the quirky, like coffin-shaped cat trees, become a good product opportunity. Discover how leveraging data from Amazon and Helium 10 can lead to unexpected product triumphs, and why sometimes, the more peculiar the product, the more passionate the customer base. Our candid conversation wraps with a heartfelt thanks to our guest and a teaser of what's on the horizon for Amazon sellers. Tune in to get ahead of the game and keep your finger on the pulse of Amazon market opportunities. In episode 526 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Yi discuss: 00:00 - Analyzing Product Opportunities and Customer Trends 03:51 - Understanding the Product Opportunity Explorer 12:16 - Product Returns and Display Color Analysis 15:43 - Tailored Promotions and Customer Loyalty Analytics 17:19 - Understanding Customer Loyalty Analytics 21:43 - Discover Niche Markets With Helium 10 21:55 - Analyze Product Opportunity With ASINs 29:21 - Analyzing Consumer Behavior for Product Development ► 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: And today we have invited you back onto the show the second half of the episode. I couldn't cut it off because there's just too much amazing stuff that we're going over. So let's go ahead and get you the second part of this interview and let's learn all there is to know about product opportunity Explorer, brand analytics, customer loyalty dashboard. We're going to talk about a whole bunch of cool stuff. Here we go. Did you know that Amazon sometimes loses or damages some of your inventory? Usually they reimburse you for this, but sometimes they might miss things. That's where refund Genie comes in. What Helium 10 refund Genie does is we go check out your reports and see if Amazon owes you any money, and then we give you the reports that you need to submit to Amazon so that you can get your money back. If you haven't run this, you can have hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars that Amazon might owe you, especially if you've never used this before and you sell a lot on Amazon. So to find out more information, go to h10.me forward slash refund Genie. Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the series tellers podcast by Helium 10. I'm your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show. That's a completely BS free, unscripted and unrehearsed organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. What else, so what else we have?   Yi: here. Okay, I will just move on to the other tabs, because each tab will have different interesting insights for us to know.   Bradley Sutton: So this one speaking of insights, I just clicked on insights.   Yi: That's right. So over here you'll be able to know wow, I mean you'll be able to see the different matrix for instance, how many percent of the products are using sponsored product top five products. How many click share are they taking out?   Bradley Sutton: At one glance, you're a good saleswoman, by the way, really Kind of like me. She's like she does this every day, but she's like, wow, like this never ceases to amaze me, Like this is so amazing. That's like you're like me and Helium 10, like look at this Helium 10 thing, guys. Wow. Like oh, my goodness, like I'm speechless. I'm just like, yeah, I love it. I love the genuine. This is a wow thing because this is I'm seeing here the 90% of click, like how many percent of people are using sponsored products? How many percent is prime, you know, and it's like 100% right. But then imagine if you guys found a niche where it's like 50% only are using prime. Wow, that would be a real wow. Right there, exactly.   Yi: Exactly. Yeah, I think the reason why I said wow is because I saw that the percentage of products using sponsored products is above 90%, which is pretty high compared to many other niche I've done research over. Usually, I think the average I've seen so far is between 80 to 90%. This is like 90 to 98%, so it's pretty high. I would say it's really competitive, which is why I guess, when you see in the search term, tap earlier on, the search conversion rate is so low, because I think way too many people are running advertising on this. It might be a bit expensive. Yeah, correct, correct, this might. It's a consideration point.   Bradley Sutton: I'm not sure if you can give this information, but what does it mean here when it says number of successful launches, like what determines successful launch?   Yi: I think actually, if you hover your mouse over the, over the matrix, you actually tell you. It means the number of new launch. It's been in launches in the past 180 years. Wow, it's in there, right there. We've annualized it. Didn't say that before.   Bradley Sutton: Like I was like in the dark. This was like six months ago.   Yi: Since I've looked at this, I didn't even notice that.   Bradley Sutton: Yes, Number of new launches with an annualized revenue amount of over $50,000 in the past 30 days. All right, yes.   Yi: I think we are just being more transparent, especially because many sellers are telling us they don't really understand this matrix. Can you explain this better, this product opportunity explorer? I think throughout the entire year I've seen so much changes and in fact it's for the better, yeah.   Bradley Sutton: All right, cool. So I see this. By the way, for the people not watching this, I see there's columns for today, columns for 90 days ago, 360 days ago. Oh, my goodness, the one thing that tells me to stay far, far away. Not stay far away from this niche, but average selling partner age almost 10 years. So, like these are like experienced sellers in this niche and if you're a brand new seller, you might not want to go against people with 10 years of selling under their belt. So there's another piece of interesting information here. Pretty cool, all right. Next one here is or is there anything else on this page? No, I think we can move on to trends.   Yi: Okay, yeah, I think what helps over in the trends page firstly is to identify the seasonality of the product and also when you should enter to sell. So firstly for this product, as you know, shower curtains typically is something usually people will buy across the year. Right, there shouldn't be much pigs, but from what I see over here I think there's a pig in July. Probably is because of Prime Day. Prime Day yeah probably is because of Prime Day, otherwise it's quite flat throughout. So I think, regardless of where you, when you launch, I think it's fine. But just take note, maybe when you do your inventory planning or when you try to you know purchase your product from manufacturer, maybe before Prime Day you might want to manufacture more, right? So it helps you to do your inventory planning for that.   Bradley Sutton: Also. I'm just looking at this and the number of products goes down. So that could mean one of two things. It could mean that more products are going out of stock, like maybe this people in this niche are not keeping their product in stock come Christmas time and they're running out, or like the stronger listings are getting more powerful because now it takes less products to make up the 90 percent. But either way, there's a clear trend here where, from September where it was about you know 90 products that make up this niche, and then now in November and December it's down to 65. So that's a pretty significant drop there, pretty cool stuff.   Yi: Yeah yeah. There are also many other matrix that you can just toggle into to just quickly see, like how this niche doing. For instance, you can also look at the search conversion rate, but I just quickly see and it's pretty stagnant throughout. In fact, I think it seems like it's increasing towards like slightly.   Bradley Sutton: Oh, I didn't even know that I could hit this button and it shows me the graph history. Man, there's so much new stuff in here. I mean I swear. I looked at this like a few months ago I didn't know I could do all this stuff. Pretty cool, yes.   Yi: Yes, so you can actually see, the search conversion rate seems to be increasing slightly, but yet the product count is decreasing. Maybe it's because, like, more products are stopping to sell or it's going out of stock, like you mentioned. So the remaining products are actually doing much better in terms of like search conversion.   Bradley Sutton: Yeah, yeah, correct, correct Okay.   Yi: Cool, okay. The next one would be purchase drivers. This is actually something new, and I noticed that not many sellers have access to this beta page, so for you that you are able to see this, oh.   Bradley Sutton: I'm special.   Yi: Yeah, you're special, yeah, so over here it's something new that I think it got released in October, so it's really really very recent. It will tell you what are the different features. They are leading to a successful sale or like a purchase by customer Right. So what are the important features I would say in this case? Then you could see the color white or it has to have curtain hook or the team is boho. Typically are the top three positive feature for this shower curtain. So maybe it's something you need to take note of when you come out with different variations for your shower curtain when you want to start selling it.   Bradley Sutton: I'm going to read the little tool tip here where it explains what does positive drivers mean. It says here, because I didn't know, I was like what the heck am I looking at here? It says feature specific to this niche that positively impact the number of units sold by products within it. The impact is calculated by comparing the estimated sales of the products with that feature against the average units sold by all products in the niche. Okay, and then I'm assuming negative just means the opposite.   Yi: It means the opposite here.   Bradley Sutton: Okay, all right, interesting. So this means people do not like the stripe pattern Exactly and they don't like that fabric one because it's not waterproof, I guess Correct, correct.   Yi: So let's say if you can come out with something water resistant. Maybe you have a chance and maybe your advertising may not have to be that expensive. If they are not much similar selections, they are water resistant.   Bradley Sutton: Anything else on this page, or can I go to the next one?   Yi: The next one.   Bradley Sutton: All right, customer review insights. So this is you know. We looked at the review insights based on like an ASIN. This is kind of just like based on the all the products in the niche right.   Yi: Correct. Correct, and I also briefly talk about it for, like the particular ASIN just now, just that what you see over here is on the niche level. So you know, at the aggregated level for shower curtains, what are typical things that are wanted or not wanted by customers, and this is something I would say for you to work on, especially on the negative reviews for you to innovate your product in order to differentiate from existing products that are currently selling. Right, for instance, you see, there might be a seller selling the shower curtain a cloth shower curtain since 2014. But, let's say, if you're able to come out with a water resistant curtain which people like you can even like, win over some of the click share.   Bradley Sutton: Yes, so water resistant is one. I'm looking here and I clicked on the negative and I see a lot of people have issue with the magnet. The magnet is not strong. I know exactly what they're talking about. I bought one of these shower curtain. I don't know if it's this one, but but it doesn't. Yeah, it doesn't. It doesn't work very, very good. Maybe I'm part of this percentage in this niche of these negative mentions here.   Yi: Okay, yeah, yeah, I think people also talk about the thickness of the product. So, yeah, there's something very immediate. In fact, the mentions of thickness is 18%, which is significantly higher compared to the other topics, like magnetic strength, because magnetic strength, even though it's second, it's only 5%. So, in fact, something that you immediately need to work on will be the thickness of the shower curtain.   Bradley Sutton: Yeah, I see that right here.   Yi: Yeah.   Bradley Sutton: Okay, and then here at the bottom it says topic impact on the star rating. So yeah, the thickness is the number one, like everything else. Is that like two? Or point zero, point zero, two, but the thickness at 0.2, so like 10 times as much. So that's a easy way to see what people are complaining about.   Yi: Correct, correct. So I mean looking at the product itself, even though we see like the product might be quite competitive in state in terms of like the sponsored products percentage, in terms of search conversion. But actually there might still be opportunities because people are quite strong about the negative review they are talking about. That means there are products on Amazon.com. They are not able to satisfy people that are complaining about existing product within this niche. So in this case, if you are able to come out with something different, position yourself differently, there might still be opportunities for you to go in. Yeah, even though there are multiple Asians available already.   Bradley Sutton: Yeah, Alright, we're ready to go to the next tab.   Yi: Yeah, the returns.   Bradley Sutton: Let's see, oh return. There's another one of the new ones, because there's beta here.   Yi: Correct, correct. This is something new. I think it was announced in Amazon Accelerate this year, which I think you are quite lucky.   Bradley Sutton: Do you see my shirt on Word today? Look.   Yi: I bet you don't even have this sweater here. I don't have it.   Bradley Sutton: I was a speaker at Amazon Accelerate so I feel special. I got to have an Amazon Accelerate sweater. That's my word.   Yi: Yeah, it's nice, it's nice.   Bradley Sutton: Alright. So I'm looking at this literally my first time looking at this because I haven't looked at this and I see a lot of the same data points here as far as search volume and things like that, at the very top. But if I scroll down here under product returns insights, it gives me the percentage of mentions of certain things like. The number one thing was the display colors. There's that thickness right there, 8%. The material, the value for money. So yeah, that's interesting how people were giving bad reviews for the thickness the most, but as far as why they returned it, it looks like they didn't like the colors.   Yi: They feel like it wasn't accurate, right? I think they mentioned the green didn't look like what it was as advertised. So the product listing images also plays a very important part in this, as well as part of the returns, which is why we always emphasize on coming out with a good listing, as accurate as possible. Give sellers or customers, in fact, even more information to help them make decisions on whether they want this product and help them understand this product, so that you'll reduce possibility of returns. So yeah, in this case, display colors really like a huge issue.   Bradley Sutton: All right, so tons of new stuff here in Product Opportunity Explorer. Now, one thing I kind of referenced was there are some familiar data points with the top clicked and stuff that we might have been used to from years ago in brand analytics, but it is a little bit different brand analytics. So then, how would a seller use Product Opportunity Explorer with Amazon brand analytics?   Yi: Yeah, I would say it's more of how do you use brand analytics together like some initial insights of what you should sell. Then Opportunity Explorer is always a tool for you to look more in-depth into and see how can you further validate the product selection. So I think that I would probably share a few useful cases of how people can use brand analytics in order to shortlist a couple of ideas from there. But just something to note brand analytics is only available for sellers and wrote into brand registry, so, beyond just professional selling account, they need to have an eligible trademark that is enrolled into brand registry to access brand analytics.   Bradley Sutton: Cool, yeah. So Product Opportunity Explorer guys, remember it's available for everybody, but brand analytics is only available to brand registered sellers. So hopefully most of you guys are brand registered and if so, go ahead and click over to brand analytics and there's a whole bunch of new stuff here. Are we going to talk about the CLA? This is the CLA. As soon as I get in brand analytics, it goes directly to the CLA Customer Loyalty Analytics. Oh my goodness, look at all of this new stuff here.   Yi: Yes, yes, this is something that I wanted to introduce, actually, because it's something that's pretty new, also, I think, introduced around in October. So over here, you'll be able to understand what are, like, the demographics of the people that are buying your products. Right Then, from here, actually, what we'll recommend for sellers to do is to tie it up with brand tailored promotions in order to run specific discounts or promotions that will be able to help you to retarget a particular segment that you want to grow further. Yeah, have you tried using brand tailored promotions?   Bradley Sutton: Yes, I have. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yes, like I've done in some of my accounts the abandoned cart and some other different markets here where I was able to get some sales that I probably wouldn't have gotten without that correct. Now this here is looking at one of my. I'm seeing my coffin shelf brand here. I see I have an option of weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly. And wow the hibernating customers what's a hibernating customer?   Yi: Basically people who haven't, I guess, purchased in a long while. So, which is why it's very important for you to look into these analytics before you actually do your brand tailored promotions. Because when brand tailored promotions first launch, sellers always ask us which segment should I target? They don't really know right. But over here, after looking at our analytics, you'll be able to know which segment you have the most customers in, so that you'll be able to re-target them or re-activate that particular segment. For instance, your hibernating customers is 600 plus. Maybe you might want to run a promotion that target sellers or customers that haven't been purchasing your product for a while. Maybe you want to do something special about that.   Bradley Sutton: And there's a button right here that I can do that on the right side. I'm assuming this kind of ties directly to the brand tailored promotions. Right, this create promotion button. Okay, correct.   Yi: In fact, over here, if you go to the top left corner, there is a button where you can click into the segment view. So the thing about customer loyalty analytics ideally it's for sellers that have been selling on Amazon for at least a year, I would say so that there will be sufficient data for you to make decisions on Of course, you need to have enough customers for you to re-target right. In this case, over here under the segment view, you'll be able to see a few metrics, including predictive customer lifetime value, right. So usually, if there's sufficient data, it will roughly tell you what is customer spending this year and what they are predicted to sell, to buy next year as well, for, like your top tier customer. So this is what's very important for you to know, so that maybe you'll be able to Kind of like retarget them, either through promotions or actively through the post that you have, in order to engage with them.   Bradley Sutton: Yeah, yeah, see my repeat customers average repeat purchase interval.   Yi: Very interesting stuff if multiple people are like Purchasing from you, if you're selling like commodities, if maybe you can consider doing subscribe and save, for instance. So it really depends on what segment you have so that you'll be able to leverage on, like the different programs or different promotions that you have, in order to retarget this group of customers.   Bradley Sutton: This wasn't even. Was this even in your presentation in Singapore?   Yi: No, it isn't, yeah, because this wasn't even out a couple months ago. Okay, yeah, that's what I thought.   Bradley Sutton: I know my memory is bad, but I didn't know was that bad? Okay, good, I'm glad. I'm glad it's not that I forgot about it. All right, cool, anything more in the CLA.   Yi: Nothing much to highlight additionally here? Yeah, because after all, is still a very new tool. I guess, at a very start for sellers, when you review this dashboard is to see is to understand more about the Demographics of like customers that are purchasing, how valuable they are. If not, is there are some immediate actions that you can take, for instance, using brand tailored promotions in order to actively engage with them first.   Bradley Sutton: Yeah, yeah, I haven't done that. In a few weeks I might be. I might need to look at my numbers here and run, run some more.   Yi: Yeah, let me know how it works for you.   Bradley Sutton: Oh, what's the next hour? Gonna switch to Marketplace.   Yi: Amazon brand analytics, but I just I'll be talking about maybe three use cases on the different reports that you'll be able to use in order to shortlist the kind of products that you want to Investigate further or explore further using OX.   Bradley Sutton: All right, so that's it for the customer loyalty analytics. What's next? What should I? What should I click on? Yes, you're, you're, I'm the driver and you're the navigator. You got to tell me where to go next.   Yi: Okay, okay, right now We'll still stay in Amazon brand analytics, but the next thing that you need to click on is the top search terms report. I think it's under the Correct.   Bradley Sutton: I see it's under search analytics and go to top search terms correct. All right excellent.   Yi: So over here.   Bradley Sutton: This is the one that I.   Yi: Often use.   Bradley Sutton: I love like three years ago when this came out. This is the greatest thing in the history of mankind, I think yeah, but this is cool, and now it's like kind of crazy because it's like the oldest thing now. Now Everybody's talking about the OX and SQP, but still I think this has some Definitely has some value, yes, yes.   Yi: So over here, what I think is actually useful is let's say, if you don't really know, you know what kind of products that you want to sell, but then, or maybe you already have like an idea of like the keywords of like that item that you want to sell. Maybe, to put it better, in a better way, let's say if you have a rough idea, yeah, if you have a rough idea of what you want to sell by I'm not sure how to Validate the selection or what niche is it in actually right, so you'll be able to use the top search term report I would say keen the keywords in the search bar over there. I'm gonna put coffin because that's my, that's my main.   Bradley Sutton: My main thing here.   Yi: Correct.   Bradley Sutton: And here we go.   Yi: Okay, so over here, immediately, you'll be able to see what I like, for instance, the top click brand and top a, since over here, so immediately, you'll be able to know what are the similar a, since you can benchmark yourself against right. But how do you work backwards in order to find out what are the niche for this product, in order to do more research? Because, after all, within this analytics report, the Data available is still limited to a certain extent. So what I would advise sellers to do over here Is to copy the ASIN. For instance, we can take the top ASIN. Take this coffin show and copy that we can put it back into opportunity, explorer and search for this product Correct. So over here You'll be able to see your target ASIN. So likewise, like what we have did Previously, you'll be able to see, like customer review insights while like the click counts etc for this ASIN. But I think what's more interesting would be if you can go to the previous page, you can click into niche view, which is beside ASIN view, can you see at the left side You'll be able to see which niche this product is Situated in and in fact, for some ASINs. Sometimes it might be present in multiple niche. So over there you'll be able to work. Go backwards then after that to do your research, for on the niche level, yeah.   Bradley Sutton: I see it right here. All right, so for those just listening, you haven't seen what I was in. I took the ace in, put it back to product opportunity explorer and then looked into the ace in view and also the niche view. Now You've been showing me stuff this whole time. Let me show you something you've never seen but that we just launched in Helium 10. This. This you might think is pretty cool. So we took brand analytics now, because this is available in the API, and now we have this kind of like database here Inside of black box and again, just like with brand analytics, you can only get this. You know, Helium 10 is checking your account if you have brand registry, and if you don't have brand registry, we can't show you this information because we always play by Amazon's rules, and which is a Reasonable rule. So let me show you something I literally found today. This was my first time. I think I actually did a video on this and it was a product that I couldn't believe existed. But what I did, let me see if I can remember. I think I did the same thing where I typed in coffin here and, and then I was like, alright, show me a keyword that has, and now it's easy. The cool thing about this is taking like Helium 10 data At the same time as as Amazon data. So I'm like hey, show me something that has at least I think I said 500 search volume where at least two items had greater than 30% Click.   Yi: Share you see like right, this is something you can't.   Bradley Sutton: I mean, you could download this, of course, in In brand analytics and I'm not doing anything new other than the search form. This is all stuff that anybody can just download, but I'm just doing it right here in this dashboard. And then let me I'm not sure if this is the exact thing I typed. Let's just take a look, I'll know when it comes up and I hit apply, there, it is right here. Look at this Cat tree. And I'm like you've got to be kidding me. What the heck is this 3,200 search volume? I, you know, I thought I knew everything about coffins, right, and then so I actually click this again. I got this from brand analytics and then you I know you guys are a lot of you guys can't see what I'm looking at. This is insane, guys. There is these cat trees, oh, and the one that is out of stock. It's out of stock already. There is one that's a hundred and forty dollars and it's sold like 800 units or something. Here's one that's a 100 and it's a hundred and forty dollars. It's crazy. People are buying cat-shaped trees.   Bradley Sutton: Let me see if, if that product is still here, that was number one. Where is it? This one here? It is right here. This is the number one selling one. This is cool, guys. It doesn't show up in Amazon search anymore. That's why I didn't come up, but because it's in Brand Analytics, which is another good thing about Brand Analytics. By the way, I bet you I could find this right here in what we just did. Let me coffin cat. There. It is right here. So, you see, I would have found this even if I was in Brand Analytics. There it is coffin cat tree. But it takes me right to this number one click one, which is now out of stock because it was being bought too much. People were selling this for ridiculous amount of money and they sold almost 1,000 units of this. But I discovered a completely new niche thanks to Brand Analytics and this new Helium 10 tool that incorporates Brand Analytics. So yeah, guys, brand Analytics is still very valuable. You can get some really cool ideas. Do you have any pets?   Yi: cats or dogs or anything I don't have a dog or cat, but my boyfriend do have a Pomeranian.   Bradley Sutton: Okay, now would he make a coffin shaped bed? Like isn't that kind of morbid? Why would you do that for your pet? Like I don't understand pet owners, but guess what guys? There's 1,000 people a month who want a coffin shaped toy or a bed for their cat to sleep in. I worry about those people, but I'll gladly take their $140. $140 is a really, really good price point. I'm quite sure the person's margin must be great, Considering.   Yi: I mean, there are many other sellers selling at much cheaper price, but people still buy the $140. There must be something great about it right, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's great, it's great, but my boyfriend's dog just lies on the towel. That's all we wanted to buy a bed, but it doesn't want it, that's normal.   Bradley Sutton: see, that's normal. Putting it in a coffin shaped towel, that's not normal.   Yi: Oh yeah, okay, anyways, anyways.   Bradley Sutton: So I was. We were in. Let me go back to where we were. We were looking at the search terms. You were talking about the cool use of this. Anything left on this search term page or should I go somewhere else now?   Yi: Now we'll move on to the next one, which is under the brand analytics as well, is the consumer behavior analytics.   Bradley Sutton: Yeah, Okay, do I just click it, or do I click one of these three sub-options here, or you can click into the market but size analysis. Market MBA, so that normally stands for like a master of business something or other, like a degree that I don't have, but here it means market basket analysis. Correct, correct.   Yi: What's useful?   Bradley Sutton: And here's all my products. This is my Project X products. Right here I can see.   Yi: So I think what's useful about this page is, let's say, if you already have an existing product that's already selling, right, you're wondering what kind of product can you extend to sell? What kind of new selections can you introduce? So right over here you'll be able to see what are people commonly buying together with your products and if this is actually something that is relevant, it might be something you want to consider selling as well. Let's say, if you want to brand yourself as, like, a coffin shelf or coffin team seller, maybe you can expand to sell even like those brush holders, et cetera, right?   Bradley Sutton: Yeah, my skull shape. For those who can't see this, I just clicked in the very first one and 4% of people are buying it with a skull makeup brush holder.   Yi: It must be like the person that's buying your coffin bookshelf, just like the coffin team, kind of like products. You know there are people who have like their whole house filled with Hello Kitty, so I'm not surprised there's someone who likes everything coffin related. So maybe this is something or like the brand, that brand positioning you want to go into, or like the team you want to get started with, so you do not need to sell, like you know, different kind of shelves. In fact, you can just go stick to coffin team products. Yeah, that's something that you can consider as well. So that's one way. Then the last way that I would like to just quickly introduce would be under the consumer behavior analytics as well, under demographics. So over here you'll be able to know at one glance who are actually purchasing your products, Like you know, the gender, income, education, the age of the people buying your products. So the way that you want to introduce new product, or like the type of product that you want to introduce to like the this customer segment that you have, it can be fully customized.   Bradley Sutton: There are three people who make $250,000 a year. Who is buying the coffin shelves? All right, so it's not just for cheap people. This is for the high class people they have high class kids. Yeah exactly.   Yi: So if you scroll to the left side, for instance, let me take a look at what is the age demographic? Oh, it's quite well spread out throughout, like 20s to 40s.   Bradley Sutton: Yeah, that's actually surprising, maybe.   Yi: I'll consider them, maybe the office crowd, so you may want to launch something that is favorable for them. Maybe, you know, it can be like the coffin pen holder, which can also be used for the brushes, right? Maybe you can position it as like a pen holder, something like that. So we need to understand who are actually buying your product so that you'll be able to launch products that suit them, right? So this just roughly gives you an idea to help you. You know, have like initial sparks or something to get started with initially. Yeah, so it's at the idea stage. Yeah, so I think, just for the purpose of like product research, I think these are the three common ones that you can start using first. Then maybe next time I can share more.   Bradley Sutton: Yeah, yeah, I mean yeah this is like way more than I have been using lately. I guess you use kind of like the traditional stuff, but now this shows me that I definitely need to be in here a little bit more looking at stuff. All right, so, wow, this was a lot of information. Now, pretty much everything that we went over today is available in those marketplaces and even more, actually, the OX is available in those six, seven marketplaces that she mentioned earlier. You know Europe, USA, Japan Brand Analytics is actually available a lot of the stuff in almost all of the marketplaces. But also, you know, like he works here in the Amazon, Singapore and you do some like you know, if anybody's in your region, you actually have some cool programs. But first of all, let's talk about what is your region? It's not just Singapore. Like, right, like, like what. What countries are you servicing the sellers?   Yi: So we are actually covering Southeast Asian sellers. There are from Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia and Cambodia, so any sellers that are coming from this country. Actually, we do provide free account management support To help them on board and start selling out Amazon.com. So I think many of the sellers May not know that we exist, but I just want to share that we are here beyond just the account management support. We do have many other educational resources available, for instance, seller university Live broadcast webinars so you can watch it anytime. We do have our monthly seller meetup and events yeah, every month, but this is only currently more for Singapore sellers. So if you are a Singapore listener, please drop by for our event and Do let me know. If you want to attend an event or do not know where is the registration page, let me know. We'll let you in. Yeah, so we do have many other pages, like our telegram community groups, as well as Facebook Pages as well, where we do share some practical tips from other existing seller on how to sell better. Yeah, and also we do share updates on like new products or any policy updates, etc. So just stay tuned. We do actually have a lot of different Pages available or have support that we can provide to Southeast Asian seller, so do reach out to us. If you are a new seller within this region, we'll be able to help you and then how can people do that?   Bradley Sutton: How can people reach out like where's what website should they go?   Yi: They can either go to sell.amazon.com.sg to Reach out to us, either through by attending our live webinar or signing up for our seller events. Alternatively, they could also hit us up via our Facebook page, which is the global selling Southeast Asia Facebook group, so they can also Reach out to the marketing team from there. Then they'll reach the seller with account managers like us. Then we'll be able to follow up accordingly to help them launch.   Bradley Sutton: Yeah and, by the way, guys, if anybody has doesn't have Helium 10, actually Amazon Singapore has special discounts that we don't give to anybody else because they help, you know, they help new sellers, you know, come and join. So, like, if you want to discount, like actually you can give you one that's probably better than the discount that I can give. So that's a. So make sure to go through Amazon Singapore, guys. They got the, they've got the hookups. And now I was talking to Anna in In China last week when I was in China and she's arranging the Potential Philippines.   Yi: Amazon conference.   Bradley Sutton: So I'll be hopefully going there and maybe March. There might be a smaller one in February, but I'm gonna probably go to the March. Any chance that you can go, that you can, should I? Should I put in a good word to Anna, like make sure, hey, we need a you over there talking about this?   Yi: kind of stuff, maybe. Maybe if for the March one you might see me there, then I'll bring you around for good food. I do know some nice.   Bradley Sutton: Yes, yes, yes, that's, I am. Um. I've only been to Philippines like four times, but I am half Filipino and I need to. I need to connect more to my roots, but I have a team out there. I'm definitely gonna be trying to go in in the middle of March, whenever this conference is, to look out for more information on there. Well you, thank you so much for joining us, and this has been an amazing year, I think, for Amazon and for brand and little lakes, for search group performance, for product opportunity Explorer. Well, it was great to have you on here. I didn't realize it was gonna last two episodes, but there's just too much good stuff here. So, thank you so much, and then maybe you know, next year or in 2025, we'll definitely want to bring you back, because probably by then there'll be so much new stuff that have been released that will need you to talk to us about it, and then, until then, maybe we'll see you in Philippines, or maybe next year, some in Singapore hope to see you again with to bring you more good stuff so that we can share with all your listeners Next time round.

Imagine unlocking the secrets of Amazon's new cool data tools with the help of an insider. That's precisely what we did in our latest episode as an Amazon Product Opportunity Explorer team member joined us to spill the beans on how sellers can mine Amazon's data for hidden gems. We showed the Black Box tool by Helium 10, marveling at how it works in harmony with Amazon's own treasure trove of information to pinpoint profitable product niches. Our guest Yi Zhen also shared her inspiring climb from intern to account manager at Amazon Singapore. Amazon sellers, get ready to have your minds blown by the power of Amazon's Marketplace Product Guidance and Category Insights tools. We took a stroll through Seller Central's Category Insights and discussed the 'golden data' at your fingertips, data that can guide you to high-demand product categories ripe for the picking. The episode peeled back the curtain on critical sales and search data metrics, providing listeners with a toolkit for making savvy decisions that could propel their Amazon ventures to new heights. Wrapping up with a masterclass in product validation, we outlined how to sift through the noise and hone in on opportunities that not only look good on paper but can actually translate into profits. Our conversation illuminated the strategic use of the Product Opportunity Explorer to validate product choices and identify niches with less competition and higher potential earnings. And for those feeling the pinch of low search conversion rates, we shed light on how these metrics can sharpen your advertising strategies, giving you the edge in a fiercely competitive market. But wait, this episode is so good we had to cut it into two parts! So stay tuned for part 2! In episode 525 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Yi discuss: 00:00 - Leveraging Amazon Data for Product Opportunity 08:51 - Unmet Customer Demands and Category Insights 09:49 - Understanding Category Insights in Seller Central 13:48 - Product Analysis and Seller Considerations 15:32 - Product Positioning and Discovering New Types 17:31 - Exploring Product Opportunities and Niche Selection 25:21 - Using Product Opportunity Explorer for Validation 28:25 - Product Opportunity Exploration and Validation 34:50 - Low Search Conversions and Brand Analytics 35:15 - High Conversion Search Term ► 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 somebody from Amazon who works on the Product Opportunity Explorer team to do a deep dive in how sellers can use this Amazon data to find new product opportunity, and there was so much good stuff in this episode that we actually had to split it into two episodes. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Black Box by Helium 10 houses the largest database of Amazon products and keywords in the world. Outside of Amazon itself, we have over 2 billion products and many millions more keywords from different Amazon marketplaces, from USA to Australia to Germany and more. Use our powerful filters to search through this database for pockets of opportunity that you might want to get into with your first or next product to sell on Amazon. For more information, go to h10.me/blackbox. Don't forget you can save 10% off for life on Helium 10 by using our special code SSP10.   Bradley Sutton: Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers podcast by Helium 10. I'm your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show. That's a completely BS free, unscripted and unrehearsed organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world, and we've got somebody who's helping serious sellers from the other side of the world. I've met her a couple times now when I've spoken at Amazon Singapore events, and I really liked her presentation on some unique things. I'm like hey, I want you to come on to the podcast, be the first person from Amazon Singapore on our podcast. So, Yi Zhen, welcome to the show.   Yi: Thanks Bradley for having me here. When Bradley was at the Seller's Meet this year, he literally just asked me like hey, do you want to come on a podcast with me? So I was like really caught off guard because my presentation was before his right. So I was like maybe, and now I'm here.   Bradley Sutton: I don't take, I don't take, maybe I don't take, maybe I only take yes as the answer. Yeah, when I'm in Japan and Korea for my trip.     Yi: Bradley's like when are we going to have our podcast?   Bradley Sutton: So it's always bothering her on her vacation. Always on my mind. Yep, yep, you know it. You know we're going to talk about that a little bit, but I want to go back. I don't know too much about like your backstory. Were you born and raised in Singapore?   Yi: Yes, born and raised in Singapore like a true blood Singaporean.   Bradley Sutton: Did you go to university also in Singapore?   Yi: Yes, in Singapore, actually, I went to Nan Yang Technological University.   Bradley Sutton: Yeah, then and what did you study there? Business so now I'm helping sellers to run their business. Yeah, and was Amazon your first job out of university or do you work doing other things?   Yi: Actually it is, and in fact I was intern here, so I actually got converted to a full-time account manager, living the dream.   Bradley Sutton: University to intern, to full-time employee, one of the top ones in the product opportunity explorer department. Oh, my goodness, what was your favorite part of your trip? I love travel myself, and you went to the same, exact same countries that I just did recently. What did you like the most?   Yi: Wow, I actually love Mount Fuji the most. It's like so magnificent. Every time you just see it in like the pictures and everything, you're like, oh it's just another mountain. But it just hits different when you're there yourself. And I think I was lucky because I could see the full Mount Fuji. A couple of like our colleagues, you know, like even two so she mentioned that she haven't had a chance to see like the full Mount Fuji before, even though she has been there a few times. So I consider myself quite lucky. And of course, the food there is great, thanks to Bradley's suggestions.   Bradley Sutton: Alright, awesome, awesome. You got to go to some of those places. I love it. Yeah, now are you a Korean drama fan?   Yi: Of course Okay, so that's why on the Korean.   Bradley Sutton: When you went to Korea I saw you and your husband were wearing like the school uniforms when you went to the photo shoots and stuff.   Yi: Yeah, so we actually went to have our wedding photo shoot at one of the abandoned team parks where most of the Korean dramas are filmed there.   Bradley Sutton: Nice Real life Korean drama Alright. Well, we're not here. I mean, I could have a whole episode about Korean drama and travel for sure, I could have two episodes about that, probably but we're here to talk about some cool stuff that you know, like, I think, a lot of our listeners. Of course, they use Helium 10, and what but people don't realize is number one. You can use Helium 10 with a lot of the amazing data that Amazon has given and have even more advantage. Or maybe you're not ready for Helium 10 yet. There's stuff that everybody, including people who don't even have brand registry which, by the way, everybody should have brand registry but even if you don't, for whatever reason, there's some cool information that Amazon has available and this is stuff that you know. Like six years ago, seven years ago, when I was first getting into Amazon, I would have never, ever, ever, ever imagined that Amazon would make this kind of data public and and it's kind of, it's kind of crazy, you know. So I want to make sure that people Kind of like know about this stuff, but before we get into it, I Want you to, I want you to quiz me, okay, all of the and people I'm trying to like see if I have my second camera, but my second camera is not, is not showing here. I want to prove to people I'm not going to cheat. I have nothing actually. Actually, I'm gonna show people my screen right now. Hold on, so this is you know. For those watching this on YouTube, this is my screen.   Bradley Sutton: I'm just looking at you know I'm getting ready for what we're gonna talk about product opportunity Explorer. But I'm not cheating at all. My hands are up here. You test me on the acronyms on a bunch of stuff that we're gonna talk about today. You know the. We'll start with like OX. I know what that is. That's easy opportunity Explore. So we're gonna do that. Let's see, like I'm gonna pause before I answer because I want the people listening see if they know what these these Abbreviations stand for. All right, so OX equals opportunity Explorer.   Yi: Give me another one something that Bradley was just clarifying with me earlier on. So what is MPG?   Bradley Sutton: Yeah, you see, okay, hold on. I'm glad you mentioned that. You see you're in Singapore. Your cars go by kilometers, right? Yeah, yeah so here in America, mpg we go by miles. That means miles per gallon. Okay, well, like well, how much your gas mileage on the car? So that's why I asked you that today. So this one is kind of cheating, because I already asked about that earlier, because I was like what the heck is MPG? Yeah now you're ready for God? No, no, I got it. Mark marketplace product guidance.   Yi: Yes, exactly You're right, You're right.   Bradley Sutton: All right, got it All right. How many of you guys got it right? All right, give me. Give me another one, hit me. I think they're all easier than that one. That was the hardest one. What's another one?   Yi: Have you heard of this thing called the CLA?   Bradley Sutton: Is it not a Mercedes? No, like a kind of Mercedes.   Yi: Nope, I can give you a CLA. It's actually something new under Amazon brand analytics which is an acronym in itself.   Bradley Sutton: Yeah that's a B, a right.   Yi: Yeah, so something new yeah.   Bradley Sutton: Consumer doesn't start with consumer.   Yi: Customer.   Bradley Sutton: Nope, I give up. What is it?   Yi: It's customer loyalty analytics. Yes, that's the new dashboard.   Bradley Sutton: Yes, customer loyalty analytics. All right, what's another one? So now we've done three. We've done OX, we've got a, b, a, we've got CLA. We don't know we've done, for we got MPG.   Yi: What else is out there? Do you know what is SQP?   Bradley Sutton: Yeah, that's an easy one. I had that team from Amazon USA on. Anybody else know who's listening. All right, search query performance. I think that's the one that everybody got. Everybody got right.   Yi: Yeah, I watched the episode.   Bradley Sutton: Oh, you watch that episode. Do you know those people I had on the show?   Yi: To be honest, I haven't really heard of them. Amazon is pretty big, but I know they are the growth consultants right Based in a yes, yes, yeah. Yeah, yeah.   Bradley Sutton: All right, I think that's most, that's most of them, but we'll see if we go over some, some other ones today. So, um, you know I wanted to. I wanted to get into some of these things because, again, you know, even even for me, like I have not done too much the customer, the customer loyalty dashboard, but what I wanted to start talking to you about today was the something else about? I'm not sure if this is the same dashboard, but before we get into it, you know, the first thing we mentioned was OX. You know, which is opportunity Explorer. So what is just the, the, the kind of like elevator pitch. Like us, you have like 30 seconds to a minute to explain to somebody in the elevator what is opportunity Explorer? What would you? How would you describe it?   Yi: Basically, you are able to find out what are the unmet demands of US customers that are buying or searching on Amazon.com and, basically, based on the data that you have, you find new products to introduce and sell on Amazon.com.   Bradley Sutton: All right. Now you say Amazon.com it. I know it's in Amazon.com, that that's the one that I sell and that's where you I use it. How many other marketplaces is it available in outside of Amazon.com?   Yi: They are actually six more. So it's in the five European store, namely United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Japan, and they are trying to roll out to other European stores in your future as well. So just keep a lookout, yeah.   Bradley Sutton: And pretty much any seller with a professional account can access it without Brad, even without brand registry right.   Yi: Yes, exactly, you just need to have a professional selling plan and you can access, like this, golden data From Amazon.   Bradley Sutton: All right, let's talk about the, the one I didn't know too much, which was the category insights. First of all, where in seller central? Which menu is that? Even in?   Yi: I'm trying to find myself actually under growth, then you can hit over.   Bradley Sutton: I'm gonna share my screen for those watching here on YouTube. So I go to growth.   Yi: Then marketplace product guidance.   Bradley Sutton: Marketplace. There's that mpg. All right, there we go. That's the mpg.   Yi: So, in fact, under mpg itself, there are a couple of tools which I think we can talk about it later on, but category insights is just one of it. So I see right here it's at the very top there's a there's a button looks like I have got 30 of them. Okay.   Bradley Sutton: So this is based on Whatever account I'm in, the kind of things that the categories that I'm in, or the order, or I have access to all you have access to all category on a browse note level.   Yi: So in fact you can see already over there you can choose the marketplace available. So in fact it's available. This insights is available for the US, UK, Germany, Japan store, so you can toggle to the other marketplace to view category based insights as well.   Bradley Sutton: What, what it like? What's the benefit of this? What should I be looking at here?   Yi: Yeah, I mean the benefits over here is, let's say you don't really know what kind of category you want to start selling in. You roughly want to shortlist and See what is the demand for the specific browse note as well. You can use that to do your preliminary research. So I would say product research right. So there are a couple of ways you can get started into it. So firstly, let's say if you roughly know, you know what kind of keyword, what kind of product you roughly want to sell. There's a search bar at the top of the item type, keyword Module. You can actually put in your keyword over there. Alternatively, let's say you are a blank piece of paper. You completely do not know where to start, but you just want to see what is like the hottest category in that particular marketplace. We do have a bar that you can see right over there, so that bar length actually signifies the demand in that particular marketplace. So that's how maybe also.   Bradley Sutton: That means in home and kitchen. Curtain is a very popular product type right now.   Yi: Exactly.   Bradley Sutton: Yes.   Yi: So you can narrow down to curtain and it seems like window curtain panels. It's one of, like, the hottest product under this product type. Yes, that's how you can roughly get an idea of when to start with. Then, of course, you can scroll down all the way to the bottom to see many other selection matrix that help you to determine whether this is something that you want to get into before you do additional research, using opportunity explorer.   Bradley Sutton: Yeah and so this is like you know, this. This kind of popularity index is this. Is this based on what people are searching for, or what people are buying, or just in, you know, a combination of both? Or how should I view this? The this list like scale here.   Yi: Yeah, this is like, I guess it's like a combination. So in fact, actually when you scroll down, it will exactly tell you Roughly what it's like the unit. So what is the net sales for this particular item type, keyword that you have narrowed down Across, like the different window periods that you want to see? So there, can be like seven days, thirty days, ninety days, twelve months, yeah oh, wow, man, window yeah, window yeah.   Bradley Sutton: window curtain panels are flying off the shelves at Amazon, exactly who would have thought that that's.   Yi: Lands views.   Bradley Sutton: Let's see what does it say? It says some of glance views received across these. What it what's a what's a glance view?   Yi: that means who are basically viewing a sins? How many Ascends within this item type keyword are being viewed in the United States? Which ever month that you have filtered by? Yeah?   Bradley Sutton: Interesting. So what I mean, like all I mean, I'm still scrolling here and you know I know peace. A lot of people are just listening. They can't see what I'm seeing on my screen, but we've got here. Search to purchase ratio Return ratio. The reasons for returns yes. Number of new ASINs number 26 million ASINs in this. Oh, that must mean.   Yi: That's why the bar length is extremely long for this particular item.   Bradley Sutton: Wow, yeah, so doesn't mean that it's a longer, it's longer.   Yi: It's something that you want to go into, so, but it's just another consideration for you, yeah.   Bradley Sutton: Okay, yeah, and the FAQ down here it says what is demand. We identified demand Considering 300 demand factors. Obviously we're not going to go into the 300. There's a lot of stuff that is going in here. Um, is there anything else that? Or is there anything here that you think really Kind of like sticks out, like hey, if I'm a seller, this and I'm looking for a new product, this is something that I should be looking at.   Yi: Actually, for me it'll just be like three key things that usually I like to highlight to my sellers. So number one is actually the search to purchase ratio. So they want to see roughly what is the demand like, how many people will convert. Let's say, if I run advertising, what would be the ROI like? So that will give them a gauge right when they do their own calculations. Number two is the return ratio. We know how well the return that exchanges policy Amazon is.   Yi: So this is something that you probably want to factor in when you do your profit and loss analysis at the very start. Maybe it's something that you want to bake in as part of your expenditure, right, because not all returns will Will allow you to get, like a food reimbursement. So usually our advice, seller, to consider that as an expense from the very get. Go for this particular product. Then the other one that I typically like to highlight, actually the features, right.   Yi: If you scroll all the way to the bottom, it shows you a couple of matrixes like price Pattern, color, room type, etc. So it essentially already tells you what are the products typically purchased at like, which price range, and maybe in this case people like to buy solid curtains. There are blue in color and they like to place it in their bedroom. So maybe, when you want to sell window curtain panels, maybe you want to sell specifically Baked room curtain panels and, in fact, within your listing, this is something that you might want to highlight specifically is for bedroom use. So, yeah, this are some of the ways that you can, in a sense, give you a overall or initial understanding of how you should position your products. Yeah, we didn't this category.   Bradley Sutton: Interesting. I'm looking here. There's patterns. I don't even know what it means. Oh, ombré, like what? The heck is a ombré? Do you know what?   Yi: that means Different color, then it's like a bit fader, then okay, you do know what I mean. I don't okay.   Bradley Sutton: There's interesting. I discovered a product type I didn't even realize existed. All right, so this is I think this one is one of the newer kids on the block that not a lot of sellers have been using. So, guys, this is good. If you're selling right now, you want to look into some numbers for your category or you just want to explore some new ideas. Now let's hop into the one that's been around a little bit longer, but it has been seems like it's been constantly updated over the last year or so. A lot of new features, and that's the opportunity explore. So Let me I'm sharing my screen again. It says here I can search by keyword or ASIN. So let's go over a use case. So what use case are you going to give? What pretend situation are you going to give me right now and we can walk people through it?   Yi: Yeah, yeah, In fact right, maybe I can just introduce to you how you can roughly use Opportunity Explorer even without searching for keywords or ASINs. So recently, if you see, the dashboard has been updated where there are many more recommendations within it, such as recently review niche similar niche from the category that you're selling in. So let's say, if you're already an existing seller, they'll recommend you potential products that you can sell. What are the increasing searches? Decreasing searches and many more recommendations. So sometimes, if you completely do not know what to sell, you just want a second opinion. Do check out the dashboard over there.   Bradley Sutton: There's a product that looks pretty cool. I'm seeing right now a book nook reading valet. Never in my life have I seen this product, but it seems to be getting popular. Okay, so, without even clicking anything or typing anything in, you can get some product ideas here. All right, what else?   Yi: exactly. On top of that, I think we can just move on to quickly just showing an example of how we can shortlist or decide how to narrow down on what niche we should sell, because if you have been using Opportunity Explorer for a while now, you'll know that, let's say, when you type in a particular keyword within the search bar, sometimes it'll show you multiple customer needs. Maybe what I can share over here within this podcast is how can you shortlist the customer needs or like the niche shall be offered so that you'll be able to do further research based on that. So mainly is to see how we can narrow down your searches. Okay yeah, maybe for a start we could just key in shower curtain sets in the search bar.   Bradley Sutton: Shower curtain set got it yeah.   Yi: So I think, in general, I would just like to introduce like four different use cases where people can best filter or shortlist products when you arrive at this page over here, depending, of course, depending on your business objective and your goals, what you're trying to achieve out of here, and these four use cases are actually built together with sellers. So I'm sure it will be relevant to some of the people who are viewing this podcast here. Okay, so the first one would be how can you identify, you know, ASINs or, in fact, niche that are high in search volume and has fewer offers from other sellers? So, over here, I would just like to highlight that, if you want to review that filter by the search volume column as well as the top click products, oh, actually, you'll be able to see it within the niche page already. Okay, so you can just filter accordingly into the total the total search volume sorted by that. You can sort by that. Okay, got it, yeah. So, by the way, everybody listening.   Bradley Sutton: If you guys are a bit, if you guys are on your computer, I want everybody to do this, like literally every seller can be doing this together with us. If you're driving your car, riding your bicycle, please don't try and do anything and get in the accident. But if you're in front of your computer, what we did was I went to the seller central menu bar, I hit growth and I hit product opportunity explorer. And now I'm right here in the product opportunity explorer. I entered in shower curtain set where it says search by keyword. And now I'm on the very page and everybody probably, you know, depending on you know, when you're looking at this. It might, you know, look a little different if you're listening to this, like two months later, but it's basically gonna be the same thing as what I'm looking at. And I just hit the under the search volume column. I sorted it by the total search volume over the last three 60 days and now it's in descending order. And now what should I do?   Yi: Yeah. So another thing that we should focus on is also how many top click products are there, right? So you'll be able to know how many selections are available. Is it too crowded or is there still opportunity, right? So usually let's say if you do like keyword search, sometimes they will offer you many results. In this case I think there are about 39. So sometimes you need to click into the second page to view more results. So in this case, sometimes I'll recommend sellers to click the download button at the top right corner so that they will be able to transfer the results into Excel sheet to further shortlist. But in this case maybe we can just take a look at the screen that Bradley have shown, so at one glance you'll be able to see, for instance, we do have like shower curtains, that's like, where the search volume for the past 360 days is like 53 million and the number of top click products available is 61, which is, it seems, decent compared to many other customer needs which are above 100 or 285.   Bradley Sutton: Yeah, I see one that's 300 almost, and now again. This means, if I'm not mistaken, the last time I was studying this, I mean actually it did change before this number of top click products meant how many products it takes to get 80% of all the clicks in this niche, but now isn't it like 90% or something like that?   Yi: 90% now. So 90% of the search and purchase products, yeah, Got it Correct.   Bradley Sutton: Yeah, and so yeah, that that is a big difference, like a 61 and then two. Down here there's Christmas bathroom decor 3 million search volume only, but 300 top click products that means it's like a wide open, too many going into it. Yeah, yeah.   Yi: Yeah, yeah, okay, and I mean seasonality also plays a fact right, the one that you saw is actually Christmas bathroom decor. It might be because everybody just want to jump on the bandwagon and just sell Christmasy stuff. So, even though the growth is like 2000 plus percent, it may not be something that you want to go into right, especially if you haven't really launched Okay. So that's just two matrix down to highlight. First, let's say, if you would just want to explore, you know, products that have high search volume and have like decent selections available that slice you opportunities to go into. So these two matrix you can look at that.   Yi: Then, another one that I wanted to highlight is actually the search volume growth, which I briefly talk about it earlier, so doesn't mean that you know the growth is 2934%, like you see, for the Christmas bathroom decor is definitely something that you go into. Consider, like the seasonality, is it appropriate for you to go into it right now? Right, of course. At the same time, you need to take a look at the search volume. There are instances whereby maybe the search volume is only 60,000, but then the growth is like 7,000. So even if it grows by 7,000, it doesn't mean much because the search volume is too small. So it's important for you to find like a healthy balance between like the search volume that you want to see, as well as the growth percentage you are looking at to find like 20 products.   Bradley Sutton: Now it says here growth past 180 days. So is that mean it's taking Like what Like just the day search volume compared to 180 days ago, or like this month's compared to six months ago, or what is this percentage representing?   Yi: So this is like past 180 days, like based on, like the day, because we refresh the opportunity dashboard, like on the weekly cadence right, so it's constantly being refreshed.   Bradley Sutton: Yeah, and most of these I'm seeing are like kind of seasonal. You know I see Thanksgiving bathroom set and then I see Halloween and Grinch. You know it's kind of like a Christmasy thing. Aha, here's one that's not necessarily gothic. You know I'm in that niche because of my coffin shelf right. Gothic shower curtain that could be a possible. Well, here's something my daughter would love. Hello Kitty bathroom set is growing 27%. Dallas Cowboys I don't know who likes Dallas Cowboys anymore, but our orange shower curtain is getting up. Alright, this is interesting stuff.   Yi: Actually there are another two which I think it's also quite important that I would like to share also. So the third one will actually be looking at the average price of the product that you want to sell, because sometimes you know when you want to sell a particular product, you want to earn a certain amount of margin, right? If the cost of the product is really, let's say, example, $10, including all the different fees, ideally maybe you want to sell something that is maybe in the $30 range, so that you'll be able to earn a healthy margin, so that you'll be able to factor in the promotional discounts that you'll give and advertisement spend that you'll be able to make, right? So in this case, what I recommend you to do is to hit on the filter results button which is on the left-hand side, and you can actually filter the average price to. Maybe you can put $30. Minimum $30.   Bradley Sutton: Okay. Minimum $30, okay, and let's take a look at what's in the box and then submit yes.   Yi: Oh, there's only one.   Bradley Sutton: Only the Dallas Cowboys. People are paying lots of money for this. Yeah, yeah, stick in Dallas Cowboys. Yeah, yeah, yeah, alright, so that can be something that you can filter by.   Yi: If, let's say, you have a target margin that you want to work with, especially if you already got a quotation from, like, your manufacturer, this is something that you can work backwards on to see whether this is feasible for you to get started on. Okay, correct. Then the next one is pretty similar to this, but what it actually tells you would be the annualized niche. That means your annualized opportunity. Sometimes sellers will tell me, for instance, I want to earn $30,000 in a year. I know it's quite little, but for new sellers maybe it's a good stretch. Sometimes they'll tell me I want to sell $30,000 for this particular category, but after we searched on Opportunity Explorer, we found that there's insufficient demand within this category. They want to sell in in order to hit the $30,000. Right, if the average unit. So it's not enough. On average, you won't be able to hit your goal. So you may need to have another strategy. Either you launch multiple selections in order to hit your goal, or you pivot to sell in another category. So how are you able to find out your annualized opportunity? You can do it through filtering the results as well. Maybe you can click on filter results again. Okay, maybe let's set the average price to $15.   Bradley Sutton: Average price $15. All right.   Yi: Then let me calculate, assuming let's say I want to earn $20,000. Okay, just put 1,500 units.   Bradley Sutton: So average unit sold put $15,000, $1,500. Got it and then we've got shower, just regular shower curtain. Customer need of the niche yeah correct.   Yi: So maybe you need to explore selling something within this niche, that something that you'll be able to meet the customers. Later we'll talk about how we innovate products looking at the niche page, but basically this is like the opportunity you need to start with. Let's say, if you want to keep that certain, you need so as well as the price that you want to sell. So you need to work backwards based on your goal.   Bradley Sutton: Cool, all right. So you know like, let's say, I go through a whole bunch of these keywords and I come out with a few or something. You know like whether I'm doing this or I'm doing Helium 10, the next step is usually like a validation. You know like, all right, here's what looks cool. But then I can't just up, it's time to go to Alibaba and source it and like there's some more steps. So how can product opportunity explore help with validating my ideas?   Yi: Correct. So I think maybe you can click into a niche, maybe the shower curtains one, since you're at that page already. So within the niche page itself, you'll find that there are multiple tabs that give you further insights on a particular niche detail that you are at, like product insights, search term insights, trends, and there's something I'm seeing brand new things here.   Bradley Sutton: I've never seen before. Something that I want to purchase drivers and returns. Look at that, correct, correct.   Yi: So, yeah, these are like a few other things you can take note off in order to validate your product and also to see how you can innovate your product. So maybe I can go through like the different tabs quickly to see what are the key matrix that you should take note off. Okay, so the very first one would be like the product steps. So over here you'll be able to see what are like the top purchase product right. Whenever people key in the search term shower curtains, for instance, so over here you'll be able to view basically the similar ASINs. You'll be able to see what they are selling at, who is actually having the most key share and what's useful about this. You'll be able to click into the specific product title in order to find out more information about this popular product Right.   Bradley Sutton: Oh wow, Correct.   Yi: So over here if you scroll all the way down, because, like some of the product matrix available at the top, you'll be able to see it from revenue calculator. But what's useful is, if you look at the bottom, there's this section called the niche. Product appears in, so that means this product is popular, not just in shower curtains, but this few other niche as well. Right, so this is just something for you to take note of. Maybe when you want to sell something similar to this, you can also cross, do kind of like across analysis, across the other similar niche listed over here as well, or maybe take a look at the top search there as well.   Bradley Sutton: And this is kind of like I would imagine like for some people might view this as a good sign that it's in multiple niches. It's not just only getting sales in this shower curtain niche, but it's got one for non-toxic shower curtain liner Green. I mean green bathroom decor. That's a very broad keyword, so interesting Okay.   Yi: Cool yeah. So the other one is actually the customer review insights. That is specific for this ASIN. Previously I've always heard from my seller they're still doing it the manual way. They'll go to like a similar ASIN. They'll comb through manually, like all the customer reviews, but you actually don't have to do it. Everything is all summarized within opportunity explorer, so at one glance you'll be able to know what's good about this product and what's bad. And what's bad about this product is an opportunity for you to innovate your product, to make it even better, and maybe you might even open up like a unique, like market demand for this kind of product that you are offering in the future. For instance, over here I think one of the negative review actually mentioned that the color is not what they wanted. So maybe the photos that you take in the future maybe you have to cross track with real life images to make sure that they match to a certain extent as much as possible, so that customers won't will be more assured of the product they'll be getting. They won't leave negative reviews. Maybe another one would be, for instance, water resistant. They mentioned that this shower curtain is not water resistant at all, which is very strange. I mean shower curtains is supposed to be water resistant, so this is something maybe you need to work on with your manufacturer to ensure that it's indeed water resistant.   Bradley Sutton: This umbrella is not water resistant.   Yi: Yeah, yeah, yeah, oh, is that like yeah, yeah, quite funny.   Bradley Sutton: No problem.   Yi: Yes, yes. So these are just some of the things you can take note from here. Then maybe we can go back to the other tabs quickly. Okay, so maybe I can just go through the search term tab, okay, okay, so over here you'll be able to. Again, it gives you different matrix, such as the search volume, growth count, the demand in terms of conversion and click share for all the different search terms. So over here you'll be able to sort, for instance, by the different matrix you want to see. It can be search conversion, because you want to see which search term is giving like much more conversion for like the product that you want to sell shower curtains, buff roof curtains. Sometimes the search term over here can even give you insights on how you can develop your product to make it even better. So, for instance, I see over here, when I filter by search conversion, one of the top search term is actually cloth shower curtain. So I mean it's not water resistant. Maybe because there are people who like cloth shower curtain. So maybe that's why this product is still selling well, even though it's not water resistant. Maybe this is something that you can think of and because, in fact, it's one of the search term that leads to highest search conversion.   Bradley Sutton: Correct me if I'm wrong, but this, like the search volume and conversion, is this basically the same as search query performance, but not the same as brand analytics? Currently right, like brand analytics, I believe, like for top three click might be something different or it has to be something different probably because this is not even a week. You know like this is showing 360 days, right?   Yi: Yeah, yeah, correct. Yeah, yeah, Okay. So the explorers should match with the search query performance.   Bradley Sutton: Search query performance Okay.   Yi: Yeah.   Bradley Sutton: Cool Interesting.   Yi: Yeah.   Bradley Sutton: Yeah, these are some pretty low search conversions here, like some of these are 0.05.   Yi: Oh, my God Like nobody Not as great Like 0.05.   Bradley Sutton: That's like one out of every 1000. Yeah it's quite so, something crazy. Yeah, like less than less than yeah. One percent is one out of every 100. One tenth of percent is one. No, that's like one out of every 5000. Oh, my goodness gracious, it's quite bad, basically, the conversion is quite bad.   Yi: It means that it might be quite, you know, competitive, I would say, because there are like a range of selections available, which is why maybe, let's say, if you even want to run advertising, it might be more costly to win the bid, right? So this might be a consideration, maybe it's it might be a little too tough for you to get into, right? It's just a signal for you to know.   Bradley Sutton: All right, guys, we're going to have to cut the episode here because there's just too much good stuff, so make sure to come back. In the next episode we're going to go more into brand analytics, the new customer loyalty dashboard and a whole bunch of things more. We'll see you in the next episode.

Discover the best practices for Amazon product sourcing excellence as we welcome back Kian Golzari, the Amazon product sourcing sage, for his fifth appearance to impart his vast knowledge on mastering the Chinese manufacturing labyrinth. Kian's guidance takes you through the crucial steps from selecting the right manufacturers on Alibaba to conducting effective factory visits, ensuring you return home with more than just souvenirs – but strategies to boost your product quality and cost-efficiency. Venture with us into his secrets of product differentiation and learn how to stand out in a saturated market by uniquely combining various components and embracing innovative packaging solutions. We dissect the art of transforming the ordinary into the extraordinary, from deluxe packaging to strategic bundling. Furthermore, Kian reveals the underestimated power of packaging in offline sales, sharing insights on making a product pop on the Amazon website and attracting crucial impulse buys. To wrap up, we get into the strategic intricacies of forging long-lasting relationships with suppliers and the nuances of communication that can make or break a deal. We dissect how to scrutinize supplier profiles and the vital role that understanding your supplier's capabilities plays in aligning with your business goals. Kian and Bradley also uncover the best practices for sample evaluation, navigating the norms of sample payments, and why investing time in personalizing your interactions with suppliers can pay dividends in the long run. This episode isn't just about finding the right supplier; it's about creating partnerships that will sustain your Amazon business growth and success.   In episode 524 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Kian discuss: 00:00 - Guide to Factory Sourcing and Visiting  02:52 - Insights From Visiting a Factory  11:40 - Sourcing and Differentiating Products in Manufacturing 13:22 - Revamping Coffin Shelf Market Strategy 16:29 - Importance of Packaging in Offline Sales  18:20 - Clarity and Importance of Product Filters  18:44 - Finding & Evaluating Manufacturers on Alibaba 21:53 - Filtering for Top Factory Products 25:48 - Importance of Trade Background and Markets 28:31 - Selecting Suppliers and Communicating Effectively 31:40 - Price and Quality Selection Process  33:48 - Strategies for Sourcing and Product Defensibility 36:38 - Benefits of Attending the Canton Fair ► 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 the world's foremost expert on sourcing, Kian, back on the show and he's going to give us step-by-step guides on how to source on Alibaba.com and an SOP for visiting factories in China. 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 PO's 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. 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. We're going to the other side of the world to Dubai right now for a record breaking fifth time. That's how long this this, this show, has been out there. Guys, like we only have people on there, if they're really good, we'll invite them back. And if they are really good and we invite them back, it's only one time per year. The very first time ever in the history of Serious Sellers podcast, somebody's on the fifth time is the one and only Kian. Kian. How's it going? Welcome back.   Kian: Oh man, thanks so much. It's a great intro man. It's an honor to be the only speaker to be on here five times and wow, I mean that must mean you've done a lot of episodes as well. So congrats to you to be plugging away. Like, how many episodes have you put out now?   Bradley Sutton: We're like in the mid-500, like we're about 520 now, like we're in the mid the the five teens around there, yeah amazing, yeah, incredible man. Yeah great to be back and, yeah, really looking forward to sort of diving in and we're going to talk a lot about Alibaba, but before we get into that, I'm actually visiting, for the first time, Chinese factories. Like it's been years since I've even been to China and I've never visited the factories where we make the Project X, project 5K products. So what's some advice you can give me? You know like, hey, should I bring some gifts? You know like maybe some chocolates or something to the factory owners? Should I negotiate? Should I just, you know, talk away, ask about their family, like I usually deal with a sourcing agent? Yeah, and she's going to come with me, my sourcing agent who found these factories, and translate a little bit. But what should I do.   Kian: Yeah, I mean, first of all, I think your mind is going to be blown Like I think everyone experiences this like the first time you go into a factory and actually see how your goods are made, because you have this idea and you have this perception in your head of, like how you think goods are made. But once you go in and you see the production line and like you know, let's say this is for the, for the coffin items, right? So like you'll see, like the wood, like arriving, you'll see the wood getting dried. You'll see, like the woods, like the bad pieces getting rejected. You'll see it getting sanded and filed down. You'll see it getting sprayed and painted. You'll see it getting cut to size and you'll see it getting assembled. You'll see it getting screwed, like you'll just see in some of the different compartments, and then your head will be like, wow, here's like 20 different processes and steps that this product went through to get made, whereas when I just see it in a store, I just see it like in a shelf or, like you know, online. I didn't think about it in this way. But why that really helps you is that, like you know, if you've got cost challenges and you're like right, I've got this like $8 product and I need to get it down to 6.5, you've got like 20 different places you can go to in your head because you've seen it on the production line, right?   Kian: You're like well, was that spring really necessary? Are we cutting it in the most efficient way? Can we just do straight edges rather than these curved edges? Was it necessary to have that coating? Like? There's so many different things you can now think about. And then, on the reverse, if you want to improve the quality, you're like here's things that we could do better, based on what I saw and how this product is actually assembled. But you're going there for the first time, right? So, in terms of gifts, I would say it's nice. They'll probably provide a gift for you. If you've been doing business together for like a number of years, then by all means, maybe take something nice. I would say something that represents your hometown, so you could take them your favorite team, like a Lakers hat or something like that.   Bradley Sutton: Okay, those are fighting words. All right, guys. The fifth and last time that Keen will ever be on the podcast.   Kian: So you can always and, by the way, Bradley’s the clipper's friend for anyone who didn't catch that but yeah, like you know, anything that represents your hometown where it could be like a hot sauce, it could be like a local tea or whatever like that. Just it doesn't have to be anything expensive. Like for me, I always used to take like a personalized bottle of whiskey because I was coming from Scotland. Suppliers, like really, really appreciated that and just a nice gesture to do. And if you have, like a sales assistant that you've been working with, I would get one for the sales assistant that you talk to and then one for the factory boss as well. Very, very important to get a gift for the factory boss and also to get a photo with the factory boss, because there's always going to be time where you're going to need to ask for a favor, right, and there's going to be a time when, like you know, chinese New Year is coming up and, like you know, your, your goods are getting rushed out and maybe they won't make it shipment before Chinese New Year. And then you say like, hey, please, can you just ask the boss, please can you rush this, please can you push this to the front of the production schedule. Please can you get this out before Chinese New Year? And you're like, who's asking? Again? Bradley's asking which one's? Bradley again, oh, he's the guy that brought you that Lakers jersey. Oh, yeah, I love that jersey. Cool, all right, get the items to the front of the line. So it's always something to like for them to remember you if you get a nice little gift.   Kian: Now, talking about, like, actually arriving at the factory, I think a lot of people, maybe, if you're going to China for the first time, they have this like fear of like well, you know, google Maps doesn't work out there Like how do I get there? Like your factory will arrange everything for you in terms of transport, and like you've got a sourcing agent there. So so they'll definitely help you out, but you don't need to figure out anything by yourself. Like you can just tell your factory hey, I'm arriving at this airport, I'm flying into Hong Kong, I'm flying into Shanghai, I'll be there on the 19th of March. I'm going to come and visit you on the 20th. They'll just say, cool, what's your hotel? We'll come pick you up. Driver will be there outside 10 o'clock and, like, literally, driver comes out with your name, they'll have a Starbucks waiting for you. Like they really, really take care of you, right.   Kian: And if you're like, hey, I need to get a train to where you are, I don't quite know how to get there. Like they'll book the train ticket for you, like they're so hospitable, like if you have any issues of like how to get there, or even like you know, when I go visit a factory, I tend to visit like two or three at the same time, like of a similar competing product, similar competing category, and I say, hey, look after you. After a visit your factory, I'm going to see this other factory, can you help me get there? And they're like, yeah, no problem, give us the address, we'll drop you off. Like, even if it's a competitor, if there's there very, very, very hospitable. So, in terms of getting there nice and easy, in terms of like what you're, what you'll learn, in terms of their product development, it'll blow your mind. But in terms of being prepared for your factory visit, like I always before any China trip, whether I'm going to the Canton Fair, whether I'm going to visit a factory, I always have to have a plan for my visit Right, like what is the main outcome I want to achieve from this?   Kian: Right, do I want to learn how the goods are made? Cool, I'll spend a little bit of time on the production line. Do I need a better price? Because I'm getting price pressure? Well, I'm going to do my research in advance to see. Well, what were other suppliers pricing me? So, like you know, you could get a specification sheet for your product. You could but I'm sure we'll talk about this shortly reach out to the top three, top five suppliers on Alibaba.com, get pricing from them and you can go back to your existing supplier to say hey look, I don't want to move production, but just to let you know this is a pricing I'm getting offered somewhere else. I need you to match it. So, is it better pricing that we need? Are you getting a few too many returns? Or the quality concerns? Is there something? Is there chipping off the wood on the coffin box? Is that something we need to talk about? Then, like, we have the products right there in front of us, like here, let's address these quality concerns. Are you not doing the quality control? Let's check the end of the production line. Let's see who checks it. Let's see who boxes it. Let's see why they aren't picking up on these things.   Kian: So there's many, many different outcomes that you could have. It could also be we want to develop new products for 2024. Please prepare for us some additional new samples and we can review them together or let's discuss together. So I wouldn't necessarily go into a factory without knowing what I wanted to achieve and like no lie. I've been in factories where I've been there for 10 hours sitting opposite the boss and we're just negotiating, because I'm like I'm not leaving until we figure this out and like, literally Some of the factory bosses like to smoke and I remember like the guy went through two packs of cigarettes while we were talking it. Like I'm not saying that's going to be the case right For everyone, but I knew I had an outcome that I wanted to achieve on that trip, right.   Kian: Certain times I was doing production for the Olympics and they required certain certifications for the factory and I went to visit factories and didn't have those certificates. So I was training them. This is what this is. A certificate needs to comply with. This is what we need to fix. We were looking at, you know, lighting, fire extinguishers, dormitories, all that stuff. I was like you're the factory I want to work with. I need you to be compliant of this. I'm not leaving until I know you can do this. So there's so many different outcomes that we can have for visiting a factory and like. Those are just some of the things that we need to be prepared for, but, honestly, it's going to be so much fun for you. Like, I'm actually excited for you and I can't wait to see your stories on Instagram to see what it looks like.   Bradley Sutton: Thank you, thank you Now, right now, let's just say, you know, for that, a lot of people you definitely know suggest, hey, you should go visit the factory. But for a lot of other people you know, they might not have the way to go to China or they might not be able to go to Canton Fair or Iwu or other places, and so obviously the easiest place to to find suppliers would be Alibaba.com. So we're going to try something different today. I didn't 100 percent have this plan, but now I just like thought of it right now I just went to Alibaba, but or I went to Amazon and let's just, we're going to do a pretend thing where I'm which is halfway real, and that is, you know, one of the project X brands we do is not the coffin shell, but we also do egg trays. We have this brand called Geese Chicken Coops.   I just like threw in a keyword to Amazon right now egg storage for countertop. This actually used to be one of our main keywords, but now it's not anymore. And then I'm like trying to find something that looks interesting and these like this, this egg basket that has like a ceramic lid. Here let's just pretend that I'm like, hey, I want to have. I want to go source this from China. I want to look. So first step is what? Just go to Alibaba.com and try and figure out what keyword it might be like something similar to this. So you've got a couple of options here.   Kian: Right, because, like you have the traditional egg trays, which could be, you know, wood and plastic, acrylic, whatever, and you could just type in egg tray and you could find it right. But for that particular one, for those who aren't viewing, with like a video, like Bradley, how would you describe this? It's like the shape of a chicken.   Bradley Sutton: Yeah, it's really like the bottom part is this wire mesh like a basket looking thing. And then the like it has, this lid that shape like a, like a, like a chicken or rooster or something like that.   Kian: here this is a really good example because, like here's a classic example of if you type in like egg tray or whatever on Alibaba, like this product probably won't come up, like we can have a look, but it probably won't come up the way that we're looking at this one, right, but like for you to have more defensibility in your brand, which is really, really important for 2024, you might need to go to another manufacturer which doesn't make egg trays. So you're looking at eggs right now and we don't see that particular product. Right, there's nothing like that. Yep, we could type in like caged basket for you know, holding fruit or holding vegetables or whatever it may, be right, and we could find the bottom part, but for the top part it was like a toy chicken, like on the top right, which is kind of serving as like the protector or the top of the basket, right, and so for that I would go to a toy supplier to be like different materials, right, it could be silicone, it could be plastic, it could be rubber, like I would say like rubber chicken toy or rubber animal toys, right, and you might be able to find this for, let's just say, 50 cent or 30 cent or 75 cent, and we could buy those separately and we could send it to the egg tray suppliers, or we could send it to the basket suppliers, right, and anyone wanting to copy that product wouldn't necessarily be able to, because they didn't know that they have to go to two different suppliers. Right, they didn't know that you could, just because if they type it in, they won't find it and they're not thinking.   Kian: Right, I'm going to get an egg tray from a toy supplier. So this is something that gives you like, really, really good defensibility. And this is applicable to anyone like, not even people which are looking for egg trays, but, like, whenever I'm looking at a new product, I'm like, well, what other purpose does this product have? Like, for example, right now I'm using a podcast microphone, right With a boom arm or whatever, right, but like, I could also go to a supplier which makes selfie sticks and take the technology of the telescopic pole and use that right, and anyone who's looking to get like a microphone stand or a podcast mic stand is not looking at like telescopic poles. So there's so many different ways that we can look at other manufacturers to fit the purpose of the product that we want to manufacture.   Bradley Sutton: I like that and that's something that's similar to what I'm actually doing. That's what I'm going to be going to the factory and talking to or, you know, checking out one of the first orders. So, like, what happened with the coffin shelf was that it got kind of saturated. You know, like you know, because everybody watched Project X and everybody started launching, you know, coffin shelves and now there's a million coffin shelves and I didn't want to do, I didn't want to play the race to the bottom price wars. You know, like, there's people now I used to sell the coffin shelf for like 32 bucks and now there's people selling it for like 19. I'm not going to try and compete with that price. So I'm like I'm going to go opposite, I'm going to raise the price back. Like I was selling for like 25. Now I'm going to raise it back to 30. But what I'm going to do is two things. Number one I'm going to buy a really fancy box and it's a box shaped like a coffin, like. So somebody would actually gift it to somebody in this coffin shaped box, and the box itself is almost a product. You can use that as a sock storage or something like that, because it's a really high quality. I mean, it's crazy. It's like almost 60% of the cost of the coffin shelf, you know by itself, but we're still only talking like two bucks.   Bradley Sutton: And then I noticed in the customer reviews that a lot of people are putting like these little LED spooky little trinkets and figurines right. And so what I did was I also sourced like a pumpkin shaped LED candle and then a skull, like a, just a mini skull, because these are what people are using to display anyways. And so now I'm relaunching the coffin shelf at a higher price point with this box that's super hard to get custom made and from another, a third factory, these LED stuff. And so, like you know, these people who are just trying to make a quick buck and sell coffin shelves, you know, from China for $19, they're not going to take the time or effort to go and source three different things from three different factories. And so now I'm kind of like building this moat around and trying to dominate, redominate the coffin shelf market.   Kian: I guess you could say that's mega and I'm glad you mentioned that as well because, like so, I was at this show called like global sources, just like last month or wherever, and I was filming a YouTube video, actually just posted it yesterday on like the highlights of that show, and I walked, assembled, into this guy's booth. His name was like Matthew and he had like he was just doing packaging, like really, really deluxe packaging, right. And I go in and I'm like, hey and? But the packaging was like super nice, like it was like magnetic boxes that folded flat, like he was doing it for a Sephora. He was doing like Pokemon boxes, like just high end stuff, right.   Kian: And I was like picking up different bits of packaging and we were talking about like online versus offline and you know different styles of packaging and one color boxes. And then I was like you know how much is this box? And it was like a really small, flimsy one and he was like you know, less than 0.1. I was like, wait, less than 10 cents. He was like, yeah, it's around like 8 cents. I was like no way. And I was like, all right, what about this one? I picked up this like magnetic one. He's like that's around $1. I'm expecting the dude to say like three. He's like wow. I was like I was like these prices seem a little too good to be true. I was like where's your factory? He's like for Shan. I'm like okay, cool, so it's narrow way. I was like what are you doing this weekend? I was like I'm at the factory. I was like I'm going to come visit you this weekend. I was like cool, so rock up. And then I filmed a YouTube video in his factory. I showed the packaging process end to end, start to finish. All the like he had like machines which cost over a million dollars, like everything, like map finishing, gloss finishing, like everything. So the entire process, start to finish. And talking about like 2024 and differentiating and just what you just talked about. That's key. That's so key to being ahead.   Kian: Whether you're selling online or offline, you want to win the click. Online, sometimes you show your packaging in the main image, sometimes you don't. But if you're selling it in retail, it's on a shelf. You have to catch people's attention. So if you're selling offline, you really, really have to catch people's attention. If and that's through the packaging, that's the first touch point and it can be catch for attention by color. It can be by innovative design. So packaging is going to play a super, super important role. So I'll definitely connect you with Matthew.   Bradley Sutton: Awesome, Awesome Thanks, Appreciate it. All right. Going back to our olive oil, let's go to something more traditional, All right, so that's a great way for differentiation. Let's just say I picked something else while you were talking right now, Something that's kind of like all right, this is not something that you necessarily differentiate, Like we always. I think you should always differentiate, but maybe not let's not go to the effect where, like, hey, let's try and get stuff from three or two different factories and let's do fancy packages, Because you know, sometimes when people are just getting started, they want to get their feet wet. You know that might be a little bit too difficult. So then I pick again in the same niche. I hit this keyword egg dispenser on Alibaba, and so you know, for those watching on YouTube, you guys can see this. For those listening on podcast, we'll try and describe it here. But now let's just say that this, this kind of egg dispenser that has this like row, it looks like like a row on the top of eggs and it rolls down to the bottom row. I guess you just pick one and then it rolls down. So let's just say that, for whatever reason, this is the kind of product I'm getting. I just did my very first search on Alibaba. This is definitely the keyword. Next step would be so I start doing using some of these filters and then, if so, what would you suggest?   Kian: Yeah, yeah. So I'm so glad you're showing this visually online as well, right, because you can look at that image. Right, see the second image. This says $2.50. The second one says, yes, 88 cents. It's the same image, right? So, yeah, this is what. This is where we need to get really, really clear on the filters. Right, because it looks like the exact same product. One is well, the one's three X the price of the other one, and you could see that I'm like, oh, okay, well, I'll go for the cheapest one. But you haven't necessarily done the research to know what already different materials or different sizes or different specifications. Does one hold more eggs? Does one have deluxe packaging? So we don't really know that, right? So you went to Alibaba.com and you typed in egg dispenser, and this is the first thing that came up. So the first point right, I would select verified manufacturers. So that's the first point that you see in the list right. Why this is so important, is that, yeah, perfect. This is where we need to be. The purpose of using Alibaba.com correctly is not to find the cheapest price. It's to find the best manufacturers. Once we find the best manufacturers, then we can start to negotiate the price. So the purpose right now we're just looking for the best manufacturers.   Kian: So the first thing you did was you selected verified manufacturers. And what's that for? It means any information that they provide on their listing, whether it be number of years in business, how many staff they have, what certificates they have, what patents they have, what products they have, what does their production line look like, the images of videos in the factory. That's all been verified by a third party, meaning intertech, SGS, tuv. One of these very reputable companies have gone in and verified all the information is true, whereas if we didn't work with verified suppliers, then whatever information they want to put there, we just have to sort of take their word for it. So verified is the most important thing to search for first. Then on the left hand side of the page, you'll see trade assurance right. I would always click that as well, and trade assurance just means that your payment is protected. So if you've ordered an egg dispenser which holds 20 eggs and you do the production and you receive one which only holds 10 eggs, then the trade assurance will protect you and it will refund your order because you've selected that right. That's just a little bit of a safety net, important for, like you know, new sellers, right. And then as you scroll down on the left hand side of the page, you'll see something that says management certification, right. And if you scroll down a little bit more, yeah, so you see like BSEI, and you see sedx, you see ISO. I always like to select BSEI and ISO. So BSEI is your business social compliance initiative and ISO is just a really high quality standard and this just basically means these are factory certificates that they have. So BSEI will go in and they'll check, like you know, how many years have you been in business? Do you have, like, fire extinguishers? Do you have adequate lighting, do you have safety exits? Like we've checked the dormitories, we've checked like the canteen where the workers eat. So it's kind of like gives you confidence that you're working for a very, very good factory, right. So now, if we go back to the top of the list, right, we've now we've searched by manufacturers, we've got verified manufacturers, we've got trade assurance and we've got factories which have you know, bsei and ISO certification.   Kian: So now, as I'm scrolling down the list, like if you zoom in on the company names, like the first word in the company name is always the city or the province in which that factory is located. So sometimes, like the factories like electronics are made in Shenzhen, backpacks are normally made in like Chenzhou. Like furniture, like steel tubing for furniture, chairs is made like Yongkang. So I'm just trying to get familiar Is there an area which specializes in egg dispensers? Maybe not, because it's such a niche product, right, that maybe you could make it anywhere. But as I scroll down, I'm trying to see, like, is there one name that pops up more frequent than others and in that interesting, the area which specializes in that product? But I see Ningbo has probably popped up a few times, right? So yeah, but anyway, doesn't matter. If Ningbo had popped out like eight out of nine times, I would say, right, well, that's the region we need to be ordering from, interesting. Then, as you scroll down as well, I would be like looking at the images as well, to see, like, do I find something similar to what I was looking for, like when we search by products like your first look somebody is specializing in that one crazy basket, one that we looked up earlier, that's crazy.   Kian: But you know what's wild, though, right, I'm not surprised we found it because we had searched, like the highest level certification, so like that product would have required, like you know, some sort of standard. So it like the purpose of this filtering process is to align you with top factories, and top factories make top products right. And as you scroll down as well, I saw the main image. That was the one we were looking for the white one here, yeah, yeah, right here, that particular one, right. So now if you click on like view profile, we can just there's a couple of like boxes I need to tick of the supplier before deciding is this someone I want to work with? Right? So you see first on the left right Well, actually on the right where you were looking right, If you scroll through those like, you'll see videos of the factory. You'll see like images of the production line and you've seen the top left it says verified. So all these photos and videos have been verified. So like if you know that as the actual factory, because the third party has gone in and verified that's a factory, so you can actually see inside the factory and know that's them right. So we know exactly who we're dealing with.   Bradley Sutton: They didn't just pull this, you know, like video or something like from stock video or something like that.   Kian: Yeah exactly Right. So now, like before, without even going to China, I've got eyes and ears inside the factory that I can see what they actually look like. So if on their Alibaba listing they say, oh, we've got 200 workers in our factory, you're like, well, I can see the images that shows you've got 200 workers, right. Or if they said they had 200, but we see a production line with five workers and you're not verified, then we know that you know something isn't right there. So on the left side of that, you see where you have all those blue ticks. So it says, yes, all verified capabilities. So if you click on the bottom where it says, see all verified capabilities, this is everything the factory is verified for. So it says certifications, sedex, bsci. It will say, like you know, material trace. It says like quality traceability, things like that. So if you were like look, I need to know. Like, do these egg dispenser trays come from a sustainable source? We want to use like recycled materials, we want to use eco-friendly materials, then they can tell you yep, cool, we have traceability of our raw materials. We can find that out for you. So just by clicking that, we can find out what are the capabilities which are verified of this factory. And then, as we scroll down, like the main things which are really really important, see that where it says profile right, if you keep scrolling down, right, it's got right. See here so it says established yeah, years in industry 16. That means that they've got like 16 years worth of experience, right, so they've got the. See the audit there under certifications, where it says SMETA. That's part of the SEDEX audit and I know this so well because I was a board member for SEDEX in 2013,. After we did the production for the Olympics, every factory which made Olympic merchandise had to have a SMETA audit, right, and that was like they checked all the smallest details of the factory, right. So that's a really really good sign if they have that right. And then they've got the BSCI certificate. You can see that Now, as you scroll down, we're going to look at their production capabilities.   Kian: See there it says production lines. They've got three production lines and they've got 18 production machines right Now. This is so important. This is so, so important, right, Because you are, let's say, doing this product for the first time. So they have three production lines means they're like relatively small company, right, so that's good for you because that means that they'll probably do a low MOQ. Let's say you wanted to do 500 pieces trial order, but let's say that production line. Let's say it said they had 250 production lines. You're like this company would never want to work for me. Like, why would like? I just want to do a small order, 300 pieces. They've got 250 production lines. We're not a good fit for each other. But on the flip side, if you're a big brand, if you're doing, you know, 10,000 units a month, then you want that factory which has got 250 production lines. So this kind of sizes you up to be like am I aligning with the manufacturer which is fit for purpose, right?   Kian: And then the other really important thing to look at where it says trade background and main markets, it says North America 38%. Western Europe 35%. That is so crucial because 70% of their, more than 70% of their exports are going to the US market and it's going to the European market. And what does that mean? That means they're compliant with the latest FDA regulations in America, compliant with the latest like food standard regulations in Europe. Otherwise we wouldn't be able to sell to those markets if they weren't compliant with those standards. So if you're ordering this product for the first time and you know your factory has already got the certification or compliance needed to sell food products in the US market, because they're already selling in the US market. But if we looked at the trade background and it said, you know, 40% South America, 40% Africa and 20% domestic market, meaning China you're like well, you've never explored this product to America. So how do I know that you're capable of passing for FDA standards? So, but this factory, this is like one of the first ones we clicked on right, it's got everything we need right.   Kian: But it was because of that filtering process. It's because we selected verified, we selected trade assurance, we selected ISO, we selected BSCI, so like it was in touch with the top manufacturer and then, like I'm pretty sure that if you go to the other manufacturers on that list as well, we'll find similar information that is a good fit for us. So that was kind of like the initial research to be like right, let's find a good factory. That's part one, right. Part two is now how do you read, how do you talk to that factory for your first message? Right, Because this is where I feel like a lot of sellers like stumble. They're like right, found a good factory. We followed your process. But, like, right now, what do we say? Like, most sellers go, hey, what's your best price? What's your MLQ? Can? I just heard this podcast? Can I get customized packaging Right? And then, yeah, so, supplier, bear in mind these suppliers are probably getting 50 to 100 inquiries a week, probably more, right, and my purpose with the original message is how do I get my inquiry to jump out at the top? How do I get the supplier reads my message and be like oh, I want to work with this guy, right? So I kind of write my opening message as like a three part.   Kian: Like it first, introduction about myself hey, this is me. I'm passionate about eggs. I've been farming for 10 years and I want to start my own brand. Right, oh, cool, someone who really, really likes eggs. Right, they'll be a good person for this product. And then you can say, hey, we work with the biggest like influencers in the food space. Because I'm a beginner, right, I'm selling this, I'm ordering this product for the first time. So I don't want to say, hey, I'm a beginner. I want to say like, hey, I'm just ordering this, but here's my leverage. Like, I've got connections with the biggest influencers in the home and kitchen space. I've got connections with retailers that I've done business with before. I'm very, very skilled at selling on Amazon. I've exited a previous business before. I want to say something that gets them excited for them to work with me, not just, hey, what's your price, right?   Kian: Second, I want to say why I chose that supplier, because all the things we just looked at, like a number of production lines you know 70% exports going to Europe, right, you having this meta audit. So I would say, look, quality standards are very, very important for our company. It's great to see you have this meta audit. I'm so, so happy that you also place a high importance on quality standards. I see that 38% of your exports go to North America. That's amazing because we'll be selling in America as well, and I'm glad to know you're compliant with the latest certifications. That's just me telling the supplier. I've actually read your company profile and I've selected you based on these reasons. I've not just gone into Alibaba, I've not just typed in egg dispenser and just selected the first 10 companies and copy and pasted the same message. I've actually had to read your company listing and I've actually had to write a customized message to send you this so they'll understand that. And then then you're like okay, this is a product that we're looking at. Here's the picture, here's the specification sheet, this is the materials. What would be your best price for this product?   Kian: Suppliers now thinking I want to work with this customer because they have the ability to sell the product through their experience, through the influencers they have access to. They seem to understand quite a bit about manufacturing because they've told us what they've selected us. This is a customer which I think will go far because previously we've received messages asking for price in MLQ. We supply that and we never hear from those guys again. But this one seems serious. So we've gone through that process and we've found who are the top suppliers and then we've actually crafted a message that makes them want to reply to us. Because suppliers not thinking these are just egg-tracing, these are 80 cent. Maybe you order like a thousand pieces, right, a thousand dollar order. Suppliers not thinking they're going to get rich on this first order. They're thinking how much money am I going to make with this customer over the next three, five, ten years? So as long as you state look, business, partnership long term and this, together we want to grow this big business. You're saying the right things that get them interested to make your trial order first. Even at a break-even, they probably won't make money on the first order because of all the time and effort they have to put into sampling and things like that. They know that and they just want to work for you because you seem like a serious customer which you'll build with over the long term. So those are two really important things finding the best supplier and then communicating correctly with those suppliers as well.   Bradley Sutton: At what point are you submitting like a RFQ request for a quote?   Kian: So that's a really good point, right? So you can also do a request for a quotation. And I'm hesitating before I say this, right, because that process we just went through. We selected two of our best suppliers that we want to work with, right, we filtered out the bad ones. But when we go RFQ, we just submit our information one time and then the suppliers receive that request for a quotation and then they write to us. So now I have to do that filtering process again, but I have to filter the ones that write to us, right? So, because you might get an unverified supplier that writes to you or things like that. So you can also do RFQ because you think it saves you time, but realistically you have to go through all those applications of people which write back to you. And another thing I'd be cautious of as well and I'm not saying don't do it, I would just say that it might imply more work. It looks like it's going to save you time, but now you have to filter through every single manufacturer. But we just filtered through those suppliers really, really quickly.   Kian: But ultimately the main selection criteria that we have to decide is what's the price of the sample and what's the quality of the sample. So once we get that information back, we have to then decide right. Am I happy with the price, does it fit within my target? And am I happy with the quality of sample? Because, as we saw, we might get a price for 80 cent and we might get a price for $3. I have to see the sample right. But by doing this exercise we're going to get a good idea of what is the market price for this product, because we went through that selection process to identify the top manufacturers and now we've got pricing from who we think are the five top manufacturers. So if our pricing is 95 cent, $1.05, 88 cent, like 112, we're like okay, we know it's around that $1 mark. But if I get pricing of like $3.50, $0.62, $4, I'm like this pricing is all over the place.   Kian: Like I haven't. It's my fault I've not told them the specifications of which I require. I wouldn't just click on their image and say what's the price of that. I would send them a specification sheet of here's a picture of the product, here's the dimensions, here's the material, here's any testing that I need. And they like give me your best price. So they've all received the same information. So you're comparing apples with apples and then, once you see the price that you're happy with, you've compared it to the rest of the market. You see someone that you like communicating with. They have the right certification. You get maybe two or three samples from different suppliers. You compare them right. This is the one. Then here we go, let's place the order, let's go for it.   Bradley Sutton: Normally? What's the standard as these days as far as factories and samples Like do you always need to pay for the sample 50% of the time? Do you need to pay for the shipping? 50% of the time? 25% of the time? What's your?   Kian: experience lately? Yeah, so great question. And I would say that it depends on the leverage that you build, right. So, for example, that reach out message like if they think you're sort of wasting time, then they're like right, $100 for a sample, $100 for a freight, paid us $200 invoice and you'll get a sample, right. But if they're like I want to work for this guy, like I think he's capable of building a really, really big business and they'll do all right, cool, we'll just send a sample to you, no problem. Some people might say, right, we'll cover the cost of the sample, you just covered the cost of the freight. So, cool, right, fair. I always say, look, I've got no problem, I'll pay for the sample, but if I place the order, I'm going to deduct the sample cost from the first purchase order. That's always what I go with, right. And they're like fine, because I'm not trying to get free samples, right, that's something suppliers are fearful of. They're like but no one really wants a free sample of an egg tray, right. But if we took an example like a massage gun, you know, when massage guns got popular, everyone wrote to Alibaba manufacturers and said, hey, I want to order 10,000 massage guns, but I need a sample. They send the sample and then they never hear from them again. But that guy just got a free massage gun, right. So that's what they want to avoid. So I always offer to pay.   Kian: I say, look, I'll pay for the sample, but I'm going to deduct the sample and freight costs from the first purchase order. And that is music to their ears. They're happy to hear that because they know that first of all, you're paying for the sample up front and then if the supplier ends up having to pay for it, will they go and order as a result of it, which is what they wanted all along, right. So that's normally the way I go. Sometimes they just send it for free. I'm like cool, very nice of you, and sometimes, if they charge me, I just always have that in writing. That will deduct that from the first purchase order.   Bradley Sutton: Are you doing any like other website price matching or looking at like you know? Like maybe going to 1688 or something you know? That was a you know kind of like always suggested back in the day because there's a lot of price differences there and sometimes the Alibaba people, Alibaba factories, would be like, okay, yeah, we can probably go lower or that's not as much of a technique anymore and to be honest, I've always advised against that because, yes, you can.   Kian: So 1688, for anyone who doesn't know, is like the domestic. It also owned by Alibaba and it's the domestic Chinese website. It's where, like, Chinese businesses buy from Chinese factories, everything's in Chinese. And then I think some people announced that it was a hack, that you could go to 1688 and get cheaper prices. And yes, there are cheaper prices, but that's because those products aren't being exported. So you know the things that we just looked at in terms of like, okay, is this egg tray FDA approved? Well, it doesn't need to be FDA approved because that's not a regulation in China, so they can use it with a different chemical. Therefore, it's a cheaper price. So if you go to 1688 and look for your products, yeah, you probably will find them cheaper, but then if you need them to match regulations of your market, then that's when it's going to make it more expensive.   Kian: So I don't necessarily look at other websites, like I think you know you could go to globalsources.com, you can go to madeinchina.com. There's also sort of different websites as well, but generally enough, like, there's so many good factories on alibabacom and that definitely improved after COVID as well, because I never used to use alibabacom, like I was just used to go to China. I used to live in China. I used to go to the Canton Fair twice a year and that's where I'd find all my factories. And then, because Canton Fair was out for three years, that's when a lot of those factories started going online and Alibaba was like the first place that they would go. So I would suggest you're absolutely fine with alibaba.com. You can also, if you want to find the manufacturers of your competitors, you can look at importyeti.com, and I would say the best thing you can do for your business is really visit China as well. Go to the Canton Fair, and really because, yes, there's a cost in terms of a flight ticket in hotels to go to China, but I always say that cost more than pace for itself, because you are essentially fast tracking your product development.   Kian: You're seeing products there for the first time that you'll see them in real life before you see them online from other brands, and now you have to make your own version. You'll be able to negotiate better prices. You'll be able to get better quality products. You'll be able to build better relationships with your factory. You'll be able to get samples very quickly If you're like Bradley actually. So you're going to the factory. I guarantee you, if you ask for a new product and you wanted that sample, that sample will be ready in two or three days and you can take it home with you right? They'll send it to your hotel by the time you leave. But if you reach out to these guys online, you're like, hey, we're working on this new product, we're going to take them two weeks to make it. We can have to send it. It'll take a month. So you can massively and imagine you've got multiple products across multiple brands. You've got a month edge on anyone in the market just by being there. So I would highly recommend. But you know, canton Faire is only April and October every year, so you can visit China anytime you want, but all year round. I would be visiting websites like alibabacom to get an idea of right, who are the best suppliers and what are the best prices, and are there any new products that we just found as well? And then I'd be going to China as well, on top of that as well.   Bradley Sutton: All right, before we get into your last strategy of the day, how can people reach you if they want to, you know, see your videos or maybe reach out to you for some advice?   Kian: Yeah, sure, so I'm putting a lot of work into the YouTube stuff. So if you just type in Sourcing with Kian on YouTube, you'll see a lot of cool videos there. I started making a bunch of different videos on this China trip. I went into factories, I went into packaging factories, product factories and filmed videos of like. So actually, brad, I'll try and send one to you before you go as well, just so you could get a little bit of an insight. But, yeah, Instagram as well @kian_jg. I've got a Facebook group of the same name Sourcing with Kian and yeah, it's probably the best way to reach out to me. But I've got some cool stuff planned in the coming year in regards to, like, trips to China and stuff. So, yeah, definitely look out for that.   Bradley Sutton: All right, what's your last strategy of the day? Maybe a 60 second strategy or around there for that you can share with the audience.   Kian: I would say like, okay, 2024. Something you want to focus on would be product defensibility, right, Because you know, as you mentioned, with the shelf, like you know, a lot of people copied it. It raised at the bottom in terms of price and we have to innovate on top. So just like sort of three actionable tips. In terms of product defensibility, there's three main things you can focus on An act's getting exclusivity on your product, it's having a particular mold on your product and it's also getting patents on your product right. So exclusivity you can like if we go into a factory and we see a product that we like we didn't innovate it, factory did right, I can still order that product. But I can say, look, I want exclusivity on that. And you can get exclusivity by time. To be like, give me three months, we sell it to me and no one else. You can get exclusivity by region. To say, right, give me exclusivity for Germany or give me exclusivity for USA. Like we can pick a market, not just the whole world, and get exclusivity by that. Or we can also get exclusivity by quantity. To say, I've forecast I will order 10,000 units over the course of the year. If I don't order those 10,000 units, then you can sell it to everyone. So we just got exclusivity on a new product and I did this countless times at Alaska Anton Fair. That's a great form of defensibility.   Kian: Then, like patents, you know you can patent the product. Supplier might have a patent on the product, but the more. And then oh, by the way, this is such a sick hack, right, there was a particular product that we've been selling for a while. Factory has got the patent on it and then a lot of US brands were copying and infringing Chinese factory, trying to go after those US brands. They write to them and they're like hey, yeah, we're this company, we have the patent. The US brands just ignored it. They're like oh, it's a Chinese company, they're never going to sue us. I said to them look, make our company the co-patent, so we have our US brand. I was like make us the co-patent owner and then we'll go after them. Done Like, we now own the patent of that and then us, as a US brand, using US lawyers, are going after those US brands and are getting shut down left, right and center. So if you have a factory which is patented the product, that's a huge key if you can get co-patent on that as well. And then I mentioned molds as well. Like, molds are expensive. If you're developing a mold on a product, definitely get your logos embossed on the mold as well, so that they can't use that for anyone else as well. So, yeah, those are the key things defensibility, exclusivity, patents and molds.   Bradley Sutton: All right. Well, Kian, thank you so much for joining us. I'm sure 2024 will be great for you and hopefully we get to hang out at an event or here locally. I've got to get you on my Helium 10 basketball court here. We've been trying to do that for a while, so, hey, I'm ready, we'll anytime we'll settle at once and for all Lakers versus Clippers. I'll wear my Clippers jersey, you can wear your Lakers and we'll see. We'll see who comes out on top.   Kian: Let's do it, let's do it. Good to see you, bro, and thanks very much for having me and congrats on the 500 plus episodes.

Listen in as Bradley Sutton unveils the game-changing Black Box Brand Analytics tool, a groundbreaking resource that blends Amazon’s Brand Analytics with Helium 10's robust capabilities. This episode is a gold mine for Amazon sellers eager to master product research and optimize their keywords to increase Amazon product rankings. Bradley walks you through the ins and outs of using the tool to pinpoint high-traffic keywords, unpack the nuances of search frequency rank, and demonstrate how these insights can drastically improve your click and conversion rates. Using practical examples, such as the comparison between "coffin decor" and "coffin cat tree," he highlights the market saturation and what it means for your marketing strategies and listing optimization. In the second part of our session, we turn our attention to the strategic application of data filters for laser-focused keyword research. Bradley guides you through advanced techniques to navigate through the data, revealing how to eliminate certain terms and hone in on keywords with substantial search volumes. Moreover, we shed light on how to identify products with low conversion rates and dissect the competition by examining click share and conversion share metrics. We also dive into analyzing Amazon's Best Sellers Rank to identify high-performing products and dissect the success factors driving traffic to top listings. By listening to this episode, you'll gain valuable insights into market gaps and learn how to strategically position your products to stand out in the crowded Amazon marketplace.   In episode 523 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley discusses: 00:00 - Introducing Black Box and Brand Analytics inside Helium 10 05:03 - Click Rates and Sales Dominance Analysis  08:44 - Data Filters for Targeted Keyword Research 12:34 - Searching for Dominating ASINs and Keywords  21:41 - Analyzing Top Clicked Keywords for Competitors  25:16 - Newer Home and Kitchen Products 30:19 - Keyword Analysis for New Product Launch 35:08 - Helium 10 Demo ► 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 I'm introducing a brand new, really cool tool to Helium 10. It's called Blackbox Brand Analytics and it allows you to combine Amazon data from Brand Analytics with Helium 10 data in ways that you have never used before. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. I want to know what keywords are driving the most sales. For a list of keywords. 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'm your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show. That is our monthly Ask Me Anything and training session. This is actually something that we do every single week for our Serious Sellers Club and Helium 10 Elite members. I got a cool demo I'm going to be doing today a little mini training on a brand new tool that Helium 10 launched a couple of weeks ago that maybe you haven't had a chance to play with yet. So we're going to be demoing that so that you guys can see how you can get benefit from it. So let me show my screen here. This is brand analytics. All right, so this is not Helium 10. Obviously, this is from Seller Central, but this is something that you guys have been using maybe for years, right, it's? Anybody with brand registry can use it. The way you access it is go to your menu in Seller Central, then you go to Brands and then you go to Brand Analytics and then you want to hit, under Search Analytics, the top search terms.   Bradley Sutton: Now how I've been using this, how sellers have been using this the one, the version that's on Amazon, is you can go to a date range, like weekly, you can go monthly, you can go quarterly, and then let's say, first of all, that you want to see all of the keywords that start with the word coffin. Right, like hey, what keywords have coffin in it that was searched for the most? So here is one use case. All right, so I'm going to hit Refine Results after I put coffin inside the search term and then now all of the keywords that were searched the most on Amazon show up here for this week. Let's start with the word coffin. So we see, here we've got coffin nails tips, a lot of stuff that has to do with nails. Right, search frequency rank is how often it has been searched compared to other keywords. There we go. There's coffin shelf all right, c coffin shelf has been searched for is the 129,000th most search term on Amazon for the week of 1217 to 1214,. All right, you can see other other keywords here that have come up Now. This is great. Obviously, you know it's been out for a little over three years almost four years I think and it gave unprecedented at the time information you know, like, for example, let's take that word coffin shelf. Or let's go into a different one, let's go to coffin decor all right. So now if I see here under coffin decor, I can see the top three clicked. All right. So again, if you guys know this, you know you might be bored right now, don't worry, we're going to get into the new stuff soon, but I want to make sure everybody understands the value of this data.   Bradley Sutton: First of all, what Amazon is telling you is, for whatever keyword, here are the top three clicked out of the after the search of a certain keyword. So if somebody searched coffin decor, the product that was clicked more than any other product in all of Amazon after the search of that keyword is this Gothic wooden makeup organizer. All right, and it makes up 5% of the clicks. Now, of the conversion share, it was 6%. That means of the actual sales of that product it makes up 6%. So, right off the bat, I know that they have a better conversion rate than just the average because, theoretically speaking, if they were converting at the same rate as everybody else on this page, well, their click share, or their conversion share, should be about the same as their click share should be 5%. Right, but it's 6%, okay.   Bradley Sutton: The other thing I can do when I look at this and how I used to use this is I, right off the bat, can tell this is a wide open keyword. Why the top clicked product is only 5%, meaning that the other top clicked, the top three clicked, are less than 5%. What does that mean? That means that more than 85% of all of the sales from this keyword are from products that weren't even the top three clicked. Does that make sense, guys? That means it's wide open. That means people are probably purchasing like 30 different products on that page, and let me just contrast that with this keyword right here. This is actually the keyword that I found the other day using this tool. Look at this keyword here Coffin Cat Tree. Now, coffin Cat Tree. Take a look at the percentage of clicks that the top clicked product has 33%. You guys remember what the other one was 5%, right. The second top clicked product 27%. So, right off the bat, I know that this keyword, coffin Cat Tree the top two clicked products, already make up more than 50% of the clicks out of all the clicks on this keyword. Look at the conversion rate 33% for this top clicked one and 11%. That means that the other products on the page are only making up about 60%. You guys remember what it was on the other one it was more than 90%, all right, so you see the huge difference. So this is being dominated by a certain number of products.   Bradley Sutton: The other thing that you could use brand analytics for is your historical data. Before Helium 10 had the historical cerebro, this was the only way that you could do historical research Like let's say, all right, hey, valentine's Day is coming up, right. What's interesting is I can actually look at what were the top keywords, and maybe I want to put valentines here. So here in brand analytics, I'm going to. What did I say I was going to look at 12th to February 18th. What were the top keywords? That has to do with valentines, all right. And yeah, I think I picked the right date because, look at these, valentine's Day gifts was the eighth most searched term in all of Amazon for the week of February 12th. So obviously this was a hot keyword. But if I were to try and do this right now, you know, if I was using not historical cerebro, it's not going to give me what are the best selling Valentine's products, because nobody's buying Valentine's Gifts in December, right. So this is was one of the ways that people could do Historical keyword research and see what were the products that were doing well, right, all right.   Bradley Sutton: Now that brings us to this announcement of this new tool inside of helium 10,. All right, I want everybody to navigate with me there. It's going to be under tools and then go to black box. All right, black box is a tool you guys know and love to find products, and now this tool Is in black box, and there is a new Tool here called a BA top search terms so I call this black box brand analytics. All right, a BA is just a abbreviation, because that's too long. A BA stands for Amazon brand analytics, so just click that and let me explain how this tool works and why this is going to be beneficial for you.   Bradley Sutton: This is going to be pretty awesome, guys, because this is pulling in all of that data from Amazon, and now it's combining it with the helium 10 data points that you already know and love, and it's giving you just a lot more targeted filtering ability and research capabilities. For example, I could just use it the same way that I was using it right now. Right, like again, hey, let me go in to the week of February 12th to the 18th and let me See what keywords that have the word Valentine in it, and then go ahead and apply the filters, and there those same keywords are coming up here right now. All of a sudden, though, I can see that, hey, what does being the eighth most search term mean? Right, it's not just that, which doesn't give me that much information, but now I can see, oh wow, the search volume was 2 million, because that's a Helium 10 Data point.   Bradley Sutton: All right, I could see the top three ASINs, total conversions, share. I could see pictures of the top products All right, and I could also go to the history of the click share for this product. So I can do already just what current things that you can already do in Brandon Alex. But here's where it starts getting cool. Maybe I I'm like, hey, I want to Not see any keyword that has candy in it. So I'm gonna say exclude phrases containing candy, all right. Now I want to see. Maybe I want to see were there any products or Were there any keywords where the current the click share was wide open, meaning that people were clicking all over page one. There wasn't any dominant products. So I'm gonna say the top three ASIN total click share is a maximum of if I were to add them up together, a maximum of 20%. Let's just say, all right, maybe I want to see I don't want to see this two word Keywords. I want to say, hey, show me any keyword that hits this but that actually had three words. So like Valentine's Day wouldn't come up, but Valentine's Day gifts would come up, all right, what else can I do? Hey, I want to see the keywords that have a search volume of at least 20,000. All right, a search volume of at least 20,000? All right, let's just. Let's just see how that filters it down here.   Bradley Sutton: Now, all of a sudden, those 2,600 keywords Go down to 36. Look at that. I went from 2,600 to 36 and now I can see Instant information, exactly what I was looking for. What are some other things I could search by? Like maybe I want to say, hey, what are all the the keywords where the top three products had bad conversion rate? All right, so let me reset these filters on and I'm gonna go and look at Just this last week. All right, guys, I have not tested any of this, I'm doing this all live right on the fly here. But let's look at December 10th through the 16th. Let's just say, out of any of the top keywords from December 10th to the 16th, if it was a keyword that had, let's just say, at least, let's just, let's just narrow it down. Let's try and find some low-hanging fruit. Let's go 2000 search volume to 6,000 search volume. All right, we're finding, from the week of the 10th through the 16th, a Keyword that had between 2000 and 6000 search volume. It's at least two words long, okay.   Bradley Sutton: And then look at this. I'm gonna go hey, I want a Matt. Let's just say One asin had greater than, hmm, let's just say, 50% of the clicks. So I want to find a keyword where one asin is just dominating. All right, they were just dominate. I'm not sure if, you know, I can actually find something here. I might have to fix this a little bit, but we're one what had more than 50% of the clicks, meaning that you know, maybe they're, they're, they're just completely Dominating the clicks. Everybody's looking for this one product, all right. But if I take, look at this, the top three click asins, the average age is less than, let's just say, 12 months. All right, this is crazy, guys. You can't do this in seller central. Let me see, first of all, if anything comes up. I might have gone too narrow on this. Let's take a look here. And let's go 12 months average age 94 keywords come up. Look at that. All right, let me. Let me make it even more narrow conversion share let's just say we're one asin. Number of asin has greater than 40% of the conversions. That narrows it down to 62 keywords.   Bradley Sutton: Now let's just take a look at it now. Obviously, we've got Lego and stuff like that here, but Is there anything One? So a lot of brand names here? Okay, that that that explains it, right? Which would you expect Products to dominate on a certain keyword like this? Well, obviously, it's going to be brand branded keywords. Mostly, if I'm searching for a Lego, I'm not gonna buy something else, right? Or here here. But look at this bubble face wash, right? Maybe I don't know what bubble face wash is. Well, I just put my mouse over here. I can see the top 10 products. So I'm like what? Why in the world is A Product getting dominated? Well, it does look like bubble is a brand name, which I didn't realize, right? But let's say that. What? Let's pretend that bubble wasn't a brand name? This would be something I would want to look into. Like, wow, there's only one product that's really getting a lot of sales here and a lot of conversion rate, and so that means that if I add another product, it's gonna be that much more likely that I can, I can get in on the action.   Bradley Sutton: Let's take a look at some of the other keywords that come up here to see if we can see any non, any non branded branded ones I might want. I might want to go a little bit. I'm gonna go a little bit wider on this. All right, let's go. One asin had more than 30% and the top three ASIN's total review count is less than 400. All right, again, this is stuff that you cannot do in Seller Essential guys. But what I'm saying is, hey, I wanna see where it has a lot of the clicks. I need to go a little bit wider on this, but if I add up the top three click products, their total review count is less than 400, meaning it's a relatively newer niche. Let's take a look at the keywords that come up here Bassinet, lipliner, and I'm still seeing a lot of branded keywords here. All right, which is what you would expect, but look at these conversion share Top three ASIN's total conversion share 70% for this one Top ASIN click share 73%, 98%, 46%, 30%. So this is just an example of the filters that I'm entering, but you can see the potential here of how you can instantly find keywords that might have opportunity here. I was going and I was looking on the opposite end of the spectrum, where I wanna see where one or two products are dominating. Maybe I wanna see the opposite, where I want to see the top products only have a maximum of 5% click share or conversion share.   Bradley Sutton: The list goes on and on. There's literally a million different combinations of filters that you could enter into here. Let's just go over some of these other filters I could use. I could have an exclude phrases. I can have the top three ASINs have a total click share with a minimum and maximum total conversion share, minimum and maximum search frequency rank. That's from Amazon where it's like which rank of search volume does it have? I could use the helium 10 search volume. I can have the search frequency rank trend. All right, search volume trend. Like, let's say it's, I'm looking at the week list on helium 10. Let's actually do that because I think that's a cool one. Maybe I want to see what are the keywords from week to week from December 10th through December 16th. Are there any keywords with at least 5,000 searches that increased 200% and that had at least three words, meaning that, hey, these keywords had to have like less than 2,000 search volume if it increased? And there's tons of them. Good grief, botox face serum look at that. Botox face serum went up. Let's take a look at the search volume here. Good grief, look at this. Like I'm not saying guys, go and source this product. But would I ever have known that Botox face serum went in one week from 10,000 search volume to 200,000 search volume? That's way more than 200% increase.   Bradley Sutton: Look at this one gag gifts adults, dog beds for large dogs Dog beds for large dogs obviously was a hot Christmas product because it went to 151,000 search volume from 22,000 search volume. All right, let's narrow this down. I don't want to see these humongous ones. Let's go to 5,000 to 15,000 search volume. Anything that increased 200%. Let's take a look. We've got 1,200 keywords. Grippy socks, women all right, grippy socks, women is a keyword that went from and we can take a look here. It went from last month 9,000, now it's up to 14,000 searches. Let's see another one here, mr and Mrs Gifts. All right, 14,000 searches. It is up from 6,000 searches, all right. So, as you can see, guys, here the possibilities are endless as far as what you want to play with. Now, the question is this is just version one of this tool is what do you want to see? How do you want to search brand analytics to find products or to find keywords? Remember, this is not just a product research, but this is also a keyword research. You can enter I didn't show this to you, but you can enter in an ASIN. I probably should show that, because that's an important way of using the tool that we didn't go at all.   Bradley Sutton: Let's just go to Amazon. I'm gonna go to Amazon and let's just say that I am looking for a bat shelf. All right, or I'm thinking of selling in the bat shelf, or I am selling a bat shelf and so I wanna see, hey, who's one of the top players in this niche and I could see that, hey, this product here is definitely a top one, so I can copy his ASIN, all right. Now I'm gonna go into Black Box brand analytics and I can paste that here. Okay, and I don't wanna just do this top one, maybe, I wanna do a lot of the top products. So let's just take a couple more of these bat shelves here, all right. Here's another bat shelf that sold like 100 units. Maybe let's go ahead and copy that. I can actually put up to 99 different ASINs here, all right, let's do another one. Let's copy this ASIN, all right. So here's three ASINs. So basically, what I'm saying is here for the week of December 10th through the December 16th.   Bradley Sutton: Show me any keyword that has over 500 search volume where one of these three bat shelves was one of the top three clicked. All right, so this isn't just hey, they were ranking high, which is what's the rebro, and you know keyword tracker and tools like that tell you. But they were ranking high, but they were also one of the top three clicked and there's actually only three keywords that these came up that had at least 500 search volume. Bat shelf, goth shelf and bath home decor Tells me right now. Maybe I wanna go ahead and take off this search volume. Let's go ahead and apply the filters, see if any lower search volume ones come up. Six keywords come up. All right, emo home decor, bat shelves. Plural, bat room decor. All right, so this tells me now where any of my competitors were one of the top three clicked products in all of Amazon for that keyword. So if I have 20 competitors, I drop them all in there and I would instantly I would instantly see that to see where they were one of the top. All right, let's go ahead and open it up right now.   Bradley Sutton: Do you guys have any questions on how to use this tool and what I can help you with or how to use anything helium-tun related. Guys, this is your time here. David says I would like to see leave out a specific ASIN or choose a competitor. Hmm, the second part, to choose a competitor we have that, so you could put in there your ASIN. I would assume, david, the exclude is because you may. Are you saying that you maybe you want to look specifically at keywords, that you are not one of the top three clicked already? And if that's true, yeah, that would seem like a reasonable, reasonable request right there.   Bradley Sutton: We got another question here from Joanna. Can helium 10 find out what's new sellers who are settling the top 10 and best sellers ranking are doing in order to get their Product the top 10 so fast? Well, yeah, absolutely, you could see on the keyword side, all right, so so I don't, I've never done that, but let's walk through this and let's see if we can do it. All right, let's go ahead, joanna, and let's do this as a nice little case study. So let's, first of all, I'll go to see who is in the top 10 BSR in a certain category and then again that's in black box. So I'm gonna go this time to black box products, all right, and let's go into a, a subcategory All right, let's go in the home and kitchen category and let's go into the Kitchen and dining category and let's go bakeware All right.   Bradley Sutton: So let's go bakeware and let's just see who has been in the top 100, like in the last month in BSR. And I can do that right here using the filters, where I put a minimum one of BSR and Maximum 100, and I'm in the bakeware category, I go ahead and hit search. Let's go a little bit higher. Instead of looking at that category, let's look at what was I in home and kitchen. We can just look in all of home and kitchen. Let's see. They better not be doing maintenance on this. Let me get mad. Nope, the here we got, we got tons of products in the home and kitchen category, all right. So maybe I want to know are there any products that are newer here? All right, and we do that by age, all right. So let's, let's go and put here under age a maximum Of, let's just say, four months. Are there anybody within one to 100 of BSR that have a product that's only four months or less? And we've got a lot of products here that have variations. So that's why there's tons of products coming up here, let's see, that has a lot less reviews. I actually don't want. I actually don't want the variations to come up. So let's just say max variation one, let's see if anything comes up at all. Nothing comes up in the home and kitchen category. So what you were asking nobody in the home and kitchen is less than four months old. That doesn't have variation.   Bradley Sutton: So let's let's check out another, let's check out another category here. Let's go under. Let's look up baby, let's look up beauty, let's look up the Entity of home and kitchen. Here we go. Is there anybody? That's a new product that's up. So right now, Joanna, there's not many products that are newer, that are really hitting your criteria. But let's just, let's just expand this out and just do a make-believe. Let's go to 1000 BSR or 2000 BSR and let's see if anything comes up. Here we go, sorry. So here is a product. Let's just take a look at one of these products strong ahead Hair kit. The heck is this.   Bradley Sutton: Let's take a look at this product on Amazon Strong ahead hair kit. I have no idea what this product is, but it's fairly new. It's less than four months old and it's already got a strong BSR. So if I wanted to see instantly what was some of the keyword ways that this product is getting up here, I could actually just run Xray keywords on this page itself, all right. So if I'm on an Amazon page, I put my mouse over the Helium-10 chrome extension and Select x-ray keywords and then I could see, without even having to go into Cerebro, what were the top searches, and I can see there's tons of branded searches. So for this product, now I know instantly why is it one of the top BSRs and it's a brand new product, and the reason is they have crazy amounts of brand search. Like, look at this Olaplex brand search 232,000 search volume Right.   Bradley Sutton: So this is the process, Joanna. Any product on Amazon that you are seeing is doing really well and it's brand new, maybe doesn't have that many reviews. Just run x-ray keywords on it. If you wanna go a little bit deeper, go into Cerebro and then you'll find out where they are at least getting their organic and sponsored traffic, all right. So this is this doesn't show you the sponsored traffic on x-ray keywords. You'd have to look into Cerebro for that, but that's not going to tell you. Are they running Instagram traffic to it, et cetera, but it'll at least give you a nice overview of where their organic traffic is coming from. That allows them to be one of the top sellers. So thank you for that question. Joanna Danian says how does this match up to competitor software using brand analytics data? Well, there's no competitors to Helium 10 that have this as far as, like all in one suites of tools, we're the only ones to have this in it.   Bradley Sutton: Joanna now has a product, so this is the product that Joanna found. It's not selling that great. This is a top BSR, did you say. Let's take a look at their BSR, if it even says anything. So it is the number 33 in the Garment Steamer category right now. Okay, there we go number 33 in Garment Steamer category. Let's take a look here. What are we going? How old is this listing? Let's take a look at the BSR chart history and I could see that it has only been out for three days. All right, it's only been out for three days, so the odds that we could see words ranking for already is probably slim to none, because there's not enough time if this product has only been out for three days. But let's just give it a try. I don't think anything is going to come out here because this is too brand new Like even brand analytics is more than three days old. So brand analytics I'm not even going to look, because brand analytics is usually one week behind a little bit. So when I would check this, joanna is, I would check this next week, once the data comes out. But let's just see if Helium 10 has any data at all for this keyword, even though it was only launched three days ago. Oh, my goodness man, helium 10 is on it We've got.   Bradley Sutton: Let's take a look at keywords where they're ranking in the top 20 and at least 300 search volume. Might not be too many here because, again, this product was just launched three days ago, but there we go, it's already ranking for 30 keywords in the top half of the page. So right here, look at this Travel steamer for clothes, portable mini. Good grief, that is a long tail keyword if I ever saw one. It already has 10,000 search volume and this product is organic rank 13. And look at their sponsored rank. They were one. So they are going hard and heavy on this brand new keyword and sponsored. So there you go.   Bradley Sutton: I was kind of like selling Helium 10 short, saying that we wouldn't have any data since this product was just launched three days ago. Nope, I'm wrong. Helium 10, one Bradley, zero here. Easy to see where this product is getting sales from, because on a 10,000 search volume they're bidding for top of search and they're already ranking number 13. All right, so there you have it. That's where this product is getting a lot of its sales from that exact keyword, right there. Good question, joanna. I hope that was clear for you guys on how to do that for any product on Amazon. All right, you wanna know where their traffic is coming from, at least their organic search traffic. You just run Cerebra on it or look at it in the brand analytics, if it's been out there for longer than a week, and you're instantly gonna get an idea of the keywords that are driving sales for the product.   Bradley Sutton: Jerov says I'm a new Amazon seller. I look for keywords to rank higher on Amazon, but I am still in 306 rank. So if you're 306, that means that you're not ranking at all, because Amazon only shows 306. I'm assuming that you're looking in Helium 10 keyword tracker and it shows greater than 306. That means that you're not ranked. Actually, how can you help me, because I've yet to make three sales. All right, the first step you need to do, jerov. If you're not ranking for keywords that you know are relevant to you, you need to make sure if you're indexed. Let me show you how you can do that. All right, so let's just take this product right here. This is the steamer that Joanna had found. I need to see if I'm indexed for certain keywords, all right, so let's go here to index checker. All right, what I'm gonna do is you're gonna take your ACI. I'm doing this for this travel steamer. You gotta put your ACI in here and I'm gonna put a keyword I know it's already ranking for, just to show you how this works. And so we already determined that this product is getting sales.   Bradley Sutton: From what was that keyword? Here we go travel steamer for clothes, portable mini All right, so I'm gonna put that here. But what's a keyword that is probably not indexed for? I'm just gonna put a random keyword here sumo wrestling All right, but obviously you're not gonna put these nonsense keywords here. You would put the keywords that you think you should be ranking for, but you're not All right. So this is what you're gonna look for. You're gonna hit check keywords and then you are looking for the right column on index checker if there is a checkmark or not. Forget about all these other columns here. You just wanna see this cumulative and so I can see that travel steamer for clothes, portable mini.   Bradley Sutton: For this product there's a checkmark. That means I am indexed. That means I am even if I'm not ranking. There's a potential for me to rank. But look at this keyword sumo wrestling. Maybe this was a product that I thought was super relevant to me, but you see here how there's a dash instead of a line. That means that I am not indexed. And what does that mean? That means I can't run PPC on this keyword. That means it's literally impossible for me to rank for that keyword. So the first thing you need to do, jerov, is make sure that on your keywords that you're trying to rank for that you even can. And if there's a dash there, the simplest reason could be you don't even have that keyword maybe in your listing. That means you're not indexed for it. If it does have a checkmark but you're not ranked, it's just. You know there's hundreds and hundreds of products that are indexed for certain keywords To be one of the top 306, it takes some doing. You probably gotta start running some sponsored ads to there. So, for any keyword that you are not ranking but that you are indexed for and you wanna get ranked, the path to doing that is running sponsored ads at the top of the search and hopefully people will see your product, click on it, buy it and that's what's going to move up your organic rank.   Bradley Sutton: David says can you show us how Helium 10 works for Walmart sellers Interested in seeing its abilities for keyword ranking and finding arbitrage opportunities? All right. So, david, pretty much almost everything I've shown other than Blackbox. It works the same way for Walmart. So, for example, so let's look at walmartcom, all right, and let's go. I don't know, let's look up this product here Steamer iron for clothes. Let's do a search for that on Walmart. So let's just type in steamer iron for clothes. Okay, so this is not really for arbitrage, but this is more for ranking.   Bradley Sutton: Like, hey, I wanna have, I'm gonna come out with you know some steamer, you know my own travel steamer and I wanna see the products that are selling a lot on Walmart in this niche. Where are they getting their sales from? All right, so let's just take, let's just go to this product right here. This is like the organic rank product. I'm gonna copy the item number, which I believe is this item number here at the very top of Walmart. Let's go into Cerebro and now I change this left hand marketplace chooser to the Walmart marketplace, all right, and let's type in that product ID. I'll know in a couple seconds if this is the right product ID or not.   Bradley Sutton: And you just press get keywords and now this is going to find all of the keywords that this product is ranking for. And there it is. Look at that, let's find. Let's go search under the Walmart search volume anything over 1000 search volume, and now instantly I can see the top keywords where this product is one of the top 10 organic ranked. And now I know where this product is getting sales from. And these are the keywords I'm gonna have to put in my Walmart listing and I would also add this to keyword tracker for Walmart. If I'm already selling this product, I'm not ranking very high. I'm gonna put it in keyword tracker and track my organic and sponsored rank for these keywords Right off the bat too.   Bradley Sutton: For this Hamilton Beach product, I can see that they are not running sponsored ads, so there's an advantage right there where I know, hey, Hamilton Beach is not running Walmart sponsored ads for this product, because Helium 10 doesn't show any sponsored ranks, so there's an instant advantage. I know that I can get as far as arbitrage goes. You just have to kind of like search for the products that have a high amount of sales, and we don't have as many sales estimates for Walmart products as we do for Amazon, because Walmart doesn't have what Amazon does, which is BSR, which allows us to make an algorithm, but we do have some sales estimates for Walmart products, and so that's another way that you could use the tool for Walmart selling. I'm about to actually start doing some arbitrage and some wholesale on Walmart myself. I was just talking to one of my team who I used to use a few years ago. We're gonna relaunch my Walmart business, so I'll have a lot more Walmart information for you guys soon.   Bradley Sutton: Thank you guys for joining us. If you're an Elite member or a Serious Sellers Club, we'll be back next not next Monday, but next Tuesday, I believe, because Monday's a holiday. If you are just watching this on YouTube or another platform, make sure to come back. At the end of January. We'll go ahead and have this available as well. But thank you guys for joining us, appreciate it. Make sure to use that tool and we'll see you later. Have a good one, bye, bye now. I'll see you guys next time.

Join us for a packed episode where we share the Serious Sellers Podcast’s cream of the crop e-commerce strategies this 2023, specifically curated for Amazon and Walmart sellers aiming to amp up their selling game. We kick things off by covering a slew of actionable tips, from the critical role of eye-catching main images to PPC campaign finesse and leveraging meta descriptions for Google indexing. Each insight is distilled to empower you, the serious seller, with tactics you can apply right away for real impact.  This episode doesn't stop there; we continue with the inside scoop on Walmart's Review Accelerator program and how it can significantly lift your Gross Merchandise Value by infusing your product listings with valuable customer feedback. We listen to the secret sauce behind crafting Amazon product titles that resonate with mobile users and discuss the art of bundling, showing you how to identify complementary items that could delight your customers and potentially lead to glowing reviews. The conversation shifts to strategic PPC advertising, underscoring the advantage of long-tail keywords to improve organic rankings without breaking the bank. It's a treasure trove of tips that will sharpen your competitive edge on platforms like Amazon. As we wrap up, we reflect on the top strategies shared and their potential to redefine your Amazon business in 2024. Your feedback is crucial; we urge you to select and implement your top three tactics and join the conversation by sharing your favorites in the comments. The excitement is palpable as we look forward to featuring some of you in future episodes to celebrate the strides made in your Amazon and Walmart selling journey. Here's to taking the wins from 2023 and charging towards an even more prosperous year ahead!   In episode 522 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley talks about: 01:44 - Top Strategies for Amazon, Walmart, and E-Commerce This Year 05:53 - Find Trending Products on Alibaba/Amazon 12:00 - Strategies for Obtaining Product Reviews  13:10 - Walmart Review Program and Bundling Tips 16:32 - Surprise in Customer Reviews 21:54 - Increase Amazon Productivity and Selling Strategies 25:32 - Maximizing Product Visibility and Differentiation ► 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 is our yearly episode where we give you my handpicked top 20 Amazon, Walmart and e-commerce strategies of the entire year. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Series Sellers podcast by Helium 10. I'm your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show. That's a completely BS free, unscripted, and unrehearsed organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. And we've come up at the end of this year and, as we do the last four years now we do a kind of recap episode where I handpicked some of the strategies. There's a bunch of people on my team, you know, from Mhel, Nikko, John, Ralph, Bill, Maia, Klaudine. They all worked like going through all the transcripts and like gave me what they thought were some of the top strategies and then, from those like I don't know, like 90 different ones that they submitted, I like whittled it down to like 20 that would fit into this episode. So we're going to give you some stuff that you might not have heard, you know, if you weren't listening to every single episode or you might have forgotten about good reminders. We got some actionable stuff that have to do with, you know, Shopify and keyword research, product launch, just a whole bunch of different subjects, most of these like 60 seconds to just two minutes long, and so I hope you guys take advantage of this.    Bradley Sutton: A lot of it was really great when it aired and they're just just right now also as much, if not even more, applicable. So again, whenever we do these strategy episodes, I implore everybody, don't just, you know, listen to these and think, oh, this is so great. Isn't this amazing how smart these people are? No, I want you guys to actually pick two or three of these and put it in practice, and then let me know what you do afterwards. I'm wearing my Dodgers jersey today because, you know, just like we had a great year of strategies. Dodgers had an incredible year at the end of this year, hiring some of my favorite, or getting some of my favorite baseball players in. Shohio, tani and Yamamoto. But anyway, we're not here to talk baseball. I could have a whole episode just about that. We're here to get into the top 20 strategies, so here you go.  Dr. Travis Zigler   Best thing you can do, I’m trying, I was going the brand route, but I’m gonna try to keep it on Amazon route. Main images are key. Your main image has to be different. Go look up silicone coaster on Amazon, just go do that right now and tell me which one’s your brand because every single one looks the same. So it doesn’t matter, like for all those plastic widgets from China, everything looks the same, but what can you do to differentiate it? And the unfortunate thing is if you sell something that everybody else sells with no differentiation, then you can make a change to your photos, that works, then everybody else will repeat it. And so what can you do to make your product better and differentiated? And then how can you show that on the main image? And if you can show that on the main image that’s gonna lead to a higher click-through rate, what can you do with your branding and your copywriting to make it a little different to make it stand out a little bit more?   Aaron Biner   And another tip is your meta description of your brand store. Like, actually it’s super powerful, but there’s still so many sellers are this opportunity, if you’re gonna, like every page of your brand store has this meta description that is indexable by Google. So it doesn’t have any impact on Amazon, but it has really huge impact how your brand store will show up in the search result with sample who will type your brand name. So just, it’s only 160 characters. Do not keyword stuff make it readable and sometimes it’ll, like your brand store will show up like in top one in a Google search result. So it really works and it also helps you not only for your brand, for your brand name, but also for keywords that you can include in this section. So it’s really powerful. Well,   Bradley Sutton:   Where do you edit your meta description for your   Yana Tatochko:   You just have to kind of every it’s you have this meta description for every single page. So if you have five pages, you can fill in five pages of meta description. Okay. You just have to go to the settings of your store and when you will kind of click on the page, like you will see this meta description.   Bradley Sutton:   So why this is important is sometimes we might get into the rut of like, oh, I can only use like Helium 10 Black Box, or I can only search for product opportunity actually on Amazon. But a lot of times you can find some unique things that are trending on other websites. Like here is one of my strategies, like let’s say I just happened to be searching for a batch shelf and I find it on alibaba.com. What I like to do, if I find a factory guys that has a lot of reviews, I’ll actually click on their factory link in their Alibaba page. And then what I want to do is I just wanna search through some of their other products and see is there anything interesting that maybe I could just do some quick research into maybe something that’s trending in China that’s not here in the States yet.   Bradley Sutton:   So if I’m looking on this, this particular one who, this guy was selling batch shelves, but I clicked on his other products and I see he’s got something wood wine rack. So if I click into there, I see a whole bunch of interesting products that I didn’t even know existed. And then I see these a few of them here that are pretty interesting. This looks like a wall mounted wine bottle rack. I see a few of these here. Wall mounted wine rack. So what I can do is I can just, on this page, I can actually click the Chrome extension and I’m gonna hit this tool called Analyze Product Demand on Amazon. And then I would type right there, wall mounted wine rack, I haven’t left alibaba.com. And then I hit see analysis.   Bradley Sutton:   And what shows up is it’s going to show me if that exact keyword has search volume on Amazon and some related keywords to it and some data on it. Now, this right here, as you guys can see, those of you watching this on YouTube, there’s nothing much here. Like this keyword that I entered only has 633 search volume. But take a look at the variations down below of what it says, wine rack wall mounted. So just sh shifting the keywords around that has 9,000 search volume on Amazon. Here’s something that five minutes ago I didn’t even know existed, or at least this exact keyword I didn’t know was a thing, and now I realize it is something that has almost 10,000 searches a month. So guys, this, this is a great technique to use when you’re just like, ah, you just can’t seem to find new product opportunity to expand your brand, especially if you’re on your own suppliers website probably a lot of the products, like if you’re making coffin shelves or a back shelf at a, at a factory there, other wooden products probably could potentially go in line with some of your existing brands.   Destaney Wishon:   Yeah, so one of the first things I’ve been doing when I’ve been auditing brands is relying on the targeting tab. So if you go into advertising console in the top left-hand corner, you’re gonna see targeting under your campaign manager, something around those and the targeting tab actually allows you to add a column for conversion rate. So if you have been in advertising console for a while, you know we’ve never been given access to conversion rate on the keyword level, well within the targeting tab we now have that. So that’s been super, super helpful for any brand owner. Even if you don’t manage ppc, even if you outsource it, go into add console, open up your targeting tab, filter top down by spend and look at where your spend is going. Your highest spending targets should be your highest converting targets and the most aligned keywords for your products. That is like the number one quickest way to audit your brand performance. If you see that the top of your targeting tab has auto campaigns category targeting or product targeting, you’re probably not optimizing your PPC the best way possible because it’s not actually gonna improve your organic rank that much.   Ryan King:   So there’s that way of identifying competitors to match against. AB test, what I’ll say here is, is someone might be thinking do, are you switching it like every four or five days? You’re probably not switching that often. This is probably like you’re testing it two or three product types max cuz there’s not that many out there, right? And again, another caveat would be you’re not looking at, okay, I’m in herbal supplements and my product type is an herbal supplement. Am I gonna do well in protein shakes as a product type? Right? And we just one that’s just gonna be manipulation. It’s not, it’s not serving the end shopper. But also you’re not for that purpose. You’re not gonna index for any of the keywords you really want. The example I’ve given before is using herbal supplements was we had a product that was in herbal supplements as a product type and they were in an herbal supplement.   Ryan King:   But we were banging our heads up against a wall because we were not indexing for what we thought were no-brainer search terms for that product. And the algorithm just wasn’t letting us index for those. So what we simply did is in growth opportunities, I know you’ve shown this before as well. You go into growth opportunities on Seller Center, you go to those details next year, your listing clicks on one of your listings, and there’s a widget right in the middle there. Walmart makes it really easy. There’s a widget in the middle, it says product type. You look at that and you can say report issues. I think it’s a reported issue or something like that right below it. It’ll give you a dropdown of a few suggested product types there. And the herbal supplements case, what we saw was, although herbal supplements seemed to be an exact match, the end result wasn’t what we thought was gonna provide the shoppers with the best experience.   Ryan King:   And so what we saw was if we went one level up vitamins and supplements, there’s, so it’s, it’s, it makes sense in that vertical broader, and we found that instantly. We were almost instantly within a few hours we were indexing for the keywords we needed. So that’s, that’s what I mean. So you’re probably gonna be able to figure out product type pretty easily of what general ones make sense right now. That’s the best solution I know of. So I think it’s one of those, it’s just a helpful point of data as long as it’s available. And so hopefully that’s a help to you. Hopefully, that answers the question.   Lyann Nguyen:   First, we talked about keeping track of your three scores. Get cr experian.com or Identity iq. And if you have zero money and you’re broke as no joke, go to Credit Karma, get that account, put it on your phone, monitor that and find out what needs to be done. Number two, fix all your personal information, your name, your address, your employment, your phone number. Clean it up till you have one of each. Don’t have a whole bunch of stuff that would actually help clear a lot of bad data.   Bradley Sutton:   Wait. Hold on. Yeah, on on number two. Where do I go to do that again? I know you mentioned it earlier, but I forgot to write it down myself.   Lyann Nguyen:   No problem. You can go to experian.com or Identity IQ and the part where it says personal information, you can dispute a lot of that stuff. Or on Credit Karma, you’ll see all that information and then you’ll see like their name, address. The report doesn’t look right, you can contact the bureaus. You can just Google phone number.   Bradley Sutton:   So directly from like these experian.com and these.   Lyann Nguyen:   So you call them and then they’re gonna say, can you can you send me a get, make sure you get your utility bill because or your bank statement that has your name and your address, you would have to send that to them and a driver license to make sure that that’s your one address. You are not living in 10 different places. That’s gonna actually bump your score anywhere from 20 points to 50 points. Just that one move because it’s data.   David Milstein:   Reviews is a huge strategy. You definitely, it’s gonna help you with your conversion rate. I just do wanna point out, unlike Amazon where sales volume is the number one driver of ranking on Walmart, it’s the conversion rate and there’s two conversion rates that reflects, it’s the impression to click and to click the sale. And aside from price and basic content, the best way to get that conversion is through reviews. Now, how do you get reviews on your product? I’m going to suggest two strategies. You have reviews syndication, which is a free program from Walmart that I don’t know why people are not as into finding it. Maybe they should probably run a promo, Hey, sign up for reviews, indication, maybe send emails. If you have reviews on your website, Walmart allows you to bring them to the program. Two platform for free. This is a free program.   David Milstein:   Now you have to make sure that it’s legit and you’re not bringing in only some of your five star reviews. You have to bring in all your reviews to the program. Additionally, you cannot have your Amazon reviews on Walmart illegal. Amazon is against terms of service. They technically own their reviews. Technically you shouldn’t even have them on your website in the first place, but that’s none of my business. But Walmart is not gonna let you take those reviews to Walmart. You could try and they’re gonna say, Hey, those are Amazon reviews, you can’t use those. But it’s a great way if you have reviews on your website, sign up for reviews syndication hopefully you’ll get accepted as long as you answer the case correctly. Don’t, don’t try a lie and try to cheat the system. They’re just gonna shut you down and potentially suspend your as a seller.   David Milstein:   No one wants that. And go ahead and bring in your reviews. Legitimately A second program, I would su strongly recommend, this is a new launch from Walmart, which is the review accelerator program. It allows, it’s similar to I guess the Amazon Vine, but I think it’s actually cheaper. It’s where you enroll certain listings. There is a bit of a restriction on what is allowed and there’s up to, you’re allowed to get up to five reviews per product and it doesn’t recommend, it’s not necessarily gonna get you a five star review. This is important to note, it’s just gonna get you a review. Walmart does claim that five reviews on a product increases the GMV by 75%, which I think is that’s pretty crazy. So there’s just two restrictions. You have to have a sale in the past x amount of time, I think potentially 30 days.   David Milstein:   And you have to have under five reviews and therefore that will make your item eligible for the program. And it costs you $10 per view that you get regardless of the rating. And the incentive to the seller, or to the customer rather the shopper is that they will get $3 credit towards their next purchase. So Walmart sends out an email to them, Hey ’em, hey some li review and you got $3 credit and you will get up to five reviews per product. It’s a great way, the only thing is it’s kind of a bit of a cash 22 cause you’re like, I need to get sales in order to get into the program, but I can’t get sales cause they don’t have reviews. Advertising is key folks. With advertising you’re guaranteed to get at least one sale as long as you’re not extremely priced. That’s as simple as it is.   Jana Krekic:   It’s basically bilingual show, so I support that. But when it comes to translations, but we know this is basically maximizing on the keywords in the first 60 characters of your title. A lot of people forget about the mobile version of the website on Amazon which only shows first 60 characters. And a lot of people go crazy and wild with the keywords, like at the end of the title, just don’t put enough of the most important ones in the first part of the title. And I say like, you should definitely do that, if not because of like the mobile version. Cause a lot of people also will purchase products on their phones and people forget about it. They tend to forget a lot. Especially if you have like a really, really long brand name, then you couldn’t really wanna think about if you’re gonna like play with it or not.   Jana Krekic:   There was the one brand that we did, it was eye patches and then it had like the wordplay eye, like your eyeball, like Eye love it cause it’s an eye patch. And that literally took the whole first 60 characters of their title. And in the mobile version, it didn’t show any of the keywords. So that had to be completely redundant. We completely dropped the, I love it because also like in German and for Germans, it did not sit well, like too much English never work, works amazingly well for the German audience. So that is my tip when it comes to the title. And just like the mobile versions for Amazon. Cause brands really do not think about it a lot.   Bradley Sutton:   Another thing I wanna talk about is explore bundling options, not just as something to add to your listing or to your product. I mean that, yes, that’s definitely something that you can do. You know, maybe you see that people are buying a coffin shelf and a skull together, right? So maybe you’ll be the first one to have a coffin shelf with skull together. Of course, that’s an option, right? But take it a step even easier. Use Black Box product targeting. Enter in your competitor’s ASINs and then filter for frequently bought together.   Bradley Sutton:   This is gonna show you what has been frequently bought together over the past, like 30 days or more that Helium 10 has detected. And sometimes you might find a product that’s like seven or $8 or even $6. And basically what this means is this, this could potentially be a product that you could source for like 30, 40 cents. Like one of the ones that was showing up here is, is spooky stickers. You know probably you could source some spooky stickers for like, what, you know, 25 cents or something like that. But if you have a history that your competitors are selling their product, and then the buyer at the same time is buying spooky stickers on their own, because you can see it in frequently bought together. Now what you should do if it’s really cheap, just go ahead and buy that product, maybe even in a smaller quantity if it’s a little bit more expensive, and then stick it into your product costing you 25 cents each.   Bradley Sutton:   If it’s really small, like stickers. And don’t advertise it. Don’t even advertise in the listing, right? I mean, you could advertise in your listing, but I prefer that for like, you know, more impressive bundling opportunities. But here’s what happens if you don’t advertise, and this is a strategy that, you know, Toma Rabinovich has, has been teaching for, for a while now. It’s part of his like six star method, and I’ve seen this myself out, out in the wild. But what happens is now your customer gets the product, they open it up expecting whatever they bought, say it’s a coffin shelf, but then all of a sudden they have these spooky stickers that customers like them, like, now what does that mean? That means it’s like a pleasant surprise, and it gives, it makes them like double 2x, 3x, maybe even 4x more likely to leave a positive review than if they were just happy with the product by itself.   Jocelyn Jeffries:   But if you want, if you’re in the natural toothpaste space, you need to be competing on those terms. You know you know, Toms of Maine, 12 pack natural toothpaste, blah, blah, blah, blah, is only gonna get you so far. That’s not really gonna improve your rank. You’re probably already solid there, but if you’re looking to improve your overall rank for a product, you need to be going after the keywords that are gonna keyword lead to that improvement. So it’s very much about understanding where you need to be spending and what terms you need to be spending and what’s actually gonna lead toward you know, improvement and rank. I think that’s the, the first step, and then it’s going and executing on that. So PPC is really the tool that you can use to influence specific pieces of search terms and customer behavior and whatnot. So that’s really how you start going after improving your organic rank.    Jocelyn Jeffries:   Yeah, so there’s a couple approaches you can take. I think the long tail keyword is a good way to look at it. You know, if you’re spending money on again, natural toothpaste that’s gonna be probably a waste of money to be honest with you. It’s gonna be so expensive for you to even try and compete in that, that it’s gonna be a waste of dollars. So starting to look at what are some of the longer tail keywords that I can win, you know, if it’s, you know, the most br you know, specific keyword ever, but if it applies to your product, going after that and starting to just chip away at some of that organic rank is gonna be a good way to start. And then, you know, if you have a similar product within your brand or you have competitors, you can start targeting their product detail pages.   Jocelyn Jeffries:   So if someone’s not specifically searching for you, but they see you on you know, another product detail page, that’s a good way to kind of start again, chipping your way in and kind of moving from the outside in to the, the kind of larger volume because again, it’s gonna be a waste of money if you’re trying to go after those high volumes and you don’t have the foundation of strong rank. So starting to chip away I think is the best method and mantra of having it, and this goes to new products as well of if you’re starting from zero, it’s gonna take some time. So long tail and product detail pages is what I would recommend.   Lailama Hasan:   Yeah. So a lot of sellers can get nervous about like, main image strategies, and we give a bunch of those strategies out right at the end. You wanna increase, increase your click through rates. So one way, one hack that I have for testing that out if you’re nervous about it, is upload the strategy that, you know, your agency or whoever’s come up with versus like a fully compliant image. And you know, what you wanna do is upload it on, manage your experiments, and if it gets through the Amazon bots, then you’re good to go and you can upload that image, actually, it will verify it for you, so it’ll automatically upload it for you. Because one thing I wanted to point out is a lot of people will be like, oh, this is not compliant, but you theoretically, 80 to 90% of the main images on Amazon are non-compliant with including props, you know, let’s say a fruit and fruit bowls or including a model in there, or, you know, adding an extra sticker onto your label. All of these are non-compliant. So this is just a hack that I have if you’re worried about it, and plus you get extra insights on which version works better.   Vincenzo Toscano:   Yeah, so when I, when it comes to strategy something that we’ve seen a a lot, I know maybe you have heard this tip before, but it’s focused on the second language of the country you’re selling on. So, for example something we having a lot of success lately with our US brands is using Spanish cures in Canada, we’re using French related cures. For example, in Germany there’s a big population of, of Turkish people Polish and all of that. So there’s a huge potential of using second secondary languages on all these markets. And on top of that, what I would advise as well as an extra plus tip on, on top of this tip in the US for example, you can request your translation to be updated the Spanish one because some of the translation that have been done if the listen is old is it was done with the old translation engine that Amazon had, the backend. So you can actually request Amazon to redo your translation. And this sometimes can help you a lot to reindex for some Spanish queue that you’re not indexing the first time and actually be more relevant for Spanish related keywords. So that would be my tip. Yeah. Cool.   Crystal Ren:   So one tip I learned to increase your productivity by the way is to color different activities you do. So put everything together on your calendar. Like, if you go take a shower, you put it on your calendar. If you go to do some paperwork, you go put it on your calendar, but you want to categorize them differently. So, for example, I categorize them based on, you know, deep work, shallow work. So deep work could be something like a drafting agreement, right? With a supplier. And that would probably take like two to three hours of uninterrupted time. And shallow work would be something like I don’t know, like you know, putting together expense report, you know, so that’s some kind of administrative work that you need to do. And you know, there’s other things, for example, like personal time you know, a shower.   Crystal Ren:   So you mark them differently to make sure that you have enough of deep work time a week so that you know how much, how many hours you spend on deep work, how many hours do you spend on shallow work, which is something that you wanna shrink as much as possible and how, how many hours do you spend on personal time, which maybe perhaps that’s something that you wanna protect right? And you also want to make sure that you have a balanced life so you’re not overworking. So by coloring them into different categories, you can see that visually whether you’re being productive and whether you are having like a balanced week. And that’s what I’ve been doing for now, like six, seven months now.   Bradley Sutton:   Hey, you’re doing great on sales, about to run out of stock. Do you slow sales by raising price and turning off ads and then that hurts your potentially keyword ranks before? Or do you just go hard and heavy, run out of stock and then just get back in and hopefully you still have your keyword ranks when you come back in the stock in a couple of weeks?   Liran Hirschkorn:   I think, from a ranking perspective, it’s better to run out of stock at a better BSR. I think that’s the better way to go. Sometimes you’re going to make a decision that, hey, I just want the profits Right, because that’s what’s more important to me at this point in my business. I’m going to focus more on the profits now, I’m going to reduce, I’m going to raise the price. Or sometimes you may be able to raise the price and there’s so much demand that you’re still driving pretty good sales and you can still raise the price someone and there’s a happy medium. But I would say, from a ranking perspective and coming back in stock at a better rank, it’s better to go out of stock with great sales than to slow down your sales.   Bradley Sutton:   And this is why I said that kind of like off the wall thing earlier where I’m now suggesting that you might want to always do a test listing. Now, all right, I didn’t say that before you know. I said do kind of test listing so you can, so that you can know what kind of exposure you’re going to get on PPC to validate some, some theories you have. When there’s not enough information from existing competitors, you know you might want to make sure that you validate your idea with a test listing. But now, guys, I’m saying, if you’re selling in a newer niche, especially and maybe sometimes, even if you’re an established niche, it might be worth it to spend you know 50 bucks and get another UPC code and just do a fulfill by merchant listing, send a couple of or have a couple of units available and have your listing that you want to go with and then see immediately what does Amazon think that you’re relevant for right. And then if you’re completely fine with this listing and you have the right keywords for Amazon recommended rank from day one, all right, well, you’re good to go. That means go ahead and launch your regular product once you’re ready and you can have that exact listing, knowing that from day one you might have that.   Mina Elias:   So for me, I think what I’ve seen is the sale, the selling points, like the USB, the selling point being visible and you showing that you’re better than everyone else just from the main image. And so when I, when I put a bunch of you know like products next to each other, my competitors versus me, like I know that I’m looking for a product, not a lot of people take advantage of the text on their, on their boxes or on their products. So, for example, let’s say you know you’re selling like flip flops, the cloud flip flops, so you can have the flip flops and, and you know, in an angle whatever. Or you can have the flip flops put on top of a box, a fake box, and on that box, you have two sides where you can write text and it says, like you know, the softest material on the market or whatever a hundred percent recyclable stuff like that, right, because you can have that text on the box that you couldn’t have actually have on your package, and that box probably doesn’t exist. You know you’re probably shipping it in a of the day, they’re going to get your slippers. They’re going to look this, you know they’re going to look like slippers.   Mina Elias:   So for me, my product, my electrolytes if you go look at it on Amazon, it’s like shinier. There’s text on the cap, there’s like some different logos that show that actually don’t exist on the bottle and when they do get the bottle it looks very, very similar. There’s just a few things, and those few things those are the differences that when someone types in a keyword and they’re looking, you know they’re browsing, I catch their eye because I have, like some elements outside of the product that are eye catching and I have some text on the product that, like they’re looking at all like this is an electrolyte powder, so this is an electrolyte powder with no sugar, with no carbs, and it has this and it’s made in America and it’s all of these things on the label and so they’re like they’re convinced to click on me without having to read like title or anything like that.   Ritu Java:   For example, just this morning I was preparing for a new product launch for one of our clients and I’d got all my data from Helium 10. I was at the stage where I have to come up with some keywords for broad match campaigns. I wanted to make sure that all the right keywords are in there, not just the long tail ones with high search volume, but I wanted to make sure that I’m capturing all the seed combinations of important words that make sense. So what I did was I exported the Helium 10 cerebral analysis and I fed it to ChatGPT and asked it to come up with two words and three word combinations of seed keywords that would perfectly describe this product. Now what I’m going to do next with that is basically convert that into broad match modifiers, which basically means you add a plus sign in front of all the seeds and then I’m going to create campaigns with it. So that’s something that I do at every launch. I generally don’t skip that step. It’s an important one for me. So, in addition to all the long tail keywords, I will come up with enough seed words that will run at a slightly lower bid but will be like a discovery campaign for me through the broad match modifier channel. So that’s kind of one thing that I do.   Ritu Java:   Then, like yesterday, I was doing another one for another client, where we have a list of keywords that we discovered from the search query performance report, which is kind of this new, very valuable piece of data that Amazon is giving us these days. So from there I was able to come up with a structure for sponsored brand headline ads and I didn’t have to do the work. I just fed that entire list to ChatGPT and said, hey, organize this into groups of very related words and then give me a headline ad which is less than 50 characters, because that’s the amount Amazon will give us. And then it did that for me. I also gave it one other important instruction, which is to make sure that one of the keywords or a very close variant of that keyword in the group must be included in the title, and that’s basically my way of saying, hey, I want this to be a lower funnel ad, not a generic kind of upper funnel ad, because my sponsored brand ads tend to be more focused on RoAS rather than brand discovery and brand awareness. So those are some of the ways that I’m using it almost on a daily basis. I had switched to ChatGPT plus a long time ago. I’ve been paying for it and it’s totally worth it.   Matt Altman: Yeah, so the great thing about Product Opportunity Explorer is it really shows you what keywords are driving the sales for those. So more than how many products are there we’re looking at, are there branded terms that are in the Product Opportunity Explorer.  So like an example that we were looking at this past week was for a floor cleaning product and we saw that of the 20 top like 50 keywords, bona was one of the main sales driving keywords. Like, even if there weren’t that many products in that category, we aren’t going to be able to overcome that branded search deficit. So it’s just not something that we would go into Um, but we definitely prefer to go into categories where those sales are spread across more Um. The main reason for that is we really like to do kind of um I would call it kind of like tailgating. We like to kind of stay behind everyone and we’ll pull like 10% of the sales from this person, from this person, and you can kind of pick off keywords from certain top products and they may not notice that you’re coming up and then you can really use that to catapult yourself to the top of the category before the rest of the products in the category realized what’s happening.   Marcus Mokros:   Amazon recently announced that they will look for title images that are not meeting the terms of service and they will use AI to change that. They will download your image, remove everything that doesn’t belong there in their opinion and upload it again, and that is something you don’t want. You don’t want an AI to touch your title image. Yeah, and Michael from AMZ Boost, a product photographer, he told me, just use your picture, space number nine. Nobody looks there. Put a title image there that will meet the terms of service and because what Amazon is doing first, they will scan your product photos and check if there is something that is compliant to the terms of service and they will put it to spot number one as your title image. And if they don’t find something, they will change it in their terms. So that’s an awesome hack.

Unlock the secrets to conquering the Middle Eastern e-commerce landscape as we team up with Krystel, our Dubai-based expert, to navigate the dynamic marketplaces of Amazon UAE, Amazon KSA, and Amazon Egypt. Our discussion peels back the layers of these culturally rich and diverse regions, showcasing strategic entry points for foreign sellers and the innovative AE2SA program that's revolutionizing logistics and cross-border commerce. Embrace the tales of triumph as we reveal how a local Prada sunglasses distributor and a savvy Polish pet treat enterprise struck gold in the desert by leveraging Amazon's robust platform. Crack the code on advertising strategies and product hijacking within Amazon's ecosystem, where we dissect the intricate dance between cost-effective marketing and the darker shades of competitive tactics. Our conversation extends beyond mere product listings, as we arm you with the know-how to refine your sales acumen and construct a resilient product framework. Plus, get an exclusive scoop on the upcoming seller meet-up in Dubai, a hotbed for networking and exchanging insights with fellow entrepreneurs. As the sun sets on our enlightening session, Krystel and I invite you to explore the vast opportunities ripening in the Middle Eastern sun. Whether you're a seasoned seller or just planting your flag, the region's e-commerce growth is a fertile ground, ready for you to sow your business dreams. So, tune in and prepare to be whisked away on a magic carpet ride of invaluable strategies and heartwarming success stories that await in the Middle East's online bazaar.   In episode 521 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Krystel discuss: 00:00 - Fastest Growing Marketplaces on Amazon  04:34 - Amazon Marketplaces In THe Middle East  12:09 - Amazon's Middle East Market Expansion  19:05 - Increase Sales With Prada Sunglasses 22:47 - The Viability of Reselling Products 28:19 - Comparing PPC Costs in Different Marketplaces  29:02 - Advertising and Hijacking on Amazon 34:17 - Building a Customer-Friendly Product Framework 35:30 - How To Contact Krystel Abi Assi ► 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 somebody back on the show who is going to talk about some of the fastest growing marketplaces in the world for Amazon, amazon UAE and Amazon KSA. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Helium 10's got over 40 tools for e-commerce entrepreneurs. I know how overwhelming it might seem to try and figure out how you're going to learn how to use everything, or maybe even to know which ones you want to get started with, so for a completely free course that's going to guide you through learning everything you need in order to become a Helium 10 expert, visit the Helium 10 Academy. That is h10.me/academy. Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the series sellers podcast by Helium 10. I am your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show. That's a completely BS free, unscripted and unrehearsed organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world, and we are going on the opposite side of the world today, coming to us live from, I believe, Dubai. We've got Krystel back on the show. How's it going? Krystel: Hey, Bradley, very good. Thank you so much for having me back. Very excited to talk Amazonian with you. Bradley Sutton: Yes, let's do it. Let's do it. You know I'm here in feeling the nostalgic vibes. I'm here in my I'm not going to call this the original serious sellers podcast studio because we, when we first started, we were in another. During the podcast we were in another small we work office way, way back in the day, but this was our second ever podcast studio. I'm here in Irvine, California, at our original Helium 10 office doing some meetings this week, so not in my regular studio, but you, you are. You've been in Dubai. How long now. Krystel: Since, well, I officially moved to Dubai in 2019 myself and the company we moved to Dubai in 2019. So not a very long time. Bradley Sutton: All right About the same time, since I've been in this, this office here. So if you're looking for a Krystel's backstory, we're not going to go too much into it today. You can go to episodes 304 and 376. She was on, so just h10.me/304 or 376. And you can, you know, see, you know a lot more of her backstory there. But today I wanted to, you know, catch up, because now it's it's, you know, pretty much, it's 2024. And we are, you know, in a new world where Amazon is opening up again to other market places. You know, there was a time where, where it seemed like it, wasn't really opening up to to new marketplaces and there was a time where there was just booming, you know, opening up in UAE and Saudi Arabia and other places. So I wanted to kind of like see what's going on in that region. So, first of all, in that area it's not just Amazon UAE, but what are the other main marketplaces in your region over there? Krystel: If you are a seller that's based or you know, you launch on Amazon in the UAE, you're not just serving the UAE customers, but you're serving UAE customers, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait and, most notably and recently, Qatar, which became quite a popular country because, you know, if you're, if you're soccer fans, or yeah, or World Cup fans, then that's a really cool country. So, yes, as a seller, now you could just send your products over to Amazon in the UAE and you'll be able to access all of those countries as well. Bradley Sutton: Okay, interesting, interesting. Now, which token is that connected to? Because I like, for example, if I'm selling in Amazon USA, that's like the North American token, but it actually also includes, you know, Mexico, Canada and Actually Brazil. You know, if I'm selling in in in Singapore, that's part of like the Asian token includes like Japan. And then there's Europe, which, just with the, you know, once I'm in one marketplace, I'm in all of the others. Now, is that, is that region connected to Europe? Is it connected to the Asian Marketplace where, as long as you're selling there, it's, it's pretty much just a few clicks? And then, of course, your business information, where I don't have to apply like from scratch, or is it its own separate entity? Krystel: It's really cool that you brought this up. So let me just clarify again Amazon doesn't have an Amazon like, unlike in Europe, where you have, for example, amazon Germany, amazon Spain, amazon France. Amazon still only has Operations in these three countries that I mentioned. However, they do. You as a seller, it'll be much easier for you because you can simply have your products warehouse in the UAE and sell them all across the rest of these countries that I just mentioned as well. Amazon has its own entity for the region, dubbed as Amazon Middle East, so it is part of your global marketplaces. For anyone that is currently an Amazon seller, you could just log in, add a new marketplace and you'll find the Middle East, and you'll find three countries under the Middle East KSA UAE and Egypt. You will not, unlike North America. You'll not be automatically, automatically. You know not. All three markets are gonna be automatically. You're not gonna be enrolled in them. You're gonna have to enroll in them separately. Bradley Sutton: Okay, interesting interest. All right now. I think as far as helium 10 is concerned, it's it's tied to one of them, if it's its own region or tied to another place. Krystel: I'm not a hundred percent sure you guys are tight counts, like when you're. Bradley Sutton: Yes, oh tight to Europe. Okay that's important for some customers like, or anybody who uses software like helium 10, everybody does it the same way. Like they count, like how many Marketplaces you're in, not necessarily by each marketplace, but by the token. So so like, for example, a certain level of helium 10, if it says you're allowed to connect to Tokens, it doesn't mean just like two marketplaces like US and Canada, that actually still counts for one, even Mexico and Brazil, and then if you're in Europe, that actually counts for two. So I think what you're saying is like, hey, if you, if you are selling in Europe, or whether you're not selling in Europe, it counts as all, as just one token. So you don't have to like, get another helium 10 account, guys you know, to be able to to access our tools for the UAE marketplace. Now, what, how's it been? You know UAE is now, you know, been there for a few years Amazon UAE. Is that the number one grossing marketplace from the ones that that you mentioned? Or Saudi Arabia, come up, or what would you say? Krystel: So let me give you some numbers which are quite interesting. I'm looking at my phone cuz I have, like these slide See, these pictures of us in the actual event, so that I just mentioned. So If you forget all of the stats coming out of the region, you'll find that you know the numbers are really promising. Just to just as a backstory as well, the region isn't that big. Population wise, like the whole of the Middle East, is probably the same population of just the US alone, so this is not a very big market. So these numbers, which you might not consider very big if you guys sell in the US, but based on the population, it's quite. Krystel: It's quite interesting seeing that Two of the strongest countries when it comes to e-commerce are really just the UAE and Saudi, because they have also the biggest population. But what's estimated to Sales and e-commerce are estimated to reach about 56 billion US dollars in 2025, which is a really good growth and a really big spike. Very interesting, but that's e-commerce sales in general. Now, amazon in the recent year. What they shared during the event was what they saw in 2023 was a 69% sales growth on Amazon UAE and a 65% sales growth on Amazon KSA, which is quite interesting the reason why I think KSA is Picking up. Bradley Sutton: I know what it means, but just let everybody know what you're referring to with KSA. Krystel: Oh, kingdom of Saudi Arabia, sorry. Yes, so it's Saudi Arabia. So the official, the official or the shorter version of saying Kingdom of Saudi Arabia or Saudi Arabia. Bradley Sutton: Yeah, I knew that, but, like you know, I think there's a popular youtuber with that name, so, like some, some people might have got a little bit confused, but yeah just make sure, we're all on the same page, but that's. Krystel: KSA. But yeah, you're right, You're right. Bradley Sutton: There you go, okay. Krystel: You're right. You're right, so it, so the sales growth, is quite significant. It's simply because Saudi Arabia started a little bit later than UAE Amazon wise, that's what I mean started. So Amazon launched in 2019 In the UAE and then at the end of 2020, early 2021, which is obviously not wasn't an easy time they launched in Saudi. So that's why, plus Saudi, Saudi Arabia, or KSA, is Bigger, like it has three times the population of UAE. So I think it's natural to see those growth. Another number that I think would be interesting to share is something that they call the new to brand, which is very much a Salesy type of platform type of metric that they follow. Will would would life to dissect it with you a little bit further, Bradley, but what they said was the UAE is experiencing about 38% increase in new to brand customer growth and Saudi Arabia is experiencing 67% in new to brand customer growth. Bradley Sutton: Interesting, interesting. So that's you know some promising, promising numbers. Yeah, um, there now, uh, there's every. You know, for somebody who's not familiar with the region, uh, and the operations there, is it very similar with how amazon operates everywhere else? You know like most customers will be able to get, you know, same day or one or two day delivery, and, and you know there's different. There's FBA warehouses all over the place and, and just like the, the, the system is exactly the same. Um, or are there some intricacies due to local laws or or the region? Krystel: That's a really good question. Actually, they are exactly the same and I have another number to share with you, if I can find it. Um, it's based on what amazon is trying, how amazon is trying to expand in the region, what they're trying to do and this is according to amazon's metrics, not to mine, okay, not my metrics uh, what they're what they've done is when it comes to storage. So let's, let's dissect the storage part of of your question. Yes, all fba, everything's there. Same day delivery, um, next day delivery, probably not two day delivery, even Quite quite good fulfillment centers and quite good uh logistic support. Uh, when asked, uh, a lot of customers say the reason why they like buying from amazon is primarily because of convenience and not because of price. So that's something to to be aware of. It's not a very price sensitive market, but obviously everybody likes to get a bargain. You know, um, amazon currently is it's increasing its capacity in the UAE by about 70%. So they do have about five fulfillment centers and they're opening up mega fulfillment centers in the UAE. I think they're positioning the UAE in particular to be the hub for the rest of the Middle East. Um, they obviously also do have uh lots of storage warehouses in Saudi Arabia. I don't have numbers for that. And what they're looking is they're looking to showcase and to, but they call it showcase, but obviously they want to onboard new sellers. They want to reach a hundred thousand sellers by 2026, all focused on SMEs and not necessarily large brands and retailers. So that's cool, okay. Bradley Sutton: All right. Now, you know, like, when you look on the amazon website and look up like, or Google like, amazon middle east, it mentions the two marketplaces we've been, we've been talking about um, which is, uh, you know, UAE and and KSA. Now what I don't see you know, their advertise at least is is amazon Egypt. But it but it mentions they like amazon Egypt was also something taken over from a Sukh website, like, like, is it fulfilled from amazon UAE? Is it completely separate or what's going on in Egypt? Krystel: You know, Egypt is one of the most interesting markets for me uh population wise. It has a hundred million people, so it is technically one of the biggest countries uh in the Middle East Um and it's a very promising market Uh. However, based on the logistics and how difficult it is for uh foreigners and foreign sellers to be able to import export products into uh Egypt, what amazon have done is they've just open, operating it as a local amazon market, meaning they're really focused on supporting uh manufacturers and sellers in the region sell on amazon as an additional sales channel and it's not really opened up to um to foreign sellers or to international sellers. Bradley Sutton: Interesting Okay. Krystel: Yeah. Bradley Sutton: So then, if I am a foreigner international seller, would you suggest, uh, I go at the same time in UAE and KSA, or is one a better starting point uh than the other? Krystel: That's a really good question. We get a lot of people reaching out to us for support, especially brands that want to, you know, really come into the market. Um, they're potentially already have feelers in the market. They know their product might work well. So we always tend to suggest that you get started in one market, which is probably the UAE. It is the most easiest market for you as an international seller to get into, launch your products in the UAE and then sell on amazon and KSA. What do I mean by that? So amazon did recently release a program which we are a part of and we support all sellers with that program called AE2SA, which basically means they want to support sellers. Krystel: Uh, try to expand from the UAE to KSA with support with things like logistics, shipment, product registration and also being able to immediately open your global account from UAE to Saudi. The reason for this is because the laws and regulations in Saudi are quite difficult when it comes to importing products, in particular, as opposed to the UAE. Um, I think the country is definitely making a lot of changes. I'm sure you guys have heard a lot of things that are happening nowadays in Saudi, so it's a really, really interesting country. But still, when it comes to business, there's still this problem. Amazon really recognized this and they saw that um SMEs, which are the majority of amazon sellers, aren't able to easily logistically get into Saudi, and that's why they thought the easiest way would be to just help and support them get from UAE over to Saudi with the help and support of Amazon. Bradley Sutton: Okay, now, uh, I know UAE is in mainly English marketplace as far as the language that you make your listings in. What about, uh, KSA? Is it also English? Krystel: Um, honestly. Honestly speaking, let's talk about the actual consumer first. Yes, amazon in the UAE is like you said, Bradley, because you have a lot of insights here. Uh, yes, primarily English. You do all of your cataloging in English. However, in UAE they did actually have to change the backend, the Amazon seller central, to be also in Arabic, because primarily, the main language spoken in well, the language in the region is Arabic, of course, but the UAE has about 80, or maybe a little bit more than 80% expats all English speaking, so the market itself is very heavy in English, whereas in Saudi Arabia it's it's the national, the actual language of the country, which is primarily Arabic. Bradley Sutton: So you can list your, so then you need to create your listings in Arabic for for KSA, as opposed to English. Krystel: You can. You have the option of creating it in both English and Arabic. You have the option of creating it in Arabic and getting Amazon to translate it to you in English Sorry, yeah, and getting Amazon to translate it in Arabic if you want to or you can log in and tweak the Arabic content as well. In the UAE we don't have that option, so we catalog all of our listings in English and the website automatically just translates the language into Arabic. We can't, we don't have any input as to if there's anything wrong with the, with the wording. Bradley Sutton: Got it, got it Okay, so not a lot of work for translation companies here in the region. Krystel: So it's going to be quite easy for you guys to be able to list your products for sure. Bradley Sutton: How about one success story each? You don't have to, you don't have to mention names or exact numbers, but one success story each from somebody that you know having success in UAE from outside of the country. You know could be somebody from Europe, somebody from North America who you know, maybe one of your clients, or just somebody in your network who said, hey, let's try UAE, and then they were here and now they're here, and then also somebody living in in UAE. Like I know, we had a one of somebody from your network last year on the podcast. I think he was originally from Serbia, if I'm not mistaken, but another kind of like success, or just to give people like an idea of like what the potential is of, you know, showing examples of real people. Krystel: Of course, I'm going to give you two examples of actual clients that we've worked with. Being an Amazon service provider, we work with a lot of key accounts from Amazon, so they send us a lot of great accounts that we can help, especially when it comes to strategies, which is what we love to do. What we see in the region here is that especially you know the numbers that I told you about earlier new to brand numbers. Those are primarily because larger brands in the Middle East, such as the recognized brands that you guys know and love, that we all buy, like Apple, samsung those types of brands don't really take Amazon seriously in the region. It's just just another sales channel for them. So that's why I think really savvy entrepreneurs are able to just come in soup in, and if you know how to sell to the Amazon customer these days because you know, you really know how to sell, you really need to know how to sell in this market then you'll you're able to pick up where these brands have left off. Krystel: We recently actually started working with Prada Prada sunglasses. We don't work directly with the Prada company, we work with the distributor of Prada right here in the UAE and they are a prime example of a retailer that was just. You know, they just have their products on Amazon because they need to. They don't have their team is amazing, but their team has no knowledge of Amazon. They're just an e-commerce like a couple of e-commerce people. They know a little bit about websites, they know a little bit about that, but they don't know a lot about the interest cases on Amazon. And because we made a lot of the changes to their listings, we were able to understand who their key client was. And, mind you, prada sunglasses are not cheap, of course. You know that. So we were able to actually increase their sales during definitely during Black Friday, without doing like a crazy discount, but we focused a lot on some of the viral Prada sunglasses that were, you know, viral now on TikTok. We were able to increase their sales by about 500%, and that's just during Black Friday. So the key takeaway of this story is to understand that sales are there, customers are there, but it's also very important to understand how the customer operates on Amazon, how they like to purchase products, what are their buyer personas and how to talk to those buyers. And still large brands like Prada still need to do the same thing. Krystel: Another story would be one of our brands that we recently well as of three or four months ago we started working with. They are a dog treat company. They sell natural dog treats. Based out of Poland, they are one of the largest they're really really popular brand on Amazon in Europe. We help them from start to finish, enter into Amazon in the UAE. It was quite difficult because they sell natural, raw dog treats for them to enter into KSA, so what we did was support them. You know, to get these products into the UAE is not really that complicated If I were to compare it to any other country. They do require registration. Things like makeup, things like supplements. Of course, these products do require registration, but the registration is quite simple. It takes about 15 days. It's very inexpensive to do, very easy to get done. So we did that. We launched the products. The pet industry here in the region is booming since 2020. Everybody now has pets. You see pets everywhere, but obviously pet stores sell the same exact products because it's the same distributors. So customers who are looking for things that are different, looking for things that are unique whether that be pet accessories or food or anything like that opt to search for them on marketplaces like Amazon, and that's where this company was able to, you know, really come into the region and be able to take a huge market share on Amazon, and now, from Amazon UAE, they've also launched NKSA through the program that we just discussed. Bradley Sutton: Are there other kinds of of selling that are having success in KSA and UAE, for example? Obviously we mainly talk about private label here, but there's people who do wholesale arbitrage. I'm not even sure if KDP is a thing over there, but our other forms of selling like maybe entry points for people or pretty much the way to go is private label in those marketplaces. Krystel: That's a great question. Thank you so much for bringing that up. I mainly work with private label. That's why I always have the private label lens on. I love private label as well, but, yes, for sure, other selling models, and obviously you don't need to pigeonhole yourself. If you are doing private label, you could also do reselling as well. Kdp doesn't exist in the region. I would say retail arbitrage is quite impossible. Amazon is making it very, very difficult for sellers to just sell just products that they buy from stores. But reselling is available and, yes, we don't deal with I don't have direct relations with anyone that does reselling, but I do. Obviously, in our community meetups I do meet a lot of people that are doing reselling and they're doing quite well. Krystel: The only thing that you would need to think about is you would just need a larger catalog. Because of the size of the market. You're not gonna have products that are selling thousands of units per day, so you would just need to think about expanding your catalog, and that's what you need to do also for private label. You just need to think about the strategy. You need to expand your catalog so that you can generate the revenue that you're used to generating in markets like the US as an example. But yeah, reselling very popular as well. A lot of people actually go to the local markets here in because we have a lot of wholesale Chinese local markets. They pick up just generic products and they resell them and a lot of people sell branded products. They go directly to the distributors, buy products or they even buy them from. Recently I met a great young lady. She started selling on Amazon. She buys all of her beauty products, everything from a distributor based in France and she sells them. She sells like very recognized brands on Amazon in the UAE and she's killing it and she just started. She's in university and she's doing really well. Bradley Sutton: Okay, excellent, excellent. Now something that's I think a lot of sellers might wonder is all right, this all sounds well and good. How do I get started? Well, a lot of your clients using Helium 10 to do product research and keyword research. And then what are they for KSA? Are they kind of just using like brand analytics and things, since Helium 10 is not, doesn't have the research tools yet over there. Krystel: You guys have left us hanging in KSA. But you are promising me, Bradley, that soon nobody knows when we're gonna have Helium 10. Not, promising. Not promising. Bradley Sutton: But hey, what I can promise is that if the demand is there, we'll make it. So, like if somebody's listening on the show or some of your network want to make sure that Helium 10 opens up for KSA, you guys need to, like, make your voices heard and send customer service messages to say, hey, please, we need these tools for KSA. Krystel: I think that's what everyone did for UAE. I think your customer service team was like help. So, yeah, happy to do it in KSA as well. Let's go. The population is bigger, so I'm sure you're gonna get three times the amount of requests. So, yeah, exactly, we, almost everyone because Helium 10 is a really popular tool. You guys are doing great and we love it as well. Helium 10 is primarily the tool that people use in UAE. Unfortunately, there are no tools currently for KSA. For us, yes, we use brand analytics and such, but unfortunately for new sellers, they try to piece together any type of information that they can find. They maybe use Helium 10 for UAE and try to. They're very similar markets, very, very similar type of customers. So, yeah, they just try to make do with what they have. Bradley Sutton: What for a foreign entity? What are the requirements? What is Amazon asking to set up the account? Like, if I'm a UK business, can I just use my UK corporation? If I have a USA LLC or I'm a private individual, do I just register that? Do I have to have like importer of record, like Japan has? What are the obstacles that I need to think of before going ahead and getting started over there? Krystel: Really cool. Obviously, like any region, I know I'm painting it as very positive, but I look at it as a great region. Of course, but of course, just like any endeavor you guys want to do, you need to research it. Expansion is great, growth is great, but growth comes with risk and being uncomfortable. So if you're happy with that, go ahead and do it. I think and I did say that with you on the earlier, maybe the first ever podcast, I think Amazon UAE is one of, or the Middle Eastern general is probably one of the easiest markets that Amazon have for you to set up as a seller. Absolutely yes. You can get started with your LTD if you're a UK based seller. You can get started with your LLC if you are a US based seller. Absolutely no problem at all, and you can also register a company here in the UAE, avoid paying taxes if you like, and set up on Amazon in the UAE as well. But it is very, very simple. You just need a business license. You can even open a professional account without a business license. You can just use your ID. You just either need your business license and a copy of your ID or you need your ID and a bank statement Very simple and you'll get it done. It's a very simple process to open an account, for sure. Bradley Sutton: PPC costs usually in, I mean, I think in America now people are like, oh my goodness, ppc is so expensive. But in my experience I've seen some of the other newer marketplaces it's usually lower. So is that your experience, comparing it to like US and Europe, where the per click fees in UAE and KSA are a lot less than what somebody might be used to paying in other marketplaces? Krystel: I wish you didn't ask me this question. That's the only negative thing. No, ppc is actually quite expensive here, which is very, very odd. Yes, it's very interesting, very odd. However, this is where it becomes really interesting. Sponsored, brand sponsored display ads are quite expensive. However, everything that you get as a trademark or a brand registered seller on Amazon, such as video ads, banner ads, are quite inexpensive. The reason is the majority of sellers on Amazon, especially the new sellers, are not brand registered here in the market, however, so that's why that part of ads is quite Cheap, dare I say. However, standard ads are somewhat expensive per click Mixture of things. Obviously, everybody wants to advertise these days you know how Amazon is but also potentially because there are a lot of new sellers in the region. So when a new seller launches, they just want to get started, they really want to test out the product. They are willing to sacrifice that product. So they start bidding more than they need to. Guys come on. So they start bidding a little bit higher than they should, which basically gets the PPC ads to be quite expensive. Well, based on how I think they should be, but yeah, it is somewhat high. It's not a cheap place to advertise, for sure. Bradley Sutton: OK, all right, sticking on the potentially negative kind of things. What are the like? Is the same kind of maybe black hat things happening over there, or is it maybe less? You know, like in American marketplaces, there's a lot of maybe listing getting hijacked or a lot of fake reviews that maybe don't get policed, or people trying to do shady things, like again, since that's a smaller marketplace, is that not happening as much, you think, like some of these shady practices, or is it just as prevalent over there as it is in other marketplaces? Krystel: That's an interesting question, I think. When it comes to reviews, no, not that much. When it comes to hijacking, yes. But listen, I get a lot of messages on Instagram. I got a lot of like. We get a lot of calls to the office, people just asking us for help and they say, oh, my listing got hijacked. And then I discover they're not brand registered, they're just selling a standard product. And I say, well, that's not hijacking, that's just another resender. So, yes, if I were to say are there hijackers? Yes, there are, but mostly it's not actually hijackers, it's just the standard business format of Amazon. Krystel: But some sellers don't actually know that that's the case. When they launch on Amazon, they think they own the product. They created the listing and nobody else is allowed to set it. And some hijackers that we have discovered don't do it because of black hat tactics or anything like that. They actually resell a product because they think they're allowed to. They think that's how it works. So we normally actually just communicate directly with the seller and we say, look, you're selling this product. We haven't permitted you to sell it. We don't even have to go through Amazon brand support, like. We could just talk directly to the seller and they're willing to just remove themselves. So it's not as prevalent and it's not as tough. It's quite easy to handle, for sure. Bradley Sutton: OK, cool. Before we get into your strategy of the day, a couple of things. So I'll be in Dubai on January night of January 11th, 12th. So we're going to be planning Krystel something. I maybe, either. I'll probably come in too late on the 11th, so it'll probably be like a seller breakfast or something like that the morning of the 12th. So if people want to first of all, just if they want to reach out to you at all to ask follow up questions or get help with UAE, or they want to reach out to you to find out details about whatever we're going to do on the January 12th, how can they find you out there? Krystel: First of all, I'm really happy. You've got really great loyal listeners, me being one of them, of course, but whenever we did our very first podcast, I got so many follow up questions and it's really, really exciting to see people excited about the potential of coming into the region. Please feel free to reach out to us. You know we're happy to help you in any question that you have, even if it's just a small question. The easiest way to reach out to us is through our official website, which is wwwasasamazonsellerssocietymiddleeastorg, or you could just simply find us on Instagram, amazon Sellers Society. Dm us and we'll be able to help you with anything that you need. Krystel: We will be, obviously, once we decide, bradley, what we're going to have for breakfast and where we're going to have it, we will be announcing it as well. So very excited to see a lot of people come to the breakfast. A lot of Helium 10, you know, a lot of Helium 10. People from the network also now live in Dubai, especially that, as you know, in January the weather is absolutely wonderful. So I hope maybe even people will fly in, who knows? Because the region is really quite close. So if you live anywhere close, you could just hop one hour and come to the breakfast. Bradley Sutton: Yeah, Awesome, awesome, all right now, what is your, you know closest, with a 30 or 60 second strategy of the episode. Go ahead and hit us with one. Krystel: So thank you First and foremost. I always hear from new sellers, especially in the region here, that Amazon is such a saturated market. I think we've been hearing about Amazon being a saturated market probably since the beginning of Amazon. Tools like Helium 10 can definitely help you find really cool products to sell, but nowadays the Amazon customer, the e-commerce customer, is no longer just build it and they will come type of customer. Krystel: You really need to hone in on your sales skills. You really need to know how to build a framework for a product that customers can buy. We see it all the time. Customers come to us and they say sellers come to us and they say I'm spending so much money on ads and I'm not generating any sales. Is it a platform problem? What is it? Is it a product problem? And 99% of the time, it's because they don't know who their buyer is. They don't know how to talk to their ideal customer, so they're just listing the product and hoping for the best. Nowadays, that's not something that you can do. Make sure that you work on your strategy and you'll be super successful on platforms like Amazon or anywhere you decide to sell. And good luck. Bradley Sutton: Awesome. All right, Krystel. Thank you for coming back on the show and it'll be great to see you in person again. So my first event I did an event with you a couple years ago in Dubai. That was great and I look forward to seeing you in person again and wish everybody the best of success if they're expanding to Amazon Middle East. See you guys later.

Ever wonder how an Amazon ranking maestro maneuvers the complex chessboard of e-commerce strategy? Alina Vlaic, the founder of AZRank and our go-to guru, returns to the show with a fresh cache of tactics for conquering Amazon's ever-changing TOS and algorithm. With a pivot towards market research and feedback-driven methods, she reveals how her business remains a tour de force in enhancing keyword relevance. Our conversation is a riveting game plan for sellers eager to sink their teeth into compliant and effective ranking strategies, tailored for those who play to win. Navigating the e-commerce seas requires a versatile captain, and in this episode, we chart the course through the distinct waters of Amazon, Walmart, and Etsy. Discover how social proof anchors Etsy's success, why Walmart's ecosystem is the new frontier to watch, and what Amazon's virtual bundles mean for your bulk sales strategy. I even share a personal tale of triumph with these virtual bundles that's revolutionized how my industrial scientific brand approaches the bulk market. This is your masterclass in adapting to the unique currents of each platform, a conversation not to be missed by merchants sailing towards profitable shores. When it comes to marketing artillery, press coverage and user-generated content (UGC) are the cannons of the day. We dissect when press really packs a punch for brand awareness and the shift towards a cost-per-click payment model. Then, we turn the spotlight on UGC, contrasting its current clout with the fading glitz of external traffic channels. To cap off, I let you in on a strategic secret using Amazon's Opportunity Explorer to sharpen your PPC and ranking initiatives. For visionaries ready to unleash the power of authenticity and innovation in their online presence, this episode is your treasure map to success.   In episode 520 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Alina discuss: 03:13 - Dynamic Year in Amazon and E-Commerce 05:34 - New Strategies on Amazon, Walmart, Etsy 15:05 - Ranking and Variations in Virtual Bundles 18:50 - Press X and UGC in Marketing 22:07 - Discussion on UGC and Expanding Opportunities 23:03 - UGC and AI in Amazon Selling 31:03 - Expanding Brand With Miraclecom Dashboard ► 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/video   Transcript Bradley Sutton: Today we got Alina back on the show, and she’s gonna talk about what is working with Amazon and Walmart ranking strategies, as well as some cool Amazon virtual bundle that I didn’t even know about. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Did you know that just because you have a keyword in your listing, that does not mean that you are automatically guaranteed to be searchable or, as we say, indexed for that keyword? Well, how can you know what you are indexed for and not? You can actually use Helium 10's Index Checker to check any keywords you want. For more information, go to h10.me/indexchecker. Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the series sellers podcast by Helium 10. I am your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show. That's a completely BS free, unscripted and unrehearsed organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. And we're going to the other part of the world. I believe she's in Romania right now. We've got Alina back on the show here, and what city I'm trying to remember? What city in Romania are you at? Alina: Sibiu Bradley Sutton: How far away is that from the Dracula castle that I've always wanted to visit? Alina: Very close, like 100 kilometers. Bradley Sutton: Okay, all right. So, yeah, all right if we visit your family over there. I know we've hung out in Turkey, another place in around the world, but not in your home country, so I definitely want to visit over there. Now, guys, if you want to get her full backstory we're not going to go too much into it today because she's been on the podcast before, make sure to go to episodes. 122 was one of them, and also 267, and then most recently she was on in 406. All right, so this is now her fourth time on the podcast. Each time she's expanded what she's done, and you might know her from AZRank, which I've talked about a plethora of times. I've always joked with her that I wish I had some kind of contract where I get $10 every time I mention it. I might not be working at Helium 10 anymore. I'd be so rich. But hey, I mentioned things that I organically use, and no, you know, Alina doesn't pay me to, I'm not an affiliate, but I naturally will recommend services and things that I use and that I trust, and that's definitely AZRank. Bradley Sutton: Throughout the years has changed because of Amazon differences, and then last year we talked a little bit about one of our newer companies called Press X, and so let's just first talk about what people know you for what's going on in the AZRank world these days. Like somebody might think that, oh, AZRank must be completely out of business because now there's no search, find, buy and stuff. But you know, you guys are obviously still doing things that are above board. It's not, it's not, it's kind of on purpose. I'm wearing a gray hat, I'm not wearing a black hat, not a white hat, but it might be some gray here, but no, but anyways, update us on what's been going on the last year on the AZRanks. Alina: Yes, First of all, hello everybody and thank you so much for having me again. It's a pleasure, always a pleasure. It's been a very interesting year, a very dynamic year all around, I feel. I mean, from all the five and a half years I've been in the industry, it's been the most dynamic year from all points of view in the Amazon and e-commerce world. Yes, we're still alive and breathing in our ranking business. Things are working still very well In terms of TOS compliance, because I know everybody has this question on their lips. I feel like and I know we've talked a lot before about this everybody has its own, their own, risk tolerance about how the Amazon TOS is interpreted. You've known me for a bunch of years now and we've always tried to be TOS compliant or as much as TOS compliant as possible, because even back in the days, people have always been debating about even the search find buys were they compliant or not. So it's pretty much the same thing right now. We have pivoted and we have changed our way of doing things. We're mostly focused on market research and we have combined that with some surveys and with some feedback that people give you back while you're still ranking for keywords. And from my point of view. Now it's been like two years since Amazon has changed completely the TOS and I strongly can admit that the way we're doing things right now it's working much better because you're going on a broader experience with everything that means ranking and that helps you basically be more relevant in the algorithm point of view. Alina: So, yes, working, still doing it. We have a lot of, you know, tweaks and tricks and different strategies depending on. Depending first of all on the product, second of all on the marketplace, because Amazon is one thing, Walmart is another thing, Esty is another thing, and so on and so forth. Bradley Sutton: Okay, now what about on? You know you're talking mainly about Amazon, but did refer a little bit to, like Walmart and Etsy. Still the same old school stuff. Working on platforms like that, as far as you know, like, like you know, potentially search, find, buy, which is not against Walmart's service, and then on Etsy is something similar, is what's working for ranking. Alina: These days, etsy is pretty much in the same place you need to. On Etsy, we don't have too many tools yet. It's still the E rank that we're mainly getting the info from and the organic search that you're doing and finding your ranking. But at the same time, what we've seen lately I mean not lately, like lately in the past year or so, a year and a half on Etsy is that you need to have some social proof, like you said, you need to have some reviews, you need to have some, some people talking about you posting some real, real life photos of your product, because you know, etsy is all about visual. So Etsy, that's pretty much it. And on Walmart is very dynamic, it's extremely dynamic lately. They're changing so much and, yes, search, find, buy is not against terms of service you can do those. Add to cart are not against thermal service you can do those. And there are a bunch of strategies that we were working on right now and we're doing a bunch of tests to see which way to better go on specific situations. But it's going really well and I feel like Walmart is going in the right direction. Bradley Sutton: Finally, Now, going back to the Amazon, you know, like you know you're kind of like me in the sense that you like, you like experimenting and different things and you've had different theories. You've tested. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. But you know, I know you've talked about experimenting with the questions and answers and potentially finding the scene you can find the secret sauce of if Amazon posts. You know influence, you know algorithms and stuff. But what can you tell me like in the last year or so, like even ones that failed, because you know if you tried it, I'm sure somebody else probably had the idea that maybe it would work. So what are some experiments that worked out well? Some things that are like Nope, can't really influence, you know, can't really help this ranking at all. What are some stuff you've been doing? Alina: So a lot of stuff, but what? I can tell you something? That it didn't work and it's related to my latest episode of the last year, one in December, when I was very sure that I am very close to discovering the secret for Amazon posts. Unfortunately, something happened and I think in the algorithm at one point it just didn't work anymore. If you're already doing the Amazon post, go on and do them. If you don't do them at all, maybe it would be a good idea to have that content out there and more visibility for your brand, but not in the terms of doing them just for ranking. I couldn't find the secret sauce yet. Hopefully it's still going to be out there. What I found to be working, and working real well, is something about virtual bundles. I know we've talked about that a lot lately in the past. So virtual bundles before pretty recently I couldn't say exactly when, but before recently you couldn't shuffle the quantity of the same product within a virtual bundle. Bradley Sutton: So then yeah, because I know, let's say, I've got a coffin shelf and a coffin bath rug I could make a virtual bundle, and it's one each. But now you are ready. Now are you saying that I could do a virtual bundle with 10 each, or I can do a virtual bundle with 10 of one and one of another. Alina: Both. Now you could also make a virtual bundle out of two coffin shelves only. Bradley Sutton: Of the same ASIN. I really Well, since when I haven't even been. You see, that's what happens. That sometimes boggles my mind. You know, like Amazon, obviously we were just talking about how I had to delay you because I was on the, I was doing the weekly buzz and you know I Amazon announces so many things and a lot of it is just like little tiny things, but that seems like it would be a pretty significant announcement or a change, and I never saw that announced. Anyway, were you just like playing around with it? And that's how you? Alina: discovered it. Here's the story. Uh, I think I told this like back two years ago in one of your podcast. So I'm selling uh, one of my brands is an industrial scientific and I'm selling some lab supplies, which usually are a pack of 10, pack of 20, pack of 100, because there's small stuff, you know. So I I saw at one point that people were buying more of the same product, right, like two units, three units five units. But since the virtual bundles were there, I couldn't do a virtual bundle with shop with the same quantity, I mean more of the same um quantity of the same product. So then I I created some FBM listings with pack of 500, you know, and combined and basically I was it's it was the same product but I was selling. I was sending the buyer five packs instead of a pack of 500. I was sending five packs of 100 because my pack of 100 was the product I was selling on Amazon. Make sense. So. Alina: But I did them at the end because I couldn't do them inside Amazon and I couldn't and I didn't want to do it FBA back then, because the FBA fees and all the stuff wasn't worth it. The, the package would would be too big and everything. So the, the profitability wasn't that great on the, it wasn't worth it to keep it into FBA. Let's say so. Then I did this. And then one point recently, very recently it's a matter of 10 days, two weeks maybe I discovered that that it was allowed to. I mean, amazon allows you to create virtual bundles, two of each, two of this, with one of these, three of this was one of this five of the same thing, you know, and at that point I well hold on. Bradley Sutton: I'm trying to, I'm trying to do it here and I can't figure out. Let me share my screen here. Let's see. All right, so well. First of all, I was able to add more products. I never did that before, like right then how, where you can only add two, before I was able to have like three here. Alina: You have the couple there to add more products, if you see, like on the left. Bradley Sutton: All right. So I'm looking here and at first I didn't see it. But right here under quantity I can now individually change this. Alina: That's crazy To as many as you want. Bradley Sutton: Yeah, like, and then now it's gonna reflect in the ASIN. That is super cool. I never. Why in the world would Amazon not make this an announcement is kind of crazy. And did you just randomly discover it? Like you were creating a virtual bundle and you're like, hey, what's this button do? And that's how you figured it out. Alina: It's not entirely my personal discovery. Like me, Alina, I was working with somebody from my team and all of a sudden was like he said I need to try this, I need to try this. I think I saw a plus button somewhere and then that's how it worked. But I have more on that, and this is something even more crazy. That was absolutely not possible at all until now. You can run PPC on the virtual bundles. Bradley Sutton: You couldn't run PPC on the virtual bundles, yeah, before I think you could only do sponsored brand ads back in the old days, right. Alina: Now you can do anything. He discovered this Really. Yes, my team made discover this first by mistake because he was doing some bulk uploads in the campaigns and he forgot some bundle ASINs out there and all of a sudden we had like some huge conversion on one ASIN and he said this is a virtual bundle. How on earth this one got here? But then we started looking into that and apparently it works Mostly. What I can guarantee for is it's working through bulk upload. I don't know if you can add them manually in your campaigns or with some tools that you're using for the PPC, but with the bulk upload 100% working. Bradley Sutton: Yeah, I don't think you can do it in the campaign manager. I'll just double check or add products to advertise. Alina: I would check this. If anybody has some bundles that really work, I would definitely check this because, since these changes are happening, they might allow this as well. Bradley Sutton: And then you've actually seen it then in the wild where you see a sponsored ad and it's showing the virtual bundle as opposed to so you like confer, wow, okay, that's pretty cool. But bulk upload, then very interesting, okay, so that's like super cool. Now what about ranking? In the old days it was mainly if you're ranking for one of the component units, like the coffin shelf. Let's say, I had a double coffin shelf bundle I could only rank. It's almost like a variation listing where you can only rank for one and you can't rank for the virtual bundle. But I swear I've seen recently where I had a placement for the virtual bundle and the individual. Are you seeing that too? Alina: Yes, yes, yes, yes. Now I've seen it and I've seen it a lot. I haven't run any tests for clients, but on my product, since we have a lot of this type of bundles I mean in the hundreds probably I see it a lot. So it's 100% valid for my category at least. Again, I'm not sure for all categories, but I think it's out there for everybody. If you're ranking on a keyword with your main product, you can rank on the same keyword with your virtual bundles. Bradley Sutton: Okay, cool, so really cool virtual bundle stuff going on. Any other hacks that you can share with us that's been working for you. These are not hacks, but another strategy or anything else. Alina: Relevance is still the main thing that helps you with your product launch or relaunch or ranking campaign or PPC or whatever. If you're not relevant, you cannot do anything. Basically and I know you were saying a couple of months ago about the Amazon recommended thing. Amazon recommended rank. I tested that myself and it works like a charm and it's very much valid in terms of ranking campaigns. I mean, yes, if you're having problems ranking, I double you and I say you need to check that Amazon recommended rank. Because there you have your answer and something related to keywords. I would say make sure you stay focused. I mean, of course, all of us want to rank on hundreds of keywords, on thousands of keywords, on as many keywords as possible, but for Amazon, especially when you're launching a new product, you need to be very focused on a particular set of keywords so that you can find your relevance and your ranking juice and then Amazon will start showing you on its own on some related keywords. If you have some root keywords, some good root keywords, in your title, in your bullet points, then you will have ranking on a lot of additional keywords. As I said before, try to have a logic for everything. If the common sense and if everything makes sense to you, then it will eventually make sense for the other people and for the algorithm itself. Bradley Sutton: What's been going on the Press X side? Last year you were doing a lot of cool work with getting a lot of traction on the Press side. Is that still a valid tactic, using Press during launch or to promote products at all? Alina: After one and a half years now, I can say that you should look at press and especially press acts. I mean, since we're talking about press acts, but press in general, not necessarily as a conversion tactic or a launching tactic or a ranking tactic, but it's a brand awareness, it's an appearance, it's something that people want to talk about, it's traffic. If you're looking at sales, conversions, this type of numbers, and you're planning on making a press article or getting your product featured in a magazine just for sales, then I would say, think again. And especially if we're talking about a new launch Press from what I've seen over a year, it's not necessarily for new brands. You can look at it if you're a very established brand launching new products. That's a different thing. You can very much look at it. If you have a strong Shopify website or outside Amazon and you have I mean, people know your brand and it's not just on Amazon only then, yes, you could look at that. You could also look at that, for example, if you have an extraordinary product, something that is unique, innovative, something that is very special, you can look at press too. And also an idea maybe you can look at press if you're looking at Kickstarter. I know it's very popular right now, but if you're planning a Kickstarter campaign, you can maybe consider also press to driving traffic to that Kickstarter campaign to make more money. Alina: So that's how press works. It's working better for some products, not that great for some other products in terms of again, in terms of ranking, in terms of sales, in terms of traffic. It's there. So it depends a lot of what your expectations are. Our model is a CPC cost base, so you only pay for the clicks you get. It's not like a retainer fee, it's not a fixed amount. If your article drives only 10 clicks, that means, for example, $20, that's all the amount you're going to pay and you're still going to get the article. And you need to consider that as the more articles you get, the more love you're going to get from Google and for all the external or outside Amazon platforms that are out there, because once the article is there, it's just there. It's there for everybody to see and click on it. Bradley Sutton: OK, all right. Any quick experiences of somebody it's worked out for in the last year like hey, they were doing this and then they ran a series of articles and this is what happened from it. Alina: We had a brand which is into the dental hygiene niche and we've had a few campaigns very successful. I mean, I remember the ROAS was six, so for $1 spent they made six, which was good. I mean, on top of the traffic and everything else, this one also made money, you know. Bradley Sutton: Interesting. All right, now switching gears. You seem you're kind of like me. You can't stay doing one thing. You have to have your hand in like 75 different things. So you and I are liking that. So the latest thing I heard you talking about which I purposely didn't ask you about because I wanted to kind of like find out about here I know nothing about what you're doing there is you've mentioned you're doing some things on the UGC side. So first of all, what prompted that? You know like you don't just dream. One time I actually did have a dream about a tool and it eventually became something in Cerebro, the advanced rank filter. It literally came from a dream ahead. Most people, I think, don't dream up things. There's a reason why you thought of doing UGC. So what started that? And then, what exactly are you doing in that field now? Alina: OK. So UGC I think it's the. You know how external traffic was two or three years ago, when everybody was talking about external traffic. That's how I feel UGC is right now. So I started this because, from the community of people that we have and that we use for our ranking campaigns which is huge at one point I thought these people can do more than that. So what do we need as Amazon sellers? What does the market need that we can help with? And so this came First. We only started with UGC because it's more than that. I have something else that even you don't know about. Bradley Sutton: Oh my goodness OK. Alina: So, ugc, I don't know what's your take on the AI. I love it. I'm a little bit afraid of it as well, but what I can say is that, as much as people love it, eventually everything is a cycle and they will turn back to real life photos, real life commercials, real life billboards. I've seen this happen in Europe, at least Romania, and also other places in Europe. There are billboards with burger photos or commercials saying this photo was taken using a phone and they're showing real people. Those brands could afford an AI and they probably are using AI in different other type of places. I've done some research lately and I found some really interesting data. Alina: For example, brands huge brands that are running Google ads, and they compared not necessarily on AI, let's say a professional studio photo which is a wide background, blah, blah, blah, everything with a photo taken with a phone, a little bit of editing, but nothing serious, and they ran Google ads on it. Guess what? The CPC was 60% lower on the UGC one. The user generated a photo and the conversion was 38% higher on the same photo. So that's how we started. I think that's where we're going to go. Alina: It's a lot of stuff that you can do with your UGC. We do photos and videos, especially videos that we recommend people using, filling Amazon with content on their listings. In places where it's still free, For example Q&A, you can answer every question with a video and every event I go to and I speak when I ask this question, I get a maximum of five people in the room raising their hands. Who uses this? Almost nobody's still nobody's using this, and it's a free place on Amazon where you can post content. And then there's videos about your product line, right, or it used to be called related videos, I think. Bradley Sutton: I have brand. Alina: I have eight and nine figure brands I work with. They do not launch a product without at least three to five videos filled in that section, because if you don't put them yourself, then your competitors will come and they will tag your ASIN into one of their listings and then their video is going to show on yours. So when I want to buy your product and I scroll down your listing, I'm going to find theirs and maybe, I don't know, maybe it has a thumbnail that attracts me, and then I'm going to click on that and I'm going to go buy that instead of yours and then all that content, for example, all the UGC we do. If you want to, we can post on TikTok Just like that. Not on influencer accounts we don't work with yet we don't have those type, but we're working on creating a few influencer accounts from our people, but we're posting it there. As I said, you never know what happens on TikTok. We use hashtags. Everything can be there, and this is something that you don't necessarily have to come to us to do it. Alina: You can do it yourself in the beginning. You can do your own Q&A videos. You can do your own unboxing or whatever More explanations you want to do about your product and post in your Amazon listing, and then you just go post it on TikTok. It just has to be there. And then, of course, as I said, you can use it on Google Ads. You can do a bunch of things with it. One of the things I do believe it's very important nowadays is that we have so many tools, including AI, because sometimes you can combine these two. You can combine UGC and AI and have something amazing without going to a professional photo studio. I'm not saying that they are bad. They have their own thing. Which they do is great and necessary, but for some things you don't need to go to a professional studio to do it and pay an arm and a leg. Most of the time you can just do this. I hope I didn't ramble too much about this. Bradley Sutton: Cool. Now, before we get into your tip of the week, which you even prepared, so that means it must be a good one here is can you just let us know how people can contact you for any of these 75 different things that we've been talking about today? How can they find you on the interwebs? Alina: So if they search for my name, which is Alina, like vlaic on pretty much everywhere, they can find me and message me in person. Or I'm going to just say one website which is azrank.com Contact form, or my email is alina@azrank.com. Feel free to contact me with every I don't know, critique, feedback, idea. I'm always trying to reply to everybody as fast as possible. Bradley Sutton: Awesome. All right, what's your strategy of the week? Alina: A lot of people ignore opportunity explorer section in the seller central. I know all of us love the search query reports and everything that's. It's out there, right. But when you're launching a new product, you don't have that data, unless you use one of my older strategies that you can have. You can have the data, but I'm not going to go into that. When you launch a new product, you don't have that data right. So you should go into opportunity explorer, because Amazon gives you a list of keywords, right. First of all, you need to identify your niche and your perfect list of keywords, because maybe your product will be in several niches, so you need to go there and find all the keywords that are relevant to your product and those should be your focus keywords for your listing and for your PPC and for your ranking campaign. Because if that data comes from Amazon and it's basically given to you for free, if you use it, I'm pretty sure you have much better chances of success to become relevant in Amazon's eyes, rather than I don't know doing your own keyword research and focusing on 3,000 keywords at the same time and spending a lot of money. Bradley Sutton: Yeah. Alina: And again, that's valid. That starts with your listing and then your PPC and whatever other ranking strategies you may use. So something else that is maybe a little bit for advanced sellers, but I found it very interesting. I spoke about this at the last Billion Dollar Seller Summit. If you've mentioned Kevin King, it's something called mirakl.com. It's Mirakl, but mirakl.com. It's a dashboard that helps you expand your brand on thousands not thousands, hundreds of marketplaces all over the world with a click of a button. What does that mean is, basically, they create you an account, you have a dashboard, you list your catalog there and they will take care of everything else. You just need to fulfill. You can connect it with your Shopify for now, but they can get you into I don't know, into Best Buy, into Target, into marketplaces that are very difficult to get in otherwise. Just give it a try and I know a lot of people will find it interesting. Bradley Sutton: Awesome, awesome, all right, well, Alina, thank you so much for joining us today. Very few people make it to four episodes on the podcast that means that you're a popular guest. So you've made it, and I'm sure you'll be one of the ones to make it to five. So we'll reach out to you at the end of next year perhaps, and see what's going on with you In the meantime. I look forward to seeing you, hopefully at one of these upcoming conferences. And yeah, thank you so much for joining us and we'll see you soon. Alina: Thank you. Thank you, see you soon. Bye.

Join us as we navigate the intricacies of ranking on Walmart and gauging customer sentiment on this platform with our special guest, Costin Vlaic, from AZRank. Listen in as Costin shares his unique e-commerce experience, shedding light on the importance of product ranking at Walmart.com and how it directly impacts sales. He also shares valuable tips on ranking, from using microworker platforms to leveraging your social circle to place orders. Further, we explore the value of Walmart Plus and Amazon Prime as essential additions to households. We discuss an interesting survey that reveals a trend of consumers comparing prices and offers on both platforms, with groceries emerging as a hot favorite on Walmart. Get the inside scoop on the potential growth of the Walmart platform and strategies sellers can use to optimize their product range and pricing. Our chat with a successful Walmart seller is sure to provide you with unique insights, from testing and patience to avoiding common mistakes. Listen in as they share their future strategies for selling on Walmart. Tune in for a comprehensive discussion on all things Walmart! In episode 519 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Carrie and Costin discuss: 00:00 - Ranking on Walmart and Customer Sentiment 04:57 - Developing and Ranking Products on Walmart 09:01 - Insights From Walmart Shopping Experience Survey  10:08 - Walmart Plus and Amazon Prime Insights 13:52 - Online Shopping Platforms  17:19 - Initiating Google Exposure Through Walmart  21:54 - Starting to Sell on Walmart Advice ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast ► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension ► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup  (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life) ► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft ► Watch The Podcasts On Youtube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos Transcript Carrie Miller: On today's episode we have Costin Blake from AZ Rank and he's going to be talking with us about how to rank on Walmart and customer sentiment about shopping on Walmart, as well as some of the most popular categories to sell on Walmart. So this and so much more.   Bradley Sutton: Do you like to network with other Walmart sellers? Make sure to join our brand new Facebook group called Helium 10 Winning with Walmart. You can actually search for that on Facebook or you can actually go to h10.me/walmartgroup and you can directly go to that page. So make sure to join, you can tag me or Carrie for questions and ask questions of other Walmart sellers or even share your own experiences in that Facebook.   Carrie Miller: Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers podcast by Helium 10. My name is Carrie Miller and I'm going to be your host, and this is our Walmart Wednesday, where we answer all of your questions about Walmart and we bring in guests that are experts in the Walmart field. So today I'm very, very excited to bring on Costin Vlaic, and he is from AZ Rank and so I've actually worked with him and, if many of you probably know his wife, Alina, I've worked with both of them for a lot of different projects, and so I'm very excited. They've been selling on Walmart for a while, and so I'm going to go ahead and bring Costin on Welcome.   Costin: Oh hi Carrie.   Carrie Miller: Thank you for coming on and talking with us about Walmart.   Costin: It's nice for me to be to be here. I'm pretty nervous about but I hope we can bring back. We can bring some very useful information for your audience.   Carrie Miller: I think you're going to do great. All right, so let's go ahead and get into the question. So the first one I want to ask you is can you tell us a little bit about you know, your background and experience in the e-commerce space, just particularly with selling on Walmart?   Costin: So my background I'm based in Romania, so that this is the reason why it's 10 pm I'm speaking at. I'm trying to speak at 10 pm. I guess I was an early adopter of e-commerce in Romania and also an early adopter of Walmart marketplace. I liked the challenges. So this is why when they open, the marketplace is the marketplace. I applied immediately. Luckily for me, I didn't have any issues to be approved, because right now there are still people that have issues with getting approved by Walmart. I don't find any logic from Walmart to not approve big sellers on Amazon. But that's, that's life. So I like to play with the Walmart platform and I discovered things. I'm discovering things, new things every day.   Carrie Miller: Yeah, very cool, thank you, and so so I guess that kind of answers. My next question is like what would inspire you to sell products on Walmart? So I think it's you had already answered that, but do you have any kind of insights? A lot of people are asking you know, should I sell on Walmart? They're not really sure if it's a good opportunity. So Do you have any insights or like success stories from your experience in selling on Walmart?   Costin: So, first of all, because all the people are talking about brands and branding and building a brand, in my opinion, if you want to become a real brand, you need to be on more platforms or more sales channels, not just rely on Amazon, because I think most of the people that are trying to apply to Walmart are coming from Amazon. So my insight is I mean all the time. I advise especially my European friends that are selling on Amazon in Europe and they want to expand in US, because most of them have a big range of products. I encourage them to try Walmart first, not Amazon. Amazon in US it's pretty difficult than Amazon Europe Just to get their feet wet with American customers. I always said that maybe they should think to start with Walmart in US.   Carrie Miller: And so have you seen some success for many of those people selling. Do they get more familiar?   Costin: Most of the people I refer to are people that are afraid, but I know some people that they've been to our company and they are successfully on Walmart. I really think that at some point this is actually one of my personal projects for next year is just to develop a range of products just for Walmart.   Carrie Miller: Yeah, that's actually an interesting thought, because I have talked to Walmart and they said that the products that do the best are complimentary products to what's already on the Walmart marketplace. So kind of creating products that are just for Walmart, for products that are just not even on there, I think is a really good idea. So I think that's a great plan. The next question is, since you all have a company called AZ Rank and I've used you all for ranking on Amazon and Walmart and so you basically help people to rank in these different platforms, so how important is product ranking on Walmart and how does it impact the sales for sellers?   Costin: We can talk about ranking in every platform. So in every platform you are, you just need to think about the ranking. So, particularly for Walmart, I just show you that just before today I did some tests and lately I mean especially for the niches that are not so big add to cards and even some clicks. Sometimes they are working and they are working fine. So you don't just need to place orders, but at some point if you want to be on top of the page, you need also to place some orders. But just to start some add to cards and some clicks, even from your friends and family, because the TOS it's not like in Amazon. You can do.   Carrie Miller: Okay, that's a really good tidbit there, so can you maybe give a little bit more insight about what you all do, what your strategy is for ranking products on Walmart? You don't have to go into details, but how do you usually go about helping people ranking on Walmart?   Costin: It's depending on the niche. So basically we tried for some customers also the add to cards, which are pretty difficult to be made. But you can always use a micro workers platforms Even you can use even a mechanical Turk or I don't know. I think there are also other platforms for micro tasks and with a few cents you might get some clicks or some add to cards and just to see evolution. And from time to time just ask your friends just to place from in the first week one order. And it always depends on the niche. But if the niche is not very crowded you can try that and you might be successful.   Carrie Miller: What kind of keywords do you recommend focusing on when you're trying to rank? Do you think that Long tail keywords are good, or what do you think about the types of keywords you focus on for Walmart?   Costin: Well for Walmart. I don't believe in long tails, I just believe in pretty broad keywords. I mean, of course they need to be specific to your products but not to be long tail keywords. You should try always the search bar recommended what Walmart is recommending in the search bar. I found them very useful and not focusing, like in Amazon, on a bunch of keywords. Just take two or three in the beginning, the most important ones, and focus on them in the beginning and if you are ranked well, you can develop this strategy with other keywords.   Carrie Miller: Yeah, and just for anyone who doesn't know, that we actually do have two keyword research tools for Walmart. We have Magnet and Cerebro. So you can do a lot of really great keyword research for Walmart on those tools through Helium 10. Okay, so we talked a bit earlier and you mentioned that you conducted a survey with over 300 people about their shopping experiences on Walmart. So what were the main objectives of the survey and what kinds of things did you discover?   Costin: First of all, I'd be very curious to apply the same survey next year and see the changes. Maybe we can share these results of the survey on the chat. So we always share our opinions about Walmart, but I think it's better all the time to return to the people, the people in our community, and ask them what they think about Walmart. So I found it very nice that I mean very encouraging for the ones that are starting a business on Walmart Just to see that, for example, 50% of them have Walmart plus, even if they have Amazon Prime. So they consider a very good add-on to their household to have Walmart plus and Amazon Prime. So that's a very interesting information. Also, I found out that a lot of people are checking both Amazon and Walmart for the prices and a lot of people are following the offers and the prices.   Costin: We found out also that the main categories they are buying in Walmart are groceries. Most of the people said that groceries in Walmart it's much better than Amazon Fresh Groceries. It's a category that's much better than Amazon Fresh. Other categories where people are shopping in Walmart are toys, electronics, things like that, but all those categories are in that survey. I wanted to make the people to write with their own words instead of just checking some boxes. And also I think the results are very interesting. So, for example, around 30% of the people said that they have some products that are buying only one Walmart, not in Amazon, things like that. I guess these are useful information for the ones that are trying to build a range of products in Walmart, because they have also a direction with some categories. And also, in my opinion, after seeing the results of this survey, I believe that this is a platform that will grow in the next future.   Carrie Miller: I think that there's a lot more exposure to Walmartcom, especially because they also have this advertising where you can basically do Google ads through the Walmart platform and your stuff will show up in Google shopping, so you can see a lot more exposure of your products there. When you're searching for anything on Google, you'll see Walmart pop up pretty quickly, so there's a lot more exposure there. Also, I noticed for Walmart Plus, a lot of credit cards are giving free Walmart Plus access. So if you use the credit card to pay for Walmart Plus, then the credit card company reimburses you. Like American Express Platinum is one of them. There's a few other cards that I've seen where they literally give you a free Walmart Plus membership. So Walmart's doing a really good job of kind of giving people incentive to start shopping on Walmart too. So I think that's very interesting that people are intending on getting Walmart Plus or they already have it. So very, very good insights.   Costin: Yes, I'm not living in US, so I don't know all those information, so I was just preparing to say that I mean, I don't know if Walmart has a one year subscription like Amazon has. I think it would be a good way to attract people to their platform and also it's very good for Walmart. I mean this is a plus Walmart has, that they can pick some goods in stores.   Carrie Miller: Yeah, definitely. Was there anything on that survey that you found that you weren't expecting? That you thought was not something you thought people would say on the survey, or was everything kind of what you were thinking?   Costin: I was very surprised that a lot of people that are buying usually on Amazon, are checking also the Walmart platform. So I mean I was really surprised.   Carrie Miller: Yeah, I think that's pretty surprising too. I think it's definitely growing, because I think probably a year or two ago it wasn't the same. So that is very, very interesting.   Costin: This is why I'm very curious what it will happen with this survey next year to see the trend.   Carrie Miller: Is there any kind of strategy that you think, based on what the survey revealed, like, what kinds of things do you think sellers should focus on, based on what you found in that survey?   Costin: We all knew that Amazon, that Walmart, likes pretty cheap products. So if they want to move their brand from Amazon to expand to Walmart, I think they should create a few products that are cheaper than in Amazon and just to sell on Walmart and also on the other platforms, but just not to have them in Amazon. I think this is number one. If they are starting right now an e-commerce business and the brand, they should focus on the category, the order, on specific categories. First of all, of course, they can see in the survey what people answered and also they can check where Walmart is not selling many products, because if they are selling products, it's pretty difficult to rank there.   Carrie Miller: Yeah, I know there's a lot of brands that do a different brand. That's a cheaper brand, and I've noticed big brands in Walmart when I've actually gone into the store. I see Ralph Lauren, like Ralph Polo Lauren. I saw BCBG and a few other really bigger brands that I would have never thought would have been there and they're basically the cheaper version of what they already sell. So it's kind of I think that's a really good strategy and I do know some other sellers who have maybe some products on Amazon, but they do the little cheaper version. They kind of rebranded a little bit for Walmart and they've done well that way. So that's really good on that.   Costin: Exactly. I mean, in this moment we have three or four products we are selling on only one, walmart. Two of them we used to sell on Amazon but the cost of advertising was very high, so we moved them to Walmart. We sell pretty decent quantities but actually we get some profit in Amazon. We just selling but no profit.   Carrie Miller: That's a challenge one. I did see a question in here that somebody asked. Jeremy asked how do you initiate the Google exposure through Walmart? So the way to do this is what you're going to do is you're going to go to your growth opportunities tab once you log into Walmart's seller center and then it's a tab that's called SEM. So SEM is where you can create these Google campaigns. So it's not through Connect, it's actually on the Walmart seller center part. So growth opportunities and then SEM, so that's where you find those. That's a really good question, because it's kind of some of these things are hidden and you kind of some days, oh, you go in there and you see some new things that pop up. So it's kind of interesting that way.   Costin: By the way, also in growth opportunity. You can see the performance of your products. Of course it's not like very detailed like in Amazon, but, like I said before, just to follow a strategy for ranking, you can see if you really have exposure. You know clicks on your products. First of all, I think you need to start with some clicks for your product. You can do it with friends and family Doesn't matter if they are doing that, if you have five friends that can do that every day for one week and see what it's happening. So it's not, I mean Walmart, it's not. I find Walmart it's not a data-driven platform like Amazon. So for the ones that are very data-driven, I think it's pretty difficult to work on Walmart. But Walmart it's more of a, let me say, instinct platform or you need to feel a little bit. You need to try.   Carrie Miller: You got to kind of play around with things a little bit more, since it's so new, you got to figure it out a little bit. Yeah, exactly, okay. Let's move on to a different topic and I'm curious to know what you think the most common challenges that you faced as a Walmart seller or that you've seen other sellers have. So what are some of the challenges you think that are on Walmart?   Costin: First of all, it's opening the account. I mean, I guess you discussed that a lot of times here, so I don't want to go into very big details. Maybe at some point you will have someone from Walmart to explain as the strategy, if there's the approval strategy of the accounts, because it is really annoying. There are people that are selling millions of dollars in Amazon and on Shopify or on the other platforms they can open an account with Walmart. So I don't understand why. So this is the first one. Second of all, I think the common mistake is copy-paste listing from Amazon. I think this is the biggest mistake everybody does Until now. I was about to say that the listing score is very important. I guess it still is because Walmart tries to take care of the catalog. But I did a test if I can rank a product just by optimizing the score in a very, very small niche. It happened.   Costin: So right now I'm tempted to say that the listing score is not so important. So maybe you can sacrifice a little bit the score just to have a listing that it's rolled for your customers and not for Walmart. The same is that in Amazon you should write listing for your customers, not for indexing. I guess this is the common mistake. The common mistake, and also the other mistake, is that sometimes people are panicking. In Walmart things are not happening very fast Like in Amazon, so you need to test a lot of things, you need to have patience. And also for the keywords if you really want to be index and rank for a keyword, you need to have it in the title.   Carrie Miller: A lot of people. When I ask them why they think they're not doing well, I ask them have they optimized their listing or have they focused on some keywords? They run ads and a lot of times people haven't they just copy pasted. So I think that that's probably a big challenge for people is they have to kind of focus on Walmart, like you said, and kind of test things out, because each category is different too. So when I have two different categories of one things that work in one category or not working as well for me in the other category, so it's kind of an interesting thing.   Costin: Yes, things are happening, happening differently in the different categories in in in Walmart.   Carrie Miller: Another question is for any anybody starting to sell on Walmart or that wants to start on Walmart. What advice do you have to give them to start selling on Walmart?   Costin: You can make really good money in Walmart by starting with a big assortment. You I mean you, you really don't need for testing out some products, you just need to buy them from a wholesaler in US. Just put it on your list, it with your own brand, different, different UPC, and just you can just test it. With 20 pieces, I mean, you can start this kind of business in one week.   Carrie Miller: Yeah, you can start. A lot of people do actually also wholesale that I've talked to you where they actually use the brand but they bundle it so like they'll bundle a bunch of different things together that they see people already buying together on Amazon and other places, so they'll just bundle those and they create their own UPC for that bundle and then there's no competition for it because other people have that bundle.   Costin: Right now Walmart, it's really allowing you to play with different brands. It's not like the same policy with Amazon, so you can play with those those brands. Yeah, if you want, or even if you are thinking to to have a private label brand, you just buy from a liquidator or from an out-sailor, just to bundling, just buy some product from anywhere else and just test it. Even if you are losing a few dollars, it's very important to test.   Carrie Miller: You can also test, you know, with AliExpress too, because you can, you know, get things in shipped and do smaller quantities. So AliExpress is a good place too. What do you, what do you think is the future of selling on Walmart, and how are you kind of planning on changing your strategies for what? What do you see as the future like? What does 2024 look like, you think, for Walmart?   Costin: Well, I think Walmart is is still flexible and you can test a lot of things, but unfortunately I see a trend that they will become like Amazon, I guess because they have a lot of employees that leave, leave, left Amazon and went to Walmart and actually I thinking they are doing the same mistakes like Amazon. I was expecting for them to listen a little bit more. The sellers, of course, every company is focused on their customers, but guess what? Also, the sellers are focused on the customers, so they at some point I think I think this will make a big difference, just to to to listen some sellers and some some needs. So the strategy for 2024, it's also from my side and from my point of view it's just testing a lot of things. A lot of things will change. Maybe the rules will be different in two months in Walmart platform, then they are. Now it is possible Because you you can see also a trend that they are changing a lot of things, but I guess, for next year at least, it's still a platform where you can test a lot. All right.   Carrie Miller: Well, I think that's pretty much. We're coming to an end here. So thank you to everyone who joined live and thank you so much, Costin, for sharing all this information with us. You you have a lot of really good, valuable tidbits on ranking for Walmart and just strategies for Walmart. So thank you so much for for joining and and answering those questions and and talking with us about those strategies. So thanks again and we'll see everyone again, I guess in the new year in 2024, for Walmart Wednesday in January. Bye, everyone, thank you very much.   Costin: Thank you very much for having me. Bye.

Are you looking to lead a healthy entrepreneurial lifestyle and diversify your business? Our special guest, a fitness celebrity, shares her journey from being a successful Amazon seller to becoming a wellness influencer after a tough E-commerce business setback. Her story is not just about overcoming trademark issues but also navigating a major shift in her personal brand and adapting to a new market niche.  This episode indeed offers a goldmine of insights. From harnessing the power of Helium 10 Chrome extension for Amazon keyword data to branching out into drop shipping, wholesaling, and even selling audiobooks, our guest offers a wealth of knowledge. We also revisit her previous episode about her brand, Dollface, exploring the trademark drama that ensued and the valuable lessons learned.  Finally, we delve into the realm of fitness, discussing the transformation of our guest's YouTube content and the decision to open her own gym. Packed with her wisdom on personal branding, niche-finding, and maintaining a balanced lifestyle, this episode is a must for both health-conscious Amazon entrepreneurs and those seeking to diversify their businesses. Tune in to learn, get inspired, and glean wisdom from our guest's entrepreneurial journey and her commitment to fitness.   In episode 518 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Carabella discuss: 03:38 - Beauty Products to Fitness Celebrity Transition 10:02 - Personal Branding and Followers 17:46 - Unwanted Attention in the Gym 20:53 - Entrepreneurship and Healthy Habits 23:09 - Non E-Commerce Questions for Guests 28:42 - The Importance of Health and Discipline 33:05 - Tips, Tricks, and Transformations for Success 34:34 - Diet Plan for 30-Pound Weight Loss 36:38 - Introduction to Bella Tech Studio ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast ► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension ► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup  (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life) ► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft ► Watch The Podcasts On Youtube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos Transcript Bradley Sutton. Today we've got a guest back who at one point was doing over a quarter of a million dollars per month on Amazon. That had it all taken away and now she's reinvented herself as a fitness celebrity. Out there, she has her own gym and everything and she's going to talk about her Amazon journey and she's going to give us tips and tricks on how to stay healthy as entrepreneurs. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Are you browsing a Shopify, Walmart, Esty, Alibaba or Pinterest page and maybe you see a cool product that you want to get some more data on? Well, while you're on those pages, you can actually use the Helium 10 Chrome extension demand analyzer to get instant data about what's happening on Amazon for those keywords on these other websites. Or maybe you want to then follow up and get an actual supplier quote from a company on Alibaba.com in order to see if you can get this product produced. You can do that also with the Helium 10 Demand Analyzer. Both of these are part of the Helium 10 Chrome extension, which you can download for free at h10.me/extension. Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the series sellers podcast by Helium 10. I am your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show. That's a completely BS free, unscripted and unrehearsed organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world, and we've got a serious seller. Probably this might be the record of the most time between coming on the podcast. I think the first time you came on the podcast is probably like three, maybe four years ago.   Carabella: Yeah.   Bradley Sutton. We've got Carabella here. The last time you were on the podcast, did you film it here too?   Carabella: We didn't film it here.   Bradley Sutton. But you came here for something else.   Carabella: Then I came here, for there was a conference or some sort. We were teaching something. It was an Amazon event.   Bradley Sutton. Yes, Okay, I was about to say, like you might be one of the only people have recorded in this old this is the original Helium 10 pPodcast or the second Helium 10 Podcast Studio, but we don't even, I don't even record here anymore. But okay, so this is your first podcast here, first time in a few years. All right, so if you guys want to get her like full, full backstory, her original episode was actually episode 64. Now we're like at 500 something. But anyways, let's kind of like catch up, because at that time you had your brand Dollface and then you were going through some drama back in those days because then somebody was trying to come and say, hey, this is no, this is our trademark. And I believe how we left it off was you basically had to like sell them your inventory or sell out of your product or what happened.   Carabella: Yeah, exactly. So the company was named Dollface but they were selling cosmetics. I was so new to business and online business I was very naive. My thing was I'm just going to reach out to them see if they can approve me getting my trademark, cause the USPTO, I think, who does trademarks. They were saying there's somebody else that has something similar, you can't do it. So I said I'll just reach out to them. We're not really competition. I'm doing, you know, skincare tools. They're doing skincare creams. They said no way. So then I said okay, I have all this inventory. You're already selling skincare. Why don't you just take it? They said, okay, sold it at cost. And then we went from there and then I went out of business, out of Dollface, out of Amazon completely at that time.   Bradley Sutton. Yeah, completely at that time.   Carabella: And then I started doing drop shipping, wholesaling. I started doing audio books. I still have my audio books on there. I made the uh all of these on Amazon all of these on Amazon. So I did a fitness tracker book, things like that, and I was selling those, yeah, so completely different business.   Bradley Sutton. And then that was around the time, like at that time you were kind of like a micro influencer in the beauty uh, you know, seen, because that was what your product was Right. But then you kind of like I remember that was when you first started doing like fitness videos on YouTube. Yeah, did you like make a new YouTube? Channel or you just switch your existing YouTube channel to the fitness stuff. Yeah, I switched my existing.   Carabella: YouTube channel. I completely pivoted. I just started posting workout content and all my subscribers were like what is going on? And I just took down all my skincare stuff and a lot of people unsubscribed. They were like we're here for the skincare? And I said, okay, see, you later, but I just started posting workout videos. I had a tiny little apartment and I started doing these little workout videos in the dark. Basically it looked so bad, and then, little by little, I started my community there. What, uh, what prompted that?   Bradley Sutton. Like, were you just so like, so fed up with what happened with the beauty, so like I don't want to do this, or the skincare stuff, that I don't want to do this anymore. Or you're like you know what. I think there's a need, I see a, you know, like an opportunity for me in the, in the fitness world, or how did that happen? It was kind of like a passion thing.   Carabella: I took Tai Lopez's course 67 steps and he was saying what could you do all day long and love it and talk about it? And I was getting burnt out. On the skincare thing, I was making too many videos. My skin was breaking out. I didn't even wear makeup in reality. It was just like not aligned with me. I was just selling it to sell it and it was selling. So I was focused more on money there when I said what could I really do and just do it endlessly? It was fitness. I worked out every day I ate healthy. I was just in that lifestyle and it didn't feel like work. Okay, so I just jumped in.   Bradley Sutton. All right now how you know the other Amazon stuff. You know audiobooks, drop shipping, like how did those work out for you? In the meantime was like was that the income that was sustaining you?   Carabella: in those days. So I did drop shipping and I did wholesaling and I didn't do anything for fitness. I just kind of learned how to do all this drop shipping.   Bradley Sutton. What kind of drop shipping?   Carabella: I was pulling products from Walmart and I was selling them on Amazon.   Bradley Sutton. I used to do that too Until.   Carabella: I was on sorry tracking down and it was money making baby.   Bradley Sutton. Like I think in one like November, December, I probably did like maybe $200,000 in just like one or two months. It was insane in those days.   Carabella: Yes, literally million dollars in like a few months, just in. You know that selling and it was crazy. And then slowly and I started opening more Amazon accounts. This was before they got so strict. So I had multiple selling accounts, I had multiple LLCs and I was doing all this stuff with Walmart and then I was also using Home Depot, I was using a Costco, I was using all these other places to fulfill from because Alibaba and AliExpress. It just took way too long and people on Amazon they want their orders but people started telling on me taking pictures of their Walmart bags why is this that was so ghetto.   - Bradley Sutton. Walmart was ghetto in those days. They would straight take DoorDash I think they still do it a little bit like DoorDash drivers and they would like literally leave a plastic bag of Walmart.   Carabella: And this is supposed to be an Amazon order, it's all yeah, I got busted, but I made a lot of money very quickly and it was pretty successful for a while.   Bradley Sutton. Yeah, and then how about the books? Did that do anything for you?   Carabella: Yeah, so I wrote a few. I wrote a planner, a fitness planner. It was like scan the QR code and work out for 60 days with me in a planner. So you scan the work out, you scan the QR code, you get a workout and then you do. You know, I ate this today and it's a weight loss book basically A little bit digital because the QR code. And then from there I said, okay, what about Kindle books? I took a course called publishing.com or something like this, where they teach you how to build out Kindle books and eBooks, and so I started doing that. I made a couple of those and those are still on Amazon, just listed there. I don't even look at them.   Bradley Sutton. So around what year? From when to when I'm assuming it was after we had the podcast, obviously so like 2019, you started doing the drop shipping. How long were you doing the drop shipping?   Carabella: I did the drop shipping for, I think, two years, so okay. So it was a decent amount of time. Decent amount of time, Made a lot of money, built a little team. I had a bunch of VAs, you know it was pretty successful. And then from there I was already doing the fitness recording.   Bradley Sutton. I had my YouTube channel. Yeah, I had my.   Carabella: YouTube channel and I had the drop shipping thing going on simultaneously.   Bradley Sutton. And then you said you were doing a little bit of wholesaling, like what kind of was that?   Carabella: That was like Amazon business, where I found pretty big suppliers that were selling in bulk and I would list on Amazon and then same thing like using Costco, using Sam's Club, these type of places, and I would just fulfill bulk orders at a discount.   Bradley Sutton. What do you mean by bulk? Fulfilling bulk orders?   Carabella: Like wholesale. So somebody orders like 200 units instead of one or two On Amazon.   Bradley Sutton. Yeah, so also you made like a, like a very, was it like a variation where it was like 200 or they literally had to order 200 items.   Carabella: They literally have to order like 200 items of something Interesting. There was a there was an Amazon business section sector and I got in there and I was able to sell bulk orders, yeah.   Bradley Sutton. Okay, interesting, and then all right. So now, what year are we about? Like when we were talking about the second year of this 2019.   Carabella: 2020, 2021. 2021, end of 2021, 2022. And then I completely stopped all of that. No more drop shipping. Amazon got crazy. They closed all out of my accounts. I had like one account open. I think I have one account open which is where my books live.   Bradley Sutton. Yeah, and then on the YouTube side was there a time you know where it just started taking off, or has it just always been gradual, Because I don't really start really small, but that was really big.   Carabella: Actually it's not crazy big. It's like 6,000 subscribers still kind of small, but I feel like I have a very loyal following. And then I started doing selling from there, so selling inside of there. So I created a Shopify store with, like some workout things from Walmart. People can come by from my Shopify store, things like that. And then obviously YouTube pays you for ad revenue and super chats and all these things that you can do when you're going live and stuff like that. Okay, yeah. So that was always just gradual, steady, steady, steady.   Bradley Sutton. Yeah, I think that's important, you know, cause it's not always about the number. Sure, yeah, if you're like MrBeast, you know like having he's a beast. Yeah, having that number of followers obviously is good for you, but other you know, you could have like a hundred thousand followers and then if you're not doing branding or you're not really personal, like it doesn't really do you any good because people only they're not following you, they're just like all right, I'm subscribed to this. Oh, there's another video. That was like when I started on YouTube, like a long time ago for the Zumba stuff, I was following a lot of people. Then I thought about it was like, if I saw these people like in an Amazon or Amazon see, I always think about Amazon nowadays If I saw these people like in a Zoom book conference, I literally wouldn't even know who they are, right, I don't know their names and stuff. So I'm like, if I'm gonna do YouTube, it's like how do I make myself memorable? And that's why I created that character. I wear the crazy socks and different things like that. But you kind of have to have a thing that makes it personal. Then you can have like six or 7,000 followers, yeah, and then it still works out for you.   Carabella: Yeah, and you can monetize it and it's still good. And then, from there, I started doing fitness for brides and teaching online. Ah yeah.   Bradley Sutton. I was doing that, I would do Zumba classes. For you know, guys, don't get twisted for bachelorette parties. It wasn't, the clothes stay on, all right, but you know, like, like, weddings are very stressful, oh yeah. And they're like for weeks, they're just like going crazy and they're like, hey, right, a couple of days before the wedding we just want to kind of like get our indoor friends out and just like work it out. You know, we're kind of and so like I would make a lot of money doing bachelorette and there'd be good dudes there too, you know that'd be kind of strange, you know, but you know so. So that's a, that's a interesting thing. So you would, you would like, was it mainly like, hey, get the bride in shape over?   Carabella: a certain amount of time, or something like that. Exactly From there, I started doing my YouTube. Amazon was like way gone, didn't even focus on it. I started doing more personal training, one-on-one stuff, and then I said I can't do one-on-ones, this is going to be crazy. Like I have no time, yeah. So then, from there, I took a course and look at me taking all these fricking courses. I learned Amazon from a course, though, too.   Bradley Sutton. But hey, see, see, hey guys, real quick takeaway here. Everybody takes courses. Very few people actually act or actually do what they learn. You know, I take a course, oh great, I learned so much, it was great. Or are you doing it? No, like maybe they haven't all worked out, but literally she, you know, she took a course on Amazon. She started Amazon. She took a course on wholesale and then drop shipping. She started doing that and now she took, she took a Tylopus course. She started. You know, she did something off that. I like that. I wish more people were like you. But go ahead anyways.   Carabella: Yeah, it's a finisher, mindset, right.   Bradley Sutton. There you go.   Carabella: I did the publishing course I made books on Amazon. They're still there selling like you get royalties from them. So I took this course. Ruben Brooks he's a coach and he teaches coaches how to build their online presence for fitness. So I took his course. It was expensive like $6,000, $10,000 course and I was like I'm going all in. So I built out my online program. He said you need to niche down. I said okay, who can I teach? I had experience in the bridal industry from way before I started selling on Amazon. I worked with weddings and events. So I said brides, they got the money, they want to look good in their dress, feel sexy, they're honeymoon after, they want to be like ready. So boom, that became my niche and I started building out my course for brides and then from there it just was kind of easy, because there's a lot of brides in LA, especially Beverly Hills, that have the money to take training.   Bradley Sutton. Okay, so all this time, like you were saving money too from Amazon, because I'm assuming you weren't like living it's not called paycheck, they paycheck, but disbursement to disbursement from Amazon. You started saving up money and then. So that means when, that you know, when Amazon cut you off on some, it's not like you were on the streets or anything.   Carabella: No, no, yeah, Always definitely have savings, have backup plans, keep your and I did one-on-ones between. So after that I did my one-on-ones, I made clients. I mean, I made money doing, you know, one-on-one training in the gym and things like that. So from there I said, okay, online is the way to go about the course. I went to conferences in Arizona to learn about the industry and then I started making money online again, but in fitness this time.   Bradley Sutton. Okay, all right, cool. So at what point were you like, did you just kind of like, shut down almost all of your Amazon? Like, today you have no physical products, it's a hundred percent, just like your digital product, digital books.   Carabella: yeah, Two digital books. They just are on Amazon. I don't even look at them.   Bradley Sutton. Was it? Did you have like tons saved up or was it a little bit? Was there a time where you're kind of scared Like, okay, amazon's not going to work out, like I better get something else pretty fast. Or was that other income from the training and stuff already going by that time?   Carabella: Yeah, it was already going by that time. I was also. I'm also very much a worker person. I look ahead a lot. So I'm seeing like, okay, I'm stopping Amazon, they're closing my channels, I'm gonna get my personal trainer certification so I can start teaching people what I love already. And this was already in my mind, because I was teaching people how to do it on YouTube without a certification. So then I thought why not be more legit and then offer these things in person? And trainers can make a lot of money. Especially where I live, you can make a lot of money per hour. So I had already kind of foreshadowed what I wanted to do before Amazon cut me off completely. So I had savings and I didn't live beyond my means, which a lot of people I feel like do, which is bad running up their credit cards, especially in California, not paying the thing, I had a Mazda. I think you knew me then. I had a Mazda. I lived very humbly, so I didn't have all of this debt on my head and I didn't have too much to play catch up with.   Bradley Sutton. Okay, cool. Was there a point where just the trainer on their own like completely replaced what you were doing on Amazon, or was it still a little bit less?   Carabella: Still a little bit less. It was less in person for sure. And then when I started to build scale with the online program and I could have way more clients than just like six a day, because six a day is like six hours of your life.   Bradley Sutton. Hold on, like I'm kind of like spazzy anyways, are you saying you were doing like online, like Zoom? Like oh okay, For some reason I missed that.   Carabella: Okay.   Bradley Sutton. So that just widens your bait. Instead of trying to have to find some, all right, let's find a gym that we can both go to or come to my house or something you were, somebody could be anywhere.   Carabella: Yeah, exactly. And then I was doing training for brides and things like that. And then I built out courses. I already had libraries of videos on YouTube. I just put them in trainer eyes, which is where all the videos live like a course, and then all you have to do is reach out to people who are getting married. And I did the hashtag thing, the cold DM thing. Hey, I see you're gonna get married. I see you just got proposed to. Hey, da, da, da, I'm a trainer, this is what I do. I'll give you a couple, you know, seven days free, 14 days free. Check out my course. Boom, get a sale. This type of thing.   Bradley Sutton. Yeah, Okay, yeah, Interesting. Now at what point did it get in your head where it's like I want to have my own like brick-and-mortar location, like a physical studio or Always. Always, so that was always a dream.   Carabella: I love equinox, I love working out and I always wanted my own place and literally I put it on my vision board. It's on my vision board, this little studio with perfect yoga mats, laid out with little yoga blocks. And then, when I got my studio, I did the same photo shoot in there and I matched it to my vision board. It was one year later. Wow, I put it on my vision board and then, one year later, I got the opportunity.   Bradley Sutton. That's awesome. So what was your thought process? Cause I believe it's a little bit unique where you're only catering to female clients, right Like was that always the plan, or were you just like kind of like thinking like an Amazon seller, how can I niche down? Or what was going on there? A?   Carabella: little bit like the Amazon seller. How can I niche down? How can I make it special? Also, being in the gym as a woman. Sometimes you get unwanted attention. A lot of women feel the same way. It was a consistent thing I heard from my brides about being in a physical gym. It's uncomfortable. I have a husband, I have my man, this and that I don't want to get gawked at all this stuff.   Bradley Sutton. So I have to deal with that. I don't know. I'm just like.   Carabella: So I just thought what a concept. And I know the majority of gyms are full of men, so I cut my audience in like half, maybe even 60, 40. Cause men just are in the gym. But we're doing something very different. It's only group classes and it's only for women, and if you go to gyms and you look at their group classes, it's all women.   Bradley Sutton. Yeah, when I was teaching Zumba it was like 45 women and like two dudes only. Yeah.   Carabella: And it's all feminine. You know style of movements, classes, so I feel like we're on the right path, Okay.   Bradley Sutton. Yeah, all right. So yeah, basically this episode is about guys. Hey, you guys are Amazon sellers out there and if you want to do this for the rest of your life, do it. I think I might do Amazon for the almost rest of my life. You know, like I have no plans to do anything, but it's important to have you know kind of backup plans too, and if something goes wrong with your Amazon business, it's not over. You know, like, like she, she's had a couple of two kind of major bad events happen on Amazon. One because of her trademark. She didn't, you know, do enough research and she got shut down and then she started it again. And then again because Amazon kind of changed her policies with drop shipping and things, and again she didn't, she didn't let it knock her down. So do you have, like you know like financial advisors, or you know planning and stuff, or have you just done everything on your own?   Carabella: Yeah, no financial advisors, no planning. I mean I had a financial advisor when I got life insurance, but that's as far as I've gone, you know, so far. Yeah, hopefully I get huge and I'll need all of those. But yeah, from where I'm at now and where I was, no financial advisors, I did QuickBooks, I had an accountant, but that's the extent of it.   Bradley Sutton. Okay, yeah. So what's in the like on the horizon for you? What's your plan? I mean, obviously the studio just started like a few months ago, right? We?   Carabella: just opened about a month and a half ago. On the horizon, I want the studio to flourish. I'm only focusing on this one location first, but my big dream is to have a clothing line with this company, more locations with this company, and I want to go worldwide. Oh my goodness.   Bradley Sutton. Yeah, I want to have.   Carabella: Bellatec clothing line yoga mats. You know huge events. You know how Aloe Yoga teaches yoga too, so we're actually going to do our first event with Fabletics and USC. Wow.   Bradley Sutton. Okay.   Carabella: Yeah, that's exciting. And the Clippers came into our studio looking for a place to train their girls.   Bradley Sutton. Yes.   Carabella: So we're right in the middle of downtown it's my team right there. There you go.   Bradley Sutton. Yes.   Carabella: So, yeah, wow, I really want to expand and make this a huge, huge company. I'm looking at it right now Like realistically. I just want to make this baby grow up.   Bradley Sutton. Yeah, so then you're almost guaranteed going to find your way back into physical products and online and e-commerce.   Carabella: Yeah.   Bradley Sutton. Because you know, if you start doing merch or something for your brand and start to, you know making your own, I mean you're going to. If you get popular here, you know like right now you're probably just buying all your own like yoga blocks and mats and stuff.   Carabella: Exactly, we actually bought everything from Alibaba.   Bradley Sutton. Okay, but then you see, you could still do that. But then now you put your logo on it and then you know, sell it for people, especially since you're, because you're still doing the online courses and stuff like that. So then in that case, you know, like it's not just, oh, only the people who go to your physical location would be buying your stuff. You know, if you have customers all over the world, they could buy yourself online.   Carabella: Exactly, and Bellatec is going to have an online portal as well, where people can work out with us from all over the world, even from this first location. I've already started building out with our web developer an online portal for girls to work out from New York, and they can join our Bellatec community from anywhere.   Bradley Sutton. Awesome, awesome, alright. What's your advice for somebody else out there, like, maybe people nowadays obviously can't make money that quick the way you did, because it literally doesn't exist anymore where you can just do drop shipping and stuff like that Bye. But is it a matter of like, hey, if you're selling on Amazon or Shopify or TikTok shop or whatever, like Start putting some money to the side. Or what's your advice? Like, how were you able to succeed with life after Amazon?   Carabella: I feel like you just have to play it smart. Be careful, but also take risks. And finally, don't be scared to like Burn it and keep moving, but also just be careful. Like I'm not a financial advisor, and so I can't really say much, but definitely focus on having a cushion, a fallback cushion, save money, plan things for longer term. You know, think smart, think about your future, because Amazon changes every single day and, like you said, you literally can't do that to type of drop shipping anymore, those type of selling anymore, and that was insane. But yeah, I would say just you know, focus on being a little bit careful but also still taking risks, because you can't be too careful or else you won't grow.   Bradley Sutton. We're going to talk you know the rest of this episode is actually something I've been doing. The last year for guests on the episode is I've been asking them a lot of like non e-commerce questions like, hey, what do you do when you need to step away from your business? Because I think all of us you know, you remember how it was like you can get so engrossed because it's fun, you know sometimes, but you know like what's that mean? There's like a meme like hey, amazon sellers are the ones who want to quit their nine to five just so they can work 16 hours a day. You know, like because we just get engrossed and especially when you're work from home, you know you could just like kind of let yourself go and not have great eating habits. So let's talk about healthy habits. But first of all, what's yours? Like you, it's kind of like fitness is almost like your job. That was like for me and like people ask me back in the day what did I do to stay in shape? When I was in shape, like doing zoom, but like I didn't have to. That was my job. Like like I was doing 10 classes, 12 classes a week. I could almost eat whatever I wanted to, even though it's not good, but I would never gain weight because I'm just working out. But like, what about you? What about mentally? Maybe I need to take away from or take a step back from the studio, take a step back from my training. I just need to have some me time. What's your go to? Hobbies or things?   Carabella: Yeah, this is the most important thing for all of us entrepreneurs, because we get obsessed and there's no work life balance and at the moment, I have a brand new baby. I have no balance, but I force myself.   Bradley Sutton. You have a brand new baby?   Carabella: Yeah, at Bellatec.   Bradley Sutton. Oh, okay, I'll say wait a minute. Okay, I was like, did I miss something?   Carabella: No, my business is like a month old. I'm looking at it like a child.   Bradley Sutton. It's how born, yeah, newborn.   Carabella: So things that I do to step away. It's very hard to get away from my phone, just I don't know, it's an addiction thing, obsessive controller thing, but I just go get massages, turn my, turn my phone off, get a massage, put it on, do not disturb. I ride horses, I get in nature. I love to run on the beach, I love to meditate. Journal I'm a big journal. If anyone read the book, the artists way Okay, this book is amazing, it'll change your life. And so she talks about in that book that to sit down and do morning pages where you brain dump three pages a day and you give yourself time and then you can, you know, understand yourself better. But healthy habits for me is giving yourself time alone, alone, alone not with friends, you know. I like to take a bath, I like to spend time in nature, go see my family. Sometimes I mean they're not very far, but I don't make enough time.   Bradley Sutton. They're my neighbors. I know they are your neighbors.   Carabella: My sister just had her sixth baby. Can you believe your sister has six? Wow, that's crazy, yeah. And then I'm in the gym every day, were they were.   Bradley Sutton. they when we're not tri-city, hmm, tri-city hospital right there, I don't know. That's where my kids were born.   Carabella: Yeah, I don't know, but I saw the new baby on Thanksgiving and she's so cute, oh yeah, but yet I I work out every single day 5am. Make sure that you're choosing healthy foods. You know your food is your fuel. Yeah, so if you don't choose good fuel, you're not going to have, you know, a good day. You're going to feel slow.   Bradley Sutton. Let's talk about that, for a little Cause entrepreneurs out there, I think 15 years ago was different, but nowadays, thanks to the apps from the devil AKA door dash, uber eats and everything else, like it's just so easy to you know, at least back in the day maybe you were lazy you actually ate better because, all right, I'll just make myself a ham sandwich or something you know which is probably more healthy than all right, let me order McDonald's to be delivered to my doorstep.   Carabella: Exactly.   Bradley Sutton. What are some eating habits for the stay at home entrepreneur? Simple things that they can keep in mind to stay healthy.   Carabella: Yeah, no breakfast. Do intermittent fasting, I would say.   Bradley Sutton. How many hours on, and I would say 16, eight 16, eight 16, eight.   Carabella: So 16 hours fast eight hours. Eat no breakfast. I don't eat until 11 o'clock. My biggest meal is lunchtime and then I take breaks. Make sure you take breaks, guys. Get off your butt, walk around, get your steps in 10,000 steps, minimum 10,000 steps a day.   Bradley Sutton. Minimum. We just did the okay hold on Minimum Hold on hold on. We did this thing at work where it was like a challenge and they were like all right, we need to do 7,500. And I was struggling, like I was walking, like I would go an hour on the. I have like a standing desk so I have the treadmill on the bottom and then I would do like an hour on that. And then there was some time where I was traveling. So I would like walk like two miles and I'm like I'm still not at 10,000. I'm like what is it? Or not even at 7,500. So like to get to 10,000, what does that mean? Does that mean I need to walk like three miles? Does that mean I need to spend an hour and a half on a treadmill? It's about six miles?   Carabella: Oh, my goodness, it's about six miles If you walk. So I wear an aura ring. Usually it's dead right now and I see my step counts are insane. I mean, I walk 25,000 steps a day. But if you want to be, if you want to be like the hunter and gatherer people that we used to be walking everywhere, they did minimum 10,000 steps for women.   Bradley Sutton. Wow.   Carabella: Men's steps should be way more, cause you have higher testosterone, you have different bodies. So I would say 10,000 steps a day minimum. Get up and walk around and then your smallest meal should be dinner. So you go to bed light but you're not hungry. You know, and then I don't eat after 7pm. Okay, so 11 to 7 is my window, and that's all I get to Just water. Yeah, water, I like green juice, celery juice, ginger tea, things that'll flush you out also. Yeah, that would be my way to how to eat if I'm going to stay at home and even if I don't stay at home. This is how I eat. Yeah.   Bradley Sutton. So maybe like, hey, you know, maybe that seems unattainable, I mean, it seems unattainable to me almost 10,000 steps, but you can get a treadmill, that's on. You know, you can still be on your computer, but on your treadmill, like while you're doing it, but then I, the thing that I don't do enough of is, you know, like, take walks outside. Hey, do you have a zoom call or a call that doesn't require to be in front of your computer? Take that zoom call on your phone, maybe and just take a walk. Wow, okay, yeah, I need to step on my. I need to step on my game here.   Carabella: Yeah, but don't forget, health is wealth and you don't want to get to your wealth and be sick because you're not in good shape. Like, don't forget that your body is should be your number one and the sharper you are physically, the better your wealth is going to be. You know and I saw something somewhere, I think it was the guy who does the 75 hard, andy Fersilla. He told me he said when people see a person in shape, they want to do more business with them, they want to work with them more because they see the discipline. So that discipline from your health transfers into other places of your life, like your business, getting things done on time, planning things out, showing up to meetings on time early. Da, da, da da. Cause you build that habit.   Bradley Sutton. Okay, what about I mean, apart from just steps? You know, like, like, if that's all we're doing, that's great, but it's still not enough. Like, what are some easy maybe exercises? The desk jockey, you know, can do just like break. You know, like you said, take breaks and stuff, so like, what should? We? What kind of little mini exercises can we be doing during our breaks?   Carabella: Yeah, jumping jacks, pushups, sit ups I would say planking for sure. Keep that back strong. Anything that's in the area that you're, anything you can do in a very small area. So think about it. If I were to stand up here, I could probably do some jumping jacks. I can get on the floor and do some pushups, simple things like that For guys. If you have a pull up bar at home, hang it on your door, do some pull ups. You don't need a full gym to get in shape or to stay in shape, and then you burn calories a lot. Jump rope get a jump rope, stand outside. That's the best one.   Bradley Sutton. Okay, yeah, All right. What about as far as counting calories portions? You know you talking about having dinner as your smallest, but, like you know, how much vegetables, fruit should we be having? Like? What do you think about these different trends, Like you know, like carnivore diets and all this crazy stuff?   Carabella: I feel like it depends on the person. Not one diet fits all, but I would say depending on. For calorie counting, if you want to lose weight, you got to eat less than your, your basal metabolic rate, which is like the minimum calories that your body burns at rest.   Bradley Sutton. How do you, how do you find that out? Calculate that?   Carabella: There's a, there's a or a ring will track it. Your Apple watch will track it.   Bradley Sutton. Oh, I have an Apple. I didn't know I had that Okay.   Carabella: Your Renfno scale will track it. These scales that scan through your feet they'll track it. So they do this scan and they'll you'll be able to see, you know your weight, your body fat, your muscle mass, your water, your you know metabolic age, which is the age that your body is at in the state that you are in now, and then how many calories you burn at rest. So if you burn 1500 calories at rest and you want to lose weight, you better eat a thousand calories a day and you will naturally lose weight. If you want to gain weight, you eat 2000 calories a day. It's very simple math.   Bradley Sutton. Okay, and I mean that is definitely going to help you lose weight. But then you want to have you know if you go to a physical checkup and have your good cholesterol high, your bad cholesterol low. So what are some foods to stay away from? What are some foods that you think are must haves in your, in your diet?   Carabella: Yeah, Whole foods diet is the best diet, which means not whole foods. See instantly, See, instantly See what I thought about. No whole foods like anything that comes from the earth chicken, eggs, spinach, greens, fruits, anything that comes from the earth. Anything that comes from a bag and you don't know what's in it when you read the ingredients, that's automatically not good for you. I don't drink sugary juices. I would stay away from sugar completely. I would do just foods that come from the earth must haves in your diet eggs, chicken, steak unless you're vegetarian, which I did, vegan, and it was a shit show for me. I'm sorry, Can I say that? It was it was not for me. You know, I did some blood work when I was vegan. Going through that, my protein tanked, my hair was falling out, I had low iron, low vitamins not for me. Some people are thriving on vegan, so I feel like it depends on the person's body. But Whole Foods diet is the best way.   Bradley Sutton. Okay, yeah, cool. What are the tips, and tricks or anything can you give to our community out there?   Carabella: Try to de-stress. Get an animal. I don't have an animal, but a lot of my friends have dogs and I ride horses, so getting around animals makes you feel happy, release dopamine, release stress. Also, you have a companion and then just spending more time outside, fresh air, grounding, just staying. Staying a human in a digital world is so important and that we get lost in that. Yeah.   Bradley Sutton. Yeah, any inspiring stories of people like transformations that you've had, you know, like maybe it's a bride or maybe it's just one of your you know clients, your one-on-one clients, um, where they actually like, all right, we're just going to go ahead and do whatever you tell me. And then they saw some like incredible results.   Carabella: Yeah, actually I have a lot, but I'll tell you this one which I absolutely love. This guy I was training. He's a pharmacist, very successful pharmacist, very busy guy. We started training and he was basically lying to me. He's like I'm not losing any weight, I'm not losing any weight and we're working out three times a week. This isn't, this is not working and not everybody can eat healthy and lose weight. And I said what are you eating? And he was like I'm eating healthy. What are you talking about? And we sat down one time and I was so ruthless I'm like you're a liar. You're not following the diet I'm giving you. Show me a picture of your food every day, every meal. So then we I we had this really tough conversation. Two months later he lost 30 pounds. He was eating clean, he was training consistently and 30 pounds he looked like a different person.   Bradley Sutton. He went what did he take out of his diet? Mcdonald's Also. He was eating McDonald's and complaining that he wasn't losing weight.   Carabella: He was eating out every single day, drinking alcohol, and he took all of that out of his diet. He started work. I had him on something very strict like tuna, salad water and just almost like a keto, and he lost weight so quickly. He went from 193 to 163 and literally like two months.   Bradley Sutton. How tall was he?   Carabella: He's 5’10.   Bradley Sutton. Okay, Well, I mean 193 is not, that, you know, like for for a guy, unless you're like five, six or something that's all right. Can you give me his his diet plan, or the one that you gave him?   Carabella: I could give you a diet plan. I want to lose 30 pounds. It is strict.   Bradley Sutton. It's strict, but I'll give it to you All right.   Carabella: Yeah, I have it on my phone right here.   Bradley Sutton. Awesome.   Carabella: Yeah, I'll give it that to you.   Bradley Sutton. Cool, all right. So this has been a great episode because it's like, you know, we don't have, you know, like we have tons, of course, amazon success stories on here. But success doesn't mean just success on Amazon, just success in life is like, hey, are you happy, are you, you know, supporting for you and your family and stuff like that, and you've achieved that and it's, you know, sure, amazon, you know paved the way, but then you completely transition and it's nothing wrong with that. So, guys, don't be thinking that Amazon is the only way to success. It's a. You know, it could arguably be said that you wouldn't, you might not have been able to have enough to start this, you know, uh, business and stuff If you hadn't done the Amazon, absolutely use Amazon. And then if Amazon keeps working, great, keep it rolling. I'm sure you would have loved to have kept doing like six figures a month.   Carabella: I'm coming back when I get my, when my clothing comes out and I know how to work it and I'm going to come back to it. I love it All right.   Bradley Sutton. But then, most importantly again this you know, you guys know I've had some lot of health issues in the past, and so that's why this year I made sure to always ask the guests about their health regime. And this is, you know, one of the experts in the game as far as that goes, so I hope you put her advice to use now. If somebody is in, you know, if there's any of our female listeners out there who are in the like LA area, how can they find out about your, your studio?   Carabella: Yeah, check out bellatec.com and you can come in for your first class free, and all you have to do is register on the website. It's very easy. The steps are there. You can find me @carabellariazzo and DM me on Instagram. I'm very personable. I talk to everyone. I'm not the type of person who's going to ignore people, except Bradley, except me when I'm trying to get her on the podcast for like a year. Just kidding, but yeah, so check us out there. We're at Bellatec studio on Instagram and everywhere else. Yeah, come say hi.   0:37:15 - Bradley Sutton. It's great to see you again, and I hope the next time you see me, you don't recognize me because I'll be like the more fit version.   0:37:22 - Carabella: Let's go. I believe in you, I love it.  

We’re back with another episode of the Weekly Buzz with Helium 10’s Senior Brand Evangelist and Walmart Expert, Carrie Miller. Every week, we cover the latest breaking news in the Amazon, Walmart, and E-commerce space, interview someone you need to hear from and provide a training tip for the week. TikTok Shop Wants to Beat Amazon at Its Own Game https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-12-13/tiktok-looks-to-challenge-amazon-amzn-with-tiktok-shop Let shoppers engage with your brand across multiple products using Amazon Video Builder https://advertising.amazon.com/en-us/resources/whats-new/amazon-video-builder-powers-use-of-multiple-product-asins/ Walmart pushes ahead with e-commerce platform https://www.meatpoultry.com/articles/29475-walmart-pushes-ahead-with-e-commerce-platform Etsy lays off 225 workers after ‘essentially flat’ sales, says CEO https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/dec/13/etsy-layoffs-online-business-retail-industry But wait, there's more to this episode. We'll guide you through the process of automating Amazon keyword research using Helium 10. We'll help you streamline your efforts, saving time by setting up keyword insight settings to alert you when a competitor ranks for a new keyword. Plus, we're handing you a roadmap for business growth in 2024. We're talking about a free downloadable checklist that will help you develop essential daily habits, and keep you focused on your goals. Go to: https://h10.me/habittracker for more information! So, whether you're a newbie seller or a seasoned pro, this episode is packed with strategies that will give you an edge. Grab your headphones, and let's get started!   In this episode of the Weekly Buzz by Helium 10, Carrie talks about: 00:42 - TikTok Shop Vs. Amazon 03:19 - Seller Support Chat 04:36 - Video In Multiple Languages 05:41 - More Products in Video Ads 06:51 - Walmart Investing in Marketplace 07:33 - Etsy Sales Flat 08:21 - New Apparel Tool 09:35 - Helium 10 New Feature Alerts 13:36 - Pro Training Tip 17:26 - 2024 Daily Habits Seller Checklist ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast ► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension ► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup  (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life) ► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft ► Watch The Podcasts On YouTube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos Transcript Carrie Miller: TikTok is giving Amazon a run for its money. Chat is now available in Amazon seller support, and now you can upload videos in multiple languages on your Amazon listings. This and so much more on this week's episode of the Weekly Buzz.   Bradley Sutton: How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think.   Carrie Miller: Welcome back to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast. My name is Kari and I will be your host, and this is our weekly buzz, which is our weekly episode, where we give you all of the latest news and updates for Amazon, Walmart and the e-commerce world. We also give you updates on Helium 10, new alerts and features, and we also will give you a serious strategy for serious sellers of any level. So let's go ahead and see what's buzzing. Okay, so let's go ahead and get into this first article, which is how TikTok shop is giving Amazon a run for their money, and I do know that they are doing a lot of amazing incentives for sellers. First of all, there's no fees. They're also covering shipping costs for you and if you give discounts with some of their promotions, they often will actually cover those discounts. So, for example, if you give a 30% off discount through one of their promotions, they'll cover the 30% discount cost so that you don't have to pay for it. And I've actually talked to sellers who have made more money than their usual listing price for products. In addition to that, they're giving customers coupons to purchase and really helping to incentivize them to start purchasing on TikTok, so they'll give them a $20 off coupon. I know I bought something that was $21.95 and I got $20 off, so I only paid a doll her 95 for it.   Carrie Miller: Let's go ahead and get into the article that talks about this. This article is titled TikTok shop wants to beat Amazon at its own game. It's from Bloomberg and they talk about a seller who had started getting all these incentives to sell on TikTok shop and they were really surprised at how they even did $10,000 in sales the day after Cyber Monday, even after all this was done. Really really cool stuff that they started selling and learning how to use TikTok shop and because of all the incentives they're more profitable, which I know. A lot of people on Amazon are kind of wondering what's going on with profitability because it keeps shrinking. So this could be a potentially good opportunity, especially while they're giving these no fee incentives to get in there.   Carrie Miller: But something that's really interesting is that they're saying that Amazon shouldn't be too worried yet because basically people are seeing things on TikTok. They don't necessarily yet trust the platforms that are purchasing elsewhere, so they might go to Amazon. In addition to that, the shipping isn't as fast on TikTok, so you can see that people are going to go and want that two day shipping, which is why you'll see a lot of people buying something on Amazon. Maybe it's the same brand, so a lot of times people will look for the same thing that they found on TikTok to see if they can actually find it on Amazon to buy that. Something else that I found very interesting in this article is that they were talking about how people are saying it's kind of like a farmer's market or a digital craft fair, because you can do live selling on TikTok shop and people can ask questions and you can interact with the product live and show people how to use it. So it's a really good opportunity to kind of have a different experience for people and really incentivize them to purchase. I'm really curious to know if any of you have started selling on TikTok shop and how you've done so far. Put your comments below and just let us know how you're doing. Have you had a hard time starting? Have you gotten some success on TikTok shop? We would really like to know.   Carrie Miller: Okay, so let's go ahead and get into the second article, which is something I think a lot of people are going to really like, and hopefully this is something that is really beneficial for a lot of sellers and that is that now that you can actually get chat instead of just email and phone call on seller support. So this is a little press release document that was released by Amazon so you can now chat with an actual person. So, instead of having to call, you can actually chat. So there's an FAQ. So one big question that's what I had. I thought is it going to be a chat bot, because I can't stand dealing with those. So they said will I be communicating with an actual human? And yes, all live chats will be handled by a seller support associate. Will I see if this receive the same level of service that I do with email? And it says many cases you will, and then you don't have to go back and forth with email. And in what cases is it not available? It says they can currently help you with the majority of support issues with chat. So that is a really good thing that they'll be able to kind of help with a bunch of different things with chat, and basically you have to go and find it in the same way that you would any other support and there will be an option for chat. So my question is what do you think about this and are you going to start utilizing the chat feature instead of email or the phone call, or what do you think? Let us know in the comments below.   Carrie Miller: Okay, this next article is really exciting, especially for the US, because there are so many people with different languages in this country and you want to really market to as many people as possible, and I know I've been noticing a lot of Spanish keywords when I'm doing keyword research in our helium 10 tools, and this is a great opportunity to be able to reach Spanish speakers and all speakers of a lot of different languages. So this article talks or this is actually an announcement from seller central that now you can actually upload your videos in other languages. So now you can upload Spanish videos, you can upload Chinese videos or other languages that you think that your customers might be looking at your listings and maybe they might need it in their native language. So this will help you to be able to sell to those people and really showcase your product to a wider variety of people, and I'm really excited about this. I think this is really a great thing to be able to kind of further expand the languages on your listings that you already have. Now Let us know in the comments below if you think this is a great thing and if you're going to get started doing it right away, or what you think about, you know, being able to upload these videos in different languages.   Carrie Miller: This next article is about being able to upload more than one product to your videos for your ads. I think this is a great opportunity to showcase more than one product. I noticed that when I was able to show more than one product on my brand story and my A+ Content that people were buying in bulk or bundles, basically, of things that they weren't buying in bundles before. So this is a great opportunity to showcase all of your products in one video and catch the eye of a lot of different customers. So this is actually an announcement from you know advertising on Amazon and the way that it works is you're going to be able to upload those three different products, and why it's important is you know you're going to be able to get more brand exposure and just a lot more reach. Maybe one person might not be looking for one thing that you sell, but maybe one of the other items they're going to be interested in, so it's a really good opportunity there. Also, this is where the feature is available. It is. It is available in the US, Canada, Mexico and then all these other countries across South America, Europe, middle East and in the Asia Pacific. So check out to see if your country is allowing this and start getting some of these video ads up, and so I think this is going to be a really good thing for showcasing even more of your products and incentivizing people to buy more of your products all at the same time.   Carrie Miller: So the next article here is in the Walmart realm, and that is basically that Walmart is going to continue to invest in their e-commerce platform in 2024. And this is according to an article on meatpuletry.com. They have they did see quite a bit of growth on their digital market, so they want to keep growing it. They actually talk about how it was even more. They had more growth in China. However, they are still just overall, growing this marketplace so that, you know, more customers can buy their products online, since more people are switching to online shopping. So it's a really you know good time to get into Walmart as well. If you really want to grow your, your brand and your products. You know, maybe consider selling on Walmart as well.   Carrie Miller: Okay, this next article is a bit of sad news and that is that, um, basically, Esty had to lay off a bunch of workers because their sales were flat, so they laid up 225 workers. I'm not sure what this means for the future of Etsy or what they're thinking about sales trajectories, but it is really a curious thing. I know there are a lot of Etsy sellers who watch our content. So if you're an Etsy seller, have you seen sales kind of stay the same? Have you seen growth? I know it really is dependent on the individual seller, so, um, you know this really could be dependent, um, you know, seller to seller, but also Amazon does have Amazon hand made and you can get these products pretty quickly. So that might be something that's been causing some competition for Etsy. But hopefully this doesn't mean that it's doomsday for Etsy and that we'll see them revive again.   Carrie Miller: Okay, this is the last but not least, but this is a really good thing for apparel brands and I think that because of Sheen and Temu, those are really big platforms that are really competing with Amazon right now and they sell mostly apparel and basic. We saw last week with the fees, they're reducing fees for apparel, which I think maybe has something to do with the fact that they want to compete with those, those platforms. But now they have a new fit insights tool that's going to help give you know apparel and shoe brands access to fit specific insights about their products to help you know the customers you know get the right sizing so they can help reduce returns. I think this is a really good thing to help offering you know sellers the opportunity to you know, improve upon their actual sizing measurements to make sure they're the most accurate for customers to prevent the most amount of returns. I do sell in this category and I think this is a really good thing. Um, you know, for all of us, I do sell in this category and I think this is a really good thing to add and really help us to be more specific with our sizing so that all of our customers can get the exact product that they want with the exact right fit. All right. So that is all of our news. So let's go ahead and check out with Shivali what our Helium 10 feature updates. So, Shivali, go ahead and take it away.   Shivali Patel: Hi guys let's get into this week's helium 10 new feature alerts. We have some ground to cover today, the first feature being located inside of Cerebro, our reverse ASIN keyword research tool. Let's talk about the Amazon total search volume and Amazon average search volume metrics Diving into Cerebro. Essentially, when you're performing a keyword search and say you end up filtering down any group of keywords or phrases, then the tool will actually tell you what the total search volume is for that given pool of phrases, as well as what the average search volume is per phrase. The first number is especially helpful if you want to understand the combined impact or reach of all the keywords that your products are ranking for on page one, while the latter is great for understanding individual averages of your pulled key phrases, since the multi ASIN search that I have pulled up here is quite broad and it includes indexed keywords and phrases. We have a Amazon total search volume that is upwards of 3.5 million, but let's refine the search to have an organic ranking somewhere between positions 1 and 50. In applying these filters, what you're going to see now is the combined value of your page one reach, and that for us in this cuff and shelf market is 22,000 roughly. Alternatively, in the case that you want to see the search volume of all the keywords that your competitors are beating you on, you could use a different filter. Instead of the position rank filter, you could use the relative rank filter and then proceed to take a look at those metrics. How cool is that? Right, all right.   Shivali Patel: And the second thing that I want to talk about now is filter presets available inside of Atomic. So what do I mean by that? Well, if you navigate over to Atomic, you can actually access this inside of the, the analytics or the add manager tabs. I'm already inside of analytics and I'm in the search terms tab, so I'm just gonna stay here, but you guys are more than welcome to do this inside of the add manager tab as well. You probably are gonna see this inside of Cerebro, too, and going down say that instead of going through all of these 1450 search terms, I want to take a look at the last 60 days. I know that I want to see those different search terms that have 20 clicks but no orders, no PPC orders, and I'm spending at least three dollars on that search term. Well, now I can actually go in and click save the filter preset, and when I click save filter preset, you're gonna be able to name it and then click apply, and every time you go back into Atomic, you're actually going to be able to access it quickly with just one click, by clicking filter library, and then select whatever you'd like to see and it's automatically going to take those search terms and narrow them down based off those filters that you selected.   Shivali Patel: So be sure to take advantage of this. If you are really interested in minimizing your actions maybe you have a lot going on and you really want to get straight into the actionable data and insights that will move your business forward then this is a really quick way to do that, to optimize those PPC campaigns you have. Or even if you're doing this inside of Cerebro, you're using the filter presets to quickly get in and take a look at any new keywords or phrases that might be relevant to your niche. So be sure to take advantage of this if you really want to minimize the actions that are needed to get to actionable data and insights, and I wish you much success.   Carrie Miller: Alright. Thank you so much for those updates. Helium 10 is always doing a great job of just updating products that we offer and then coming out with great new tools that can help you to further your business. So we are so excited about all the things that are going to be coming in 2024. So keep staying tuned to the weekly buzz so you can be the first to know about all these new updates. And, last but not least, we have our training of the week, so we will go ahead and send it on over to Bradley for the training video of the week.   Bradley Sutton: How to automate your Amazon keyword research. Alright, we've been talking about a lot of strategies as far as how to find top keywords from your competitors. You know from your own listings, etc. Now I the way I showed it to you guys. It doesn't take too much time. But you know, maybe you've got 10-20 products and you want to be checking your competitors keywords once a week. Well, it can start getting pretty tedious and time-consuming and a lot of data that you're gonna have to process to every single week or every other week, go through all of your products and all of your competitor products and no, alright, is my competitor ranking for any new keywords that I didn't know? So I can put it in my listing. So how would you like a way to just put time back in your hands? I mean, time is money, right, so that you know this could take hours and hours a month, but instead of that, let Helium 10 do the work for you.   Bradley Sutton: How can you automate keyword harvesting from your competitor's keywords? Well, it actually goes back to your dashboard, all right. So what you're going to want to do is you're going to want to go back to just your regular dashboard, okay, and you're going to hit insight settings on the very bottom left of the screen insight settings all right. Once you do that, you are going to find the keyword insight settings and then you are going to hit four insight types and you are going to select customize under keyword suggestions based on my competitors, all right. So hopefully you've set your competitors, and if you haven't set your competitors on your Insights Dashboard, you know there's videos that we have on our dashboard on how to do that but you want to put your top five competitors for all of your products and these are the ones that you probably are running Cerebra off of. Once you've got that done, like I said, go to your insights types, hit under customize under keyword suggestions based on my competitors, and what you're going to do here is you're going to enter exactly whatever you like to do inside of Cerebro. You're basically automating your Cerebro process.   Bradley Sutton: So maybe you said, hey, I want to know any keyword where the search volume is at least 400 and my rank is like maybe I'm not ranking at all, so I'm going to put zero and zero, but at least one of my competitors is ranking in the top 20 positions. All right, that's it. You just fill it out just like you would on Cerebro. So now, any time that one of my competitors for any one of my products right, is getting sales from a new keyword that I'm not ranked for now, I'm going to get actually an insight on it or a notification right here and it'll tell me hey, your competitors rank for these new keywords. Would you like to start tracking it? Would you like to start putting it in your listing?   Bradley Sutton: This is like super, super cool guys, next level. If you don't have access to it, you're going to need the diamond plan in order to access this. But I mean talk about putting money and time back in your hands. I mean this saves hours and hours of work. You now don't have to even run Cerebro almost ever again on your products, unless you want to do some advanced filtering, but you can now get those keywords delivered to you in a message saying hey, your competitor is getting sales from these keywords. Do you want to put it into your listing? So, guys, if you want to start automating it, make sure to set that up on your Insights Dashboard.   Carrie Miller: All right, everyone, thank you so much for staying at this point. I do want to leave you with something that I think will be really helpful going into this next year, and that is our 2024 daily habits seller checklist. Now, I actually helped to put this together, and it's daily habits that are going to help you to stay on track, to monitor things that are really important for your business, things like your sessions and your page views and all the kind of metrics that you need to make sure that you're staying on top of your account. There's a ton of different things in this checklist that are going to help give you really good habits to help you to continue to grow in 2024. So I hope that you all check it out.   Carrie Miller: It's really just an easy, free, clickable download. You can actually check these things off digitally, so you don't even have to download and print this thing out. You can do it all on your computer, so we will have the link ready for you in down below in the description so that you can check out this Daily Habits checklist, and I think you all are going to love it. So go ahead and check it out and we will see you all again next week and we'll see what's buzzing. Bye everyone.

What happens when you blend the minds of Adriana Rangel and Marcus Mokros, hosts of the popular Serious Sellers Podcast Spanish and German shows, with the world of Amazon and its ever-evolving marketplace? As it turns out, a captivating concoction of strategies, trends, and real-life success stories. From the transition from UPC codes to QR codes to new monthly networking calls for Spanish and German-speaking audiences to an imminent event in Germany - we dissect it all with our esteemed guests. We talk about special highlights featuring their recent guests. Buckle up as we take a ride through the ups and downs of outdoor sports sales on Amazon with two seasoned sellers. One recounts their thrilling journey from a booming 2020 to a challenging 2021, all leading to a triumphant comeback in 2023. Hear their plans for product expansion and driving website traffic, and learn from their experiences. From across the pond, our European seller shares his wisdom on improving product images, revealing two crucial photography tips. We also touch on the advent of a novel 3D rendering service, eliminating the need for physical product delivery to a photography studio. All this while emphasizing the critical role technology plays in growing an Amazon business. Did you ever wonder how selling on Amazon varies across different European countries? We've got you covered as we compare and contrast Amazon sales in the top five European countries: the UK, Germany, Italy, France, and Spain. We navigate through the VAT-related intricacies in these nations and how Amazon aids in VAT declarations. Find inspiration in the story of a successful Spanish seller who has grown her Amazon business with a unique approach - collaborating with artisans in Spain and Mexico through Amazon Handmade. We also chat about avoiding burnout while scaling up your Amazon business, ensuring a healthy work-life balance. Wrapping up the episode, we shine the spotlight on two entrepreneurs who’ve built flourishing podcast communities and Amazon businesses. This journey is filled with challenges, triumphs, plans for the future, and valuable advice for budding entrepreneurs. So tune in for an episode filled with information, inspiration, and innovation.   In episode 517 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley, Adriana, and Marcus discuss: 00:00 - Tips and Strategies From SSP Spanish and German Hosts 01:19 - Celebrating Podcast Milestones and New Networking Calls 06:33 - Insights From Amazon  08:28 - Trends in Outdoor Sports Sales 14:42 - Using AI Tools for Content Creation 18:19 - Build Brand With Technology and VA's  20:50 - VAT and Selling Strategies on Amazon 24:11 - Artisan Networks in Spain and Mexico  29:19 - Uniqueness and Innovation in Saturated Niches 31:50 - Tips for Balancing Work and Relaxation 36:06 - Amazon's AI Strategy for Product Listings 37:55 - Celebrating Podcast and Amazon Success ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast ► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension ► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup  (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life) ► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft ► Watch The Podcasts On Youtube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos Transcript   Bradley Sutton: Today we've got the host of our Spanish and German podcast back and they've got lots of tips and strategies from themselves and their guests on a wide variety of topics, such as Amazon, image creation, KDP, amazon handmade European marketplaces and much more. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Hey guys. Heads up, Kevin King is the new host of the AM/PM Podcast, so if you love Amazon strategy, make sure to subscribe to it. Whatever you're listening to this podcast on, take a listen to AM slash PM podcast just by searching for it on that platform. Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the series sellers podcast by Helium 10. I am your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show. That's a completely BS free, unscripted and unrehearsed organic conversation about serious strategies or serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world, and we've got a couple of our host from different parts of the world here today. We've got Adriana from Mexico and Marcus, who is in Europe right now. Welcome back to the show, guys.   Adriana: Hi Bradley, thank you for having us.   Bradley Sutton: It’s really great to have you both here. This is now. We just celebrated two full years of Serious Sellers Podcast and Espanol Serious Sellers Podcast of Deutsch, and the numbers have been going up, you know, record months this year. It's really great to see what you guys have created just from zero, like literally zero, and now you've got podcasts that are listened to by thousands of people out there. We have YouTube now, you know, for the podcast. So, guys, make sure, if you speak German or Spanish, you need to be listening to Serious Sellers Podcast and Espanol or Alph Deutsch. You can search for either of that on whatever you're listening to this on, even on YouTube now. Now we're doing full videos so you can get kind of like a better vibe of it as well. So guys, this is this is really cool. And just one more thing that's new We'll go ahead and promote it right now is that you guys are now hosting in Spanish and German like monthly networking calls, zoom calls, for Spanish and German speaking community. So, Adriana, tell us about yours like, like when we just had the first one on December 6, but is it always like on the 6th, or is it going to be like the second Tuesday of each month, or how is yours going to work and how can people sign up for it?   Adriana: Yes, of course we're meeting the first Wednesday of every month, so I'm not sure what that is for January, but of course that's going to change for February as well. So basically, the first Wednesday of every month at 6pm, Mexico City time and people can sign up. They just need to visit our link, h10.me/llamadaconadriana and that's it. You can, and that way you will get the reminders and the link to join us in a live call networking call every Wednesday.   Bradley Sutton: All right Now, Marcus, you too are just had your first ever German call in December, but starting in January. When is it going to be? And also, what is the link for it?   Marcus: Yeah, we want to keep it simple. It's the first Monday of the month, 12 o'clock, and the link is h10.me/elite-de.   Bradley Sutton: All right, h10.me/elite-de for German speakers. And when you say 12pm, that's 12pm Germany time, 12pm German time. Correct, speaking of Germany. Guys, I'm going to be in Germany. I'm not sure if anybody out there is going to be in in town, but I'm going to be out there on January 27th in Berlin. I'm going to be speaking at an event and also I will be hosting an elite workshop. So if you guys are interested in going for the event I'm speaking at h10.me/germany. So h10. h10.me/germany. All right, enough of the kind of like logistics here. I think, hopefully, if you're a Spanish or German speaking person, you got enough information there to take advantage of these. Everything we just mentioned is free resources for the community. But you know, you guys, let's start off with. What I like to do is because I don't. You know, I obviously can't speak German, so I can't listen to the episodes and understand what's going on. So I'm going to first start with you, marcus. What are some notable guests you've had in the year that really had like some really cool strategies or really cool story that you can relate to us?   Marcus: Yeah, really some really awesome guests and it's hard to make any kind of selection. But one recent one was from GS1, the company who is doing the UPC codes, and the employee. He told me that they are preparing a big change. They want to go in the next couple of next years from barcodes to QR codes and they call it as a 3D code, and that will be more than just a number to identify your product. That will have like access for you to, for marketing, for example, the customer. Obviously, obviously the shop can scan the QR code, see the price, but the customer can scan it as well and you can put your promotions in it or, for example, like giveaways, anything, and he says it will even support promotions day by day. You can have one promotion set on a Monday, something different on a weekend, or like if there's like a bad batch should produced, you can add it into that QR code and the cashier will know I shouldn't sell that. So there will be a lot of functions and features coming and I mean that's where that will be a big task. They will have to change all systems in all shops worldwide. That will be something very interesting for marketing.   Bradley Sutton: Huh, interesting, yeah, I mean because you know the traditional barcodes is kind of like what the world's been used to for so long, but the move to QR and having extra information, that'll definitely be interesting. Alright, going to Adriana now, the first kind of story that comes from your mind, or Stragia, or something that's one of your guests in the last year talked about.   Adriana: Yeah, well, one of the highlights is that we had Amazon join us on a call or on an episode for the podcast, maybe a couple of weeks ago, maybe two or three weeks ago and that was great because we had the opportunity to ask them stuff such as you know, what's up with seller support, how can we best go about getting an issue fixed and, let's say, something happens to your listing, your listing is down, or an FBA shipment, or you know, these things we deal with as a sellers on a weekly basis, right, and so that was a big one. I was very excited to have them on a call because, you know, it's our opportunity to get answers right, instead of, you know, searching in forums or asking other people. It came directly from them and they gave us really interesting tips for how to go about certain issues and also they shared with us really interesting well insights, of course, but also resources on how we can learn more about the platform, etc. Right, and I think that this is very valuable because it comes directly from the how do you say, the horse's mouth? Or, yeah, I guess, directly from Amazon. So that was a lot of fun. That was two weeks ago and, as I said, for me, the main takeaway that I got from them was basically how to work the seller support system to get them to answer and fix our issue, as opposed to getting you know, like the template response that we sometimes get when they don't understand. What is it that we need help with?   Bradley Sutton: I'm curious how are your own Amazon businesses going? Like, are you, do you think you're going to be up this year than before, or how things been going for you?   Adriana: So for me, 2023 has been a good year, actually compared to 2022. 2022 was weird. I sell in the outdoors sports category, so 2020 was amazing because, of course, at least the second half of 2020, because, of course, everyone wants to be out of the house and in some place. You know that was outdoors, not indoors at a restaurant or at a mall. So it was. It was a great year sales wise, 2021 as well. 2022. It had, yeah, I experienced a deep, I would say, because everyone was, you know, out and back in the clubs and the restaurants and the concerts and all of that. So people just forgot about outdoor sports. And then 2023 came back strong. Of course, I did focus a lot on my ranking and, yeah, basically, like optimizing my listing and all of that, my images especially. I was like you know what, like if I up my conversion rate, then everything else will fall into place in a way, you know, like my ads and all of that. I do my own PPC, but I'm like you know what, as long as the conversion goes up, then I can send as much traffic as I want via ads and it should convert right, Like it should turn into sales. So 2023 was great and I'm hoping for a good 2024. I want to expand my product line and I also want to work on getting more traffic to my website and, yeah, basically growing that channel too.   Bradley Sutton: Now going back to Marcus, what about for your Amazon businesses, your communities? What's some trends that you've seen this year like, especially since your community and you are mainly selling in Europe? Like are things in? Is there inflation in Europe? Is things getting harder? Is competition getting more? What's going on in the European Amazon market?   Marcus: It's an interesting question because, like over the years, I always got that kind of question is it still worth it? Should you still start Amazon? But that somehow that dried out. Everybody knows that Amazon is big and I mean like yeah, like the whole world is in a tough time, I guess, right now. But as I see it, like Amazon sellers, they are doing good, they're doing well.   Bradley Sutton: On the strategy side. You know like one of your specialties and you have people in your community who are specialists about this is like photography and things like that what do you see as kind of like working? Now, what's some tips you can give the audience about, like how they can really make sure their image deck and or videos are really better than the competition?   Marcus: Yeah, actually I have two photography related tips and first one is from JP. He was a guest in the podcast. He's quite young guy but like living the dream, traveling to through Bali, Thailand and doing Amazon FBA. He's like selling a lot and he also started a photography business. But he has a totally different approach. He doesn't need your product. You're providing photos from your smartphone. You get a tutorial. You have to send him six photos from every site and here's a team who does a 3D rendering of that product and, um, that way he's at a price point that's just a fraction that you expect for a product photography. And, yeah, his team will do a 3D model of your product that looks like totally photo realistic and they will put it into a lifestyle photos, put it into Infographics and send you the whole products as a product shots that you expect, but without touching your products. And I mean one.   Marcus: One thing is interest. It's interesting for people who sell, who just start out, or sell products that have like two thousand five thousand dollars of revenue, but also people who don't have time, because imagine your product is being produced in China right now and you don't have a master sample right now and as soon as the first product is finished in China, you can ask your manufacturer Do these photos for me with your smartphone, send it over. He does your product shots and the moment your delivery arrives in your local warehouse, you already have your listing completed. By the way, that website is JPD Dash advertising dot com.   Bradley Sutton: And yeah, that's what I think I remember. You know, I again I remember. I don't, you know, I don't speak German, but I remember that episode because I look at the videos just just like see how they look. And he looked like a, like, a Like, almost like a, like a tick tock celebrity or something like crazy, crazy hair right, yeah, okay there. There we go cool. So that, yeah, that's interesting because Just recently, amazon announced that there's no longer going to be the three hundred and sixty degree Images that have been for a while. Like, if you look at the project X coffin shelf, it has it like we didn't we didn't put it there, amazon just did it themselves. It's being replaced with a 3D image that I think you can you can still like, turn around and then they were saying that all they need they're making some kind of app where you can actually take the images with your phone, and then the Amazon app, I'm assuming, or something, yeah, and then submit it. So that's interesting. You know Concept, because you know, like, I'm still using, like, traditional photography studios and that's. You know, logistically, you know you have to send the product there and then they you know they have to shoot it. So have you seen images that? Or have you seen listings that actually came from this model where they just take the pictures and they do it 3D and it looks realistic, or what's your experience with looking at?   Marcus: Yeah, I mean, I saw it on his listings he sells thirty thousand units a month, and he's just using his service, of course. How many units thirty thousand a month is selling? Europe, US, Japan?   Bradley Sutton: Wow, it's quite, quite busy cool all right, so that's a good one. Let's go back to a either a strategy or some kind of cool story from your experience.   Adriana: Yes, going back to technology, per per Marcus comments I feel like many people, many sellers, that want to Be able to grow without having to invest all of their money into, you know, launching a ton of SK use or Paying people to to write blog posts for them or kindle books for them, etc. I am seeing how many people that come on the podcast. They say how they Work with either either they do and themselves, basically they they use to create content. They are using this To, such as me, journey, etc. Ai tools basically to help them create content, to help them generate user generating content, etc. Right, and so I chatted with Casspin. She was episode 90, actually episode 100 a couple weeks ago and she was telling me how she will.   Adriana: First of all, the way she Gets ideas on how to expand her product line. She goes to her competitors stores and she's like, okay, let me see what else they're selling, right, and they some. And she sometimes finds ideas that way for complimentary or supplementary products to grow her product line and she says that it's actually very easy to launch this new SK use because, of course, you already has the Relationship with the manufacturer and it's a matter of basically just sending other products that can be, that can actually, you know, sell on their own or become kids, right, or become a brand new SK you and she was telling me how she even launches act With every SK you that she, or with every main product that she launches on their her brand. And so, of course, she, she can do this very easily because she can either get a BA to write it for her that that content for the Kindle book, or she can do it be a chat GPT, which I think it's like you know, this is something we couldn't do maybe a year ago, right, and that way, she, of course, she adds a thank you card inside of the store and then you know, for them to get the free Kindle book, because it's, I feel like people see a Kindle book Like a more valuable, I would say, gift as opposed, as you know, like just like a regular, regular PDF. And so you know she tells them that they will, that she will give them that Kindle book, access to the Kindle book, for free.   Adriana: And then she gets that email and then, of course, through email marketing, basically she sends a coupon For, you know, 10% off, 20% off, so they shop the product via her Shopify page, basically right, and that's how she starts creating her email list. And then, of course, she has when, when people visit her site, her Shopify site, they see that she has, you know, six or eight SK use, right, and so people, I feel like six or eight SK use, it's a good enough quantity to you know, for people to see like, oh, you know, this is a legit brand, right, like this is not a brand that you know, only has one product and that's it. And she says that it's like a fairly easy and it doesn't exhaust her, basically her resources to launch up, you know, like a complete brand off of one product. Really, you know she finds the main product and then she gets ideas on what else to add, what other SK use to add and, of course, grow her Shopify brand.   Adriana: Get that images from either me, journey or, you know, get different variations of the content, charge EPT for the, for the text, for the Kindle, or, if you want to, I mean you can create the first draft with charge EPT and then have a VA. Basically, look, you know, do some editing on on on her part, and that's about it, and I was like, okay, I mean that sounds like like something we can all do. Even I feel like when I have some guests in the podcast, I tried to find Useful information for sellers that are starting out and that maybe they have a full time job right and they don't have, you know, eight or 10 hours a day to put into this business. Or, and maybe they don't have a ton of you know money to put into the business. So, finding ways to basically leverage technology and leverage you know help from VA's etc. To to build a brand and, you know, have a brand in a matter of maybe six months.   Bradley Sutton: Okay, she doing this in English or Spanish English, in the US market English, okay, all right, cool, marcus in. Let me give you a couple scenarios here. Talking about Amazon Europe, under what scenario would you suggest somebody in or outside of Europe to, or would you suggest that they only launch in one marketplace to start like, hey, you know, go ahead and start in UK, or go ahead and start in Germany? Or would you always recommend you know, you should go ahead and take advantage of the Amazon Europe network and at least start in a few marketplaces? Is there a scenario where you would suggest one or the other, or it's all one or all the other?   Marcus: I mean, like it's up to you If you're from the US, you could start in UK and you already can reuse your listing, your PPC campaigns, because it's the same language. Germany is the biggest market. That would be also a great test if your product works in Europe and if it works in Germany, you could go to the smaller markets. I mean, france is still a quite big, italy and Spain as well, and then it gets a lot smaller. But yeah, that could be a good strategy to start in one of the bigger countries to test your product and then go all Europe.   Bradley Sutton: Okay Now, as far as those smaller ones go, like are there any that you think is going to one day become, you know, better than the others? Because I think the core five is the UK, germany, Italy, france and Spain, and then like there's a big gap, you know, between all of the new ones Like I forgot, like Netherlands and Poland and a bunch of others. Like are there any of those lower ones that you think are better than the other? Or they're all kind of just like equally low?   Marcus: Yeah, I mean, it's a question of the population and I guess, like the Scandinavian countries are also very interesting. But yeah, you already named the top countries for the moment.   Bradley Sutton: Okay. So now I'm just curious about like VAT and things like that. So let you know, there's obviously not an Amazon in every country, so I'm assuming that, or you correct me if I'm wrong, but if I'm living in Austria, am I ordering from Amazon Germany? Or what website am I using if I'm just living in that country trying to buy something?   Marcus: Yeah, actually, austria shares the website with Germany. You order from the German website.   Bradley Sutton: And then. So in that case, like I know, like with for VAT, do I have to have VAT in every country? I'm selling things in from day one, or it's only until I hit, like a certain kind or amount of revenue in that country. Is it by country or by marketplace? But and what I mean by that is all right, well, there is no marketplace in Austria, so does that mean I never have to have a VAT for Austria? Or or how even does this work, because I've never sold it?   Marcus: over. That's a good question, and that's where it gets a bit complicated. So Austria shares the website with Germany, but there are warehouses in Austria and as soon as you got your products in the warehouse in that country, then you have to register for a VAT number in every single country that you have your products in and regardless how much you sell. Yes, and Amazon has has has a program for that, where they help you with that VAT declarations.   Bradley Sutton: Back to Adriana another story or strategy that you can share with us.   Adriana: I interviewed Noemi from Spain I know there's a big, big community in in Spain that basically they, they do Amazon full time and she was telling me how actually she works with another two partners I have one of her partners here at the podcast too and she was telling me how she is growing her Amazon business through Amazon handmade. And I was like, oh interesting, because I mean, yeah, I mean I guess we usually we focus on, you know the regular Amazon program to launch you know products. And she was telling me how she works with people, people that artisans I wait, yeah, that's the correct term, right, artisans, is that a term in English?   Bradley Sutton: Yeah, I mean, that's English, but it's too fancy for my language. But I know what that means.   Adriana: Yes, she basically so. She likes doing, you know, handmade stuff for herself too. But she started basically connecting with artisans in Spain, apparently and I didn't know this I mean, I've traveled to Spain for, for vacations, but I haven't, you know, spent much time there. But she was telling me that there's a big, big network of artisans in Spain and of course, as she was saying this, I was like, oh my God, I mean I'm from Mexico and of course, there are a ton of artisans here in Mexico, like a ton, ton, ton, especially cities such as, like, of course, Mexico City, Guadalajara, etc. And she was telling me how she has scaled this, because that thing I guess the first thing that comes to mind to us Amazon sellers were like, yeah, but how are we going to scale this, this business? And she's managing I mean she's, she's managing to scale her business because she, of course she doesn't do or like work on this product herself, of course, right, Like she has a network of artisans.   Adriana: And I was, I was thinking, as she was telling this to me, I was like yeah, that's true. I mean I see, when I travel to the US, how much more expensive, or like highly priced, these products that we manufacture in Mexico are selling in the US, right? Only because they're like unique and they are and they are just like more attractive than you know like the regular products. And I was like, oh, wow, this is interesting. Like I guess I always knew that there was that option over there, but I just didn't see how we could scale that. But it makes sense. I mean, if you just work with artisans and you already know, you know like you start and of course one artisan connects you with another artisan and that's the way it goes and she's I mean, she sells a lot of, you know, at the end of the day, a lot of units of different SKUs and you know the price point.   Adriana: That's at least where my mind went right. I was like you have no competition really, because if it's something very unique, then of course you can play with your pricing strategies, but usually you won't be concerned with you know someone else, that competitor, lowering their prices or you know going 30% off. You know of the sales price, etc. So I was like that's interesting. I mean, even you don't have to be selling a ton of units a day to be making good money, because if you have 40% margins or 50% margins or even more, because I've seen in, you know in the US at the retail shops how they sell Mexican or yeah, artisan you know this type of products and they sell and I'm like what the hell like, do people buy these products at this price? And I know how much they go for in Mexico. So I was like, oh, this is very interesting. And so I thought that was a very interesting. I think that was episode 98 with Noemi. She's based in Spain and yeah, I mean, Spain has a big next to us.   Bradley Sutton: Is she doing all of this in Spain, or is she doing this in Amazon USA?   Adriana: No, amazon. No, she's doing it in Spain and I think she expanded already to Europe. Basically, you know how they have that.   Bradley Sutton: I didn't even know there was Amazon, handmade in Europe, in Spain and other. Okay, interesting yeah. It's like oh interesting because definitely a way to make it the key, that of that you mentioned, there is the no competition. You know, like, like. This is a very unique product. It's not a cookie cutter, you know, by definition. So I like that Back to Marcus. One last story or strategy from you.   Marcus: Yeah. One last story that's from Michael. He doesn't sell on Amazon. He runs an Amazon agency called me to you, but he's like the Amazon detective. He's every day on the website looking what is Amazon testing right now? What, what did they change right now? What do other sellers miss? And he's like he comes with the craziest things. And one thing he told me, like would you start to sell a drinking bottle on Amazon? I mean that's like super competitive, me probably not, yeah, and I mean everything is the same. You just fill water in it and that's it. So it's difficult to stand out and there's a company they found a way to differentiate themselves. It's called Arup and they have a small cartridge on top and you can get it in all kinds of flavor, like sherry, melon, whatever. And when you drink your water you still drink 100% water, but you breathe the sherry flavor. So your mind is drinking like sherry juice, but you're still drinking 100% water. But the thing is he pointed out that they just sell the bottle and the cartridges. But if you have, like, all your different flavors and you want to change them during the week, what do you do with your cartridges? So you need like airtight, sealed box for it and people are searching for that. You can see it in Cerebro but they don't sell it. They just concentrate on their bottle. So every Amazon seller should find like an imagine like Apple are selling just their iPhone and you can sell chargers and cases, like I bet there's like in every niche there's something, yeah, and it's a big innovation and the company is just focusing on the product. So, yeah, that was a really awesome takeaway to look for.   Bradley Sutton: Two things there. Number one is never think that a niche is 100% saturated, because there's always, like, a fresh idea you could bring. And then number two you don't always have to be the one that has that idea, you know, let somebody else come up with the idea. But then how can you take advantage of that? Like, is there a unique storage or a unique accessory that's needed?   Marcus: Maybe even a coffin shelf to store your cartridges.   Bradley Sutton: Hey, there you go. Hey, coffin shelf to store your water bottle cartridges. I'll get on that Okay An episode. I'll give you guys, or everybody here, a preview of a coming episode. I'm launching some new project X products and one of them is a bat shaped bathroom mat or rug and that potentially might make a coffin one as well. But you know, the possibilities are endless and that's one of the ways that you could also get into saturated niche is take a saturated niche like bath mats you know like they're going for like $10, you know who knows how they're even making margin on it. But then do you bring in a unique material like make a bamboo one, or make a coffin shaped one, or a bat shaped one for like spooky. So you can almost take any niche on Amazon that's saturated and just come in with a unique idea or unique design or unique material and now all of a sudden it's not saturated because you're the only one who has that. All right. So I'm going to ask for your final strategies, your 30 second or 60 second tips. How can they find you guys on the interwebs? They know how to find your, your, your Helium 10 podcast, but both of you have, you know, audiences and communities out there. Marcus, how can they find your communities on the internet?   Marcus: You can look on YouTube for Amazon FBA by Marcos and everything else is linked inside the videos.   Adriana: For me, my YouTube channel is Adriana Rangel Vende. Just like that, adriana Rangel Vende, and yeah, in there, there you can find everything else that I have going on, and I have a free like 90 minute like masterclass. I would call it because I go from product research to like keyword research, to what kind of keywords you need to put in your listing, et cetera. So, yeah, I would. For people that maybe need some free resources to kind of like figure out how this works, I would advise you check out that video. Adriana Rangel Vende in YouTube.   Bradley Sutton: All right, adriana. Like, do you have any last, maybe 30 second tip or parting words of wisdom for the audience out there?   Adriana: Yes, well, you know, one topic that I've seen guests come with and share with us in the podcast has been basically focusing, you know, at the first. You know, when we start our business in Amazon, we usually focus on launching products right, and launching new variations, and doing your PPC and ranking and all of all of these activities that we have to, of course, take care of. But one topic that has been coming up very often in the in our episodes here at the podcast is that we at some point, especially maybe like two years into the business, we need to focus on growing our team, right, because if not, we'll get burnt out at some point, right, like I know that happened to me and now I'm working, I already have a VA and, of course, I already have a designer that helps me, of course, with my you know, my products, my listings and also for my thumbnails for my YouTube channel. Like, he helps me for a ton of things, and I feel like that is the way. You know, that marks a big difference between someone that is making, of course, a few thousand dollars a month in Amazon and, you know, the seller that is doing several dozen thousand dollars in Amazon a month.   Adriana: Right, because you cannot do it all by yourself, and also so you keep your motivation right, because at some point, whatever it is that you are doing repeatedly and that you're doing for 10 hours a day or 12 hours a day, after 18 months or 24 months you're burnt out. As much as I mean you can love it, but still you know your body gives out. So that is something that I would like people to start thinking about. Maybe this is your first year in Amazon and that's fine, but maybe start listening to you know these episodes where people such as Rolando and I know you had Rolando Rosas in the podcast because he speaks English too you know Juan David as well talked about this, rod as well talked about this, and I think it's just like very important to start planning this before it's like, before we're like burnt out and it's too late, right, and that way we get we can scale faster and just like with less effort.   Bradley Sutton: What's your Adriana, what's your hobby or what you do to take your mind off of work? You take off your mind off your Amazon business, to you know. Relax like what do you do for fun.   Adriana: Yeah, well, before I got into this whole Amazon business world, I was in the art business. So I of course like to, you know, business museums and you know, if I can business museums with friends and all that that you know, the better, of course. But I try to yes, to, even if it's like at nighttime, right, like I try to consume content that it's not, or like even listen to podcasts that are not like business related. I basically try to put you know if it's after 8pm, even though, even if there's like this really good podcast episode, I'll watch it tomorrow at 6pm or whatever when I take a break from work. But I try to put like hard limits because I just do it. I mean, I just do it for the business, right, like I remember I saw this at the other day that says that says something about your performance of tomorrow basically depends on your recovery tonight. Right, you know something in that frame of words and so I think it's just very important because we talk about, we go on YouTube and we saw, we see everything about. Yeah, you know you can scale to blah, blah, blah and you can be making all this money, but you have to be feeling okay, right, you know, your body has to be healthy and your mind has to be healthy as well. So that is something to we cannot ignore, that, even if that doesn't sound like you know, like the sexy tip, I feel like that's as important, or even more. To grow a business, scale it to as big as as you want, really.   Bradley Sutton: Now, I like killing two birds with one stone. So my advice to you if you wanted to do that, go to the museum while listening to the podcast in your headphones, and then now you can kill two birds with one stone, all right. So, marcus, what about you? One last 30 or 60 seconds strategy or tip for our audience.   Marcus: Yeah, one tip I learned that will make a lot of changes. Amazon recently announced that they will look for title images that are not meeting the terms of service and they will use AI to change that. They will download your image, remove everything that doesn't belong there in their opinion and upload it again, and that is something you don't want. You don't want an AI to touch your title image. Yeah, and Michael from AMZboost, a product photographer, he told me, just use your picture, space number nine. Nobody looks there. Put a title image there that will meet the terms of service and because what Amazon is doing first, they will scan your product photos and check if there is something that is compliant to the terms of service and they will put it to spot number one as your title image. And if they don't find something, they will change it in their terms. So that's an awesome hack.   Bradley Sutton: Wow, I never heard of that one. That's a really good one, All right, cool. And then same question to you also is you know, like me, that sometimes we can get and Adriana, we can get burnt out and if we put too much emphasis on work. So what are your hobbies, what are you doing to take yourself out of work when you need to relax?   Marcus: Yeah, my hobbies are working out. I've got my home gym in the basement and that's also a good place to listen to something. Or I go for a walk at the beach with my yeah EarPods in and listen to a podcast. That's where I get new content.   Bradley Sutton: Awesome, awesome, all right, well, guys, thank you so much for joining us. Wish you the most of success. You guys have had already a lot of great success. It's going to be really cool to see the next milestone for you guys, I would say is like hitting that 10,000 downloads per month. I never thought that would ever happen, but the numbers that you guys are doing are getting close to that, so it's probably within the realm of possibility. But I wish you the most of success with your podcast communities and also your Amazon businesses, and we'll see you next year.  

Get ready to immerse yourself in an enlightening discussion and AMA session with Matt, an expert in advanced strategies and Amazon PPC. Join us in this TACoS Tuesday episode, as we answer questions about variation listings, auto campaigns, broad campaigns, and ranking. We also take a peek into Matt's impressive background in e-commerce, recounting his experiences with selling textbooks and private-label products. Hear us as we dissect Amazon's latest data tools like Product Opportunity Explorer, Search Query Performance, and Brand Analytics and discuss how these can help sellers optimize their advertising strategies in this highly competitive market. As we journey deeper into Amazon PPC campaigns, we touch on our “north star metric” of two sales and a click-through rate above 0.2%. Learn about the significance of negative matching and how to identify underperforming keywords using the search query report. We also shed light on the benefits of using software like Pacvue for automation and analytics and how it can save you time and effort. Plus, discover the advantages of day partying and understand the impact of different match types on campaign creation.   Lastly, listen in as we dissect the topic of Amazon PPC and how to leverage it to drive sales and boost profits. We share the calculation for adjusting bids based on target ACoS and emphasize the importance of not solely focusing on ACoS as a metric. We also touch on the recent announcement of Sponsored TV and its potential for both large and small brands. Tune in as we demystify the misconception that PPC must always result in immediate profit and share strategies for effectively utilizing broad keywords despite their increasing cost. This episode is packed with practical advice, insightful discussions, and cutting-edge strategies to help you win in the world of Amazon selling.   In episode 516 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Matt discuss: 00:00 - Expert Matt Altman Discusses His Amazon PPC Strategies 07:59 - Keyword Promotion, Sales Metrics, and Negative Matching 11:59 - Maximizing Advertising Efficiency With Pacvue 15:44 - Bid Adjustment and Amazon Sponsored TV for Sellers 23:28 - Amazon PPC Strategy and Optimization 28:21 - Analyze Ad Performance With Feature Pack 32:25 - Using Keywords for Effective Campaigns 35:27 - Boost Search Ranking With Brand Name 37:29 - Amazon Variations and Outside Traffic Strategy 43:08 - Invitation for January Case Study ► 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 one of the world's foremost knowledge experts on Amazon Advanced Strategy and PPC Matt back on the show and he's going to be answering all of your questions live, as well as answering a lot of my advanced questions on things like variation listings, auto campaigns, broad campaigns, ranking and much more. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Want to keep up to date with trending topics in the e-commerce world? Make sure to subscribe to our blog. We regularly release articles that talk about things such as shipping and logistics, e-commerce and other countries, the latest changes to Amazon Seller Central, how to get set up on new platforms like New Egg, how to write and publish a book on Amazon KDP and much, much more. Check these articles out at h10.me forward slash blog. 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 tacos Tuesday PPC show of the week or of the month, I should say where we go in-depth into anything and everything Amazon advertising with special guests that we have, and this week or this month we're going to have a special guest. We're going to invite him up. We're having some technical difficulty. I'm here at the Helium 10 office actually here in Irvine, California, today. So I don't have my regular setup here, but wanted to make sure everybody's having a great Q4. So far, all right. Let's go ahead and bring up our guest of the month, and it is Matt from Clear Ads. Matt, how's it going? Matt: Good, how are you doing, Bradley? Bradley Sutton: Doing awesome, doing awesome. Where are you actually watching us from? Where are you located? Matt: So currently in London. So we're here in London for the next few months, but we moved to Spain about six months ago. Bradley Sutton: Oh, nice, how's that been. Matt: We're in Barcelona. It's been great so far Loving it. Bradley Sutton: Awesome, awesome. Have you been to any FC Barcelona games since you've been out there? Matt: We haven't yet now, but it is at the top of my list. Bradley Sutton: Yeah, I've been to a couple when Messi was still there. Of course, those are good times. Love Spain Now, just in general. We've had you on the podcast before and you gave us really cool strategies in general. Today we're kind of going to be focused on PPC. That's like one of your specialties, but can you talk a little bit about your background and how you came into that Amazon space, if maybe somebody might be listening to you for the first time? Matt: Yeah, definitely so. Been in the space since around 2011, started in college actually selling textbooks and retail arbitrage, so did that for about three to four years. Kind of scaled up my bankroll to where I could get into private label and jumped at it and honestly launched a bunch of crap. We did really well for a few years until a lot of the manufacturers just started going direct to Amazon and had some pretty bad years. But pivoted, got into supplements and food and that's been for like the last six years. Bradley Sutton: Awesome. Now you are known for a lot of like really next level strategies. We've had you before at our elite workshop and things. And so thinking just first of all, I mean it could be about PPC, but just thinking outside of PPC, almost with all this new data that Amazon has come out with in the last couple of years, I mean I think a lot of us were even surprised years ago when Brand Analytics came out. And then nowadays, search career performance and things like that, this is stuff that I would say I don't know about you but me. Like four years ago I would have bet $10,000 that there's no way Amazon would ever tell you exactly how many sales are coming from a non-normalized search and what the click share percentage of top 10 competitors are, and this and that I mean people were paying Amazon employees thousands of dollars for these underground reports that weren't even as robust as what is now available for everybody. So what's your favorite thing? I'm assuming it's search career performance. Your favorite thing that Amazon has come out with? And then what part of that especially do you think is super powerful that Amazon sellers should be using? Matt: Yeah. So I would definitely say search career performance is up there. I would say they haven't changed too much about it in the last like year and a half, but really, where we've been getting a lot of knowledge and data from is Product Opportunity Explorer. I would say like this used to be kind of bland, like years ago. They recently updated it, and the amount of data that they are giving you is insane. I mean, they're telling you exactly if you sell such and such supplement. These are the 15 keywords that matter. Here's the trends on that, here's the seasonality. Like every data point that you really need is there, and that's what you need to win on, I would say. The other big one, though, is the new reports in the brand analytics, where it's giving you greater details into your customer segments. So, like we sell and consumables, and we've always kind of taken a strategy on ads that's hey, like, even if our cost is 100%, what is our cost per net new customer? And we were trying to manually calculate that previously, and now they're telling you specifically by week, how many returning customers, how many net new customers you have. So it's really helped us dial in the ads for that specific strategy. Bradley Sutton: Okay, cool, like. One thing I always liked about Product Opportunity Explorer even when it was kind of bland, as you said was seeing how many, for example, how many products it took to make up or in the old days, 80% of the sales for the entire niche. Now they kind of like, without even announcing it, they change it to 90%. But then it'll be interesting to see that you know some, you know quote, unquote markets or niches, what they call it you know, would have like 200 products, means like it's kind of like wide open, it takes 200 products just to make up 80 or 90% of the sales. And now you know there might be some where it's like only 40 or 10, you know like or like wow, there's 10 people dominating this. Now how would you personally use that information? Like is one or the other like better than the other? Matt: Yeah, so the great thing about Product Opportunity Explorer is it really shows you what keywords are driving the sales for those. So more than how many products are there we're looking at, are there branded terms that are in the Product Opportunity Explorer.  So like an example that we were looking at this past week was for a floor cleaning product and we saw that of the 20 top like 50 keywords, bona was one of the main sales driving keywords. Like, even if there weren't that many products in that category, we aren't going to be able to overcome that branded search deficit. So it's just not something that we would go into Um, but we definitely prefer to go into categories where those sales are spread across more Um. The main reason for that is we really like to do kind of um I would call it kind of like tailgating. We like to kind of stay behind everyone and we'll pull like 10% of the sales from this person, from this person, and you can kind of pick off keywords from certain top products and they may not notice that you're coming up and then you can really use that to catapult yourself to the top of the category before the rest of the products in the category realized what's happening. Bradley Sutton: Interesting, interesting, all right Now. Just, you know switching gears and going, you know kind of like PBC. Let let's do like some kind of beginner question, then let's do some some, some, some advanced things. But just, I always ask a lot of the, the the tacos Tuesday guest, about their strategy on this, because I think this is applicable almost to any level of seller. But what's your, your kind of like rule set as far as uh, when you promote keywords from like an auto or broad to to an exact, and also when you negative match on the promotion side, like, in other words, like are, are you looking for at least you know just one sale, or does it have to be two or three, like in the auto and then, and then, and then you, you put it in um or what. What's your criteria for for moving something from an auto to a exact? Matt: Yeah, so short answer. We're usually looking for two sales and a click through rate above like 0.2% Um. That's kind of like our North Star metric Um, but it really depends on the strategy of that campaign. Um, like, if we're wanting to run a lot of just awareness, we're going after ones where we may not even have sales at all but we have a high click through rate because it's a discovery keyword, that someone's kind of navigating that category with Um. So it varies, but typically it's two orders and above like a 0.2% click through. Okay, Awesome. Bradley Sutton: On the flip side, when are you negative? Uh matching, like uh, is it a certain number of clicks? Uh, is it a certain number of clicks that, uh, you have to have? Is it spend that you're looking at without a sale? Um, and then the follow-up question to that is are there scenarios where you're like not just automatically negative matching but you're like, oh shoot, this is like an important keyword. I got to figure out why in the heck I'm not converting on it before I go and just blindly negative matches. So it's kind of like a two prong question there. Matt: Yeah, Um, so this is, this is where really the search query report kind of data comes into play. Um, we're looking at, hey, like for competitors, um, like, is this performing? Kind of what's happening? Why aren't we getting sales? Um, we'll go ahead and test, possibly changing out our titles, our images, um morph towards those keywords and seeing if we can produce some sales through that. Um, but again it kind of goes back to, like, you know, the, the, the, the sort of focus that we used over a year and a half. Back to like, what is the source of that keyword? Is it really a converging keyword? Is it a discovery keyword? Like, we have a few keywords that we spend thousands of dollars on a month on my own brands, where we maybe get one or two sales Like it's out of loss, but we know it's a keyword that someone that's looking for a type of product uses is like their first term when they're trying to figure out which one to buy. And we just want to make sure that we're always top of mind really hard to like, distinguish that out and see that you were getting benefits from that. But now we're able to go a little bit deeper in that funnel and see that like yes, this is actually driving sales further down the funnel for us. Bradley Sutton: Okay, cool, cool. Now on the more advanced side, like you know, as I just threw on my, my pack view, my pack view jacket here, what, what are you? You know, like I know you've been using pack view for a while, but you know somebody out there my in general not understand, like you know, some of these services. You know pack view is not like oh yeah, you know, $49 a month subscription, but no, it's, it's, it's, you know costs, costs some money to you. So at what point does does it make sense for somebody to to like say you know what, I'm overdoing these Excel spreadsheets, I need to use a software. And then what? What makes a software suite like Pacvue so valuable? Like, how to you know? Cause you're not going to be paying money for something for you or your business or your clients that doesn't give you good ROI. So why is it worth it for you? Matt: Yeah, yeah. So we've been using Pacvue for gosh almost like seven years now. I think we were one of the first like agencies at my prior agency to come onto the platform and we love it. Honestly, wouldn't go anywhere else. So first thing I did when we came to Clare ads, we actually started switching all the accounts over to Pacvue. But in reality I would say it's usable for every level of seller. But we've had a lot of accounts come to us that may be using it but they don't know how to actually use Pacvue to its full advantages. They aren't taking advantage of all of the automations and analytics that are on the back end there. But I would say, even if you're a smaller seller like in using something that, like Bradley said, is $49 to $59, like even though Pacvue is gonna cost more, you're going to get so much more out of it. It will make your ads been more efficient. You will see better results as a whole. Like make the switch now, because it's a lot easier to switch when you're starting out and you have very few campaigns. Like migrating accounts over that have 400 campaigns already. Like it starts to get hard and you've got to really rework a lot of that. So I believe in doing it right from day one, and you're gonna save yourself a lot of work down the line. Bradley Sutton: Now, one of the things Pacvue does that probably eventually is gonna come to regular sellers might have some visibility in this aspect, but it's kind of like the ability to do like day partying and things. So is that something that you guys actually do Like? Do you use that service of turning off ads or changing budgets at certain times of the day and if you are, what's your criteria when you're looking at that? Matt: Yeah, so we do use that on every single account. We use it in one of two ways. One is we're manually adjusting it based on, like our peak sales hours that we know of, if it's a high selling account. But on other accounts, Pacvue actually has an awesome feature where you can set up a day partying scheduler based on conversion rates, click through rates, number of orders by hour, and it will dynamically update that based on a trailing two week, three week period, whatever you set it to. So Pacvue really does a lot of the thinking for you and eliminates kind of that concern from your mind. Bradley Sutton: All right, let's see we've got from Dota In Amazon PPC campaign. Should I create one campaign containing an ad group for phrase match exact and broad, or should I create each match in their own campaign or like? So I guess he's saying like maybe he should have different ad groups in one campaign or do you just have like one ad group per match type, per campaign? Matt: Yeah, so I'll tell you why we do it a certain way. I would say this is definitely kind of interchangeable depending upon how you want to manage your campaigns, but in order to have full and absolute control you need to have a separate campaign for each of these. A good example of this is we had a client who came to us. They had a lot of mixes within their ad groups during Black Friday, cyber Monday, they upped their bids with top of search modifier and they didn't realize that it would affect their broad targeting terms, that they were spending like $7 on broad terms and just getting placements everywhere and tank the performance. So we always break them out into their own campaigns and then even from there we'll typically segment out, like superhero keywords, into their own single keyword campaigns. Bradley Sutton: Okay, excellent. Let me see we've got another one here from Kim Kim K. I don't think it's the Kim K. Hey guys, do you have a calculation that you use to determine how much to adjust bids? Longstanding sponsor campaigns with lots of history is the focus target. Acos, thanks to Vets. Matt: Yeah, so this is pretty easy. You can put together a pretty simple formula to figure out bids based on your target ACOS. So, off the top of my head and I could be saying this wrong we have it in Excel sheet. But you're really just looking at cost per click times, conversion rates, and then equals your ACOS over that. I would say we typically don't optimize any campaigns towards ACOS. I think it's something that's been brought up a lot across, like the Amazon ecosystem, and it's never really the best metric to look at. We've had a lot of accounts that have come to us where their sales have depleted over the last year, year and a half, and they're running very efficient. Like 20% ACOS. Tacos are like three to 5%, like the account looks healthy but you're undermining the daily velocity per keyword that you can achieve, which ultimately kills your organic ranks, and then you may not see it now or three months from now, but six months from now you're gonna be like what the heck happens and it's really hard to climb yourself back out of that pit. Bradley Sutton: Yeah, yeah makes sense. But just in general, before I go into some more specific ones that I had. You know, we recently had Amazon unbox and there was a number of announcements one of them being sponsored TV, that create a lot of buzz. But the question I think a lot of people have is is, well, that's still something, or maybe only for humongous, you know sellers like first of all, is that true, or is there a path to using sponsored TV for, you know, maybe there's a low seven figure seller, high six figure seller, and then is it kind of only for brand awareness, or do you think that there's? You know the way that they're doing it, sometimes with QR codes, you know, like on Black Friday football game that they had, where there's a direct to purchase link or is it more for brand awareness, do you think? Matt: Yeah. So we ran some over Black Friday, cyber Monday, across large and small brands and actually saw decent performance on quite a bit of them. I would say the biggest factor that really drove it was the quality of creative. A lot of our smaller brands didn't have the creative backbone to really fulfill a huge TV push like that, and that's probably the guardrail that smaller brands are going to have trouble getting over. Like you can't take a $200 video off the Fiverr and put it on TV and expect it to do well. So really focusing in on the creative and making it more like a TV commercial definitely helped for us. But we did have some very basic like stop motion slide animated videos with just some text over them and they did pretty well as well. So I would say it's worth trying out. Just make sure you're really narrowing down those audiences that you're targeting, because the CPMs on it are extremely high. But test it, put $20, $30 behind it per day and just really see what you can do. I do think this will kind of be a big lever that larger brands can definitely lean more into to increase that awareness as they tap out other pieces of DSP and Amazon ads. But smaller brands is like it's just as evil, even as a playing field. But the creative does have to be elevated. Bradley Sutton: Okay. William says should I expect to see profit from PPC? I rarely see profit, however, the volume of sales increases. Where I see profit Maybe he's kind of like talking a little bit of tacos here, or like you know people, I think the narrative nowadays when you hear, when you hear sellers, is oh my goodness, like PPC is so expensive, like I don't even know how I can be profitable. But it's not always trying to just make profit on the exact ad. Right, talk a little bit about that. Matt: Yeah. So like one question I always ask sellers that even like potential clients that come to us when they're complaining about profits or tacos or a cost, I'm like, what's your CPA? And honestly, I can count on one hand the number of people that actually knew their CPAs by product that we've talked to. Every other ad channel you look at CPAs, whether you're running on meta, TikTok, whatever you're looking at CPAs, and every time we've run the numbers the CPAs are way cheaper on Amazon than they are on any other channel. What that means is yes, probably there are some categories where you're going to run PPC at a loss, Like on my brain, main brands. We run PPC at a loss because it keeps our velocities up, it keeps our organic rankings up and you'll see those metrics in your tacos. So really, tacos is kind of your guiding light on that, but really setting in stone a target CPA and not adjusting your bids based on a cost or tacos. But as long as you're hitting that target CPA, you're continuing to see growth. That's what we really like to maximize towards. Bradley Sutton: Excellent, thank you for that. William Guarov says hey, amazon PPC is getting costly. What's a strategy to play with broad keywords? And then maybe I can piggyback on that and take a step back. Broad it seemingly has almost changed over the last year or so. I could kind of predict what would come with Broad. I would use Helium 10, magnet, I would do the smart complete and then I could see all the Broad kind of variations. I kind of know what could potentially come up here Now. I might have coffin shelf as a Broad match and then I'll get thrown in like Gothic decor, like not even the same, doesn't even share the same keyword, and so maybe I'm not sure, if that's what he's talking about there, how it might be getting more expensive. And then if, if so, like, like, how do you deal with that? Matt: Yeah, so I'll answer this and I'll answer more about kind of what you went into, Bradley, because I think that's a bigger picture that people need to look into in the future of Amazon. But really when we're running Broad, we're running modified Broad campaigns so that we're at least trying to get more exact towards what we wanted. I will say it doesn't always work. Sometimes you still get those keywords way out of left field, but you have a bit more control. But I would focus again really on the search query performance data and the product opportunity. Explorer, like Amazon, is telling you specifically what keywords are being searched and what's being purchased. Broad isn't as useful for us as it used to be like. All that data now is getting piped back to us and using Helium 10, using Pacvue, you can find pretty much every keyword that's going to be a converting keyword. The biggest thing that we've seen Broad actually do for us here recently and I would say for the last six months, is it's allowed us to catch on to like TikTok trends that are basically going viral and it's picking up those keywords quicker than we would be able to pick them up. So that has been a huge opportunity. But there are a lot of other, like TikTok, specific tools that you can use to kind of find those trending things to get them into your ad campaigns. Matt: The bigger thing kind of on how Broad has expanded is Amazon, like Google and other search engines, is really kind of shifting towards a semantic search, which is why, like you're coming up for Gothic decor and things like that and you've probably heard other people in the space talking about semantics this has been key in, like Google, seo for the last few years and it's only going to get more and more relevant in Amazon as Amazon starts to switch more towards an AI learning model for their specific search. So a lot of what we've been doing and working on is, for example, typically if you're creating your listing, you'd find your keywords through Helium 10, you'd use Scribbles to craft your listing, make sure you get all your keywords in there, but, like in your example, gothic decor that is a huge semantic keyword that is relevant to your coffin. We would go ahead and put that on the back end or try and figure out how to fit it into the bullet points, because it's just a checkmark that Amazon's looking for now because semantically they're saying you should say something about Gothic with your current product and a lot of products that we've been optimizing towards this on, we've seen success like crazy, probably more than anything else that we've done in the last year and a half. Bradley Sutton: Okay, interesting, let's see. Guarev has another question here. What would be the ideal ratio performing and non-performing keywords in broad? Not sure if I understand that question fully, but do you know what you might be listening for? Matt: Say like in broad you're going to have a lot more non-performing just because of the control factor. Unless you're using a lot of negatives, negative phrases, throughout it, I would say we don't really look at the ratio of performing and non-performing in broad because really where we're caring about performance is on our exact match. We aren't caring as much here. We're using this to seed keywords, so even if they are performing, they aren't staying in broad that long if they are. So typically for us it would be like 90 to 95% are non-performing. Bradley Sutton: Okay, Now switching gears to auto campaigns. What's your strategy as far as, like the close match, loose match substitutes? Do you keep them all in one campaign or do you actually segregate those targets in separate auto campaigns? Matt: Yeah, so we actually mix it up. We've seen hit or miss performance on these when we break them out, for whatever reason. Sometimes they work better even with the exact same beds when they're all together. I don't know why that happens, but we typically test both and then whichever one's performing, we pause out the others and let one continue on. We do do a lot of negative matching in our auto campaigns that we're bidding on elsewhere, but we do also always still run a super low bid auto campaign. We negate out brand of terms and run them at like 30 cents per click, and I was just looking at account before I hopped on here Last week one of them got 135 sales for like $22. Like these campaigns still work, I've used them honestly as long as I've been selling on Amazon and we always set them up for all of our products. Bradley Sutton: Now, going back to software, software like Pacvue Adtomic. One cool thing that we can do is I could just see a search term, but not just at the campaign level. I could see it in all campaigns. Like, let's say, in an auto campaign, for example, I got a coffin shelf and in that campaign I had 40 clicks and zero sales. And let's say I felt that it wasn't too relevant of a keyword. I'm like, yeah, I don't want to keep spending money on this. Obviously, at 40 clicks I would negative match it. But with the software I can see that, hey, it's getting impressions and clicks in a broad campaign over here, maybe an exact campaign over here, but in those campaigns there's only like maybe five clicks. So, theoretically speaking, if I was just looking at that campaign in isolation, there might not have been enough information to be a negative match. But since you have so many negative or clicks with no sales in one campaign, do you just go ahead and say you know what, across the board, I don't want this keyword showing up in any of these campaigns. Or do you let the number? Do you let it roll? Do you let it ride in those other campaigns? Matt: Yeah, so great question. This is actually a feature pack view that we use every single day because you see a lot of variance in this and even like moving keywords over to exact match. But it may be in phrase that have dead like a third of what your exact match one is. Whatever reason, the phrase one is serving like crazy and you're getting sales. The exact match one isn't. So we look at this daily and we're trying to figure out one like why isn't our exact match getting served? Like hey, what's going on here? And adjusting the bids and keeping a close eye on it. But typically if we're seeing performance elsewhere, we'll keep it on, mainly because we don't know exactly where that ad is appearing Like. I mean, we now know like top of search, rest of search, product pages, but we don't really know granular details. This is also something that pack view does really well. When you have your share of voice turned on, you can see exactly where your ads appearing and what placement, what percentage of time. So using pack view or actually I don't know any other tools that do it as deep as pack view does on that We've been able to really narrow it down and figure out like, hey, this one's performing really well and slot four of ad positions. Like we can't get served for this one and slot two or three, and we can readjust our entire strategy for that keyword for position four and actually set up automations in pack view to make sure we're always in sponsored position four. Bradley Sutton: Nice. Now, speaking of that, how are you keeping at top of search? You know like I'm kind of old school where you know you're more old school than me, but you know like in my days when I first started learning PPC, there was no, you know, top of search modifier and things like that. You just raise and lower the bits and I kind of kept doing that because, like you know, I obviously with helium 10, like I'll turn on the boost and keyword tracker and it's checking 24 times a day, rotating, you know addresses and browsing scenarios. So I kind of like, no, am I showing up in top of search and sponsor or not? And I've just kind of like kept doing that. Now, are you still doing that, or do you use those those? You know like, hey, I'm going to go 200% for top of search or some kind of formula like that. Matt: Yeah. So I'll say when the bid modifiers first came out like they were amazing. We could bid like 60 cents with 900% top of search and get crazy conversions and everything was great. Too many people are using them now and it's kind of just a battle of who's going to pay more to get that position. What we've actually switched most accounts over to is actually using pack view organic and paid position bidding. So we'll set up rules to basically increase the bids until we're in position one and that will like set our new base bid if we're going for top of search and then we'll use that and then look at our percentage of serving time through pack view into that and adjust as needed. Like. One nice feature is you can set like I want a 90% top of search share of voice for this keyword and pack view will automatically update your bid without the modifiers, because sometimes using the modifiers can get out of hand quickly and you could spend your whole budget and one day, if the keywords big enough, within a few hours on one of the 50 keywords in your campaign. So we really rely on pack view to figure a lot of that out for us and optimize the perfect position for ads and we've kind of stepped back away from modifiers. The one place we do still use them quite frequently, though, is product page modifiers. We do a lot of product targeting where that's really what we're going after, and it does seem to still work well for us there. Rest of search hasn't been a great modifier for us as of yet. We have better success using set rules and pack view to manage that versus the rest of search modifier. Bradley Sutton: OK, cool, I got a fight to bring that into Adtomic. I didn't know that pack view had that Nice Two part question here from Duda how do you use these keywords Electrolyte protein phrase match and then electrolyte protein powder phrase match? My issue is that they are my main keyword but they generate different variations in customer search terms with different variations. With only one click or two, the most Out of those 50 different search terms that get that those main keywords are generated. How do I pick those that convert it? So I'm assuming that he's got two targets here and that maybe he's getting clicks on a whole bunch of long tail versions of this. Perhaps, if I'm deciphering this correctly. Matt: Yeah. So it depends on how that campaign is set up. So a typical phrase match campaign for us we would never put those keywords into the same ad group or campaign because electrolyte protein is electrolyte protein powder phrase. If you do have them split out into separate campaigns, if you have different bids there, one's going to serve over the other always. You have no real control in that. So I would say if it were me, I would just do electrolyte protein as a phrase match and get rid of any type of variation possible and use that as my guiding light. If you aren't getting served typically I know that's a high volume category your budgets probably aren't enough within that campaign to keep it serving constantly and you're getting middle of page or bottom of page placements. So that's how it's getting your budget throughout the day. I would test increasing the budget on that campaign and seeing what it scales up to and you'll probably see a bit more even click distribution between those. Bradley Sutton: OK, Cool. Sergio has a question here. Hey say, when launching, you tell your friends and family your brand and your product and hey, go buy it. Should I do an exact campaign for the brand name so they don't have to scroll? So first of all, at least it's good that you're like, don't be doing search, find, buy things or something which it sounds like you're not. Otherwise you wouldn't even have this question and hopefully you're telling your friends and family, do not leave your reviews just at all, to make sure that you're not getting in trouble with Amazon. But yeah, if you're trying to get your friends to support your product, I mean I think regardless, if you're trying to get your friends and family to support your product, shouldn't you always target your brand name, or that's only kind of like when you're more of a mature brand, Does that really come into play? What do you think? Matt: Yeah, I would say it depends on your brand name. If it's a unique brand name that, like nothing else is really going to come up for, like yeah, I wouldn't run ads. But if it's something that could be construed as something else, I would definitely run some ads to get towards the top. The one thing I would say about this and it's something that we do when we're launching and you're telling friends, family, anyone about it, we leave it kind of bland and just say, hey, this is my brand and it's a protein powder. I would really appreciate if you can buy it. You're not telling them to go search, fine, by keywords. But if you tell them that, hey, it's protein powder, and brand names are probably going to search protein powder, that brand name without you doing anything, Because it's always better, which is why search fine buys work to get a real keyword in there beyond your brand. But even just pumping the brand name does work as well. We've seen it with TikTok. Brand name searches can skyrocket you for every other keyword that you're relevant for. Bradley Sutton: William says yeah, this is a universal question, I think, or universal debate, I think. For successful exact keywords, do you recommend making those keywords negative in the broad? Some people teach that although you're converting for a keyword in the exact, do not remove that keyword from broad. Matt: Yes, this is debated quite a bit and I'll tell you from our experience it can kind of go either way, like sometimes we'll negate it in broad and then the exact stops performing. Sometimes we'll leave it and the broad performs better. Like it can go either way. I would say it's something that you should definitely test. Amazon ads is still kind of finicky on some of these things. For whatever reason. Older campaigns still tend to work better for us. So if your broad campaigns older than your exact match, it may still continue to outperform for a little bit. But what we do typically do is if we're going to leave it in broad, we lower the bids in broad I'm not specific keyword quite a bit and try and give the exact match as much room to run as it possibly could. Bradley Sutton: OK, cool, let's see. Hina has a question. I have 10 variations. They're not page one ranked. What strategy can I apply to get a good conversion on it? So I'm not sure exactly what he's saying here. But let me just change this into another question here. Like I've got betting that has a bunch of variations, or a consumable that has a whole bunch of different flavors, are you putting all the variations into one campaign? Do you have different campaigns for each variation? Do you only promote maybe one or two child items out of the whole variation? What's your strategy on variation items for PBC? Matt: Yeah, so we run a lot of variations. This is the one place where we do run ad groups. So our main products, the main variation, is flavored. So if someone's searching for a lemon flavored one, you obviously don't want that running against a chocolate flavored one. So an exact match campaign would have an ad group for each flavor and we'd be breaking out the different flavor variances within there. If it's a more broad term that doesn't include a flavor name, we're usually pushing it towards our hero product within that variation. But something that you can definitely test. I would say one thing to look at is search query performance and also the top I think they call it top search term report Now it used to be the old brand analytics report and see what the other top click products are. In our instance, if someone's searching for a sugar cookie, it may be that they're searching for a specific flavor and you can see that by the click through rate and a commercial rates from brand analytics. Bradley Sutton: Cool. Now, before we get into your final strategy of the day, can you talk a little bit about clear ads? I mean who you know, who, who you guys might be able to help the most, and what you guys do. Matt: Yeah, definitely. Um, so we're an ads agency um based in the UK. Um, we work with sellers and actually every single amazon marketplace now, so can help you across the board there. Um, we also do offer like full service management. So if you're looking for content creation, lipstein optimizations or even just day to day like inventory management, case log management, we can help you with all of it. Um, we also run DSPs, so pretty much a to z on amazon, we've got you covered. Um, and many of you may know George Um the founder. Um, he's everywhere. Um, so, yeah, head us up if you need any help with any of those things. Bradley Sutton: Awesome, awesome, all right, now um 60 second strategy of the day could be about PPC. It could be about search career performance. Could be about how to live as a foreigner in Barcelona. It could be about anything you want, so go ahead. Matt: All right, um, so I'm going to take it away and I'm going to do. Uh, outside traffic to amazon Um, so I think one of the big questions that search career report has brought up with a lot of people is like, hey, these sales numbers in here are extremely low. I know I'm selling more for this keyword or this product. Like, why isn't this represented? And I think majority of people don't ever look at outside traffic to listings and what's happening. But if you actually take the time to dive deeper, you would be amazed at how much traffic comes straight to your listing from other sources outside of amazon. Um. One great way to do this is how we do it. Um, you can use SCM, rush or a trust or really any kind of SEO tool. Plug in your canonical um amazon URL and just see, like, what articles have been written about you that you know nothing about, where you're getting posted on social. It will highlight all of these things. Um, but really the big key factor that we've been looking at is if you have a competitor in your category that you just you can't figure out how they're doing things. Chances are it's all coming from outside of amazon and that's why you can't compete. So doing this simple search, you can see like, hey, these are the bloggers that are talking about it, these are the articles that they got. You can reach out to those people directly. Most of those positions are paid. Like, don't trust any of those top 10 articles, they're all paid. Um, you can reach out and pay for those, and sites like a H refs SCM rush will tell you how much traffic that bloggers are, so you can kind of estimate what your return is going to be on that dollar. Um, I would say another big piece that we've been kind of working on for these is for a lot of terms like your, your coffin example. Matt: Like there's no one out there that has a website about coffins, like that specific product, it would take you with AI a few days to whip together a basic word press site that has everything you would ever want to know about small coffins and since no one else is writing about that, you're going to rank in Google like top three within a few weeks. If you're in these categories where there isn't that much competition or it's a unique product, start making some micro sites. Um, like I've shared some examples at some prior events and presentations, we have a few of these micro sites that are giving us seven to 8000 people a month now to our Amazon listings, and we used AI for the entire process. Um, so it took us maybe an hour per site and they just continue to produce. And the big thing with that is it's a traffic channel that no one else can really steal from you, because most people aren't looking at this and you'll always kind of stay at the top of your category because your velocities will just always be higher. Bradley Sutton: That might be something I'd like to dive into, if you are able to come out in January. Like your step by step case study on that, that sounds fascinating. Alright, well, matt, thank you so much for joining us. I know it's late over there. I appreciate it and hopefully we get to see you in January. Matt: Sounds good. Thanks for having me.

Join us on a journey as our special guest, Ritu Java, takes us from her beginnings in India to her experiences in Japan, ultimately transforming her into a data-driven entrepreneur. With a unique perspective on the blend of culture and commerce, Ritu shares insights on how she leveraged her expertise in data and analytics to excel in Amazon PPC strategies. You'll also hear her intriguing tales of running an Etsy store from Japan and overcoming the complexities of helping Amazon sellers worldwide. The conversation doesn't stop there. Discover how AI has become a game-changer in running Amazon PPC campaigns as we discuss our personal experiences combining AI with other data sources to optimize campaigns. Listen as we unveil the advantages of using chat GPT for keyword research and translation over traditional methods like Google Translate. This episode offers a unique perspective on integrating AI into workflows and SOPs, driving efficient and effective results. We also underscore the value of incorporating AI into Amazon PPC strategies for successful product launches and campaign management.   To cap off this enlightening conversation, we tackle the future of Amazon selling and the role AI plays in it. From generating keywords for Amazon searches to creating images for sponsored brand ads, we unravel how chat GPT and mid-journey can elevate your selling game. Don't miss out on our tips for creating effective lifestyle photos and the significance of close-up product images. We also shed light on the evolution of Search Query Performance on Amazon and share our strategies for effectively managing and analyzing data. In episode 515 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Ritu discuss: 00:00 - AI Power for E-commerce Sellers 07:54 - Utilizing AI for Amazon Sellers' Success  09:05 - AI in PPC Strategy With Chat GPT 20:52 - Search Term Modifiers and Word Order  23:04 - Enhancing Amazon Ads With AI 31:24 - Generating Posts Using Canva and Amazon  32:19 - Utilizing Search Group Performance Data 33:47 - Optimizing Data Strategy for Efficient Analysis  41:23 - Convert Snapshot Data to Time Series ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast ► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension ► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup  (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life) ► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft ► Watch The Podcasts On YouTube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos Transcript Bradley Sutton: Today we've got a first time guest who I think is probably top five in the world these days as far as actionable Amazon strategies, and she's going to give us an absolutely value-packed episode full of tips on generative AI, PPC and more. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. How can you get more buyers to leave you Amazon product reviews? By following up with them in a way that's compliant with Amazon terms of service? Bradley Sutton: You can use Helium 10 Follow-Up in order to automatically send out Amazon's request, a review emails, to any customers you want. Not just that, but you can specify when they get the message and even filter out people that you don't want to get that message, such as people who have asked for refunds or maybe ones that you gave discounts to. For more information, visit h10.me forward slash follow-up. You can sign up for a free account or you can sign up for a platinum plan and get 10% off for life by using the discount code SSP10. Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers podcast by Helium 10. I'm your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show. That's a completely BS free, unscripted and unrehearsed organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. We've got a special guest today Ritu. So, first of all, we're going to get into your backstory about how we can even talk in Japanese, because that's something that's crazy. Were you born in Japan or were you born? Ritu: I was born in India, but I lived in Japan for 17 years. Bradley Sutton: So from what age? Ritu: You want to know how old I am. Bradley Sutton: No, no, no. From what age were you living in Japan? Ritu: Mid-20s. Yeah, so mid-20s. Bradley Sutton: Also was, so you didn't go to school in Japan. Ritu: No, I didn't. I went there as an adult. I was working at a company and I take company 17 years. Bradley Sutton: Yes, that means you had to have gone there when you were a child. Then because you can't be over 25 years old. So I don't know what's going on here. Ritu: That is very cute. Bradley Sutton: I was all the reason. I was asking if you grew up because I wore this shirt today. Do you recognize this character here?  What is this? Ritu: Yes Doraemon. Yes, I grew up with Doraemon when I was a little over there, that's awesome. Bradley Sutton: Yes, I grew up with Doraemon when I was a little over there, that's awesome. I know a little bit about you, but I for some reason had this idea that you actually grew up in Japan and that was why you were so fluent in language. Once you go as an adult, it's a little bit harder, unless you really immerse yourself in the culture. Ritu: I did. I really immersed myself in the culture. I went there just for a year, honestly, and ended up staying 17. It's so crazy how that place had such a big impact on me. It was such a stark contrast to where I grew up, which was India. Bradley Sutton: Whereabouts in India. Ritu: In Delhi, the capital city of chaos that's how I describe it from chaotic to super orderly. You can imagine what a difference, that is A stark difference from the world I knew. I was just drawn to the calm and the orderliness of that place. How things were punctual, everything happened as expected, there were no surprises, everything was planned in so much detail, which I kind of liked. I think where I'm at right now is a nice middle ground, because I think I like the chaos. It has energy. It has a certain type of progressive energy that all of us need, especially as entrepreneurs. We need that energy to be able to kind of keep moving forward. But then I also like the organizational skills that I picked up while I was in Japan, because you need that to have good execution. I think best of both worlds is what I'm trying to be at right now, trying to draw from both my cultures. Bradley Sutton: Then did you go to university in India. Ritu: I did. I'm an engineer. I did my electronics engineering from India. I went back to school much later in life. I went back to school in the US and I did a course in data science, which is why I'm very attracted to PPC and data and data analytics and that sort of stuff. Bradley Sutton: When you graduated with the electrical engineering degree, did you start working in India, or is that when you went to Japan? Ritu: Yeah, I started working right away and I started working in India and I worked for an IT company and it was a pretty long stint there as well, like I was very interested in technology right from the start and it kind of aligned with my life's goals and stuff like that. At the time. I mean, little did I know that I would completely switch at a certain point. When I was in Japan I worked for not only the company that I was in India, I kind of went to their Japan office and I started helping them out. But then later on I switched to a more technical role at a school, at a high school, American school in Japan, and then I had my kid and took a break from work and then I kind of dealt in a little bit of entrepreneurship. I started running my own business. I had an Etsy store. Yes, in Japan, while I was in Japan, I started my Etsy business selling jewelry. It was like kind of one of a kind jewelry and I realized that, gosh, it's not enough just to create a listing and people are not going to flock to that listing. So I had to teach myself a whole lot of stuff like marketing advertising. So I learned Facebook ads, Google Ads, blogging, YouTube, all of that stuff. Bradley Sutton: So Etsy in the United States, or is there an Etsy in Japan? Ritu: No, there's an Etsy in the United States, but I was selling on the US market from Japan. So I was producing my stuff there, but I was shipping it worldwide wherever there were shoppers. But shipping costs are exorbitant. Sending stuff from Japan it's very expensive. Yeah, so mostly was attracted to the data side of things. Yes, I have both left and right brains, because the creative side was just all my creations, the jewelry that I made. But then I needed the data science side of things to kind of round things off and make money out of my business, because everything we do here is based on data and I know he's intended the data company. So is PPC Ninja. We might think that we're in the business of selling goods, but actually we're in the business of leveraging data. So that's why it was so important for me to get that knowledge and make sure that I'm kind of ready to go with my own endeavors. Bradley Sutton: Now. So, Etsy was kind of like your first online marketplace. Now, did you ever end up selling on Amazon or did you go straight into software and consulting etc. Ritu: Yeah, so I've never sold on Amazon, but I've helped businesses sell on Amazon. So it's basically the data side of things. So, I only sold on Etsy. I sold on my own website for a bit, but then I have never sold on Amazon myself. But PPC is where I'm focused on. Bradley Sutton: Okay, cool. Now you talked about having an analytical mind, and that's kind of like what you're known for. When you've spoken at events like Billion Dollar Seller Summit and others is especially in the last couple of years, you're one of the go-to people as far as AI and things like that, now me, I'm a little bit behind. I use even on this podcast, we use AI to generate title options and transcripts and things like that, but I would say I'm not one of those full force ahead like, hey, ai is going to replace hours and hours of work. I haven't really adopted it to that effect. So, the typical Amazon seller what are some things that you don't have to be a seven, eight, nine figure seller but just like any Amazon seller if they have not started utilizing AI to help them in their operations or business? What are? Let's take it to that spectrum first. What are some things that you think that any Amazon seller could benefit by utilizing AI? Ritu: Yeah, there's so much. Actually, the magic happens when you start combining things. So AI by itself may not be the be all and all of things, because it's not going to operate in a silo. You've got to combine it with other pieces of data that you have access to. For example, just this morning I was preparing for a new product launch for one of our clients and I'd got all my data from Helium 10. I was at the stage where I have to come up with some keywords for broad match campaigns. I wanted to make sure that all the right keywords are in there, not just the long tail ones with high search volume, but I wanted to make sure that I'm capturing all the seed combinations of important words that make sense. So what I did was I exported the Helium 10 cerebral analysis and I fed it to chat GPT and asked it to come up with two words and three word combinations of seed keywords that would perfectly describe this product. Now what I'm going to do next with that is basically convert that into broad match modifiers, which basically means you add a plus sign in front of all the seeds and then I'm going to create campaigns with it. So that's something that I do at every launch. I generally don't skip that step. It's an important one for me. So, in addition to all the long tail keywords, I will come up with enough seed words that will run at a slightly lower bid but will be like a discovery campaign for me through the broad match modifier channel. So that's kind of one thing that I do. Ritu: Then, like yesterday, I was doing another one for another client, where we have a list of keywords that we discovered from the search query performance report, which is kind of this new, very valuable piece of data that Amazon is giving us these days. So from there I was able to come up with a structure for sponsored brand headline ads and I didn't have to do the work. I just fed that entire list to chat GPT and said, hey, organize this into groups of very related words and then give me a headline ad which is less than 50 characters, because that's the amount Amazon will give us. And then it did that for me. I also gave it one other important instruction, which is to make sure that one of the keywords or a very close variant of that keyword in the group must be included in the title, and that's basically my way of saying, hey, I want this to be a lower funnel ad, not a generic kind of upper funnel ad, because my sponsored brand ads tend to be more focused on ROAS rather than brand discovery and brand awareness. So those are some of the ways that I'm using it almost on a daily basis. I had switched to chat GPT plus a long time ago. I've been paying for it and it's totally worth it. Bradley Sutton: So there's how much is it for somebody to subscribe to? Ritu: that it's about $20 a month. It's not much at all, yeah, it's just $20. And what it gives you is all the beta features, all the new stuff. So right now you can actually upload files very easily. You can upload any kind of file to almost any kind of file to chat GPT and then ask it to analyze, analyze the file and then you can ask it a bunch of questions. So it's just made life so much easier. And I mean I think sky is the limit with what you can do with AI. It's like I always, always feel like I'm not using it enough, even though I'm using it probably quite a bit more than a lot of people, but I still feel cautioned to use it more. Bradley Sutton: Okay, interesting, interesting. So there's some of the ways that you can use it in PPC. Now I remember you presented something. I've seen you speak, you know, various times, but I don't remember which event, this or what it was. That might have been a billion dollars, but where were you doing? You were doing like translation, using like Helium 10 because, like you were doing research, you weren't translating the English keywords. That's obviously a big mistake that some sellers make. Hey, I've got my Amazon USA listing, let me just translate it. Or let me just translate the keywords. No, you need to do the research in that marketplace. So you switch Helium 10 to Amazon Germany, for example, but if you're not a German speaker, you just see all this Deutsch keywords and you don't really know what it means. Or so they're doing it in Amazon Japan and they don't speak Japanese like you, so they might not know. So what's your? I'm not sure if it was AI or just something in Google you were doing to kind of like make that process a little bit easier. Ritu: Yeah. So what we've done is we have integrated chat GPD right into Google Sheets, and we had to write a little bit of code for that. But once we did that, what's happened is that we have these ready to go sheets where we simply change the prompt and add a bunch of keywords and then it will just translate into whatever language, right? So? And I've noticed that any translation done by chat GPD is way better than Google Translate and I've tested it, especially in Japanese, because I can read it. I know that the quality is much better. Ritu: Just to give you an example chat GPD will use the right combinations of Kanji and Hiragana, whereas Google Translate will not. It just doesn't do a great job. And if I tell chat GPD to give me a translation in all four different scripts, that's, kanji as well as Hiragana, Katakana and the Roma G, it will give all those to me. It's a no-brainer to use chat GPD for that sort of thing rather than Google Translate and then other languages as well. Like we're just onboarding this client that has four markets and we have no speakers of those languages on our team. But with chat GPD, we can simply include that into our SOPs, into our workflows and just use those sheets to kind of get the final product out. So it's really great the combination of Helium 10 and chat GPD workflows. They work really well for us. Bradley Sutton: Okay, cool. Now going back a little bit, just remember you were talking about broad match modifiers. There might be people out there who don't know what that means. Can you explain that a little bit? Ritu: Yeah, yeah. So a broad match modifier is a type of broad match, so when you're setting your add up, it'll still be a broad match. However, by simply adding a plus sign before every part of the keyword which means if it's a two word keyword, then both the parts will have a plus sign in front of them what you're gonna ensure is that the buyer search must include those words in exactly that format in order for that match to happen. So this eliminates any kind of kind of synonyms or related words that Amazon might try to kind of connect to, which you don't think need to be there. So at this point, amazon is even replacing exact matches with weird sort of words that it thinks are similar. So we don't want that, because we've done all of the research to find out which exact version of that keyword is giving us the highest search volume, so we wanna stick to it. Ritu: In order to make that happen, we're actually finding ourselves doing more and more work with broad match modifiers, because all the other match types are being weird anymore. Like exact matches are not behaving like exact matches. Same thing with phrase match and broad match anyway, always was a bit too broad and it was always kind of giving you all kinds of weird matches for sponsored brands, but then it started doing the same thing for sponsored products as well, and that makes it a little challenging. It can be wasteful. So yeah, broad match modifiers is a great way of making sure that your matches are clean and that they don't bring in kind of extraneous, superfluous words that you shouldn't be targeting. Bradley Sutton: Do you use that 100% of the time when you have a broad campaign? Ritu: So you always have if it's a three word phrase. Bradley Sutton: You'll put the plus in between each of the. Ritu: Yes, 100% of the time. We've been doing it for the past two years and we actually future proved ourselves because we knew this was coming. It's kind of like Amazon always follows Google. So we knew this was coming because Google introduced broad match modifiers first. Now they've already sunset it. So I don't know where this is gonna end up for Amazon, because what I've heard and I don't wanna just speculate, but what I've heard people say is that Amazon might be moving toward a future where there aren't any match types. There's only a word, there's only a keyword, and then it figures out how to match it the best way. Now it's plausible, especially in this AI world. It's plausible that that might happen. But in the interim, I'm betting on broad match modifiers and exact match. Of course, can't do much about the fact that Amazon isn't treating exact matches the way they ought to be treated, but that's the best we have right now. Bradley Sutton: So what would the difference be between using broad, doing broad target with modifiers compared to phrase for the same, the same, you know, like coffin shelf, like. So if I do coffin plus shelf in broad or coffin shelf in phrase, what's the difference in the potential? You know showings of that keyword. Ritu: Yeah, no, I think the showings of that keyword might totally depend on the bids and they might also depend on relevancy. So it's very hard to predict which of the three match types are gonna win. You know that's been a struggle. I mean you can't really say if you put coffin, what was it? Again coffin shelf. Bradley Sutton: Yeah, coffin shelf. Ritu: Yeah, if you say coffin shelf broad coffin shelf phrase and say coffin shelf exact, what we would want it to do and what would be logical is that if I had a higher bid for exact match, then you know all the searches should come in match through exact match. But that's not always the case. You know, we've seen so much variability there. It also depends on which campaign, you know, starts out those keywords and then each campaign has its own story, its own history. Because let's say, you combine that keyword with a bunch of other keywords and let's say those other keywords got a majority of the early data points, like it started hitting some other words coffin longtail words Before it hit your coffin shelf word, then what happens is that this word starts getting starved of impressions, the other words start to take dominance and these words that get starved of impression give you the false impression that they're not working, whereas it's just a matter of how things started off, like what were the set of searches on that day, on that very moment that Amazon decided to match? Ritu: And then it's going to just take its cues from whatever little data it has in the beginning, because that's all it has to play off of, and then it just keeps giving more and more and more impressions to the early data points and everything else just gets ignored, you know. So it's like a game Like PPC is a game that you know you've got to be able, you've got to be willing to keep playing, trying different things, different ways, moving things, you know, trying it in a different match type, in a different campaign, restarting, stopping, all of that you know. Bradley Sutton: Okay now you know like, for example, if I just do you know, going to this same example, you know coffin shelf, no modifier and broad. You know, yeah, nowadays you know something crazy can come up with, like, you know, spooky decor.You know, potentially it could even come up not even including the word, but ones that are traditional, would be like, you know, coffin shelves for men, coffin shelves for women, but then also it could be coffin shaped shelf, like it could insert a word, or shelf shape like a coffin. You know, like changing the order, but if I put that modifier in there, does that force it, in your experience, to be only longer tail, like it's coffin shelf has to be in there as a phrase and then it's only putting words at the beginning or the end, or still. It could switch it up a little bit. Ritu: Yeah, it will switch it up. So coffin shelf could be shelf coffin even. As long as the word shelf and the word coffin both exist in the match, it will match. Yeah. Bradley Sutton: Okay, going back to Helium 10, now I was looking at, I did it. I still haven't seen your replay of your presentation you did for Helium 10 Elite a few months back. But I was looking at your slides and there was something that you were talking about magnet and seed keywords and just by looking at the slide I couldn't tell what the strategy was. So can you explain what are you doing? I'm not sure if this has to do with chat, gpt or, but just how are you using magnet in a unique way? Ritu: Yeah, so what I do is basically I start off my keyword research by looking at audiences, like who is the right target audience for a product, right? So that's my first step. Now the audience list will help me figure out what words these people use. So if it's a garlic press and let's say there's five different types of people, there could be just regular straight up chefs, there could be restaurant owners, there could be whatever. So there's like five or six different types of people who might use a garlic press. Ritu: Now I ask ChatGPT to tell me all the words that these audiences or avatars are likely to use when they search on Amazon. So I'm actually starting from a suggestion of a seed keyword. That's my starting point, and then I use those seed keywords that chat GPT generates to go and dump that into magnet. And then I use the expand option the second one, not the first one and that basically gives me all of the keywords and their search volumes, and that's what I need Basically. Ritu: I wanna kind of run it by search volume information to figure out if it is really a word that I should be going after. Now I don't always come up with those words, probably because the search volume is too low, in which case I don't need to worry about it, but I can still use that information as broad match modifiers to just generate some sort of discovery. So like, for example, eco-friendly. I don't know if there's any sort of garlic press that's eco-friendly, but let's say someone in that audience wants an eco-friendly garlic press made out of bamboo or whatever. I will still create broad match modifiers that have those important words in that combination so that I can at least start to do some keyword research through an ad rather than through existing search volume data. Bradley Sutton: Okay, cool, switching gears from keywords now to images. I know you've talked about mid-jurdy Canva. Have you played around at all with the new Amazon one that they made kind of for sponsored brands? And then, if so, what's your results? I've had very different, like some of it are absolutely terrible, but then I know that part of it's because I don't really know how to prompt them. I'm not very good at prompting, but what's your experience with the new Amazon AI image generator for sponsored brand ads? Ritu: Yeah, I mean it's not bad for someone who's really struggling with image creation in general, but it's not really usable for every case right? In some cases, it's gonna be hard to come up with the perfect background for your image. The other trouble I have with it is that the product image is too small on the canvas, and that's not how I like my sponsored brand headline ads Generally. This is a tip actually for our listeners when you create a sponsored brand lifestyle photo, the biggest mistake people make is that they fully capture the lifestyle setting in which that product is being used, but then the product itself is so tiny. That's a big mistake. That shouldn't be the way right. The way to do it is to have the product front and center. It has to be blown up right in the middle and then you could maybe suggest what the background is. You might just use suggestive creatives rather than have it in absolute terms. It's being used in the setting that it's being suggested, so for that reason I generally like to request for zoomed in, highly close up type of images so that we can have better conversion rates. Ritu: And there's a story that I just wanna share here real quick. We had one client with a dog product and the product was being used on a dog that was sitting in the lap of a woman on a sofa, and then there's a living room in the background so you can imagine the size of the product. It's like so small you can't see it right. So then what we said to this client was give us a zoomed in image. So then they zoomed right in, so all we see now is the pop and we see the product. Right. So it completely changed the metrics for that ad and then we started using that particular image for many other of their sponsored brand headline ads, and then the rest is history. Ritu: They really started growing after that. But the point is that close up images are more important than pretty images, right? So pretty images anyone can create pretty images. You wanna make them highly converting images and for that reason I might not use the Amazon's AI generated images right away, unless they become better, unless they can kind of keep the product as the hero it needs to be, front and center. Yeah, I'm trying to figure out any prompt that can help me get to that stage, but I'll keep testing. I'm not sure yet. Bradley Sutton: Yeah, so then what outside of Amazon? Then, like I said, I know you're using like mid journey, which is another one that's not too expensive it isn't like 10 bucks a month or something like that to use mid journey, or yeah. So then what if somebody is like all right, you told us what some basic stuff that people how chat GPT for 20 bucks a month can help Amazon sellers. What is something that Amazon sellers of any level can use mid journey for? That's kind of simple and definitely adds value. Ritu: Yeah, I think mid journey is definitely the leader and if you can learn to use it, there's nothing like it yet. But even straight up, chat GPT is now getting pretty good with images, so you can describe whatever you want and then it is connected to dolly in the back and then it generates those images and gives them back to you right in your chat GPT prompt, right. So if you have the paid version, then you can start testing that as well. Bradley Sutton: Okay, so let's say I've got all right, I've got a pretty nice image. You know, maybe it's a white background image or something of my product. Would the first thing I should do with experimenting with AI and mid-journey and things? Would it be making an infographic? Would it be trying to make a lifestyle? Like I remember in the early days of AI, like you could never put a human being in there because they would have like 17 fingers and just crazy faces and stuff like that. But like what should I do then? What kind of images? Or is it not really don't use it for your main images, but use it for, like, the sponsored brand and sponsor display, things like that? Ritu: Yeah, so okay, I think we need to think of images as layers, just like we think of layers in Photoshop. Right, there's layers like a background layer. So if you want just the ambience, the mood, the background, you generate that layer independent of anything else. That's one way of going about it. And then you layer in your product. You have your kind of no background product. Then you can always place it right in the middle, do those sorts of things. So it would probably be a two or three step process where you think of each layer separately, even the humans. You could bring humans in from a different source. You can get humans from there, you can get your backdrop from somewhere else and then you can get your product from your own product images and put them together. That would probably give you the best results. Ritu: But if you tried to have mid-journey to all of that, you might experience some failures there or some surprises with, like you said, 17 fingers and stuff. Now, mid-journey, the latest versions of it are getting better and better, so it's very human-like and it doesn't appear awkward. The facial expressions aren't awkward anymore, so that's good news, just means that we're going in the right direction. It's only gonna get better from here. So I would think of layering as one concept, and then, of course, where you wanna apply it is another thing infographics. I don't think chat, gp or even mid-journey would be good for infographic other than just generating the background for it, because text it still doesn't do a good job with text. You'll have to use some of your other tools for text. So again, it's layering, combining tools and coming up with the concept. So yeah, those are some of the ways in which you can use images. Ritu: Now posts is another interesting one. A lot of people are using mid-journey for generating posts, and that's a good way of generating lots of posts content, because Amazon doesn't allow you to repeat an image twice. So what you can do is you can have Dali or even Canva. I've used Canva AI, which is different from Canva normal. I can explain the difference, but anyway. So Canva AI can generate based on your description of what kind of backgrounds you want, and then you just slap in your photo your kind of hero image on top of it and there you have your posts. It takes barely any time to create like 20 different posts and most people don't realize this, but posts are free advertising. I would highly recommend generating posts on a regular basis and take advantage of it. Bradley Sutton: I've seen them more in search results lately too. Ritu: Posts. Exactly, it's one of those widgets that comes up. Bradley Sutton: That never happened, like six months ago or something. But, now it's right there on page one, so it's important to do, I agree. Ritu: Yeah. Bradley Sutton: All right. So earlier you talked about search group performance. I love search group performance. My self is just like it's stuff that three, four years ago we would have. I would have bet a million dollars that Amazon would never release this kind of data to the public, and Amazon definitely has come a long way. What are some other ways that you're using search group performance, analyzing the data that Amazon gives? Ritu: Yeah, so search group performance. Like you said, it's unbelievable that Amazon is actually sharing this information out, so it's really up to us to take advantage of it as soon as possible. Almost feel like time is of essence here, because everybody's going to have access Everybody has access to that information. But right now most people are in the state of overwhelm. They're like, oh, I have this great data, but I don't know what to do with it. So most people are stuck at that stage. Ritu: But if you want to take the next step, then I would suggest start downloading those reports right away, because these things also get lost. Amazon discontinues things that you think they're going to be giving us forever and forever. For example, the brand analytics data that used to be I don't know millions of rows has certainly been compressed to just 10,000, and so on. So I mean there's a loss there that cannot be replaced. So I would say, number one start downloading your at least your monthly data at the ASIN level and then stitching all that data together, and by stitching I mean maybe putting it into a data warehouse. We use BigQuery in order to bring data in, and the way to stitch it is by making sure that your reports have some extra columns like the date column has to be there Then you have to make sure that you have the brand name in it and you want to make sure that your market is in this, so that when you stitch all that information together, then you can use a single report like a looker studio to dip into the data warehouse and you can basically use switch filters to switch between your different markets. So if you plan your data strategy well, then you will be able to use it more efficiently than just using it in a throwaway style, which most people do. Ritu: Most people go download a report, they look at it, they stare at it and they're like, ok, whatever Done, and it's thrown away. You don't want that. You want a system. You need an ecosystem for managing your data so that you can look at those from time to time. You get a month over month review. You get a month over month trend. You can see if anything has lost its search volume over time. It's so easy to check that at a search term level. Once you have stitched all that information together and is available in maybe something like a looker studio, how about something that's good? Bradley Sutton: it's important to understand the you know, like how to get started and not just like, all right, let me. Let me just look at search career performance or this data, just, you know, in the UI on on Amazon. But then what's the next step? Now I've got everything in my data warehouse and stuff like, for example, me. One of the things I like to look at in search career performance is comparing the conversion rate by the keyword for for just the overall niche, compared to my own. You know my own conversion rate. But you know, I think that's probably one of the most no brainer things. What are some other maybe not so common things that you're looking at when, when you get all of that data into your, your data warehouse, and start you know, start looking up stuff? Ritu: Yeah. So one of the things that I find really interesting is the average price per search term. So this is you know, amazon gives you the average price and that, basically, is a good indication of whether that search term is going for cheaper products or is it going for slightly more expensive products. Just to give you an example, let's say you have the word lotion right Now. You have a $50 lotion by L'Oreal, maybe, and you have a $5 drugstore brand Same thing, selling lotion. But if you're going after, if you're looking at the search term lotion, whatever, daily lotion or whatever and if you see that the average price for that search term is going at $6, let's say that's the average price of the product being sold. That is telling me that, no matter what I do to compete on that, on that search term, it's going to be hard because I'm going to be competing with lots and lots of cheaper brands. So we actually have filters on our search terms or search query reports, so that we only look at those searches that are in the ballpark of our products price point. That basically eliminates a lot of the noise, because otherwise you might be led into thinking that gosh, this is a great keyword and then you spend lots of money on it and ends up being a high cost scenario. You don't want that. So you look at both of the things one that you mentioned, which is what we call strength, keyword strength, which is determined as a ratio of purchase share and impression share. If you can get that ratio to be above one, then that's a good keyword. That is strong, inherently strong, because you're winning more of the purchase share than you're winning of the market, which basically puts it in a good spot. Ritu: And then the second one would be the filter on price. The third filter I would put is search volume, because, again, we don't want noisy, insignificant terms to distract us. And I think the fourth filter I would put there is data sufficiency, like how many sales have you had for that keyword over that period of time? So yeah, those would be the four filters to kind of get everything else out. And then, yeah, I mean that would be our way of figuring out which search terms are good. Then the other use cases of that would be to stitch that data with your ad data. So when you stitch those two together you can find gaps in a systematic sort of way, not just like a one off, throw away kind of way, where it's always being merged and it's always coming together and you can always see these are the ones that I'm not advertising yet. And then, yeah, I think those were the two main ones. Ritu: The third, slightly more advanced one, is when you want to figure out if a search term is good for product A, product B, product C, product D off your catalog because they might be sharing those keywords. Then you can see relative strength across your different products and see where you want to channel your information. Now that comes with the caveat, and that caveat is that there's a very high halo sales ratio on Amazon, which means you might be directing traffic to one of your product variations and something else is actually getting picked up eventually. So you need to know all of the. You need to know all those pieces in order to make the right decision and essentially in terms of using your, your traffic source as a fire hose, literally, and saying, okay, I want to direct it to this product and not to this product. Unless you know what the halo sales are, you could be off. Bradley Sutton: Yeah. Yeah, well really great stuff. Now, before we get into your last strategy you know, maybe it could be a PPC strategy, since that's your specialty how can people reach out to you if they, you know? How can they find you on the interwebs if they want to? You know, get some help with some of the stuff that you've been talking about today. Ritu: Yeah, absolutely so. I'm on LinkedIn. I'm pretty active there, so just look up my full name, Ritu Java, and you should be able to find me there and just say hi and I'll be happy to help. Yeah, and other ways, you can just reach out to our website, ppcninja.com or anywhere else. You see me. Bradley Sutton: Awesome, awesome. Now we have some of we do on our show. We call it TST. That's the 30 second tip. So you know you've been giving us lots of great tips and strategies, but what's like a hard hitting one you can give us in 30 seconds or 60 seconds or less. I'm not going to cut you off, go ahead. Ritu: So I think that you know we're all sitting on tons and tons of data and we don't know how to use it. I would suggest start thinking of strategies to use your data by connecting them up. Every piece of data that we get from Amazon or other sources, whether it's keyword rank tracking or search volume data, or your ads data or organic data. Also, you know competitor data and stuff like that. It's in different locations, it's hiding behind wall gardens and stuff like that. Ritu: You want to figure out a system to bring it all together, and I would recommend using a data warehousing strategy to start bringing everything together so that you can start looking at it holistically. So I would recommend start to think of simple ways in which you can convert your snapshot data into time series. That that would be my advice, and time series is basically for people who don't understand that. It's basically assigning dates to all your downloads. If you're downloading a business report, make sure you add a column and put the date there so that that becomes a way of identifying when that event happened. When you're connecting so many pieces of data together. Bradley Sutton: Awesome, Awesome Well thank you very much. Thank you so much for your time. Ritu: Than you so much Bradley. Bradley Sutton: This was really awesome, awesome and we'll definitely be having you back on the show sometime next year to get your latest strategies. Ritu: Awesome, we'll look forward to that. Take care, Bradley, have a good one.  

What if you had the power to manage over 200 Amazon PPC campaigns in just 10 minutes each week? Imagine the time and resources you could save with the right tools and strategies. Join us in this episode as we share how we use the Helium 10 PPC tool, Adtomic, to streamline our campaigns and work smarter, not harder. Bradley shares his best tips on campaign structure and show you how to apply rules to automatically transfer successful keywords from broad campaigns to exact ones.  Ever wondered how to navigate the labyrinth of Amazon PPC management? Allow us to guide you. We've harnessed the power of Helium 10's Adtomic tool for campaign automation and optimization. Discover how to conduct regular campaign audits, use negative keywords to curb wasteful spending, and use Adtomic to pinpoint unprofitable keywords. Now, let's talk profitability. We know you're in this business to make money, so we'll show you how to optimize your Amazon advertising costs to maximize your return. We'll demonstrate how to set goals for ACoS and TACoS and use the Adtomic tool to optimize bids. And before you think about outsourcing, let us convince you of the merits of understanding Amazon PPC yourself. Despite your busy schedule, we believe learning how to manage your own PPC should be a priority - and we'll help you see why and how.  Google ads, Amazon PPC techniques, factors to negate keywords, and insights beyond the attribution window - we've got it all covered. We know the value of data and why you need to pay attention to it. Intrigued? Excited? We hope so because this episode is packed with strategies and tools that could revolutionize your Amazon campaign management.  In episode 514 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley talks about: 01:09 - Manage 200 Amazon PPC Campaigns Efficiently Using Adtomic 03:53 - Campaign Grouping and Targeting Strategies 11:04 - Optimizing Keywords in Amazon Ad Campaigns 11:52 - Effective Amazon PPC Strategies 14:05 - Keywords and Campaign Management Simplified 16:41 - Optimizing PPC Costs for Profitability 17:56 - Profitability and ACoS 27:39 - Keyword Negation and Pausing Decision Factors 27:50 - Google Ads and PPC Techniques ► 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 I'm going to show you guys how I managed my 200 PBC campaigns in only 10 minutes a week, plus answer all the questions you guys submitted live. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Do you want to see how your listing or maybe competitors listing rates as to best practices for listing optimization? Or maybe you want to compare a group of ASINs or Amazon products to see how they compare to each other? Maybe you want to see within seconds the top keywords for a single listing or a group of listings? You can do that and more with the Helium 10 tool Listing Analyzer. For more information, go to h10.me/listinganalyzer.   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, where we go ahead and take your questions live after giving you a demo of a cool tool that can definitely give you serious strategies for Serious Sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. Today you'll notice I've got my what I call my Adtomic hat and shirt on. That's because I'm just going to give you guys kind of like a 10 minute run through of what I do to go through and manage my PBC accounts. I've been using Adtomic for since it was before Adtomic Used to be called At. So I've been using it for probably about three years now and you know I have probably over 200 PBC campaigns, over three, four accounts that I use it on, and I pretty much you know some. There can be a week where I don't even open it once, like it's doing everything for me. On average, I would say I spend about 15 minutes a week just checking out what's going on and implementing suggestions and things like that, and that's over 200 campaigns. So let me just give you kind of like a little idea about how I roll through it. Like maybe you used to use Adtomic before but trust me, it's like way different Now. A lot of this stuff. I already just recently audited the account, so you might not see too much new information here, but let me just show you what like my process is and why it only takes me like 15 minutes Now.   Bradley Sutton: First of all, I have everything set up in kind of like my campaigns talk to each other, all right, and regardless if you guys use Adtomic or not, this is how I feel you guys should set up your PBC. All right. You have these groups of campaigns that all go to one product, and you've got one that's a exact manual campaign. You've got a broad or phrase match campaign I like to call that a research campaign You've got an auto campaign and then you've got an ASIN product targeting campaign, potentially a sponsor display campaign and then potentially sponsored brand headline campaign. So all of these kind of talk to each other, the auto and the broad campaigns. You can view those as kind of like keyword harvesting campaigns, discovery campaigns. You're discovering keywords that you might not be targeting yet and then, if you find some good ones now you move it to the exact product marketing campaign. Maybe you move it to the exact match keyword campaign, all right. But again, everything talks to each other so that you know the campaigns are benefiting each other, all right.   Bradley Sutton: So this is where I let me just show you how I set up that, that kind of like flow that I just talked about. So, for example, here is my large coffin shelf rule rule group, all right. So we've got a large and a small coffin shelf, or a large coffin shelf, and then there's a variation where it's a large and a small together. All right, I'm targeting both of those in my PPC campaigns. And here's the rules that I have set up so that I am not having to just, you know, every day download Excel sheets and make pivot tables and things like that. What I did is I put all of those campaigns right here in a group of campaigns. I've got my performance campaign. I actually have two. You know I probably hit like 25, 20 or 25 targets in one. So, like now, I only add it to a new one.   Bradley Sutton: I've got my product targeting campaign. It's an ace in targeting campaign, sponsor display, my auto campaign and my research campaign, which I actually have as a broad and, as you can see what these checkbox that I'm showing on the screen for those of you watching this is. I'm saying, hey, if you find a keyword in the research campaign, like a broad right, like, let's say, I'm targeting a broad target coffin shelf and all of a sudden I get sales on this keyword coffin shelf for gothic decor, like a long tail keyword that I wasn't targeting, I'm saying, hey, find it here and then go ahead and put it in my performance campaign because instead of waiting for Amazon to show me in this broad match and just like hope that Amazon shows me, no, I want to target it specifically, all right. So that's basically all of these little boxes up here is me telling Adtomic to look for keywords in certain campaigns that I don't have in the other one and then, if it's good, go ahead and add that keyword as a manual target, be a product or keyword. Now, it's not just any keyword. Um, you can put your own criteria. So, as you can see what this is, just me, this is not saying oh, you guys have to copy what I'm doing right here.   Bradley Sutton: I said I only want you to move this keyword to an exact campaign or suggest to me to do it if it gets at least two orders, cause, you know, sometimes there might be one, or like it might be complete fluke. You know, like maybe Amazon has me in an auto campaign and for some crazy reason, they showed me for my coffin shelf or, uh, you know a keyword egg tray or something like that, right, and then it could be like five days after clicking to add maybe the person actually does buy a coffin shelf. You know, it's probably not going to happen again, right? So I I put here a minimum of two because to me I'm like, hey, I want two people to order something. Then I know, hey, this is probably kind of like a good, a good keyword. And then I said, and I want my ACoS to be 30%. You know, if I had to spend 200% ACoS just to get these two sales, probably not that great of a keyword. And so, basically, that that's what it's doing, it's going to, it's going to, it's going to look at this.   Bradley Sutton: I could set here the look this is, by the way, this bottom part is all new. I could look at the look back period. You know, some people might say, hey, I want to look at the last 30 days. Some people say, hey, no, I want. I'm a big seller, you know I'm doing spending $1,000 a day. I want to look every five days if there's new ones that meet this criteria. I put last 60 days. And then, hey, how often do I want to check this? I put daily. And then, what time zone do I want this rule to be off of? Now? I could automate this, right, I could automate it, but I'm not going. I don't automate my mind because I just like to be able to, to to click on it. Now, what about? On the flip side?   Bradley Sutton: It's arguably more important to have good negative match, good negative match rules set up, all right. So I've got a negative match on this auto campaign and let me just show you how I have that set up. In the negative match, my, my rules aren't talking to each other, my campaigns aren't talking to each other, all right, cause I just like to do it in isolation. So I put here hey, I don't know why I didn't put this, somebody put six clicks. I don't want to get a negative match if it's just six clicks. So I'm going to split $10 here or $5 spent. So what does that mean? So some people people have their hands on the cookie jar in the project exit count and keeps screwing up my, my things that I have to end up changing it back.   Bradley Sutton: Anyways, what this means is I'm saying, hey, if I get 15 clicks on a keyword or a search term in this auto campaign with getting zero sales, I want Adtomic to suggest to me to go ahead and negative match this so that I stop spending. Or if I spend $5, regardless of the number of clicks on a certain search term with zero sales, I want Adtomic to suggest to me to negative match that. And that's all this is doing, all right. So this is what. Again, I don't care if you guys are not using Adtomic, if you're just downloading spreadsheets. This is kind of like what you should be doing, right? I hope you're doing something like this where you know every few weeks, you kind of uh, you know audit what's going on on your PPC so that you're not wasting your spend, all right. So that's the kind of just the simple structure.   Bradley Sutton: I can go a lot deeper into. You know budget rules and and different kinds of uh. You know situations there for what I want Adtomic to look at, but I like to keep my stuff real simple and then so, basically once a week, I come in here to my suggestions and oh yeah, by the way, one thing I forgot to tell you guys is I set everything at target ACoS, all right, there's different rules for my bidding, all right. So I was talking about keyword harvesting, keyword negative, what my rules were? Well, there's different rules that I could pit for uh pick for my bidding.   Bradley Sutton: As you can see, I put everything here on uh and this is like AI powered. I want to target ACoS, like I want the campaign to perform at a 20% ACoS on almost all these. All right, I could choose max impressions or max orders, that it's not looking too much at the ACoS, but just just for this account I have everything on uh target ACoS and then I could put min, max, max bid. You know, like, maybe I have a $10 product and I know I never want to go past $1 on a, on ACoS per click. So I could say, hey, for my bid, I never want Adtomic to try and raise this bid on this search term or on this target. I should say for more than $1, or I want to. I never want to suggest to me something lower than than this. All right, so so that's that's. Uh, that's another thing.   Bradley Sutton: So now, once a week I have my, my bidding, uh, you know, targeting, uh algorithms. Here I've got my rules as far as my positive keywords, my negative keywords. All I have to do is go to the suggestions, all right. And then, for example, uh, what I'm looking at here is the AI bids. So, hey, my, my target ACoS is 20% and let, on this keyword, my ACoS is 86%. So it's telling me to go ahead and lower my bid. All right here. And then, if I, if I agree with the suggestion. All I have to do is click one button. I can actually click the whole entire page here If I agree with all these suggestions, and it happens instantly.   Bradley Sutton: I'm not finding it in seller central. Where is this campaign? Where, you know, let me click on edit bid and let me, you know, find it. This and that that would take just by itself. You know like how, how many. I have a hundred and seventy nine bid changes I need to make. Do you know how long it would be to find these in my, in this account only has like maybe like 75 campaigns, but to go find them in these 75 campaigns and go into the ad group and everything and change these one by one, that would take forever. I could literally do it in 10 seconds right here if I just click a couple of buttons.   Bradley Sutton: All right, here is my new keywords. I actually do have two ones, all right. So let's take a look at what it found. All right, take a look at this, look at this keyword here Coffin shaped shelf. All right, I spent $7 on this and I got $89 worth of sales. All right, and this was from an auto campaign. And so what is it telling me to do. It's saying hey, click me and then go ahead and add this to your manual campaign and, potentially, your broad match campaign. Now again, am I having to go find these campaigns, add a target, set the bid and all that stuff, like I would if I, if, if I'm down, if I'm working in seller central, uh, manually? No, I just click one button and boom goes the dynamite. It is now done. It is now added to that campaign so that I can go ahead and target that manually.   Bradley Sutton: Here's another keyword that it just found. Again, it must have found this in the last four days because I just audited this. I just went through all my suggestions. Like three days ago, wooden egg rack, I spent $5 on uh, which campaign is another auto campaign. I got $55 worth of sales. It's saying hey, go ahead and add these to your manual campaign. All right, it would do the same thing for ascent targets as well. That it might find in the auto campaign.   Bradley Sutton: Again, negative keywords. It's, it's, it didn't find anything right now, but that's where it would be All right. Now, what if you're just getting into Adtomic and you don't have all your rules set up and and you're just setting up your campaigns? It might take a while. What I suggest doing is like audits on your account, all right, and I just did this audit. Let me show you the kind of audits that I do. I go right in here to analytics and the first thing that I want and again, nothing should come up here that's not already negative matched, because I, like I said I already went through this.   Bradley Sutton: But let me show you what I did to, in seconds across my account, find the worst keywords. So what I did was I said, hey, I'm looking back at the last two months of PPC activity here and I'm saying, hey, I want to see something that gave me zero sales, all right, but I had at least 30 clicks and I'm on the wrong page. I need to go to the search term page. Let me go to the search term. I can look at this at the ad group level, campaign level, target level. I'm going all the way down to the search term level in this case, all right. So again, I'm saying, hey, I had zero PPC orders, but I spent, let's just say, $8 at least on a keyword or on a search term, and what came up? Look at this Right instantly.   Bradley Sutton: Now, great, I'm positive. I already negative match all of these because, like I said, I just did this audit. But look, if I had done this earlier I would have saved myself $152. Right here. This is not a big account, guys. This project X account doesn't do that much in sales anymore, but still, this is how much money I was wasting $150. I can just negative match all of these in one fell swoop. Right, right, instantly. All right.   Bradley Sutton: What about the flip side? What if I want to find some killer keywords again? All of this is automated anyway, so that that's why I don't have to negative match any of these, because it already did it. But what? What if I'm like hey, is there anything that is is is doing really well for me that maybe I could increase my bid on? So I'm going to go to my target instead of search term level, all right. And I'm going to say, hey, show me something that got at least one order. But the ACOS was less than 5%, like crazy kind of ACOS. Right, and take a look, there was three targets that hit that. All right, now you can see I already change it.   Bradley Sutton: But look at this. I was targeting this asin in an. It must have been in a product targeting or sponsor display. Look at this. It was a sponsor display campaign, guys. I spent a dollar and 42 cents and I sold $119 worth of product for a 1% ACOS. I could be leaving money on the table by having such a low bid. So my bid before was 47 cents. So you can see I already took action and I raised it up, almost doubled the bid, to see what would happen. Look at this one. Here's one where this broad match target fresh egg holder countertop. I had the bid at 51 cents and after one click I got $18 worth of sales. So now I raised the bid to $1. Cause I'm like, all right, let's see if I can get some more action on this keyword. But again, I click literally two things to be able to find this. So this is why, guys, I have four Amazon accounts and over 200 campaigns. This is why I can spend 10 minutes a week doing all of it and manage everything.   Bradley Sutton: Now I was going to go into a refund gene a little bit, but I went kind of long here on Adtomic, so I want to just make sure there's enough time for Q&A. So at this time I'm going to check back in the questions to see what questions you guys were asking. You can ask me about anything Helium 10 related here, and it doesn't have to be about PPC, it doesn't have to be about Adtomic. Another Facebook user says what can we do to reduce PPC? I pay a lot and every product I sell is paid for by Amazon, all right. So one thing is don't think about it. As far as you know, reduce PPC Like, if you're profitable, who cares if you spend a million dollars on PPC, if you're making $8 million, right, and you're profitable, right.   Bradley Sutton: So it's not just about the amount you're spending, but if you're be thinking more of, in terms of profitability, if you're spending so much on PPC that you are no longer profitable when you make a sale, yes, that is something you absolutely need to tackle and there's different metrics. You can look at that, you know. Maybe you're looking at your TACoS, your total, ACoS. Maybe you're looking at just your ACoS at the campaign level and you need to know what is your breakeven point, what? At what ACoS or TACoS are you able to turn a profit? And then that's the goal you set. And again, I just showed you guys how to do an Adtomic. You put in that goal of what you're trying to do where you know you can be profitable, and it's gonna kind of give you these suggestions automatically on what how you need to lower your bids in order to hit that goal. And, at the same time, it's not just about lowering bids, it's about stopping altogether spend on keywords that just are not doing it for you. So pretty much everything that I just showed you today, that is exactly what you need to be doing. You know, even if you whether you have Adtomic or whether you don't have Adtomic doesn't matter. You need to be auditing your account, looking at those metrics.   Bradley Sutton: Another Facebook user says what is the best ACoS? So the best ACoS is what you can make money on. All right, for some people it's 5%, because they have very slim margins. Some people it's you could be like 80% ACoS right, and you're not making money. But guess what? It's okay because you've got products in like Subscribin' Save or some kind of replenishment right, where you're willing to lose money on that first order, because you're selling tea or you're selling coffee or something like that, because you know that they're gonna turn on Subscribin' Save or a certain percentage of customers, so you're willing to lose money on that first order and because you're gonna get that money back, all right. So again, the answer to your question is there is no magic ACoS number. The magic number is whatever you can still be profitable at.   Bradley Sutton: Somebody says my ACoS I'm not sure they're the same person because I can't see your name but they said my ACoS is 70%. You know, for me, if it was 70% that would be terrible. I'd be losing money, crazy money, because I do not have enough margins on my products where I can afford 70% ACoS. But three years ago me, I was doing a lot of supplements which I'm not doing anymore. I absolutely wanted 70% ACoS, all right. I've got an account that is a hemp cream, all right. And I'm totally fine with 50% ACoS because I'm getting people and Subscribin' Save, absolutely fine with 50% ACoS. But you know, in my coffin shelf, brad, I want 20% ACoS, all right. So you gotta use these kind of you know reasoning here in order to know if your ACoS is good or not. I've got a shout out from Tony from YouTube. He or she says cheers, cheers. Back to you.   Bradley Sutton: Another Facebook user says what subscriptions should we upgrade to so I can communicate with me more? The way that you can communicate with me, regardless of levels is here Once a month. We open this up so you can talk to me on these, on this. Ask Me Anything. If you want to be able to reach out to me in a Facebook group that I check every day, it's the Elite Group, so only Helium 10 Elite members have direct access to me. You can even book one-on-one calls with me if you're a Helium 10 Elite member, and we also have weekly Zoom calls that usually I'm on as well. So lots of touch points in the Elite Program. I'm not trying to sell you Elite right now because, guess what, if you want to sign up for Elite right now, you can't. It's closed. It only opens up certain times of year and right now it's closed. But you know, go to helium10.me forward, slash elite. I think there's might be a waiting list there. And if you want to join that so that you could be able to talk to myself and Kari and Chevali and Kevin King, then yeah, make sure to sign up for the wait list for that.   Bradley Sutton: Another Facebook user says I hired somebody, but unfortunately I don't get any profit. I pay a very high fee. For instance, the payment is 500. Are you talking about you hired somebody for PPC management? If so, don't do it. I suggest to anybody out there don't outsource your PPC unless it is a resourcing thing, in other words, that you, you're, you're trying to expand and you're a one person one man or one woman show and you just don't have the bandwidth to do PPC. But you know how to do PPC. Okay In that sense, go ahead and hire an agency or or a service provider to to to take care of it. But it's important that you know PPC really well yourself first. Otherwise it's going to be hard for you to judge the work of an agency or a service provider if you don't know what is good and what is bad management.   Bradley Sutton: Now my suggestion if you do have the bandwidth, you 100% should be doing PPC yourself. All right, you absolutely should be doing it yourself. Like, it's not that difficult, it's. It's complicated, right, there's a lot of moving parts, but, as you can see, tools like Adtomic just completely simplify the process and make it really fast. And that's why, to me, it's not even a bandwidth issue, if I can manage to I mean, guys, I work at Helium 10 full time, more than full time. Like you think I have time to be managing all the all these things on my own. I that's. I only spend 20 minutes working on PPC and that's that's for four Amazon accounts and I have a full time day job. Right, it's not that much. You should be doing Adtomic yourself or you should be doing PBC yourself.   Bradley Sutton: In my opinion, if you have a tool like Adtomic Now, if you were trying to do it on your own and you have to do it manually and you've got 200 campaigns, what I do in 15 minutes would take you maybe five hours a week, if not more. All right, just look at that. Remember that bid page that I was showing you guys 179 bids after just five days to change, like what. That just takes forever to do manually and even to get to those calculations. So if you're on your own, I highly recommend not hiring out and there are plenty of great agencies out there and there is a need for them, like, we love agencies out there, I have them on this show, right. But those, the ones who I suggest using those, are the ones who have kind of like outgrown. They're like hey, I'm a seven figure seller and I've got 3000 campaigns to manage and I've only got one employee. I don't want to have to train somebody from scratch. Okay, go ahead and hire an agency, but if that's not you, I think you should be doing PBC yourself.   Bradley Sutton: Somebody says the ACoS was 1%. Yeah, on that. On that example that I showed of how I had this crazy good search term, I had one where the ACoS was 1.18%. And then so that's a situation where it's like, let me raise my bid up right on this target because you might be leaving money on the table when your ACoS is so low. Because, like, let's say, my bid where I got that 1.18%, what was it? It was 47 cents. Right, maybe that 47 cent bid is only getting me impressions 10% of the time, like at the end of the day, when other people's budgets are out. Oh, then I start getting some bids or I start gaining impressions at that 47 cents. Maybe if I raise it to $1, I could be getting impressions all day long. All right, is my ACoS going to be 1%? No, but I don't care. If my ACoS is 10%, 10 times as much, I'm still making money like crazy. Because if my break even point is 20, 25%, that 10% is still making me money. So that's why you want to look at the small ACoS and don't just like pat yourself on the back and say I'm a PBC king, no, you want to raise that bid up because you might be leaving money on the table. All right, let's keep going with the questions now.   Bradley Sutton: Dennis says what should be an approximate ad spend to justify Adtomic monthly fee. It depends on how you value your time. It's $1.99 a month for Adtomic and that includes $10,000 spent. So basically that means if you are spending less than $10,000, if you're paying Amazon in PPC fees less than $10,000 a month, you're only paying that flat rate of Adtomic $199. So at that point it's a matter of how do you value your time. Like, if you value your time at $50 an hour, right, if you value your time at $50 an hour and it takes you 10 hours a month to do your PPC, that means you're kind of spending $500 of your own time on PPC and in that sense is $200 of Adtomic to take that 10 hours down to 30 minutes or less than one hour. Is that worth it? Absolutely it's worth it. You know Every week Above that it's still a matter of time savings. All right, if you're spending $20,000 a month to PPC, you've got a pretty big operation. All right, you know you're probably a million dollar seller. If you're spending $20, $30, $40,000 a month on PPC, it probably would take you a full-time employee to manage your PPC, or paying an agency like $1,000 a month or something like that, right? So in that sense again, it's probably worth it to have Adtomic, it's all. There's no right or wrong answer here. It's about how you value your time. If you only value your time at $10 an hour and it only takes you 10 hours a month to do PPC now manually, is it worth it to get Adtomic? Probably not, I'll be honest, probably not. But if you value your time more, then I would say it's worth it.   Bradley Sutton: Dennis, how to get initial reviews apart from the Vine program? That's pretty much it you know like. If you're talking about like some actual service that is, terms of service, approved, it's Vine. You know that's the only program that Amazon has for reviews. Now if you just wanna get a better chance at getting more reviews, you can use the Request Review. Amazon allows you to send one Request Review per order to customers. Has to be at least, I believe, eight days after the product delivers. So you can automate that in Helium 10 follow-up, right, you don't have to click one by one each order to say hey, let's say hey, 13 days after the product is ordered, send a Request Review. That actually triggers the Amazon Request Review inside of Seller Central. But you're doing it from Helium 10 follow-up and then you could just say, hey, do it on this day and only orders in this marketplace or only this ASIN, this schedule, this other ASIN, this other schedule. You can automate that and basically do, set it and forget it, and then that can give you a better chance to get a review, because your customers are theoretically reminded to leave a review more.   Bradley Sutton: Sergio says what factors do you decide to negate a keyword or pause campaigns? It's very rare that I pause a whole campaign, right, like I don't think I've ever paused a whole campaign because my campaigns will have five, 10, maybe 15 targets. Sure, will I pause a target in the campaign, but all 15 of my targets are bad and I'm like that's very rare, you know. But to negate a keyword, I showed you what I put in Adtomic. I put, hey, I want at least 15, 20, sometimes 25 clicks and slash or a spend that's equal to 50% or more of the retail price of my product. So if I'm selling a $30 product, I put $15. In other words, if I get $15 worth of spend on a target with zero sales, I'm probably gonna go ahead and pause that target. What if?   Bradley Sutton: Another question from Sergio is what if the keyword is highly relevant but competitive and have to spend a lot to rank? Check your conversion rate, all right. So look at your conversion rate for that keyword in search query performance and see if it's really bad compared to your niche as a whole. You gotta figure out why. All right. So it's not just a matter of, oh, let me pause this or let me just keep spending a lot more money, et cetera, et cetera. It's a matter of you gotta figure out if that is your most important keyword, why are you not converting for it? Why are people converting for others more than yours? Is it your price? Is it your pictures? Is it your bullet points? What is it? That's something that's very important to consider. I don't just blindly change bids or just pause or just give up on a keyword just because I'm spending too much money. At the same time, I don't just blindly keep it going because I know this keyword is important. I have to understand why my conversion rate is not good on it and try and fix it.   Bradley Sutton: Matt says I've noticed that my overall ACoS for my PPC has almost doubled to 28% over the last two weeks. Does PPC usually get expensive around Christmas? Yes, ACoS per click goes up. A lot. People raise their budgets, they raise their bid sometimes and that's just gonna drive up the cost. So that is. I'm not saying oh, you gotta deal with it and be happy with losing money. But no, if you're asking, is this typical for this time of year, the answer is yes, and the reason why is because, again, people's budgets are higher, so that means less people are running out potentially of budget, so that you're not getting in at those cheaper prices that maybe you would towards the end of the day. Normally Other people are just like taking a blanket raising of their bids across the board so that to try and make sure they get top of search and that could be raising the bids as well. But yeah, this is a very competitive time for PPC.   Bradley Sutton: Tony says what is the thing with the electronics category? Why don't you get data All the time? I mean, we can only give what Amazon gives, and so a lot of products in the electronics category, amazon doesn't give parent level BSR, so that means we can't have a sales estimate for it. Uh, now the says I spent $500 a day in ads. Uh, I get over 200,000 impressions, 350 clicks, but zero sales from those. However, my organic sales are extremely good. Is it because my impressions, my clicks? I'd make sure you're.   Bradley Sutton: Uh, what is your look back period? I would not look this week. Make sure that you're looking at least one to two weeks back, and if those are the numbers you're seeing, that's very strange. I don't think I've ever seen 350 clicks in zero sales. Now, if that's across, like you know, 40 keywords or something, okay, well, well, that makes a little bit of sense. But first of all, make sure you're you're looking outside of just the, the attribution window. If you're looking within the seven days, it could very well be that somebody today is going to click on something or going to buy something that they clicked on maybe a week ago or something, uh, and you might be looking at the data and they'll say zero sales. But if you look at that same data for this week, in two weeks, it'll say you had sales. So I would make sure you're looking back at least two weeks, first of all.   Bradley Sutton: But then, if, if it is true that you're just not getting sales, you got to figure out why are these keywords relevant to your listing? Now, if you've just got a whole bunch of those 350 clicks is across 50 keywords, right, so that each one is less than 10. I'm not sure it's time to panic yet because, like I said, I wait until I get 15, 20 clicks with no sales before I start worrying or thinking. That's not going to be good for me. You know, maybe only seven clicks per keyword has happened. Who knows, maybe your eighth click you're going to get a sale. So it all depends on what kind of um, what time period you're looking back on.   Bradley Sutton: Oh, and your, your second question kind of alludes that uh, now that it says could clicks that haven't been attributed to sales for that day be attributed to a high organic sales the following day? Uh, clicks can't be attributed to organic uh sales, like it's either one or the other. But if, if, if the sale, uh, the, the sale that you see might not be updated in Amazon as a PPC order, if that's what you're asking, then yes, that is possible, which is again why I suggest looking no less than uh a week, a week back and an older, instead of looking at this week. We got one more here. Let's see.   Bradley Sutton: Matt says I love the freedom ticket course. Great job, learned a lot. Can you recommend a Google PPC course? I'm looking to drive more external traffic from Google directly to my Amazon listing. I've actually been looking into trying to create some content not myself because I'm not a Google expert but we might be bringing some Google ads into uh Helium 10 as far as in our training, so that we can, you know, let people know how to drive that external traffic. But even you know something that's very lucrative these days, even more than Google ads from right here is Tik Tok uh shop, and, and so I I suggest looking into Tik Tok shop If you haven't done so yet, matt, and we'll have some content about that soon as well.   Bradley Sutton: All right, guys, thank you so much for joining us. This is something that our serious sellers club and our elite members get every single week here, which is our ask me anything, but once a month we go ahead and open it up to everybody, like we did today, and we also repurpose this as a podcast. So thank you, guys, so much for joining us and we'll see you next week. If you're an SSC member, we'll see you guys next month. If you're just in our Facebook groups and make sure to write all your questions down about Helium 10, I'll try and get them answered right here, live on the air. Thanks a lot, guys. Bye, bye now.    

Get ready to take your Walmart selling game to the next level! Our brilliant guest, Michal Chapnick, a Walmart expert, talks about Walmart's ad certification, the unveiling of innovative beta programs, and the integration of Google ads into promoting your Walmart products. She'll also shed light on Walmart’s commitment to third-party sellers through initiatives like fee discounts and personalized product suggestions. This is the inside scoop you need to unlock the potential of Walmart's marketplace and see your sales soar. Discover the power of Google ads in driving traffic to Walmart and how it can work wonders for your brand exposure. Dive into the advantages of Walmart's SEM program and learn why it may be more beneficial than directly sending Google ads to Walmart. Michal reveals the abundant opportunities awaiting sellers at Walmart Canada and uncovers the potential impact of beta programs, such as brand stores, on your sales figures. This Walmart Wednesday episode is packed with insights and advice for those seeking to extend their business reach on Walmart. As we approach Q4, the busiest time for e-commerce, Michal shares her expertise on maximizing your sales during this hectic period. From planning and implementing promotions to optimizing your listings and enhancing customer service, we’ve got you covered. Uncover the impact of the beta version of coupon codes and the power of video ads in holding customer attention. We wrap up our episode by acknowledging all the diligent sellers out there and remind you to make the most of the opportunities available on Walmart's platform, particularly during the holiday season. Buckle up for a wealth of knowledge, and best wishes for a profitable Q4!   In episode 513 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Carrie and Michal discuss: 00:00 - Selling on Walmart Updates and Opportunities 03:13 - BIS Mentor and Customized Suggestions 06:07 - The Growth and Opportunities With Walmart 12:35 - Walmart's Influence on Black Friday Sales 15:23 - Running Ads for Walmart Benefits 19:17 - Opportunities for Selling in Walmart Canada  23:53 - Promoting Walmart Sales With Coupons and Videos 31:56 - Optimizing Keywords With Helium 10 33:24 - Q4 Selling Tactics and Appreciation ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast ► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension ► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup  (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life) ► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft ► Watch The Podcasts On YouTube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos Transcript Carrie Miller: On today's episode we have Walmart expert Michal Chapnick. She's going to be talking about Walmart ad certification, new beta programs for Walmart, as well as Google ads for Walmart. So this and so much more on today's episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast.   Bradley Sutton: How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think.   Carrie Miller: Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. My name is Carrie and I'm your host today, and this is our winning with Walmart Wednesday, where we talk about all things Walmart. We answer all of your questions and I'm very, very excited today because I have an amazing guest. We have Michal Chapnick, who is going to be joining me. I'm going to be asking her lots of questions because she's a Walmart expert. She has a Walmart agency and she's had a lot of success on Walmart. I know a lot of you are familiar with her. Hey, Michal, how's it going?   Michal: Hello, I'm good and good. How are you doing?   Carrie Miller: Very good. Thank you, nice to see you, and thanks so much for coming on. I'm really excited to have you because you're one of the you know Walmart gurus one of the few Walmart gurus. I would say, probably one of the top in the industry here for Walmart. So thank you. Yeah, so I'm really excited because I know that you have a lot of kind of cool updates to share with us. Okay, so I'm going to get into it. I'm going to get into some of the first things. I'm going to ask you just what kind of updates are there that you would like to share with us about Walmart? Do you want to share any updates of anything new for Walmart or what's new?   Michal: basically, I think there are so many Recently. You know, every week we do Walmart updates and we have, like you know, 10, 15 slides every week because they're really on top of it, they're working really hard and a lot of them are really exciting because and I'm telling that all the time Walmart really wants you. They want you on Walmart, they want the brand, they want you to sell and a lot of people you know sometimes having a hard time to enter Walmart or when they're on Walmart they're having a hard time to sell. But Walmart really wants you there and they're doing everything they can from their side to help you and, you know, give you help to set up, give you help with fees. There's always some kind of promotion there is doing for sellers that are already on Walmart or new sellers. So right now they're doing a lot of like. They're cutting off fees in different ways.   Michal: So either if you have the Pro Seller badge and you can get deep discounts on fees and you can get credit that you can use it for run ads or to use it for the review accelerator program, so you get this credit back. The only thing you need to do is go to your BIS mentor. It's in every account. It's on the, I think, top left and Walmart is giving you customized suggestions so it just specifically for you.   Michal: So from things like items that they think you have an opportunity to get more sales if you lower your price and they're willing to cut your sell off fees, so they will cut your sell off fees so you'll be able to take your price lower to sell more. So this is just one example of the second thing they will give you like a customized list of products that they think you should add to your account. So they're basing that, based on the category you're selling or the brand you're selling. So if you're a resale, of wholesale, you will see a lot of opportunities and I know that some of my sellers that I'm working with they're taking really good advantage of those and they're they managed to get a lot of sales because usually Walmart will tell you something that is out of stock or something that the other sellers are not using WFS.   Carrie Miller: So once you got this inventory and it's already selling very well and you're the only one selling it or the only one WFS, imagine that is like so much self I actually talked to them about this and they said that they anything in the assortment growth tab, that those are really the best opportunities because they kind of compliment what they already have on Walmart. So they're looking for complimentary products. So I think that's why is they're really going to. If you take those suggestions, they're going to boost you and then you're going to get a lot of exposure and sales. Like I know, I was talking to an account manager and she said that somebody in the toys category had a bunch of assortment growth suggestions for toys and they started manufacturing them and basically have been killing it on Walmart, just making tons and tons of sales. So that's a that's something that is really interesting right now for opportunity for selling products.   Michal: It is working. I know that one of our clients that he have an account manager. You know in the past you know they were doing it personally, they know exactly the opportunity so they can do it all and you know he's selling in the category of backpacks. They told him you know what styles right now there is like a lot of demand, for example, clear backpacks and things like that, and the same thing is killing they're. They're making six figures a month.   Michal: They're just amazing. So Walmart is there to help you. I think, if you, I don't know I was selling on Amazon for 12 years, but I remember the 10 years ago. I used to get emails from Amazon every day with items to sell. They were like telling me hey, you know these these, you know those items right, and I don't know if they still do that. I have no idea, but I haven't gotten any recently. And but with Walmart is the same thing. They want to know.   Michal: For them to get to the same or as close as Amazon sells, their catalog have to grow and that's their focus. They're focused in growing their catalog and they're using the sellers, the third-party sellers, to leverage the catalog. There's still far away in a couple of hundreds of millions of products from Amazon. There is so much place for new sellers and even people that come into Walmart and they're new and they don't know what to sell. I can show them so quickly. So much opportunities. There's endless opportunities. One of the coolest things with the mentor base even if you're a private label, walmart know you're selling, for example, in the toy category or kitchen, and they know exactly what product, have a lot of demand and they will tell you. And then you need to go and manufacture that or source that or there's so many ways you can get your hands on these items. This is one of the things that I really like, that they're really encouraging you and we just talked about it.   Michal: Right now they have an update for the category of automotive. They will tell you all the products they're looking for in automotive and they tell you please bring those products, list them. We want you to create the listing. They do not want you to sell something. Yeah, of course you can sell. Something is already on Walmart but what they're trying to do is to get you to create new listings. They want you to not just to create new listing. They also expect to need to create good listings, because when they're good listing, they can be in front of customers. Customer can find them. When customer find it, the content is good, so he will buy it.   Michal: Right now they give you the option to upload videos to your listing. Everybody can do that right now. It doesn't cost you anything. You can just go ahead and there's a when you go and open the case. There is one of the section it says upload rich media, upload video, and they will give you an instructions and a file to upload your video. So they're really doing a lot for the sellers and going a little bit back. The most important things that you need to remember is that you have to follow the guidelines, because you're going to have so much benefits coming after that, Getting the processor batch, for example. Now they're offering the SEM, that's the searching agent marketing, and what is that? So let's talk about that for a second, because that's I think this is one of the most exciting updates the last couple of months.   Carrie Miller: Yeah, I saw it pop in my account and I took a look at it. I think my biggest question is because this is basically advertising through Google Shopping, through the portal, and they basically do it for you. As long as you're really well optimized, you'll show for the best keywords. But is this now the paid version of what was free? Because I remember my product used to show up a ton on Google Shopping just for free and I hadn't been advertising on Google for Walmart but it would say available on Walmart.com. Is it now kind of paid and not free, or do you see both?   Michal: No, it's definitely both. So here's the secret. Walmart is spending millions Even I wish I could see their budget for Google Ads. It's insane, it's really crazy. They know the power of Google Ads. We saw in many, many clients a lot of time when we went deep into the sales and trying to understand where those sales are coming from. Between 30% to 40% of a lot of item sales coming from Google Ads. So Walmart is pushing all the listing to Google Ads.   Michal: But there's a couple of criterias, like your listing have to be following the guidelines, you have to have good images, so you have to have not too long title and all the things that are very important, and you can see it in your listing score. There is a tool that show you exactly the score for every little part of your listing and if your score is high, there is no reason why you shouldn't be eligible to show up on Google Ads. So Walmart is not going to put you on Google Ads if you don't have enough images, because then the pain for your item to show up on Google a customer is going to click on that is going to come to Walmart and he's not going to end up buying because there's no information or there's no images. So again, they have to make sure your listing is going to have the chance to convert before they will do that. So the only thing you need to do is make sure your listing is following the guidelines. And so now Walmart is telling you we're giving you the option. We know how powerful is Google, we know how powerful the ads are coming. We are spending a lot of money, but if you want to do some extra, you want to spend more money, you want to put more product. We're giving you the option to start doing campaigns on Google, and I think that's huge and I think whoever is going to take advantage of that is going to see amazing results in their conversion rates.   Michal: Because Still, 40 percent of people will start their search on Google. I think 35 percent going to go directly to Amazon, 40 percent on Search and Agent, and then the rest is spread on different things. Some people will go through Pinterest or even social media. They're going to look and stuff in there. Another thing that why you want to be optimized is the same thing as more you optimize and you listen to high quality. Walmart is not just advertising on Google or Bing or Ad. They're advertising with a lot of social media advertising, with a lot of bills website. They're advertising with a lot of really big influencers that they're paying them a lot of money. As more as you're listening is good. They will expose your items to all those channels they're advertising at.   Carrie Miller: That's possible. Yeah, I know that.   Michal: Yeah, I was talking with one of the account manager and they have the option to pick items and put them on this bucket, this list, and then website deals website like a silk deals, and there's all websites like that or influencers have the option to look at that list and pick the items they want to promote this week because they're getting paid and they get also getting paid affiliates. Yeah, there's things like that. Sometimes, if you follow influencers on Walmart on Instagram, they're doing a lot of Walmart. You can see they're pushing a lot of passion. Yeah, kitchen items. And right now it's crazy because people are waiting for influencers to show them what's the deals on Walmart, because everybody know that Walmart have the best Black Friday deals.   Michal: Yeah, we always have the biggest selection, the biggest selection of deals in each category. Because other stores can be just electronics, best buy with Walmart. The Black Friday deals are on home, on outdoor, on Christmas decoration, toys, clothing, jewelry, everything. Walmart is very known in Black Friday.   Carrie Miller: We did have a question about SEM. It says do you do Walmart SEM and your own Google ads at the same time? That's a really good question Because if you don't want to cannibalize your own Google ads while doing the SEM Google ads, that is a really good question.   Michal: Usually, when you do your own Google ads, you choose where the traffic is going to go. You can run Google ads for your website. It's good because many times I remember I had items that I used to sell in the past. There were not all of people were selling them In the category. I would say it was a kind of a shoes, a specific shoes for kids. When I used to go to Google and I used to write that specific keyword. I get Google ads and I sell my shoes on Walmart. Next to it I saw my shoes on my website and next to it on Amazon. I used to get all the Google ads I could. Now, most likely, the customer will buy my shoes. It doesn't matter where, but he will buy them. Again, you're creating brand awareness. It's more ads you can create. It's more exposure. You can put your brand in a product. It's better for you because the customer remembered that.   Carrie Miller: I think that they clarified it. I mean sending Google traffic to Walmart. Maybe not do your own Google ads to Walmart if you're doing SEM, potentially.   Michal: Yeah, that's what it's going to do. That's exactly what it's going to drive traffic from Google to your Walmart. So I say you know, try, try, you can put a budget. It's not too complicated to run those campaigns. So I would say, give it a try. And before you do that, also go and search for your item on Google and see if it's really coming up, if Walmart is already promoting your items. And again, the most important thing, make sure your listing is following the guideline.   Carrie Miller: Yeah, for my own Google ads. I did do an experiment where I was trying to see if it would help with ranking if I sent outside ads, like from Google, like at U-Kan on Amazon, and I noticed that it did not make a difference when I sent my own Google ads to Walmart. And so I think that probably, if there is going to be a benefit, it's probably going to be through the SEM program doing ads to Walmart. So if if I were to choose between the two, I would probably do the Walmart SEM over Google to my own Google ads to Walmart, whereas I would still obviously do Google ads because I have Google ads to my own sites as well. But that's what I would think because I know that they are kind of looking at their own metrics and the more you convert on their side, I think that the better it is. But that could be just a guess, but I do know for a test that it did not help my rank. So there is that, because I know a lot of us do that for Amazon. We send Google traffic and it does help with rank, but it didn't on Walmart.   Michal: Yeah, one more thing I'm thinking of is that it's probably going to be much better because they have better pricing, so it might be going to end up being much cheaper than you spend it yourself.   Carrie Miller: Yes, it's Walmart.   Michal: It's going for Walmart account. It's not your Google account, it's Walmart account having their own pricing. So you will get that. And the second thing it's known because I can see it. Every time I go to Google I can see Google love Walmart. Google will always place Walmart ads in first five. So this is another thing you will get better exposure and you have better chance to shop in a better ad in a better location Because, again, it's through Walmart. So just that it's worth it.   Carrie Miller: We have another question. Actually Bradley asked this one and it says is Walmart Canada worth it yet?   Michal: I absolutely think so, absolutely. It is very like with Walmart.com, the same thing with Walmart Canada. Not every product will be a huge success because those marketplaces are still building their customer base, but I think Walmart.com is doing very good. Now for Canada, from a lot of people that I have a lot of friends that live in Canada people online. When they go online they usually will go either to Amazon Canada or Walmart Canada. There is not too many options. Some items people can go to the store and have some problems to find Like there is not always big selection of things. So if you know to find those items that people having a hard time to find in the store or next to their house, you will know that Canada will be very, very good.   Michal: So actually, going back to the time when I used to sell kitchens, we had exact same styles on that farm in Canada and actually it was a period of time that we met sales on Canada. Because I guess you know people need, you know everybody needs shoes for their. Yeah, you don't need to do much, it's going to sell. If you have nice shoes with quality, it will sell. And I think the thing is that, again, people when they go online, they don't. There's not too many brands that are selling on Walmart.com or Canada. So again, if you find those opportunities and there is tons of opportunities on Walmart Canada and also in Canada people, the Canadian, are paying high prices on stuff, so you don't have to sell nothing to cheap, you can sell it in your price or even higher and customers are paying and they're also paying shipping as well, so I think the profit is also very nice on Canada.   Carrie Miller: All right, let's go into some other things I know. Can you give us some insights to you know, like I think, some beta programs I think coupons, brand stores, any other kind of beta programs that you've seen, and have you been able to use them and what's your experience been with those?   Michal: Yeah, so brand stores are available for very selected amount of sellers. Right now it's mostly they started with a lot of sellers that do it fashion, so we do have a couple of our clients that they have the option to do brand stores and right now it looks great. I cannot wait for it to be available to everyone because we need that. You know you want to click on the brand and go to a nice storefront that you can display your. You know what are you selling. I think it's going to help a brand grow really nicely on Walmart and I think the best part is, again we see the people that selling on Walmart. There's not a lot of brands that take Walmart really seriously and doing those extra steps, but the one they do, those that want to see really success on Walmart. So I'm excited to you know, to see some of the brands we're working with, you know, using that feature and growing. The second thing is coupon codes. So coupon codes again are in beta right now. Yes, and it's available from whatever.   Michal: Only like 50 sellers got that, yeah, maybe now a little bit more, but I cannot wait for that because, again, this is huge for doing social media marketing, because people love those videos and those ads and everything that you give them. Coupon code is, like, so popular right now with Amazon, and I think it's going to help get so much more traffic and sales to Walmart when you can, you know, and display your items with the coupon code. I think so.   Carrie Miller: I think that it's a bummer we don't have it right now because my sales when we started doing a coupon on Amazon have done really, really well, because I just think people are always looking for a deal. So, seeing that coupon, they're like, oh, I might as well just get this item too in here because it's on sale or there's a coupon, whereas you know we don't have it on Walmart yet. I'm kind of antsy to get coupons on Walmart. It would be really cool if they just decided next week to release those, because I'm desperately waiting for those because they work really well on Amazon. We see that they work because people are already shopping on there and they're like, oh, I'm looking, they're looking for deals, right? So the more access we have to give deals, I think, the more sales we're going to make on Walmart.   Michal: So, yeah, in beta anymore. It's available to everyone. If you're a brand, you have to be brand and register, but is the video ads. Yes is the most exciting thing I think happened recently for brands is that you can create a video ad and you get your customer attention so fast because you know the minute they search for something, your video is and it's big, it's really big. You saw on Walmart, it's not like tiny. It's like yes, really like the page. It's really nice big deal, and I'm still amazed that so many brands are not using that. There are so many people and sellers that are not using the video ads or even just to upload the video to the listing. So many people are not doing that. So and so, yeah, this is I think the key to this with Walmart is paying attention and doing all this stuff. I agree.   Carrie Miller: I think I've talked to some people and because the minimum is a dollar for the video ads, they haven't been utilizing them. Have you started doing video ads and have you seen some good conversion on those, like just better conversion overall? Or what do you see with the video ads Currently?   Michal: yeah, we do have one of our clients that is running video ads and their sales are are really going high, Like we're talking about 30% more than before, so that's really nice. They're very happy with that, and so this is one of the things that you know with advertisement usually you should see growth and you know with sales.   Carrie Miller: Mm, hmm, that would be. Yeah, that's amazing. Okay, so let's see, there was something else that you mentioned, and it was ad certification. Do you want to talk a little bit about Walmart ad certification? I think this is a completely new program, so yeah, that's a new program that Walmart is.   Michal: see that people struggling with ads Like they're trying to run ads and they don't know, they have no clue what they're doing. So they're saying, hey, let's give you a certificate. So I think it's just to make people feel like, oh, if they're going to go through a course, they're going to be certified and they know what they're doing. So this is what they're trying to do. Or they're even offering that to your team. It doesn't have to be you, it's going to be somebody from your team. So if you have a VA, or because Walmart advertisement is not difficult, but you have to take the time and and learn how to create your campaigns correctly, how to optimize them, how to find the right keywords, a check your competition.   Michal: If you're running ads and you don't spy on your only competitors to see what they're doing, you're missing out. Because this can be. I always find. When I do, you know, when I look at competitors, when we run ads for customers, we can always see that there is, we have a list of all the relevant keywords and then we look at the competitors and sometimes they're missing one or two, or sometimes even more. And that's your opportunity. So I think it's just to make sure that you're not missing out, and so we can always see that there is.   Michal: We have a list of all the relevant keywords and then we look at the competitors and sometimes they're missing one or two or sometimes even more. And that's your opportunity, because nobody's paying for that keywords and you can pay for it and get all the traffic. Or Another thing that I see all the time with the competitors is that they're paying for a lot of phrases but they're not coming out as relevant because they don't have that phrase in the listing. So the ad algorithm is very smart, so he will sometimes place them for these keywords, but only because they don't have somebody that looks more relevant. Once you come and you're more relevant, you're not really competing with him because you will always get the first spot in the first page because the algorithm know you're relevant. So it's easy. Even if somebody in your confederate is advertising sometimes they're not doing such a good job you can always come and find those little holes where you can take advantage of something that your competitor is not doing.   Carrie Miller: Very good, very interesting. Well, I think we're pretty much at our time limit, but I was wondering if there's anything else that we didn't talk about that you might want to give advice on or share with the audience. Any final thoughts?   Michal: Yes, I think through the end of the year. Right now it's a really good timing for a lot, especially of the new seller, to see the potential of Walmart because a lot of them will be surprised right now with the sales. So I really want a lot of you to catch the momentum of the end of the year. Right now it's the best timing to add new product because there's a lot of traffic. So take the time and add new product. If you have a product they're doing very well, sometimes you can even just create another offer. It can be two-pack, three-pack, it can be a bundle. Again, it's more items you add, more customer can find you, you create more brand awareness. So add as many skills, as I always think is a good strategy to build your brand and stay in stock, even though pay attention, because a lot of people what happened right now? They're getting out of stock because they didn't thought they're going to sell so many, so much on Walmart and they're getting out of stock quickly. So try to stay in stock so you keep your momentum and your ranking. So add, advertise. Now is the best time.   Michal: Advertise, pay attention to your budget. Make sure you're running ads during those peak days and peak hours. You don't run out of your budget too early of the day, so take advantage of the Google advertisement promo code. One thing that I wanted to say it's going to be super cool when you run ads. So your item is showing up like write the first thing the customer seat and then you use a promo. Like promo it's mean you're doing something like reduce price. So your item right now instead of $29.99 is $24.99. So you already catching the customer eye because you can see this item is on sale and then they click on your product and then they see there is coupon code. Right, it's going to be like. I think it's going to create a lot of conversion.   Carrie Miller: I think so too.   Michal: Together, and so I cannot wait for the coupon code to come. But right now you can run ads, you can do promo and that's going to catch some eyes. You will get a lot of sales just by doing that, as well as running ads going to help you get ranked. So this is a really good timing to not just sit back and say, oh, it's too late. No, it's not too late, you have enough time. Continue optimizing. Even right now. I'm telling all our customers please run a new keyword report.   Michal: One of the things that people don't do is everybody that listen right now. When the last time you optimize your listening maybe you upload a year ago did you optimize it since then? Keywords is something that change all the time, especially in Q4. Because in Q4 there's a lot of new phrases. So if you sell toy for girls and right now you can add something to one of your key features, it says that toy make a great Christmas gift for girls. Christmas gift for girls is a very high search term at this time of the year and if you don't use it, you're missing out thousands of thousands of customers that potentially can come to your listening because that phrase is in your listening. So it's the perfect time right now, today, or even if you're on vacation or something next week, whenever you listen to that at any time.   Michal: Go to Helium 10, run keyword refresh, keyword report to your product and do a couple of adjustments. Go and add those keywords to your description, to your title, even to your key features. Even your attributes can use some refreshment. Go to your listing tool score and see your score and see what you can improve in there. So just by doing that and you know what I love about it, that if you do that, you will see that in the next week or two you will get more traffic. It's working, guys. I think this tip is always working.   Carrie Miller: One more question on that Do you use Helium 10, Cerebro and Magnet to find those keywords, or where are you finding those keywords? Is that kind of the best option?   Michal: I'm using both. So Magnet, we're always doing searches just to see what's coming up, and I always like to use Cerebro because I will go to my competing items. At least two or three of them will take their item number, go to Cerebro to see what they're ranking for, which keywords, and almost always I will find the phrase that I never got in the other search. So always do both.   Carrie Miller: Yeah, we're updating those keywords every week, so you should be able to find new keywords on Helium 10, Cerebro and Magnet. So thank you everyone for listening. Thank you so much, Michal, for coming on. I always love having you on because you are definitely one of the top in the industry, so I appreciate you taking the time and answering questions and giving advice. So good luck to everyone who's selling this Q4. I think we've gotten a lot of really great tactics here from Michal on what to do, from you know, for Q4. So we will see you all next time on Walmart Wednesday. So thank you.   Michal: Bye Carrie. Thank you so much.   Carrie Miller: Bye.  

Imagine navigating the exciting landscape of launching an Amazon KDP business and entering the glitzy Miss Universe spectacle at the same time. That's precisely what our incredible guest, Shivali, has managed to do. In this episode of SSP, Shivali takes us on a fascinating journey that begins with the debut of her original beauty and personal care product in the electronics section of Amazon and ends with her unforgettable time competing in beauty pageants. Gain insights into the tactical maneuvers she employed to overcome the hurdles in the fiercely competitive Amazon landscape and enjoy the open discussion of her unique approach to launching an Amazon product. In the second half of our talk, we change topics and focus on the colorful realm of cosmetics and beauty, emphasizing the need to create styles that accentuate unique qualities. With her unique take on the process of creating digital products, Shivali shares the details of her next cosmetics training initiative. She also discusses her amazing book writing and publishing endeavors, as well as her first experience publishing KDP books on Amazon. In order to bring your private label endeavors to new heights, we conclude the episode by getting into the specifics of Amazon's KDP platform and providing insightful advice about quality control, marketing techniques, and pricing strategies. So, listen to this episode and take away some wisdom from Shivali’s inspiring story. In episode 512 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Shivali discuss: 00:00 - Starting a KDP Business 05:19 - Passion and Celebrity in Product Success 11:07 - Versatile Looks and Digital Product Creation 16:43 - Promoting KDP Books on Tick Tock 21:52 - Effective Usage of AI Writing Tools 23:53 - KDP Book Publishing and Marketing Tactics 27:52 - Understanding Amazon Royalties and Profits 34:11 - Being Proactive in the KDP Market ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast ► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension ► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup  (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life) ► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft ► Watch The Podcasts On Youtube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos Transcript Bradley Sutton: Today we're sending Shivali to the other side of the microphone and she's going to talk about her advice for those wanting to start a KDP business, her super unique Amazon product launch that she's doing that would be impossible to copy, and much more. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Want to check estimated sales for products you see on Amazon? Or maybe you want to instantly see how many listings on page one of a search term result have the actual search keyword in the title? You can find all of these things out and more with the Helium 10 Chrome Extension tool, X-Ray. More than 1 million people have used this tool. Find out what it can do for you by downloading it for free at h10.me/xray. 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. I'm not going too far away in the world. We're going to North Carolina right now. Shivali in the house. Welcome back to the show. How's it going? Shivali Patel: It's going good. How are you? Bradley Sutton: I'm doing all right. We're going to talk about KDP how Amazon sellers can do it. I'm going to talk about I know you're just going to be launching another Amazon product soon. We've got a lot of a business thing to talk about Before there. We were talking earlier that there was just recently Miss Universe. You said a couple of people that were in this Miss Universe pageant you were actually in the same pageant with them last year, the year before, right. Shivali Patel: Yes, correct. Miss Universe Thailand this year was actually our reigning international girl when I competed at Miss Super National in 2021. Then Miss Universe, Puerto Rico Carla, who also made top five at Miss Universe Miss Thailand, actually took first runner up. Carla was also, I believe she made top five. Yeah, really really strong group of girls. They're both wonderful. It definitely gives me the pageant itch as well. Bradley Sutton: Yes, I've joked with you before that, hey, I'll approve time off, but there's got to be like some. I put a Helium 10 logo on my basketball court. I think that on your gowns or your evening wear or talent competition, there's got to be like Helium 10 logos displayed somewhere. Then I'll go ahead and approve that time off if you go back to pageant life. Shivali Patel: Yeah, that would be a wild gown. Bradley Sutton: Yes, but hey, it will bring us lots of impressions to Helium 10 and then all of a sudden our site traffic will spike and then we can attribute it. We've got this metric that we go evangelism reach and that'll definitely help the evangelism reach. Anyways, here let's go to business. First of all, the last time we talked was a while back. I mean, you're definitely no stranger to show, you even host a few podcasts yourself or a few episodes yourself with the weekly buzz and tacos Tuesday and things like that. But as a guest you haven't been on here in about a year and I remember at the time you were looking for a new product to sell on Amazon, and now, as of today, you've got it all in Amazon. But you were having like, didn't they like? Put them all on reserve status or suspended or suppressed, or what was going on there? Shivali Patel: Yeah, so my product is actually. It's in the beauty and personal care category, but it was also an electronics item, which is very interesting because when I was getting started a few years ago, I remember telling myself you know what? I'm not going to touch electronic items with a stick. It's not for me. I don't know all the regulations. Bradley Sutton: And then I think you have a death with electronics. Shivali Patel: Yeah, that too. Let's forgot about that part too. But yeah, that was one additional reason that I didn't want to touch the electronics category. But I think the more time that I've spent in this space, it changes your mindset a lot, because then it becomes about well, which barriers are you willing to cross? Because problems are such an integral part to running any business system and it just comes down to what or how you're willing to overcome it. And so when I found this product, I was really, really interested in launching into it because I felt like I could deliver value into it. You're always thinking creatively well, what can I add to this product so that way it will sustain competitors regardless of when they're coming in? And with my first product, I had about nine months before I actually got that product to market because of some backend issues, and this for this particular product. You carry all those lessons that you learned through time with you, and so I really wanted to ensure that, regardless of when the product goes out, it actually sells. And it really came down to okay, yes, it's an electronics item, but I can learn it's a higher barrier to entry for my competitors. And then I did feel like I could add value to the space. So, yeah, that's really my mindset of going in. Bradley Sutton: But along those lines it ties in with what we were talking about with pageant, life and stuff. But people, I've always suggested to people, hey, you can't always go with what your passion is, because if there's no opportunity there you're not going to have success. But in a perfect world, if you can do a product that you're passionate about or leverage some kind of like off Amazon, you know, following, then I think you know people absolutely have to do that. Like you know, I always thought before like if I was still like really big in the Zumba world, like I was in the old days, that you know, like I could have had a lot easier way to launch some kind of Zumba fitness related product or something. So then you kind of, you know you said it's kind of like a beauty product, but then you're kind of taking your quote unquote celebrity status a little bit and offering like coaching or some kind of like digital service along with your product. Shivali Patel: Right, that is correct. So I wasn't entirely sure if I wanted to do this, but pretty much anybody I talked to, yourself included, said it was a good idea, and so, yes, I have chosen to represent myself as Miss Supernational USA 2021. And I, whenever somebody buys the product which it's actually I'm fine with sharing it. It's a makeup bag with LED mirror and three settings, but it comes with makeup lessons as well, and it's not just live group coaching calls, it's like a full blown course, because I wanted people to not just walk away with a product, but walk away with an experience where they can buy this one bag and learn how to use all of the tools that they'll be putting inside of that bag, where they can now go into their everyday life and actually carry themselves with confidence because they now know or have a skill, sets and techniques on how to use those products. So it really was a long game for me and that's how I approached it. Bradley Sutton: Yeah, but yeah, the reason why this is, I mean, nothing is guaranteed success. Guys in Amazon. You know like maybe something weird might happen and she has to like lower her price or something. But I know you're starting at a very high price and you actually have a chance of success. Like if I were to come in with an LED makeup bag and like, let's say, all of them were like 60 bucks and I'm trying to sell it for 120, I mean it's not. Not only is there not a guarantee of success, it's almost a guaranteed failure. Because why, you know, why would anybody pay 120 dollars? But with the fact that you're bundling this, this is now all of a sudden you actually have this ceiling, like it actually is possible for you to have success at that price, price point. Also, this is something that nobody can duplicate. Nobody can copy like any. You have some like super fancy water bottle, you know, that has like this really crazy design spout or whatever. So somebody can copy that. Eventually, can a can a you know Chinese factory or a factory from India just go and say, hey, let me get another country's miss super national or miss universe or whatever and offer coaching classes. You know that's like not going to happen. Bradley Sutton: So, again, this is not a guarantee for success, but this is the kind of thing guys those of you are selling on Amazon look for these kind of things that are hard to duplicate, whether it's on the product side, like something you have a patent for, or or it's on the you know the personal side, you know where you're offering digital courses or something like that with it, and then that just sets you apart. So that that was why I really liked that, that idea, and I think that other other people should think about. Not, not everybody has something you know, but, but sometimes we sell ourselves short A lot of people. We might have something that we don't even know. Maybe it's one of our relatives or something that we can offer as as part of a bundle. So how are you delivering? Like, is this course live? Is it like something you recorded and they get access to it once they opt in? Like, how does that work? Shivali Patel: I was actually listening to Alex Hermosi I'm not sure if I pronounced this last name correctly, but he talks a lot about the $100 million offer right, and something that is very principal to that is providing an offer. That is a no brainer, and when I was thinking about what I wanted to offer in terms of an experience and what would be most impactful, you want leveraged impact right. You want somebody to purchase this bag, transform their lives, and then they go and tell their friends and say, hey, oh my gosh, like I learned this incredible thing. I feel so much more confident, and I think that's a mixture of prerecorded lessons, but it's also live coaching, where people do have access to you. They do have the ability to ask you questions. Shivali Patel: Now, I would not consider myself a makeup guru by any, by any milestone, but I think you really only need to be a few steps ahead of somebody to be able to offer help, and with makeup, I have spent a considerable amount of years in the fashion and the beauty industry. I started very young and I grew up in that field, and so I do feel like I can say something to someone and help them with their confidence in applying makeup or even just in presentation, right. I think it takes a certain level of courage, or even foregoing some of the expectations other people might hold of you, to compete in something like a beauty pageant. And so I can take those and transfer them over to somebody else and hopefully that will allow them to be equipped with skills they can put into their day to day life, and so it's actually a mixture I'm sending them over into a funnel, right, and that funnel will set up the drip email campaign, which then leads them into this whole course. So it's a four module course as of right now. I plan to add to it. I want to update it consistently as new trends come out. Shivali Patel: As you know, there's so many versatile looks you could do. You could do a day look a glam look. Maybe you are somebody who's going day into glam, that sort of thing as well as just expression. So it talks a little bit about color psychology. We have what else? We have undertones, we have foundation matching just a lot of different broad ideas that are important when you are trying to figure out what's going to work on your face, because everybody's face is different. I can't actually go and give you the exact same things that I do, and it's not necessarily going to work for you, because you know you might have almond shaped eyes. Bradley Sutton: I think my beauty is a little bit different than yours, yeah. Shivali Patel: Exactly, Exactly. But for those of you that are listening, you know you might end up if you're a woman and your are planning to use the same exact makeup techniques that I am, well, it might not work, because you might have hooded eyes and I have almond eyes, that sort of thing. So we do have the four modules plus bonus lessons, where I'll have some of my pageant friends come on, some of the you know influencers that I can get on and they'll do lessons as well, and then I also have a group and they'll be promoting this product, like once you know, now that you see there goes again, guys, there's, it's not. Bradley Sutton: She's not just going off of what you know she has, but what you have is your network too, and so if you have people who are influential, you know, and who are down to down to promote, that's another great advantage. Like, like, I'm doing something different on the coffin shelf, you know, like I'm not making a community or anything but the coffin shelf market is very saturated. All of a sudden, you know, people come in low balling and I'm going to go a little bit more in depth in a future episode, but what I'm doing is I'm just experiencing again, again. I might fail at this, but I'll never know if I don't try. I'm actually raising my price and not going lower, like everybody's 20% lower than me. I'm going to go not only not lower, but I'm going to go 20% higher and I'm adding Products that almost double my cost of manufacturing. I'm giving, like, a coffin shaped box, like the box that it's gonna come in is literally coffin shaped and it can be reused as something else, like you know, a sock box or something like that, and I'm offering some other stuff. Bradley Sutton: So for me, that's what I think is gonna differentiate, because there's no way that any of these other cheap Coffin shelf makers are gonna go and spend two dollars and fifty cents like is what it's costing me to make this custom box for Shivali. There is no way any of her competitors are gonna go and have multiple pageant beauty queens From countries like you know offering courses. So, guys, again, the moral this part of the story is is do what you know, use your advantages, that you have to be unique and offer something that is that is not duplicatable and and that's kind of like along the lines of it doesn't always have to be a physical product. Mine, mine, is a physical product. I'm doing a box right and along those lines is a perfect segue. Your first entry into Amazon wasn't even in the physical product, wasn't didn't. Before you make physical products, you were doing digital products, namely KDP books correct. Shivali Patel: I got started by selling on KDP and I wrote books fairly fast. I had some ghosts written, but I also wrote some of my own and I knew that if I spent too much time on Writing them that I most likely would be disappointed in the results. Not trying to be a pessimist, just a realist, where if I spent, let's say, months preparing a book and I put it out into the world and people don't receive it well, or maybe it the field is changed by then, right, I would be so disappointed and so I worked on. I Just focused on putting it out there as opposed to perfection, just progress, not perfection sort of ideal. Shivali Patel: And yeah, it went okay. I wouldn't say it was. I became like a best-selling author or anything, but I sold copies and I continue to sell those copies actually from the books I wrote when I was I think I was 23 at the time- so those books you made years ago You're saying you're still getting, like you know, per like it's not, it's not free, you have to pay for it or you're free, so people are literally are still paying you for this book you wrote years ago. Shivali Patel: Yes, yeah, I mean, granted, my books are very, very cheap, because again I was like, okay, I wrote this in 24 hours. I think it was like 24 to 36 hours max, but I went through, wrote it pretty fast. One was on positive self-talk, the other one was on engineering powerful habits successfully. I've actually published way more than that. I just only tied those first two to my name and so those actually that are under my name, they're tagged to my socials and so I actually do end up going in and still seeing sales from those even today, and that's cool, because I don't actually actively promote them or anything. Shivali Patel: They just end up selling, and so I really, really love digital products because digital products cost you little to no money To actually set up right. You can go into Canva today and create something. In fact, last month I wrote four books and I need to actually get them published this month, hopefully this month. Hardcover paperback would be great. I wrote one on AI. I wrote one on what was my other one, even on, can you believe I like I struggle sometimes even in float Instagram, because I had done a case study with Instagram at some point where I quickly grew it from Zero to 10k followers in the span of like three to four weeks. Shivali Patel: Now, of course, that case study is a little bit old, but I learned a lot through it and I can still sell that information, and so it's really easy to go into Canva, build out a full fledged book and then it takes you maybe five minutes to upload into KDP. And KDP isn't even the only avenue you can use. There's many other platforms that allow you to do that. Now I specifically focus on KDP and I Was talking to Bradley not too long ago about potentially doing a case study about that for helium 10 content, which hopefully, if you guys stay tuned, you'll be able to see that. And that is just experimenting with tick tock, because tick tock is also growing. Tick tock shop just became a thing and. Shivali Patel: I'm really interested in seeing how you can kind of combine both of those landscapes into one Right now you can't actually add links, I believe, into the captions to promote your Amazon KDP books, but you can Send traffic using a link in bio to a funnel page or a landing page or even into those books via that route so you can attach your KDP link. I think as long as you have the link in bio. You can't actually do it inside of the Video that you're uploading, like the post that you're uploading. Shivali Patel: Okay and so there's so many things you can do there too, right, you can go in and do like a reading what is it? You read like an excerpt of your book and that's a reading. You could do Q&A. You could add Just some knowledge to the space. If you have something that is non fictional, you could do so many other promotional videos that can lend itself to traffic for your pages. Bradley Sutton: All right, so let me give you a couple scenarios. Scenario number one I am listening to this podcast and I'm not selling on Amazon yet, and the reason why I'm not is because, you know, I don't have $3,000 or maybe my product is like super expensive, it's $10,000 what I would need to invest. You know, $5,000, what have you? And I'm just like, hey, I'm not on any kind of like strict timeline. You know, I got a few months like I can build, you know, save for my day job, but I want to kind of like X, you know, start making some more money on the side Without investing. How, what would I? Where do I start? Like, like, what's my research? Like you know, maybe I don't have the time to do an Instagram Case, that you know you know. Whatever, whatever you do like, do I need to pick a topic that I know or you know? Do I do like product research and in helium 10 and find some kind of Subject that way that there are searches on like, like what's my step one, two and three? Shivali Patel: I think that's an excellent question, and it's when I can get very excited about sharing information on because you absolutely want to do product research. There's no point in you building a book and then set trying to sell it in a market that's super saturated, or maybe you don't know how to market and so use the helium 10 chrome extension. That's what I recommend is make sure you download it. You can go to helium 10 comm forward slash extension and once you add that to chrome, you can actually use x-ray to see a lot of back-end data. Go inside of Kindle, the Kindle store, go into categories, subcategories, use x-ray to see how people are doing and then from that, maybe, if you find a book that you Are interested in creating a book on, you feel like you could do something better, you can optimize that listing better. Then what I actually recommend that you do is open up Canva, open up ChatGPT and Open up quill bot. Okay, and what you can do is, first of all, use review insights which is also a part of our helium 10 chrome extension on your competitors inside of that niche. Figure out what's good, what are people talking about, what do they like about that book, what are the topics that you want to focus your book on and then go into chat GPT, provide a title, come up with a title. If you don't want to go directly into that, you really want to get granular. Go into Cerebro before you go into chat GPT, go and see what people are typing in and then from that Make a list of all the chapters you want to have for that book, all the keywords you want to rank for, and then you can use those keywords as chapter titles. Then you go to ChatGPT, you feed it inquiries and if you put in garbage if you put in garbage you're gonna get garbage out. So make sure you're very, very hyper specific about what you're inputting in. Shivali Patel: When you do that, you can start with an outline. You can say, hey, I'm writing a book for this, this is how long I want it to be. I'm going to, over time, over the next few prompts, feed you a set of Subject or chapter titles, chapter topics, and I'd like you to Draft a written response in the tone of XYZ. Maybe you have a favorite author, a favorite artist. Whatever the case may be, get very, very specific and, as you go through first, still provide you with the outline. So I would recommend really starting with the outline. Once you have the outline, the outline will present you with maybe two or three different markers for inside of each chapter. So even if you don't know the first thing about that niche, that is okay. You don't need to do a case study like I did. I've written plenty of books that are on topics I don't know anything about, and that is okay for you too. So go in to chat GPT, go into the outlines and then actually take each chapter Section, so maybe just the two or three. Copy and paste that and then you'll see I'll draft an entire thing for you. Shivali Patel: Now, the only thing that I don't love about ChatGPT is, yes, it has limits, but it also is quite redundant sometimes in its language. So you'll see some words pop up over and over again. You'll see vast, you'll see realm, you'll see Ecommerce landscape if I'm talking about something in E come and so you might want to go in and be specific, say, hey, don't use any sequential words or don't use these specific words, include these keywords, and it will actually go through and refine what you've written. The point, or the best way, rather, to use chat GPT is Start broad and get more and more granular, refining your results every single time, and so pretty soon actually even in the span of 30 minutes you can have a full book that you can then put into quill bot, which is a paraphrasing tool, and Actually change out those words. So now you have a Section of your book that is AI generated but it looks more human because you've gone in and actually changed out some of those words. Shivali Patel: Of course you want to add a little bit of personal touch, but can you imagine how hard it must have been to write books that are 500 600 pages back in the day, not to say you need to write 500 600 pages. Most of my books are somewhere between some are as low as 20 pages and others are I think my highest might be about no, actually 120 pages, I think is my highest. But you can go in and go as little or as Long as you really want to keep in mind that if you go and upload this to KDP, you will need to do some formatting beforehand, as well, as if you are making that book a paperback or hardcover book, you're gonna have certain associated printing costs because this is print-on-demand if you're using KDP. Anyways, I've gone completely into a whole splurge based off of this initial question of what the heck do you do if you're just getting started right, and so that was really to start with product research. Do the keyword research. Shivali Patel: If you want to figure out which chapters to create, use ChatGPT with Canva and I say Canva because you can actually transfer over, not transfer over with Canva. You can make the book title, book cover, page, and so you're. You now have a free book cover that you've created. You can create a really nice manuscript inside of honestly like word. I've done word before. I've done this inside of Google Docs before. I've also done this inside of canva before, where you can really make it nice with different fonts, and then you will want to throw it into KDP after that and make sure that the manuscript looks okay. Shivali Patel: That's really, really important because people who are Kindle readers read this on a handful of different Devices and you will want to make sure that they can actually read what you're writing, because the they want to consume the content. They don't want to be distracted by mistakes. When I was 23 and I published them on my first books, some of the feedback I got, I thought, okay, I'll just get feedback and refine it afterwards. Well, I did get some things that in in the reviews and oh, like the grammar was a little bit, you know, off for one of my fictional books and I was like, okay, it's fine. Whatever, you know, this was ghost written, I don't really care about it, I'm not gonna go in. I refined it as much as I could and I feel like the story still got across just fine. Shivali Patel: So once you have your book built, your book cover built inside a Canva, you've saved it, you're uploading to KDP. Create a KDP account, go in, upload all of it. It's pretty simple to follow. If not, we do have blogs on KDP. So I suggest that you go and you check out our blog section on Helium 10 to to figure out how to actually upload it, if you need some help, and then, from there, focus on marketing. I honestly, through mistakes, have learned that it's not enough just to build a high quality product. You will need to do the marketing side of things as well, and KDP is no different. If you want to stay low on costs let's say you really want to save for private label then go into existing blog forums, go into Facebook groups, create that TikTok account and do what we talked about earlier, where you're creating promotional videos, maybe you're doing reads Q and A's, you are getting on live, maybe, and talking about the book. I have seen some lives that are ridiculous. Bradley, do you remember the Chinese seller who made $18.7 million just by promoting products? Bradley Sutton: Yeah, like three seconds per product. It's kind of ridiculous. Shivali Patel: It's absurd and people still sell based off of those three seconds. You also have people who are doing the whole NPC trend, if you've seen it, and they make money on that. If they can make money on that, can you make money on a book that sells content? Absolutely, but will you have to put in the work to actually make the promotional videos? Yes, so you can go in and do stuff. The trade off is really going to be the time investment, so you will need to spend some time inside of Facebook groups. I've done this before. You find niches that are related to your book, go in, actually post that. Hey, you know what? Like I just released this book. I would love to get some feedback. I'd love if you guys could show some support and you're not telling anyone to buy, really, but they can go in and select or or, you know, purchase that product if they feel like it's up their alley and hopefully leave you an honest review, as long as you were very, very forthcoming with what you were hoping for in the beginning. Shivali Patel: Outside of that, I've also used blogging sites so you can go in, find niches where there's tons of readers subscribed to an email list and those email lists are really, really helpful too, because I've used those to launch books before, where you can go in and essentially maybe some of these sites are free, some are not. Some are like 20, $25 book beam there's. There's other ones that cost a lot more and they have millions of readers who are waiting for books to be published. So you can also tap into Kindle Unlimited. You can go in and actually end up promoting, let's say, even the book for free while they're doing these promos, so a lot of people can read them, you can garner those reviews and then hopefully start your PPC campaigns to sell really well. Bradley Sutton: All right, so that's, let's say, I do all that. I make a book about 60, 70 pages. What's about the target price? And then, at that price, what am I taking home? You know, based on you know what, what Amazon is charging me. Shivali Patel: So you can select from two different royalty options. With KDP, you can do 35% or 70% of royalty from your list price, and that's if you're based in I think it's UK. No, if it's based in Europe, then that's without the VAT tax. So it's just taking a look at your list price 35% or 70% and it really comes down to you on what you want to market at. Shivali Patel: You'll see books that are $40. You'll see books that are $2, which is what my book started with way in the beginning and so you can go in and choose and then base off of the royalty price that you select, you'll be able to figure out what sort of profits you're making. Then, of course, if you are saving for private label, you know maybe you'll want to focus on building really quality books, not not making too many, and then just work on marketing them. Or you could go wide right. You can make many, many books that are really really cheap and just focus on the launch side of things to garner that initial revenue or not revenue. Revenue, yes, but also the initial capital you need to get started with private label. Bradley Sutton: All right. Now, you know, that was a scenario that I gave, where it's like, all right, I'm just trying to get some extra revenue. Theoretically speaking, I could be already selling on Amazon and that's still you know, like I want to. You know, get more revenue so I can do that exact process. If I'm an existing Amazon seller, we would have nothing to do with my current Amazon business. It would just be, you know, me doing product research for something. But let's just you know. The other scenario, number two that was kind of like scenario one B, but you know. Now two is like all right, I sell coffin shelves and egg trays or what have you, and I want to leverage KDP in a different way. I'm not really necessarily making a revenue play, but maybe it's. It's something like I'm giving a free, you know, yeah, lead Magnet or add on what is a scenario? That I'm not necessarily making a revenue play, but as an existing Amazon seller, I could potentially leverage KDP and it'll benefit me. Shivali Patel: So I think a really good play for that is the leads generator, and that's just. You already have your product set. Maybe you want to tap into these Kindle users, because these are people that are already reading books. They're interested in that topic. Well, maybe they might be interested in a product in that setting, and so you can go in create a book using the process we just talked about right. Go into ChatGPT, go into Canva, into quill bot, and you can transfer those skills over and end up leading, putting in pages into your eBook that are for a leads generator. You tag that you can use portals inside of helium 10 to create a landing page and then actually end up taking that link and put it into your eBook, put it on KDP and then work on also ranking that book, so that way those readers end up hopefully navigating into your product and you end up capturing those emails as well through KDP. Bradley Sutton: Okay, so that's KDP. Now you know, one of your other specialties here at helium 10 is you work with our market tracker 360 program, something that I don't know too much about. It it's mainly for those who reach, like the eight, nine figure level. What's some new things that you can tell us about for those like, hey, I'm high, seven figure, eight figure seller, some new things that I can get excited about if I'm using market tracker 360. Shivali Patel: So the beauty about market tracker 360 is you can go as broad or as granular as you want, something we have been talking about today with this podcast. But what's really cool is now you can divvy out into how you want to build your market. So if you want to build your market, let's say, at a brand level, you can input up to 100 brands and focus on it simply at the brand level. If you want to put in keywords and asins, you can still do that, but you can go in and refine it based off of categories, subcategories as well, as something that is newer is being able to create markets based off of those subcategories too. So it takes a little bit of time to set up that market, but once you have it set up, you can always go in with filter presets and get an understanding for how your market is moving, not only from a year over your comparison standpoint, or a month over month or week over week. You can also just look at it from a competitor level, check out your market share, check out how your other competitors are doing year over year the historical comparison of your products versus their products, whether it be at a brand level or at a product level. You can also dive deep into your keywords, into their keywords, check out what strategies they're using and then how they're rising and falling in terms of a keyword heat map. And so it's really nice being able to not only set up the market as you want, you can go in at the. Shivali Patel: I've heard so many you know six, seven, eight, nine figure sellers talk about how important it is for them to be able to see their category or subcategory just at that level, and we're actually coming out with that. Now is before you could go in and get granular, do it as a filter preset. Now you can actually create the market based off of that. So that's something exciting that you guys can look forward to, and if you are on the diamond plan, I believe you have access to a market. So I highly encourage you to go in and make use of that single market you have. Okay, cool. Bradley Sutton: So I always forget about that. You know, like I even said right now, market tracker 360 is like, mainly on our supercharged plan, but if you're a diamond, you can actually, you know, go ahead and get one started. So, even if you're not a eight figure seller yet, go ahead and, you know, take advantage of that free one If you've got a diamond account, all right. So now we're at the end of this episode. Do you have our, our 60 second tip or 60 second strategy of the day you can share with the audience? Shivali Patel: I think my 60 second tip is going to be be proactive because, first of all, we are very close to new years and we talked a lot about KDP today, but you can absolutely tap into that market now because there are going to be so many people that are out there looking for goal setting things, for habit planners, and it's a really easy way for you to start with a no content to low content book. Maybe you don't need to do the whole ChatGPT thing just now. You can go in create something inside of Canva that is maybe template base, that you can go in, switch out the formatting, the colors and try to start working with the marketing side of things to get a feel for what it would be like if you posted a medium to high content book inside of KDP. So you can start really, really easy with low efforts and then also be proactive in terms of maybe you want to go out, maybe you want to check out some trade shows. You want to find a really good product for your FBA business. I know we didn't fully talk about product research for a FBA business, while I might have shared a little bit about my mindset about finding my latest product that I'm going to be selling. You absolutely can go in into trade shows, into stores even, and start thinking outside of box. What value could you bring to that niche with that? I hope you implement and you don't just listen to the podcast. Bradley Sutton: Awesome. All right Again. You're no stranger to the podcast. You'll be hosting some upcoming episodes of Weekly Buzz. And then also, you were definitely instrumental and part of our relaunch of Project X and you were handling one of these products that was actually sourced in India and so definitely have you back soon to talk with you and Meghla, who helped out with that project, to kind of see how it was. We've never had a Project X product sourced from India, so that one is going to be launched soon. So as soon as that launches we'll definitely have you back. But thank you for sharing your knowledge and we'll be seeing you soon. Shivali Patel: Sounds good. Thank you so much.

We’re back with another episode of the Weekly Buzz with Helium 10’s Chief Brand Evangelist, Bradley Sutton. Every week, we cover the latest breaking news in the Amazon, Walmart, and E-commerce space, interview someone you need to hear from and provide a training tip for the week. How Amazon is using AI to ensure authentic customer reviews https://www.aboutamazon.eu/news/policy/how-amazon-is-using-ai-to-ensure-authentic-customer-reviews Temu, Shein far lag Amazon as online holiday shopping ramps up https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/temu-shein-far-lag-amazon-online-holiday-shopping-ramps-up-2023-11-22/ Amazon to Launch Live Shopping Deals During Black Friday Football Game on Prime Video https://variety.com/2023/shopping/news/amazon-black-friday-football-game-prime-deals-1235805778/ Hyundai to Sell Vehicles on Amazon Starting in 2024 https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a45896102/hyundai-amazon-car-sales-2024/ Stay tuned as we discuss the latest new features from Helium 10 and share some valuable newsletters to keep you in the loop. Later on, we share some game-changing strategies with Mina Elias for auditing your Amazon PPC campaigns. You'll learn how to manage campaigns effectively and monitor and improve campaign performance. Join us for this exciting episode! In this episode of the Weekly Buzz by Helium 10, Bradley covers: 01:02 - AI Review Police 03:20 - Temu, Shein Lagging 04:53 - Black Friday Football 06:45 - Amazon Posts Videos 08:15 - Hyundai Buy Box 10:00 - Billion Dollar Seller Newsletter 11:00 - Commerce Accelerated 11:35 - Weekly Buzz 12:19 - Helium 10 New Feature Alerts 16:20 - ProTraining Tip: How To Audit Your PPC Campaigns with Mina Elias ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast ► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension ► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup  (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life) ► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft ► Watch The Podcasts On YouTube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos   Transcript Bradley Sutton: Amazon is employing AI to police fraudulent reviews. Timo and Sheen are lagging in holiday sales. This week is the first ever Amazon Black Friday football game. You soon can have videos for Amazon Post. These and much more stories on today's weekly buzz. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think.   Bradley Sutton: Hello, everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers podcast by Helium 10. I am your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show that is our Helium 10 Weekly Buzz, where we give you a rundown of all the goings on as far as news goes in the Amazon, Walmart, e-commerce world. We give you all the latest new Helium 10 features that have been released this week and we give you training tips 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. All right, today is Thursday. Yes, I'm recording this on Thursday. Yes, it's an American holiday, but we at the weekly buzz do not take any time off, guys. We want to make sure you guys know what's going on out there, so let's go ahead and hop right into the news.   Bradley Sutton: The first article of the day is actually a was a press release by Amazon, and it's entitled how Amazon is Using AI to Ensure Authentic Customer Reviews. All right, you know a lot of us worry, sometimes complaining about, you know, a lot of competitors doing some black hat strategies in reviews, right, and so this article goes in to talk about how advanced AI helps publish authentic reviews and weed out the fake ones. You know it mentions how the vast majority of reviews pass this Amazon bar of authenticity and they get posted right away, but that they're using AI to kind of look or try and detect if there's potential review abuse and if that happens, they either delete the review, they take action against the reviewer A lot of interesting things this article talks about. Now, the thing that almost kind of like worried me was that I still see, in 2023, a lot of obviously fraudulent reviews. You know where it's reviews that have to do with, you know products that you know are not even part of. You know the listing and a whole bunch of other things. This article was talking about how, in 2022, amazon observed and blocked more than 200 million fake reviews. So it's like that's kind of crazy if you think about it. Like that's last year and this year I'm still seeing reviews like man. That's a lot of reviews and a lot of you know, fake reviews and bad reviews. So it's funny because you know, we've been talking about that FTC lawsuit and I I've always mentioned how there is like so many other things I think that Amazon sellers are worried about. Uh, as far as Amazon goes, that the things that that FTC thing is and I would say the like, the fake reviews is one of them where all of a sudden, some new competitor comes in and within like three days, there's like a thousand reviews or or all of us, and they, they merge a whole bunch of listings and or resurrect some dead listing, those reviews for a phone case, but you know it's really for a coffin shelf or something. I mean, these are the things that, uh, you know I think a lot of Amazon sellers hope that you know Amazon would crack down more on. Hey, this article might be a move in the right direction If it's utilizing more advanced AI. Obviously, ai in 2023 and 2024 is not what it was in 2022. So maybe there is uh kind of like light at the end of this tunnel.   Bradley Sutton: Next article is from Reuters and it's entitled T moon Shane lag far behind as online holiday shopping uh ramps up. So you know, like I've been talking about this cause it comes up in the news a lot, how you know they're making a lot of waves, so many people are going to their websites and stuff. But I'm not. I never really was worried, uh, about you know, t moon she like biting into Amazon sales. Even Amazon's not worried. We talked about in the weekly buzz before how Amazon is not even doing price matching on these websites Cause it doesn't even really consider it like on the same level. Now, uh, similar web in this article said that hey, nine out of 10 visitors to T moon and sheen and when I say a lot, you know visitors there's millions of uh, uh visitors coming this holiday season. This article says nine out of 10 are window shoppers, not buyers. All right, sheen's website drew 28.6 million unique visitors in October, which is up from a year before, but visits that resulted in actual transactions, you know, a visit to the website that ended up in a sale went down to 4.1%. How does Amazon compare? 56% of Amazon's 268 million monthly visits in October resulted in sale. So, again, like I don't think Amazon is is scared or we as Amazon sellers need to worry about all this traffic that's going to, like T moon and sheen, people are not really buying on there right now. You know things could, of course, change, but as of now you can. You could see that. You know, buyer intent is really lacking on those other websites.   Bradley Sutton: Uh, speaking of Amazon, uh, this next article is from Variety. The title is Amazon to launch live shopping deals during black Friday football game on prime video. All right, so the very first ever black Friday football game is happening. Usually, you know, thursday, thanksgiving, Thursday, football is kind of a big thing. Now, the first ever Amazon black Friday game and it's going to be broadcast on Amazon and says deals are going to go live during pre game, half time and post game sales. All right, and there will also be one big limited time deal per quarter.   Bradley Sutton: Now there's rumors about what these might be. You know some say it's like. You know, might be some big uh from beats by Dre and Lego and different things. Now you might think, well, you know that it doesn't. That's not me, you know I don't have my deals on there. But again, we've been talking about kind of like a move by Amazon to start having more deals with their prime video and their video assets, and even though this might not have regular third party sellers.   Bradley Sutton: You know we're not going to afford uh, you know, a spot in this once a year. You know, you know football game. But imagine, you know if millions of people are watching football and you know a certain percentage of them are going to go to buy these beats by Dre, or these legals or these other things. Now, all of a sudden guess what? It's a you know, commercial time, or it's a break, it's halftime, they're on the Amazon app and they're buying something else, but now that they might go ahead and browse other other things, you know. So this is good for for Amazon sellers. Even though you might not be taking advantage of this exact kind of advertising, you are advantaged by it because Amazon is sending all of this new traffic directly to Amazon and hopefully you know that they can find their way to one of your listings if they start browsing, you know, while they're waiting for the second half to start, or something like that.   Bradley Sutton: So, interesting, interesting things, how you know, the world of advertising for, for Amazon and the world of sports and entertainment is coming a little bit more together. Next, one article is actually just from you know, from my buddy, jeff Cohen's LinkedIn. I've been seeing this. You know multiple people post about this. I don't have access to this in my account but I wanted to, you know, show Jeff's post here because he was the first one that I saw talk about it. But on LinkedIn he says that Amazon post is going to soon support video. So Amazon post, you know, hopefully you guys are utilizing that. We've talked about how you can use the Amazon AI and the helium 10. I had to create images and captions completely automatically with Amazon or for for Amazon posts, but soon you're now going to be able to upload video. You know I personally have been seeing Amazon posts come up more in search results than in the past. Perhaps you've seen that before. So imagine if now in the search results you can see Amazon posts that have video. All right, so it's going to be pretty cool. Jeff talks about here in his his LinkedIn posts that he says that, hey, shoppers who interact with a post end up performing 45% more branded searches, and brands with 10 plus post have, on average, compared to brands with fewer than 10 posts, two and a half more time store visits and almost four times more followers. And so you know, the thought being that, hey, that's just with static images. How much more could, potentially, having video now increase your branded search and some of your traffic? So if you don't have it in your Amazon post section yet, you know, like me, it's probably going to come in the next few days for you. All right.   Bradley Sutton: Next article is actually from car and driver First time we're quoting car and driver here in the weekly buzz and it's entitled Hyundai to sell vehicles on Amazon starting in 2024. All right, says looking for a 2024 Hyundai, look no further than your Amazon Prime account. Now, again, does this affect third party sellers? You know, maybe, maybe not. I just thought this was an interesting kind of like article here, because that's just kind of crazy If you think about where things are going now. Basically, this article is saying that, hey, you're going to be able to like, pick your color and everything. You're going to use the buy box. There's going to be different dealers that maybe have different offerings. Different dealerships are now playing the game of fighting for the buy box like arbitrage sellers. There's no, there's no haggling here, and I just think it's like kind of like fascinating where the world of online commerce is going to. You know, buying brand new cars online is not new, but Amazon obviously is going to be the biggest website ever to sell new cars. And who knows, you know, maybe I'm just waiting for the first dealership to make a mistake on their coupon and they don't realize there's some coupons or deal of the day stacking and I'll be able to get a new Hyundai Santa Fe for like 50% off or something. My very first ever new car was a 1999 Hyundai Elantra. So yeah, I kind of only drive like he is and things now, but I still love my Korean car. So, who knows, maybe I might be one of the ones to be one of the first ones to buy a brand new car on Amazon.   Bradley Sutton: All right, that's it for the news articles this week. Actually, not that much going on Now. Before we get into the helium 10 new feature alerts, I wanted to call attention to a couple of newsletters. I've never really been one to promote newsletters, never even had my own until a couple of weeks ago, but there's only three newsletters that I subscribe to, or that I actually read out of all the ones out there, and so the first one is actually the billion dollar sellers newsletter. All right, so that's made by, obviously, kevin King from the helium 10 elite program and the AMPM podcast. It's very, very valuable. All right, there's not BS in here. There's actionable strategies. There's not a whole bunch of fluff. A lot of humor in there, though. So if you guys want to get strategies that you can use right away and some no BS newsletter, go ahead and go to h10.me forward slash BDSN. H10.me forward slash BDSN. Completely free to subscribe to that newsletter and a lot of great stuff. That's the first kind of like outside newsletter I ever read in my life, just because it's the only one worth it to me.   Bradley Sutton: Another one that I've been subscribing to for a little while is made by Pacvue’s own Melissa. All right, so this is on LinkedIn and this is called commerce accelerated. So if you guys want to subscribe to it, go to h10.m/melissa. Another great newsletter. A lot of advertising in there and a lot of, you know, high level strategies as well as stuff that affects, you know, third party sellers. The last article was a recap on Amazon unboxed that Melissa was at, and so I highly recommend subscribing to that newsletter. And then, of course, you know shameless plug. The last newsletter is the new weekly buzz newsletter that I'm doing. It's not just like a transcript of this weekly buzz. I go break down all of the news articles and have some video on there and some other. You know strategies as well. So if you guys want to subscribe on LinkedIn to my Helium 10 weekly buzz newsletter, just go to h10.me/newsletter. h10.me/newsletter. All right, now let's get into the Helium 10 new feature alerts. Every week, we are launching new tools, new features, new functionality. A lot of it comes from you, the users. So what do we have cooking for this week? Even though it's a short week, we still launching things. The very first one I want to talk about is for Cerebro and Magna, and these are custom filters.   Bradley Sutton: This has been asked for by a lot of you out there and you know you guys all have maybe your own strategy of how you run Cerebro as part of your process, like right, like maybe. Hey, I'm going to analyze, you know, 15 different niches and for everyone, one of my criteria. For example, what do I have? Here I'm showing a search volume of a minimum 400. And then a minimum number of one competitor. Maximum two are ranking between one and 20. And these keywords have a title density of three, like, like. There's like six filters that I'm using right there. Now, if you're having to do this search 10 times a day, right, because you know you're just doing some bulk research, it's probably a hassle for you to have to, one by one, re-enter all of these filters in. So now what we have is, once you enter some filters, at the very bottom of Cerebro, you are going to want to go ahead and hit this button called save as filter preset, right. And once you hit that button, another window will come up allowing you to go ahead and put a preset name and you can say, hey, this is my, you know, keyword research version one or whatever. And now this is going to show up as a one click filter at the very top of Cerebro, so that when you get into Cerebro, you enter the ASINs, you can just hit one button and it automatically populates your filters. Same thing for magnet. All right, let's say I have this process where I'm like hey, I out of all these keywords from what came out from, you know, these thousands of keywords that came out inside of my magnet search show me everything that has 500 search volume, that's at least three words, and that there's only 300 competing products for this keyword. Right, again, it might take a little bit of time to enter all these filters in. Once you do that again, just hit the save as filter preset and what's going to happen is you can just name this filter and then now, when you enter in, go into a magnet search, you are going to be able to just, you know, hit that button and your exact filters are going to come out.   Bradley Sutton: The next and the only other update for the days is for those of you who are on the Helium 10 supercharge. You know, plan our supercharge plans for like eight, nine figure sellers. You guys have some pretty crazy graphs that you're going to be able to do, all right. So on your insights dashboard you're at the very bottom there's a, there's a button that says add a chart, right, you know everybody else has access to this too, but you got supercharged members have access to kind of like a crazy, crazy next level charting system. All right, and this is just the beginning.   Bradley Sutton: So it takes you to a new page and then basically, what you're going to want to see is you can choose any two metrics that you want to compare, like, hey, I'm going to compare my ad click through rate with my unit soul. I want to compare RoAS, ACoS, ad spend and net profit. You know, all in the same chart. I want you know the dates to be preset. At this. I mean, like, pretty much, you're going to be able to now take anything that is in your, you know, helium 10 account, which comes from seller central, obviously all of your data, and then start putting it on graphs and tables and compare different things that you normally wouldn't be able to compare, because a lot of again, why do we have this? A lot of people were saying, hey, I love the data that's in Helium 10, but I end up having to, like, download it into Excel files and make my own power points and reports. No longer you can just compare anything you want, download the graphs and, and you know, make tables, et cetera. So that is for supercharged members. All right, that's it for the Helium 10 new feature alerts for this week.   Bradley Sutton: Last up, we have our training tip of the week and it's actually a PPC training tip, and it's with a guest speaker, mina Elias, who you guys all know and love, and this one is going to be about how you can audit your account. Like, maybe you haven't been paying enough attention to your PPC, well, how can you go in there and give it an audit, mina, let us know how. Mina question that we've gotten from our audience is hey, you know, I've been running PPC for a while. I'm running it on my own for now. How can I run like an audit to know if I'm doing well or not? What are the things that you look at so that somebody can really understand like, hey, I'm doing excellent. Or you know what? I need some improvement here and there?   Mina: Yeah, so I'll walk you through our audits and basically how I do an audit like step by step. Step number one I'm looking at portfolios. Are you organizing your products into portfolios, you know? Do you have like multiple child ASINs that are that have different campaigns, or are you lumping all of your, your child ASINs into the same campaigns? So then I would create the portfolios.   Mina: Next is my campaign naming convention. So are the campaigns named? Easily? For us it's like product code space dash space. You know the type of the ad, like close match, loose match, complements or substitutes, if it's auto, broad phraser, exact, product targeting, expanded ASIN, so what's the type of the ad? Space dash space. And then it's like the purpose of the ad. So if it has a purpose like ranking or you know branded, something like that, if it's like brand, brand name, and then you know space dash space, the source of the keywords, and so that's like if it came from helium 10 or if it came from the search term report or if it's like a main keyword or something like that. And that allows me to sort through campaigns pretty quickly, because whenever I'm looking at like show me all of the performance of my, like exact, you know keyword campaigns, then I can just type in exact in the search and it pops up.   Mina: Next I'm looking at the budgets of the campaigns, especially for campaigns that are either running out of budget or have a good row as. So if your campaign has a low a cost or a good row as, there's no reason that the budget should be low, even if you feel like, okay, my budget's $50 and I'm only spending $25 a day, it doesn't matter. Because what I've noticed is if I go from 50 to 250, I'll go from spending $25 a day to $80 a day, and if the ACOS is good, then you're just going to make more sales with the good ACOS it's definitely worth trying. And then if you're running out of budget, obviously that's also red flag. You should always control your spending based on a bid level. So lower the bids to spend less, as opposed to capping, you know, your spend on a budget level, because that I've seen just kind of effects performance negatively.   Mina: Then from there I'm going to click into the campaigns and I'm going to make sure that each of them have only one ad group. What I've noticed is multiple ad groups cause like, let's say, you have $100 budget, it could be $80 to one ad group and 20 to another ad group Again doesn't make any sense. I don't know why it happens, but it's something I want to avoid, because it could be that the $20 ad group is the one that has the better row, as but Amazon is. Primary objective is to make you sell more. And then, once I'm in the ad groups, the next thing I'm looking for is how many keywords do you have in there? If you have, you know, more than five keywords, I start suspecting that you might have keywords at the bottom not getting enough like budget. So I'll just sort by sales or sort by spend and then I'll see. Okay, you know keyword number one, two, three, four, five, they all have sales. But like six, seven, eight, they have like one sale in the last 30 to 60 days. And then keyword number nine onwards, they don't have any sales. So those keywords are all areas of opportunity. If I pause those keywords in that campaign, move them to, you know, create a new campaign with those keywords, give them another, another chance. With a good budget they could end up spending a lot more money on making sales. So that's the next thing that I look for.   Mina: Then I go into the placements tab. So, you know, do I find any placements like top of search or product pages where the ROAS and the click through rates are significantly better than they are in the rest of search? So, for example, if I look at, you know, in a campaign, I look at the placement tab and I see the top of search has like a 8% click through rate instead of like a 0.4 in rest of search and it has like a 7x ROAS instead of a 3x ROAS. What I'm going to do is I'm going to increase the bid by placement, you know, by 25% or something like that, just a small number, to what I'm telling Amazon is, if my bid is a dollar, I'm allowing you to spend up to a dollar and 25 cents. If it means that I'm going to show up on the top of page one, because, you know, I've seen, based on the data I'm converting, well, there, then I'm going to go into the targeting tab or the bulk sheet. You know, if you don't know how to use the bulk sheet, just stick to the targeting tab.   Mina: In the targeting tab I'm sorting for keywords that are not profitable, so only exact and product targeting. I'm going to, you know, just do either two types of keywords. One where I'm like orders equals zero and spend is greater than a certain number. So orders equals zero means it didn't make me any sales and I spent money. Let's say I spent more than $15, or like half of my product costs, with no sales.   Mina: I'll tell you how to handle them in a second. So those ones, I'm going to lower the bids or eat or pause them. You know, if it's spent $30 in the last 90 days and it didn't make any sales, just at this point it's not going to make any more sales. It could in the future, once you conversion rate significantly higher, but not right now.   Mina: So, and then the other thing is okay, I'm going to just sort by a cost. So show me everything that's greater than 75% echoes and again all of those. And warning guys, you know, for anything that's greater than 75% echoes, do not touch things that have a really good, like a really high number of sales, because the ACoS could be bad but in reality it could be driving a lot of sales, even on the organic side that it's just not being attributed. So again, ACoS is high. I'm going to lower the bids and then vice versa, I'm going to sort by anything that has like a row as greater than, let's say, 5x, for example, and then I'm going to increase the bids of all of those keywords, meaning I'm willing to show up higher in the search. And you can always do like a cross check with you know cerebral and see where you're ranking organically for those keywords. If you're ranking organically and sponsored high, you don't need to increase the bids, but if your organic and sponsored rank is low and your row as is good, it's worth trying to increase the bids, get more visibility, more clicks and more sales. Then I'm going to go into the search term report. That's the final piece. And in the search term report, again two directions.   Mina: Number one keywords that are not working. This is for auto broad phrase and expanded ASIN. The reason is for a broad keyword, it could be 30 different keywords that are being triggered in the search terms that are, you know, resulting in bad performance. So maybe five of them, 10 of them are bad, like low row as or spending, no sales, and then five or 10 are very good. So you want to keep the good ones and then negative the bad ones. So, again, a filter sales equals zero, spend greater than $15.   Mina: Take all of those keywords and go into the campaigns and add them as negatives, negative, exact, and then you know a cost greater than 85%. Again, be careful for keywords that are generating a lot of sales. But I can take all of those keywords, add them as negatives in the campaigns and then vice versa, I can identify any keywords with like greater than five RoAS. Take all of those keywords, find which match types they're not currently being targeted in. So maybe they're in broad, they got discovered in broad but I'm not actually targeting them in an exact campaign or a broad campaign or whatever. And then I take those keywords and start launching them in new campaigns so I can get more visibility on those keywords. But that's essentially what I'm doing, that, step by step, awesome.   Bradley Sutton: Awesome, all right guys. So if you want to get more tips from Mina about how to you know run PPC, make sure to check out his company and hubhealium10.com. You can look for Trivium. Or if you have a platinum account or higher, make sure to check out PPC Academy. It's in your learning hub on your Helium 10 dashboard. He's got tons of great modules there. Mina, thanks a lot for joining us.   Mina: Thanks for having me All right.   Bradley Sutton: Thanks very much, Mina, for that, and thanks to all of you guys for tuning in. Hope you guys enjoyed this edition and we'll see you next week to see what's buzzing.

Are you ready to skyrocket your knowledge of Amazon PPC? In this TACoS Tuesday episode, prepare to be amazed as we bring you the secrets of the trade from none other than Elizabeth Greene, the co-founder of Amazon ads agency Junglr. Dive into the world of data analytics and learn why understanding the numbers behind the numbers is crucial. Whether you're a beginner or a seasoned seller, we've got insights that are bound to give your Amazon PPC game a boost. We talk about the core strategies for launching new products, from using supplementary keywords to strategic ad placements. We uncover the importance of context when branching into new markets and how to leverage different keyword match types to target specific search terms. Learn about optimizing strategies for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and how to manage your budget effectively during these peak seasons. Lastly, ignite your understanding of advertising for branded products on Amazon. We debate the significance of tracking the share of search and using Search Query Performance reports, and reveal our strategies for advertising for products with only a few relevant keywords. Tune in and take away valuable strategies and insights that will elevate your Amazon advertising game to new heights.   In episode 511 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Shivali and Elizabeth talk about: 00:00 - It's Time For Another TACoS Tuesday Episode! 05:34 - Evaluating and Auditing PPC Strategy  08:10 - Analyzing Ad Spend Efficiency and Impact 12:34 - Advertising Strategy and Keyword Targeting 17:45 - Advertising Strategy for New Product Launch 25:32 - Keyword Research Using Helium 10 30:51 - Using Keywords and Sales Volume 36:31 - Optimizing Bids for Better Ad Performance 42:22 - Control Ad Spend, Gain Campaign Impressions ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast ► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension ► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup  (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life) ► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft ► Watch The Podcasts On Youtube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos Transcript Shivali Patel: Today, on TACoS Tuesday, we answer all of your PPC questions live, as well as discuss what you could be doing in terms of launching and auditing your PPC campaigns during the Q4 season. Bradley Sutton: 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. Shivali Patel: All right, hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Series Dollars podcast by Helium 10. I'm your host, Shivali Patel, and this is the show that is our monthly TACoS Tuesday presentation, where we talk anything and everything Amazon ads. So today we have a special guest with us, and that is Elizabeth Greene, who is the co-founder of an Amazon ads agency called Junglr. So with that, let's go ahead and bring her up. Hi, Elizabeth, how are you? I'm doing well, how are you? Elizabeth: Very good. Shivali Patel: So, nice to have you on. Thank you for joining us. Elizabeth: Yeah, thanks for having me. These are always, always fun. Shivali Patel: And what an exciting time to be talking about Amazon ads to a fat. It's cute for you. Oh my goodness, you must be slammed. Elizabeth: Life is a little bit crazy right now, but you know it comes with the territory. Shivali Patel: So it does. It is peak season I see we have someone coming, so it's a very exciting time to be in business and I'm looking forward to reading your questions and hopefully having Elizabeth answer them Now. The first question here says what can you suggest for a beginner like me, who is just starting out, and what and where can I learn to grow as much as possible? Elizabeth: I would actually say there's two skills that one, in the beginning, none of us have, and they are skills and they can be learned, even though they're considered more quote, soft skills. Data analytics made it not as much. Shivali Patel: My two things are going to be. Elizabeth: Data analytics and communication skills Community Asian sales are, you're going to find, are quite important when it comes to management of accounts management of accounts that are not your own. So if you are, even if you're a brand manager in a company or, you know, obviously, at an agency seller and a sourcing person, okay then I'm going to go with data analytics. Data analytics are going to be your friend. The things that I've kind of discovered have been, like you know, sort of mind blowing. For me are the numbers behind, the numbers Meaning. So when you're trying to evaluate ACoS, right, a lot of people are like, oh, it costs one up, it costs with down. Great, I know this, I can look at the account. What the heck am I going to do about it? Data analytics really good data analytics not only tell you the what, but the why and then the what next. So you're, if you can get really really good at the why and the what next, that's going to really set you apart and the way that I kind of have come to it. This is my own personal journey. Maybe there's other people who are way smarter than me, have way better journeys, but for me it has been, again understanding the numbers behind the numbers to have, for example, right, you start in a little bit of a way, it's kind of like the matrix. Elizabeth: So when you're breaking down, say ACoS, right, you go, okay, ACoS one up, big, else one down. Why right, what the heck happened? You're like, oh, wait, I can calculate ACoS by ad spend divided by ad sales. Okay, so it's either that ad spend went up and sales remain consistent or went down, or ad sales went down and spend remain consistent. She like, oh, okay, there's those two variables. Okay, now I can say, okay, ad spend increased. And then I can go, okay, ad spend increased. Great, I know that why. And then you're like, okay, so I can calculate my ad spend by my cost per click, by my number of clicks. Elizabeth: So either my cost per click went up or the number of clicks happening in my account went up. And then you can look at those two variables and go, oh, okay, it's the number of clicks. Why? Oh, I just launched a whole bunch of new stuff. Okay, that's why. Or my cost per click went up exponentially. Why? Maybe you know, it's just a natural market change thing. Talking about prime time, peak season, now you're probably going to see cost per clicks going up. It's a market thing. Versus other times you might have aggressively increased a whole bunch of bits in your account and so then you go check back. So data analytics that's the way I view it. I am not classically trained on data analytics, I just have looked at it for over five years now and tried to figure out the what the heck is going on a question and the what to do about it questions, and so those. That's my way of sort of. I've learned to sort of peer into the matrix. So if you can get really good at understanding not just what the data is but what it's telling you, that's really going to get you to the next level. Shivali Patel: Definitely, and I think a lot of people have very different strategies. I think Elizabeth's strategy, you know, is definitely one you should take into consideration. But also, the best way to learn is going to be trial and error and until you're really sifting through your own data, I think it's going to be hard to you know gauge sort of what's happening. I think a lot of things in business are just as they come. Now I want to kind of take the other side of that and go into, let's say, somebody's not a beginner, right, somebody's been selling for a while. They're more established. What do you recommend to somebody who might be evaluating or trying to audit their own PPC strategy? Elizabeth: Next level is going to be evaluating things on a per product level. And let me clarify when I say per product, I mean per listing. The reason why is the data gets kind of funky when you pull it down to a skew level. You definitely can, but there's some nuances that you really want to be aware of that can kind of lead you in the wrong direction if you're looking at a per skewer, per child days and level. But if you can start looking at your ad strategy, your sales growth, everything through the lens of listings, that's really going to take you to the next level. Shivali Patel: So when you see listings, are you talking about maybe like the conversion metrics? Are you looking at the keywords that you're using, sort of what is like the underlying factors? I guess all the above. Elizabeth: Honestly, but to make sense of it all. Because, to your point, like force for the trees, if you look at like everything, then do you walk away being like I have no idea what in the world I'm supposed to focus on? So the way that we've begun looking at it and the reason why we started looking at it like this is because we managed several clothing accounts. Talk about complexity, talk about force for the trees. You're like where in the world do I start? And you want to make impact on these accounts. Right, you can't just like all right, I did my bit, adjustments and call it good. Like you really want to get at our hands dirty and like really start improving the accounts. But you're like where in the world do I focus? So what we've started doing is percentage of total have been a little bit of a game changer. They're not, it's not the newest thing on the block. A lot of people use this percentage of total, but the two things that we look at is the percentage of total sales of each. Again, we're talking about a listing level. Again, reason clothing you have up to hundreds of different SKUs on a per listing level. Like how the heck do you make sense of it. So how do we make sense of it is rolling it up to the parent listing level and then looking at the percentage of total ad spend, again on a per listing. Elizabeth: So this gives you a lot of clarity into what products are driving the most sales for the brand. And then, what products are we spending, are we investing the most ad spend on? And when you look at it this way, it's very common to have these things happen in the account. If you haven't been paying attention to them, you oftentimes will see like oh wow, this product's driving 2% of my total sales volume and I'm spending 10% of my total ad spend here. Like that's probably a discrepancy. Maybe I should go and adjust those ads. So that gives you a lot of clarity. And then to court of gauge because again we're an ad agency, so ads are the thing that we focus on the most to help and drive improvements for the brands is we will look at the impact of the total spend on that per product. So again, percentage of total ad spend, and then we'll look at what we call like quote ad spend efficiencies, meaning ACoS, Total ACoS, ad sale percentage, also the delta between your ad conversion rate and your total conversion rate. Our unit session percentage is actually really helpful gauge. And so we're like, okay, we're investing most of our dollars here. How is our efficiency on that large investment? Elizabeth: And then you can sort of pinpoint like, oh, wow, I'm investing most of my ad spend into this product, to the point of like 5% of total brand sales, 13% of total ad spend investments. And wow, the ad spend investments are really unprofitable. Now, if you're in a launch phase, there might I mean there's context that you need to add to the numbers, to the point of like telling the story with data. And if you're managing the brand, you probably know the context. But at least it goes as okay. So here's two products we should dig into more. Here's two products we need to probably invest more of our ad spend on. And it really starts to clarify things when you really kind of understand how to see the picture in that way. Shivali Patel: To kind of follow up on that how do you really end up deciding which keywords to go after, as well as, maybe, how to really structure them into campaigns in accordance with your budget, because I know that's different for everyone? Elizabeth: Yes, it definitely is. We will always focus on relevancy first in the beginning. Now there are certain times if you're doing like a brand awareness play or you're like, wow, I've really targeted my market and I need to branch out, like what's the next hill? Absolutely go after categories, you know like, go after those brand awareness plays. But if you're in the beginning and you're in a launch, the nuance of Amazon advertising is you're not building, you don't build the audience. Amazon has built the audience for you. Elizabeth: All we're looking to do is use specific keywords or search terms to get in front of the audience that is already existing and that's where relevancy comes in. So you're saying where is my specific shopper? What are they using to search for products like mine? And I need to make sure I'm showing up there. So we're always going to prioritize that. That typically is going to get you better conversions, you know, better clicks, more interactions with your brand and which leads to more sales. And then also on the flip side, and if you're doing this on launch, it is a really good product sort of evaluation, because if you're showing up exactly in front of your target shoppers and your click rate is terrible and your conversion rate is terrible and like nobody's buying, there's probably a signal that maybe there's things to adjust with the listing or other factors that you should look into. Shivali Patel: Do you ever go into, like branch into, I guess, supplementary keywords where maybe it's not exactly for the product but it's maybe like a related product, and where do you really place those sort of ads? Elizabeth: Yeah, so when we'll do it is really dependent on the overall performance and the ads spend or profit goals, right? I mean, it seems so stupid, simple, but if you are advertising more, you're going to be spending more, and if you're struggling to bring down Total ACoS or ACoS again, ad spend divided by ad sales, the one thing you can control with ads is ad spend. So in those cases when we're looking to bring down Total ACoS, we're typically looking at pulling back on ad spend. So if a product or brand is in that phase, I'm not going to be like let's launch all these broad things and we're not quite sure how they're going to convert, right? So context is really key here, but when it comes to branching out, it really is dependent. Elizabeth: You will find certain products on launch where, like, for some reason, it's really difficult to convert on the highly relevant terms but, like adjacent markets or, to your point, like somewhat related keywords or related products, actually work really well. So we're always going to prioritize what's working. So if we're like finding all of these search terms that are popping up through, like, say, broad match or autos or something, wow, we weren't aware that this is actually a really great market for us. But it's very obvious, looking at the data, that's something that we should, that's a direction we should go in. Then obviously we'll push towards that direction. But depending on if we're going to like decide to branch out on our own, it probably is highly dependent on the ad spend and then also sort of the phase of the product, meaning like how we kind of conquered everything and what's our next play. Shivali Patel: And in terms of when you are launching, yes, we're going for the most relevant keywords, right, that are where you can find your target audience. But what about in terms of exact match, like yes, are you going directly into exact match and auto and broad all at the same time? Are you just kind of doing exact first and then branching into auto? Elizabeth: Yeah, so we do like exact first. I'm still a huge fan of like all the above, exact phrase and broad. The one thing that we have found is like within your exact match, you can just be more specific on what search pages you're spending your ad dollars on. So if you, especially if you have limited budgets in the beginning and you're like, hey, I really want to make sure that I hyper target these keywords, exact match makes a lot of sense. Now, if you're talking about you like branching out, we're still going to prioritize putting a higher bids on our exact match keyword. So we're still going to try and have most of. Elizabeth: Let me say this if you're going to be aggressively spending on a specific search page, you're like I've identified this keyword, this is my ranking keyword, I'm going to put a lot of budget behind it. Exact match all the way. Now I don't want anyone to say that clip and be like wow, she hates broad and freight. Like, no, I love all the above. Like we run autos, run multiple autos, category targeting, like all the above, do it. But if you're trying to get really aggressive with something, it's just it's the nature of how the match type works more than like it's quote best, because they don't really think it is. Shivali Patel: Now I do see that we have some new questions, so let me go ahead and pop them up. We have can you give a refresher on how people can do modifiers, since nowadays exact sometimes performs as phrase match and phrase sometimes is like broad. So if someone wants to make sure that an exact is that exact two word phrase is adding plus in the middle self that. Elizabeth: Yes, it does, but caveat, it only officially does in sponsor brand ads. If you look at the document, I mean I gotta go check it because they're like they keep updating the documentation on the slide and like not notifying us. But from my understanding and from the reps I've talked to, and also the search storm reports, I've seen modified broad match I don't believe a hundred percent works all the time in sponsored product ads, which is super annoying. So for those of you listening who are unaware of what a modified broad match is or modified search terms, modified broad match is a thing in sponsor brand ads. So the way that broad match keywords work in sponsored brand ads and they have sense care that over to sponsor product ads is that it cannot only target. You know we do classic broad match, right, you can put keywords in the middle, you can swap stuff around. But like if I had the keyword running shoe, right, both the word running and the word shoe must be present in the search term for your kind of traditional sponsor product broad match. It's not the case anymore. Elizabeth: You can target what's called related keywords. So for example, one would be like sneaker, right, it's kind of related to running shoe. And if you wanna say. I stuck a screenshot out on LinkedIn not that long ago and I was like, how is this relevant? Like one of them, it was like targeting like a bread knife and the search term that it triggered was like ballerina farm, go figure, I don't know, but like, so you can get like this really weird, funky stuff. So what we do to kind of combat that one, just keep up on your negatives these days, like, keep a sharp eye on your search and reports and add those negatives. Elizabeth: But the one thing that you can do is just sort of like to Bradley's point make each those individual words have to show up is if, in front of each of those words that you want to make sure are present in the search term, you can add a little plus symbol. So in the example of like, say running shoes, I would say plus shoes, plus what is our running whatever? Plus running, plus shoes, right, and then that would trigger to the algorithm. Okay, you have to use these things inside of your searches, which again is a factor in sponsored brand ads. If you look at the documentation, they do say that modified broad match is a thing and it's been a thing for a while. I just hasn't been super popular. But I haven't read documentation that they've rolled that over into sponsored product ads. I don't think it's a bad idea to get in the practice of using modified broad match and sponsored product ads though. Shivali Patel: Okay, thank you for answering that question. We also have another one that says I'm going to be launching a brand new store for FBA and Shopify for my own manufactured product. What will you suggest that I do for the first few months? Elizabeth: Well, I'm gonna assume that the question is saying, with ads because that's my area of expertise like new product launches, there's a lot. So definitely follow @HumanTank because they way more than just add advice to offer you. But as far as the advertising, I would prioritize keyword research for the product launches. That actually would be really helpful when you're trying to vet even the space for your particular products. And then I would again, I would hyper focus on relevancy in the beginning. I would run that in exact match, probably high bids. Elizabeth: In the beginning you're looking for two things. You're looking to get eyeballs on your product, ideally those eyeballs conferring to sales that is remain to be seen, based on how appealing your product is to the market and how good your search pages et cetera. But you want to get eyeballs in the product and then you want to use those eyeballs to sort of vet again how much these shoppers like your particular product for purchase. So that's what I do. I would focus on those again for like the first couple weeks is typically what we do, and then you might sort of branch out into phrase match run, auto campaigns et cetera. Now here's a trick is how many keywords you choose in the beginning to launch is actually going to be determined by your budgets. So I have seen so many sellers in the groups like they'll be like oh my gosh, I just launched and launched my ads and I'm spending like $1,000 a day and I can't afford it and I don't know what's going on. Again, it's simple, kind of seems like stupid logic but the more keywords you're advertising on, the more clicks you're gonna get, the more cost per clicks you're gonna pay, the higher ads spent. So you actually want to factor in what you're doing for your launch strategy with your budgets. Elizabeth: Like I just got off a client call and we're like all right, we have these new product launches. Yeah, it's a really competitive space. It's like skincare. We're not gonna have reviews in the beginning. You know what? In the beginning we're gonna keep ad budgets really lean and we have a really good brand recognition. We're just gonna leverage brand recognition because we know the conversion rates are gonna be there. It's gonna help us get the initial products. But we also are understanding that if that's the strategy we're running again a little bit more limited, just leveraging brand lower budgets we're not expecting the sales to be exponential in the beginning. So it's like setting expectations and then kind of understanding what makes sense for you at this stage. Shivali Patel: Okay, and, keeping that in mind, the review portion that you're mentioning, right, yeah, you end up like, let's say, for example I'm not sure if I'll pronounce it right, but in Sweat's example right, his question when he's launching, do you end up waiting for the reviews to file in before you are running those ads or do you end up just kind of going in? And of course, there's many moving components, yeah, there's a lot of moving parts. Elizabeth: It depends on what the brand's wants to do. Typically we will start running stuff out of the gate Again. We just kind of set expectations. The reason why ACoS is so high in the beginning is for two reasons. One, your conversion rate tends to be a little bit lower and then, two, your cost per clicks tend to be a little bit higher because you really are trying to get aggressive to be able to get that visibility on the product and then over time, ideally, conversion rates improve because you get more reviews and then cost per clicks hopefully go down as you optimize. So between those two things, that helps it get better. So we just set expectations with like hey, because conversion rates are low means it takes more clicks to convert, which means ACoS is gonna be a little bit higher and we expect potentially sales not to be still or out of the gate. Sometimes it'll be surprised. Sometimes you launch a product and you're like, wow, this is amazing, this thing just absolutely took off and I hope for all of you listening, that is the case for you and your new products, but it's not always the case. So it's really more setting expectations and then just deciding what makes sense for you. Shivali Patel: Why would someone create like a branded campaign If they've already have their standard stuff? Do you maybe want to talk a little bit about branded campaigns? Elizabeth: Yeah, there's two kinds of branded campaigns. One is considered branded, or maybe brand defense is what you might call it. One of them is you have a whole bunch of products. Which you might do is you would advertise your own products on your other listings. The goal of that is you'd be like, hey, if somebody is going to click off, they might as well click onto my own product. Again, it's called a defensive strategy because you're plugging people off and refer to it. It's like plugging the ad spots. My competition can't get this ad spot on my listing. The other thing that you might do is if you have any branded searches happening so people searching your brand on Amazon then what you can do is you can again advertise your own products. Elizabeth: There's a lot of debate out there. They're like, oh, if I already have people searching for my brand, why in the world would I be spending on it? Because they're going to convert for my brand anyways. Yeah, there's arguments to be made. The things that you can do is you actually track your share of search in using search query performance reports to look at your own branded traffic and be like am I losing out on sales through my branded traffic? That's something you can do if you want to be like, is it worth it for me to run? But the second thing and the one I was referring to when I was talking about that more specific launch that we're doing is if you have great brand recognition meaning there's a lot of people searching for your brand you've already built up a lot of traffic to your current listings and you have a new product that fits very well into that brand. Elizabeth: So example I just gave was we have a brand that has a skincare line. Right, they have their launching complimentary products. They have really good repeat purchase rates. What we can do is for people searching their brand, we can make sure that the new products are then advertised and show up high on their branded search, where they might show up lower before if we weren't leveraging ads for that. And then what happens is someone's typing in the brand like oh, wow, there's a new product from this brand. Awesome, and most likely not always, but of course you know you read the data, but most likely you're going to get people purchasing very similar. You know you can use ads to be able to get visibility again on your own products, but you're using your new offering. So that's kind of a way to like. If you have a good brand, share to be like. Hey, I got a new product. I want to try it out using ads. Shivali Patel: Got it, and I see Sasha has a question here, and it is what's the best way to research Amazon keywords for low competition products? And I'll go ahead and add as well what do you do in the case if, let's say, there is not necessarily a market, maybe it's a brand new product that doesn't end up having any sort of crossover? You're creating a sub niche. Elizabeth: Yes, those are the most difficult. The two most difficult products to advertise for are one to your point of like there really is no relevant traffic for it. Or two, when you only have one keyword that has any search volume and there's like nothing else besides one or two keywords, because every single one of your competitors knows those one or two keywords and there's really not anything else to choose from. So there's not really a way to like play a sophisticated game. You just got to like grin and bear it in those categories, which is like kind of painful sometimes. So reword I mean your keyword research is really going to be exactly the same as for any other product. You're going to be looking at your competitors, seeing what they rank you for. I mean, we use Helium 10, love Helium 10, just did a walkthrough of how we did keyword research using Helium 10. Like it's a really great tool. Elizabeth: The one different way that we have of generating your first keyword. We actually generate two keyword less in the beginning. So what we'll do is we'll use, say, like a commonly searched keyword. So a lot of times people will start with like all right, type in a commonly searched keyword and then like, look at the ranked competitors, choose them, you know, choose the relevant ones and then go through that. What we will do is we will take that first you know pretty general keyword that we're pretty sure is relevant to the products, and what we'll do is we'll type that into. Elizabeth: I'm going to get them mixed up. I'm going to say it's magnet, it's the keyword research tool, so you type it in and then you look at search, so you sort by search volume and what we'll do is we'll actually go down that first list and find what we call our highest search volume, most relevant keyword. So what you're looking for is the intersection between where you actually have good shop or search, and it is also relevant to your product, because the more hyper relevant you get to the product, typically speaking, not always the lower your search volume is going to be. On those keywords You're like all right, what's my top of the mountain? Because oftentimes people will be like, oh, metal cup, that's a great keyword, yes, but it's not highly relevant keyword. So you're looking for, like women's metal cup for running or something like is there a good search volume there? How can I like niche down a set? And then what we'll do is we'll take that search page for a highly relevant keyword and use that as our springboard to find our top competitors. Shivali Patel: So we do also have a question from David where he asks how would you use not sure what that's supposed to say for top competitive keywords when your product have multiple attributes such as gold diamond ring, gold solid hair ring and engagement rings should I run through, bro, on each? I'm assuming that's just supposed to be. How would you search for top competitive keywords? So? Yeah so I would, I would just look for. Elizabeth: I would look for whatever is the highest relevancy, highest search volume, one that's going to give it and you're going to have a lot of applicable keywords. So the walkthrough that I did I think it's just yesterday what we did is we were looking at baby blanket, and what we start doing with our final keyword list when we're looking again we're prioritizing relevancy is you will find what we call buckets of keywords, right. So when I was doing baby blanket, it was like girls receiving blanket, receiving blanket for boys, like some like okay, there's a bunch of girl keywords and their bunch of boy keywords and these are actually a little bit related to specific variations. You can start getting really sophisticated with it. But as you do that keyword research and as you're looking for that relevancy, you're probably going to find a lot of these buckets. So what we'll do on launch is we'll like take our group out and be like okay, so to your point, we have a bunch of diamond keywords. Elizabeth: Oh wait, I have a bunch of solitary keywords, right. So you can actually group those. I can take all my solitary ones and be like hmm, I wonder if the search term solitaire is. I wonder if people like my product in relation to that search. Okay, so let me take that out. Let me put those in their own campaign. I'll label the campaign like solitary keywords or something and then I would advertise the products there or engagement ranks, right, okay, maybe that's applicable to my products. Let me again pull those out and put them in a subgroup and a campaign. The reason why I like doing this is because then I can just scan campaign manager instead of having to like go in and like, look at a campaign with, like the solitaire keywords, engagement ring keywords, gold, diamond keywords. I can be like, oh, these are sub group in campaigns and then when I'm in campaign manager, I can simply look at how each of those three campaigns are performing and be like oh, wow, it seems like gold, diamond ring keywords actually perform best and you still want to analyze at a keyword level. But that makes it a little bit more scalable to like understand shop or search behavior in relation to your product. Shivali Patel: Now I see that David also would like to know about the filter for keyword sales filter, which it is essentially just telling you on average how many sales occur for that particular keyword every single month. So that's really what you're looking at there, but, Elizabeth, maybe you want to expand on whether that's something that you end up looking at when you're doing your keyword research for these different brands that you work with. Elizabeth: I don't really Everything honest. The two things that I look at actually probably three things is I would like to look at. We look at numbers to the count of competitors that are ranking again, because we're doing that whole like find, you know, do the first list to find the second keyword, to find the really really super specific products. So if you can find good super specific products, then you can kind of like use their ranking on the keywords. So actually I love that Helium 10 added in that column because it was one that a lot of us were like calculating. Elizabeth: When I'm like God, I don't have to do the formula, I just already filter for the list, so it's really awesome. So we'll download that list and then you know, we'll just see what's the highly relevant and the kind of cross check that with search volume you can use. I don't think it's a bad idea to use, you know, kind of like the sales volume, because sometimes what you'll find is that even though there's like a high search volume, if the keyword is sort of like a little bit broader keyword, you might actually not have as much sales volume through those keywords as you would think. So it's not a bad idea to analyze it at all. We just find if we're like again, we're super honed in on that relevancy factor, then we tend to come up with the ones that have better sales volume anyways. Shivali Patel: Okay, I think that's really, really insightful. We also have Sergio. Sergio, do you like to use the same keywords for each campaign in broad phrase, and exact campaigns? Elizabeth: I do. I would say the one sort of not qualifier would put on it, the one thing you should be aware of. I would recommend keeping the bids lower in the broad and the phrase match. I don't always agree with Amazon's recommendations, but if you listen to their recommendations on this, they actually recommend that you keep it lower. Shivali Patel: And Sasha has a question. If I was to start selling a product that has a monthly volume of 60,000 units a month, how should I position myself? Should I run out? Elizabeth: I would first want to know how the product performs. That's your first goal. You want to figure out what your average cost per click is and you want to figure out what your actual conversion rate is. Once you have those factors, you can actually start building production models and sales production models and stuff. Actually, it's not hard to build or not search. You want to search traffic production models based on oh, I want to hit $50,000 a month in products, this is my conversion rate. What you need is you need your conversion rates. You really need your conversion rates is the main one, and then you're going to need your cost per clicks in the ads to be like all right, this is what it's going to cost me. Right now, you're going off of nothing. I know I've said it about 20 different times on this live, but I'm going to say it again relevancy, focus on your exact target market, see what your numbers tell you, and then you can build up from there. Shivali Patel: I think that's a good plan, so hopefully that is helpful for you. Sasha, I see we have Sweat's leaving, but he has found the response was informative. Now I wanted to touch on something we talked about at the beginning of this call, which is Q4, right, we've been talking a little bit about auditing your strategy and some general PPC knowledge, but also what about, I'm sure a lot of you guys that are watching? If you're already selling, then you probably aren't full swing. Maybe you've already gone ahead and optimized your listings for Q4. But what happens if maybe somebody is just starting to be like oh no, I completely dropped the ball? Do you have? Hopefully, not Hopefully, none of you guys are in that position, but let's say something like that happens, sort of maybe if you have a take on what somebody can do to make sure that they're still able to tap in on Q4's potential. Elizabeth: Yeah, so we're assuming it's a brand new launch product and we have nothing. Shivali Patel: We can assume that they've been selling for a while, but they haven't changed anything for Q4. Elizabeth: Got it, got it, got it. Ok, no, that's fine. So I would say if you're already selling, most likely you probably have some ad structure. You're not in a bad spot. Ok, q4, right before Black Friday, December and Monday, we're not launching a whole bunch of test campaigns. Don't do it, because what happens is Black Friday, Cyber Mondays Really, what you're doing, you don't get same. Elizabeth: I know there's not really data available, but honestly, nobody's really looking at that. An inside campaign manager. You're not going to be able to say, oh OK, I got 20. My ACOS was so much better this last hour, so let me increase these budgets, right? What you have to do is you have to look back at historical data. So if you want to test anything, do it before this week is out. Get those campaigns up, get that data, because you're going to be completely flying blind If you launched a bunch of stuff a day before. You're completely flying blind on performance metrics and it's so easy because of how many clicks are happening on the platform to really lose your shirt. So I would say, if you're like oh my gosh, I don't have any specific campaign set up for Black Friday, so that's fine, you're actually in a really good spot. So what you want to do these weeks leading up to it you actually still have time you want to go into your account and you want to evaluate what is working now, what is crushing it right now, and then I'm going to make sure, as that traffic comes in, that those have good budgets. I have healthy bids on them. Elizabeth: To be honest, days of for the most part, unless we have a really specific keyword on a very specific brand, they're like we have to be aggressive when we must win top of search for this particular keyword. For the most part, we're adjusting budgets. Day of is our typical optimizations. So what we're doing prior to that is we're like all right, if we're going to be increasing budgets, we want to make sure that all of this is super solid. So you're doing two things. One, you're identifying all the stuff that really works and you're like all right, I need to make sure again, budgets are healthy, bids are healthy, all my optimizations are done. And then the second thing we're doing and this is also very important is what is all the stuff that's not working, meaning Clips with no Sales? Where are all my high costs, low sale keywords going on? Here's a good one. What are all my untested stuff, that I've just been increasing bids. So it's so easy. Elizabeth: If you're like normal optimizations, right, we're going to go in what has no impressions, increase the bids. We do this as well. It is not a bad practice. What often happens, especially if you don't have any caps so we have caps, we're like, all right, we're never going to increase past x amount of dollars or whatever If you don't have any caps. Sometimes what happens is you're like you can end up with like $10 bids. Elizabeth: So what I would recommend doing go into your targeting tab. I would filter for everything with zero orders, or you could just leave it totally blank, sort by the bid what has the highest bid in your account and you might look at it and be like holy crap, I had no idea that was in there. And what you want to do is what we call a bid reset. So you're just looking at all this stuff and you're like, hey, it's not getting any impressions. Anyways, it's not going to hurt me if I lower my bids, but then at least I know when that traffic hits all of a sudden that random keyword that didn't have any search volume, that I had like $10 bid on. It's not going to like pop off and waste all of my ad budgets. Elizabeth: There's another filter that is really helpful to identify the irrelevant stuff. I'm not saying pause all these things. I'm saying use this filter to bring to the top everything that you're like how the heck did that get in there? Because it's super easy. When we're looking in our search term reports we're like, oh, this converted once. Let me go test it Again. Great practice. What happens is sometimes you get these random things in the account so easy for it to happen. So what you do is you go again. Targeting tab is going to be your friend here. You're going to want to filter for anything that has what is it? Zero clicks, zero, maybe once, two clicks. Elizabeth: We're looking for impressions. It has probably at least 1,000 impressions on it and you want to filter the click-through rate by anything that is lower than maybe a 0.2 or 0.15. So this says it's got a lot of impressions, it's not really doing anything in terms of sales volume and it's got really bad click-through rates. And then sort that by either your click-through rates highest or lowest to highest, or you can maybe start by impressions, highest to lowest. So what you're trying to do is what it has a bunch of eyeballs that nobody cares about and what you're doing is that brings up. Elizabeth: So a lot of people saw it. Not. A lot of people clicked on it, which oftentimes means irrelevant stuff, and because it's only got a couple clicks, there's not a lot of data, so it hasn't moved into our optimization sequences. So again, it's just a once over of the account. The first time you do this you'll probably be like what the heck, why is that there? And then, if you find that great pause, it put low bids on it, just kind of. Again, we're doing clean up. If you don't find anything that doesn't make sense for you, conkudos to. You're doing really, really good targeting. But either way, it's a really good thing to give it a once over before again traffic hits and things kind of go crazy. Shivali Patel: Now we do also have your keyword sale filter. Says 89 with low search volume, and another keyword has 20 keyword sales but a higher search volume. Is there one that you would kind of opt for? I know you said you don't typically look at the keyword sales Filter. Elizabeth: Yeah. So the two things I would look for is one I'm gonna say again, relevancy. I believe in it so strongly, I'm gonna say it again. And then the other thing that you would look at is, you know, the Helium sandwich. Again, another thing that I appreciate that you guys have added to the download keyword reports is the Recommended bits. Now, again, you guys are pulling them direct from the API, like Amazon does provide the recommended bits. However, as we all know, like if you go in you launch campaign, you like add different products, the recommended bids change, so their benchmarks don't take them as gospel, but they are really helpful to again kind of help you identify how competitive a particular keyword is over the other. So, like a budget's were concerned, you're like, well, you know, this one has like 20 sale, like the sales volume is pretty good, but like, wow, that one's Really competitive. I got to pay two dollars cost per click versus the other one where I'm like, well, I only have to pay like 50 cents cost per click. That probably would play into my decision. Shivali Patel: Okay, all right, there's. I know I said to, but let's just do this last one and then we'll. We'll call it. And so how do you structure your top keyword campaigns versus your complementary keywords? I know we briefly touched on this earlier. Elizabeth: Yeah, so I will cash with. So I saying I'm not a huge fan of doing everything as a single keyword campaign. I think it's way too overkill. You end up getting way more confused than you do in sight From doing it like that. That being said, if we do, I definitely have like a top keyword. We are going to put that in a single keyword, exact, match, specific campaign. The sort of it depends Questions and answers that I always give is the more the higher amount of Control I need over where I'm going to be directing my ad spend, the less keywords I want to have. Then more important it is for me to gain impressions on this keyword. For, again, for my campaign strategy, the less keywords I'm going to have. So if it is a top keyword, if it's my main ranking keyword, if it's super, super important to me, single keyword campaign right, because that's I need to control ad spend. I need a lot of impressions on this and super, super important versus another keyword set, right. Maybe I don't really have it. So the other, very other end of the spectrum is going to be like a whole bunch of a Campaign that actually works really well. Elizabeth: For us is single word meaning, like you know, cup bowl dish In broad match low bits. Do not put high-pits on these. Even if you have great ACoS, don't put high bits. Not a good idea. But we'll run these all the time. But what happens is because we cap our bids at, say, I think it's from 25 cents, maybe 30 cents, maybe in 15 cents. We never intend to grow our bids past that, right. Elizabeth: So how is it important for me to control ad spend at the campaign level? Not really because I'm controlling it at my bid level, right. How important is it for me to gain impressions? Not really because I'm expecting half of these keywords to not get impressions whatever. So I would be fine with putting, you know, say, 50, 100 keywords in that campaign, right, because for me it makes no sense to create 10 different campaigns that I have to like keep an eye on, versus just one important like oh yeah, that's that strategy and that's kind of like my background thing, right. So I would look at it through that lens again. How important is it for me to control spend at the campaign level? And then, how important is it for me to gain Impressions on these particular keywords? The more infatily you answer yes to those two questions, the less keywords you should have in that campaign. The more you don't really care about those two things, or they don't really matter as much then I would be okay with a lot more keywords. Shivali Patel: Alright, well, wonderful. Thank you so much, Elizabeth, for your time and your information, your knowledge. We appreciate it. I know a lot of people learned quite a bit. Sasha says thank you. We have sweat who says you know he was also waiting on those other questions that you were answering. That was very informative, so we do appreciate it so much. And yeah, that is it for today. You guys will catch you on the next TACoS Tuesday. Thank you! Elizabeth: Awesome! Thanks, I appreciate it.

If you've ever wanted a peek into the world of Amazon selling, this episode is your golden ticket. We're joined by elite sellers and Amazon specialists, Christine Douheret and Sasha Zubatov, who share invaluable insights and strategies they've used to overcome challenges and achieve incredible success in the E-commerce space. With their unlikely backgrounds - Christine hailing from Hollywood with a degree in interior design and Sasha from New York with a computer science degree - they bring unique perspectives to the table. Our guests reveal their strategies, such as utilizing flat files and Helium 10 Elite training, that have helped them stay ahead of the curve. They divulge how their diligent manual research, constant learning, and strategic use of VAs have been instrumental to their success. Listen in as Christine recounts her staggering 300% sales growth in just a year, and Sasha shares her client's seven-figure sales accomplishment. We also delve into the not-so-pretty side of things, including having listings hijacked and the struggles of facing stiff competition. As we wind down our engaging chat, Sasha shares her take on Walmart's competition and the suitability of products across platforms, offering her top flat file strategy. We also discuss the potential risks and rewards of creating product variations. Christine, always ready to help, extends an invitation to listeners who may need assistance or have questions about their Amazon journey. We wrap up the episode with a look at possible future Amazon and Walmart meetups and the unique challenges these could present. However challenging, the future of e-commerce remains thrilling, and we're here to help you navigate it. Tune in and let Christine and Sasha's success stories inspire you to create your own journey to success.   In episode 510 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley, Christine, and Sasha discuss: 01:53 - Sasha's Funny Helium 10 Swag Story 10:35 - Sell on Amazon, Overcoming Challenges 16:25 - Sales Success and Expansion 19:11 - Successful Strategies and Challenges On Their Amazon Journey 25:18 - Organize and Inform for Successful Outcomes 27:26 - Understanding and Protecting Flat File Strategies  33:18 - Profit Margins and Competition 35:01 - Sales Performance: Amazon vs Walmart ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast ► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension ► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup  (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life) ► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft ► Watch The Podcasts On YouTube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos   Transcript Bradley Sutton: Today we've got a couple of elite sellers and Amazon specialists who have come from completely different backgrounds but now have found success on Amazon, Walmart and what is even going to share his unique flat file strategies with us. How cool is that? Pretty cool. I think we know that getting to page one on keyword search results is one of the most important goals that an Amazon seller might have. So track your progress on the way to page one and even get historical keyword ranking information and even see sponsored ad rank placement with keyword tracker by Helium 10. For more information, go to h10.me/keywordtracker. 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. We've got a couple elite sellers on with us from opposite sides of the coast here, if I'm not mistaken or I'm not. Let's find out. Actually, where are you guys actually from? Let's start with Christine. Where are you at right now? Where are you calling in from? Christine: I'm in San Diego California. Bradley Sutton: You're in San Diego, so forget it. You're local to me. I don't know why I thought you were on the east coast for some reason. Where in San Diego are you at? Christine: Carmel Mountain, Carmel Valley area. Bradley Sutton: Okay, about like 30 minutes away from me. You know towards what is it? Towards the stadium down there, right? No, not like about 10, 15 minutes, okay, cool, wow, you're almost my neighbor and Sasha, about the distance south of me, you're north, you're up in like Orange County, California, right? Sasha: Yeah, I'm within like half an hour of any local workshop you guys put on. Bradley Sutton: I love it. I love it. Now here's a funny story about Sasha, like one time our you know, one of our executives, Bojan, he in our private Slack channel he posted a picture and he's like sell and scale summit t-shirt spotted in the wild or something like that, and he had snapped the picture of somebody that he saw in the checkout line in his grocery store up in I don't know somewhere in the OC and I was like wait a minute, that looks amazing. I was like yes, it's Sasha right there. So you're famous inside of Helium 10. There for wearing a Helium 10. Swag out in the wild, love it. Sasha: From now on, every time I go to Costco, I put that on. All right, you never know when a Helium 10 employee might capture you, awesome, awesome. Bradley Sutton: Now, Christine, let's go to your origin story. Is San Diego where you were born and raised, or are you a transplant, or what? Christine: I was actually born and raised in Los Angeles. My parents were transplants. However. They came from Switzerland on the Queen Mary for their honeymoon, and so they landed in Los Angeles, and that's where I grew up. Bradley Sutton: The Queen Mary. That's now like in Long Beach, that one that you can actually. Christine: Wow, nice, that one 1955, that came over. Bradley Sutton: Awesome, awesome, Sasha. What about you? Sasha: I'm originally from Odessa, Ukraine, and so I speak Russian, and I wound up doing a lot of business with Russia, and that's what actually led up to Amazon eventually. Bradley Sutton: Okay now, how long have you been here in the States? Sasha: I grew up here. I grew up in New York in 1980s. Bradley Sutton: Okay, so you must have moved here when you were one or two years old, all right. So growing up in New York, you had emigrated over here. What was your aspirations? Were you just wanting to be a fireman or an astronaut, or what did you think you'd be when you grew up? Quote unquote. Sasha: I had very little choice. My dad was an engineer and my mom was an actress, and all my life isolated between the two. So jump back and forth. Bradley Sutton: What did you end up going to college for then. Sasha: I ended up going. I got my bachelor's in computer science initially, and then, when my business was doing well enough, I went into a theater program. Bradley Sutton: So you still made both of them happy after my goodness, the model son here, Love it. What about you, Christine? What did you think you'd be when you grew up? Christine: I always wanted to be an interior designer and actually that's what my degree is in. So I was an interior design when I lived in LA, in Hollywood, for a big firm and often did a lot of the studio sets with the studio designers and maybe did something for Sasha's mom or there, you never know. Actually Johnny Cochran's office, I did. Bradley Sutton: Oh, okay, all right, wow all right. So now you know what. How many years were you in that field, Christine? Christine: 10 years. Bradley Sutton: 10 years and then after that? Christine: Then I went into nurse recruiting. Bradley Sutton: Nurse recruiting. Christine: Well, yes, recruiting nurses for travel assignments. So a travel nurse assignments across the US in every hospital there's probably 20-30% of travel nurses, so that they can adjust their fluctuations in census, and so they bring in travel nurses when it's high census and reduce the travel nurse population when it's lower census. Bradley Sutton: I'm half Filipino. Is it true that, like 30% of nurses, are Filipinos? Christine: They do bring a lot of Filipinos over, yes. Bradley Sutton: Okay, all right, so you're moving Filipino nurses around all the country, and others as well, and then how long do you do that? Christine: Ten years, at least ten years. Bradley Sutton: Oh, so you stick with stuff. You start. I like that. All right, so well. There's 20 years of work, so you must have started working when you were three, four years old, yourself there, okay, and then after that, did you find e-commerce or what's next in your life? Christine: Yes, and I found e-commerce, so it brought together everything I've learned and I just wanted to be able to do something that I could do from anywhere in the world. Since my family is from Switzerland, as you know, since my parents immigrated, I like to go there frequently and I wanted to be able to do a business I could do from there, if I needed to be there for two, three months, or from anywhere in the world, and I found this. Bradley Sutton: So did you just like Google at the time? Do you remember like where you know things I can do on the road, or something like that? Do you remember what you searched for? Christine: No, no, I um. I always like to buy things on Amazon, and I knew that it was growing, that people would be buying online more frequently, and so I started searching how to do that, and I did several webinars and classes and seminars In fact, I did probably six months of education before I even jumped into selling to make sure it was something that I could do, that I had the skills for, that I had the money for and that I would be able to grow with. See, like in nursing nurses, they can grow, they keep growing in their careers, they do all kinds of different things, they advance, and I wanted something that I could also grow with, so I could become a bigger seller, I could expand selling to different regions, different countries, and so I found this fit the bill. Bradley Sutton: Awesome. What about you, Sasha? How does somebody who studies theater and engineering end up in e-commerce? Sasha: I went to Russia with a suitcase full of computer parts. That's how I started in business, and from then, on, I think one dollar Sounds very shady. Bradley Sutton: Well, I don't know how. Sasha: Listen, I mean nothing with. Russia is a white hat, let's put it this way. So yeah, and so that led eventually to doing a lot of exporting to Russia. I did everything from computer parts to software to eventually slot machines even, and mining equipment, so that kind of led naturally to. Bradley Sutton: Did you say slot machines and mining equipment? Amazingly, yes, never in the history of vocabulary has that, I don't think, been used in the same Both of those things? That's interesting. So you're basically exporting whatever and whatever they wanted there. Huh Okay. Sasha: So it really does depend on relationships there as well, just like here in the States, and so wherever you can find a competitive advantage, that's a good place to go, and so eventually, when that died down as a market and now essentially it's almost entirely out of reach, you look for other opportunities, and by that point I've already had a number of other businesses that I was involved with, and so I started Amazon on a dare with a friend of mine who really did not believe that we could do any sales on Amazon when his website was doing so well. Sasha: So I bet him that we could beat his website sales with Amazon sales, and that's how it was what year are we? Talking about this was just not too long ago, I think it was 2018,. Bradley Sutton: I think it was Okay so that's about five years ago. All right, and then, and did you make that bet without even knowing a lot about Amazon? Or at that point, had you done some studying and research into it, or something? Sasha: I knew very little about Amazon. I did not have any experience selling on Amazon or listing on Amazon, but just simply understanding the marketing and the size of the market and the demand there. It just seemed it was a bet I couldn't lose. Bradley Sutton: So yeah, okay, I took it, Christine. What about you? What year approximately was it that you made this leap into e-commerce? Christine: Well, I launched my first product at the end of 2019. Bradley Sutton: Okay, Around the same time and are you still selling that exact product today? Christine: No Can you tell us what it is, then well, there's still kitchen products, but Well, I am still selling the remainder of that particular Also, somebody is still active. Bradley Sutton: That's pretty impressive for your very Not many people are still selling, like four years later, their very first product. Usually, it's like they just get their feet wet and they're like, oh nope, this was the wrong choice, but that's pretty impressive. You still have some inventory left and still going on that yes. Now how did you learn to how to sell on Amazon? Christine: You know I did a course. I did a course, but I can't say that I really learned how to do it from that course. What I really learned was when I started believe it or not signed up for Helium 10, because they have so many of the courses, you know the get started courses. That's where I really Like I was already on the platform beginning the sales, but there is so much to learn. Bradley Sutton: So in Helium 10? Christine: I did all of the modules you know, from the first set to the second set. I mean literally everything and I would say that, and also being part of the elite meetings, that is where I really learned how to sell, so you joined elite even before you were that big of a seller. Yes. Bradley Sutton: And then that that was me, Like in 2016, 2017, I wasn't even a seller and I was like you know what I just want to, like be a fly on the wall in these trainings and learn, and that's how I like. I probably learned more in six months than I could have, you know, in like two or three years taking a course or something. So I took a very similar path as you, All right, so that's interesting. What about you, Sasha? Did you take a course too? Or you just like got just dove right in? Or how did you learn to do what you were doing in the first? Sasha: year or 18? It was all just manual work, digging into Amazon specs, so really digging in into the specifications of flat files and categories. And I actually started with there are not category listing reports, but with transaction reports. You know those reports that list every transaction and the challenge there is that Amazon doesn't give you a flat file there. It actually is grouped by different categories. It's very, very hard to figure out exactly what the expenses are, so it really makes you work to break it up and clean it up. And that took a lot of time to break up that file and eventually I made it so that every column would be would represent a single type of expense, so it'd be easy to run pivot tables on it and analyze it. Bradley Sutton: There goes your engineering background a little bit there. Now, where are you still selling the very first product that you started with? Sasha: No, and it's not because it wasn't selling well, it's just it became less of a product for the manufacturer. So I don't really sell my own products. I help partners that I have sell products in their accounts typically, and so it depends in a way what they're. Bradley Sutton: So that first one that you launched was that for your friend, who you made that with. Sasha: That's right, that was his products and businesses that have storefronts that are brick and mortar they have other channels, so they have other needs, other interests, so they might have distribution, they might have a retail store, and so Amazon website aren't always their first priority. Bradley Sutton: Yeah, that's another thing that one of you have in common with me is when I first started until I worked at Helium 10, I didn't have any of my own products 100%. I launched over 400 products before I started working at Helium 10. 100% was for other people partners or people who hired me. Just my mindset was like I'm good at what I do, I have a specific thing I'm doing and I like doing this where there's not risk, like I'm not risking my family's savings and it could totally fail, so I'm gonna get. I mean, it's not. Bradley Sutton: Of course, I always try to have success, but I didn't have to stay up at night knowing that I risk my second mortgage or something to do this product launch. Amazon could just close the account down back in those days. Now, if I had things to do over again, now that I know what I know, I would have probably gone ahead and launched on my own products. But in those days I was very happy just getting a paycheck and if they made a million dollars from my $1,000 work, great for them. But then if they lost money, it's like all right, sorry, not sorry. We did it. We did what we could. Sasha: I hear you. I hear you, but for me it's entirely different. I prefer to work with somebody else's product and do the marketing. In a way. For me it's sort of more customer facing for me. To figure out what it is they need, what their needs are, and make it work. Bradley Sutton: What's the biggest success story? Like some projects that you've worked on and now they've scaled up to X number of sales in a year or something like that. Anything stick out in your mind. Sasha: For me. There was a client that had not been on Amazon at all, but their products have for years and years. They're a large manufacturer of beauty products who sold through retail and distribution and when I took them on, they had hundreds and hundreds of listings that were not created by themselves but by other resellers that needed to be on Amazon. So in the end, when we eventually were able to capture that market share, those beauty products wound up being really large, really large numbers for them. Bradley Sutton: Hmm, well, how large we're talking. Well, we're talking about seven figures. I like it all. Right, excellent. Now going back to you, Christine, like you've been selling now for like three years or four years, which year was your peak in sales and approximately how much was it? Christine: I would say this year is the peak in sales. So this year's increased like 300% over last year. Bradley Sutton: Wow. Christine: An increase, and well, we're in the high six figures at this point. Bradley Sutton: Excellent, so this is your full income now. Christine: Yes. Bradley Sutton: And do you have employees, or are you doing this all on your own? Christine: Oh no, I couldn't possibly do it all on my own. Now I have a VA who does all of the reporting and all of the things like that for me, and of course I have a team. I've got the photographer, videographer, social media. Bradley Sutton: So that's in-house, or you just like have somebody on retainer or something. Christine: I just contract out as I need it yeah. Bradley Sutton: Awesome, awesome. Now, what's been your biggest L, your biggest loss, still with you, Christine, like the worst thing that's happened to you since you started selling on Amazon, because that's something that I like to keep it real. Amazon is not all rainbows and unicorns Listings gets shut down, you get hijacked and bad experience with customer service. Let's keep it real here. Let's be vulnerable. What's your biggest loss you've taken, or worst thing? Christine: Well, I had a. It's a product I still sell, so it was actually selling very, very well and it was like top you know top numbers and a new person had designed a similar product and so they came in and cited us as patent infringement. Amazon pulled all the listings down, which, of course, stopped the sales immediately. Now we had authorization to sell, we had a patent, we had everything, and I contacted Amazon with I mean right away and sent that document, sent it to the person that claimed the IP, and it still took over two and a half weeks to bring the listings back up. Of course, by then sales were lost. It had to sort of rebuild its rank and everything, and this person did it which I've learned since in order to launch his product right. Bradley Sutton: So he wanted to clear the way so that he was the only kind of player in the chain. Christine: Exactly, and so that's my first time really realizing the tricks that people play just to get ahead and that was disappointing. It was sad I lost money, but you know what? I wasn't going to let him win, so I just worked hard to get those sales back. Bradley Sutton: I love it. Now let's flip the script. What's the coolest thing that's ever happened? You like something unexpected or something amazing where you went viral, one of your products you sold out of inventory in two weeks or you made ridiculous profit on something. What's one of the coolest things that's happened to you? Christine: Well, yeah, I have sold out of inventory, but I've learned now to keep that in stock in backup. But actually this last prime day was probably one of the most exciting for me because I sold over a thousand units on that day For me that was A thousand units in one day, wow. Yeah, for me that was big, that was a big, exciting moment. Bradley Sutton: How many SKUs? Christine: In that particular product line there were five SKUs. Bradley Sutton: Wow. So how many units did you have in stock to cover that? That's a huge day. Christine: Well, here's what happened is I did run out, but I have a backup over at Deliver. So when it ran out it pulled from Deliver and gave me enough time to get more in. So I had, thank goodness, in the backup warehouse. I had a whole another thousand units ready to ship. And was able to send them in immediately as Deliver was fulfilling the overflow orders. Bradley Sutton: What would you say is the reason you did so well on Prime Day? Did you have some kind of, you know, Prime Exclusive Discount? Did you have a coupon? Did you send some outside traffic? Is there one thing that resulted in that crazy sales day? Christine: Well, I did a Prime Exclusive Discount. I also, prior to that, made sure all my ads were prepped and primed and that I made sure that the listing was 100% perfect and the pictures were perfect all before that Prime Day. So I guess I was just prepared. Bradley Sutton: I like it, Sasha. What about you? You know, sometimes, working with multiple accounts, you get exposed to even more things than the average. You know, seller, what's the worst thing? It doesn't have to be from you, but just like you were part of an account and you heard that something crazy happened. What's? Sasha: on Amazon. I think the most heartbreaking thing is when listings become hijacked. I mean, I've seen policy violations on Amazon and all sorts of difficulties that we have working with Amazon, but when listings get hijacked, that's just. I think. To me that's the toughest part. Bradley Sutton: And so what was one of the worst? Like somebody who had like, was there any? That was like they were selling 100 a day and it went to zero because of it, or something crazy like that. Sasha: They've got an entire product line with something that competitors were able to put Covid-related keywords in there somehow During the time when Covid items were hot and Amazon was blocking sellers, and so their entire list product line was shut down. Bradley Sutton: Yeah, all right. Well, let's not be doom and gloom. Christine talked about her. Great, you know, 1000 sale prime day. What about you? What's a crazy, amazing thing that's, like you know, can't happen, probably in the rain or it's very. It would be very impossible or very difficult for it to happen off of Amazon, but you've seen it happen on Amazon. Sasha: Gosh, I have to think about that, but the thing that comes to mind that the most satisfying thing that I had experienced was when I finally figured out how to put attributes up on Amazon that they don't give you in the category listing report. There are, for some, certain categories, like in the, for example, a grocery category that I work with a lot. When I was finally able to put up the nutrition table to get all the nutrition values up for products when it's not it's not regularly available in your category listing report, that was probably the most satisfying experience. Bradley Sutton: Where is that show on the list? Or does it show on the listing, or is this is only? We're talking about the back end here. Sasha: So it shows on the listing right above the bullet points. It's in that prime space below the title and right above the bullet points it'll show like nutrition information. It'll show ingredients and it will show the nutrition table that you usually see on products in the grocery store. Bradley Sutton: But for most products you don't actually get those attributes even if you download the flat file that you would, you know like it's not going to. It's not going to show up there. Sasha: It's not going to show up, even though it should. Bradley Sutton: So how do you do it? Do you like copy it from another category listing report that it does show up and then just paste those columns or something? Well, at this point, at this point. Sasha: You could probably find it. You could probably find it in some other category. I had to search for those attributes throughout the internet. I found them eventually in a European Amazon catalog. So I had to scrape them off of there and that's how I populated those columns. It didn't exist anywhere. My suspicion and I don't know this for sure, my suspicion is that they were available for products that were sold through Amazon Fresh. You know Amazon Fresh that product line, and so if you were in stores at Amazon Fresh, you had access to those fields, but not if you were in seller central, and so that was a bit of a hack. Bradley Sutton: All right, we're going to come back to you because I know your specialty is like flat files and stuff like that. So we're going to be getting lots of strategies. But going back to Christine, let's talk some strategy. Not anybody can have a thousand sale prime day. Not anybody can scale up on their own to high six figures. So what are some things that you think you're doing that is unique or that you're focusing on? Maybe it's not so unique, but it's like you put a big focus on it and you feel that that's part of the secret to your success. Christine: Well, I have these master files on literally everything that's required. So I think being organized and having all the information in one place is really important for me. For example I have, since I'm on both Amazon and Walmart I have like a spreadsheet that's got you know the UPC, the ASIN, the titles, the bullets, I mean literally everything on it that I can then, you know, adjust before fixing a listing, and I can refer to that sheet at any time I need to when I'm doing something else in Amazon, and also the same with Walmart. They have different IDs, different things, and this sheet goes as far as it has dimensions of the products and the pricing of the products. Bradley Sutton: Now, guys, I don't know if you picked up on this, but something I like to tell people is, no matter what career you come from, there's things that you can take from your previous life and apply to Amazon. You know if you guys picked up. You know Sasha used to be, you know computer science and engineer and stuff, and now he's got this analytical mind and now he just happens to be an expert on you know Excel and flat files and stuff. And listen, Christine, you know being an interior designer. You know she couldn't just like throw stuff together. You know like she probably had. Bradley Sutton: You know this system where she would really plan out her sets and very detailed, and now she's taken that and applied it to the way she manages her interior, designing her Amazon catalog, so you can always take stuff from and then play. You know, plus, sasha, you know being a service provider too. You know he's taking his acting lessons. He's very well spoken and eloquent there and very good looking too, so he's using whatever he can do right there. Sasha, back to you Another, maybe a flat file strategy that you can share with the community. Sasha: So with flat files, I think it's important to know that the category listing report is not necessarily what's live on the product page, and that's a major misconception that people have is that when they receive the category listing report, when they download it, they think that that accurately reflects what's up on the system, and it's not the way I would. The way I think about the CLR is that it is just a suggestion. It's what you've uploaded to Amazon and then Amazon makes a decision about whether they will accept that recommendation and update the data in the system or not. Conversely, the file itself, the category listing report or the category template, that is also Amazon's suggestion to you, what you can upload to the, to the cloud, and you don't necessarily have to follow that recommendation. Sasha: That's why there are a lot of ways to hack the file, the Excel file that comes down from from Amazon, and so one of the first things that you do if you do have a conflict, if you have an issue, you may take a look at what's in your category listing report and then compare it to the, to the UI, to the data fields that you see in your seller central when you click the edit button and take a look at the shaded text and numbers that are right above the field, which shows you what's what's on the cloud live, and very often you'll find that what you've uploaded is not exactly the same as what's on that now, and that could be things like title, it could be bullet points, clearly, product ideas and other other fields that Amazon doesn't think that you have the right to update or you have the priority to update. So that's one check that I would do once in a while to make sure that what you think is being uploaded is actually getting up there. Bradley Sutton: Okay, is it? I mean, I know this was the case years ago, but you know what would happen and how some people would get their listings, you know, shut down. Is you know, like, like, like COVID type keywords, but any adult keywords, drug related keywords, they would go to a marketplace where that seller wasn't in and where there's open spots in their flat file sometimes they would get to, you know, throw some of those keywords in there and then it would stop it. And then you know what was you know one way years ago of how to stop that is like hey, hey, you know, make sure everything in your flat files are filled out and even upload it to different marketplaces. Is that? Can that still help? Or what is the latest protection on how you can stop people from abusing the flat file system? Where, where they can get your listing, you know, shut down? Sasha: That is absolutely the right thing to do is fill out the category list and report with all the fields that are relevant to your product, and there's a couple that that are sort of not part of your product listing unless you're in the adult category that you should also update. But that is the good recommendation to update as much as you can that is relevant to your product, because bad actors can update your listings by doing that in other marketplaces or by virtue of having access to higher level of Amazon account, for example, they can do it through vendor central right. So that is that is a good recommendation. It is getting harder for people to to hijack casually because Amazon is making it more difficult for people to create and modify listings for that are owned by brand registry. But they they could still do it, and so I would. Sasha: I would say don't go overboard and try to complete every single empty field in your listing report, because you really cannot do that. There are many more fields that are related to your product. Then you can actually see when you download your category listing report. So you can't really even contemplate completing every possible field, but you should fill out those fields that are relevant. You should fill out those fields that have to do with compliance has met and so on, and you should fill out the field that has to do with is is this an adult product? To make sure that those don't get in there. Aside from that, you could you could still have bad actors put bad, bad keywords in your product. They'll get you shut down so that yeah, that's that hijacking process still exists out there. Bradley Sutton: Okay, I'm just curious what's your ratio of sales from Amazon to Walmart? Five to one, 10 to one. Amazon more, Would you say it? Christine: for me it's. Let's see, last year it was like Five to one, this year it's more like eight to one on one. Bradley Sutton: It changed so eight to eight. For every eight dollars you sell on Amazon, you sell one dollar on Walmart. Christine: Yes. Bradley Sutton: Okay, are you using WFS? Christine: Yes. Bradley Sutton: Okay, how's your profit margins? You know like after, if you know calculate out what you're you know selling or you know doing for PPC, etc. Is the profit margins similar or you making more money than one platform, than the other? Christine: Well, last year I made more I mean profit margin was better on Walmart. This year the advertising Something's a skew there. So the profit margins not as good On Walmart as it was last year and I'm hoping they fix that and that goes back up. But typically because Walmart doesn't charge as much for delivery, they do still charge the 15%. They don't charge as much delivery. There is room for a better profit margin on Walmart. Bradley Sutton: Okay, interesting, interesting. Do you find that there's less competition for your niche on Walmart compared to Amazon? Are you fighting more competitors on Amazon or is similar to the same ones? You who are there on Amazon are also there on the Walmart. Christine: I think it's less competition. It's less competition, but it's harder to rank up for some reason. But you know, it's a unique client. Each platform has its set of unique clients, right and certain products. Like I, have five different products With many, many skews. So one product does very, very well on Walmart and Not so well on Amazon. Bradley Sutton: So you're doing better on Walmart than you are on Amazon for one product. Christine: Yes, yes. Bradley Sutton: Yeah, I know Kerry's got one or two like that too interesting. Christine: Yeah, and where the other products do better on Amazon. It's interesting. So I I come to where I'm picking out different products for the different platforms. Bradley Sutton: Could you have predicted that, like you know, when you were looking in helium 10 at the search volume or the competitors, like could you have said you know what I think this might be, or it did it just happen, and then now, in retrospect, you know what to look for as far as science about what could be better on Walmart than Amazon? Christine: I think it just happened. But yes, now in retrospect I can look a little bit more, I have a bit more information about what to look for and you know, price is a key it's just a key thing on Walmart. So having good price products so if you have a product that's a little bit higher priced For me I'm putting it on Amazon it just doesn't move as well on Walmart. In my category I'm talking about kitchen now in another category it might work just fine, but in my category the lower priced products that appear to have the best value for the price let's put it that way Move better on Walmart. And yes, now I'm picking out things that fit that category. Bradley Sutton: Sasha you doing anything at all with Walmart, or everything that you do is all on Amazon. Sasha: I help with Walmart as well, but it really varies by client. There are certain products that don't do well on Walmart at all because they are on Walmart shelves and so if it's a, if it's a product that can be purchased from Walmart, in the store and Amazon and Walmart will ship it at their Walmart price, it's very difficult to compete with an Amazon price that includes FBA fees. So it it's really kind of all over the board where some products do Better on Walmart when there's no competitors and there's some products that really don't even have opportunity to compete. Bradley Sutton: Okay, and what's your last strategy for us? If I were to ask you for your 60 second, your 60 second strategy of the of the day for you? I mean, I said flat files because that's your specialty, but it could be about anything. Sasha: I'll stick with flat files. My top recommendation would be to create variations. Create them often and Don't wait until it's too late. You're your ASINs, your, your product listings are your assets on Amazon and they're constantly at risk. They could be taken down for multiple reasons, and so when your product reaches a level of maturity, when you have Thousands of reviews and is doing very well, create a variation, even if you don't think you need one. Create something with small, small modification. Pair it up with your best seller and let that new product gather reviews and that new product becomes a new asset and Then, once are doing well, you have the option of splitting it off from your main parent and take up Amazon real estate. So that's one of the top strategies I use with clients is I create variations with, with new products cool, cool. Bradley Sutton: Now. If people wanted to reach out to you, Sasha, to see if you know to contact you and ask for your you know Russian escapades, or perhaps talk about you know flat files or whatever, how can they find you on the interwebs out there? Sasha: If, if they want, if you want to have, they want to have that beer, I'll tell them the local bar. But if they want to talk about Amazon I'm usually on the Friday calls at 11 o'clock that those are always great case studies, so I'm usually. They are also in the Helium 10 elite Facebook group and of course it. If you want to reach out directly, my email is at amazon@cutterstone.com. Cutterstone spell, just like it sounds. Bradley Sutton: Cool now, Christine, you know, no pressure, you don't have to say your contact information, but if somebody was inspired by something you said and they wanted to reach out to you, dude, would you like anybody to reach out? Christine: Yeah, I'm happy to help. I mean, so many people help me along the way I want to do the same, so I'm happy to help, and my email would be christioinfo@gmail.com. Bradley Sutton: Awesome, all right. Well, you too it's. It's a great, you know, been having you and you know weekly calls and seeing you at the elite events. And Next one, probably neither of you can make it to because I'm doing it, we're probably doing it in Germany, so that'll be a bit of a bit of a drive for you guys who are used to being here in Southern California, but perhaps I'll see you at the next, you know, like online meetup or Next conference. You know be great to see you again. Christine: Thank you. Bradley Sutton: Great to be here.

Picture this: Three successful Amazon sellers from each corner of the globe sat down in a quaint Italian café, their journeys colliding over a shared passion for selling on Amazon. In this episode, we're chatting with Peter and Franco, our guests who symbolize the true essence of a global Amazon seller. Born in the US, raised in Australia, and operating out of Asia, Peter's journey through the world of Amazon selling is a fascinating tale. Then we have Franco, an Italian native who transitioned from a traditional upbringing to become a leading e-commerce entrepreneur. We listen to their stories, not just the triumphs but also the trials, like the time Franco’s competitor created fake test reports to tarnish his reputation. Venture with us as Franco shares his extraordinary journey as an Amazon seller. From hitting his peak year of gross sales to navigating the fiercely competitive medical device field category, his story truly is a rollercoaster ride. Then we turn to Peter, who climbed to the number one spot in the health and personal care category within a mere three weeks. His dedication to producing reliable products and setting the right price point made him a standout entrepreneur. His unwavering commitment to his product and the pursuit of excellence are lessons for every budding e-commerce entrepreneur. As we bid our Italian farewell, we delve into Franco and Peter's strategies for success, from image testing to understanding European selling regulations and leveraging social media. Get a peek into Franco's vision of reaching nine figures and perhaps even owning a football team in Italy. We draw the final curtain discussing the potential of the Italian Amazon community and the role Amazon plays in shaping the European market. Join us for this riveting conversation brimming with success stories, challenges, and unique experiences in the world of Amazon selling. We promise it's worth the listen! In episode 509 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley, Franco, and Peter discuss: 00:00 - From Italy to Amazon 01:55 - Discovering Cultural Diversity in a Podcast 04:01 - From Australia to Italy 11:21 - Launching Products in Global Markets 14:58 - Challenges and Successes on Amazon 16:29 - Medical Device Field Competition and Tactics 24:32 - Strategies for Amazon Success 27:54 - Challenges With Listing Product on Amazon  32:35 - European Market Testing and Selling Strategies 36:21 - Discussion on Translations for International Marketplaces  39:25 - Italian Farewell and Appreciation for Italy ► 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 sellers in the show that I originally met in Italy and now they're selling millions of dollars on Amazon. We're going to hear their story, which includes a case where one of their competitors even sent fake reports to the media about their product safety in order to get them kicked off of Amazon. How crazy is that? Pretty crazy, I think. What was your gross sales yesterday, last week, last year? More importantly, what are your profits after all, your cost of selling on Amazon? Did you pay any storage charges to Amazon? How much did you spend on PPC? Find out these key metrics and more by using the Helium 10 tool Profits. For more information, go to h10.me forward slash profits. 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 we are doing what I think is a first we are having a three continent podcast at the same time. We're not recording this separately. I'm here in North America, we've got Peter, who, I believe, is in the Asian continent, and we've got Franco, who is in Europe. So welcome to the show. And the funny thing is, I met all of them in person, at least in Italy, which is why I'm wearing my Mona Lisa shirt, my Mona Lisa shirt, here. So anyways, welcome to the show, guys, and good afternoon and good morning to Franco, and it's good evening here. Peter: Thanks for having us. Bradley Sutton: Now I, as I said, I met these gentlemen at a conference in Milan, Italy, recently and you know, just talking to them a little bit and I was like man, all right, I don't want to know too much more because this sounds interesting and I just love to find out about the rest of you know your stories. You know, along with everybody else, the podcast. Now, that was like a couple months ago. So the cool thing is, you know, with my terrible memory, the little that they did tell me I've already forgotten. So, guys, I am going to be learning everything you know, right, right with you, with all the listeners today. So let's, first of all, you know the first thing that that that blew me away was, here's Peter, and you guys can't see him. You know he, he is, he's in Asia right now and he is of Asian descent. You know like he looks. I'm half Asian. I don't look Asian. Peter looks Asian and here he is sitting with me in this Italian restaurant and ordering in perfect Italian, like, what? Like? Do I really have jet lag? What is going on right here? Let's start with your backstory, were you? Uh, oh, yeah. And, by the way, the way he speaks English was also a little bit different, so were you. Were you born and raised in Australia, or were you born and raised? Peter: Yes, sir, I grew up in Australia, but actually I was, I was. I was born in the States. I don't know if I mentioned that in the state. Bradley Sutton: That makes it even more interesting I love it when we're about here in the States, in Minneapolis, minneapolis Okay, man, that's, that's. That's still the coldest I've ever been. Uh, not sure I want to go back there in winter, but all right. So you were in Minneapolis, and how? I mean? You know, the Minneapolis Australia connection is not very common, so how did that happen? Peter: Yeah, so if I take it back a step further, as you said, um, I'm, I'm Asian. My parents were born in China. Bradley Sutton: Okay. Peter: And they. They met in the US, so that's why I was born there, okay. And then, after um, they finished their studies, they decided they wanted to move to Australia. So when I was a baby, still be immigrated to Australia. Bradley Sutton: Okay, all right. And then now, growing up in Australia, what do you think you're going to be when you grow? Peter: Yeah, I didn't have any, you know, any special, different aspirations. I was like all the other kids. Bradley Sutton: Fine. Franco: Anything like that. Peter: Yeah. Bradley Sutton: Okay. Peter: I didn't think of being an entrepreneur or a commerce guy or anything like that. Bradley Sutton: Did you go to university in Australia? Peter: Yes, I did. I studied engineering Engineering. I had a very traditional upbringing? Bradley Sutton: Yeah, okay. And then, upon graduation, did you start working in that field? Peter: Yes, I did I um. So as I had no real exposure to my Asian roots, I wanted to do one year in Asia. So I ended up working in Hong Kong. So I worked in uh in Hong Kong for a little while with uh in the engineering field related to engineering. Bradley Sutton: Did you speak Chinese? Peter: I did not. That was one of the reasons why I wanted to go to Asia, because, growing up in Australia, yeah. At that time, I was the only Asian kid in school. Um, there was no real interaction with other families or anything, so, um, I just spoke English. Bradley Sutton: Okay, Now you know USA to Australia, to Hong Kong, how do you end up speaking Italian? Peter: So when I was in Hong Kong, um, I got headhunted for a job in Italy. So, yeah, I took the opportunity and went over there and um lived there for a few years and worked there for a few years. Bradley Sutton: Okay, that's cool that you learn the language. You know some people, uh, you know, go to other countries and you know years and they don't are not able to learn the language. That's a, that's a cool, uh cool skill there and and all right. So so that brings us to. I mean, obviously you're not in Italy anymore, so how long did you stay in Italy? Peter: Right, uh, I think it was about five years. About five years, about five years in a minute. Okay. Bradley Sutton: All right, and it was it during your your run in Italy there that you learned that you started on Amazon. Or how did you go from engineering to e-commerce? Peter: No. So, um, while I was in Italy, I also got headhunted for another job and I was moved to Shanghai. And while I was in Shanghai, I met a one of my friends who I did sport with, was very much into Amazon, and he always kept talking about it. And then, finally, uh, one day I said this sounds really interesting. Why don't you show me what you're doing? And I offered to invest in what he he was his business, because it sounded like it was really good. And he said no, why don't you just try yourself? So I did it as a um, as a hobby, for a while, and then eventually it became became a full time thing. Bradley Sutton: Okay, all right. All right. Now we're caught up to to kind of like the e-commerce list. Let's go ahead and take the journey with with Franco. Now for you it's a lot easier backstory Were you born and raised in Italy and lived there your whole life? Or or do you live in 17 million countries like, uh, peter? Franco: No, I was born and raised in Italy. I passed a couple of years in China, but it means that I was there like uh, every month of April and every month of October since 2003. So it's not was not like living permanently there. I was living in a hotel. So basically, I've been living my life in Italy. Bradley Sutton: Okay, all right. Now. What about you? Uh, what did you go to university for? Franco: I did pure maths and when I was starting at the university, I thought that I would be doing academia after that. Okay, and then it changed my mind. Bradley Sutton: Okay, what so? Upon graduation then, what did you enter into if you didn't want to go ahead and take that route that you thought you were going to take? Franco: Yeah, I did. When I graduated I didn't really know what to do because I changed my mind. I didn't want to be a university professor of math, so I was going into my other side of me, that was, being an entrepreneur. So I did an MBA and after that MBA I worked for a couple of years as a marketing assistant in a company and during that time I founded two companies, two different ones, with friends of mine. And then I resigned and from that point I always been an entrepreneur. Bradley Sutton: Okay, all right. So what year did you go full-on into e-commerce? Then what did you say? Franco: I went into e-commerce probably more than 10 years ago. Bradley Sutton: Dot com or other marketplaces, or what Now? Franco: in Europe, we're selling. Bradley Sutton: At that time, what I meant was yeah, the dot com is on Europe, but what I meant was like online sales or was it like a marketplace that you were on? Franco: No, it was our own e-commerce, our own website, and I was selling on with my company. I was selling rubber trucks that are the equivalent of tire for excavators and accessories for construction equipment, so something that probably even today you cannot sell on Amazon because like super huge and super heavy. Bradley Sutton: So you exited that company and then you said you became like a full-time entrepreneur. What was that endeavor like Full-time into? Like what was your? Was it just still online sales, or now you got into Amazon, or what happened there? Franco: Okay, so well, now most of my time is well, 100% of my time is on Amazon. But yeah, the other company, the one that's now, is doing Amazon as a long story, because it started in 1999. And we've been doing so many different stuff because we started from scratch with nothing. So we started doing multimedia content, then we went into doing CD and DVD duplication that means producing physical discs, then USB flash drives, accessories for smartphones, electronics in general, and then medical devices. When we went into medical devices, we went quite big on our e-commerce. That was not something that we were doing in this company. We're doing business to business mainly. And then from that, we went into Amazon. Not that we even had tried to do Amazon before, because we opened the Amazon account in 2014. But it was just a sort of let's see what's happening there, not really investing in that. So we were becoming big on Amazon since 2020. Bradley Sutton: All right, now we're kind of caught up in a similar timeline here. Let's go back to Peter then. Are you still selling your first product today, peter? Peter: Yes, I think I started with two or three, and all of those three products I'm still selling. How? Long has that been? Bradley Sutton: I started in 2017. Peter: Wow. Bradley Sutton: The same product. How many reviews do you have now approximately on that one? Peter: Maybe 3,000 or something like that. Reviews and ratings. Bradley Sutton: All right, so you're still selling the same stuff that you got into. How did you find that first product? Did you just take some course that a lot of people did and then just use the criteria to find the product and just struck gold in your first one? Or how in the world did you hit a home run with your very first product? Peter: So my friend had done the ASM course and so he suggested I did it as well. He told me the beginnings that I was doing the normal thing everyone was doing Just looking for a product that had an opportunity, that seemed like a good, not too competitive, good price, etc. Etc. And I was just lucky, I picked something that could last well. Bradley Sutton: Now, during this time you said you were back in China or were you in Italy? Peter: No, I was already in Shanghai at that point. Bradley Sutton: Ready in China? Okay, and then. So what marketplace did you launch this product on? Usa or Europe? Peter: Yeah, so I started in the USA. But I think within the first year I knew I wanted to be in Europe. So I immediately started in the European marketplace. I applied for VAT and everything. So yeah, pretty soon after the US Europe, I was into Europe. Bradley Sutton: Now? Was it any more easy than another person because you had lived in Italy before, or that meant nothing? Were you an American citizen, since you were born in America? Peter: Technically I have dual citizenship, but I always traveled on Australian passport. But, answering your question. So when I started Europe, I wanted to try the UK and Italy first before going into all the other countries. So, yes, there would have been a small advantage, starting with the Italian market, because I didn't have to worry too much about translations and more understanding what things were going. So small advantage, I would say, but not huge advantage. Bradley Sutton: Okay, All right Now. In the first couple of years of selling on Amazon, what was your peak of sales for like a year? Gross sales. Peter: I think it was about the second or the third year I reached seven figures. So I was going at seven figures for a while, but in the last two years I decided to focus more on profitability than revenue. So it's now in six figures, but making more profit overall. Now at what? Bradley Sutton: point did, like you said, it become your full-time job. At what level did you have to get to for it, to replace your engineering jobs that you've been doing for most of your adult? Peter: life. Yeah, I was able to replace it. I think it was maybe three or four years into the business, maybe four years. Bradley Sutton: You say you sell in multiple marketplaces. Do you aim for the same profit across the board, or is there a marketplace that's giving you better profit over another? Peter: For sure, Europe is way more profitable than the US, for products Is it? The shipping? Is it the? Bradley Sutton: PPC or what's you know, you're able to charge a higher price. What's the difference? Peter: It's the sellers in Europe. There's less of them, in my category at least, and the sellers are less sophisticated so they're not as good at branding PPC and just the basic stuff. Bradley Sutton: Okay, all right, let's go back to Franco then. So when you started on, amazon sounds like you started doing different things, but was there a point where you were only doing the medical devices, as you said, or did you start with only medical devices and that's all you've been doing this whole time? Franco: When I started in 2014,. We started with electronic, with accessories for smartphones, but I mean, we were making money with other stuff, so we were, we didn't really take it care of a lot about that and we were a little bit inexperienced. So we also did a couple of mistakes, like in the quality of the products. So we just like got a lot of bad reviews and we say, okay, we are making other stuff, we don't care about this, and we just kept the account open but we didn't use it. When, in 2020, we started doing medical devices, we went big almost immediately on Amazon. But before that, as I said, we were doing pretty well, like six or seven months before, on our e-commerce. That was the same e-commerce that was selling the electronics. That was like that website that we changed it and were you? Bradley Sutton: and were you only selling in Amazon Europe? Franco: Yes, because I'm proud to do not have the certification for selling in the US. They are very highly restricted and certified, so the regulatory stuff in US is completely different. Bradley Sutton: Now, what's been your peak year of gross sales? Approximately how much? 10 million, 10 million only in Europe in one year in medical devices. Yes, wow, is it safe to say that now Amazon is the main, as opposed to your? Franco: website. Are you still even? Bradley Sutton: doing anything on the websites or just all Amazon. Franco: We still have it. But I think it's very important because one of the reasons why we were successful on Amazon is because we know so well our customer. We know so well what they want from the product and when we launch a product we can tell to our customer. There is also this new product. You can also find this in Amazon, so it gives a lot of help. But because of the growth that we had on Amazon, we have a little bit of neglected our website. So as soon as we have more banned, we should keep making the website better and grow the website as well. Bradley Sutton: Now, as Peter was saying, europe is very profitable for him, partly in fact due to low competition. I would imagine being in the medical device field makes it even less competition. Would that be a fair assessment that it's very few competitors you have, or has it gotten a little bit more tough to? Franco: So I would say there are not so many, but the ones that are there are very aggressive, okay. Bradley Sutton: Aggressive as in they might do some black hat strategies and things like that, or what do you mean by aggressive? Franco: Yes, also Because on medical, it's very like you can get suspended for any kind of claim. So yeah, it's quite an aggressive field. Bradley Sutton: What's the craziest thing that has happened to you. I would assume that you've maybe had your account shut down or at least products suspended or what's been some crazy experiences you've had. Franco: The craziest things that happened to me was a competitor that wanted to get rid of all the big seller of the same product, so it creates some fake test report. It passed those tests to the media and from media they went on national TV and that was insane At the same time. Hold on, hold on. Bradley Sutton: So he made some fake report about like that your product is like unsafe, or something gave it to like a TV station and it got in TV. Franco: The first thing to give it to the media, to a newspaper To a newspaper and it made the biggest newspaper. From the newspaper, bump it to the national TV. Bradley Sutton: Yeah, and then and then. So what was the result? Like, did Amazon see that and then shut you down, or did you start getting bad reviews, or what? Franco: happened At the same. We were waiting experience on all the way to do stuff properly on Amazon. I mean, we didn't even have the brand registry at that time, so they were also able to hijack. At the same time, they hijacked our product and they left all our picture, the branding of our product, but we could not access our listing anymore. It's insane. I know it's insane. Bradley Sutton: Wow. Franco: Up to now I haven't heard of anyone that has an attack like that. Bradley Sutton: Yeah, it's intense. Franco: Yeah, and after like so the listing was destroyed because one month to get back the ownership of the listing and when it happened it was not possible to. I mean, it was like flu. That was probably more than a thousand of bad reviews, one thousand of, like one star reviews. Bradley Sutton: Now did the newspapers and media and stuff? Did they ever submit like retraction or correction? Franco: Oh well, yes, the newspaper, they we submitted like a press release, the newspaper, the newspaper added our press release to our today news. But customers don't really care. I mean, amazon business is a quick business, it's very quick. So we went, we look into that with, probably I think that the best lawyer we could find we usually have very good lawyers and there was no other way to have it fixed as soon as we wanted or to have like an economical compensation because of the way it was structured. Okay, the attack. Bradley Sutton: All right Now, peter, you know like it's safe to say that you've never had that level of attack, or you know? Peter: I don't think anybody has had that level of attack. So but I'm sure you have had my things on national television. Bradley Sutton: Yeah, I'm sure you've had some crazy things happen. Anything like anything that's happened to you. That would you say. You would call it. You know, your, your, your your kind of like worse experience on Amazon or craziest experience. Peter: I haven't had anything really horrible. I've had a lot of the standard like minor attacks from competitors, but probably the scariest one I had was Just I think it was three weeks before Christmas a big competitor in our space did an IP complaint against me and had my products suspended, but luckily I was able to get it back within a week. That could have easily dragged on for months, but I was very lucky. I got it back in a week. That was obviously very scary. How did you get it back? Just submitted appeals I used. I have a lawyer which I use all the time and even they said that's way faster than we normally see. You were really lucky. So I was just super lucky. Bradley Sutton: Okay, now you know let's not just scare everybody with all these bad stories. Peter, you know, sticking with you what's the best thing that's happened You're the craziest in a good way or biggest surprise, or biggest win you've had over the years on Amazon. Peter: I think the first one, which was really a happy experience for me. I've heard other guests on your podcast. I think they're similar. I had a product, one of my standard products, and in the UK suddenly I was having 10 times sales that I normally have. So and this was quite early on, so I still didn't know about being attacked, so I wasn't worried like I would be now, and in those days you could still write to the customers quite easily. So I was writing to a few of them and I got a response back that a celebrity. I've seen the products used by a celebrity on their you know, on their social media. So yeah, that was fantastic and yeah, I knew that celebrity. So it was pretty cool. Bradley Sutton: Awesome, awesome. Now you know you've sold in multiple marketplaces, but you know you're probably an expert, I would say on the Italian one. Is what you do on Amazon Italy, 100% the same strategy across the board? Like, I mean, obviously the language is different, but is your PPC strategy the same? Is your branding strategy the same? Is your keyword research strategy the same, or is there something different that you're doing in Italy? You know due to your experience there. Peter: No, I would say everything's particularly the same. As I mentioned before, it was a small advantage, and even now it's practically no advantage with the translation software that's available. So I'm just doing the same thing in all the marketplaces. Bradley Sutton: That's good to know, because you know some sellers out there. You know they start in a marketplace, whether it's Italy, whether it's Germany, whether it's USA, and they're like kind of scared sometimes to branch out because they're like oh man, I'm gonna have to learn a whole bunch of new strategies to go to this new marketplace. But no, it's across the board. I mean sure. You know every now, and you know there's VAT, you know, and then in Japan you might have to do a little something different. You know, but for the most part the strategy is the same. Now, what's going on these days with you know? You mentioned you sell in UK and Italy. What changed after the Brexit? Like, now do you have to send inventory to UK and then send inventory to Italy separately, and it's completely separated and segregated, or what was the difference after Brexit? Peter: Yeah, so you've probably heard of Pan-European and probably you'll. Listeners who have some experience know about Pan-European. Maybe I can explain that really quickly. Go ahead, please. It's like the US when you send a shipment to, it goes to one location and then Amazon will spread it out all over the US, right? Bradley Sutton: Yeah, we call that. North American remote fulfillment is what it's called over here. Peter: Right, so they have the same thing in Europe. If you're VAT, you registered in their core countries, which was UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain I think that's all of them. It was the same thing. You'd send it to one country and then they would spread it out amongst all the countries as if it was one country. So that was very convenient. When Brexit happened, the UK became its own separate country, so all the work that you do logistically, which you used to do for Europe, then you had to repeat it for the UK. So it's a bit of a hassle, time-wise. Bradley Sutton: Okay, all right. Now, switching back to Franco, you had the worst thing that somebody could possibly imagine happening. Now the same question that I gave Peter what was the best thing that's happening? I mean, other than the fact that you're not even selling the USA and you can still gross 10 million a year? I mean that by itself is pretty amazing, but what else other than that is a cool thing. That's happened to kind of like pump up people's spirits after feeling so sorry for you. Franco: Yeah, well, I think that if I put on my hand the bad thing and the other thing, the good things, the good thing outweigh the bad thing. And the best one was the velocity to which we could reach the number one in health and personal care category with our products like in three weeks. Bradley Sutton: So number one, as in BSR, one in the whole health category. Franco: Yes, yes, Wow, that's pretty impressive. Yeah, that was between 2020 and 2021,. We reached that position in like three weeks with our product. Bradley Sutton: that's why we got a time Three weeks from the time you launched yes, Wow, okay, well, okay, well, then tell me, I gotta pause you there. Then how in the world did that happen? Like, did you have some crazy campaign? Was it all organic? Franco: How would you go from zero to number one so fast? No, they were proud of the COVID. Bradley Sutton: Ah, okay, okay, that's the reason. Now, did you was this after COVID you started? Or did you just get lucky, like it was something you were starting and you had no idea COVID was happening and the timing was just right? Or how in the world did you manage that? Franco: Well, we have been manufacturing in China since, I told you, since 2003,. We have a very strong presence in China, and so when COVID hit in China in January 2020, I knew it was coming to Italy or to Europe. I was pretty sure. I also wrote article about that, and so when that happened, I was a sort of reference for many people to say, hey, can you help in something? Because you know, italy was the first country in the Western world to be hit very hard, and so we started doing those like masks, those kind of product for COVID, and at the beginning, we were just doing that for hospitals, like for what was really needed. Franco: And then after that, we went to doing this on our e-commerce and the reason was that we ran out of money because the request was so insane Because we look into that so deeply that we were 100% legit. Our problem was like, probably the safest you can buy at the right price. We didn't want to speculate. We really want to have the country, and so we had a good product at the right price and we have an insane amount of demand for all those state-owned stuff, like the police even the finance police was buying from us. And so when we ran out of money. We opened the e-commerce because we need some very short money cycles and you know, on e-commerce you get the money like right away. And so after that, six months later, and also we got a lot of. Our e-commerce was an instant success as well, because we were supplying all the hospitals and so our product with our brand was in every hand, everyone hands and so our e-commerce was an instant success. Franco: And then we asked it like in April 2020, to our product to be listed on Amazon, and Amazon didn't accept it. And you have to consider that at that time on Amazon, it was fluted with product that were not legit, like all the things you were finding on Amazon related to the kind of product was like not compliant. We submitted our product. We were rejected. We said, okay, I don't care, I have other stuff to do. And then in October, I tried to resubmit the product. It was rejected again, okay, but in November, for I don't know what I receive, like Without asking again to to be listed, the I so the listing the listing was there but was not like, not active. The list he became active. Franco: From that point, I think that because we have so much, I'd say, brand recognition, yeah. Trust from the customer. As soon as we told the customer we are on Amazon was like that. I mean, we could have been number one, probably in a week. The only problem was the, the velocity, and that we need to have the product on their warehouse. Yeah, and so it was like giving three days out of stock. One day, then three, because of the space that Amazon was giving us, because when you are number one, you have to send a truck every day, or even more and and so, yeah, that's the story, that's cool. Bradley Sutton: Now, you know, for the last part of this, you know let's just go back and forth with some, some strategies, you know, and I don't mean, oh, you know, keep your a cost down and and and have a nice logo, or you know it's just standard stuff. But you know each of you to be at the position you are, you know which is, you know Amazon is your full-time business and you've reached six, seven, even eight figures. You know you've got to have some, some unique strategies and some, some things that are that you feel are the difference of why you've been so successful. So we'll start, you know, franco, with you. What is something that you know? So you know, it could be a PPC strategy, it could be a launch strategy, could be branding strategy. Uh, what? What's your first strategy of the day? Franco: I think that's still uh, the obsession with the product is a key. So like, uh, having the best product you can have for your customers, and so listening to all the advice and Now you can use AI and do all your research. But, uh, do the extra, the extra mile. Don't only use AI, because AI is very good to finding, um, like patterns, like to put in together Something that is saying a different way, but it's not good to find out liars, and many times in the outliers there are some very good gold nuggets, so talk with as many as you can, even even call them and Understand what are they paying, what are they, what they really want. Franco: When you have the best possible product, then you need to apply all the techniques that amazon Required. Like I have the best possible page. Uh, add those pains and uh, emotion of the customer reflected in your stack image At the best possible main image ever. Like, do a lot of testing, an insane amount of testing, until you know you will be the number one choice and never Let the customer down. Whatever they have a problem, solve it, solve it. Solve it, because then you have To, you have to reach the position, then you have to stick to in the position. Yeah, it's an ever-ending story. Bradley Sutton: All right, switching back to peter. Uh, what's your um first strategy you'd like to share? Peter: Uh, I'd give a general one and then maybe an amazon specific one. Very general. Uh, I think there's a lot of listeners on your podcast that are maybe just starting out, so I would suggest just to keep things simple. I've seen some people they they try and go to advanced from the beginning and it's uh, they get in over their head. They don't understand what's happening. So I would just keep it simple, even though I've been doing it for a long time. I I also Follow the same principle. I don't have any, I don't have any full-time staff. I I just try and keep things as simple as possible. And then, specifically for amazon, as I mentioned before, I think if you're, especially if you're getting started, you really need to think about products or a product that you can brand. And if you, if you can't brand a product for example, if you're doing I don't know stationary or Cleaning accessories or something, it's very difficult to build a brand around that, to build User excitement. So that's something you probably need to consider as well. Bradley Sutton: Okay, Going back to Franco, you know like you can give us another strategy, but before you do that, I wanted to kind of like double down on what you were talking about. You know you were saying hey, you know, have the best listening, have the best images and and do a lot of testing. How are you doing this testing and how are you making sure that? You have you know the best. Franco: Well, I'm using all the Software as a service, as a this are available. So I like take my few four competitors and I test my main image against their, I mean against the main image of my competitors. Then I got all the advice from the pollers, like we choose this because of this, we don't like this because of that. We run AI on that. But we don't only run AI. Franco: I read all the response one by one and I try to see how can make it. I can make it better. And then I write like Something that, what, what need to be done. I pass this to my and I try to be very, very Pacific. Like many times, I take a piece of paper and make driving by myself, like this is how I want this to be, and then I pass to my designer and then the designer make a new Couple of variation and it test again and sometimes I go very deeply on that. Like I am not happy until, like I get that out of five possible choice of main image, my main image gets 60% of the clicks and the other four share the 40%. Bradley Sutton: So it's not just a matter of all right, hey, I won with 30%, another one has 28, another one has 26. That's even though you won. That's a failure to you until you can get to the 60%. Franco: Yeah, I won like 60% and 40% spread between the other four, then I know that I'll stand out, and this is the first step. Then I need to like the page has to be consistent. And then I need to maintain my promise to the customer. Bradley Sutton: Are you selling? You're still with Franco here. Are you selling in all European marketplaces, like including the newer ones like Poland, netherlands, or are you focused only on the bigger ones? Franco: So my sellers, I sell both on one P vendor center and three P seller central and I have all the accounts. I mean all the nine accounts in Europe, but the only one that really matters are the big five UK, Italy, Germany, Spain and France. And for the most of my product I cannot use the Pan European, as Pita does, because there are specific regulations for each. So there is on top there is the EU regulation, but then there are specific regulation on a country level. So, amazon, do not allow us to do the Pan AU. We need to stop the product on each country. Peter: Okay, that's a lot of work and increases your workload to manage your logistics in each country like that. Franco: Yeah. Bradley Sutton: All right, going back to Peter, you have any more strategies for us. But before you get to that, what about you? You mentioned UK and Italy. Are you also selling in all nine marketplaces, or are you only keeping your listings active in the big ones? Peter: Yeah, it was only UK and Italy when I first started in Europe to get an idea of how it worked. Bradley Sutton: And almost immediately. Peter: I think I only did UK and Italy for three months and then straight away I went into the Pan European. Bradley Sutton: So for the last few years. Peter: I've been, yeah, outside of the big five. Bradley Sutton: If you have to pick one of the newer ones, are they all doing equal or is there one that you feel? Hey, down the road, this could become the sixth one, that's a good question. Peter: Now I haven't really focused on any of the new ones. I think whether you're Belgium, sweden, I can't remember, but Poland's Check for public. But from what I've seen they're all very minimal. I haven't really put an effort into them. I wouldn't say there's one that particularly stands out. Bradley Sutton: And then for all of those, are you just using what Amazon does for the auto translation, or did you, did you commission official translation with a service or something? Obviously, you did the Italian one yourself, but what about for these other languages? Peter: Actually, I didn't do the Italian one myself. I used Yana's service, ylt shout out to Yana. But for the other marketplaces, no, I haven't specifically worked on those. I've just left it with Amazon doing their own translations, and then they have a similar system to NAF. So, for like for Canada and Mexico, then for the other countries that we just mentioned, they'll take the product from Germany or France or wherever, and then send it over. It's a similar system. Bradley Sutton: Okay, all right. Any more specific strategies for us that you'd like to? Peter: share. I do a lot on social media. I don't know if you've seen that's been a huge part of improving profitability in the last two years. So the PPC costs were going up incredibly Like for us. It was getting. Tacos was getting up to 30%, maybe even 40% for some products and now, with some strong, a lot of work on the social media side and managed to bring that down to less than 5%, which I think is quite rare in the industry for the TACOS Less than 5% TACOS. Wow, that's very impressive and most of the TACOS is brand defense on the product page. So, yeah, that's been huge for us to make that change. Bradley Sutton: All right. What does the future hold for you, Franco? Like you, just hey, let's just keep going. Or are you looking to exit your business and retire? You looking to start any more brands, or what's your you looking one year down the road, five years down the road? Buying a lower division Italians football team, or like what's gonna, what's gonna. Franco: Yeah, yeah, maybe, maybe Now. Well, my dream would be to. I have my figure. My company reached nine figures. That's a very, very difficult endeavor, and at that level. Bradley Sutton: I think you might be ready for Inter Milan or AC Milan. Franco: Forget the lower division, you'll be ready. Bradley Sutton: Let's buy one of those. Franco: What else. And that could be through acquisitions of other brands or through expanding our product range. We have been looking to many, many things, okay what about you, Peter? Bradley Sutton: What's the future hold for you? Peter: Yeah, I'm just happy doing what I'm doing. I don't have any new term plans to sell the business. Enjoy what I do and just gonna keep going. Bradley Sutton: All right, excellent. Now why don't we just go ahead and close this out with a one or two sentence words of farewell in Italiano here. Start with Franco. Say something for the Italian community out there. Franco: The Italian community of the Amazon vendors has to grow to a great potential. Amazon has become one of the most important markets in Europe. So, guys, we're gonna win Amazon. Bradley Sutton: All right, and, peter, where were your Italian words of wisdom? Peter: Italian. If someone in Italy hears this, I'll pass their Shanghai. So they're content with the Vedetti. Bradley Sutton: All right. Peter: I have no idea. Bradley Sutton: This host of the podcast is a crazy guy. Peter: Shoot a sexy host of this podcast is what I said. Bradley Sutton: All right, there we go. That's good, I'll believe that. All right. Well, guys, thank you so much. It was great to have you on. It was great to meet you and hang out in Italy. We found that little nice restaurant that I was not expecting much, but I was really, really delicious food. My whole time in Italy was good food, but I look forward to seeing you at a future conference, whether it be in Asia, north America or Europe. So thanks for coming on. Peter: Thank you. Franco: Thank you.

In this third installment of our Seller Strategy Masterclass for Amazon keyword research, we pull back the curtain on advanced Amazon keyword research strategies, unveiling how discovering what keywords competitors are getting sales from - ones you don't even have in your listing - can revolutionize your Amazon FBA business. We shed light on the power of Helium 10's keyword research tool, Cerebro, and how it can swiftly identify highly searched keywords that your product is ranking for. We also discuss the clever use of the multi-ASIN search to see which keywords your competitors are capitalizing on that you aren't even indexed for.  Continuing the conversation, we explore the advantage of understanding your relative rank on relevant keywords, and how to use filters to spot keywords where your competitors outrank you. We share some keen insights on how to leverage sponsored ads to boost your rank, and even how to find keywords that your competitors aren't running sponsored ads for. We believe that this strategy could make you a ton of money. Listen in as we divulge ways to automate keyword research, and how to use Magnet to identify loosely related keywords and get quick information on a list of keywords. Wrapping up the discussion, we delve into how you can get ahead of your competitors by finding hidden gems and uncovering keywords that your competitors are getting sales from that you may not have thought of. We provide guidance on using Magnet to find the most searched terms starting with a word or phrase and using the word frequency feature to identify trends. We also show you how to use auto-complete to quickly find the most searched terms. Don't miss out on this episode filled with actionable strategies that you can implement right away to give your business a competitive edge!   In episode 508 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley talks about: 00:00 - Advanced Strategies for Amazon Keyword Research 10:36 - Product Placement for Competitor's Importance 16:39 - Sponsored Rank Average and Keyword Competitors 20:05 - New Feature in Cerebro 23:16 - Automating Competitor Keyword Tracking 27:47 - Analyzing Keywords Using Magnet 32:55 - Expanding Niche With Keyword Filters 39:32 - Keyword Search Volume and Popularity Ranking ► 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 is the final part in a three part series on advanced Amazon keyword research, and we're going to talk about really cool strategies, such as how to find out what keywords competitors are getting sales from that you don't even have in your listing. 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. h10.me/cerebro. Don't forget to use the Cereous 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 is 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 is part three in a three part series where we've been giving you guys just nonstop fire strategies all about keyword research, and I've been telling you in these episodes these are the kind of strategies that could potentially make you thousands of dollars. And if you want to raise my flag in other words the BS flag on that statement, let me just illustrate why I say that it could mean thousands of dollars easily. All right, let's just say you're a newish seller, all right, maybe you've only got one product and it's doing pretty good. You know, maybe you're projected to get about $100,000 worth of sales for a year. All right. Bradley Sutton: Now how many sales come from search? You know it varies by category, varies by product. If you take a look at your search career performance and look at the attributed sales to keywords that actually happen within 24 hours of the click, it's kind of a long, a long story how to calculate that out, but you know, maybe you see that 30% of your sales come from keywords. Now, obviously there's probably more that comes from it, just from your PPC alone. But again, let's just talk about that stuff that happens within 24 hours of a search of a keyword, which is called a denormalized search results. All right, so 30% of your sales come from keywords and you're doing 100,000 a year. That's like $30,000 come from keywords. Right Now, let's just say that, hey, that $30,000 that comes from keywords, it's from like 30 main keywords that you have already, on your own, found and you're getting sales from. Bradley Sutton: Now. Imagine if you could just add five more strategies, all right, total, I've given you, or at the end of today, you'll have 30 different keyword strategies that I've been giving you in episodes, or the the first edition, the second edition, now the third edition uh, over 30 strategies. From those 30 strategies, let's just say, for some strange reason, all you can get out of it is only five more keywords to get sales. Only five more keywords, all right, how much is that? If you were already getting $30,000 from 30 keywords, you just added a thousand dollars worth of sales for the year. All right, let's just say, no, you don't just have one product. You've been selling on Amazon for a few years. You got maybe 10 products doing about a million dollars a year. Total, all right, not even each, just just total. Bradley Sutton: Now, how much if you're adding like five, only five keywords that you've discovered through these strategies, all right, that's $10,000 worth of extra sales just by following some of these strategies. Now, I really think you guys can get more than five new keywords out of these 30 strategies that we've given you. So, again, if you're just hopping in on this episode, you can go ahead and listen to it, but, but I suggest watching the? Uh, the other two episodes first. Now, those episodes are 506 and 507. Uh, if you're watching this on the web, you can just get that at h10.me forward slash 506 or forward slash 507 and catch it on YouTube. But anyways, um, even if you just want to go ahead and keep watching this, no problem, all right, let's go ahead and hop into the strategies. All right, uh, this is, if you guys have been keeping count, this is strategy number 21,. Bradley Sutton: Out of our Cerebro strategies, all right, and this one is how to see which keywords your competitors are getting sales from that you aren't even indexed for. Now, why is this important? How can it make you money? Well, this is like the easiest no brainer of them. All right, your competitors very similar product to you. They're literally getting sales from a keyword because you know they're high on page one. Uh, for a decent search form keyword and you don't even have the keyword in your listing. All right, doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand how this is one of the easiest strategies of everything that we have here that can put money in your pocket. Uh, how do you go ahead and do it? Let's go ahead and hop in. Bradley Sutton: Now, the first thing you're going to do is this works on a multi-ASIN search in Cerebro. So you put your product first in Cerebro and then you had put, you know, like four, five, six, seven, eight, nine other competitors right there as well. Now what you want to do is you are first going to hit position rank, zero and zero position rank. What that filter is is it means your rank, which is why you have to put your product first in this list. So if you put zero and zero for minimum and maximum, that means you're saying I am not ranked at all. And then what you're going to want to do is you're going to go ahead and go to the number of competitors, filter All right, number of competitors, and you're going to go ahead and put minimum one. That's all you care about. You just want to at least sell at least one person, and then nothing on the max. And then you're going to go to competitor rank and then you're going to put, let's just say minimum one, let's say maximum 10. So that means not only are your is at least one of your competitors on page one, but they are, like you know, at the top of page one. Like I said, they're probably getting sales. I'll go ahead and put since this is the US marketplace, I'll go ahead and put a minimum search volume of 400. You know you can do more or less than paying if anything comes up. And I mean the goal is for if you do this, you don't want any keywords to show up, right, you know that's the goal, like you're doing. All right, if no products or if no keywords show up. Bradley Sutton: Now, in this particular case, only one keyword came up Gothic cabinet, all right. So the way that you can see if a keyword you have is indexed or not you might not even have it in your listing Go ahead and take this list of keywords. Now, in this case it's just one keyword and you're going to want to go into index checker, right, that's the next step. So normally you might have, you know like 10, 15 keywords. Me, I'm doing all right. So I only have you know one keyword on there, but you're going to go ahead and paste the keywords into index checker and you're going to put your ASIN as the ASIN and index checker that you are checking, all right. So I'm going to copy my ASIN, I'll bring it over into index checker and then you just run index checker and then what you want to do is see does it say that you have indexed or not? All right, in this case. Yes, I am indexed. All right. Bradley Sutton: Now let's just say one of the some of these keywords was not indexed. Well, the way to know if you are indexed or not, make sure to check the videos here in index checker and you can find out how exactly to check if you are indexed or not. But again, super simple, just a few clicks. Again, you want to see where you are not ranking at all, not even in the top seven pages, but your competitors. At least one of them is getting sales from a keyword because they're in the top, in the top 10 positions. And then the next step, if you just want to see if maybe you're not indexed at all, is go to index checker. One more quick thing I'm not sure if I mentioned this before, but in another video we have match type here, all right. So I've been talking in strictly about organic ranks in a lot of these videos, but helium 10 is checking if they're also in the now defunct editorial recommendations. Bradley Sutton: If they're showing up in an Amazon's choice widget, that's different than just the regular Amazon's choice button, but in our badge it's an Amazon's choice widget. That's sponsored ads. There's a highly rated widget. They're sponsored brand header videos or sponsored brand header ads and also sponsored brand video. So these are all different match types in Cerebro, where it'll have a little letter next to the keyword showing that, hey, this is what keywords you know what's the match type of this keyword. It'll say oh or s or other things like that. So this is also valuable. Like, maybe you want to know, hey, where is my competitor showing up in the search results? And they've got a sponsored video ad. All right, hey, where's my competitor showing up in a sponsored brand ad? Hey, well, what are the keywords where my competitor is showing up for like five or six or seven different things all on page one. I mean they literally could be, could be doing that. So this is a great way to look at that as well. Bradley Sutton: All right, let's get into the next strategy how to find the keywords. Competitors are beating you on. All right. In the previous strategy, we talked about looking for the keywords where a competitor is getting sales from, but you might not even be ranked or indexed at all, and definitely not ranked. But you know what? If you're ranked on page four, five or six, or even on the bottom of page one, but most of your competitors are ahead of you, all right, why is this important? How can this make you money? Again, this is one of those no brainers. Hey, you want to show up before your competitors, right? So maybe you know there's a keyword Gothic decor and there's six competitors on there that are coffin shelves, and you're a coffin shelf. Right, there's customers who are searching for Gothic decor, who are looking for a coffin shelf. Now, they don't see all of those other products on the page. You know, maybe there's some Skull Candleholder or some moon shaped mirror or some weird Gothic thing, right, they're looking at only the coffin shelf. So it doesn't really matter the position placement there. Like, hey, is this page one, position five? Because if the first four products are all something different than what they're looking for, it's almost as if those don't exist, right? Does that make sense? Bradley Sutton: So, in this sense, like what we call your relative rank is important. Where are you showing up in the search results compared to your direct competitors? Because those are the ones who you are fighting for. You know the sale from. How do you view that? All right, so, again, this works if you have done a multi-ASIN search and then I, you know, I like to go ahead and let's put a minimum of 300 search volume. Now, what you want to go to is where it's called relative rank. All right, so I'm going to go here to the relative rank and let's just say hey, where am I? At least three, four. All right, that means I'm at least the third one that comes up. And let's go ahead, apply filters and we probably going to have a lot of keywords here. Yeah, look at this, 38 keywords show up. And so, again, these are all the keywords now where at least two of my competitors are beating me on. All right, if I wanted to, if I wanted to see all the keywords where four out of the competitors were beating me on, I would go ahead and put a minimum of four in relative rank. Bradley Sutton: Now let me explain how, again, this relative rank works. Here's coffin shelf. It says over here under relative rank, I am six. That is terrible. This is the most important keyword for my listing and it says I am six. So what I can do is I can put my mouse over this relative rank and I can see where my competitors are ranking. For Now, the one that is my ASIN. It's going to be in bold. So right here, clear as day, I can see why my relative rank is six. I see one competitor is one, another is two, another is nine, another is 14, another is 15. And then there I am, at 17. So here is a complete list of keywords where at least two out of my main competitors they are showing up on page one before me or just anywhere in the search results. You know, maybe I'm on page two, maybe they're on page two and I'm on page five. You know, regardless, this is a great metric that you want to look at. Where are your competitors being on? You are ranking for the keyword, so at least you're in the. You're in the ballgame, right, but you're not getting sales when your competitors are all showing up before you. So a great quick way to see where your competitors are being you from, find those keywords, figure out, you know, like, how you can increase your rank. You know, maybe it's by putting some more money at your sponsored ads for those keywords and hope your conversion rate goes up. But find a way to start beating your competitors so that you're the first in the relative rank On those keywords. Bradley Sutton: Next strategy how to find keywords that your competitors are not running sponsored ads for. Now, wow, how can this strategy make you money? Um, you know your main keywords. No matter what, if none of your competitors are, you know, doing ads for it, or if all of them are, you still got to do ads for it. All right, you want to rank for it, for you know your most important keywords. But sometimes you know you might want to look for keywords that have a little less competition, or maybe at least your main competitors are not the run the ones running sponsored ads. You could view that as opportunity to make some money. So how can you find that out? Again, if you are in a Multi-ASIN search, you have the results here. Um, sometimes you can go ahead and put a minimum search volume of 300. That's what I'm going to do right here. Bradley Sutton: Now, what you want to do is you want to. There's a couple ways you can do this. One way is finding out where not many people, not many of your competitors, are running sponsored ads at all. In that case, you're going to want to find the filter that says sponsored rank count and you can put like a maximum of, let's just say, two. What that means is, hey, show me the keywords here where my competitors a maximum of only Uh two are even running sponsored ads. Now, a lot of times, a crazy number of keywords are going to show up here, like even this one says a thousand keywords. So in this situation, I'm actually going to go ahead and put another Filter, which is the competitor rank average. All right, that means, hey, these aren't just random sponsored ads they're running. These are ones where they're probably, you know, getting organically around page one or two. So I'm going to go ahead and put minimum competitor rank average one, maximum 50, and then when I apply that filter now the number is going to be a lot less of these keywords. Bradley Sutton: And here, 56 keywords, like, for example, here's one right here gothic bookcase. It's probably is fairly relevant, right, and I can see there are only there is nobody running sponsored. Good grief, I can't believe this. There is zero competitors running sponsored ads on gothic bookcase, which is a very relevant keyword. Here's another one coffin bookshelf. Only one competitor is showing up in sponsored ads. Uh, for this keyword gothic cabinet Nobody is running sponsored ads. So that's a great way again to see which keywords your competitors are not even focusing on. Bradley Sutton: Another situation could be instead of the number of competitors, you might want to look at sponsored rank average and maybe you want to see where their average is like, at least Like 30, you know meaning they're probably a lot of competitors are not even on the first. You know few pages of sponsored ads and if I go ahead and apply the filters on that, so again, sponsored rank average, minimum 30. I'm not putting anything in sponsored rank count. Now I see nine filtered keywords and see here, here's one keyword right here coffin decor. There are a couple of competitors showing up in sponsored ads and this is a keyword that a lot of people are on page one for. But look at this the main competitors are are 33rd and 69th as far as sponsored ads. That means that's like page three and page Six probably in sponsored ads. That means if I come in, I would potentially be the only person. If I bid high, I would be the only person on page one For this keyword in sponsored ads. Bradley Sutton: So another great way to find valuable information that can save you money in advertising so that, uh, you know that you can focus on certain keywords and you're not going to have much A competition at all on the flip side. Maybe you're just curious hey, where are most of my main competitors? Uh, you know advertising for where they, where are they, concentrating their top of search spend? You can go opposite on there, say you can say, hey, show me, uh, you know, put in the filter here, show me where they're sponsored rank average, regardless of their competitor rank average. So me where it's between one and 20, meaning that on average they're on page one, and that's going to show you where most of your competitors are concentrating their spend. So a lot of different ways that you can filter through this information, but it's important to do that so you can really like dial in your ppc game. Bradley Sutton: How to get a quick view of top products for amazon keywords. Why is this important? Well, as you've been seeing from a lot of our Cerebro strategies here, sometimes when you do search results, uh or in Cerebro, you can have hundreds, if not thousands, of keywords. Not all of these keywords are completely relevant to your product and you shouldn't just base it on our competitor performance score. You know, like I said before, that that doesn't mean it's always 100 relevant or that there's not other Keywords that are very relevant. Bradley Sutton: If you're looking for uh keywords where most of the top you know 10 products or the pages, the ones that are at the top of page one, are somewhat similar to your product, you know how would you? How would you do that One by one? Well, you would have to go and click each keyword and look on amazon to see all right, gothic decor, are these all coffin shelves? Oh no, when I click on gothic decor, I see a whole bunch of of random products like dream catchers and and gothic bed frames and stuff like that. Right? So now you know, okay, this is probably not a keyword where a lot of people are searching for coffin shelves. Right on the flip side, if I search for, um, you know, mini coffin bookshelf, all of the all of the products might look like one of my products. I hope that makes sense. Bradley Sutton: So, instead of having to go one by one and just checking what these keywords look like, we have a brand new way in order to uh see this inside of Cerebro. Let me show you how to do it. All right. So, in in Cerebro, if you mouse over any of the keywords, you're going to see this pop-up window, if you don't have the advanced view on, and you're going to see thumbnails of the last time, helium 10 check the top 10 products, the thumbnails of the main image. Super, super cool. You no longer have to go to amazon to take a look at the keyword. You'll instantly see the thumbnails. If you're looking for a little bit more information, you, you're gonna. You can hit the advanced view and if you hit advanced view Now, you can actually see the titles of those products, you can see the price, you can see if it has variations. The rating Super, super cool guys is one of the uh, newest features of Cerebro. Um, you know, depending on when you're watching this, you might not have full access Uh to it yet. Um, but this is a really cool feature where you no longer have to go click one by one and then look off of Uh, helium 10 back on amazon to see what kind of products are on the top of page one. Bradley Sutton: All right, how to automate your amazon keyword research. All right, we've been talking about a lot of strategies as far as how to find top keywords from your competitors. You know from your own listings, uh, etc. Now, the way I showed it to you guys, it doesn't take too much time. But maybe you've got 10, 20 products and you wanna be checking your competitor's keywords once a week. Well, it can start getting pretty tedious and time consuming and a lot of data that you're gonna have to process to every single week or every other week, go through all of your products and all of your competitor products and know, all right, is my competitor ranking for any new keywords that I didn't know? So I can put it in my listing. So how would you like a way to just put time back in your hands? I mean, time is money, right, so this could take hours and hours a month, but instead of that, let Helium 10 do the work for you. Bradley Sutton: How can you automate keyword harvesting from your competitor's keywords? Well, it actually goes back to your dashboard, all right. So what you're gonna wanna do is you're gonna wanna go back to just your regular dashboard, okay, and you're going to hit insight settings on the very bottom left of the screen insight settings, all right. Once you do that, you are going to find the keyword insight settings and then you are going to hit four insight types and you are going to select customize under keyword suggestions based on my competitors, all right. So hopefully you've set your competitors and if you haven't set your competitors on your insights dashboard, there's videos that we have on our dashboard on how to do that. But you wanna put your top five competitors for all of your products and these are the ones that you probably are running Cerebro off of. Bradley Sutton: Once you've got that done, like I said, go to your insights types, hit under customize under keyword suggestions based on my competitors, and what you're gonna do here is you're gonna enter exactly whatever you like to do inside of Cerebro. You're basically automating your Cerebro process. So maybe you said, hey, I wanna know any keyword where the search volume is at least 400 and my rank is like maybe I'm not ranking at all, so I'm gonna put zero and zero, but at least one of my competitors is ranking in the top 20 positions. All right, that's what you just fill it out, just like you would on Cerebro. So now, any time that one of my competitors for any one of my products, right, is getting sales from a new keyword that I'm not ranked for now. I'm going to get actually an insight on it or a notification right here and it'll tell me hey, your competitor is ranking for these new keywords. Bradley Sutton: Would you like to start tracking it? Would you like to start putting it in your listing? This is like super, super cool guys, next level If you don't have access to it, you're gonna need the diamond plan in order to access this. But I mean talk about putting money and time back in your hands. I mean this saves hours and hours of work. You now don't have to even run Cerebro almost ever again on your products, unless you wanna do some advanced to filtering, but you can now get those keywords delivered to you in a message saying hey, your competitor is getting sales from these keywords. Do you wanna put it into your listing? So, guys, if you wanna start automating it, make sure to set that up on your insights dashboard. All right, guys. Bradley Sutton: So we just went over a lot of strategies in the last three episodes on Cerebro 25 of them in total. I've just got a couple of strategies here using our other keyword research tool, magnet, so let's go ahead and get into it. How to find loosely related keywords to an individual keyword phrase. How can this be important? How can it make you money? Well, we showed you in Cerebro I had to get a lot of really specific information. But maybe you're doing a little bit broader research and you wanna kind of like, hey, instead of just looking at what these exact products are ranking for, let me have a broad view of keywords that are very loosely related and some closely related and see if something comes up that maybe didn't come up in Cerebro. Let me show you how to do that. If you go to Magnet, our tool, let's go ahead and enter a coffin shelf if that's my main keyword and I'm gonna hit get keywords. Bradley Sutton: And now what's going to show up here are all of the keywords that are loosely related to coffin shelf, and how these keywords are sourced is from different databases. One of the sources is organic, meaning these are the keywords that other products ranking for coffin shelf are also ranking for. Right, we've also got smart complete. Smart complete means hey, let's take this word, coffin shelf and then what are some long tail keywords related to it? I'll show you guys in a later strategy how to a little bit more recent. I'll show you in a later strategy a little bit more detail on that. And then last it's showing Amazon recommended keywords for other products that are on the coffin shelf search results, all right. Bradley Sutton: So for example, I just typed in coffin shelf and take a look, even without any filtering at all. Look at some of these interesting keywords that come up Gothic kitchen decor, punk room decor, creepy room decor, goth bedroom, curiosity cabinet. So these are other keywords that maybe wouldn't have come up in my Cerebro searches. But I'm just getting a little bit more information here and a little bit more keywords on things that I might want to put into my listing. There's a lot of filters here. Like, maybe I just wanna see all the keywords that have over a thousand search volume, I can use that filter. Maybe I wanna have all of the keywords that have at least three words right, I don't want any one word phrases, I don't want two word phrases. You know I could use that filter. Tons of filters here. Maybe I'm interested in what are all the keywords that have a title density? Maximum three, all right. What does title density mean? Title density is the number of products on page one of the search results of a keyword that have that exact search keyword in its title. So there's tons of different filters you can use. Bradley Sutton: And then again, this is a great way to round out your keyword research or perhaps get other ideas how to get top level information on a group of keywords. All right, let's just say that you came up with, you know, 30 keywords from Cerebro that your competitor is beating you on. Or let's just say you've been, you know, getting a whole bunch of data off of Amazon, like you've been looking at Pinterest trends or Google trends or TikTok hashtags or whatever, and you just have this random list of keywords and you're like, hey, I just wanna see you know what's the search volume of these keywords. Let me show you how you can just get some really quick information without having to, like one by one, go through these. All right, so let's just use the scenario, first of all, that maybe you were on Cerebro and you found nine different keyword phrases that your competitors are beating you on and you maybe wanna know what is some information on those keywords. Well, I'll just go ahead and copy these keywords right here and I'm actually going to paste them into Magnet. All right, and again, these keywords can come from anywhere. Bradley Sutton: Now, where I want to go, if I want to analyze multiple keywords, is the second tab of Magnet, all right, so once you're in Magnet, hit the analyze keywords tab and then go ahead and paste all of those keywords. I can put up to 200 in here and then you can hit the button analyze keywords. All right, now what comes up is not all of the long tail keywords or not the loosely related keywords. This just brings up the exact keywords that came up. All right, from the ones I pasted, and now I can just see the information, such as the estimated keyword sales for each one. I can have the buttons that go to the brand analytics. I have the search volume for each keyword. Let's just say these were the keywords that my competitors were beating me on, or that my competitors are on page one from. Well, the cool thing here is I can actually see a keyword summary of the total search volume. So instantly I'm like, okay, wow, my competitors is beating me on keywords that have a total search volume of 7,200. All right, so there's a lot of cool information that you can see here. Bradley Sutton: So again, this is a great way to just get some like quick information on a group of keywords instead of having to go one by one on your keyword list, how to find long tail keywords from a root keyword or phrase. Now, why is this important? How can this make you money? Well, you might know what your main keywords are. You might know what other keywords products are ranking for, but it's important to understand that there might be longer tail versions of these keywords. Maybe they don't even have that much search volume that can really round out your keyword research, and maybe you'd be the only competitor who is ranking for these keywords, all right. So how can you do that? Bradley Sutton: Let's hop into Magnet. I just use one of my main keywords coffin shelf. Here and again, there's thousands of keywords that came up, but if I wanna see the long tail versions of this, all I have to do is I'm going to select the match type of smart complete, all right. So smart complete is allows me to show what keywords coffin shelf is the root of. Where are maybe there are some plural versions of this keyword? Where are some keywords where the order is different than the original word? Bradley Sutton: Do you know how you do autocomplete on the Amazon search bar? If you type in coffin shelf, it'll just show you keywords that just start with the word coffin shelf. But look at some of the words that came up when I did smart complete here for coffin shelf. I see coffin shelves. I see coffin shelf large six foot tall. I see glass coffin shelf. So there's a keyword where it starts with a different word. I see book shelf, coffin. So there, all of a sudden, it mixes up the words and even adds another one. Here's another one coffin wall shelf. It took those two words, coffin shelf, and then put a word in the middle of it. So this is like a great way to kind of like look for longer tail versions. Bradley Sutton: Now that what I just showed you, that smart complete. It's also indicative of what could come up in a phrase match target for PPC. All right. So if you do phrase match or broad match, right. So Amazon sometimes will change the order of the words. It'll add a word before, it'll add a word after In broad matches. A little bit, you know more crazy the kind of things that it does. But now, instead of just all right, let me just see what's gonna show up on a broad or a phrase match. You can actually get a preview of what kind of keywords would come up if you do a PPC campaign on a certain keyword. That's kind of crazy if you think about it. What is everybody else on Amazon doing? They're just like all right, amazon, take the wheel. You know, let's just see what you're gonna show me for no, now you can know the exact keywords that potentially could come up in one of those campaigns. Bradley Sutton: Another way that you can use this information is by trying to see where you know like maybe you wanna expand out in your niche, like I am selling coffin shelves here. I have this list of 3000 keywords ready to coffin shelf and I just wanna make something coffin shaped, right? Maybe it doesn't start with coffin shelf. Let me show you what you can do With the list unfiltered. The first filter you're gonna do is you're gonna go to phrases containing and then I'm gonna go ahead and put coffin there, all right. And then, once I apply the filters, now any keyword out of these 3000 that came up that have coffin in it show up. So maybe I'm like all right, where are the keywords that have at least 400 search volume that have the word coffin in it? And now, all of a sudden, I see 40 keywords. Bradley Sutton: Right, and if I'm selling coffin shelves, all of a sudden, something else might strike my fancy here, like I'm just looking at this and here's something that I didn't realize. There's 400 people searching for coffin coffee table all right. There are 500 people searching for coffin decorations. There's 500 people searching for coffin bowl what the heck is a coffin bowl? I might wanna look at that. There's almost a thousand people searching for coffin rug all right, and here's a creepy keyword skeletons carrying coffin. Bradley Sutton: These are like new product ideas that I can expand my brand out to, that I didn't even know existed and all I did was I just put in my main keyword into MAGNET and I was like, let me do a filter for any keyword out of these 3000 where coffin is in it, and now I can see tons of product potential. So here's three different ways that you can find long tail versions of keywords what might come up in a PBC campaign, or even new ideas for product line extensions, how to see the keywords in a niche that are trending up in search volume. Now, why is this important? How can it make you money If you've got a lot of keywords that you're considering to use and maybe you can't fit them all in? Or maybe you're looking for new product ideas. Bradley Sutton: Well, how are you gonna prioritize it? Sure, you can prioritize it by search volume, but let's just say that even there, hey, all these keywords, there's a lot of products that have this, or a lot of keywords that have the same search volume. Well, how do you prioritize then? Well, what I like to do is I like to prioritize by the ones that are trending up. Right, if a keyword is going down in popularity compared to last month, I might not wanna focus on that keyword. So how can I easily see which ones are trending up? Bradley Sutton: There's a filter right here in MAGNET. So if I have any search results up in MAGNET, all I have to do is look for the filter search volume trend. And maybe I wanna see something that has a minimum of 50% increase compared to last month. I'm gonna put a minimum of 50 and I'm gonna hit apply filters. And now any keyword that has a big trending up is going to show up here. And look at this. Oh, my goodness gracious, I see coffin Zen garden is up 104% on search volume compared to last month. Coughing candy bowl is up 261%. So if I was looking to prioritize keywords, do you think I'd wanna prioritize some keywords that are up by over 100%, absolutely. So an easy way again to see in your niche what keywords are on the way up. Or, conversely, maybe you wanna see what keywords are on the way down. Just put in any keyword into MAGNET, check the related keywords and use that trending filter how to find common root words in an overall keyword niche. Now, why is this important? Well, again, I like to use this almost as a product research tactic. It could be, and also a PPC play too. Bradley Sutton: When I enter in Magnet a certain keyword, that's my main keyword and I'm looking at a whole bunch of loosely related keywords. Maybe there are certain trends that I don't realize. Like it doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that if I put in coffin shelf, there's probably gonna be a lot of coffin related keywords, but sometimes there might be other keywords that could give you other ideas that you weren't even thinking about. How can you find that? Let me show you. Let's just say I searched coffin shelf here in MAGNET. I'm gonna look at this box called word frequency and what this means is, of all the search results that are showing up and I can also filter it down even a little bit what keywords appear the most in the phrases. And again, just like I thought the number one keyword here or actually the number one keyword is decor at 1000, but then coffin was 600. But maybe there's something else here that looks interesting. Like, for example, I see a spooky and I'm like spooky, 131 of these keywords have the word spooky in it. So if I hit spooky, what happens is is now all of the keywords on that list that start with the word spooky are gonna show up here and I can start getting some ideas. Like look at this 38,000 search volume for this keyword. Spooky basket 1400 search volume for spooky home decor. Spooky desk accessories has a couple hundred searches a month. All right. So now, all of a sudden, I just discovered, maybe in like a new sub niche where I'm looking at coffin shelf. But I see, wow, look how this keyword spooky is trending in so many of these keywords. And again, I can use these keywords in my listing or use it as potential PPC test or use it as an idea generation for new ideas for my brand. All right. Bradley Sutton: Last strategy of the day how to instantly see the most search terms on Amazon that start with a word or phrase? All right. So this is pretty cool. Like how can this help you out? Well, you know, you might just be doing very, very like kind of low key research where you discover something you're like, all right, well, what is the most search term? Like, hey, I saw this garlic press, you know, is garlic press the most search term that starts with the word garlic? Or is there something else you know, coffin shelf. Is coffin shelf the highest search term that starts with the word coffin, or are there longer tail versions of this keyword that have even more search volume? Bradley Sutton: Check out a super simple way to find out in seconds which keywords are the most searched. When you start with any letters, word or phrase, all you have to do is just go directly to magnet guys and start typing. That's it. So let's just say I'm gonna type in coffin. If I pause just a few seconds, any keyword that has a lot of search volume is gonna show up here. And here I can see that the number one keyword that starts with coffin it's not coffin shelf. Coffin shelf isn't even top 10. It's coffin charcuterie board. That's crazy. I didn't realize that. All right, maybe I'm wondering. All right, what are the most search terms that start with coffin shelf? Here we go coffin shelf is number one. Coffin shelf large is number two. I mentioned garlic press earlier. What are the most search terms that start with the word garlic? Well, whatever shows up here in this autocomplete, right here in magnet, it is the words. It is sorted by the number of searches. All right, so I can see. If I put in garlic, the number one keyword is garlic, number two is garlic press, then garlic powder. So any keyword you can possibly think of on Amazon. Bradley Sutton: If you're just really curious, hey, what are some other keywords that might start with this keyword and one of the most search ones? Just start typing anything you want into magnet. Don't even have to click anything. Whatever comes up in the magnet autocomplete are the highest search terms. All right, guys, there you have it. We just did, I think, by my last count, 31 keyword research strategies over the last three episodes. Now don't just sit there and be like oh wow, that was amazing, Bradley, those are some incredible strategies and that's it All right. That does nobody any good. That means I just wasted my breath here in all these strategies. What I want you to do is pick some of these strategies and start doing it right now on your own account. Bradley Sutton: Maybe you haven't even found a product yet, but there was ideas that I brought up in this keyword research on how you can find product ideas. Maybe you've got an existing brand and now you know of how you can come up with expanded ideas by doing keyword research. Maybe you've got your product on the way to you right now from your supplier and you need to start building your listing and you wanna make sure you've got the best keywords. These 31 strategies are going to help you with that. So, guys, hope you enjoyed these episodes. Bookmark these, go back to it, refer to it. I'm gonna try and put copies of these videos also inside of our tool and inside of our Helium 10 Academy so you can have them as reference. Let me know, guys, in the Helium 10 members Facebook group or, if you're watching this on YouTube, in the comments. Let me know which one of these strategies you thought was the coolest, which ones that have helped you find new keywords that can help you get those extra thousands of dollars of sales on Amazon.

Ever wondered how to turn strategic insights into a goldmine? This episode brings the secrets of Amazon analytics to your ears, highlighting the pivotal role of keywords in boosting your revenues and leaving your competitors behind. We've got a masterclass in the works that will open your eyes to the capabilities of organic and sponsored ranks, the art of tracking Amazon keyword ranks, and decoding the difference between ranks in Cerebro, keyword tracker, and a browser search. Fasten your seatbelts, as we explore deeper into the labyrinth of Amazon Brand Analytics and trends. We will guide you on how to use data inside Helium 10 from Amazon’s brand analytics data to unveil what's happening with specific keywords and how to turn this knowledge into strategic decisions. Plus, watch out for our segment on the "time machine method" in Helium 10, a secret weapon to fuel your Amazon business’ growth. Finally, we'll share some hard-hitting strategies for uncovering the top Amazon keywords for your market niche and revealing hidden opportunities in keyword research. We'll discuss how to use Amazon Brand Analytics to see the history of Cerebro keyword searches, identify sales spikes, and compare organic and sponsored ranks. By the end of the episode, you'll be armed with the knowledge needed to dominate your market and boost your Amazon business to new heights. So, are you ready to elevate your selling game?  episode 507 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley discusses: 01:27 - Advanced Amazon Keyword Tracking Strategies 08:11 - Amazon Brand Analytics for Keyword Strategies 13:54 - Comparing Amazon and Helium 10's Data  16:53 - Analyzing Historical Trends in Keyword Distribution  19:56 - Keyword Analysis for Amazon Sales Increase  25:52 - Top Amazon Keywords for Multiple Products 32:58 - Optimizing PPC Strategy With Competitor Analysis  37:19 - Opportunity Keywords and Competitor Analysis ► 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 is part two of our seller strategy masterclass, where we do a deep dive into keyword research using Cerebro, and the strategies we're going to go over today, if implemented by you and your team, could potentially mean thousands of dollars of extra revenue for you. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I am your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show that’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 is now part two for a series that we've been doing that we call seller strategy masterclass, where we do a deep dive into Amazon keyword research. Now, if you haven't seen part one, you should go back and, you know, hop on that video, because a lot of what we're going to talk today is based on some of the things that hopefully you've mastered already in part one. So, for any reason you just happen to find this episode randomly, go back to episode 506. You can do that h10.me/506 and make sure to listen to that one. Take a lot of notes. Make sure you've mastered that before getting into this one. All right, for the rest of you who already watched that, let's go ahead and hop into it. Bradley Sutton: Last episode, we went through about 12 different strategies that can definitely help you, mainly looking at like individual products, using Cerebro and how to like reverse engineer, organic ranks and sponsored ranks, and how to use some of the advanced features of Helium 10. Today, we're going to look at even more advanced features. A lot of these are or most of these, all of these are available to anybody with a diamond and above, a lot of these are still available to anybody with a platinum Helium 10 account as well. But again, even if you don't even have Helium 10, let alone one of those plans, still pay attention to this, because these are strategies that you should be using, regardless of what software you're using. It's literally stuff, some of this that I would say 95 to 98% of Amazon sellers even if they have Helium 10, they're not using it, so it really can give you a competitive advantage over others. Again, the way that we do this in case you forgot it from the last episode instead of just making this some step by step guide, we'll show some step by step, but the main focus of this is to give you goals. All right, all right, all right. Bradley Sutton: So this is like a how to guide. We're going to say stuff like how to compare organic and sponsored rank to the being the top clicked in brand analytics. All right, so we're going to start off with a how to and then, as soon as we do that, we're going to talk about well, why is this beneficial? Why do you even want to achieve this goal? What can it mean to your bottom line? And then we're going to get into the strategy. Ready to go? All right, strategy 12. How to start tracking Amazon keyword rank up to 24 times a day. Now, why would you even want to do this? How is this beneficial to you? How could this make you money? Bradley Sutton: Well, as we have talked about in previous videos, the ranks organic and sponsored that you might see inside of Helium 10, Cerebro are either from, could be from today, could have been from five days ago, could have been from 29 days ago. It's anywhere between one and 30 days old. We're not checking it completely actively. It gives you just a holistic look at ranking. Now there might be something that you really want to focus on, like your top keywords. You might not want to see something where it could have been taken last week. It could have been taken a couple of weeks ago. You really want to focus on that keyword? Well, in that case, you're going to want to be looking at your rank a lot more frequently than just looking at it, you know, once a day or even once a week. So one of the ways that you can do that, if you really found some good, most important keywords for your listing, is by exporting to a different tool keyword tracker. Bradley Sutton: And again, just to kind of set the scene here, what is the difference between a rank in Cerebro, a rank in keyword tracker and a rank you might see on your browser right now? You know, some people say wait a minute, how come my rank is different from what I see in Cerebro, to what I see in my browser? Remember, these are not estimates that are taking us to Cerebro. This is an exact rank taken from an exact browsing scenario. You could have 10 people at the very same time in different parts of the country. You could have three people in the same house at the same exact time search for something on Amazon, and it could be different ranks. All right, whether somebody's on a mobile browser, somebody's on Safari, somebody's on Chrome. Somebody signed in, somebody signed off. Somebody signed in in Los Angeles, California, somebody signed in in Brooklyn, New York. It could have different ranks. It usually doesn't fluctuate that much, but that's why you might see something different. It doesn't mean that one is wrong and one is right. They're all actual ranks but, you know, based on the browsing scenario, amazon might show something different. Bradley Sutton: Anyways, how can you track up to 12 or 24 times a day? Let me show you how. You're going to want to take your keywords that you want to go ahead and export let's just say, coffin letterboard, halloween DVD collection and coffin bookshelf. So you go ahead and click this button, add to keyword tracker, find the product that you're wanting to add this to, and you can add track a new product if you haven't added this to your keyword tracker before, and then, basically, you are going to automatically have these products in keyword tracker. Now, once you go over to keyword tracker, you should see those new keywords that you had added in here. Now I mentioned at the top of this section is how to do it 24 times a day. Well, by default, keyword tracker, unlike Cerebro, it's checking once a day. If you wanted to check up to 24 times a day. You're just going to hit this little rocket chip that is next to each keyword and then now you are going to get ranks 24 times a day for this keyword. So that's just a great way. Again, if you want to get more into detail on keyword tracker, there are other videos that kind of help you with that. Bradley Sutton: So that's just one of the ways to export keywords out of Cerebro. There's actually a couple more ways that you can do that. One of the ways is a lot of people like to manipulate the data, maybe in an Excel spreadsheet All right. So if you want to do that, all you have to do is hit the export data button directly from Cerebro and then you could say, hey, download to a XLSX file or a CSV file, and then what that does is it downloads all of the raw data, keywords and all the search volume and everything into an Excel spreadsheet, and then you might be able to do a little bit more filtering or something like that that you might not have been able to do inside of the Helium 10 dashboard. Bradley Sutton: A third way that you can export the data from Cerebro is to our word processor tool, which is called Frankenstein. All right, so if you export, if you hit export and then you hit it to Frankenstein, what it's going to do is it's gonna open up a new window and it's gonna open up Frankenstein. So what this allows you to do is it allows you to take away duplicates and maybe filter out certain words, allows you to do word counts. You wanna see. Hey, show me all of the keywords that have at least four words. Show me all the keywords that have coffin. Take out any keyword phrase that has Halloween. Whatever you wanna do in Frankenstein, you can manipulate the keywords in that way. If you wanna have a better instructions on how to work with Frankenstein, there's a video that's in the Frankenstein tool that helps you with that. So there's three different ways to export. Number one go to Keyword Tracker. Learn how to track these keywords 24 times a day in rotating browsing scenarios. Number two export your keyword list to Excel and then manipulate the data that way. And then, number three export it to our keyword processing tool, Frankenstein. That gives you even more options. Bradley Sutton: All right, let's get into the next strategy how to see the top clicked and top purchased products for a keyword using Amazon brand analytics data. So Amazon brand analytics is something that Amazon released about two, three years ago, really helpful. It is a data point that tells you, for any keyword, what were the top three products that were clicked and then, from those top three click products, what was the percentage of their click share and what was their percentage of their conversion or purchase share. For any keyword that comes up in Cerebro, you can actually see that number. Now, why is this important? How can this metric help you make money? Well, all keywords are not created equal. All right, there are some keywords that result in a lot of clicks and a lot of purchases. There are some keywords that don't have a lot of purchases. There are some keywords where maybe the top three products that are clicked, they're dominating the clicks, they're dominating the purchases. There are other keywords, when you add up the top three products that are clicked, that they might not have a big percentage of the overall clicks and conversions for a keyword, and that could give you information to let you know, hey, that market might be a little bit more wide open. There's a lot of ways to look into this data and get ahead of the game. Like you might wanna focus on a keyword where you see a couple of really bad listings that are just dominating the sales, and you know that you can take over. That might be a more attractive keyword to focus on as opposed to something else. So how do you do that? Let's go ahead and hop into it In your Cerebro results. Bradley Sutton: You'll notice one of the columns. There's two columns. It'll say ABA, which stands for Amazon Brand Analytics Total Click Share and ABA Conversion Share. Now, right next to that, you're gonna see a little graph button, so like, for example, I can see Coffin Shelf and it says ABA Total Click Share 30.5%. What that means is the top three click products over the last month or over the last week for that keyword resulted in 30.5% of the overall clicks. It says ABA Total Conversion Share 15% for that same thing. Now, that right there just tells you something that you know, because, theoretically speaking, if the conversion rates were all created equal, if three products got 30% of the clicks, they should get 30% of the sales. Right, if all things were created equal. But this means that of the top three click products, a lot of people are clicking out of it and that means 85% of the sales that come from these keywords are not even from the top three clicks. So that right there might give you some strategy that you can look at. You can actually filter in the Cerebro results for this top three total click share and top three total conversion share. Bradley Sutton: Another thing you can do is click on the graph. Like, if I click on this graph that is right next to ABA Total Click Share, another graph comes up and you're gonna wanna put your mouse over the different months or the different weeks. I can actually change the date settings to say, hey, I wanna look at this data on a weekly basis and maybe I'm just gonna look from October 1st all the way to October 28th and now, week by week, I put my mouse over this graph and then here at the bottom I can see which ones are the top three click Like. For example, for this week, October 22nd to October 28th, I can see that my product had 9% of the clicks. It was number three and it had 11% of the conversions. So that's pretty good. Look at this. There was one other product on here that had 13% of the clicks but only 3% of the conversions, so their conversion rate was not very good. So again, a lot of great data that you can see in here. This comes directly from Amazon. This is not some estimate from Helium 10 or some algorithm. This is directly from Amazon. So use this data in order to get some additional insights into what's going on on certain keywords. All right. Bradley Sutton: Next strategy how to compare the organic and sponsored rank and see how it relates to being one of the top three click products. Now, why is this beneficial? How can this make you money? When you talk about spending money on Amazon, as an Amazon seller, what do you think? You spend a lot of money on Sponsored ads? You're probably right, right. Apart from inventory, of course, and shipping and things like that, what do you pay Amazon the most for? It might be PPC, and so you wanna know hey, am I getting the best bang for my buck with my PPC? Do I even need to invest heavily in staying at the top of search for PPC? Do I need to, like, stay top of search and do some kind of campaign to bring my organic rank up? There's a lot of these questions that you might have, and without looking at this next measure, I'm gonna tell you you might not be able to see the answer. So let's go ahead and hop into this. How you can see this If you click on the graph inside of Helium-Tensoribro, on one of the ABA total click share figures here and, by the way, if you see an NA, that means it wasn't available inside of Amazon brand analytics, so let's go ahead and click on one that has the graph. Bradley Sutton: I'm gonna focus here on the right side of this graph, and this is giving me the last three months of what was the top three click products and these first columns that I'm looking at. It'll say click share and conversion share. Again, this is directly from Amazon telling me who were the top three clicked and purchased products. And the thing that is interesting is the next two columns are the organic rank average and the sponsored rank average. So we're now comparing Amazon data to Helium 10’s data. All right, take a look at this. I'm looking at my product here. For the month of October, I was a number three clicked product okay, but look at my organic rank average 21. So you might think that you probably would get zero sales being page one position 20, right, but I am one of the top three clicked and I was even converting at a higher clip than the number one clicked product. Why I could see here from the Helium-Tens data that my sponsored rank average was number two. Bradley Sutton: All right, so how does this knowledge help me? Well, now I know I don't necessarily have to do some crazy campaign to get ranked organically. As long as I can stay ahead of the game on my sponsored rank, it is going to keep me to be one of the top three click Other keywords. You might see different data where the sponsored rank might not even be that important, but the organic rank seems to drive all of the sales. You might see another keyword where it's unless you are at the top of the page in organic and sponsored, you might not be one of the top three clicked or purchased products. So again, this is a super, super valuable data point that only Helium 10 has, where it compares Amazon brand analytics data with our keyword tracking data so you can find out which keywords to focus on and which keywords to focus on organic versus sponsored, how to view the history of how many keywords a product has ranked for organically or in sponsored ads. This is one of my favorite ones, something I've been asking for for years before the team finally put it in. Bradley Sutton: I like to call this tool the time machine method, but actually it's called historical trends inside of Helium 10. Now, why would you want to know this? How can this make you money? Well, you might see what a product is doing right now on Amazon. That's what Cerebro is for right, and it's always been for that. Hey, where are they ranking for now? But what if you're in a seasonal niche? Or what if you're curious about what happens during November of each year, because that's when sales spike? Or what happens when it's a beach ball and it's in the summer? You know, like, if I'm in December and I'm looking at Cerebro for a beach ball item, the keywords that people are finding this product now it's probably very different than the keywords in June and July. Bradley Sutton: Another way that I'm looking at this data is that you know what if there are trends in how a competitor is doing sponsored ads, or maybe trends in how their organic reach flows, like maybe they do outside campaigns that give them temporary spikes at different times of the year, let's hop in to see how you can see all of this data, and even more so whenever you are in Cerebro. There is a button in the middle under keyword distribution that is called show historical trend. You are going to want to go ahead and click that and it's going to open up the historical trends for up to two years if the product has been active, for where their organic and sponsored keywords have been showing up, and you'll see it in different colors. So like, for example, you could see that in October of this year they were ranking for 698 different keywords and also they were ranking sponsored 281. Now here's something that is cool. If I'm going to go back in history and I could see, wow, look, in November and December of last year, these guys were going hard and heavy. They really upped their PPC spend. This is not my coffin shelf here, I'm looking at somebody else's coffin shelf. So now I know, going into November of this year, hey, I got to be on guard because it looks like this competitor really ups their spend on PPC during November and December. But take a look at this If I look in January, it looks like they pretty much turn off their PPC ads. Bradley Sutton: They were only showing up for 84 different keywords in sponsored ads during January of 2023. So now, all of a sudden, I've got some data that shows, hey, they didn't really do any sponsored ads in January. January might be the time where I can kind of overtake them with my reach if I go opposite of them and go a little bit hard and heavy, maybe in November and December I'm like man it might be too hard to compete with them. Maybe I'll dial back my spend and let them go ahead and go crazy with their spend. I mean, there's different ways to interpret this data. There's no right or wrong way. Bradley Sutton: But for the first time, you can have visibility into the reach of your competitors. Maybe you see a competitor sales going up and up and up, right. Well, I would go ahead and look at this historical trend and see why are they ranking for more keywords? Are they advertising for more keywords? Same thing Maybe their sales are going down. Well, I'm going to check Are they ranking for more keywords? Are they advertising for more, more keywords? If not, that means they just got more efficient, right. If their sales were going up and the keywords were actually going down, it means that they were just laser focused on certain keywords. Which keywords were they focused on? I'm going to show you in the next strategy exactly how to find that. But, guys, take a look at this on your listing and your competitors listing, so you can see the history of all of the number of keywords that they're organically and sponsored ranked for All right. Now the next strategy is how to check an Amazon products organic and sponsored rank history. All right. So in the previous strategy we talked about how to just see the total number. But how do you actually see what they were ranking for and when? Why do you want to see this? Why is this important? How can it make you money? Bradley Sutton: Again, the example I gave earlier of a beach ball. You know if I'm going to launch a beach ball in July of next year, or maybe I'll launch it in spring, but you know the main focus is gonna be in June, july, august. In December I can't really Do keyword research on this product and know what are the best keywords. Right, I need to go find who was One of the top selling beach balls in June, july or August of last year and then I want to Analyze them. Not in December of this year, what, when nobody is searching for beach balls and they might even have their listing active. Bradley Sutton: But I want to see what were the keywords driving the sales of that product during that time of year. Maybe there's other products where I could see that they had a certain spike in a certain month. Regardless of see. Maybe it's not a seasonal product at all. It's a product like a power bank or something that people buy throughout the year. But I noticed in a certain month they had a lot of sales. Well, you know what I'm gonna do I want to compare what keywords and where they were ranking for in the month before their sales went up and then compare it to the month where their sales went up and which keywords increased in rank organic or sponsored. Guess what? That is the reason of why their sales went up. I can literally tie a sales increase at least part of their sales increase to Exact keywords, so that now I know for my product which keywords I want to focus on Of which potentially could increase my sales. Bradley Sutton: So how can we do that? Let's go ahead and hop into it. So again, if I see a, let's pretend that this coffin shelf here had a spike in sales on a certain year, like November of 2022 what I'm gonna do is I'm going to go in click historical trend and then I'm going to find the month when they had the the big sales. Now, before I even do that, I might go into the previous month and have that cerebral open in another window so I can see where they were ranked on a quote-unquote neural month. But let me show you. I just click on this exact date here of November 2022 and then I'm gonna hit apply filters. And now this is like taking a time machine, because it is now going to show me the cerebral, as if I was doing this in November of 2022. Bradley Sutton: That's what it is showing now, and then now I can go ahead and use Helium 10 filters and say, hey, show me of the keywords that had at least 300 search volume during, you know, october of 2022, where were they ranked? Between positions 1 and 20. And then now, all of a sudden, I can see the exact keywords that they were probably getting a lot of their sales from. And then again, what I'm going to do is, if I was trying to see a Spike in sales, like where the keywords coming from, I'm gonna take one of the months where their sales were down and then compare, keyword by keyword, which one they had a big increase or which one they hopped to the top of page one. And now I know Exactly why they had a spike in sales. Bradley Sutton: That customer. If they're not even using Helium 10 or they're not looking this data, they probably don't even know themselves. Uh, I say that customer, that competitor, they probably don't even know themselves why they have the spike in sales, but I can actually see that now and now I'm gonna use that data to make sure that I get ahead. So, guys, this I Cannot emphasize how valuable this feature is. Nobody has ever had anything like this super, super important that can really get you ahead looking at either spikes in sales, valleys in sales. You know it's the opposite. I didn't really mention that. But let's say you notice a competitor a certain month had a terrible month, even though they were in stock. Obviously, if they're out of stock, well, they would have a bad month, but they were in stock. They had a terrible month of sales. Well, I'm going to look at when they had a great month right before and I'm gonna look at what keywords they went down in rank, what keywords did they take the pedal off the metal for their sponsored ranks? And then, now I know the keywords, I need to make sure that I don't fall off, because now I know that, hey, if I fall off on these keywords, it could result in another sales. You know, sales lull, like it did for my competitor. So, guys, this is probably top one, top two around their favorite features in all of Helium 10, out of the 75 million things that Helium 10 can do, this right here is one of my favorites and this is what could really really give you a leg up on the competition Historical Cerebro. So make sure to use it. Bradley Sutton: Next strategy how to view the history of your Cerebro keyword searches. All right, why is this beneficial? Can this make you money? Well, a lot of this data changes over time and maybe you are like always checking somebody's Cerebro and you or somebody's product in Cerebro and you want to see the history of something like Amazon recommended and how it changed over time, or some of the graphs you know over time. Maybe you don't have access to the historical Cerebro? Well, what you can do is you can actually go in and see your history so that you know what was going on and when. All right, so how you can do that is by at the very top of the screen. Even before you get into any search, you're gonna see a very button at the top right called history. If you click on that, it is gonna show you all of the history of every single product you have ever searched in Cerebro and it gives you the date of when you looked at it and you can even search. Like you can see, I've used Cerebro here 1,500 times. I could search hey, where's all the coffin shelves that I searched for? And if I hit open, what it's going to open up in is the Cerebro as I looked at it as of that day. So this is a great thing to look at if you want to look at how things have progressed since the first time you looked at a product or a group of products really important to check your history in Cerebro. Bradley Sutton: Next strategy how to find the top Amazon keywords for a niche or a market, or multiple Asins, a group of products. Why is this important? How can it benefit you? We've been talking until now about looking up individual products in Cerebro, which is absolutely a great method and a lot of tools can do that, but now we're taking it to another level, where you are analyzing multiple products. Well, how this can help you is you know you might if you just look at one product like the top seller in a niche and understand their keywords, their top keywords. That's valuable information, right, but do you think that that one product is the only one making sales on keywords. No, another product might have discovered a different keyword that this first product doesn't know about, and so if you analyze that product, you know you might want to know what keywords they're ranking for. Maybe you want to know what's the most important keywords overall in the niche. Where are most of the top competitors all getting their sales from, because they're all ranked high? What are the keywords where maybe only a couple competitors really know about it? So these are kind of under the radar keywords that might have less competition. All of these are reasons on why you should analyze multiple products at the same time. Bradley Sutton: So let's just again talk about how you can find the top keywords, the top keywords for a group of products, or the most relevant keywords. Well, I actually like to start this outside of Cerebro. I mean, you could just go ahead and copy Aysons one by one directly in this Cerebro. I actually like going to Amazon itself and then looking at the products that way. So here I just searched for coffin shelf here in Amazon and what I'm going to do is I'm going to run Helium 10 X-Ray on this page Now. Once I do that, the top products are going to come up. Bradley Sutton: Now here is something very important. I'm going to select from X-Ray right on Amazon the keywords that I want to look at in Cerebro. But what's important to do is Cerebro Multi-Aysons search is built on comparing your product to your competitors. So if you have a product right here on this page, you want to make sure to select it first. All right, so I'm going to select my product, my coffin shelf, first. Now, if you don't have a product, maybe you're just doing keyword research in a brand new niche. I like choosing a product way from the bottom of the page. That's not one of the top sellers as my baseline product, and the reason is is because I don't want to exclude it from the search results. All right, so the way that Cerebro is built is to compare your product to competitor products. But you can kind of use this mini hack if you don't have your own product, just by selecting a random product here from the bottom of the page and then selecting your coffin shelf, so I can choose up to like maybe 10 or even 20 of the top coffin shelves. Bradley Sutton: Let me go ahead and choose, you know, some of the top ones that I see here on this page, and then, once I've selected them. I'm going to go ahead and hit the button Run Cerebro and it's going to open up Cerebro in another tab and it's now going to show me my rank versus all of the other competitor ranks in Cerebro. Or, if I didn't have my product as the first product, it's actually going to show me just the baseline product versus all of the competitor products. But it's really the competitor products that I'm going to be focused on. So now, if I just want to find out what the top keywords are, as you can see here, it found over 3,000 keywords that any one of those competitors that I looked at are ranking for. All right, that's valuable, but you know I really want to focus on the top keywords. Bradley Sutton: There's one button you can do right here at the very top of the page. If I just hit the button Top Keywords, it actually goes in and does some filters for me so that I can see what some of the top keywords are, and you could see it filtered that you know 3,000 keywords all the way down to five keywords. What is this based on? It just threw in some filters that make sure to show me what are the keywords that more than a few of, more than just one or two of these products that I chose are ranking for, and they're all kind of ranking high. The competitor rank average is between one and 40. That's what it did. So maybe this five keywords is not enough. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to say, hey, you know, show me the 300 and up search volume. Maybe the competitor rank average is between one and 50, and at least three ranking competitors are all ranking for it, and then, if I go ahead and apply those filters, more keywords might show up. Now, as you can see, 22 filtered keywords show up. Bradley Sutton: The column that I like to look at here is the competitor performance score. This can be viewed. As you know, some people call this relevancy. I don't like calling it relevancy because it could just be a fluke. But if you see a 10 out of 10 competitor performance score, that means that a lot of these products you know I think I had five or six products that I entered in here a lot, if not all of them are all ranking for it and they are all ranking relatively high. That's what this competitor rank average is. Bradley Sutton: Look at this this keyword has competitor rank average of 7.6. That means the five products that we're ranking for this keyword. If I average where they're showing up for it's page one position seven, right. So that's pretty crazy. If I wanted to know exactly where they were ranking for, I just put my mouse over relative rank and then it shows why that competitor rank average is so high. Look at this. It says one is number one, one is number three, one is number five, number 13, 15 and 16. You take that on average and it goes to a 7.6. All right, so this is a great way to see what are the top keywords in a niche. That means all the top sellers, if that's what I chose when I was looking in Amazon. If they're all ranking highly for a certain keyword, it's gonna show up here on this top keyword list. This is a great way to get your best keywords for your Amazon listing. Bradley Sutton: How to find the top sponsored keywords for a niche or a groove of products. Why is this important? How can this help you? If you are trying to enter a niche where you haven't run PPC ads before, you might not have the best idea about what are the most important keywords to advertise for. But if you're going into a niche where there's competitors who have been on there a few months or a few years, theoretically speaking, maybe they have already gone through a lot of auto campaigns and they know what the best converting keywords are. So if you look at where they are focusing their spend, where they are focusing on top of search, where they're showing up on page one in the sponsored results, it can actually help you go ahead and start from date one to be focusing on the right keywords in sponsored ads. Bradley Sutton: So how can you do that? Well, let's just say you did a multi-acent search, like I showed you in the last strategy, and you are looking at about four, five, six, seven or however many acents. What you're gonna want to do is you might want to look at sponsored rank count, and I like putting a minimum of two there. That means, hey, show me the keywords where at least two out of these competitors are advertising for you might wanna go three out of five instead of just two. Let's just start with two. And then sponsored rank average. You might want to choose between, let's just say one and 20, kind of like saying, hey, these are the keywords that if I take the average rank, they're on page one or two of sponsored ads, and then maybe I'll go ahead and do a search volume minimum of 300. Bradley Sutton: There's no magic numbers here, guys. You guys can play with these filters. That's why we have so many of them and, as you can see here, eight keywords came up for this coffin shelf niche and so I can see here coffin shelf, coffin shelves, mini coffin. If I look at the sponsored rank count, I could see how many people are advertising from the top players and then what the sponsored rank average is, and I could see some of these. Look at this one Cough and shelf. We've got somebody page one, position one, somebody page one position nine, eight and 10 in sponsored rank, and then one is 65. That brought down the average a little bit. This gives me a really quick way, within 30 seconds or less, to see who the top players are all kind of focused on in order to focus their PPC spend, and then you can definitely use that for your own PPC strategy. Bradley Sutton: All right, last strategy of the day how to find the keywords that most of the top competitors are sleeping on. Why is this important? How can it make you money? We talked earlier about how to find the top keywords for a niche, and that is just period. End of story. The top keywords just because a lot of the competitors are ranking for it doesn't make it a bad keyword. That actually makes it a good keyword. But, that being said, it's understandable to know that, hey, if all of the top competitors, all the top sellers in a certain niche, are all getting sales from this keyword because they're all ranked high, it's a very competitive keyword. Again, I reiterate, that doesn't mean it's a bad keyword or something you shouldn't have in your listing. You absolutely have to have the top keywords. But what about the keywords that maybe only one competitor or two competitors are getting sales from? This could be a potentially non-competitive keyword. Bradley Sutton: Now, sometimes these keywords are a little bit less relevant to your product. An example might be like Gothic decor. Right, maybe only one or two competitors of coffin shelf are ranking for Gothic decor, but all the other products that you see when you search for Gothic decor? There are things like maybe like a spooky skull holder or some Gothic bed frame or some Gothic looking wall ornament or what have you. But here's the thing, the reason why sometimes certain keywords work for products you might not think are relevant. Bradley Sutton: Like maybe you didn't think that a coffin shelf is Gothic decor is that there are people out there who search for a keyword with different buyer intent. Right, there is maybe somebody who, in the back of their mind, they really do want a coffin shelf, but they don't call it a coffin shelf, they call it Gothic decor. So what they're looking for is a coffin shelf. So they type in Gothic decor. They see a whole bunch of random products. But if they're looking for a coffin shelf and only one or two products are coffin shelves on page one, guess what? Those one or two products have a 50-50 chance or a 100% chance if only one of them is ranking for it to get the sale, because all those other products on page one is kind of meaningless to that customer who went there with an intent to buy a coffin shelf. They just use a different keyword than most people. So this is why looking for these keywords while they might not be the top keywords that can get you sales, they're a great way to kind of like take advantage of special keywords that certain competitors out there have found that's relevant to their product and they're getting sales. Bradley Sutton: And now, instead of having to fight seven, eight, nine of your competitors for a sale, you're only fighting one or two competitors. How can you do that? Let's go ahead and hop into Cerebro. So if I did my multi-acent search that I've showed you guys how to do in the other strategies, all I have to do is hit one button for this, and it's the button at the top left that's called opportunity keywords. This puts in a kind of like preset filters that you can play around with later and it's telling me a competitor performance max five, and then only one competitor is ranking between one and 15. Bradley Sutton: All right, so, as I can see, as you can see here, there are 12 keywords that came up. For example, one of them is Gothic shelf. Now, why did this keyword come up on this search but not the top keywords search? Well, if you look here, there are only. There is only one competitor here who is ranked between one and 15, and it's somebody rank 13. The rest of them were ranked on. You know, here's one that's 16, here's one at 76, one at 77, one at 96. So, only if I get on the top page of Gothic shelf, guess what? I am only fighting one competitor for that sale, for somebody who might buy a coffin shelf. Bradley Sutton: You see how valuable this keyword list can go. If you want to, you know, fool around with some of these filters to narrow it in other ways. You can absolutely do that. But this is just a great way to see what we call opportunity keywords. Or maybe only one or two competitors getting only you know, maybe a couple sales here or there from this keyword because it might not be fully, fully relevant to the niche as a whole. But you're only gonna be fighting one or two people for sales for this keyword and usually you know all the top 10, 15, they all have a few of these keywords that they might be getting sales from. And now you can combine all of those top keywords into your listing and be one of the only ones that has all of those keywords in there and getting sales from them. Bradley Sutton: Now, as kind of an addendum to this strategy, some of these filters they're really great to use, just like get some insights right. So forget about that preset opportunity keywords filter, if I clear this, I really want you guys to play along, or play around with these filters here, which are number of competitors and competitor rank. All right, basically, the number of competitors filter means of how many ASINs do you want to hit a certain criteria that you are about to specify. So, as you can see, here I had put five ASINs. So maybe I say, hey, I just want to see the keywords where a minimum of one competitor any one of these, or all five of them, it doesn't matter is ranked between one and 10. So what I'm doing is I put number of competitors minimum one I don't put a maximum and then under the competitor rank filter, I put one and 10. Now this is going to show me all of the keywords where just any one, any two, any three, any four, any five of these ASINs are ranked between one and 10, and I came up with 83 keywords. So, as you see, guys, the possibilities are endless here. Bradley Sutton: With all of these filters, there is no one magic way that's going to get you the best keywords. Everybody has their own strategies. That's why we have these filters. But even that one could get you sales trying to look for keywords that at least just one of your competitors is getting sales from. All right, guys, that ends part two of our keyword research masterclass. We're going to have an unprecedented part three coming up soon, where we're going to show you the rest of the Cerebro strategies and we're even going to get into our other tool, magnet, to get you strategies that are going to give you sales that can help your business. So I hope you enjoyed this episode. We'll see you in the next one.  

What if you could unlock the potential of keyword search volume to exponentially boost your sales on Amazon? Imagine using a comprehensive tool like Helium 10's Cerebro to not only identify the keywords a product ranks for but also understand the demand of a keyword, observe products gaining the most clicks and purchases, and even keep track of your competitors' PPC strategy. In this Seller Strategy Masterclass episode, we break down these complex strategies, which, if utilized wisely, could lead to extra sales amounting to thousands of dollars.  In the realm of Amazon selling, understanding search volume and history is paramount. We guide you on how to capitalize on these essential metrics using Cerebro's robust features. Ever wondered how to leverage the power of reverse engineering the success of your competitors? We've got you covered! We dive into how to identify hot keywords in your niche, understand your competitors' PPC strategies, and find common roots among relevant keywords, all by harnessing the power of Helium 10’s Cerebro tool. In our quest to empower Amazon sellers, we reveal new features and how to use the Cerebro IQ Score to identify profitable keywords and optimize their impact on your business. Plus, learn how the Amazon Recommended Rank can revolutionize your product listings. From the USA to Canada, Mexico, Germany, Spain, Italy, France, UK, India, Netherlands, Australia, Japan, United Arab Emirates, and even the Walmart USA marketplace, these strategies are designed to supercharge your Amazon-selling experience. So, buckle up and join us for this riveting masterclass on Amazon seller strategies! In episode 506 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley discusses: 01:13 - A Seller Strategy Masterclass For Cerebro 06:11 - Using Helium 10's Cerebro to Analyze Amazon Keywords  12:38 - Understanding Search Volume And History  19:18 - Understanding Competitors' PPC Strategy  22:59 - Finding Common Keywords on Amazon 26:35 - Optimizing Title Density for Amazon Rankings  30:59 - Amazon Keyword Indexing  45:02 - Frequently Bought Together Products in 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

Unlock the secret to a successful Amazon launch strategy in our latest episode, where we discuss the fundamental aspects of the Maldives Honeymoon launch and Bali Blast pre-launch strategies, including keyword research, test listings, PPC campaign setup, and much more. We promise to equip you with an arsenal of tips, tricks, and strategies to help your product launch be successful. We'll kick off with the importance of sending relevant signals to Amazon, particularly when exploring a new niche - a component many entrepreneurs often overlook. Shifting gears, we'll discuss how the Amazon Recommended Rank can be your secret weapon in product visibility. We'll walk you through optimizing your test listings, and share real examples of how to enhance your titles and send targeted traffic to specific keywords. We're also sharing how this strategy works in the Amazon Germany marketplace and all other Amazon marketplaces in the world, providing you with a comprehensive understanding of different markets and how the strategy adapts accordingly. Lastly, we'll dive deep into the world of Amazon PPC campaigns, bid modifiers, keyword tracking, and the power of product bundling. And if you're confused by Amazon fees or finding a reliable 3PL - we've got you covered. We'll explore fee structures, pricing strategies, and 3PL selection to ensure you’re set up for success. Plus, we'll answer all your burning questions in our monthly Q&A session. So buckle up for a jam-packed episode filled with actionable insights, personal anecdotes, and real-world examples designed to elevate your Amazon selling journey! In episode 505 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley talks about: 03:32 - Amazon Launch Strategy  08:04 - Understanding Amazon Recommended Keywords  11:29 - Maximizing Amazon Impressions 13:03 - Utilizing Test Listings for Product Launches 16:37 - Launching and Ranking Products in Amazon Germany  25:59 - Surviving and Thriving Amidst Price Wars  28:31 - Launching a Product and 3PL Recommendations 31:25 - Launching Product at the Right Time  34:19 - How To Get Monthly Q&A for Serious Sellers Club Members ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast ► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension ► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup  (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life) ► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft ► Watch The Podcasts On YouTube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos Transcript Bradley Sutton: Today we've got a recap strategy session on Amazon launches and we answer all of your questions live, such as how to do keyword research on combo product listings, how to set up PPC campaigns and more. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Are you looking to learn how to sell on Amazon? The freedom to get course, made by Kevin King, is one of the most popular courses ever created for Amazon sellers. It's got over 90 modules and 40 hours of detailed, step-by-step training to help get you started on your entrepreneurial journey. Now this course costs $997, but Helium 10 actually covers that cost of the course for any Helium 10 member. Find out why tens of thousands of students love this program by going to h10.me forward slash freedom ticket. Don't forget that if you do sign up for a Helium 10 account, don't pay full price. Use our podcast discount code SSP10 to save 10% off for life. Bradley Sutton: Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I'm your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is a show that is our monthly ask me anything and presentation. So once a month we open this up to all of our Facebook groups and our YouTube channel etc. To open up to any questions that you guys might have for me about Helium 10 and a lot of the functions, but we always start out with like a mini training session as well. Now we actually have this every week in our Serious Sellers Club. So for our serious sellers club, which are automatically enrolled in, if you've been selling on Amazon for over a year and do at least $500,000 a year of revenue, you're in our serious sellers club. This is something we give to them, as well as our Helium 10 elite members, every week, but once a month we open it up to everybody. So that's what we're doing today. We want to make sure that you guys just get a little taste of what happens behind the scenes here. But anyways, what we're going to be I want to present on while you guys are getting your questions ready and putting them in the chat. Bradley Sutton: Is Amazon Launch Strategy, all right. So we just had episode 500 come out where we talk about a recap of the Maldives Honeymoon Launch Strategy, which that goes way, way more into detail on that. So you should definitely go to that episode 500 for a recap. And then another one that I want you guys to look at is what we call the Bolly Blast Strategy. That's like your prelaunch strategy. We just make up funny names for for stuff because it's easier to remember. But go back to episode 466 and 467. All right, episodes 466 and 467. You can go to h10.me forward slash 466 or h10.me forward slash 467 to go to those like prelaunch strategies about how to do your keyword research and how to set yourself up for success. But let's just focus for next. You know, five minutes or so on the, just the actual launch strategy, and I'm going to be doing this this week. I'm relaunching something and launching something. I'm always doing tests, as you guys know, and I'm going to be losing this exact strategy this week for this new launch. But basically, if you've done all the right keyword research, you know part of that Bolly Blast Strategy that I was talking about. Basically, what you want to do is is set your listing up to make sure that you have the most relevancy signals sent to Amazon. Bradley Sutton: Now, this is something new that we hadn't talked about in previous episodes of the Maldives Honeymoon Launch Strategy. Right, we just said, hey, start your. You know, do the right research, start your listing, get ready to get ready to go and you know you're off to the races. But what I've noticed in the last year is a little bit of a I guess you could say algorithmic, you know, shift a little bit, where the effects of not being relevant from day one to Amazon is kind of like far reaching, like it's going to mean that you can't get, you can't get impressions in your PPC. Obviously you're not going to start ranking for certain keywords. And so one of the new things that I have been suggesting when you're launching, especially in niches that are not that competitive and that there's not that much, you know, established sellers, this is probably not the same thing as launching for collagen peptides or garlic press or something like. Or you know, neck pillow or something like that. Like, I would think that if you have optimized your listing the right way, probably Amazon knows what you are from day zero or from day one, right, but even in that situation it's not 100%. But especially if you're in a newer niche where there's not that much data out there, any little thing could mean that Amazon is coming completely confused about your product. And this is how I discovered that. Bradley Sutton: So I did some testing, test launches on this coffin bath tray, like a think of like a regular bath tray where you're just chilling your bathtub. You got a tray that goes over your your bathtub and you put your candles on there and your books or whatever. So I had some, some test products that I was launching and from day one, like I could not get, it didn't rank me right away for coffin bath tray and I wasn't even getting that many impressions in PPC, if any. So some some zero at all on some keywords that were highly relevant to coffin bath tray, which is what the product was, and it's not like oh, I didn't make my listing in the correct way or anything like. No, I had this in my title, I had that keyword in other places in my listing. I did the list. Trust me, guys, I did the listing the right way. By the way, I'm sure this has happened to you guys. How many of you guys have launched a product in the last year or two where you're one of your, some of your main keywords? You couldn't get impressions in PPC or it was like impossible to rank in the beginning. Has that ever happened to you? I'm sure it has. But basically now there's a way to predict that. Bradley Sutton: So you look at Amazon recommended rank this is in helium 10. All right, this is in helium 10, uh cerebro. That is actually a live feed from Amazon. Now there's no, there's no metric in Amazon called Amazon recommended. We made that name up, but where that data comes from is directly from Amazon. It's in real time, all right. It's not some estimation or some aggregate uh information. It is actually uh directly from Amazon in real time, and what it's referring to is is which keywords Amazon thinks is most relevant to your listing. Now, in the past, this one data point that we've been getting for years, it was only for in the context of Amazon PPC. All right, it's the keywords that Amazon suggests that you uh advertise for the most in PPC, but now it's kind of more. Bradley Sutton: For over the last year I've been noticing these, this trend, where it's a great indication of just in general, what Amazon thinks your product is. All right, you know what. I wasn't planning to do this, but but let's go ahead and and maybe just do a live demonstration Throw me a random product in the chat that that's got some, um, that's got some decent reviews. It's been on Amazon for a while, like maybe it's got a thousand reviews or more, where the keyword should be kind of obvious what Amazon thinks uh for. All right, here we go. I see somebody threw in something. Bradley Sutton: Aubrey says recipe box. All right, let me look that up. Recipe box or book box? I guess it's a box. I never heard of this uh product before. I think I think I, um, I misspelled it, but that's fine, all right, let me. Let me just show you guys what we're looking at here. All right, here we go. So this is a recipe box. All right, let's pick one that has a lot of reviews. Uh, heart and berry recipe box. It's kind of weird, though it hasn't had that many sales at least. Oh, there are 200 sales for this one. Um, 300 sales for this one. Let's maybe use this one right here. All right, sensory for you recipe box. That's pretty hilarious. Let's just take a look at this box really quick. Okay, I see what this is. All right, now I'm going to put this into helium 10's cerebro. Let's go ahead and go into cerebro here. All right, here we go. All right. Bradley Sutton: So now, as you guys know, the the regular helium 10, you know, we've got all of our organic keywords and and sponsored and and and all that information. But what I'm going to do is I'm going to sort by Amazon recommended rank. That's one of these columns right here. Okay, you guys see that right here. All right, amazon recommended rank by me sorting it right when it goes one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. What this means is this is the the top keywords that Amazon thinks you should advertise for. But take a look at these top keywords, guys. Look at this 10 recipe box. Recipe box. Recipe keeper box. Recipe box cute. Is Amazon confused about this product? No, absolutely not. It knows exactly what this is. All right. Now I don't know if this is going to work. I'm just going to go and pick an older, an older listing here. Bradley Sutton: Let's go to like to page something that's not doing very good for recipe box. Let's go to like to page three. Maybe there's a brand new product here. Let's see, is there? Is there still a box that allows me to choose the top new products? There used to be a filter here that says like brand new products. Maybe it's not here anymore. Oh, here are new arrivals last 30 days. Let's take a look at this. All right, so this is last 30 days. Okay, perfect. Now I'm going to go to like something that's like way at the end here, like that's not ranked on page one, something that was brand new. All right, here we go. This is not a recipe box, but this is a tea leaf storage container. All right, let's take a look at this. I'm going to take this asin right here, copy this. Actually, I'm just going to run it directly in Cerebro. I'm going to hit this button and go run in Cerebro. So this is not a recipe box, obviously, but it's a. It's a newer product and if I'm looking at this, this product, it looks like a rectangular tea. Oh, tea leaf storage in here. That's probably what this product is. All right, but I'm just curious what is Amazon going to think that this is? Let's take a look right now. All right, let's go to Amazon Recommended and again, I obviously did not choose any of this. I have never looked at tea leaf boxes in my life here. But let's go ahead and do the same thing where we sort by Amazon Recommended rank and look at this. All right, this is not too bad. Bradley Sutton: Now, the number one keyword this has made a little bit worried. It says coffee tea, and the number two keyword says storage container. But there it is right. There. Tea box is number four tea storage, but a lot of okay. So this kind of is a good. This kind of is a good example here guys, look at. Do you remember how on the recipe box, how in the recipe box all of these keywords had recipe box, the top recommended rank, like there's no doubt what Amazon thinks is this product. But notice this newer product. It's got some random stuff here. Like it does have the good keywords here. But then look at this. It says can storage is the number three keyword, coffee container it's not necessarily a coffee container. Seal container T10, okay, well, t10 might be a good one. Empty tins all right. So this is interesting here because, as you can see this newer product, can you see how Amazon is a little bit confused, maybe about what it is? All right. So that's why, right here, how this can be powerful. Bradley Sutton: What I suggest doing when you are how does this tie into launch? All right, what I suggest doing is do a test listing, all right, because if Amazon is confused about your product, guess what's gonna happen as soon as you launch it day one. You're not gonna get top impressions right away for a keyword that Amazon doesn't think is your product, right? Sometimes it takes a little tweaking, like should you maybe tweak a little bit of your listing optimization to make it more relevant. Yeah, you gotta tweak that to get this Amazon recommended number fairly high and to see if you can get these impressions. So when you do a test listing, this is the reason why Number one is for Amazon recommended. Number two is to make sure that from day one you're gonna start getting impressions. Now, if your Amazon recommended is non-existent for an important keyword, it's probably it's gonna be difficult usually to get those PPC impressions. Bradley Sutton: So now the question comes in well, what can you do to influence the Amazon recommended rank? Well, sometimes it is about listing optimization. Usually, if you don't have any of your title, you having your title, well then Amazon will figure out what it is. Sometimes it's sending traffic to a certain keyword search. We talk about that a little bit in episode 500, about the kind of things you can do to make sure that Amazon gets that relevancy signal. But the point of this discussion is about making that test listing. Is, if you just launch your product and you're having to figure things, these things out, like all right, how do I send this relevancy signal? Do I need to change a part of my listing somewhere to make sure Amazon knows where my product is. And let me do this test wait an hour for it to update. All right, let me see. Does this have an effect on my PPC? What's happening during this time? Time is being wasted right In, like your honeymoon period and initial velocity. Bradley Sutton: You want to kind of like start off your product with a bang from day one, where you're potentially getting clicks and sales and ads of carts and different things from organic customers out there. Well, if you're having to spend all your time trying to fix things, you're accumulating days of bad like interactions with your listing right and then so it's gonna be that much harder to write the ship. So that's why in episode 500, I was recommending people to make this test listing do all these like test and figure this stuff out beforehand like on a quote unquote fake listing. Now, when I say fake listing, you still have to have a real UPC. So you have to pay 10, 20 bucks for a UPC. You're wasting, but for me it's invaluable. Bradley Sutton: Testing, get everything right so that you know what you need to do to your listing to get your Amazon recommended. Rank up what you need to do to your listing to get those PPC impressions, and then now on your real listing from day one day zero. Now you're starting off on the right foot, and sometimes it's not just about optimizing your listing. It might be that you have to send some traffic to a certain keyword. Well, at least, instead of trying to figure out what that traffic is, you already figured it out on your test listing and now you can just go ahead and start off doing that from as soon as you make your listing live. So again, that's just like a summary of the. You know the recent differences in the Maldives Honeymoon strategy. Again, go back to h10.me forward slash 500 to get you know all the details, and then I show some of my, or I talk about some of my tests. I did that that brought me to this conclusion, but I hope that is going to that episode, plus the 466 and 467 about how to set up your listing, should help you have a good launch. You know whether you're launching here in Q4 or going to launch in Q1, these strategies definitely should help you. Bradley Sutton: So now what I want to do is open it up to questions. Okay, js says how do you run a test listing before you order inventory? No, no, this is not before you order inventory. This is you've already got your inventory ready to go and it's probably in Amazon almost, or on the way to Amazon. At least it could be at any time during this time. It could be before you order inventory, but to me I wouldn't do it. That that's way too far in advance. I would do this test listing like one week before you're ready to actually launch, and the reason is is you want the freshest information. You know you want to do something three months beforehand and then basically it's out of date by the time you're launching three months later, right? So this strategy is to have all inventory handy and start with a dummy listing. Yes, that's what I do. That's what I'm literally doing, literally today. I'm doing that on one launch. I'm relaunching some holiday related products that are going to be good in December, and so I'm doing a test listing to just like check what's going on right now. But, like, the product is already on the way to Amazon from my warehouse in California, so it's going to be there in like four or five days. So, yeah, that's what's going on there. Good question Farhand says if we launch in Germany, then what strategy is the same strategy? Bradley Sutton: All right, so everything that I just showed you guys right now. You can also do for Amazon, germany, as far as looking at the Amazon recommended, and Cerebro, as far as you know, sending the traffic you know to your listing. Everything I mentioned today absolutely is applicable to the German market. Here we've got somebody who said how to rank a product which is a combo of two different products. Okay, great question. So there's different ways to do it. All right, and I've done it both ways. I've done a product where I have the exact same product and I make two separate Asins for it because the keywords that can go for it are different, and I was just like you know what I want to kind of like tailor, make my listing and the image and the copy for people searching for this thing, but the product could be used for something completely different and so I made a completely separate listing for that. So that's one way to do it, not very recommended unless you're in a very niche thing, like I am, if you've got like two products, like I don't know, like I'm looking here at my desk, like like headphones and a microphone right Now. Bradley Sutton: Number one you want to make sure that you are relevant for the customer who is most likely to buy that product and who is the customer that's most likely to buy a headphone and microphone combo? It is somebody searching for headphone and microphone. So you've got to find the keywords most related to somebody looking for that combo, right, which is different for every product. Obviously it could be for this one, it could be podcast, podcast beginners kit or something Headphone and microphone combo, right. Those are words specifically for somebody buying a microphone. But then what I think you're asking is sometimes maybe somebody's searching for headphones but they're like oh, there's headphones and microphone together. I might go ahead and buy that. Well, yeah, now you've got to optimize and be ready for those headphone only related keywords and the microphone only related keywords. So it's kind of like you are doing three different keyword research. You're doing the research on other products and other keywords that have already the same combo that you have. You're doing research on the ones that have just one of the products and a research on ones that have the other one of the products, and then what you're going to want to launch on for me is going to be still the keywords. That is most likely to get you a sale and that's going to be on the combo products, right. So, or the combo keywords. So that would be my suggestion to you there. Bradley Sutton: Great question from Dan says is there a Helium 10 workflow chart checklist to help launch a new product on Amazon? It's pretty much that, that, those podcast episodes I mentioned. Now we're going to make that into like a PDF form soon. A lot of customers have been asking for that. But if you want to like it to go through a checklist to make sure you've done, you've done everything you can on the keyword research, you've done everything you have on the listing optimization, again, go to episode 466, then 467 and then 500. And those three episodes is kind of like my virtual checklist of everything you need to do, from the keyword research to listing optimization, pre-launch and then launch. Bradley Sutton: Now that the CLA says Bradley, what do you suggest? Create a campaign with each ad with all three match types, or create one campaign with one ad group containing all three match types? I'm not 100% sure I'm understanding, but if I understand what you're saying, basically what I would do is or what I would do what I do do is I make separate campaigns, each with one ad group, and it's a different match type. So I always start with one exact match campaign. Okay, I have another campaign that is a broad match. Usually. I have another campaign that's auto, and then I'll have two different product targeting campaigns. One is an asin targeting campaign and then one which, and then one that is a sponsor display campaign. But yeah, if you're talking, if that's what you meant by the match types you know, like broad, exact and auto, yes, I always keep those in separate campaigns, personally, in atomic Of course I'm talking about. Bradley Sutton: Kassar says new launch in Canada market. Give me some tips about how to rank in Canada. 100% the same. So everything Kassar, that I said today about launch, I obviously was talking about the US market, but that would be the. That would be also the Canadian market, german market, whatever you're launching, and you would use those same strategies. Everything works. Or back to Dota says I have gold cross necklace as phrase, match and gold cross necklace as exact in the same ad group. At which point should a performing keyword be moved as an exact keyword? Yeah, so, so again, for me, I wouldn't have that when I set up my campaigns. And helium 10, atomic, I keep the, the, the match types separate, all right. So what, what I'm going to have is I'm going to have a. Let's just say I don't have gold cross necklace as an exact match, but I have gold cross. Gold cross, all right, or no? No, no, let me say gold necklace as a phrase match, right? Okay, I set up atomic rules to say if I get two orders at a certain a cost or below, to go ahead and suggest to get that and make it an exact match in my Exact campaign. So then, if gold cross necklace, which is a phrase match from gold necklace, if gold cross necklace gave me two orders at 25% a cost or whatever you know I had chosen for that, it's gonna actually suggest to me to hit a button and it's gonna move it to my exact match campaign which again, is separate from my phrase match campaign. Bradley Sutton: Very important, in my opinion, to keep things separately for this reason, so that you could kind of like segregate what's going on as far as the a different, as far as your different campaigns and match types go. Constance says, when creating a new manual exact single word campaign, would you suggest to go above the suggested bid and do placement strategy a hundred percent for product pages and top of search to collect data or burn money? Yeah, somebody asked me this before. I'm old school, alright. So me personally, I don't use the placement strategy. That does not mean that it's bad or that you shouldn't do it, it's just because I have a system that's been working for me for years where I just changed my actual bid instead of doing the placement. You know, you know the bid modifiers and it works for me. Now, if you want to play with the, you know the top of search and stuff like that, there is nothing wrong with that. I know plenty of a very successful Amazon sellers who use that. But me personally, I keep everything in atomic, just strictly about the, the bid, and I'm looking at my keyword ranks right In atomic you can actually see, if you're tracking that keyword and keyword tracker, where you are ranking and sponsored. So that's why it's easy for me to like just modify my bid, because if I have boost on and keyword tracker, I know exactly where my sponsor that is showing up, if it's showing up in in 10th or 15th or 1st or 2nd, and so I know that. Alright, let me raise my bid up. Alright, then I'll get a little bit higher rank theoretically, alright. So that's that question. Bradley Sutton: Dauda says Bradley, how can we get a one-on-one call with you? So this is for helium 10 elite member. So I do one-on-one calls Once a month with any helium 10 member who wants it, and there's also group calls we have. So if you're part of helium 10 elite program, yes, you can have one-on-one calls with myself and also carry. Alright, daniel says my product is a two-piece set One main product and one complimentary product. I made sure that both are purchased together and I'm using 80% keywords for the main product and 20% for the complimentary. So wait, daniel, is your ace in just one ace in, or are you having people or do you have some kind of deal where it's like buy one and then Get this one for X percent off or something? If both of you, if this is just one ace in, daniel, what you want to do is Exactly what I said about 10 minutes ago. I don't know if you caught that, just rewind on this, but you want to make sure that that you're focusing on the Combo keywords, where people might be searching for both together, and then, yeah, going For the individual keywords as well, because sometimes this is differentiation. Maybe you, maybe there are no combo keywords out there and you just put this bundle together because you know that people will probably buy it, even if they search for just one, then yeah, then all you have to worry about is the individual Keywords. I'm not sure about 80% keywords for the main product and 20% for the complimentary. It depends on what you think has the most search volume for somebody who would buy that product, because maybe the people who buy the complimentary product are more likely to buy the combo and in that sense, you shouldn't just be Giving it 20% of the keyword keyword juice. Right there. Bradley Sutton: Kassar says when a good selling product, people start the price war, how to survive to maintain your organic rank in the product. Yeah, well, first of all, sometimes you just can't. Let me just say that right now. I know that's bad news for some of you. Sometimes it just gets so crazy that you just can't make money. You're just gonna have to cut that product after you sell out, all right. That being said, you know, like the coffin shelf right now for Project X, we've got tons and tons of competition and they're just doing some ridiculous pricing. You know, like we're, there's no way they're making money on it due to I know what shipping costs, right? So what I decided to do? I'm doing the opposite. I'm going up in price. I'm raising the price by like three or four or five dollars and I added about three or four or five dollars of cost To my product because I'm expanding out, like I'm doing some like really cool box that I'm going to use and I'm adding some trinkets to the coffin shelf to, and so my theory is that, hey, I'm gonna catch the customers who are looking for a more premium style of product and if this doesn't work, you know what? There might come to be a day where I have to stop selling the coffin shelf, and right now I can still sell it for a higher price. But if sales ever go down to zero, I am not gonna get in a price war. You know where. I'm not gonna put the coffin shelf for 19 dollars when I used to sell it for 32 dollars. No, so sometimes you just can't Compete. At that you you'll have to cut the courts. But Enhance your product with different, with different things, and go for that more premium look, and you know you could have some some action there. Bradley Sutton: Mario says Quick question Should I negate an important keyword for my product after having spent 25 dollars on it and zero sales, when the product itself is 40 dollars? This is a good question. Now, if you, if it's one of the main keywords like this is what people would search, before just blindly negating it, you've got to figure out why people are not converting. All right, so I would look in search query performance for that keyword and look at the Competitors who are getting high clicks. You don't know who's getting high purchases, so you know you could do that. You could look in brand analytics and see who is the top three Clicked and then is there one of them who is getting a lot of sales. And then I'll just take a look at that listing and ask yourself why is somebody clicking on my competitors listing after searching for the same keyword and they're buying my competitor product but not mine. So you've got to ask yourself what is the reason why they're not. Bradley Sutton: Now, if it's a keyword that you just think is relevant to your product, are you were hoping is relevant to your product? Well, in that case you might have been wrong. So, where that cutoff is for you $25, you know if that, if you got, for me it's almost more important the number of clicks. Now, of course it's important how much you spend, but if I only got 10 clicks and that was what cost $25. That might not be enough data to say, hey, I need to negate it. So it should be like 2025 clicks, 30 clicks even, or yeah, if you get 30 clicks and you don't get a sale, you're probably not gonna get a sale. And again, all of this can be done right there in atomic, so you don't have to. You know, look at this manual. Amazon is regularly increasing different types of fees and squeezing the profits. Please guide on pricing strategy while remaining in Competition. So so, yeah, this is why you have to have your helium 10 profits Active and connected to your account and be monitoring that, because you've got to really keep an eye on the PPC cost. You know the other fees no, amazon is not charging that much. You know Amazon increases fees, but it's it's pennies that that Amazon increases. Bradley Sutton: If that affects you, you've got bigger problems. All right. If Amazon increasing the fulfillment on something from 73 cents to 81 cents and that kills your bottom line, you've got some other problems. That's different than just Amazon, all right. The one that really affected some people, which I can empathize with, is Amazon doing away with the small and light program that really affected me. That wasn't just a matter of pennies. You know that's like a dollar worth of profit off of our bottom lines a lot of us, you know, if we didn't do anything. So it's very important to make sure that that is. That is a setup. All right, we got one more. Ali is in the green room. We'll bring up Ali to the stage. Ali, how's it going? Hey Brad, how are you Pretty good on yourself? Excellent, yep, go ahead. Ali: So I'm just launching my new product. I just wanted to know that, is it better to launch in the fourth quarter or should I wait till January and then launch it? Because you know, right now the competition is really high and the sales are high, but my budget is not that much. Initially I have the budget, but I'm trying not to spend too much so that I can, you know, learn the game first and then go big. Bradley Sutton: Yeah, it depends. It depends on on on the market. You know like if you've got a product that is still gonna, you know like if you're selling a Christmas tree ornament, well you better launch it now because you know you're not gonna do very well in January. But if it's something that is too expensive to launch now, because the traffic is so high that the amount of sales it's gonna take to get to you to page one is is going to be too much, that's a personal decision. You know you might have to wait. Ali: Yeah, page one, you know there's not a lot of reviews on. The maximum number of reviews are like 100 or 150 or something, but the search volume is a lot and it says not a seasonal product. So I think it would do well in any season. That is the thing. Bradley Sutton: Yes, so those. That's the thing. You have to wait because the other thing is, like you said, maybe the search volume is very high right now, meaning it'll be very expensive to launch, but if this is the window where People have 50 and 75 and 100 reviews, but if you wait until February, everybody now all of a sudden has 400 views, yeah well, it's still gonna be expensive now because it's gonna. It's gonna cost you more to get you know, to get the velocity. So so there's, there's almost no right or wrong answer per se. Ali: Yeah, I mean personally. Bradley Sutton: I have never, ever, waited until Q1 to launch something. If I have something, I have the product in here and it's October, November, I'll go ahead, and I'll go ahead and launch it. Ali: Okay, so can I ask one more question? Okay, I decided to go through the PA 3PL route. You know I'm not I'm not delivering the product directly to Amazon. So I was looking into it and I really can't find some reliable website or somewhere to find 3PL. So do you have any ideas about that? Although that's a very immature question, but I did just try out hubhealyum10.com. Bradley Sutton: So there are some 3PLs there, hub.helium10.com and the Helium 10 users have like reviewed some of them, so I would take a look at the ones, look at the reviews and then go from there. Ali: Okay yeah, okay. Bradley Sutton: Okay, all right. Dan says this listing builder have all the features of screw, but you shouldn't be using. No, nobody, guys should be using scribbles anymore. I don't even know why we have that tool still active, like, like listing builder 100% took it over and it's way better than scribbles, all right. So, yeah, you should only use a listing builder. And if you have trouble syncing the listing Check with support, you know, make sure that you the the SKU that you're editing. All right, make sure that it is the original contribution skew. All right, make sure it's the original contribution skew, otherwise it's not gonna sink. But yeah, when, whenever I have trouble getting a listing updated, usually actually in listing builder, it actually updates better than if I try and do it myself. Bradley Sutton: A real estate Emporium says if our product is selling good, you recommend adding new variations or more products in the same niche. No right or wrong answer here. It's different for everything you got to choose. I've done both ways Before. Where I've added new variations, like a new colors, because I see the demand Sometimes, I'll just, instead of that, I'll launch a new product like, instead of a regular egg tree, a stackable egg shelf. So you can go both ways. That's a beauty about Amazon. All right, guys, that's all the time we have today. I was glad I was able to get to a lot of questions. Sometimes it takes you guys just a little bit to get Loosened up to be able to ask questions. So thank you guys, very much for joining us again. This is something we do every single week for our Serious Sellers Club and Helium 10 Elite members, but once a month we open it up and we repurpose this as a podcast episode. So thank you guys for joining us and we'll see you again next month when we open up this. Ask me anything. Thanks a lot, guys. Have a good rest of your day.

Join us for a fascinating discussion as we unpack Amazon unBoxed 2023, exploring the most exciting releases such as generative AI and more that can level up your advertising game. Our co-host from Pacvue, Anne Harrell provides us with a unique perspective on the advertising industry. Let’s start with our chat with Jeff Cohen, Principal Evangelist, Advertising API at Amazon, as he shares his transition journey and the biggest differences he's noticed. Listen in as we dive into the role of ad tech in digital transformation and its implications for brands. We examine Amazon Ads' new offerings like generative AI and sponsored TV, which promise to revolutionize brand imagery and audience engagement. Get the inside scoop on Amazon PPC and new-to-brand metrics that could redefine your brand's success measurement. We also explore Amazon Publisher Cloud, a game-changing technology for publishers that promises unique and differentiated opportunities for advertisers. Get to know Miranda Chen, the director of growth and modernization for Amazon Marketing Cloud, as she walks us through its potential. Learn how lookalike audiences can help your brand reach new customers and how templatized analytics can make AMC more accessible. We also examine Amazon Marketing Stream and Rapid Retail Analytics, which provide valuable data on retail signals. Discover how sponsored products can appear on platforms like Pinterest and the features that make Amazon's new Sponsored TV offering a game-changer. All this and more, right here on our podcast!   In episode 504 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley, Anne, and our special guests discuss: 00:00 - Amazon unBoxed 2023 04:31 - Insights on Amazon and Advertising Growth 08:29 - Sponsored TV and Ad Tech Announcements 12:29 - Embracing Change in Amazon Advertising 20:40 - Amazon Advertising Full Funnel Solutions 23:39 - Benefits and Capabilities of Demandside Platforms 28:25 - Lookalike Audiences for Reaching New Customers 34:59 - Amazon Marketing and Rapid Retail Analytics 41:15 - Amazon's Sponsored TV Announcement ► 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/video Transcript Bradley Sutton: Today we've got a special episode here at Amazon Unbox 2023 where we're going to talk about all of their releases, like generative AI and sponsored brand hats, and also a lot of cool things like sponsored TV. 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/adtomic for more information. That's h10.me/adtomic. Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10 I'm your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show that's completely BS free, unscripted and unrehearsed organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. We're here at Amazon Unboxed in New York. I've been on the road for like three weeks and there's a second there where I wasn't quite sure where. I was. I've been in so many countries lately, but we've got a co-host today and from Pacvue, and how's it going? Anne: Great. How are you doing? Bradley Sutton: I'm just delightful. Now, what is your background? What do you do at Pacvue? Anne: Yeah, so I'm a product solutions director for DSP at Pacvue, so I do basically anything related to DSP and AMC help with our product road mapping, help with strategy for some of our enterprise level clients doing customer within AMC marketing you name it, I probably do it. Bradley Sutton: How long have you been at Pacvue? Anne: I've been at Pacvue for coming up on four years now, so about three and a half years total. A lot has changed since I joined. I started at Pacvue focusing on our managed services team, so I was primarily working with some of our strategic accounts, helping to build out their capabilities, doing strategy not just for DSP but across kind of omni-channel focuses, so for search as well. Prior to working at Pacvue, I actually worked in an agency in Austin, Texas, where I'm normally based, where I again did omni-channel strategy for enterprise level accounts. So my background is not just with programmatic and DSP, but I really gravitated to it. It's just one of those types of advertising channels that really allows you to have a lot of flexibility and creativity and really is conducive to innovation. So I really enjoy working on the DSP side of things. Bradley Sutton: Cool. Now what did you go to school for? Anne: I went to school for advertising, so I think I'm in the right place. Bradley Sutton: Okay, so you're right. Where did you go to school at? Anne: It's called St Edward's University. It's in Austin, Texas. So I've been in Austin since I went to school and I just never left about a decade. Bradley Sutton: Okay, I was about to say, because you don't sound like you were born and raised in Austin. Anne: I was not Okay. Bradley Sutton: What were you born and raised? Anne: Well, where I was born was Hattiesburg, Mississippi, but raised is a harder question. I moved about 10 times before I graduated high school. So you pick a state, I probably was raised there. Bradley Sutton: Okay, cool, yeah, because I was like wait a minute, she doesn't sound like a native Texan here. Anne: I know no accent yet. Bradley Sutton: All right, maybe 15, 20 years from now you might have a little twang in here. Anne: Right, right, I actually have a little bit of a Southern accent, I think I kind of got rid of it as I moved around. Bradley Sutton: Okay, cool. Now what are you? We're going to be talking to some people that probably people have never heard of podcasts, right? You know there are exactly executives here at Amazon who are you most excited to talk to today. Anne: If I were to have to say, my favorite subject matter is definitely the DSP AMC side of things, and I know that we're speaking to Kelly, who's the VP of DSP, so that's obviously a great place to start. We're also going to speak to Miranda, who is a director for AMC at Amazon, so I think there's going to be a lot of really great content around that. But in general, we're also talking to a lot of people who are very broadly focused across all of ads, and so I think we'll have something for everyone in this one. Bradley Sutton: Yeah, so you guys might be. There might be some newbies out there, don't tune out. This is stuff that you're going to need to know If you're an advanced seller. We're going to talk about some stuff that you guys might be able to use right away. That was just announced this week at Amazon Unbox, so let's go ahead and hop right into the interviews, all right. First up, we've got my brother from another mother here, jeff Cohen. Jeff, how's it going? Jeff: Everything is great. So great to see you, so great to see the whole Helium 10 Pack View team at this conference. It's great to catch up with everybody. Bradley Sutton: Yeah, Now you've been in the game longer than me. I remember the very first conference I spoke at. You were a speaker and you were already a veteran speaker at that time. You know side note that that conference there probably had the best food I've ever had at the conference. This is probably the second best Like. Jeff: I'm really impressed with the offerings here. Yeah, I'm curious what conference that is, but we don't have to go into that now. Bradley Sutton: But it was right here in New York. But you were on the SaaS side. You know, like I am now. Now you're at Amazon, like what's been the biggest you know kind of eye-opening thing or difference, now that you're on the other side of the aisle. Jeff: Yeah, interesting because I always like to joke that you know I drink the Amazon Kool-Aid before I ever like came here. I've been an Amazon like fanboy since like 2005 when I started textbookscom and it's been interesting because I'm in a unique position where I can bring the outside in and the inside out, and I think that you know, one of the many things that I've learned is maybe like the patience that you have to have with Amazon Maybe I didn't have as much patience when I was on the outside and the amount of time that it takes for some of the things to develop at Amazon. But when they like grow and they go to scale, it then moves at like this rocket ship pace. And so I think you're starting to see that with some of the tools, like AMC or even like you know what's happening with, like Amazon Studios and some of the new, you know productions that are coming out, you have this like rocket ship pace of what's happening in terms of the development and the new opportunities and how advertisers are using the technology, and so you have to kind of be patient when new things come out. So when you have a totally new product like Sponsored TV, you got to realize that it takes a little bit of time to kind of figure out how does it work into the individual advertisers media mix, and so that's the measurement work for each brand along the way. But then once it kind of gets up to full speed, you get to see like how it all works and you know and how it's really excelling brand growth. Bradley Sutton: Yeah, now we're going to be interviewing a lot of your colleagues here about some very specific announcements that happened here at Unboxed and before I ask you to give a rundown, you know, one of the things that was announced today it's on the website too is about the new generative AI that can help people doing Sponsored Brand Ads to generate some new creatives. Can you talk about that just a little bit? Jeff: Yeah, I think there were like three themes to the keynote today that I kind of jotted down. One was this idea of, like digital transformation and one was this idea of like how ad tech plays in in a responsible way. And then the third one was like how we reinvent, right, how we have reinvent what's possible. That was said numerous times, and I think Gen AI kind of fits into almost all three of those categories. And you know, we saw a lot of opportunity, a lot of new changes with Gen AI that have come out of AWS. We saw a lot of changes with Gen AI that came out of Amazon Accelerate, and now we're starting to see some come out of Amazon ads and I'll you know it's cool, right, we can take a product and we can turn that product into a full lifestyle image. And I think it's if you can just start to kind of think about where the possibilities go from there and what else brands can do and how we can enable that, either with what Amazon ads is doing or with what our partners are doing right, because it doesn't always have to be invented by us at Amazon it's really making it easier for brands to be able to take advantage of this technology that maybe was a little expensive or time consuming or difficult to use, and now it's all done with prompts and it's really simple and easy and that's really cool yeah. Bradley Sutton: Now, what about some of the other announcements? Say you have any. You know things that stick out that you're especially excited for. Jeff: Yeah, I think that what we're doing I mentioned it during our opening segment but Sponsored TV, I think is a really cool one and you know, in short, it's democratizing the ability for brands to be able to place ads into our streaming portfolio right so across Prime Video, free V and all the other channels that we have that I can't even remember them all because I'm supposed to think so quickly and I think that's really cool. And again, like there's no budget for that, you do have to have the creative, but Amazon has services that can help you make that creative or there's third parties that can help you make that creative. And I thought that was a really exciting announcement that was made, you know, on the heels of the announcement that was made a month ago. It was kind of reinforced about like what's happening with Prime Video and it moving to an ad supported network, creating a ton of, you know, new inventory for brands to begin to explore, and that's really super exciting as we start to go into it. And then there was like a bunch around ad tech and like what's happening around measurement and I know, like from you know, we're all near and dear to this idea that measurement is critical to our overall success and new metrics that are being released, making it available to understand how new to brand customers are impacting the business, and I think those are all really important for us to be thinking about because we have to close the loop. As advertisers and as we move to this cookie-less world right, it's signs point to it happening in 2024, we have to find ways to be able to close the funnel and understand how our ads are working, and Amazon's working really hard to help brands be able to do that, both within our suite and also when you're outside of our suite. Anne: Yeah, you mentioned the new. New to brand metrics, new to brand consideration metrics, I think is what we're calling them. Can you walk our listeners through what those really are? Jeff: Well, when you're looking at new to brand, right from like a super high level, new to brand is starting to give you this metric that's beyond ROAS, and it's starting to allow brands to look at who was not buying their brand within the last 12 months. Who's now buying their brand, and there's a suite of metrics now that are available for you to be looking at so that, as you're looking at different inflection points of your advertising, you can start to actually dial down into what action you're looking for people to take. And I think that's what's really cool. And it's like this evolution and brands have to think through this evolution like one of the simplest ways to think of this, right for people who maybe, like this concept's a little far for them. One of the simplest ways to think of this is around this idea that, like, if you're trying to get more awareness of your product, when you're looking at a video, you don't want to just see video views, you want to see how long they've been watching the video, and so you might start optimizing your campaign based on video length, how many people get to a half the video or three quarters of the video. And so, when you start to get into the new to brand type of metrics, you're actually saying, okay, I want incremental growth and by definition is, you know, sales you wouldn't have had before. One of the best ways to measure that is by people who are new to your brand, and so by having multiple metrics now to be able to understand how those are being impacted, you can now go back into tools like AMC and see how that funnel is working and which ones are driving the actual you know points that you want to drive and that that's really cool, right, it's, it's very excited about. Anne: I'm very excited too, yeah. Bradley Sutton: Awesome, all right. Last question for you know maybe not something that was released here at Unbox, but you know you're very active on LinkedIn. You see what people are posting about. You know I'm sure you look at metrics about what advertisers are using. Is there something in Amazon advertising that you feel is is kind of being slept on or not enough people are talking about it, that you think more people should be using it? Jeff: I mean more people should be using Helium 10 and Pacvue. Bradley Sutton: That goes without saying. Jeff: Okay, besides that, I think that you know, bradley, you and I get asked this question a lot, right? And? And our answer is always it depends. And I think that, instead of like saying, like this is a tool that you should be using or this is a a, an advertising function, you should be trying, I think that advertisers need to be open to the idea of test and learn, and I think the more you can train your mental model to work in a test and learn type of environment, the more open you are to change, because the only thing that's constant is going to be change. Right, and you started by saying like, where this industry was years ago when we both started, think about all the change that's happened and all the change that's occurred, and the brands that have not just survived but thrived through that are brands that have taken advantage of new opportunities, have invested by testing and learning and have then double down on the things that we're working. And I don't mean to oversimplify it, right, but it's not a very specific answer of like, use helium tens tool for keyword, blah, blah, blah, but it's like that's just one piece that you then use to implement the strategy. So work backwards. What's your goal. How are you gonna get there? And then figure out what tools you need to help you scale. Bradley Sutton: Awesome. All right, well, jeff. Thank you so much for joining us. We've been trying to get you on the podcast for like two years. I'm happy it finally happened and we'll definitely be keeping in touch. Appreciate it. Thanks, guys. All right, next up, we've got Kelly here. Now, Kelly, can you go ahead and introduce yourself? Tell us what you do at Amazon. Kelly: Absolutely so, Kelly McClain. I lead our demand side platform at Amazon, so we call it ADSP, and excited to be here. Bradley Sutton: Thank you for the time. Awesome, Awesome. Now you were, you know. Just saw you on stage a few minutes ago. What were your big reveals of the day? Kelly: Yeah, really good question. So I think if, if you think about Amazon ads and kind of where we've, where we've been and where we're going, we've really continued to make a lot of progress on on how, what we've been building a lot of our goals. We're focused a lot on interoperability with our ad tech solutions, so making it easier to use. We're focused a lot on performance improvements and then again, all of this is underpinned by making sure that we're putting privacy at the core of everything that we're doing, and so, with that in mind, we've been kind of launching this week in particular, a lot of different updates around, as you think about planning, activating and measuring, right. So within planning, we were launching Cross Channel Planner, which is a new way for you to really think about full, full funnel planning. We announced Amazon Publisher Cloud, which is the new clean room technology for publishers, which we're really excited about. We've been making a lot of performance improvements to the demand side platform, both with the user interface as well as the backend performance, and then we've also been been launching a lot more on our measurement capabilities, right, so making sure that marketers are getting the insights real time, making it a lot easier for them to kind of understand. You know how they should be looking at performance and where they should be making future investments. So we're excited about it. It's going to be a really fun week. Bradley Sutton: Awesome, awesome. We have our resident DSP nerd here, Ann, so she's going to go ahead and ask have some follow up. Anne: Definitely. Amazon Publisher Cloud was announced today, which is a big step for your publishing partners, obviously. Do you see any benefit for advertisers with this release? Kelly: Yes, definitely, and you know, I think to your point. I mean we've had, if you think about kind of clean room technology, right, really starting with cloud solutions. Then Amazon marketers cloud right thinking for marketers on how we can help support them. And Amazon publisher cloud it's going to be a mouthful after I'm speaking all morning. So excuse me, but you know that's really about a solution for publishers, right, giving them much more of the ability to pair any unique insights that they have right Demographics that they might know, of course, with folks who are coming to their site and then pairing that with Amazon Ads data. But the real core of that is, of course, providing opportunities for publishers but making it easier for them to connect with advertisers, right, advertisers. Often that you know there's so many different deal opportunities out there. A lot of the kind of deal process is very manual today and it's hard to discover the right deal and knowing which deal is right for you to reach your audience and so you know. A simple example, right is, if you're, let's say, you're a common website and you know the different demographics that are coming to your site every day, but by layering on Amazon audiences, you might realize, oh, I actually have pet food lovers who or sorry, pet food lovers- I have pet lovers who are coming to my site that I didn't realize, and so then that offers publishers the ability to maybe customize some unique deal opportunities to advertisers who might be trying to target pet lovers right, or specific brands who might be selling pet food, and it provides much more unique, differentiated opportunities, and we actually had a recent test with NBC Universal and they were able to offer three and a half times more reach than what they'd seen in the past, which is really exciting. So we see this as beneficial to both marketers and to publishers by really making it a lot more simple to connect with audiences. Bradley Sutton: At the end of the day, you know, pet food lovers are pets in about 10 years at Unbox. I predict like there's going to be some DSP where pets can actually base, you know, based on what they see on TV. Anne: They've already made more of the food, Exactly exactly, so we just launched something. Kelly: And if that's possible, maybe pets will be transformed into some sort of language that they can then activate. Anne: I think so, I think so. I don't even want to think about that. Kelly: I know, I never really thought about that? Anne: Yeah, that's very exciting. So, essentially for the advertisers listening, it's going to make your reach potentially broader but also more relevant, right? So the publishers have the ability to make targeting more relevant Absolutely Great. Another big announcement was the cross-channel planner. Yes, so can you walk us through how you think the ability to forecast reach will change how advertisers perform through their DSP program? Yeah, absolutely. Kelly: I mean, I think one of the biggest challenges today, as you all know right, is the fragmentation of channels and information and the overload of signals, right, and so that's where we're excited with Cross Channel Planner providing more of the ability to help marketers understand who they should be reaching right across the funnel and get much more information on how to kind of more efficiently drive their spend. In the past, we've launched Channel Planner, so that was our first product for mostly catered towards streaming TV, right, and how do you think about reach curves and how do you make sure that you're delivering against that for upfront pitches and so forth, and this is really kind of the next iteration to driving more efficient spend. So, ultimately, we think this is going to be kind of the next step of just providing much more granularity across all of the Amazon ads products on Amazon beyond Amazon, to make it easier to figure out. Okay, where should I be allocating my budget in the best way possible? We had a baby brand who actually was reaching audiences and they activated. So they leveraged Cross Channel Planner, activated via the DSP, and then they used custom advertising to direct customers to their online store and actually had four and a half times click through rate and 11% increase in impurchase rate, which was pretty cool to see. So again, I think the ability to plan and then easily activate is something that we're really committed to and excited about. Anne: Do you think this will be applicable for advertisers who are advertising both on Amazon and off, so more so that third party placement this will help plan for that as well. Absolutely. Kelly: So Amazon is known for retail media and driving conversions in the Amazon store, and we've been making so many investments over the past several years to really drive much more full funnel solutions and making all of our solutions work for all types of advertisers whether you're an advertiser that sells on Amazon or not because we're really excited about the power of again combining Amazon signals with marketers, third party and third party signals in a way that you can actually drive conversions, drive reach and have more of a full funnel experience and conversation. And that's where our Amazon publisher direct team comes into play, where we have a lot of these relationships and can reach anyone across the internet. But we've also been investing in modeled audiences and the performance through the DSP, and so a lot of people are kind of thinking about the loss of cookies in a negative way. We actually see this as an opportunity. We see this as a way to really innovate and rethink how marketers can potentially reach people in a privacy, safe way. That also drives performance, and so this is why we've also been investing in our modeled audience solutions right so, especially as we think about driving sales or reach off of Amazon, and we've been seeing over 25% increase delivery with a lot of the solutions, as well as 12% less cost per click per impression, which I'm barely able to talk. I'm going to lose my voice by the end of this day. But so, yeah, I think all of these from again, the planning, how you can activate all of the performance improvements we've been doing within our DSP we're excited. We'll continue to help accelerate marketers across full funnel wherever they want to reach people, which we're thrilled about. Anne: Definitely the ever looming third party cookie deprecation. Yes, exactly. Kelly: Yeah, a lot of energy, but understandably, and I think it's the right thing for us to rethink how we can really connect marketers and people in the right way, moving forward. Anne: Agreed, agreed. Another thing that was mentioned was the bidding enhancements that are now going to be available through the DSP program. So, essentially, you pick a KPI and you let Amazon do all the bid optimization in order to get to that KPI. Do you think this is going to change costs for advertisers, like, will CPMs go down in highly competitive categories or go up because of this automation? Kelly: Good question and, being a DSP enthusiast, I'm sure you know that our system has been really hard to use in the past. We've heard feedback from customers and partners that it was very complex, and so we've really been. So this goal seeking bidder, as well as re-augmenting our interface so that it's much more anchored on goals, has been paramount. We want to make it easier to use the DSP. We want to understand what is your goal, what are you trying to do? What outcome are you trying to drive for your business? And we've been making a lot of user interface improvements. And then the goal seeking bidder, on the back end to your point, I'm not sure what it will do in terms of you know, I can't talk to overall pricing in the system, right, but what I can say is that we're already seeing, you know, up to 40% reduction in CPAs, where we're able to better optimize against a goal, and we're seeing marketers just really gravitate towards the ability to kind of have much more of a simple experience. But we also believe in control, and so I think that's one of the powers that we think the Demand side platform has is, if you want all of the customization, if you want the complexity, we have that right. You can really adjust whatever types of bids that you want. You can layer on various different types of audiences. You can play around with different creatives. You can, you know, make a ton of different ads to try and test and at the same time, if you want a more simple, easy experience, you know what your goal is. We're able to help optimize and provide recommendations on the best way to do that. So we see it as kind of a nice balance in providing marketers kind of that wide range of capabilities, because we think there's a lot of different discussions in the industry right now on what way folks are going to be going. Bradley Sutton: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time and thank you for all you do at Amazon. We appreciate it. Kelly: Thank you for the partnership. Appreciate it, of course. Bradley Sutton: Thanks, thank you All right Now we've got Miranda. Miranda, this is our first time meeting you, so can you introduce yourself and tell us what your position is at Amazon? Miranda: Absolutely. I'm Miranda Chen. I'm the director of growth and modernization for Amazon Marketing Cloud, or AMC for short. I've been at Amazon for 11 and a half years now, live in the Bay Area and at AMC I lead several teams responsible for product and engineering, developing our audience activation capabilities, making AMC easier to use for more and more customers, as well as our go to market and customer enablement activities. Bradley Sutton: All right Now. We have a wide variety of listeners, anywhere from brand new people selling on Amazon to humongous billion dollar brands. Now, the billion dollar brands probably know all about AMC, but some of our newer ones might not understand that. Maybe there can feel like wait, marketing, stream, marketing, AMC, there's all these acronyms. So can you just give a quick, maybe 30 second, one minute introduction about what is AMC? Miranda: Yeah for sure. So Amazon Marketing Cloud, or AMC, is Amazon ads as clean room, so it's private and secure by design. Each advertiser has their own campaign signals of all their various Amazon ad spend within their particular instance. So we have signals from sponsored products, sponsored brands, streaming TV effectively like all of the actual campaign events and enables custom flexible analytics on those signals. And then it also enables advertisers to be able to upload their own first party signals or third party signals so you can think of, like product catalog, retail conversions, things like that, and so then you can generate really really flexible insights, typically using SQL, such as path to conversion, reach and frequency, overlap analysis and then actually take actions on them. Bradley Sutton: Cool, so most of our listeners probably weren't able to attend here at Unbox. What's the big release for your department here at Unbox? Miranda: Yeah, so we had a couple different releases specifically related to AMC that I can touch on. The first was AMC template analytics. So it takes some of our most popular queries, such as path to conversion, reach and frequency, and then allows users to be able to generate those insights without needing to touch any codes. So that's a pretty exciting development, particularly since we know that not everybody no SQL has taught themselves SQL overnight. And then the second one was AMC lookalike audiences. So we already have the capability where one can generate a custom audience based on specific parameters. So let's just say, an advertiser saw, wanted to create an audience of folks that had seen their detail page view or even added to cart but didn't actually activate and then wanted to drive better performance. They could create a particular, they could run a query, generate that insight and push that directly to the DSP. So that's one way. That's AMC rule based audiences. And then now we launched this enhanced capability for lookalike audiences. So it enables effectively exactly what it sounds like. So finding alike audiences based on that same seed, leveraging machine learning in a clean room capacity trained on Amazon, shopper and customer signals, but all still in a private and secure place. Bradley Sutton: All right, you're already starting talking technical terms that are over my head, so let me bring in the smart one of us. And to clean rooms. My room's not clean, I don't know. That's not what we're talking about here, but go ahead and please follow up and make me sound smart here. Anne: Yeah, of course. So I'd like to talk about lookalike audiences more specifically, because this is a way for brands to reach highly relevant, essentially new customers. So do you think this will change the way people are targeting that new to brand customer targeting incrementality? Miranda: Yeah, I mean we think it's going to be a great way for brands to be able to reach more and more shoppers. So, as I mentioned, the lookalike audiences are trained on based on deep, deep ML, based on lots of very, very, very good signals, and then the advertiser can actually leverage, can get to choose what's their specific seed for the audience, like what's the general size of the audience, based on their objective and then also the relevance. So I think it'll be a really key tool as a part of the marketer toolkit. Anne: Yeah, definitely. Do you think lookalike audiences are scalable for brands that maybe have lower purchase data or lower engagement data that are using AMC? Miranda: I think so. I think they're precisely like the brands that actually could benefit from it, right Because they have a small bit of deterministic signals that they actually want to be able to enhance. And then also because AMC is private and secure by design, as I mentioned, they can also choose to upload their own first party or third party signals and then create a seed based on that and then continue to go find additional customers that seem similar to that seed. Anne: Right, I love that you call it a seed, because it sounds like it will grow over time if you're utilizing these tactics, so that's a great way to phrase it. Miranda: Thanks, it didn't come up with it. Anne: Well, we'll give you credit anyways. So you talked about the AMC templatized analytics, right? Is this a way to make AMC more accessible and, if so, are the queries that are available through those templatized analytics? Will it grow over time? What's available through that? Miranda: Yeah, so we think it's a first step towards making AMC easier for more and more customers. So we don't have a specific timeline yet on additional templates, but it is something we'll be continuing to evaluate. We have been talking to different customers and internal teams about how we can also make AMC easier to use through point and click applications as well. We also work with dozens of partners that are making AMC easier to use, either through visualizations or through their own innovative dashboard. So I think through the combination of either homegrown or partner built capabilities, we'll be able to continue to bring AMC insights to more and more customers. Anne: Yeah, pacview is one of those partners. We do have an AMC dashboard Great, I think. Another question that's kind of just in general about AMC do you think there are any verticals or categories that benefit the most from this data, or that you've seen a lot of growth and success with using AMC? Miranda: Yeah, we think of AMC as equal opportunities. So we look at the data a lot. We're very, very data driven surprise, surprise at Amazon and what we've seen is that there's penetration for AMC across brands and partners and agencies as well as across all verticals. So we've seen, certainly, strength from brands that sell on the Amazon store, but also pretty strong results with entertainment, with automotive, financial services. So you can think of someone who's like automotive who might have a bunch of local dealerships. They want to be able to do more fine event grained analyses based on specific geos, and so something like AMC is perfect for that be able to do more precise measurements. So, yeah, certainly we think it's a great product for all, but it really depends on that particular advertiser's objective and then what are the types of signals that they want to bring in and what kind of insights they can generate. Anne: Definitely, it is flexible. Miranda: Exactly Infinite and flexible. Yes, Great. Anne: My last question is just a kind of a fun one. Do you have any specific query or an example of a query that you think was really innovative that's been pulled through AMC that you can recall? Miranda: I think it's probably a generic answer, but I think the Path to Conversion one is probably one of my favorites, just because it's the simplest. I think AMC was actually the first place where an advertiser could see all of their signals across all of the Amazon ad products, and so someone who was buying sponsored products and DSP might not have realized before that they actually were driving better results together, and so Path to Conversion, and actually be able to understand how those two products were interacting, for example, really brought a lot more power and insight, I think, to advertisers. Anne: So I don't think that's generic at all. I love that one too. Miranda: There's a reason. That's core kind of at the top of the instructional query library. Anne: Right. Miranda: Agreed, all right. Bradley Sutton: I have another question for you. I like asking stuff that maybe nobody else is going to ask. When you want to take off your Amazon hat and kick back with a hobby to kind of like balance work life, what's your go-to hobby? Miranda: Well, I have an almost four-year-old so she is probably my hobby in most of the time. I'm going to try and go do fun things on the weekend, whether it's exploring new coffee shops or going to find music. Bradley Sutton: The four-year-old is a coffee drinker, is she? Miranda: No, she's not, but she's an avid consumer of chocolate croissants, and so we sample baked goods in lots of different places. Then mom gets her coffee. I think that's probably it, but in my prior pre-kid years I did a lot more yoga and hiking and things like that. Bradley Sutton: So enjoy those years. You know, my kids are over 20 already, so I wish I had a four-year-old. I remember those days All right. Thank you so much for joining us and you educated me a lot. It sounds like Ann knows all about what you're talking about. It was like a different language to me, so I appreciate you educating us on IMC. Yes, absolutely. Thank you so much. Miranda: Thank you so much. Bradley Sutton: Alright, we've got Teresa here. Teresa, could you go ahead and introduce yourself? Teresa: Sure, I'm Teresa Uthralton. I'm the Director of Partner Development here at Amazon Ads. Bradley Sutton: Awesome, awesome. How long have you been here at Amazon? Teresa: I've been at Amazon for almost 10 years, so I'm approaching that red badge. For those of you that know our badging conventions, Nice, nice. Bradley Sutton: Now you're from here in New York. I've always been in New York, yep. So I'm going to start off with maybe the most important question of the day Julianne's Pizza in Brooklyn. Is that the best representation of New York pizza, or not? Teresa: Oh, that's tough. There's so many really good pizza places now I can't even keep up with them. There's so many. Bradley Sutton: Alright. Well, we're going to have to connect right after this, because I have two days left and I need to maximize my time here. Teresa: Yes, Alright now. Bradley Sutton: We're not here to talk about food here. Teresa: I recommend checking out Roberta's in Bushwick though. Bradley Sutton: Roberta's in Bushwick. I have not been there. Anne: Yes, I think you'll really enjoy that. Bradley Sutton: We're going to that one. Anne: Right now. Yeah, actually, cancel the interview. Let's go there, we go. Yes, of course. Bradley Sutton: Now Anne here is going to ask a lot of the more technical questions, especially those that have to do with enterprise. Now I'm here to represent, kind of like, the voice of the average Amazon seller, and you know, there's some people out there who might not fully know what Amazon marketing stream is first of all. So could you just go ahead and just kind of give a quick elevator pitch for what that is? Teresa: Sure. So Amazon marketing stream is a partner-facing product, and what it does is it provides really granular hourly signals on all our advertising metrics through the Amazon API, and what that means to a seller is that they will be able to get all sorts of insights about their business that normally they would not have known. Bradley Sutton: Okay, all right, I love that. Did you practice this? I didn't even tell you I was going to ask that. All right, cool, cool. How about rapid retail analytics, your other specialty? Teresa: I know I love rapid retail analytics, so Amazon marketing stream obviously totally focused on advertising signals. As we know, so much of what's exciting about Amazon ads is that you got online retail and digital advertising Right, and so rapid retail analytics provides that level of granularity on retail signals, and one of the reasons that's so exciting is that that data used to be available at a daily cadence with a 72-hour lag, so we literally it's almost near real time now, which is a really, really exciting development. Bradley Sutton: Okay, all right. Well, now that I got that out of the way, let me turn it over to the smart one of us too, and for some follow up questions. Anne: Yeah, so I kind of want to double click into Amazon marketing stream, specifically the fact that it was recently released for DSP or it's being extended to DSP. How do you think this will change the way advertisers manage their DSP campaigns now that they have that real time data that we were talking about? Teresa: Well, it's interesting. I think one of the things that I've learned is I've been humbled by our partner's creativity. Right, you know, I was just. I was just telling someone. I joined this team three weeks before Can last year and so I showed up at Can meeting all my partners for the first time, and we had just launched the first version of Amazon marketing stream and I was like this is the coolest product. But what really got me excited was it's a product that we developed based on the feedback we got from partners Like they, they have a seat at the table, they participate in all our betas and our product teams love them, right, because they get like this incredible, you know, they get their hands dirty and they come back and they're like these are the 27 things that are wrong and you need to fix right, which is if you're a product team, that's actually like really helpful, right, so, and what? The thing that's so interesting is like it launched and everyone loved it, but then people are like well, but it only has sponsored products. Right, like, I want more, I want more, I might want more. So I think what's exciting about having ADSP signals in there is that's going to unlock a whole bunch of opportunity around partners that are deep on ADSP Right. Definitely and I think you know, probably a few months from now, we'll have some really interesting case studies, success stories. There's really like almost no end to the creativity of our partners, which is really great because they're such awesome builders. Anne: I agree. I'm curious AMC they not AMS? AMC? I know they get our accurate, our Amazon accurate. I know, there's so many of them Also provides hour by hour data for both DSP and for sponsored ads. Prior to this, especially prior to AMC, but also prior to AMS, this wasn't available for advertisers, so you kind of had to guess when you were running, like day parting or anything along those lines. Do you think the release of the stream data for DSP will eliminate the need for the AMC hourly data? Teresa: Well, I think you got to go back to like what are the use cases that people use other product, right? I think, like what is great about Amazon marketing stream? Right, it's an aggregate, aggregate data pipe, if you think about it, right, and so ultimately that's going to help people build solutions that are evergreen. It's going to help people train AI models right, because how do you train AI models? You need, like, lots of granular signals, right? And whereas the Amazon marketing stream is really about very specific use cases around, like understanding the customer purchase path, understanding incrementality, understanding attribution, so I don't think it's like one or the other, I think it's very like use case specific. Anne: Right. That actually leads perfectly into my next question, which is how you see these two datasets working together with advertisers currently, or how you see in the future that they can work together. Teresa: Yeah. So I think, like what I think is really exciting about partner innovation is, ultimately, I don't think there's ever been a better time to be a marketer, right, like there's that whole age old question about, like I know half my advertising is working, but I don't know which half, and I think we're getting about as close as we're going to get probably in our lifetime, but we're on the cusp of that with a lot of these tools, and so I think the the part about Amazon marketing stream that I think is so exciting is that it will allow the kind of automation that makes brands so much smarter and helps them do more with less. Right, and we're seeing like especially like this year has been an uncertain economic climate for a lot of folks, right, and a lot of a lot of folks are trying to figure out like my budget has been cut or my budget is capped, but I'm being asked to drive more growth Right, and I think, like partners have been able to deliver solutions based on Amazon marketing stream and rapid retail analytics that have really enabled that Awesome. Bradley Sutton: And you had a last question. Anne: I did. It's a fun one. What's your favorite thing about being at conferences like unboxed? Teresa: Oh, it's meeting my partners. You know, I learn so much from from meeting with partners, right, like I said, it's very humbling. The innovation, the creativity, what they teach us about our customers, what they teach us about our products and it's such an incredible learning experience is so energizing. Were you at our our cocktail party last night? Anne: No. Bradley Sutton: I was not. Anne: We had a lot of cocktail parties. I'm sure it was very. Teresa: That was like such a fun buzzing party and I got to meet partners from all over the world. At our award ceremony on Monday we met partners that came from Delhi and it was just really, really exciting. Bradley Sutton: Awesome, all right, well, thank you so much for coming on the show and we appreciate all that you do at Amazon. Teresa: Thank you, thanks guys. Bradley Sutton: All right, we've got Ruslana here. Ruslana, welcome to the show. Ruslana: Thank you, Bradley and Anne, for having me. Bradley Sutton: Are you based here in? Ruslana: New York no, I'm based in Seattle. Bradley Sutton: Seattle. Okay, Seattle was just there for accelerate, lots of rain, but I like. I like Seattle weather a lot. Quick question for you, first of all just how long have you been at Amazon and what is your title there? Ruslana: I'm a vice president of sponsored brands display in TV advertising and I just celebrated my 10 year anniversary Last week awesome, congrats, congrats. Bradley Sutton: now we're gonna go into like what you announced today, but you know something while you were on stage, you also referred to something that was, you know, launched a little bit ago. We're how, now you know, sponsored products can show up on websites like Pinterest and things like that, and one thing that was I have a bad memory, but it was new to me, maybe I knew about it, I guess, didn't know was like it's not just a product that's gonna display, but it'll also show, I believe, like the reviews count and even the shipping time did I, did I hear that right. Ruslana: Well, with sponsor products, our goal is to deliver the same value that Advertisers are getting today by having sponsored products was an Amazon store and some of the critical sort of trusted Amazon attributes, such as reviews, pricing information, as well as Prime delivery promise, are essential elements To helping customers make decisions and actually purchase. So yes you are, you got it right at that. Sponsor products will be containing Kind of product level or Amazon key, amazon trusted information Within these new and exclusive placements across some of these sides to help our advertisers to really go quickly and with ease from discovering something or exploring something to actually purchasing awesome, awesome. Bradley Sutton: That's been. That's been out for a while, but today, when you're on stage, you announce something brand new, and that was sponsored TV. So just give us maybe a quick 30 second, one minute overview of what that is, and Anne has some follow-up questions on that. Ruslana: Well, we see a sponsored TV, tv advertising as a whole, as a critical element of brand-building strategy. That should not be something that Brand cannot do. Any brand of any science should be able to tap into this opportunity and reach these engaged audiences on a big screen In the living room, and so sponsored TV is aiming to accomplish just that. We have worked very closely with our brands and our customers and Backwards from them, to understand what their key pain points have been and why they have not potentially used TV more actively Was in their overall brand-building strategy and, as a result, launch sponsored TV. I'm trying to eliminate three main pain points no guarantee commitments, no spend, minimum creative support and, lastly, access to first-party Amazon, first-party signals. Even when you advertise in TV, powered my machine learning and Right measurement so that advertise and send value, because what we've learned is spend is intimidating, a Lack of the right creative or ability to create the right credit. Just knowing what resonates on such a screen is Hard and intimidating and, lastly, just understanding the value that TV delivers for these brands was difficult. And so, given those three main pain points, that's there. That's why we're sponsored TV. I think to wrap like there is another element right. We at Amazon, we very custom obsessed and in this instance, we have two customers right. We have brands, and we just talked about the value we deliver for the brands, but there's also another key customer, which is the viewers, and for viewers, this is an opportunity to discover diverse collection of brands and products in places where they choose to spend their time. Bradley Sutton: Okay, now I'm just wondering where, like? What kind of placements are these? Are these like, like, like trailers that come up, or are there just actual, you know, banner ads that might pop up while you're watching a TV show? Ruslana: Oh, this is a TV advertising we're talking about, so they are video, so this is not this not sponsored display. Jeff: Yeah. Ruslana: This is video ads and they sponsor TV. Today service was in freebie content. Like I don't know if any of you watch freebie, I do. I love certain shows there, so big fan. So there is freebie content. There is streaming. Do you stream? Do you twitch? Bradley Sutton: Yes. Ruslana: Okay. Well, when you twitch during live streams, that could be. Another opportunity was in. Bradley Sutton: There might be people watch watching this right now on our rebroadcasts of this. Ruslana: People that twitch. This is where the ads would show. And then, lastly, was in a fire TV apps. Bradley Sutton: Okay, excellent yeah. Anne: So it was mentioned that the goal of this campaign, or at least one of the goals, is to make it more accessible to Advertisers who have lower budgets, don't necessarily want to deal with spend minimums etc. Do you feel like there's a lower level of budget sufficiency for running these campaigns, or can it be tested with a small amount of money? Ruslana: Well, we, as I said earlier, right customer obsessed, working back, working backwards from our brands and working backwards for them. I'm really observed that they do want to be able to engage with this audience. Why wouldn't you like if you launched a product that is net new, delightful, on the market? Why wouldn't you want to tell? Like you know, I talked on my keynote about hex glad. I don't know if you don't know, if you have it in your kitchen, but if you don't, I highly recommend. I discovered through our sponsor TV offering the brand and I love the non-stick and also non scratch. Bradley Sutton: Oh no, you had me out when you showed part of the video where it flipped over and nothing Was coming on. Anne: I like that. Ruslana: Very impressive and so at the end of the day, like that is the brand that I'm delighted to cook with every day, and I like my eggs for breakfast. Doesn't matter if it's Monday or Tuesday, Wednesday or Sunday, so in at the end of the day, I think these are the type of brands. They want to engage with the right audience at the right time, and I think this is the right time. Anne: Great. Can you walk us through some of the targeting that will be available with this type of advertising? Most of sponsored ads is keyword basis. That going to be the truth for Sponsored TV, or is it going to be more signal-based behavioral audiences? Ruslana: Well, we always try to help our brands reach the right audiences. So let me Maybe adjust one statement here Most of sponsor brands is not keyword based sponsored products. Keyword based sponsored Products is keywords based. Sponsor brands has keywords Elements in their way and how you express intent. Sponsored display doesn't have that way to express intent. But our aim is to always work with our brands and help them, give them the right tools to express the intent in the best possible way so we can deliver their message and their story in the right place at the right time. So in the case of sponsored TV, the advertisers could use both sort of category based interests and as well as Genre based interest. Bradley Sutton: I've got a spooky brand on Amazon, so like come Halloween season gonna be Maybe throwing some ads on some spooky Halloween shows or horror show. Anne: Perfect, I think we have time for one more question. So I'm curious how do you recommend brands measure success with these campaigns? Do you have specific KPIs that you think you know appropriately measure the success for sponsored TV or anything along those lines? Ruslana: So they reach. Traditional metrics are available similarly how they would be available for any other TV offerings, but in addition, we are sharing branded searches as well as detail page and store page Traffic, and so that is a starting point for the offering. We will continue evolving our metrics and help brands understand the value they're getting out of their sponsored TV offering Wonderful. Bradley Sutton: Thank you so much for joining us today. Ruslana: Thank you for having me and in Bradley.

Get set to sail through the bustling holiday season sales with ease and finesse as we bring you this month’s TACoS Tuesday PPC expert, Mina Elias, Founder of Trivium Group. Ready to divulge his invaluable strategies tailored for Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the entire holiday season, Mina introduces us to the art of optimizing ads. Listen closely as Mina recounts his own experiences and shares the lessons learned from past mistakes to ensure you make the most of your holiday sales. Whether your product is a Black Friday hit or not, we've got the perfect strategies to maximize your sales and click-through rates. Discover the clever technique of adjusting your bids to your benefit and the smart way to maintain your spending within limits. We reveal some hidden gems on best utilizing the holiday season with budget recommendations and crafting holiday-specific ad campaigns.  Finally, we get into the world of Amazon DSP, providing insights on increasing conversion rates. Uncover the secrets of the optimal spend and timeframe for DSP, learn about bidding strategies for supplements, and also evaluate the effectiveness of Google ads. As we wrap up, we share some valuable tips on targeting long-tail keywords, setting and increasing bids, and making the tough choice between what ad types are top priorities. Tune in for these expert insights and make the most of your holiday season Amazon sales!   In episode 503 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Carrie and Mina discuss: 00:00 - Black Friday, Cyber Monday, & Holiday Amazon PPC Strategies 00:13 - Amazon Prime Day Feedback 04:01 - Sales And Advertising Strategies for Seasonal Products 04:52 - Bidding Strategy for Holiday Shopping Events 10:53 - Split Testing for Main Images 13:57 - Holiday PPC Budget and Sponsored Campaigns 15:14 - Adjusting PPC Budget for Holiday Season 23:07 - Custom Images in Sponsored Brand Ads 26:53 - Running Amazon DSP 31:42 - Amazon Rank and Bidding Strategy 34:08 - PPC Strategy for TACoS and Keywords 35:09 - PPC Strategy for Improving Conversion Rates ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast ► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension ► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup  (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life) ► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft ► Watch The Podcasts On YouTube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos Transcript Carrie Miller: Today we're talking with Mina Elias from the Trivium Group and he's going to give PPC strategies for Black Friday, Cyber Monday and the holiday season in general. This and so much more on today's episode. Bradley Sutton: 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 entering 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 forward. Slash audience. Carrie Miller: Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of this Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I'm your host, Carrie Miller, and this is our TACoS Tuesday, where we answer all of your PPC questions. We have an expert guest who's going to help answer all of your burning questions, especially for the holidays. Today on our show, we have Mina Elias, and I'm so excited to have him on. He's an expert in PPC and so I'm going to go ahead and bring him on. Mina: What's up? What's up, guys. Carrie Miller: Thanks again for coming on live with me. I'm so excited you're here. Mina: I know. Thank you for having me. It's been a minute since I've done a TACoS Tuesday. Carrie Miller: Yeah, do you want to just introduce yourself a little bit, so everyone knows who you are, and a little bit about you and your agency. Mina: Yeah, my name is Mina Elias. I'm the founder of Trivium Group, which is an Amazon agency, amazon marketing agency. We handle pretty much everything on Amazon for brands. I started as a supplement brand in 2018, using Helium 10 religiously, of course. I grew and scaled that brand to over a million dollars. It's called MMA Nutrition In 2021, there was a very large demand for people coming to me saying please run my PPC and stuff like that. I ended up starting an Amazon ads agency. Initially it was just Amazon PPC. Now we do PPC, DSP, SEO, creatives, helping brands launch on Amazon all that kind of stuff. I actually worked with Helium 10 on their PPC course. If you are a member of Helium 10, if you haven't checked it out yet, you should definitely check it out. It is a full, thorough course. Me and Vince Montero did it together. It's like beginner all the way to advanced. It's everything that I do in our business for managing ads. I love sharing everything that we are doing and learning. We have about 150 brands under management, 80 people on the team. We're learning a lot every day and Amazon is changing. I know that it's hard. When I started out, it was very hard for me to know what's good and what's not good. I'm here to share my experience and then hopefully it benefits everyone. Carrie Miller: Awesome. Well, thanks so much. I have some questions prepared here for Meena that are more holiday oriented. This should be a really good episode. Here's the first question what is your Black Friday, Cyber Monday strategy? Mina: Cool. I love talking about this because on prime days and Black Friday, cyber Monday, I mean one wrong move and you could end up losing all of your profits. The reason I say this is because that happened to me multiple years in a row, at least two years in a row, where I was following the strategy of spend a lot of money on ads, do deep discounts and then you're going to sell four times more on Black Friday, cyber Monday or Prime Day. I did sell four times more, but I also spend way more and it resulted in me losing money or not making profits those days. There's two categories in which products fall. One category is they do very well in Black Friday, cyber Monday and Prime Day. I'm talking like expensive products, giftable products. You should know your product. If you don't, I suggest that you go into Helium 10 and you can see the performance historically of product sales over time, and I think Bradley did a video on this. It's on my YouTube channel, just Meena Elias. You'll find a video of me and Bradley and he uses X-ray and cerebro to show you historically how has this product sold and if you notice that certain products or you don't know if your product is going to sell a lot and you notice that there's a spike, then you're like, okay, my product might fall into that category of it's going to do really well Black Friday, cyber Monday. So if you're in that category, I'm going to give you the strategy which is leading up to Black Friday, cyber Monday or any Prime Day. You basically want to increase your bids. You know that you're going to do a deal, so you want to increase your bids and get as much rank as you can, because during Black Friday, cyber Monday, you're probably going to have to decrease it a little bit because you might not be able to handle the volume of the spend that's going to happen from all of the additional people coming in onto the platform. So you're initially increASINg your bids 30 days before you know you have a deal coming. The day of, you know the day before, I would say, and then the day of and then day after, you're going to lower your bids a little bit, probably I would say by 10%, nothing crazy and you want to check frequently that you're you know how much your spend is and you want to make sure that it's not out of control. There's also guardrails. I wouldn't do account level budgets, but if you have a software, you know you could do some sort of automation where it's like if you hit a certain spend in that day, then you know, lower your bids or your budgets by certain amounts so you're not overspending Again. Mina: The thing that I learned the hard way was, you know, I would, on average, sell $2,000 a day. The Prime Day came, black Friday, the 7th of Monday came, I sold $4,000, but instead of spending an average of, like you know, 400 to 500, I spent 1,500. And that extra 1,000 or whatever in profit that I was going to make because of the sales, it all went to ads and I ended up not making as much money or losing money. And you know why would I do that? When I'm just like selling more units and now I have to order, you know, more units faster. Now, if you're not in that category, what I would do is you need to have a very focused strategy on organic only. So 30 days prior to Black Friday, cyber Monday, you're going to increase your bids again, but the day before like, or maybe even two days before leading up to the day after those days, I cut my bids by 30%, and we do this across all the brands, so it's a significant cut, which essentially means you know if someone is clicking on your ads, you know they're probably like deep, they're not like window shopping or anything like that. They're probably on page three or something like that. And it's cool because you know people are going to, who are scrolling that much, might be interested in buying. And what I've noticed is, even by cutting our ads by 30%, they will probably our PBC spend will probably be more, like 10% more than what it usually is, but as a result we do get an increased amount of sales. It's not the same as if our bids were high. So we'll maybe sell 50%, 70%, 100% more than what we usually would sell in a day, but you know we'll have our ads spend the same and so all of that difference is net profit. Mina: And so you know, if your strategy is, if you're not the seasonal product, black Friday, cyber Monday type of product, you want to cut down by 30%. But if you are, then you're going to have a deal and you're going to probably only cut by 10%. Those perform exceptionally well for products like that. So we've had giftable products that were 45 and we brought them down to $35. We've had coffee makers that were $300 and we brought them down to like 260 or something like that, to 59. And that coffee maker, I think, did $70,000 in one day, wow, yeah, we had a card brand, a card holder, that did like a million dollars between both prime days. So when you have a giftable product, when you have an expensive product, something that people wait for deals to buy, you can make a lot of money and definitely utilize the deals that you know prime day deals or Black Friday, cyber Monday deals.And then one more thing that I didn't mention for both of those is if you do plan on like showing that you have a lower price 30 to 45 days before Black Friday, cyber Monday or Prime Day, increase your cost, your sale price and let's say you're a $30 product, bring it up to 35 and then, right before you can drop your price back to 30 and it will show that you have had the lowest price in the last 30 days. So, on top of like a deal, it'll show that you have the lowest price, or, if you don't have a deal, it'll show that you have the lowest price, which some people might think that it's a deal. That's essentially what we've been doing. And then another thing to consider is what are the things that you can do to improve your click-through rate during those periods which are going to be your sale price, your main image and your reviews? Those are the top three things that can influence your click-through rate. The higher the click-through rate, the more you're taking advantage of all that traffic that's coming in. Mina: And so, main image, the time to split test this probably now, because you have about a month until Black Friday, Cyber Monday. You know, with price testing, see how far you can go up right now before actually having a significant impact, because then when you go down you can have a deal and you don't have to go down as much. If you raise your price by 20% now and you notice that your sales and your profits are pretty much the same, when you do a 20% off in Black Friday, Cyber Monday, you're going to get all that much more profit because you're having more sales at the same price. And then, if you're at a 4.2 stars, do whatever it takes between now and Black Friday, cyber Monday to hit a 4.3, because once you hit the 4.3 and you have 4.5 stars, I've seen click-through rates go way up and traffic you know, paid and organic significantly improve. And just a note for everyone, higher click-through rates means lower cost per click, that's. I mean, I don't know why that's the case. My theory is that Amazon views higher click-through rates as better experience for shoppers and, as a result, they want to reward you and allow you to spend more money. So if you're looking for one way to get more free sales through organic traffic or more sales at a lower cost, through a lower cost per click, work on click-through rate. Carrie Miller: So would you say, to do the manage my experiments, to do split testing for those main images, or how do you usually split test? Mina: You know, manage my experiments has not been that reliable recently and I updated my main image and I did manage my experiments and I noticed that for one variation it said that the old one is better and then for one variation said the new one is better. So I said you know what? I'm just going to test putting the new one up and I know what my click-through rate has been the last month. Let's see what's going to happen the next two weeks. So I added the new image and click-through rate went up by a lot. Oh wow, yeah, I mean, and it was against kind of what manage my experiments said. So I think the ultimate way to split test is just, you know, use something like you guys have a poll feature right, yeah, yeah, audiences. So use Helium 10 audiences, get some preliminary data and then you know, if you feel a little bit more confident and you're like, okay, cool, like this image is definitely better than my old image, then go ahead and just like test it. Worst case your click-through rate goes down for a couple of weeks. No big deal, you can catch it pretty quick. I would not make any decisions until at least seven days because you need like one full week cycle so you can look at the average of the click-through rates before, average of the click-through rates after and then say, okay, you know, after it's definitely worse, because for me, Monday the click-through rate could be 0.4. Tuesday could be 0.28. Wednesday could be 0.43. You know what I mean. So that's how it just fluctuates. No one knows why. It's human behavior, you know. None of us you know behave in a predictable way Like you know, at least that predictable. So it's okay, like just let a full week cycle go by. Carrie Miller: Do you have some tips Like are there certain things like maybe if you have multiples in a package should you show all of them, or what are some kind of tips you have for those main images that you've seen, kind of better performance on the click-through? Mina: Yeah, great, great question. So for me, I think what I've seen is the sale, the selling points, like the, the USB, the selling point being visible and you showing that you're better than everyone else just from the main image. And so when I, when I put a bunch of you know like products next to each other, my competitors versus me, like I know that I'm looking for a product, not a lot of people take advantage of the text on their, on their boxes or on their products. So, for example, let's say you know you're selling like flip flops, the cloud flip flops, so you can have the flip flops and, and you know, in an angle whatever. Or you can have the flip flops put on top of a box, a fake box, and on that box you have two sides where you can write text and it says, like you know, the softest material on the market or whatever a hundred percent recyclable stuff like that, right, because you can have that text on the box that you couldn't have actually have on your package, and that box probably doesn't exist. You know you're probably shipping it in a, in a clear bag, but no one is going to pay attention to that detail and and you know, at the end of the day, they're going to get your your slippers. They're going to look this, you know they're going to look like slippers. Mina: So for me, my, my product, my electrolytes if you go look at it on Amazon, it's like shinier. There's text on the cap, there's like some different logos that show that actually don't exist on the bottle and when they do get the bottle it looks very, very similar. There's just a few things, and those few things those are the differences that when someone types in a keyword and they're looking, you know they're browsing, I catch their eye because I have, like some elements outside of the product that are eye catching and I have some text on the product that, like they're looking at all like this is an electrolyte powder, so this is an electrolyte powder with no sugar, with no carbs, and it has this and it's made in America and it's all of these things on the label and so they're like they're convinced to click on me without having to read like title or anything like that. Carrie Miller: Wow, that's amazing. Mina: Yeah, they're just心 restoring, etc. You have to get creative in that one, and so just think about what your product is and what are some elements that you can add around the product to make it pop. And then you utilize packaging with text to make your main image an infographic instead of a main. You know, like if you could make your main image an infographic? That's what I'm getting at. Carrie Miller: Very interesting. Okay, thank you for sharing that. That's a really good info. Okay, let's go on to the next question here. Let's see, I think you kind of asked well, this is for holiday season, so how should I adjust my PPC budget for the holiday season? So, in general, like you know Q4, there's more spend. What budget recommendations do you have? Mina: Yeah. So again like if, if, if you don't know historically how much your budget goes up by, what I would do is I would go, I would go into helium 10 and I find the increase in sales you know from my competitors and I would probably budget 50 to 100% like growth in my ad spend based on what I'm seeing. So let's say my competitor goes from selling 100 units a day to 200 units a day during during that season. Then I'm going to take, you know I'm spending $1,000 a day on ads. I'm going to go to 1500 or max 2000. That's kind of my range of of increase in ad spend and I'm obviously going to do it slowly and make sure that my revenue is growing, you know more, so that I'm left with net profits. So that's another point is to make sure that you are tracking your net profits. So net profits is your sale price minus your Amazon fees, minus your cost of goods sold, minus your advertising you know advertising spend and then obviously refunds and reimbursements take that into account and that's your net profit. You know, on Amazon, excluding, like your own, like cost, you know VA's, whatever, that kind of stuff. So make sure that you're measuring that because that's the, the like, the true number of, like how much you're taking home. And as that number, you know, is increASINg, you can increase your, your ad spend. And you know, hopefully, because at the end of the day, like I don't care about selling three times more in Q4. And then you know, my net profits the same. Mina: I'd rather sell four times less and have the same net profit because it's easier on my cash flow. So that's how I would. I would adjust my budgets Now. If you have historic data and you understand how your sales perform, then you can do it based off of your, your sales growth. Again, if, if you're like, not your spend growth but your sales growth, so if your sales have historically gone up by 80%, then I'm I'm, you know, going up by 40 to 80% on my ad spend. I'll start by going up 40% and then notice how much my sales went up, cause if I start going up by 80% and my sales are on the by 60, I'll scale it back down to 40. Because, again, I want to keep that gap big enough so that I'm making more profit, taking more money home. Carrie Miller: That's a really good point. Yeah, profitability is the most important thing at the end of the day. Yeah, another holiday specific one. What are some strategies for creating holiday specific ad campaigns and promotions? Mina: Yeah, so this is. I mean people are not going to like this answer, but every single time I've tried to create anything that's holiday specific has not turned out well. So sponsor products ads work amazing. Every time I start, I try doing a holiday sponsored brand, which is you know the Christmas tree with the products surrounded and you know that kind of stuff like Christmas vibes, I don't know what it is. My theory is that people on Amazon see that as an ad and they're like I don't want to click on an ad but they see sponsor products as like a very like organic thing and they're like oh, I didn't even know that it was an ad so. And then I've tried it with DSP too, and that one was painful because we have to come up with like 16 different sizes for each creator. Carrie Miller: Oh, yeah, yeah. Mina: And so we tried a lot of it and it did not outperform regular you know our regular standard ads so I wouldn't worry too much about you know. Creatives for holidays, okay. Carrie Miller: I've. We've got a lot of questions in here, so I'm going to start pulling up some of these questions from the audience. Um, rick, I hope you said your name right. What is, or what are your rules to stop sponsored campaigns when a keyword does not perform as desired? Mina: Okay, so usually, if I'm, if I'm trying to be aggressive and grow, it is about the same price as my product and no sales. So if I have a $30 product, if I spend $30 in no sales, if it's an auto broad phrase or expanded ASIN, I'm adding it as a negative. If it's an exact, I'm lowering the bids and I'm going to lower the bids consistently until they either stop spending money or they're profitable. But more than likely, you know, they're just going to stop spending money. But I'm just giving it a chance to be on page four and if someone finds it and clicks on it, they're likely to convert. So that's, that's my strategy. If I'm going aggressive, if I'm trying to be conservative, it'll be 30 to 50% of my sale price. So if I have a $30 product, anywhere between 10 to $15 and spend and no sales, then I'm going to add it as a negative or positive. Now, if you notice that there's a lot of those and if you notice that you you know you went in and you're like, okay, cool, $15 and spend in no sales, I'm going to add it as a negative or lower the bids and you do that and you're left with very little and you feel like you know, like it's not your sales, your sales are not there. You probably have a conversion rate problem. So your problem is more yes, kill the bleeding. So $15 and spend no sales added as negative. Stop spending money on it. Mina: You know you can't help it, but focus on your. You know, with your current ads being the same, that your TACoS like gets cut in half by you doubling your conversion rate, because then from there you can start removing some of the negatives and retesting them, or just taking the negatives and relaunching them in newer campaigns and seeing if they're going to be able to get it, and then you're going to perform Cause. A lot of times it's like a balance between conversion rate and ad spend. So here at this ad spend, you know, and this conversion rate, I'm fine. Now, like you know, this conversion rate, now I'm not profitable. So when my conversion rate goes up, I can spend a little bit more. Conversion rate goes up, I can spend a little bit more. It's like a balancing app. Carrie Miller: That's a really good point. You know that. You know you got to look at your listing too. Is it the most optimized, or your images the best they could be? I mean even just your main image, the way you were talking about. You know adding those different things on the packaging, that's um. You know little touches that make a huge difference. So that is really good. You know not all. You know you can negative the keywords, but then you know they might not be bad forever. So it's really good. Mr techie says, PPC strategy help required. Selling a product in Indian market and then I launched it in the US Market. Have 60 plus feedbacks. My ACoS is 150%. I was running exact match, but conversion rate is negative 7%. Mina: So not sure what the question is, but yeah, yeah, can you, can you clarify the question? And then I mean, if your conversion rate is 7%, I mean ACoS really doesn't matter to me Tell me what your TACoS is. That's like maybe gonna be a little bit more indicative. Tell me what your, you know your margin is and what your TACoS is and what your conversion rate is like overall on the listing and I can maybe help you a little bit better. But I mean, if you're, if you just launched, it's more than likely your conversion rate is low. Having 60 plus Feedbacks or reviews, I'm assuming, is not enough. Also, running exact match alone isn't great. You can run broad phrase and exact and auto and expanded ASIN and whatever is working. You know you can keep that and whatever is not working you can pause it or add it as a negative. Mina: And the goal is to you know, across all the different Add types that you have match types and all that kind of stuff, to find just a bunch of winning keywords. You start off, let's say, with a hundred dollars a day in budget and you know you launch a hundred dollars a day worth of ads and maybe ten dollars of those ads are profitable. So the other 90 you're gonna kill and then launch a new 90, and out of that 90 there's 10, and so now you have 20, that's working, 80. That's not working, you know. Kill that 80, launch another new 80, now you have maybe 30, and you know, and so on, and so you're just trying to stack up like More keywords that are profitable and they're working, and then kill the ones that you tested but didn't work out, and again, all of them will work better if your conversion rate is higher. Carrie Miller: Yeah, that's a good point. I think he said something else a little bit. I've already spent over 3,000. My sales are around 1800 through profitability, though Profitability is very low. So I think you kind of gave some good advice there. So so let's see. Bradley has a question. He says are you 100% of the time doing custom images for sponsored brand ads and if so, what kind of images are working well? Mina: Okay. So the one, the one image that I've seen perform really well and yes, I am doing custom images for sponsored brand 100% of the time the one image that I'm seeing work really, really well is Like something like social proof. So people that are on Shark Tank, people that you know, were like featured on, like there was a creative one where it was like the product and then like put on the cover of Forbes, you know, like with a magazine of Forbes, like next to it. We've seen like stuff done with an influencer, like really big influencers Hillary, dove, Halle Berry, you know who are like celebrities. So social proof is what I've seen Works incredibly well and you have to do it in a way where, like it's, there's no like text, so you can't just do like a bunch of like logos and stuff like that. I don't think they're gonna allow that, but that is what I've seen works best. Everything else has worked kind of Okay, you know, like similar sponsor brands in general and you know I hate to say this, but sponsor brands in general, they seem to not perform that well. They seem to just spend more money and not generate sales. So I'm a hundred percent an advocate for sponsor brands for your own branded search terms. But the second that I start going into like sponsor brand for other keywords. What I notice is it's like the people are clicking on sponsor brand and sponsor products, spending money and not and it's not generating any more sales. And we've tried it where our organic and sponsored is low. So there's. You know there's no chance they're coming into our listing and we try and run a sponsored brand and They've. They've done Okay, they haven't done great. Carrie Miller: That's interesting. Okay, the next question how you mentioned in one of your videos that you use same keyword in multiple campaigns, does not, does that not cannibalize the keyword? Mina: Yeah, so the only time I'm using the same keyword in multiple campaigns if they're if the match types are different and it does not cannibalize, and I'll explain why. So when you have a keyword in broad, that keyword triggers 50 different searches, 50 different search terms, right, if it's in phrase, it triggers 20 and if it's an exact it triggers one, and then these are, just, like you know, rough numbers. So it let's say that you know you have the same keyword in broad phrase and exact, this keyword in broad is gonna show one of 50 times. Now, if you have a hundred dollars a day budget in that campaign and a one dollar cost per click, that that means that it's gonna show across those 50 keywords twice per keyword. You know you're gonna. It's gonna, you know, be two times per keyword in 24 hours. And then you know for for the, the like phrase, it's gonna be five times per keyword and then for the exact, it's gonna be whatever, however many times, you know a hundred times for that keyword. That's, if you reach a hundred dollars, they and spend, and so you add that up, right, two times, five times. You know, and let's say, 20 times in 24 hours. They're not gonna compete with each other like there's there's so much time in the day. An ad could be showing up, you know, every minute. So it's like there is. They're usually in different match types, not gonna compete, and if they do happen to show in different times, from my understanding the the one that has the highest bid is the one that's gonna show up. So it's not a big deal. I don't think they compete. I just think like, statistically, you have something that shows up twice in 24 hours, five times in 24 hours, 20 times in 24 hours. What is the chance of them running into each other? Carrie Miller: Yeah, that's true. Okay, so Jeffrey asked what's the minimum amount of Spend needed and the minimum time frame you recommend for running DSP? That's a really good question. I've had this question a lot recently. Mina: Yeah. So I would say 2000 a month is would be the bare minimum and that's just kind of enough to cover like some loyalty or retargeting campaigns. And the minimum like in the first 30 days, that's when you're still getting data, and then in the second 30 days, that's when you're starting to optimize. So within 60 days you should start seeing like the true results. So I would say the minimum at spend would be 2000 and then the minimum you know amount of time should be 60 days, and then 60 days that's if you're like running it with someone, that's like experienced and they know what they're doing. If you're doing it yourself, it's probably it's gonna be longer. You know more, like 120 days because there's a lot of things that you have to tweak to get it Right. But yeah, I mean it doesn't have to be a lot of ad spend. I think you can get retargeting down with 2000. You just have to figure out which Placements work the best. So for me it's been usually Amazoncom, desktop, mobile web and mobile app. Creatives has been responsive, e-commerce has performed the best, and then audiences are Like sometimes 30 days is enough, 30 days retargeting. Sometimes you have to go with like 60 days retargeting. So it just depends on how many people are coming into your listing. For an audience to be created on DSP, you need at least a thousand Unique visitors a month to create an audience awesome. Carrie Miller: Okay, the next one is how are you using the bidding strategy for supplements and are you getting good results? Mina: First for supplements, the way that, like I work, from long to long, tail up, like from from long, like long term, like um, low, low search volume, all the way up because lower search volume are easier to win. And so my strategy is, you know, going to helium 10, I put in my, or I go into, like you know, the search results on on Amazon type in my main keyword, open up X-ray. I pull up the top 10 competitors, launch them in cerebro. Then I set up some settings, so I would say like a minimum of 500 searches a month, minimum ranking competitors seven or eight out of the 10. Um, and then maximum position, 60. Um, and so now it's showing me keywords that are relevant to most of these competitors with decent search volume and they're not ranked a super low. And then from there I have my core list and I take that core list and I start launching. Mina: I launched the big ones initially just to get relevancy and to get a lot of indexing for for a lot of different keywords. I'll watch this broad phrase and exact, but I start with the lower search volume keywords and I put them five in a campaign, one in broad, one in phrase, one in exact, and I'm gradually launching them and I start with a bid that's lower or around the suggested bid. Sometimes the suggested bid is $5. So I'll just start at you know, a dollar or $2. Anyways, and then I can always inch my way up, and so from there I wait and I, you know, I spend and I see what's going on. And then I start inching data up based on like, what's getting um, impressions, um, and obviously, if there's anything that's performing well, I'm spending a little bit more money on it. And I'm basically trying to start like I'm casting a net at the bottom and then coming up, up, up, up, up, until it starts like catching some people and instead of like spending up here, and then I'm like, damn, like this, spending too much money, it's not profitable, and lowering the bids. Mina: I started the bottom and work my way up and then, as I stack the, the long tail ones, it's easier to launch the bigger ones Because they're going to be more costly, but they'll balance out because they they will drive a lot of traffic, but you should have like a decent amount of sales that are profitable coming in first and then then it will work a lot better than if you just start with the broad keywords Um and yeah, and that gets me pretty good results. We're like looking for negative keywords very frequently, making sure that any keyword that spends a certain amount of money with no sales, is added as negative, like if it's an auto broad phrase or expanded ASIN, um, and then all any keyword that's like underperforming bids are lowered. And we're constantly launching new keywords and testing new keywords out. So, going through the search term report, um, you know, twice a week identifying any search term that converted profitably that we're not currently running. I'm not negating it or anything, I'm just taking it out, putting it in its own campaign in different match types to try and double down on those keywords. Carrie Miller: Awesome, all right. Next question Are Google ads still effective? Mina: Yeah, I would say Google ads are still effective. Definitely. I think you're trying to drive cold Google ads to Amazon because you have a lack of attribution. It's very hard to optimize. I wouldn't necessarily put my money there before maximizing uh, PPC and DSP. Carrie Miller: Can you elaborate a little bit more on this strategy for a rank? Do you have to put in specific keywords on your Google ads in order to rank on Amazon for those, or does it just sending Google traffic allow all your keywords to increase an organic rank, Like what? What is the strategy for that? Mina: The strategy is individual keywords. So it's like we'll set up a keyword, uh, in its own campaign and we'll drive traffic to Amazon and we're noticing that the rank of that keyword for us organically goes up and we're tracking it in the search query performance report, um, in terms of like all of everything ranking higher. That works well when we're using influencers. So we've done a strategy where we've hit up a bunch of influencers, like I'm actually going to do this for my new product that I'm launching, um on Amazon. It's like a new, it's like a packets version of my electrolytes, but basically I'm giving it away to a hundred different influencers and what we've seen is like brands that have done that that they've given it away to influencers on Tik Tok and they've like posted about it and made good content. And then people are like looking up the brand name and looking at it on Amazon, like that's really helped improve organic rank across the board. Carrie Miller: That's amazing, thank you, okay, so what's the best way to choose initial bids? Mina: Yeah, so start with suggested bid, you know, and if the suggested bits too high, just start lower and then work your way up. There's like no science behind this. Um, you're never going to nail it. You're just going to start somewhere and then you're going to have to optimize it. You're going to have to optimize over time until you hit the you know, the sweet spot. But I would rather you start lower and work your way up, because if you start higher you're just spending a lot more money faster. Carrie Miller: All right. Next one should broad and phrase match be used in campaigns throughout the product lifetime? I think is what that is. Mina: Product. Okay, so should broad and phrase match type? Yeah, broad and phrase match types should be used forever. They're like different types of keywords. So you have one keyword and you have different match types and those different match types perform differently. So you know, it's like. That's just how it is. Like you can have a electrolyte powder broad, electrolyte powder exact and electrolyte powder broad could do amazing, because inside of electrolyte powder broad there's 40 keywords. You've negative 10 of them that are not doing well, and then there's 30 of them that are doing good, you know. And then electrolyte powder exact is just that one keyword and you know you've optimized the bid as much as you can and it's doing okay, but you know it's spending too much money and not an ecosystem is high, etc. Etc. So you should always use phrase and broad. Yeah. Carrie Miller: Awesome. Okay, and we have some continuation from the one earlier who had 150% ACoS negative 7% conversion rate. He said TACoS are 125%. Current sales two orders a day. Category gift bags. I need PPC strategy for the current situation in helium 10. I see my rank is poor for major keywords. I am tracking. Mina: Yeah, I mean this is. It looks like to me it's more likely a conversion rate problem. When I see TACoS that high, I mean it's not going to be your, because if your TACoS is that high, then great like, pause all your keywords and only keep the ones that are profitable. And if there's like, if the ones that are profitable aren't even making you two sales a day, then yeah, I mean you have a conversion problem. So it because if you fix your conversion rate, then your 125 TACoS could become 50% TACoS and then you'll have more opportunity to get you know, launch more keywords and some of them be more profitable, which will drop your TACoS even further. But it seems, as of right now you're, it's probably a conversion rate problem. Carrie Miller: Yeah. Mina: Sorry, let me just say okay, while you fix your conversion rate, what should you do for PPC? I would say go after a bunch of long tail keywords, start with a very low bid and work your way up slowly and try and catch some profitable keywords. That's, that's all you can do. There's not much else that you can do, right? It's because then, the day you're launching different keywords, you're testing different keywords, some of them need to convert and it's, you know, it's up to your conversion rate. Carrie Miller: Awesome. I think that's actually the last of the questions here, so and we're about, you know, almost at 40 minutes, so we've definitely had a pretty good episode here. So thank you so much for joining us on this live. We really appreciate you coming and giving all this expert advice. I think you just dropped so much information here, so many good tactics that people can start taking into, especially these holiday season times, to help, you know, maybe not overspend and to be more profitable. So thank you so much again for joining and we'll see you again, hopefully another time on TACoS Tuesday, and we'll see you again. Mina: See you later, see you soon, thanks guys. Carrie Miller: Bye everyone.

In episode 502 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Swapneel discuss: 00:00 - Selling on Amazon And Scaling Rapidly 14:18 - Product Launch Strategies and International Market Approaches 12:47 - Scaling a Multimillion-Dollar Business Solo 17:52 - Product Research and Potential Products 20:39 - Issues With Suppliers and Product Lifespan 23:42 - Product Launch and Maintenance Strategies 34:40 - What's Next For Swapneel? 38:52 - Swapneel's 60-Second Tip ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast ► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension ► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup  (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life) ► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft ► Watch The Podcasts On YouTube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos Transcript Bradley Sutton: Today we've got a very unique seller. He sold over $10 million over the last couple of years, has 60 products in over 10 marketplaces and launches a new product every month. Guess how many employees he has? Zero. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Black Box by Helium 10 houses the largest database of Amazon products and keywords in the world. Outside of Amazon itself. We have over 2 billion products and many millions more keywords from different Amazon marketplaces, from USA to Australia to Germany and more. Use our powerful filters to search through this database for pockets of opportunity that you might want to get into with your first or next product to sell on Amazon. For more information, go to h10.me forward slash black box. 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 series 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 from the other side of the world. We've got a serious seller here that is joining us for the first time in the show. Why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself, since it's your first time on the show. Swapneel: Hi, my name is Swapneel and I'm from India. Been selling on Amazon from the year 2014 and, as a full term, from last four years. Bradley Sutton: So yeah, were you born and raised in India? Swapneel: Yeah. What part Rajasthan, Jodhpur. Bradley Sutton: Okay, all right. And have you lived all your life there or have you moved around at all? Swapneel: Yeah, so when I was like 19 years old I went to New Delhi like for my university for five years and then right now I'm like kind of digital nominate, so I don't really live here anymore, but just maybe like two, three months a year just to visit my family, because my family still live here. Bradley Sutton: Okay. Well, what did you go to a university for? Swapneel: I did law so. Bradley Sutton: I wanted to be a lawyer. Swapneel: Yeah, so I did law for five years and I specialized in intellectual property rights. Bradley Sutton: How does one go from five years studying law and then all of a sudden, e-commerce? Not a natural transition there? Swapneel: No, I was doing part time, like other than focusing at university. I was working as well All my university years. Any commerce yes, I was selling on Amazon from 2014. And yeah, so, and I did. Well, how did that? Bradley Sutton: happen, though, because that's still not typical. It's not like okay, yeah, during the day I'm going to study law, during the night I'm going to sell on Amazon. I mean like especially in 2014, when hardly anybody was doing it, so how did Amazon even get on your radar? Swapneel: So, even before Amazon, I was doing a lot of other platforms like eBay, and there are some other local marketplaces like traders shop clothes, so, and you know, in 2013, amazon entered in India, but in 2014, they opened for everyone, and I knew that Amazon is a really big e-commerce company and I should be there and yeah. So, but, like, even before I went to university, I was making, you know, some money like some, doing some other stuff like flipping goods from online to offline. Bradley Sutton: So, like you've always been like kind of like I had an entrepreneurial mindset in one of those early age. You trying to make some action, okay, now it's making a little bit more, a little bit more sense, okay. And then things started getting bigger so that when you graduated from university, did you just go full time into into e-commerce then yeah. Swapneel: So that that time, like for me the money was pretty big motivation thing. So in my first year of the university I wasn't sure how much I would be making as a lawyer. But on the second and third year I got to know from my seniors like what is the actual situation and I realized that man like I need to put like at least 10 years in law if I really want to make some serious money in this field. Bradley Sutton: Now back in 2014,. I'm assuming you were selling an Amazon USA. Swapneel: No, I just did in India. That's where Amazon. Bradley Sutton: India was active in 2014. Yes, yes, I didn't even know that. Okay. Swapneel: Interesting, yeah, but it was very new. It was really new they didn't do reselling or private label. Yeah, so I was just doing reselling. I used to buy a lot of stuff from USA, mainly from Amazon.com, and then selling in Amazon India. Yeah, Interesting. Bradley Sutton: Okay, yeah, at what year did you first hit the seven figures? Swapneel: The 2021, yes. Bradley Sutton: 2021  okay, and at that point were you one hundred percent private label or were you still doing like some reselling and things? Swapneel: I was doing both and like I feel like so, in 2020 I launched a lot of private label products. During all the, like you know, doing the first lockdown, I was just focusing on all the products launches I will be making, doing product research and my first product has really contributed a lot for my private label journey, like I started with one product and then just my. Bradley Sutton: You're still selling that product now. Swapneel: Not anymore, because the demand is okay. Bradley Sutton: Can you tell us? Swapneel: what it is, then, yeah, sure. Bradley Sutton: I can show. Go ahead and send me the link over in the chat and let me pull it up on my screen. Let's see here. Okay, I see what this is, so let's pull it up here so everybody else can see. There we go, all right. So this is like a, like a USB capture card I'm looking at here. And how did you find this Like? How did you even decide that this was going to be your product? You just got it randomly, or? Swapneel: what. So for me, like one of the criteria to search the product is checking the new launches of my competitor or and see like if I can have that same product in a very less turn around and can enjoy the party. So that's what's my like, I mainly do. And during that time I saw like a lot of people were seeing selling this product but they were doing MFF, like they were not doing full fill by Amazon and like, even though the product demand was there, but they were, I don't know why they didn't did FPA. And I knew one thing like as soon as I will do this FPA, the product doesn't have any. Like you know, any of my computer doesn't have a lot of reviews and if I will do full fill by Amazon, then I can, you know, sell a lot of goods as well. So how many? Bradley Sutton: how many at the peak? Like? How many units of this were you selling a month or a day? Swapneel: I was selling like I was selling like a month I was selling more than 1500 units in India. Bradley Sutton: Wow, wow In Amazon India. And yeah, okay. All right so then you're like, okay, wow, yeah, this is definitely better than reselling, or I have to get a little bit and stuff you could just Well. Did you manufi, did you get it from China, or did you get it from there in India? Swapneel: Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, I got through some of the suppliers in China. Yeah, but the best thing about this product is not just selling, but the margin I had. So I was buying this product like for $5 and was selling for like this product for around $40. Bradley Sutton: Wow, very nice. Yeah especially in India you're still living in India that the money goes even farther. Swapneel: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Bradley Sutton: How long until you bought your parents a house? Swapneel: So I bought the like. You know, as soon as my business started picking up in doing COVID, my family was already super excited. So they already finalized, you know, like don't worry about being a lawyer anymore. Bradley Sutton: No, forget that you know like, hey, this Amazon is good, huh, okay. Swapneel: Yeah, but that you know definitely I was in a bit of stress situation. It's a really big thing, you know so, but that stress really motivated me to push myself further and focusing every small details of my finance, my product. So, yeah, I was a stress, but at the same time I was able to, you know, do better in those situations. Bradley Sutton: So 2021 hit that $1 million mark. How much did you sell last year in 2022? Swapneel: I did $5.4 million. Bradley Sutton: I mean, getting to $1 million is impressive enough. How did you go from $1 million to $5 million just in one year? We're just launching tons of products, or you had some products go viral Were you launching to other marketplaces. How did you increase so fast? Swapneel: So, like I was doing some international markets before in and out, like you know, kind of drop shipping back in 2018 in UK and some EU market also in USA but it was not, like you know, full time or doing throughout the year. Sometimes my accounts were also suspended because of drop shipping. But back in 2021, I started again focusing on the international markets, but still was not doing like a full-fledged business. And back in like 2022, I expanded my business in a very serious manner, like in whole of EU UK, Canada, USA. I know everything how to do an average because I had a lot of experience. And also in 2020, I did my business in Austria as well. So that has really helped me a lot. You know, like provided me enough money to expand in those other markets. Yeah, so that was one of the things like really helped me. And like I was just using my suppliers, which I'm already using in India, and I know that, whatever I would be selling the same product in USA, I would be doing 10X more at least. So that has changed a lot. And also my negotiation skills really helped me because a lot of my suppliers started giving me credit and I utilized those that credit in a very efficient manner like, yeah, you get loan and if you just spend on yourself, then it's not a good idea, but if you utilize pretty well in the business, then definitely it helps. So that's what helped me in 2022. Okay, All right. Bradley Sutton: Now it's coming up. We're now here in Q4 in 2023. Are you going to do better than last year? Same Worse. What do you think you're going to end up with this year? Swapneel: So this year it would be exactly the same what I did last year, because the situation has changed a lot this year. Firstly, I'm traveling whole of this year and it's just maybe like 40-50 days. That was in India. Other than that, I was traveling full time. I was just came, like three, four days ago, from like a four month of trip. I was in North and South America. So this year I was like pretty relaxed and also a lot of things happened at Amazon as well. So Amazon is, I think, are really not smooth at Amazon, so trying to fix those things as well, all right, so now you've got this five months, you've got this five, six million dollar business. Bradley Sutton: You're traveling, enjoying yourself, not working like 100 hours a week, so you must have 20 employees supporting you, huh. Swapneel: Oh, not at all. Bradley Sutton: How many total employees have you had the last few years? Swapneel: So in India I just had one accountant and one person who manages, and then there is one guy from at Veros. That's it in India. But I never had any employee anywhere else, even though my Indian business is not even like 7%. If I compare to my last year's sales revenue, my Indian business was just 7%, but for the rest 93% revenue, I never had any employee. So for your Amazon. Bradley Sutton: USA business and in Europe you have zero employees, just you. Swapneel: Yes, yes. Bradley Sutton: Well. So I mean, people listening to this might ask a question well, like, maybe that makes sense. You know, like if you're working like 90 hours a week and have no life and just stay in your basement and work all day, but how in the world do you scale a business so much? And you're the one who has to answer the customer service, you're the one who has to find a line of their products, you're the one who has to do the keyword research, you're the one who has to make the listing, you're the one who has to fight with Amazon if customer support, if something happens, how in the world can you run a five, six million dollar business just by yourself and not even working really full time? Swapneel: So the one of the best thing with Amazon is their FPModels. So a lot of customers, don't you know, reach out to you if they have any issues with the delivery and all the stuff, and that is one of the reasons why customers, you know, contact to the seller at first place, other than the warranty and all the stuff. And also I was doing a lot of reselling as well in US market, so the brand has to take care of those stuff. So a lot of time was saved for sure, yeah, so, and I had really good partners, for example, with the Logistic thing. I have a really nice shipping agent and that really, like you know, eases my work a lot, just sending the details of the labels and everything and just telling you where to ship which market. They take care of everything. So for me, the main goal was just to, like you know what I can do to improve my revenue, and also sometimes I used to use some freelancers if I was not really good with something. So, yeah, that's it. Bradley Sutton: So how many marketplaces now are you in? So right now I'm in USA, Canada, UK, whole of the EU, UAE, Japan, Australia, India, but more than 10 marketplaces, probably, and are you selling the same products across the board, or, like, some products are only sold in EU, or some products only in USA? Swapneel: Each market is different. For example, in India I can sell mostly a lot of products, but not very high end products and which are technical. Each country the situation is really different. Sometimes there is a really low like maybe a local company who is doing really good and have a lot of reviews, and maybe you don't have any kind of competitive advantage, even though I will try or push, try to push. So for me it's more like market specific strategies, because not all markets are same and every market is completely different. Bradley Sutton: Okay, now what's your, what's your process? Like, how many products are you launching or actually until now active? Approximately how many skews, different skews, you know, like if you're selling the same one product in USA and Canada and Europe, just count that as one. But just roughly, like you know, 20 skews in all marketplaces, 100, 300, like roughly. What do you think? Swapneel: So, like beginning of this year, I was also doing a lot of reselling, but now I'm not doing business with one of the company I used to do and that has definitely contributed a lot to my last year's venue. But things have changed. Bradley Sutton: So private label. Then how, yeah, how many skews are you doing? Swapneel: So currently I'm launching like every month at least one new product in private label and so and some I also take off the old you know, which are not really performing really nice and not what my efforts or the you know margin is shrinking a lot, so I just cut off, you know, those products. So right now maybe like 60, 70 products 60 or 70 products. Bradley Sutton: All right, walk me through. Have in mind your last product you launched. Like, when was the last product you launched this month? Last month? So have one product in mind. You have it in mind? Mm? Hmm, you got it in mind. Ready, yeah, yeah. Swapneel: Okay. Bradley Sutton: Yeah, Now was it July that you launched it. Swapneel: Yeah, oh. Bradley Sutton: I guess that one product you have in mind. What month did you discover it, or what month are you like? All right, this is what I'm going to plan to launch. You know we talking January last year. You know what was it? Spring when was it? Swapneel: So in April and May I was in China and I was looking around some products and then I found some product which is doing good in the US market and I contacted some suppliers. When I was in China I visited the factory. So it was in May, in the month of May. Bradley Sutton: But which came first. You found the product, or, like you found the idea in China, or you had done some research when you were still in the USA and then went to China. Which one was first? Swapneel: Sometimes, you know, because of some advertisement or anything if I find I just keep on. Like you know, at least every day when I'm doing product research I spend at least one hour on Amazon just browsing and doing really nothing, checking what's going on and if I can add something value on that product. So then I just found one product and I was doing more and more research and then seeing like I do check, like you know, if any product is launched recently and the rank is going crazy, it means this product could be a potential. So this is one of the reasons. And then to validate, I check the data how much volume it says in a month and other than that. Bradley Sutton: What are you looking for? Like are you checking how many do you have, like a limit? Like oh no, there's already 30 people selling this, so it's too late. Or like what's your what are some criteria? Is that you're looking for when you're doing your validation? Swapneel: So I check if this product is a really advanced, then how the product you know like before generation did, for example, like which was not that innovative enough. It was a basic product, but how much that product was doing, how much is the reviews for that product. Is a really really established and do I have chances of getting success or not? So I do check all these things and I also do the search result how much is a search volume for this particular product? And to check whether this product is seasonal or not. Bradley Sutton: So okay, so, so then you did all that with this product, and then your next step was you actually went to China to like check some suppliers for it, or what was the next step after you're like you know what, this looks really good, it passes my test. What was the next step for you? Swapneel: So I was already in China during those time in April and May and I felt like visiting the factories and you know it's a really good idea rather than just chatting them. I visited factory and I did all the customization with them and, yeah, so ordered like I can also negotiate better. For example, they gave me a price for 10,000 units but I said, hey, it's a new launch and you know, then I try to get the same price for like maybe four, five thousand units and at the same time I make sure that if this product is not really doing good or it's very new in already UK or the U market, then I make sure that I launch the same product in all across the market places all at once. Bradley Sutton: So this one product that you launched in July, the one that you have in mind was that only for USA, or was that one that you had launched in other places? Swapneel: Yeah, at the same time I was launching UK and U for that product it was Enslafrom. Bradley Sutton: On the subject of suppliers, have you ever had issue with your suppliers where they sell your product to other people? Swapneel: Oh, A lot of suppliers do that a lot of if not that, then how do you handle that? That is one of the reason, like why a lot of my products don't have a long life long life in case. Like you know, like people do a lot of drop shipping like tick tock products and Instagram, really, you may see so most of my products are also related to that as well. Not all, but at least 30% of the product. So I sell it. The trend is going on and, yes, then eventually the trend dies, or so it's not like I can sell the same product for another 10 years as well. Bradley Sutton: Interesting. Yeah, so you. So you don't get really emotionally attached to the product because you know that. You know, like now are all these products you're launching similar brands, or or you always starting just different, random brands. Swapneel: So I have some products, specific brands, and some brands are just used for any miscellaneous products. Bradley Sutton: Okay, all right. So then, this product. You were there in April and May. You happen to be in China. You were browsing Amazon. You found it. You found a new supplier for it, got it ready, 4,000, 5,000 units, shipped to Europe and to US. What's your, what's your launch strategy? Like, like, like, how do you, how do you what some techniques use? Like, how are you getting to page one? Are you just using, you know, ppc? You have any special techniques that you can share? I? Swapneel: Use very basic first of all. Obviously, your product should have really nice photos, should classify why your product is better than any other product in the market. Bradley Sutton: How do you get nice photos? Do you have like a studio? Swapneel: You do business with or what. So I first will try to work directly with the supplier so that I don't have to spend a lot of money upfront For these photos, even because I'm not sure whether how the product will gonna do. And then, if I cannot get anything, then I try to look at fiber to find some people who can do for me, and Then also do the nice a plus content, make sure the bullet points are really good, everything this is a really basic thing to start with, and then, since I launch a lot of products and a lot of market, I Utilize one of the best tool of Amazon, that is, amazon wine, because that really help you. And If you will launch a product in a lot of market, then you get a lot of reviews as well, for example, in the US. Bradley Sutton: My view just oh and all the reviews are stacked together, then you be Like you get 20 vine reviews in USA, 20 vine reviews in UK in the same ascent. Now you've got 40 reviews instead of I mean, I'm sure many people do that, but you know, it's just kind of just dawned on me like that's a good, that's a good strategy to have and another reason why you should launch on the the same ascent, okay. And then you find the keywords from helium 10, like you use Cerebro or what tool are using. Swapneel: So for me, because some of the products are really new in the market, there are no competitors as well, so it's really difficult to focus. You know which would be the keyword. So I just use Amazon automatic ads to check all the keywords which are performing and by or but. Maybe every week I try to optimize and seeing if some of the keywords are element, trying to put in the negative list, so, and trying to make sure that those keywords are on the product title bullet points. Yeah, yeah, to improve, to improve, so like just very basic, to like no things I use. And Once, like initially, you always get very good reviews because of the wine, because normally people don't put a lot of negative reviews, they leave mostly positive reviews. So you already got initial pull, you know, for your product. Yeah and Then it is totally depends upon the actual customers reviews. If the actual customers are Giving me good reviews, then I can be sure that this product is really doing good and Then I can have that as a long-term product as long as there is a sale for this product. And then I started improving more of my ASIN by putting videos, doing, you know, whatever things I can improve for this product, then putting some Warranty-related things, making sure the customer is always happy. Yeah, I feel like if you sit on Amazon, you should always align your values with what the values of Amazon are. Yeah, so I just make sure that and I take every detail of the customer to further improve the product as well, like checking voice, you know, a voice of customers. Bradley Sutton: Yeah, so now you know, thinking back then, from April, your product research phase to Negotiating, negotiating with suppliers, you know, getting samples and doing your customization, like you said, sending it to the marketplaces, creating the listing in the different marketplaces, managing those PPC campaigns in the first few weeks to launch that product that you launch in July, up until, let's just say, august. You know, so one month into the launch Approximately, how many hours do you think that you spent doing all those things? Swapneel: Oh, one of the so one of the most interesting time for me when I launch the product is the first sale. I look at the velocity of then another cell, how fast I can. I'm getting another cell. Then you know, checking the performance each day and whether it's improving or not. And, yeah, I closely check every detail during those time and for me, whenever it's my first launch, my goal is not to make profit at all and I will focus on that. Yeah, for me, the main focus is just to see how good is the product and how is the demand actually, because if your product reviews are good and you are early, more Than you can make money for years for sure for this just one product. Bradley Sutton: Okay so, but then how? Same question like the how long do you think you spent up until you know, after those first few weeks of spending a lot of time checking the sales? You know like, do you think it took you 50 hours from April to July or to August for that product? Was it 10 only, or or approximately? How long did, uh, did you actually put actual work into that product? I must say like maybe, yeah, for 30 hours at least okay, so about 30 hours of work for the one product, and then now, like, let's say, a product gets mature. You know, now you are making profit. Now it's kind of taking care of itself. Like how much time in a month do you spend on that product, would you say you know because I'm you know, you're probably having to do your ppc and, and you know, check reviews, customer service. Is it like one hour a month because you almost have nothing to do? Is it five hours a month for that one product? What would you say? Swapneel: so if the product is really doing good, then the first important thing is to make sure that I have stock for this product, sure? So I negotiate with the supplier and, you know, try to to make sure that I have stock, and then I'll look at the competitors if there is something innovating they are trying to do and if I can implement the same as well, you know, as soon as possible, maybe one of my suppliers putting some new product as a free or, you know, trying to value add, then I also make sure that I do some value addition as well, because, just because of this stuff, I don't want my product rank to go down yeah, so how long does it take? Bradley Sutton: you know, like, what is your maintenance phase for a product? For that, for that? We're talking about that same product, you know. Now you know it's October, that product you launch in July. Thank you, how much time are you spending on that product? Swapneel: so right now I felt that this product reviews are not really doing great and I'm not motivated enough right now to do further, even though even without advertisement right now I'm getting sales for those products. But if I'm trying, this is a low value product. So if I'm trying to invest a lot in the advertisement it's not really giving me a lot of fruitful results. So right now I'm like, okay, once this product is sold I will not start again, but then, but, but still. Bradley Sutton: How much time is it are you spending on so? Swapneel: every day. I always wait for the helium, then emailed about my performance, and it gives me all the units I sold in each of the market and that really give me a lot of idea. If something is going interesting, then I try to figure out why it's going like that. And, for example, yesterday I definitely checked on that product and I was saying like, okay, I'm getting sales, not doing anything. And then I checked the reviews are there any improvement in the reviews or is there a possibility of me I take that as a possibility if I can, you know, sell this product for a long time. But yeah, I see that I still have some stock left and the other variation is that really go good, I didn't have that, but I'm still wait and watch. Right now I'm not trying to buy something. You know more from us at first yeah, let's see. Bradley Sutton: So you think maybe less than one hour a month you spend on it now yeah, maybe two hours yeah, so so now we can, we're getting a little bit clearer picture of how you, you know scaled up and still can be by yourself. Is, you know, like, hey, maybe to find and and vet the product and and all the work to launch it only took you 30 or 40 hours, and now that it's in maintenance mode maybe you're only spending one or two hours, you know, per per product a month but, I remember you telling me you know that you're leaving money on the table, probably because you're not using, like, all of the tools, or you're not doing all of that, the analytics, since you're by yourself. But still, even with not doing everything that you could be doing, you're, you're, you're doing millions of dollars. And then what? What is your like profit margin, would you say, after your expenses for for your business? At least 15, 15, 20 percent so always want to make 15, 20 percent. If it dips lower then then you go ahead and cancel that product. Swapneel: If it goes less than 8%, then definitely not worth it at all. Bradley Sutton: Yeah. So what's the future hold for you? Are you just going to keep doing what you're doing, like this, and just do stuff by yourself, launch a product once a month and things like that and then put on maintenance mode, or are you going to like you know what? It's time that I need to start delegating some of my tasks and maybe take some employees on? What are you going to do next year, in 2024? Swapneel: So ever since I was at our BDSS event, that has completely transformed how I see things and how better I can do, and from that time on was obviously I was struggling, so not focusing a lot during all those months, but right now I'm just thinking like every day. Once in a while I have thought about the delegation and what all things I expect from someone, and I'm right now in phase of hiring people, because I know one thing that I can do a lot better what I'm doing right now If I have people. For example, I have a lot of products in Australia. They do really good for me, but I feel I'm so stupid that I'm not sending the inventory on time there. A lot of my products are mostly on outdoor stock and if some market is doing really good, then I don't focus a lot on the market which don't perform well. For example, my USA and UK and EU market do such so better especially Germany, UK and USA that I don't put a lot of efforts in Canada, Australia, Japan, India and also I feel it's really bad because I have all the resources, all the infrastructure. All I need to make sure is ordering the right quantity and making sure that I have stock for those products. That's it. Yeah, so I'm losing just that. Bradley Sutton: That's the first thing that you're probably going to want to hire for is like, hey, I need somebody just 100% managing my supply chain, making sure that I'm not running out of stock anywhere. Okay, All right. So what would you say is your I mean, I'm assuming USA is your number one marketplace what would you say is your number two, three and four marketplaces out of all those that are going on UK? Swapneel: UK, I feel, can do a lot better as well. I really I'm very happy with UK market, a lot better than US market, because I feel the competition is less, the margin is a lot better than US, but overall sales it's number two. Bradley Sutton: You're saying next to USA. Swapneel: Yeah, yeah, right, okay, so far. Yes, so UK would do better than US maybe for me. Bradley Sutton: Oh really, wow, that's pretty impressive. Okay, interesting, all right. So, yeah, you got inspired by going to Billion Dollar Seller Summit. You can see all the strategies that people are using, and these are strategies probably your competitors are using and you're not you know. So, yeah, it's like when you go to events like this, it can open your mind as far as as you know, seeing what, what is possible out there. Okay, so, other than hiring, finally, some help. What are some other goals for you for next year? Swapneel: Focusing on external traffic, because this is a huge thing, really really huge thing, because I see a lot of products on Amazon having 30, 40 reviews and then there's a competitor having 20,000 reviews and they are on the top five products. Why? Because they're getting external traffic. So external traffic is a really huge thing and I think I should have some strategies to work on that thing. Maybe TikTok release, Instagram release, and I'm really like focusing a lot to get some people on board related to marketing, because that's where I feel I'm really not good at all. So, trying to work on that and, yeah, I think that can be really big thing for sure. Bradley Sutton: Okay, all right. Well, I wish you all the best of success. You know I've seen you already at a couple events this past year and hope to see you again at some other local events. And yes, please definitely start hiring people and get some help that you need, and then you'll be able to travel even more, you'll have some more time on your hand and you can enjoy what's your favorite place that you or craziest thing that you have done living as a digital nomad the last couple of years. Swapneel: So I'm kind of and really in juggy right now. So I do skydiving, mostly a lot of sports, mostly a lot of sports related to air, you know. So when I was in like just a few weeks ago, I was in north of Washington and I did some being walking on a plane, like almost eight years old plane. I was walking on that plane and that was one of the craziest thing. Bradley Sutton: Like on the wings and stuff. Swapneel: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that was really a show. Bradley Sutton: No, thank you, thank you. Swapneel: For me, like selling on Amazon is just giving me freedom to do what I love the most. I just need financial freedom. That's it, Because that's it Like it. And such a beautiful thing like selling on Amazon you can work and travel at the same time. Bradley Sutton: Yeah Swapneel: Whenever I'm traveling still not many people very rarely meet someone who is selling on Amazon, to be honest, especially of my age group and they're traveling because either they quit the job or they just got two weeks off from office. Bradley Sutton: That's yeah, yeah. And they have to go back to work but not you yeah. Swapneel: So, yeah, this is a really like, really nice life, you know as a digital moment. But only bad thing is that when I'm traveling, I cannot focus a lot on my work. So I feel like, from going forward, maybe next few months or years, I would like to live at one place a lot more so that my work doesn't hinder. And obviously, if you will, if I want to approach eight or nine figure in coming years, then I cannot do by just one or two hours a day. I need to put more efforts and really need to be very cease at work, because big money comes with big responsibilities as well, I guess. Bradley Sutton: Yeah, all right. So why don't you leave us with a 30 second tip or 60 second tip? It could be either like an Amazon strategy, or maybe it's a strategy for traveling, for how to live as a digital nomad, a strategy for Amazon India. It could be about anything, so go ahead and give us your strategy. Swapneel: So I feel like there would be always a stress when you are selling on Amazon and you always need to have a patience, because Amazon will not fix your stuff in five minutes, even if your listing is gone, your account is gone or whatever. So the most important thing you can focus is on your mental health and you should prioritize that thing, because in life you may make a lot of money you can on the other day, if your account is suspended, you are bringing your nothing. So, but one thing can always help you is your mental health, and I think exercising is one of the best things, because that has changed completely me. I still remember how I was doing the first lockdown and how the journey from last three was not at all smooth at all, but not at all, like you know, not very smooth at all, but going workout and not stressing that helped me to not to stress. So I think, yeah, everyone should do this if you are especially selling on Amazon, because you don't have a lot of social life as well when you're selling on Amazon, except traveling, Okay, all right. Bradley Sutton: Well, that's good for everybody to follow. I wouldn't follow the having zero employees for $6 million business, but everything else is kind of you know, something that I think a lot of people can do Well. Again, thank you so much for joining us and I hope to see you in person sometime next year. Swapneel: Absolutely Can't wait to see you again. Thank you so much, Bradley.

Listen in as we tackle all your burning questions about selling on the Walmart marketplace, from gaining access to coupons and utilizing brand stores to handling comp errors and deactivations. Discover why it's critical to get your inventory to Walmart as soon as possible before the end of October and learn the ropes on what metrics you need to focus on when aiming for the Pro Seller badge. We also tackle your questions straight from our Winning with Walmart Facebook group, so tune in for those insights. Interested in the Walmart Influencer Program? We've got you covered! This episode also explores the ins and outs of the Walmart Influencer Program and provides key updates on when brand stores and video ads will be available to sellers. Listen in as we discuss the approval process for pesticide products on Walmart, the steps to register your trademarks on the platform to get the Walmart brand registry, and whether there is a request a review button in Walmart. Did you know that Helium 10 has tools for the Walmart marketplace? We explore the nitty-gritty of product listings, coupon availability, and how to compete against first-party brands on Walmart. Plus, how to join the Helium 10 Winning with Walmart Facebook Group. Don't miss out on this Serious Sellers Podcast episode to make the most out of your Walmart selling experience! In episode 501 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Carrie talks about: 02:13 - Access to Coupons for Walmart Sellers 06:24 - Walmart's Review Programs and Opportunities 09:48 - Prohibited Items Approval 12:58 - Walmart Image Guidelines and External Traffic 17:39 - Solving Comp Errors on Walmart.com 19:27 - Seller Badge and Rich Media Guide ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast ► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension ► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup  (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life) ► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft ► Watch The Podcasts On YouTube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos Transcript Carrie Miller: Today, we're going to be answering all of your burning Walmart questions. In this Ask Me Anything episode. We're going to be answering things such as when are coupons going to be available for everyone? When can I start utilizing brand stores, how can I deal with comp errors and deactivations? This and so much more. Bradley Sutton: How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. If you guys would like to network with other Walmart sellers, make sure to join our brand new Facebook group called Helium 10 Winning with Walmart. You can actually just search for that on Facebook or you can actually go to h10.me forward slash Walmart group and you can go directly to that page. So make sure to join. You can tag me and carry with questions and ask questions of other Walmart sellers or even share your own experiences in that Facebook group. Carrie Miller: Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of this Serious Sellers podcast by Helium 10. I'm your host, Carrie Miller, and this is our Winning with Walmart Wednesday episode, where we answer all of your Walmart questions and we give you all of the latest and greatest information about selling on a Walmart. In this episode I'm going to answer quite a few questions that we've had in the Facebook groups. I asked quite a while ago if you had any burning Walmart questions, so I'm going to go over those questions for everyone today and give you some great answers. In addition to that, I wanted to remind everyone that we are in Q4 already, which is kind of crazy that we're already in the last quarter of the year. But start sending in your inventory now to Walmart, because WFS is already starting to take kind of a longer time to check in products and it's going to just get worse and worse as the holidays keep coming closer. So, just like Amazon, try to get your inventory in by the end of this October and just kind of do more than you're used to sending in. I know last year I actually ran out during the peak season of inventory to forever to get checked in and so I missed like three weeks of December, so it was kind of a bummer. So if you haven't done that, make sure to send in that inventory. Carrie Miller: I want to start answering some of these Walmart questions that everyone had and I think they're really good questions. I think they're going to be very helpful for just looking at these answers for all of you. So the first one is that I had on my list is that someone in the groups asked because they really wanted to know this from Walmart, and these are not official Walmart answers. By the way, this is just some research that I've done. It's no way connected to Walmart, but I did do the best that I could to find answers for all of you that had really important questions for Walmart. So the first question was Amazon allows access to all deals and coupons to every seller, regardless of their sales volume. Carrie Miller: When will Walmart give equal access to things like flash picks to Walmart sellers, equivalent to best deals seven days, and what they said is that deal parity right now does not exist on the Walmart marketplace. However, if you do have an account manager, then they actually can submit those coupons for you. So for those of you who are lucky enough to have an account manager and usually you have to have a certain number, a volume of sales per month in order to get one of these account managers. They actually can help you and they'll be able to submit based on the fact that if you have a you know good seller response rate, if you have good WFS metrics and you know a low number of refunds kind of use it basically in the pro seller range they'll be able to help you with coupons if you're not a one piece seller. So that is something to kind of keep a thought in the back of your mind If you, you know, do have an account manager, ask them about coupons, if you can get into those flash picks and they potentially could help you with that. So sorry, I don't have a better answer, unfortunately, but I think that is a good way, you know, at least for some of you, to get access to some of those coupons. All right, so I'll go to the next question. Carrie Miller: Let's see here when can you tell us more about the Walmart influencer program? So the Walmart influencer program is called the Walmart creator program and they are actually trying to do similar to what Amazon has done and they're recruiting a lot of influencers and I don't know if you've seen this, but I know I've seen this on Instagram because I follow a lot of the fashion deals pages, and they are promoting Walmart products in terms of clothing. Right now. There's a lot of cute stuff that you know Amazon sellers are now putting on Walmart, so these influencers are also promoting it on Walmart and they're getting commissions for it. They get a specific commission based on the category, just like Amazon, and so that is something that's really up and coming and something to keep an eye on. If you are in certain categories like home decor, fashion I think those are really good. You know areas to really utilize those influencers because they already have kind of the right audience for you, and so I would highly recommend kind of checking out. Go on to Instagram and search hashtag Walmart influencer or hashtag Walmart partner and you'll see a bunch of videos come up and you'll see you know whose accounts are really Walmart partners so that you can partner with them. Carrie Miller: Okay, so the next question is I saw that brand stores and video ads are in beta. When will these be available to sellers? Now? This is a question a while ago. Video ads are actually available now to brand registered sellers, which is really, really exciting. So if you have your brand registry all set up in the brand portal on Walmart, you have access, so you should be able to see on Walmart connect the video ads so you can do that. In terms of brand stores, they there isn't an ETA for brand stores, but I do know I've seen some sellers who are in the beta and they are testing it out. So I imagine it's the same as what happened with the videos. The videos were in beta not too long ago and they're going to start rolling out. You know the brand stores probably in a similar way. So that's pretty exciting and I hope it's soon. Carrie Miller: But they encouraged everyone in the meantime to take advantage of rich media. Rich media is like A plus content on Amazon and you can go on to the into the help section for rich media and you can actually get free hosting of videos and 360 images currently. So I would check that out. Otherwise, there are a bunch of agencies that do host rich media and you can get different modules that are really I think they're really great modules that you can utilize on Walmart. You just have to pay per skew, so it's a little expensive but worth it if you can see that conversion All right. Carrie Miller: The next question was Amazon has a request to review button that allows Amazon sellers to press a button on an order and Amazon sends a review request email to the to the customer on the seller's behalf. Will Walmart do something similar to help us get more reviews? So the answer of this is that there isn't something that's currently available but and there isn't a timeline for it to be able to get it to be available. However, Walmart actually does send a review request automatically after seven days to the customers on Walmart to request a review, so that's kind of an automatic thing that they already do. They wanted to also encourage all of the you know Walmart sellers to utilize the review accelerator program. So the review accelerator program if you have on your product five reviews or less, then you can pay $10 to ask your current customers for review. So it's actually, I think, different than Vine, because what it what it happens is that people are already buying your product and they'll send them an email and say, hey, we'll pay you $3 if you'll send in a review and then we pay. We pay Walmart $10 for this service, so it's actually really worth it. Up to five reviews, you can get verified reviews from your actual customers. So review accelerator it's in the growth opportunities tab, so check it out there If you have less than five reviews. There's also a review syndication where you can get your reviews copied and pasted, basically over from your website. So a lot of really cool opportunities for reviews, but they don't have any kind of timeframe for that request review button like Amazon has. However, I do think it's pretty encouraging that they're already sending those emails for us, so that's something that's that's great to see. Carrie Miller: So someone just asked how do you register a trademark on Walmart? So basically, you would take the same trademark that you have as an Amazon seller and you're going to go to the Walmart brand registry portal. It's a whole different website, so you can just Google Walmart brand registry portal and then you're going to apply there. It's very simple. You just put in your information there and you can. You can get accepted pretty quickly. So I would recommend go ahead and Google that and it should be pretty straightforward. Carrie Miller: What is the approval process for pesticide products on Walmart? We have 10 bestselling products on Amazon that we are simply not allowed to list on Walmart. The products have all the required government approvals with the EPA, et cetera. So the answer that I found on this is that there's an item report in Seller's Center and it's gonna have the reason code for why an item isn't published and so you can actually open up a partner support case, for all you know, for the web with whatever the reason code is. And then also, if the item status is on says item on hold, then the seller needs to either submit the required documents or provide the missing attributes to complete the submission. So it'll say what attributes are missing or what documents are missing, and you should be able to submit those. I will say I did kind of a case today you can find it on YouTube and we were uploading a hemp product onto Walmart and it has been quite a challenging process and you can actually see part of the process on YouTube. But I'm gonna give an update soon. But the update really is that they really don't want hemp products in WFS right now and I was able to get it approved to sell on Walmart. But it's been quite a challenging process so I'll go more into details about it. But the good news is we can sell seller fulfilled, just not WFS. So there is hope for any of you who are having an issue to get around that and do seller fulfilled if possible. Carrie Miller: Okay, so the next question is some of my products are not approved to sell via Walmart WFS but they are approved for seller fulfilled. So this is kind of similar to what I was just talking about in regards to the hemp. Is there any special program that I can apply for to get these hazmat products approved for WFS? And it says Amazon has something similar and we are part of the Amazon hazmat program. So the answer was that internally, wfs has recently actually launched an updated prohibited items handling solution across their fulfillment network, which this is actually very new. So, depending on the category, prohibited items are handled in three different teams under the specialty compliance organization hazmat, food safety and non-chemical hazmat. So this is going to hopefully help reduce the time where these products are actually just stuck and unable to be fulfilled with WFS. So definitely inquire about those if you're writing a ticket to kind of be directed to those teams and hopefully we can get some progress on some of those Cause. I know I've seen quite a few questions about this, so I would definitely want to continue to try to get you all more answers about this. So that's the amount of information I have right now. So keep messaging me on Facebook or sending those questions in on the Facebook group winning with Walmart, so that we can help you get those questions answered. Carrie Miller: The next one is my account was denied. What can I do to get approved after I was initially denied? So sometimes well, actually most of the time they don't provide a reason, but there's soft denials and then you can do an appeals process and then there's like termination, which is much harder. So you'll have to kind of usually I think sellcord.co. They are an agency. They have helped a lot of people who have been kind of denied. You can reach out to them. That's kind of the best answer I have. Or you can kind of reach out yourself, but I would kind of suggest contacting somebody who's really good at this, and I do believe SellCord does do a good job of helping people get their accounts. You know out of that status. So if you have had that issue, I would say contact sellcord.co. And that also includes you know if your account is suspended or termination is very hard. So you will definitely need you know, inside access. So I would definitely recommend contacting SellCord for that as well. Carrie Miller: What is Walmart doing to attract more customers to their online marketplace? And so this is a great question and I can definitely answer that they are doing quite a bit. So they have Walmart Plus, which is kind of like Prime, and if you go into the stores they have it advertised everywhere. They're giving discounts on gas, they're giving discounts on just all a bunch of different things within the Walmart programs, like just in store discounts and also delivery and groceries. You get those for free. So they're really pushing for, you know, just getting more customers into Walmart Plus. Now I also saw when I was looking at applying for an American Express Platinum card, that they have a free opportunity for free Walmart Plus If you have that card. So if any of you have that American Express Platinum card, you get free Walmart Plus. So something else to it's basically like a free Prime membership. So I definitely recommend taking advantage of it. But they're doing things like that to really increase the customer reach. Also, if you notice and I've talked about this in other presentations I've done they are doing a lot of external traffic through Google Shopping and they're also doing Bing Shopping. So you'll see your Walmart products show up in Google Shopping and Bing Shopping without even doing any ads. So they are really doing a lot of work to try to drive traffic that way. So hopefully that answers that question. So this might be college. Carrie Miller: This is another question from somebody. This might be common knowledge. But what are the best performing aspect ratios for images on Walmart? Should mean image and secondary images be the same aspect ratios? Is the answer category dependent, and there is definitely some. There are some differences on the different categories. So I would recommend that you go into the Walmart guides and you can look for image guidelines and you're going to be able to find exactly what the image guidelines are for your category. So go ahead and check those out. Carrie Miller: The next question I would like to know why the payment schedule for reporting is every two weeks and then why it sometimes I have to wait a third or fourth week. Now I've seen this question quite a bit in the groups and I don't know exactly what's happening, but it's just a common thread, like I've seen it quite a bit. So if you, if you've had this, you can put it in the in the chat or the comments, because I'd love to know. But basically, the payment should be every two weeks, but something if you're not getting it every two weeks, it should. It's probably an error and I think you should open up a support ticket to see what's going on with that, because that shouldn't be happening. So make sure you kind of figure out what the problem is so that it doesn't continue on. So that's what I would recommend. I don't think that that's part of the process. So it is supposed to be every two weeks. I have confirmed that. So take a look at that. And, yeah, just go into the support and ask what's going on with your particular account. And personally, I did see this actually happen, so it did get fixed. Additionally, when see when removing, when doing removal orders, when it shows on the payment summary, can we get a detail of what the removal order consisted of? So if you want to understand what the removal order maybe consisted of, you can go to the WFS dashboard and that will give you a breakdown and it's going to highlight what was in the removal order. Carrie Miller: Okay, so next one is it possible to allow for multiple SKUs to the same UPC code? Amazon allows this, albeit in one UPC code to one ASIN. So no, this is definitely no. Walmart uses UPCs as their unique identifiers for products. So you cannot have multiple SKUs associated with the same UPC, otherwise you're going to get a lot of errors. So this is really important to make sure you have you own your UPCs and then also that you have an individual UPC for each product. I know back in the day in Amazon you were buying second. You know basically barcodes from other you know third parties because they were more expensive but you can buy individual barcodes from GS1. And I highly recommend doing that to show that you own the UPC codes. Because if you do have somebody hijacking your listing or taking over the content, you can prove with owning UPC code as well as your trademark, that you own that product and the listing so you can get it back. I had a problem with this because one of our products for our Project X did not have a UPC code that was GS1 registered. It was kind of a bot as a third party thing a long time ago and I was unable to get that content back. So it was really kind of frustrating. So I know this from firsthand experience my own business. Carrie Miller: I've always had UPCs for each product because you want to kind of think when you're starting out with these products with the end in mind and growing your brand and business. Each product should have a UPC. We've always been wanting to know if Walmart has a honeymoon period similar to Amazon. Now I haven't had an answer to this. I do not think that it's as intense as it is on Amazon. So what I would recommend is to do your best to optimize start ads. Do whatever you do for Amazon on Walmart and I think that you will be successful. Carrie Miller: The thing about all of this is I noticed people. What they do is they'll open up and start a listing on Walmart and literally just copy and paste what they have on Amazon and they're not doing Walmart PPC or anything like that to help promote their product and they're like why am I not making any sales? Well, you would never launch on Amazon without doing PPC or optimizing for Amazon. Walmart has different guidelines to optimize their listings. So you know, make sure to follow those guidelines and I think that you'll be pleasantly surprised. The next one is what advice do you have to third party sellers to help them compete against first party brands on Walmart? So the answer to this is Walmart really isn't viewing the two as competitive against each other, but they recommend that you find kind of holes where first party sellers are not really, you know, filling in the gap and finding opportunities on Walmart where you can provide products that are not available via 1P. Carrie Miller: When I've gotten a comp error, it feels impossible to get help for this. What is the best way to solve issues dealing with comp errors and how can we find out what the error is so that we can fix it? So then the comp errors are very difficult, I will say, and sometimes what they're saying is that you can actually go into the item report and check the columns. When you upload via flat file or anything like that, you can check the columns, the life cycle status, and then it's going to say published, unpublished or system error, and then on the adjacent column for the, it's going to have an error code and it's going to say things like enhanced vetting, IP infringement, shipping or etc. And you can open up a ticket to get help with this. But in my experience I've noticed that it's usually a pesticide word like antibacterial, antimicrobial. So if you make sure that you don't use any of those illegal words that are, you know, banned on Amazon, then you should be fine, and usually if you kind of delete your listing and rewrite it again. Without those words it'll come up within 15 minutes. So that's been my experience with that. Carrie Miller: So another question here is when some someone first starts selling on Walmart, what can they do to get their products ranked? Is it all based on clicks and sales or is there a lot more weight given to the listing quality score? So they did. You know Walmart doesn't really give me a lot of information about ranking, but I do know, for example, if you get a high listing quality score, that does help with your ranking. So make sure you fill in all those attributes in the back end. You know you enroll in WFS, you have reviews to start out with, get your listing quality score 90% or above, and I think that that will definitely help you. You also want to start running pay-per-click advertising to get some sales and I think you'll start to see yourself ranking as that goes. But in terms of like you know state, you know something that they actually say. It's really quite challenging to really say. Carrie Miller: And then the pro seller was another question. How can a seller become a pro seller and get the pro seller tag on their listing? So you want to make sure that your products are delivered on time. So I recommend using WFS because it takes care of most of the categories that are required for a pro seller. The thing about pro seller badges is you can actually filter on Walmart for pro seller so customers can say I want to only buy from a pro seller. And I noticed when I got the pro seller badge that I was starting to get more and more sales. Carrie Miller: So I will say it isn't an important thing. So you've got. You know, at least you've got an on time delivery rate of 95% or above in the last 90 days. You have less than 1.5% cancellation in the last 90 days. You have a really good seller response rate, higher than 95% in the last 30 days. And then basically it's, you know, fast delivery. And you also have to have over 250 orders in the last 90 days and you have to have at least been active for 90 days. So when you launch your products, you know, do your best to get those 250 orders and get those fast delivery times in and you can get the pro seller badge within 90 days. I think it's really, you know, worth it. Carrie Miller: So I would say WFS is probably the most important thing to make sure that you get that and yeah, so, and then the next thing is what? Will rich media eventually be free to Walmart sellers, like it is on Amazon? So there are some modules that are free, and that is the video and also the 360 image views. You can go into the help center and click on rich media. You can find it there. So otherwise, if you wanted to pay for some in the meantime, you can contact an agency and they can help you with that. Carrie Miller: So let's see if I have any questions. All right, Nelson, hello. Nelson says I'm a new to Walmart, in the process of onboarding and we already established our stores at Amazon. Is the procedures from Amazon to Walmart going to be similar when it comes to brand name products? If we are able to get wholesalers offline in our city to sell as branded products so we can sell online, are we still allowed to sell them? Yes, you are allowed to sell wholesale products on Walmart and I actually met at the Walmart conference quite a few sellers who have done very well selling wholesale products on Walmart. I think it's a lot less competitive right now in Walmart. So I highly recommend you get in there and start going for those, those products and, you know, make sure that you get in the game now? Great question. All right, let's see. Carrie Miller: It looks like I think someone was asking about tools for Walmart. Helium 10 has some incredible tools and I would recommend that you check those out. We have cerebral, which is our keyword research tool for Walmart. Another tool for Walmart called magnet it's another keyword research tool. We have x ray, which shows you sales volumes for Walmart it's our Chrome extension. We also have profits for one, one to help you, Walmart, to help you manage your profits. And we have our ranked tracker. And for pay per click advertising, we have add atomic for Walmart to help you manage your pay per click advertising. So we have all those great tools to help you and support you on your way to selling on Walmart. Carrie Miller: Also, if you're a helium 10 member, we have freedom to get Walmart where we should. We walk you through a to z on how to sell on Walmart, so that's available to you free if you are a helium 10 member. So check it out. If you haven't yet checked it out, alright, so it looks like I don't have any more questions, so hopefully, if that was very helpful, thank you to everyone who submitted their questions. Carrie Miller: For me to answer it was really, you know took a little while to get the answers to some of those questions and maybe some of them. I still need to do a little more research and hopefully maybe digging to get some more details on some of those answers, but hopefully that helps you in the meantime, and if you have any questions, join our group. Helium 10 Winning with Walmart. All you have to really do is search in the Facebook groups Helium 10 Winning with Walmart and you can join our Facebook group and ask questions there. You can tag me, you have questions, or other sellers are in there answering questions as well, so love to see you there and we will see you then. Have a great rest of the day.

Ever wondered how to make the most of the 'Honeymoon' period when you first start selling on Amazon? Or how to get people to organically search, find, and buy a product without breaking Amazon's terms of service? Tune in to the latest episode of Serious Sellers Podcast, as our host, Bradley Sutton, unveils the intricacies and updates to the Maldives Honeymoon Launch Strategy, along with his prelaunch plan, the Bali Blast Strategy.  He shares effective ways to use PPC to catapult your product to the top of the search, and how to utilize Helium 10’s Keyword Tracker tool and boost to gauge your bid's success. We'll discuss strategies for attracting customers to a product with no reviews, and you'll discover how to use tools like Helium 10 Audience and the CPR number to monitor and increase your orders. The episode also sheds light on SEO and its relationship with Amazon listings. You'll find out why a simple listing score formula isn't sufficient to rank on Amazon, and why optimizing your listing for Amazon customers, as well as its algorithm, is pivotal. Let’s dive into the evolution of Amazon's algorithm over the years, and why sprinkling specific keywords a certain number of times isn't as effective as it once was. To top it all off, we'll explore how developing a tool with a potent listing score creator, like a “Surfer SEO for Amazon listings” can guide you in optimizing your listing and the importance of testing your strategies. Buckle up for an episode packed with valuable insights!   In episode 500 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley talks about: 00:00 - Maldives Honeymoon Launch Strategy and Results 03:35 - The Maldives Honeymoon Effect  06:50 - Amazon Keyword Research and Competition Analysis 10:53 - Getting Ranked for Keywords With PPC  15:30 - Improve Amazon Ranking With PPC and CPR 18:49 - Amazon Algorithm Changes and New Strategies 25:20 - The Significance of Amazon Recommended Rank 28:23 - Analysis Of The Project X Coffin Bath Tray Keywords 34:40 - Relevance of Keywords in Amazon Ranking  42:44 - Listing Optimization and Test Launches ► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension ► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup  (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life) ► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft ► Watch The Podcasts On YouTube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos Transcript Bradley Sutton: Today's episode 500 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, and we're doing it live right here from the Maldives, as usual, because we're gonna go into the Maldives Honeymoon Launch Strategy and some of the new twists and turns that have come up because of the test I've been doing. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Two, three, four, music 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. H10.me/cerebro. Don't forget to use the Serious Delors podcast discount coupon, SSP10. Bradley Sutton: Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I'm your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show. That's a completely BS free, unscripted and unrehearsed organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world and, as you guys can see here. I am back here in the Maldives, Waldorf Astoria. The place that started all the way back in episode 200 was when I first started filming out here the Maldives Honeymoon launch strategies, and then every 50 episodes we'd come out here 250, 300, 350, 400. I actually skipped 450, but so this is the first time back in the Maldives since episode 400. But the Maldives Honeymoon strategy is just a strategy. I just made a funny name to it so that we can try and get the most out of what we call the Honeymoon period, when we just get started selling on Amazon for a certain product, and so we're going to dive into it and what's the latest here on this strategy. So make sure to stay to the end, because we've got some new things I'm going to be talking about today. But just some background again. Bradley Sutton: Honeymoon period what is it? Well, the Honeymoon period is that's not a term that I came up with. That's a term that relates to the first few weeks, the first couple months sometimes, of a listing where you get more bang for the buck. It basically refers to how, if you have a four or five year old listing and you do a couple PPC sales for a keyword, not much is going to happen, right, but if you have a brand new listing sometimes just changing the title, sometimes just changing a keyword here or there, sometimes just getting one sale on a keyword, sometimes just getting a few sales on a high volume keyword It'll start moving you around on the organic side. Big fluctuations might happen on your PPC on a positive way. And we call this the Honeymoon period. This is not an official Amazon term, but it refers to the fact that when you are selling a new item, especially one that doesn't have much history, what happens sometimes is that Amazon doesn't have enough data to kind of know what you're relevant for, and so any little micro actions where on a more mature listing is not going to have much of an effect because Amazon's got so much data and so many clicks and so many things to kind of measure and understand what it's relevant for. Those micro actions on a newer listing where Amazon's just trying to figure out what is this product going to be good for, it has a lot bigger effect on it. So we call that the Honeymoon period. Bradley Sutton: All right, now what I started doing, like five, six years ago, is I launched a lot of product. By the way, I've launched over 500 products now, but even more than four years ago I had launched over 400 products and what I found was I always was experimenting. I found, like these, certain micro actions as I just made up that term now for myself I guess, these micro actions that could help me get even more out of the Honeymoon period, that would help me get off on the right foot. You know, just like you know, honeymoon is for a wedding, right? You want to get off on the right foot, and so then I was like, okay, what am I going to call this? I'm like I'm going to call this the Maldives Honeymoon effect, because these actions have a lot bigger impact, even more than just, you know, what we normally would see on the Honeymoon period. And so that's why I just went ahead and named it this thing, and I came here to the Maldives here to record it. So what is the latest with the Maldives Honeymoon method? Bradley Sutton: Well, we're going to go into some different strategies here, but let's do a recap. A lot of these methods is actually in prelaunch, and in prelaunch I made a new name for it. You know we call it the Bolly Blast. So I'm not going to go too, too in depth. But if you want to have a Bolly Blast, you know prelaunch these are the steps that leads the Maldives Honeymoon launch. Check out episodes 466 and 467. If I'm not mistaken, it's a part one and part two about all the things you need to do to get your listing ready. So h10.me forward, slash 466 or 467. You can also search that up on YouTube on our Helium 10 channel and in there I think I have like a 47 step process that happens before you even launch the product. Let's just review some of those you know. Again, those are two hours of episodes you need to go back and like listen to to get the full details. Bradley Sutton: But in a nutshell, you know it starts at the product research stage, right, picking products that potentially have lower title density. Title density is something that we have exclusively at Helium 10, which measures the number of listings on page one that have a certain keyword in phrase form in the title. So when I say certain keywords, the searched keyword. So, for example, if the keyword is coffin shelf and you see in Helium 10 that the title density is seven, that means that the last time Helium 10 check, there are seven listings on page one that have that keyword in exact phrase match in the title. All right, if you have a listing or a keyword that has title density of 40, that means there's 40 listings that have that exact keyword in the title and that means it's going to be a little bit harder to rank on that page because Amazon algorithm, you know, heavies or favors heavily the title as far as what a listing is relevant for. So it doesn't mean, you know, you can't launch against a keyword that were a title entity it's 40. It just means that, hey, it's going to be a little bit more of an uphill battle where sometimes you have a lower title density and Amazon thinks you're relevant. And, by the way, guys, I'm going to drop some bombs here about how you can know what Amazon is relevant or what's relevant to Amazon. But anyways, if you have a lower title density sometimes it's going to be a lot easier to rank. Sometimes even from day one you can be on page one potentially. Bradley Sutton: So that's one of the things we talk about in the Bali Blast method and then other things is about. That has to do with the keyword research, understanding where Amazon puts relevance as far as things that are in your listing, as far as keywords go from the title to the bullet points, and so we talked about getting all of the keywords that your competitors are ranking for, your direct competitors or the keywords that they're ranking highly for. We talk about getting opportunity keywords finding the keywords that maybe only one of your competitors ranking for, and that means you're going to be able to potentially rank for that keyword when you're only competing with one of your competitors, as opposed to five or six of your competitors. There are other keyword research strategies we talked about, such as trying to find complementary products. So these are all. Again, we're talking about pre-launch right now. Bradley Sutton: How do you put the right keywords in your listing Complementary products? But basically that means maybe you see your competitors have a frequently bought together type of product. For example, if you're selling a coffin shelf or your competitors are selling a coffin shelf, maybe you see in frequently bought together, which you can find in Helium 10 Blackbox, a history of other coffin shelves being bought with a coffin letterboard Right. Well, part of the Maldives Honeymoon strategy is that you want to get index for some of the main keywords from those coffin letterboards if you have a coffin shelf. So if you see that for these coffin letterboards, these five coffin letterboards. One of the top keywords is coffin letterboard and another one is Halloween display or something like that. So those top keywords from those coffin letterboards, even though they might not be directly relevant to your coffin shelf, you're going to want to get index for those listings and then from day one, you're going to be able to target those in product targeting, ppc, and then also you'll get a little bit more breadth, some width to what you're going to be showing up for, especially in broad campaigns and auto campaigns. So that's another strategy to use too. It's also a strategy to get index for forbidden keywords. Like, maybe you're related to an adult product or a drug related product. You can't put adult related products or keywords in your listing or drug related or other forbidden keywords. Well, if you make yourself relevant to the non-forbidden keywords and you're listening by sticking them in there, you potentially could get index for those forbidden keywords just because Amazon deems you as relevant. So that was another strategy we talked about in the Bali BLAST method. Bradley Sutton: Now, originally in the original Maldives Honeymoon strategy, when you're launched, we talked about using search, find by and two step URLs and things of that nature. Now that's no longer something that Amazon really wants you to start doing. And it's actually interesting. I was looking at the terms of service and it doesn't mention anymore the two step URLs. But it does talk about trying to manipulate your keyword search rank in the code of conduct. And that was a different change a couple of years ago where Amazon started specifying that they don't want you trying to do those kind of URLs and things to manipulate what it says the search rank, keyword rank. Before then we always would talk about, hey, doing search find by doing two step URLs, things like that, because in the Amazon terms of service it only talked about manipulating your sales rank, like your BSR. So then Amazon kind of cracked down on the keywords too. So that really changed the Maldives Honeymoon method. We do not suggest anymore getting friends and family or using services that are going to go out and get 40 people to search, find and buy your product with a keyword. That's pretty explicitly against Amazon terms of service. Now it wasn't before. People are trying to say, oh, it's always been against service. No, it hasn't, which is why Amazon changed it to make it against terms of service later. Bradley Sutton: So how did we change the Maldives Honeymoon launch strategy then when we couldn't use services like AZ rank or rank bell back in the day. So how can you get ranked for keywords right away? Well, we changed the Maldives Honeymoon method to be strictly PPC, so the whole theory is still the same. You need people to search, find and buy your products after searching for a certain keyword, and the more people that do that, that's what's going to get you ranked on page one. But when you have a brand new listing, how do you get on page one? How do you get people to even see your listing? You know, the old way was just doing search, find, buy, right, you know, getting two-step URLs, having a service send people to an exact keyword and they find you're listing on page six or seven and then they'll go ahead and buy it and then they'll move you up. But you can't do that anymore. So what we talked about, I think starting in like episode 300 or 350, was do the same thing with PPC. Bradley Sutton: So how do you get people to organically search, find, buy without breaking Amazon terms of service, you know, without using an outside service, without using friends and family, et cetera? Well, you got to think what is going to make somebody, if they happen to see your product, buy it, no matter what. Well, the first thing is what's going to make somebody see your product if you're not using outside service? The answer is easy it's PPC. So you've got to find the PPC bid that is going to get you to the top of search. You could do a top of search modifier in your PPC or you can just up your bid, you know, and do a fixed bid or down only bid, that's at a high, what you think is going to get you top of search, naturally, and then just make that the bid. Now how you know if you're getting that is you put your keyword to keyword tracker. After you put a bid of like $3, just say $3 on the keyword coffin shelf, I put coffin shelf into my keyword tracker and then what I do is put my keyword tracker on boost. Boost is something that checks it 24 times a day and now within an hour or two, I'm going to see a couple different spots on where I'm showing up randomly in the search results and different browsing scenarios and different locations. And then if I'm like ranked one, two or three, I'm good to go. If I'm ranked like eight or nine or below or something that probably I'm going to need to raise my bid to try and get my rank high. So, anyways, that's step one. Bradley Sutton: But if you have a brand new product and has zero reviews, obviously you know how do you get people to buy your product. Right, with the old old days again, search, find, buy you're using these outside services. They were getting incentivized to buy the products like, hey, you get the product for free, basically, all right. Now, now we can't do that anymore. So what is the incentive, I guess you could say, for somebody to buy a product that has no reviews, that they've never maybe heard of the brand? How do you get them to go ahead and purchase your product? Bradley Sutton: Well, the answer is by choosing a price point that makes them buy the product you know like no matter what. So that price point is different for every product. For example, if coffin shelves are all costing, or retail price, $25. So what you want to do is think what price point is somebody going to see this with? Like man, this is an incredible deal. You know, here's this other listing that has a thousand reviews, a lot of social proof. But I'm going to go ahead and get this other one. Well, maybe that price is $13, you know, 50% off? Are you going to make money at 50% off? No, you're not. But the whole point is, you know like you used to have to pay to get orders in the beginning to get that momentum and to get that sales velocity and search velocity, so you were paying money anyway. So to me this is a good investment. So you know you choose whatever that price is of where, when your competitors will buy that product. Bradley Sutton: And one way that you can, you know, do some product research. If you don't have, like Facebook groups where there's a community that's around coffin shelves and you could like do a quick free poll and they're asking them what price, or something like. Let's say, you don't have access to anything like that, use Helium 10 audience. All right, helium 10 audience it's a pay-per-use service inside of Helium 10, powered by Pikfu, where you can go and choose your target market. Like, let's say, your target demographic is females from the age of 18 to 30, who are prime members. You can actually choose that target market in Helium 10 audience and then just find 50 of them and within like three hours you'll have the answer to questions like hey, at what price point would you go ahead and buy this product even though it had zero reviews, and compared to and you can even have the other products there, even though the other products had a thousand reviews, and you would have pictures of it. So then you're able to see, you know, maybe, what price point somebody would buy that from your target market. Bradley Sutton: Or you can just guess. You know, I don't like guessing, you know all the time. So I like to go ahead and, you know, actually get some information. So once you've got that, then you go ahead and launch with that PPC and then in Helium 10, there's something called the CPR number. All right, the CPR number in Helium 10 tells you approximately how many orders over eight days eight to 10 days, I should say where it gives you. If you, if people, if that number of people search, find and buy your product, it gives you the best chance. Doesn't give you a guaranteed chance, but it gives you the best chance to get to page one of a certain keyword. All right, and so that's basically what I've been doing for the last two years. A lot of people have been doing this as well. You know, literally thousands of people are using this technique in order to to get to page one. Bradley Sutton: You monitor how many orders you're getting each day with the CPR number. So, like, let's say, the CPR number is 100. I like ramping up my order. So if the CPR is 100, I don't want to just divide that by eight or 10 and say, all right, I need 10 per day or 11 per day. No, what I like to do is I like to make it look organic. I like to start off slow, maybe day one, and get two or three. So the way I know is that, you know, I'm checking my, my PPC reports in real time and if I get two clicks and purchases on a certain keyword, I actually pause that target so that I don't get more. All right, I kind of want to like make it look a little bit more or organic and then the next day I started again and try and get maybe six or seven orders. Next day I try and get 11 or 12 orders until I can, you know, hit that CPR number and then go back and I'm going to check where am I ranking? Did it help my organic ranking? Bradley Sutton: Now it's important that again, when I said that you're you're choosing a, a cheaper price point, you don't put your list price or your regular price at this cheap price. No, because the problem is, if you do that, you might end up not being able to raise your price in the future. So when you choose, like, let's say you choose a $15 price point for your $25 coffin shelf, well, I'm going to make that a sale price or I'm going to make it a coupon discount, like, so maybe I'll put the price at $25, but then I'll put a, you know, 40% off coupon in order to hit that, that price point. All right. So again, don't put your regular price at that. And again, back in the Bali blast method, I had other tricks and tips about how to get, like, strike through pricing. So again, 466 and 467, make sure to check those episodes to see how to get you know, special strike through pricing and things like that. But but that's. Bradley Sutton: You know, in a nutshell, what the Maldives honeymoon strategy has always been, you know is is launching on five to 10 keywords. One other trick we usually do is hey, in the Maldives honeymoon strategy, don't just choose five or 10 completely different keywords like coffin shelf, gothic decor, spooky bedroom, mysterious oddities and Halloween, scary things Like. Do you notice the difference in those keywords? They're all completely different. They don't share keywords. What you try and do is find the embedded keywords that you can launch in groups, all right. So when you're doing your research in helium 10, you're going to find groups of keywords that have very similar roots. You know, like coffin shelf, gothic coffin shelf, gothic coffin shelf for bedroom. You know there's like six, seven keywords in there. You know coffin shelf for bedroom is also a keyword. So what you do is you try and launch all of those keywords at the same time, so they're all sending those relevancy signals for that root keyword to Amazon. All right. So there's another strategy that we use in choosing the keywords. Bradley Sutton: Again, that's mentioned in the Bolly Blast Now. Here's the thing here. Now let's talk about some new stuff. All right, that's just kind of like a recap of the OG Maldives honeymoon strategy and Bolly Blast strategy. What is new for 2023, 2024? And I'm going to go out on a limb and I'm going to say something controversial, and that is I almost recommend doing a test listing if you're in any kind of a newer niche. All right, literally doing a test listing first, and you could potentially even do this for more established niche, all right. So that's the end game of what I'm about. That's the controversial thing that I'm launching now with this Maldives Honeymoon Strategy. Let's take a few steps back to explain why I'm suggesting this and what has changed on Amazon in the algorithm. Let's take even three steps back before there. Bradley Sutton: Listing optimization is important. All right, how you have the keywords, how many times you have it in your listing, where you have it. It's important, you know, to really send those relevancy signals. However, it is not as important as it was in the older days. Let me just tell you right that right now and it's also not a foolproof way to get ranking All right, do not use some kind of like formula where I'm going to use this keyword this many times and here and here and then, that's equal success. No, all right, if anybody tells you that that is incorrect. Bradley Sutton: People like using, like listing scores you know, like people have been, who have been using Helium 10 for years, have done something kind of like rudimentary, where you know they take what we teach them and say, all right, hey, I know I have to have. This keyword is my most important keyword and it needs to be in my title and in one bullet point and in one search terms. And I'm going to give myself three points to have that. And and then I'm going to give myself one point for this. You know, people I kind of do that myself. Like it helps me to kind of like know where my, my keywords are. Bradley Sutton: And people have asked, you know, helium 10 for probably like three or four years now to do some kind of like listing score, where we take an algorithm and assign points to it, right, and in the past we've always said nah, like I'm not sure how valuable that will be. But, but recently, you know, I started writing blogs again. Maybe you guys are watching seeing some of my blogs at Helium 10.com forward slash blog. But you know, seo is an important part of a company like Helium 10 and any company like that. So when we write SEO blogs, we're trying to rank for keywords in Google and Bing, right, it's kind of similar to making a listing for Amazon. Bradley Sutton: It's not just let's randomly put together some words and make some something interesting. It could be the most interesting blog in the world, but if it doesn't have the right keywords in the right places and the right number of times, you're not going to get seen. So we we've been using, you know, for the last like year, this tool called things like surfer SEO or something like that it's called and like it gives you all the important keywords and then it tells you how many times you need to write it and like where, and then it gives you a score based on if you've optimized your listing around those keywords. I'm like, hey, this is kind of like a cool idea. You know, maybe we can do this for Amazon. You know sellers because you know people have kind of like been asking for something similar to this, and so you know this might be a way to help guide people to, to kind of know how strong their listing is as far as best practices. But here's the key Again, even though Helium 10 is working on something like that, once that comes out, don't just think that's all you need, that you know what. Bradley Sutton: All you need in order to rank is to know how many which keywords there are, how many times you put it in your listing and in what places, and try and get some high score Is a high score. You know, using this algorithm important to send relevancy signals to Amazon. Of course it's important, otherwise you wouldn't even be working on it. You know it's just a general truth in SEO, but the Amazon algorithm is so advanced these days, it is not enough just to have some kind of mathematical formula. And of course, it goes without saying you have to optimize your listing for an Amazon buyer, all right, which no algorithm can measure, all right. So I'm not even going to talk about the strategies there. But obviously you need to make sure your listing is attractive to a human being, right? All right, so that's a separate conversation about. You know how to do that. We've done podcasts about, about how to do that and really be able to connect on an emotional level to sellers. Bradley Sutton: But what about the algorithm? Like, why am I saying that just having a score is not going to be enough? Well, first of all, amazon algorithm does not work on a certain score. It's not like Amazon is scoring your listing as far as all right, it has this keyword four times, it's got to this root word three times and they've got this in the bullet point here in the title, and so it's always going to, you know, have some kind of formula that Amazon scores it and then that's how it deems you as fully relevant for all time. No, that's not the way Amazon works. Back in the old days, in the beginning, amazon did work a little bit more like that, you really could control how you know relevant you were to Amazon. You know, because the Amazon algorithm was not as as developed and I say this not, trust me, guys, I am. I do not have any secret access to the Amazon. I have contacts at Amazon who developed the algorithm and and develop tools like brand analytics and things like that. That does not make me some kind of special. You know, savant as to what the Amazon algorithm, helium 10, no other tool out there, no other guru out there knows what is going on with the Amazon algorithm. Bradley Sutton: People speculate, you know. They'll say, oh, I read this scientific paper. You know we've read all the scientific papers. You probably heard a couple episodes ago or you know we went deep into that. But at the end of the day, nobody really knows. Everybody's just speculating, which is fine. There's nothing wrong with speculating. Bradley Sutton: I speculate too, but what I like to do is I like to speculate based on tests and that's all I do. That's why I run Amazon accounts. I'm not trying to make money Nowadays. I'm trying to make a little bit more money in my Amazon accounts because that's what I do to to to support my, my kids, who are employees of my, my Amazon company. So now I have to make a little bit more money than I did. But my main point in running Amazon businesses is I use them as like my playgrounds to like test what is and isn't working with the algorithm. Bradley Sutton: Because, again, amazon doesn't make its algorithm public. The only way we kind of know how it works is by seeing what happens when we do things on Amazon and then just like measuring the results. But no matter what we do, again get it in your mind, guys there is no exact formula, and anybody who says there's an exact formula to rank on Amazon like an exact keyword the same time, every other time they're full of nonsense. All right, you know, even the helium 10 CPR numbers. Like we've always said, it gives you the best chance, but it doesn't give you a guaranteed chance. You know, every time it's based on a lot of trial and error. You know, I did a one and a half year case study to come up with that CPR number, all right. So what have I found that is working with the Amazon algorithm now and why is it different? Bradley Sutton: All right, well, number one is that a kind of important metric in helium 10 that people overlook is now a super important metric. All right, and what metric is that? It is Amazon recommended rank. All right, that is a name that we kind of made up, but it actually comes from an actual data point in Amazon. It's one of the things I'm very proud about. You know, I've made up the Maldives honeymoon strategy and you know I don't invent a lot of things, but this is one of the things that I discovered about five years ago and back then, like five years ago, I was like, oh man, everybody's going to copy us and start showing this. Nobody ever came up with this. I'm sure somebody's going to show it now. You know somebody's going to try and figure out where this data point is and show it to people because it is super, super important. I'm just shocked nobody's copied us in the last five years since we had this. Bradley Sutton: But again, Amazon recommended rank is coming from Amazon, where it kind of like says hey for X product and Y keyword. We think Y keyword is kind of very relevant to this product, or not so relevant, or medium relevant, etc. Amazon has a scoring system for every single product and almost every single keyword, where at least the top 1000 keywords if the product has a lot of history, it will go ahead and say, score it as far as how relevant it thinks for advertising. And in the past it was never something I really talked about too much that everybody should have to do because it was mainly about advertising. But it was a great metric to have because it kind of gave you insight into at least how the Amazon advertising algorithm thought that you were relevant for a certain keyword, right, or in relation to a certain product. But now, guys, in the last six months and all the tests I've been doing with launching everything else, it is all of a sudden a super indicative Metric on how just Amazon search algorithm thinks you are relevant. All right. Bradley Sutton: So I did a couple of tests with, like this, coffin Bath tray. I use the helium 10 project X account. I use a couple you know friends accounts because I wanted to have like Different accounts and different products, different ASINs, to kind of like test my, my theories right. And so I chose coffin bath tray because this was something that didn't have a lot of history on Amazon. So this is especially geared towards you people who are are getting in these niches where they're not completely saturated, all right. So because of that. Bradley Sutton: Amazon doesn't have that much data in order to know from day one what you might be relevant for. You know it's different, like if you're gonna launch some collagen peptides. There is hundred collagen peptides who've been selling millions of dollars a month and you know hundreds of thousands of customers have bought collagen peptides and Amazon has tracked every click and how they interact with the listings. They've got so much data on exactly what is relevant to collagen peptides that from day one of a brand new collagen peptides listening, you're probably going to be able to, you know, to get relevant for the right keywords but in a newer niche is a little bit different. So, sure enough, when I first launched these two coffin bath trays, I did on separate accounts. I did it with separate kinds of listings, one like a more in-depth listing and and I use the best practices again, you know I use that, my own scoring system, even on how to get you know Like I put coffin bath tray, like you know, like four times in the listing and long tail versions of I did all the right things and and get this. Bradley Sutton: The key words that I was relevant for from day one Was not coffin bath tray. Alright, if I was looking at the Amazon recommended rank from day one on one of the products. Or again, I launched pretty much the same exact kind of product. It was just different kinds of listings in different accounts at the same time. So I could, you know cross cross, see the number one. There was only one keyword on one of them that it was relevant for. Like Amazon only recommended one keyword. It was bath. Bath tray was kind of crazy, right. One keyword, bath tray. No other keyword had it on Amazon recommended rank. By the way, when you use that in cerebro in helium 10 to get the Amazon recommended rank, you have a listing up for five minutes. We'll already have Amazon recommended rank. This is something we pull from Amazon in Real time. Bradley Sutton: And the other product that I launched it was actually relevant for like 40 keywords from day one and the top three was interesting was bathroom decor, wineglass and candle holder. Very interesting. Alright, bathroom decor was super generic Word wine glass, what you might be like. Why does it have wine glass? Well, this, this, this coffin bath tray. I had in the. I think I put in the title and you know I had in the description that it has a slot for a wine glass. Alright. And then I also put that I had a slot for a candle holder but Amazon thought that this was a wine glass in candle holder. So from day one I was not. Bradley Sutton: I couldn't really do the Maldives honeymoon launch because for coffin bath tray, I was indexed for it but Amazon didn't think I was relevant. It would not even show me in PPC for coffin bath tray when those was the number one, most important keyword. I was optimized everywhere for it. It had a low title density. There was hardly any competition for coffin bath tray two years ago. I would have been on page one instantly for this, but because Amazon couldn't figure out that this was a coffin bath tray, it would not give me any PPC impressions. Alright, that's crazy. Bradley Sutton: So then, what are some of the things I started doing? I started changing up the listing. I had it coffin tray and other keywords. I wasn't even indexing for more times. I had to special features. I was trying doing search terms. Things were not working. I would see little bits of movement, but it was not moving like it would in the old days. Bradley Sutton: And this is a listing again. I just barely started. I started it like so definitely in the honeymoon period. So what got me to get coffin bath tray to Amazon recommended rank number two on one and Amazon recommended rank number one. What it was was I did an old-school two-step URL alright, I did an old-school two-step URL. It was the field ASIN URL. Alright, I did a field ASIN two-step URL and then I got somebody to buy it. I think one of them I might have got you know, chevali to buy it, and then the other one. I went to AZ rank and I paid AZ rank to get somebody by it. Bradley Sutton: Now I know what you're saying. Wait, bradley, didn't you just talk about how that kind of stuff is is against Amazon terms of service. Now, I think there's gonna be different opinions on this, but I could not care less in this instant about Keyword ranking. I was not trying to increase the keyword rank at all. Alright, I didn't even look at what the keyword rank was. My point was I knew I was not relevant for it to Amazon and so I was trying to send a relevancy signal to Amazon. So it knows that, hey, this is something important and this is something that you can give me impressions for in PBC and I'll gladly pay for clicks. So, in my mind, my interpretation of Amazon terms of service. This is not against the terms of service, because I'm not trying to manipulate or affect Amazon keyword ranks. I'm just trying to get, I'm just trying to pay Amazon some money in PBC and and make sure that they know that I am Relevant for it. So what I did was I just I just did one order, one field ASIN, where somebody added it to the car and they they bought the product for with the keyword coffin bath tray in it and, guys, less than 12 hours later it not only was it not Amazon recommended rank at all, it went to number one. Amazon recommended rank on one of the products and number two on the other product. For the top, amazon recommended rank just with one. Bradley Sutton: Feel ASIN now, because Amazon said two-step URLs for ranking is not good anymore. We took those off of our helium 10 gems page. So you guys want to know a trick to do a two-step URL still with a keyword. Right, go to index checker in Helium 10, put your ASIN, put that keyword in there and, whether it says is index or not index, you'll see it has check marks and dashes or whatever. Right click on the dash or the check mark, alright, and then do copy URL. Alright, so that URL is a feel on the field ASIN one there's a, there's a, there's a field ASIN check, copy that URL, replace the keyword and the ASIN with yours. Or if that's exactly the keyword in the ASIN and that's the exact URL you can use in order to get somebody to buy your product with the field ASIN two-step URL, and then that should get you the impressions and it should send that relevancy. Bradley Sutton: So again, this might be a controversial thing. You know, I'm definitely. You know I have a good relationship with Amazon. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna suggest something that is blatantly against Amazon terms of service. That's not how I roll, but you know, anything can change. I am like 99% sure this is not against Amazon terms of service Because, again, I am not trying to manipulate sales rank, I'm not trying to manipulate search rank. I'm just trying to let Amazon know that I am relevant for this keyword when on this new product. Bradley Sutton: So again, once that happened, once I did that one boom, I got to the very top of the search results in sponsored alright, I'm not talking to, you know, search rank and then I got some organic orders from sponsored and then that brought my organic rank up after just like two or three orders more that I got it got me to like the top of Page one for that keyword, just like the regular Maldives honeymoon strategy. It was very interesting to see because on August 2nd this is months ago this is one of the I do tests constantly, guys. So this one coffin tray you know this is just one. I'm just giving you, guys, one of the examples I've done. I'm looking here at my notes. On August 2nd, you know, the top 10 were keywords like bath tray, tray, decor, very generic keywords. It like he obvious Amazon couldn't figure it out. And then on 8, 4, 2 days later, every single one of the top 10 keywords on one of them was all had coffin in it. So finally I got Amazon, just without one order, to understand that, hey, I am relevant for coffin related keywords and in the other product it didn't show all coffins, that I didn't have coffin as many times. In listening again, listing optimization is still important for the, for the algorithm, but at least the number two keyword was coffin bath tray, and then a lot of the other keywords were were just generic. Now here's the thing, though. Here's a Again, I can do a podcast episode of just about the test. I mean I literally did like 75 tests and tweaks just in this case study alone for these two products. Bradley Sutton: Interestingly enough, before I started getting relevant for with the Amazon recommended rank for coffin bath tray, my number one Keyword on one of the products, like I said before, was bathroom decor. All right, very generic keyword, very high search volume, way higher than coffin bath tray. But because Amazon gave me a recommended rank of one which is not really from Amazon, amazon gives a score and then we translate the number one score into Amazon recommended rank one, because for bath bathroom decor, I Could actually target it in PPC and I was already ranking like on page five for this keyword. I didn't even get one sale for one at the cart one, nothing. And I was on page five for the super high volume search term, just because Amazon gave me a high recommended rank. Bradley Sutton: Now you might think, well, why didn't you double down on that? You know, Bradley white, you know, to me I couldn't care less about the word bathroom decor. You know, like I don't think that people who purchase or who search bathroom decor we're really going to buy, you know, a coffin shaped bath tray. But that just shows you again how today, in 2023 and 2024, this data point is super important and has wide reaching effects as far as how you or how Amazon thinks that you are relevant. So, at the end of the day, I had this product running for three months now and what I did was after the three months, and you know one. Bradley Sutton: My theory I wanted to test was well, is the Amazon algorithm trained All right now that I've been selling this coffin bath tray when nobody else was on these two accounts for three months? You know what, if I launch a new coffin bath tray, is Amazon, from day one, going to go ahead and understand now what this kind of product is? Because it has got this history and the answer is interesting. The answer is still no, not really. So I launched two products on two different accounts today. One of them I just made with the listing builder AI that we have that uses ChatGPT made a great listing, but it was optimized for the keywords that I knew were relevant. And the other one, I use the exact same 100% listing that I've had up for three months, thinking that, hey, now that Amazon recommended rank is very high for these products or for these keywords, well, it should know right away and copy that Amazon recommended rank. So here's what I found out on the very first one, the top three or four keywords that are Amazon recommended rank. On this brand new listing that I had really optimized for coffin bath tray, wine glass, charcuterie board, bathroom tray, wooden tray and bathroom caddy. So a little bit different than when I started off. On the other one, but again no coffin related keywords. So, even though it's you, I did everything right and optimizing my listings to make it somewhat relevant. At the end of the day that ASIN is still going to need me to run a field ASIN two step URL in order to let Amazon know that I am relevant for coffin tray. Bradley Sutton: On the other listing that was in Project X, where I copied the 100% same listing that's been up for three months, word for word. I changed like a couple, like just one or two words just to make sure it wasn't the exact same listing, so I should say 99%. Here is the top three keywords from Amazon recommended rank bathroom decor, wine glass and candle holder. Does that sound familiar to you? Exact top three keywords of when I started with that other product, even though now that same product has the number one keyword is coffin bath tray, which it should. So again, it shows listing optimization, guys, is not the end all be all. Having a perfectly optimized listing at times is not enough. It's more. It's probably going to help you more in established categories. But even though I've had this product selling for three months, amazon still needs more, a bigger bump in order to make sure that some of these niche keywords it knows that it's relevant for it. So the Amazon algorithm is not perfect. It was perfect. It would have known from day one that hey, this is a coffin bath tray. This other coffin bath tray has been getting sales from coffin bath tray, coffin bath caddy, you know coffin decor and all these keywords. This product is very similar. We're going to put it number one. All right, that's actually how I noted the Amazon algorithm work back in the day. Bradley Sutton: But this is a new year, a new Amazon algorithmic shift. I guess you could say where this is not. You know this strategy is not necessarily working anymore. You've got to send those relevancy signals to Amazon. So for now, you know my way of sending those relevancy signals is, and you shouldn't need this for every single keyword. Guys, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying go, go and every single one of your 10 launch keywords you're going to have to do a field as in two step URL. No, like, I think that Amazon probably wouldn't, you know, like that, because that almost would be considered manipulating sales rank, because you're getting all these sales that are not necessarily real orders. But if you find yourself having trouble getting relevant for a keyword because Amazon recommended a rank is off, try that out, get one or two orders, just try one at first for a field as in two step URL in order to send those relevancy signals and then the next day, wait 24 hours, run it again. Bradley Sutton: And this is why I said that kind of like off the wall thing earlier where I'm now suggesting that you might want to always do a test listing. Now, all right, I didn't say that before you know. I said do kind of test listing so you can, so that you can know what kind of exposure you're going to get on PPC to validate some, some theories you have. When there's not enough information from existing competitors, you know you might want to make sure that you validate your idea with a test listing. But now, guys, I'm saying, if you're selling in a newer niche, especially and maybe sometimes, even if you're an established niche, it might be worth it to spend you know 50 bucks and get another UPC code and just do a fulfill by merchant listing, send a couple of or have a couple of units available and have your listing that you want to go with and then see immediately what does Amazon think that you're relevant for right. And then if you're completely fine with this listing and you have the right keywords for Amazon recommended rank from day one, all right, well, you're good to go. That means go ahead and launch your regular product once you're ready and you can have that exact listing, knowing that from day one you might have that. Bradley Sutton: But if you're like me and you have to do like 40 tests or something to try and figure out, how do I make Amazon think I'm relevant for this important keyword? Well, you don't want to be doing that on a live listing when you're trying to like get you know, make advantage of your honeymoon period. So what the best thing to do might be to spend a few bucks and try a field ASIN, two step URL to see if that helps your Amazon recommended rank, to see if that helps you get those PPC impressions that you're going to need to do the Maldives honeymoon strategy from day one and then, once you figure out what works on this test listing, now you can start over again once your inventory comes in, or you can, you know, maybe your inventory is already there and now you can start off on the right foot so that you know from day one I'm going to send this field two step URL, you know, to go ahead and get this order or to get to get relevant for this keyword or maybe something you maybe have to optimize your listing in a different way. Again, like I said, listing optimization is important. Sometimes it can help. It can definitely help you by by doing things differently. But instead of trying to do all this trial and error on a live listing, when you're trying to you know, get your, you know, get your sales and everything do it like on a test listing first. That's what I did for this coffin tray and that's what I'm going to do for any probably the next few of my launches, or I've been doing it on some of my launches and it's going to be doing what I'm going to be doing, going forward on some of my launches. So, guys, let me know what you think, but this is the Maldives honeymoon strategy, like version four, 4.0, a lot of it's the same, but there's some new things that are different here. Bradley Sutton: But the very important that you guys know your Amazon recommended rank and especially if any of you guys have issues ranking for keywords or getting sales or getting impressions in PPC, just run your listing through Cerebro and check what that Amazon recommended rank is All right. So, number one again that means that's the keyword that Amazon thinks you're most relevant for, all right. Number 20, that means Amazon thinks you're 20th relevant, all right. The coffin shelf is a great example. The old coffin shelf seems to be completely locked in at a low Amazon recommended rank. Our Project X coffin shelf is like rank 25. For that you guys can see that yourself. Anybody can run the Helium 10 coffin shelf in Cerebro and you can see what the Amazon recommended rank is Right and it's not high. And that's why we're not ranking high organically. I don't know what happens, you know, like a shadow ban or whatever. I don't want to try and speculate on that, but in even in that case, this Amazon recommended rank is highly indicative of what's happening on the organic side. So, guys, I hope this helps. Let me know how it works when you guys try these strategies out, and especially, even if you have a more mature listening, let me know in the comments below what does it say for your Amazon recommended rank, the one that you've been struggling with? Let me know, and let me know how you fix it. Bradley Sutton: I'm not sure when I'm going to come to the Maldives next. You know, 500 was kind of like all right, I'm going to keep going until 500. So maybe if there's going to be a new strategy I need to come up with, I'll have another reason to come out, to come out here. This is my favorite place in the world the Waldorf Astoria. They always take care of me really well. If you guys make sure to you know, if you want to know how I afford this place, it's like $2,500 a night. Check out my travel hacking episode. Just look at up. You know Sirius Sellers podcast, travel Hacking. You'll find that episode and then you can see how I am able to get to this place without having to pay money or ask helium 10 for money for it. But anyways, guys, hope you enjoyed this episode and here's to another 500 episodes. Bye-bye now.

We’re back with another episode of the Weekly Buzz with Helium 10’s Brand Evangelist, Shivali Patel. Every week, we cover the latest breaking news in the Amazon, Walmart, and E-commerce space, interview someone you need to hear from, and provide a training tip for the week. Prime Big Deal Days: Everything you need to know about Amazon's 48-hour shopping event https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/retail/amazon-prime-big-deal-days-faq Amazon has reportedly tested a “Buy Again” feature to entice shoppers into repeat purchases. The company has placed the new feature in a tab on the “most prized real estate” on its app home page. https://www.pymnts.com/news/ecommerce/2023/amazon-wants-to-get-cautious-consumers-to-buy-again/ American consumers are taking their foot off the spending pedal as bargain prices become rarer, former Walmart U.S. CEO says https://finance.yahoo.com/news/american-consumers-taking-foot-off-102620170.html In the second part of our episode, we turn our attention to the world of competitor monitoring. Carrie Miller shows us how to stay ahead of the competition with Helium10's Insights Dashboard Competitors Tab feature, which allows you to easily monitor your competitors in seconds. Get ready to pocket some incredible news stories, strategies, and insights that are going to keep you ahead in the E-commerce game!   In this episode of the Weekly Buzz by Helium 10, Shivali covers: 00:49 - Big Deal Days 02:09 - New CPF Certifications 03:32 - A/B Testing 04:11 - Controlled Generic Listings 04:58 - Buy Again Button 05:46 - Bargains Gone Forever? 06:50 - Follow Helium 10 In Twitter 07:35 - Pro Training Tip: Insights Dashboard Competitor Tab ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast ► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension ► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup  (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life) ► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft ► Watch The Podcasts On YouTube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos Transcript Shivali Patel: New certifications for the Climate Pledge-Friendling program, brand protection with generic product listings, a buy again button for your consumers and an incoming shift in consumer habits. This and more on this week's episode of the Weekly Buzz.   Bradley Sutton: How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think.   Shivali Patel: Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers podcast by Helium 10. I'm your host, Shivali Patel, and this is the show that is our Helium 10 Weekly Buzz, where we give you all the latest news in the Amazon, Walmart and e-commerce space and we also provide you with a training tip of the week that will give you insight into serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. Let's see what's buzzing this week. The first article that we'll be covering today is from Amazon itself. First, I want to preface this by saying I was just looking at some Prime Day 2022-2023 stats earlier today with some of our Helium 10 team, and we were seeing conversion rates hold study or even increase, resulting in more sales year over year, as well as impressions remaining consistent leading up to Prime Day, but then soaring a whopping 25% year over year on the big day. You can check out our LinkedIn for more details. But, with that said, let's talk about Amazon Prime's Big Deals Day. So what exactly is Amazon Prime's Big Deal Days? Well, it was a 48-hour shopping event that happened in 19 countries and, just like Prime Day, it was a significant sales opportunity for many businesses. I've already seen a lot of buzz on LinkedIn and on our Facebook groups saying that Big Deals Days was going great for them. That is such a tongue twister, guys. I'm not quite saying that five times fast. Our Project X and Project 5K accounts both had more than double the normal average in sales. But I want to hear from you guys how were your sales? Were you up, Were you down? By how much and in what category? Let us know in the comments below.   Shivali Patel: Next up Amazon has added three new certifications that recognize materials innovation to their Climate Pledge Friendly program. This is really helpful for customers in discovering more sustainable products at scale. Oftentimes, as a buyer, when we're scrolling search results pages and we're just on the prowl for a particular item, Badges can be a really great way to have a listing catch our eye, and perhaps that is part of the reason on why sellers have noted slight increases in conversion with these badges. Maybe it's the increased traffic or the feeling of leaning into a morally sound, feel-good purchase for your prospective consumers. But listen, whatever the case may be, if any of your products are eligible for one of these new certifications or the Climate Pledge Friendly badge in general, it may be worth enrolling into this program. To enroll, you must either have an approved third-party certification or be eligible via compact by design or pre-owned certified. Of course, this validation process is really going to vary based off of your product type, and therefore you should do your due diligence. The badge will then appear on product details pages, search results pages and give you access to different things like advertising packages, Amazon business features and much, much more. All right.   Shivali Patel: Another segment of news coming from Seller Central is brands can now run AB tests on supporting images in the Manager Experiments Image Gallery. This is great news for those of you who haven't yet launched your product or you just want to optimize your listing images. After all, as it says here, 62% of customers are more likely to buy a product if they can first view its images and video. Yes, it's still best to do split testing via Helium 10 audiences, but to start split testing your supporting images and potentially hike your conversion rate, you can head over to Manager Experiments dashboard switching gears.   Shivali Patel: Seller Central also recently announced that they've extended product detail page protection to generic product listings. So if you don't know what this means, if you are a seller who does not have brand registry just yet, this could be helpful for you. You can start off listing your product as generic and then Amazon will still protect you by keeping any changes that occur solely under your control. Basically, what Amazon is saying is they won't let other people go in and change out your listing. Even though you're not brand registered, we do still suggest that you get brand registry for most sellers. This is a really nice update, and it does come with a lot of different things, so just bear that in mind. But you do have access to this exclusive control with the generic listing product detail pages now.   Shivali Patel: Then we have a new buy again button. I'm reporting this to you from payments.com. We all have purchase history with Amazon. That's really useful, but sometimes we forget that it's not just those subscription products like supplements and maybe the skincare items that can appeal to people and they'll reorder over and over again. If you can establish brand authority or deliver a really great product or experience, a simple button can be enough to bring back customers and increase your return on investment. Look, I'm a repeat purchaser in general, so I'm the perfect target market for this feature. Have you seen this button on the Amazon app's homepage to entice shoppers into repeat purchases? Let me know in the comment section.   Shivali Patel: Last but certainly not least, the last article I'll be covering today is from Yahoo Finance, and that is Bill Simon. This guy is the former Walmart CEO, and he's raised some concerns about the impact of lingering inflation and various macroeconomic factors on the American consumers, suggesting that the era of big bargains might be coming to an end, you guys. He pointed to the evidence of changing consumer habits, such as shifting towards smaller purchases at the end of the month due to financial constraints, and retailers are feeling the effects of inflation, which could really affect consumer acceptance of prices and buying patterns. I know I've already experienced this inside of my retail stores that when I'm going grocery shopping, the prices are insane, as are gas prices and whatnot. So are you seeing a change in spending habits? Has this been reflected in your own sales? Let us know. We would love to absolutely hear from you. So that does conclude our news pieces for this week.   Shivali Patel: Before I jump to our training tip of the week, I want to quickly encourage you to follow our Twitter account at Helium10 Software, that's @H10Software okay, @H10Software If you don't already follow us. We post announcements, slides, workshops, Q&As and so much more, and it's a really easy way to stay in touch. I don't want you to miss out. Let me go ahead and give you a second. Go ahead and pause this podcast or video, whatever it may be that you're watching this, and go give us a follow Done, All right, awesome. Before I sign off, let me pass it over to Kerry Miller, our brand evangelist here at Helium10. And, as a seller, being able to stay at the forefront of your market can also depend on what your competitors are doing. Perhaps they're adjusting their price points or offering a promotional coupon, and you will want to know when they do that as soon as they do. If you want to know an easy way, just keep watching.   Carrie Miller: Q4 is here and I know a lot of us like to keep close tabs on our competitors, but it's often a lot of tedious work where you have to literally go to their listings to kind of see and try to figure out what they're doing in this Q4 season. A lot of times we want to see did they change their price, are they adding coupons, things like that. So I want to show you a very easy way that you can actually monitor your competitors using Helium10. The first thing that you want to do is you want to log into your Helium10 account. Okay, so this is actually all going to be on this dashboard that you see right here, and we're actually going to scroll down just a little bit and we're going to take a look at this product section where it says my Products, and what we're going to do is we're going to expand this down, and you can see there's a lot of different tabs here. I'm going to actually focus on competitors here. So these competitors, you can actually choose them or sometimes they're already populated for you. So if you don't like the ones that are already populated in here for you, just click on Edit Competitors and you can just add in whatever ASINs you want or you can choose them from this list down here. I usually put my own five that I want and it's the top five competitors that you have. Once you've done that, you can actually see them listed here. You can see if they have a coupon here. You can see if they have done anything in terms of revenue, if they're doing really well, if their price is a little bit different. But this is actually going to get in more detail in this Competitors tab. So on this sidebar here where there's these little swords, you're going to click on the Competitors tab and you're going to be able to see more in detail about your competitors. And so this is not just those five for that one product. This is going to be all of your competitors that you've chosen.   Carrie Miller: So each product on that main dashboard you're going to see five, but this is where they're all going to be put together in one page and you're going to be able to see price changes and all kinds of different things like BSR. And if you wanted to customize and get alerts, you can actually get alerts for your competitors so you can see if their BSR has increased by a certain amount. If it's decreased, you can see if their review count has increased by a certain percentage or if it's decreased, or if their sales have increased or decreased. So that way you can see, hey, their sales are soaring, what are they doing, or maybe they're decreasing, and you can capitalize on that. There's a lot of different ways that you can utilize this and these are the different default or different settings that you can use. Now you can just uncheck it if you don't want to see it, or check it if you do want to see it, and you can add in whatever percentage number that you want to. So that is how you kind of edit these, but it'll show you. You know in general, if you know, there's some changes in price and things like that. But if you go down here to insights as well, we have some more information here. You can add in insights, for you know if their competitor changed the price or a coupon, you can actually get an alert for that. You can also see if they've changed their listing and you can see if they've changed any performance. So, right here, for a coupon, you can say you know if it's a price increase or decrease, or a coupon offered or a coupon no longer offered. You can edit this, however you'd like to get those alerts.   Carrie Miller: If you uncheck it, you won't get any. For listing change you can change, you can check off which ones of these that you want. So do you want to see if they've changed their title, their main image, their category and subcategory? And then, finally, you can see about their BSR and their review count, just like I kind of showed you this a little bit before. So this is where you can really control all of the Competitor Insights. There's a lot more different insights and I'll go over there those in other videos, but this is just focus on competitors. So this makes it very, very easy for you to go into that dashboard every day. That dashboard is going to show you a little an alert button or it'll say insight ready, and it's going to show you those things in the way that you set them up. So if you wanted to see if they've increased, you know, by a certain percentage of sales, you're going to be able to see that in that insights dashboard. You're going to see if they've added a coupon or if you wanted to see if their title changed, you're going to be able to see all of that in the dashboard and it's going to be so easy for you to monitor just in seconds, where all of this stuff would take you hours actually to do, to monitor every day. Where we have it ready for you every single day in the dashboard, easy to see, and you're going to get a great overview of what your competitors are doing so that you can stay competitive and you can capitalize on anything that they are slacking on. So go ahead and check out the insights dashboard competitors section and let us know what you think. Bye.   Shivali Patel: Awesome. Thank you for that, Carrie. I know the ability to monitor competitors with set thresholds was something that I was looking forward to for a while, and it's incredible to finally have it up as part of our tool set. Other than that, that is it for this week. I hope you learned something from this week's Weekly Buzz. We will see you next week to talk about what is buzzing.

Want to crack the code of Amazon's algorithm? Join us in this riveting episode as we sit down with Kevin Dolan, Principal Engineer of the AI Labs program at Pacvue x Helium 10, a mastermind who has scrutinized over 100 Amazon Science papers and run millions of tests to decode the intricate workings of Amazon's search framework. From semantics to lexical search and all the fine details in between, be prepared to gain invaluable knowledge and insights that will transform how you see Amazon's ecosystem. Pressing on, we dive deep into the expansive landscape of AI with Kevin. We break down the complexities of Amazon Science's information retrieval papers, shedding light on the motivations, implications, and limitations. With a heavy focus on both the relevancy ranking system and the behavioral indicators, such as previous purchases and time spent on a page, we reveal the intricacies of how this system functions and the challenges faced by new products. You'll gain a comprehensive understanding of the balance between query intent and query volume, as well as the impact of micro-actions on a product's early life. We wrap up our conversation by evaluating the role of Artificial Intelligence in selling success, discussing how semantic search differs from lexical matching, and lastly, looking at the promising future of the Amazon algorithm's evolution. This episode is a gold mine of knowledge and insights that will guide you in navigating Amazon's complex systems. With the help of Kevin's expertise and insights, you'll be better equipped to harness the power of Amazon's algorithm for your own Amazon FBA business’ success. Don’t miss this rare opportunity to gain insights from an expert who has spent countless hours demystifying the workings of Amazon. Enjoy the episode! In episode 499 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Kevin discuss: 00:00 - Check Keyword Indexing With Helium 10 06:21 - Impressive AI Amazon Listing Builder  10:49 - Investigating the Amazon Algorithm  21:10 - How Amazon Search Works in Phases  25:43 - How Amazon Chooses Search Results  31:17 - Analyzing Product Metrics and Rankings  35:05 - Amazon Keyword Relevance and Product Ranking  38:44 - Amazon's Trend in Personalized Search  42:48 - Keyword-Based Search vs. Meaning-Based Search 50:53 - Advancements in Semantic Search Techniques ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast ► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension ► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup  (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life) ► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft ► Watch The Podcasts On YouTube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos   Transcript Bradley Sutton: Today we’re going to talk to somebody who might be the most knowledgeable person in the entire world about how the Amazon algorithm works. He studied over 100 Amazon science papers and runs tests on millions of data points, and he’s going to be educating us on his findings, about what he’s found on things such as semantic search, lexical search and more, including showing a shocking example of proof of how search on Amazon is evolving drastically even now. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Did you know that just because you have a keyword in your listing, that does not mean that you are automatically guaranteed to be searchable or, as we say, indexed for that keyword? Well, how can you know what you are indexed for and not? You can actually use Helium 10’s Index Checker to check any keywords you want. For more information, go to h10.me/indexchecker. Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers podcast by Helium 10. I’m your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show 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 for the first time, somebody on the show a fellow worker here at Helium 10, but one of the more unique ones. He’s not like we’ve had product managers here, we’ve had, like, some of our executives, like Boyan has been on the show before, Adam has been on the show, but he’s got a very unique and one of the coolest roles here and we’re just going to get to know him and you guys are going to be blown away by some of his insights into how the Amazon algorithm works, because he, probably more than anybody else in the entire industry, has done the most research on the subject. So, before we get into the details, first of all, Kevin, welcome to the show. How’s it going? Kevin: That’s going pretty good. That’s a lot to live up to, I got to tell you. Bradley Sutton: There we go, no pressure, no pressure. Kevin: Where are you located? Yeah, I’m out in Los Angeles so I do live near a lot of the other Helium 10 people, a lot of the back view people. We go sailing from time to time. Bradley Sutton: Is this where you’re going to be taking me sailing for my first? Kevin: time in a couple weeks. Yeah, we’re taking you sailing next week actually. Bradley Sutton: Where did you go to school at? Kevin: Cornell. Bradley Sutton: Cornell, that’s. Kevin: Ivy League. It is technically an Ivy League. We get made friend of a lot for being the worst one, but you know. Bradley Sutton: Isn’t that where the guy from the office yeah, he went, or something. Kevin: Okay, now I was like wait, how do I know he? Classically. Bradley Sutton: Andy for them. Kevin: Yeah, he brags about it a lot. That’s the kind of reputation that we try to avoid. Bradley Sutton: Okay, all right. What did you study there? Kevin: I studied computer science Originally physics, but ended up using computers a lot to do physics. Things ended up liking that more, so went down the direction of computer science. My focus was on artificial intelligence, which is why all this new stuff that’s been happening has been so exciting. Bradley Sutton: Yeah, so I mean you were into it before. It was actually, you know, hip to be into it Before. Kevin: It was cool. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Bradley Sutton: And so now, what is your position here at Helium 10? Kevin: So I’ve actually been with Helium 10 since 2020. I’ve served like a bunch of different roles, jumping in, you know, helping with individual products, with higher level stuff. Right now I’m serving as the principal architect for the AI labs and this is the AI labs between both back view and Helium 10. Bradley Sutton: Cool. So AI labs is like a like, almost like a secret organization inside of Helium 10. What is AI labs? Kevin: Yeah well, we try not to be a secret. We try to make sure everybody in the organization knows what we’re doing all the time. But basically you know, even if you’re not in technology right now, you’re hearing about AI. You’re hearing about chat, gpt. You’re trying to figure out ways to use it. You’re worried it’s going to take your job. You know, outside of technology, a lot of people don’t become aware of these technological shifts, but sometimes you get these breakout technologies, and AI is one of them. This whole stream of research really began in 2017 with the release of the first Transformers paper. It started to take off really, really hard in 2020, when some of these new techniques started to get better results than any other techniques. But when last year, openai released chat, gpt, there was this sudden explosion and suddenly we’re seeing AI models that can do things that, say, 10 years ago, people would have never expected computers to be able to do, and so you’re seeing a lot of new products come out, a lot of new features. People are excited, people are scared. I tend to be more on the conservative side when it comes to AI. There’s, I’m excited about it, it can do a lot of really cool things, but I think it can’t do a lot of the stuff that people say that it can. Right now, the goal of the AI labs is basically to figure out what’s hype and what’s real. We’re trying to figure out what of these AI technologies we can use within Helium 10 and PacView products to make our tools better, to make our sellers have a better life, and we’re also trying to figure out ways that these AI technologies can change the ecosystem. So what’s going on at Amazon right now that might affect the way sellers sell on Amazon, that people buy things on Amazon, and that’s actually the part of the job that’s really really exciting to me, because it forces you to predict the future and that’s just really fun. Bradley Sutton: Yeah, it’s really cool how Helium 10 and PacFu is embracing AI. We have a whole department here dedicated to it. We just hired another executive who was leading up AI at Microsoft of all places. Obviously we have dedication, but somebody might say, wait a minute, like I barely have seen Helium 10 come out with anything AI. This is what I think is cool, because I remember back in the day I obviously have worked here at Helium 10 longer than you but five years ago when we were a tiny team we weren’t number one, we probably weren’t even number two. It was like Jungle Scout was number one, maybe Viral Launch was number two, and then Helium 10 was kind of a newer kid on the block and because of that we had to be cutting edge like nonstop and try and be the first, and it was like a space wars, like who’s going to launch this reverse ace in first and who’s going to launch an auto responder email, and then sometimes we just rushed to get something out and it wasn’t maybe the best, but in those days, like being the first at something was super important in this growing industry. Now for a few years, since you’ve been here no coincidence there but since you’ve been here we’re number one in the game. So it’s like you know what. We don’t need to be first at anything. Like let’s be. When we launch something, let’s get it right. So we were definitely not the first to launch AI for listing building. But, man, it’s really amazing Like our listing builder tool now can do multiple languages and multiple marketplaces. I threw in words into a Spanish listing but then my inputs were like in English and even through some Portuguese in there, but then the AI knew that this is for Amazon Mexico and then took my keywords and it made a complete Spanish listing. I mean, it’s just like it even blows the Amazon AI listing builder like completely out of the water, let alone anybody else in our space here. But we had long story short. We’ve got this whole team that’s working hard and making sure that we’re gonna do that. We’re doing the right things. But at the end of the day, you were talking about the. You know how AI is integrated into the search algorithm. We’re definitely gonna go deep into that, but just a preview, guys, like I don’t know. You can tell me what you think, kevin, but in my opinion, we can read all the scientific documents we want, like you have, but at the end of the day, there is nobody on this earth not even Amazon workers, or not just one Amazon worker who could just tell you the exact formula of exactly how the Amazon search algorithm works, because that’s not the way it works. It’s not something that you can just turn into a mathematical formula. So just guys, you know what we talk about today is gonna be based on, you know, a lot of research and things, but you gotta remember that, at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if we’re coming up with something, or somebody else out there who read some scientific documents is coming out with something. It’s speculation, you know, and we can you know. I think what we’re gonna show today is is that Kevin’s speculation probably is better than anybody else’s, since he’s read more. But are you with me there on that kind of like postulation? Kevin: Yeah, I mean exactly like you know. I think whenever a new technology like this comes out, people get excited about it. They wanna use it. They wanna release products that you know claim to use AI, even if it’s not really that big of an important component to it. You know, I recently heard from one of my friends who’s in venture capital that he’s, at this point, tired of hearing AI pitches. When somebody comes to him and says, all right, our company is, we’re doing X, but we’re using AI, basically everybody just rolls their eyes and I think the reason is because AI, at the end of the day, is a tool, it’s a technology, it’s not even a feature and it’s definitely not a whole product. I think when the dust settles, the hype dies down and this becomes integrated into day-to-day life, you’re not gonna hear about it as much. It’s just gonna naturally be a part of so many systems that you don’t think about it. Just the same way that you know, when you’re using Amazon as a buyer or as a seller, you’re not thinking about what databases they use on the backend or what fraud detection techniques they’re using. You don’t have to think about those low-level details because they’re just part of the system we’re about to get to a place, hopefully in the next couple of years, where these things just become more commonplace, and that’s a lot of the approach that I take when I develop technology is that I look at all of these things as tools that can be used to accomplish things, but at the end of the day, we still need to accomplish things that our users want to accomplish. Bradley Sutton: Yeah, now you know we’re about to talk about the extent of your research and how ridiculous, how many hours you’ve spent, you know, investigating the Amazon algorithm and stuff. But you know, just like we said, nobody, not even in Amazon, can, just you know, know instantly what the, how the Amazon algorithm works, how search works. So let me just ask you, like, why did you even do all this work in the first place? Kevin: If you knew that there’s. Bradley Sutton: you know, the ceiling is not even a full knowledge of what’s going on Like, so why even put all this work into it? Kevin: Yeah, I mean, you know we are, at the end of the day, building products that help sellers sell things on Amazon. So the more that we understand about how Amazon search works, the better we’re able to do that. Yes, we’re never gonna be able to understand the whole thing, I would say. Within Amazon, it’s a large functional engineering organization, so the entire system is broken down into subcomponents. Some people are going to be experts on individual subcomponents. Some people are going to be experts on how all of the different subcomponents connect to one another. But, like you said, no one person really knows everything. And even if there are people at Amazon who can really say that they understand all the subcomponents at a deep level, they’re still not going to understand all of the emergent properties that come from the system. Whenever you have a system that’s so complex that so many different people are using for so many different purposes, a lot of new behaviors start to come about. You get behaviors that come from the fact that people want to list on Amazon so that they rank more highly. You might not be able to predict ahead of time what that’s gonna look like. You might not be able to predict how buyers are going to change what they type into the search box as you change, how different search results come back, and so I think it’s something that, whether you work for Amazon, whether you build tools for Amazon, whether you’re an Amazon seller, or even if you’re an Amazon buyer, I think it’s important for you to understand what kinds of things are happening, because they give you hints to better understand how to interact with the ecosystem. Bradley Sutton: Okay now, what did your research entail? To what extent have you done that leads up to you giving us this information that you’re about to in this episode? Kevin: A little bit, a little bit. So the first place I went was the blogs, which I think was probably a mistake. They’re written for a different audience. I understand that they’re gonna be non-technical. Like blogs from Amazon or just like blogs from people in the industry, industry blogs and blogs from Amazon as well, but in general they’re written for non-technical audiences, and so I understand there’s gonna be some loss in translation when you get there. What I was astounded by was just how wrong they absolutely are. A lot of the articles make things up. A lot of the things point to research that isn’t likely to be part of a production system. A lot of them talk about search techniques that were popular 20 years ago and we’ve moved well past those technologies, and so I think it is generally safe to assume that if you’re reading it on a blog, you can take it with a grain of salt. There might still be some useful information there. It might still be relevant when you are writing your listings, but at the end of the day, it’s not canon. Amazon operates a publication that they call Amazon Science. They have a number of programs internally that lead to this, but this is basically where they release a lot of their public facing academic research, and there’s a section within Amazon Science that’s on the subject of information retrieval. It’s one of the biggest sections. That’s the academic term for search, and I went through and basically looked through the hundreds of papers that they had listed for publication there. I selected about a hundred of them that were gonna be relevant towards giving us hints about how Amazon how many pages does each of these have? Bradley Sutton: It depends. It depends these hundred that you read. Kevin: Yeah, I mean. Some papers will be as short as just a couple of pages, like two or three. Some will be 20 pages long. Some have a lot of appendices, a lot of formulas. When you do academic research, you get really good at skimming papers for the important parts and making sure that you’re not wasting time reading stuff you don’t need to read. But it’s a skill in and into itself for sure. Bradley Sutton: Now the first time. I haven’t read many and I think you by far have read more than anybody else in the world. These aren’t written by the same people, so probably even county Amazon employees, you’ve read more of these than anybody else. The first time it came on my radar I was looking up. I found a patent that Amazon had filed for something about search, and that was the first time I was diving in. I was like my goodness, this is interesting stuff. Like a lot of it was way over my head, since I’m not a data scientist and using language, but then it allowed me to understand like even parts of, like what we call the honeymoon period. They call it like cold start and stuff like this. It was just fascinating to read. But then I found out later that Amazon is just publishing left and right all these papers, like you said. But like, first of all, why are they doing this? And then, second of all, correct me if I’m wrong but just because they publish a paper on something, it doesn’t mean, like you said, that they actually have what’s in that paper in production in Amazon or is even imminent to hit production. Yeah, exactly. Kevin: Yeah, I would say that there’s a lot of different reasons why companies release academic papers and actually up until about 2020, amazon was very careful about the information relating to their system that they released to the public. They might release a patent, but patents are incredibly vague and the reason you release a patent is specifically to prevent other people from being able to do that or, at the very least, prevent other people from suing you for doing something similar. But when you release academic research, you’ve definitely got a different set of motivations. There. You run the risk of, say, a competitor adopting the same techniques something that’s part of your secret sauce becoming commonplace, and so you do have to weigh that against the benefits. But there are a lot of benefits to doing this. If you look at other companies like Google, google, unlike Amazon, came from academic research. The founders of Google created the PageRank algorithm, which was originally called the Backrub algorithm. Bradley Sutton: I bet you there’s a great story behind that there. Kevin: So you know, like Google’s approach was academic driven from the beginning and as a result of that, the academic research that goes into web search is probably a decade ahead of what you see in e-commerce search. When you release these papers as part of your company, when you get them out there, at the end of the day, what you’re doing is you’re sparking innovation on the subject. You’re sparking innovation within your own company because you’re able to recruit the best talent. If I’m an engineer or I’m a data scientist or I’m a researcher, I might now want to work at Amazon because I know that there’s a chance that I can release a paper that’s gonna be really important, that’s gonna be really great for my career. I know I’m gonna be working with the state of the art technologies and like that’s really exciting, so you’re able to get better talent that way. It also allows you to work with people who are in academia. So one of the challenges that e-commerce search has faced in academic research on information retrieval is the availability of data, because Amazon doesn’t want to release to just anybody their search volumes, their search history, what products people are clicking on, and so it’s a lot harder for somebody who works at Cornell University to do research on that subject. Amazon started a program called the Amazon Scholars Program, where somebody who is perhaps a PhD candidate or a university professor can kind of be embedded in a team at Amazon to help them develop something, and in many cases conditions of that would be that they get access to data and they’re able to release important papers, and so at the end of the day you get these papers out there. They help you develop new technologies and new techniques, but it also sort of fosters this broader ecosystem of research. That happens so that just in general in the world there’s better knowledge about how to do things. It’s worked really well for web search. E-commerce search has been a little bit slower to do this kind of thing, but they’re catching up. Bradley Sutton: Yeah, All right. So, guys, first takeaway here is we could have the person who’s read the most scientific documents here in the world. We could have somebody who just reads one scientific document, but what you can’t do is just take one of these and say, okay, because of what I read here, this is proof of what’s going on in Amazon. You know I mean, otherwise we’d be releasing blogs every week with Kevin as a byline talking about what he’s learned from there. So, again, just keep in mind that not any one of us can just take one of these documents and explain what is happening on Amazon. But, that being said, there’s a lot that we can take away, both from what you’ve researched in these documents and what you. Obviously, being at Healing 10, you have access to more data points than almost anybody outside of Amazon, and so you can actually study behaviors and trends and things like that. So let’s just start at a very basic level. How does Amazon search work today? Kevin: Yeah, I mean there’s some things that we can tell from the papers that are kind of like canon knowledge. One section of almost every paper is usually like a introduction discussion session where they talk about why this problem exists, what they’re trying to solve and sort of what the context of the problem is. In these it seems to be pretty well accepted that search happens in three high-level phases. The first phase is query understanding. So Amazon is gonna be looking at the query that was searched. They’re possibly gonna be looking at your past queries, your past purchase history, to try and better understand what it is you’re looking for. There’s a matching phase, phase two which is basically looking at Amazon’s catalog of billions of products to try and find a smaller set of products that are likely related to that search. So now we’ve whittled it down from, say, a few billion potential products down to a thousand products. And then the final phase, which is really the most important, is the ranking phase. The ranking phase is where it determines what order to show those thousand matching products in. This is, I think, where Amazon has the best opportunity to use the more advanced technologies to really precisely understand what somebody’s looking for and what somebody’s offering and to match the absolute most likely things that somebody’s gonna buy into the top of the search results. But even as you go further down the list, ranking is still important. Amazon talks about a lot of situations where the priorities and goals that Amazon has for ranking are actually different than what you might think. You might think that when you’re making a search that you want to show in the number one search result the product that the person’s most likely gonna buy, but that’s not always the case. They use this example a lot in their research engagement rings. So I don’t know about you. I don’t know many people who are buying diamond engagement rings on Amazon. If you’re going to Amazon, you’re typing an engagement ring, you’re most likely gonna be looking for something like cubic zirconium, something a little more affordable, and so you would think that when you search this, the top results should all be affordable diamond rings. The reality is that if people see that, they think something is wrong with Amazon because they expect to see diamond rings at the top, and so in certain cases, amazon has goals that are more related to user expectations than quantitative optimizable goals, and so it’s a really complex system. But ranking is really where a lot of the secret sauce is. Bradley Sutton: Okay, now how does AI play a role like, for example, in misspellings? Or is this just something that has existed, where machine learning is used and it just learns to try and predict buyer intent based on most common misspellings? And then, how does Amazon work in that regard? Kevin: I mean misspellings is an interesting case, so that usually falls into the query understanding bucket. So somebody types in a query. There are a lot of existing techniques that you might call AI, you might call machine learning, but they definitely aren’t the same thing that’s being referred to as AI that everybody’s excited about right now to do a spell correction. It’s a pretty well researched area and so when you type a query into Amazon, one of the first things that they’re gonna do is run it through a spell check algorithm to try and figure out if there’s some obviously misspelled word that they can correct. And that’s usually gonna be like one of the first steps in query understanding. Bradley Sutton: Okay, now you know the holy grail or goal of any Amazon seller when they’re launching products or when they’re trying to get sales is hey, I need to get on, quote unquote page one of Amazon search results. You know, this is nothing new, you know, you’re a blogger, you’re an SEO person, you want to get. You know, page one on Google results. You know, but on Amazon, how? In general? You know we’re going to simplify this down before we go deep into the weeds here, but how does Amazon choose what to show? You know, first in search results? Kevin: Yeah, I mean this. This is a really complicated question. Like, like we said earlier, amazon is a modular system. You know, there are going to be a lot of different teams working on a lot of different subsystems. These subsystems are going to be interacting in different ways, but in general, there’s a broad category of algorithms that work really well with these types of modular systems, and these are called learning to rank algorithms, and basically the idea is that you set some set of goals that you want. You know a goal might be I want the product that the user is most likely to buy to be at the top. A goal might be I care about my long term relationship with the user, so I’d make sure not to show them things that they’re going to return. You know I care about my long term relationship with sellers, so I want to give new products a chance, and so the system’s going to have a lot of different goals that it’s able to juggle, and a learning to rank algorithm will take a series of signals and try to put things in the best order so that they can achieve those goals, and this also allows for engineers at Amazon to be modular in how they define those signals, so I might define relevant signals in terms of like okay, you’ve searched for a query with these particular words in it. I know that those words are in the title, so you should probably rank that a little bit higher. However, another signal might be everybody who buys this product seems to return it, so that’s a bad thing, and these different signals can go together to they can be. These signals can be mixed together to basically come up with a ranking that best accomplishes those goals, and it’s really important to stress that these signals can be defined by, like a lot of different engineers. You might have data scientists who are working in relevance factors as to like whether or not a particular listing means the same thing that somebody is expressing in a query. You might have somebody who’s focused more on behavioral signals. We see that things that people have bought in the past is a really important signal for Amazon. If you search for a common query, something as simple as like pressure cooker, amazon knows which things people have bought when they’ve typed in pressure cooker, so that might actually end up being the dominant signal. But the learning to rank algorithms basically allow you to, instead of sit there and like manually tune all the rules that land at some particular ranking. You get to let the system sort of figure out how to do it. Bradley Sutton: Okay, what about when we’re talking new products? All right, you know that’s just general, general how the search works. But then you know, especially when it, when it comes to to you know a history of interactions. You know, like, what happens on a mature product. You know Amazon can easily know what to prioritize because you know they have how people have clicked, how long people have stayed on a page or how they scroll. I mean, there’s like billions of data points. They have, after listings, been out there for six months. But going back to, you know, like what I saw in that one document about, like, you know what was called cold start. You know problem how does Amazon determine relevancy in things for a brand new listing? You know that doesn’t have this history. Kevin: Yeah, so it’s a problem. It’s a very active area of research. Of the hundred papers I read, at least a dozen were about the cold start problem. So I would say this is definitely something that is a focus for Amazon. It’s something that they care about really deeply and want to solve, and it’s also something that they haven’t entirely solved. The cold start problem basically says that because for common queries, behavioral signals dominate and are so predictive of what somebody is likely to buy, the rankers are typically going to show products with deep history above products with, you know, a shallow history, like a new product. If I’m searching for a pressure cooker, it’s going to show me the pressure cooker that people usually buy. If some company comes and makes a better pressure cooker something that really just you know completely blows this the existing ones out of the water, amazon’s not necessarily going to show that to users because it’s got no behavioral priors. So solving the cold start problem is really important and there’s a bunch of different ways to do that. There’s a bunch of different techniques. Some of the techniques you’ll see in the literature are called bandit optimization, which uses like a gambling game as a sort of analogy for how you learn about you know whether you should continue exploring new options or exploit the options you have, but I would say most of the research and the papers that seem the most important lead to this idea of using details about the listing to predict behavioral priors. The idea is basically that you look at things like the quality of the listing, the seller, the image, the title, and you try to analyze them to a degree to where you can estimate what you think somebody might be likely to click the product. At that point. You start to use those to intermix new products with the existing products and then you can measure that behavior against them. So you could say all right, I’ve started to rank this new pressure cooker high, even though I don’t have much priors for it, and it seems like people are really excited about this thing. It seems like people are buying this. So now I’m going to update my estimate and say like, okay, your optimistic estimate is really good. If I start to show it to people and nobody wants it, or people buy it and they start to return it, then I’m going to start to rank that item lower. I think this is what leads to what you and the industry refers to as the honeymoon period. It’s this idea that there is a brief window of time when you launch a new product where Amazon is going to be ranking it more favorably than if it had a long sales history of poor performing sales, and so I think this is something that’s definitely an emergent property of the system. It’s not necessarily something that Amazon sits there and says, okay, the honeymoon period is two weeks, it’s definitely not something like that, but it is something that may emerge from the system as designed. Bradley Sutton: Yeah, so, like you know, there’s in the industry. You know people talk about query intent versus query volume. You know, query volume, search query volume. You know don’t always just go for hey kitchen utensil has, you know, 50,000 search volume. And that’s what I need to be focusing on when I launch my product or when I’m making my listing optimization, as opposed to something with only 600 searches. But that’s super hyper relevant, like aluminum spoon for boho decor or something like that, you know. And so I found that in early listings and I’m going to talk about this more in episode 500 of the podcast, where I talk about the Maldives honeymoon method, about how micro actions mean exponentially more in the, you know, honeymoon period, or whatever you want to call it first few weeks, cold start, whatever of a product, like you can drastically change how Amazon views your product. Now the first part is you guys obviously have to have your listing optimization down. You know, like I can’t have a water bottle, but then the copy of the listing just talks about kitchen utensils. It talks about, you know, I don’t know podcasting equipment and just random stuff, and then Amazon just miraculously is going to figure out that I’m talking about a water bottle. No, you’ve got to be super, make sure your listing has all the potential keywords so that you give Amazon something to start with. And the thing is, you could do all of the right things. I’m talking about this in the next episode, how we’re working on something so that when people are using listening builder, that they have like a scoring system that’s kind of based on best practices, like how many times do you have the right? Do you have all the right keywords, are you indexed for them? How many times do you have it and do you have it in the right parts of your listening? But at the end of the day, you could have a perfect score, if there ever was one, and still Amazon might not 100% know about what the product is, especially if it’s like a newer niche, like if it was water bottle, probably from day one. Amazon has everything ready. As long as you have a great listening, amazon knows exactly what your product is. I’m gonna talk about how I launched or I did some dual testings on this coffin shaped coffin shaped bath tray, which maybe only one or two people has ever sold this on Amazon and not many units. And when I check in Helium 10, there’s a way to check how Amazon views your, which keywords Amazon views as relevant. It was obviously confused Like coffin is probably one of the most main words because that’s how it’s shaped, and it was like way, way, way down the list as far as what Amazon thought was relevant and it had like these generic terms that had great search volume. It was funny because I could rank easily for it on a keyword that another product probably wishes they could rank for. It was something like bathroom decor or something that had like 200,000 searches. And just because Amazon rated that as the most important keyword to my listing, I was already ranking in the first six pages, even though there’s 30,000 other products that are indexed for that keyword. I was on page six and, you know, temporarily I was even on page one without doing anything, while other people are getting purchases for this product and they can’t get on page one. But does that really do me any good? No, it doesn’t do me any good, because that’s not necessarily what my product is and nobody’s gonna search that keyword and then buy my product. And so you know, sure enough, you know the keyword dropped down, but it shows you guys that you know you’ve gotta be thinking about the quality of the keyword and how relevant it is, especially in the beginning. So that’s kind of like your training Amazon to understand how to interact with that. Now, how does like advertising, you know, play a role in all of this in your opinion? Kevin: Yeah, I mean. Well, I think what you just said is really kind of key across the board when it comes to writing your listings or using advertising. The optimization effort that you put into your listing to basically describe your product accurately, to target keywords that are more intent focused, that people are more likely to use to purchase your product. I think that that’s really good advice. I think that that’s gonna apply across the board. We do know that when somebody performs a search and ultimately buys a product through a sponsored listing, that behavioral signal still counts. It’s a technique that I know a lot of people recommend for how to sort of seed your behavioral signals. At the end of the day, if people are buying your product, if they’re not returning it, if they’re leaving good reviews, those are all gonna be things that lead to better organic rankings. We do see some evidence that the paid signals count a little bit less than the organic signals, but they still count, and so I think that advertising is definitely a critical part of any product launch. But I think, just like you were talking about with organic optimization and search engine optimization in general, your focus in the beginning really needs to be on high intent queries rather than high volume queries. If you are showing up on page one for a search query that has a lot of volume and people are not likely to buy your product, that’s actually likely going to damage your organic search rankings way worse than if you had ranked highly for keywords that are very relevant to your product. Because what’s gonna happen is Amazon has now shown your product to people and people have rejected it, which Amazon is gonna be considering a negative signal, and that could start to affect you on other keywords as well. Bradley Sutton: Okay now, a lot of the documents that you read might have been two, two, three years, or some of them might be two, three years old already, but the ones that you’ve read that are maybe published this year. Have you seen any trend that makes it kind of obvious that Amazon might be moving in a certain direction? Kevin: Yeah, I mean there’s a lot of stuff on the cold start problem and I think that there seems to be a narrowing focus on this approach of estimating behavioral signals based on the listings and I think you’re seeing some sort of corolling of resources into that direction. There are a few papers on personalized search and it’s kind of always been in the background. I think there’s some evidence that Amazon might be re-ranking products based on individual preferences. If you’re a bargain hunter, I might be showing you different products than if you’re the type of person who likes to buy the more expensive, more luxury products. There’s definitely some query rewriting that might be happening based on recent search history. So if you’re looking for a lot of kitchen utensils versus if you’re looking for a bunch of hunting and camping equipment and then you search for something generic like knife, amazon’s gonna be thinking about what you’ve recently searched for to try and understand what types of products to show you. So there’s definitely some stuff going on there. There are always papers about UX improvements, little things that they can change in the site or big things that they could change in the site and how people search. I don’t think that the general UI of searching for something in a text box and then seeing either a grid or list of listings. I don’t think that goes away anytime soon. I think that’s a great way to look for products. You’ll see a lot of people who are pumped about large language models and AI talk about like conversational search or shopping assistance and things like that. I’m not too excited about those. I don’t think that those are gonna really really change how people do look for products. But one area where Amazon may start to invest in is result explicability explaining to you why a particular listing might be relevant. They already do this to some degree. Like when you type in a search, they’ll highlight any of the words that are from your search that are in the listings to help you better understand it. With LLMs and other generative models, you can start to explain in more natural English like hey, this one might be really good for you because X, y and Z, so you might see some UX changes there. There’s a lot of work on neural rankers, so this is sort of a technological detail of how they choose which products to rank higher than others, rather than fundamentally changing the way learning to rank works. So it’s not super relevant but I think probably the most important and most impactful area of research is this space called semantic search. Semantic search is basically looking through the listings and trying to find listings that are most relevant to a particular query, based on the meaning of the words rather than the literal words that are in both the listing and the search. Bradley Sutton: So give an example of like the counter to that would be lexical matching. How is semantic matching different? Kevin: Yeah, so within, I would say that today Amazon is still probably dominated by lexical matching. Lexical matching is the historical winner for search. It’s become less important in web search but it’s still a major factor there, and e-commerce has sort of fought this battle between lexical and semantic search for the past six years. In a universe of lexical search, you are trying, as a person who is searching, I’m trying to guess which words would likely be in a listing for a product that I’m looking for, and it requires you, as the searcher, to have a skill set for searching. The ideal in infamoration retrieval is that you don’t have to have a skill set in order to find things. You just type in here’s what a situation is, here’s what I want, and the search engine brings you back exactly what you’re looking for. If you really wanna get that, if you really wanna solve that you can’t use a keyword-based approach that as your only solution you need to really start thinking about the meaning of those words you’re typing. Bradley Sutton: Now, what are some things that you’ve dive a little bit deeper into to what you’ve found in the documents, as far as if you can kind of say where Amazon might be going with the search, because, like you said, this is something that’s already been kind of existing in the Google and regular search engine world, but it’s a little bit been slower for e-commerce places like Amazon to adopt. But where do you think we’re going with this? Kevin: Yeah, I mean I think that it generally seems to be accepted as true that using new advanced AI-based technologies to match products would give people better listings. It would give better rankings to it would produce better rankings in the matching the user’s intent. I think we have really really strong evidence that that’s the case. The problem is that they tend to be slow and expensive, and so a lot of the research today has focused on using AI during ranking. So, instead of processing a advanced AI model across all the billions of products on Amazon, I could process it across just the top 1000 that match your query and then I could find the exact product that you’re most likely looking for. And I think it’s pretty safe to assume that Amazon is using some type of semantic analysis at the ranking stage. What’s a little bit less clear is what they’re doing at the matching stage. I have some examples to suggest that, most likely a technique that Amazon discussed in a 2019 paper called DSSM. I have some evidence to suggest that they are at least using that for matching. In cases where there aren’t a lot of lexical matches for a particular search, they may be using different techniques, but I have some evidence of this and I think that it’s definitely safe to say that they’re using semantic search at the ranking level to make sure that the top results you see are exactly the thing you’re looking for. Bradley Sutton: Now is, that is what that one. Was it you who found that, or was it Adam Shabazz? About the the noodle camera. Kevin: Noodle camera, yeah yeah, the noodle camera I think this is. This is one of the strongest pieces of evidence I have for Amazon using semantic search string matching. So I wrote an algorithm that I called a Adversarial search generation. So basically the idea was generate searches that are Are phrases that somebody might use, that kind of like make sense from a language perspective but don’t have a lot of lexical matches. And one of the search terms that the algorithm came back with was noodle camera. Noodle camera is not a thing. Yeah, I thought perhaps you know it was a thing, but I Googled it. Nobody calls this a noodle camera. Most of the results that come back are endoscopes. Endoscopes are also called snake cameras, and I have two main Explanations for how this result is coming back for noodle camera. The first is a query rewriting explanation. It is possible that somebody who didn’t know the name of an endoscope might call it a noodle camera and they would search for that, not get any results, and then later search for snake camera, later search endoscope and end up buying that. So Amazon might be behind the scenes doing some kind of query rewriting. Another explanation is semantic. A snake and a noodle are similarly shaped they’re long, cylindrical objects and so, going down that direction. That would seem to suggest that they may be doing some kind of semantic analysis of the words that you’re searching to try and find something that At least Resembles the user’s intent. We tried a couple variations of that that were also interesting. So when I searched for eel camera Figuring eel and snake they’re similar enough it came back with an entirely different set of results. It came back with underwater cameras, and I think that’s really interesting, because underwater cameras and Again, in this case, when you look at the listings, none of them talk about eels, but eels are similar to fish. They do talk about fish, and an underwater camera is exactly the type of camera that you would use To take a picture of an eel. And so I think that, at the very least for cases where a Search doesn’t burn back a lot of lexical matches, there’s a good chance that Amazon is augmenting those matches with some kind of semantic techniques. Bradley Sutton: Yeah, guys, you know I dug into this too and anybody can do this Everybody, you know, if you’re not in your car but if you’re at home, you know, just type in Noodle camera and then you’ll see what he was talking about. Like, like, there’s one brand here that that is kind of like could be a Misspelling of noodle called new e. Like it has a camera, and it’s actually interesting, when I, when I entered that into chat GPT, that was one of the first things that came up. He’s like oh, some people miss misspell noodle camera for this new e brand. It was really weird. And so, you know, amazon picked up on that. But then most of these are these kind of like endoscope cameras and so I took one of these. You know, just alright, I didn’t take just one of them, I took, like most of these endoscope cameras, and then I first threw it into index checker inside of helium 10 and it’s interesting to know the. You know it says that noodle camera is indexed, and that rightfully so, because it obviously shows up in the search results. But usually when you have a phrase that is indexed, the individual words are indexed as well. But then I broke out the word noodle, and noodle is not indexed while noodle camera is. And then I went to the Ajax page a lot of you guys know what, that Ajax page where I can look at the whole back end of a Listing and then if I type in here, there is no noodle written in the front end, in the back end, in Amazon’s you know features. Nowhere is noodle in this listing or any of these other listings that are on this page. And yet clearly it is indexed. For noodle camera. Amazon is showing it in the not only is it index, is ranking you know for it. And so that you know, I don’t want to like scare people you know, or people you know start to think. Wait a minute. You know, if Amazon goes full semantic search, you know, then tools like cerebro and helium 10 or listening builder and optimizing your listening are not Important and it’s gonna be out of date. No, there is always gonna be a need to To have to understand the right keywords and to build your listening. Otherwise Amazon won’t even know how to do a semantic you know match to your product if it doesn’t have a baseline. And so you’ve got to be all you know, you’ve got to be traditionally indexed, lexically indexed. That’s a thing you know for the right keywords for this. You know Semantic to take the the next step. But what? What you know? What should sellers do you think keep in mind over the next couple years? You know what is this move towards semantic searching mean for Amazon sellers and how they optimize our listening. Kevin: Yeah, the technique that I was just talking about, dssm. It’s a fairly old technique. The paper Amazon released was in 2019, but the technique itself goes back a few years before that. There are newer techniques that are closer to these families of exciting large language models. In particular, this past May, in May 2023, they released a paper where they created a small Burt model, which is a much more advanced type of semantic search, and the challenge generally would be when running with one of these birds sand for anything and it stands for my names are bi-directional encoder, something transformers, yeah okay, so not just the dude who discovered it is an acronym I can’t remember the, the whole name, but anyways, they use this Burt model to basically Create a set of what they call embeddings to index listings in a semantic way and then perform search over that. This was something that we knew we could do for a long time, but they found a clever way to do it very fast, and this is going to be the difference between whether or not they use these technologies in production, because speed really matters when it comes to searching. You know the difference between Amazon getting you your search results back at a hundred milliseconds and ten seconds would be. You go and shop somewhere else, and so, even if you’re getting better results back, you need to get the results back fast, and so as we start to see new techniques that can do this deep level, deep level of query analysis, deep level of product analysis as we start to see these techniques that can be run more quickly, we’re going to start seeing them more In actual Amazon search results. I think that within three years, you’re probably going to be in a world where semantic based search actually starts to dominate Lexical search results. You know, that’s that’s my personal guess. You know who knows what it really looks like in the future. But I think at the end of the day, it is when things are heading and I think that does change the way people need to write their listings. But I also think that’s a win for pretty much everybody involved. I think that buyers don’t like keyword stuffing because in order to get to the information they want about a listing, they’ve got to go through a bunch of random words. I don’t think sellers like it because it’s tedious. It’s a lot of work. I’ve talked to a lot of sellers who, you know, describe this as a major pain point in their jobs is trying to make sure their listings contain all the literal keywords that somebody might be searching for, and I don’t think Amazon likes it either because it makes Amazon look sketchy. You see all throughout the literature how Amazon really tries very hard to make sure it doesn’t look like a flea market. You know they don’t want the search results to look like the results that you get on a site like Alibaba, and so Everybody’s incentivized to get rid of keyword stuffing. But because of the limitations of the way a search is done today, it’s basically an inevitable emergent property, and so I think as we start to see semantic search become more viable. As we start to see it get faster, as we start to see Amazon upgrade the hardware that runs their searches, there’s a good chance that semantic search is going to start dominating over traditional lexical search, and so I think that leads to a world where sellers, instead of trying to play these different keyword games, should just be describing their products as accurately and compellingly as possible, and I think that’s just a win for everybody. Bradley Sutton: Yeah, all right, guys. So you know we’ve. You know if your head doesn’t hurt right now that then you probably weren’t paying attention, but but a lot to take in. You guys might need to Re-listen to this. There’s a lot of exciting things happening on Amazon. That’s one of the cool things about being in this industry. It’s. It’s not. It’s not something that stale or or something that you know you can master, and then you know you never have to learn another thing ever again because you’re your master at it. No, you got to keep you know studying and and keep you know seeing what’s going on, and that’s that’s what sets you guys apart. You know the good Amazon sellers from the the ones that might fall off, is you know they just make their listening and then you set it and forget it and then never try and figure out how to, how to optimize or, you know, remain at the top. And so you know, those of you who listen here to the end of this episode, you’re probably one of those ones who’s like, nah, I got to make sure I’m at the top of the game and and continue to develop, because Amazon is is always on the cutting edge of different things. So you know. Thank you, thank you for joining us on here and any last words of wisdom you can share with Everybody out there, or something to you know, like things that we can expect from the cool AI lab, secret, secret Avengers team here at at Helium 10. Kevin: Yeah, I mean you’re you’re gonna see a lot of things come out. I mean we’re gonna be releasing features within Helium 10 with impact view, that use AI. These are gonna be things that you know, like I said, become commonplace. I Think the most important thing is that we’re paying attention to what’s happening in the industry. We’re aware of the trends, were aware of the new technologies and we’re gonna make sure that our sellers have the best chance of success. Bradley Sutton: Awesome, awesome, well, kevin, thank you for joining us, and you know I wouldn’t suggest reading in a hundred more scientific Papers that I think that’s too much. Your brain’s gonna explode soon. But we appreciate all the work that that you’ve done so that we don’t, so that we don’t have to go out and read all that stuff, and and we’ll definitely invite you back next year and it’ll be interesting to see you know where we’re at as far as the Amazon algorithm goes. So we’ll see you, yeah. Kevin: I mean, at this pace it’s gonna be completely different. So thanks for having me, Bradley.

A warm welcome back to the Serious Sellers Podcast for our returning guest, the queen of TikTok and Amazon Live, Gracey Ryback of Deal Cheats. With her world-famous influence reaching almost 2 million followers across all platforms, Gracie has been making waves in the world of influencer marketing in social media. Over the past year, she's been a force on Amazon Live and Amazon affiliates, producing more content, and gearing up for Q4. While considering venturing into TikTok Shop – following the footsteps of other creators like Alex Earl, the "it girl" of TikTok, who's been able to leverage their massive following effectively. The heart of our conversation explores the power influencers have in promoting products on platforms like TikTok - a goldmine for brand visibility. Gracey gives us a peek behind the curtain of her success promoting products on Amazon and shares insights on the higher commission rates offered on TikTok Shop. We also dive into the potential of using TikTok shop to build your Amazon FBA brand, drawing examples from creators who have successfully taken advantage of this feature. As we round up our chat, Gracey shares a wealth of actionable tips for Amazon and Walmart brands and influencers to increase their visibility and appeal. Bradley also explains some cool Helium 10 strategies for tracking competitor listings and leveraging the Helium 10 Insights Dashboard to find deals, monitor price drops, and keep an eye on coupon codes. Lastly, we take a deep look at Amazon Affiliates - a platform that offers influencers a chance to gain popularity and make an impact, and how TikTok Shop can be a potent platform for boosting your sales. This episode is full of insights for anyone interested in the fast-paced, ever-evolving sphere of influencer marketing, Amazon affiliates, and TikTok Shop.   In episode 498 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Gracey discuss: 00:00 - Welcome Back Gracie on Podcast 08:42 - The Importance of Authenticity in E-Commerce 14:32 - TikTok Shop's Impact on Views/Sales 22:27 - Expanding Audience With Non-English Videos 27:02 - On-Site Videos and Community Growth 32:12 - Amazon Insights Dashboard 38:05 - Importance of Amazon in Boosting Sales Transcript Bradley Sutton: Today we're bringing back the queen of TikTok and Amazon Live, Gracey, who's going to be talking about how she now has almost 2 million followers across all channels, why she thinks everybody should be getting on TikTok Shop and some cool ways to have some side hustle as an Amazon influencer. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. One, two, three, four, I've used this tool. Find out what it can do for you by downloading it for free at h10.me/xray. 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 right now I've got a shirt. I actually have people make fun of me. I have a document that documents what shirt and what hat I wear each episode, just to make sure I'm not doing the same one. I'm wearing a shirt I haven't worn before. It's one of my old school shirts. It's called I'm Huge in Japan. I did that because we're bringing somebody on the show who's pretty much huge in the entire world. All right, Gracey, the world famous Gracey, How's it going? Welcome back. Gracey Hi Bradley. What an introduction. That's wild. I'm happy to be back, love this podcast, one of my favorites. Thank you, Bradley. Bradley Sutton: Thank you so much. Thank you so much. It's like it's hard to believe that it's been over, actually over a year since you were on the podcast last. So before we get into, you know, talking shop and stuff shop, Literally. We're going to be talking about TikTok. Shop is what I want to talk about. There's no pun intended there, but let's just talk about what's going on with Gracey the human being. What's been going on with you in the last year? Gracey Good question. So I mean, right now, no news is good news to me. So, still working on everything I've been working on, I'm still creating content still, but doing Amazon live, still doing my social media thing and still growing there and it's going really, really well. I'm excited for you know, q4 to come around. That's been a huge topic. I just spoke at a virtual summit about that and we're talking about TikTok shop now. That's what actually what I talked about there, but upcoming projects and, like my human being, life is hopefully getting on YouTube soon as a attempt to dwell into more like a long form content instead of just doing everything so short form. That's something I'm working on. Bradley Sutton: Wait, wait. You didn't have a YouTube channel before, Never. You were only Instagram and TikTok. Gracey Facebook and Twitter and everything else except YouTube pretty much. Bradley Sutton: Oh, my goodness, I didn't realize that. Okay, what across all your platforms? Now, how many followers are you up to combined? Gracey Probably close to 1.4 million, majority of them being on TikTok. But yeah about 150K on Facebook now, which is my second leading one. Bradley Sutton: Oh, okay, interesting. Is it a Facebook page group or what so? Gracey I have both about 50K in the page, 150k in the group. Yeah, yeah, both I guess. Bradley Sutton: Okay, Cool, Cool. Now just taking a step back for anybody who maybe is new to the podcast. You know, people know how I usually try and get people's complete backstory, like where they were born and stuff. We're not doing that here because Gracey, as I said, has been on the podcast before. So if you guys want to get her backstory, go to h10.me forward slash 360. So she was on episode 360 of the podcast and you can find out her story, which I forgot most of it since I have. What was that movie? Is it 51st date? What's the movie where Adam Seller forgets his memory or not? Adam Seller? Drew Barrymore forgets her. It might have been. Is it 51st? Gracey date I don't know, but that movie sounds about right where. Bradley Sutton: Well, one of them, yeah. She forgets, she resets her memory like every few days, but that's pretty much me. Anyways, let's talk. You know you said most of your followers are on TikTok. So before I even get into, you know TikTok shop for other people. Is that ever something you would consider doing, or are you just happy doing the promotional side of it? Gracey Do you mean you like selling on TikTok shop? Bradley Sutton: Like actually selling on TikTok shop, Since you've got the followers like you know, like would you ever, you know, start your own store it has crossed my mind. Gracey Have I done it yet? No, but I think it would be a really great opportunity for other creators to like start dishing out their own product and start, you know, creating something in that world, because I think there is a shift. I have seen it just in the past couple of weeks that creators are like hey, I came out with my own clothing line, here it is, I'm making content about it, people are buying it, creators are making commission and, of course, the sellers making their, their earnings as well. So it's kind of like a win-win. And then I actually saw a guy he he created like a journal and it was totally based off his content, his contents like motivational, how to create the life you want. And he made a journal and I guess I was pretty cheap of him to do not cheap of him to do, but like cheap to create. And and then he actually talked about how Alex Earl who do you know who that is? Bradley Sutton: I do not. Gracey She's like the it girl of TikTok. She's like blonde and really pretty but also relatable, and whatever she talks about sells out. She has like millions of followers and like all the brands are going after her because she's like the TikTok it girl, so like everything she talks about is I thought you were the TikTok girl. Bradley Sutton: Oh my gosh, oh my gosh. Gracey But she ended up promoting his journal just like organically and he was like I didn't pay her a dime and brands are paying her many dimes for her to promote their product. So it's just really cool how, like creators are just picking stuff up organically from TikTok shop because they have the incentive to do so, you know so and like. Bradley Sutton: Now is live selling happening on TikTok at all, either through the shop or just naturally, cause I know you know that's always been a topic. It's going on three years now is why you know people can't figure out why live shopping is not taking off in America, when it is everywhere, or at least in Asia. Yeah, we'll talk about Amazon a little bit, but is live selling a thing on TikTok? Gracey Absolutely. So, like we can talk about the official thing and we can talk about the cultural thing. So the official thing is absolutely TikTok shop. There's three ways to shop it. There is the live shopping, where you can link products to a live stream. You have the way you can link products directly in a TikTok video like a normal TikTok. And then there's the storefronts that are on people's profiles where you can like have products linked. So those are the three ways. So officially, absolutely live selling is a thing for TikTok shop. Shall we talk about the cultural aspect. Bradley Sutton: Let's talk about it. Gracey So this is really interesting and I think it's something I've seen a lot of platforms get into recently. It's like YouTube has a new affiliate monetization platform not platform, but like program for creators to directly link products into their YouTube videos. That's like a new thing they're rolling out. Pinterest is doing it. All these different social media platforms are trying to keep people on their own platform with their interest in buying a product. That's the new thing. So you can see this huge integration of shopping and social media. But not everyone is happy about it, because TikTok is normally an entertainment app. People wanna go there to escape the corporate grind, escape the rat race, like they wanna go there to like forget about work and forget about money and all that. So there have been a couple of videos I've seen that's like how to block TikTok shop videos from your free youth feed, cause I'm sick of it. I'm sick of TikTok now and TikTok shop. I see it every other video. Bradley Sutton: I think I did the weekly like have you ever seen my weekly buddy show? I do right, so what was I do Like? So when I do that once a week where I just like scour the internet for new stories and one of my keywords that I follow is TikTok shop, and boom, like I swear, there was 10 articles last night about what you just said, where people are like the four you feed is like ruined. Like I got all this TikTok shop stuff, so continue, but I definitely don't wanna talk about it. Gracey Like people are like sharing hacks on how to basically like not have that, like those TikTok shop videos in their feed, and I just think that, regardless that that is where the future of social media is going. It's like integrating shopping and integrating e-commerce into it. However, I wanted to just say that the importance of being authentic, the importance of being like real, like people wanna see a real review but they don't wanna be sold to, and I think that's also why you mentioned before that how like live shopping isn't taking off as it is in China or in other countries, it's because people don't like being sold to here, they don't like products pushed in their face. But if they see a product, they're like, okay, that's cool, I discovered it. And they wanna feel like, okay, like, I want the product organically. They don't wanna be like, oh, someone's trying to sell me something. So that just like highlights the importance of authenticity and being real when you're talking about a product and integrating it organically instead of like coming off like an ad. Bradley Sutton: Interesting, interesting. Okay, now you mentioned Alex. Well, I can't believe I remember her name. Alex, you just randomly mentioned this guy's journal, right, but that was an organic thing. But as far as TikTok shop goes, what are influencers like yourself or others doing on a non-organic way? Cause, like the traditional way of promoting on TikTok is all right. Here's a link. Amazon affiliate link or hit the link in my bio or whatever the case is. But now if somebody has TikTok shop, are there like affiliate links that go directly to there that an influencer can get? Gracey Yeah, so basically the way that people shop is there's a little tag product in the lower left corner and it says eligible for commission on the bottom and then if I was interested in the product I could click that and it would take me to basically the shops page on the back end where I could check out and all that good stuff. Something I've noticed is that the shipping times are a bit longer. Like, I wanted to purchase something yesterday and I got influenced and I think it was like gonna deliver like mid-October, so that's like close to a month away. So there's that. Bradley Sutton: But in terms of like, that person had to have been out of the country then I would imagine, because unless they can sell stuff out of stock, because if you're shipping for America, why would it? Gracey take you Right, and it wasn't out of stock because if it was out of stock the little button of tagged product would disappear, so I wouldn't be able to click on it. Bradley Sutton: Yeah so. Okay interesting. Gracey Yeah, I see there's that. And then there's also, of course, the marketplace, for both creators and shoppers. Like, you can search products, you can sort by category. There's different products and there's so many joining each and every day, like when I remember when it first came out earlier this year, it was like very few. There was like maybe 10, 20 brands up there, and now I'm starting to see a lot more mainstream products come along and like now, if I'm like, oh, like, I have this product, I wanna make a video about it. More likely than not, I can find it in TikTok shop now, which is great, and I can just kind of have a product I already have in my hands and like talk about it in a video, if I want to. Bradley Sutton: So then You've got like this portal, kind of like the Amazon associate or affiliate associates where, by the way, I became an Amazon influencer a couple weeks ago. I haven't done anything yet, but I got the account set up, I sent some links to some friends, but I'm trying to figure out what the next step is, because I want to get I have this channel that has like 30,000 followers On YouTube and I want to like go ahead and use that to to start my Amazon influencer career. Anyway, there's a side note like that, but I noticed, you know, I can just like find a product that's on Amazon in my portal and then it creates the link. So you're seeing, on TikTok you have something similar where it's not like the, the, the owner or the, the brand has to reach out to you and give you special links. You can just see something that you're like oh, I think this might pop off, let me go ahead and create a link, and then you're sending traffic. Gracey Yes, so it's not really a link. It basically is like on the page before you post the video there's an option to add a product tag and then you'd like click it, add product. You search product, add a video, blah blah, and that's how it shows up. Bradley Sutton: Mm-hmm. How are the percentages on there? Gracey commission percentages. Yes really good, really good, like for the better than Amazon, I guess 50%. Not all of them are 50%, not all majority, maybe like 10 wait, wait, wait. Bradley Sutton: 50% higher than Amazon or 50% commission commission. How was that? Even real life? Yeah, how is that possible? Gracey I agree the journal that I'm talking about with Alex on the whole thing. The guy created it. He was like I made it 50% commission to incentivize creators to talk about it. So maybe he's like maybe selling At a very, very, very small margin right now, but the brand awareness like that, that could be something like a big brand one day. That he's just like doing the promotion right now but creating a brand in the long term. So like I'm not saying everything's 50%, that's not sure but upwards of 50%, and I see I think a lot of them are around like 10 to 20, 30% commission, which is pretty good. I mean absolutely More than what most affiliate platforms offer. Bradley Sutton: Yeah, I'm just seeing her Dumbfounded because that's, that's crazy. Like I heard, tick tock is also kind of incentivizing both the sellers and and influencers and trying to like subsidize a little bit. So I, man, that this is pretty interesting stuff, have you? Do you have? Have you had any success yourself, like where something went off, or you know, you know, I know, back in the day, you know you've talked about how you've given some sellers like six figure weekends, you know, like over a year ago. But what if that was on Amazon? What about on tick tock shop? Any, any cool stories? Gracey I've Humbly sold out a couple products so far, but, admittedly, I'm still focusing on Amazon a lot. I I still I haven't, like you know, sold my soul to leaving that yet, or like I still doing Amazon mostly. However, I am delving more into tick tock shop without trying to be annoying and filling my feet with it, but yeah yeah, there was a bodysuit that I did a video of and it was so silly and and Dumb it was, it was like me try it on. It was like oh, look at my belly before and then like don't even look, okay, anyway. It was like oh, this body like Now I want to find this video. But it was like, oh, here's my stomach now. And then like, oh, here's how slim I look after and it was a really good bodysuit Like I liked it, I feel, as it was good quality. It did slim. You know, it was like kind of like a shape wear bodysuit, so it was really cool. It was like a really quick like before and after it got, I think, over a million, almost two million views, something like that, and it ended up selling out and it was a million views your video. Yeah, but but here's the thing Ticktock is absolutely pushing videos that have tick tock shop product. Bradley Sutton: Yeah thanks like the algorithm is favoring towards okay. Gracey Yeah. So what I have like organically gotten those views, who knows? But because it was a tick tock shop video, I think that definitely boosted in the algorithm and it boosted the sales and it ended up selling out the product, so that was great. I don't know how long they're gonna keep pushing the videos, but that's why it's like that. It's so time-sensitive right now. It's like joining the platform as a seller is time-sensitive. Making the videos as a crater is time time sensitive. Like don't wait until it's super saturated and everyone's in on, and like they don't do these promotions anymore. Bradley Sutton: I know of a somebody who's in this niche From Amazon and I think it's very similar products, I believe, and they've done on tick tock shop. Gracey Yeah. Bradley Sutton: I think something like one or two million in four, four months or five months. Gracey It's just that that's amazing. Bradley Sutton: It's just crazy, I mean. I mean it's so new and and people are just like you know, just going viral, like like, yes, she had a few videos that you know, like like yours. Yeah, that one viral and that's all it takes. You know, you know like not everyone, and you're like I'm looking at your channel here. It took me a while to find it. The reason I could find it is because it's not like every single one of your videos has one million, so I can just ease your skin. I mean, you're in the 10,000s, 100,000s, but you know, it's just like sometimes, so that you'll get one that gets a. I saw another one you were doing like a treadmill that had like two million. Yes, or something like that amazing product. Gracey Yes, that one is great and super popular. I will absolutely make another video about it. It was like a deal for a walking pad, but, yeah, it is definitely, definitely something that People should be hopping on, like on that topic. It's like on the creator side of things, tick tock is also giving creators like product samples. They're giving us coupons like hey, like get this much product and like, as long as you make videos about it, like product samples, like they're so, so, so, pushing it, and I love that because they're very supportive of both sides of like the seller, the Creator, and like they're wanting it to be the best of both worlds, which is what I was all about forever. Bradley Sutton: So Now would you suggest to people I mean, obviously there's influencers like yourself and I. There's obviously clear benefit with with hopefully you know somebody like you with a 1.1 million followers, you know About po, you know linking to their product, but at the same time, would you suggest to anybody who does have or is starting with tick tock shop, they should be putting out their own content as well, because who knows, you know, even without the followers, something of theirs could go viral as well. Or do you think that they should just stick to the shop and and just let the professionals do these, these videos? Gracey 100,000%. And this is a little bit of a contradiction from like what I said before, because before I was, you know, in the Amazon world, it's like what you could do as a seller, like one of those things being live streams. I always said like hey, like, if you don't have all the time in the world to like be doing Amazon live, maybe just like focus on the brand selling part and then like have like a Amazon live Influencer or creator, do the stream for you. But in this scenario, I would absolutely a hundred thousand million percent Recommend that the brand also has, you know, content based on their product. Specifically, there is a brand of Chamoy. You know the sauce, chamoy sauce. There's a brand that is going absolutely viral on tick tock shop right now with their Chamoy and they basically make their Chamoy without any like color and whatever, but the the lady behind it. She makes so much content. She answers questions from the comments she gets. She shows the process of Making the product. She's like we sold out today, like so sorry, like more coming. Bradley Sutton: Do you know what that channel is? Gracey Yes, it's like their brand is called. I love she's an amazing example of a brand. She made it, she has a story and she's this yes, she's Kelly. Bradley Sutton: Don't take. So this is a brand, yes, and then now wait, this is her like this, she's doing her own. Gracey It's just like insight, like just like backstory. It's like, oh, like there's a real human behind this brand. This isn't a huge corporation. This isn't like it's just this lady. And she's asking questions, she's being interacted, like that is such an amazing brand example and hopefully not gonna take too much time and effort, like look, you can just make the video. It's like-. Bradley Sutton: Now, one thing I don't like and now I'm having to do it here is, unless I'm doing something wrong, I can't see TikTok shop on web right Like. I have to see it on my phone Cause like when I was doing something like on somebody else's the other day and I couldn't see their TikTok shop. But then I opened up my phone and it was there. I'm looking here and I can definitely see her store, her shop, on mobile, but for some reason TikTok is not allowing you to see the shop Like. So how much money is being left on the table for the old school people who are on their desktop? Gracey They're watching TikToks on their computer. Bradley Sutton: Yeah, interesting, anyways, okay. So, guys, I love Chamois is an example of somebody who is a brand owner and who's doing her own content. Let me go back to your page. Here Is there a video that's a good representation of like hey, here's something simple that almost anybody can do without, you know, having to have fancy equipment and stuff. Do you remember anything that I can just like look for real quick here? Gracey Pretty much everything I do is very, very, very low maintenance, like it's nothing studio. It's like me with my phone up with like a ring light. It's like nothing that everyone doesn't have. So let me see if there is one that I have. The bodysuit one was probably the easiest and simplest one that I have ever made for TikTok shop. Here's one. So it's a plumping lip gloss. Can I show a video? That's not mine. Bradley Sutton: Oh, it's not even, yeah, yeah. Gracey Okay, and her pinned video has 20, almost 24 million views. Bradley Sutton: That was like 20 seconds long. Gracey Yes, and she's in like a dimly lit room. Bradley Sutton: On mobile. Is this one actually going to like a TikTok shop or anything? Gracey It's been sold out. Bradley Sutton: It's been sold out, okay, but it did. It did at one time. Gracey Yes, it was a TikTok shop video. It says eligible for commission, but the product is no longer tagged cause it's sold out. There are alternatives because it's now viral and I think she made it viral. So there's other products on TikTok shop that are probably the same or similar, but this specific one been sold out. And like you could do that, I could do that, our dog could do that, like anybody could make a video. Bradley Sutton: I've looked at it five times in a row while you're talking and I'm just like in shock. Here that's something like this could go viral. It's not, it's not unique. It's not like you know, mic drop or anything. That's that, just. That should just show yes, so how does that happen then? Is it just? Gracey People love a before and after. People love it simple. And here's another really interesting hack tip. Okay, so you know the, the creator named Kobi Lame. Kobi Lame, so his whole thing is that he's amassed such a huge audience because he doesn't speak in his videos, so you're not like constrained to English speaking audience. You could. You could reach any country, anybody. They don't. There's no like necessarily any need to understand English to understand what's happening in the video. Similar to that, the mega viral videos millions and millions of you, not one or two million, like millions. Bradley Sutton: Yeah, yeah. Gracey They're very like. They're usually no speak, no, no speak, no talking. So, yeah, that is kind of a hack. It's like if you want to reach more people Mr Beast is the same thing he like translate his videos to like other languages to reach more more people. And like, once you start going viral on TikTok, they start promoting your videos to different countries. So, like if I had a really mega viral video, people start commenting in French and German and Italian. Like people start commenting in different languages. So don't cut yourself off. If you do like a simple like showing the product, no words, or maybe just text on screen, super simple. You're not talking before and after done. Bradley Sutton: Now, where? Where can I go or anybody listening to sign up to be? What is it called? Is it called TikTok affiliates or TikTok partners? Gracey So yeah, there, if you're a creator, I think there's a requirement of a minimum of 5,000 followers and on TikTok it's not like Instagram, it's like on TikTok you could do that in two, three weeks. If you're like consistent and you try, you could get those followers. So that's the requirement If you are an affiliate or a TikTok shop creator. If you're a seller, I don't think there's any requirement to be able to you know, sell or Link to your own, let your own stuff, because you're not you're not getting like a commission on your own stuff, Okay that makes sense yeah. Bradley Sutton: Okay, yeah, I just had recently the Rainmaker family on and they were talking about the Amazon influencer program, how it's a great way for people who you know they have this big community of like stay at home moms that's what they focus on and a lot of them don't have a lot of startup capital to just start their own private label business. So one thing they've been doing in their community for those people is that they become Amazon influencers and then they just start making all the you know Videos of everything in their house you know that could be found on Amazon, start uploading it to all those listings and then, you know, some of them make, you know, $500 a month, can make up to $1,000 a month. That's just, you know, a little steady income to build up some capital. So I think that that it almost sounds like the. Probably there's probably a higher ceiling on TikTok for somebody to do that, but the caveat is they need to have the 5,000 Followers first correct, and also for the Amazon influence program. Gracey There there is like a small gateway to get into the program, but once you're in the program. I just wanted to add on to what you just said. Yes, people can make $500 a thousand dollars a month. I also know people making Unbelievable amounts of money from just on-site videos. Bradley Sutton: So let's go ahead and switch back to Amazon. Now, then. Like, what is taking up your time on Amazon? Like, how much are you spending Amazon lives? Are you doing what I just said, like just doing videos for, for random products you think might go viral, or you just doing collabs with brands? So what's your? What's your day-to-day like on Amazon? Gracey Yeah, so I'm still doing Amazon live. I've been doing that consistently since start of 2021. I still do that two to three times a week and that is something I plan to keep doing until the cows come home, I don't know, and yeah. And then a lot of what I do day to day is just social media posting of like promo code deals, helping people find the requests of products that they're looking for Deals on. Like a lot of times I'll ask my community, like what are you guys looking to buy today? And then I'll they'll be like oh, baby, products, treadmill, whatever, whatever long list of items. And I'll just do a lot of research, finding the best deals, promo codes, coupons. That's a lot of where my time goes and then posting them. But I post them knowing that there's somebody looking for that specific product. So I know that there's an audience for that and I can also just like cater to what they're looking for instead of just posting willy-nilly. And then there's also, of course, the video creation of like TikTok, instagram reels, the short form content that you see on my TikTok. There's that, that as well, and the on-site video, which is like another aspect of this whole thing. Now, I haven't focused as much time on on-site videos as I absolutely should have, or have already, and the reason what's on-site video? It's like the shoppable videos that people can post their storefront and the listings and they get okay, okay. When you mentioned. Yeah, so I haven't been focusing on that as much because I've been focusing so much on all the off-site aspect. But the reason for that is because On-site will forever and always be controlled by Amazon, like they have, you know, the ability to Rotate videos out, rotate videos in they they can change the video placements and there's all those different options that are kind of out of our control. So I want to focus more on growing what I can control my own audience, keeping up with that community, and you know, like when you have a community, you got to keep showing up for them. Yep to keep them, and so I think I want to dedicate more time to on-site videos, but I can't do so at the loss of my community, so I just thought I like time, manage it better and Do more on-site videos, of course, because that is super lucrative if you put a lot of time into it. And Amazon, I definitely see, is focusing more on quality over quantity and obviously doing more quality control for their inspire feed as well. You know so there's a million ways to make money in this program. It's almost overwhelming. Bradley Sutton: Are you on On Instagram? Are you sending all of your traffic to to Amazon still, or have you started funneling some to tick-tock Shop at all? Gracey Um, so I can't really do tick-tock shop Traffic directing on Instagram, so most of my Instagram is still geared towards Amazon, but I try to keep the tape. Bradley Sutton: How do you do that, by the way? Probably talk about this before. Are you doing like a Lincoln bio, or or? Okay, okay. Gracey Yeah, yeah, so I'll just have the Link under the product and then I'll have that page where in the profile where people can click on it if they want something. Yeah, that's what you can do. And another thing that I've seen a lot of people do is like using chatbots, so that there's like a double edge to benefit to that, actually, because whenever I say like you can see my description of my Instagram posts, it's like comment this keyword for the link and then Whatever people comment on your post, which boosts engagement, then they would get sent the link to the link page, basically Similar to the page in my bio, but they could then get the link to Amazon from there. So I've seen that a lot of people do that and it's going well. Bradley Sutton: Yeah, now, if I, if I'm a brand, you know, be it on tick-tock or be on Amazon, and I'm trying to, like you know, get somebody of your caliber and following to post my product, it's gonna probably cost me a decent amount of coin. But then, like you said, you sometimes just find stuff on your own, you know? Yeah, like that's probably most of what you do. How do I Make myself more Findable by you or become more attractive to you when you're searching the? You know the, you know whatever you're searching? How can we do that to get on your radar? Gracey So are you talking like Amazon or tick-tock or kind of just? Bradley Sutton: Both, both. Gracey Okay. So I Am specifically like a deal person, so I'm always looking for the best deals. If you have a good deal running and it's a good product for my audience, I'm more than likely post it. But I understand that not everyone can have these hefty promo codes and deals that they put on their products. So I Would say, if you have some sort of like buzz going around your product and that could literally just Be a micro influencer posting about it, and then it catches on and it goes viral and that will start a tidal wave of you know a trendy product, and there's that, of course. But it requires a little bit of luck and very dust. I'm trying to think there there is the structure of like increased commission. I've been getting a lot of inquiries about my brands on tick-tock shop. They're like hey, if you create a product with my tick-tock shop link, then I will give you 30, 40, 50 percent commission and that's like a deal that you can do. Instead of like 50 percent commission for everyone on tick-tock shop, it's like just for you working with the brand. So you could offer a very hefty increased commission with the offer of just including my product in your video. You could do that too, and I'm sure if you reached out to the right people they would be down to do it because again, like they're getting paid on performance and they're getting paid a good commission, a commission you probably. It's very hard to get on Amazon 50% unless you're working with yeah affiliate program. Bradley Sutton: But yeah, I'm gonna give you something that I probably shouldn't make public, but Okay, like I was gonna do this on my own, it's something new that helium-10 has, but maybe now you know you can get, you can definitely use this new feature of helium-10, but I don't know. I really should keep this myself. It's that, it's. I think it's pretty valuable, but I Like to give, so I'm gonna just so, and then you can tell me if that my concept is even correct. Again, I'm an I'm a newbie when it comes to being an Amazon associate or whatever it's called. So we have this new thing called Insights dashboard. It's been out for most of the year, but the new part is you're going to be able to track competitor listings. Now, how it's worked until now is like if I'm a seller on Amazon, I've got my coffin shelf. Well, I'm gonna track just five of the other coffin shelves and. I wanna know, like when they're running coupons or if they go out of stock or this or that happens. But how it's gonna be soon is you can add products to track that aren't even tied to competitors. So somebody like you is not selling on Amazon. You don't have competitors per se. So what I was planning to do and now everybody can just go ahead and copy this but what I was planning to do is like go in and grab, go to some top BSR list of some trending subcategories be it body suits or whatever that I think I could sell and then just add like the top 100 BSRs, and then I can set notifications like let me know if they lower their price by this percent, or let me know if they start running a coupon, or let me know if this one goes out of stock, because now I know this other one, but it'll just give notifications instead of me having to like refresh pages every day. Like that theoretically should work right, like it'd be cool for an influencer like you know me. Gracey Do you read what I think? So like the question. There is like the promo code or the deal would have to be public facing it would be like a price drop or a coupon. Bradley Sutton: Yes yes. Because you got me thinking about that too, and when you were talking about how you're looking for deals. Gracey I mean, that's the whole name of your and not all of them are public facing, which is like the whole. Like time to search? Yeah, okay. Bradley Sutton: Yeah, some just go to prime members, some just go to repeat buyers but then, like a lot of times they don't even do a coupon or something because they don't want to have to pay Amazon for every. You know, if they're running an Amazon coupon, they got to pay Amazon, you know, a certain amount. So they might just do a sale price and then we can detect that you know like where they guess. And actually most of the time I do that for my products because the badge that shows up. If you just do a sale price, like if it's the lowest price in 30 days, it's like, just as you know, stick outable yeah, if that's the word it sticks out just as much in the search results as like a coupon. So sometimes I'll do that. But, all right, there you go. Guys, there's a tip of the day If you want to become, or hack of the day, a cheat, a deal cheat of the day if you want to find some deals on Amazon, you know, once that feature comes out in Helium 10, just add a whole bunch of some trending stuff so that you can get a notification as soon as a coupon or a sale price goes on. Gracey I definitely think it's helpful because there are, just like in my head, a bunch of best sellers that have done well, regardless of the season, regardless of whatever I'm talking about. So like. I would be able to, you know, add those best seller products and then, whenever the deal happens yeah, I'm just thinking through my head, but absolutely I think it's super helpful. Bradley Sutton: All right. So I mean, I know we haven't. We've been kind of jumping all over the place because that's the way my brain works, guys, but I hope you guys can see the potential here. I mean, we could probably have a three hour podcast where we just talk about all of the cool videos that we see and what she does, but we're just scratching the surface, guys. So there's two ways to look at this, in my opinion. Number one if you're a brand owner and you don't wanna dance or do anything, totally fine, there's influencers who might pick up your product. Or you can get them in front of influencers like Gracey, who might show your product and, who knows, they might even do it organically. So, but you gotta be on TikTok shop in the first place to even let that happen. And then, or number two you know, if you're a brand owner, you can be like that. I already forgot what it was. What's your-. Gracey Chamoy Chamoy. Bradley Sutton: I love Chamoy I love Chamoy. Right, I love Chamoy and she is bringing hundreds of thousands, millions of views and visibility. You know what? I'm gonna just check something real quick. I'm gonna do this live and if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. I'm on Amazon here. I was looking at your page, by the way, I love Cham. Oh my goodness, look at all of this. Look at this. Gracey I love this. This is. Bradley Sutton: Helium Tendetta 5,000 search volume for this brand that probably nobody had ever heard of on Amazon, but because of the TikTok All right, I love Chamoy. Sugar free is 3,000 search volume. So this is what happens, guys. You know you have something go viral. Yes, you're gonna start getting some action on TikTok shop, but then there's other people who are old like me and who are trying to look at TikTok on a desktop and couldn't even get to the shop. So if that happens, what am I gonna do? I'm gonna go to Amazon and look up I love Chamoy. Maybe I don't know what this old TikTok shop is, as dang whippersnappers doing this. I'm gonna go to Amazon because I trust Amazon. So, and two days ship or same day shipping. Oh my God, I can't imagine it. I live in the suburbs and I get same day shipping all the time. It just boggles my mind. I'm not even in the big city, but anyways, guys. So this is like this is gonna be the thing in. I mean, it might be the ready to thing right now, but I think in 2024, like TikTok shop might start giving Walmart a run for their money as far as number two next to Amazon. They don't have the distribution at work. Obviously, that's gonna be a big. Like you said, one month shipping time is nobody wants that, but the views are there. This is where people of all generations I'm making fun of my oldness here, but people way older than me are addicted to TikTok. It's not just for young people. But anyways, any last strategies on something that we haven't talked about or something that we have, but you can just say something a little bit different. Gracey I just wanna highlight the thing we just found out. It's like, while it might be viral on TikTok shop, those sales always translate to Amazon because their Amazon has the consumer trust, they have the easy checkout process, they have the fast shipping, the customer service. Even sometimes I am like I don't wanna wait even a week for shipping on TikTok shop, but I see it, it's viral, it's available on Amazon, I'll always buy it on Amazon. So it's like those sales, even if it has nothing to do with Amazon, it actually does and you just saw that with Chamoy. Bradley Sutton: Yep, I love it. I might buy it right now, as a matter of fact. All right, so people want to find you on the intro. We almost went through all of your socials already, but go ahead and repeat how people can reach out to you or find you out there. Gracey It is dealcheats on all platforms D-E-A-L-C-H-E-A-T-S, and my email is contact at dealcheats.com. Bradley Sutton: Gracey, thank you so much for bringing your very unique knowledge. I've been talking a lot of people about TikTok. I've been talking to Norm, who I know is your. Are you a Star Wars fan at all? A little bit you suck. But I was about to say Norm is kind of like your Padawan apprentice, you're like the Jedi master, because he was telling me you're training him to be an official Amazon influencer and he seems to be doing a good job. Like I saw I was looking at his channel. But anyways, like everybody knows a little bit about this stuff, but like you're the one, you're the go-to person in the industry. We just kind of cool when I think about it. You came out of nowhere, I did you know. Like all of a sudden I was like who's this person? I see popping up everywhere that's talking about influencers. I just love how Amazon, just like you know, things go viral on Amazon, things go viral in the Amazon influencer world like this. So it's awesome, I think. Gracey I'm out of nowhere it does and I love it, and I've discovered so much and learned so much from the brands and sellers as well. So a great team, I think. Bradley Sutton: Awesome, all right, thank you, Gracey. I hope to see you at an upcoming event, if not this year, then maybe sometime next year. Gracey Sounds good, thank you.

Get ready to learn more about Amazon's Vine program with our special guest Ami Pandya, Sr Manager of Product Development at Amazon and a leader from the heart of the program itself. We caught up with her at Amazon Accelerate to bring you an inside look at this game-changer for brands on the Amazon marketplace. From the importance of reviews and the program’s unique approach to maintaining authentic and balanced reviews to the timeline to generate a first review after enrolling an ASIN, Ami offers a comprehensive understanding of the Vine program plus new big updates that can impact your Amazon businesses. But it doesn't stop there! Ami lets us into the global reach of the Vine program, touching base in the US, Canada, Europe, and Japan. She also shares invaluable strategies for brands to maximize the benefits of the Amazon Vine program, demonstrating how to pick the perfect sample size for your units, timing your enrollment just right, and ensuring your product appeals to a mass audience. This candid conversation with Ami is a golden opportunity for any brand aiming to crush it on the Amazon marketplace, and a fascinating insight into the inner workings of the Vine program for all the curious minds out there. Buckle up and enjoy the enlightening ride! In episode 497 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Ami discuss: 00:00 - Amazon Vine Program Q&A at Accelerate 06:02 - Amazon Vine Sellers Eligibility and Changes  09:53 - Authenticity of Balanced Vine Reviews  17:09 - Quality Reviews in the Vine Program 20:03 - Automatic ASIN Enrollment in Vine Explained  ► 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/video  

Are your competitors outranking you on Amazon? Discover how Helium 10's brand-new keyword automation feature is your secret weapon to gaining an edge in the Amazon marketplace. Our host, Bradley Sutton, will be your trustworthy guide to navigate you through the intricacies of this game-changing tool that can monitor your competitors' keyword rankings and advertising, saving you tons of time and exposing potential opportunities for your Amazon brand!  As we explore the ins and outs of the new feature, together, we'll dive into the comparisons with Cerebro and discuss the customization options that put you in control. Not only that, but I'll also be answering your burning questions, from setting up competitors and product tables on your Helium 10 Insights Dashboard to finding organic report keywords that have led to sales. And because we value your input, we’ll share how you can submit suggestions to Helium 10 to enhance your experience. Here's to bigger, better selling on Amazon! In episode 496 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley talks about: 00:00 - Q&A And Keyword Tool Announcement  03:37 - Suggested Keywords And Insights Dashboard  08:56 - Keyword Tracking and Discovery for Products  12:34 - Upgrade To The Diamond Plan For More Features  17:56 - Setting Up Competitors And Ranking Keywords  21:12 - Replace Keyword Tracker With Insight Settings  25:13 - New Tool For Managing Amazon Refunds  29:05 - Submitting Suggestions To Helium 10  ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast ► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension ► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup  (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life) ► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft ► Watch The Podcasts On Youtube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos Transcript Bradley Sutton: Today we're answering all of your questions live with our monthly Ask Manny thing feature, plus debuting a brand new Helium 10 tool that's gonna save you hours of time every month by Automagically telling you what new keywords you or your competitors are ranking for that you didn't even know about. 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 PO's 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. 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, SSP. Bradley Sutton: Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the series sellers podcast by Helium 10. I'm your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show that is our monthly Ask me anything where I go over like a new tool release or a new feature that maybe you guys haven't had a lot of experience using. That's what I'm gonna be doing today. I think it's gonna be a new feature I'm gonna be showing and then we open up the rest of the show to live questions from the audience. That is about Helium 10 or some, something that maybe you need some help with learning how to use, or maybe you want to know a strategy question that relates to Helium 10. We are going to get to all of your questions today, so let me go ahead and show the Helium 10 project X dashboard. Now I want you guys to be on the child view. I mean you can actually be on any of the views parent, child or skew but just to keep everybody on the same page, everybody click on child for me down here on your table, your product table, okay, and let's go to Keywords here on the right hand side. Hit keywords Right and then, once you do that, actually, first of all we got to make sure you guys have enough Competitors here. Bradley Sutton: So one of the first things I need you guys to do is Open up and just make sure you have competitors, because if you don't have competitors, this is not even gonna work, all right. So, for example, I open, I hit the triangle. All right, a right under the the little icon in the inside stashboard. You're gonna hit that little upside-down triangle to open up the Expansion. And then you're gonna want to hit competitors. All right, and right here you should show your five main Competitors of who you're competing with. And if you see something here and you're not the one who did it, that means Helium 10 is the one who, kind of like, assign your competitors. But you guys know your competitors the best. You can change this if you want. So, like, for example, somebody else on the who's in this account put this bat shelf as my competitor. You know what? I don't think that's my competitor. So I'm gonna hit edit competitors and I'm gonna get rid of that bat shelf and let's add another, coffin shelf, which I know is a better competitor. We'll add this one Right there. Okay, add selected competitors. There we go. All right, so I've got five competitors. So does everybody have competitors? Five competitors once you do. Bradley Sutton: I want you now to hit this new thing that you guys probably didn't even see. It's kind of funny. We don't even have a new, a new little tag on here. I want you to hit suggested keywords, all right. So so Casey asks when are we at in Helium 10? This is your regular dashboard, all right, so this should be on your dashboard, all right. So now, again, just just to show Casey where we're at. I'm on the main dashboard, I scroll down to the my products table and I'm in child view and I am now on keywords, and then now I'm going to hit this button, suggested keywords, all right. So hit suggested keywords, and this is something you need to have a diamond account for to fully get the full access, the competitors you might be able to to actually set up. But, yeah, you need a diamond account to be able to to run this. All right now, take a look here. Now. These are keywords that I believe I'm not tracking yet and what it's doing. This is what's cool, guys. This is what I've always been kind of like. Teasing is going to be coming to. Insights Dashboard is now automatically. We are kind of like running Cerebro in the back end for you, like on a daily and weekly basis, comparing you versus those five competitors that you added, and we are now letting you know. Bradley Sutton: Maybe there's a keyword that your competitor is ranking for newly that you're not. Maybe there's a keyword that they're going to advertise for that you're not, or that we show. Maybe you're not even indexed for. So this is just the start. So the first thing that you have to do hopefully you've done that a long time ago, because I'll show you some other insights that come from having Competitors. But now, once you have the competitors, you've got this suggested Keywords here, all right, and then take a look. This is going to tell you what, where these keywords are coming from. So look at this Gothic wall decor. There's three competitors who are ranking for it, all right, and here's the search volume and then the competitor performance score. This is kind of like a score based on how many competitors are ranking for this keyword and how high they are ranking for it. So, let's say, out of five competitors, all five of them were ranked in the top five. This competitor performance score would be like a 10 out of 10. Bradley Sutton: This is this is nothing new. This is literally directly from a Cerebro. All right, this is directly from Cerebro. What's going on in there? So this is not a new metric or anything right. It's just new that we're automating it for you. Now everybody has their own preference as far as, maybe, what keywords you want automated, like, like, or what keywords you want to have suggested. So what I want everybody to do with me right now is go ahead and go into customized settings. I want everybody to hit customize settings and this is what is going to be the basis of your keyword harvesting, or automation on what you want Helium 10 to inform you about. So you can, for example, put it's gonna check once a week. You could say you want the search volume to be at least 500, or maybe you want to, for whatever reason, put a Mac search volume Like. I don't know why somebody would want to do that, but hey, there might be somebody out there who wants to do that and if you are, if you can, you will go ahead and put a Macs when there the position rank. Bradley Sutton: This is. There's something wrong here. We're gonna change that. This is supposed to be the competitor feature here, so this is gonna be where their rank. All right, so this position rank means your rank. Forget that. This really means the rank of at least one of your competitors. So we'll change the language on this in a little bit, so it's a little bit clearer. Advanced rank filter. These are directly from Cerebro. We're gonna change the language here so it's more easy for you guys to understand. Basically, this means where at least how many of your competitors is ranking for. Remember, you put five competitors there, hopefully, and so you can put a minimum of one and a maximum of five here, right? So maybe you want to see keywords where at least two competitors are ranking high for right this advanced rank filter two or two again, we're gonna change the wording on here so it's a little bit clear. Maybe by the time you're listening to this podcast it'll be ready to go those of you listening to the replay and basically you're putting the rank range. Bradley Sutton: So if I put right here two, advanced rank filter number one, I put a minimum of two and then advanced rank filter two, I put between one and let's just say 25. That means I am telling Helium 10 for automation. I want you to let me know if there is a competitor. At least two out of my five competitors are ranking between one and 25 on page one for the rank. Now I think if you do this position rank, this might be yours, where maybe you're like, hey, maybe I am not. We're gonna change the wording. I know this is very confusing here, because we're just taking the raw data from Cerebro Position rank. I believe this is probably gonna be we're gonna have it here where it's my own rank. Like, hey, maybe I want to know the keywords where I'm not on page one, right, but my competitor is right, it's gonna be very, very customizable what you're gonna be able to do here, and later you're gonna even have the sponsored ranks right here. Okay, like hey, show me where I am sponsored. I am not advertising for this X keyword, but my competitor all of a sudden is at top of search. All right, will automatically get those keywords for you. Bradley Sutton: Now, these keywords are also based on my products. Like you know, you might not have certain keywords that you're tracking, that you are actually ranking for and you didn't even realize it. Like that always happens to me, like when I run Cerebro on my own listing, and you guys probably do too. You're like, wait a minute, sometime this month I was ranked five for this keyword that I didn't even know was relevant to my listing, right? Oh, let me start tracking that. Well, if you wanna start doing that, we're gonna automatically harvest those keywords for you as well and let you know right here. Bradley Sutton: So again, keyword suggestions based on my products. What you wanna put here is your kind of like qualifications here for what keyword. That is going to be All right. Your search volume, where your organic rank is in a certain range, and if you want the word count, you're like, hey, you only wanna see keywords that have at least one word, or at least two words, or three words, or four words. You will be able to do that and then, now, going forward, you're gonna get these suggestions automatically without you having to run Cerebro anymore. And just remember, guys this is something that I hope is already part of your process the manual version of this you should be running Cerebro on your product, like once every two weeks, to find new keywords that you're ranking for. That you didn't realize. You should be running your Cerebro, you versus your top competitors, to see where they are ranking, that you're not or that you need to improve on right. But now, instead of you having to manually run Cerebro and compare reports from last week to this week, et cetera, et cetera, we are automatically doing that for you. And then you are eventually again, if you have the Diamond Plan, you're not only gonna see that down here in the suggestions. You are going to get insights when those triggers happen. Bradley Sutton: Now, let's say you wanted to delete some keywords from this list. You're like, no, I don't need to see this anymore. That's gonna come here under deleted suggestions, ones that you delete. We're gonna definitely kind of like play with this a little bit, based on the feedback, on do you want this just to be snoozed, maybe, or do you want it permanently deleted? We can definitely work, work on that with you guys, but you know we need more of you into this tool, now that it's brand new, and working on it to let us know what kind of view you can get. So this is like something that's super cool. Bradley Sutton: I've been kind of teasing this for a long time that we're going to have this level of of automation where we're doing the heavy lifting for you. And then this is just the beginning, guys. I mean anything that you are doing in Cerebro and magnet and and you know, black box, just imagine those things us doing the work for you and just delivering the results. It's like you, you know, using Helium 10 almost as your virtual assistant, where we just deliver the results to you and you don't have to do the manual labor yourself anymore. So I want everybody listening to this podcast or listening to this live feed to go in number one. Bradley Sutton: Those of you with a diamond plan, and I hope you can see this If you have a platinum plan, you need to upgrade already yesterday to diamond to be able to get some of these features, like the historical Cerebro and now this, where we're even doing the Cerebro for you. But, by the way, I should probably throw a coupon If you guys are interested to try out the diamond plan. I'm not sure if this coupon code is going to work, but the one that for sure works is SSP10. So SSP10 gives you 10% off the diamond plan If you want 20% off for six months. I almost don't want to give this coupon code out because I don't think it's a good deal. But you can do SSP20 and save 20% off for six months. The reason why I don't think is a good deal is because after that now you can't use a coupon for like a year, and so it's going to end up being more expensive anyway. So I suggest just using the SSP10 and then try out the diamond plan so you can give this a try. Bradley Sutton: But I want you guys all working on this and hopefully you can see the value Now. You're going to know, hey, where's your competitors getting sales from on keywords that maybe you didn't even have on your radar, where are your competitors focusing their PPC spend that you didn't even realize, and you're going to see which ones your index for. Like, I don't think the index checker is working yet. This is something that's completely in beta, but, as you can see, there's going to be a column here where maybe you're like, wait a minute, gothic wall decor, I am not index for this keyword, so it might give you an indication that, hey, I need to probably get my, you know, get my indexing fixed on this keyword in the in the first place. Alright, alright. Bradley Sutton: So now for the rest of the show. This is going to be your show, guys, where you can ask me any questions, and let me go ahead and go back up and see what kind of questions we have. Remember, it could be questions about this. It could be questions about any tool in Helium 10 or how to do something. That's why I'm here to help. Like once a month, we actually make this open to everybody, but this is something we do actually every week in our Serious Sellers Club group of the six, seven and eight figure sellers. But once a month we go ahead and open this up to everybody and put this on the podcast so you guys can all benefit. Bradley Sutton: Alright, let's see. I saw an older video where you mentioned that subject matter would post in Seller Central. Even if you can post it, can't post it manually on the listing. Is that still the case? For very few categories now Amazon has taken it out of a lot of character. I actually announced and I was mistaken, I thought Amazon took it, took it out of every category, just because of all my listings, like in in the home and kitchen, had it taken away. But I was just on a call, like three days ago, with somebody who's selling in the jewelry category I believe jewelry or accessories, clothing and accessories category and they had subject matter right there and they were able to definitely update it with Helium 10 listing builders. So there might be some, some categories where you still have access to the subject matter, right? Bradley Sutton: Another question here from Rashid Dear Bradley, do you know how to find organic report words that made sales? Alright, so in Helium 10, what we have is that's exactly kind of like what this is for. Alright, what I would, I just demonstrate because you know in Cerebro. You know, first of all, you don't know the exact organic sales that come from keywords outside of about 30 to 40 percent that show up in search query performance. Okay, so the ones that show in search query performance, you usually about 30 percent of your search sales. That's because it's those sales that happen within 24 hours. So you can kind of see there and that's going to come to Helium 10 eventually once Amazon opens that up in the API. Bradley Sutton: But the more holistic way you can get it done right now I've seen more keywords is just looking at the keywords for somebody's like in the top 10 positions and the search volume is like more than five or six hundred, because it's usually you're. You didn't get to that position unless you had some, some sales that were coming from organic search, right, and so that's just one of the ways that you can find out which keywords are bringing sales to a competitor is by looking at their organic rank for the higher search volume Keywords, which is what you've historically been able to do in Cerebro and now you can do on the inside dashboard. All right, tomer says. Tomer says what does it mean based on my product? Does it mean that the keyword improved in ranking? No, so, for example, you're already tracking keywords, probably in keyword tracker, and if one of your keywords goes up or down, you know we'll let you know based on that insight, like like you've already had that. We've had that for like three months where if a keyword goes up by a certain percentage that you specify or goes down, we'll give you a message. But there's other keywords that you might not be tracking already in keyword tracker because you didn't realize they're important. And so what you do is you specify the insight to let you know when you are ranking highly for a keyword that you were not tracking already, and then you specify exactly what you wanna see, or when you wanna see that happen, like if it's a minimum X number of search volume, if it's within a certain rank range or it's just ranking at all, you wanna get a notification on. You set that and then we'll send that as an insight and then you can choose to either track it or ignore it in your keyword tracker. Bradley Sutton: Dennis says how do you set up competitors for your products? All right, let me just show that to you one more time here On your Insights Dashboard. You go down to your products page, Dennis, all right, and then you hit competitors okay, and then you either have to do edit competitors if there is none here, or add competitors if there's none, or edit competitors here and then you choose which ones you want to use right here and that'll give you the competitors. Dennis, all right. It says I have a listing that shows I am ranked on many keywords in the top five. By the way, everybody, whatever you're watching this on, help the algorithm out. Give it a like, give it a thumbs up or a like or a super like or something on Facebook, YouTube or LinkedIn, whatever you're watching this, just to help the algorithms out. Anyways, Facebook user says I have a listing that shows I am ranked on many keywords in the top five. Bradley Sutton: When I click the arrow to show the search through Amazon, none of my listings really show up. Suggestions on why? Well, you've got to make sure that you are, first of all, like. If you're outside of the country, make sure that you have a zip code that is inside of the marketplace you are looking at Like. So, if you're tracking Amazon Germany, you've got to make sure that your regular Amazon, you know, shows Germany, just to make sure that you're indexed, all right, and also to make sure that you are looking at the right search results and, at the end of the day, what you see in Keyword Tracker, if you see it fluctuating a lot, you need to turn on boost, because boost checks different browsing scenarios. Bradley Sutton: It checks different addresses, it checks, you know, like if you're logged in, logged off. It checks a whole bunch of different browsing scenarios, cause, remember, you could be showing up differently based on where the person is searching, what kind of browser they're using, et cetera. So to turn on boost, we're checking 24 times a day all those different browsing scenarios and if on your computer it's showing that you're not ranked, I guarantee what you'll see on boost is some of those checks. It'll be a blank, meaning that, yeah, sometimes you're just not showing up in the search results. All right, we're gonna bring somebody up from the green room here with a question How's it going, Josh? Josh: had mentioned about being able to see how competitors are targeting it using PPC. Is there anything PPC specific in the tool that I missed when you were walking through it, or how can we? Bradley Sutton: Yeah, it's not that part is coming, so the first phase one is we're showing you the organic rank. Phase two, which will be coming soon, probably next week or the week after, is the same exact thing that I showed you guys on the organic rank. There will be a separate settings where you're gonna be like show me in the sponsored rank where I'm ranking or not ranking per se on this keyword in sponsored, but my competitor or X number of my competitors are all ranking for it. Josh: Because I was gonna say that being able to see sponsored next to organic is helpful for our own, but to be able to see that for other teams, yes, yeah, so it's gonna be yeah, we start with the organic and then we'll be doing the sponsored next. Bradley Sutton: Cool thanks. Josh: Thanks, Bradley. Bradley Sutton: All right, no problem. Edison from YouTube says will this function replace the keyword tracker tool? It doesn't necessarily replace it, but it kind of does the work for you. So instead of having to go I didn't show this function today because it's already been there, remember you know what I'll just go ahead and show it right now. So, Edison, what you can do for the keywords here. This is actually showing my keywords that I'm tracking in keyword tracker. All right, so it's actually right here on the dashboard, like I technically don't have to go into keyword tracker. So in that sense, I guess you can kind of consider it replaces a little bit, but I still like going into keyword tracker. Bradley Sutton: But the beauty about this is you set up the insights, all right, so that instead of having whether it's on keyword tracker or whether it's here in the Insights Dashboard, instead of having to go every day and check this, you set your insight to trigger when. Let me show you where that settings is here. Hold on insight settings. Let me show it here keyword types. All right, you're gonna hit insight settings, you're gonna hit keywords and then you're gonna hit the three insight types and then, when the organic keyword drops or your sponsored rank drops or your keyword suggestions based on competitors, and you can actually customize that by hitting the settings here for your competitors. All right, so you can actually get the information. And it looks like it's not customizable. Yeah, I thought it was. I'm pretty sure there's a way to customize it of when you get an insight that your organic keyword drops or raises, that's gonna be the new one that's gonna come up to when your organic rank increases, like maybe you were on page two, you wanna know when you get on page one, et cetera okay. Bradley Sutton: Hope the answer is your question, Edison, all right. Colby says will Helium 10 ever be accessible via API? Could be, again, pretty much, I think for some of our larger customers they have API access for, like enterprise customers. If it's something that will be available on the backend for just any platinum or diamond or elite member, that's to be determined if that's gonna be available. But just like I told people who are asking for the KSA marketplace, you gotta let your voice be heard. So make sure to submit a suggestion in Helium 10's dashboard of say, hey, we would love to have API access. All right, let's keep going here. Bradley Sutton: Miko Lodge says will Helium 10 have listing builder for UAE? I sell in the USA and UAE would make it awesome to be able to redo my UAE listings in the listing builder. Yes, that is coming. I actually have that available in my Helium 10, but I don't think it's available to everybody yet. So that's coming imminently where it's not gonna be too much. I mean you can technically do that, miko Lodge. Now, all right, listing builder Like build your listing for UAE because it's English. It's still English and you would just put your UAE keywords in there. But the real benefit is gonna be once we have it open for Japan, for example, like you maybe ran Cerebro for Japanese keywords, right, but you don't have the slightest sense on how to create a Japanese listing, even though you have the keywords, because you don't speak Japanese. Well, now, soon you'll be able to push a button and create a Spanish listing for Amazon Mexico, create a Japanese listing for Amazon Japan, et cetera. So that's definitely coming for you, and I would assume that would include UAE as well. But if, for some reason, uae is not showing up on the listing builder dropdown, just send that to customer support and maybe they haven't released it yet and just ask them when that's gonna be released. Bradley Sutton: All right, let's say Rasha is asking a question about Amazon refunds. We'll have to check on that. We're gonna keep this to like the Helium 10 related questions here. Now we have a new refunds tool that actually is gonna go out and look Like if somebody is asking for a refund outside of the window I personally don't know what that window is, I thought it was 30 days that Amazon customers can do a refund and then, if Amazon refunds them outside of the 30 days, I believe we've got the new refunds tool that will go out and make a case. So if you guys are interested to get in on that service, let me show you. I don't have the exact link right here, but let me just show you guys how to find that. On our website you just go to the Helium 10 dashboard, go to tools and go to operations, and then you're gonna wanna hit managed refund service. All right, so that's different than refund genie, where you have to file everything. Go to manage refund service and get a free demo of it, and with this tool you're going to be able you're going to be able to stuff that has to do with Amazon logistics and all kinds of different scenarios where Amazon might owe you money, including what you were talking about, where Amazon might have refunded a customer when they weren't supposed to. We'll be able to go ahead and show that for you. All right, let's keep going here, all right. Facebook user another person who did not click the link so I can't see their name. Bradley Sutton: So, since we're talking keywords, one of my competitors is Amazon's Choice for 16 keywords with a total search volume of about 72,000. That seems like excessive favoritism. Will they ever level the playing field? Well, I mean, first of all, like Amazon's Choice is always changing. Like they're doing tests now where instead of Amazon's Choice it'll say overall pick. Like maybe you guys have seen that sometimes. I don't think it's favoritism at all. Like they, amazon definitely has a formula. How that formula works nobody can tell you because sometimes it makes zero sense, right. Like I've seen an Amazon's Choice in the coffin shelf be one that I know is not even getting sales for coffin shelf. Literally it's not getting sales for coffin shelf. Even the Amazon data will say it and somehow it gets Amazon's Choice. So I don't think anybody knows what the formula is, but they do have a formula and I don't think it's favoritism necessarily. That's actually why Amazon has been doing some of those changes they've been doing because they're trying to not show favoritism. They've been trying to show the reviews in a different way so that maybe some of the older sellers who have tens of thousands of reviews they don't have as much advantage. The older sellers, they hate that new way that reviews are showing sometimes because it takes away their advantage, right. So Amazon's trying different things but I don't think Amazon's showing favoritism per se. Bradley Sutton: Ryan says Helium 10 Sell and Scale was epic. Any plans for another? Oh, yeah, for sure. We wanna do something with Sell-In Scale. We couldn't do one this year or around this time because, as you saw, amazon did Amazon Accelerate this month and they've got Unboxed right after that and like there was like a million events around this time, which is when we had done Sell-In Scale last year massively successful, and we definitely wanna do something for Sell-In Scale soon, potentially maybe some different continent We'll have to see about that, you know might take the Sell-In Scale show on the road, as it were. Bradley Sutton: Another user says "'How can you submit suggestions to Helium 10?” Great question. Let me show you exactly how to do that. Go to the top, and where is it". I think it's right. Oh yeah, right up here. This button here. Okay, first of all, guys, this is something that you might not have seen before. This is powered by AI. Instead of always looking at the, instead of always opening up a chat down here, hit this button and you can ask questions like like, watch this. I don't even know if this is gonna work, because this is brand new. I'm gonna say how can I check what keywords my competitors are ranking for? Let's see if that even works. All right, and if I do that, what's gonna come up? Let's see. Watch this fail on me just because AI doesn't like me, cause I always bad mouth AI. Oh no, there, it is right there. Look at that. To check what keywords your competitors are ranking for. Bradley Sutton: Use Helium 10 Cerebro. Here are the steps. So, guys, yeah, this is pretty cool, but anyways, right here at the top, before you hit AI or before you ask AI a question, this comes up and one of the options says I have an idea I want to share with Healing10. That's what you guys click. And then, hey, I want to have the KSA marketplace. Hey, I want to have API, like you guys said. Hey, I wanna have sponsored ads faster and in Insights Dashboard, whatever you guys want, hit that button. So again, just to show you where it was, on the very top of your screen, right to the right of what's new, there is this like kind of like a magnifying glass, or I don't know. This is not a magnifying glass, it's kind of like it has stars on it, mixed with a magnifying glass. Bradley Sutton: Just hit that and then that's how you can find that button. All right, question from YouTube. I don't know why this is turning into an Amazon or a Helium 10 suggestion. It's not me. You guys should be doing this to you. You should be submitting it over there, but we'll discuss it here. Modar says I'm tracking competitors on X or in a daily basis for changes and reviews BSR active sellers and I have a dream that, oh, wait a minute, wait a minute, Modar, you can do this. Modar says again let me read the question for the people listening to this and who can't see it I'm tracking competitors on a daily basis for changes and reviews BSR active sellers and I have a dream that one day, Helium 10 can do this for me. I'm gonna bring Josh back up to this stage. I'm gonna give him a quick quiz here. All right, Josh, you're a power of Helium 10 user. Did you or did you not know that Modar can actually do this already? Josh: You can do it using markets. Bradley Sutton: Yeah, Market Tracker is definitely one, but there's a easier way. Even Do you know about that one? But yeah, you mentioned something I didn't. I wasn't even thinking about it Like Modar, you should definitely do that. On Market Tracker, you add your competitors to your market. You can definitely see their BSR changes and things of that. Josh is thinking all right, all right, josh and Modar are gonna learn something right now. Here we go, guys. All right, let's go to the Insights Dashboard Once you're tracking your competitors, which is what I showed you, guys, how to do today. It's not just for the keywords. All right, guys, we are going to show you what is all of these things. If something changes, not only if their BSR changes, but if their monthly sales, like, drastically change, get this. If all of a sudden, they add a coupon like some of us like to check our competitors like oh man, my competitor added a 10% coupon, I better go ahead and add a 10% coupon too. We're gonna let you know. So if you are tracking competitors in your Insights Dashboard, Modar, all you have to do is set up your insight and you will know if any of those things have changed and you no longer have to track that next, right, like you're saying every day. Bradley Sutton: And then Jake here mentioned another tool. So Josh Menzin, Market Tracker. Jake mentioned Listing Analyzer. Yes, listening analyzer too. You can track that, but still you have to like click stuff right With Insights Dashboard. You just set it up. That's the beauty about Insights Dashboard. It's about automation right, instead of you having to click stuff and you do the heavy work. We live in 2023. So heavy work is considered three clicks of a mouse. That's heavy work for a lot of people. I understand. Time is money, but instead of you having to do that heavy work, we're doing that work for you. And look at this Modar says can you believe that I used to do this tracking for over 40 ASINs? This is a lifesaver. All right, I'm gonna bring back Josh for one more quiz or one more question. All right, Josh, instead of saying wow, can you believe that, I would say how cool is that? And then you would say Josh: I don't know where you went, but pretty cool, I think. Bradley Sutton: There we go. Josh got that. I know he's a podcast listener. All right, so, Modar, instead of saying wow, can you believe that? The phrase goes how cool? Is that? Pretty cool, I think. All right, cool. Any last questions for the day, guys, again, just to recap, we went over adding competitors to your Insights Dashboard and setting up the setting so that you can get insights which are coming next week on the key actions that are happening on your keywords, so that you no longer have to run Cerebro once every week or once every two weeks. You no longer have to check Cerebro on your own product to see if you're ranking for new keywords that you didn't realize. We're doing all of that work for you, unparalleled in this industry where you have that kind of automation. So really great that the team added that and I hope you guys get a lot of benefit from that and all right. Well, guys, thank you so much for joining us. Bradley Sutton: Again, if you are a Serious Sellers Club member, look out for your email. You get invited every week. Or if you're an elite member, elite members and Serious Sellers Club members get access to this. If you're wondering how you become a Serious Sellers Club member, you are automatically a Serious Sellers Club member if you have had over $500,000 worth of sales in the last year and you are on a Helium 10 account that's connected to your Amazon account. If you're not getting these emails, make sure to reach out to support and they'll hook you up with the private Facebook group that we have for it and then get you in there right away. We do this every single week, usually on Mondays, and then once a month, like this time, we do an extra one that goes out on the podcast. So thank everybody for tuning in and we will see you, Serious Sellers Club members, next week and the rest of you guys at the end of October. Have a great rest of your week. Bye-bye now.

Get ready to unlock the secrets of Amazon-selling success as we welcome back, Stephen Diaz of the Rainmaker Family. Together with his wife, they have woven a thriving community of dedicated e-commerce sellers. Today's deep-dive episode is crammed with innovative strategies, specially designed for those venturing into Amazon's realm for the first time. Prepare to learn how to rake in thousands of dollars per month by creating videos for other people's products, and finding good products to promote with the help of tools such as the Helium 10 Chrome extension Demand Analyzer. We also walk you through the Amazon influencer program and how you can be a part of it without having to be the 'face' of video content. Buckle up as we guide you through the entire process of recording, uploading, and creating eye-catching thumbnails for your videos. Be ready to learn how to craft compelling titles and get a handful of tips to produce successful video reviews. We also brainstorm creative ideas for video reviews that go beyond the confines of your home. Stephen sheds light on his experiences and the advantages of participating in high-ticket mastermind events, highlighting how investing in yourself can dramatically influence your success in the e-commerce world. In our journey through this episode, Stephen imparts priceless insights into the keys to entrepreneurial success. We touch on the importance of focus, mindset, and budgeting in e-commerce. In the end, we delve into the strategies that work best for family-oriented businesses on Amazon, like how to utilize Amazon Associates and affiliate links to connect to other products in your shop. Whether you're a novice or a seasoned seller, this episode promises you strategies and insights to skyrocket your business to new heights. Tune in, and get ready to get some creative ideas on how you can build capital for Amazon FBA selling. In episode 495 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Stephen discuss: 01:57 - The Maldives Honeymoon Strategy Helped The Rainmaker Community 03:51 - How To Build Capital For An Amazon FBA Business 07:14 - Making 6-Figures As An Amazon Affiliate 08:43 - Difference Between Amazon Associates And Affiliates 11:17  - Different Kinds Of Videos You Can Make 17:15 - Why Joining Masterminds Are Important 21:18 - Inspiring Stories From Stephen’s Community 31:18 - What Does It Take To Succeed In This Business? 36:49 - How To Get More Information Of Stephen’s Community 40:20 - Stephen’s 60-Second Tip ► 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/video Transcript Bradley Sutton: Today we've got somebody back on the show who's got one of the most successful communities out there in the Amazon world and he's going to talk about what's been working for them, including how some can make thousands of dollars a month on doing videos for other people's products. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Are you browsing a Shopify Walmart, Etsy, alibaba or Pintu? Are you browsing a Shopify Walmart, Etsy, Alibaba or Pinterest page and maybe you see a cool product that you want to get some more data on? Well, while you're on those pages, you can actually use the Helium 10 Chrome extension Demand Analyzer to get instant data about what's happening on Amazon for those keywords on these other websites. Or maybe you want to then follow up and get an actual supplier quote from a company on Alibaba.com in order to see if you can get this product produced. You can do that also with the Helium 10 Demand Analyzer. Both of these are part of the Helium 10 Chrome extension, which you can download for free at h10.me forward slash extension.   Bradley Sutton: Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I'm your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show. That's a completely BS free, unscripted and unrehearsed organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world, and we're bringing back somebody who, along with his wife, has helped more serious sellers than almost anybody else out there. Stephen, how's it going, man? Welcome back.   Stephen: What's up, Bradley man? Anytime I get to hang out with you is awesome. I know Chelsea's usually sitting right by my side, but today she's 100% mom. So she's being 100% mom, today I'm being 100% podcaster Love it. And that's how we do it.   Bradley Sutton: And in your honor, you know, I'm actually wearing the shirt that you guys gave me the Maldives shirt. I believe this came from Merch by Amazon, like what? Two, three years ago. I think, you guys, it might have been either during the pandemic or before the pandemic. That's how long.   Stephen: I've had this shirt. Well, the Maldives strategy impacted our community so much that I was like we got to give back and I didn't know Bradley's T-shirt size, so I think I sent you like six Amazon merch shirts.   Bradley Sutton: It was great. I gave one to each of my family who were all those sizes, and then I took the biggest one for myself.   Stephen: Perfect man, that's good. Well, that's that that technique is still making ripples, man Like it's. It's very cool. And title density, all that stuff we love it in Rainmaker. So yeah, I'm excited.   Bradley Sutton: Speaking of which, it is now two 10pm on Wednesday, in 28 hours I'm hopping on the plane to go to Maldives. To record episode 500. So the latest iteration of it.   Stephen: There we go. Dang man, I need to get out to the Maldives now. Like I was every time they're out there. Yeah, they got a great kids club, you know so so you know, do you go to the same place every time?   Bradley Sutton: I either go to the Waldorf Astoria or the Conrad. They're both Hillson properties, so I can use my points for it for either one, but I don't know if you're a Hilton or a Marriott person, but they got good Marriott properties out there too, okay, Anyways, let's get into some strategy. Let's just start. You know like we usually say this at the end, but we'll, we'll go and do some strategies at the end, but every time you've been on the show you've always, you know, come with some like kind of unique, uh, unique stuff. So like back in. By the way, guys, if you want to get their full backstory uh, I wrote down here or I didn't write down, I don't do much of work here. Mel, my assistant, is one who does the work here. He put in a episode of 198 guys. So episode all the way back in 198, we're about to film 500. That just shows you where, how far we've come. But 198 was their first time you can get their their backstory there. And then they came back in episode 318. So way back in episode 198, they were talking about uh doing sales on Facebook, uh market places, and then they gave some updates on that in episode uh 318 and talking about Facebook groups. And so I think the latest thing that you guys have been doing you know, especially for those who at the beginning might not be able to have enough money to to, to, to start private label, to invest, uh talk about what is one of the ways that people can can build some capital or what, what, what your community has been doing, yeah, I mean we see all different levels, you know, and and, and we really do specialize, you know, in the Rainmaker family, helping moms, and so a lot of moms like they are just like, uh, honestly, they've tried a lot of other stuff, you know, and so they're hesitant to go go big on Amazon at the first.   Stephen: So so helping them create the money to do the thing is definitely something that's in our specialty. So I would say, lately, there's a handful of strategies. Right now we definitely have a subset of our community doing the influencer strategy on Amazon. Um, and when you hear that word, I think people think, like you know, I don't know, taking pictures of your coffee at the coffee shop and like having your face all over social media, um, but the Amazon influencer program, anyone can do and you can actually do it without putting your face in the videos, which is kind of nice. And so, honestly, like, uh, this opportunity was brought to me by a guy, john, he was doing it and he kind of came to our community. I was like, hey, I'll do this for you guys. Like he was just looking for more products to review. But if any of your listeners are unfamiliar with it, basically how it works is when you go to the Amazon listing right, you see the photos. There's always like these, like videos related to the item or sometimes there. If you have a video, it'll be like the second video that plays after your video, and those are like these Amazon influencer videos and if someone watches that video and then buys the product, that influencer will get a commission on the sale, which is really crazy. So, um, you know, you've probably heard of the Amazon associate program or affiliate program where I signed up for that.   Bradley Sutton: Just, I was trying to let you just check if I can get some, um, you know, see some different data points. I was curious if, like Amazon, affiliates have different data points. So I signed up and I was just like I already shoot me or my family is going to get some of them. I might as well just make a link and and get some. You know, get some stuff. But yeah, I signed up for that one, but not the influencer. So what's the difference between the two?   Stephen: So, yeah, you have to sign up as a Amazon associate or affiliate first, and then you can apply for the influencer program. So it is an application only, uh, to get into it. But, um, uh, it's fairly easy to get in. You just need to have an audience somewhere of some sort, and then you can use TikTok, instagram, facebook. I mean, we have people even just use a Facebook page and they'll they'll run ads to the page for a little bit to just gain some audience. Uh and then they'll apply right. And so the the Amazon influencer program. Once you're in, they basically allow you to like, upload videos of of products you're reviewing, but the catch is you don't have to have bought the product on Amazon, so, like it doesn't have to be your past purchases, it can be literally any product that's on Amazon.   Bradley Sutton: So if they get approved for this, like, are they seeing something different on product pages or something that's like an extra button of of how they can upload or how they different?   Stephen: just like seller central is its own thing, the influencer or the associate program has his own dashboard you can log into. Kind of KDP, like Amazon, keeps all these things separate, you think they just link them all. Yeah, um, it's like you log into your associates dashboard. You kind of click over to the influencer page and influencers. You may see people do this on Instagram where they actually have like a storefront where it's like my favorite Amazon things and it'll be like my house hacks my favorite clothes and those are like that's one way to do it. But this kind of video side of the Amazon influencer program is really the lucrative one. And the guy I heard it from, john, he was doing six figures with this. Like that was his full time business. He did have a YouTube channel. He was reviewing tech gear and things like that, but he would just like get reached out from brands at this point. He's kind of got a name for himself and I think he was doing like over 200,000 and just Amazon money.   Bradley Sutton: Is it all on commission? Or also he'll get like a flat fee from some of the store owners to create videos.   Stephen: Sometimes they are getting like a, like a bounty, like that, but a lot of it is just commission. Yeah, he's getting commissions through affiliates so he's doing super high volume. That's like I don't know a ton of people doing those types of numbers. Yeah, but that got us interested. You know, chelsea signed up for it and she was around the house shooting stuff. So basically, what you do is just go around your house and you just review every item in your house and like it doesn't have like again, you didn't have to buy it on Amazon, it just has to be on Amazon. Yeah, so you just be like you know, uh, hey, this, I have a Apple mouse on my desk. You're like, let me tell you about this Apple mouse and you just do a review of it. But the types of reviews that work really well are just authentic reviews. If you're super polished and like, let me tell you, it looks like too professional, people don't trust it, right. So you want to just like do it like a casual, like honestly, a lot of our reviews are cell phone, they're vertical and we're shooting away from us and just like pointing and like it's like voiceover, just like like you would like your unboxing something. Yeah, show your friend and so, yeah, you just go around your house and like review everything right and you have to submit the videos. They do have to get approved by Amazon, but once they're approved, they live on that page. You know of the Amazon listing and a percentage of people will click on them, watch them and you'll get commissions and sometimes they actually go up in the carousel too.   Bradley Sutton: I think you know Norm Ferrari was showing you this.   Stephen: Videos will go up in the carousel.   Bradley Sutton: Yeah, yeah.   Stephen: Huh, it's crazy. So and then if?   Bradley Sutton: they click it in the carousel and buy it, they still get credit then. Yep, of course.   Stephen: Yeah, you get a commission. Yeah, yeah, all right, I'm a how I do that.   Bradley Sutton: I'm going to have to look into that. I always like it's fun, man, it's fun.   Stephen: It's fun thinking about like, okay, what's the most expensive thing in my house, because again, you're making such a small percentage, right? Yeah, you either want super high volume or you want expensive and helium 10 super helpful because you can go. Okay, how much volume is this product doing? Right, so if you have, like I remember we were reviewing stash your bags. They're like those ziploc bag alternatives, like they're like made of silicone oh, reusable ziploc bags basically. But there's like a thousand stash your bag listings, right, because it's like a wholesale product that'll up your wholesale. So I use helium 10 to figure out which one has the most sales because, like you can't tell which blue stash your bag I bought it could be on any of these listings, right? Yeah, I use helium 10 to figure out which listing has the highest volume, right, but also has the least amount of influencers hopping on there and making videos. So that increases the chances and that that one video would make it's like 10 to $15 a day. You know it's not like crazy, but imagine you have a hundred videos, a thousand videos, you know, that are that are doing those types of numbers Like it's. It's incredible.   Bradley Sutton: So, yeah, and so you record it with your phone and then what you? You upload it with the or you send it to your computer and then you upload it in that.   Stephen: Yeah you can upload it. Yeah, I always send to my computer, upload it. You can do a thumbnail. So if you're, you know you know anything about internet, you know you gotta have a catchy thumbnail sometimes. But I was super lazy about it because Chelsea would reshoot them and I would upload them. So I'd do the catchy title and the thumbnail. Oh, that was my specialty. So the key thing with the titles, you don't really want to tell people if you like the product or not. You want to be like five things. I wish I knew before I bought this. Right, there's like no idea.   Bradley Sutton: You have no idea if, like, do you have any that that you could like tell me you'll look at right now, and then I could like show people how it looks, or just an example of one.   Stephen: I'll shout out a friend's brand, kingsloo. Yeah, he sells a slim fit wallet and we did a video on that one and yeah, it's just a super simple video.   Bradley Sutton: $109 for a wallet.   Stephen: Good grief, I know Gucci. Yeah, he sells mostly off Amazon. He's more of a DTC but we've helped him get on Amazon and oh five videos here. I bet a bunch of our Rainmakers have done it now, and then I think you click on that like five videos underneath there and you should see like Heather's on there and Chelsea's on there. Yeah, there you go.   Bradley Sutton: Wait, well, that's, that's their video. Yeah.   Stephen: So click on, here we go, honest, awesome.   Bradley Sutton: So so when you said the, the, the thumbnail like this is the thumbnail that they chose. They just chose a random part of it. Oh, I did that. So like oh, you did this.   Stephen: Honestly like I was super lazy. So I would just screenshot and make an arrow, like I put an arrow and like it kind of like makes you think I'm talking about some specific thing, but it's just a catchy way to kind of. And then you just make it vertical, just like this. Wait, here's I didn't know it wasn't.   Bradley Sutton: Oh yeah, hear your voice in this thing. There, there we go. Okay, wow, I think. Yeah, this is one of those. I was one of the good ones.   Stephen: Heather did this one.   Bradley Sutton: She's in our community.   Stephen: She's really helped us pioneer this kind of influencer thing. She created a mini course on it. Yeah, super casual, right, like it's not like really polished. Of course, if you're doing like a DSLR camera or like the new iPhone, people want like the Marcus Brown. You know they want the Polish video, right, but we're just all the stuff around your house you can just pick, hey, you know, you can just go and get a bunch of stuff, all the stuff around your house, you can just pick. Hey, this is my honest opinion on this thing.   Bradley Sutton: And you just don't know what account could be multiple people Like. Could I have my kids do videos on my account and stuff too?   Stephen: Yeah, I'm just not like the kids, so like if you're going to have a kid, you got to have you in it as well.   Bradley Sutton: like a minor or they have to be 18. My kids are over 18.   Stephen: So yeah okay, then they could do it. Yeah, I mean one of the best side hustles, I feel like for a college kid like so so easy to do. You just need a cell phone, you just need time Maybe. I mean, we would batch like four or five videos a day and Chelsea would do some, I would do some, and we named our account like like family. So it was kind of like both of us, um and man, you can stack. I mean we, we did. Well, our goal was like to do 30, 30 videos. You know, just to get it started, I would say if someone's listening to this, they want to do this. I would commit to doing like 30 or a hundred videos to really see the effect of it. And then you can chill out and kind of just let that passive income come in and then just grow it as you want. And uh, I mentioned this before the call. But eventually you will run out of stuff to review right In your house and that's a good problem to have. Yeah, then you can start going to friends houses. You can start. You know, I mean you could even book an Airbnb and review everything in that house. I mean I've even this is really funny, but like I even reviewed something at a park one time, like that's someone else had like a stroller Cause like strollers are expensive and so like I just took a video of a stroller from far away. If someone else is trying, I wasn't showing their kids or anything like that, but I was like zooming in on my phone and I did a voiceover over it later, just talking through some of the benefits and things I was just reading on the listing, you know. So again it can get really creative with it. Um, of course we're not trying to manipulate sales or anything like that. Uh, like not trying to say something, that's not true. But I always go to the listing and I look at the reviews. Use helium 10 and you can analyze all the reviews and figure out what are the big questions people have. What are making what's, what are they loving about the product, what are they wanting to buy or what is what's drawing them to buying this product, that type of thing, and you can hit some of those things. Um, you can even throw all that into chat GPT and be like hey, write me a 30 second video review script and just literally read it.   Bradley Sutton: I'm going to. I'm going to try this, but but not not to throw water on the fire here. But this is something that later on, I predict Amazon is going to change, because, just knowing the way Amazon operates because, yeah, somebody's going to do a lawsuit or something, because theoretically, nobody's going to do a video, that's going to talk bad about it because that.   Stephen: You know, like the whole purpose.   Bradley Sutton: You know, if you're an Amazon influence, you're trying to make money. You know, unless Amazon puts something in there where if you do a negative video but that's still real that somehow you still get some kickbacks, somebody's, somebody somewhere is going to do some kind of lawsuit just because this is such a country.   Stephen: I do in a million videos or something like that.   Bradley Sutton: Yeah, but either way, guys, that's why you got to get on this now. Yeah, what they are doing, which is nice, now you can include two products in the video.   Stephen: I wouldn't recommend it when your first game started, but you can do comparison videos, which I do like where you're like. Hey, are you thinking about buying this?   Bradley Sutton: or this.   Stephen: That's good. Let me tell you about the pros and cons.   Bradley Sutton: And in the video. Does the video show up on both listing? It shows up on both, yeah.   Stephen: You can tag two products in the video. But if you do it right at the beginning, amazon typically won't approve it and they are getting stricter on who gets approved into the program and you have to submit three videos when you first start and they approve or deny those and so if they deny them you can try again, like I think it's three times. If you deny it three times, then it's kind of like you got to try open up a new account or something.   Bradley Sutton: Basically, yeah, Now, are you also? Is this the only thing you're doing under your influencers account? Or are you also maintaining, like a YouTube or Instagram where you're sending deals to? We actually are doing that.   Stephen: You know, like we've had an Amazon Associated Account for I mean since probably 20, probably before I was even an Amazon seller. So we, you know I'm always recommending stuff, even when we are back when we were wedding photographers. People are always like what camera are you using? So we have an Associated Account. And then Chelsea has, she uses the influencer page for her Instagram. So she has like her favorite things on there. You know, here's the kids toys we love, and you know that type of thing. So you definitely like Amazon wants you to be legit, like they don't want you just like do it just for the influence of videos. So and that's a better long-term strategy to is like, have a YouTube channel, have a Instagram, make a tick tock that's like you know Favorite mom finds or something like that and just like, post your videos cross, post them when you're I mean you already recorded, I'm right, yeah, post them on Facebook, post them on tick tock as well, and that's gonna not only drive more traffic to Amazon but it's gonna make you look more legit, you know. So, yeah, you could really make this a business model again. Amazon could change things. Sure, it is a new wear program, but you could definitely ride this thing for the next year or two, I bet, and it makes some good cash from it.   Bradley Sutton: Nice, all right, let's switch gears a little bit, come something completely different. Um sure, I noticed that sometimes you go to like these, you know, like masterminds for, like entrepreneurs, and, and you know you met like Saddam and and come off from a yeah, that's right, he went up there and stuff yeah and and I, I I haven't been to one, but but a lot of these you know, if I'm not mistaken, you know Some of them cost thousands, some of them tens of thousands of dollars to go to. And then so somebody you know, like me, on the outside Looking in might be like, you know, like hey, we all know about, hey, invest in yourself and this and that, but what is it about events that that has people coming out of these things and say you know what? It was worth $1000, like, like. Are you really getting that kind of value out of like these, these, these mastermind kind of events that you go to?   Stephen: Yeah, I mean, I'll use that example. You know, amz, one step. I met those guys through mastermind and I mean for us, like I would say, you want to get in a mastermind of people? Like there's different masterminds for different reasons, right? So oftentimes that mastermind was going to was probably less for the Amazon business and more for the coaching business, right? Yeah, so we teach people how to do Amazon and so meeting people at those masterminds, like those guys, that was awesome, because I was like, hey, we got a big launch coming up like what do you want to throw in, you know? And so they threw in like an awesome bonus for our people that, like people can only get through our work, like for being in Our world, and if that helps.   Bradley Sutton: I use them, by the way, too, for a lot of my photography, and oh man.   Stephen: Yeah, so like if that helps a handful more people come in our program, like that, that so the networking itself.   Bradley Sutton: Like like that you know they weren't the organizers of the event. But the people you meet can give you invaluable thing.   Stephen: Okay, yeah yeah, like we met another guy who does like LLC creation and all like the legal entity stuff which, like our people need all the time, you know. So not one relationship basically paid for the match.   Bradley Sutton: And that's a good point, because now it's like you know, it's not like you couldn't Google to find companies that do this kind of stuff, but but you know, you don't know if how legit they are, but you know somebody who is Gonna invest in themselves and pay a huge money to actually be at that place. It's almost like pre vetting them. Yeah, yeah, a little bit in itself.   Stephen: I'm gonna do a lot of conferences, right, and like conferences you get a lot of gold out of, but it's like usually a lot of time frame, right, like are there three, four days, and then there might be like one or two. Like man, that nugget Added six figures, added a million dollars on the business, like that. One thing I found in these higher ticket masterminds like we're in, we're in a 50k mastermind or 60k mastermind, like it's just like it's so much more compressed because of who's in the room and like who's paying to be in the room, that like you're in the lunch line, you know, like to get your like potato salad and someone drops an idea on you. That's like, oh my god, that's like that was a million dollar idea, you know. So, and I think it's the connections of like everyone who's paying there like to be in the room. They have a lot of awesome connections to you know. So that network effect. I think like, yeah, like sometimes masterminds are more teaching and training and like you know, but, but the best ones I've been in are more relational and it's just like how can we build partnerships? How can we leverage each other's resources? How can we work together? How to serve our people at a higher level. So that's where I found the value. And just there's something about getting in person with people. You know you do it all the time, you know. It's just like it's different than zoom, right yeah.   Bradley Sutton: Yeah for sure, all right guys. So that's something you know. Regardless of what field you're in, you know there's always different masterminds that that can help you, you know, grow as a person, as a you know there's inspirational stuff and or or as a business, if you're entrepreneur, I mean even a helium tent as a mastermind. So so you know the helium 10 elite program. You know people can meet. You know can meet other high-level sellers. So if you think that some of you guys want to look into, look at h10.me forward slash elite. But on the other hand, I think there's a couple masterminds like non-amazon masterminds I was thinking of mainly for me might want to. You know, look into, maybe I can see if helium 10 can help me out with the With the bill because some of these are pretty expensive, but that's interesting. Always bet on yourself, always improve yourself and sometimes it takes takes money to do that. Going back to the your community now, any cool stories. You know, every year there's always cool stories coming out your community. I remember the one Person who I was doing some demo a couple years ago about it's right football product or something, and then I was just like making a joke, like man, if I this would probably be totally something that I would, I would sell and then she ended up selling it made you know thousands of dollars on it. But any other cool like rags to riches stories or just just something inspiring that you could share with audience man it's.   Stephen: I love our community because we've really like Encourages, community of celebration. I think like it's really easy and like even the Amazon space or really any entrepreneur space, to get in a Competitive mode where it's like, oh, other people winning means like I'm not right and kind of like you think about yourself and you. You either try to like one up somebody you know or you try to like kind of Downgrade their success or like I don't know makes it. People can like oftentimes in the early days of their entrepreneurship journey, go to kind of like almost like I'm not enough, thinking Like I was, like oh, like dang, like it's like you can get in just lack mindset. So we've really tried to overcome that because really when we're helping people in our program, we're helping bring them out of poverty mindset right Into abundant thinking, and not just financially but in all the areas. So when they do have the money, when they are making the money, they don't just let those old mindsets hold them back still, you know. And so we found the way you celebrate other people really shows a lot about that mindset you developed. And so we just like kind of our community is just a thing, like when someone is winning big or small, they post it in the group and like everyone just goes crazy over it. You know, and it's just a really cool like contagious momentum and we had one the other day that I just I loved because she said, like she was posting, I think she had done like her first like $3,000 day on Amazon. She had, you know, was doing about $10,000 weeks at that point in her business. But she said, like you know, when she started the program she was in product research for like so long. You know, like you kind of get stuck in that analysis, paralysis, and she was just getting discouraged and she said she'd always come to the group and just look at the wins every night and she would just like when she was feeling discouraged she'd go look at everyone else's wins and she just be like this is gonna be me, this is gonna be me, this is gonna be me. So it's so cool to see her, like it was probably a year after she started posting the screenshot and being like now I get to be the person you know that like encourages you and like if you're in the dumps, right now and you're feeling discouraged, like here.   Bradley Sutton: It is, you know, and like, which I think is the reason why, yeah, you should be part of a community. You know, sometimes like if that person was trying on their own, I would say odds are they might have just given up because they weren't getting that inspiration. You know from other people. You know nine out of 10 times that person who's stuck in the analysis paralysis they just go ahead and give up. You know perhaps, but being part of a community you could see, you know other people succeed and it inspires you to move on. So I think that's important.   Stephen: Yeah, it's incredible man and I. That's what gets me fired up. I mean, yes, it's cool when we have a student make $40,000 in a day on it. Like we've had these crazy like people like crush huge numbers. Again, it's not the normal, sure. But what gets me more excited is the people that, like you know, we got flowers in the mail from someone who said, like I was depressed, I was suicidal, like I was, I had no hope in life, and then I found this, you know, and this community, plus the training, plus the mindset, like it gave me hope again. Like that, yeah, that's like beyond the money. So we kind of sometimes joke, we're kind of like you know, amazon's kind of the front, you know it's like, yes, we're teaching Amazon, but like entrepreneurship in general, I think is one of the biggest transformational, like vehicles that you can ever like go on. It's like it's like a roller coaster ride that like changes your life right, yeah, and I love it for that. That it's like who it makes you in the process. It's so powerful. So we love celebrating those. We call those the bubble over benefits. Like it's cool when people hit the numbers and make the money, but the bubble over benefits of like I retired my husband or you know, I was able to quit this job. That was soul sucking. Or I got hope again Like that is so crazy, so Right.   Bradley Sutton: Now you know we can talk Amazon strategy all day long and stuff. But you know somebody like you who's dealt with so many sellers. You know and you help people, not just on the Amazon strategy but like you know mindset and you already handle a lot of that with a community and helping people. When we talked about the benefits of community, but what? are some other things that you see is is like the difference between those who succeed, and again, success doesn't mean a certain revenue figure. You know success is very subjective, but from those who succeed to those who you know end up, you know failing and giving up, because all the people in your community. They're given the same resources. You know they all have helium 10, you know they all, they all have you guys, they all have the same. You know training and stuff, but you know not. The fact of the matter is no program or no, anybody has a hundred percent success rate. So what are some of the things that that success or that not success? What are some of the things that differentiate the successes from the failures?   Stephen: Totally. Yeah, we try to reverse engineer this because we basically have this thing called the 10K payday guarantee, and so to claim the 10K payday guarantee, which basically the short statement is, if you don't make $10,000, we'll pay you $10,000. But there's a ton of terms and conditions. So it's an action-based guarantee and we basically took our most successful students and we reverse engineer what they did and we put it in the guarantee. So, if you want to qualify for the guarantee, do this, this, this, this, and it's just like a checklist of all the stuff you got to do. And so I'd say the biggest thing is focus. Focus is a big one, especially for mom, especially for parents. Like you only have so many, so much time, right, and so we call this nutrients. Like you only have so much nutrients to put into your garden. If you're trying to do Amazon, you're also trying to day trade. You're also trying to, like, do this other Airbnb side, hustle over here. You're putting in just a tiny bit of nutrients. You're gonna grow like a lot of tiny pumpkins, right. But if you cut off a lot of pumpkins and you put all the nutrients into one, you're gonna grow like the award-winning pumpkin, right? There's a book called, I think, the Pumpkin, the Pumpkin I don't know something about pumpkins, where that came from and it's written by the guy who wrote profit first. But he talks about just like you just focus, right, and so that's a big one. We see, just I mean, they're like you know, bradley, like there's a thousand ways to make money on the internet, right, and so we really train people on like put blinders on for like nine months, like a year, like just give this thing your all for that amount of time. And whatever Facebook ad you see, don't click it. You know, just like do this thing. So I think that's a big one. We see people try to do too much and then they just go slower because of that or they get derailed into something else. The second thing I'd see we see a lot is really and we had a PhD neuropsychologist come into our group and really start training on this because she was talking about she works with like six and seven figure entrepreneurs on mindset and just the science behind like training your mind to go beyond where you're comfortable. And you know our body I'm gonna like not say this as sciencey as she would, but like you know, our body is like running a thousand automations at once, like I'm moving my hands, I'm breathing, I'm talking, I'm looking at you, I'm blinking. Like our body is designed, our brain is designed to automate those things because, like, if we had to think about all that, it would like destroy us, right? And so anytime you're doing something, really frequently your brain goes into really an automation and it's to keep you, come to us, keep you safe, just keep you. You know all these things. So when we stretch people into entrepreneurship or like hey, go spend $5,000 on inventory, right, like it's something that is like way beyond their current thinking sometimes. And so the brain will go whoa, chill, stop, slow down. Like hold on, I'm stuck. Like I'm stuck, I'm overwhelmed. These are actually, like we reframe them, as green flags that you're actually on the right track, cause we see people posting the group. I'm overwhelmed, I'm stuck. Right, we're like, oh, this is awesome. This means that we're stretching you this way, right, cause your brain is trying to keep you here, but that same thinking will keep you there. If you want to go here and have this amazing business, you gotta stretch and take this step here, you know. So we've kind of helped reframe the mindset thing. So when people are getting stuck. They know that it's a green flag and then they also know to reach out, cause we have a lot of different ways to support people. So that's the thing we see is people get stuck and then they don't reach out. They ghost us, you know, like we can't show up at their house and do that type of thing, yeah, and then I would say, so I said, focus getting stuck and not reaching out. And then I would say, like I would say PBC definitely has gotten way harder in this last season. And so I think, not having not going after, like I would say, either going after two low search volume products because they are on a kind of tight budget so they're going to have to really low search volume products, or going for, like way too high search volume products and not anticipating how much budget it takes to really rank and maintain rank on those search terms, you know. So it's like finding that middle ground, and so we've started to more train on that like kind of even budget training, of like hey, if you have this much devoted for your business, like spend this much on inventory, right, and leave this much for buffer room and leave this much for something you don't even know about yet, you know, because what we find is sometimes people stretch their budget on the first product so far, like you got 10,000, they spend all of it on inventory and then they have no buffer room to like keep it going, and then they got it, and then, if it is going, they got a reorder and then they're stuck right. So, training on that buffer. So just for people listening, if you're like I'm doing Amazon, I got this type of budget going in. I think, padding that budget right After you're not going all in on your inventory, you have budget room. I mean, you did this with that project. You launched a ton of products for like was it $5,000?   Bradley Sutton: Yeah, so I don't know. 12 products for 5,000 project 5K. Do you have any?   Stephen: budgeting rules. I'm just curious, selfishly, because we've been kind of developing it, but like even for that, did you have any budgeting rules, like how much of that budget you'd spend on one product?   Bradley Sutton: No, like I just wanted to see how many. My budget was 5K total, like including, you know, launching and stuff. I was like, all right, what in the world can I do with? This was my challenge. And then I was like all right, a lot of them were like straws and then I launched a brand around that like stuff that had to even do with like straws and parties and stuff.   Stephen: Is there just low cost to?   Bradley Sutton: make. Was that what it was? Yeah, just low cost to make. It kind of sucks that now that there's no Amazon, small and light. So actually I started losing some money on those products in the last few weeks that Amazon took away that program, but I mean, my goodness, like I discontinued some of them. They weren't all home runs, you can't be 12 out of 12. But still, like there are some products. I think I started that thing like four, three, four, five years, no, four years ago, and I'm still selling, you know, some. Like you know, I'm even bringing back one I'm going to do a little case study on it that it was really popular around Christmas time and I haven't sold it in, like you know, two years and so it's been dead. And I just ordered, you know, some new ones to see if I can get some traction. But yeah, the budget is. It was definitely critical. But you know, I tell people like, just because, like you can do it, this is not advisable because you know nobody can make a living off of products that are retailing for like $7, $8, which is what you have to do when you're trying to get products that your cost is less than a dollar, which it was for unit, yeah, so, yeah, yeah.   Stephen: So we're encouraging people, like we kind of we kind of ask them what their budget is and then we kind of encourage them to stretch it a little bit and whether you're leveraging financing or, honestly, like we've seen a handful of people do partnerships, where you just are getting an inventory investor and that sounds fancy, but I mean that means like a friend or a family member who has heard about Amazon but doesn't really want to do the work, and so we found a lot of people doing that and, honestly, I would, I would. One of the easiest things to do is go to go to someone who has an audience too, like, if you can go to someone like you know, you're listening to the show, you have that one friend who has like an Instagram following. Go to her and go hey, I'm learning about e-commerce, I'm launching this product. Would you ever have interest in launching a product for your audience, you know, and then like, develop it with them, and then, basically, you do all the work, you do all the sourcing and then you get a percentage of the sales you know and that that's a no risk way to get into it. Or someone else is fronting the money for the inventory. They already have the audience, not only the Amazon data of the traffic there, but they already are going to promote it and that audience loves them. Buy anything they shall, you know, talk about. So that's another way we've seen people do it, where they are basically making it rain for someone else and then they're making a percentage of that and that's making their own pot and now they have their own money. Actually, that that that wallet brand Kingsloo, one of our Rainmakers, went through our challenge and she got hired by that company, oh wow, and she built their Amazon brand. I mean, they were, they were doing about eight figures like 10 to 12 million on just Shopify with that product. You know, just Facebook had to Shopify and they weren't even on Amazon. But when we looked at the helium 10 data, it was like people searching their brand on Amazon right, yeah, you'll see the Facebook guy and come over, and so she built it out and like, built a I mean they did a million dollars on just like the Amazon channel. And then we recently worked with them because I'm a good good friends with Josh and we re-did his listing cause he was just ranked on his brand keywords, like you know, but he wasn't on slim wallet for men or any of these like big keywords, and so we reworked it. Maldives launched it again and it like basically I don't know exactly but it it almost doubled or tripled his Amazon sales Like he was doing. He was doing. I remember him saying me screenshots of like right after the launch and it was like he's doing. He was doing I think 8,000 or something like that a day and he went up to like 25,000, 30,000. And this was like Q4 last year. So I don't know what his numbers are now, but it's crazy Like there's so many Shopify owners should just like they're cranking on Shopify but they have no idea about Amazon or they have false beliefs about Amazon. That's a whole nother market. If you're trying to get into Amazon, be an Amazon account manager for people on Shopify. When you have those Shopify ads for, like those DTC products, go look on Amazon. If they're not on Amazon or they're on Amazon and their listing is terrible, like there's an opportunity there and it's hard to like work that type of deal sometimes, but if you can like, that's incredible.   Bradley Sutton: Yeah, yeah. So your program, you know, before we get to the last couple of strategies you might have, I was just looking at your website. It says you've had over 12,000 moms go through the program there. So if somebody is interested in it, is that like a prerequisite? They need to be a stay at home or working mom or what kind of a requirements do they have?   Stephen: You know you just need to be motherly. No, that can be anybody. When we started, like you know, this is definitely a strategy for Amazon too. Like you want to have a niche, you know you want to, like, really focus on one person. So we, when we looked at our top case studies with our training, it was moms, and so we really made the program for moms when we first started. And when we first started was a lot of stay at home moms. Now it's a lot of working moms, a lot of corporate moms and it's a lot of non moms as well. So really we're just family first and so we're not going to tell you to just hustle your life away or going to tell you like, hey, build this business, but do in a way that protects your family, protects your marriage and all those things. So if you have a family mindset, you can definitely check us out. Yeah, and how can they do that? I'd say go to the. Go to rainmakerfamily.com. Rainmakerfamilycom that's like our, our branded website. You can find our social media there. We have a challenge, seven day challenge. You can get to there. That's what I was talking about. Like we've had people go through that and even just that launch, launch products, and you'll see, you'll see Bradley in there on a bonus day.   Bradley Sutton: If you make it like this is one of the few. Actually no, this is the only community that almost every other week I do a, I do a call with them because you know your community is one of the best out there and so I wanted to make sure that you know I give back because you guys are doing some great stuff and really great community. Like I was just set the Amazon. Accelerate in Seattle and met some Rainmakers that came up took some pictures so that was. that was cool too, so all right so yeah, rainmakerfamily.com. Guys, if you want to, you know, check out the program Now. What's a couple of you know could be Amazon, anything else, e-commerce or some strategies you can leave us with today.   Stephen: Man, I feel like I'm trying to remember the ones I said last time, you know. So, like, I think the one we've been geeking out on again we're still testing this but really is, how can we increase the average cart value on Amazon? Right On Shopify? Like you can have upsells, downsells, cross-sells, like you, you know you can have that funnel, but on Amazon it's just harder to do that. And I feel like I saw Amazon testing this for a season, like they had like a way you could like, oh, add this other thing on there, but I haven't seen it recently. And so what we've been doing is using inserts, basically upsell because, like again, not everyone's going to take an upsell on that, but if you make it really attractive and in alignment with your product, a percentage of people will click through on that thing and a percentage of those people will buy. And so the best way to do this with Amazon, honestly, is like doing a high ticket upsell of some sort. So imagine you're selling, like I don't know, a dog whistle for training, right? Like having an insert that says, like you know, get our free guide on blah, blah, blah, and that free guide leads to a dog training course that's $297. So, like I love pairing information products with physical products because you've already kind of like, spent money to acquire that customer, so to say, right, you pay the PVC, you got them, you know you, you sold them a $15 whistle. If you could Not even make money there, but then a percentage of people buy the $297 course right on the back end, then it increases your margins like crazy and you can spend more than anyone else on that product because you don't need to make money on the product. Actually, you know money in the back end from a percentage of the people that come through. So the tricky part is figuring out, like what's really in alignment with that product, that's that solves problems that that person is buying the product for, right. So yeah, every product Usually solves some sort of problem, right? It's like I, my kid is biting the rail on the crib. We, I, so like he, buy the crib rail bumper, right, like that was one of our, am our Rainmaker products. So like, what other problems does that parent? Half right as it with a two-year-old? So you just start thinking like how could I serve that person at the highest level? How could I? How could I give more value than anyone else in this industry? Right, and yet you could do other physical products, but those take time and and the best thing I would honestly do is give them something for free that you're gonna get, sir, contact information, and then you can ask more question about it, and then you can develop something for them that serves them at a high level, or you can develop future products for them, you know. So I know a lot of people take people from an insert to like a free download or something like that. But I'm kind of thinking through, like, how can we take them to Something that is actually an offer? Right, it's like it may be a free thing at first, it has to be catch it, don't? You can't just say, like, buy my thousand dollar course yeah, no, I mean her and have people click it. Like it has to be like something that truly is like oh wow, I'm gonna scan this QR code or click this link or whatever. And so, yeah, we, we another thing, our Rainmakers doing just like if you know, we're talking about Amazon Associates, as they will link to their other Products in their shop using affiliate links on the insert. So like, and they will even do this for other people's products in our community. So this is really cool. Like, oh, Rainmakers, if, like, they have a baby product, they'll go post in our group who else has baby products? And they'll find like three or four other products and they'll say basically, like, check out, check out our you know, check out our friends, and it's like three other products, but they're using affiliate links. So even if you're just making a couple dollars on that, it's increasing. I mean, you might spend a couple dollars to get the customer on PPC. So it's just this idea of like how could we steward those sales more? Um, Alex Hermosi said like if you could get one more sale ever and it had to lead to like every other sale in your business, like how would you change the customer experience you know, and like what, what does that delivery look like? Right, if you start thinking that way, like how could this one sale lead to every sale, it starts making you think a little differently of like how can you Serve someone out of Super High Level and invite them into kind of a deeper relationship with your business?   Bradley Sutton: Yeah, you know so yeah, interesting, all right, well, that's, that's a. That's a good one. I'm I know my memories bad, but I'm almost 99% sure we did not talk about that before, so that's new stuff, all right, well, steven, thank you so much for joining us again. Again, congratulations on all the success and and look forward to you know, always, you know being around there for your, your community, more and and hopefully we get to a link up. It's been a while since we've seen each other in person, so hopefully we get to link up at one of these events coming up. You know you need to make your own like, like big, like kind of like get away or event.   Stephen: We're gonna go to Cancun. You want to come? I'm down, I'm down. Yeah, I'll send you down. I'll send you to work.   Bradley Sutton: Put me to work, I'll, I'll serve, I'll serve, I'll serve the meals there. I'll do whatever you want, I just want to hang out with your communities.   Stephen: I love that. Thanks, thanks a lot.   Bradley Sutton: Please get give my regards to the family, and we'll be seeing you soon, all right.

On this episode, we're excited to have Liran Hirschkorn from Incrementum Digital sharing his expertise on Amazon advertising. He helps us unpack the complex Amazon Marketing Cloud and how it anonymizes data for privacy reasons while still offering a comprehensive understanding of the customer's journey to conversion. We further examine how the platform aids brands in measuring incrementality, particularly those utilizing Amazon DSP ads. Don't miss out as we delve into the Amazon PPC techniques for reaching new customers through upper funnel-type marketing and showing ads to lifestyle markets and demographics. We continue the conversation by discussing strategies to optimize Amazon ads campaigns. This includes the merits of creating separate campaigns for each target and employing auto campaigns for discovery. We also weigh the pros and cons of negating keywords in both auto and manual campaigns. Pay attention as we explain the potential benefits of lowering bids to secure better placements and possibly more conversions.  As we wrap up the episode, we shift our focus to optimizing sales and advertising on Amazon. Here, we discuss tactics such as increasing prices to slow sales and avoid running out of stock to boost keyword ranks. We look into managing auto campaigns differently and using modifiers to safeguard against broad and exact match keywords. Listen in as we discuss the importance of making incremental changes and evaluating clicks and actual spend data, instead of just impressions, when optimizing campaigns. Liran also offers valuable insights into sponsored display campaigns and other strategies to ensure high conversion rates for keyword ranking. Don't miss this vital conversation and Q&A on Amazon PPC and Marketing Cloud! In episode 494 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Liran discuss: 00:50 - Catch Liran At The Helium 10 Elite Workshop In New York 01:49 - What Is The Amazon Marketing Cloud? 09:08 - An Advice If You’re Using Amazon DSP 11:29 - Auto Campaign Optimization 12:12 - ACoS Targets And Examples 15:03 - Optimizing For Target ACoS 23:53 - Keywords and Budget Per Campaign  25:22 - PPC Strategy When Running Out Of Stock 26:35 - Using Modifiers For Amazon PPC 27:23 - Best Time To Start Optimizing Campaigns 33:41 - Amazon Launch PPC Strategy 36:28 - More Effective PPC Strategies From Liran 41:43 - How To Reach Liran Hirschkorn And Incrementum Digital ► 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 is TACoS Tuesday, so we're bringing on another advertising expert to answer all of your Amazon PPC questions, including the latest on product launches and more. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Want to keep up to date with trending topics in the e-commerce world? Make sure to subscribe to our blog. We regularly release articles that talk about things such as shipping and logistics, e-commerce and other countries, the latest changes to Amazon Seller Central, how to get set up on new platforms like New Egg, how to write and publish a book on Amazon KDP and much, much more. Check these articles out at h10.me forward slash blog. Bradley Sutton: Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the series sellers podcast by Helium 10. I'm your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show that is our monthly TACoS Tuesday program, where we bring a special guest every single month and we talk about anything and everything Amazon and Walmart PPC related. And so you guys hopefully you've been getting some of your questions ready. I've been getting some questions ready that I'm going to be giving to our guest, and let's get them all answered. So, without any further ado, let's go ahead and bring on our guest, loran Hirschkorn from Incrementum Digital. Liran in the house. How's it going, man? Liran: It's going great. Thanks so much for having me on. I'm excited to be here Awesome. Bradley Sutton: Awesome, now you're still in New York. Is that where you're based on? I'm in New York, yes, okay, I was just there a few weeks ago, took the family out there, be going one or two times again in October, and one of the times is I'm going to be seeing you. You're going to be our guest speaker at our Helium 10 Elite workshop. Do you know yet what you're going to be talking about there? Can we give anybody a sneak peek? Liran: all Possibly Amazon Marketing Cloud is what's been on my mind, but we'll see, I guess, if that stays the topic or maybe we want to get some feedback from the audience. There's a lot of very interesting things happening with the Amazon Marketing Cloud. We could talk a little bit about that here as well, let's just start with that real quick. Bradley Sutton: I think there's a lot of people in our audience who don't even know what Amazon Marketing Cloud is. Can you explain that a little bit? Liran: Yes, so the Amazon Marketing Cloud is essentially what's called a clean data room. Essentially, it's just a think about it as a place that hosts a lot of data and through AWS, and what it allows brands to accomplish now that you couldn't do before is understand the. I would say two main things One, understand the full customer path to conversion and to create audiences that you couldn't before. Let's tackle each one of those. When we say understand the full customer path to conversion, today we think we understand how a customer buys your product, but you don't really understand it Meaning if a customer searches your brand, clicks on a sponsored brand ad, then comes back, clicks on a sponsored product ad and they buy, the only thing, the only area where you're going to see the attribution of the sale is to sponsored product, because that was the last click and advertising works on the last click attribution. What the Amazon Marketing Cloud does is it stores all that information and it anonymizes the data for privacy reasons. So you don't have the specific customer information, but what the Amazon Marketing Cloud will show you is that you had this month, for this particular product, you had 100 customers that their path to conversion was branded search click sponsored product ad click sponsored display buy or see a DSP ad awareness ad search to brand name click sponsored product purchase. Because of this, what's happened historically is especially for those people that have done DSP in trying to understand whether or not DSP has incremental benefit on the sales Incremental. I see what you did there. Yeah, somebody told me that it was a very smart name to create a few years ago because really that is kind of what's being measured here. Incrementality is being measured with the Amazon Marketing Cloud because in the past if you did a DSP ad and you would be hard to understand if you actually drove more sales as a result of DSP, this will help that a little bit because it will show you how many customers you had this month that purchased when they just saw both, let's say, dsp and sponsored products together and how many customers you had that only saw sponsored products, for example. So you'll get a better understanding. Liran: Even though the way attribution works is it only goes to the last click, I always thought Amazon should have an assist kind of metric where if you had an ad that assisted as part of the process, it should kind of get something. But that's just not how ads work and Amazon Marketing Cloud aims to solve that. And the more you do DSP, especially with upper funnel type marketing, the less you see the attribution there. So when I say upper funnel type marketing, that means upper funnel means not somebody that is immediately looking to buy. So bottom funnel. We have people that are searching for a keyword. They're ready to buy. People that you are retargeting, who have visited your listing they're at the bottom, they're ready to buy. As we move up the funnel you have people that have viewed competitors but not your product. And then you have what's called awareness. We can, as brands grow and they want to scale and they've already sort of maxed out based on, like, the amount of sales they can have, just based on people who are searching for a keyword. They want to look towards brand awareness. Liran: But now you're running ads to audiences on Amazon or lifestyle. You have different markets and demographics that you can show ads to. What happens is when you run an awareness ad, that person is not going to immediately see that ad and go by. They might need to see your ad over three, four months and then, when they are actually in the market for that product, they now remember your name and when they go search on Amazon, they see that sponsored product ad. They're going to click on it and buy it because they recognize the brand name and they've seen the ad before. The problem is that again, it'll usually end up being something else sponsored products or retargeting that is the last view they have. Or click before the sale. And you have been running these awareness ads but you don't know if they're being impactful. Well, now, with Amazon Marketing Cloud, you'll see that that person actually started out with the Amazon Marketing Cloud. Liran: And I would urge people if you're running DSP, have whoever's running DSP free, whether that's Amazon, whether that's an agency ask them to create an AMC instance for you. And the reason is because, whether or not you're going to use AMC now or not, once you create that instance, you can go back a year. You have a year's worth of data since you started creating it. So that means if in six months from now or nine months from now, you want to go back and you want to see the path to conversion, et cetera, you will have already created that instance. And then the other area where AMC is very helpful is you can now create audiences that you cannot create before because you are tracking this data. So in DSP, historically before we couldn't target people who we couldn't differentiate between people who have visited your listing or added your product to cart. Now you'll be able to retarget people who have added your product to cart. You'll be able to retarget people who have added your product to wishlist, who have searched your brand name. So lots of different audiences. Liran: There's something with AMC that is called Paid Insights, where you actually pay Amazon for additional information. With that you can see on average how many buys it takes somebody to become a subscribe and save customer. So you can learn that on average it's three purchases before somebody signs up. Because typically on our first purchase we don't typically sign up for subscribe and save unless we know we like the product. And sometimes it could take your second or third purchase where, like, why am I not just saving and just adding this to subscribe and save? So now you'll be able to understand that and you'll be able to actually create a custom creative and show and add to people after two purchases that says subscribe and save right, because you know that's the typical time where people do that and you're able to create those creatives. So there's a lot that you could do with this. Liran: It's very powerful, but I would say it's still early and people understanding it. I would say a year from now, like today, you're an early adopter If you use it. A year from now you won't be an early adopter if you use it. And also a year from now, I think it will apply more whether you're doing DSP or not doing DSP. More software tools will incorporate some data from it and you'll find that there is sort of this freemium model that if you're using software, certain tools will give you the certain templates of different audiences and different path to conversion. That is included with the software and certain tools will say okay, now if you wanna get crazy and customized because you can customize almost anything within this data you'll have fees around extracting that data. But I'm sure companies probably like Pacvue et cetera the Pacvue is, I'm sure, already incorporated AMC and are working on incorporating more and more of it and you'll see those tools continue to add those things and if you're using those software tools, you'll be able to access that data and it will become more prominent. Liran: So it is very exciting. Today it applies more so if you're using DSP, but I think that's going to change down the line. So it's. I think it's important that brands understand this and it will kind of change the way we look at our metrics from being focused just on ROAS   to being more to having an understanding of also customer journey as well as ROAS  , because again you're gonna have that sponsored brand ad that's not gonna show the ROAS   attribution but you'll say, hey, I know, when I do this sponsored brand ad together with this sponsored product ad, the purchase rate is higher, and so now you're gonna be looking at these combinations and customer journey more so than just ROAS  , and those that do will have an advantage because they'll be able to understand that sometimes that spending more without seeing the RoAS   still equals ROAS   actually on your ad spend. So it's pretty cool and I think you'll hear more and more about it over the next year or so. Bradley Sutton: Okay, cool. So we're gonna be talking about that, perhaps at our elite workshops, so elite members can go to that one. We'll have tickets for non-elite members, if anybody's gonna be there in town. The reason why we're having it in New York is it's Amazon Unbox, which is a cool conference. I haven't been to it. This could be my first one. It was my first Amazon Accelerate last week, so that was super cool. All right. Now, switching back to advertising, I wanna ask my questions first here. So I got a list of stuff I've been waiting for to ask Leeran. But one that I've been getting a lot in I thought it was a good thing to bring out is auto campaign optimization. So you know, with auto campaigns, obviously this, almost more than any other you know, can get super out of control if Amazon is showing you for a bunch of random stuff. But I'm wondering, how do you, how do you optimize for ACoS on Campaigns? Bradley Sutton: Because you can get to a point where I mean I mean obviously the no-brainer thing is alright. Hey, if you should have rules in place where they're using atomic or whatever software, using is, you know, if you get, like you know, 15, 20 clicks or whatever magic number you guys pick without a sale, you know, might start negative matching. That that's that. That goes without saying, right. But the other thing you know that people can do is maybe they see some of their, their targets Not performing well, like the loose match, the close match, and they could start, you know, adjusting on an individual basis those targets. Bradley Sutton: Right, but if you, even if you're doing that, I've seen sometimes you can get to the point where now you're almost all the way down to like a 10 cent. You know target and just, and now you know the quality of keywords at 10 cents. You're just not doing well, but you almost got to that point because, right, so so I, what, what do you do at that point? Should you just you know what I'm gonna go back from 10 cents to a dollar just so I can get some new keywords? But like, where do you draw that balance? Liran: Right. So the first thing is you can also create four separate campaigns where you literally turn off Three and keep one on, so you have a set budget. So your budget is not mixed together within those, within each of those areas, because, because you might have, you know, similar products that do very well, but you might have a loose match that doesn't do well, right. So that's something you could do is separate out those four, turn one off on each campaign and then you have a dedicated budget for each one and if something is working well, you can increase the budget. If something's not working well, you can also decrease the budget. And, yes, the first thing, first thing also to recognize, is that auto, mainly, should be there for discovery, discovery tool. So, number one, you may want to allow your auto campaigns to go add a little bit of a higher ACoS, what you want overall, because you want it to be there as a discovery tool. And, yes, you want to Ultimately add negative keywords and you also want to harvest. So that means the Search terms that are converting, the aces that are converting, whatever your rule is whether it's to converge one conversion to conversion, three conversions. You want to move them over into the manual campaign. Now you can also choose to another, like personal decision, if you're going to negate that keyword in the auto campaign or not. Liran: Negate their pros and cons to both. If you negate it in the auto, you have full control in the manual. What if in the manual it doesn't get as much traction as it did in the auto? Right, and you're already. Now you negated in the auto and it doesn't get traction in the manual. That would be a reason not to negate in the auto campaign, but still you would ultimately have a higher bid and a more targeted bid in your manual campaign, where it should be getting traction there and not so much in the auto. Anymore, I would say the point is, don't let auto be too much a percentage of your overall spent and Maybe allow it to be somewhat of a higher ACoS because you recognize that it's a broad discovery type of tool. Bradley Sutton: Another situation. Let's say I've got a target, ACoS for a campaign just you know Doesn't have to be auto but my target ACoS is 40%. So you know I want my targets For also, you know, at the target level to be 40%. But on one target let's go ahead and say it's a broad, it's a broad match target. I'm at 77% now my cost per click on it is. Or my target that I had, you know the current bid was 291. Let's just say $2.91. Let's just say close call, $3. I'm looking at an exact example now. Let's say it's $3. If my cost per click is 250, right. So I'm obviously not maxing out my target. If my target is $3, right. But at this this to at this 250, I'm still at 70%. I mean right, why my target was at $3 in the first place. Let's just forget about that. I don't know what I was doing there right, but, obviously I have to go down a lot, you know you have to go down to 250 to make a difference. Bradley: Yeah, definitely below, below 250. But but is there, like you know, if 250 already is 77%, you know, should I already try and get or put the target at whatever, whatever 40% is gonna be, or is there value in just going down incrementally, like if I just go 250, technically it still couldn't now I was already getting 250. Right, right, I'm still gonna be at 70% or 77% ACoS. Should I just go down more and say, hey, I'm gonna go down to $2 because that's gonna get me closer to 40%, or do I start? Is there any value in? All, right, I'm gonna go to 250 and then let me go to 240 and 230. What is your thoughts there? Liran: There can be value in going to 230, let's say and I'll tell you what the value is the value is that the placement that you get may be better than the placement that you get at $2 and that placement can influence the conversion. So, for example, at 230, you may be at the bottom of page one at $1.70, you may be only on product pages, for example, and your conversion rate may be much less on those product pages. So there is a benefit in going incrementally and not going too fast. I would say it depends on how much it's spending and how important it is for you to cut ACoS. I would also say it's important to understand the relevancy of the keyword. If it's not such a relevant keyword and my feeling is well, it may not work. Or it's not highly relevant, it may not work. My feeling is it's not gonna work so well, probably at 240 either. Then I may just bring it down further. Liran: But if it's an important keyword, if I'm maintaining ranking, I would try to understand what's happening. Is it ACoS per click issue or is it a conversion issue? It could be ACoS per click issue. It could be that, yeah, three bucks 250 is expensive and it's a $12 product and my conversion rate is good. It's just ACoS per click issue. If so, I would try to bring it down more incrementally and to see what I'm comfortable with. Maybe I'm okay allowing that keyword to be at 50% ACoS ultimately. So I think it depends on the keyword, the importance of the keyword and how much I'm focused around like TACoS versus growth in sales. But the benefit you have in the incrementality is the placement is that your conversion rate may be better at a. You may just end up being on like product pages at a certain point and if you are, your visibility or clicks your conversions are gonna be a lot less, maybe based on the product than in the search results. Bradley Sutton: And then when you say, when you end up on product pages, it's like somebody searched that target keyword, they clicked on another product and then now you're showing up on the product page, correct, exactly because placements even when you're targeting keywords, placements are happening on search results and product pages. Liran: So I would say, generally speaking, with PPC you're better off making smaller, faster incremental changes and looking at data than making vast, big changes quickly. Bradley Sutton: All right. Next thing is the flip side. Let's say my target ACoS is 40%. With what I'm getting right now, though, it's only 10%. Would it be 10 out of 10, 100% of the situations? I should always and I'm maxing out my target Should I always increase my bid Because, theoretically, I could be leaving money on the table, depending on where my placement is? Or is there a situation where I would, hey, let's just keep that 10%? Liran: You know I wouldn't say no. I mean I wouldn't say all the time, I would just say Because, again, it could be just helping you be more profitable. One report that you could look at is the search term impression report, because that report would give you an idea of how you rank compared to other brands in terms of impressions for that particular keyword. So, for example, you could be getting the most impressions out of any other brand and getting 60 or 70% of all the impressions. Probably not in that case, because you're maxing out the cost per click, but you want to see kind of where you are and how much more room is there to get impressions. Now, generally, I would say yes. For me, most of the time I would want to increase the bid for that particular keyword and I would want to get more market share on that keyword. But if you're very focused on profitability and this is helping your TACoS be at the target then maybe not. But what I would say, though, in that case you may want to consider let's say you don't want to increase your budgets anymore you may want to consider shifting budget. Find the stuff that's not working as well, where you can reduce the bids, and then maybe allocate it to this keyword. Generally speaking, I would say I would be likely to increase the bids on that keyword. Liran: If I was under my overall, I would look at it on a kind of a campaign level, not on a particular keyword level. So if my goal for that campaign is a 40% ACOS and because of this keyword on my 30, then I would definitely increase. Now if I'm at 40 still because there's other keywords that are 50 or 60, I would see maybe I need to move budget from those keywords and I should give it to this one. So I'm not increased my budget, but I'm a lot more efficient and I'm getting better sales. I would also see where's my ranking for the keyword. If I'm ranked number one, maybe I don't increase. There's no sense to increase, right. Or if I'm ranked number one, two, three, right, maybe I don't increase because I might just be cannibalizing my organic sales. But again, if I'm number 17, I'm definitely pushing on this keyword and probably what I'm doing is, if it has enough volume, I'm moving into its own campaign. I'm adding a top of search multiplier on that keyword. Bradley Sutton: All right Question from Jonathan. Keywords per campaign. You go from one spectrum where there's people who do single keyword campaigns. You go to another spectrum. Some people have like 50 targets. Let's just start with that part of his question first. Liran: So I would say we're somewhere in between, meaning your highest search volume keywords, most important keywords, we isolate really into their own campaigns and then from there, based on search volume and performance, we'll group keywords together. I would say probably up to 30 to 50 keywords is max of what I would go per campaign. If you have a lot of long tail lower volume keywords, I think that's okay. But definitely the highest search volume keywords or keywords that have sort of medium volume, I might group into groups of five to 10, for example. As far as budget per campaign, that's very dependent on what is your overall budget? What is the performance like? Right, I'm generally going to be shifting my budgets. I'm not going to just put a budget. I'm going to be shifting my budget to the best performing budget campaigns and I'm going to be maybe taking budget away from my poorest performing campaigns. So I think the budget needs to be dynamic. Liran: I think when your question more budget or discovery or scaling, I think in the beginning you're going to probably have more budget on your broad and phrase than on your exact match. As you uncover those best performing search terms, you're going to move more into exact and have probably more budget there. But it's very common that we find phrase match be the best performing keyword type and you'll have most of our budget on that match type. It's sort of in between discovery and very narrow targeted. But I think over time you're going to put more budget on your scaling campaigns. In the beginning you're going to put more budget on your discovery campaigns Because your scaling really should be your best performing keywords. So that's where you're going to allocate more budget to and less so on discovery, because you've already discovered a lot of what's out there initially. Bradley Sutton: All right, Kind of a universal. This question has been around for years. People have different opinions on this. Hey, you're doing great on sales, about to run out of stock. Do you slow sales by raising price and turning off ads and then that hurts your potentially keyword ranks before? Or do you just go hard and heavy, run out of stock and then just get back in and hopefully you still have your keyword ranks when you come back in the stock in a couple of weeks? Liran: I think, from a ranking perspective, it's better to run out of stock at a better BSR. I agree. I think that's the better way to go. Sometimes you're going to make a decision that, hey, I just want the profits Right, because that's what's more important to me at this point in my business. I'm going to focus more on the profits now, I'm going to reduce, I'm going to raise the price. Or sometimes you may be able to raise the price and there's so much demand that you're still driving pretty good sales and you can still raise the price someone and there's a happy medium. But I would say, from a ranking perspective and coming back in stock at a better rank, it's better to go out of stock with great sales than to slow down your sales. Bradley Sutton: Speaking of auto campaigns, exact campaigns, it's in my opinion I don't know if Amazon announced anything, but just in my opinion I've seen other people say the same thing where what used to be broad and what used to be exact is not like three years ago, is not the same now, where now you have an exact campaign and sometimes you're even shown for what you would have thought would have been a phrase match or even broad matching in some situations. Because of this, are you managing things differently at all, like using modifiers or things like that? Liran: Yeah, I would say use modifiers. Modifiers will help protected because if you use a modifier then it forces it to be a true exact modifier before each word in your keyword. But even with that, sometimes there are certain synonyms that Amazon considers the same. You just need to manage it with search terms and negative keywords and bids. But yeah, amazon is definitely trying to find ways to increase their advertising revenue. As a result, they're being more generous in what they are considering your keyword and using synonyms. So use of modifiers will help protect against that Used to be. They started doing it just in sponsor brands and then we've seen this year Amazon doing it with sponsored products also. Bradley Sutton: All right. Another question let's say I'm trying to optimize for my target A-cost and so I make a change, because I'm trying something similar to what we were talking about. Like I'm at 70%, I'm trying to get to 40%, so I lower my bid a little bit. Now how often are you going back to that and seeing all right now I need to further because you talk about doing some incrementality in order to further adjust that. Like, is it time-based because of that attribution window where you can kind of take a look at it, or is it like maybe I just get another? I can see that in one day I got 500 impressions just because this is maybe some super high search volume keyword? Is that enough data where even a day later I'm further making changes, or once you make a change? Basically, my question is what are you looking at as far as when it's time to go ahead and optimize further? Is it impression-based or time-based? Liran: It's based on the data and so I would say one it depends on your budget, right? Because the more budget you have, the more data you're going to have that's coming in faster. I still wouldn't make change from one day to the next because you don't have the full attribution coming in. Even if you see, ultimately, that maybe you didn't have any sales at all, like you know right, like you just know that you didn't have orders from it, I still wouldn't make change from one day to the next. I would wait a few days. So, generally speaking, I would say it's good to be in your account two or three max times, probably a couple times a week to optimize. I think is good, because the one thing you don't want to do is make changes too often where you're just messing yourself up, and this is something we see also with sellers. They're impatient, right, because you don't want to spend money you don't need to spend, and I think everyone gets emotional when it comes to your money. But I would say two days a week is good to go in and make those optimizations. So if you did it on a Tuesday, go back in on a Saturday, or find two days a week that you go in and you're making those changes Now. Again, if you have a ton of data, a lot of spend, maybe make those two days a little closer, like Monday and Friday, or a little closer to each other. But you want to give it enough time also to get the attribution, because there will be people that and impressions. I would look at clicks and actual data of spend, not just the impressions. But people do come back and buy also, right? So if somebody you could have gotten 10 clicks today and if one or two of those become sales, maybe the costs will be fine and you have people that come back three days later. So you do really want to give some time and the attribution window to be in place. I would say most products on Amazon people do buy the same day. They're not very high-priced products, but it does also happen. Liran: So give yourself a few days in between changes and even if you're using software that even has rule-based things, then you can give the software days like look on Monday, look on Saturday, look on Friday and also when we do give software rules, you want to make sure when you're decreasing bids one of the things you want to make sure that you're doing just like an example that you said. The rules that we give it is lower OK, if keyword is above target ACoS, lower cost per click by 5%, let's say right, because if you lower bid you may not be reaching the cost per click like you said. So you want to make sure that if you're using a rule-based tool, that you're looking at the cost per click when you're lowering and that you give it, because a lot of times softwares will have both the ability to lower your bid or your cost per click that you lower your cost per click and yeah, we like to do it incrementally. I wouldn't want to go in and say lower by 20%, just lower the bid too much, lower 5% below, then let's see. And then the software will be doing this twice a week. Liran: So over a couple of weeks you are going to be significantly lowering your bid where it should be enough of a change. But I would say it's better to go a little slower than make drastic changes. Usually drastic changes are emotional and in business you want to separate yourself from some of that, which is why rule-based is good. But even if you're not using rule-based software, set up rules for yourself on how you're going to manage this based on the different circumstances. It's not a bad idea to write down for yourself what are the rules that I'm going to use to manage, if I'm managing manually as if I'm software, and what days am I going in. How much am I lowering and maybe take some of the emotion out of the management. Bradley Sutton: Another question, now that you know, obviously for a couple of years now, you know things like two step URLs search, find by are explicitly against Amazon terms of service. Me personally, 100% of my launch strategy is, you know, ppc. You know, and it's almost I'm almost giving it the same thing as when it was searched fine by. It's still kind of search fine by right. It's just not. You're not. You're not just trying to tell people to randomly search and stuff, which is what Amazon frowns on. But you know, I lower my price by a lot in the beginning. You know big sale price or big coupon, and then I try and do a super high top of search and then it's basically I'm trying to get people to search fine, to buy it. You know, even though I have no reviews where they're like, hey, this is a this price. You know, like, just, you know, I can't you know I can't let this go. So that's my 100% launch strategy. Now, other people I hear you know sometimes they couple it with, maybe like press releases or or perhaps even Google advertising. Right, you know as well. What about you, for you and your clients, for launch, when you're trying to launch on a certain keyword, right, are you strictly doing Amazon PPC? Are you using other techniques? If so, what? Liran: we're strictly doing Amazon, and we do it exactly the way you do it, meaning, first of all, the keywords that were focused on ranking. We will give them their own campaign, we will utilize top of search placement, we will recommend to our client to come with an aggressive price coupon, and we do it exactly that. The one thing we really watch for is the conversion rate. Okay, because if the conversion rate is poor, we're not going to get the ranking, and so what we focus on, once we start getting the data in, is the keywords that we're not getting that conversion rate. If it's across the board, then something on the listing side, the price or you know, we need some more reviews to come in. But if we see some keywords performing very well with a conversion rate and some not, we will pull back on those, on those that are not getting the conversion rate, and that really should be. That should very much be your focus when you're launching with those keywords are you converting? If you're converting, then you should you know you should start seeing the rankings coming in. We had a call with a client today and he said, hey, I'm not seeing the ranking. And I said to him that's because we're, that's because your conversion rates are too low and he actually just lowered the price on a product today and we're going to see if that makes an improvement. But you should be very focused on conversion rate and we've seen the ability to be able to rank, especially when you have a new product and you have this honeymoon period, just with PBC. I don't. I don't think you you have to do Google or outside traffic or anything crazy. Amazon will reward you if you are getting sales velocity plus conversion rates on those keywords. Bradley Sutton: Okay, now for the last, you know five minutes or something. Just you know some some quick hitting strategies either on Walmart advertising, Amazon advertising, some things that that you know people you think should be definitely doing out there. Liran: So I would say I would say a few things. Talk about two things. Number one one thing I see that is a problem we do a lot of audits is sponsored display, vcpm campaigns. I would encourage you to relook at how much money you're spending on those campaigns. Sometimes Amazon will encourage you to have more of those campaigns. So on account recently that you had, like I don't know, 30 or 40% of their sales coming from VCPM campaigns, and I could tell you without a doubt that probably the majority of that was cannibalized organic sales that are coming from those campaigns, I would say, if you're unsure, don't run those campaigns. Liran: The sponsored display campaigns that I like to run are cost per click campaigns and product targeting. You can run retargeting with sponsored display on ACoS per click basis. So that's what I would do. I would not run impression based and just the explanation is the reason is impression based campaigns. Somebody can just scroll by, view it, go back to the listing and buy from a retargeting ad and it gets attributed to the retargeting ad when we don't know, since they just pass by it. We don't know if that influenced them to buy or not, since they didn't click. So I would focus on your sponsored display campaigns with cost per click. Liran: The other thing I would say is to the more granular you can go, the better. Separate out your branded and unbranded campaigns, separate out your exact phrase broad campaigns. Take your high volume keywords and put them in their own campaigns. The more granular you go, the more control you have. And that's, I think, one of the keys. And I do think it's important today to also use software, because more and more things will be coming out with software. You see, like the Amazon marketing stream. So if you don't have that, you should be using software that has the Amazon marketing stream, because you can see hourly data on how you are getting sales. One thing we've seen with that is generally, if you're again, if you're unsure, if you have limited budget, I would encourage you to day part and stop targeting from 12 Pacific to 5am. That's usually when everyone's budgets reset and you're going to have a higher cost per click and not any better conversion rates usually worse conversion rates at night. So that's another strategy to help you save. Liran: And I would say, at the end of the day, if you're managing it and you pay close attention, it's not rocket science managing ads, it's taking a look at your search term reports, taking a look at your conversion rates, managing bids, adding negative keywords. It's complex because you need to give it time and you need to pull the right reports and data, and also that sometimes people think their product, their problem, is an advertising problem. When it's not an advertising problem, it's a product problem, and that's also something we see very often. I spoke to somebody today. They sell, like a shopping cart, one of those laundry things you carry around, and they said, hey, how come it's not selling as well? Their product has about 100 something reviews. It's selling okay, but there's competitors right next to you at same or lower price with 5,000 reviews, and so, again, it's not an advertising problem, it's going to be a product problem. Liran: How can you differentiate your listing more from the competitors? They do actually have a great listing and I think it's actually one of the reasons why I think they're selling. They are selling fairly well with a lower review count. But also, their problem is not an advertising problem, it's a product slash, competitor review problem, and that's why the ability to reverse engineer your competitors with tools like Helium can really help you understand where your competitors are getting sales from. Also, whenever people look at their competitors. They're assuming their competitors are, even though you may not be. The competitors are profitable and selling at great margin, and that's also not always the case. People are looking to get market shares. So I think just go very granular and give ads attention. If not, maybe consider outsourcing it. But if you give it the attention and the optimization, you learn to understand it. It's very much a data driven game. Bradley Sutton: All right. If people want to reach out to you to get some more help with PPC or to ask you some follow up questions, how can they find you on the interwebs out there? Liran: Sure, thank you. You can go to incrementumdigital.com. You can also sign up for a newsletter there. You'll get our weekly newsletter. We're sharing updates, we do webinars, so you can also just sign up for the email list there just to stay up to date. And obviously you can contact us through the website. You can also follow me and Incementum Digital and myself on social media LinkedIn, Facebook and you can DM me if you have any questions. Bradley Sutton: All right. Well, Liran, thank you so much for joining us. It'll be nice to see you again in your home stomping grounds there in New York soon and wish you all the best of success with you and your team. Please say hi to Mansour. He's been on this show before. Liran: Yes, thank you and the rest of your team. Thank you so much.

In this episode, we've got all the inside scoop on Amazon Accelerate 2023 that you might have missed! Our host, Bradley Sutton, dives deep into the exciting announcements and their implications for Amazon FBA sellers. From the eagerly awaited dates for the next Prime Deal Days to cutting-edge AI features like Generative AI for building your listings inside Amazon and the AI-backed Seller Messaging Assistant, we've got you covered. Plus, we explore game-changing updates, new tools, and features like the  Amazon Shipping ground package delivery service, Amazon Supply Chain updates with inventory management, customer loyalty analytics dashboard, and sustainability solutions that are set to reshape the Amazon seller landscape. We also talked about the Buy with Prime integration inside Shopify and shared relevant numbers on how D2C E-commerce businesses are crushing it with this new feature. Tune in to discover how these developments could impact your Amazon business and stay ahead of your competitors. It's a must-listen episode for anyone in the world of Amazon selling and don't forget to let us know what you think of these announcements! Also, don't forget to catch Bradley, Helium 10, and Pacvue in the Amazon unBoxed Event in New York this October 24th to up-level and up-skill your Amazon advertising knowledge.  In episode 493 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley talks about: 02:05 - Dates For The Next Prime Deal Days Released! 02:40 - Featuring A Seller Success Story From A Helium 10 User 03:45 - Enterprise Solutions Integrated In Partner Seller App 04:09 - Emerald Notifications 05:23 - AI-backed Seller Messaging Assistant 06:35 - Generative AI For Listing Building 07:54 - Bradley’s Feedback On This AI Feature After Tests 13:22 - A New Seller Homepage 13:40 - One Page Listing Management Page 14:23 - Buyer Abuse Protection 16:05 - Veeqo Multi-Channel Shipping 17:01 - Amazon Shipping Ground Package Delivery Service 18:44 - Supply Chain By Amazon (More Than Amazon Global Logistics) 20:54 - Automatic Inventory Replenishment with FBA 23:48 - Let’s Get Into Day 2 Announcements 24:43 - Customer Loyalty Analytics Dashboard 26:26 - Fit Insights Tool 28:45 - Voice Of The Customer Dashboard 30:16 - Two-Tap Ratings 31:50 - New Seller Wallets 32:10 - Buy with Prime with Shopify 33:28 - Interesting Stats From Buy with Prime integration with Shopify 35:18 - Potential Sales Lift 37:16 - View In Your Room Feature Improvements 38:42 - Ships On Product Packaging Program 40:46 - Sustainability Solutions Hub 41:24 - What Do You Think Of All These Announcements? 42:29 - Catch Bradley, Helium 10, and Pacvue In The Amazon Unboxed Event ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast ► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension ► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup  (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life) ► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft ► Watch The Podcasts On Youtube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos Transcript Bradley Sutton: Did you miss Amazon Accelerate? Don't worry. In this episode I'm giving you guys everything that you missed out on all the announcements and how it affects US sellers. How cool is that? Pretty cool. I think. We know that getting to page one on keyword search results is one of the most important goals that an Amazon seller might have. So track your progress on the way to page one and even get historical keyword ranking information and even see sponsored ad rank placement with keyword tracker by Helium 10. For more information, go to h10.me forward slash keyword tracker.   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 I'm going to be going over everything that happened at Amazon Accelerate. Well, maybe not everything, but all the key points. There might be a couple things I missed, but there's a lot of interesting things that were announced at Amazon Accelerate. I'm going to keep it real. Like I say, this is BS free. No, there might be a couple things I think is not that exciting. I'm going to keep it real. Let you guys know, it's just my opinions here. So I wanted to give you guys kind of like a rundown of all the like I don't know Like 25 different announcements or 30, or even more than that. As you notice, I'm wearing my old school Helium 10 shirt here and the reason is because back when Helium 10 used to use this logo, you never would have gotten me to say, like in a million years, that Amazon would be announcing the kind of things that they have been at Amazon Accelerate the last couple years. I mean like the things that they're dropping, that I'm going to talk about today, and the things that they talked about last year. It was, you know, I would have bet a million dollars if I was a betting person that no, the Amazon would never give this kind of analytics or Amazon would never do this or that. But, man, you know, hats off to Amazon because they're really trying to come through for the sellers.   Bradley Sutton: So before I get started here, real quick kind of breaking news. If you didn't, you know here last week it's not Amazon Prime Day, but what is it called like? Prime Deal, that Prime Deal days prime something or other? Anyways, the second Prime Day, what a lot of people are calling the second Prime Day. They dropped the dates, for it's actually going to be October 10th and 11th. So mark your calendars. If you guys were preparing for deals or things like that, October 10th and 11th is, I think it's called deal day, something like that. So you know, normally I drop that in the weekly buzz, but I'll give you guys that information a couple days early.   Bradley Sutton: Alright, let's go ahead and hop into Amazon Accelerate. I was there. It was my first time at Amazon Accelerate and it was actually cool. They actually started off with like the whole entire event was started off with a Helium 10 customer. Alright, so Hemlock Park is a customer that you know we've talked about. He's actually been on the podcast Mikey from there and they did this like full profile in front of everybody about how his business is and you know how he makes these candles and you know, really, really cool to see you know Helium 10 customer front and center, like that. But you know, let me know what do you guys think? Like what if Amazon would ask you to, like you know, show your brand, you know, would you be down to do that? You know, so many sellers, I think, are afraid of showing their brand to the whole entire world, literally like now, everybody knows what, what Mikey's products are, right. So just something to think about. You know what? Would you take the publicity that you know coming on full stage from Amazon, or would you be like now, I'm good, amazon, you go pick somebody else, alright?   Bradley Sutton: First, couple of announcements you know wanted to talk about for Accelerate nothing that exciting. One of them is was Enterprise Solutions. They announced that they had 15 more software companies and solutions that are integrated into their seller partner App Store. That the seller partner App Store is like what Helium 10 and other tools like it are connected to you, but now they're connecting with like enterprise level, you know once, like QuickBooks even so, if you use QuickBooks for accounting, that's actually now integrated into the seller partner App Store. Another announcement was Emerald Notifications. Alright, so Emerald is this beta program that are doing, where some of these seller apps like you know Helium 10 can deliver notifications about things that are happening in our software in your seller central dashboard. Some of you guys might have gotten an email about that a little while ago and you guys thought it was spam or something like that. So it's real. You know Helium 10 is part of that program amongst many others.   Bradley Sutton: That's what they announced at Amazon Accelerate, and basically the way that they described is they said hey, we're trying to make it easier for you to manage and act on key business updates from your third party apps. That was word for word, verbatim from their announcement. Now, if you're wondering how do you activate it in your account, let me just show you how. Go to your seller central account and then you are going to want to go to apps and services and then manage your apps. Alright, once you do that, you're going to get to the other page here and it'll have all your you know software that you're connected with, and you're going to have to find Helium 10 and hit reauthorize alright. So you're going to want to hit reauthorize after doing that or whatever other apps that you have that you can connect to, and then what's going to happen is you'll now start being eligible for those notifications, alright.   Bradley Sutton: The next announcement was an AI back seller messaging assistant, and what this is is for customer service. Basically, you know how customers, if they have a question about their shipping or a question about the product you know those kind of questions go directly to Amazon. That's not anything new. That's always been the case, one of the advantages of Amazon. You don't have to take care of a lot of your customer service, like hey, where's my shipment? Like I don't know, amazon's one who shipped it right, you don't have to worry about those kind of things. But anyways, amazon is integrating AI into there in order to save even more of the questions and so, like now, it's going to be almost instantaneous, like somebody says, hey, where's my shipment? And AI is instantly answering them, saying, hey, here's the shipping and here's where it's going to go, or here's, you know, if you're eligible for a refund, all kinds of generic questions they are. Now have an AI that powers, instead of having to wait for a person you know might take some time to answer the questions and you know, theoretically speaking, this might help because you know, maybe in that time that a buyer is having to wait for the answer. Maybe they just decided to cancel their order or like it right. So hopefully, hopefully, this will, you know, kind of lessen those.   Bradley Sutton: Now, the first big announcement of the day that got, you know, people kind of excited was about AI and listing billing. It was kind of funny when they first were announcing that they were going to announce that they were bringing it on the stage. And I won't forget, like they had the like the product manager for there. It's like this Amazonian, like his 50s and 60s, and he's like running out there like he's you saying, bolt to the stage. And he was like super excited. Like I was sitting there in the front row, I thought he was going to do like a crowd dive or something he was running so fast, but hey, he was excited. The crowd got excited because they really hyped up this AI tool that you know we talked about on the weekly buzz a while back.   Bradley Sutton: So what does this consist of? This announcement of their AI listing builder tool? Well, they announced a press release also. It says Amazon launches generative AI to help sellers write product descriptions. And so, basically, it's going to, you know, very similar to what, you know, helium 10 has has had for a while in listing builder. Basically, what they're saying is hey, right here, word for word, says to get started, sellers only need to provide a brief description of their product, in a few words or sentences, and then Amazon will generate high quality content for the review. Sellers can refine these if they want to, or they can directly submit the automatically generated content to the Amazon catalog.   Bradley Sutton: Now you know, I'm going to raise my Bradley Sutton flag, my BS flag, a little bit here, especially when they say you know, really high quality. I don't think it's there yet. I'm not trying to throw Amazon under the bus. I have very strong faith that it's going to get there. You know, remember, this is not Amazon like creating their own. You know their own. You know magic system here they're probably using. You know AI tools out there, just like you know helium 10 uses. You know chat, gpt.   Bradley Sutton: But they tried to make it seem like, you know, for example, they gave a, an example here where you can just enter mouse pad with gel wrist right and then you'd be able to get like this, full, full listing. No, that's not the case Now. I tested it like we had this custom or this, this kind of case study I'm doing where I've made at least coffin shaped bath tray and I actually just, you know, actually threw in, you know, a description that was not just like five or six words, you know, just about four or five sentences and the output that it gave me. It just copied the input that I said in the description and that was the product description and then it copied it again and that was the bullet point number one and there was only one more bullet point and then there was no more bullet points in the title. Let me see if I could show it to you guys here. In the title it called it 32 inch black plastic coffin bathtub tray. All right, now the cool thing is hey, it adds spooky decor. I actually know that that is one of the main keywords here, spooky decor, but it called it plastic. I didn't say it was plastic. And then, even though that was the title, when you go to the description, the second bullet point or the first bullet point somewhere here it says hey, this is made with wood, so you got it right once. But in the title.   Bradley Sutton: So, guys, this is not, do not expect this yet yet to be. You know some all encompassing thing that's going to. You know, allow you to just snap your fingers and create listings. It obviously needs a lot of work If you're interested in using AI. For now I would stick with listing builder. You know that exact same listing of a test for the coffin tray. I actually created it in listing builder and I put that. You know, very similar, prompt. But obviously the difference is, you know, in listing builder I can add all of my keywords that I had found from Cerebro you know that are relevant to that niche, and then you know, listing builders try to incorporate those keywords, which is still very important. You know, for the Amazon algorithm that you, so you can get searchable. So I'm curious, you know, maybe the reason why it made such a terrible listing is because there's not that much data, you know, on coffin bath trays, and so it was kind of struggling. But maybe if I tried to do like collagen peptides, who knows, maybe I could just write collagen powder and it would make this amazing, amazing listing for me. Now, that being said, that tool might not be at its peak yet.   Bradley Sutton: However, they were giving a sneak peek at some pretty exciting announcements. They said coming soon, sellers are going to be able to submit a URL or a photo of a product and then the AI can generate reviews somehow. So you know, in my mind they were kind of saying, without really saying it maybe you have a dot com business and you've got this Shopify listing or maybe even, who knows, maybe a listing on another website like Walmart. You enter that in and then it could create an actual Amazon listing. You know that'd be pretty cool If that happened, even just like an image of a product and it would create a listing. That is pretty cool. And another thing that they said is is it's going to be available for existing listings to edit it. You know, right now it's if you want to test this out. It's only available to be done with a brand new listing if you're going to start it. But they do say that it's going to come in the future.   Bradley Sutton: Now this is something that had me a little bit worried. All right, let me read this next announcement that they said. They said hey, we'll also enrich your existing listings to ensure your products have all the details that customers want to help you drive more sales. We'll use AI to automatically generate missing attributes. First of all, that's excellent. I'm not worried about that at all. You know like that would be great for those attributes. You know, sometimes we don't know all the attributes that are needed in the back end and then we have the missing and we could be suppressed and stuff. So if Amazon AI can do that, beautiful, we'd love. We'd love to see that. But here, check this out.   Bradley Sutton: The second part We'll also use AI to automatically generate and improve titles, bullet points and descriptions based on data in Amazon's catalog. You'll be able to review any changes and make edits if desired. Now, that part has me worried because we all know that. You know, sometimes when Amazon kind of changes your title, it's not always great and you got you know like what if, all of a sudden, for my product, amazon use that AI thing that I just showed you guys and it wants to call my coffin bath tray, which is made of wood, a plastic coffin tray? And just terrible listing. So hopefully these things are not going to happen until their AI is a little bit more robust, which I'm sure it is, you know. But the second part is I definitely want to be able to click a button that says no, I do not want to implement those changes because you know all you helium 10 users out there, 99% of you are going to be better at making the listing than any AI. I'll just tell you that right now, ai, as far as if you're talking about optimizing your listing, for you know the algorithm and things like that All right, like, like you know, you've got all the data. You know even more data than the AI is going to have. You know, I know that sounds kind of like a audacious thing to say, but you know, those of you guys who know, know, know what's up. You know, like you guys can, can, you know, look across different categories of different keywords? And I think the technology for AI to do that is still too far off yet. But anyways, hopefully they're not going to be automatically just changing our listings without letting us know. I don't think they're going to do that.   Bradley Sutton: Another minor announcement that they did was about the seller homepage. You know most of you guys were opted into that new seller homepage and one of the benefits they said of this new homepage is that you can take away those widgets. You know, sometimes the seller central homepage had all kinds of like little things that you know just cluttered the screen. But now you can, you can hide those. So they talked about that in case you guys didn't know. Another thing that kind of teased it's not ready yet they talked about how you know we have all kinds of different listing dashboards in order to. You know, there's one for fixing inactive listings, there's one for managing listings. There's a dashboard to improve your listing. So what they're working on is a new one page, you know, catch all everything that has to do with your listings in seller central and it's going to have the actions that you need to take and everything's basically beyond that page. And I guess they have the beta program going right now and it said that, you know, with this beta group, sellers are being able to take actions 40% faster than the current way of having to go to all these different listing management pages.   Bradley Sutton: Another announcement they made was buyer abuse protections. You know we definitely like that. We know, although we always know that there's there's some bad players out there on the customer side and so they're implementing AI and other things in order to help kind of detect that. They quote seller selling partners can leverage Amazon's machine learning based buyer risk evaluations and specialized abuse risk investigations to protect your business. All right, so that's a bunch of fancy. You know press release kind of words there. But in a nutshell, the way they explained it is this is gonna help protect you against fraudulent orders, fraudulent claims. It says it's gonna potentially save millions of dollars on refunds and actually probably the point that I think got some applause from people, that says they announced that to address the issue of reviews, amazon has worked to automate and sanitize the sanitize I love that word, that's literally their word, that they said on stage to sanitize the process of suppressing reviews for abusive accounts in real time. All right, so we don't know exactly in the past how the Amazon kind of policed reviews, but you could see it happening, like, if you're using the Helium 10 Chrome extension, you ever look at the review history of a product and then you'll notice that all of a sudden 3,000 reviews got lost and then 2,000 reviews got added back. You probably seen that and were thinking that was a Helium 10 mistake or something. No, what was happening was Amazon would just like quarantine thousands of reviews or hundreds of reviews at a time and I guess, like you know, do some kind of audit on it and then just put back the ones that were okay. So if this, if I'm understanding this correctly, that process in the future might be now in kind of like a real time.   Bradley Sutton: Another announcement that you know may not affect a lot of you guys there's this Amazon company called I think it's called VCO, v-e-e-q-o and it's like a multi-channel shipping software. So kind of like you know me, I don't use that, I use like Snapscom, but it's very similar to that where it integrates with your seller central and then you could, you know, print shipping labels and things like that. And so they made an announcement that you know they've negotiated the cheapest shipping rates in the business and usually you can only get like the same price, no matter, you know, if I use Snapscom or if I'm using I don't know like ShipStation or something like that. Right, it's almost always the same exact price, like even my Snapscom price is the same as if I buy postage or UPS ground from Amazon. But if you use VCO, you can actually save an additional 5% off by getting credit. So that's like another announcement that they made. So if you use VCO or if you're interested in that, make sure to check that out.   Bradley Sutton: Now the next big announcement was a launch of Amazon shipping. All right, so Amazon shipping is basically a new program where they're kind of gonna be be, you know, competing with FedEx and UPS. Now this I found very interesting because you know it's been, it's been rumored to happen for a long time and now it is happening. You know, in some cities there's only like 15 cities and basically this is gonna be just just what you think is a UPS and FedEx. You know like it's a package delivery service to to fulfill not only just your Amazon like fulfilled by merchant orders, but you can technically fulfill anything. You know like you've got a dot com website and you wanna have Amazon actually pick up the shipment and then deliver it in like two to five days, including Saturdays and Sundays, at a low cost and then no extra fees for residential or weekend delivery. You wanna be able to track the packages in real time, get photo on delivery when the order is delivered. This is now coming. You know you're gonna be able to do that. So again, you don't even have to like be a you know Amazon Prime seller, fba seller to take advantage of this.   Bradley Sutton: Now a couple of things I'm wondering about is you know how you can't do like drop shipping or shipping from Amazon for Walmart? You know I used to. I used to make oh my goodness, I made hundreds of thousands of dollars drop shipping like Walmart to Amazon and vice versa. I mean it's curious, like would you be able to use Amazon shipping as a shipper and fulfill stuff you're selling Walmart? I would assume. No, I would assume Walmart would not want that. But anyways, you know if you sell on other platforms. You know this could be something that you can use.   Bradley Sutton: Another big announcement was Amazon supply chain, or they called it supply chain by Amazon, and automated solution to help so it was quickly and reliably ship products around the world. So this is kind of like they were talked about this as being an end to end system of shipping where it goes all the way from your you know factory you know picking up at the factory, you know getting it out of the country wherever it's gonna be importing through customs, you know all the way to Amazon and it takes it to another level. This is like more. We're talking about more than just through what Amazon global logistics was. Some of the things that they talked about in their press release was that these new prices for this new system are gonna reflect this counts of up to 25% on cross-border transportation that it said. You're also gonna have a streamlined domestic inbound transportation to AWD. All right.   Bradley Sutton: Awd is the Amazon warehousing they're through with their partnered carrier program. All right, so you can be able to save 25% on the already lower cost that you might have been having. So you're gonna have an expanded AWD offering with reduced prices. Those of you who are already using it, the AWD rates are gonna be now 80% lower than FBA storage fee, so that AWD is kind of like using Amazon as a 3PL, if I were to try and oversimplify it. But if you're doing AWD, compared to maybe you were just storing things in FBA and getting long-term fees, you're gonna save 80%, which is kind of a pretty impressive right.   Bradley Sutton: They're gonna have new multi-channel distribution capability and what that means is that Amazon selling partners will sell across multiple who sell across multiple sales channels, including online and brick and mortar. Keeping everything in stock is a challenge, so this is going to be able to move your inventory in bulk from AWD Amazon's warehousing to any sales channel so that you can replenish across the board, not just Amazon. So that's gonna be something coming. And something that I found interesting was automatic inventory replenishment with FBA all right. So if you're using this whole supply chain system, they're gonna be like replenishing inventory into the fulfillment centers, like from AWD, without you having to forecast.   Bradley Sutton: So, again, color me skeptical at first, just because I'm like, hey, I've seen some of Amazon's inventory forecasting recommendations and in the past it's been kind of trash in my opinion. Sorry, you know Amazon, but Amazon's definitely improving in that and so. But this would be interesting. Like I'd be curious as to what the algorithm that they're gonna use, how it's gonna work. But imagine a world where you don't even have to like worry about sending your inventory to Amazon Prime. You used to have like, hey, I'm ordering 10,000 units from my factory in China. It's going to Amazon's warehouses and I can just gonna trust Amazon to put them into FBA. You don't fulfill your orders from. You don't fulfill your orders directly from AWD to the customer. It has to go to FBA warehouses first. But imagine a world where you're not going to have to worry about that anymore. So that would be kind of interesting as well.   Bradley Sutton: So there's another you know interesting announcement that happened on day one. I mean, I can't believe we're still on day one here. Couple other things from day one. There was escalate. My case was something that was in beta where you know there's gonna be like a button in seller essential where you can like escalate if you're having trouble with support. That's coming soon and that includes talking to a live support agent. It's something funny.   Bradley Sutton: Seller poll you guys ever see those seller polls in your seller essential dashboard? Well, you know, they ask it. Hey, guys, please keep providing feedback. Now I'll keep it real here. Most of those polls have been pretty, pretty good lately, but sometimes we get a kick out of the ones Like I actually saved one of my all time favorites.   Bradley Sutton: This was, you know, a while back. It says my account is safe from being suspended unexpectedly. Strongly agree, agree, neither agree or disagree. So, like you know, we all made fun of some of these polls like this that people would get back in a day because I don't think any of us thought that we were safe from being suspended. But you know, honestly, if I were to be honest, I have been suspended unexpectedly. That was like a good four or five years ago. I think was the last time that happened. You know, if I were to get my sentiment here, you know I put probably strongly disagree. You know three years ago when I took this screenshot, but maybe now I'd be like I neither agree or disagree, like I still see. You know horror stories out there, but you know I haven't been suspended in a while and now Amazon has new systems in place that actually, where they would call you before they suspend you. So that didn't exist three or four years ago. So you know they're getting better. But anyways, the point being, don't just laugh at these polls. These are important. Most of them are important for you to get some to give Amazon your feedback.   Bradley Sutton: All right now, going to day two, a couple again minor announcements that I'm not sure affect much of you. One was called flexible customer financing, aka FCF program. You're gonna be able to enable your customers to purchase your eligible product's interest fee using installment options. So, like you know, maybe like you got a $200 product or $300 product, you can. It sounds like you're gonna be able to activate this like, hey, buy now, pay later, kind of thing sounds like. But the important part of this is that if customers opt into that, they don't have to pay right away. But guess what? You get the funds right away, if I understand this correctly. So that would be pretty cool, you know, because that would kind of suck if, yeah, let people buy this $1,000 thing and paid off over six months and you're getting, like, payments for it over six months. That would not fly right. So that would be kind of cool if this can help your sales.   Bradley Sutton: Another announcement is that there's now a customer loyalty analytics, or there's going to be a customer loyalty analytics dashboard, so it allows you to segment customers based on loyalty and analyze, segment purchase patterns and perform targeted engagement to increase your overall lifetime customer value. So they put out a press release on this and it's pretty interesting because it says, hey, new features will give sellers a comprehensive understanding of the customer sentiment for existing products from reviews and also returns. And it gave an example like hey, there's an outdoor recreation brand, they're trying to design a new tent. They'll easily be able to understand what drives customer complaints and satisfaction with the tents today. Like so it might give you like a niche kind of analysis. And it says upcoming enhancement to the tool will provide the ability to select different time periods, analyze trends over time, benchmark customer sentiment against best sellers in the category. You know that benchmarking thing sounds pretty cool and so this is something to look out for that's going to be available later this year in the US, uk, germany, france, italy and Spain, and then Japan to follow, and, instead of localized insights, will also provide a deeper understanding of customer preferences in the country. So it's not just like looking at, you know a category across all of Amazon, but you're looking at a country basis. So again, something interesting, cool announcement to look forward to.   Bradley Sutton: Another thing that Amazon release is something called fit insights tool. It's going to be backed by AI and this is for those of you who are mainly like in the apparel category, you know, which is historically one of the, you know, the one that has the most returns and issues and with reviews and things like that. But it's going to be analyzing the reviews and the size charts and kind of like how people identify themselves as what size they are and then compare it to like what size you're saying the product is, or, yeah, your shirt or socks or whatever, and then it's going to give you like suggestions, like you know what you know you probably should move your size tier up a little bit, because people who say that they're waist 38, you know they're complaining about your product because they say it's too big. So you might want to, you know, put it, call this a size 36 instead of a 38 or whatever the case may be. So you know I don't sell in the apparel, so this doesn't affect me at all. But what about you? You know you guys who are selling leggings or shirts or pants or things like that. You know, I'm sure you guys have all kinds of crazy horror stories about return. So if AI can help with that process you know it's called again, it's called fit insights. It's going to be available a beginning in October. Look out for more announcement on that. We'll probably have that in the weekly buzz.   Bradley Sutton: Another minor announcement that has to do with Amazon warehouses, called computer vision based detection. All right, so they gave this demo where they're showing like vision technology where things are going on the conveyor belts, going to you know orders and stuff, and then this AI is going to like see if there's a problem with, like, an expiration date, somehow, like on the package, or maybe the box is damaged, right, and then it's going to stop it from going to the customer. So I have, you know, face value seems okay. I'm just not fully convinced this is going to make a huge impact. I think the thing that all of us are more concerned about is when products go back to Amazon. You know it's like can we please take a look at these boxes and obviously realize that the customer didn't put the pack back in the box or it's used or things like that. Please don't put it back in inventory. This is a start. This is a start, though, you know, because you know, sometimes maybe like a forklift runs over a package, but it's still somehow it gets on the conveyor belt and then gets to the customer and they get upset because they get a super damaged box and then they return it. So in that situation, this will probably kind of like help, help with that, with that kind of stuff, and then, starting in 2024, you'll actually get a report on all the packages that Amazon kind of like stopped, you know, thanks to this new robotic vision thing that it has.   Bradley Sutton: Voice of the customer dashboard was their next announcement. That's actually something that exists now, but it talked about what is coming to this dashboard. Basically, they said they're going to launch three new, improved features that will give you more insights into what's going on to help you build customer loyalty, and these include key phrases from customer feedback. I'm not sure if that means reviews, because you know customer feedback is something different than reviews, so I'm not completely sure about that. Number two, category benchmarking and trend analysis to give you the tools to compare your performance against similar products. And then, number three, deeper key performance metrics broken down by customer feedback score. Quote unquote was part of their announcement for that. So if you're using that VOC, or voice of the customer dashboard. Look out for those three enhancements soon.   Bradley Sutton: Add to cart seller profile pages. That was another announcement. You guys know what the seller profile page is. That's where you click on the storefront, you know from a listing, and then it takes you to the page where the feedback is and the address of the seller and stuff. Well, there's nothing that allow you to necessarily buy the product before, but now, as you can see, they have an add to cart button Now for the product that maybe they were clicking on. So that's something that's already new. And then they talked about potentially, you know, maybe even having some other cross-selling where it has other products right there on this page that somebody could add to cart.   Bradley Sutton: Another announcement I really didn't understand. I wish I could have followed up on this, but it was called two tap ratings and in this session or not session, but in this announcement they were talking about how two tap ratings simplifies the seller rating process and customers have indicated that seller ratings are a critical data point in their shopping journey. So two tap ratings eliminates the written feedback requirement, simplifying the end to end review experience. So that's what the announcement was, but I'm like, wait a minute. Hasn't there just been this two tap rating for like a couple of years now, which is why the number of ratings is so much higher than the number of written reviews?   Bradley Sutton: So I'm not exactly sure what this announcement was. Maybe it's about from the actual write a customer review button on orders, like if you were to open up your mobile app right now, your Amazon buyer app, and then you know, hit an order and says write a review, you kind of do there have to leave a written review, I think. So maybe that part is gonna be changed. But I know there's like a page where you can go where Amazon just gives you these messages like hey, rate this product, you don't have to write nothing, you just like click the rating right there and that's it. So I'm not exactly sure what this announcement is, but my speculation is that from the write a review button there, you can just start leaving ratings there, but this might increase the number of ratings you know you get, which is, you know, for some customers or for some of you guys. You guys would love that. Some others were like man, this kind of sucks, I barely get any written reviews now and I really want written reviews. So maybe some of you think that's a negative. Another day.   Bradley Sutton: Two announcement was that a seller wallet where it's this is coming, where you can take your funds you know, your before you get, actually get dispersed and then you can use it to, like you know, make a wire transfer to your, to your vendors or your suppliers, things like that. You know we've had that with a group Alta, helium, 10, alta for a while, but now it's coming to a seller central. Next announcement was a little bit bigger, so it was kind of like there's a little bit of thunder being stolen because they announced it, the, you know, a couple of weeks ago about the Shopify and buy with Prime. But they talked a lot about buy with Prime. The thing that was like shock, shocking was they actually brought out the VP, or a VP of Shopify to the Amazon accelerate stage. So he actually came right on stage and even the, even the Amazonian who introduced him, was like hey, you know, a year ago I wouldn't probably not have imagined bringing this person on stage. And that was because, as we've talked about in the weekly buzz before, they had all kinds of beef. You know, in the old days, you know, shopify wanted all that smoke. They were. They were like saying, hey, if you use buy with prime on Shopify, you're against our terms of service and this and that. So, yeah, that's kind of like nobody would have ever guessed that a VP of Shopify would be on stage at Amazon accelerate, but they were talking about buy with prime. And so, in general, you know, regardless of it was Shopify or not, buy with prime has been out, you know, for a year now. They talked about how some of the stats for buy with prime, you know what kind of stats it's had for for sellers. For example, one brand said that nine out of every 10 buy with prime orders were from customers new to their brand. A newer feature was buy with prime cart is starting to see early success. So before it was kind of like if you had buy with prime, it was just for one product. But now they're rolling this out where you can, like you know, have multiple Amazon or, you know, fba supplied products and then you can actually add them to the cart and then the customer on Shopify or whatever, woocommerce or whatever, can go ahead and check out instead of just having to buy them one by one and the this, this, this feature the merchants who use it say that they increased a 15% increase in buy with prime units per order. Another announcement from the buy with prime is that they introduced you know, or they talked how they introduced reviews from Amazon so that you can display your Amazon reviews on your website at no additional costs, and they said that early results show that merchants who who added the Amazon reviews to their website have 38% increase in shopper conversion. So this is especially probably for those who are newer, have new websites and have zero reviews on there. And then another thing that they announced was buy with prime assist, which gives merchants the option to offer 24, seven cost post order customer service through Amazon at no additional costs, using a real time chat feature. So, yeah, this was definitely interesting to see.   Bradley Sutton: You know, I've never used by with prime and never even had a my own. I mean like not in like 20 years I haven't had my own website as far as my Amazon, my Amazon products go. So what about the rest of you? Has anybody of you guys out there use by with primer ready for, like, maybe WooCommerce or another website? Be curious to see. You know what you guys, you know how that's worked out for you.   Bradley Sutton: Another couple announcements, just really quick. Let me just speed through these last few ones here. There's the potential sales lift. You guys ever seen that from the dashboard? It's like where, where Amazon will tell you hey, you know, if you use a plus content, you know you can make a gazillion dollars. You know, I kind of like make light of that. But yeah, I think a lot of us were like this is such nonsense. You know, like I remember one time it was something yeah, put a plus content in your pink coffin shelf and you'll increase sales by $2,000 a month. I'm like, what are you talking about, bro? Like there's, there's not even $2,000 of pink coffin shelves sold in a year. That's like wrong. So that's probably why a lot of us wanted to even hide some of those widgets on the seller central dashboard back in the day, which is what they you know they we talked about earlier today.   Bradley Sutton: But let me tell you guys it's improved. You know I'm not. I'm not again, I'm not trying to throw Amazon on the bus. I just want to show you guys that Amazon actually gets better. I actually haven't looked at those in a long time and I'm looking at it live right now where it says under growth opportunities. Hey, this coffin egg tray says if you increase improved conversion by create, creating a plus content, you could have an $88 sales lift over 90 days. That sounds reasonable. That's like four egg trays. You know, if I put a plus content could I increase sales by four, eight trays. That sounds very reasonable, but then again it's not fully completely working. That coffin bath tray test I said if I put a plus content I'm going to get an $8 and 66 cents sales lift. I'm like this is a $4 product. How am I going to get an $8 sales lift? It's not perfect, but, guys, it is getting better. Don't just overlook it. If you're like me, who are just like, oh, I'm just going to ignore all of those because they're so far off, I think their algorithms that they have working on it is definitely a lot better. So so make sure to check that out. And anyways, the announcement that they had was this potential sales lift is going to be available for a lot other kind of things like manager experiments and 20 other catalog attributes. So 20 other things they're going to be. They're going to give you a little thing that says, hey, if you do this to each of those 20 things, you could get this kind of sales lift.   Bradley Sutton: Another cool feature they talked about was view in your room table top. So you guys ever seen the helium 10 coffin shelf or other products like furniture? And then it has a button where it says view in your room, but it puts it on the floor right, like it's mainly for like chairs and tables and stuff, and then you can kind of it's using augmented reality for your product and then you can just kind of like with your mobile app see how that product looks in the room. Well, now they said, hey, this is going to, we're rolling out the room table top feature. So instead of just looking how it would look on the floor, you're like who's going to put a coffin shelf on the floor? You know it's going to be like hey, put it on this countertop or this egg tray, how does it look in your kitchen island, and things like that. So this is coming soon.   Bradley Sutton: So in the past it wasn't something you opted into or or could ask Amazon to give you, like the helium 10 coffin shelf. We didn't do anything special. It just all of a sudden started showing up with that augmented reality. So I have a feeling based on what they were saying at Accelerate that there's now going to be some kind of controllability you're going to have where you can potentially opt into the program or send them like 3D images or something and get into there. So we actually have some follow up meetings with that department to try and see, you know, how maybe helium 10 can can help in this. But that would be pretty cool for those of you who have products that go on table tops or counter tops or things like that, being able to integrate augmented reality for your customers who have the mobile app.   Bradley Sutton: Another thing honestly I was not excited about it all, it's actually kind of scared a little bit was ships in product packaging program. All right, so it's allowing you the opportunity, it says, to ship customer orders in your own custom branded packaging without additional Amazon boxes. All right, now this could go both ways. Already, this happens sometimes and actually, you know, some of us are kind of upset when it might happen, like if you guys have like some super fancy gift box or like some nice, really nice packaging, you don't want Amazon just taking that and then slapping all their logos and and or their logos, but they're they're, you know, slapping their shipping labels and stuff on it and then having that really nice package getting all scuffed up and then it's like all torn up by the time it gets the customer. And so you know like right now I'm actually doing a brand new coffin shelf package where it's like a box, shape like a coffin and it's going to be like a super nice giftable thing. But if Amazon ships in that box, you know that kind of sucks. Now, where this is better is you know Amazon might be charging you extra shipping because it has to use extra packaging.   Bradley Sutton: So this, this article or this announcement where they talk about how, because of the ability now to ship in your own packaging in the future, maybe it's going to save you in the fulfillment costs. But I don't know for me. I most of my products. I don't want that. There's a couple of products I have that that I don't really care about the packaging much, and you know they could go ahead and slap a shipping label on there. I don't care, especially if it's safe. Saves me some money. But I'm I'm curious what you, which boat are you guys in? You know would you say, yes, I want to save, you know, a few cents on packaging and you know it also saves the environment too, you know, because you're not having to to have all this cardboard you know around, or are you like, do you have fancy packaging and you and you want that put into an outside box? Anyways, this new feature is going to have enrollment in January of 2024. So you got a couple of months to think about which which boat you would be in. They also announced the sustainability solutions hub. You can look up there. You know, on seller central, if you want more news I'm running out of time here and the last one that they announced, again that you can check in seller central, was a climate some new climate pledge friendly badges that are coming, and it's interesting. Their data shows that if you have that climate pledge friendly badge, it actually drives 10% more page views than if you didn't have it. So it might be something you might want to get onto your listing, and they're going to have three new ways in order to, you know, to have that. So there you have it, guys.   Bradley Sutton: I'm sure I missed a couple of things here, but but that was probably the majority of what they talked about that this year's Amazon Accelerate it was my first time there had a blast. I couldn't even go to all the parties because I was working in the nights. I had a whole bunch of like webinars I was doing in China and things like that. So I got I missed all the parties but I heard it was really great. There was like two, 3000 people, you know, really high quality. They had the DJ from the Beastie Boys was like the DJ for the events and and they had Tracy Ross there as a celebrity, you know speaker. Really really cool event, really well organized. You know what, what you would expect from Amazon. So, guys, next year I'm sure it's going to be back again Highly, highly, highly recommend going there because you know Amazon, there's nothing like it, you know where. I mean, I didn't even do all of it and I probably would drop 30 different news items there that they launched. So it's a one set, once a year event and definitely go.   Bradley Sutton: It's not the only event that Amazon does. Amazon does a little bit higher end kind of more advertising. So it's really the event that's happening in October, october 20, I want to say 25th and 26th or 24th to 26th in New York City. It's called Amazon Unboxed. So you want a similar event but more focused maybe on on advertising and if you're you know bigger sellers, make sure to register for that one. Amazon Unboxed, ilium 10 and Pacview definitely will have teams there, so be great to to meet you guys in person at that one. I hope you enjoyed this recap. If you guys want follow-ups for me to talk about any of these announcements a little bit more in depth, make sure to reach out. Don't forget to follow on Instagram Sirius Sellers podcast. See you guys in the next episode.

Ready to catapult your Walmart selling journey to a whole new level of success? For today's special Walmart Wednesday episode, buckle up for an exciting chat where our host, Carrie Miller, sheds light on the latest developments that were revealed during the recent Walmart conference. You'll discover how the launch of new international marketplaces like Chile, same-day pickup, brand stores, and more, could potentially revolutionize your E-commerce business in Walmart.com. Additionally, we'll tackle the complexities of COMP errors, and most importantly, how to fix them - a game-changer for every Walmart seller! Shifting gears, we delve into the art of optimizing pay-per-click advertising on Walmart. Strategies revolve around using Helium 10's Cerebro for Walmart, listing optimization, grouping keywords into campaigns, and using attributes effectively. Can't wrap your head around it? Don't worry, we've got you covered!  Listen in as we break down these concepts and tips on finding the right keywords, and using Cerebro to save on advertising costs. These concepts are helpful if you're selling on Walmart.com and if you're brand is on Walmart WFS. Now is the time to sell on Walmart.com! Are you ready to take your selling journey to dizzying new heights? Let's get started! In episode 492 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Carrie talks about: 01:14 - Updates From The First-Ever Walmart Conference 01:57 - New International Walmart Marketplaces 02:08 - Walmart Brand Stores 02:42 - Same-Day Pick up 04:21 - Add Credit Or Debit Cards For Walmart Ads Payment 05:10 - Common Issues On Walmart.com Right Now 05:23 - Navigating Through Walmart’s COMP Errors 11:19 - Finding Keywords For Your Walmart PPC Campaigns 16:20 - PPC Ads In Walmart Is Important ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast ► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension ► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup  (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life) ► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft ► Watch The Podcasts On Youtube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos Transcript Carrie Miller: Today we're going to be discussing all the updates that were given at the recent Walmart conference. We'll also be talking about a new payment method option that you have on the Walmart marketplace and I'll show you some techniques and strategies for your pay-per-click advertising on Walmart. Bradley Sutton: 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. Carrie Miller: Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers podcast by Helium 10. I'm going to be your host today. My name is Carrie Miller and this is our Walmart Wednesday, where we talk about all things Walmart. I answer questions we have. Sometimes we have guests, we do demos about how to utilize Walmart and how to sell on Walmart. Let's go ahead and get into it. I'm going to go ahead and get into some interesting information. Carrie Miller: Today I actually went to the Walmart conference. I think it was about two weeks ago. There were some interesting updates there and I wanted to share them with you, just in case you weren't there. There were about 1,500 sellers there. It wasn't invite only, but hopefully in the future it'll be open to more sellers, because that would be, I think it's a really great opportunity not only to learn from Walmart, but also to meet other Walmart sellers and get encouraged and see how everyone else is doing. Carrie Miller: The first thing that I want to talk about is that they're actually opening another marketplace, which is really exciting, because that means more opportunity for sellers. The first marketplace is obviously the US. We also have Canada, Mexico and now Chile. If you ever had any interest in selling in South America, they are opening a marketplace up in Chile. That's a great opportunity there if you're able to do that. Another thing I wanted to share is that they actually mentioned that they are still rolling out brand stores. If you haven't gotten access to it, don't fret, because they should be giving access to everyone soon. They're slowly rolling it out, just like they did with WFS, and they slowly just added people to those. Just keep an eye on that so that you can start creating your store just like they have on Amazon. You can put all of your products in there and showcase your brand. All they have to do customer has to do is click on your brand name on your actual listings. Carrie Miller: The next thing that I have on my agenda here is that they also mentioned that they are going to allow same day pickup. The same day pickup basically means for anyone who is a local store owner, If you have a brick and mortar store, that means that you can actually offer your products for pickup and people can actually come to your store and pick it up. Or if somebody wants same day delivery, then Walmart has a last mile pickup service that you can utilize to get same day delivery. That's pretty cool for anyone who owns a brick and mortar store in any location. It would be mostly for wherever people are local to that brick and mortar, but a really good opportunity for anyone who is local with a brick and mortar. Carrie Miller: Another thing is that large items are now available to be fulfilled through WFS. Before it was only up to 150 pounds, but now you can actually ship big things like multi-boxes, like maybe a patio set or trampolines or canoes or anything like that. Very exciting, especially because you get a lot more visibility and it helps your ranking when you're utilizing WFS. Now you can use WFS if you have big products. Another thing is that and I actually posted this in our winning with Walmart group Side note, if you're not in our winning with Walmart group by helium 10, go ahead and join that so that you can get access to other sellers and ask questions and we can answer them for you. Video ads are now available if you're a brand registered owner. If you are brand registered on Walmart, go ahead and check it out. You should be able to get access on ads because you have brand registry, but if not, you would probably want to open up a ticket. If you can't find access to that, Then this is one of my favorite updates and I actually got an email about this, I think, two days ago and that is that you can actually put a credit card or a debit card on your ads now, before it. Carrie Miller: Just they basically Always take out the amount out of your total sales, but I like using a credit card because I like to use travel points and so. On Amazon, I use you know, you know those travel credit cards to get a bunch of points and by the end of the year I have, you know, tons of points. I know a lot of other sellers like to do that too, but it was such a bummer that you couldn't do it on. On Walmart, too, but now you can actually add a credit card on there or a debit card so you can pay for your ads that way, which is really awesome. So that's something, to you know, look forward to if you are one of those people who likes to take advantage of the opportunity for travel points, All right. Carrie Miller: So I'm gonna go and get some into some discussion about just some issues that people have had. I have been looking in the group and I noticed a lot of people talking about so different situations and one of the things is comp errors. So comp errors are Basically kind of like the pesticide errors that you get on that you get on on Amazon. So if you ever get those pesticide notices where you get your product taken down, Comp error is similar but they don't really actually tell you. Usually when you get a comp error it just says comp error and your listing is seen down. You've no idea how to fix it. But usually it's because you use a product, a word that is, you know, forbidden. So what I would recommend is kind of going through those words that you know you can't use on Amazon. If you used any of them, a Walmart, delete them from your listing. A lot of times your listing will literally just come Pop back up within 15 minutes. So I think that's a really good, you know, A good thing to just try if you have the comp errors, and so I mean I've been seeing a lot of these comp errors. So that is something to take a look at and you know kind of refine that if you really have to delete the whole thing and start from scratch, I would recommend doing that too. Carrie Miller: Another question that somebody had is that they wanted to know why they weren't, you know, seeing any spend their ads and they had budget in there and they've set it up. And I have a few thoughts about this. Number one is that you're probably not targeting the right keywords and maybe your bids aren't high enough because you need to get those impressions. So I'm gonna actually, towards the end, I'm gonna talk to you a little bit about Cerebro and how you can do some exact campaigns for your PPC. But it's really important to make sure that you do keyword research and helium 10. We do have our Cerebro tool, which is literally the best keyword research tool. There's nothing else like it for Walmart and you can find, you know, all the best keywords by using Cerebro. So how they recommend doing that. Carrie Miller: And then another question that people have been asking is that if they Add an ace, if they should add an ace in on their product when they're actually uploading a product. So when you upload your product, you know it'll say you know what is your Amazon ace in? I don't recommend putting it there. I don't see why you would want to do it. I know there's one way to upload where you can literally just connect all of your Accounts, like you can just upload to Walmart via Amazon or Target or Etsy or eBay. I really don't recommend that method. My best suggestion for you to get your products and listings up properly is to use the flat file or bulk Uploads. Okay, it's a little bit harder, but once you learn the flat files, you have more control, the update faster, you can add variations in there, you just have a lot more control over your listing in there. So I highly recommend just uploading your listing with the flat file instead of these other ways, and you do not need to add an ace in there. There's really no reason for that. So I would suggest not doing that. Carrie Miller: I have a question. You said someone said I have nothing on Amazon. I still have comp errors. Okay, so somebody has saying they've compared. So what I would suggest doing is maybe kind of looking through your listing and seeing if there are any kind of Comp errors type errors maybe something like maybe you use antibacterial. There's lists on some forums about Amazon words. That's kind of what I have looked at is those words that are forbidden on Amazon and just kind of see if you have any of those. Or you could delete your listing completely and see if you can start over and just kind of slowly see if there are some trigger words in there. Another thing is I definitely recommend, you know, opening up a case for that If you still have issues. SellCord they've actually been on our podcast and Jake was on last month, sellcord.co if you contact them they always are able to help with. You know, account deactivations and compares. So if you really can't solve it on your own, I would just contacting them because they can help you expedite that whole scenario. Carrie Miller: Okay, and then another thing you know with all of that is it just has Matt in general. So I've kind of run into this issue. I was doing some, you know work on getting up a hemp cream and it was very difficult experience. You need to. You know, for any liquids you always have to submit a safety data sheet if you want to get your product in WFS. So if you're selling like a shampoo or a lotion or something like that, you always need to do that and submit that. When I first uploaded the hemp cream, it was denied, denied, denied, and then I got it approved. So I had, you know, the product up enlisted because there are other hemp products on Wal-Mart. However, apparently it's actually not. You're not really supposed to sell this product, even though there are some on Walmart and it's for sure forbidden from WFS. So some kind of has Matt type products you can sell on Walmart but you have to ship them yourself. So just keep that in mind. If you sell anything like hemp or you know any liquid issue products, you could have these kinds of issues and you might have to ship them yourself. It's kind of a stressful thing, but you know, I think it'll change in the future where you can send these things in, but for now you can still get on there for the most part and do F fulfilled by merchant. So that is what I recommend on that. Carrie Miller: So let's go ahead and get into what I wanted to talk about. To show you just I get a lot of PPC questions and so I wanted to share with you some strategies about just PPC in general. So we have a reverse product ID lookup on cerebral for Wal-Mart. So when you go into helium 10, you're going to want to go over to Cerebro and what you'll do is you will put in product ID. So the product ID is actually in the URL. So if you go to a product so I actually looked at men's genes as an example here and let's just go with the George. Okay. So George Sheens, and what you do is you basically find the product ID up in the URL or, if you have the X-ray extension, you actually can pull up the X-ray extension and then oh, I'm having issues there you can actually pull up the product ID there and just copy it straight from the extension. So that is one way to find it. So this is what we have here and we're just doing a reverse product ID and just to see what that product is ranking for. Carrie Miller: So this particular product is ranking for quite a few things sponsored and organic. You can sort by sponsored ranks so you can see, when you put these things in, if they are even advertising. It looks like this person isn't or this brand isn't even advertising. But you can also sort by search volume and look through things. So a lot of people like to go for these main keywords, but I recommend kind of looking for the lower search volume as well, and I don't necessarily think you should look at brand names. But you can find a lot of keywords in here. That would be very profitable, but maybe they're only 1,000. Carrie Miller: Let's see big and tall. If you have big and tall jeans that's a good one to kind of look for. Men's Baggy jeans is only 94. I have some literal keywords that have only 17, such as a month, and I've made multiple sales on those. The more relevant keywords, the better Work. Jeans for men it's only 200 search volume, but again, if you have really good work jeans, then you can use this and what you can do is find a bunch of these little search volume keywords and they actually add up to a lot. So what I would suggest doing is putting five to 10 keywords in campaign of the lower search volume. If you have higher search volume keywords, you really should put those in their own campaign. I recommend doing exact sponsored product ads because I've really had a hard time making sure that I'm staying profitable. Carrie Miller: Maybe some of you are different, but the broadened phrase I've not been able to get control of as much. So what I've been doing is I've been going to Cerebro often and I'm looking for keywords and what I do is I find those keywords and I kind of group them into the lower search volume together, the high search volume. They're gonna be in their own campaign and that's how you're gonna do this. Okay, so that is what I recommend for your PPC and because we have access to these keywords, you actually can sort through, like, if you wanted to find phrases containing genes, you can find anything that has something to do with genes. So all of these keywords are genes related, but they're just kind of iterations of the phrases that you can find all kinds of great potential keywords to target if you're selling something like that. So what I would say is kind of go around bigger keywords as well. Make sure that you're also capitalizing on those smaller keywords. Carrie Miller: Another thing is attributes. So in your actual listing there are places where you need to put color and size. Put the color and size into your actual title where they say it Usually, if it says men's jeans, is there a certain color? Are they black denim or regular denim? And put that in the actual title so that people can find you. Put it in the back end on the attributes. Put all the colors, all the sizing, everything that you can possibly do, so that you will show up in these searches. So that's what I would recommend Make sure that you have everything fully optimized and look for a bunch of these keywords to target. Now you can do the video ads. If you're brand registered, you can do the headline ads. So it's really, really a great time to utilize this feature. Carrie Miller: If you're not doing pay-per-click advertising, you're definitely leaving money on the table. So pay-per-click advertising is the best thing that you need to do to start on Walmart, other than optimizing your listings. I actually talked to a lot of people that they basically they say I'm not having much success on Walmart and I asked did you optimize your listing? Well, I just copied it over from Amazon. That's no, no, number one. You should definitely not just copy over from Amazon, because Walmart does not like that. They will suppress your listing and not put you in the search. And then also then I'll ask hey, have you started doing advertising? And people will say, no, I have not done any advertising. So if you haven't started advertising, that's really, really important to get some exposure for your products, get some ranking for your products. So if you haven't done that, I mean I don't actually don't know one seller who would say, oh, I launched a new product on Amazon, but I didn't optimize it and I didn't do any ads. It just unheard of. Carrie Miller: So think, keep the same energy that you have for Amazon from Walmart, so that you can, you know, just be successful. I talked to a lot of people at the Walmart conference and there were a lot of very successful Walmart sellers. I think the top was, you know they were doing about 700,000 a day in sales a day. So there is a lot of opportunity and a lot of possibility for Walmart. You just have to really push through and figure it out and just put that effort in to you know, making sure you optimize your listing and start the PPC campaigns. If you don't have, you know something to help you manage your campaigns. We do have Adtomic for Walmart. We also have a sister company, Pacvue. That is also has some Walmart advertising tools. So lots of great you know opportunities to find, you know software to help support you in the PPC journey. Carrie Miller: So I highly, you know, encourage you to go ahead. Make sure you start advertising. If you haven't started advertising, get your ads going. If you need help, you can always go into the Walmart winning with Walmart group and just get some assistance there. And also make sure you use Cerebro to find the keywords that I you're going to save so much money by finding these exact words. I did some auto campaigns at first and it was just out of control, not even helping me at all. So once I started using Cerebro I started becoming very profitable, so highly recommend doing that and good luck with everything. Let me know if you have any issues with anything and in the Walmart group, and I'd be happy to answer any questions. But hope you all have a great rest of the day and happy selling. Bye.

Today, we're privileged to have an enlightening and engaging conversation with the one and only Kevin King. Before Amazon FBA and E-commerce, Kevin takes us back to his early days as a collector of sports cards, which eventually transformed into a lucrative venture during his college years. In a unique twist to the collectibles market, Kevin began featuring pretty girls on baseball cards. A fascinating story that takes us back to that era and Kevin's unique business strategy ties into the Amazon-selling industry today. Get ready to take notes as Kevin King, opens his treasure trove of Amazon seller hacks and wisdom from his vast experience in the business world. From unveiling the concept of intuitive eating that helped him lose a remarkable 70 pounds without dieting, to sharing insightful hacks, strategies, and resources for Amazon sellers, Kevin covers it all. He even takes us behind the scenes of his recently launched an Amazon newsletter and its intriguing and engaging content. Gear up as we switch gears to advanced Amazon seller strategies and explore the unfair advantages and perks you can get by being a Helium 10 Elite member! As we dive further into the conversation, you'll hear tales of success from Elite members and how their monthly training and networking calls help them gain insights from some of the top Amazon and Walmart in the space. Rounding off the episode, we anticipate the forthcoming Billion Dollar Seller Summit and the Level Up event. So, whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur, an established business owner, or simply someone with a penchant for compelling stories, this episode is guaranteed to leave you inspired and filled with actionable advice. Don't miss out! In episode 491 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Kevin discuss: 00:00 - Kevin King's Amazon Seller Hacks and Journey 03:59 - Collectible Baseball Cards and Strip Clubs  10:16 - Kevin’s Weight Loss Journey and Health Tips 24:05 - A Different Amazon Newsletter 27:40 - Increasing Engagement Through Opt-in System  40:00 - Benefits of Joining the Helium 10 Elite Program  42:52 - Catch The Next Billion Dollar Seller Summit 48:30 - 60-Second Tip: Automated Tool for Boosting Amazon Sales  ► 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 Kevin King is back on the podcast and, in addition to some cool seller hacks that he always has for us, he's gonna talk about a whole variety of topics like how he used to be a collectible card Manufacture and how he's lost 70 pounds in the last couple of years without even dieting. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Are you a six, seven or eight figure seller and want to network in a private mastermind group with other experienced sellers? Or Maybe you want to take advantage of monthly advanced training sessions with Kevin King, an expert guest? Do you want to come to our quarterly in-person all-day trainings at Helium 10 headquarters? Or do you want the widest access to the Helium 10 set of tools? For all of these things, the elite program might be for you. For more information on Helium 10 elite, go to h10.me/elite. Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I'm your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show. That's a completely BS free, unscripted and unrehearsed organic Conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world, and we've got the most serious sellers of them all, Kevin King, back on the show. Kevin, how's it going? Kevin King It's going. I don't know if I'm serious, though I'm more a I'm a seller, but I'm, yes. Bradley Sutton Some people might say you know as like they read my news I would say what is serious, like how serious is this guy? Yeah, yeah, the newsletter. We're gonna talk about that you know. There's definitely been some some things that people are saying that this isn't, this can't be serious, but we'll get it. We'll get into that. Kevin King A little bit depends on the total point of view, what you see, what's coming, yeah, oh my goodness, I can't wait, I want to talk right off the bat though, before I forget. Bradley Sutton You know, I don't think we've talked about this on the podcast before, or maybe you've alluded to it. I've heard you talk about it, but I've never actually dug deep like right now. Hold on, let me just pull something from my back wall here. I just hit it behind. I was sorting some some baseball cards and I'm actually flying to Japan on my own time personal time off and I'm setting up at a card show over there because my dad's had a business there. But I've heard you mentioned before that that you've dabbled in in the old days, in the, in the like sports cards or comics or what was it exactly in that industry. Kevin King Yes, I as a child back in the 80s, 70s and 80s, I collected the basketball cards, back when the I think it was tops they were big, they're like four, four by six size or something like that very Huge, and I collect I don't know. So I don't know when I started second, third grade. So I'm like that and I collected those, collected baseball cards, collected football cards and I was big into them and then I just kind of I grew out of it. I guess maybe I don't know, sophomore year, high school or something, just that was a little kid stuff threw everything in a box or actually put everything in a. I think I was going to throw it away. My mom's like no, no, no, no, don't throw all that stuff away. So she's threw it into about my mom's a hoarder anyway, but she threw it into a box. And then my senior year of high school, like seven years late, sorry, of college, like seven years later, yeah, I was like I damn, I need some money, man, I need a, I need a little extra cash. I was like what, how can I make some cash? I was like, wait a second. My mom, I think baseball cards now people are actually starting to pay real money for these things. I might actually have, you know, some crazy rookie card for Roger Clemens or something, I don't know. I called her up. You still got that box of stuff I was going to throw away. She's like, yeah, I was like I'm coming up to see you, um, you know, from mother's day or something, I'm gonna grab it from you. So I grabbed it and I went on and I sold to Sold a bunch of those. I had some rare stuff in there, made thousands of dollars just taking them into a hobby shop, you know, a comic book store or whatever, and trading them in. And you got some extra beer, money and cash that I needed when I was, you know, not doing so well, when I was 21, 22 and so that evolved, though into time and, uh, the earth was. When was this? Like 92, 93, so about three years after college, um, I was doing stuff, mark and I, you know, mark, from billion dollar stars on, we were doing, um, I'd started a magazine, uh, that dealt with strip clubs, actually, and it wasn't. There's no nudity or anything. This is the business side of it. It was, you know the business side of it. And and doing that, these, for some reason baseball cards have become hot to put strippers on. So it was everything from you know the cabaret, royal and Dallas to the dollhouse in Orlando, to playboy magazine was doing it, penthouse, all the anybody you know bikini, hawaiian, tropic bikini girls were doing it. It became a thing to put Put pretty girls on on baseball cards and these were being sold through traditional comic stars. This wasn't like in the adult shops and like the on the other side of the internet. These were like. Diamond comics was a big distributor back then in capital city comics Too, huge distributors that distributed all the comic book stores. You know they will have big boost at comic con in san diego. Um, they would put these things out and you will put them in packs. It became a huge, freaking business. Bradley Sutton We're selling cases of these and that's one of my first so you were the, you were the one who made them, or you were we made. I was one of the. Kevin King I was both. I was one of the companies, I was making them. Um, originally we had deals because I knew some of these club owners. So they're like yeah, do go ahead and do ours. You know that's good promotion for us and we'll do it. So I was doing them, I go to them. We would either shoot it or they give us stuff that we would. Actually I would design it. What's the back of the cards have? you know, in baseball cars I would have the stats and he had had susie, susie smith, stage name, candy, candy dropper, whatever, uh, five, six, 34, 24, 34, um, originally from san diego, likes men with uh, a short hair or whatever, um, you know, it would be something like that and I was like I need a better way to actually sell these. So a lot of people it goes back to what we do today. They're putting insert, insert cards, you know, register your warranty or get on our, join our vip club or something as one of the like the 11th card in a pack of 10, and they were sending it into the company stew physical mail. There's no internet back then and these companies were not doing anything. They're like the, the business cards in a fishbowl at the gym. You know, they just accumulate. And so I called up all these companies so what are you doing with your, with your, uh, your inserts? And I got there sitting there, said send it to me, I'll get them all typed in. I hired some company in Jamaica that would type these in for Four cents a piece or something, some crazy load number ended up building a mailing list of like 13 000 people off of this that had filled up for like a hundred different companies that were doing this and then as part of the deal I said well, I want to be able to you, I'll send you the list. I knew these guys wouldn't do anything with it most of them and I want to be able to have the right to mail it and I'm going to buy your cards from you wholesale and I'm going to create a catalog, a glossy color catalog that was sent in the mail, and Send these out and sell mine and yours. That became a huge freaking business that blew up and, um that we were able to ride that wave, uh, for quite some time and we were doing all kinds of really cool. Sometimes I have to show you. If I would know and you're gonna talk about this, I could have showed you some here but we did 24 karat gold signatures, like an ink with 20 raised 24 karat gold. We did and put them in like those, those crystal cases with screws on all sides. I mean this was like Serious, serious stuff. Bradley Sutton I mean people ahead of the time, because that, that's like what the industry has moved to is like these, you know, like one of ones, and like, hey, this is a uh, you know there's only 10 that have this signature. And now there's these companies that have them, where they actually come out Like every single one, like national treasures and stuff, where every single you know card in the set it comes in like this case, and it's all encapsulated in these plastic or these, these hard holders, and You're like doing this stuff. Yeah, it's 25 years before we were doing stuff for puzzles. Kevin King So at the back of the card we might do a set of, a subset of nine, so maybe this sets a hundred, but nine of them on the back is a puzzle piece. So you had to collect all nine, flip the cards over and put them in the right order to get another picture as a, you know, as a puzzle piece, like like a tic-tac-toe board. But you put them on the right order it makes another picture. Uh, we, yeah, we're doing all kind and but because of the nature of the products we were, basically I was limited in my marketing, and so it's where I cut my teeth, because I had to get super creative and super innovative on marketing. Because you know, you weren't allowed to. You know, if there was a facebook back there wasn't facebook back then, but there was they would not allow you to advertise it. So it caused us to be very creative in the way we did marketing. Um, we did a huge events. You talking about going to japan at the block blotch Blotch not beloggio, that's vegas, but the Belaj hotel in west hollywood on the sunset strip over there by the viper room and maybe some different name now, but there's a fancy hotel. In 1997 we brought in a bunch of the models Put out a thing and said you know, it's 500 bucks to come, and we had all these guys come like 300 guys, 400 guys, come to get, stand in line, get autographs from the girls on their cards, on 8 by 10s, and we did a party afterwards. It was it was different world. Bradley Sutton Interesting. Well, hey guys, you heard it first. Kevin King I never talked about it. It's not okay. Bradley Sutton I guess, heard, like you know Briefly, you're into collectible cards, you know, and I was like you know what? That's kind of up my alley. Let me ask him about that. So you heard it first here. Now, guys. Kevin King We had binders, you know, with the sleeves, and you put special, special binders. You would collect and, yeah, it was like it was full on full on Wow, interesting, interesting stuff. Bradley Sutton So, guys, we're doing this podcast a little bit differently. I'm doing everything backwards. You know, Kevin is known for his strategies and and Amazon. You know seller hacks and stuff like that. Well, we'll definitely get to that, but instead of doing at the beginning, we're gonna do that towards the end. If you guys have been listening to this podcast for a while, I've actually, you know, usually at the end of podcast, start asking people about their health regimen and diets and exercise and things like that, because 2023 is my year of health, where I'm asking, talking to guests. But we're gonna, we're gonna flip the script a little bit. Say to the end for the Amazon strategy. Now, Kevin, you yourself, wait, wait, can you look to your left really quick? Look to the side, Kevin. Where'd you go? Kevin? Where, oh? You disappear. You're so skinny now. You just disappeared when you, when you turn to the side there. How much weight have you lost this year? Kevin King I Don't know what the number is this year but in the last couple years about 70, 70, some odd pounds. I still got a ways. Still got a ways to go. But I'm probably another 50 or 60 and I'll be happy, but that'll probably take. Bradley Sutton That's impressive. Take me a few more years. Once you, I've noticed, you know, once you hit 40. It's like hard to lose weight, so you hit a number like that. That's pretty impressive. So let's talk about that a little bit. You know I Mean are. What are you doing? You're not, you know, starving yourself. You told me that before. It's not about, it's not about like starving yourself or necessarily counting calories or or working out seven hours a day or anything like that. But but how have you been able to, to steadily get to that when you're at now? Kevin King I've been. I've had an issue with my weight all my life. I've been up and down all my life and sometimes it's gotten a lot worse than what it what it is now. You know, right now about 260. I've been as high as like 360 in the past. In high school I was right around 200 when I most of my weight gain started when I left the house to go to college, to start drinking beer, eating pizza and just kind of kind of put it on and Didn't really care Too much. But then it, you know, as you age and I've been lucky, knock on wood, that I haven't had a lot of issues, not other than a type 2 diabetes, but no high blood pressure, no high cholesterol, none of that kind of stuff that you would expect. I've been pretty good shape, even though been a bigger, bigger guy comparatively, and but I got to a point where it's actually my, my ex-wife, her. She always used to say if you can't take care of yourself, how can you take care of me? Which was a good little slogan and it's true, and so that kind of motivated me a little bit to To kind of in. So I tried every diet in the book. You know, everything from carnivore diet to Atkins diet, to Weight Watchers, to. Bradley Sutton Manny, get you on that carnivore at one point. Yeah, they're all stupid, he's, I know he's big on that. Kevin King Every one of those diets is stupid. I'm sorry if someone's out there's listening and thinks they're great. They're stupid. Every single one they do. They work, yes, they work short term. But how many times have you done the carnivore and you're right back to where you started it. But the key and I kind of learned this from my dad in a way, because he lost a lot of weight and kept it off for like 50 years he's skinny, I mean, he's like 130 pounds or something, but it's mindset, it's psychology. Eating is psychology. It's the people that you look at, all the people that go when they work out. They go when they work out and work their ass off and what they do after that. They go get a Starbucks and they just undo the entire workout. They just did by getting Starbucks with all the cream and all the whatever in it. I'm not coffee drinkers, I don't know all the terminology, but and they just completely undo it. But they feel good about themselves. I worked out and I had a supposedly a good coffee. It you've got to be conscious of what's in your mouth. So my, my ex-wife had found this woman. She's from Venezuela originally. She was listening to these, this podcast in Spanish, and she was a guest and she's talking about something called intuitive eating. You can look at, you can Google it. Google it intuitive eating. And she was talking about how this works. And so my wife At the time was like, let me, I want to do this. And so she called her up, started doing like launch. This woman lives in Miami doing long-distance consultations. And Then she said, Kevin, I think you'll really like her, she's really really good, you should try it. So, and to during COVID 20, was it? I'm into 2020 on Christmas time, 2020. I had my first call with her and started really in January 2021 and what she does is she doesn't believe in diets and she's like the head of the gastric that people of Miami I don't know what the damn thing is called, but something Uh, but she's like the top person of it, gmm. She's skinny, she's a Attractive you know, vince, a willing girl, but she's headed. This whole thing and her whole thing is, is intuitive eating. It's the psychology of eating. It's not about, you know, weight losses is about 80% what you put in your mouth and 20% everything else, and being conscious of what you eat, and so it. She's like Kevin promised me, you'll never go on another diet in your life. It's like done check mark. She's like if and if you get bad. If you get bad, if you go off rails on something Like you know, you go out and you you eat a gallon of ice cream one night because you're depressed or something. Don't think, well, shoot, I just ruined everything. I'm working at Might as well, eat another one the next day and I'll start a diet on Monday. Everybody always starts a diet on Monday or the first of the month. Okay on, on September, on August 1st, I'm gonna start. She said that's absolutely the wrong way to do it. She's like eat what you want. If you want a freaking Pizza, eat the pizza, but it needs to be. You want the pizza needs not be a five or six out of habit, but like a nine or a ten and go get the pizza, but be conscious of what you're eating. Maybe get a small instead of a large or whatever. And I had a habit. I had a bad habit like every night to relax, I would watch TV Just to, you know, unwind my brain and everything and spin an hour just watching mindless TV. You know, america's Got Talent or some stupid reality show or just whatever, just to kind of just wind down. And I would eat a box of milk guts. You know one of those, can those? I love milk guys because you could put three or four of them in your mouth, suck on them. You know, you put three or four in your mouth, they kind of meld together because they're caramel and so you're just sucking on it like you would a you know a butterscotch or something, and then, as it gets lower, you put a couple more in your mouth and they meld together so you can make a box last like an hour and a half. But that's 600 calories on a lot of sugar. I just I was in this habit of doing it every single night. She broke me of that. Now I have that maybe once a month. But she got me the thinking about things and she finds substitutes. Why do you like those milk duds? Is it the texture? Is it the carmel? Is it the way it taste on your tongue? There's something about it. Why do you drink so much soda? Is because you like the carbonation, that is, a specific carbonation. How about switching to this drink, not a period, not this, but this specific one, and it works. So you're, you're tricking your mind psychologically to still, because you have those cravings in those desires or those habits, and as you break in those you swap it. So she's told me, like Most dieticians would say, if you're drinking a coke, zero, you need to cut that out. You need to go to water. You know, hundred twenty eight gallons a day, or ounces a day I mean I got too much, that's a whale size. But a hundred twenty eight ounces a day, and and and, quit, cut, cut those out immediately. She's like no, if you're drinking six a day, just swap one of them out for a water In this, you know, and then have five and let's see where that goes. And but over time you start consciously eating things differently. You start looking at stuff. Am I eating because I'm hungry or am I eating because it's a habit? And now I'm at the point now where I have a private chef that comes once a week and cooks for me, and he used to make my lunches and my dinners. Now I'm just telling me one meal a day because that's all I want. So, and I'm not, I'm not eating half of it anyway. I eat, you know, a little bit of breakfast, protein shake, maybe a little cereal or piece of bread or something. But if I want a candy I buy. If I want an ice cream I get it, but I used to eat a lot of ice cream. Bluebell is my favorite to Texas company and you get across the south it's not everywhere but it's my favorite so I would have those little pints. I buy those little half gallon things or whatever they are last a couple days. I've had one right now in my fridge for two months and I haven't even opened it. It's a change in psychology or what I've done is like, okay, if I want that taste, I want that ice cream taste. I love that taste. It gets the hormones In me, it gets the things that satisfaction, those triggers that are in your body. I'll buy those small size cups. They're like for birthday parties for kids. You know there are 160 calories and I'll eat one of those and she's like, do you go back for a second, go back for a third? Like, no, I just, I just eat one. So it's it's some of its discipline, some of its mind over matter, just being conscious of everything that you eat. And that's the biggest thing in. The second is sleep is so important in in health and a lot of people especially. I mean you're a perfect example. You're working your ass off and sleeping wherever you could grab a nap here or there's a couple hours at night at one point. I know you're better about it now, but but most people dismiss how important sleep is for your overall health. And what woke me up to it is is a few years ago I was going to get life insurance and I didn't have life insurance before. But I got Marius, I better get some life insurance. And talking to the agent, they're like OK, there's, there's a what's your sleep apnea score? And I'm like. I just did a test and it was like 19, I had 19. Mild things or whatever it was, in a, in a period of whatever the measuring period is, that's OK, that's mild and what? What this insurance company told me is that you're at 19 times, maybe it's 19 times per hour. You sub, get subconscious, you don't realize it, but if it messes with your body and they said, if you're you get to 20, you're uninsurable on life insurance. I'm like what? And so I went immediately. I had my wife used to say I would snore. I would snore like a sound, like a Mack truck Coming down the street. So I went. I had a. There's a guy here in Austin that does a balloon, sonia plastic, so they go into your. I had a 70% blockage. I didn't know what, I just get used to it as you're living, you only realize it. But I had trouble in my nose. So you know, man, he just did it. I did a Marcus done a bunch of people done it. He has this technology is like these. One is doogie how's your guys that became an MD when he was 14 or something. So you know this technique. So it doesn't require the major surgery that and still get knocked out for like 15 minutes because and uses balloon and blows it up and opens all that up. That made a huge difference on my story. In my sleep Plus, I started using a sleep mask and I changed. You know, sometimes in your bed If it's hot or cold, temperatures are right, you're tossing and turning, you're not getting as much sleep, you wake up in this little bit of sweats or whatever. But there's something called the eight sleep mattress. Is the number eight sleep. That's freaking amazing. It's a mattress topper and you it's about two grand. It's not cheap, but you put it on top of your bed and then it you can set settings are you cold sleep or warm sleep? And you can do splits, so if your wife and you on one side, your partner new Can be off different. And then it measures you throughout the night and it ring and fit, that fits and stuff. Do this, but give you like your pulse rate and use some measurements during the night. But this like measures your whole body and like how often do you wake up, how, what kind of quality of sleep did you get? What was your heart rate, your hrv through the night, all this stuff and it Adjust after a week of testing. It figures out where what temperature is optimal for you. It's a way to just you can manually write it but adjust up and down either cold or hot, the temperature of the mattress. And this thing is so thin, it's super thin. It goes on top of the bed, has a little pump that you hide behind your bed with a little bit of water in it and it's brilliant. I mean I have a. I have a sleep number bed that has Like seven thousand dollars sleep number bed that has something similar built in that sucks compared to this Eight sleep. It's awesome. So things like that plus you got. You got to watch as a man. You got to watch your testosterone. So, as men, the number one thing is sleep, sleep apnea or sleep To stop, strong level in your diabetes level. Those three things play more in your health Then anything else. If you get on top of those, your chances of Of Having a long fruitful life and being there for your kids and your wife and when To enjoy your retirement or much, much higher intriguing stuff. Bradley Sutton Alright, so let's let's give somebody a quick tease. We're gonna talk about your newsletter you just started, why you started it and some of the stuff, but what's one of the either one that's come out already or something that's coming one of the strategies that you can share with our listeners who maybe haven't gotten a chance to read the newsletter? What's something you brought out in one of your newsletters that can write off the bad help sellers listening. Kevin King Yeah, I mean I just started April, august 14th. It's twice a week, it's Mondays and Thursdays. When I say newsletter, a lot of people roll their eyes but and cause I'm like, oh yeah, I get a newsletter from Helium Town, I get a newsletter from this software, and every time I get my email I get the company newsletter. Those are not newsletters, those are promotional emails for the most part. Go read our blog, go read this. A newsletter to me is more like a. What I'm doing is more like a magazine in a newsletter format. So it's action packed. Yes, there's a couple of ads and stuff in there from people that are paying for those, but it's action packed, actionable stuff. It's totally free. So, like, we just did a big one that's really resilient. The one that came out on August 28th talked about the A9 algorithm and so you know, Danny McMillan over at Seller Sessions did a big, big like document on it and we analyzed that and like, while that's good, that's not really there's more to it than that. So we took a look at Amazon Science, a big paper that came out and a couple of other things analyzed that and we talked about that and I've gotten so many people saying this is like the most amazing. It was written in a way that we can understand it. Sometimes this stuff gets too technical, plus some of the tips and tools that we put in there. We had a really cool resource for like getting. Sometimes, when you're trying to create your A plus content, your brand story, your brand pages, you're like what should I do? How should I tell my designer, a graphics person, to do and maybe you saw a couple here their ideas, or you give them some basic idea. But there's guys who listen. There's a guy in George. That's a similar library of 25,000 A plus pages and you can filter by it. I'm in the pet space, I'm in the space, I'm in the. It's got it all keyworded so you can search and get like, wow, that's a cool one, that's a cool one. I want my designer to do something like that or combine these two together. So I wish there were resources like that. I have something called the Dream 100. As you know, there's a lot of BS not Bradley Sutton's, but BS in this industry that with fake gurus and stuff. So I have every Thursday I come up, I put someone in the Dream 100, and I announced this is a legit person, you should follow them, trust what they say. So that'll get up to 100 people. It's only three right now, but that'll get up to 100 people over time. We do. I add a little bit of humor to it, so there's like I'll either call somebody out you know that's basically a fake guru or we'll put some crazy listing like hey, can you believe that this product is selling 100 grand a month on X-ray on Amazon? You look at it like holy cow. That's the craziest thing I ever saw. We do some of that, so it's a mix. And then I tell a personal story and each one's called a six second story. So when someone opens the news there, you gotta hook them right away and you gotta get them reading and engaged. And so I do. I personalize it and then I tie it to whatever we're talking about that day. Bradley Sutton So I'll personalize and reason. One kind of causes stir about some naked people, some balconies. Kevin King Yeah, but I do that. I want to. You know, I always say if you're not pissing someone off, you're not doing a good job. If you try to please everybody, you please nobody, and so I'm feeding my audience and so if that bothers you and it's gonna bother some people that might be religious or you know, depending that's okay. You can go find your information somewhere else. I'm fine with that. But the overwhelming response to that has been like holy cow, this is the best thing ever. This is don't stop. Can you do this every day? I can't believe it. One guy who sent me a message today is like this is so good I can't even take it all in. I just got three of my team members start reading this and we're dividing up sections of what to do, and so that's. There's so much out there. You know we do the helium-10 elite every month and we've been doing that since 2017 at helium-10, which is advanced level stuff, and in that I do seven ninja hacks every month and share those with the audience, and then, once those have become a little bit older, sometimes I share those other places, but the helium-10 elite people always get them first. Right now, I write everything on the current newsletter, but it's going to get to. I'll hire a staff, but I need to get to set the tone, figure out what works, what people like, what they don't like, and then I can feed everything I've written. For if I do this for three months, let's say, I can feed that all into an AI and then say have the AI write in the style of Kevin of the newsletters they don't know the exact style, the exact everything. So these are not AI newsletters, these are. We use AI as a tool, but AI is not writing these. Bradley Sutton So if somebody wants to go ahead and sign up, it's free right now. How can they do that? Kevin King Well, it's always going to be free. It's billiondollarsellers.com with an S, billiondollarsellers.com with an S. It's growing pretty quickly. So I think hopefully by this time next year there'll be maybe 50 to 100,000 people getting that twice a week and actually reading it that one. So my email list from all the stuff I do is big not as big as helium-10s or something, but so I could just blast this out to everybody. But I don't want to do that. I want people to actually want it and I have people now already saying I didn't get it, I didn't see it in my spam or what happened to it, and they're getting upset that they didn't get it. That's what I want. Is it to become habit-forming and become something people look forward to? When they see that Kevin King, BDSS, they're like, oh, this is something I got to read. If I can't read it right now, I'll save it until tonight or the plane ride tomorrow or whatever. That's where I want it to be. So it doesn't have to be. It's not a blast on my whole email list. You've got to double opt in. You can't just sign up and get it. You actually sign up and you got to click something else to say you really want to sign up and then you're in and that's on purpose and it keeps the open rates high, the engagement high, it's good for the advertisers that come into it, that support it with a little bit of advertising, and it's just good for everybody. It's people that want it. Bradley Sutton All right. So guys, make sure to sign up. It's one of the. I personally don't even read newsletters. This is like the first one. I actually just sit there and read and, just like Kevin said, sometimes he starts with a funny story, but it works. It like hooks you up and like laughing, sitting there, laughing like all right, I want to read more. I'm hooked in and from start to finish. It's long, it's like you're doing a lot of scrolling. Sometimes people say, oh, when you write an email, you don't want them to scroll, and they're like I got no problem scrolling, but it's written short. Kevin King It's written in a format so that you can skim it, but you'll see that it's using every trick in the book. There's no paragraphs more than two or three sentences. There's no. It's not long, and usually when I write it I have to go back and cut half of what I've written wrote out and it's straight into the point and we use a sense of humor. It's not just that opening story, but it's like we did something about in a recent one. So there's no such thing as the A10 algorithm. It's always the A9. There is no such thing, and the A9 of all is just like you did during puberty, but it's still named the A9. So we'll do stuff like that. It's not necessarily business-like or corporate-like, but screw that, put a personality to it and people love that and then as a reading they have a little smile or like I get it, or that's relatable. It doesn't sound like corporate speak or boring stuff. That's all on purpose. Bradley Sutton All right. Now you referenced Elite and how you saved the best hacks for there. Do you have any? Just for a sample, you can give some of the cool one or two of the cool hacks that you've given out on your seven ninja hacks that you do monthly in the Elite group.  Kevin King Yeah, sure, what's a good reason? We do this every single month. We talk about some of its tools, like CASPA AI, which is a really cool tool where you can shoot your product on your iPhone, just basic picture, upload it and then put it into any scene you want. So you're like, hey, I want my water bottle to be held by an Asian guy standing in the gym with some barbells behind him and he's holding it facing the logo out. It'll make a cool picture instantly using AI with that which you could use in your Amazon post or you could use in your maybe in your listing. You could use a lot of places. So we'll do cool tools like that. Or Melio payments, where you can use credit cards to actually finance your purchase, orders and stuff. We do things like. A recent one was about how to Get that there's a newer version of this item available. You know we covered that there's a new version of this item available. Like people like see that, how do I get my? You know if I you got a calendar or you got you just updated your product, how can you Link that to the old inventory so that people see there's a newer version available? We showed people how to do that. We showed people how to do the back-end stuff before anybody knew how to do the back-end and get a complete dump of your competitors Listings like all their attributes and everything before. That was really public information. Well, I was like a couple years before yeah, main stream. Yeah, we stuff like how to use a Hexa. Hexa, it's a beta program most people don't know about to create 360 degree pictures for Amazon listing. They'll do it for you for free and I think that's really really, really, really cool. We've done stuff like how to make money fall from the sky on your landing pages. You know you, someone hits on one your landing pages or one of your blog sites and they don't let's say they don't sign up. But you want to know who they are. There's tools out there that will actually Use IP and geo location to actually figure out, in about 50 to 60% of cases, who these people are, based on public data In the United States, Europe, you might have a few more issues with privacy, but yes, we don't care about privacy. So, unless it's medical, and so we, we can figure out that. I just went to Bradley's blog talking about the honeymoon and he's a no, I went there. You know, as he got a hit or his metrics, that there's a visitor session, but he doesn't know who they are. If he puts this little bit of code, then we can we put, we can figure out that. Oh, this was Kevin King because he was using this IP address of this computer and there's reverse matching. That knows that, oh, Kevin King went to this gaming side or went to somewhere else in the past 10 years From that same place. It must be Kevin King. Let's match it up again to this other database. So his, his email address is blah blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Puts that into a database. Then you can either email those people which I don't always recommend if you're gonna do that, you should use something like zero bounce to make sure the emails are valid or you can put them into custom audiences if you're running Facebook ads or any kinds things like that and you can retarget these people. You ever wonder how sometimes you went to a site and You're all of a sudden now I'm seeing this stuff all over my feed. Some of that's retargeting pixels, which is more private. But if you're wondering, how do they get me onto an email list? Or how did they get me from this this not a meta property into an X or Twitter property? Those two aren't the same company not sharing the same pixel. How do they do that? And this is some of the ways they're doing it. We also talked about you know, Howard. You've had Howard on the how tie on the on the podcast and he's got a little group called elites I'll forget the name of elites seller society or something like that and he's had every Thursday he has someone come on and talk about stuff and one of the things that just recently he had David, who's spoken at the billion dollar sauce on. You remember David from a, the ghost story. Bradley Sutton Back in 2019 he came on and he did some translating for him. One year at the billion dollars. Kevin King He came on and talked about you know what, what? How are things changing with the Chinese sellers? You know, Howard, he's like you know, ai is level the playing field as far as creating listings and stuff now for everybody. And If you someone's like a word that, how are they ranking? How are they getting reviews? What are they doing? He's like the number one way that Chinese sellers are getting Ranking. Right now they're using postcards, postcards through the mail and he's like, thanks to Kevin King, I'm like what he's like? Oh yeah, I did talk about that in 2019 when I did me and Brandon young went over there and spoke to a huge group in Shenzhen. Well, they took that and now he said that's the number one way that they're getting Review, ranking products and getting reviews. And and so I was like you know what? I think I actually did that In the US too. It wasn't. I just didn't give that to the Chinese sellers. And so I look back and I share that to the helium-ten elite. First way back, and I don't remember exact time, in 2018, some point, I did a presentation on postcards and it was cutting edge. Virtually nobody did it, everybody, you know. They looked at like, yeah, Kevin, that's like I I never heard of. I don't even check my mailbox. I don't know. I'm a millennial Nah who reads the mail like dude, you're missing it. And so nobody in the hardly anybody in the US did it, but the Chinese like, oh, this, this looks good. They did it and look what it's doing for him four years later. So that's the kind of stuff we do in helium-ten elite. If you freakin pay attention and implement Not only what I'm teaching but what we bring on Really good guests. You know I look for diversity, from PPC people to shipping people to you name it. You know sometimes you get a speaker. That's yeah, okay, but we get some really good people as three speakers, plus myself, on Every single one of the helium-ten elite, that's. You know, there's a lot of groups out there that that have trainings, but I think this might be the longest last, the oldest one period. It's continuous. There's others that have started and come and gone, but that and but I think since we started February at 2017, when it's called Illuminati, changed the name in 2019 to helium-ten elite, but it's been continuous, never missed a month since February 2017. So that's six and a half years. I don't know if there's any other Group. That has lasted that long at this point and guys. Bradley Sutton You know I told people this before. This is One of the secrets not the main secret to my success is Before I ever sold on Amazon, you know, before I even became a consultant. You know people thought I was crazy because it's mulling. I mean, like seven, eight, nine figure sellers going and paying 400 bucks to get in this Illuminati mastermind. I, I could see the value in it. I saw a webinar for something first of you and Manny, you know, way before I worked at helium-ten Year, more than a year probably before and and I actually joined Illuminati Just as a regular person who wasn't even selling yet and within like three, four months I had enough knowledge just from the Illuminati stuff and you know a couple other. You know courses I was taking, but mainly from the Illuminati, where I became like a pretty top-level consultant and and was, you know, launched my Amazon consulting career. You know which was my career before helium-ten, without even selling on Amazon, just because I was able to ramp up my knowledge super fast by being part of that Illuminati mastermind. Kevin King So and it's not just the guys exactly training- that's what we had, but more recently Helium 10’s added a weekly call with all the people that want to participate. So I do one a month. I jump on once a month and then the other three weeks Bradley and Carrie and Shivali host them and we'll have anywhere from 20 to 40 50 people in there that are members of helium-10 elite. There's a lot more members in that, but you know some people are busy and for a couple hours Typically an hour or two hours everybody's on there on a zoom call, all on the screen. There's no agenda, no presentations Like what do you got a problem with? Oh, you know Amazon's blocking me from shipping this and anybody else ever dealt with this. And usually there's someone else like, oh, yeah, I've a. You know, maybe we me or Bradley or somebody knows the answer begin help them. But usually there's somebody else like, oh, have you ever tried this? Or this happened to me two years ago and I did this and you have this interactive conversation that you're not gonna get in a Facebook group. You're not gonna get anywhere else other than maybe an in-person event, which there's four of those a year to for helium-10 elite. Did you get to come to for free? That are that value right there. Sometimes I learned stuff in there, you know, I didn't know from somebody else that right there, connecting with other high-level sellers and being able to share is as valuable as the presentations, if not even more valuable in some cases, and I'm so. There's things like that, that that you're not gonna get anywhere else. Bradley Sutton Just last week I don't know if it was on your call or on one of the regular weekly one that you're not on there, it was before you. Either way was before you came on the call there was Elizabeth, who's an elite, elite member, and she was talking about how she's done like something like a two million dollars on TikTok shop Some crazy, some crazy number like that and so she was just like people were dazzled with what she was saying Just ran, you know, just like just randomly got on there. She was just one of their participants and was talking about that. Now we're actually gonna do a train. She's gonna do a training in October in the elite in-person workshop in New York where she's gonna show people I'll kind of like reverse engineer how she was able to get to this level of success that she's had on on TikTok shop, which is definitely a hot topic. Kevin King So that's hot, that's. That's big right now. That's big. If you're not paying attention to that, that's big. You know I had Perry Belcher. This will be coming out on the AM PM podcast in October. So be sure, but Perry Belcher if you don't know who he is, he's one of the top marketers in the space right now. He started digital marketer. Yeah, the big expo with 7,000 people I mean sorry, traffic and conversion is. He was one of the founders of that. He started digital marketer. He's really big in the marketing space and old-school marketing guy. One of the things he actually said on that podcast, among a bunch of other cool stuff, is that he's like if you're going from Amazon to Shopify, it's a mistake. You should not be doing anything on Shopify. He said we're finding far better success by setting up funnels with click funnels or high level or one of the other, and doing single product drives it. The conversions are way higher, the Sales are way higher than driving someone to a Shopify site where it's there's too many confusing things that can distract them and he's like that's where these Amazon sellers because I asked him for one of the mistakes people are making said that's one of the mistakes a lot of sellers. Amazon sellers are making right now, as they should be focused more on driving stuff to single products with upsells Rather than driving to a Shopify store. Bradley Sutton Here's all my 20 things my, my company sells, but yeah, yeah, I mean the tick-tock shop that there's, just whatever is cutting edge. You know we talk about an elite, so so it's actually the longest in history and that you know. Kevin just said it started in in 2017. So it's we're talking over six years, almost seven years. It's been closed for the longest time in history. I think the last time it was open was in March of this year I'm not sure by the time you guys are listening to this episode of its open, but sometime in in September, October, we're gonna open it up for a couple weeks or so. So this is the time to sign up. Guys write this down h10.me forward slash elite. H10.me forward slash elite. And even if it's not open right now, there's a button on there where you can join the waiting list so you can make sure that when it does open for the short window that it does, that, you guys can get in. But but you know the benefits are this is like the only way to really talk to Kevin. You know people Want to ask kept. You know want to hire Kevin as a consultant all the time. Kevin doesn't have the the bandwidth do that, but once a month he'll go on there and just live, you know, just in a regular zoom call. You can ask him anything you want. You can ask other people anything you want in the Facebook group. Or we have two weekly zoom calls now one at In the afternoon on Friday us time and then one that I actually hop on at midnight because it's 8 am UK time Every Friday and and we hit the, we hit the Europe. You know, all the European sellers and people in Asia, you know, can hop on a call and network with each other. We have four quarterly workshops. The next one's coming up in October, the fourth one of the year. We had one in, you know, during Amazon accelerate, September 11th, and now October, right during unboxed, we're gonna have one where we're gonna be talking about, like I said, tick tock shop, and also we're gonna have a PPC Expert and there's a whole bunch of other Advances of being on the elite program. So if you guys are interested to add this to your helium tenant count again, go to h10.me forward slash elite and Either sign up right there if it's open, take advantage or if it's closed, just just join the waiting list so you can hook up with Kevin that way. Kevin King There's some software tools to that. They get extra tools or extra capacity or something right. Bradley Sutton Yeah, elite members usually get access to tools like way before, like we just launched Some historical Cerebro. Elite members have had that for like a year and a half, you know, but now barely diamond members are getting it. Like a year and a half Later there's some tools like our elite analytics so that Kevin actually developed himself he gave the the kind of blueprint for it. That's still only elite members can can access that diamond members don't have access. Then that's been around for like two years. So lots of advantages, including networking and training that elite has. You know, back in the day, like I said, when I was an elite Illuminati member, it was only the. You know there's a I think there was a Facebook group Maybe at that time or something, but it was mainly just one of those training calls a month and that was enough value For me and now it's just like all you know tons, tons of other value. So guys, make sure to check it out. Another thing you know I'm wearing my my OG Billion Dollar Seller Summit shirt today from the very first one, from the very first one and the next one time and place In 2024 for the next billion dollars. Kevin King There's actually two. Come with the next Billion Dollar Seller Summit, May 18th to the 23rd in Kauai, Hawaii, which is gonna be amazing, and then right after that one from the 23rd to the 26th, I have a second event called level up, where we're? So the first, the billion dollar seller summits, mostly for Amazon sellers and all the traditional things that you're You're used to like you are Bradley from a billionaire, saw something, the level up, or switching resorts, take it, everybody that's staying, that chooses to stay, and they're going to the Waimea Canyon, which is the Grand Canyon of Hawaii. It's like a little Grand Canyon that you in Hawaii that then we're taking them on the Nepali Coast on a dinner cruise. The pop for the poly coast is where these mountains, these beautiful mountains, come right up to the edge of the water. It's just stunning Dolphins jumping everywhere, and so that's gonna be cool. And then we're switching to Hanalei Bay, to the one the chain, the ones 300 million dollar resort that just had a overhaul and it's like 14, $1500 a night to stay there, but we got a rate that's like way less than half of that For people coming to the event. And then we're doing it's called level up, so it's six speakers, only ones Amazon, the other five, or you know, like Perry Belcher just said, he's probably gonna speak at it, jason Flatlin is someone that's maybe speak at us, a couple other Molly Mahoney, it's probably gonna speak at it, and some some other, and then we're mixing that in with Some mind and body stuff, like we talked about earlier, because that's important for our engineers. So there's gonna be cryo therapy, there's gonna be a sound therapy lab where you listen to the bowls and it helps reset your mind. We're doing hot yoga, a bonfire on the beach, and so it's. It's gonna be pretty cool. We're doing a race. You know we did that race here in Austin. You were in that's that scavenger hunt we did a couple years ago here in Austin. People love that. So Probably problem one of the problems when you go to an event you don't get to see the place. You're like you see the hotel and maybe you see a bar or something with a restaurant. So we're doing we've got 25 Avis rental cars thing or 30 Avis rental cars all lined up and you're gonna broken the teams of four and you're gonna do an amazing race across the islands one day. So you're gonna see, then you're gonna be able to see the entire islands and experience the island. Quiet is a place where you're not gonna want to be sleeping aping in the back. You know you're gonna be like looking out the window after every turn going Holy Callis is beautiful. I've never seen something so beautiful my life. It's a drastic Park Island and so you're gonna, but you're gonna be able to see some cool stuff all in some back places that you wouldn't know they're not on the tours map. We're gonna take you to this one cool beach as part of the race. You're like, holy cow, I'm coming back here because nobody's here, nobody knows about this place. It's like a secret little beach. So that's. That's gonna be cool too. If it's your third or more trip, you're gonna get like a drastic park experience in a helicopter ride Over the island and stuff. So, like Bradley, if you're out there, you get. You get that for free, as, since you're a regular, since you've been to three, this is your third or more we're gonna take a helicopter around the island as a tour is amazing fly up to the inside. This 10,000 foot waterfall and a helicopter in land and this, this drastic park kind of vehicles gonna pick you up and take you through this Amazing like plantation kind of thing and to a VIP dinner that night. It's gonna be really, really cool. So, yeah, that's a billion dollar seller summit calm. If you want information on that, then in October I'm doing the billion dollar exit summit so the billion dollar exit summer, doing this with Scott Deets so somebody may know he's got the, the exit ticket or whatever it's called him and he them to Probably the top guy and helping people exit. He helped manning Guillermo exit Helium 10 help who's involved in that Done over a half a billion dollars worth of exits for Amazon sellers. So and you may be like, yeah, but right now I'm not thinking about exiting, but you, you might be in a year or two years and now's the time to actually start working on it now To maximize and add a couple extra million dollars to your exit. By working now, rather than waking up one day and say I want to exit, I want to be out of here in three months, you're gonna be shooting yourself in the foot. So we're doing a. It's very small 25 to 30 people in Austin, October 10th to the 13th called the Billion Dollar Exit Summit and it's hands-on. So he's bringing his whole team, so it's want some a lot of one-on-one stuff. It's not a bunch of presentations from all these random people. You're gonna walk out there with a plan like, okay, this is what I need to do specific to your business. So that's, that's happening in October. Bradley Sutton Awesome, awesome, alright. So, guys, billiondollarsellersummit.com to get more information on it. Alright, like always, let's go ahead and close this out with your 30 or 60 second tip that you can leave for the sellers out there, do you haven't checked out Levonta. Kevin King That would be a really good tip. I leave a NTA, I think calm, I think is the is the URL. But especially for the fourth quarter coming up. You know, offside Amazon traffic is huge for ranking. You know you get the 10% referral bonus if you're brand registered and it just helps you in your rank Even if they don't buy. If you're sending traffic from outside social media or outside media, blogs, whatever, even if they don't buy, it helps you on your rank. But these guys you know that's, but it's kind of a pain in the ass to go set all that stuff up. You got to find people on TikTok or you got to find blogs or you got to find these affiliates and like coordinate everything one-on-one, one by one, by one. These guys have got over a thousand of the top affiliates, from TikTok people to people who are in the affiliate business. That's what they do to blogs like USA Today. USA Today will do a holiday gift guide for pet products this year. If you have a pet product, you want to be in that gift guide in USA Today with two million people reading it online. You, these guys, can facilitate that in the way. It's seamless, the way it works is you just connect your Amazon account to their system and it automatically imports all your products. Once your products are in there, you can go in and cherry pick them like I only want to promote these three. I'm willing to give a 20% commission for you know this dog bowl and then that goes into their database, these thousand affiliates. When they're writing their stories and looking for things they can search that database. Oh, I want, I want to promote this dog. Well, he's given 20% Off. They just automatically pick up the code, the, everything. It's all done for them. They put it into their blog or their, their post or whatever, and it's all automated or you can go in there. I think they let you do 50 a day. You can reach out to people and they're growing really, really fast and they just had people on prime day the last, the July prime day. Do over a million dollars just off of outside traffic, off of this program on prime day, and just imagine what that does to your listing on Amazon and the internal Amazon stuff, how that's gonna get that file flywheel going. So that's that would probably be a tip of there under the radar. And you know a mission is here. They don't give me a kickback or anything for this, but that's a tool that I think any Amazon serious Amazon seller is a fool to not use. I'm an absolute fool to not actually take a look at that, especially for this fourth quarter, and get a strong competitive edge Over your competition get more like that. Bradley Sutton Guys in Helium 10 Elite. h10.me/elite. Kevin, thank you so much for joining us. I know you're traveling a lot more than you were in the previous years. I'll probably hopefully see you at one of these upcoming events and then, for sure, at the Billion Dollar Seller Summit next year. So Keep on. By the time I see you next time, you know I might not even recognize you're losing so much. Wait, hopefully you won't recognize me, because I need to. I need to get on the path. Kevin King Yeah, it's slow but by. Yeah. If we go along in a period of time, you know I've lost a bunch. Bradley Sutton I'm not trying to do it quick. All right, we'll see it. We'll see you next time you.

Ever wondered what it takes to breathe new life into a product whose sales have hit rock bottom? Well, we're about to pull back the curtain on the process. Kickstarting the journey to redemption, we delve into the realm of listing optimization, cross-examining ASINs, and pinpointing top keywords for single or group listings. In this highly practical session, we use our Project X egg rack product as a case study to illustrate the steps to revitalizing sales, from initial setup to shifts in market trends. Then, we navigate the rough seas of competition research, undertaking a meticulous analysis of competitors' pricing, product dimensions, FBA fees, and reviews. We reveal how powerful tools like Helium 10’s Market Tracker can unlock a comprehensive understanding of the market share held by various competitors. Wrapping up this segment, we ponder the implications of our competitors' profitability on our pricing strategies, equipping you with the knowledge to make informed decisions and stay ahead of the curve. Lastly, we dissect sales and keyword performance, shedding light on the art of effectively monitoring them. Discover how Helium 10's Keyword Tracker, Cerebro, and Adtomic can unravel the mystery behind your listing losing rank and sales. We also discuss how subtle tweaks in prices and keyword targeting can help reclaim your competitive edge. Rounding up, we explore the process of competitor analysis on Amazon, offering a wealth of insights on identifying keywords your competitors are ranking for, and assessing your own keyword performance. This is a must-listen for anyone keen to understand when to pull the plug on an unprofitable product and how to give it a fighting chance at survival. Tune in to gain a wealth of knowledge and strategies that could just save your product from the brink of extinction. In episode 490 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley discusses: 01:13 - Project X Is Back?! 03:42 - Revitalizing Amazon Sales With Project X 06:31 - Analyzing Competitor Pricing and Profitability 07:29 - How To Leverage Helium 10’s Market Tracker Tool 16:01 - Amazon’s Test On Hiding The Bullet Points 16:08 - Results After Emma Helped Improve Our Listings 18:13 - Analyzing Sales and Keyword Performance 24:27 - Analyzing Keyword Rankings and Sales 26:54 - The Power Of The Cerebro “Time Machine” 30:48 - Competitor Analysis Process in Amazon 39:22 - Revitalizing Old Products & Introducing New Projects Bradley Sutton: Today's episode marks the return of one of our most popular series ever Project X. We're going to talk about the steps that any Amazon seller should take If they have a product that has tanked in sales. Can we revitalize it? How cool is that? Pretty cool I think. Do you want to see how your listing or maybe competitor's listing rates as to best practices for listing optimization? Or maybe you want to compare a group of ASINs or Amazon products to see how they compare to each other? Maybe you want to see within seconds the top keywords for a single listing or a group of listings? You can do that and more with the Helium 10 tool Listing Analyzer. For more information, go to h10.me/listinganalyzer.    Bradley Sutton: Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers podcast by Helium 10. I'm your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show. That's a completely BS free, unscripted and unrehearsed organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. In this episode we are bringing back Project X. Maybe once a month or every other month I'm going to start doing some Project X follow-up episodes. There's a lot coming. We actually started recording season two last year and we got some great footage and some products are actually coming into stock. That was from those recordings. We're going to follow up on some of the original Project X products, if you'd like. What in the world is this Project X that Bradley's talking about here?    Bradley Sutton: A few years ago, we did this case study. It was mainly on YouTube and you can go back and watch it, but it was all about trying to take some products from zero to hero. We did this reality TV show, vibe program, where we showed you every step of the way how we were able to find products, get them launched, optimize them and then scale them up in the feature. Ever since that show maybe three years ago, four years ago now we did that We've been maintaining those products, not doing that great of a job because we're not full-time Amazon sellers here. I try and run this in my spare time. That's part of what we're going to be talking about today is I've been neglecting some of these products and sales have gone way down. That's what we're going to be talking about today is do you have a product that maybe you've neglected, maybe you haven't been neglecting it, but sales are way down? It's a product that's one or two years old and you're just not doing as well as you did in the past. What are the steps that you can try to take in order to revitalize it or in order to try and get those sales back up and see if you can salvage all the time and effort that you put in a product? Now, what we're going to do today, guys, I'm doing 100% live. I'm not going to prepare this or try to pre-do some research here. I'm going to air this episode right after I film it, a few days after I film it. We're not even going to have time to see the effects. It's going to take maybe a month or two to see, or I did the things that we do actually have an effect. I started noticing this product going down a few months ago. We've already done a little bit of work. We've actually talked about it on this show, where we had Emma from Marketing by Emma come in and revitalize a little bit some of the images and also some of the copy. Now it's like, hey, let's see how that did and what more needs to be done.    Bradley Sutton: Let me give you some background first on this product. This product wasn't one of the original Project X products. This is something we were doing when we expanded the brand, we made this brand called Gui’s Chicken Coop and then it was an original in Egg tray. We still have that product. But then we're like, hey, along those same lines, we found that there were these stackable egg racks that were trending on Etsy and Pinterest. The same way, we found the original Project X products. We're like, hey, let's be the first person to make these.    Bradley Sutton: On Amazon, which we were and we were just dominating, we had some really, really great sales. Let's actually go in and take a look at some of the sales here I am on our Insights dashboard and I knew that even I put here last year and it was one of the top five products. You could see that towards the end of last year we were doing well. We were doing, I mean, for Project X. It was doing about $5,000, $6,000 a month. Profit was decent. Let's take a look at what the profit was towards last year Over $6,000 worth of profit. So it was decent. It actually overtook some of the original Project X in sales.    Bradley Sutton: But let me show you what happened since the end of last year. We started off with a bang, but then some competitors started coming to the marketplace. We were the first ones and they're like hey look, how good these Project X guys are doing, we're going to try and undercut them a little bit. Let me show you what happened to our sales because of that. All right, I'm going to go ahead and show you this year's worth of sales. You can see, at the beginning of the year we were still doing about $6,500 a month, but then sales just took a nosedive. It halved in March down to $3,000. April it was only $1,000, and then it's been hovering between like $1,000 and $2,000. First of all, you got to understand what happened. Now. Unfortunately, I wasn't running Market Tracker on this the whole time. Otherwise I could show you guys exactly when people started getting into the market. Maybe you're like me and you weren't running Market Tracker the way you should have. I am now and I'm going to show you guys what I can see in the last couple of months on Market Tracker. But let's go ahead and go to Amazon and take a look at what the competition has been doing. All right, so I'm going to go ahead and enter a stackable egg rack here on Amazon.    Bradley Sutton: Let's just take a look at a couple of these big players. Some of them have been around for a while, but this guy here, this Kinlin, has been just crushing. Now, first of all, take a look at this price point $20.95. Let me tell you I was actually selling this product for $38. We were the only ones and we couldn't even keep them on the shelves Right off the bat.    Bradley Sutton: You can see an issue here $20.95. Well, let's just take a look at the Helium 10 BSR chart here to see has he been doing this price the whole time? First of all, let's take a look at when he started getting serious. You guys notice anything here. It was right exactly in March of this year. You can totally tell that by looking at this BSR chart, where it looks like he maybe was experimenting with some units here and there, but he really wasn't selling that consistently. Then all of a sudden, come March of this year, he just starts going bonkers. His price point has actually always been looks like $20.95. He stayed pretty consistent on his price, but literally almost half the price of our product. That's one of the issues right there. His sales are like you know maybe five, six, x what our sales are. So it wasn't just him, though there's other people who have jumped in the market.    Bradley Sutton: Let me actually show you I actually set up market tracker a couple of months ago. This is not market tracker 360 that you have to pay a lot of money for, that's for like huge, like five, $10 million brands and agencies, but the regular market tracker that all you helium 10 users have. I created the market to kind of like track who are the players, who are my direct competitors for the stackable egg rack market? And, as you can see here, I picked about 17. Now, keep in mind, for almost a year we were the only sellers of this product. Like like nobody had anything that was like ours, where you can just buy these extra levels of this egg rack and then stack them up. Now there's 17 players that have come in and take a look at a lot of their price points $20, $30, $22. Here's one for 38, but it has four racks, all right, mine only has two, um $27. Uh, here's another one that's like $15, $28. So everybody's coming in at this cheap price point.    Bradley Sutton: Uh, you can take a look at my market share. My market share used to be a hundred percent, right, my market share used to be a hundred percent. Now it is 11.2%. That product that came in in March, is crushing it. They have 50% of the market right now, and so that's obviously a problem, right Like that's why my sales have gone down. So the question is what can I do about it? Can I just lower my price? And can you guys lower your price almost by half and still be profitable? Probably not.    Bradley Sutton: I actually did some research and that was one of the first things. I look at my dude like like I might have to discontinue this product. Let me look at what the numbers are. So actually, let me take you through what I did. Uh, I went and checked my product price. I forgot I think I was paying too much for this, but you know I was the only seller. I was making a ridiculous profit. It was like probably like more than 30, 35% or so, and so I didn't. I didn't care really what price I was paying. So I was just curious. I was like how in the world can this product sell so cheap?    Bradley Sutton: So I first looked at their at their page. I was like, okay, are, are, is their dimensions a little bit different? Let me actually go ahead and open up my product in another window here. Okay, here we go. I've got my product open. So now you guys are going to kind of see the comparison.    Bradley Sutton: So the first thing I was just wondering was what's going on with, like, their FBA fee? Now, look at this. Their FBA fee is only $8.83. I'm like what in the world? Like how is that possible? All right. So I look at the size of their package and it's 14 by six and a half by two. All right, now compare that to mine. I've got $12.43 FBA fee, okay, and my product size is 15, seven by four. So, right off the bat, it's like how in the world can they do this product in half of the width of my product? Because I'm like, wait a minute, you know it's the same exact product, right? So I actually ordered one of theirs. You can actually see it here in my Amazon window when I go to their page and says, hey, you purchased this, you know, back in July and it's interesting. Their product first of all. They make it like almost like an IKEA package. You actually have to put this together. It's in pieces Now to me.    Bradley Sutton: I would have thought they would got some bad reviews for this because they don't say that in the listing. You know my product. It already comes all assembled. You're good to go. Go ahead and put your Huebles in there, your eggs, right? But no, they don't have any bad reviews.    Bradley Sutton: But, like me, if I bought that, I literally would have left a bad review even if they weren't my competitor because I'm like I think I'm not time for this. I buy from Amazon for convenience and now all of a sudden I have this two layer egg rack that literally comes in one, two, three, four, five, six pieces and I got to like screw it together and do like Lego and stuff and try and figure out how it works. I'm like, no, I didn't get time for this. So, just, it was just shocking to me. How can people not complain? I guess maybe because the price is so low or something. But I was like, okay, well, there's one thing I'm not going to do, right, so if they're saving a couple or four bucks on their, on their FBA fee, so I'm like there's an advantage that they have right off the bat.    Bradley Sutton: But even besides that, what I did was I was like, well, what kind of profitability might they be having? So I actually ran the profitability calculator and then if they, if this is their price, and let's say they're doing, you know, they're doing some um PPC, that maybe they have 10% tacos on there. So if they're doing 20% profit even with this lower uh you know shipping price that Amazon is charging them, that means that their product manufacturing costs is got to be like around $4. And mine is like seven or eight or something. Uh, something like that was what mine was.    Bradley Sutton: And so then I went into, you know to, to my listing. I'm like, well, this, this kind of sucks, how can I, how can I compete? Now, remember before I was like at 38, 97, and I think my manufacturing cost was like, let's just say it's $8, right? And then if I had 10% tacos, all right, uh, in order, you know I was doing. Third, like I said, I was doing like about 30% profit here.    Bradley Sutton: But then I'm like okay, what if I were to have to lower my price like $21? Well, what's going to happen? Look at this my profit is negative, 2.85. So you know I wouldn't have lowered the. You know I don't like race to the bottom anyways, but rather about my. Okay, obviously I'm not going to lower my price. But what if I lower my price to like $30, or let's just say 33. If I'm at $33, what kind of profit? Can I make 20%? Maybe it's okay, you know.    Bradley Sutton: So I actually did that. I lowered the price temporarily just a little bit ago to $33. But knowing that, hey, I've got to go to my factory because $30 is $33 probably isn't going to cut it. I need to get a discount. So if I can go to my factory and lower my manufacturing costs from like, let's just say, $8 to $30, let's go with $6, for example, now, all of a sudden, if I lower my price to like $28 or $29, right, I can still maintain that 20% margin. So I might even try and get a little bit more aggressive on this and actually get a little bit aggressive on the box size to see what's going on.    Bradley Sutton: So here's the first part. You know, without even worrying about, you know, conversion rate or how's my listing, optimization or what keywords I'm on, I'm looking at just like the kind of logistics of everything, right, so here's their. I bought their product, here's their box. Now I see what they're doing. You know, let me see what I can do. Now I'm considering a little bit, like, is there a way to still do this kind of stackable thing that they're doing without screws and without so many pieces. You know I'm still considering it, but at least I know that if I want to lower my price to under $30, it's still doable. But I've got to, you know, take down my costs by a couple of dollars. But in the meantime, I just started doing experiments. I was like, let me just lower the price and so you can see. If you look at this product right now on Amazon, I put it down to $33.97 and because it's the lowest price in 30 days I had this nice big red sticker that comes up in the search results and it actually comes up right here on the page. So I'm like, who knows, maybe that will, maybe that will help me out. You know, just a little bit.    Bradley Sutton: All right, so, as I said, I, ready a couple of months ago, started trying to say, hey, we need to get Emma in here, and let's do some some of the images a little bit different and let's see how it, how it performs. So she came in, she, she gave like you know new title. She had Chevali do some new images here. So Shivali actually took a lot of these images by herself and so we kind of revamped what we were doing here with these images. I actually told Shivali, hey, I need you to change this image. But she didn't do it. I'm gonna have to remind her. Now I'm looking at this. I didn't like this last image because it needs to not get multiple sets to have all the storage like it needs to be. Hey, get more top racks in order to get all the storage you want. So I got to get what Shivali to change that.    Bradley Sutton: But anyways, Emma went in and did a lot of updating. By the way, I hate this test that amazon is doing right now where they Hide the bullet points. All right, because, like, for example, when I saw that that competitor had Um, you had to like assemble it in order to Make it. I made that my first bullet point. I said no assembly was required, unlike the others. You see out there, this comes ready to use out of the box no screws, no multiple pieces. But of course, after I did that, amazon is like doing this experiment for the last month or so where they're hiding the bullet points, so annoying.    Bradley Sutton: Anyways, as you can see here, Emma put in some A plus content. We never had a plus content, uh, in the past, and so first thing I wanted to see was wait. First of all, when did I change this Um, and then how were the results? As far as like conversion rate at the very least? So I had forgot when I changed it. So, um, what?    Bradley Sutton: Let's go ahead and take a look here on my insights dashboard. When you do things to your listing It'll you'll get an alert, but then also I can put my own notes. So I'm pretty sure it was May. Let me just put my mouse over here. All right, view all, and sure enough, all right. Here we go.    Bradley Sutton: Um, I put an updated Listing and a plus content looks like May 16th. So I put a note here, I uploaded the listing and and did a plus content at that time. All right, all right. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to check what the Conversion rate was like, kind of like the few weeks, or actually a couple months leading up to that. A plus content and listing content change and let's just see how it was after.    Bradley Sutton: So let's go ahead and hop back into the insights dashboard. As you can see here, I've got for one April 1 to May 15, and of course, you can do this in your Seller central as well, but obviously just easier, do it here in your insights dashboard. You don't have to go into Seller Central or try and Find where it's at. Uh, here's the egg rack, and then I'm here under listing so I can see here All right, we've got a conversion rate of 3%. Okay, unit session percentage of 4%, right. So let's go ahead and take a look at what it was After the change. Let's go ahead and go from like may 18th To the end of june and we're going to look at the same number, looking for the conversion rate for Egg rack, and look at this Wow, 8% almost, and 6% conversion rate. All right, so definite increase. So you, you could see like, hey, maybe the sales would have even been worse if we didn't make that change. We were able to to not quite double, but you know pretty, pretty nicely increase our unit session percentage and conversion rate.    Bradley Sutton: So now, what else can we do? Because it's probably Not just about the price. Price is probably the big thing. What you want to do, guys, if you have a listing that has lost a lot of sales, is you want to see like, have you lost, you know, keyword rank? So let me first let's go outside of helium 10 and let's hop in a search query performance and see if we can go ahead and do some Diagnostics there. All right, so I just started search query performance here. I'm going to look at ASIN view. All right, let me go ahead and look at my double rack. Here it is.    Bradley Sutton: And let's go ahead and look at one of the months where we were just kind of crushing it, like like we were doing really well In January of this year, right? So let's take a look at some of the top keywords here and then let's go ahead and open up in another tab this same report and let's take a look, let's see if there's any information for August. You know, August we had probably like only One-third the number of sales. So let's go ahead and compare. Looks like they don't have information for August yet. Uh, here in search query performance. So let's go ahead and look at july. All right, let's compare.    Bradley Sutton: So in January, uh, the number one keyword for us was egg holder countertop. We got eight sales from it. You know, 48 cart ads. Wow, 48 cart ads. So there's probably even more sales. That happened after there for the egg holder countertop. All right, let's go switch over here to july. An egg holder countertop brought us Zero sales, wow, okay. So where, where in the funnel, did we leave? So this is the beauty of search query performance in In January there was 25,000 searches and we had 13,000 impressions.    Bradley Sutton: All right, all right, let's go ahead and take a look. All right, July 13,000 search volume, so a lot less search volume, first of all, all right, 25,000 versus 13,000, okay, so search volume, you know, just overall, might be down, but then the impressions was 3,000, all right. So you guys remember we had a Search Query Performance team on this call. What does that mean? If there was 13,000 searches and I only had 3,000 impressions? It means that my organic and sponsored rank most of the time was in the top of the page. So at this point, at this point, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go back to Helium 10 and this time I'm gonna open up Keyword Tracker and let's just see what's going on with my keyword ranks for Egg Holder Countertop. All right, so let's go ahead and do that together. All right, so I got Keyword Tracker open. I was tracking all items and the variation here is the Egg Holder Countertop.    Bradley Sutton: Let's go ahead and look at the history of Egg Holder Countertop for the organic rank and specifically, I wanna take a look at what was going on in most of January, all right. So you could see here in January I was towards the top of the page a lot of time, like in the top 15 results. Look at that Top 15 results almost across the board for organic. Let's take a look at what my sponsor was. Was I even advertising for this keyword at that time? Okay, now I'm looking at sponsored and what. This is kind of weird. So it looks like I've never advertised for this keyword. So that's kind of strange. So, like I definitely wanna check my Adtomic. But that's interesting. That means most of my.    Bradley Sutton: Let's go ahead and look back at Search Query Performance. Okay, it makes sense. My search volume was 25,000. I only had 13,000 impressions. That was 100% organic. So that right there is like a miss. I don't know what was going on or why I wasn't advertising against my number one keyword. So there's potential right there, where I have a history of converting for this keyword. Maybe I need to start go ahead and put that in my sponsor as a matter of fact. I'm gonna go ahead and do that right now. All right, so here I am in Adtomic. Let's go ahead and open up one of my performance campaigns. That means that's what I put my exact manual. I'm just gonna go ahead and add this as a target. Here we go, let's go ahead and add target and let's enter a new keyword, exact match, and we'll call this egg holder counter top. And there we go. All right, there we go. So we just made one potential move. Again, now it's from search crew performance. So the rest of what I would need to do is I need to go through and take a look at these other keywords that I was getting sales from, like.    Bradley Sutton: Here's the second one, just an egg holder. I was able to get three orders from back in January. Here I got six orders. From what keyword is this? Wooden egg holder, all right, wooden egg holder got me six purchases and I actually had 184 clicks on 4,000 impressions. So that's pretty impressive.    Bradley Sutton: Now Wooden egg holder is still my number one keyword. Only 2,000 impressions, 29 clicks. Wow, guys, that is pretty crazy. My click share is only 3%. So I had 29 clicks out of 2,000 search volume or impressions.    Bradley Sutton: But before egg holder countertop or a wooden egg holder, I had 184 clicks with only double. So that just shows me that's gotta be price, guys. All right, that's the price effect right there, if nobody even clicks it. You know, and I have a similar image that means people are like why am I gonna click on this 33 or $38 product when we've got these $20, $22 ones, all right. So in this case, you know what I already lowered the price of 33. I wanna do a test on if I can go further and I wanna get that. Since I have that lowest price in 30 days, let me double up on the badging and let me go ahead and throw a coupon in there at the same time. So I got that red lowest price in 30 days badge and I've got one of those green coupons, so I'm just gonna go ahead and hop in and throw one of those coupons, all right.    Bradley Sutton: So for those who haven't done coupons before, you just go to Seller Central. You go to advertising and then hit coupons, all right. And then let's go ahead and create a new coupon, all right. Next step is you're gonna hit, search your catalog and let's go ahead and put the ace in in here. Here's the product. Let's go ahead and select it and hit continue.    Bradley Sutton: Next step you're gonna do is set the start and conclusion date. Let's go ahead and start this like on September and let's have it run all the way to the end of September. Let's make it a percentage off. I'm just gonna go. Let's go with 10% off, a double-digit number there, limit redemption to one per customer and let me make a just a budget of a hundred bucks on this. Let's just test it out. Next thing you gotta do is you gotta fill out this coupon title and targeting. I'll do that off-camera. Okay, so I got my coupon set up. That's gonna go active in a few days.    Bradley Sutton: We're gonna come back in October and then take a look at all right, how much did that increase? You know, click-through rate, because I'm never even gonna get to the add to cart, I'm not even gonna get to the purchase If I can't even get them to click the listing in the search results. I might even have to go to a deeper price based on what these competitors are doing. So we just covered search, create performance and how I can go dive in there and look at all the keywords that were working for me before, and then look at all the ones in search, create a performance at least, and then look at all the ones that is happening now. Now, remember I was selling crazy units a day like five 10 units a day. Back in January, if you look at a search create performance report, it only showed like about 15, 20 sales for the entire month. And remember that's because Search Query Performance doesn't cover a lot of the other scenarios of how people purchase.    Bradley Sutton: So looking at where I was ranking as a whole is important, and let me show you how I can do that. I can look at a holistic look at where I was ranking organically and sponsored and then do that comparison. It's gonna give me a lot more keywords to look at. Let me show you how. So what I wanna do is I wanna go back into my listening. I'm just gonna run Cerebro on my own listening, so I just have to go ahead and hit this keywords button. If I'm in the listening, I scroll down to the Healing 10 Chrome extension here, just hit the keywords button, or I can just enter my ACE into Cerebro and get it All right. Here's all the keywords I'm ranking for now.    Bradley Sutton: Now, same thing that I was doing in  Search Query Performance. I'm actually gonna keep another tab open here and I wanna run another instance of Cerebro, and the reason is is because I'm going to compare what's going on right now to what was going on in January, which was like the most recent killer month that I was having. So how I can do that is when I'm in Cerebro I'm gonna hit this show historical trend button and I'm gonna go ahead and check what was going on in January. You can see I was organically ranking for a decent amount of keywords. Let's go ahead and apply the filters and now let's see what I was ranking Like, let's say, organically, in the top 10. So what I'm looking at now, guys, I'm like taking a time machine. That's why it's called historical trends, but I call this Cerebro time machine because I'm just literally taking a time machine back to January of this year and I'm running Cerebro as if it was still January and let me see where I was ranking on average for that month. So to see what you know decent search form keywords I'm gonna go ahead and enter a minimum of 500 search volume and let's go one to 10 on the organic rank and let's take a look at some of these keywords. And, sure enough, I'm definitely gonna expand it out to more than just one to 10, because I get sales from other parts of the page too.    Bradley Sutton: But take a look, there are those keywords that were right from search through performance. That's why you know I could have just skipped that search through performance and got the data here as well. But here we got wooden egg holder, egg holder tower top and there are a few other keywords. Now let's actually switch to right now. Let's take a look at where I'm ranking for on some of these keywords. So what I wanna do is I actually wanna check on these top 10 keywords. Where am I ranking now?    Bradley Sutton: So let me take this a wooden egg holder, for example, keyword and then let's look at Cerebro. What is going on right now for this keyword? All right, so here I just did a filter for a wooden egg holder in July, and look at this my organic rank is 25. So there's there's definite drop in sales. I went from organic rank two, to sponsored rank one, and then now it is sponsored rank five, organic rank 25. So there's a big fail. I need to kind of, you know, improve on what was the highest search volume keyword at the time Egg holder countertop. We already looked at that one. Another one here is a chicken egg holder, all right. So let's look at chicken egg holder and then go ahead and look up where I was ranking in last month for this chicken egg holder organic rank 53, sponsored rank nothing. In other words I wasn't sponsored at all. But back in January, I was organic rank seven, and sponsored rank five. So there's another kind of plus there, guys, where for whatever reason I let some keywords fall off and I'm not even advertising for them anymore.    Bradley Sutton: Now the interesting thing here is is back in January I was not really getting play for very specific keywords to my product. And when I say very specific, that would mean, like this is a specifically a stackable egg holder or a stackable egg tray or a multi-tier wooden egg tray. You know, those are very specific to what this functionality was. It's interesting because since my product was kind of like the first to this niche, people weren't really searching for those keywords because they didn't even know it existed. But now I bet, if we would look at it, you know, there's some other sellers probably getting some play for those keywords. That that I'm probably not right now, because we almost, like, created a niche. That's why there's so many different coffin shelves and things like that. We were the first to really, you know, go hard with that kind of product and now there's just a million coffin shelves. But anyways, as you can see there, even just comparing myself to myself, I took my foot off the gas off of some keywords for whatever reason, and that definitely, regardless of price, is probably playing a role in my drop in sales.    Bradley Sutton: Let's now take a look. You know, instead of comparing myself to myself, which is what we're doing in search, career performance, and cerebral, let's compare what's happening now myself, my product, compared to some of those competitors who have overtaken me in sales. Are they getting sales from keywords that maybe I don't even have in my listing? Let's hop in and let me show you how to find that. All right, so I'm here in the search results for stackable egg rack, and now what I want to do is or what you guys want to do, you know, I hope, if you're following along, do this in your own product. What you need to do is go to Amazon and go to the search results of, like your main keyword or main page. You can also do this inside of Helium 10.    Bradley Sutton: If you're, if you're tracking your competitors, I like doing it from Xray, just because it's a nice visual experience and the first product that you click on in Xray. Now again, I know this is kind of harder for you guys who are driving around or running around or riding a bicycle and trying to picture what I'm doing. Make sure to go to YouTube to watch the version of this episode to really get the full feel. But hopefully, I'm describing this, you know, decent enough for you. All right, so the first thing you want to do, since you're comparing your product versus your competitors, you go into Xray and you choose your product first. So I'm looking for Ghee's Chicken Coop here. It is right here.    Bradley Sutton: And then now you pick like four or five of who are the best sellers right now. And you know, sometimes I sort it by sales. This category sometimes trips out and, and you know people switch categories. So I'm actually going to sort it by BSR and let me pick the closest ones to my product that have the lowest BSR, the ones that have a better BSR than me, meaning that at least for the last few hours or today, they were selling better.    Bradley Sutton: And here's that number one product, kinglin. Here they're the ones I want A hot look at. This Kinglin product has sales of 666. You see, I knew there was something. There was something weird going on with this product why he could sell so much. You know, deal with the devil. I see how it goes, okay?    Bradley Sutton: Anyways, seriously speaking, though, let's go ahead and select him. We definitely want to know what keywords he's doing, and I'm only choosing the products that are very similar in function to my products, like here's a quail pigeon egg holder. You know, mine is not for quail pigeons, so I'm not going to pick that one. All right, there we go. I was able to pick a few products, and now we're just going to go ahead and run Cerebro.    Bradley Sutton: Now, the first thing that you want to do is you want to see if are there keywords that they're getting sales from that I am not even ranking for, let alone not on page one. For all right, let me show you how to do that. I have their products compared to mine. I'm going to say position rank that's my, my product zero, minimum, zero, maximum. All right, I'm going to go ahead and put a minimum search volume of 300. And then the next thing I'm going to do is I am going to do advanced rank filter minimum one. All right. Advanced rank filter number one, minimum one. That means I'm looking for a keyword that at least one of the these other competitors is ranking in the top 10 that I am not ranking for at all. And to do that, I go to advanced rank filter, number two, and I put minimum one, maximum 10. All right, there you go. I mean, as a goal, you want no keywords to come up here, and sure enough, there are no keywords that came up for mine, thank goodness, all right. So that means that hope you guys understood what I just did. I was checking are there any keywords that I am not ranked for at all but at least one of my competitors is in the top 10? The answer to that is no. You guys want that to be no as well for yourselves, all right. Step two All right, I know there's not one that I'm not ranking on, but what? Are there any keywords where I'm ranking like between like 15 and 306, but at least one of my competitors is ranked in the top 10.? And I would assume that there's a number of them. And sure enough, look at all these keywords here. All right, so wooden egg holder is one.    Bradley Sutton: Let's take a look at what's going on here. Wow, look at this. There are a couple competitors ranked for and ranked five, and yet my position is 25. So there's a keyword that potentially I can try and increase on my sponsored rank to get some, you know, to start competing with those other two products. Here's another keyword here. Look at this, this counter egg storage. You've got one competitor at position seven, another one in the first 20, but or two more in the top 20 organic positions. And me, where am I ranked? 91. There are a total of 50, 17, sorry, 17 keywords on this list or at least one of my competitors is most likely getting sales from because they're in the top 10 positions in the organic results. And yet I'm like anywhere from 25, and here's one keyword that's, I'm all the way at 220. So there still is some low-hanging fruit. So there's a lot more stuff I'm going to go into.    Bradley Sutton: I'm going to go look at my Adtomic. If you guys don't use Adtomic, you're not going to be able to do what I do, because I'm going to be able to go in and look at my history on what keywords I was crushing it on back in January and February and see what's going on with those keywords Now, like, did I accidentally pause it? Or did one of the healing 10 employees who keeps screwing with my account because they're trying to run test, accidentally archive something. The reason I say if you don't have Adtomic, you can't do that is the only way you would be able to look at that is if you were downloading your search term reports from Amazon during that time because Amazon only lets you see I think it's like two or three months worth of data, and that was January February. With Adtomic I can go back like two years, so I have no problem. So that's my next step.    Bradley Sutton: I'm going to do I already did, you know some listing optimization, but I'm also going to do some next level list optimization. Once I take a look at all these keywords and look at the keywords I'm not doing great in, I'm going to check in Listening Builder. Do I have them in phrase form? Or maybe that's why I'm not doing so great for it is because I'm just indexed for it, but I don't have the full phrase in there and that will help. That could help my relevancy. So I'm definitely going to optimize that.    Bradley Sutton: I told you I'm going to go into those images and I need to kind of like make people understand that they can buy extra racks, to kind of like stack it up. That's another thing I'm going to do. Another thing I'm probably going to do is I'm probably going to go to azrank.com and do some customer testing, like have some customers search for some of these keywords and then let them give me a report on what they think of my listing versus these other ones and which ones, like, would they pick first, second and third, and which one last and then, and then I might get some insights there from, like, real customers on. Is it really just the price that people are kind of tripping on? I'm going to go ahead and hop in and use Helium 10 Audience, which is powered by pick food.    Bradley Sutton: I'm going to run some split tests. You know, like I just told you that we changed the images right, but was that the right move? I'm going to? I think that the A plus content definitely was the right move because you know it helped our conversion rate, but that main image we actually didn't change. So I'm going to check. Did they take any more pictures that maybe I could split test on? I might not want to split test this on a live listing because you know it could hurt my conversion rate, but let me go ahead and run a Helium 10 audience so that I can, you know, pull 50 Amazon buyers and then see, see what they think.    Bradley Sutton: And then, like I said, for my next order, I got to get a price that's at least like 20% cheaper, if I can, from my factory, and I might even look into changing a little bit of the dimensions. Actually, matter of fact, you know what this is important. So let's go ahead and hop in here and see what we can do. Let me show you something cool, alright, so let's just go hop into my listing and let me show you how I can kind of like play around with the pricing here. Let's go ahead and run the profitability calculator once it comes up and let's see if I can like maybe shave a couple of inches off of this. What might happen? Let's take a look. Alright, so if I can get my manufacturing cost down to like $6, and still with a 10% ACoS, and if my price I want to put this at like $28 more or less, what would happen if I can shave just maybe an inch off of the length?    Bradley Sutton: So let's go 14.12. It was at 17% profit. That brings me to 18% profit, so not much. What about this width? Let's bring this down to seven. Wait a minute. Wow, did you guys just see that? I just took the other width or the height, from 7.28 inches. I just took off a quarter of an inch and it increased my margin by over 4%. That's kind of crazy. Let's try that again 7.28. Yeah, it was 18%, large standard size, but then I take it down to seven and it drops me under three pounds outbound shipping weight. So that might be an easier win to just shave off a quarter of an inch from the height and I get 4 percentage points back on my profit margins.    Bradley Sutton: Now, that is definitely doable. You see, you see guys, like, like how you just got to like, dive in there and start playing with this. You never know what might happen. I think it's because I was right on the cusp of that dimensional weight for three pounds and it put me at 2.99 pounds just by changing 0.28 of an inch. On one side of the product, I say 4 percentage points.    Bradley Sutton: So these are the kind of things that you guys need to do and at the end of the day, let's just say I do all of this stuff and I start losing money on PPC because I have to spend so much and I just can't, I can't compete, I can't stay profitable. Yeah, you got to be able to pull the plug. You shouldn't have complete emotional connections to your products, guys. You got to be able to pull the plug sometimes. But, anyways, these are the steps I want you guys to take.    Bradley Sutton: If you have a product that's been out for a couple of years and you're like man, can it be revitalized? Don't just give up without even trying these things. There are things that you can do to maybe get some traction back. So again, this is one of the Project X products. We're going to have some more Project X episodes coming out on some of the products you know and some of the launches of some brand-new projects. These are brand new products that we've been doing in our Project X that you guys haven't even heard about yet. So look forward to that in the next episode. I'll see you guys there.

We’re back with another episode of the Weekly Buzz with Helium 10’s Brand Evangelist and Walmart Expert, Carrie Miller. Every week, we cover the latest breaking news in the Amazon, Walmart, and E-commerce space, interview someone you need to hear from, and provide a training tip for the week. FTC reportedly may sue Amazon later this month after talks break down https://nypost.com/2023/09/05/amazon-facing-ftc-antitrust-lawsuit-later-this-month-report/ TikTok is ending its support for Shopify‘s storefronts on September 12, but the ecommerce brand has found a new way to operate on the ByteDance-owned app. According to The Information, Shopify will integrate its vending platform into the TikTok Shop hub. https://www.tubefilter.com/2023/09/01/tiktok-shop-ecommerce-merch-shopify-storefront-integration/ Amazon doesn't name Temu, Shein, or AliExpress as potential threats in any of its latest SEC filings. However, according to the latest app store rankings on Data.ai, Temu and Shein are currently the two most downloaded shopping apps in the U.S. on iOS and Android. https://www.fool.com/investing/2023/09/05/meta-platforms-growth-chinese-amazon/ New York-based eCommerce company Benitago has reportedly filed for bankruptcy. The firm is seeking protection from creditors two years after raising $325 million in funding, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported. It listed both assets and liabilities of between $50 million and $100 million. https://www.pymnts.com/news/ecommerce/2023/report-ecommerce-company-benitago-files-for-bankruptcy/ For this week’s training tip, Shivali Patel shows us how to create your own QR codes and design your product inserts inside Helium 10’s Portals tool. Lastly, Carrie invites you to join Helium 10’s Winning with Walmart Facebook group to connect, network, and ask questions to a community that is selling on the Walmart.com platform. In this episode of the Weekly Buzz by Helium 10, Carrie talks about: 00:45 - Amazon / FTC Update 01:30 - TikTok Shop / Shopify 03:19 - Most Downloaded Apps 05:22 - Aggregator Benitago Bankrupt 07:22 - Amazon Price Tracker 09:00 - Pro Training Tip: Create QR Codes And Product Inserts Inside Helium 10 14:09 - Join Our Walmart-Selling Facebook Group ► 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

Let’s catch up with Eugene Wong, an accomplished 8-figure Amazon and 7-figure Walmart seller, as he shares the latest developments in his thriving e-commerce empire. Eugene not only walks us through the intricacies of managing his expanding businesses but also reveals his secrets to maintaining a healthy work-life balance, turning personal hobbies into profitable business ventures, and exploring new income streams.  Join us as Eugene discusses his journey into the world of TikTok Shop, where he has successfully launched products. Plus, get a sneak peek into the brands incubated by his dedicated employees and learn about the innovative system changes and automation he’s implementing in his business systems. This episode is a goldmine of entrepreneurial wisdom for anyone looking to diversify their income streams outside E-commerce selling and thrive in the ever-evolving online seller landscape. In episode 489 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Eugene discuss: 02:52 – Eugene Shares Updates On His Business 03:44 – His Healthy Habits And Habits Outside The Amazon Grind 06:13 – Let’s Talk About Sports Cards From Hobby To Business 09:13 – Problems, Balance, & Boundaries For The Main And Side Businesses 13:54 – “You Need To Think Of What Your Hobbies Are” 15:43 – Diversifying Your Income Streams 18:00 – Launching Brands Incubated By His Employees 20:54 – Let’s Talk About TikTok Shop 24:32 – Browsing Eugene’s TikTok Shop 28:03 – TikTok Is Banning Amazon Links? 29:49 – Business System Changes He Is Implementing 33:03 – Eugene’s 60-Second Tip ► 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 an eight-figure Amazon seller slash seven-figure Walmart seller back on the show, who’s gonna have a little bit different kind of episode. We’re gonna talk a lot about how, as entrepreneurs, maybe we can take a hobby of ours and turn it into an alternate income stream, as well as how he’s launched on TikTok shop. How cool is that? Pretty cool I think. Bradley Sutton: Are you browsing a Shopify, Walmart, Etsy, Alibaba, or Pinterest page? And maybe you see a cool product that you wanna get some more data on? Well, while you are on those pages, you can actually use the Helium 10 Chrome extension Demand Analyzer to get instant data about what’s happening on Amazon for those keywords on these other websites. Or maybe you wanna then follow up and get an actual supplier quote from a company on alibaba.com in order to see if you can get this product produced. You can do that also with the Helium 10 Demand Analyzer. Both of these are part of the Helium 10 Chrome extension, which you can download for free at h10.me/extension. Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I’m your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show that’s a completely BS free, unscripted and unrehearsed organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. And we’ve got back on the show for the second time, a very, very serious seller here Eugene. Eugene, how’s it going, man? Eugene: Hi, what’s up Bradley? Doing very well. Glad to be back. Bradley Sutton: Alright, so, so guys, you, Eugene has sold multiple eight figures on Amazon, seven figures on Walmart. If you want to get his full backstory you’re gonna want to go to episode 306. All right. So h10.me/306 to get a lot of how he grew up and what his parents wanted them to do, and then the kind of direction that he went to. Quite an interesting story. We’re not gonna go too much there, but you know, that, that was almost a couple years ago. Now it’s like pulling teeth to get Eugene to come on podcast. He’s so humble and he doesn’t like I don’t have much to say. I’m like, dude, you sold a hundred million dollars, few, $300 million online. Anything you say is interesting. So finally we got him back after two years at Eugene on the show. Welcome back and how, how are things been going with you? Eugene: Things are good, and happy to be back. Lots of changes to update you on. Bradley Sutton: Cool, cool. Now, right off the bat, Let’s just talk about on the business side of things, numbers, just raw numbers, 2021, we are still kind of in Covid and things. And 2023 at the end here. Things have changed, better, worse, whatever the case is. How are your numbers on Amazon and Walmart compared to a couple of years ago? Eugene: So, I think last time when we first last spoke on the episode I projected, I think 18 million, and we were pretty much right there at the end of the year. So it wasn’t surprising. Like we kind, kind of forecasted 18 to 20 and we fell into the lower tier of that. But we hit our target, so we were happy with that, we hit it. Bradley Sutton: Okay, cool. Would you say Walmart and Amazon have grown or stayed around the same amount, or have both been increasing in a similar way, different ways? How’s the trajectory been? Eugene: Well, actually, Walmart got worse for us. Amazon is the one that increased Walmart to spread got even wider, which were, I mean, it’s, it’s something that we continue to batch our heads over, and we’re trying to still crack the code, but it went down. Yeah. Which stinks. Bradley Sutton: And now we’re gonna get maybe into some strategies that you can share with us that you or your team is doing on the business side. But I want to take a step back and go outside completely outside of the business side. Right now this wasn’t a big focus of mine when I had you on the podcast two years ago, but if you’ve listened to the podcast anytime in the last year, you’ll see that I, I ask almost every guest, like, Hey, what do you do to take yourself out of the business as far as for you know, hobbies and as far as health routine and et cetera. So let’s start, I know a lot of what your hobbies are, so let me start on the part that I don’t know about. What are you doing to stay physically fit, healthy? You know, like, you seem like you’re a pretty fit person when I see you, so you you’re not just sitting in front of a computer eating junk food all day. Do you do the gym or do you walk, or what are you doing to stay fit? Eugene: Unfortunately, or admittedly, I don’t really do too much physical activity right now because of, because of my hobbies and the work, right? I mean, obviously eat eating healthy well try to. But there’s not much like I don’t go to the gym too much anymore. I do help out with my kids’ sports that they’re in, football and soccer. So that keeps me pretty active, I guess that’s probably my main source of exercise. Bradley Sutton: And what else are you doing? You know for hobbies you like, like, I know, I know you’re big on Lego and stuff the family, like, you still doing projects like that, or what else? Eugene: Lego, actually if you wanna buy some, I have a lot for sale, but, Lego, I didn’t fully quit, but, but I’m downsizing that because I just don’t have time for it. I do a lot of surprisingly, I mentioned this also when I was at Sell and Scale sports cards, right? I had my eyes on that, that business model. And good or bad for me, whenever I get involved with something, I always look for the business angle, right? Not, not about money per se. It just, it just like finding the passion in it and sports cards. Not sports cards. Bradley Sutton: Hold that thought. I’m gonna share my screen of something that I was involved in yesterday here. Oh, no. Now, now just explain like, kind of like what’s going on. These are your hands we’re looking at in this video right here. And you’re opening up these pack of cards. I see your name right here. Eugene: You drips my name. Bradley Sutton: So this was a live Facebook. Explain like you’re doing commentary on what’s going on here, explain what we are looking at right here. Oh Eugene: My gosh, I can’t believe clip that. I’m turning red right now. Yeah, so, so that’s that’s, that’s part of the sports cards part. It’s pretty much, that’s called braking. So, pretty much nowadays, this is not like your, your childhood sports cards. Nowadays, boxes can cost 500,000, even $10,000. It’s sickening. But a cheaper way to jump in is, is you can get your team. So let’s say you like the Philadelphia Eagles, and instead of buying the whole box and ripping every single pack yourself and paying the full price, you can just buy one team and you get all the cards for the Eagles. If you’re a fan of the Eagles or if you want to gamble, which is kind of one of the elements to it. So I’ve I’ve evolved from, from being a pure hobbyist into kind of like collecting and ripping product and opening basketball and football stuff to evolving into breaking, because I saw the business side of it, and it’s very fun. Eugene: It gets me outta my element. It’s actually a very stress reliever for the Amazon side of business. In fact, I need it. Like, I need an outlet like that. It’s very creative outlet, because I have to first of all sell and engage an audience which is complete against my, my my personality. Like, I’m a super introvert, like, being on here, you had to rich, you twist my arm, but, yep. But I dunno, something about the sports cards. I’m just very comfortable with it. I’m very knowledgeable with it, and I like helping people most importantly. Bradley Sutton: You started as a, on the hobby side, like, you would go into Facebook groups and like join the breaks as a person who would buy like a certain player or a certain team. Is that correct? Or did you start immediately on the flip side where like, I’m gonna make this a business from day one? Eugene: No, no, no. I definitely wasn’t the business from day one. I was basically gambling, right. I was, I was opening the packs myself and, and, and paying in other people’s breaks, but it wasn’t sustainable. Yeah. I knew that entertainment was not a sustainable form of–. Bradley Sutton: But it was like a rush, right? Like it’s a rush. Like, guys, let me tell you, you from experience, like I’ve been doing this for years too, and it’s fun. Like for those who aren’t into sports cards maybe it’s kind of hard to describe what we are talking about here, but it’s super fun. But what I like about this is that you took something that was an escape on the side like a little hobby. And then you’re like, wait a minute, I could actually turn this into maybe even a side business where you’re still doing your hobby, but now instead of the money just going out and you paying it, it’s almost like maybe you’re breaking even now. So you still get that rush and that escape from your Amazon business, but you’re almost able to turn it into a side business. Because the way it works is this, this is not easy work, first of all, to organize this break, collect payment from like 20 strangers to, and then later organize the cards to different teams. But, but that’s kind of like built into the, built into the price, right? So are you kind of like breaking even on this now, but you’re still able to get that rush that you did when you were just a pure hobbyist? Eugene: I mean, in the beginning when you first start out, when you don’t have any, you don’t have reputation, no one knows you. Yeah. You, you might be losing money or breaking even, but I mean, again, I’m humble, but it’s hard for me to say this, but like, I built quite a following and, you know what I mean? I snap fill my, or I’m using the wrong terminology. I fill my pretty quickly. And usually a lot of people struggle. And I’m in a group that has a hundred thousand people and I’m probably one of the larger ones. And the stuff fails ’cause people trust me, my reputation’s there. I’m not one of these like, shady guys and I know what I’m doing. So reputation’s everything in this industry, just like Amazon as a brand, you know what I mean? Like one big mistake or, or one, like one shady element will take you down. And this literally is the most sensitive hobby where it will, you will, your name will be tarnished forever if you, if you mess up in a shady way. Bradley Sutton: You slip a good card out or something, something like that. Now how much time a week are you spending on this I guess we could call it side business/hobby. Eugene: Probably too much time. And, and I think this, this is a good, good blend of the Amazon and, and what we like the business aspect. It’s one of those things where, where I struggle with balance and boundaries, right? So I know I’m sitting on a gold mine with my hobby that turned into something. Now the problem is the scaling and hiring of people and hiring talent that goes live as well as capital to source product and stuff like that. So it, it’s a very similar business problem to the Amazon side, but of course I’m more passionate about it. But also it let, let’s, let’s be honest, it’s not gonna generate the profit that it does on the, for the Amazon business, right? Sure, sure. So I have to be realistic and real, real things in. Bradley Sutton: Do you have employees for this endeavor then as well? Eugene: I’m interviewing right now. Bradley Sutton: Okay. But right now, until now, you’ve kind of just done it all on your own. Eugene: Yeah, yeah. Okay. For, it’s been a year over, a little over a year and a month. Bradley Sutton: But then, but then we talking 20 hours a week, 10 hours a week, 30 hours a week. How much would you say you’re spending on the baseball cards or sports cards? Eugene: Maybe 20. Okay. Bradley Sutton: All right. Now, when that happened, does that mean that you, it was 20 hours less on the Amazon side? Or is it a mixture since this it’s kind of not like to me, when, when I do sports card stuff, and, and I, I’m very similar to you. I was in the sports card. I’m actually flying to Japan in a few days. ’cause I’m setting up at a card show to sell some of the stuff that, that, that I have over here and over there. So I get it. To me it’s, it’s work. It makes money just like you’re profitable on this, but it’s also fun. It’s also an escape. So, so did, did you decrease your Amazon workload by 20 hours? Or is it kind of a mixture? You maybe only took away 10 hours or something because this is kind of like a hobby as opposed to just business for you? Eugene: I don’t think the 20 hours replaced 20 hours of Amazon. I mean, I guess the balance definitely took away some from the Amazon. And, and of course my guys are, are solid, and I know they kept things going. But of course, there’s some things that fell by the wayside, right? It’s, I normally don’t miss, and I admittedly like, this is why I need to balance, this is not the golden goose right now. It can be. But I need to find a way to develop it without hurting the main golden goose, right? So, so that, that’s, I’m, I’m living through it right now and trying to balance that out. It’s just that I, I can’t, I don’t wanna give it up because it took almost a year to build this up into this thing. And now, now I know there’s another level to climb, but, but I’m not at the stage where I can say, Hey, I’m 100% all in still on that because I can’t give up the Amazon side. Bradley Sutton: Wait a minute. Are you the one who also had a huge eBay account where you’re also selling the cards on eBay? Eugene: Yeah. Bradley Sutton: Y you were the one who made all those listings, or Eugene: No, that was, alright, now you’re gonna make me give away the secrets here. That account was, we used to sell very heavy on eBay. Okay. So we, we sold, this is before like, we got heavy into apparel. We were selling electronics and, and, Bradley Sutton: Okay, okay. Eugene: Yeah. So Bradley Sutton: When you say we, this is like your, your, your main conglomeration the, the same business that you’ve been doing for 15 years. This wasn’t as okay. Now it’s starting to, to come into picture a little bit more. Now you Eugene: Gave this Yeah it looks like that. It looks like it, like 500,000 sports card sales, but it, it’s not, yeah. But I’m starting to, because assignment model is potentially in the works as well too, but that’s a whole another infrastructure. Bradley Sutton: Okay. Yeah. So guys, I mean, the reason why I brought this up wasn’t just because I think this is cool that, that he does sports cards like me there’s a few people in the industry like Brandon Young and Mitul Patel, and a bunch of people of us are all in like this group where we, we talk about sports cards and stuff like that, but it’s the fact that think about what your hobbies are. And you can’t apply this to everything, but there’s a lot of you out there who might have a hobby, and this is kinda like the Gary Vee mentality actually, where it’s like, can you actually monetize the hobby where it’s not just a complete dream? Like if my hobby is swimming or something like that like if I’m, if you hobby was swimming and you’re like, I’m gonna start swimming for 20 hours a week, it’s kind of, it might be hard to monetize that per se but for the rest of you guys out there, actually I’m, I’m sure I could come up with something like maybe I become a swimming influencer or something. Bradley Sutton: Something like live streamer, I’m sure there’s, but, but, but that’s my point. Like a lot of it, even if it, even if it seems extreme guys, is there’s ways where you can turn some of your side side hobbies or, or things into almost like a side business where you are getting that escape from your day-to-day. Amazon, which is what I’ve been preaching for the last year, guys you have to have hobbies and things that take you away from the daily grind you know, resets your mind and, and just puts you in a different space. But at the same time, you gotta be careful that if you’re just like like one of my hobbies is Korean, Korean dramas. Like I just watch Korean dramas all day. I could if I had the time, but that there’s no monetization for me on that, that means it’s literally just taking away time from, from my, my, my Amazon businesses if I just go deep into it. Bradley Sutton: So you’ve gotta have the balance, but then think about it like, is part of, of this hobby is there a way to monetize it where not only would you break even, but now all of a sudden you’ve got another profitable business like Eugene has here with a sports card. So I, to me, it’s fascinating what you’ve been able to do, but again, you would not have been able to get to the point where you could even do this if you did not build up your team in a good way and be able to delegate so much of your Amazon business to your team. Eugene: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think my, my role had had evolved, and this is probably the past couple years, is that you gotta let the team do their thing, right? And my role now has become, okay, how do I make sure the team has a secure future? I have to branch out and go outside of the box and do different things, right? I’ve, I think there’s, there’s been other failed attempts at things whether, whether it’s an Amazon type of type of business or outside of completely outside separate from e-commerce type of business. And you know what I mean I’m always looking for new ways to generate income, right? And that’s more in general to diversify, which is very important I think not only within Amazon, but even outside of having Amazon as a business and then having, I don’t know, own something else, going to real estate, anything else, right? Sports cards, whatever. And that’s another way to protect my family, not not only my like personal life, but like more, like I said, the guys here that, that they deserve. They’re running the day-to-day, they deserve something to take home at the end of their whatever tenure or yearly bonuses and things like that. So that, that’s very important to have that opportunity. Bradley Sutton: Alright, let’s switch back from, from hobby back to business now. How many brands overall do, are you currently running? Eugene: We only have three brands, right? And it’s all under the same account we have. Bradley Sutton: So let’s say like these three brands are selling on Walmart, you’re selling on Amazon and maybe have some.com websites or something for them. Eugene: Yeah, they’re not all on the same marketplaces. Some have their own website. Some are on multi-platform, some are just on single platform. Okay. Bradley Sutton: Yeah. Alright. Any, anything, like, have you launched any new brands or have any new things in the pipeline or that you’ve done lately? Eugene: Yeah, we something that, and again, this is a a situation from one of our employees. It was kind of incubated by them, which I loved. And basically a pitch came across my desk with one of my employees. I’m like, Hey, like, what do you wanna talk about? And they had this great idea, the conceptual it was and they have like anxiety and ADHD, which which they struggle with. And they had a, a concept, a product concept that would help with that. And the mission statement, the vision, it resonated with me. Obviously required an investment. There was a risk there because this was not our lane. This is definitely not apparel or electronics that we were used to. Eugene: This is like basically it’s a weighted, weighted lap pad, right? But it was, it’s really made for kids. The ones on market just were not, were not as good, right? The quality or, or, or the way the, the, the weights are shifting inside and stuff like that. So internally we developed a better way to do it a better weight system. We also have ones that are custom. We have like a dog as well too. This is, this is a dog, and you can fill this with whatever you want. Rice or, or glass bees. We have a, we have a unicorn. So like, that’s the new brand that we’re, we’re trying to invest in slowly. We’re not trying to sink all our chips in that, because that can really hurt us long term, right? Eugene: So we’re trying to play that out, that just launched this year. And it wasn’t, it’s not one of those like products that we’re used to where we’re used to selling, let’s say like five, 10, 20,000 units of it a year, and then okay, wins and repeat. This is a definitely a lot smaller niche, but this was a passion project by someone internally that I committed to these guys. Like, look guys, if you have passion projects, let’s let’s discuss it. Let’s talk about it. Right? I can’t say yes to everything. However, there’s certain ones that we can’t bring aboard. This is one of them that passed the initial phase, and now it’s all the way through. And this is kind of one of our first brands that we really made like full effort of full branding, not how we, like, HD is like a, was like a mix of stuff. Eugene: And while it’s getting better now, it’s really focused on apparel. It didn’t start that way. This was our first clean brand that was fully immersed into this concept. And we have a, a future plans for sensory types of items for it as well too. We have workbooks we have influencers. It’s more of a lifestyle brand. But it’s one of those that it’s gonna be capped it. I don’t think it’s gonna be ever one of those $20 million a year things, at least I don’t think, but of course there’s, there’s future plans. We wanna do trade shows and, and pension get on shelves, Walmart well target probably more, more so. But but that’s, yeah, that’s one of the exciting things that we have in the pipeline is just, it just we gotta be patient and drive it the right way. Because you can burn through resources, especially PPC, PPC is if you don’t do it right, you can really hurt yourselves. And, and we, we’ve been in that boat a couple times already this year. Bradley Sutton: Okay, I’ll very unique. I never heard about I mean, I’m sure people, people have it, but I haven’t had a guess that, that have said, Hey, we had a internal kind of where the employees could, could come up with ideas. You know, you have employees who, who have been with you five, 10 years, they know the business. All the ideas for new products doesn’t have to come from the owner you. So that’s cool to open up ideas and be open that to that who knows how much stuff your employees out there might have might have some ideas about some new products. Okay. TikTok shop is something that I think has grown exponentially as far as buzz around it. We’ve had other Helium 10 Elite members like Elizabeth talk about some of their some of her amazing success in TikTok shop. Are have you taken any of your brands in TikTok shop? Are you utilizing that or just influencers at all in TikTok? Eugene: Yeah, we we actually just started we we’re really late to the game, I think, well, I think we’re late to the game obviously in China. I mean, they have factories that are just going li like live factories, literally. Like, there’s cubicles of people going live which is crazy, and the amount of money that brings in is disgusting. So we finally made the leap in using our HD clothing brand to jump onto TikTok shop or TikTok live and TikTok shop. That’s how it evolved. So so the minute that opened to us, we didn’t get invited to the first round of it during the beta but as soon as it opened up to us, we gave it a trial. We put some listings up and right away we got some sales, which is cool. Eugene: And when we stocked out on TikTok shop, the sales went to our website as well too. So, so we got double wham, we got bonus sales on our website, which we never really get, like our website just to have a website, to be honest with you. We don’t focus on it. But we got sales there and TikTok shop. And then when we went, when we did more TikTok lives, we connected with more, more creators. And that went viral as well too on a couple posts, and we sold out a lot of our stuff. Now, the, the bad part is we were not prepared at all for the inventory. Like, we’re prepared for inventory for Walmart, Amazon, and that’s really it, right? And then now with TikTok in the mix, those sales are very unpredictable. We can’t say that, hey, just because that, that influencer posted that content that it’s gonna sell a hundred dresses in two days, we don’t know that. Eugene: So, like, I don’t even know how the heck to order for that. So it’s a problem we’re trying to figure out right now without like blowing the budget on, on over ordering inventory for a chance. So we usually pretty tight with inventory. We don’t like taking too many chances, especially with apparel. Apparel, you get stuck with it, you’re in trouble. So, so it’s a good and bad problem to have. So, so we’re also just like peace pets. We’re, we’re not taking a, a gung-ho approach where we’re just gonna throw everything at it. We just gotta take our time and learn some of the, the growing pains. And of course, TikTok shop has growing pains. I’m not an expert at it, but like, I’ve heard enough horror stories that there’s a lot of I think internal things that, that are not just like when I say Walmart or Amazon when they first started, there’s a lot of things that don’t go right. Eugene: For, for both the seller and the buyer. Things can be abused and manipulated. So so there’s a lot of that stuff that, that, that happens still, but but it’s definitely gonna be the future for sure. And, and I, I’m investing in that more and more each day. Obviously I think all brands should go on there. Clothing I think is actually a very easier thing because we just have a model that talks about it and wears it and walks around in it, right? And demonstrates it. That’s pretty easy. Bradley Sutton: Alright, so I’m here looking at your TikTok channel here. ShopHDE I see you’ve got a few videos here. Lemme just pull up one, enhance performance and style. Okay, so I see here, there’s a, a shop button. I’m gonna hit this. I’m gonna hit this shop button, and let’s see where it takes me to, ah, okay. So it just takes me like, I can just instantly I add it to the cart and then have this. It’s kind weird looking leopard skin shorts here shipped to me. That’s that easy as that. This is like my first time looking at, at TikTok shop, and then I can actually go click here directly to your shop and I can see all of your products, I’m assuming. Okay. And I can see best sellers. Looks like your tennis outfit is the top sellers here. Actually, it’s all women’s clothes, like your men’s. That just shows you that, that I guess more women are using TikTok shop, perhaps, because none of your men’s products are, are on this bestseller list here. That’s interesting. Eugene: Yeah, men don’t like to shop on TikTok. Apparently. We found that out early on. Bradley Sutton: Interesting. Okay. So now all of this this is your channel here. These, these aren’t your employees, like, are like, are these influencers here who have done all are these, like, what do you call it? Is this UGC or are some of these your actual employees or people you have hired to do videos? What are we looking at here? Eugene: It’s a mix of, I mean, we, one should be one of our employees. It’s a mix of influencers as well as our, our our models in China that makes some of the videos and photos for us. So it’s a collaboration. Bradley Sutton: Now here, I just happen to see this 8,000 views. Like is this a, a, a video that you boosted somehow, or just randomly? It went kind of maybe mini viral or something? This particular one right here, 8,000 views. That’s pretty good for this. Maybe that’s why I don’t, this is one of the top sellers. Eugene: I know. I didn’t think it was that one, but we had an influencer that blew, blew a couple up and their, their audience just went crazy and they stocked us out. We had to cancel orders and everything like that, so that was a mess. But, but yeah, a couple videos went viral from the, from the creators, which is kinda like, that’s for us, that’s one that was one of the secrets. We, we don’t need to create everything on our own, and we don’t have the expertise or the skillset to necessarily create every single one on our own. So we might as well leverage that, give up some of the commission and utilize their, their following their audience to make our stuff go viral. And then like I said, the inventory is, I don’t know how to solve that fully yet. Maybe some other gurus out there know how to, but without spending both loads of money on over ordering inventory, I we’re trying to figure that out. So that keeps me up at night. Bradley Sutton: Okay. Interesting. Interesting. So like, what, what kind of numbers are you doing overall? Like monthly or weekly on TikTok? Eugene: End of June is when we started on getting onto the TikTok shop. And then I think July was our first month of full month of sales. I think it equated to probably like like 300 some more to think, which is not for us, that’s not a lot. But from a new platform like that, we were excited and we, again, we love creating nothing from something. And that was one of the things. And, and yeah, so we want to keep it, keep it going. We wanna invest harder into it. And that was I don’t wanna say our person didn’t try, but that was like, that was like such early stage and we’re able to get traction like that. Bradley Sutton: Just imagine in the beginning, you actually don’t even get big commissions right? From TikTok. Don’t they give it to you free commission or something like that? Do you know? Eugene: I know there’s a lot of perks that TikTok gave to onboard you. And, and they’ll, they’ll reimburse you on shipping. They’ll give sellers like a 30% off coupon that we don’t take to hit on they TikTok takes to hit on it. So there’s a lot of those special deals behind the scenes. Bradley Sutton: Okay. Well, this is cool, guys. You know, like, like some, like he just said they just got on there here a couple months ago and are already doing like over 10 orders a day. Less fees than Amazon. But we talked about this on the weekly buzz recently, guys that TikTok is trying to move to send everybody instead of allowing potentially this, this is just a rumor for, for right now, but you know, TikTok, people have been saying that TikTok is gonna like, stop allowing influencers maybe to send links to Amazon. They want people just buying on the TikTok platform. So if you haven’t got set up with TikTok shop, this might be something to look into and then get, get to some kind of cadence here. Like obviously Eugene’s team here is, is posting on a regular basis, and we saw just one random video got six, I see one with 6,000 views here. Bradley Sutton: Here’s another one with, with 8,000. So it can sometimes, you know people pick up on this and, and they can definitely boost your, your sales and for at least the, the time being, even if TikTok shop is out of stock, like he said, what people are gonna do is they’re gonna go look for his website or maybe go look for his Amazon store and find their product. So, so there’s residual benefits, not just the, the traffic that TikTok shop brings, but it’s also gonna boost your dot com sales and your, your Amazon sales. Pretty cool. One thing you mentioned before was that you having your own warehouse and, and having a big business, you, you’ve got your own internal systems in place, but you were making like, some big systems change over something at your company. Eugene: Yeah, I mean, long story short is we, we had to, we had some personnel changes more from the, like the developer side, which is like we’ve had our internal like systems that run our warehouse management systems, our our data harvesting, our like just customized data that we pull down from Amazon API and, and manipulate into usable chunks that, that help us internally as, as a team. So I’ve kind of, in a way lost a big chunk of that as far as like being, have that flexibility to be able to kind of create whatever you want on the fly. I still have it, but it’s not as workable and or, or more so the employee is not as, as available. So it’s one of those things that I hadn’t planned for very well over the course of, of building the businesses is just kind of not rely on, on that system so much. Eugene: And we’ve been trying to break away slowly, but I think it’s one of those things you get lost in the comfort, and, and that’s a major mistake. And that’s definitely one of the teaching tools that, that I would tell anybody is, is like yeah, don’t, don’t, don’t pigeon your hole yourself in and get locked into a situation like that. Really it’s like, it, there’s other, there’s enough services right now compared to when we started that deal with forecasting inventory data management, data harvesting that can that maybe the basic Amazon report is not enough for people. Like, I know it’s not enough for us. It’s too basic and it’s it takes too time consuming to drill down to what we really need it for. So we need to have scripts that run behind the scenes that pull down big data sets to formulate into this grouping or these triggers for us for the different departments that focus on the specialties to make them, Hey, I know this happened, so I gotta look at this and do this, right? Eugene: Without that, it can get messy and you’re gonna miss a lot of things. Yeah. So, so we’re in the process of trying to find how to blend these worlds together now where, alright, we can’t go fully customized. We can do a little customization, but who are we gonna partner with? Who are we going to, I guess, park our business with to be able to kind of fill a lot of those gaps? And then the ones that we can’t fill we’ll need to figure out how to restructure that process internally and, and find out how we make do without, without having that. So, so it’s a little, little bit of a turmoil for that. It just definitely, you can still get it done raw with like raw data and, and spreadsheets, but at, at this stage maybe if you have like selling fry products, you can do that, but our clothing is, we have so many skews, so many new, new styles that come in, new PCs because of clothing, t’s almost impossible to manage. So so we need systems and efficient data systems to be able to run the business properly. So yeah, Bradley Sutton: That’s one of the reasons why I was like, man, apparel is like crazy. It’s like one, you have one item, but it could have 25 variations. If it has like five colors and five sizes each, it would be a nightmare to try and manage. Alright, well, just like with your first episode we always close these with asking for your TST your 30-second or 60-second tip. What kind of strategy do you have for our listeners today? Eugene: You get the right people in the right seats and you get the hell out of their way. I think as simple as that, we used to micromanage, we used to try to lay this corporate structure down and, and that was just suffocating and it just didn’t work, right? Like, like we’re, we thought we were from running from our business classes. Oh, this is how you run a business. No. You can do it that way, but, but employee satisfaction, I think it can be really bad. So we, we really just kind of give them the tools that they need, give the training that they need. Some, sometimes there’s not a lot of training that we have to pay for training to get them to the, to that level to build those core competencies. And then from there, just get outta their way. Eugene: They’ll need you, they’ll, they’ll reach out to you when they need you. Because if you step in, like right now, if I step into every decision, like, oh, I don’t like that color, I don’t like that pattern, I don’t like that dress. Well, they did the data. They have multiple people that did the research data behind the scenes already to validate that, hey, we make decisions based on data. That was a data driven decision. It wasn’t like, oh, I like that purple color, it looks cool, right? That that doesn’t go anywhere. Right? So, so I try not to step in anything now, I do step in for any legal copyright things. I mean, that’s where my eye is trained. Like, hey, I think we’re violating that looks too close to that type of situation. Let’s stay away from that. Eugene: Like, that’s where I step in. But other than that, they gotta have that greater freedom. And, and of course there’s gonna be certain levels of spend where, where I, I do need to step in, but like, other than that, like, it’s not, let, let them roam free, but, but you gotta let them run and exercise their creative freedom. If they’re not very creative people and there’s certain ticks that, that that drive them, I mean, you focus on that, allow them to do those things, and it’s definitely a form of respect at that point. Right? Of course. You gotta develop that trust. It’s not like day one you hire someone in their seat and, oh, do whatever you want, right? It’s not like that. It’s over time you do that. But that’s kinda like the biggest things I’ve learned is just get out of their way because you’re gonna slow them down if you try to baby them or micromanage them too much. I think it’s pretty simple. Bradley Sutton: Okay. Alright, Eugene, thanks for coming on here. Again, we really appreciate the knowledge and a little bit different. I wanted to do a little bit different podcast today with a little bit different vibe. And so you bring a unique viewpoint to things. If you guys want to know more about what, what Eugene and I are into all these baseball card stuff, you can check what’s your Instagram for the the baseball card stuff? Eugene: it’s @eugerips like my first name, @eugerips Bradley Sutton: Alright, so take a look maybe we’ll, we’ll add some more Amazon sellers to this sports card phenomenon. So Eugene, look forward to seeing you maybe at one of these conferences coming up and wish you the best of success. Eugene: Likewise. Thank you Bradley.

In our monthly training and “Ask Bradley Anything” episode, we talk about an important aspect of Amazon selling, uncovering the four secret metrics that a whopping 99% of Amazon sellers are missing out on. We kick off by shedding light on the abundance of untapped data points, highlighting the importance of these hidden gems provided by Helium 10. One of the standout tools in this episode is the Cerebro Match Type Filter, which allows you to reverse engineer your competitor’s PPC strategy, giving you a competitive edge like never before. We also explore the significance of Cerebro’s historical trends and how to check product trends week by week, all while unraveling mind-blowing insights from the Amazon Recommended Rank column. Discover why this column is incredibly vital in today’s time.  Plus, don’t miss the engaging Q&A session with Bradley, where we address burning live questions from our audience. Learn how to get more reviews using Helium 10 Follow Up and gain a deeper understanding of how the Amazon Recommended Rank truly works. Lastly, catch Bradley at upcoming events for even more valuable insights. Tune in now and level up your Amazon selling game! In episode 488 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Eugene discuss: 01:24 – There Are A Lot Of Data Points That Sellers Are Not Using 02:09 – Why Are These Helium 10 Data Points Are Important 04:45 – The Cerebro Match Type Filter 08:01 – Reverse Engineer Your Competitor’s PPC Strategy 10:19 – Looking At Cerebro’s Historical Trends 14:37 – Checking Product Trends Week-By-Week 17:11 – Mind-Blowing Data From The Amazon Recommended Rank Column 18:31 – Why The Amazon Rec Rank Is Very Important 24:23 – Q&A Session With Bradley 26:04 – Getting More Reviews With Helium 10 Follow Up 28:34 – How Does The Amazon Recommended Rank Work? 32:28 – Catch Bradley On The Following Events ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast ► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension ► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup  (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life) ► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft ► Watch The Podcasts On Youtube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos Transcript Bradley Sutton: Today in our monthly live training with Ask Me Anything, I go over four data points that 99% of your competitors are not using, and I also answer all of your recent questions live on the show. How cool is that? Pretty cool I think. Bradley Sutton: Are you a YouTube vlogger, blog writer, course creator, or other kind of influencer or educator? Maybe you just have a network of people interested in e-commerce. Did you know that you can earn commissions of 25% for life for everyone that you refer to Helium 10? We’ve got many partners earning hundreds, even thousands of dollars monthly in commission from Helium 10’s partnership program. If you’d like to join our affiliate partner program, please go to h10.me/crushit and tell them you heard about it from the podcast. 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 that actually goes live to our Serious Sellers Club members. It gives you a little taste of what we do inside our Serious Sellers Club every every week we’re gonna be going over some pretty cool stuff today. Bradley Sutton: That’s mainly gonna be about some data points that a lot of sellers are not using. You know, even sellers that have Helium 10, you know, obviously seems like everybody nowadays is using Helium 10, right? But these are some things that in kind of studies I guess you can say, or my networking, I definitely know that a lot of sellers are not using. So anyways, we are talking today about unique data points, all right? And one of them, like, ah, to be honest, I was like planning to kind of talk about this more on special episode 500 of the podcast. You know, how we always do the big numbers. I’m actually flying to the Maldives to do it, so we’ll talk about how it affects the Maldives honeymoon period. But I was like, you know what, I’m gonna give this group a a treat. Bradley Sutton: We’re gonna talk about. We’re not gonna wait till October, episode 500 is not happening until October. We’re gonna go through this a little bit of it. Now, I’m not gonna spill the whole beans, but probably I don’t wanna like, you know, give false hope or here or anything, but this is like, it’s gonna end up being a pretty impactful, if not epic game changing thing to look at that nobody’s looking at right now because of the way the Amazon algorithm has kind of adapted over time. It’s a completely unique way to really kind of understand why your products aren’t getting PPC impressions, why you can’t seem to rank for new products or even mature products where you just, you know, like, you know, you’re converting well, but for some reason Amazon does not, does not show you highly for this keyword. Bradley Sutton: You know, like, I’m gonna show you a way how to know if that happens. All right? So what I’d like to do, let’s just open it up actually. If can some people throw me a, an example or a product that they want me to look up like it, you could send me to a specific ASIN. It could be your ASIN, it could be a competitor’s ASIN or maybe something else. Like maybe it’s a keyword that you guys want me to look up. I want this to be your show too. Lemme look up this acrylic. Let, lemme hold on. Lemme, lemme look up acrylic shelf dividers. Let me see. Okay, we’ll go ahead and do this. Let’s how do I add this to this stream here? There we go. Lemme make it a little bit bigger, okay. Bradley Sutton: Acrylic shelf dividers. Alright, let’s maybe pick one of the, one of the ones that’s a top seller. So I’m gonna run X-ray on this page. Okay, let’s see if I didn’t even check if there’s any BSR here. Okay, it looks like there is BSR. Excellent. Alright, let’s see. One of the top sellers looks like this Hem Devore Clear acrylic shelf dividers. They might be doing up to 2000 units a month. Let’s go ahead and pull them up in Cerebro. And let’s just say that set some context here. Let’s just pretend that maybe you know, I, I’m an acrylic shelf divider seller and I just want to get some more insights into the niche and into my top competitors. So we’re gonna go ahead and run that in Cerebro. Bradley Sutton: Alright, so now we pulled it up into cerebral. Now the first thing that I think that people are not looking, again, you guys know how to do Cerebro. We’re not here to just like, Hey, how do use Cerebro? We’re trying to find unique unique data points here, right? The first thing that I want to show you guys is the match type. Did you know that we are showing all of these other situations? What about, let’s say Amazon’s choice? They have not shown up in Amazon’s choice. Now, what is Amazon’s choice? This is not necessarily that they’re Amazon’s choice for a specific keyword, but what happens is, is if you go to the search results, do you guys see these special widgets here? It looks like search results, but it’s really kind of like a sponsored, all right? And the reason you know it’s sponsored is because it tells you right here, under highly rated, for example, that these are sponsored results. Bradley Sutton: So there’s different widgets that show up in search results and one of them is an Amazon’s choice. And as you can see, this keyword doesn’t seem to have an Amazon’s choice widget. It has a highly rated widget. All right? So that’s one of them. Other ones that have shown up in the past that aren’t showing up anymore is like editorial recommendations. So let’s see if we can pull up highly rated and this product here has shown up on 26 different search results for highly rated, alright? So like maybe I’m looking at numbers maybe in Search Query Performance, right? Maybe this is my own product. I’m looking at numbers in in PPC and, and I’m just wondering like, where is this product? You know, this, this product is getting 2000 sales, but the numbers don’t add up. Bradley Sutton: Well, remember from our Search Query Performance webinar last week, highly rated is not showing up. So if somebody were to type in acrylic shelf dividers, right? And they actually choose one of these products and take a look, right? Take a look that this product is right in there. I think this is the hum ofor that I’m pretty sure that’s the product we were looking at. Or is it n in K? Nope, six two, they’re not in there right now. They were in there before, if somebody clicks on this, this is not going to show up in search career performance, it’s not gonna show up in Product Opportunity Explorer, right? So like any sales that come from here, the seller themself wouldn’t know about it. You as a competitor obviously wouldn’t know about it, but that’s why you can look, use Cerebro to look at this. Bradley Sutton: Where are they showing up for in highly rated? Let’s take a look. If there are more for, if they are doing sponsored brand headers, you guys know what that is, right? That is what you see at the very top right here, right? So right now the one is that’s showing up for is this, you know, Soye brand, but if I look at Cerebro, I can sell, well now I know their sponsored brand header strategy. I mean, I’m not even sure, I don’t think that they’re, they’re just, you know, doing, you know, that much broad here. There’s only 69 keywords that, that they have showed up for in sponsored brand header. And you could almost guys look at this, you can almost reverse engineer what their target is for sponsor brand headers. If they’re doing phrase it looks like they’re doing phrase and they’re doing broad, one of the two four closet dividers, right? Bradley Sutton: Do you see how many keywords say closet and divided? Look at that. Like just by one click. I haven’t even like filtered anything else after this, I can now tell that they’re running a broad match or phrase match campaign in sponsor brand headers for closet divider as a root word. That’s crazy. This just shows you, you know, it looks like they also have one shelf divider potentially is a broad match that they’re doing. So I can directly see what exactly is going on with their sponsored brand header strategy, right? So this is like stuff like, tell me right now, did has any of you ever just run your competitor and run sponsored brand header to reverse engineer what words they’re targeting for their brand? Probably not, right? Maybe only a couple of you. If you have, then great, if you haven’t, then you just learn something valuable. Bradley Sutton: And then remember again, this is something that is not counted in Amazon metrics as far as Search Query Performance. The only way that you would know if somebody is getting clicks on this is by looking at this like, hey, where, where are they spending heavily on? Right? Because these sales do not show up in Search Query Performance or what else can we look up here? We can look up sponsored brand video. Like are they running video ads? I don’t know. Look at this. No data came up. So what do we, what do we learn now? Hey, this competitor, despite being number one in the niche, they do not seem to be running sponsored brand video ads. So there’s one thing that I can beat them on, right? If I’m running sponsored brand video now I know, hey, this is nice, I don’t have to compete with the number one seller in this niche on video because they don’t seem to be running video. Bradley Sutton: All right? Another thing that people are not, you know looking for enough in my opinion is the Historical Trend. This is for diamond members, all right? So before this is only for elite members, so very few of you, you know, like Rolando and, and a couple others had access to this, but look at the seasonality of their keyword reach and their sponsored reach. So let’s go ahead and show historical trend and let’s look up very interesting. We can go back two years, we can go back two years here and take a look at the, the orange that you guys are seeing is their organic reach. So we see that these guys peak in September, so, so we have September that we’re just about upon us. Now we know like, hey, looks like they go pretty hard in September and October for their organic keywords that they are ranking for. Bradley Sutton: And you can kind of see why, I know this is kind of small for some of you guys watching this on, on video right now, but do you see how this purple increases in September and October? The purple indicates how many sponsored keywords that they are showing up for. So it looks like these guys spend, I’m just looking at one chart here guys. It looks like they are spending more in PPC in September and October, right? At least that’s what they did last year. And then what that added spend did, like, you know, you can just see, look, at August, they were only showing up for 200 keywords in PPC for regular sponsored products that jumped up to 500 in September and it looks like 400 in October. And then for some reason come November it goes way down. Bradley Sutton: They were only showing up for a hundred keywords in sponsored ads. So now I’m looking at this and I can kind of like prepare for Q4 a little bit, alright? If this is the number one player, this is who I’m competing with, maybe I’m gonna save my spend in September and October and go hard in November during, you know, peak Christmas shopping season when he’s holding back. Or I could look at it opposite, maybe I’m looking at this and I’m like, wait a minute, maybe he’s trying to get ranked for keywords and going hard on sponsored ads before those keywords jump up in volume. But guess what, guys? This is not a guessing game. What I’m gonna do is I’m gonna go directly, I’m gonna choose September and I’m going to look at Cerebro as of September, 2022. All right? I want to see what he is ranking for completely. Bradley Sutton: Let’s go ahead and look at his, his sponsored rank. Where was he ranking highly for in sponsored keywords in the month of September, 2022. And let’s give it some search volume. Let’s, let’s give it at least like 200 search volume. Let’s take a look. Alright, so take a look here. These are keywords that he was, I put one to 10. Let’s go really to the ones that he was showing up for in top of search. Let’s go one to five in sponsored keywords. And now right here I have the 66 keywords. He was either doing a top of search bid modifier to get to the top of page or he was just doing a super high bid last year, right? And then I can kind of see right here, which ones did that help get him organic rank. And look at this, there are some keywords here. Bradley Sutton: Look at this shelf dividers. He was going hot and heavy on this keyword. 18,000 search, 17,000 search volume. He was number one sponsored and number one in organic rank for that time period. All right maybe I’m wondering, hey, did this get him to be one of the top clicked or top purchased? I don’t need to guess. Let’s look into the brand analytics. It’s right here. This is another one of the four things that people are not looking at. Alright, we’ve gone through three of them. Now I’m gonna hit this ABA total click share, which is 18.8%. I’m gonna click this and I want to go back to September of 2022. Let’s look up week by week on September of 2022. Lemme just go to the beginning of September and let’s go to the end of September. Bradley Sutton: Alright, so here we go. Week by week, what were the top products picked? All right in the very beginning of September, he was not one of the top clicked. But look at this guys, this is crazy. I love it. After a couple weeks of heavy PPC spend, the week of September 16th, 2022, who was the number one clicked ASIN for this keyword right here? Metaphor, clear acrylic shelf divide the product that we are looking at now. So he went from not even being in the top three to the top three, the, the next week week 18 to 24, he was still number one. He increased his conversion share to 14%. Out of all the purchases that happened for this keyword, this guy had 14% of all the sales. And then the next week after that, the very end of the month, that going to October, you can kind of see he dialed back a little bit and now he became the third, the third biggest seller. Bradley Sutton: Right? Now, let’s see what about right now, what the last three months? What if I want to see what happened in July? Take a look right here. This is what showing what is going on here in July or last month, July. Right now we’re pretty much in September. In July, 2023, he was the number one clicked product and it was almost all organic. Look at his sponsored rank. Average was 15, meaning he was showing up at the bottom of page one, maybe top of page two in sponsored results. So could this be why he focuses so much in September and October? Maybe he’s got some data that says, you know, like, I could be the top clicked one without having to do sponsored ads too much in the month of July. Look at this, in May, going back two months in May, he wasn’t even advertising for this keyword. Bradley Sutton: He wasn’t even doing a sponsored ad for this product in the month of May, but he still was able to maintain click share of 20%. This is the power of this information guys. We’re taking brand analytics, which is directly from the horse’s mouth, directly from Amazon and comparing it to Helium 10 data, which shows organic rank and sponsored rank to reverse engineer this competitor’s strategy. So guys, this is available for the Diamond plan and and above. So if you guys, I hope you guys can see this. If you can’t really see the value of this, then I’m not sure you guys are putting your best foot forward because if you understand Amazon and understand the power of looking at what competitors do, you probably are sitting there like, wow, this is kind of like mind blowing. What is possible? Bradley Sutton: This is stuff that you couldn’t even dream about doing two, three years ago because this data just wasn’t around either from Amazon or from Helium 10. Now this wasn’t the complete kind of like a mind blowing thing. The thing that I’m gonna be focusing on guys in my episode 500, one of the things is what’s called that is that first thing I showed you that Amazon recommended. Take your top product, your top ASIN, find your top asin, copy it and run a new cerebral search for it. I want to match type and I hit Amazon recommended, okay? And then I hit apply filters. If you have a mature product, it should be like a thousand. Kinda like this product has been around for two years. Now I want you to click the Amazon recommended rank column. So now it should rank it from one and going on. Bradley Sutton: Now this is what is critical guys. Let me explain what we’re looking at right here. Helium 10 is the only place where you can get this right now. This is showing you what, according to the Amazon scoring system, what Amazon advertising views as the keywords most relevant to this product. Now, this is not helium 10 hacking, you know, this user’s account, but there’s a backend thing that Helium 10 has access to. And we’ve had access to this for years and we’ve shown it for years. But this has kind of been a sleeper thing here, but this is what is going to show you how Amazon views your product. Alright, so tell me guys, in your top, let, let’s say 20 keywords here, do you see keywords that are super hyper relevant to your product? Let’s take a look at this product. Again, I’ve never looked at this product before today. Bradley Sutton: These, these are acrylic shelf virus. Look at the number one keyword that Amazon thinks is relevant closet shelf. Does that make sense? Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. This is for closet shelves, closet organization, number two, shelf divider, number three office shelf, bedroom organization, acrylic shelf divider. I think that was the keyword that we, that literally was the keyword that we used to find this product. All right? So now it’s like, okay, these people are, or this product Amazon is really showing, you know, kind of, well, it really understands this product. I’m gonna go a lot deeper into this guys, but I have been testing this and crazy stuff. This has not always been the case, otherwise I would’ve made it more of a big deal about this before. But the Amazon algorithm has changed in the last, it’s always changing, but it has this aspect of it has really changed where this Amazon recommended rank, which is based on an Amazon data point. Bradley Sutton: This is not some Helium 10 estimation or algorithm or something. It is highly predictive of the kind of success you’re gonna have with either PPC impressions or even ranking organically after interactions. And here’s the one thing, it is a little, little hint, it’s almost too much information I’m giving out. Have any of you ever had trouble ranking for a keyword where it’s like, Hey, this keyword is the number one. Like not, maybe not number one, but this keyword is super, super important to me and I know I’m getting sales from it, but I can’t get past like page or position 10 on page one. I can’t get past position 20. Like what’s going on? Like, I’m like one of the top ones. Check what your Amazon recommended rank is for that keyword and if it’s below 10 or something, maybe it’s something like 25 or 30 or, or even worse. Bradley Sutton: That’s the answer right there of why maybe you are having trouble ranking. Alright, so there’s four things that we went over today. I think that most of you, none of you are using all of them. A couple of these, maybe some of you guys have. But number one, look at the other placements in sponsored and just other widgets that you, you or your competitors are coming up with being sponsored brand video, you know sponsored brand header as the Amazon’s choice widget, the highly rated widget. It’ll give you a more holistic view of where your competitors are showing up, where you are showing up in search results that things like Search Query Performance is not gonna give you any data on. Number two, take a look at the historical ranks of your competitors’ products and your products. Where were you? What, what do they do on a historical basis of where they’re concentrating their PPC spend where they are, how many keywords they’re ranking for organically month by month over the last two years. Bradley Sutton: And then the third thing that we went through today was this Amazon recommended rank to see how Amazon thinks that how relevant you are for the keywords that you think and that you know you are relevant for. These are all super important things that I think not enough people are looking at. You know, how many or there’s actually four things I mentioned there, but do that and you get a leg up on the competition, especially now coming into Q4. Super important to do these things in Q4 and looking at it from a historical viewpoint too, because now you wanna know what your competitors do differently, what they are doing right now, you know, August, September is not the exact same strategy. I mean, how many of you guys just don’t do anything in Q4? Like maybe, maybe some of you guys, you know, you’re, you’re not in a niche that that has, you know, has a lot of gift giving or new keywords. Bradley Sutton: Okay? Maybe you guys aren’t doing much, but I would say 90% of you, you guys probably add some Christmas related keywords or you add some other targets in there, right? So this is going to be critical for you guys to be able to reverse engineer what your competitors are doing during this time period. Now we’re gonna open this up to questions that any of you guys have, but this is what we do every week. Those who are in our Serious Sellers Club, if you to get in our Serious Sellers Club, it, it’s for our higher end sellers. You’ve done about $500,000 worth of sales in the last year. Then you’re automatically entered into our, our secret Facebook group where you know, you guys can network with each other. And we do these weekly trainings every single week, 52 weeks a year. Bradley Sutton: One question, best way to increase reviews, easiest way guys is Helium 10 Follow Up and then setting the request a review template, alright? That’s just my go-to. Now, back in the day, I used to make custom emails. I used to make custom emails and, and they were really great. But then what happens is, is Amazon, even though emails are totally fine they, they just get bent outta shape over some minor, minor thing, which is not, you know, in any way against terms of service but to whatever bot that Amazon is using. It just thinks that it is. And so it would like sometimes suspend me for sending messages for like 30 days or not me, but other people. So for me, just so I can sleep at night and I don’t have to worry about ever getting suspended, I only use the Amazon request review template that is inside of Helium 10 Follow-Up. Bradley Sutton: And then I set it to after how many days the order goes. So like, let’s just say I’ve got a supplement. Well, I don’t want that email to go out right away. So I said it like, Hey, send this 20 days after the product was ordered, send this request review out. If I’ve got like some party supply, which I do have a lot of like straws and stuff like that, I’ll put that a little bit sooner. I’ll be like, send this seven days after the item was ordered. Send this request or review out or eight days. So easiest way to increase reviews ’cause it’s completely free if you have Helium 10 and all, all levels of Helium 10 have that Platinum, Diamond, Elite. Any other helium 10 related questions I can get to before we get going here? Bradley Sutton: What is the normal rate conversion for review? All right, so you’re probably, you know, in Follow Up you can actually kind of see like what kind of rating what kind of rating you guys get review rating in there, right? So it varies by product. You know, I can do the same exact strategy for two different products and it’s going to it’s going to show different, it’s gonna show different different things. Like I had one for an egg tray that I used to get one rating for every five orders. It was insane, right? That that’s just like unheard of crazy. And all I was doing was a request review, right? Other products get one out of every 10, you know, ratings, right? Other products go one out of every 25, right? Bradley Sutton: If you are one out of every a hundred, if you could only get one rating out of every a hundred reviews, or I’m sorry, a hundred reviews, a hundred orders, you probably don’t even have request review on. So you can actually see this inside of your Helium 10 FollowU p. Like here’s one of my accounts like the ones that I’m tracking and I’m not requesting a review a across the board on this. I’m actually not requesting the review completely, but it’s only like 3% here. So like one out of every, you know, 30 or so, 30 to 40 reviews I’m getting a rating on. But if I were to actually go in here and look at the product level, some of my products are, are doing much better than than that. That’s just my overall account, which I don’t even have it on, on, on everything. Bradley Sutton: Make sure you’re looking at that guys, because if you start it, you wanna know kind of like if it’s gonna have an effect, it always should have like a, you know, a few percent effect on your review velocity for sure. I’m actually curious. I’m gonna look at like my old July numbers. Yeah, look at July guys. You guys were looking at what my review rate was just for this month, but look at July, where it, it requested more reviews. I had 130 reviews requested and look at my request rating to conversion rate 8%. That’s pretty decent. 8% almost one out of every 10 orders, 11 orders or so, I got a review or a rating, I should say the keywords tab instead of the products tab. Manny says, according to which criteria does the Amazon recommended rank work? Bradley Sutton: It’s not a criteria. It it that that’s an actual Amazon data point that we are pulling from. All right? So it’s how Amazon scores keywords to a listing. And if you’re asking me how does that work on Amazon slide, nobody could tell you other than Amazon itself and they would never disclose that information, but, you know, you gotta just use common sense that it’s whatever their relevancy kind of like mechanism is where they just look at the how the listing is is optimized and maybe the history of interactions of customers with listings similar to that. You know, like, you know, if you were to ask anybody, if anybody tells you they know how that works, then they’re lying because none of us know exactly how it works. I mean, there’s so many scientific documents that Amazon has published and you could like look at it and kind of like understand how Amazon is making their algorithms, but there’s no like one exact formula where you can just reverse engineer reverse engineer that wish I was Mark Cuban says, when checking the Amazon recommended for competitors, should I do this for one competitor product at a time or many competitors product at once? Bradley Sutton: Very good question. The answer is either or if I just wanna look at like, hey, what is the number one guy or gal doing? And that’s what we did today. We looked at the number one seller for those acrylic, whatever the heck is we are looking at shelf dividers or something. We want to, we want to maybe reverse engineer what they specifically are doing because they’re just night and day better than the rest of that, that niche, right? Or maybe there’s like six or seven kind of like, you know, very on the, on the same level competitors. I can put all of them in there and then check what is the highest Amazon recommended rank average meaning that these are five top competitors. And by looking at the average, now I know what most of them or what Amazon is finding most of ’em relevant. Bradley Sutton: Now how, I’m glad you brought this up. Why is that beneficial? That’s beneficial in itself is because now if they’re listing optimization is similar, you know, like the main keywords that they’re using and you are using some of the main keywords and your listing optimization and vibe is similar to that one price point, et cetera. Well, what does that mean? Now you can almost predict what your Amazon recommended rank is or how Amazon is gonna view your listing relevant if you’re using those listings to kind of structure yours. I’m not saying copy the listings, nobody should ever copy listings, but obviously if you’re in the coffin shelf niche, you’re gonna do stuff that’s similar. Like, Hey, I’m gonna have the word coffin shelf like two or three times in my listing, duh, right? Doesn’t mean I’m copying it, but it just, it allows you now to predict that, hey, if, if I’m using a lot of the same keywords and optimizing my listing around it, I now know that Amazon’s probably gonna, you know, right off the bat view me relevant for these because I can see that Amazon or these other listings are relevant to Amazon for it. Bradley Sutton: Okay? So as a reminder if you’re part of our Serious Sellers Club or Elite members, elite members get this too. Whether they’re part of the Serious Sellers Club or not you guys get this trained every Monday or Tuesday at 11:00 AM Pacific time. So make sure that you’re getting the invites for this. If you’re not in our Serious Sellers Club Facebook group and you know, you have at least $500,000 of sales in the last 12 months, make sure hit up customer service. They’ll help you get into that Facebook group so you can take advantage of these trainings every week. We’ve got about 900 members there in that Facebook group who, who network with each other throughout the week. And guys, you notice today I’m wearing my Tokyo shirt. By the time you’re watching this, if you’re watching this on the podcast, I’ll probably be in Tokyo. Bradley Sutton: So next week I won’t be on this call I’ll be in Japan, but September I’m gonna be on the road a lot guys. So I hope to see you guys at some of the events I am going to be at. Let me get a couple of the the next one. The first one that I’m going to be at is going to be in Amazon Accelerate. In Seattle. We’re actually gonna have a networking social on the 11th. Alright? So if you’re gonna be in Seattle, Amazon 11th through the 14th about make sure to come out to Amazon Accelerate you Elite members, you’ve got a workshop on the 11th that you guys can go to if you’re a Serious Sellers Club member. I sent out an email saying a few of you guys I can get on a scholarship to get into that that Elite training that normally you have to pay $600 for. Bradley Sutton: So make sure to go to the Facebook group and hit me up there if I didn’t give you guys a hookup for that. And that’s the 11th to the 14th on the September the I think it’s the 16th, all right? Yeah, September the 16th. I’m gonna be in Milan, Italy at an event with Simon. And so if you guys wanna attend that, just go to h10.me/italy. So that’s on the 16th, I’ll be there. And then after that I’m going to the Maldives to Film episode 500. We, I’m gonna continue this conversation. I don’t think you guys can join me on that, but anybody who wants to feel free and then busy, busy October, I’ll be seeing you guys hopefully at Amazon unboxed at the end of the month. That’ll be in New York. Bradley Sutton: And then another event, I’m doing, seller velocity. There we go. The link is h10.me/velocity. That’s another event I’m doing on the 11th in New York City of October. All right, so h10.me/velocity, if you guys would like to attend that. And then right after that is Amazon unboxed and I’ll also be in Korea on the October 19th doing an event there, h10.me/kconference. If you guys are in Asia, wanna make a quick flight over to Seoul, Korea, h10.me/kconference. So a lot of cool events happening in September and October. I hope to see you guys at one of them. But until then, have a great time and we’ll see you next week on this weekly training. Bye-Bye now.

Chris McCabe calls 2023 a “wacky and wild year” in the Amazon space. Tune in as he dives into key events and trends that have shaped the Amazon-selling landscape. From the headline-grabbing antitrust lawsuit, FTC vs. Amazon, to how the new Inform Act has been affecting sellers in the US, we dissect the topics that matter. In this episode, discover what common mistakes Amazon sellers are making and the consequences they face. Our expert emphasizes the critical role of interpreting Amazon’s policies accurately to maintain a thriving seller account. We also tackle the challenges of managing multiple Amazon brand accounts, shedding light on potential issues that arise. In an insightful twist, we explore Amazon’s rollback of account enforcements in 2023, Brand Registry revocations, and offer a cautionary note on the rise of new blackhat tactics that sellers should be wary of. Lastly, we talk about the rollout of a new module for Freedom Ticket with Chris McCabe, and don’t miss out on the Seller Velocity Event, a must-attend gathering for anyone seeking to excel in the Amazon marketplace! In episode 487 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Chris discuss: 02:34 – 2023: A Wacky And Wild Year In The Amazon Space 04:17 – Antitrust Lawsuit: FTC vs. Amazon 10:52 – A New Module For Freedom Ticket With Chris McCabe 14:15 – What Are Amazon Sellers Getting In Trouble For? 15:18 – Interpretation Of Amazon’s Policies Is Vital 16:07 – Talking About The Inform Act  17:55 – Join Us For The Seller Velocity Event 20:58 – Issues With Having Multiple Amazon Brand Accounts 24:53 – Amazon Rolled Back Account Enforcements In 2023 25:45 – Watch Out For These Blackhat Tactics In 2023 27:07 – Amazon Brand Registry Revoked Issues 29:56 – Top Amazon Policy Compliance Tips From Chris 31:39 – Buyer Messaging Issues You Could Get In Trouble For 33:55 – How To Contact Chris McCabe ► 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 bring back one of the world’s foremost experts on Amazon suspensions and compliance issues, and he’s gonna give us an update on things that’s gonna get you in and out of trouble. How cool is that? Pretty cool I think. Bradley Sutton: 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 wanna 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’m your host, Bradley Sutton. And this is the show that’s a completely BS free unscripted and unrehearsed organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. Bradley Sutton: And we’ve got a serious person here. Chris is one of the very few who have been on the podcast now four times. As you guys know, we have like one per year kind of like rule kind of thing. And, and we don’t always invite everybody back. Like we try and invite back the ones who everybody kind of request because they’re either very interesting or they have interesting topics or both, like in Chris’s case here. So if you guys wanna get the, we’re not gonna go full on into his backstory. If you want to check out some previous episodes, guys, you got a pen. He was first on episode 24, way back in 2019, episode 24 of the podcast. Then he was in 151 and he was also in 278. So we covered lots of things, but these are, you know, I would say just go to 24 to see his backstory. Bradley Sutton: But when we talk about the topic we’re talking about today, which is, you know, like compliance and, and legal things and stuff, I would almost say that those older episodes don’t, don’t even listen to it because these kind of things change like every year. And so this is the episode that you guys want to listen to because we’re gonna talk about what is happening here in August, September of 2023. And a lot has happened in 2023. But first of all let’s just see how you doing, Chris, you know, I’ve seen you a couple times in the past few months in different parts of the world including Japan. How’s your travels been? Chris: Japan was amazing. I spoke at an event in Istanbul, which was also interesting. This is the first year, by the way. Thanks. And kudos to you for doing unscripted. I like this. One reason I like coming back over and over is because of the authenticity of this podcast, and thank you so much. The approach you use, which makes it not only enjoyable, but informative and also fresh and different and interesting which given, appreciate that giving a lot of content out there. Not even, not even podcast glut, but like Amazon related content. That’s one reason why this is, you know, one of the better podcasts out there. Bradley Sutton: Thank you so much. Chris: It’s always a pleasure and privilege to be back on. I like what you said also about 2023 has just been a wacky and wild year for, I don’t even know how many reasons we can touch on in the next, you know, 45 minutes. But it’s been so zany to the extent of even a seasoned veteran like myself has been kind of impressed. And it does, it doesn’t or it does take a lot to impress me in this space because sometimes I’ve had trouble predicting what Amazon’s going to do next. And sometimes I’ve also had trouble predicting what business owners and sellers and even service providers might do in reaction to things Amazon’s doing. And to top it all off as of today recording, you know, we’re recording in August of 2023 on the cusp of the filing of the antitrust lawsuit by the FTC and the government against Amazon. So it’s just a crazy way to start Q4. Bradley Sutton: Let’s talk about that real briefly, because I don’t know, you know, maybe you have your own opinion. I’ll give you my opinion and whether it’s right or wrong, still, just my opinion, it doesn’t really count for much. But when I, when I first talked about that, that story in the weekly news, I was like, you know, I was reading these stories about how the head of the FTC is like kind of banking on this being her big bang. And I’m like, this is not the right move if you’re looking to make a splash. I’m not sure if she understands the Amazon seller’s viewpoint, but for me, there is a lot of problems that Amazon sellers have with Amazon. You know, like, like it’s not perfect. Everybody understands it, but we still love Amazon. But if we were to pick something that we wanna, like, go against Amazon for the preference to FBA listings or prime listings would be like maybe 75th on, on the list. Bradley Sutton: Because like we, we love FBA, like, it makes to me, we, I say we, but I love FBA, it makes sense to me that the algorithm would favor FBA listings because I’m not gonna deliver in one day to customers, you know, like, I can’t, I mean, sure I could, but I’d be paying FedEx $40 in order for that. You know, like I have zero problem with Amazon prioritizing FBA, not to mention now they’re bringing back seller fulfilled prime, which almost negates this whole thing of oh, only FBA things. But is this kind of like your take as well, or do you have a little bit different on this? Chris: It’s such a big topic. The first thing is what’s the history of lawsuits that tried to break up companies? Most people think back to the 1980s and Atlantic Bell and Pacific Bell and Southern Bell had to be split up from Bell, right? Bell was a conglomerate. They, they wanted to split it up into regional pieces. But I mean, aside from the Bell case, and then I think it was 1984, how many other companies have been broken up with antitrust lawsuits? Yeah. Not that many. Bradley Sutton: Yeah. Chris: So you start from a position of you are not expecting Amazon to be broken up. Disclaimer, I’m not an antitrust legal expert by any means. I’m an interested observer like you are, like a lot of people are. I probably know a little bit more about it than the average person or the average Amazon business owner, because I was one of the subject matter experts for the House subcommittee’s investigation back in 2020. So of course I was on calls with people who were investigating it. I’m cited in the report, this is in a secret, this is public knowledge, but I’m not, that doesn’t makes me by no means an antitrust lawyer. Yeah. I am still looking at it in terms of my interest in how the marketplace shakes out. Chris: Not AWS I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about AWS and some of the other parts of the Amazon universe like you, I’m thinking about brands and Amazon sellers, and especially anything that would impact our clients or future clients. And so it’ll be interesting to see how this topic shakes out from the seller perspective, because I’m not sure people really know or understand how it will, it’s definitely gonna come up at the Seller Velocity Conference that, you know, we’re co-organizing with Helium in the fall, October 11th and 12th in New York. But when the lawsuit is filed, which will be pretty soon, maybe after Labor Day, I think that’s when people will start showing their cards a little bit, and then I’ll kind of come back with maybe more of an assessment on, Hey, this is like really far wide ranging investigation that’s led to a far reaching lawsuit, or will they narrowly define what they’re interested in here? I think it’s just gonna be a fascinating chapter in Amazon’s history. And Amazon to a certain extent right now atleast controls the chart and path of e-commerce history, and we’re all e-commerce enthusiasts. And we’re all interested in entrepreneurship and brands and brand expansion. I mean, it’s one of the, the main focuses of the Seller Velocity conference every year. So how rough and tumble it gets. I don’t know. Bradley Sutton: I just think that in general, you know, like sometimes there’s people out there, there’s influencers who try and always be antiaz Amazon and this and that, right? But when it comes down to it, guys, not one of us should ever be rooting for something like this to happen whether we think Amazon is right or wrong. Because if something like this ever goes through, well guess who’s the ones who’s gonna suffer. It’s gonna be us as sellers, you know, our fees are gonna go up and, and it’s gonna be more difficult to do things. So like but anyways, yeah. Let’s not harp too much on this because it’s still a lot of speculation still too early. Let’s talk about what’s affecting sellers, you know, nowadays. And actually just interestingly coming up on Freedom Ticket, you have recorded or are recording, I believe, by the time this episode airs a brand new module for, for Freedom Ticket even, right? Chris: Let’s start with that because I’ve been working on that a lot this week. Nice. Still putting on the final touches, and I wanna make sure Helium 10’s happy with it before you post it and publish it. But I’ve enjoyed doing it. I think it’s important material. It’s all geared around avoiding account or ASIN suspensions and I think it’s really important, especially it’s great that you’re launching it ready for Q4 because of the compliance issues, because of the nature of compliance investigations on specific listings. Because I can’t tell you how many times we hear from brand owners who have their hero product, their ASINs, that are giving them the most revenue per day, per week, per month, suddenly flagged for review, suddenly suspended. In some cases, Amazon just hints that they’re going to suspend it, but they don’t tell you whether or not they’ve decided yet, which is a bit tricky. Chris: But it’s better than having them suspend those listings outright and just saying, yeah, well now you’re in the reinstatement strategy protocols, and that can go either way. That can cut good, that can cut bad. Because that puts sellers back on their heels in terms of, well, are you ready for this? You might have only had a day or two to prepare to have to appeal for your bestselling ASIN to go down. And as you know, we work with brands that if they lose a top selling ASIN some of our clients, they’re losing 40 or $50,000 every day that that listing’s down. Bradley Sutton: Yeah. So guys, if you want to get the full module, those of you who are Helium 10 members, just go hit the Learning Hub, and then go to Freedom Ticket 3.0, and then go to week two, and it’ll be right here in 2.14 is where Chris’s module will be. Now we don’t wanna just give away the whole thing right in here, but just in general, 2023, what are the main things that people are getting in trouble for legitimate, you know, like, obviously there’s always new Black Hat strategies that are out there. Course, and we can talk about that, but, but what about legitimate sellers, maybe unknowingly are getting in trouble for in 2023? And Chris: I’m glad you mentioned there’s always black hat. So Amazon is overcompensating for some of the Black Hat by punishing sellers that haven’t done something wrong and accusing them of harming another seller or harming a competitor. There’s a huge spike in complaints to Amazon from brands complaining about other competitors attacking them. So we are getting some clients who are falsely accused of it, who have to dispute it. So there are people that will start getting some messages. We’ve detected some behavior where you’ve harmed another seller, not so much that you’ve damaged buyer experience. It’s not so much about buyers that you’ve attacked another seller in the marketplace. We can set that aside for now. I definitely address that in the module because it’s important. And as we’ve seen, sometimes Amazon over enforces just to make sure they get all the bad characters right? Chris: It doesn’t mean it can’t be fixed. It doesn’t mean it can’t be appealed. You can definitely fix it and appeal it. But beyond that there’s a lot of listing violations that are being flagged for a variety of reasons. Some sellers have created listings erroneously for a while, and they were never flagged. They were never reported, and now they’re getting reported and they’re confused. We’ve been doing this for two years, for two months. We’ve been putting certain terms, let’s say certain claims like health claims in the title. We’ve been using certain health claims in back, let’s just say supplements, right? For example, we’ve been putting certain health claims in backend. Keywords are in the title, and we were never flagged before. Why are we getting flagged now? It could just be because they’ve never been reported for doing it before. Chris: So a competitor did report them, the report was from the competitor, but it was a valid complaint. It wasn’t an unsubstantiated attack. So I think some sellers are suddenly put back on their heels by these investigations again, they might just get a note saying, you’re being reviewed, you’re not necessarily suspended yet. Or, it’s an auto suspension because of the keywords they’re using that the terms they’re using that should have been deleted. Some of it’s the sellers themselves doing it and not realizing they’re making mistakes. On some occasions, we’ve seen them hiring outside agencies or consultants that don’t know compliance. They’re marketing people, the revenue generation people, their salespeople, but they don’t know the policies. And sometimes they don’t know the laws, the relevant laws, or the FBA, you know, or the EPA, let’s say agencies and how they’ve interpreted the laws. Chris: So it’s kind of like the same as getting into trouble with Amazon because you interpreted policy one way, and Amazon interprets it another way. You always have to kind of change how you interpret it and make sure you match Amazon’s interpretation. Yeah. unless they’re wrong, there’s always the caveat. If Amazon’s interpreting their own policy incorrectly, and I can tell you this, and Leah who works with us can tell you this all the time. Amazon interprets their own policies wrong. Some, occasionally it’s going to happen to everyone at some point, but for the rest of the time, you have to make sure that your interpretation of their policies matches their interpretation without really thinking that you can just battle them backwards and force them to take your way. Because we’ve seen some sellers and some brand owners grab a lawyer, they think they can get a lawyer to write a letter for them and send it to Amazon and back Amazon off. If there’s no legitimate standing to that argument, that’s not going to be any more effective than a seller support case. Bradley Sutton: Okay. Now I think that something that everybody was scared about, you know, two, three months ago obviously, was when the inform act came, and then people were getting like, Hey, your account’s gonna get suspended. But, you know, the dust has kind of settled. Amazon like admittedly, they didn’t have a good rollout. The system was broken and, and people were getting messages, even though they had done stuff, and it was kind of crazy. They would say, you need to submit your postcard. And then, and then before we even got the postcard and the message disappeared, so you’re like, Hey, is everything good? And like, I have not heard of any, like, mass suspensions or, or things like that, but do you have anything you say about this? Like just moving forward, like, just to put a lid on this, like, Hey guys, just if you’re a new seller, get all this in a row. If you haven’t done something, do this. Or can we say about the whole inform act stuff? Yeah. Chris: And I can do that pretty quickly and concisely. The Inform Act is did not result in a giant batch of suspensions. That’s one of the feel good stories of 2023. We did hear from some sellers suspended, we did work with people to iron that out. It was a fixable problem in most cases. Some sellers, I think, were slow to react to the Inform Act and didn’t get their paperwork straight, didn’t get their documentation consistent. And some people panicked, appealed the wrong way. That’s typical of suspensions. Most of them were able to get it resolved before they got suspended. Some people had to do it after they got suspended. But account verification suspensions are kind of what the Inform Act stuff morphed back into. And verification and identity verification is with us forever. Amazon’s trying to improve their KYC, their know your customer procedures. Chris: Even they were even doing that before the Inform Act was passed, and there’s a good reason why they’re doing it. And there’s a good reason why banks have been doing more to bolster their KYC procedures. That’s just the age we’re living in. Know, your customer is something that every platform, every business, everyone needs to pay close attention to. Because if you’re not paying attention to who sellers are in the marketplace, example, then you, Amazon could be exposing their buyers to actors, bad actors, or misleading misrepresented business owners. And it reflects badly on them and their reputation for managing the marketplace. So yeah, as long as you understand that verification procedures are serious and you’re not really loose with your documentation, you understand that everything in Seller Central has to match up with the documentation you present, whether it’s your name, your address bank statements and so forth. You should be. Okay. Bradley Sutton: Tell us a little bit more about the seller Velocity conference coming up. Like the last year, Carrie went, I wasn’t able to go, so this is gonna be my first time. So I’m just interested what, what I can look forward to. I know what I’m gonna be talking about, and I’m gonna be presenting, but I don’t know. You know, like how many people are, are you expecting. What kind of activities you have, et cetera. Chris: Yeah. We’re expecting right around a hundred people, which is what we do. This is our, this is our fifth incarnation. We’re going back to New York City this year. That’s where the first one was in 2018. I’m sure you’ll have lots of info in the notes about it. It’s a two day event. We have a networking heavy event on the second day of the event. The first day is the conference, so-called Conference day, which will be in Midtown Manhattan. We got great speakers like you. I mentioned Joe Kovac earlier. We’ve got Janelle Page, who a lot of people in the community know she’s gonna be our MC this year. So you won’t have to listen to me J Drone on and on. You can listen to Janelle, who’s a lot more exciting to listen to than I am. Chris: But the theme this year is going to be optimizing performance as a means of driving your brand’s growth on Amazon or beyond Amazon. And we focused on this this year because we’re really seeing that competition, competition, at least on Amazon, is unprecedented. You have to have such a tight game now. You can’t afford to learn as you go. You can’t afford more than a certain number of mistakes per year, whether it’s in your ads, whether it’s in your account, health management whether it’s in ASIN creation, listing content and detail page content. You really have to have a well-rounded, highly tuned game all the time. You know, we even have started telling people in terms of their communication strategy with Amazon to start writing drafts of potential appeals they might have to have in place just in case lightning strikes. Chris: So you won’t be left scrambling trying to figure out how to escalate, how to appeal for reinstatement. Again, not being caught unaware and rolling back on your heels when account health calls you or compliance teams come knocking on your door. Have the game plan in place before things happen, because I can guarantee you some of your competitors are thinking that way and they’re worried about things maybe before you worry about them, or they’re planning for a rainy day before there’s a problem. It doesn’t have to be a problem with Amazon directly. It could be a problem with a competitor who’s really savvy, who knows how to game the system, who knows how to make you look bad, let’s say. Or they simply know how to make themselves look better than they’re supposed to look because they are getting away with padding their reviews or something like that. Those things matter. Those things directly impact sales rank. So those are the types of topics and many more that we’ll be covering this year. Bradley Sutton: Cool. Cool. All right. So guys, if you want to register go to h10.me/velocity, h10.me/velocity. What about, you know, another thing that I kind of wanna put a lid on, because I always hear just conflicting things is, you know, from Amazon even and that’s the matter of multiple accounts. I think everybody understands that, whether they get approved from Amazon or not you gotta have different bank accounts and different entities, and there’s gotta be a reason, you know, and stuff like that. But then the differing thing where people talk about is, oh no, you don’t need to ask Amazon permission anymore. Just go ahead and do it, and it’s all good, and you’re not gonna have to worry about it. Now, I mentioned this just ’cause literally last night, somebody at our company at Helium 10 she’s been wanting to start her own Amazon business, and then somehow her name was, I don’t even know, like she was never an admin on this other account, but we had a company account, like a company, it wasn’t even the Project X account. Bradley Sutton: I don’t even know what account this was, but she got her new account shut down saying, oh yeah, we think you’re the same as this person. So on one hand I’m like, well, if this is not even an issue anymore, and it’s not even the same, it wasn’t like, you know, with her social security number or something, she had started another account, or I mean, it, it was just that she worked for a company, Helium 10 that had this other account. To me, it’s still an issue then of, of this whole multiple account thing. It’s not something that just, you know, you can just be, yeah, lemme just start seven accounts, and I don’t even have to ask Amazon. Like, is this just a outlier experience or do you still need to be careful when starting new accounts? Chris: It’s true that you don’t need to ask for permission in the old days. Back in my Seller Performance days, you had to ask for permission until Seller Performance. Granted it not Seller Support, Seller Performance, the team I used to work on had to give you written permission. Those are the old days. Basically, they didn’t want a deluge of emails asking them if they could have, you know, spend time looking at whether or not it was justified. So they basically said, here’s the policy. You need to read it, understand it, and make sure you don’t violate it. If you do violate it, we’ll come knocking on your door. But here’s the policy. We think it’s clear. Of course sellers might disagree how clear it is. What they’re mostly interested in is not seeing a competitive advantage. Like if you have two accounts selling the same type of products, maybe not the same exact brand. Chris: If you have the same ASINs on two accounts, the same brand on two accounts, then it looks like you’re just trying to create multiple storefronts so you can game the system and have a competitive advantage over somebody that has one seller account. That was the intention of the policy going back to my years of the company. And that’s still the core piece that they’re most interested in in terms of seller compliance. What a lot of sellers were doing wrong was they thought, well, as long as I have an account with a different LLC and a different email address and a different, bank account, well then the rest of it doesn’t matter. They weren’t thinking about is this a competitive advantage over another seller or not. And of course, the Amazon’s interested in having a fair marketplace. It’s not a fair marketplace if one seller has a competitive advantage over another, number one. Number two, all the copycats will come out and do the same thing. If it works, if Amazon lets anything go, anything goes, it’s you. They’ll slide by anybody. Then everyone’s going to do it. And then you start getting into, I mean, we already know that a lot of accounts based in China are run by people who have dozens or hundreds of accounts, right? The message that your coworker or staffer got, I assume it wasn’t about being related to a suspended or blocked account. It only mentioned multiple accounts. Bradley Sutton: Yes, I believe so. I didn’t see the message, but that’s what it sounds like. Chris: Probably a mistake. They’re not really sending those messages that much anymore. Again, that’s kind of what– Bradley Sutton: I thought too. Chris: Yeah. That’s sort of another feel good story of 2023. People probably think we’re always talking about dark clouds and bad news around here. No, that’s the second good story is that they have rolled back multiple account enforcement, and I did some digging into it again, 10, 12 days ago when I was in Seattle. And I realized that a lot of investigators at Amazon, I think were sending that message in error. They were kind of grabbing the wrong dropdown, and in a lot of cases they meant to send a message about related accounts, but that was for related to a suspended seller, which is totally different than multiple accounts. And some investigators at Amazon were mixing and matching and confusing the two, which is alarming because those are two totally different concepts. Bradley Sutton: Yeah. Chris: For whatever reason, those mistakes are being made, I think most people in your audience, and, and most people in the Amazon seller community will tell you that they’re seeing that message less and that’s a good thing, and it’s the right thing. Bradley Sutton: Okay. Alright, cool. Now let’s switch back to the other thing we kind of alluded to about like black hat, you know, things, like every year, the main thing is, is is different. There’s been, you know, black hat for themselves, they use brushing, and then as far as attacking other sellers, there’s, hey, you know, they, they find listings where you know, in the past where maybe in other marketplaces they didn’t, or in their market, their home marketplace, they didn’t fill all their flat file out, right? So they’ll hop in on some foreign marketplace and throw some adult keywords or health claims or something to get them all suspended. What’s in 2023? What are sellers having to deal with where they end up having to, you know, maybe even get your help or it gets them in big trouble with Amazon before they get it fixed. Yeah, Chris: And I’m glad you brought up the international marketplaces, because it’s not only just using illicit backend keywords in other marketplaces that you don’t sell in, but also rights, ownership issues. People who research and figure out that you don’t have a trademark registered in Canada or in the uk creating listings for your branded products in those other marketplaces, because they know that if you submit an IP claim without the trademark registration in that region, Amazon won’t accept it and will reject it. They might even punish the brand owner for submitting an unsubstantiated IP claim. This is one of the big deals in 2023, is we’ve heard from a lot of brands who had their brand registry revoked for submitting false or unsubstantiated IP claims. And there’s, that’s a huge topic we could talk about, you know, 40. Bradley Sutton: I like that. I mean, that might sound like, oh, this is bad news, but oh my goodness, how many messages have I seen in Facebook groups where it’s like, yeah, you know, like, I just got this message, and then I’m not really infringing, but Amazon just is telling me, oh, no, you gotta get the person who did this claim to revoke it. But it’s like that person is maliciously even doing it in the first place, so of course they’re not gonna revoke, you know, so it’s like this vicious circle. So it’s kind of good news what you just said. Chris: Yeah. I mean, it’s kind of a good news, bad news. Obviously. The bad news is if you are not legally aware or trained and you start submitting IP claims all over the place, which has been a problem for a while, right? A lot of brands had brand registry revoked because they were submitting false counterfeit claims against resellers that they couldn’t recognize or identify without doing test orders. And, or they would just send a note to Amazon, these people aren’t authorized to sell our products, so we want you to take ’em down. So here’s a counterfeit complaint, or here’s a trademark infringement complaint. They didn’t understand what they were doing. Or even worse, they were hiring a law firm that was helping them submit illicit IP claims simply because they wanted to collect more legal fees for something trendy, which is really scary. Chris: But of course, Amazon doesn’t punish the law firm you hired, they punish you as a seller, and the buck stops with you. You have to understand where these rules and policies are. So the good news is we finally succeeded. I think people like you and me and others getting the word out, don’t shoot first and ask questions later. Amazon tends to punish you for that. Make sure you do things the right way, right? If you want to deal with unauthorized sellers, control your distribution channels you know, you talk to people like Joe Kovac, who’s one of our speakers at Seller Velocity this year in New York. But also you just make sure you go one step at a time very carefully before you make any claims that could get, you, get your whole account suspended for submitting illicit IP claims or get your brand registry revoked. So we’ve seen fewer people coming to us with that problem, which means the word is successfully getting out this year. Bradley Sutton: Okay. So based on what you’re seeing around there, what are some just maybe tips that you can give to sellers out there on stuff they need to be a little, a little bit more careful about than before, or perhaps do something completely differently than before? It could be about any aspect of Amazon or even a Walmart, but what are some of the signs that you’re seeing and how should sellers pivot a little bit? Chris: Yeah, and I think one of the issues is understand that either your agency or your consultant, or you have to have compliance people somewhere in your ecosystem that know the policies and know local laws, because you’re not going to be able to make excuses later if you, you, and it’s also, it’s not just listing content, it’s also the info on your packaging. We’re still seeing people put offending language or violation language on their packaging itself, and sometimes they have to pull all of their items out of FBA when they make those mistakes. It’s only happening for people that haven’t thought about it before they created the packaging or before they created the listing, or before they hired people to do that sort of stuff for them. Understand that from Amazon’s perspective, that’s a you problem, not a them problem. Chris: They don’t think it’s up to them to tell you all the laws, all the policies. I mean, they post on the policy pages, but they think it’s up to you to understand what compliance is, right up to whether or not you have to hire an attorney to explain it to you. And I think people understand now that they’re going to lose out on a lot of sales to a lot of competitors if their competitors have their compliance act together and they don’t because their listing’s going to go down and go down for longer, and they might have to incur the cost of withdrawing inventory from FBA. And if their competitors had that all sorted out before they even went live with the product, then they’re, they’re losing sales rank too. The longer you’re down for an account I’m sorry, an ace in suspension, the other guys are beating you on on sales rink as well. So you might have all this inventory, you can’t sell, right? Bradley Sutton: Any, anything going on with reviews of late, you know, like the buyer seller messaging getting blocked, you know, I remember, that’s kind of old news already. But you know, like some people didn’t realize, Hey, I can’t send an email and click the request to review. Or I couldn’t infer that they give me a positive review, right? And now I can’t, you know, do messages or, or Amazon gave me a nasty note because they didn’t like my insert card, right? Anything new in 2023, we kind of like, similar to the last few years, similar Chris: I still see people who have five stars across their, the top of their insert that’s considered asking for a five star review, even if it’s unspoken or unwritten. Don’t have five stars at the top. And just, the only thing I’ve seen lately on inserts, just if we’re talking about inserts, is stay away from the, are you happy or, you know, do you have a problem with the order? Contact us. Here’s how you reach us. No problems with your order. Do you mind leaving us a review? Stay away from that language that’s still considered out of bounds. I’ve heard from a lot of people who buy from competitors and show me their inserts or show me whatever free gifts and discounts they’re doing and, you know, report that stuff because that shouldn’t be going on anymore. I know it’s discouraging when you open a seller support case or you send emails to the abuse prevention teams and they don’t answer, or they, unfortunately, sometimes Amazon responds and says, we took a look at what you sent us and there’s no violation here, so have a nice day. Chris: I mean, it is discouraging when they do that. That’s not the end of the story. They’ve done that with our clients too, and we still manage to get that done and get that reported because those sellers shouldn’t be doing those things. So just be careful. Just because your competitors are getting away with stuff doesn’t, you know, two wrongs don’t make it right. It doesn’t mean that you should be trying it too, and it doesn’t mean it’s allowable any more than looking at a detail page live on the site that shows somebody doing something and believing that it’s permissible because you see somebody doing it at any given moment. I can look at any detail page on the site and find a violation. All it means is it hasn’t been reported yet and it hasn’t been Yeah. Actioned yet. Bradley Sutton: Okay. If you’d like to reach out to Chris to get some more help, you know, just go to hub.helium10.com. You can type in any search right there, ecommerceChris, and then just type in ecommerceChris, anywhere on the interwebs, and you can definitely be able to reach out to him. I keep telling, you know Leah, we need to make a ecommerceleah.com as well maybe, even if it’s just a forwarding link to e-commercechris.com. We’re gonna have to work on that. And Chris: A big thank you to you, Bradley, by the way, and Helium 10 support for this year’s conference has been wonderful and enormous and very positive and encouraging from many of many Helium 10’s teams and members. And it’s refreshing that you guys are still creative and that you’re open-minded and that you’re interested in creating new and different kinds of content, not just on this podcast, but also for in-person events. Because without you guys, this year’s Seller Velocity conference you know, would not be possible. So we thank you again for co-organizing with us and co-hosting. Bradley Sutton: Awesome. Thank you so much for having us, and I’ll be seeing you there in a few weeks. Thanks. And definitely we’ll have you back on for the fifth time next year. Chris: Great.

Let’s dive into the world of successful Walmart-selling strategies with the latest SSP episode! Join Carrie Miller and her guest, Jake Lebhar Co-Founder and COO of SellCord, as we explore key topics such as his company’s remarkable experience managing an impressive portfolio of 250 brands on Walmart, and the burning question: Is everyone cut out to sell on Walmart.com? Tune in for invaluable insights into navigating the application process, including expert advice for sellers whose applications face rejection and application tips tailored for international sellers. Discover Jake’s expert recommendations for launching a product on Walmart, unravel the mystery behind COMP errors on Walmart and gain a comprehensive understanding of dealing with account suspensions and compliance issues inside the Walmart marketplace. Don’t miss out on Jake’s personal journey and takeaways from the Walmart Open Call, as well as pro tips for using the Helium 10 Xray tool for Walmart. Learn about new advertising features and placements on the horizon, and dive into Jake’s top-notch advice on conquering the Walmart marketplace. Wrapping up, find out how to get in touch with Jake Lebhar and SellCord, rounding out an episode brimming with practical strategies for thriving in the Walmart marketplace. In episode 486 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Carrie and Jake discuss: 02:13 – Jake Lebhar’s Backstory 02:59 – Managing 250 Brands On Walmart 05:21 – Is Everyone A Good Fit To Sell On Walmart.com? 07:55 – Advice If Your Seller Application Is Rejected 11:42 – Application Tips For Sellers Outside The US 13:38 – Q: What Do You Suggest For Sellers Looking To Launch A Product On Walmart? 15:14 – What Is A COMP Error In Walmart? 18:46 – Talking About Walmart.com Account Suspensions 22:27 – Getting A Hemp Product Inside Walmart.com 24:20 – Is It Too Late To Sign Up For Walmart Open Call? 25:01 – Jake’s Walmart Open Call Experience 28:03 – Helium 10 Xray Tool For Walmart 28:16 – Tips For Launching A Brand On Walmart 29:38 – New Advertising Features And Placements Coming Soon  30:07 – How Can I Deal With Compliance Issues with Walmart? 31:03 – Jake’s Top Tips On How To Succeed In The Walmart Marketplace ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast ► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension ► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup  (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life) ► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft ► Watch The Podcasts On Youtube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos Transcript Carrie Miller: Today on the podcast, we are talking with Jake Lebhar from SellCord, and he’s gonna be sharing some strategies for sellers who maybe applied to the Walmart marketplace and got rejected. We’ll also talk about COMP Errors as well as what to do if you get suspended from the Walmart marketplace. Bradley Sutton: How cool is that? Pretty cool I think. If you guys would like to network with other Walmart sellers, make sure to join our brand new Facebook group called Helium 10 Winning with Walmart. You can actually just search for that on Facebook, or you can actually go to h10me/walmartgroup and you can go directly to that page. So make sure to join, you can tag me and Carrie with questions, and ask questions of other Walmart sellers or even share your own experiences in that Facebook group. Carrie Miller: Hello everyone and welcome to the Serious Sellers Podcast, brought to you by Helium 10. My name is Carrie Miller and I’ll be your host. And this is our winning with Walmart Wednesday show where we come live once a month and we answer all of your burning Walmart questions and we give you lots of great new up-to-date information about Walmart. Thank you all so much for joining me again today. I’m really excited ’cause we have a really special guest today from SellCord. His name is Jake Lebhar and he deals with a lot of of the questions that I get often about you know, count suspensions, COMP Errors, how to get your account activated if you were rejected from Walmart. So we have a lot of really good information coming from Jake today, so I’m really, really excited about that. So I’m gonna go ahead and bring him on. Jake: Hey guys, how are you Carrie? Carrie Miller: Good. How are you doing? Jake: Thank God. Easy. Wednesdays, this Walmart Wednesdays is perfect, you know. Carrie Miller: Yeah. I’m really excited to have you on today, especially because I’ve had you help me with some comp barriers and just some difficulties that I’ve had and I’ve also kind of referred a lot of people to you to help you know, get everyone going. So I’m pretty excited to talk with you about these things today. I’m gonna start with some questions. Maybe Jake, could you just tell us a little bit about yourself and, and your whole kind of Walmart journey? Jake: Yeah, I’m Jake from SellCord. I’m one of the co-founders here. I work with David Millstein and Michael Lebhar, which, you know, I’m sure the listener, some of them, you know, may have seen them. They have been on quite a few webinars and Freedom Ticket and whatnot. So yeah, I started in the e-commerce space when I was 13 years old as a seller. Up until 2018, we were just selling on Amazon. We ran into issues with one of our accounts with an account suspension on Amazon actually. And that part we weren’t able to get solved, so we really moved to Walmart. At that time we had one of the first few, like 3P accounts, you know, in Walmart. So we just started spending all our time there and there were very few sellers we were sharing our sales with, like one piece sellers. Jake: We were selling fitness products. Covid came along and then it flew off the shelf. And yeah, ever since then we basically we started off managing a few, you know, relationships that we had in the space. We managed their Walmart accounts and in 2020 we just branched out, you know, started SellCord. And since then it’s been a crazy ride, basically launching and scaling brands on Walmart. You know, currently we’re managing over 250 brands on Walmart. You know, some clients, you know, are doing, you know, just 10% of their Amazon sales. But then we have, for example, a brand that does 750k a day on Walmart, just to give you an idea in furniture. Yeah, there’s a lot of opportunity, there’s especially a lot of opportunity for the 3P brands right now to come in and kind of take their share of revenue from all those one p sellers that have been on Walmart for a while. Jake: And I think that’s what people really need to understand that yeah, Walmart isn’t exactly where Amazon is right now, but there’s so many markets where you can just come in and take your fair share and also establish yourself as an early settler on Walmart. So I’m always really excited and that’s why I do a lot of sales every day and, you know, hey, telling people about the opportunity that there is on Walmart. I always wish I would’ve launched more products in Amazon in 2013, and that’s kind of what I compare Walmart to right now. So that’s a little background to me and what I spend my time with everything for my whole day spent on Walmart, and it’s really exciting, you know, how quickly they’re growing. Carrie Miller: Yeah. Did you say was it a 1P seller that’s 750 K a month? No, this is Marketplace Jake: Actually. This is Marketplace. Carrie Miller: Oh, marketplace. So a third party, 750k a day. Jake: Yeah. Just to give people like the extended idea that there is, there are some categories like that, like furniture and stuff, which are massive in Walmart. And then there’s also, you know, some categories which yes, in the average, like if someone would want me to give an give a number, it’s usually about 10%. You know, like you’ll hear around, it’s usually about 10% of what you can make on Amazon, but that number is growing every month with how quickly. You know, Walmart’s growing, so I can be sitting here next year and saying it’s 30%. And I wouldn’t be surprised literally if Walmart’s growing, you know, that quickly. I’m very definitely very optimistic about it. Carrie Miller: Wow. That’s very encouraging. ’cause People are always asking me about, you know, how much there, you know, opportunity there is. And I guess it really depends on the effort you put in. I think that’s really the bottom line is how much do you wanna make on Walmart? That’s where it is. So I guess that kind of leads me into another question is, do you think that everyone is a good fit for Walmart? And like, you know, who do you think has the best chance at success for, you know, doing, like, getting to the point where you’re doing 750k a day? Like, what, what do you think, what have you seen? Jake: So there are more niche categories that aren’t built out, you know, in Walmart, like they are in Amazon. I do think everybody is a fit, but some are more of a fit than others. Meaning that if you have a more niche product, you know, that, you know, the search volume isn’t, you know, that high or you see that the category’s just not, you know, it’s not competitive. You just see, see a few sellers selling your product and then just random listings of other products not related. Yes, the category isn’t that big in a Walmart for certain, you know, the niche products, but it’s definitely worth listing the product. And for most products, even the more like niche products, you should be able to at least bring in a few hundred units in sales a month if you really launch a properly. And even if like for the main keyword, you know, you’re not able to bring in a ton of sales, there’s always other ways that you’re able to bring in traffic through advertising. Jake: I think a lot of times people kind of limit the opportunity at Walmart by looking at just the search volume, by just the Walmart search volume. When really, and Carrie, I know you spoke about this before, there’s a lot of searches that come from just Google and most of the Walmart searches come from Google, come into Walmart that way. So there definitely is, you know, opportunity for these niche products, even if it looks like, you know, sometimes the market isn’t that great. And yes, for the more niche products, sometimes it can only be about five to 7% of your, you know, Amazon sales. You know, depending on, you know, how good your Amazon store is, obviously. But on the most part, you know, you always have a decent amount of potential to come in there with. And you never know, which niches pick up, you know, really quickly. Jake: I’ve seen some niches and I’m always auditing different, you know, products and everything like that, that have just, you know, grown because, you know, shoppers are just starting to get used to shopping those products on a Walmart and you know, obviously Walmart started off by like, you know, their grocery and that’s what they’re really known for. But once you know, customers and shoppers are starting, you know, getting used to, Hey, I can also find this and I can find this. And they’re just seeing a lot more of a variety now those niches are opening up, so you never know exactly when it’s going to like open up and when you can hit 10%, but if you could already hit 5-6% right now, or 5-7% right now, why not launch it and, you know, get yourself to the top of the page and it’ll be a lot cheaper right now to get yourself to the top of the page. Yeah. You know, with your efforts and your advertising and everything like that. So yeah, there are, you know, there are more niche categories, but it’s definitely worth for everybody to go, you know, into the game. Carrie Miller: Yeah, I agree with that. So what advice would you have? I know there, I get this question a lot, like maybe in the last two or three years somebody has applied to sell on Walmart, but they were rejected. What advice do you have for them and is there, is all Hope lost or like what do you recommend for them? Jake: So yeah, this is a subject that I’m very familiar with because I’m talking to a few sellers a day on this that, you know, have been, you know, rejecting a Walmart and we’re probably getting like 40 to 50 accounts at SellCord accepted a month. So let me just explain a little more. Yeah, it’s, it’s crazy. And I’ll just explain a little more of the background of how the Walmart application process works and what’s going on, you know, in Walmart, so unlike Amazon where you could just easily open an account, everyone knows with Walmart there’s a bunch of like nightmare stories where people have tried to open accounts and then, you know, for three, four years they just haven’t been able to get in contact. They’ve tried getting new contact and they can, so I’ll explain kind of what goes on, you know, behind, you know, the Walmart applications. Jake: So obviously Walmart’s getting thousands of applications a day, like from Amazon sellers, right? Just this past year there’s 40% more sellers on Walmart than there was last year. 40% more 3P sellers. So just to give you an idea of how many applications they’re receiving now, they’re verifying every business and there’s a few things that they’re looking into every business. But at the end of the day, any regular Amazon, or not even Amazon, any regular, you know, business has a good, you know, proper tags, documents that, you know, that everything matches their address matches and everything like that, they’re able to get an account at Walmart. It’s not like Walmart was a few years ago where it was, they were looking really into the SKU count, the amount of revenue that they’re really not that like picky anymore. They’re just taking on a bunch of sellers right now. Jake: They just wanna make sure that, you know, verified seller. Now there are different reasons, and I’m not gonna sit here saying I know all of them ’cause at end the day that is the trust and safety department, and there are, you know, different reasons why they will reject, you know, an account. Sometimes that information doesn’t add up. There’s one thing that they saw that looks a little off, and a lot of times they’ll just end up just looking at the application, not approving it right away. So they’ll put in the archives and then, you know, that’s it. Once it’s in there, there’s no way to contact Walmart. You know, there’s no way to get any information in it, and you’re kind of just like left in the dark because they put your application in archive. I’ve seen sellers that make 30-40 million dollars a year and their application, there’s an archive and you know, it’s not like, you know, Walmart’s a corporate company. Jake: There’s a lot of people working there. It’s not just like, you know, they’re, you know, you can just reach out to somebody like, oh, you’re a massive brand, you know, we’ll take you in. You know, you have to, once the, once the once the applications are on the archive, it’s kind of impossible to reach ’em. So you really have to work with one of the Walmart partners, whether it’s myself or, you know, there are a few other partners that definitely, you know, have contacts with Walmart or Walmart directly. Honestly, if you meet Walmart or show Walmart directly, you can also, you know, speak to them. But with working with a Walmart partner like us, we usually, you know, have the contacts, you know, in Walmart that are able to take the application out of archive and basically show the trust and safety team, oh, here’s the documents. Jake: And they basically find the issue that was in the application. So, you know, maybe this one was the address didn’t master document they provided, or there was this, you know, they wanted to confirm that the business is actually operating out of this state, or one or two, you know, small things they need to confirm. And then, you know, they’ll just approve it. And, you know, our applications, you know, when I get, you know, people coming to me with applications, we usually get them within that week just, you know, approved. It’s just some back and forth information with Walmart and that’s it. But that’s just how the Walmart game works right now. It’s kind of like having something on the inside just basically taking the application out of archive and making new live on Walmart. So yeah, it’s definitely different than the Amazon process. Carrie Miller: Yeah. And I have sent some people over you to you who were rejected and they were able to get on, so that’s true. You, you have to have somebody who has the access to Walmart to be able to get you back and reinstated or have your application reviewed again. So that’s, that’s really good information. And I know I’ve also sent some international sellers your way. So what advice do you have for international sellers who want to sell on Walmart? Any kinds of tips or insight information about international? Jake: So international, I know there’s like, and I have quite a few people in my inbox that keep asking me like when their countries are gonna be added because you know, right now it’s just like, you know, UK, China, India. Carrie Miller: Japan Jake: Japan, Canada, and then the other ones, there’s one, there’s one or two. Carrie Miller: Mexico. Jake: Yeah, Mexico. And then they are adding all other countries and hopefully, you know, within the next six months to a year, you’re gonna see a lot more added on. Right now they just, you know, started like with the main ones. So you know, for those, you know, for those countries that you have obviously, you know, sign up, why not, you know, ready, you know, get moving with it. If we’re talking about is the question also what sales are, you know, like Walmart, Canada sales or Walmart, Mexico, or are you just saying for those international sellers on Walmart. Carrie Miller: The international sellers on Walmart? I know you guys have helped somebody, I think from Israel who was like, he was selling millions on Amazon, but he couldn’t get, his products were already on Walmart by other dropshippers, but he couldn’t get on and you guys helped him. Jake: Yeah, because a lot of times the international sellers and those accounts, they’ll get flagged because their IPs and everything like that, especially Israel being, one of them, Walmart’s seen a lot of and that’s my hometown, you know, just seen a lot of like, just activity that they don’t like from Israel or just a lot of applications being submitted. So certain countries, sometimes they just, you know, they have a harder time, you know, accepting applications from those. So definitely, you know, you know that that’s where you have to, you know, basically go through the back door and, you know, we have to go in there for you saying, Hey, you know, this is a good brand. We go to Walmart saying this is a good brand, they’re serious about scaling, this is the brand, no questions about it, you know, let’s get them going. Carrie Miller: Okay, very good. And I think this question kind of goes along with it. What do you suggest for sellers looking to launch a product on Walmart? Is the keyword research tool with Helium 10 a good start? Or like what do you recommend? I know you guys have launched some new products like just for Walmart, so what advice do you have? Jake: So I do plenty of audits you know, for new brands coming in, and I’m always using the Helium 10 tool, there’s no question about it. Obviously there’s that abstract traffic, which is, you know, hard to always, you know, to estimate, but I found un 10 very accurate. I’ve crosschecked it on multiple, you know, accounts that we manage and the X-ray tool’s working well as well. So I can definitely speak for that. And I wouldn’t if, I would’ve if the sales were off, but I definitely crosscheck it across many of our accounts and it’s pretty much accurate. So you use the X-ray tool as well as the search volume tool. If you kind of like, you know, spend some time on on both of those tools, you’ll be able to get a good idea of what your category really is like. Jake: And then, you know, part of it is obviously logic and, you know, common sense, like the larger products right now, you know, the, the more general products are gonna have a higher search volume, and that’s what you’ll find. So being that I’ve done like so many audits by now, I can kind of, you know, throw out a product to me, I can kind of tell you, you know, with just guessing around how much the search volume is and you know, how big, how many of the product, you know, you can sell on Walmart. So once you start really just spending a few hours in Walmart and, you know, using the Helium 10 tools, you kind of get a good feel of what categories are like, what the search forms, like, what the sales are like in comparison to Amazon. You know, all the tools are really there for you. So use the tools and you’ll have an easy time figuring out what potentially you have. Carrie Miller: All right. And the next question I have for you is about COMP Error. So what, like, what happens if you get a COMP Error? What is it? What does that mean? Jake: Yeah, so Walmart’s still trying to figure out their COMP Error, you know, process, and it’s definitely not as quick as Amazon where they have, you know, internal SOPs of every single thing that’s, you know, should be prohibited. And that’s not like on Amazon, I’m sure if you list many products, you know, right away if you have the wrong keyword or whatnot, they’ll flag you in a second. On Walmart, many times you can have your product listed for a few months and then out of the blue they’ll give you a COMP Error just because the system, you know, found something all of a sudden. So because they’re still building out their processes, this is just one of the annoying, you know, processes that, you know, affects accounts where, you know, they’ll add in a few new keywords, may be into their you know, COMP Errors, you know, system, whatever it is that’ll say, okay, you know, whoever has these keywords in their titled in their anywhere in their copy, you know, will get flagged and then all of a sudden a whole bunch of listings, you know, throughout Walmart will get flagged for those products. Jake: And then you have to, you know, take out some keywords sometimes, so there’s no exact guide on, you know, which on what to remove or, you know, which keywords are flagged like internally at SellCord, we always, you know, keep a document of like, which, you know, keywords and everything like that can, you know, can be flagged and which products usually are the most common and everything like that. I think it’s pretty much, I haven’t checked Amazon’s like comp, you know, process or prohibited products and everything like that, but I’m assuming it’s pretty much similar to Amazon’s. But yeah, what I do know is you just have to go back and forth with them and it, and it does take time to get a response from them sometimes to respond in a week or two. Jake: It’s not gonna help bumping up the case 50 times because that’s just Walmart’s support right now that that team is growing and they’re figuring it out. You know, they work hard at Walmart, it’s just that they’re growing at a rapid rate right now. So it’s just, you know, certain processes, no matter how much money you have as a company, takes time to build out, right? So yeah, randomly you’ll have listings that’ll get flagged for compliance and you just have to play around. And also, once again, use common sense and try to figure out which keywords, you know, would be maybe the ones causing the issues and then re-upload and re-upload the listing or a lot of times it even works, you know, if you are able to use another UPC for the listing, just re-uploading under another UPC and a lot of times you won’t get the error on that next listing. So first try taking out like some keywords that you think may be problematic after that, if that doesn’t work, maybe even try listing the product again under a new UPC. Carrie Miller: Yeah, I know with, with mine it was a keyword that was forbidden and it’s pretty much what I think you should do is if you take Amazon, there are some forums that have, people already have kind of discovered a lot of the forbidden keywords on Amazon. They’re pretty much the same on Walmart. Things like antibacterial, antimicrobial, all those kinds of things. Like they’re called like basically pesticides on Amazon. So what I remember what we did is we just deleted some of these forbidden keywords out of my listing and it just went live again within 15 minutes. So that is you know, something that they don’t even tell you. So I was trying to open a case and open a case and I don’t know what a COMP Error is, but and then when I reached out to you and you were like, oh, just take out those words, it went live immediately and you didn’t, I just closed the case. So Yeah, Jake: A hundred percent. Yeah, I remember searching up the Amazon you know, the Amazon like you were and being like, okay, it makes sense, you know, if we have one of these, it makes sense, Walmart’s going to, you know, shut it down as well. Carrie Miller: Yeah. so here’s another question. What happens if your account gets suspended and are some account suspensions, you know, permanent? Like what advice do you have for account suspensions? Jake: Okay, so Walmart or like, I don’t know what it is about like Sundays or something like that. Like in the be of the week, a lot of accounts will get suspended before Monday. I don’t know if Amazon works that way as well. They have like, because they keep, you know, changing around their metrics and like, you know you know, really, you know, put, putting their foot down on different metrics. Obviously the most common ones are, you know, just being on top of your shipments, late shipments, invalid tracking rate and then like too many cancellations. Those are the most common ones. And then here and there you’ll find like, you know, for like other reasons, but those are the most common ones. Walmart’s a lot easier about their standards, their seller performance standards. Jake: It’s not like Amazon where, you know, you have to freak out if you miss a message within 24 hours. And Walmart just started putting those metrics into place. But like, I haven’t seen an account suspended, you know, because you know their response times and everything yet. So most accounts will get suspended just because they either have some API that’s just shooting in a bunch of inventory that they don’t have and they’ll have a ton of canceled orders or their shipping templates aren’t set up correctly. And they’re not shipping orders in time and or just invalid tracking. A lot of times they’re not uploading tracking if, you know, they don’t have the right tool connected. So those are just the most common reasons and Walmart were to suspend accounts for those. So what to do when you have an account suspension you put an appeal together just like you would on Amazon, and a lot of times they ask for the invoice of the goods, just the invoices for the products, let’s say that were canceled to make sure that you guys basically, that you have them in stock, make sure to always provide that on the first appeal. Jake: I was actually just on a call right before this webinar with an account that a suspended account and their, in their first appeal, they didn’t include all the invoices. And now their second appeal is, is taking a lot longer for Walmart to look at. They will always look at your first appeal really quickly, and these days, in most scenarios, they’ll respond literally the next morning. So you want to give them all that good information in the first appeal. If you don’t give them all the information they need in the first appeal, it could take a lot longer to hear back the second time around. Once it gets to like the third appeal, meaning, you know, you’re submitting something for the third time and they denied the past two. It just lengthens out the process and could take a while before you get your account back. Jake: You can always get a suspended account back. It’s impossible to get a terminated account back. Terminations usually happen after, like an account is suspended for like four times, like four extensions or something like that. I haven’t seen that many terminations ’cause it’s very uncommon, but it does happen here and there. Or they’ve terminated a few accounts for like shipping products via Amazon fulfillment service and this and that. So I always warn people about that, like, people are still trying that funny business. It’s like, yeah, it’s like, no, you’ll save a lot more money by just returning the goods from Amazon, paying Amazon for 35 cents or 50 cents whatever return fee and then chipping it into Walmart. Like, don’t try that. But they’re very quick on their suspensions. Recently it’s like, you know, it used to take weeks to hear back from Walmart these days it’s like seen many accounts suspended and you know, we, we have an account reinstatement service, so we’ve gotten many accounts like by the next morning they’ll back in live on Walmart. Jake: So very important. You’re just very careful about the first appeal, basically. Yeah. Carrie Miller: So if you, if you need help with that, you can reach out to cell cord and they can take care of that. I do know you’ve gotten some people up that have sent your way. So that’s very helpful. Let’s go ahead and get into some of these questions here. I think I’ll go with this one first because, and I have a little bit of an explanation for this. Carrie’s having a hard time getting a hemp cream of mine on Walmart. Even Walmart giving her the runaround. If you can help her get it on, I’ll treat each Novo. I actually have made some progress in this. The hemp thing, once I put it on, I got a COMP Error for the hemp listing and then I was able to get past it and it was reinstated because I was able to prove, you know, there’s other products just like this that are selling at Walmart. And then I tried to get it into WFS and it was kind of taken down again and they were like, no, you can’t sell this product, you can’t do anything. But I was recently able to get it so that I can sell it and so we can ship the product. So basically fulfilled by the, by merchant kind of shipping. We just can’t fulfill it through WFS. Have you seen this kind of thing before? Jake: So you actually have more of an update than me on that. I’ve seen so many issues with hemp right off the bat. I was gonna say really hard to get a hemp product through. Yeah. I know that there are ones live and people always come back to me with that and I’m like, Hey, listen, you know, they may have listened to Walmart a little before and gotten it through. I think I even saw it in their guys specifically. It’s like, no hemp products, but like you’re saying, there you go, that’s a wall. Great workaround that like, you know, try listing it. You’re probably not gonna be able to send it to WFS, but like, you know, the fact that you gave them that was like good enough to push your listening through. And I’m not saying that’ll even like work for everybody but I know they’re very strict on hemp Walmart. Carrie Miller: Yeah, I was actually told by support to stop contacting them, they told me to stop contacting them, that was the final answer. So then I went directly to Walmart and they were able to give me the go ahead to sell it fulfilled by merchant. There are same products that are being sold on, on Walmart. So they’re 1p I think mostly that’s why they’re shipped by Walmart. Yeah. Okay. So kind of a rough one. Okay, so another one, this is from Bradley too. Is it too late to sign up for Walmart Open Call? Jake: Yeah, I just ended like, I think it was someday last week. Carrie Miller: Are you guys going to open call again this year? Jake: Yeah, we’re gonna be at Open Call and more importantly next week we’re gonna be right next to you guys by Walmart Seller Summit. That’s gonna be exciting. Carrie Miller: Yeah. Very, very cool. Jake: It’s gonna be really exciting. Carrie Miller: Do you, can you share what products you’re going to Open Call for? Or is it secret? Jake: Oh no, not at all. We have like fitness products and everything. That’s how we got ’em, you know, originally Michael, my brother has a nutrition two by four nutrition brand that they got into Walmart stores nationwide, you know, after they launch a marketplace. So it’s pretty cool. We’ve gotten a lot of brands recently, and it is why, you know, brands will come to us sometimes they don’t even care about marketplace sales. They just want to get into Walmart store, sorry, Walmart stores. So it’s a whole other side of Walmart. If you want to get into Walmart stores right now, you have to launch a marketplace and the buyer has to see that you’re basically getting your products, you know, to the top of the page or optimized properly, and they’ll notice your products. Like if you ask a buyer in the Walmart category, like, you know, if you tell ’em about your product and they’ve seen your brand a lot they’ve seen you sponsor, they’ll be like, oh yeah, I know you guys. Jake: And that’s a great way to get it into Walmart stores. And we, we have gone many brands in this past year and to Walmart stores, brands that are just mom and pop, Amazon shops and they’ve gone into Walmart stores, which is huge, right? So it’s a really cool part of Walmart that, you know, Amazon doesn’t really have where, you know, you’re not looking, and again, there’s no Amazon stores looking to get into, but Walmart retail’s huge and because of their emphasis that they’re putting on marketplace, you know, they’re putting a lot on the line for that. So they’re saying, Hey, you know, any new brands you wanna come into our stores launch a marketplace for us. So that’s a really cool side of things. Carrie Miller: Yeah. Are you guys going in for the latest four by four product, or would that automatically get invited to the Walmart stores? ’cause I know that you guys just launched another four by four product. Jake: Two by four products. Carrie Miller: Sorry, two by four. Jake: That’s Michael’s that’s Michael’s brand. So I don’t know exactly as much where they’re holding on the launch. I don’t know if every SKU’s in or whatnot, I’ll have to check with him on that. But I know we’re always, like some of our clients are going down with their products you know, that they, they’ve launched a marketplace, let’s say, for the past year or two, and, you know, they’re going down with their products and, you know, presenting them as well. Carrie Miller: All right. Let’s see, let’s go down here. So we’ve got Jake, are we saying SEO needs to be more optimized in a way to pull the right SKUs and volume to show it during a search that a shopper lands on the, I don’t know exact, do you know what he’s saying? Jake: Tell me if I’m wrong, but I think he’s just saying that you need to, and you need to optimize a Walmart listing for– It’s basically even for, for some main keywords that you could find in the space, even if it’s not directly like, related to the product. So sometimes we’ll do that where we’ll give up a little on like, you know, exactly what we wanna say the product is in order to get it in a larger space. So you know, let’s say Bamboo cutting board, you wanna put in the regular cutting board space? Well, you’re technically gonna have the cutting board keyword, but I can give an example off the top of my head, but yeah, sometimes, and I think this is his question, but you want to find whatever keywords, you know, are somewhat relevant to the product to, you know, get in that space because it is, you know, easy. Jake: Right now, it’s relatively easy to launch in some spaces in Walmart where even if you know your product isn’t exactly related to the, to the main keyword, you can still make a lot of sales off that. So it’s really case by case. You have to know, I guess, which product it can be like too irrelevant or else, you know, just, it’s gonna be, you’re gonna have a low conversion rate, but here and there, yes, we will like, use a larger keyword that’s maybe not exactly like the product, but, you know, maybe bring in some extra sales. Carrie Miller: All right. Somebody else said, is there a way to get the X-ray tool for Walmart working to the Platinum plan? We do, I think have some uses of, for the Platinum plan, but mostly Diamond is where you’re gonna get full access to, you know, unlimited access to the Walmart tools. So if you do wanna sell on Walmart, I would recommend going to the Diamond Plan. David, ask any tips for launching a nutrition brand on Walmart? Jake: Yeah. Launch sooner than later. That’s really, I mean, we could talk from today to tomorrow about all the Walmart tips and everything like that, but there’s just, like I said, there’s 40% more sales on Walmart this year, and there’s thousands of sellers coming in every day, literally into Walmart right now. So we know how competitive this space is in Amazon. And right now Walmart is, you know, not even a quarter of that. So you want to get in for nutrition specifically because, we’ve seen how quickly the nutrition game came up with Amazon, where, you know, in the be, you know, 2014, 2015, you had like– Carrie Miller: Yep. Jake: Nutrition brands, and now every day there’s a new one coming out. So yeah, get a head start, basically. If you wanna go more into details, yeah, it’s just more, you know, it’s starts with the listing optimization advertising. Everything has to be strategic because there are a decent amount of sellers in the nutrition space already that are putting in the proper work. So, you know, you wanna basically get ahead of the game right now. And there’s new advertising tools that are, you know, coming out constantly, sorry, not tools, but just like Walmart’s offering, you know, like video ads, you know, it’s coming out and there’s a few more, you know, a few more ways, especially nutrition brands can use to, you know, to advertise on Walmart. So launch now, basically. Yeah. Carrie Miller: Do you know when the video ads will be available to everyone? Jake: They say by the end of this year, so Okay. Anytime within the next few months hopefully. Yeah, Carrie Miller: I saw that there’s also brand stores as well in beta. Jake: Yeah. Brand. Yeah, that’s the most exciting one. Yeah, but also search brand ads, right? SBA search brand ads, you know, that’s also, but yeah, nutrition, you gotta launch ASAP because ASAP just being more competitive. Yeah, it’s a competitive space. Carrie Miller: All right, last question here. How can I deal with compliance issues causing my listing to get unpublished? Jake: Oh, that’s David over here. Look at that. Yeah. How can I deal with compliance issues causing, okay, so this, David, you should have been there at the beginning of this. If they’re getting unpublished once again, just like the compliance issues that we were, you know, talking about before you have to number one, you know, try to find the certain, the keywords that are wrong, just to recap your, trying to find the keywords that, you know, maybe causing it, you know, to, you know, to get ’em published. And then, you know, if after that, and if you’re trying for a good, you know, I would say two months, cap it at about like two months of going back and forth with Walmart and not finding out which keyword it is, then try a new listing. For now that’s what I would do. Carrie Miller: All right, perfect. All right. I think we’re about done for this episode, but I was wondering if you had any last tips or anything that you wanted to say to the people who are listening. We have about quite a few people listening right now. So any tips or anything that you didn’t get to say that you wanna tell people? Jake: Yeah, sure. I mean, let’s talk about Walmart in general. We see the traffic that’s coming into Walmart now. You know, I’m gonna be meeting Carrie by the show next week where Walmart is coming down with their whole executive team, I mean the CEO of Walmart, CEO of Walmat US, head of e-commerce in Walmart marketplace, just to show. And they’re all coming down for this show. It’s called Let’s Grow. Just to show you how much they’re putting in behind their marketplace. So when a company that big like Walmart shows you, you know, that they’re putting that much behind their marketplace, you know, that they’re spending whatever ad dollars to get more shoppers on the marketplace, you know that they’re fixing up their platform in whatever ways to get more shoppers. So they had, they grew 28% in overall sales this past year, which is a nice number. Jake: They’re the fastest growing marketplace, and by next year, they’re definitely gonna even beat that number. So we’re looking at, you know, the next few years of tremendous growth from Walmart. I know Walmart has been around technically as a 3P marketplace since 2018. And here and there, I’ll get a settle. It’ll be like, yeah, Walmart tried, it didn’t work. It’s very simple. This is the first time they’re actually putting proper effort into it. Before they were trying to, like, they started off maybe using Jet and Shopify, they realized none of that will work, and they’re just taking their own approach and they’re handling everything themselves. And that’s why it’s been working right now. And this past year it’s seen tremendous growth and it’s just gonna be crazier from here. So I remember, like I said, back in 2013, I was watching the first YouTubers putting out their Amazon content. Jake: So this is it right over here. You know, this is the first like Walmart content, and I know there’s a reason Helium 10 is investing a lot, lot in it, because the earlier you get in, you know, the more opportunity there is, and it doesn’t cost a lot to launch a Walmart right now. You know, take a bit of that Amazon revenue, you know, profit that you’re making and launch it into Walmart, and you’re setting yourself up to be one of the top sellers in whatever category you are, whether it’s niche, more, you know, really competitive category. If you are just detailed and on your game and optimizing listings, optimizing your ads, figuring out the new Walmart ways, you know, the new Walmart promotions that may be eligible for you, just doing all the, like the nitty gritty stuff, that’s how you’re going to, you know, get to the top of the page in Walmart, be one of the top sellers. Jake: If you’re like the other 90% of sellers of Walmart, they just list their products and wait for it to sell and don’t put any work behind it, nothing’s gonna come of it. And then you’re just gonna have that same outlook on Walmart. Oh yeah, just, I make, you know, 2% of my, of my Amazon sales. There’s no point to spending any time in it. Just like Amazon took time to build up. Walmart’s gonna take time to build up. So final tip, put in the work, now’s the time. All opportunities are in the timing right now, so now’s the time and, you know, start, get down and dirty. You know, with the, with the Walmart stuff, which aren’t that easy, we know how much errors and issues could come up. So if you’re one of the few sellers that fights through that, you know, then you’re gonna, you’re gonna win, right? If it was easy, everybody could do it. Spend the time and now put in the effort now, and I guarantee you’ll see results and especially over the next few years as Walmart grows that, you know, the numbers will just keep scaling. Carrie Miller: That’s really good advice. Yeah, I definitely agree. Put the effort in now and start now. So, well, thank you so much for joining us. I think you gave a lot of really good insights for questions I get all the time. So I’m really glad we were able to do this episode and talk to you since you’re an expert in these areas. So thanks again for joining us and we’ll see you. I’ll see you next week at the Walmart conference. Jake: I’ll see you then. It was a pleasure being here.

Today, we have a special Serious Sellers Podcast episode where we recap our latest fireside chat with Amazon. Our guests are Francesca Smith and Julia Hiltzik, Senior Growth Consultants at Amazon, and they are members of the team behind Brand Analytics, Product Opportunity Explorer, and Search Query Performance! And for the first time ever, Amazon is “opening the hood” and letting us know how these data points are collected and used. Tune in and learn how you can leverage unique Amazon data points in conjunction with Helium 10 to level up your business. In episode 485 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley, Francesca, and Julia discuss: 00:28 – Why This Is A Special Episode 01:26 – Search Query Performance Brand View 04:27 – Search Query Performance ASIN View 05:10 – Search Query Details 06:50 – Search Analytics Search Volume Is Now Denormalized! 09:10 – What Counts Towards Search Volume 11:05 – What Does Not Count? 12:00 – What Counts For Products With Variations? 15:10 – Difference Between Helium 10 And SQP? 17:30 – How Is Search Query Score Calculated? 19:00 – How Does Product Opportunity Explorer Work? 21:26 – Product Opportunity Explorer: Search by Keyword or ASIN 23:12 – Product Opportunity Explorer: Keyword Niche 24:40 – Product Opportunity Explorer: Search Terms Tab 26:58 – What Is Unit Sold Data Based On? 27:45 – Download Feature Now Available In Product Opportunity Explorer 28:30 – Niche Details: Insights 30:15 – Niche Details: Trends 30:56 – Brand Analytics x Helium 10 34:39 – Search Query Performance x Helium 10 37:15 – Q&A with Francesca And Julia 41:20 – Get Your Tickets For Amazon Accelerate Event ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast ► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension ► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup  (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life) ► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft ► Watch The Podcasts On Youtube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos Transcript Bradley Sutton: Today’s a special episode as we’ve got reps from Amazon, from the departments that are responsible for Brand Analytics, Search Query Performance, and Product Opportunity Explorer, opening up the hood for the first time, these super cool metrics and answering all your questions about them. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Bradley Sutton: Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers podcast by Helium 10. I’m your host, Bradley Sutton. And this is the show that is our recap of our Fireside Chat that we had with Amazon. Now, these are the people at Amazon who actually work in the departments and are responsible for Search Query Performance, Brand Analytics, Product Opportunity Explorer. And for the first time ever, Amazon is kind of like opening up the hood and letting everybody know like how these different data points are to be used. So this is definitely something that is gonna be very informational and we wanted to make sure that you guys got the best highlights of it. For those of you who missed the our live workshop keep in mind that if you have questions after this send them in our serious Sellers podcast Instagram account, because we’re gonna try and do a follow-up event where we go over all of the unanswered questions that you might have after today’s lesson. So let’s go ahead and hop right in to this Fireside Chat. Now you work for Amazon. Can you go ahead and you know, tell us what your title is there, how long you’ve been there, et cetera? Julia: Yeah, so my title at Amazon is a senior growth consultant. I’ve been at the company for about a little over two years now. And I get to work with our awesome analytics tools that you were just talking about. So excited to be here. Bradley Sutton: Talk about what we’re seeing here a little bit, Julia. Julia: Yeah, so this is a screenshot, I believe it’s from your Project X account for Manny’s Mysterious Oddities Coffin Shelf brand, the famous coffin shelf. So you can see we have where the customer starts and where they end going from impressions, clicks, card ads, and purchases. And in this case, just to clarify, purchases means orders. So what’s really cool is you can see for each of those four metrics what your brand count is, or how many of each metric your brand’s ASINs received versus Amazon as a whole or total count. So you can start to really get a sense of what mark your market share is for a specific search term over different time, sorry, over different timeframes. You can also see where the customer’s dropping off across the funnel. So in our case, you know, if I’m adding to my cart and not coming back to it, I might drop off before I see purchases show up. So maybe you have high click share, but a customer isn’t necessarily transitioning to adding your product to their cart. You can start to think of different strategies on how to entice them to move forward, you know, towards a purchase. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative> maybe it’s a coupon, maybe it’s getting more defensive with your ad campaigns or even just optimizing your detail page to include certain buzzwords that customers are searching for. Bradley Sutton: I know some of you guys that don’t have big screens right now, maybe it’s gonna be hard for you to see the number, but those of you who can see it take a look there at the top. This is what we had opened up before. Do you see how the number one keyword was coffin shelf? Right? You see there under search query volume, it says that there are 4,000 searches for this keyword, and my brand had 9,000 impressions. Now, of those 9,000 impressions, if you look on the right hand side, you’ll see that buyers clicked on one of my brand’s products about 220 times. Okay? And of those 220 times, only 30 people added it to their cart. Now, if off screen, you can’t even see it here, if you scroll to the right from there, you’ll be able to see how many purchases I had from those 220, or from those 30 adds a cart. So this is for my brand as a whole. Now, this is the brand is Manny’s Mysterious Oddities, I have like five or six different coffin shelves and a coffin tray and other spooky items in there. So this is showing me this kind of level of information at the hole, but what other view do people have an option to see? Julia: Yeah, so you can also switch to the ASIN view to see which we did earlier actually. And you can see which are driving the most engagement for you. So you’ll see a similar format to the brand view, but at the ASIN level, so you can drill down to see how each of your products are performing. Another difference on this view is that, which is really cool, you can see now that each search term has a, has like a hyperlink. So if you click on one of those, you’re going to be able to see the top 10 ASINs with their actual number of impressions and clicks for the selected timeframe, which is data that we’ve never shared before. Bradley Sutton: Okay? So we can see that here, like, like take a look guys. So this is, this is, you can only click on the word. So everybody, I hope you guys are doing this with me. I hope you still have your window open. So if you were on the ace in view, you’ll see that all of the search terms have a hyperlink. Now just click on one of those and this is the window that should show up. Does everybody see the search? And see who were the top 10 products that had activity for this keyword? And if you see here, I’m not number one, but something interesting here that, again, I understand that you guys probably can’t see if, unless you’re looking on this on a big screen, but I noticed there was one competitor here that only had 3% of the impressions, alright? Bradley Sutton: 3% of the impressions, and they had 200 clicks, 200 of the clicks, all right? That means their click share was 10%, despite only having 3% of the impressions. So people are loving this product right now. Take, compare that to mine, where I had more impression share. I had 4% on one of these products, but I only had 6% in the click. So these are the kind of insights that you’ve never been able to to see before. Now, us, a while back, there was actually a big change in the numbers that were shown in Search Query Performance. And then there was a message across the screen that said, Hey, this is used to be normalized and now it’s de-normalized. So can you talk a little bit about the search volume that we see in Search Query Performance and what this whole normalized and de-normalized? I mean, I think we already know that. I’m like, I’m the de-normalized one ’cause I don’t purchase and I’m kind of weird, but I don’t think that’s what we’re talking about here. Julia: Yeah. So within the 24 hour period, we count all search queries by the same customer. And what this means is that if a customer types in dog brush if they enter it into the search bar, again within that same 24 hour timeframe, the search volume will count as two. Whereas before it would only count as one. And there are some other nuances as well. If a customer searches for, again, dog brush and they click through to the next page of search results, or if they hit the back button, this is also going to add to the total search volume. Bradley Sutton: Okay, hope everybody caught got that. That was very important. You know, so, so you know, th th you know, like if you’re using Helium 10, you might see a number that’s a monthly number that almost is the same as, or very similar to the weekly number. So you might be think, wait a minute, thi this monthly number must be off because Amazon is showing that this in a week, it gets this almost. But remember what the, the Helium 10 data is normalized. All right? So does, did you guys understand what she was saying? Like when you type in dog brush, that’s one search. And then let’s say I click on a product and then I click back well, there, there’s another search all of a sudden. Now what if I go to page two of the search results? Well, guess what? Bradley Sutton: There’s another, another search right there. So it’s just a different, it’s not that one way to look at search volume is right and one is wrong. It’s just one is de-normalized, one is normalized. ’cause Different people have different viewpoints on what they wanna see. But with Search Query Performance, the number that you see includes all of those different scenarios. Now next question. You know, if, if we go into the search results, you know, I I could see one product maybe like seven times, right? You know, it could be the sponsored brand headline ad. It could be a sponsored brand video ad. There’s an organic placement, there’s a sponsored product ad. Maybe there’s the, the highly rated like little widget and maybe there’s some sponsor display here or there. Now we’re going over now all of the top questions that, that you users had submitted for what is going on in Search Query Performance. So the one of the top questions is, is what, which of all of these placements counts as an impression that Search Query Performance is, is counting? Julia: Yeah, there’s a lot going on on that first page of search results. So both organic and paid placements are included in Search Query Performance in that impressions number it’s the same as I, like you were saying, shows up twice. So once sponsored, once organic, it will count as two. So it’ll count as two impressions. Also mobile app, any views or purchases on mobile are counted. And then in terms of pages, there is no concept of scrolling. So if the page is loaded, the ASIN will be counted as impressed. The customer has to click on the subsequent page for those ASINs to count in the report. So within the mobile app, infinite scroll is actually still using that pagination logic, but it’s just hidden from the customer. So when the customer’s scrolling to the bottom of the screen, when they reach page two, the results will be counted as they would on the desktop when a customer clicks on page two. And then lastly, just as a clarification point multi-unit purchases. So if I put three dog brushes of the same Asian in my cart and buy it are counted once, so that would be counted as one order, so not as three separate units. Bradley Sutton: Excellent. Excellent. Guys, I hope you understand the fire that’s being given right here. Like, this is stuff that Amazon has never fully explained in their documentation. This is like a historic moment here. Amazon is opening up the hood and letting us know what goes into this. Like all if all of a sudden, like, you see Julia’s camera go off me, it means she’s maybe giving us too much information. Her bosses are like, yanking her away, but let’s keep going here with this stuff before that happened. So that’s what counts. Now another question that a lot of sellers were having was, what are the things that don’t count for impressions and purchases et cetera? Julia: Yeah, so we don’t include paid ads shown in widgets, like what you’re seeing on the screen here, like highly rated climate pledge friendly new arrivals, as well as Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Video Ads. We also don’t count purchases that originate from search, but occur after the customer clicks a link to the PDP. So if it’s from the brand store or like from the related products, from a different detail page, Bradley Sutton: Okay, that makes sense. Alright, now another question that comes up and that I’ve always had too is variations. Because now this opens up a whole other can of worms here. Let’s say I type in a search, I click a listing that has variations, be it color, be it size, whatever. But then when I click into it, it’s maybe the red one or something. But now I go in and I click on the black one or the blue one. What happens then? Julia: Yeah, so this is a little tricky and I’m gonna do my best to explain it, but basically the child ASIN has to be clicked from the search page to be counted as a purchase through search. So the impressed ASIN has to be purchased for it to be considered as a search attributed purchase in SQP. In the case that we have pictured here, child ASIN A or the gray T-shirt would have one impression and one click if I click on it when it comes up in search, but zero purchases if I decide to go with a different t-shirt color child ASIN B or the red T-shirt is a variation of child ASIN a. So if I decide to click on this color and purchase it, it would have zero clicks and zero purchases since it didn’t show up and search and get the original impression. Bradley Sutton: Interesting. Okay. It’s a little bit complicated, but I think overall I hope it may makes sense to most people now though in some categories I don’t think I have this in for the coffin shelf, even though I have variations, but I know in some categories in the search results you can actually, while still being on the search results click through to a different variation, like in this little mini carousel kind of thing. So in that situation, how does Search Query Performance work? Julia: Yeah, so there is a nuance where if a child ASIN is impressed, but a different color or pattern is clicked from a search page that child ASIN child will receive the impression. So for example, if I search for red bedsheets, we can see on the screen that this ASIN has multiple colors that you can click on. So if I click on the blue color, the blue ASIN will actually receive the click, but the red ASIN or what appeared in search results will receive the impression. Bradley Sutton: Okay. Now how does the brand level, not the ASIN level, but the brand level search crew performance report account for a customer who clicks through to a product page for a Brand Parent ASIN, let’s just say, but then they purchase a different ASIN from the same brand, from that same page. So we were talking about the ASIN level here, but what, how does it work when we’re looking at that brand report? Julia: Yeah, so it’s the same logic if a customer clicks through to the detail page for Brands Parent ASIN, but then purchases a completely different ASIN from the same brand. So brand is an aggregation of ASIN level data. So if a brand has two ASINs A and B and the impressed ASIN is A and the purchase ASIN is B, the metrics are computed independently for each ASIN and then aggregated or rolled up to the total brand level, which is what you would see on your brand SQP report. Bradley Sutton: Got it, got it. All right. Next thing, another question that users have is probably the most common thing that as soon as this came out, everybody was saying, Hey, there’s no way this is right. You know, like the purchases seem way too low. Like for example, what I’m showing you guys right here in the screenshot I have Helium 10 atomic, what I use for my PPC management, and I just did a date range of eight six to eight 12. And just in PPC, you know, forget about my organic orders just in PPC for the word coffin shelf or for the search term coffin shelf. Amazon is saying that I got six orders, but then if I look for the same exact date range in Search Query Performance, it’s saying that overall organic and sponsored purchases, I only got four. And so e everybody else, you know, has a very similar thing where it’s like, wait a minute, this doesn’t even match with what my Amazon advertising is saying. Julia: Yeah, so that’s a great question and probably the most frequently asked for sure that we receive. So search for your performance attribution is currently only 24 hours. So you will see a difference between SQP and your advertising reports, which does have a longer attribution window. We are looking to update this in the future to show a more consistent view. However, for now, let’s say you received a click and add to cart ad from advertising one of your sponsored products campaigns but the customer left the product in their cart and not like you, Bradley, only checked out and they, you know, they checked out or purchased it four days later. So you may actually see that attributed sale in your advertising report, but you won’t see that reflected in Search Query Performance since it’s outside of the 24 hour window. So I know it’s a little confusing right now, but definitely something to note. Bradley Sutton: Okay, that kind of makes sense. You know, the attribution window, the action has to be taken guys within 24 hours. So, you know, if, if I search for something and I’m clicking, I’m adding it to cart and that all happens like at the same time, those are all counted. But then if I just leave it there and I still purchase it the next day, even if it was just 25 hours later, it’s actually not going to count in Search Query Performance. So good to know. Alright, next question is on the left hand side, the very first column after the search term itself is this column entitled Search Query Score. Alright, so how is this calculated and is this like the reason why sometimes keywords might fall off of our Search Query Performance list? Julia: Yeah, so I actually saw a question in the chat about that earlier. So glad that we’re addressing it now. The keyword score the Search Query Score is calculated for each query based on impressions, clicks, card ads, and purchases count. You know, the four metrics we don’t share the calculation externally, but Bradley Sutton: I thought you were sharing everything with us today. What’s going on here? Hold them back on us, Julia. Julia: 95%. Bradley Sutton: Okay. Okay, that’s cool. Sorry, go ahead. Julia: But basically the higher the number of impressions clicks, card ads purchases, collectively the higher the keyword score, and then we use the keyword score to rank the queries based on performance. So essentially, to answer your question, yes, this would be the reason why you may see a search term one week, but not the next. We only show within the brand view the top 1000 theories in the selected timeframe and top 100 for ASIN view. Bradley Sutton: Francesca is gonna be talking about product opportunity explore. But before we get into that, please introduce yourself to us how long you’ve been at Amazon and what’s your title, et cetera, et cetera. Francesca: Yeah, so my name’s Francesca Smith. I am a Growth Consultant at Amazon. Work really closely with Julia and the Product Opportunity Explorer team. I’ve been with Amazon for about five years, so most of my time actually has been spent working with some of these seller central analytics tools, so really excited to be able to share more about Product Opportunity Explorer and Brand Analytics. Bradley Sutton: Awesome, awesome. Yeah, I see here on the slide here it has a little section about customer searches. Now you guys, as in the Opportunity Explorer team, kind of like take it to a different place than just a Search Query Performance. So can you talk about how you group these, et cetera? Francesca: Absolutely. I can definitely walk you through that. So very similar in the search funnel description. Earlier, customers tell Amazon what they want when they enter search terms to find their next purchase. So we’re taking that same search data, but there is a clustering component to it. So essentially what we’re doing is combining those similar search terms and those top click products to group them into product niches. And so we’re looking at the top 90% of click and purchase products coming from the search terms. So from there you can take a look at these niches and understand more about what customers are looking for and identify any other opportunities for improvement. And then last– Bradley Sutton: Oh, hold on really quick. Hold on really quick. Did anybody catch something she just said that is new? Like, she kind of just like completely glossed over it, but it, but for those of you who have been using Product Opportunity Explorer, she kind of like slid something under the radar there that is new Robert’s Got it. Steve’s got it. Okay. Yeah, Helen’s got it. Yes, 90%. Like before guys what Product Opportunity Explorer would be based on was 80% of the market, but they just like slid that under the radar a couple of weeks ago where it’s now 90%. So anyway, sorry for interrupting. Go, go ahead and continue. Francesca: Definitely excited to reveal that. Yeah, so I think really from here we’re taking the same concept, being able to review what are those search terms, what are those top clicked and purchased products representing the top 90%. And from there, sellers can use this information to understand where they can potentially launch new products, discover potential for new products, as well as how to optimize their own listings. Bradley Sutton: Here, I entered coffin and this is showing the matching niches for coffin. Now we’re gonna talk a little bit later about what exactly makes up a niche, but Francesca, what if instead of a keyword I entered an ASIN? Francesca: Yeah, so if you enter asin what we’ll end up sharing here is a Target ASIN, which is the ASIN that you just entered. And then we’ve also got similar ASINs that are gonna be in the same bestseller rank category as yours. And we’re also going to order them based on the relevance to the title as well. Bradley Sutton: Cool. Now guys, here’s just a quick hack. Quick hack here of how you can use this information. Let’s say, you know, a product and its variations have been in stock the whole year, never went outta stock. You know how Amazon reports BSR at the parent level, you know, not at the child level. So you never know which one is a good seller unless you, you know, use the other hack of using Helium 10 review insights to look at who has the most reviews. But another way to, to kind of estimate which color is selling the most is you enter that any of the ASINs into Product Opportunity Explorer. And then as you can see here, the top ones are almost always going to be the other variations. And if they were always in stock for the last 360 days, you could see kind of which one is probably the sold the most. Like the black one here got 22,000 clicks, and then the pink and the purple only about five, six, 7,000 each. And so that’s just like another way of getting estimations on how much each child item in the variation is. Let’s go to the next kind of view here. And this is a a keyword niche. So if I were to click into one of those keyword niches that, that came up, and I’m gonna go to this page now again, talk about how you make a keyword a niche. Francesca: Yeah, so what we do is we take a look at groups of similar search terms and check out what are those top clicked products that represent the 90% clicked and purchase products. So that’s actually what you’re looking at here on the products tab. Those top 90% of clicked and purchase products after customers might enter coffin shelf. If you wanna see what those similar search terms are, you can actually look at that in the search terms tab as well. Bradley Sutton: Yeah, so, so guys, this is actually a kind of cool way to see the domination or the non domination in certain niches. Like if there’s only five products that you see in a keyword niche, that means that those five products make up 90% of the sales. And so those five products are absolutely crushing it? So it might be, you know, some people might view that as opportunities, some might view it as the opposite. There, there’s, there’s no one way to look at things, but then you look at a niche where there’s like, it’s made up of 200 products, well, that means it takes 200 products to get to 90% of the sales for that niche. So, so just that in itself, the number of products that show up here is an insight. Keeping going here on this, this topic of the keyword niche, this tab is a different tab. This is the the search terms tab that make up this niche. So how, how, what goes into to this getting, getting search terms into this page? Francesca: Yeah, so these are going to be the search terms that are going to have a really similar search to purchase funnel. So you’re going to see coffin shelf, coffin bookshelf these are similar terms as coffin shelf, and we basically share with you there that search volume, the search volume growth, and the top three clicked products. I think a lot of times if you haven’t taken a look at this page, search conversion rate is often missed as well. So you can really see what are those successful search terms and maybe study these over time to see where you might need to transition in terms of discoverability. Bradley Sutton: Absolutely. Now just for those who didn’t notice this a few weeks ago or a few months ago, Amazon changed the Opportunity Explorer Search Volume to 100% match the Search Query Performance one. So if you see a number in Search Query Performance, it, it’s based on the same exact de-normalized data that you would see in Search Query Performance here in Opportunity Explorer. Now really quick, this page, I’ve talked about this before a year ago, something on this page inspired a Manny’s mysterious oddities product. So I noticed that a lot of products were getting like 1% and such conversion rate, you know, like coffin shelf, but then this keyword coffin bookshelf was getting like 0.1, like less than 0.1%, meaning that people were not finding what they were looking for. They were searching for it, but not clicking into it. Bradley Sutton: And so that told me that the market was kind of bare for this product, and so that’s why we made a coffin bookshelf and, and started killing the game with it. But that original idea for the product came directly from Product Opportunity Explorer. So that was a good, what did you say? Julia: I love hearing that. Bradley Sutton: Yes. She gets she gets a little bonus check from Amazon every time somebody says, says something like, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll need a little bit of a commission on that. All right. Now, now that was a good overview of these tabs here. Now one of the tabs there, it had shown something that said units sold. So where does that unit sold come from? Francesca: Yes. So again, taking that same concept from Search Query Performance, this unit sold data is based on when customers purchased products after entering the search terms. So it is a search to purchase conversion sale that is counted. And we are also following the same logic there as Brand Analytics. The sale only counts if the customer searched one of the search terms and made a purchase in the first 24 hours. So that same attribution time window is the same as Brand Analytics logic. Bradley Sutton: Okay, perfect. Perfect. Now, a couple questions came in already about this. We’ll get to the questions later, but is this available for download or through the API only? Francesca: We are very excited to share that we have just launched the download feature in Product Opportunity Explorer. So you can download data and Product Opportunity Explorer in five different places. You can download the niche view, the ASIN view of the search results page and then when we go into those niche detail pages there we have the products tab and search terms tab. I think the most popular download that we’re seeing right now is on the search terms tab. So definitely take advantage of that. And then we also have one more download there on the product deep dive page where this niche product appears in. Bradley Sutton: Awesome, awesome. Speaking of the niches, this page here, Niche Details insights. Now, what are a couple of highlights from this page? This is something we haven’t shown people yet. Francesca: Yeah, so on this page what we essentially do is provide some high level statistics about this niche. So you can see starting from that top line, which we will get this update here, here to show you that it is top 90% of clicks and purchases. But we’ve got, you know, from today, 90 days ago and 360 how many products have existed in this, in this niche. So you can track, you know, how many entrances are coming in, in and out. We also have the what I think is really important and what we heard from sellers when developing this page is they wanted to understand how many products and brands were representing the top five or, or 20. And so you can see we have the top five and top 20 product and click share displayed. This page can also tell you a little bit about the maturity of the niche. Francesca: We have things like what is the average brand age selling partner age, and then probably my favorite part of it is the customer experience, which is that bottom section there. In addition to seeing that star rating tracked over time, we also display average out of stock for this niche. And I think this is one of those really simple ways to identify if there is unmet demand. If there’s a consistent high out of stock there, you’ll, you probably do have some opportunity to to meet unmet demand there. And then it’s a little bit cut off on this slide, but we also have the listing quality score so you can get a sense for how these ASINs are, are doing in terms of their listing quality, you know, title, image, detail page. That’s a really easy way to differentiate yourself if you’re taking a look at that. Bradley Sutton: Okay, cool. Another page we didn’t show was this trends page. And this is cool because of all those search terms that are in that niche. This aggregates that data and, and shows the, the overall search volume week by week. Alright, week by week it’ll show the search volume and then it actually so shows the product count as well. So this is kind of interesting. You can kind of see like over time, well that 90% metric of how many products it takes to the niche, you can kind of see is it going down, you know, going down, meaning that, you know, there’s a few products that are starting to dominate a little bit more, or is the number of products going up, meaning that it’s kind of like wild west in this niche as far as who’s dominating the sales. Bradley Sutton: Those of you who have a Helium 10 Diamond account, I hope you are using the Brand Analytics. We talked about Search Query Performance which is inside of Brand Analytics. We talked about Opportunity Explorer. Some of this stuff you need to start using in conjunction with each other. Like if you go to cerebral or magnet, if you have a Diamond account or above, you are gonna be able to click on any of these keywords and see the, the top click and purchase share that comes directly from these data points we’ve been talking about today. And why this is beneficial is because sometimes combining Helium 10 data with what we talked about, it gives you a next level of insight. Like, for example, if I was looking at these coffin letter boards, I could see that to be the top clicked in October of last year, for example, it was almost all about organic rank. Bradley Sutton: Like the, the other top two click. They weren’t even in the top, you know, they weren’t even on page one or two of sponsored ranks. But sometimes you’re gonna see trends where the sponsored rank is more important, like for our coffin shelf, if you look at Brand Analytics, you see, hey, coffin shelf is the number one most clicked product for this keyword, but then you look at the Helium 10 data and we’re only 12th or organically, but we are number one. So then now all of a sudden I’ve got this insight, well, wow, for this keyword, I really have to make sure my sponsored rank is at the top because it looks like people are buying from the sponsored ad on the top row as opposed to the organic rank. Another keyword might be something totally different, but again, you need both the Search Query Performance and Brand Analytics data and then combine it with the Helium 10 data, which like I said, if you have the Diamond account, you’re going to be able to do. Bradley Sutton: Another thing that you guys can do is on, you know, even people on the free account of Helium 10, you guys have the search widget. When you go on the widget for BSR on any Amazon page, I suggest looking at your top competitor, right? Look at your top competitor and find when they had, they were just crushing it in sales, you guys should know that it’s the valleys of A BSR, the lower the BSR, that means the higher the sale. So I’m looking at this one competitor and I can see that, oh my goodness, like in July they had this crazy dip in BSR, so they were just probably selling like crazy. They had another crazy dip in like November, you know, during the holiday season where their sales just kind of skyrocketed compared to what it was normally. Bradley Sutton: So there’s the Helium 10 data, and now I go into Search Query Performance or Brand Analytics, either one Brand Analytics, if it’s not my competitor, if it’s my product, I would look at Search Query Performance. If it’s my competitor product, I would run it in Brand Analytics. And then I go into the daily or weekly history for this Amazon data point that correlates to this exact time that they had a big peak in sales. And now I can see where were the keywords that they were one of the top clicked for that day or for that week. So another situation where you combine Helium 10 data and then now take it back to Brand Analytics and get some additional insights. Another thing that we just opened up again for Diamond members is the time machine. So I could, instead of just looking at Brand Analytics, who is the top three picked? Bradley Sutton: If I noticed that there was somebody crushing it in sales in the month of September, 2022, well I can enter them into Cerebro and now I can hit this historical function where I click on a month like September, and now I know all of the keywords that they were ranking for, all of the keywords that they were running sponsored ads for. Another way that you can combine data Search Query Performance, this is, this is directly from Amazon. This is what we were looking at. I can see here that coffin shelf, I had about 4,000 or the, not I, but Amazon had search volume of 4,000 for the week, and I, as in my product had 4,000 impressions. So as you guys learned from Julia, that means that pretty much every time that somebody searched for this product, my product showed up once on the page, right? Bradley Sutton: But take a look at this coffin decor, it had a very similar search volume of almost 4,000, but look at my impressions, there is only 704. So if you see this in Search Query Performance, you are like thinking what in the world is going on? Why is my impressions to search volume one-to-one on this keyword, but it’s like one to five on this keyword. What’s going on? Well, this is where again, you now take it to another Helium 10 tool keyword tracker and take a look here, this is coffin shelf. You could see that for my sponsored rank and my organic rank, most of the time I was towards the top of the page, it was going off and on. And so it make, it makes sense that at least one of these times, every time somebody searched, I was near the top of the page on those times. Bradley Sutton: But then take a look at that other keyword, coffin decor, look at my organic rank and my sponsored rank, my organic rank. Most of the time I’m on like page two, page three, sponsored rank. Only half of the time I’m on page one. So now all of a sudden it becomes clear what I’m looking at in Search Query Performance of why I’m getting so few impressions. It’s because my organic and sponsored rank, which are the two things that Search Query Performance is taken into consideration. It’s not high. So now, you know, for, for my sponsored rank, I can just snap my fingers and increase my bid if I wanted to and, and go to the top of the page. And hopefully over time that might help my organic rank. These are just like two three of the ways where you can combine what we’ve learned today with Helium 10 data and then really getting to understand what is happening with your products on Amazon or what is happening with your competitor products. So make sure to use this especially if you’re a Diamond, you have a Diamond account, you’ve got full access to all of that. Ahad says it’s not a question, but more of a request. Hey, can you add the parent ASIN option in Search Query Performance? Because when we have a lot of variations, it’s hard to look at it. So I guess that’s kinda like a feature request. Julia: Yes, that’s something that we are definitely looking into is also a very common request and totally makes sense when you have a lot of variations, it’s a little tough to figure out what is coming from which child. So keep your eyes peeled for that for sure. Bradley Sutton: David has a question for me. He says, Hey, if a search period performance is de-normalized, helium 10 is normalized, why is Helium 10 search volumes always higher? It’s not, the one you’re looking at is the week. Alright, the one that shows up in Helium 10 is a 30 day search form. So it’s much, much higher, the search courier performance, you’re comparing a month to a week which is two different, two different things. You, if you wanna apples to apples, you can compare the month, the 30 day value. This is from Nicole, why would a product or search term not have any matching niches? I’m assuming we’re talking about opportunity explorer here. Yeah, that’s a good Francesca: Question. Question. I can take that one for Product Opportunity. Explore, it’s possible that there might not be enough search volume yet on the term that you typed in. So I would just go ahead and try some alternate terms to see if that could bring up some results. I definitely like what Jason pointed out with how he started with SQP going into OX to see what are the related niches to those search terms. I think if you’re not finding what you need, just try different search terms or you can also try the ASIN view as well. If you type in your ASIN and go to ASIN view, you can also take a look on that ASIN detail page, what are the niches this ASIN matches to, and you might be able to discover some niches that way as well. Bradley Sutton: Okay. And keeping with you, Francesca Logan says where it says, we talked about this a little bit, but where it says average units sold, is that per listing per month or it’s overall all of the products in that niche. Francesca: So it would be all of the products in the niche for the last year. And just keep in mind that it is counting the sales in that 24 attribution window. So it’ll probably will not match up with your standard sales reports. Bradley Sutton: Kay says, when you’ve got like 300 plus products, four brands, it’s a lot of data to go through. So what do you suggest the main focus or takeaway should be with the Search Query Performance? Like, you know, like if she’s a one woman show, you know, she can’t just sit there all day every day going through 300 products, Search Query Performance reports. So what, what would you say she should be looking for? Julia: I mean, in my opinion, I think you really focus on your top and your bottom ASINs, especially in Search Query Performance. Your top ASINs are most likely going to be showing up in the top 100 or at with those top 100 keywords. So I would really look at those top ASINs and see how you can continuously improve them. And then also take a look at, you know, are my bottom ASINs, are they showing up in this report and can I, you know, can I do anything to get them higher up on search or to get them, you know, more purchases. Also, take a look. I think some of the key funnel metrics are really looking at those clicks to add to carts, add to carts to purchases is your, you know, are you getting that traffic and if you are, are you getting the conversion from it? If you aren’t getting the conversion, take a look at, you know, your competitors and look at why is it pricing, is it your detail page? Could you be advertising more on different keywords? So I think that those are really the most important things I would take a look at. But agreed, it is a lot of information and we are going to try and find some ways to make that a little bit easier for you. Bradley Sutton: Well guys, that’s another reason that we gotta Hurry app Amazon and get this available in the API because you know, once that’s available now Helium 10 can like do a lot of that work for you and then you can set alerts and stuff. We’ll just let you know when certain things happen. Hint, hint, wink, wink to Julia there, I was teasing Francesca and Julia that they’re gonna be celebrities after this. ’cause So many people we had over 1200 people live on this webinar. So please ask them for an autograph. If you see them walking in Amazon Accelerate, you can ask them offline some questions. If you guys haven’t gotten your tickets yet to Amazon Accelerate, it’s still open. Go to h10.me/accelerate. Let me that’s just an easy way to remember the link. So h10.me/accelerate, that’ll take you directly to the Amazon website. Bradley Sutton: And I see that there’s maybe 60 other questions, but it’s hard to scroll in this Zoom thing here. So what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna consolidate all your questions. We’re gonna try and get to everything that Search Query Performance or Product Opportunity Explorer related. I saw a lot of questions that were just general, but we’re not gonna cover those. But we’ll try and do a follow-up, either podcast or video or something with Julia and, and Francesca. I thank you two very much for coming on here. This is unprecedented. You guys have never really opened up the hood on these things before. So we thank you for allowing us to break this to the audience out here. Jason, thank you for coming on and giving us a real world, real life experience of an Amazon seller who has benefited from this information. And I’ll be seeing all of you guys and everybody else out there, hopefully at Amazon Accelerate. Thank you so much. Goodbye everybody.

Today, we’ll have a special TACoS Tuesday episode in the Serious Sellers Podcast, where our host Shivali Patel and her guest, Chris Rawlings of Sophie Society, dive into the world of Amazon PPC by answering your questions live and talk about strategies to level up your PPG game, uncovering hidden gems that can significantly enhance your click-through and conversion rates. We kick things off with a critical takeaway: the importance of benchmarking your essential metrics, a practice that forms the bedrock of a successful Amazon PPC strategy. Tune in as we unravel techniques to boost your CTR and conversion rates while exploring the intriguing “Random Walk Hypothesis.” Listen as we tackle live audience questions and even share wisdom on countering dips in conversion rates caused by negative reviews. Exploring bid adjustment modifier percentages and unveiling the Stealth Targeted Product Placement Campaign, we ensure every stone is turned in in your quest for Amazon PPC excellence. Stay tuned till the end for ways to connect with Chris Rawlings and Sophie Society, plus an invitation to participate in Chris’ Amazon PPC Challenge that will propel you to the next level! In episode 484 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Shivali and Chris discuss: 01:12 – Meet Our Guest Chris Rawlings 03:01 – Amazon Ads Strategy For New Sellers And Brands 09:58 – You Need To Benchmark Your Key Metrics 11:45 – How To Improve Your CTR And Conversion Rates 15:58 – The Random Walk Hypothesis 19:46 – Q: How To Find CTR And CVR In SQP and Product Opportunity Explorer 21:32 – Q: My Conversion Rate Has Dropped Because Of Bad Reviews 25:26 – Q: Do You Do Bid Adjustment Modifier Percentages On Top Of Search And/Or Product Pages? 29:38 – The Stealth Targeted Product Placement Campaign 32:29 – Join Chris’ Amazon PPC Challenge 32:59 – How To Contact Chris And Sophie Society ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast ► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension ► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup  (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life) ► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft ► Watch The Podcasts On Youtube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos Transcript Shivali Patel: Today on TACoS Tuesday, we answer all of your PPC questions, live and discuss some underrated and rarely discussed optimization strategies that have the potential to completely transform your click-through and conversion rates. How cool is that? Pretty cool I think Bradley Sutton: You wanna see the size of your niche or your market, maybe how much sales overall is it generating, and more importantly how the size of your piece of that pie changes over time. Or maybe you want to know when there’s a new mover or shaker, an up and comer in your niche that you need to be on the lookout for. You can monitor these things and more with Market Tracker by Helium 10. Find out more information at h10.me/markettracker. Shivali Patel: Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers podcast by Helium 10. I’m your host, Shivali Patel, and this is the show that is our monthly TACoS Tuesday special, where we talk to you about anything and everything Amazon PPC related. Today our guest is Chris Rawlings, who is a multimillion dollar Amazon seller and the host of Profitable PPC Challenge. He’s also the CEO of Sophie Society, which has become recognized as one of the most in demand PPC and conversion optimization agencies. There is. They regularly work with 6, 7, 8, and even nine figure businesses today. Chris is here to answer your questions. Let’s go ahead and get Chris up here. Alright. Hi Chris, how are you? Chris: What’s up? I’m good, I’m ready to go. Let’s answer some questions. Shivali Patel: I love that energy and PPC is such an exciting component of your brand, your business, building out your business, even reoptimizing later on. It can be a little bit nerve wracking. There’s so many different components and if you don’t know what you’re doing, man, man, oh man, that can really affect the bottom line of your business. So where are you now? Chris: I’m in Cyprus. I’m in Cyprus with my team and we’re actually doing like a PPC deep dive workshop here. So we’re going super deep on PPC every single day. Today we had a bunch of sponsored brand, defense campaigns up and we were talking about, you know, sponsor display retargeting and we had all kinds of wizardly things going on here at our PPC workshop in Cyprus. Shivali Patel: Well, that’s incredible. I’m excited for everyone that’s tuning in and listening in on this episode to tap into some of your knowledge and expertise that I know those of you, those of the people that are there in Cyprus right now are enjoying. But let’s just kind of backtrack into the beginning stages of an Amazon seller’s journey. Maybe let’s talk about what really goes on or how should somebody be approaching their ad campaigns or their advertising aspect of their business once they’re just getting started as an Amazon seller. Chris: So when you’re just starting, the key is to not make it too complicated. That’s the key. A brand new brand just starting on Amazon, can’t be running every ad type, every possible ad configuration, every targeting and you wouldn’t want to anyway. You’re gonna blow your budget and you’re gonna hear a lot of fancy things, different types of campaigns you can run and different types of features in in PPC and most of it you can just ignore when you’re just getting started. The most important thing during like a new brand new product launch is using PPC as a tool for ranking. So a lot of your ad budget is gonna go to campaigns that are specifically purposed for getting you ranking and mostly that comes down to single keyword, exact match sponsored products campaigns. So inside sponsored products, which is one of the three main types of advertising available to most sellers, you can target one single keyword in the campaign. Chris: And exact match means that it’s Amazon is only gonna target people who search that exact term and that drives ranking very powerfully. The next most powerful ranking driver is ASIN target, meaning you’re putting your ad on another ASIN on their listing rather than in search results. And you want to target the ASINs that are already ranking for the keywords you’re trying to rank for. And advertising on those ASINs gets you to rank better for the keywords that they rank for. So it’s like a rising tides raises all ships type of deal for that. You’re gonna wanna drive a lot of your ad budget to just those types of advertising. And really, if you want to keep it super simple, you could just do just that. And that makes it so much easier for someone just getting started where they don’t have to learn like the entire complex sophisticated suite. Chris: I will say like as the launch progresses and as the brand matures, you’ll get left behind if you don’t start to learn more and more sophisticated ad strategies, which some of which I’m sure we’ll go into during this hour, but in the beginning, keep it simple. Focus on ranking and sales velocity. Get to your review milestones as quickly as possible. The first five reviews, there’s a big increase in click-through rating conversion rate. Then there’s another big increase, another plateau after 21 reviews. And then once you get into the hundreds, that’s the next big jump. The thousands is the next big jump after that. So hit those milestones as quickly as you can. Shivali Patel: So when you talk about a plateau, could you go a little bit in depth with what you mean with that? Like the ranking itself or just in terms of reviews? Chris: Yeah, so review strategy is one of the factors that affect PPC. That’s not taken into consideration when looking at PPC metrics because it’s one of the few things that affects both your click-through rate for certain keywords and your conversion rate once they’re on the listing. So the two numbers that affect PPC that are not PPC metrics the most, ’cause we all know a costs average cost of sale. I spent $10 in advertising and I made a hundred dollars in revenue. I had a 10% aid cost rate and TACoS, which is what this whole session is named after total average cost of sale, which is I spent $10 total in advertising and I got a thousand dollars in in sales. So my TACoS is 1% because it’s in, that’s my all my total sales, not just my advertising sales. Chris: But there are other metrics that are super important that affect PPC that are not PPC metrics and click-through rate and conversion rate are the most important ones. So everything that you do to increase your click-through rate for your most relevant keywords and everything that you do to increase your conversion rate, more people that land on your listing end up buying, make your PPC more effective and make your TACoS and ACoS healthier and lower. And reviews is one of the few things that affects both click-through rate and conversion rate. So you get a double hit. So getting more reviews, number of reviews, that’s one thing. And then getting better star rating in the better average star rating in your reviews is the other main metric when it comes to reviews. So putting in place systems that increase your number of reviews at a faster rate, we call that review velocity. Chris: How many reviews do I get per a hundred sales? So if I get one review for every a hundred sales, that’s a 1% review velocity, a healthy review velocity is four, 4%. So that means every a hundred sales that I make, I get four reviews. That means you’re doing great if you have a review. Velocity of four. I know sellers that have review velocity up to 8% where every a hundred sales they get, they get eight reviews. And I wouldn’t really try to go past 10, I honestly wouldn’t really try to go past five. ’cause At a certain point you start to send red flags to Amazon, they might be doing something tricky, but the main things you can do to affect that are having a Amazon terms of service compliant product insert or packaging feature that gets people on into your ecosystem in order for them to get the warranty or something else that helps ’em with their product. Chris: Like how to guide and then get them on your email list and then later on down the line without offering them anything in return or asking ’em to leave a good review, just invite them to leave a review. That’s one of the primary things you can do to up it. But also helium tends tool that that allows people to automate the request review within Amazon is also a great way to do it. There are lots of ways to do it, but those milestones that I mentioned are where the, the, you see like the steepest drops in the steepest increases either in conversion rate or click-through rate or both. So the first five you get, it’s like big difference between when you’re between one and four and when you’re after five and then the first 21 you get, again, a big difference when you’re before 21 and after 21. And then once you’re in the hundreds, big difference again. So putting in place the systems to make sure you get to those milestones quicker is, is, is good. Shivali Patel: So let’s say somebody has gone through those steps and has really optimized those underlying factors you’re talking about, which is really interesting ’cause you don’t hear a lot of people talk about it. I feel like it’s, it’s kind of known, but no one’s actively thinking about it thinking, okay, well like what should I do to optimize these underlying factors? But let’s say somebody has gone through those things, well then when do you really start to begin adjusting or thinking about things like, well this keyword might not, I I should change out this keyword for my ad groups. Or even just considering that the click through rate or conversion rate isn’t what you want it to be, or you wanna change something out in your actual ad set. Chris: Yeah. So the main way to know whether you’re doing good or bad when it comes to these outside factors that affect PPC, like click through your click through rate and your conversion is by benchmarking them. So for conversion rate, for example, you can use the product opportunity explorer tool, which is inside Seller Central to benchmark the search term conversion rate of the entire space for that search term. So now, you know, for those sellers that are ranking for that keyword, what they convert at and each space is, is radically different. If I looked at the search term conversion rate of like vitamin D supplements, it’s gonna be totally different than the search term conversion rate of commercial hand blenders because one is something that people buy all the time, you know, over and over again and it costs less than $20. Chris: The other thing is a $300 item that people tend to shop around and, and do a lot of research for, right? So first you have to benchmark it by getting that data. And now you know, okay, is my product above or below that benchmark in terms of my conversion rate? Now I know some idea of if my conversion rate is good or bad. If it’s bad, then every dollar you put into PPC is not totally wasted, but in a sense wasted because you haven’t fixed underlying issues that are gonna keep your PPC from allowing your product to perform well. So once you’ve benchmarked it and you know whether it’s good or bad, if it’s bad, fix the underlying problems to make it good. If it’s good, then you do wanna shift your attention to proper PPC management and you’re in a good place to perform well with PPC. Chris: As long as you have everything dialed in, some of which we’re gonna. When it comes to click through rate, you normally, you’re you. So a big part of the benchmarking of this is benchmarking it against yourself. You do have the search query report inside brand analytics that allows you to see the whole funnel for your product and for the space which helps you benchmark your, your click through rate. And then you also get your own click, click-through rate inside your advertising metrics, inside the Amazon ads dashboard and in your search term reports. So now you know your click through some idea of if your click-through rate is healthy, and it’s the exact same thing with your click-through rate as it is with your conversion rate. So once you’ve determined that you click through rate is at least above is above average and your conversion rate is above average, now you know that you’re ready for PPC, but most people or a lot of sellers are not always gonna be in that scenario or they’ll dip in and out of those scenarios as time goes on. Chris: And that’s why it’s, those two metrics are so important to measure over time because once you dip below the benchmark for your space or for that keyword for that product, now you know you have an issue to solve. And there are a lot of ways to solve those two issues and we can, we can get into them now or later or whatever, but each of those has a diagnostic checklist that you can go through to, if I have a click through rate problem, there’s so many things I can try to solve it. And if I have a conversion rate problem, again, there’s so many things that I can try to solve that problem. So you really have limitless options available to you to solve those things. Shivali Patel: I think now’s a great time to get into it. Let’s, we’re already on the topic and I’m sure those people that are listening in would love to know. So what are those? What’s that checklist? Chris: So clickthrough rate and conversion rate, the two most important things that have to be healthy in order for your PPC to perform well. Let’s start with clickthrough rate. Let’s open up the box of clickthrough rate. What’s inside clickthrough rate? What is click-through rate? What affects it? Well, everything that the customer sees on your listing thumbnail is affecting whether or not they click through. So just talking about the listing thumbnail for a second, because there’s also the topic of the actual keyword relevance itself. But just to talk about the listing thumbnail, what elements, what makes a listing thumbnail? Let’s, let’s talk through it. So the primary image, first of all, again, getting everyone on the same page, listing thumbnail is what you see when you search Amazon. And those are the search results. Each one of those things is a listing thumbnail. You’re not on the listing yet, you just have a little preview of it, right? Chris: And what do you have? You have a primary image, which is the first image you upload on the listing. That’s the only visual piece of content that shows on both the thumbnail and the listing is the primary image. And that’s arguably the most powerful factor for influencing the clickthrough rate. That’s its own science in and of itself. So it’s primary image. What else is there? There’s the title of the product. So the title is like the main text that you see in the thumbnail. Then there’s the number of reviews, which we talked about before. So now we have three factors affecting click-through rate. Then there’s the review rating. Is it 3.5? Is it 4.5? Is it four 4.8? And there’s not just the number 4.8, 4.7, but the icons of the yellow stars, which is more important even than the review rating number. Chris: Is it showing as four and a half yellow stars or is it showing as four stars? Those are really the main, the main two options. Most products are gonna fit in one of those two categories. So we have that. Then we have the badges. Do I have a bestseller badge? Do I have an Amazon’s choice badge? Do I have some of the more exotic badges like climate pledge friendly or small business badge? Those, that’s the fifth factor there. Then we have the price, the price of the product influences whether or not someone clicks on it. Then there’s the potential to have a strikethrough price, which is independent of the price itself. Having a strikethrough price can affect whether or not someone clicks on it. Then there’s the size of the thumbnail itself. So not many people know this, but you can influence the size of your thumbnail. Chris: And if it’s bigger, it’s more likely to be clicked because of the random walk hypothesis. This is a hypothesis inside chaos theory and math. I majored in physics. I don’t think I’ve mentioned that to you ever, but I’m a math guy. So I think of things mathematically, statistically, as much as possible. And when a shopper who’s, who’s scrolling through search results, you know what we do on the phone? We flick the motion, the word of for what our thumb does is flick. We flick and it zooms through things and then we stop, we stop with our thumb and then we flick back up and then we stop. And it’s, it’s, it’s a random, you know, it’s a random motion. The bigger your, your listing thumbnail, the more likely someone is to land on it randomly when they’re flicking through search results. Chris: So that impacts it as well. So now we’re at, I’ve actually lost count, I dunno if we’re at eight. All those things affect click-through rate and each one of them is its own full science. So I could go so deep on testing different things on my primary image. I can go super deep on getting super highly relevant keywords by pulling data from my search terms to make sure that my title is highly relevant in getting me more clicks. I can go really deep on getting every type of badge. I can go really deep on maximizing the size of my thumbnail. There’s so many things that I can, I can do. So you could see how it’s like, yeah, there’s, you always have limitless options to improve when you have issues with these, these underlying factors. And then conversion rate. So conversion rate, we have some things that are overlapping, like the review rating, the review number. Chris: Those two things also affect conversion as well as the click-through rate. But then there are things that are completely independent that don’t affect the click-through rate at all that are very important for con for conversion. Like the secondary image set. Everything after the primary image is the secondary images. Do I have a benefits graphic? A features graphic? Do I have lifestyle shots? Do I have in-use shots? Do I have flourish shots? Do I have a competitor comparison shot? If you’re missing any of these things that might be affecting your, your conversion rate and making you below average for the space. Then you have the copy of the listing, the bullet points, the title itself as well affects somewhat the, the conversion, although it’s not the the biggest thing. Then you have the video on the listing. So this is also not the top of the list but it does affect the conversion. Chris: But the most powerful things that affect conversion are the visual content on the listing, which is the secondary images, the a plus content and the brand story content, the brain story section. And these are again, things that each one is their own science and you can look up on YouTube how to create the best version of it. There are lots of videos on it. I have some videos on it. The q and a section and then the top voted reviews. So this is a part that you can’t see in the click-through rate. So it doesn’t affect the click-through rate at all ’cause it’s not in the, the thumbnail. But the top voter reviews are actually arguably more important than any of the content because most Amazon shoppers, their shopper shopping behavior is actually to click onto the listing and they skip all of the content almost immediately. Go right to the reviews, read the top voted ones, and then if they’re satisfied they’ll read the rest of the listing and all of the content that you put out as the brand. And if they’re not, they’ll click back and look at some other things. Shivali Patel: It’s almost like you’ve been looking over my shoulder the whole time I’m shopping ’cause that is exactly what I do. Chris: It’s what I do too. I do the same thing. Shivali Patel: I’m just like, I don’t care about any of these listing description images. Chris: Yeah, I don’t care what you act to say about your product. I want to hear what people had to say. People Shivali Patel: Have to say about the product. Yeah, yeah. I mean speaking of clickthrough rate and conversion rate, this is I think specific to search query performance and product opportunity explorer. So is there anything you wanna add? Chris: Yeah, so what is the best way to CTR and CVR on search query performance and product opportunity Explorer? Yeah, so go to Product Opportunity Explorer, navigate to product opportunity explorer inside Seller Central. Put in a go to search term, then put in a search term and then you’ll see right in the Product Opportunity Explorer, the search conversion rate, they call it the search conversion rate, which is the average conversion rate for listings that are ranking for that search term. And that’s your benchmark right there for the click through rate. You don’t get the raw click through rate in the search query performance report. You get like your, your click share in the search query performance report. So you basically get to benchmark. You don’t see it itself, the actual click through rate, but you can see if it’s high or low. Chris: And if you’re getting more clicks, you, you see relative to the funnel, if you’re getting more or less clicks than your competitors that are ranking for that term. Relative to the other stages of the funnel, like if I’m getting lots of conversions but not more conversions than I should based on the, the space but less clicks than I should, then I know, oh that’s the part of the funnel that I need to work on is the click part of the funnel. So that’s what the search query, performance search query report helps you with. But the, another great way to benchmark CTR is just your actual advertising data. You see how you’re doing and how it changes over time with your, your search term reports and right inside the advertising manager as well. Shivali Patel: Awesome. I see we have some more questions here, so let’s jump into those here. We have Victor who says, had a few bad reviews, some trouble with the product, but I fixed it 4.4 stars. Do you think I should relaunch 46 total ratings? People still buy the product, but I can see that my conversion rate has dropped. So what would you recommend here? Chris: Yeah, so let’s see. 46 total ratings still pretty early on in the product’s life. I know that feels like a lot when you’re in the launching phase ’cause you’re like, yeah, I had to beg, borrow and steal to like get there. But 4.4 stars is not bad. You still have the four and a half star image in the gold stars. So you’re still showing us four and a half gold stars. Your conversion rate, so you’re saying your conversion rate dropped because you had a few bad reviews. So this isn’t bad enough for you to relaunch 4.4 stars and a couple bad reviews, 46 ratings. I mean, there have been way worse scenarios that have come back from this and without having to relaunch and and start fresh, that is an option if you wanted to try it. But you, it’s, you have to risk that you’re gonna have to deal with, you know, relabeling all the inventory and starting from scratch and doing a brand new brand new ace and getting, starting from zero reviews and all that stuff. Chris: So it is possible for you to come back from this. And basically what you wanna make sure of is that those negative reviews aren’t showing as top voted. That’s key. The main thing is the top voted reviews. ’cause Those are the ones that everyone is looking at. So the way to get them off of top voted, since you say your conversion rate dropped, I’m assuming that these negative reviews are showing it stop voted because otherwise it wouldn’t affect your conversion rate that much with a 4.4 star rating because that’s, that’s not bad. That’s, that’s pretty good. So the way to do it is get more reviews and the way to get more reviews is to get more sales and have review systems in place. So some of the main ones are automating the request, request a review button, which you could do with helium 10 in a smart way that doesn’t request it from folks who ask for a refunder or a return for instance, which it’s great. Chris: Also having a product insert in place has a follow-up sequence. So the product insert has like a URL or a QR code. The customer scans, it brings ’em to a landing page where they put in their information, they get put on a list and then later on down the line that you invite them to ask for to leave a review. So that, and then also there are things that you can do that are kind of like review triggers that you can pull at any time. So if you have a negative review, there are things that you can do to quickly bury it. And one of those things is keeping a sort of bank of customers who accidentally left seller feedback as a review, which happens to every seller. This is very common because shoppers just still to this day don’t really get the difference between seller feedback and a review. Chris: So I’d say it’s anywhere between one and five and one in three seller feedbacks is actually a product review, whether it’s negative or positive. And so this is kind of a bank that you can, you can like, it’s like a like a water tower that you can like drain at any time, like pull water from at any time because you can ask these people who left this feedback, you can let them know they left feedback as a review, they left a review as feedback mistakenly and to ask them to please leave a review and some portion of them will, especially if they’re actually really delighted by the product. So that’s a good way to quickly, quickly bury bad reviews that are coming in that are affecting your conversion rate. So yeah, long story short, I would say if it were me, I probably wouldn’t relaunch, although you know the situation better than me and it is an option for you. You still can come back from it, is ensure that the negative reviews are not showing up as top voted. And if they are, do everything you can to fix that and then push for ranking with your PPC hard for highly relevant search terms. Shivali Patel: Wonderful. What about this question right here, which is, do you do bid adjustment modifier percentages on top of search and or product pages? Chris: Yeah, that’s another awesome question. I guess I’ll have to get close for it ’cause it’s an awesome question. So yeah, the bid adjustment modifiers are super useful for all different reasons. So you can go up to 900% on your, your bid adjustment modifiers, meaning you’re giving Amazon a huge amount of leeway to adjust the bids the way that you want them to be. So every sponsored product campaign can show either in search results or on product detail pages. It’s kind of annoying because if you’re targeting search terms you think, well I’ll only show up in search. Well, it’s not the case. Amazon can show your ad either place whether you’re targeting keywords or ASINs. So if you really wanna show up only on product detail pages or only in search, you can up the bid adjustment modifier that Bradley is is mentioning, is referencing here to make it more likely that you show up where you wanna show up. Chris: So here’s an example of that is if I know that I need to drive search placements, top of search placements for a particular keyword that I wanna rank for and say I sell kids omega three gummies and I know that the highest relevant search term for me because I really focused on my particular customer demographic is non choking kids chewable omega three gummies because all of my branding is about how no, no kid can choke on it ’cause it’s circular and it has hole in it or something like that. I’m literally just making all this up. This isn’t, this isn’t a real scenario, but if I know that that’s my my a super high relevant search term for me and I really wanna rank for it, I’m gonna want to get a lot of top of search clicks for it because that drives ranking the most powerfully. Chris: So when I create that campaign a an exact match campaign for non choking kids chewable omega three gummies, I’m going to put a bid adjustment modifier on top of search to make sure that most of my placements are top of search. And I’m not showing up so much on random product detail pages because I know that that’s what’s gonna drive my ranking and I wanna show up there. And I also wanna segment my campaign so it’s easier for me to tell which campaigns are doing well and which ones aren’t for my ranking. So I’ll go, you could go super high on that. You could start with a hundred percent, you could go up to 2, 3, 4 or five, 600% all the way up to 900%. And it doesn’t necessarily mean that Amazon is still, even if you go 900%, it doesn’t necessarily mean that Amazon is still gonna gonna show your, gonna only show your ad there. Chris: It still can show in the other placement like product pages, but it makes it more likely and it makes, it allows you to control those ads more. And then the same way it goes the other way for product pages, if I know that I want to, like we were talking about earlier before target products that are already ranking for the keywords I’m trying to rank for and I have my list already and I want to just show up on those product pages, I will adjust the, the product pages up to make it more likely that I show up only on those pages and not as much in search. Oh, and then there’s one other related factor to this and that is there’s a type of campaign that’s super lean. This is another if, if people are trying to take actionable stuff out of this. Chris: And that brand story thing was one that anybody wrote down or, or thought, Hey, I could do this. Here’s another one coming at you right now. This is a type of campaign that we, we discovered, and it’s not complicated, I’m sure that other brands and and agencies have discovered it themselves, but we put a name to it and we called it a step campaign, a stealth targeted product placement campaign. This is a type of campaign, we apply it to every brand, every brand should be running this type of campaign. It produces a low volume of sales, but they’re highly profitable and they, well they tend to be highly profitable, not always, but they tend to be high margin, high profitable campaigns. And we have some of these that have been running for definitely months, quarters at least over a year. And they’ll produce week after week 8% ACoS sales. Chris: We have one that’s producing consistent average 5.1% ACoS sales, but a lot of times it’ll be 13% ACoS, 12% ACoS. You can get really healthy ACoS with these campaigns. And what it is, is you target, it’s ASIN targeting inside sponsored products and you target the same product that you’re advertising. So usually you’re targeting either other competitors’ products or your other products. Right? So that’d be sponsored product offense campaigns, ASIN targeting offense campaigns or ace in targeting defense campaigns. Either I’m trying to get on a competitor’s listing or I’m defending my own listing. Well this is even further in than that. It’s like inception. I’m advertising my listing on my own listing. So it’s like, is that possible? Is that a dream within a dream? Within a dream? Like and Amazon actually won’t do it, so they won’t show your ad for your listing on that same listing because it’s pointless. Chris: Like what would happen? Nothing would happen if someone clicked it. They’re already on the listing. Like it’s not, all it could do is reload the page. So what it does do though is it then takes anybody who’s landed on the listing and then not purchased and gone back to search results and it’s like instant retargeting. So it immediately starts showing the ad to them in search. And also probably on product detail pages, I’m not sure, but in search, once they’ve visited your listing, so everyone knows retargeting within sponsored display that you can do, but this is a site type of effective retargeting that you can actually do within sponsored products. So that’s a, that’s another application. Shivali Patel: That’s incredible. I yeah, Chris: It’s cool. It’s cool hack. Yeah. Shivali Patel: ‘Cause you think a lot about retargeting and you have that when you’re driving external traffic, but I’ve always wondered on Amazon, so I I had no idea. That’s really cool. Thanks for sharing. Now one last question. How can people contact you if they’re interested in asking you more questions or working with you? I know you also have the PPC challenge that’s coming up, but how can people contact you? Chris: Yeah, like you said, if people want more actual one-on-one time with me, joining the PPC challenge that we’re hosting at the end of next month is the best way to do that. You’ll actually see me live every day. It is a commitment you have to show up every day. In order to join, you have to have the ability to do that or at least watch the replay daily. But it’s the most well-attended Amazon PPC focused event for sellers by sellers. And that is a five day event happening at the end of next month. I’d love to see you guys there live. So if you want to contact me live, that’s, that’s the way. If you want to contact me asynchronously, I’m hello@sophiesociety.com or my Instagram handle is @hippiemogul and you can hit me up there and I do check my DMs. Well, Shivali Patel: I’m excited for everyone listening in to hopefully implement all the things you learned today, and hopefully you did learn a lot. I know I did. I look forward to seeing you again, Chris, and best of luck as you go ahead and start this PPC challenge. I’m looking forward to hearing about it next time. Chris: Yes. I’m excited as well. And this was great to do Shivali, it was really, really fun and I hope we, I hope we do it again. Shivali Patel: Absolutely. All right, take care. Chris: Okay, take care.

In the world of Amazon and Ecommerce business expansion, the Latin American market holds immense potential. Belen Bauza and Cecilia Meghirditchian, the dynamic duo from Nocnoc, come from diverse backgrounds that uniquely equip them for navigating this vibrant marketplace. Let’s dive into their journey and unveil the strategies for expanding your brand across Latin American marketplaces. Discover the top 5 marketplaces in the region, backed by compelling numbers that underscore their significance. Nocnoc emerges as a game-changer, simplifying the path to expansion with their user-friendly platform. Learn how to seamlessly set up your Amazon or eCommerce product catalog within Nocnoc, leveraging their brand awareness program, listing translation services, and their experience launching successful products on the Latam marketplaces. Uncover the success story of Project X Egg Tray on Mercado Libre and other prominent marketplaces. Looking for a good deal with Nocnoc? We’ve got you covered! Seize the exclusive Bradley Amigo Discount. The doors to Latin America’s thriving online marketplaces are wide open – it’s time to step in with confidence! In episode 483 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley, Belen, and Cecilia discuss: 02:33 – Belen And Cecilia’s Backgrounds 04:24 – Expanding Your Brand In Latam Marketplaces 07:17 – Top 5 Marketplaces In Latin America 09:39 – The Numbers Tell It All 14:57 – Nocnoc Is Making It Easier To Expand In Latin America 19:05 – Setting Up Project X Products Inside Nocnoc 20:45 – Nocnoc’s Brand Awareness Program 22:38 – Project X Egg Tray In Mercado Libre & Other Marketplaces 23:43 – Nocnoc Helps In Translating Your Listings 26:15 – How To Get 3 Months Free Trial With Nocnoc 27:00 – How Much Does Their Services Cost? 28:00 – Get The Bradley Amigo Discount 28:15 – Bradley’s Experience With Mercado Libre 29:20 – Tips To Succeed Selling In Latam 31:05 – How To Reach Out To Nocnoc 32:40 – Your Favorite “Knock Knock Joke” 33:20 – Cecilia’s 60-Second Tip 34:25 – Belen’s 60-Second Tip ► 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: How would you like to potentially increase your sales on some products by 10 to 15% with no upfront cost or inventory requirements? You can do that by opening your catalog in minutes to Latin American marketplaces reaching 500 million customers. Today’s guests are gonna explain how, how cool is that? Pretty cool I think. Bradley Sutton: What was your gross sales yesterday? Last week. Last year. More importantly, what are your profits, after all your cost of selling on Amazon? Did you pay any storage charges to Amazon? How much did you spend on PPC? Find out these key metrics and more by using the Helium 10 tool Profits. For more information, go to h10.me/profits. Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers podcast by Helium 10. I’m your host, Bradley Sutton. And this is the show that’s a completely BS free, unscripted and unrehearsed organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. And we’ve got a couple of people who help serious sellers from all over the world get into a certain part of the world. And we’re gonna be talking about what that is in a couple seconds here. But let me go ahead and introduce our two guests. Now, I had said, you know, before to myself, I wanted to try to, to get the pronunciation right of both of your last names. So for first of all, like, like for example, Belen, I’ve never said your last name, but like I noticed on it, you’ve got an accent, like on the last part of your name, so is the way you pronounce it Bauzá or just so Belen Bauzá and then now Cecilia. So let me give it a try here Meghirditchian or something. Cecilia: Well, almost. Bradley Sutton: Oh my goodness. And guys Cecilia: Meghirditchian. Better than some of my coworkers. So it’s better. Belen: Yes, it’s difficult for us. So sorry. No worries. Bradley Sutton: It is spelled a lot worse than it. Even that sounds, guys like, it sounds pretty cool. And then you try and spell it like, like if that was the winning word for like, you know, some spelling bee. I was watching the spelling bee where these 14 year old kids in America, they spell these crazy words. They would never have been able to win the spelling bee if they had that. And anyway, we’re just going to we’re just going to call you Belen and and Cecilia here because that’s a lot easier. You are calling us now from Chile. Is it? Or what part of the world are you in? Cecilia: Uruguay, South America Bradley Sutton: Okay, excellent. Excellent. So what is that where you guys were born and raised? Cecilia: Sorry? Bradley Sutton: Is that where you were born and raised? Both of you? Cecilia: Yes. We are from Uruguay, but the, the team is distributed in Brazil, Mexico United States, China, also Argentina. So just the headquarters are in Uruguay and we are from here, but the team is from all part of the world. Bradley Sutton: Okay, excellent. Now, what did both of you end up studying in university then? Cecilia: I studied business management because I was really interested with marketing. I saw like, it was like a good way to learn about how a company works and also all the different areas. So I ended up studying that and I really loved it. And now I am like specializing in marketing. Bradley Sutton: Okay. So yeah, you’re kind of working in the field that you studied. What about you Belen? What do you study? Yes, Belen: I also study business and I have three degrees. I study also marketing and communications. It’s like corporative communications and yes, I also study digital marketing, but yes, I, I’m continue studying every year. I’m doing something new this year, for example, I study like some programs of digital graphics. I dunno if you have like that there. I’m learning to use some programs to make like additional photographs and all that things, but I don’t know, I’m always, I’m 30 years old and every year I’m studying something new. Bradley Sutton: Now, was your company here NocNoc, was that the first entry into e-commerce for both of you or were you involved in any way, like another company or for yourself? In e-commerce? Cecilia: Yes. It was the first time that I was so immersed in the e-commerce area because my best companies were like solution providers or software providers, but not in e-commerce. I mean, we had like retail clients, so I knew something about the retail market, but not like in depth like it is now. It’s like my first time really selling marketplaces and home marketplaces work because here in Latin America, e-commerce is not just e-commerce. E-Commerce is like marketplaces because it’s the, it’s a huge it has a huge volume of e-commerce sales. So yes, it’s the first time like I really started learning about that. And the market. Bradley Sutton: Do you also do other Spanish and Portuguese markets? You know, for example, Spain and Portugal like help sellers for their or only ones in North America and South America. Okay. Now is what you’re focused on is non-Amazon marketplaces. Like you’re not helping people to sell on Amazon Brazil, for example. It’s mainly the non-Amazon. Cecilia: We do. The Amazon Brazil, Amazon Mexico. But in LATAM America, Amazon is not the main marketplace. So if we only help sellers to sell in Amazon, they will only gain like five to 10% of the share potential e-commerce sales in LATAM. So what we do is to help them expand in the most marketplace possible. We have like 15 market different marketplaces that we have agreements, we have stores on them. So basically it’s not just, okay, I help you expand to Brazil to replicate your business in, in Amazon, Brazil. It’s like, I help you expand to all the market basis. Sure. Belen: If want to expand to Latin America, it’s important. They have to understand that it’s not the same like US that you throw your products in Amazon and you’re probably going to have a good performance. Because everyone knows Amazon is like the king in US here in LATAM, you have many, many marketplaces in all countries. For example, in Brazil you have more than 30 marketplaces and you want, and if you want to have real sales, you must be in most of these ones, for example, I know, but Mercado Libre is one of the biggest ones, and it has only a 12% of the share. So imagine the important to understand what is happening here in which marketplaces you have to be selling to have a good performance and to make sales. Yes. ’cause If not, if you’re in only one or two, marketplaces going to be quite difficult. Bradley Sutton: Okay. Now you mentioned, hey there, there’s 30 marketplaces in Brazil and we know there’s many n other countries. If you were to list the top five for GMV or, or for the most volume of sales, what are the top five marketplaces in all of Latin America? Cecilia: The first one, Mercado Libre, because it’s present in all countries, but also in ra, Brazil is the strongest one. So it’s the strongest. Bradley Sutton: So, so the specific one, so then is number one out of all the mecal libre, like for example, I view Amazon USA and Amazon Germany as number one. And number two, it’s both Amazon, but, but separate. So then number one, out of all the countries marketplace would be Mercado Libre. Brazil, Cecilia: Yes. Mercado Libre Brazil. Then I would say I think maybe Magalu, Brazil too. Bradley Sutton: Also the top two are from Brazil. Interesting. Okay. Cecilia: I believe the top fire for Brazil, because Brazil. Belen: Yes. But of course that it depends a lot in the type of product and the price you have. Because for example, maybe for your product, if you’re selling, I dunno, something, a small device of technology probably in Brazil is you, you’ll have more sales in Mexico because you can’t sell there, eh, a full price, more expensive. Or if you have cosmetics, it’s going to be better in Brazil because in this markets you have like more competition and more people are used to buy this type of products. What we have in Nono is like a special team that, first of all, we analyze a little bit your products to understand in which country you are going to have a better fit. Because it’s, we can say like, well, I think that Merkel live in Brazil and then Maga and then Merkel live in Mexico are like the, the biggest one and the best ones. But of course that it will depend a lot in the type of product. We have products that if they wait, I don’t know, more than, I don’t know, 10 kilos, maybe you can be in some countries, you have like different laws different prices and weights that we have to understand in each country. So more or less, yes, it’s like Mercado Libre Brazil Magalu, Mexico, Cecilia: Americanas too in Brazil Belen: Americanas popular. Bradley Sutton: Yeah, I never even heard of that one. Well, what country is that in? Belen: Brazil Cecilia: Americnas in Brazil too. Brazil Bradley Sutton: Also Brazil. Okay. Now, you know, before we go into too much details about selling down there, let’s just give, let help people understand the, the potential. So can you give some numbers from some customers, you know, where hey, you don’t have to say their name or anything, but I know one seller, you know, they started, they’ve been on there for one year and now they are doing, you know, $5,000 per month down there, they’re doing 10,000. You like what is the potential for somebody who is, you know, an Amazon USA or an Amazon Europe or like you said, maybe they’re from China and they open up in Latin America. What is the ceiling, I guess you could say for, for sales? Belen: More or less for you to understand? It’s like in LATAM you can have like the 15 or 20% of the sales you have in US. Every seller, every case is so different. And it would be depend in the disposal if there is a affluent communication. But yes, I think that maybe– Bradley Sutton: Yeah, so I mean like if I’m selling a million dollars in Amazon USA, there’s a potential, yeah, hey, I could do a 100,000-150,000 or so in Latin America amongst all the marketplaces, but if my product is good for it, you know, like if I’m selling if I’m selling in in Mercado Libre and Magalu, I can’t be selling a shirt that says I hate Luis Suarez or something like that. You know, like, maybe if that’s my product, maybe it does good in America. It has to be kind of appropriate for the marketplace. Now have you ever seen a case where maybe there’s something that even sells better than somebody in another marketplace, but actually sells better? Like for example, everybody says something similar about Amazon USA and Walmart USA like, hey, Amazon USA usually 10 to 1, the sales, but you know, Carrie, who, who works with us here, she’s got a couple of products where on Walmart it actually sells better or the same as Amazon just because there’s more demand. Is there anything like that or usually it’s always less than than the other marketplaces. Cecilia: First of all some marketplaces have like their own special day, special sales. So it has happened to us that, for example, during a certain period of time, the seller had more sales in LATAM because of that special sale. That the hot sale, for example, in Mexico, that was in May. During hot sale in Mexico. That seller had like, I don’t know, three times, four times more sales in, in Mexico in LATAM than in the US for a specific product. And also, of course, I think depending on the marketplace because there are some marketplaces where we can push with ads on advertisings or maybe the keywords works better. And I don’t know that sales increase in the specific marketplaces. And we are always monitoring that analyzing the performance on each marketplace to push sales, to push advertising campaigns inside the marketplace. And of course that’s what we try to do, like to push sales in the marketplaces we see most potential. Belen: And also what happens a lot is, for example, when we start with a seller, they always tell us like, okay, look, this is my top selling product. This is the best sky you here in US. And when we expand their products, they can’t believe that, for example, a product that they don’t sell too much in US is the best opportunity here in LATAM. And the product that they are used to sell a lot in US is not that competitive here in latam because of course that you have a lot of factors that, I don’t know, season or sales, for example, when you finish a campaign in US, maybe then it’s going to be attractive here in LATAM market. So yeah, it is like, it’s everything different of what is happening in US, and these are good opportunity for sellers because maybe you have some products of summer and then here summer, so you can finish your size here. So it’s like we are always looking for different opportunities for sellers to boost their sales. Cecilia: Yes. last year the one of the top selling products in Brazil during Christmas was an outdoor game. So, of course, in the USA, an outdoor game won’t make sense because it’s winter, but here the beach, outdoor playing games. So we see that all the time during the different seasons. And I also remember, this is really funny, it’s like a funny fact. I think it was last year too, that Brazilian football player had a, the nickname? They told them pigion, like people told them that he was called pigion. I don’t know why. So a seller had pigion pledges toys. I don’t know why a Chinese seller. So during that time, the sales for that pigion plus boost in Brazil and seller said to us, what’s happening that this specific project had a lot of sales. It was because of that, of that nickname of that Brazilian football player. So those things usually happens. Yes. Bradley Sutton: Okay. Now the way that that you guys even exist is because it’s hard for, for example, Americans, Canadians to just open up and sell these marketplace. I know, like I did, maybe I want to say eight or nine years ago, I started Mercado Libre in Mexico, you know, when I was doing in a phone case business, and it was tough. Like I had to have someone local and just, you know, like thinking about the customs and making the listings, it was a headache. And I ended up stopping, like after, after a few months, I was just like, this is not, I could see the potential, but I’m like, I don’t have the time to deal with this. So, so if I understand correctly, like the thing that you guys do is you take all of that hassle away. Like nobody has to have entities or bank accounts or anything down there, and I don’t even have to ship to Latin America. I’m shipping my products to Florida, right? And then you guys take it from there, and then that’s how you deliver from there to the customers. Is that right? Belen: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that NocNoc exists because we understand the headaches of the sellers when they try to expand. And yes, what we try to do is like solve all that problems. Like we make payments in dollars, we take care. You only have to give us like your bank account in US, and we transfer in dollars there. We make translations listing, we have customer service 24/7. We have offices in Mexico and Brazil, and if you have cancellations, we found returns, we’ll take care of that. We have our warehouse in Miami, so sellers only have to ship there to Miami for a seller. Imagine that is the same like selling in US. So they only ship there. It is like the first month shipping, and then we take care of everything. It’s like we ship to Mexico to Brazil, they have, if the seller has questions or problems, we’ll chat with them. Belen: We’ll answer the questions. It is like, I think that’s what happening with us. Our key in our business model is like we, we take care of the sales headaches and we try to solve all that problems because we have so many marketplaces here and to understand what is happening with each countries regulations are changing every day. So we understand the problems. These can be for a seller if they want to, to start selling by themselves. And yes, I think that this is like a whole solve problems. Yes, it is. Like what it is NocNoc. Cecilia: Yes. And also, and most important, we have the local team in all different countries that are experts in regulations, in compliance, in customs. They know which products can be sold in each marketplace, in each country. So that’s really like one of the, the biggest advantages, I think because you are talking with someone who knows the market, who already has been selling in the market for years and knows which products can or can’t be sold. And we do that like catalog analysis before telling a seller, yes, you can sell this, or no, we are really honest with them about everything, about pricing, about products. I think that’s the key of success, that we have a team that is really committed to customer success and to boosting sales in marketplaces. Well, yes, because Belen: No, yeah, that is really important. We have like a team and we have the experience and the knowledge of understand what is happening. When we have a new seller, we see that their catalog, and we know if with that price, they are going to be competitive. What is happening with that, that type of products in each country, we, we know in which marketplace is going to have more sense. It’s like we, we, we have offices in each country dedicated analysis teams that are always understanding which products are going to be better. So it’s like, I think that the, the knowledge is like, yes, really hard, but it’s really necessary here to make work side. Bradley Sutton: Now what I did, and you know, you guys know, I don’t like you know, talking about things I don’t have experience with. So I actually went through the process of getting set up here with NocNoc, and I took one of the Project X products, the, the egg tray. We figured that one would be a little bit more wide wide reaching as opposed to the coffin shelf, and it was pretty easy to get it set up on their website, you know, set the price of, you know, how I’m going to you know, the price before I ship it to them in Florida. And then what they started doing is going to the different places for example, Mercado Libre, right here, this is what it says. This is Mexico, I think. Yes, lib.com do mx. Belen: Yeah. Bradley Sutton: And we’ve got this is not $805 even that’s pesos guys, so don’t worry. I’m not I’m not doing some crazy price. And we have the, the listing is translated and, and then you, since, since you’re selling it on a bigger account, you guys get this Mercado Libre gold mark because you’re a big seller, as opposed to me, if I was just getting started, I wouldn’t be able to have this, this badge. Right, exactly. Cecilia: We also have some stores that are like exclusive. So for example, company in Mexico is we have a store there, but we are the only international store available. So it’s the only way that any seller can like, have their products there in mere sellers, of course, can enroll by theirselves. It will be much more difficult and they won’t have like their reputation as we have, but we also have some other stores that, okay, the only way of selling is with NocNoc. So that’s a good point. Belen: Yes. And also when we have is like, eh, in some marketplaces we have like spaces, like banners, blog where we can push products. If we have new sales or marketing campaigns, we can like boost your sales, like you have spaces in the best marketplaces in LA town where we can publish your brand, your product. So that is really, we will be really difficult for a seller if they want to make it by their own to have like that reputation, that spaces in Mercado Libre or in Amazon or in Americanas, I don’t know. And yes, this has been like a work of years of NocNoc, and we have so good reputation in this marketplaces that for us is really easy to show your products, to help you have like a brand awareness to make your brand known here, because we work with brands that are new in, and right now we have like a new brand awareness program that for us, imagine that it’s really easy to make sale. Belen: I don’t know a small device of, I dunno, a computer, a Sony computer, okay, here in LATAM, we all know what it is, or a Apple, I don’t know any brand well known a perfume, a Carolina, a red perfume. I can make you say that tomorrow if you want, but what, what happens with new brands that want to start a growing latam and nobody knows the brands, their products. So what we do is like a brand awareness program that they can start, I don’t know, like paying $300 per month, and we can help them with influencers, with blogs with us, social media. We, we can make like an Instagram if you want. And yes, it’s like something new. We, we, we started working and it’s going really good because for new brands, it’s really important to, to get known the brands in the beginning. Yes. Bradley Sutton: Yeah. Okay. Now there’s other you know, I don’t I can kind of speak Spanish a little bit, but I don’t speak Portuguese, but I can tell this is a Portuguese, so this must be Brazil here. Yeah. So it’s called Bandha instead of or still called wait, which band? There’s both. So the, wait, the word is the same, or wait, I thought it was a different word Cecilia: In Portuguese and Spanish. Bradley Sutton: It’s the eggs. That’s a different word. Okay. So the same in Portuguese and Spanish. Okay. OBO is Portuguese for eggs, I guess. All right, interesting. So I can see here the listing is completely in Portuguese, translated here. Yeah. I cannot read any of this down here. Interesting. what one is this? Dot cl Is this Chile? Belen: Yes. Yeah. Bradley Sutton: Okay. All right. So here’s another, the same listing I guess, in Mexico here. So yeah, you put it in a lot of marketplaces there. There’s another one here. The pictures aren’t loading for me, but this is that Magalu. Big Brazilian website here. And so now it’s in this place, and it was pretty easy. It was pretty easy to get this set up here in this, in this portal that I did. Now let me show people another screenshot here of, you know, I don’t have we, we just added this just a little bit ago, so I don’t have a lot of I don’t have a lot of sales yet, but here is a dashboard of I guess one of your other you know, customers and you’ll be able to see what’s the pending orders, products out of stock and wow, look at this. $3,400 worth of sales, the top SKUs. Okay, this is pretty, pretty easy to to to navigate. Go ahead. Yeah, Belen: No, yeah, there you have like all your information, your balance, your what, your job. I use dashboards, pending orders, and also in the service center, you can upload your products. You don’t need help of us. If you want, you can make it by your own uploading products manually, maybe then in your Seller Central, you can show that you can upload products manually or you can integrate via a p I and we can help you with our IT team or you can upload with your ASINs, your Amazon ASINs. We take all the information from there and we’ll get like descriptions, titles, photographs, and we’ll translate everything to marketplaces here in LA Town or your, with your SKUs information, you upload a, a template that you can download it from there. And it’s like really easy and friendly for sellers. It’s like you log in, you will have an account, you say, okay, I want to upload products. You upload it, and probably in two days your product will be published in these marketplaces. And once we start with communicating with the sellers, we can make marketing like actions, we have campaigns, discounts, adds a lot of things to help them have more sales. So yes, the process of uploading products and starting seeing your products in publications in marketplaces is really fast and really easy. Bradley Sutton: Is there a setup fee for any of this? Like, I didn’t pay, but I don’t know, is that just the Bradley Amigo discount or there’s no, there’s no there is, there is. Do other people have to pay to get started on the platform? Well, Cecilia: First of all, eh, we offer three months free trial for anyone to try. So if you don’t want, I mean, if you want to try your success in Latin America, maybe you are not so sure about starting with your owner solution, we will give you three months free trial. Okay? So during that time, we of course we’ll help you get sales and boost your sales we’ll do analysis for you to determine which product are most successful, how it went, and then if you decide to continue, we of course offer like a small fee, but it’s the land maybe can talk more about that, but it’s really, really small. It’s just for us to like operate and have your account open. Yes, Belen: Yes. It’s like, well, three months for free and then it is only a fee that goes from 30 to $90 per month depending on how many SKUs you have. So probably you can have like a hundred SKUs with us and pay us only $40 per month. Yes is a little small commission for all the things you can make here. And for sellers, it’s like they only give us their products with the FOB price that the amount of money they need get by any sale they have, and they will have that money in their balance in their, we are going to pay them in dollars. And yes, it’s only a small commission that we charge sellers, but they can trade for free. And we have like also a budget, a marketing budget that we can help them extra these with discounts, with ads once they start selling. Yes, we can help them with that marketing actions also, and if you’re Bradley friend, we can help you, like maybe we can make something like the first month, we can give you a 10% of discount by saying us that you are Bradley friend. So yes, tell this opportunity. Bradley Sutton: Okay, there we go. Alright, we’re gonna have to make a NocNoc code Bradley Amigo discount will be the code that you enter or something? No, but yeah, just, just name drop me. Cecilia: We’re gonna make something. Of course, yes, of course. Bradley Sutton: Alright guys, just inserting this sound bite because actually we made this Bradley Amigo discount code happen. So make sure to stay at the end and I’ll give you the link on how to redeem this. Now, I mean, to me, this seems like a no-brainer, especially that there’s no upfront costs. I’m not having to send inventory, you know, in and, and then maybe it sit like, like I said, when I was doing Mercado Libre in Mexico, I sent you know, like 10 cases worth of phone cases that I ended up not selling, and I just lost it all because, you know, I couldn’t get it right. Nobody’s having to set it up. So it’s like a no-brainer, almost like, Hey, we should set up a call with you and then, and then maybe do you take a look at their, I mean you did, you did that with mine a little bit where you took a look at the products and said, Hey, you know, let, let’s start with this egg tray one where somebody could just reach out and then choose one. Just, just see how it goes. Maybe it works out well, maybe doesn’t, maybe you should try a different product, but I’m trying to see the downside here. There’s no downside, you know, since it’s free to start, at least Cecilia: We encourage all sellers to send us their entire catalog because sometimes they only send us, I don’t know, I want to try this product, and they send us one or five ASINs or SKUs. But we, we always tell them, no, no, send us your entire catalog because we can help you determine the products. We feel. We’ll have a lot of sales. Yeah. Not just the ones you want to try. So we always encourage them to sign up to our website or to schedule a free exploratory call and we can’t help them get started asap. So as soon as they reach to us, we’ll start the process. We’ll study and analyze their catalog expand all projects in the marketplaces. Bradley Sutton: Now how like for example, me, I’ve got my own warehouse here. And so like, you know, when I was calculating it out, like how it’s gonna ship to, to you in Florida, it was pretty easy. ’cause I have the egg trays right here. I know how many days it takes me to get to, to Florida, how, how long it’s, or how much it costs. But what about the sellers who maybe they don’t have a 3PL warehouse, they only have Amazon inventory. Are they Yes. Doing the, the, what is it called are are they just taking inventory out of Amazon and then sending ah, yes to you or doing the, oh my goodness, my mind is blank right now. What’s it, what’s it called? Okay. It Belen: Is like they have fulfillment with Amazon, Bradley Sutton: Multi, multi-channel fulfillment. Is that what they’re doing to send to you? Then Belen: We have sales that work that way, and once they have an order, they advise Amazon, they take the products from there and they should be to us it’s like, yes. Really simple for that. Yes. Bradley Sutton: Okay. All right. Now guys, if, if you’re interested to, to give ’em a try, there’s there’s a couple different ways. Like I suggest going to the you know, our, our hub, they have been in the hub. We don’t just put anybody in the Helium 10 hub. So just go to hub dot helium ten.com and then right in the search you can type in knock, knock and it’ll, it’ll be the, the only one that comes up and then you can hit get in touch. How else can they, they find you out there like your website and, and Cecilia: Sure they find you website Belen: They can. Yes, they can sign that directly in our website or also they have the option to have an exploratory call by free with us and we can have a meeting with you a 15 minutes meeting and to explain a little bit more to talk about your products, to see like if there is a real fit or not. So yes, please don’t hesitate to to sign up or ask for an expiratory and we can help you. Bradley Sutton: Put another soundbite in here, guys. They did actually make this discount code happen. So if you want to save 10% cash back on your sales for the first month, go to h10.me/bradleyamigo. Alright, h10.me/bradleyamigo, no spaces, no anything. And that I’ll take you to the NocNoc page and then get you that 10% cashback. Alright, now one last thing before we get into your 30 or 60-second tip or strategy is, I’m sure you get it all the time, but because of the name of your company, I need to know what is your best knock, knock joke? Cecilia: Oh, I don’t know. Belen: Don’t know what, sorry, Bradley Sutton: You don’t know. Oh, but but you don’t know about this. You don’t know about knock, knock jokes. Yes, in America. Cecilia: I know that I know them, but okay, it’s Bradley Sutton: Alright. I’ll give you one. I’ll give you one. You guys ready? Yes. Alright. Knock-Knock. Who’s Cecilia: Who’s there? Bradley Sutton: Interrupting Kat, Cecilia: Interrupting Cat. Bradley Sutton: Meow. Cecilia: I’m gonna, I’m gonna make that joke to my boss. Bradley Sutton: Okay, there we go. All right. Yeah. Sorry guys with the dad jokes, but all right, now let’s get serious your 30-second tip or strategy of the day. Cecilia: Okay. my strategy would be if we are going multi-channel and also multi-country, if you are starting to blind like a multi-country strategy to pay attention to your keywords, of course, because they will vary from country to country. For example, the keywords we use in Colombia are not the same one we use in Mexico, even though they both speak Spanish. So that’s a good way. Like searching the, the most popular and trendy keywords and to see which one applies to your products will be like a, a good strategy. And also, of course it’s not a literal translation. If we have something in Portuguese and we want to translate it in Spanish, it, we don’t have to make it little because for example, I don’t know, waffle machine in English will translate as Makina in Portuguese, but in Spanish is, it’s different. It’s like, yeah. So you have to pay attention to that. I don’t know, Berlin, your team, Belen: I think that everything visual in marketplaces is really important. Every day. We, we are dealing with that. You have a lot of competition, a lot of similar products, a lot of grants, and we are like trying to make like everything more, more important and put that to be in the top with a good photograph, a good title attractive to make it different from the competition. And look what is happening with similar products. Look to a competition, what they’re doing good that you don’t, or maybe, or it is like, don’t, don’t publish a product and forget about them. It’s like a day-to-day work to understand what is happening there. Bradley Sutton: Okay. Excellent. Excellent. All right, well thank you so much for joining us today. Are you going to be coming to America for any upcoming conferences? I know I’ve seen you at a couple of conferences before like Amazon Accelerate or Unboxed or anything The rest of this year, Belen: Yes. Maybe next month to Amazon Accelerate, we are going to be there and yes, we we’re like seeing month by month what show is going to be new to be there. But yes, we are always trying to be every month in a different show in US, so yes. Bradley Sutton: Okay. Alright. If anybody else is interested in Accelerate, I’ll be there too. You can go to h10.me/Accelerate. And I would love to see everybody there. Maybe it’s in Seattle. Maybe we could find a local Uruguayan restaurant there and you could show me some dishes. But healthy ones, yes. Not the online food that’s s eats there. All right guys. Thank you so much and we’ll see you soon. Thank you very much. Thank you Belen: Thank you very much. Bye Bye. Cecilia: Thank you very much. Bye Bye.

In this information-packed Seller Strategy Masterclass episode, Bradley dives into the world of advanced competitor research and alerts using Helium 10’s powerful features. From unlocking historical keyword insights for seasonal products to harnessing the trend-tracking prowess of the “Show Historical Trend” button inside Cerebro. Discover the strategic advantages of the Cerebro “Time Machine” and uncover hidden opportunities by examining significant drops in your competitor’s BSR. Bradley unveils the true value of these features, guiding you to reverse-engineer your competitors’ success on a month-to-month basis and offering insights into top-level competitor information. Bradley also teaches your, how to set up tailored alerts from competitors’ listings, customize your notifications, and gain priceless insights into pricing and coupon strategies. Join us to grasp the immense potential of these new features and create an unfair advantage against your competitors with your own suggested insights. Let’s learn how to elevate your Amazon game today! In episode 482 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley discusses: 01:31 – What You Will Learn In This Episode 03:00 – Using Cerebro History For Seasonal Products 07:31 – The Cerebro Show Historical Trend Button 11:51 – How To Use The Cerebro “Time Machine” 13:25 – Look At Big Dips In BSR 14:29 – Why Are These Features So Valuable 20:43 – Reverse Engineer Your Competitor’s Success On A Month To Month Basis 23:54 – How To See Top-Level Information For Your Competitors 25:19 – Getting Alerts From Competitors Listings 27:04 – How To Customize Your Competitor Alerts 28:07 – Getting Insights On Pricing And Coupon 29:21 – How Valuable Are These New Features? 32:36 – Suggest Insights That You Want To See In Helium 10 ► 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 in our monthly Seller Strategies Masterclass, we’re gonna be going over some amazing features that you should be using that’s gonna help you see what your competitors are doing on keywords on a month to month basis, going back to yours, and allow you to get notifications on if they change their price or add a coupon to their listing and much more. How cool is that? Pretty cool. I think Bradley Sutton: You wanna 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 ten’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. Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Series Sellers podcast by Helium 10. I’m your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show that’s a completely BS free, unscripted and unrehearsed organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. Bradley Sutton: And today, we are going to be going over some kind of like game changing features of Helium 10 here, where these are strategies that you should, guys, should be using, whether you’re using Helium 10 today, or maybe you, you’re using another tool that might have the, these strategies. I’m not sure if anybody else can do what I’m about to show you today, but for some of you who aren’t elite members, a lot of this will be game changing for you because you’ve never had access to this. But I’m gonna be showing you guys how to look at the history of where somebody was ranking in a certain month. There’s a plethora of applications for it. We’re gonna be going over that today. You’re gonna be able to see what was like their Cerebro, or where were they ranking organically? Bradley Sutton: Where were they ranking in sponsored ads of a certain month of any time in the last couple of years? You know, where were they showing up in Amazon? Recommended what was the search volume of those keywords when they’re ranking for it? And this is going to be great if you’ve got a seasonal product that you’re just about to launch. It’ll be great to just look at your current products, to look at your competitors, what they’ve been doing in the past, just there’s a never ending list of, of kind of cool things that can come from this that you cannot get anywhere else in Seller Central. This is not something that you can get in Search Query Performance because it’s for your competitor’s products. And then I’m also gonna be showing you some ways to track your competitors that you’ve never been able to do before or that you had to do manually. Bradley Sutton: So let’s go ahead and hop into it. Now, the first the first kind of use case I want to give is, let’s just say you’ve got a seasonal product, like something related to holidays or maybe it’s, you know, like a Valentine’s Day product or Christmas or something like that. Now, let’s go ahead and just use something. Let’s pretend that we are gonna do Christmas straws. I used to do a lot of straws on, on Amazon for Project 5k. I still do a lot of straws. So let’s just say I wanted to relaunch on Christmas straws. So if I were just to type in Christmas straws here, I spelling this, right? Yeah, Christmas straws. You know, I’m not sure these products are not selling well, you know, like these two aren’t even selling like 50. Because, you know, here in, in August, people are not exactly ordering Christmas draws unless they’re really trying to get ahead of the curb. Bradley Sutton: So if I were to choose this and run cerebral on it, you know, would I know a lot of the main keywords? You know, probably, but, but they’re probably not even ranking for that many keywords. Let’s just take a look at some of the estimated sales here, but the, these products are probably not doing many sales at all. And so the keywords that they’re getting sales from, the keywords that they’re ranking for also will not be the kind of true keywords that they are getting their sales from during Christmas time, right? So what is the way that we can find out? Well, first of all, are these Christmas straws even in stock? Like I, am I even looking at the bestseller just because it’s page one, you know, position one and two and three and four and five are they the best seller? Bradley Sutton: So let me just show you how to do that. And yeah, look at this. A couple of them are only doing 109 hundred units of sales, but this is across the whole, across all of their variations, which they’ve got tons of variations in this listing, but these are not the best sellers necessarily at Christmas. So what you can do is you go to brand analytics, And I am going to look at, as you can see here, I’m gonna look at brand analytics, top search terms, and I’m going to go to reporting range monthly and select year 2022, and then I’m going to go to December of 2022, and then I’m gonna type here under search term Christmas straws. Now take a look. The number one keyword for Christmas straws was Christmas straws. And the, the rest of ’em are just long tail keywords that have Christmas draws in it. Bradley Sutton: And let’s just take a look at the second one here. Let’s see, how did they do? They had 6% of the click share and 6% of the conversions. This was the number two listing for all Christmas draws in December during Christmas time of last year. So let’s look at this listing now on Amazon. And look at this guys. It’s unavailable. This product is not even in stock. So if I was just looking at Cerebro on the top products right now, I wouldn’t have even seen this product on Amazon, right? And if I were to run Cerebro on this product, now it’s not gonna show me anything useful because it’s not even in stock. So it’s not even ranking right, right now, right? So this is what you can do. I’m going to take this and go ahead and, and I’m gonna go ahead and put it in cerebral, okay? Bradley Sutton: It’s gonna run cerebral. I can click on keywords right here inside of the actual Amazon listing. It looks like it actually was in stock recently. Just went out of stock a few weeks ago. But let’s go ahead and run Cerebro on this. And you’ll see probably not that many keywords are going to show up now because it hasn’t been in stock in a couple weeks. So we still have the history. It wasn’t stock within 30 days ago, so there’s still a lot of keywords here, but almost none of these have any significant search volume you guys see here. Almost all of these are like, you know, 200, 150, some of them zero search volume. So this is not really gonna tell me what the best keywords are, but watch this. What I’m going to do is I’m gonna hit this button. Bradley Sutton: Now, this is something that you guys who are diamond members and above now have access to Elite members have had this for a year. This is something that I, I’ve always wanted for years and years. We were able to launch it last year for Elite, but now it’s available for Diamonds. So you Diamond members. I mean, lemme just kind of preface this with, with how amazing I think this is. I would’ve paid for Elite membership just to get this. I would’ve paid the $400 for Elite just to get this feature. That’s how powerful. It’s now it’s available to Diamond members, you know, and you only have to pay like $150 more for it. More than worth it just for this feature, let alone everything else that the Diamond has. And you guys know me, I’m not like some software salesman where I’m, I’m gonna tell it to you straight. Bradley Sutton: That’s how valuable this is. Now, why? Let me explain, watch what happens when I hit show historical trend here, which is now the new thing that you d members have available. It’s gonna show me the history of this asin. And as a matter of fact, I wanna make, you know what? I wanna make sure that only this listing is th this might have had other variations in this. So I’m gonna hit exclude variations. That’s something important that you guys should do. Now, it might, it might, it might just come out with the same information. But whenever you’re in cerebral, if you are in a variation listing, and the listings are very different, like there are in the Christmas category here, or in the straw category, I should say hit exclude variations to make sure you’re only analyzing this ace. And sure enough, the number was different here. Bradley Sutton: But anyways, I’m gonna look at this show historical trend. And, and look at this guys, you could see how many keywords they were ranking for in history, In July, June, may, April. Obviously they, they weren’t even ranking for any keywords and they probably weren’t even showing up in the search results for many products. They probably weren’t even in stock. But then look here in December, you could see that they had 613 organic keywords and 618 sponsored keywords. So what you do is you then hit this month of December. ’cause Obviously that’s when they probably sold the most for this product. And then I’m gonna hit apply filters. Now, here’s where the magic happens. Now all of a sudden I am looking at Cerebro as of December of 2022. In other words, Christmas of last year. So now this top selling product per brand analytics for this keyword and this niche, I can now look at why were they the top selling product? Bradley Sutton: What keywords were they getting sales from? And so you can just take a look here. Let’s go ahead and search for anything that’s over like 300 search volume, where maybe their organic rank was between one and 15. Let’s go ahead and apply. And then right here I could see the top keywords for this product. Christmas straws paper, looks like they were even getting some action on Halloween straws for some reason. That’s kind of interesting. So yeah, I wouldn’t have expected that. Paper, Christmas straws, paper straws, there are one of the top ones. So they were getting a lot of sales just from regular paper straw keywords Christmas, plastic straws, Grinch straws, holiday straws, all of these keywords that probably have no search volume now or very little Now I can see which ones they were getting sales from. And now I know which keywords that if I am going to make Christmas straws, what are the keywords that I need to start ranking for now in August to get ready for December? Bradley Sutton: Alright, so there’s one use case. I hope you guys can see the value in that is if you got a seasonal product and, and you’re wanting to make sure that you have some special PPC campaigns, oh, by the way, speaking of PPC, I could see what, what, what were they putting their money in as far as PPC goes. I could go to sponsored rank one to 10 and just see what keywords they were paying for top of search placement. Let’s actually go one to five, so that’s more towards the top of the page and take a look. Now I could see which keywords that they were showing up for in sponsored results are very high, right? But that’s the first use case. You gotta, like I said, you’ve got a seasonal product. It’s, maybe it’s a summer product, maybe it has nothing to do with holiday, but it’s maybe something that’s only for summer or only for winter, and you are not in that time period. Bradley Sutton: You know, like, let’s say it’s a St. Patrick’s Day, or let’s say it’s spring decorations. Well, people are not usually buying spring decorations in August. So whatever’s showing up in Amazon right now is not going to be the best, the indicative of which products were the top ones and what their performance is, what keywords they’re ranking for in springtime, right? So any ASIN at all, even your own ASINs, you put into Cerebro and then hit the historical trend and now you can see Cerebro as of those days. Now, I could also do this for a multi ASIN search as well. The same way that you guys do multi ace in searches in cerebral. So I could see, hey, where is everybody kind of like ranking for overall? Alright, now that’s one use case. Now for another use case of how you can use this Cerebro historical data. Bradley Sutton: I call this time machine, cerebral time machine, how we can use it in order to analyze what the competitors have excelled on. Let’s go ahead and, and go into the niche of egg trace. That’s something that Project X has a lot of. And so maybe I want to take a look at one of the competitors here who have been selling for a while. Let’s go ahead and run. I’m gonna run X-ray right on this page, and I wanna find somebody who has been selling products for a while on here. Let’s take a look. So I’m gonna look for somebody who’s been selling for a while, at least like a year or two. And then let’s go ahead and see if I can find something that will show some kind of seasonality with their, with their keywords. So first of all, let’s go ahead and say at least estimated sales. Bradley Sutton: I want somebody who’s been selling at least a hundred units a month, okay? So of the ones who have sold from at least a hundred units a month we see here, here’s one that was made in 2021. So let’s just take a look at his listing, see if it’s relevant. It’s a egg tray stackable. All right, this is cool. So, so this guy’s been selling for a while. So what I might wanna do is I’m going to look at his BSR chart because I want to see when it, or if he had any kind of like really peak times of sale. So I’m gonna go to all time on his BSR chart, and then let’s take a look here at when he was selling really well. And there’s not too much, like this guy is not that his sales don’t seem that seasonal, all right? Bradley Sutton: But however, look here, there is kind of a dip here in a couple of BSR dips. So I’m looking here, let’s just say that he had a bigger dip here in March of 2023. So how I can use that information is I would go to, again, hitches this keywords button and now it’s gonna open up cerebral for what’s going on right now, which of course is, is valuable in itself, but what I’m gonna be looking for is how to tie in his increase or decrease in sales to keywords. Now, I, you couldn’t really see it. I’m just doing this live guys, so you know, I didn’t pick a great one right there, but you’d especially be mindful of your competitors who have big dips in their BSR or big increases in their BSR, meaning that their sales go way down. Bradley Sutton: So what you do is you run Cerebro, and then I’m gonna hit again the show historical trend. And let me look back at that month where he was doing a lot. Now look at this, I said March. Look, all of a sudden he went from 48 sponsored keywords to 401 sponsored keywords from February to March. So that’s in interesting in itself. So what I would do is I would go here and I would choose this month, and I would now look at his keywords that were from March of 2023, and then I would take note of what he is ranking for organically high. Now, what I would do in another window, let me just show you guys here, and now I, I probably download this there, there’s other ways too, I could do it. But what I would do is I would look at, I would open up another window and I would look at the month where he wasn’t really doing much. Bradley Sutton: Like in February, like let’s say that his, his keywords, his sales went up in March. So I would go ahead and open it up. Let me go ahead and do that right now. So I would open up another window of cerebral and let me look at their previous month where maybe their sales weren’t as much. And then I’m going to compare what is going on here between these two months. So here I have March, I’m gonna go ahead and put minimum, let’s just say 500 search volume and let’s go organic rank one through 10 for March. And let’s do the same thing. Minimum 500 search volume now that I’m looking at February and look at organic rank one through 10. Okay? Now let’s just take a look here at their main keywords would an egg holder, counter egg holder, et cetera. Bradley Sutton: And what I’m looking for is something that went up from February to March. So let’s see, wooden an egg holder, he was number one in March, but in February he was number one too. So we know that he didn’t get extra sales from that keyword counter egg holder, he was number four, he was number two before. But look, look here, there’s a couple of keywords I can tell already that is not even on here. And as you can see here, in March, he was ranking position six for this keyword egg storage for countertop. Let’s see where he was ranking in February, because I don’t even see that keyword here. So let’s just open this up to maybe rank 50. And then let’s look for egg storage for countertop. I don’t even see he was not even ranking guys in the top 50. So guess what? Bradley Sutton: If there was an increase in sales in February to March, which there was, we now know that we can tie some of that increase in sales to the fact that he was now at the top of the page for egg storage for countertop, wherein in February he was not even ranking in the first 50 positions for this keyword. So you guys see the power here you would do it the opposite way. Let’s say that somebody, one of your competitors had a really bad month of sales, you saw that from his BSR, like he normally gets around, you know, 5,000 B S R and then the next month his B S R was like 15,000 or 20,000, right? So his sales obviously went down. Well, now what I would do is I would do the same search that I just did right here, but I’d be looking at where did he lose keyword rank and now what does this do? Bradley Sutton: This is going to show me what are the keywords that I really need to maintain my rank on. You know, like sometimes we have this idea, hey, I need to be at the top of the, the search results for all these keywords, but you really want to be top of the search results for the keywords that have the best chance to bring you sales. So what can we learn from this, this lesson here? Look at your competitor’s listings or even yours. You know, if you don’t have Search Query Performance, you know, this might be the only way you can do this, but look at your competitor’s sales history on when they had super great months or super bad months, and then look at the previous month and compare it to the month that they did super good or super bad. And now see if you can tie certain keyword ranks going up or down, tie that to their sales going up or down. Bradley Sutton: And now you know, like, hey, if my competitor lost sales because he went from the top of page one to page two for this keyword, well, guess what? I better make sure that I don’t lose the top of page one for this keyword. I’m gonna make sure I, I bid heavily on sponsor ads or the opposite way. Now you know that, hey, during this month, this competitor increase in sales and it’s because they got to page one for this egg holder countertop keyword that I wasn’t even paying attention to. Now, you know, that’s an important keyword. So that’s another way that this is super, super valuable, this Cerebro time machine or historical trend feature. Now, let’s just say that you’re doing a multi ASIN search. Like for example, maybe I’m I’m back on that egg tray page. I’m gonna say, Hey I wanna run all of these stackable egg trays all together at the same time in Cerebro. Bradley Sutton: So I just select them all and then I hit run Cerebro. And now what I can do is, again, going back to the show historical trend, I can actually see at a very granular level this whole niche, like, look at this, these products weren’t even doing that much back in 2022, but I can see overall these products have gotten stronger on their organic placements. All right, if I hit this button products, I could see at the product level how many keywords they’re showing up for organically, right? Let’s go back to this keyword type. And what I can do is I can see, I can click on each of these ASINs, I could see that this product has only been around for three months, and then I could see how are they doing and sponsored and organic. So take a look at this one here. Bradley Sutton: I just clicked on this one ASIN, I could see that in December, for whatever reason in April, they actually don’t run any sponsored ads at all. So there’s another insight I can get like, hey, if my competitor turns off their sponsored ads in December and February, well now I know that I can go ahead and crush them on sponsored ads during, during this time. Here is another product that I clicked on. And as I’m looking over time, I can actually see that he is turning down his sponsored ads because of it. He’s actually losing his organic placement. Like look at this from July to August, I can actually see that his organic keywords have gone down and you could tie it directly to maybe a decrease in his PPC spend. I mean the, the, the possibilities go on and on guys. Bradley Sutton: The reason why I always wanted this tool was because I love Cerebro as is, you know, like I love to be able to look at where a product’s been ranking for somewhere in the last 30 days, but so many times I want to see what their situation was in a certain month of the year, like going back maybe two years, maybe I wanna look back at the last two Christmas seasons how they did. And now this is going to allow you to reverse engineer your competitor’s success on a monthly basis throughout the year. And also spot trends like maybe you see that your competitors, they’re increasing in the keywords that they are showing up for in search results. Maybe it’s decreasing. Maybe you could see are they spending more money on PPC? Are they spending less money on PPC? Bradley Sutton: There’s so much things that you can do. So again, if you have a diamond account, hop into cerebral and look at the historical trends ASAP. If you do not have diamond, you just have platinum. Trust me guys, the value you can get from this, I cannot even put into dollars how much value you can get. I mean, imagine if I was selling those Christmas straws how much money I can get by making sure I start ranking for the right keywords in August and September when it’s super, super cheap as opposed to waiting until December and then let me run Cerebro and see where my competitors are ranking for. I mean, you can’t even put a dollar value on that, you know, because it’s gonna cost so much less to get ranked for these keywords when the search volume is low because I have the visibility on it and not having to wait for this year’s information. Bradley Sutton: So guys, if you don’t have Diamond you can use one of our discount codes like SSP10 to upgrade and get a 10% off discount if you haven’t used a coupon in the last couple of years. So SSP10 will get you that discount, but guys, get this right away. Alright, the next thing we’re gonna be talking about today, we are going to go into Insights Dashboard, speaking of competitors for something that I think is really gonna help you monitoring what is going on in the competition. And again, this is something that you know, Diamond members can get full access to you Platinum, you have limited access to this, but you can also get some information here and enter some competitors. So if you look on your dashboard you have the, my product table, right? And I, I have all of my, my product families here. Bradley Sutton: You can see me. Here’s my coffin shelf and my coffin egg tray, my stackable egg rack and some egg trays here. But what I want you guys to do, and you might see this for some of your products, is click this down button and then click on competitors. And this is a section where you need to put your top five competitors who you think are the most, like your product that you are battling sales for. Now, some of you might have this already, and that’s because Helium 10 might have put some competitors here. But what I want you guys to do is, you know better than Helium 10 what, who your competitors are. So you can edit your list here and, and pick which ones are your top competitors. You know, maybe just drop the ASINs in here or, or just, you know, do a, a quick search for them. Bradley Sutton: But what I want you to do right now, you know, you can even pause this episode and do this and do this and pick this up later, is for all of your top products to put your competitors here. Now let me just show you the kind of fire that comes from this. If you do this, the very first thing is now anytime I can just click here and I can see some top level information for the comparison. Like what’s their current price, what’s their current sales, what’s their current revenue for the last 30 days, what’s their listing quality score? For the buy box, is it FB A or FBM? Does it have variations? Coupon this guy is running a 5% coupon. All right, this, this has never been available inside of Helium 10 before. Let’s take a look. Bradley Sutton: If he is running a coupon, lemme just take a look at this coffin shelf right here. There it is right there. You see he’s got a 5% coupon, right? So you can just see that instantly right in here inside of, of your competitor dashboard. The other thing I’m going to be able to do is if I have all of them selected, I can go ahead and run them all in Cerebro or I can one by one run them in Listing Analyzer. Or maybe I want to see, hey, for this product here what is showing up in the frequently bought together for this coffin shelf competitor, I hit analyze and then I hit product targeting in black box and it’s going to go ahead and open it up right here. And I could say, Hey, show me everything that has been show that is showing up in frequently bought together. Bradley Sutton: And now I have the full list of products that are frequently bought together with my competitor products. Those are great for product targeting ads, et cetera. Right now, that’s just, this is just the beginning guys. This is what you’re gonna start to be able to do. So what you’re gonna start seeing is you’re gonna start getting these insights and alerts for when competitors do things like, for example, I got one here that a competitor has updated their listing. So I’m gonna take a look at this and see what they actually did. And I can see here that, you know, this is obviously not my competitor, this is a shoe here, but we just threw in some random competitors. Oh, I can see that my competitor changed their title and now I’m gonna go see, well, what did they change it from? Two. Bradley Sutton: All right, so maybe there’s something going on there. I wanna look at that. Maybe they changed their image, maybe they changed their bullet point. You are gonna start to get these insights or alerts on your competitors’ products. I mean, we’ve always been able to do that on our own products, in, in alerts, the Helium 10 tool alerts. But now if you have specified your competitors in your Insights dashboard, you are gonna get alerts on what your competitors are doing. And this is something that hopefully you are checking on on your own, but maybe you had to hire somebody to go look at all of your competitors listings every day and say, Hey, who changed their their image, who changed their title? What’s going on? Now you are gonna get those insights. Other things you might get insights or alerts on is, for example, look at this, five competitors, BSR sales or review counts have drastically changed. Bradley Sutton: So let’s just take a look at that and let me go ahead and open it up here and then I can see, all right, well look at this. B S R they went from their BSR in one day changed by 5,000. Good grief. Alright their sales went to went down. So you can see these little like little magic buttons right here. That means that there was something that changed. Now here’s the thing. Maybe you don’t care if somebody’s BSR goes down by 25,000 because it’s not that big if they were at 277. So you can actually go in and customize how you want to get these alerts. Like maybe, hey, I only want to get BSR insights if their BSR gets better than myself. Or maybe their BSR increases by 20%, or maybe it decreases by 20%, or I just wanna know if the review count increases by a certain number percentage or decreases by a certain percentage, that’s what you want to get inside. Bradley Sutton: You know, maybe the reviews you know, Amazon takes away the reviews and you want to capitalize on that by going harder on your PPC. Like, you know, sometimes Amazon might take away all the reviews of a competitor, right? You know, and just, and they’ll give it back. But maybe that during that time you want to, you know, capitalize and pounce on it and, and go a little bit harder in PPC. Well now you can know when your competitors reviews are taken away. Maybe you want to get a notification if their sales drastically increase or decrease in a day. ’cause Maybe you know, something is going on. Another thing you are gonna start getting insights on is your, their pricing, right? This is super, super important for a lot of you is what are your competitors doing with pricing and coupons? Bradley Sutton: So you’re gonna be able to specify what kind of insights you get and when. So for example, for these coffin shelves, I see, oh, this one sourpuss Coffin Shelf, they raise their price. Oh, now this goth vanity, they had a coupon and now they don’t have a coupon, right? They don’t have a coupon going on. So you can get notifications, and again, these are customizable. So hey, a coupon was offered or it’s no longer offered. If the price increases by a certain amount or a certain dollar amount, or the price or the price decreases by a certain amount, all of this, you are going to be able to specify and say, Hey, I want to get notifications or insights on this. Guys, this is really powerful because hopefully you were checking some of these things before, but you probably, it was probably a very manual process to monitor when your competitors are changing their title, their image, when they have big peaks in sales if they start running a coupon that you are not and you are not running a coupon. Bradley Sutton: I mean, a lot of us, we like to match our competitor coupons, like, Hey, my competitor’s gonna run a 5% coupon for this week. Well I wanna do a 5% coupon. So this is gonna be powerful for you to stay ahead of the game so that you are not having to kind of play catch up or make some really long manual process to monitor what your competitors are doing. Now, this is just the beginning guys of the Insights Dashboard for competitors. Like I said before, what’s coming is we’re gonna start letting you know, hey, your competitor is getting sales from this keyword and you don’t even have this keyword in your listing, right? Your competitor is ranking high on, on sponsored for this product or for this keyword, and you’re not even bidding on this keyword in P P C. Would you like to add it? Bradley Sutton: Pretty much anything you could possibly imagine that you are doing now, either manually in Seller Central or Amazon to monitor competitors you are gonna be able to do without doing it because helium ten’s gonna do it for you and we’ll just give you insights or alerts on when these things happen. So what I want you guys to be thinking about right now, I just told you what’s definitely coming, that keyword one, a lot of those keyword ones, but you let me know or not let, don’t let me know that you have no way to contact me. Let Helium 10 know what kind of competitor insights are you looking forward to or do you want help on? I just told you a whole bunch that we are currently doing right now, like, you know, when the competitor changes their price and, and things like that. Bradley Sutton: I told you what’s coming as far as when competitors are ranking highly for certain keywords that they’re not May, maybe it’s a, a keyword rank. Hey, you want to know when your competitor drops or inorganic rank for a certain keyword. But what I want you guys is think of your best competitor insights that we could help you out on. Something that you are having to tediously manually do right now. But we can automate it for you. And then what I want you to do is on your dashboard at the very top, under send feedback, hit this button and then go ahead and answer this survey that comes up so that you can offer insight into what insights you want to get as far as the competitors go. Again, some of this stuff is not game changing in the fact that oh, nobody has ever thought to monitor your coupons, your competitor coupons. Bradley Sutton: It’s something that you’re probably doing, but it’s a manual process. We’re just trying to automate automate it. So let us know, help us help you, but in the meantime, all of your products that you’re currently selling, go in there and add your competitors. Now, one question I get is, Hey, I’ve got a lot of variations right now you can only add competitors at the parent level and it populates the variation Later on, you’re gonna be able to take like, Hey, here’s my five competitors for my black coffin shelf and I want five pink competitors for my pink coffin shelf, et cetera. So right now you have to select the competitors at the parent level, ASIN level or the parent ASIN level inside of insides dashboard. But don’t worry that’s, it’s coming soon where you’re gonna be able to do it one-to-one. Bradley Sutton: So all of your all of your child items have their own competitors, right? Really exciting stuff guys. This is just the two things that we went over today in Cerebro, the historical thing, and also these insights and notifications on what is happening with the competitors. This is stuff that does not exist in the industry today and stuff that you can start getting the leg up on your competition. A lot of it is maybe stuff you’re already doing, but instead of you taking five hours to do this stuff or paying somebody to do it, now we’re just gonna do it for you and deliver the results. So make sure you Diamond members are using this. And again, both of these things I mentioned are only on the Diamond plan. So if you want to test it out, see if it’s right for you, just use a discount code SSP10 and try out the diamond plan for a couple months. Bradley Sutton: And if you don’t find the value in it, go ahead and go back to the Platinum plan. But trust me guys, if you are not finding the value in it, you’re not using it in the right way because you cannot not get value out of these things and have it not be worth the $150 more that the Diamond plan is cost because these are super, super valuable. So let us know, give us feedback on these tools. How would you like it to be changed, both the Cerebro one and Insights Dashboard. Let us know what we can do and I hope you guys have a great time playing with these new tools and we’ll see you in the next episode.

In this episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast, we feature the awe-inspiring journey of Elizabeth Rivas, the operating mastermind behind two remarkable 8-figure brands. Discover her captivating backstory and how she soared to greatness in the Amazon space from humble beginnings. Unravel the secrets of 1P and 3P seller programs, and gain valuable insights into killer PPC and listing optimization techniques. Dive into the fiercely competitive niche of supplement brands and learn how to thrive in a crowded category niche in the Amazon marketplace. Brace yourself for game-changing marketing initiatives and innovative strategies for Amazon brands who want to crush it. Elizabeth’s serial beta testing approach and her favorite Helium 10 tool will leave you inspired. Learn and take advantage of her ingenious launch tactics using Helium 10’s Market Tracker 360 data and the joys of an 8-figure seller while using the all-new Insights Dashboard. Plus, learn how you can grab a free demo of MT360! In episode 481 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Elizabeth discuss: 01:30 – Elizabeth’s Backstory 02:57 – How She Got Started In The Amazon Space 03:43 – Started From Nothing To 8-Figures In Sales 04:46 – Amazon 1P And 3P: What’s The Difference? 09:05 – 1P Seller PPC And Listing Optimization 09:49 – Which One Is Best? 1P Or 3P Seller Program? 14:00 – Talking About AlgeaCal’s Amazon Brand 15:58 – Competing In A Very Competitive Niche 19:41 – Talking About Amazon PPC And Their CPC 25:59 – “You Don’t Have To Be The Cheapest In Your Niche” 29:26 – Marketing Initiatives And Strategies Inside Amazon 33:31- Serial Beta Tester And Other Creative Strategies 36:43 – Elizabeth’s Favorite Helium 10 Tool 37:33 – Launching Products Using MT360  39:05 – Why She Loves The New Insights Dashboard 39:26 – How To Get A Free Demo Of MT360 40:48 – Elizabeth’s Healthy Habits Outside The Grind 43:46 – Elizabeth’s 60-Second Tip ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast ► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension ► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup  (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life) ► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft ► Watch The Podcasts On Youtube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos Transcript Bradley Sutton: Today we’re gonna talk to a seller who’s already brought one company on Amazon to eight figures of sales. And by next year. She’ll bring another company to over 10 million in sales. And it’s through using a lot of cool strategies she’s gonna share with us by opening up her products and listings to us. How cool is that? Pretty cool I think. Bradley Sutton: Are you an agency enterprise-level seller or an eight or nine-figure seller and need advanced analytics market Tracker 360 might be the product for you to get a demo of Market Tracker 360, go to h10.me/mt360. That’s h10.me/mt360. Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers podcast by Helium 10. I’m your host, Bradley Sutton. And this is the show that’s a completely BS free unscripted and unrehearsed organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. And we’ve got a serious seller here from not too far away from me, but coming from Canada. We’ve got Elizabeth. How’s it going? Elizabeth: Hi Bradley. How are you? Bradley Sutton: I’m doing just delightful. Thank you. Now where in Canada exactly are you at? Elizabeth: Yes, so I’m located in the province of Quebec about an hour from Montreal. It’s called Mirabel. So I’m near the mountains here. Bradley Sutton: Okay. Now is that where you were born and raised, or did you go there at a later stage in life? Elizabeth: So my parents are originally from El Salvador in Central America and my mom came into the States and stayed there for five years in the 1980s. And I was born there. I was actually born in Long Island in New York. I Bradley Sutton: I hear a little bit of New York there in the accent. Elizabeth: Maybe because of my cousins, but I’ve never lived there actually, I came here to Quebec and I was like a year and a half. Okay. So I’m mostly Canadian although I have my two passports there. But yeah. Bradley Sutton: That’s kind of amazing, you know, like, Hey, you can be in New York when you’re seven months old and then it just sticks with you? So somehow I guess I lived there for a year only or two years. I still feel like, and I was like, more than 20 years ago, I still feel like a little bit of like a New Yorker, but anyways, been in Canada most of life. So then I’m assuming English, Spanish, and French? You speak? Elizabeth: Correct. Yes. So my mom talked to us at the house in Spanish. French came at school and English too. But I did have the opportunity to study at the HEC Montreal, which is in European university here in Canada. Bradley Sutton: Okay. What was your major? Elizabeth: It’s a marketing and international in business. Bradley Sutton: Okay. And then upon graduation, did you enter that field? Elizabeth: Yes. So part of of my career path here is a bit different because I didn’t really touch e-commerce before like 2018. Prior to that, I was actually selling to big companies in pharma, like Thermo Fisher, VWR 3M. I was a marketing sales director, so I have always been in the business field, but it was more B2B, it was not digital. Bradley Sutton: Okay. Alright. Interesting. Now, how, then, you know, in the late 2010s, I guess Yeah, you could say, how did you discover Amazon e-commerce? Elizabeth: Yes. so in 2017, I started working at a company called Pelican International. They’re the Canadian company, which is actually the largest manufacturer of plastic kayaks. And I had a particular mandate, which was to develop an accessory product line for them to sell online. So they usually sell out all of their products through big stores like Sporting Goods Costco, and Walmart. And they didn’t have any real presence with e-commerce direct to consumers didn’t exist at the time, and they wanted to start it with Amazon. So because it wasn’t an existing channel, I just like actually just arm myself with my enthusiasm, and curious mind, because I didn’t know anything about Amazon. Okay. and, you know, like even after now it’s been like five, almost six years that I am within this ecosystem, it always continues to surprise me every day. Elizabeth: It changes always. But at the time, just to go back there we were set up as an Amazon 1P. So we were not doing 3P seller. And after 18 months we lounge a full accessory product line in 2020 for paddles dry bags and many different accessories for nautical outdoor activities. And it was a whole process because Amazon helped out during the process of the lineup. I’ve actually read through it, like at the time I didn’t use Helium 10. So I’ve actually read a lot of all the reviews of different competitors and based off those reviews, we came out with the different models and concepts with our RND company I’m sorry, the department outsourced these models in China. And that’s how we came with, you know, like when I left in 2022 the brand alone was selling eight figures across a hundred different ASINs, and it started from nothing. Bradley Sutton: And what in particular were you responsible for Elizabeth: I was responsible for everything, so from A to Z. Bradley Sutton: Okay. So then, you can take most of the credit then from that increase in sales? Elizabeth: Yes. Most of it, of course, I had like a team, you know, with me helping me out. Like just RnD and graphics and content and everything. But like the strategy, like the go-to-market strategy. Yeah. It came from, Bradley Sutton: Did you launch products as well, or just take their existing listings and, and, and try to just, you know, market it in a better way on Amazon? Like where did a lot of most of that growth come from? Elizabeth: We launched products, like all of them. For instance, we used to have five different models of paddles. When I left, we had five different categories and each of them have three to five different variations. So it was mainly like taking the small, small category of accessories that they had and just broadly coming with different subcategories and how do we sell these to the Amazon customer. Bradley Sutton: And a hundred percent of the products that were launched were all 1P or like through Vendor Central, where it says, shipped and sold by Amazon. Elizabeth: Yes. It was all through 1P. Bradley Sutton: Now, for those who might not be familiar, you know, we’re not gonna fast forward yet in your journey to the 3P side, but what are some of the biggest differences like things you might not have control over, things that are completely different on the process when you’re a 1P as opposed to 3P? Elizabeth: Yeah, so I feel like 1P it’s good when you have a good relationship with your vendor manager if you get to talk to him. The first year we didn’t have this relationship, so it was kind of hard. But basically what is different is that you don’t control demand. You don’t have all this access to different promotions that you do with the 3P seller side although I’m not really familiar of the changes that have been made in the last year and a half, ’cause I’m not anymore in the 1Piece. So maybe it is but just like brand analytics, like on the 3P side that it’s, it changed my life, you know, here as a seller now and the vendor side, we didn’t have access. I believe they do now. But at the time they didn’t. Elizabeth: One of the things also, it’s forecasting, the forecasting process the way they order for us, it was every Monday, so they actually just issue PO’s and you have to go to how can I say, the process of seeing if you can accept those or not if you have enough stock or not. So it was more how can I say a little bit more difficult. And also all the negotiation part, you know, with the percentages that they take for allowances and all of that. It gets very corporate. It is a B2B relationship when you are a 1P seller. Bradley Sutton: Okay. How about Amazon advertising? Is that a very similar experience or are there differences there with how you run the PPC? Elizabeth: It was however I run it now on a very different strategy side, meaning that I do it with an agency. I do have the budget. I’m with a company now that has a budget for that. Pelican at the time didn’t do it that way. It was very sporadic and we didn’t really have like a strategy around it. It was more like a keyword base. So I don’t know exactly what they’re doing now. I believe they have somebody doing the the advertising part. Bradley Sutton: Okay. what about listing? You know again, some of this is different to me ’cause I don’t have personal experience, you know, with 1P, how much control over your listing optimization do you have? Or is Amazon the one who is creating the listings or you have full control over the images and the copy and things like that? So Elizabeth: Copy and images, you do have full control. The only thing that you don’t have full control is pricing. That’s one of the things that we didn’t like. It’s like interesting. It was sporadic. Sometimes they just run like a deal or something on our, on our product listing, and we didn’t even agree to that, or we didn’t issue that. Bradley Sutton: But they still have to pay you the same, like if they decide for some crazy reason, Hey, we’re gonna give a 50% off discount. It’s not like there’s gonna, they can tell you, Hey, you need to give us 50% off, or something like that. Elizabeth: Exactly. So mainly, I believe it’s mainly for them to, they, it’s, I’m pretty sure it’s an algorithm doing that, so they have too much talk, it’s not moving enough. So they just like issue like a 10%. Our problem with that is that you know, it’s, we were an omni-channel company, so we had other retailers also where we cannot just run random promotions and having 1Price at Sporting Goods and another on Amazon, you know. We were a map company, but they don’t, like, Amazon doesn’t really go with the MAP policy, you know, so that, that was one of the things that was difficult for us. But it was more the, like the first, first 18 months, because after that, when we got our good relationship with the vendor manager, he did understand that we cannot be like, playing around with our prices. Bradley Sutton: Okay. Now, in retrospect, you know, my question is gonna be like, which would you choose? Like, so, you know, there might be some sellers out there, or some companies maybe they’re not on Amazon yet. I’ve heard this question before, it’s like, Hey I’m trying to get on Amazon. I actually have an offer from from Amazon. They wanna do 1P with me. They want me to go vendor central route. Or should I just start, you know, like, like most people and, and go full 3P and just, you know, set up my own seller central account and, and, and do everything on my own. Are there situations where that answer might be different or is, is your answer the same in all situations? And if so, what is which, which one would you choose? Elizabeth: That’s a pretty good question. I think 3P seller is just like the setup that you need to have to launch, and it just offers so much more opportunities and more control. Especially if you do it FBA the only part where I see it a little bit more difficult, it would be like when you do big bulk items like kayaks. Those are not profitable on a 3P seller program, you know? Yeah. So the fact that Amazon is buying those from you, stalking them, and you actually just giving in an allowance. Yeah. Mainly allowance is big, but it doesn’t cover for, what would it cost for you to send it out to an FBA center? Okay. So I would say that it depends on your product, depends on the dimensions. If it is for Control 3P all the way I do believe you do have much more capabilities within the 3P seller program. One, ultimately what we’d love to have, it’s like a 3P seller program direct, you know where you have all this infrastructure that can have a customer services and Sure. Where you have the full control and you own the Amazon customers data, that would be the ultimate setup. Bradley Sutton: Okay. Alright. Now, you seem to be riding pretty high, bringing this big brand to eight figures, but you’re not at that company anymore, so how, how did it come about that you were looking for another opportunity? Elizabeth: Yeah, so after five years with Pelican, I found a brand called AlgeaCal, and it really caught my attention. It’s a company based in Vancouver. They make supplements for bone health. They are experts in bone health and everything that they do is around both bone supplements. So it just call out to me because I do have my family all, almost all women’s in my family suffer from osteoporosis. So it’s something that their mission really called upon me, and I joined them, you know, to help them grow their Amazon business because they already had something going on there. They were a seven figure, very nice, healthy company. I just thought that my experience could bring them to the next level, you know? And since it’s been a year, almost a year and a half now that I’m there we’ve achieved a double digit growth. We launched– Bradley Sutton: So when you got to the company, what, what was like their annual revenue and about now? Elizabeth: It’s still seven figures, but we are, we are getting to like next year we, we’ll make the eight figures for sure. Actually this year is our most successful year in history. We also launched Amazon Canada, and we most recently launched walmart.com too. Bradley Sutton: Wait, isn’t this a Canadian based company to start with? Elizabeth: Yes, it is. Bradley Sutton: So before you came to the company, they had decided to, to start an Amazon U s a? Yes. Not even in their own home marketplace. Elizabeth: Just by the way, Pelican did the same. Bradley Sutton: Okay. Well, I mean. Elizabeth: They started with the US and then they went for. Bradley Sutton: I know people who go both ways. You know, obviously US is way higher demand, but then some people are like, Hey, this is my own country. I’ve already got my packaging, you know, for this. I’m assuming the you know, I have a little bit of experience with supplements in North America and it’s like completely different. Not completely, but pretty, pretty big differences in packaging for my US version and Canadian version, like the Canadian one, I think it had to be in French and English and I can only say some things. Is that similar with, with you guys too? Elizabeth: Yes. So supplement facts are different. The measurements there it needs to be bilingual. You need the NPN number too for your your products. And, you know, there’s also the formulation, like for instance vitamin D in, in Canada we cannot be above 800 I IUs on, on the supplement facts. But however, on in the us we have it at a thousand IUs. So it, it, it, it really depends on the, on what you’re selling. Part of the, part of al what it’s good, it’s that we actually manufacture in the US and in Canada. So that’s, that gives us much more leverage there to have our own formulated products for the different territories. Bradley Sutton: Okay. Now I’m just looking here, I’m just going to run X-ray keywords on here just to see some of your, your main keywords that, that, you know, might be driving some traffic. ’cause I’m not fully familiar with your brand, but I would’ve expected mainly branded keywords, which I do see here. You know, I do see your brand algae cal, you know, you’re ranked high and Algae Cal plus, but you’ve got like, you know, high search volume keywords that I would think is very like, competitive, like calcium supplement, 70,000 search volume keyword, tons of products. And you’re coming in at this price point of like $70, $80, I saw another product, you had a hundred dollars. Yes. You know, the traditional thought might be, man, it’s gonna be hard to complete compete in supplements at all, let alone with this like super high price point. So this is a product that, you know, according to Helium 10 estimations, you’re selling over, you know, between these two variations here, over 2000 units a month. So you’re obviously very successful. How are you able to compete in such a competitive niche at this nearly a hundred dollars price point? Elizabeth: Yes. so I think you got a great point here Bradley. It’s that our product is high end in the calcium supplement category. Part of it is because we have a unique formulation that most of the calciums comes from rock based calcium. Ours is actually plant-based. It comes from the south shores of Brazil. And it’s based from a red Algea that contains the 13 different nutrients that are proven. And that’s, that’s one of the things with AlgaeCal, we actually have three clinical supporting studies that says that our product will increase bone density within six months. So if a customer starts today and has osteoporosis, goes for a DEXA scan, which is a test that your doctor can subscribe for you to do, and we can see the density of your bones within six months, you will see an increase in bone density. Elizabeth: And if it doesn’t and you have proof of that, we’ll actually give you back all your money. That’s one of our guarantees that we have. So it’s like, yes, it’s an investment, but it’s an investment that works. And that is the message that we are trying to get to our customers as much as possible through Amazon. We do it very well on their D2C side. And my mission was to do the same on on Amazon. You know, we have today we have a community of over 25,000 members within Facebook. That is actually a community where we share recipes. We have lives with different doctors or bone experts. So we are not just selling a calcium supplement, we’re actually taking care of our customers, giving them all the support they need. Our biggest customer is going to be within the seventies, eighties. Elizabeth: They are hurt, their bones hurt. Most of them maybe just broke a hip. They can’t move anymore. They can’t do their activities as they did before. So we have this our customer service. We actually call them bone health consultants because that’s what they are. They actually provide support to these customers. And they are like our average call, it’s above 30 minutes. You will not have a call of five minutes. We actually want to understand what you eat, what are your exercise activities what other supplements or medications you are taking to making to make sure that our product is well integrating within your lifestyle. So that’s our difference and that’s what we’re trying to put out there. Within our PDP, if you look at it we have a lot of content. Elizabeth: I know that most of our competitors they do it more shorter bullet points and imagery for us. Yes, the imagery needs to be condensed straight to the point, but also it needs to have much mu much information around it towards why to take our product. We also have our A+ Content that has a lot of copy, I know. But the customer needs to understand at what stage of their li their life are their bones. So that’s one of the things that we are trying also to communicate through the the A+ Content. We also have all these documents. You know, we have spec sheets, we have a Bone Health Companion, which is actually a magazine that we release every two months with different recipes. And every two months we go in it and we change it. We have the user guide also of our products. So a lot of different content, and I know that maybe not all of the customers will read through it, but I wanna make it available to make sure that for those ones that really want to do their research, the information is there. Bradley Sutton: Interesting. Interesting. Now, again, I’m just looking at the, the main keyword here, and sure enough, I mean, I didn’t look at it before, but sure enough, it’s just what I thought. You know, like you look at who’s at the top organic position on some of these keywords, and you’ve got nature made $15 and Nature’s Bounty, $11 and $12 you know, another, another one here, $15. And then you could, you could just, now first of all, I’m just looking here, like your organic positions even isn’t even that high, but you’re still getting tons of sales from this keyword because you do have multiple, looks like you’re out bidding them on sponsored ads. I saw like, like I refreshed the screen and now it’s not there anymore. But I saw like you had two spots here in sponsored ads. I see you’ve had sponsored header, the Sponsored Brand Header, the headline ad there. But, and you can compete on this, on this, on this keyword. Now, I would assume, like, I don’t even wanna know, almost the cost per click on a keyword, like calcium supplement must be like outta control, like, I don’t know, $10 or something crazy, right? Elizabeth: No, not that bad. Calcium supplement is not that bad. The worst, we do have a product, which is an Omega three fish oil supplement that is just incredible. But calcium supplement, it’s around four to $5 a click. Yeah. Bradley Sutton: Okay. I mean, that’s still, coffee shelf is like 50 cents. But for I guess at that higher price point, it allows you to bid high. You know, like sometimes, I mean, just imagine guys, that four and $5 price point is what these like nature made and these $11 products are having to compete at. They’re obviously losing money there, but they’re making the money back on the subscribe and save, because you get people into this product and you get them on subscribe and save, and now you don’t have to pay PPC on them forever. But if you go in at a higher price point, because it’s a higher end thing it’s important to get them and subscribe and save and make even more money. Bradley Sutton: And, and it’s not a race to the bottom guys. You know, we’ve had people on the podcast before Anne Ferris, you know, might be one that people are familiar with, and she’s in like the baby niche. And, and people sometimes go into their main keywords and they actually look for the most expensive. So her strategy is, Hey, I want to be the most expensive on the page because people, parents, they want to make sure they’re giving their baby the best. They don’t want to go cheap on that. And this might be one of those niches too, you know, like, like calcium supplements. I mean, this is like somebody in their twilight years, you know, it’s like, Hey, I want to make sure my last 20 years on this earth are as pleasant as can be. Bradley Sutton: I don’t, might not want to go ahead and get this $11 calcium that I used to get, you know, when I was young. So it’s a strategy that’s I think, important to understand that don’t always be thinking you have to be the cheapest in your niche in order to be successful. And here we have Elizabeth as an example. That’s not the case now. I guess while we were talking, I was running Cerebro on your product here. And I noticed you’ve got like a lot of sponsored brand Sponsored Brand Header. I see you’re running some, looks like some, some video on some keywords. And then you’re, you’re showing up in the, the highly rated section here. So you’ve got a lot of placements. What gives you the most bang for your buck? Is it your organic placement? Is it the sponsored video, your Sponsored Brand Header? Where do you think that you’re, you’re getting the best ROI? Yeah, Elizabeth: So at the moment, our ratio is still 60-40, so 60% of our sales comes from organic, 40% come from sponsor. Okay. Out of that sponsor. What is really working for us at the moment is definitely sponsor brand videos sponsor brands videos, and you do have to have, you know, the content and how can they say the different types of videos that you wanna have, depending on what it is, your strategy or what are your targeting. But it’s mostly for engagement. It’s, it’s the best. It’s the best placements that we’ve reached for the last, I would say, maybe two months since it has been available. And part of it is also because we tied it with our Amazon store our Amazon store. We recently did a full refresh on it, and we have different pages sub pages there. Elizabeth: For instance, we will have sponsor brand videos at the moment about adding to cart if we want. And once they click, they go on our subpage, which is for deals. So we make sure that the customer looks at a sponsor brand video ad, and then they go out on the right subpage where they will be more comfort. You know, we actually run a campaign for osteoporosis month in the month of May, and everything was around bone health, and we had this sub page called Bone Health that was built that is a half for conversion, but also half for content. And it did really, really good. We pair it out with subscribe and save coupon. We’ve managed to only that month get 550 new subscribers. So that’s one of the things we’re trying to leverage more and more. Elizabeth: It’s also our subscriber space. It is now 4% of our revenue and we are increasing at about eight to 10% every month. So that too, we need to make sure that we get that customer once, then we want it to be a loyal customer. Yeah. because we do know what is our LTv down the road, and we wanna make sure you know that yes, the cost per acquisition for that, that particular customer, yes, maybe during Prime day it was almost nothing, let’s say. But on the long run, it will bring you much more revenue. Bradley Sutton: Interesting. Interesting. Now I’m looking at just another key word. And I saw one of your Sponsored Brand Video comes up. It looks like it almost starts with like a UGC or Hey, this is like, you know, our typical avatar here and this customer submitted, it’ll kind of like get the attention of some people might scrolling here. Is that kinda like the route you went with this video? That is Elizabeth: Correct. We actually, like I mentioned before, we have 25,000 community members and we receive hundreds of testimonials every month. It’s incredible how our community loves our product and wants to talk about it. So our video team does a lot of different ads with these testimonials, and we just feel that it’s much more engaging. The message really resonate with our audience when it comes from a real life testimonial. Bradley Sutton: I see at the very top of the page, this is one of the first I’ve seen of a different kind. I mean, this is that same keyword, but this, you know, traditionally is just a regular, you know, Sponsored Brand Ad or Sponsored Brand Headline ad where there’s like 3 products. But then what I’m seeing here, it’s another video that auto plays and it almost seems like it takes a bigger section of the top of the page. Yes. But this one is going to your storefront. What kind of ad is this here at the top? Elizabeth: That’s the sponsor brand video. And it’s actually, you have, you can choose that per category or you can choose it per subpage. And that one is actually just going to our homepage, if not mistaken. Bradley Sutton: Interesting. So you have two Sponsored Brand Video ad placements on the same exact page. So that’s an interesting thing I haven’t even seen before. Elizabeth: Which try to get the more real estate that we can. And I cannot take credit for all of this. It’s our agency. They’re pretty, pretty innovative there. We work in pair, you know I draw the strategy, they execute. One of the things that really worked with us too is that it’s been maybe a couple of months now that we’re doing a lot of DSP and we are actually moving much more towards DSP advertising okay. Than sponsor just because of the capabilities of doing, really targeting with audiences. And that really just gives us much more control over what are we serving to the customer, depending on where on the purchasing journey they are. So for instance, we are pairing customers, let’s say upper funnels. It’s more about are these customers? Elizabeth: I don’t know. Let’s say for instance, one of the things, because I used to work with Pelican, I knew that their audiences on Amazon actually were about 50 plus because these are customers that didn’t really want to, you know, go to Sporting Goods, take out the kayak, put out on the car. They actually just rented out sorry, buy it, and it went out to the cottage. So what I did is we actually had an outdoor video where we see a couple just doing Kayak on the water, and we have all of this messaging around fortifying your bones to make sure that you can continue doing your activities and that video we are actually using it in the category for nauticals within the Sponsored, but we are also using on DSP so on DSP, we’re able to say, you know, like if they bought a kayak within the last 60 days and they are 50 plus we can do like a lot of more targeted audiences there. Bradley Sutton: Interesting. What other unique programs are you doing? We’ve talked about some common ones. We’ve talked about some more unique ones, like, like DSP any more unique things that you’re, you’ve, you know, programs that you’ve taken advantage of at Amazon or have we hit most of them? Elizabeth: I tend to be, I’ve been classified as a tester. I love to test everything. Every time I see a beta out there, I’m just trying to get my hands on it and see what I can do with it. And I think it’s part of the success because you can really try and test to see what’s resonating, you know with your customer. One of the things that we’ve recently have done, and I cannot tell you if it’s going to work or not, ’cause it’s fairly new, it’s actually, you know, these tailored promotions that came out on Seller Central. We can actually now serve an exclusive deal, let’s say, to a particular audience. For instance, we’re doing with brand card abandonment audience, which is perfect because Prime Day was just like a couple of weeks ago, you know and we are serving them a coupon for, to get them within the brand. But we’re also at the same time having this catchy add to card OTT video within DSP that is serving to that same audience the ads, so they can see that we have a coupon. So it’s just like making these connections between what you’re able to do in promotions, how you can pair it out with DSP or with sponsor. I guess just being very creative. Bradley Sutton: Interesting. And then now, now that first part that you mentioned, a lot of regular sellers have that, like the second part is definitely through DSP, but that tailored thing, I think, I think a lot of sellers now have access to that. So you’re combining both of it. I like it. What about in Helium 10? What, what are some of your favorite tools and, and functions that, you know, like you said, you know, back in the day you, you didn’t have Helium 10, like what kind of things are you using now for your brand that you’re probably thinking, dang it, I wish I had this in 2017 when I was, when I was trying to, to figure this out. Or something like that. Yeah, Elizabeth: So I have have a colleague of mine that he’s really the one that is using you know, Listing Builder, Keyword Tracker, Cerebro, all of these most of, for me within my job more a strategic level we actually use Market Tracker 360. So Market Tracker 360 is one of the tools that we, that I use a lot to understand actually how much of market shares are we actually getting every quarter what are our competitors doing that maybe we are not. And also for product launch. So we are launching new products in September and October and more part of the research is all based on Market Tracker 360 to see like, what is really our competitive advantage here. What is the market that we wanna target, what are we trying to aim, you know, with this product launch after six months, 12 months? So it’s just part of our strategical planning. But other than that– Bradley Sutton: Now for those who are listening, like, and they’re like looking at their dashboard like, wait a minute, I don’t have this. So Market Tracker 360 is kind of like, almost like separate from Helium 10. For higher end sellers. Now this is it’s not something that you have just like in your diamond plan or, or something. Even me, I haven’t used it. It’s for kind of big sellers like Elizabeth here. So talk to me about what, like one strategy, like you said you, you’re looking it at launch, so like before you get into the niche, what are the data points that you’re looking at in Market Tracker 360 to are you saying that you’re looking at that to even decide if it’s something you want to go in, or you’re like, Hey, we are definitely going in here. Let me just kind of like benchmark what the existing landscape is doing so that I can see taking market share from them, or, or how are you using it in this sense of launch, like you said? So Elizabeth: At the beginning it was more to, yes, we are launching this new product, what is the benchmark, you know on Amazon? Now it’s difficult for me to go into the details without revealing what we’re going to launch and I can’t do that. But one of the things now with time knowing that, okay, this is our market share, it’s more about how do we position the product so the product have different ingredients if we want in it. And with Market 360, for me it’s about, okay, what is the market for each individuals of these categories or these sets of keywords? So we have these different ingredients and or vitamins if we want within the same formulation, and we wanna see which one of them has the more potential for us. As far as sales and then serving within that category and say, Hey, by the way, we’re not just selling this. Elizabeth: Our formulation have this, and this for this price, actually. So it’s about getting more value to the customer within one category and made them switch from what they are already buy-in. But actually they are paying for something that if they go with our product, they will get much more value out of their money. So that’s the type of strategy now, like, but it’s more like go to market and yeah, I could maybe talk to you later on next year about how it went, but that is how I’m utilizing to Market Tracker 360. But another tool that for me as a director marketplace I love is your new dashboard, your new dashboard insights. I just go in, I have all the information I need and I saw this morning that now we have competitors there for each of our products. It’s awesome. So for me, it’s just going to 1 place and having all the information when I need it. Bradley Sutton: Awesome. Awesome. So guys, if, if anybody out there is, you know, doing four or $5 million or more and think that Market Tracker 360 might be a fit for you, just just go to h10.me/mt360, You can get a free demo on that tool. As far as what you also mentioned, the insights dashboard, that’s what everybody has access or as long as you have a diamond and above and we got some cool things, Elizabeth, that’s, that’s crazy. You know, the competitor was just a start. But now, once you set your competitors, you know, like we’re gonna tell you, Hey, did you know that your competitor’s getting sales from this keyword? And you don’t even have it in your listing? I mean, theoretically you should have been, I mean, I’m sure you, like you said, you have a colleague’s using or that’s probably the his or her job to use Cerebro and try and find those. Bradley Sutton: But now, instead of him having to take 10 minutes to do it, you’re just gonna instantly get this notification that, that did all the work for you. It’ll be interesting to see. I wonder if your competitor is gonna feel, or your competitor, your coworker there is going to feel a little bit nervous. Like, man, Helium 10’s taking my job way. I gotta find some new strategies to stay to stay relevant here. Before we get to your last strategy like we always ask everybody for their 60-second tip of the day. Let’s switch gears. Somebody who’s in the kind of like health niche here. And might have some interesting insight, but what I ask all my guests is this year is on the health side. Bradley Sutton: Like, like we’re, we’re all entrepreneurs, we’re, we’re working for companies in the space. Actually, your story is similar to mine. Like before Helium 10, I used to work for a supplement a very popular supplement company. I didn’t sell on Amazon myself, but anyways regardless if we’re in the supplement space or we’re not, health is important and, and sometimes when we get in these kind of jobs and it’s, it’s fun for us. I’m sure I could just see, you know, from talking to you, it’s fun and sometimes we, we might overwork ourselves or, or, or just, you know, forget that we just work 12 hours. Like what do you do for hobbies to make sure that you get away from work and what are some like healthy habits that you have, that to make sure that you’re, you’re staying, you know, grounded emotionally, mentally, physically? Elizabeth: Mostly. One of the things that I do is to have like a routine. I’m a early person. I wake up at 5:00 AM I make most of my day in the morning, you know, reading I’m listening to either one of your podcasts or some something else about Amazon for sure. I go for a run. I love running. I’ve started out, at the beginning I couldn’t even have like half a K I couldn’t even do that. And now I run between 10k and 15 k every week. So I love to run. I run in trails nature. I love nature and just getting outside. So it’s something that really helped me out. Bradley Sutton: Alright, let’s close it with what’s a 30 or 60-seconnd tip? You know, you’ve been talking a lot about your strategies and things, but is there something you mentioned today you can say in 30 or 60 seconds or less that you think can help our listeners out there? Elizabeth: Yeah. So we’ve been talking about different strategies, you know, that could help you within Amazon marketplace. But one key takeaway that is, I think it’s crucial, and I did talk about it and during our conversation is content, but not just any content but the right kind of content. So we are using ChatGPT, I’m pretty sure a lot of our audience here. But we use it to dissect our product reviews, but not just to gain deeper understanding of our customers. We are really asking about their psychological, social, cultural factors within these reviews to try to understand, you know, their intrinsic and extrinsic values. So really what they are trying, what is driving the customer ths your product and what are they tangibly wanting to have, you know, what are the benefits that customers are getting out of the product. Elizabeth: And we actually had a lot of success with this understanding these various factors and values from our customers. We tailored our message. We actually, like, for example, on our analysis, it revealed that like a large portion of our products were actually purchased by adults for their agent parents. So we actually took this and we make it a, a caregiver campaign with Amazon DSP with tailored messaging around these adults, not targeting 55 plus, but maybe targeting 28 to 45, you know, with this message. About taking care of your parents, not just an investment for them, but also an investment for you. So these types of information you can get by utilizing ChatGPT with the reviews, but not just like, oh, what they are saying, no, no, no. Like go deeper. Ask them, yeah, ask ChatGPT, like really questions about what do you think their values are where do they find our products? Like for us, it was a lot recommended by doctors. So now we have a lot more, much more doctors or clinical types of imagery within our content. So these types of informations are very good to have. Bradley Sutton: Awesome. Awesome. Alright. Well Elizabeth, it was great, you know, getting to know, you know, your story really inspiring and seeing all of the success you’ve had. Where will I be seeing you? Like, are you going to Amazon accelerate or maybe Amazon Unbox or any of these conferences coming up? Elizabeth: So I’ll be at Amazon Unbox this year. Bradley Sutton: Unbox. All right. I’ll see you there in October. And when we have you back on this show sometime next year hopefully you can be able to say that, hey, maybe you hit that eight figure mark already for the second time now in six years. So that would be awesome. So thanks a lot and we’ll see you soon. Elizabeth: Thank you Bradley.

Welcome to another special episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast which is our monthly training and live Ask Me Anything with Bradley Sutton. Our focus today would be how to analyze listings, whether your want to get into a niche or maybe compare yourself to your competitors. Bradley will show you a quick way on how to look at their keyword strategy, their listing optimization strategy, and most importantly their listing image strategy as well. Let’s hop into it! In episode 480 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley discusses: 01:22 – Using Helium 10’s Listing Analyzer Tool 02:55 – Cool Features Inside This Tool 04:37 – The Category & Subcategory BSR 05:22 – Traffic and Conversions Graph 06:29 – Compare Key Metrics Across ASINs 06:47 – Listing Quality Score Analysis 13:03 – Media Comparisson Feature 15:28 – Export Images Of Your Competitor’s Image 16:52 – Another Way You Can Run Listing Analyzer 17:39 – Product Research with Listing Analyzer 21:18 – Q&A with Bradley 21:45 – How To Send Tool Ideas 22:19 – Profits Tool Questions 25:25 – Why Is Your Bullets Too Short? 25:50 – Draw Graphs For Product Sessions 27:26 – Compare Key Metrics Data Automation ► 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 talk about how you can analyze your competitor’s keyword, listing optimization and image strength and strategies, along with answer all of your questions you gave live on the show. How cool is that? Pretty cool I think. Bradley Sutton: Did you know that just because you have a keyword in your listing, that does not mean that you are automatically guaranteed to be searchable or as we say, indexed for that keyword? Well, how can you know what you are indexed for and not? You can actually use Helium 10’s Index Checker to check any keywords you want. For more information, go to h10.me/indexchecker. Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers podcast by Helium 10. I’m your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show that is our monthly Ask Me Anything and training. So welcome one and all to the show. We’re gonna be going over how to analyze listings, especially maybe you’re gonna get into a niche or maybe you want to compare yourself to your competitors. So a quick way to look at their keyword strategy, their listing optimization strategy, and in my opinion, almost more importantly, or one of the most important ones is their image strategy as well. Bradley Sutton: Without further ado, I’m gonna, I’m gonna hop in here. Have your product in mind. Find your top keyword on Amazon where you are on page one. Alright, let me show you guys. I obviously picked Coffin Shelf, you know, for me, and I ran X-ray on the page. All right. Now the very first item you pick, I want you to pick your product. All right, so I chose our coffin shelf first and Manny’s Mysterious Oddities Coffin Shelf. You guys see that here? I put a check mark and then I want you to choose like 5 or 6, 4, 5, 6, whatever of your main competitors. All right? So I’m you’ll notice here that I am not choosing like these makeup shelves because to me, that’s not my competitor. Are they competing with me on page one for my main keyword? Yes, but I think that that customer avatar is a little bit different. Bradley Sutton: I’m just trying to hyperfocus what my direct competitors are doing. So, so black coffin shelves is what I’m choosing, and it has to be very similar and, and form function and price. And I, I want it to be selling a little bit. Like I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna choose, oh, I didn’t choose this guy here. I should have chose him. He’s selling like 147 units, but I’m not gonna choose some of these. Some of these others, matter of fact, I might run this again. The, some of these other guys are actually selling some decent amounts of units. Well, that gothic life, I already had, let me see, I didn’t choose this one here. Spooky look, spooky looky life. All right, come on guys. With these, with these, some of these brand names that people are choosing are, are not great. Bradley Sutton: All right? So once you guys have it chosen, let me know in the chat if you guys have about five or six or seven competitors. And then what I want you to hit is run Listing Analyzer. All right? Once you’ve got that hit Run Listing Analyzer, all right? And then it’s gonna open up Listing Analyzer in another window. So now you guys should all be looking at a screen that kind of looks like this. Now, if you had connected your Helium 10 account to to your Amazon account, you’re gonna have some extra information here, such as the Act, the actual sales of your product at the top of the screen right Now. Another thing that if you only have one sku, it’s probably gonna show up here. A cool thing that this is good for, but your Insights dashboard can do it too, is that it’s gonna track your alerts, right? Bradley Sutton: So it’s going to track the alerts of when things happen to this exact ASIN or this exact SKU. So like for example, if you change your price on July 4th, right? What you’re gonna see is a.here on July 4th, and then you’ll be able to see, oh man, my sales went up or my sales went down, you know, and then take action. Let’s say you did an image change and you want to know when it actually registered on Amazon and then how things happen afterwards. Well, that’s gonna show up. So that’s the benefit of having alerts set up on your account in Helium 10 is on this chart here in Listing Analyzer. It is going to graph out when these things are are happening. Alright, so now the next step that we are going to go over here is, lemme see if this other one went. Bradley Sutton: Alright, there it is right there. Let’s scroll down. Here is the subcategory and category B S R. Now, I don’t think I could see this on Amazon. Let me just double check and look at the B SS R in Amazon here. And let’s see, I don’t think, yeah, it’s not, when you look on Amazon and use your Helium 10 Chrome extension, it’s not gonna show you the subcategory B Ss R. So Listing Analyzer is one of the only places where you can actually see what your subcategory at the lowest level is. So it gives you home and kitchen 175,000 here on July 5th. And then it says floating shelves 644 here on July 24th. It says 281 and 1089. So it gives me a little visibility into my subcategory BSR. Now, if I had chosen the right SKU, which I didn’t, you guys should see under traffic and conversion, some really cool graphs, it’s going to show you the history of your sessions, page views, and unit units ordered. Bradley Sutton: So this is kind of important to see what your sessions rate is, what your average page view rate is. I’m gonna have to check this which data points it’s actually pulling from. And then your units ordered your average order session rate. That’s pretty abysmal as you can see here. 2%, 3%, that is no bueno. All right, that’s not good. All right, so this shows me like how it was over time, and I can actually choose different dates. So this is kind of cool because when you’re looking at this in your seller central dashboard, or perhaps other parts of Helium 10, you might not see it fully grafted out here. All right? So it’s really cool to see it graphed out, like what kind of conversion rate you are seeing. Again, this is on your product. You don’t need to have your own product to run listing Analyzer. Bradley Sutton: And I’m gonna show you guys how to do that in a couple seconds here because you guys are gonna give me an idea of what I should do. Alright, so now this is where we start getting into the nitty gritty here, where it is this section that’s called Compare Key metrics across ASIN. So these are all of the products that I had pulled in from X-ray. It has my product and the other product. So I can see, hey, what’s the listing quality score of these products? This is just the the Helium 10 algorithm that is based on what you know, users said was the best practices, right? I could say, Hey, where’s the seller region from? Wow, okay, I see three of these coffin shells and manufacturers are from USA, there’s actually an Australian one here, and then one from China. Bradley Sutton: I could see, hey, are, is everybody in the same category and subcategory? Look at this. Not all are, here’s one that’s in standing shelf units. So it might be interesting to, to see for this seller, do they have a better conversion rate or, or not a conversion rate, but a better rate of sales. You know, due to being in that other category, what’s the price? If I wanted to go in and say, wow, look at this guy who’s so cheap. Has he always been this cheap? Has he always had this price of $21 and 99 cents? Well, I can click this graph here and now instantly I can actually see how let’s go, let’s go all time. Let’s go one year. And I could see, okay, well, he was actually 23.99 before he went up to 29.99. He was 23.99 for months, and then starting in June, he dropped down to this 21.99 price. Bradley Sutton: So I could, I could see that if there is an inventory levels available, we’ll see that here. I could see the history of his reviews. I could see the size, this is a good one. Like, let’s say everybody was the same product as mine and I knew they were the same size. Instantly I’m gonna see like, wait a minute, why, how is this one person able to get their product in a box that is nine inches wide or something like that, you know, when everybody else’s is seven inches. So that’s gonna give you some, some insights there as well. Another thing that I like to look at is the age of the listing. I’m like, man, here, this guy’s brand new. He’s only launched this product two months ago, but everybody else is kind of mature listings. Hey, everybody’s got this number of images. Bradley Sutton: Now what I’d really like to see though, guys, is this one on the end here where it’s top 10 keywords and top 10 search volume. So if I’m looking at this, I can kind of see the strength of me compared to my competitors, right? And look at this, look at this. So I’ve got 31 keywords that are in the top 10, and if I add up those search volumes, it’s up to 9,000. But then look at this competitor. He’s top 10 for 63 keywords. And if I were to add up those search volumes, it’s 32,000. So maybe I wanna see which competitor is this. Now look at this guys, take a look here. Bradley Sutton: This guy is selling 212 units. He’s almost double a lot of the other competitors. And now instantly, I kind of know like, well, okay, now it makes sense. Look at him. He’s 212 units per month. But part of that has got to be because he is ranking for so many keywords in the top 10 for more than everybody else, all right? I’m doing pretty good. I’m ranked for 31. You know, he’s better than others, but these guys are getting probably a lot more visibility. So that’s how you can kind of see the strength of the niche. As I go here, I could see what’s the average listing quality score. All right. Hey, nobody, look at this, nobody it’s telling me that nobody has symbols or emojis in their listing. So everybody’s doing the right thing. Everybody’s got five bullet points. So these people obviously know how to make Amazon listings. Bradley Sutton: Everybody’s got the first bullet point capitalized. The first letter of the first bullet point, I should say. Let’s see, everybody’s got at least 1000 characters in the description or they’ve got a plus content. Only one of them though has video in their listing. All right? So there, there’s maybe some opportunity I see there, all right? Everybody’s got more than 20 reviews. So this kind of just tells you the strength of the listing and I could actually go in one by one and then take a look at some of these ASINs one by one a little bit more. All right? Now this is another part that I really, really like. There’s not much going on here in the coffin shelf, ’cause Coffin shelf is a very small niche, right? But this is this is showing me the total shared keywords of these products. Bradley Sutton: In other words, the number of keywords where at least two of these ASINs that I entered here are organically in the first seven pages. Now, here are some of the top keywords I believe to be listed here. It’s gotta be, you know, at least some of them are in the at least like three of them are in the top right or something like that. Or in the top 10, if I’m not mistaken. Now, this is where you can see the strength of your niche. So these are the top keywords in the niche. And now what I’m looking for is on this right hand side. Now, th this, this has been here since last year, guys, this is nothing new, but I think a lot of you guys haven’t been using this as much. But take a look. These numbers represent where we are ranking organically. Bradley Sutton: So what you wanna see is who’s got the most light green numbers, right? That means that they are really crushing it. Now, if a whole bunch of people have a bunch of dark numbers, then that means that they’re not doing very well, right? And then look at this. Look, look at this guy here of the top keywords of the niche. Every single one, he’s in the top 20. Look at that. He’s ranked seven, he’s ranked 8 7, 19, 19. So what you would want to see here is perhaps a bunch, a few of the competitors that maybe are not doing as well as the others, right? Like you want them to have a whole bunch of these non dark green ones or these dark green ones. And that means that for their keywords, they’re rank lower on the top. And then now you know, you have more opportunity because the more that the top competitors are not ranking for the top keywords, that means you’ve got a little bit more opportunity there. Bradley Sutton: So, so that is something that’s really cool about this. All right? Now almost all of this I think you can see if you’re a platinum member, let me go scroll up here and then kind of show you what you can do if you’re a a diamond member and above. All right, I’m gonna hit this button right here. You guys should see that here. Optimize, not, not optimizing. Let’s see, but whoops, I hit the wrong button. Media comparison. You guys see that under compare key metrics across ASINs. Find that, scroll to the right and then hit media comparison. All right? When you do that, what it’s going to do is it’s going to plot all of the images from these competitors on one page. I know those of you listening to this on the podcast in your car might have trouble picturing this, but this is super, super cool because this is the strategy we’ve been teaching for years about, hey guys, you’re trying to get into a niche where, where these competitors are, you know, have been on here for a year or two, they’ve probably been testing their images, right? Bradley Sutton: They’ve probably been been split testing using manager your experiments, or they’re like, man, you know, I got some complaints about this picture, or I got some bad reviews about something that people couldn’t understand, so let me just change my image and show it. And if these are the top competitors, you can kind of get a feel for what has been working for this niche, right? And it’s all right here. So for example, if, if I’m looking at this like this, what, what do I notice? I’m like, wow, you know, in the first few images, everybody has an image where it’s an infographic that has details of the size of the product. Everybody. So look at this, everybody, like in their first three or four images has this infographic. You guys notice that here, every single one has got a very similar image where it breaks down the exact size of the product. Bradley Sutton: So now if you’re making a new product or maybe you didn’t have that in yours, it’s like, man, I should probably think about putting an image like that. Another thing that I don’t notice here, you know, which could be good, could be bad, but I don’t notice any models in these, IM in these images. So maybe people being confused about the size of the product isn’t that much of an issue because if it is, what would you think that you would see? Right? You would see a bunch of lifestyle images where somebody is holding the product because then it gives perspective. So the fact that none of the top competitors have that could mean that nobody is getting, you know, some, some bad you know, nobody’s getting bad reviews on that, right? What else do you guys notice here? Almost all of these images have like little spooky trinkets in them. Bradley Sutton: You know, very few show the actual coffin shelf just completely empty. And so there’s just various different things that you can glean from this. Now, if this was a brand new image, what I would do with this information is I would ex, I would hit this export media button up here on the right and then it’ll make a PDF and I can actually share this with my graphic designer or photographer and be like, Hey guys, this is what’s working for everybody else in this niche. You know, how can we make sure our images have a similar vibe, but maybe we can do a little bit better? So this is one of my favorite buttons actually in all of Helium 10 guys. This is how valuable it’s ’cause back in the day. This is not a new strategy. I’ve been doing this strategy for five years ’cause I learned it from Tomer Rabinovich, but what I would do is one by one, I would have to go into all of my competitor listings, copy and paste their images into like a PowerPoint or a Google Slides, and then get, you know, print it all out and then try and look at it all in a printout and then, you know, send it to my, my designers and things like that. Bradley Sutton: But now I just took all of that work and it’s one click of a button. Alright, let’s go ahead and try this on another niche. Let me see if anybody puts something in the comments here. Castor oil pack wrap. I have no idea what in the world that is. Let’s look it up. Castor Oil Pack Rack that was given by Kate Marshall. All right, let’s look up that inside of Amazon. I think I kind of know what this product is. Alright, so what, let, let me show you the other way you can run listing Analyze. It’s kind of good that, that we’re doing it this way. I could just go to Listing Analyzer right here in my screen, and then I’m just going to go back to the search. So the other way I can run Listing Analyzer is just put in the competitor ASINs by copying and pasting the ASINs. Bradley Sutton: So let’s go ahead and do that here. All right. Now if you run Listing Analyzer, it’s gonna look a little bit different because I’m not selling castor oil packs, right? Okay. So it’s not going to put it into, you know, I’m not gonna be able to see those alerts and things like that. Like I could on my product when I was running coffin shelf. Which is fine. When would I use this part of the tool? Well, I would use this part of the tool guys. If I’m doing product research and I’m thinking about getting into a niche, I might go ahead and choose some of the top competitors. And now what I’m looking for is I wanna see what’s their image strategy, what’s their strength of the keywords, what are the top keywords that we are looking at here? Bradley Sutton: And that’s what is going to be helpful here. All right, so let’s take a look here. All right, so I see this main one here has a listing quality score of 8.2. Here’s a sales estimation overview of these products. Here’s the category B S r, history of it, and let’s go ahead and open up media comparison. First of all, we’ll do this a little bit backwards. All right, let’s see what we can find out. I have never looked at images of castor oil wraps before, but let’s see, do we see any differences? Right off the bat, guys, right off the bat, what’s the big difference that you see with these images compared to the coffin shelf? Every single one of these listings have models in multiple images. You guys see that big contrast we already found just by one click of the button. Bradley Sutton: Looking at the media comparison. Now I’m like, all right, for this product, obviously having it on models is super important compared to the coffin shelf. What else do we see? I see everybody has a detailed, just, here’s one that’s similar to the coffin shelf. Look at this. Everybody has a detailed picture showing the looks like the length and the height of the product, and an infographic about that. Look, all of these competitors have that same, that same vibe right there. Now I know that, hey, this is something that must be important to the customers because that’s why they have it. So I just got all of that information with just a click of the button looking at their image strategy. So really, really cool feature right there that you can see. Let’s go ahead and look down here at the listing quality score. Bradley Sutton: Not all of them have 150 characters in the bullet point, but for the most part, these guys are professional. Look, they all, they all have a thousand pixel images. They’ve got seven plus images. Only one has videos, though they all got 20 plus reviews. So for the most part, they’re doing pretty good on their listings. Now, take a look at this, these keywords here, right? Look at these keywords, and now all of a sudden I could see the strength of these competitors. So just by looking at this, like I’m not even looking at the keywords itself. I kind of know that this middle one here, they’re, they’re doing pretty well because look how many of these top keywords they are in the top 10. Remember I’m looking for the light green color. Now, compare that to this last competitor. Most of their keywords, they’re actually in the dark green, and you can see the number corresponding to it. Bradley Sutton: They’re ranked on the bottom of page one, or potentially on page two on some of these. So I can see, hey, what’s the relative strength of these competitors on the top keyword? So guys, you could do this for any you could do this for any listings out there comparing yourself to your competitors or you’re looking to expand into a new niche. You wanna see, hey, what’s the strength of the keywords of the competitors in this niche? What are they doing on their image strategy? How is their listing quality score working. This is something that I want everybody using this week multiple times. Some of these you can only do if you have a diamond account. But most, a lot of the stuff that I went over, you can absolutely see if you have a platinum account as well. Bradley Sutton: Alright, now let’s go ahead and open it up to any questions that you guys have about Helium 10 or about listing analyzer in general. Edison says, when off topic, when will AI feature listing builder be available for Germany? That’s not off topic. Edison, that is a Helium 10 question. So it’s absolutely on topic. It will come when enough people ask for it. So we always prioritize the, the functionality that we do based on how many requests there is. So every, if anybody, if you’re in a country where a listing builder with AI is not working yet send in a request you, you click let me show you guys where to click to send in request to, at the top of any Helium 10 screen, to the very right of the button that says what’s new, you hit the question mark, right? Bradley Sutton: And then you hit share your ideas and that’s where you would say, Hey, I need listen builder for Deutsche Bitta, right? Isn’t that please in German? I don’t remember. Alright, let’s see. Vaed says I need to, I want to see the manual cost, which I added by myself in the profits tool, It should absolutely work. So, so if, if you entered something in to your cost, there’ll be a record of it and it should be there. So if you’re not seeing that cost, you just a, you know, open up a ticket with support and then they’ll, they’ll they’ll help you out. Like I, all of my costs of goods sold, we is, is completely in there, even the ones that I enter with a flat file so that it has dates on it. So that should absolutely be there. Bain Kirk says, can we see more than 60 days for traffic and conversions? Yes, but not there. Listing analyzer. To do that, you would need to go Kirk into profits. Let me see if I can find it on the fly here. Bradley Sutton: All right. You would go into profits and then I think if you’re looking at it at the product level, I would go to product performance. Actually, you can do that from the dashboard too. What am I saying? You can actually do that on the dashboard. I’m gonna show you guys two different ways you can do this from the dashboard and from the product performance page. So if I’m in the product performance page, where I’m gonna want to go, Kirk is on the top right there is going to be a date range. All right? So this date range is where, you know, I’m assuming you want it to be outside of 60 days. So I would change this date range at the very top. I don’t know why Europe is showing April. I don’t even sell in Europe. Let me change that to u s a. You would change this date range, find the product you’re looking for, and then let me show you where to look for that, you would go right here and it’ll show that page views and sessions. You can see it from any time period, but it’s not gonna be a fancy graph like was on Listing Analyzer. But let me see what that graph looks like. Can I even see the graph from here? Let’s take a look. Page views sessions. I might be able to see that from the listing. Dashboard. Bradley Sutton: Let’s go down here. I’m at the child level again, you would change the date right up here on the top right, and let me hit listing. I think it’s an under listing down here. There we go. Let’s hit listing. Okay, and then there it is right there. You see unit session percentage sessions and conversion rate. You’ll see that right down here. All right, and then in product performance, I have, yeah, I can’t see the full one, but I can add a, a widget here that I can graph it out to in in profits, Kirk. Bradley Sutton: All right, let’s see more questions. Why are my bullets so short? Alright, you’re gonna have to stay tuned for that episode of why she changed some of our bullet points. But, but in a nutshell, remember Neil, that overall you can only index for a thousand characters total on your bullet points. So you should keep them where it it, it comes really close to a thousand characters on bullet points. Tunji says, is there any way to draw a graph for sessions in Helium 10? Well, outside of listen analyzer not necessarily, but let me show you one thing, what you guys can do on the insights dashboard. All right? Go up here to the top and at the very top right it says chart. All right, so you are gonna hit the chart and then choose. I’m gonna, I’m gonna show you, it’s not here because I already have it on mine, but you’re gonna choose the one that gives you your detailed percentages and that is called sales and traffic conversion. Bradley Sutton: Right here. UIs want to add the sales and traffic conversion chart to your dashboard. This is for you too, Kirk, and this is gonna show this graph throughout for all of your products. But I can go into individual products like for example, our coffin shelf and now for any time period. So yeah, completely erase what I said about 30 minutes ago where I said you couldn’t do this. You absolutely can. This is how like Insights dashboard, it has so much stuff that I even, I’m not keeping up to date with it, but look at that here. I could see what my conversion rate sessions, page views for any time period at all. How cool is that guys? Pretty cool, I think. Cool. I’m glad you asked that Tunji. ’cause I just discovered something about Helium 10 I didn’t even know was available or I knew it, but my memory is so bad. I forgot. Bradley Sutton: Kirk says on the compare key metrics data section, can we automate it to give us some keywords where we do better while others are selling and doing well? Absolutely. That’s what’s coming. That is exactly what’s coming, Kirk. That is exactly what is coming where you’re gonna set your you’re, you’re gonna be able to e eventually set your parameters and say, Hey, give me a notice when my competitor is in the top 10 sponsored results, but I am not advertising for it. Like, that would be an example. Or you’d be like, Hey, give me a notice when there’s a keyword with at least 1000 search volume where my competitor is organically in top five and I am not on page one. I mean, just random things that you’ll be able to do because everybody has their own, you know, everybody’s got their own strategies of what they wanna see and what they don’t wanna see. Bradley Sutton: This is what you’re doing already in cerebral, I’m assuming. Absolutely gonna be able to automate that so that we can just give you the results and you’re no longer gonna have to like run cerebral every, every other day for your products. Alright guys, that’s it. We’re at time here. So thank you guys so much for joining us on this. Serious Sellers Club members and elite members get this every single week, 52 weeks a year pretty much. And the rest of you, we, we like to open this up once a month and then we repurpose this as a podcast as well. So thank you all, all non-elite and Serious Sellers Club members for joining us. Hope you guys got some benefit of it and we’ll see you guys in the next episode. Bye-Bye now.

Join us on our latest SSP episode as we tackle the latest strategies on Amazon listing optimization, A+ content, and other marketing strategies. We start with Emma’s backstory, where we explore the journey of moving from Missouri to Las Vegas, sharing the challenges and adventures she faced. Then she shares incredible success stories from her clients, proving the power of her methods and strategies. Stay tuned as we discuss the numerous benefits of having an optimized listing and how A+ content can be a real game-changer based on Emma’s insights. Learn how Emma helped Project X products convert more and discover budget-friendly tips for creating compelling listing images. For aspiring sellers, we offer invaluable advice on exploring other niches, breaking down Project X’s A+ content, and how you can do it too! Curious about avatars in Amazon product marketing? Tune in to find out! And if you’re eager to learn more about her latest strategies for A+ content and the case study with Project X, we’ve got you covered with Emma’s New Freedom Ticket modules! Finally, we wrap up this episode with Emma’s explosive 60-second tip, leaving you inspired and empowered! In episode 479 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Emma discuss: 02:30 – Moving From Missouri To Las Vegas 04:25 – Cool Success Stories From Emma’s Clients 05:45 – The Benefits Of Having An Optimized Listing 07:17 – A+ Content Is A Real Game-Changer 11:20 – Listing Image Creation On A Budget 14:12 – Breaking Down Project X’s A+ Content 15:00 – How Did Emma Help Project X Products Convert More 22:14 – Tips For Newers Sellers On Other Niches 27:50 – What Is An Avatar In Marketing? 30:00 – New Freedom Ticket Modules With Emma Tamir 31:30 – Emma’s Healthy Habits  33:10 – How To Get In Touch With Marketing By Emma 34:35 – Emma’s 60-Second Tip ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast ► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension ► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup  (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life) ► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft ► Watch The Podcasts On Youtube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos Transcript Bradley Sutton: Today we’ve got a listing optimization expert on the show who’s helped hundreds of Amazon sellers, and she’s gonna show her latest tactics and also show how for one Project X listing, she was able to double the conversion rate. How cool is that? Pretty cool I think. Bradley Sutton: 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 entering your poll or questions and within a short period of time, 50 to a hundred 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. Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers podcast by Helium 10. I’m your host, Bradley Sutton. And this is the show that’s a completely BS free, unscripted and unrehearsed organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. And I’m not going too far in the world away from me. About three, 400 miles in Las Vegas is where you’re at right now, right, Emma? Emma: Absolutely. Las Vegas, Nevada, Bradley Sutton: Trying to stay cool in that ridiculous desert heat We were just talking about. I’m melting here at 84, but what did you say it is where you are right now? Emma: A whopping 30 degrees more. It is 104 degrees Fahrenheit. Apparently my math is not mathy. This afternoon. Bradley Sutton: We’re gonna be talking about how to make your Amazon listings hot, hot, hot, 115 degrees. But, but yeah, it’s not in, in real life. I’m not about this life. Anyways, just to let people know, we had a little bit of your backstory in episode we did about a year ago, so if you guys wanted to check that out, go to h10.me/368. Or if you’re watching this on podcast or YouTube, just look for episode 360 8 from the podcast. Last year she was on with another friend of the show, Rich Goldstein. So that was a good episode to check out. But today we’re gonna be talking a lot about some case studies that Emma’s been working on with us, as well as some new content that this we’re gonna announce is gonna be available in Freedom Ticket. But before we get to there, let’s just talk about it. Vegas is not where you were born and raised. You just told me you moved from Missouri. So was that a difficult decision to ’cause Missouri to Vegas is kind of a geographically, and culturally, I think a kind of a big difference there. It’s Emma: Definitely a big difference. I’ve actually lived a lot of different places in my life, including out of the country. I studied abroad in Ecuador. I taught English in Spain. I lived in Israel for almost three years, so it actually wasn’t super difficult for me to decide to move to Vegas. I will say I wasn’t the most enthusiastic when my husband slash business partner eras first proposed the idea in my mind, Vegas was the strip and not much else. But as I’ve spent time here, I realized there’s a whole city beyond the strip, and it’s a really awesome place to get to spend my days. Bradley Sutton: Okay, cool, cool. Have you been to any of the Vegas, Amazon events since you’ve been there? Like Prosper and stuff, stuff that before you would have to take about two, three flights to get to, but now you just hop into an Uber and, and go to it. Have you been able to experience that yet? Emma: Yes, and it is amazing to go to an event and then know that you get to sleep in your own bed, <laugh> not have to stress about, Bradley Sutton: Ah, that’s a good point. Yep. Emma: <Laugh> no stressing about packing everybody’s living in a hotel, you’re just like, okay, goodnight. I’m gonna go get a good night’s sleep without any noisy neighbors or whatnot to worry about. I can brew myself my nice coffee in the morning. Yeah, it’s a, it’s, it’s a great place for the industry that we’re in, and it’s a great place to enjoy all the fun things that Vegas has to offer. Bradley Sutton: Okay, cool. Cool. We’re gonna be talking about some project, some, some Project X stuff here, but, but what about just your, your regular clients? Like any cool stories has happened since last year? I mean, obviously I know some people don’t want their products put on blast, but but any stories without, without burning somebody’s identity that you could say like, oh, you had one client and then you guys worked on this plan together, and oh my goodness, their sales doubled or some amazing story like that. Emma: A client actually, they didn’t know what was going on. Suddenly their sales were just going through the roof and they’re like, what’s happening? And an employee of mine noticed that they’d gone viral on TikTok and they didn’t know it. So they’re like, oh my gosh, what’s happening? So that was really cool just to be able to be a party to that whole experience, because that can really change a business and the snap of a finger and honestly create a whole lot of other challenges. It’s not all roses. It’s great to have lots of sales, but if you’re not really in a position to know how to manage it, it can definitely create some road bumps. But all the time– Bradley Sutton: Was that just random or, like just somebody randomly put it on TikTok or so you guys did that? Emma: No, I mean, obviously, well, not, obviously, they were most likely found originally by this person because they had a good listing that helped sell them on it. It wasn’t anything that was well known and then all of a sudden they just blew up. But all the time we have people contacting us about positive impacts that they’re enjoying everything from serious improvements to conversion on their conversion rates, to just completely changing the entire profile of their business. I think, obviously as many sales as possible is the really exciting part of what we do, but there are so many impacts that a well optimized listing can have on your business that go beyond just the conversions. So if you’re dealing with lower return rates or more enthusiastic positive reviews, all of those things kind of feed each other and create this positive momentum that can really strengthen and make a business more efficient so that it’s maximizing whatever spend you’re putting into it to get the most out of those investments. And then generating really positive returns. So I can’t even think of one in particular, but I just know that on a regular basis, we’re getting those messages of the positive ways that what we’re doing is impacting our clients’ businesses. Bradley Sutton: Okay, cool. Now, what do you think is one of the biggest factors nowadays that obviously I’m sure when you, when you take on clients, you, you, you, you give complete once over and, and optimize everything. But, what is the biggest game changer for your, your clients that you’ve done where like, people are just doing things the wrong way. Is it, like, on the p p C side, is it, is it going from no A+ Content to A+ Content? Is it creating a brand story? Is it refreshing the images? Is it just the listing copy, what all of this works together? Of course, you can’t have necessarily one for the other, but if you would point to one of those things that really consistently makes a big difference what would you say it is? Emma: I don’t want to speculate just purely based on one particular part of the listing. My gut tells me that probably A+ Content is one of the most significant things that you can upload to a listing and have a positive impact. But I don’t have those, that exact enough data to be able to say with certainty. But the reason why I would say that is a few fold. So one being that Amazon comes out and says, A+ Content positively impacts your conversion rate, and they’ve clearly got all the data on that. Sure. Two, you’re gaining more space for SEO because you have the image keywords. So you have a lot of additional fields that you can fill in with keywords that you wouldn’t have previously. So we’re having an impact on SEO, we’re having an impact on the customer experience. You also have an opportunity to be able to upsell or cross-sell with with that comparison chart module, whether you have standard A+ or Premium A+. So it just is influencing so many different aspects of of what you’re trying to do that I feel like that has the most far reaching elements. So I guess that would be my answer. Bradley Sutton: Well, pre Premium A+. That’s kind of a newer thing for some people because like, like that wasn’t always available just to the, the masses. What have you been seeing, like, like would you suggest to everybody, Hey, get qualified for Premium A+ Content and 10 out of 10 implement it? Or have you seen cases where putting the effort and spending to get a video and this and that, like it really didn’t change conversion much? Or is it something that you suggest to everybody to get to do Emma: To me while it’s free? This, so originally, for those that aren’t familiar, premium, a plus used to only be something that was available to a very select group of very large businesses. It was invite only, and you still had to pay a lot of money in order to, to be eligible for it. So about a year ago, Amazon made it available to any seller that is brand registered, has had has uploaded a brand story and has had at least 15 pieces of enhanced brand content approved within the last 12 months. So you don’t, you no longer have to spend money in order to qualify for the program. Of course, creating premium A+ Content is going to come with a heftier bill, just because there are more dynamic modules, you’re able to upload more images, it’s wider screen. So even having better resolution images, all of that definitely matters, but if you are able to qualify for it, I think that there are so many of the modules that give you so much better ability to really present your product in a way that is more aligned with what a customer is wanting and expecting to see when they’re interacting with a website. Emma: From that perspective alone, it’s worth making the effort. You also, if you are low on budget, you don’t have to upload a video, or if you do upload a video, it can be something very simple. You don’t have to go have a super highly produced video. I mean, I think one of the interesting things, even with this case study that we’ve been working on, Bradley, is these are images that Shivali created, she didn’t go to some high priced photographer to get everything done. And, and so it really demonstrates the ability that no matter where you are budget-wise, there’s still a lot that you can do to make the most of the tools that Amazon is giving you in order to be able to sell your product to the best of its abilities. And then maybe as you gain more traction, as you add more products to your catalog, then perhaps it’s worth taking it to the next level and, and upgrading the quality of your images. But I, I wouldn’t let that be a barrier to you. There’s so many different levels of photography and design out there, and with AI you can do some good design work without needing to be an expert at Photoshop anymore. And so, yeah. Bradley Sutton: Yeah, Let me just show the results. I know we’re gonna show the results and then work our way back and kind of reverse engineer what happened. But let me just share my screen here for those, watching this on YouTube, and I’m just taking a look at the product performance page in Helium 10 for this Egg Rack. And if I’m looking back at, when is this the first 10 days of May, which is before on our old listing we had a unit session percentage, as you guys can see of 4.93%. Now, sales were still pretty high because in those days we were the, like, all those days, as in all of two months ago, we were the only game in town as far as this particular kind of product for like a year. Bradley Sutton: We kind of had a stranglehold. Now it was interesting, went out of stock like for a couple of weeks, but during that time around June was tons of competitors, Chinese competitors came in and are like, I wouldn’t say half the price, but, but very, very cheap price. So like, theoretically you would’ve thought our sales would go to zero because our sessions were way down. But take a look at this guys. If I go up here, as you can see from the first 10 days, so a kind of apples to apples comparison first 10 days of July, and then we look at that same product, look at our unit session percentage now went to 11.24, so more than double my sales would’ve been dead because like, our, our sessions have gone way down, but our sales have not gone down as much as one would expect thanks to this much better conversion rate on the page. Bradley Sutton: So let me just show you the end result here of what what was done. We have new images here. What we’re gonna talk about your thought process here with these. We’ve got some new copy right here. We’ve got new bullet points and this listing did not have A+ Content, and now we can see some A+ Content here. So I know it’s been a couple months since you worked in this, but, but think back to the think back to the, your thought process when you saw the old listing, which was just thrown together, you know a while back as part of a Project X like episode or something we had done. But like, what was, what was the things that jumped off where you’re like, okay, yeah, we definitely need to upgrade this? Emma: There were a lot of things for, I mean, first of all, clearly there was no A+ Content, so that was a no-brainer for us. The images were just a few basic product images. So we, I don’t bel if I remember correctly, and I could be mistaken, there were minimal lifestyle images. I don’t think any of them really had text in them, which, we’ll, we can get into that and, and why that’s so important. And the bullet points were not the worst, but pretty bland, just sort of straightforward. They didn’t really have anything that helped to communicate why you a person would want to buy this type of egg rack in particular. Another thing that we noticed is that it was very limited in sort of how the product itself was being presented. And so that was something else that we really thought about as we were embarking on this revamp, was how can we think creatively of who’s going to be buying this, why they would be buying this, how they can make the most of it, and put together a strategy that’s going to address all of those things throughout the entire listing. Emma: So really bringing to it a clear sense of who the customer is, what they care about, and why this product is, is the best product out there, rather than just kind of a more basic explanation of what it is, and then allowing the customer to decide that. Bradley Sutton: Yeah, and we in the past I’ve worked a lot with professional photography studios and three d like AMZ One Step in others, but, but as you said sometimes sellers might not have a thousand dollars, $1,500 depending on what what kind of a shoot it’s done to, to really be able to, to, to afford something that extravagant. And we want to show kind of like, Hey, if you don’t have that kind of budget, maybe you could only afford hiring somebody from Upwork, perhaps to do some Photoshopping after you’ve taken some pictures with some decent pictures with cell phone or, or you have a nice camera. And actually all these pictures, guys, like, I’m pretty sure this is Shivali’s father’s hand. He’s got some bling here, some gold bling here. He is now a hand model. Bradley Sutton: Here, these are all pictures done, like with Shivali’s cell phone at her house in North Carolina. A hundred percent of these, this doesn’t look like Shivali. So I’m not sure if this was like a stock photography or, or something here, but everything, like how did you go about this? Did you like give her directions, like, alright, hey, I need a shot, like in a fridge, or, or did you just tell her to just take random pictures or did you give her like this specific direction here on this stuff? Emma: Yeah, so we gave pretty specific directions. That’s one thing in general, whether you’re working on a listing or a website or anything that has multiple professionals involved, and they don’t have to be contractors, they can be people on your team, it’s helpful to have someone taking the lead so that there is a clear unifying concept because otherwise everybody’s working individually and then trying to match that up and make something work is really difficult. So we gave a creative brief that suggested the different types of images to create so that those images would then align with the text that we were writing, so that it would be a very strong piece of marketing to gather when you combine those two things. So the image and the text are reinforcing each other. And so in those images, I think we have everything. I mean, some of these are even reflected in the keyword research, right? Emma: So kind of to take a step back for a moment, your research for creating a listing is really going to help determine the direction that you take. And so part of that is the keyword research that you’re doing. So seeing what kind of keywords are people searching for? That was one of the things that was really eye-opening for us because we realized, hey, there are a lot of competitors that are using terms like cake pop holder or all these little serving because it has these holes in it that make it so that it can be really great for single serving things if you’re hosting a party or wanting to display food somewhere. And so we didn’t want to stay so limited only to being an egg holder because there were all of these other ways that you can utilize it. And the keywords were really what illuminated that opportunity for us. Emma: And so then we wanted to make sure, well, if we’re using keywords like that, then we also need to be showing people what we mean when we say something like a cake pop holder so that they can visualize it and imagine what it would be like to be hosting a party. And this, this egg holder, it’s a more rustic design. It’s wood, it’s kind of a traditional and a little bit timeless too, where it’s very possible that the people that are buying this, they like things that are going to last that they’re also going to be able to maybe use in a variety of ways so that they’re not just buying something that only has one function in their household, but something that they have that they can use in different types of settings. So it really even expands what the possibilities are and even helps to justify the investment a little bit more since this is a on the pricier end of an egg holder. So that’s one example. It’s an, another set of keywords was talking about an egg holder for the refrigerator. This egg holder can be used either in the refrigerator or either on the counter. So being able to demonstrate those things in the images was really important so that people can visualize, okay, this is what it would look like if I put it on my countertop. This is how it would function if I put it in my refrigerator. And, and helping to create those connections for people makes the purchasing decision much easier. Bradley Sutton: Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. But what you said, it seems like without me talking to you at all during this process, what you, how you just described this egg rack seems like exactly the way that you, that you tackled that project as well. So this is kind of like a, a template guys of you, you could be in a gothic category, you could be in a kitchen category you could be in supplements, but the the principles are the same. Now that being said, what, or are there categories or kinds of products where your approach actually is different than what you’ve been talking about because something different works in different categories? Or is this approach that you’ve been talking about applicable to most and I’m not, of course, obviously I’m not talking about books or, or something like that, but just most regular products. Emma: Yeah, so I think the main difference is, so both in the gothic item as well as with the egg holder, these are a little bit more niche products. So they’re not as competitive as category of categories. And so you can go a little bit broader with how you position something. Whereas on the other side, if you are selling something that’s in a very competitive category, then it’s actually a much better approach, especially when you’re a new brand and you’re launching the very beginning to go hyper-specific. So you don’t want to expand out too and go in too many different directions because it’s going to be really difficult and very expensive to try to gain any kind of traction. So you mentioned supplements. If you’re just selling like a fish oil or something like that, which I’m not recommending that you sell fish oil, well, if you just try to sell general fish oil, like an average fish hold oil, that would be good for any single person to take. Emma: You’re not going to go anywhere with that. You’re gonna spend a lot of money and you’re just going to die a slow death on a, a page, whatever, a hundred. Yeah. whereas if you were to maybe identify through doing some keyword research that there’s are actually a lot of people that are searching for fish oil for recovery from knee replacement surgery. I’m just making this up, then it might be worthwhile to make your listing hyper targeted to people that are going through knee replacement surgery. So instantly, what is that going to mean for you? People that are getting knee replacements most of the time are older. And so you wanna make sure in that case that like the images of people that you’re using are older people that are, it’s going to make sense that they’re getting knee replacements versus if you have a bunch of young looking athletes, there’s going to be a big disconnect there. Emma: And so I think that’s one of the main elements that you would want to be using in order to determine your approach to how to go. It’s very easy especially as a new seller to kind of get starry-eyed and want to just sell to everyone. And I encourage people to really resist that urge and try to start off quite specific. And then if you eventually want to get a little bit more aggressive, once you have some reviews, have some good movement, demonstrate that this is something that has potential, then maybe you can get a little bit more aggressive with that. But yeah, I would say that overall, aside from that, the basic principles of making sure that the keywords that somebody is searching are also reflected in the content, and that I don’t think is always the most obvious thing. Emma: We think of keywords as the thing that gets people in the door, but if that’s what’s on someone’s mind when they’re going into the search bar to search for a product, and then you’re showing them, Hey, this is what you were searching, that’s going to help them understand like, oh, this is, I’m in the right place. I wasn’t just Amazon didn’t just take me to some random product that doesn’t have anything at all to do with what I was searching for, which as a customer, I’ve had that happen plenty of times. Bradley Sutton: Okay. So now one of the big things that you, you tackle with this, like you said we did not have A+ Content. So I know there’s like different, different ways to, to kind of tackle A+ Content. Some people like to just have kind of like, make it seem like it’s almost all one image and, and that it just kind of flows, but it’s really different images. ’cause That’s what A+ Content makes you put it in modules. But what was your reasoning behind this kind of like, approach here? And I see a lot of like there’s like it seems like you’re, you’re focusing in on some of the features of it like, like the, the wood finish and then how it has these pegs so that doesn’t go over. Bradley Sutton: You show an actual chicken coop. I’m assuming this is maybe to go along with the branding here. And then you show some other use cases like, looks like some chocolate, I’m getting hungry as it is like you said, the cake pops, and then now you can also show how you can, I mean, so you’re saying a, there, there’s like a lot going on here. Do you always wanna focus on the features like this, or sometimes you, you tell a story more, it just depends on the product? Or is this kind of like your plan for A+ Content? Emma: I would say it all really depends on the product and what’s required. And the approach really is what do we feel that the customer needs to know? What’s really important about the product that we need to communicate? And also what are the things that are really going to resonate with somebody or make them care about something? And so there were certain design features that we felt like were very important to this product that we did want to highlight. So the fact that it’s solid wood showing the fact that it’s stackable and expandable, I am imagining this and sort of the, the avatar that we had in our minds, which for those that aren’t familiar with what an avatar is, it’s essentially sort of an imaginary person with a very detailed profile that is a potential customer of yours. Emma: And it can be a really helpful tool when you are creating any kind of marketing content so that you’re writing specifically to a person instead of just kind of to a whole blob of potential buyers. And so we’re imagining someone that either aspires to have chickens or maybe even has chickens. It’s actually a very popular lifestyle to to have some backyard chickens and raise your own eggs. But if you can’t do that, maybe going to the farmer’s market. And there’s a lot of different ideas that are kind of tied up in that. And so we wanted to draw that connection because it’s very different than if you’re purely just needing function and you don’t care about how it looks like and you don’t really care about the whole idea of everything, then you can just buy a cheap acrylic or plastic egg holder that you can put in your refrigerator and that’s that. Emma: But this is something that can be a really nice piece on your counter and is something that’s going to last and that’s sort of aligns with visually the look of that rustic homesteading lifestyle that might just be aspirational or is in fact something that they’re pursuing. And so thinking about, the host, the gracious host the person that’s wanting to eat healthy, all of the different ideas that are associated with that, and then wanting to present that in a way that is visually helping to communicate those ideas. And then textual textually reinforcing the key details. Bradley Sutton: Now you what you just said was just some of your tips for A+ Content, now you actually redid one of our older modules that needed some refreshing in, in freedom ticket. So guys go into a Freedom Ticket. And I want you guys those of you who have Helium 10 and we’re trying to always update ones that, that might need refreshing, but go into 8.11. It’s week eight, 8.11. You’ll see Emma’s new module here. And then around eight it’s not showing up here right now, but around 8.13, 8.15 About, you’re gonna see another module. And what was that one about? So it wasn’t about A+ Content, but what was the other one you made about? Emma: Yeah, so that one is sort of for a slightly people that they’ve, they have a listing and they’re trying to figure out do does it need work? So sort of how to think about is it worth it? Is it time to do some revamping? So thinking about really that optimization process of you have a listing, it’s existing in the world, how can you think strategically about that to really take your listing to the next level? Bradley Sutton: Cool. Cool. So good stuff there, guys. Make sure to check that out. And and once it’s once if you haven’t seen it yet, I might have a clip of it. I’ll try and throw it into the Weekly Buzz or something as well. Alright, now, now before we get into your last Amazon tip of the day one thing I ask people 2023 is my year of health and wellness. So like, what are some of your habits as far as like hobbies when you need to get away from, from the Amazon world what are some things that you’re doing to keep yourself physically, mentally healthy? Emma: Yeah, I would say the top one is an evening walk. It sounds really simple and basic. The evening walk is having to get later and later as the temperatures rise because 7:00 PM is still pretty toasty here, but it’s great. I would say for all health it’s fantastic exercise. Walking is still shown to be one of the best ways of, of exercising your body, but it’s also, it’s great to be outside. I think it’s very good for your mental health and I, I feel so much better when I am walking regularly. Also drinking a lot of water should not be underappreciated. And especially again, in the climate that I’m in, I feel like I’m in a losing battle, but most of the time when I don’t feel well, I’m thinking like, okay, what’s going on? And then I sort of run my mental checklist of how many cups of water I’ve had. And so often, either if it’s a headache or I’m feeling a little bit lethargic, it’s just because I haven’t had enough water. So two really simple, basic things, but I think that some of those types of things can have the biggest impact. So Bradley Sutton: I like it. Now before we get into your Amazon hacker, if people want to find you on the interwebs, one of the easiest ways is through Helium 10 guys. Just go to hub.helium10.com and just type in Marketing by Emma actually comes up right here in the auto complete, but Marketing by Emma. And then you’ll be able to reach out. And then if you’re an Elite member, you actually have some discounts, like I’m an elite member so I can get some discounts. If you’re a Helium 10 member, there might be different discounts that, that, that end up here. But make sure to hit the get in touch. How else can people find you on the interwebs out there? Emma: Yeah, so our marketingbyemma.com is probably one of the best places to go. And on our website you’ll be able to find, if you’re more of a phone person, you can call us, you can WhatsApp us, you can text us, you can email. All the things are there. We also offer a free listing analysis. So if you see all of this and you’re like, I don’t know, this is over my head, please take a look at it and tell me what I’m doing wrong, we can do that. Also, Bradley Sutton: I’m looking here, 92 5-star reviews. Good grief here in the hub. And guys, when you, when you see verified reviewer, that means they were signed into Helium 10 when they left the reviews. So you could, you could see lots of verified reviews here, just like on Amazon. My goodness, pretty impressive. I like it. Alright, now what’s your last 62nd or 32nd tip of the day or strategy that you can share with everybody? Emma: I think I just wanna talk about the importance of understanding your competitors and going super niche. I think that ultimately Amazon is getting more and more competitive. You are dealing with it yourself, with this a rack holder and fight the urge to want to go broad instead, go specific. Find those opportunities. They always exist. And the more niche you can go, the more opportunity you have to be able to really connect deeply with customers, get that fan that fan loyalty, that excitement around your product, and then you can just use that to build your momentum. So we see that in many of the biggest D2C brands out there, not just on Amazon. It’s a really effective strategy. And as AI becomes even more dominant, it’s, it’s more and more important to go specific to strategically position and to be clear about what makes you special, and then really highlight and celebrate that so that people have a reason to buy from you. Bradley Sutton: Awesome. Thank you so much for joining us and thanks for your great work on this egg rack. And yeah, like if you, if you want to go tweak it now, after seeing it and knowing what’s going on, let’s work on it some more and then share results later with it, with everybody. Awesome. Emma: I would love to. Thanks so much Bradley.

Let’s catch up on the latest ventures of Crystal Ren, an Amazon seller from Singapore, after exiting her Amazon brand last year. She also shares how she successfully utilizes other people’s money for her new brand, while also addressing the intersection of consumer goods and mental health services. Get an exclusive insight into Crystal’s new Amazon business and learn valuable strategies for achieving consistent profits and income. Crystal divulges her Amazon launch strategy and her valuable sourcing and negotiation tips and learn essential lessons from Crystal’s recent trips in other Asian countries. Find out Crystal’s exciting outlook for 2023 and beyond. In episode 478 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Crystal discuss: • 01:30 – Remembering Bradley’s Trip In Singapore • 03:05 – What Is Crystal Up To These Days? • 06:01 – Using Other People’s Money For Business • 08:08 – Consumer Goods & Mental Health Services • 11:10 – Diving Into Crystal’s New Amazon Business • 12:50 – Making Profits And Consistent Income • 17:06 – Crystal’s Amazon Launch Strategy • 19:09 – How To Win The Amazon Game • 22:54 – Crystal’s Healthy Habits & Hobbies To Relax • 27:28 – Sourcing & Negotiation Tips • 33:51 – Lessons Learned From Recent Trips In Asia • 37:02 – Crystal’s Outlook For 2023 And Next Year • 39:07 – How To Reach Out Crystal Ren • 40:01 – Crystal Ren’s 30-Second Tip ► 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 Let’s catch up on the latest ventures of Crystal Ren, an Amazon seller from Singapore, after exiting her Amazon brand last year. She also shares how she successfully utilizes other people’s money for her new brand, while also addressing the intersection of consumer goods and mental health services. Get an exclusive insight into Crystal’s new Amazon business and learn valuable strategies for achieving consistent profits and income. Crystal divulges her Amazon launch strategy and her valuable sourcing and negotiation tips and learn essential lessons from Crystal’s recent trips in other Asian countries. Find out Crystal’s exciting outlook for 2023 and beyond. In episode 478 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Crystal discuss: • 01:30 – Remembering Bradley’s Trip In Singapore • 03:05 – What Is Crystal Up To These Days? • 06:01 – Using Other People’s Money For Business • 08:08 – Consumer Goods & Mental Health Services • 11:10 – Diving Into Crystal’s New Amazon Business • 12:50 – Making Profits And Consistent Income • 17:06 – Crystal’s Amazon Launch Strategy • 19:09 – How To Win The Amazon Game • 22:54 – Crystal’s Healthy Habits & Hobbies To Relax • 27:28 – Sourcing & Negotiation Tips • 33:51 – Lessons Learned From Recent Trips In Asia • 37:02 – Crystal’s Outlook For 2023 And Next Year • 39:07 – How To Reach Out Crystal Ren • 40:01 – Crystal Ren’s 30-Second Tip Transcript Bradley Sutton: Crystal’s back on the show to talk about what she did after her big Amazon exit last year, and how she started a new brand this year with other people’s money. And she gives us her best sourcing tips and more. How cool is that? Pretty cool I think. Bradley Sutton: How can you get more buyers to leave you Amazon product reviews by following up with them in a way that’s compliant with Amazon terms of service? You can use Helium 10 Follow-up in order to automatically send out Amazon’s request a review emails to any customers you want. Not just that, but you can specify when they get the message and even filter out people that you don’t want to get that message, such as people who have asked for refunds or maybe ones that you gave discounts to. For more information, visit H ten.me forward slash follow up. You can sign up for a free account, or you can sign it up for a platinum plan and get 10% off for life by using the discount code SSP10. Bradley Sutton: Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers podcast by Helium 10. I’m your host, Bradley Sutton. This is the show that’s a completely BS free, unscripted and unrehearsed organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. And speaking of different parts of the world, we are going right now, I believe. Are we live in Singapore? Is that where you’re at right now? Crystal: That’s correct, yes. Bradley Sutton: All the way back in Singapore. It was nice to be out in Singapore a couple times. Was it this year or last year? But I got to do the touristy things there, like see the gardens and look at some places. That was in one of my Korean dramas I was watching, so, so I love it out there in Singapore. But this is not your first time on our show. Crystal has been on the show. We’re not gonna go too much into her backstory because we have it in, I have it written here in my notes, episode 351. Bradley Sutton: So if you guys wanna find out her crazy story about how I discovered her from an Amazon YouTube channel and then found out that she had invested a hundred thousand dollars into her first Amazon business and brought it up to seven figures how to exit. And basically that was, you know, I don’t know about by a year and a half, or a little bit less than a year and a half ago. So now this episode, we’re not gonna be going into too much of the backstory, you know, but again, if you’re watching or listening to this and this is your first time listening to to Crystal, maybe maybe pause this. Go to h10.me/351, Get her backstory. ’cause We’re gonna be talking about it as if you guys know about it already. So, Crystal we were just talking like, I, I know you’ve been traveling a lot all over the world, going to weddings and going back home to, to China and everything, but I, I want to go all the way back to the last time we talked. And at that time you were not, I wouldn’t want, I don’t wanna say retired, but you were kind of like still in the aftermath of your exit and just kind of like kicking back and traveling and stuff, so That’s right. Was that pretty much your life for a year or so or what was going on after that exit? Crystal: Yeah, no, so actually when we talk, I believe it was pretty much exactly a year ago, I was, as you said, traveling and also kind of manage my finances at the time because you know, I think this should be in the 30-second tip, but I’ll say it now anyway. I think once after you have an accident, it’s actually better to have a plan before you even exit it, just because otherwise you’re gonna find yourself in a situation. And now this is not just for me. Like I heard other sellers saying the same thing, like, it will be a period of time when like, you’re just like, what am I gonna do next? And I heard, you know, people saying that, you know, for a few month or maybe like a year, they’re just like, oh, like, you know what’s next? Crystal: So I know people who have the plan before they make an exit, perhaps they already started another, the brand or like, they know, you know, they’re gonna dedicate a few months traveling. So they’re planning that already. Like, I felt like that will make your timeline more productive. And I didn’t do that. So like, I kind of regret it now. And another part that I should say, like I just didn’t know was like how much hassle it goes into manage your finances, because after you have an exit, like you kind of need to decide where do you want to put the money into, right? Like that also took some time for me to like figure out like, how should I allocate, you know, invest this and that. And I would say like, you know, doing business and investing is completely two different ballgame. Crystal: Yeah. Some people hire, you know, professional investment professionals for them. Like, it’s funny ’cause I actually had my CFA I used to work in investment bank, but when it come down to your own money, you still think about it differently and you are so much more like risk averse, minus so many. So I felt like that is actually worth some time into it, but I just unfortunately, like underestimated how much time that it would take. So it took me a few months to kind of get my things together. And I was traveling, you know, I think in Europe, in France going to, you know, weddings, I think I was in New York San Francisco. I was in Vegas for the prosper show. So I did a lot of traveling then. But then around August I started to start, you know, preparing for my second brand. So this time around I did a little bit differently. So I, last time I completely bootstrapped it which means I used a hundred percent of my own saving. But this time I actually looked for investors. So I talk to VCs, like I talk to individual investors family and friends. So like, I actually, this time around, I’m using other people’s money to Bradley Sutton: Well, let me stop you there and ask you about that, because the first time that was, I mean, that you had a lot already a lot saved up. Now you had to exit. So you actually had, I would even imagine more cash. Why the decision to use OPM other people’s money instead of instead of your own, like the first time, you Crystal: Know, the thing is that I could, right, but then I was kind of more thinking about exploring different options, and then I was thinking, I wasn’t sure what kind of values investors might add, you know, kind of what kind of perspectives they might give it to me. And you know, like what, they take me to a different height. So that’s what I was thinking, kind of ’cause a lot of friends around me, I mean, to be honest, I’m a rarity. Like most people I know, they start business with VCs or like other investors. So that’s why I was thinking, okay, maybe I should also explore that as well. But I’m gonna tell you about conclusion after that. But that’s kind of what I was thinking in my head, so that’s why I kind of spent a month just talking to different investors and see what they think, et cetera. Bradley Sutton: How did you approach that? You know, like, are these people that were already in your network or did you go to some kind of like website where, where you can meet them or, or networking events? How did you meet these, these people? I Crystal: Think those are mostly kind of in my network or like, friends, friends or like, you know, people introduce me to people. I think that if I’m not mistaken, when it comes to investors, it’s much harder to cold call. So like, if you got referred by other people and then then they already kind of, you know, you have that weak link. It’s much better to get the bonding from them and, and to kind of build that trust. And also you can like gonna sit down and talk about it in person, you know, like maybe have a cup of coffee together. Like it’s all about trust, right? For these kind of relationships. Bradley Sutton: Okay. Interesting. So these were people, you know, outside, I’m assuming maybe outside of the Amazon world, mainly? Crystal: Yes. Yeah. Bradley Sutton: So I’m just curious, like what’s the impression of, of these, you know, these hardcore maybe investors Yeah. That had no experience on Amazon. You explain how Amazon works. Like, are they, like, what are you serious? Like, or did they pretty much, do they pretty much know the the game? Crystal: So I think and I felt like I wanted to get into it later, is that I never kind of positioned myself as a Amazon only business because I try to position myself as like, Hey, I wanted to do this brand and this is what I’m thinking about. And this is my direction, this is my track record. So I think if you were only talking about Amazon, then most investors these days think about aggregators and, you know, aggregators, you know,, let’s be honest. Like, you know, they don’t, a lot of them failed. So like, it kind of doesn’t give like Amazon, like a good rap on the street when it come down to investors. So like, I would just kind of tell them that, you know, this is my track record and yeah, this is what I wanted to do, you know, this is the gap in the market, et cetera. But, Bradley Sutton: And also, yeah, so I mean, it was, yeah. For somebody brand new, it might have been harder. First of all, they don’t have people in their network like that and then coming in with no tracker, but you, you can show them, Hey, you know, or first of all, you know me, you know, like, because these are people from your network. And second of all, Hey guys, here’s my resume of already exiting a and building a big business. So that definitely helped. I’m sure. Crystal: Yeah. I felt like it helped, but also in the meantime, like I felt like investors are naturally skeptical. So even if you have a track record, like they, they might be willing to take a call with you, but it doesn’t mean that they will give you the money, you know? So it’s like they always have this sort of KPIs where like they’re, oh, tell me about it while you hit this KPI or something like that. And my conclusion, by the way, even though I raised some money, but like, I kind of stopped at some point because my conclusion is that for a consumer goods business, if you do have a good product, you don’t need to raise a lot of investors money.. So I felt like investors put a lot of money into say something like a technology, because technology has a long process of RnD. Crystal: And that process needs a lot of funding because it’s gonna go through a period of time when that happens, there’s no return, you know, they don’t have any income or something like that. Versus for a consumer goods business the setup capital is much lower than a high tech company. And your product, if it does well, can fund your business going forward. So technically it’s kind of like a cash flow business. It doesn’t need like that millions of dollars to start off with in the first place, unless you are, you know, like I felt like in the, say 10 years ago when the D two C model was much more popular in investors’ world, where like they will spend a lot of money building like website, you know, putting in advertisements, money, like pr, you know, that kind of things where like they build a hype up. But that’s a different model, so that’s not Amazon, right? So and that’s kind of my conclusion after the whole, you know, experiencing fundraising. Bradley Sutton: Okay. So for your new Amazon business, did you end up choosing somebody and, and saying, Hey, let, let’s work on this together? Or did you end, at the end of the day, end up using your own money again? Crystal: Yeah, so I did use some of their I, I use other people’s money to build this business. But I also put my own money into it. Bradley Sutton: And when you approached them, like, did you already have like did you already have the product in mind and, and the, the brand in mind? Or were you just like, Hey, let’s build something together and let’s work on it together and decide what it is? How did that work? Crystal: It’s funny because I felt like you know, we’re talking about there’s different wrongs in this world, right? Like, we’re talking about this like very early angel wrong and you know, friends and family wrong, like just super early, right? So I felt like for that wrong, it, it’s really just like people’s faith in you. Because if you’re talking about like seed wrong or like series A you already have a product that you have some, like product market fit, it can show traction. It’s a completely different topic. ’cause People was, they started to see a track record of this business, like, you know, oh, this is a product, you know, this is how market reacts to it. But like, when I first started off, like had a rough idea of like what I wanted to do, and I have a rough idea of like what my product’s gonna look like, but I had nothing, you know, like I hadn’t really built it. And I was just like, okay guys, this is what I wanted to do. So that was a very different conversation. I felt like people kind of bad on me because like, they believe in me, and obviously I pivoted at the idea later. So, so yeah, it’s interesting, you know, like to go through the process. Bradley Sutton: Okay. Alright. So actually no, I didn’t, I didn’t remember this but I was looking at the notes that our podcast director Mhel prepared, and one thing you had mentioned in the last episode, or the last year’s episode was, was you were perhaps thinking if you were gonna start another Amazon brand, you wanted to do something that was either consumer goods or something that actually had dealt with like mental health. Did you end up going that direction or what? Crystal: Yeah, so it’s funny ’cause I actually looked hard along to the mental health business, and I try to like kind of merge these two together where like I have a consumer goods business in mental health. And I honestly, like, this is what I discovered, okay. Like, you can do a consumer goods business, like the old D2C model where you have this amazing product, this shark tank, you know, it’s on Kickstarter and you know, whatever, right? Like the, the way the blanket in like 2010, 10 years ago where like they raised like $5 million the first like, you know, when they first got money from Kickstarters. Or you can do Amazon business. And it’s really hard to kind of merge these two together because the, the way to think about like a ground big breaking product idea and kind of do a lot of RnD in it, that is like the Shopify business, right? Crystal: And kind of create that desire and demand in the market, or that you just follow the market demand what you see on Amazon and the way to think about these two and the abilities you use is also different. So for Amazon, it’s a lot more, you know, data analysis, like profit and loss analysis and like do some incremental innovation. But you go with the market demand and the other one is like you completely just created, right? Like, you are like, okay, like I want the market to have this product. It’s amazing. So I felt like in my mind at the time, like I wanted to do mental health, but the, the products that, you know, like the market demands in that, in the mental health space, in terms of physical products, it’s so limited. Like mental health is always like a service and is extremely customized to each, at every one of them I have looking to Amazon. Crystal: And there are some products, like for example focus on autism, right? A very niche market, but like, it’s a good, it’s a good market, but it’s very li very, very limited. So at the time, I was say, okay, like I needed to broaden my hypothesis if I wanted to play the Amazon game. So that’s why I started expanding to wellness and beauty. So like, not just mental health, but like more kind of wellness and alternative heating methods. But that’s like kind of a technology, device products, right? So I end up going that route. So I end up, you know, I did create something like that, but it was just not like, you know, strictly in mental health. Bradley Sutton: Okay. Now again, last year, you know, the, the crazy stat from from your episode was that, you know, regardless of, you know, it was your money, but regardless of whose money it was, it was, you had invested a hundred thousand dollars, you know, into the company this year. Like you said, you got you know, some investors, but overall, regardless of whose money it was how much was your initial startup cost this time around? Was it also, did you also do a crazy six figure investment like that? Or did you start with less? Crystal: So the hundred thousand dollars investment I did at the time, that was the first year’s investment. So, which means those are the money I put in like over the time in the first year, right? Bradley Sutton: I thought it was like a hundred thousand before you even had one sale or something. I was about, that was why it was crazy to me,, I was like, what in the world? Yeah, Crystal: Okay. But, you know, I did put that a hundred thousand dollars aside, like, I protect it, you know? So I was like, okay, this is money for the business, right? Like, I’m not gonna, I’m gonna starve myself before I even use that money. So like, that’s kind of the spirit behind it. And this time around, it’s the same thing. I putting like, I would say a little bit less than that, but like so far, but still quite a bit, you know, into the business. Bradley Sutton: Okay. All right. So when did you actually launch the product? Like what month? Crystal: Yeah, so officially, it’s month launched this year in January. It started in January. It’s a bit of a tricky category because it’s like kind of linked to medical device. So I got a lot of like you know, the, the restricted product and it got taken down, got taken down again, you know, so, so a lot of that kind of delayed the product launch. Bradley Sutton: Okay. But and then did you start with one SKU, or did you have a variety of ones that you started with? Crystal: Yeah, so I did start with like two, three SKUs. So like, I kind of just go hard on it for a little bit. Instead of last time where like, I think even last time I was going a bit aggressive too, compared to, you know, some other people. Like I probably start with one, but then I added two the month after. So so far, like I have had three, four SKUs. Bradley Sutton: Okay. And how has it has it done? I mean, obviously, like you said, you’ve run into some, some hiccups. Have those hiccups been resolved and Amazon is not restricting it anymore? And then do you have steady sales now? Yeah, I have any of the products failed already or have any of them taken off? What’s going on? Crystal: So I have I have I mean, I’ll say most of existing products, SKUs, they’re quite stable and they’re generating sales, but I constantly would have new SKUs that I wanna launch to be taken down. So like in this category, I think that’s just a constant struggle. And as far as I know, like, not just me, but like anybody in this kind of like medical ish wellness space you just need to be extremely careful of what you say, otherwise you need to have f d a approval, this and that. Bradley Sutton: What attracted you to, like, to make you pick this? Did you just see some, some, a lot of demand and, and the existing competition was you felt not strong and easily beatable, or is this something that you thought, you know, maybe the demand isn’t quite there, but you foresee the demand going up? Or what made you choose this? Crystal: Yeah, so I think my logic to play Amazon game is very similar. I think that Amazon is a very bottom of the funnel channel. So like, you know, think about Shopify or whatever, that’s like a top of the funnel channel where like people go there and it’s cold tropic, but like unless they know your brands and they go look for it. But like for Amazon, it’s the bottom of the funnel. So like you cannot be the market demand, in my opinion, right? Like, the easiest way to go with it is just to kind of flow with it. So I always take the approach where, like, I want to be in a market where there is demand and there’s less competition. So like, I think everybody does it slightly differently, but like, that’s just kind of my logic always. Yeah. Bradley Sutton: Okay. What has been your best month? So far of sales? Crystal: My month of sales has always been quite stable, like, around, you know, five figures. So that’s kind of, because I haven’t really launched more products. I think last product launch was February, March, so that has been like, kind of constant stable figure. Bradley Sutton: Is it profitable already or it’s still trying. Well that’s pretty good. That’s, that, that’s not something that always can be, can be achieved. All right. So what was your strategy for launching? Did you just use PPC or did you build up a, a social media? Did you send outside traffic run any Google ads or anything like that? Crystal: Yeah, so like, I’m planning on Google ads later on. So far for the products I launched, I actually just used via PPC. And then but I think I’m gonna probably start running Google Ads very soon in the future. I think it’s also because at the time my website, I just built it and like, I didn’t quite like it, so I didn’t want it to, I guess you can run Google ads to Amazon, but, you know, like I was like, okay I’m not sure if you know, this brands look legit, you know, with my website. Like, I didn’t really feel like it was up for it. So I didn’t really wanna go outside of Amazon, but I think over time I’ll start to run those outside traffic as well. Bradley Sutton: Okay. All right, cool. What are some other strategies that, that you utilize ’cause it’s like, not everybody can, can be making over $10,000 a month right Off the, right off the bat, you know? ’cause That means it’s already Yeah. Instantly six figure, six figure business. So what helped you you know, in this very difficult niche to already start, you know, having that kind of volume? Crystal: I think first of all, like, I always tell people, and, and I would actually like to, you know, talk to you about, you know, some insights I’ve noticed in my recent trips in Vietnam and China, talking to Amazon sellers there. But I think, and this is what I tell them, by the way is that like your product in Amazon business in not, we’re not talking about the Shark Tank, whatever, like Shopify business in Amazon business products, 80%, and the rest is 20%. If you have a great product and the like, in terms of it meets the market demand, the rest of things are like not as good. It doesn’t matter. People also gonna buy a product. So the product comes first, and that is your quality of products that will be measured by the, you know, your rating, right? And so if you have these two things, then you’re pretty much winning most of the game. So that’s what I kind of do too. I will only place an order if I’m a hundred percent confident in the product, and that’s what I will say, like I do. And then the second thing is I try to build my credibility for these kind of niches. Yeah, it’s very important to have credibility. We’re Bradley Sutton: Gonna close the episode with just a bunch of strategies from you of what you’ve learned in these last couple things. But before we, we get to that, I actually, you know, I, I didn’t do this last year, but my big thing this year is, is talking to people about what they do for mental health. And you’re somebody who can appreciate that. So, you know, I tell people like, Hey it’s important to have hobbies. As an entrepreneur, it’s important to know when to take it easy and have an escape, you know, because sometimes, as you said, when you first started, you were just working, you know, 20 hours a day probably, and then that’s not good for your physical or mental health. So I’m wondering, you know, you know, my hobbies is travel and stuff, so yeah, I’m wondering what’s, what’s your hobbies as far as what you do to kind of relax, and then what are some routines that you have for either mental and or physical health? Crystal: Oh, gosh. I feel like there’s so many. So, like, another reason, by the way, I actually didn’t get to that. But you know, this year I have also spent a ton of time developing my own, like, personal self. So like the kind of time where, like I used to spend on my business now, I took a lot of them back just to kind of work on myself internally, and we can talk about this for like another, like two hours, but my philosophy is that at some point, like, you know, money, it’s important, but like, it’s not going to buy you everything. And then, like, you know, when I first started Amazon business, I saw the salsa was, oh yeah, it’s so great. But now I saw, you know, I see the cells, you know, sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad, but I don’t want to get too carried away by the money because it’s, it doesn’t give me the same amount of joy as it used to anymore. Crystal: So like, I felt like you needed to look inside of you and be like, what makes me happy? And money isn’t the answer. It’s never will be. So, and there’s, nobody can give you the answer other than yourself. So I felt like that self-development is so important. So there’s a few things that I do. Like, first of all, I also write about, you know, topics on self-esteem for Asian, because I think that Asian as a, as a community, like we lack self-esteem because of the you know, everybody want us to be perfect. You know, let’s face it, growing up, you know, with Asian parents, they’re so strict at the education system and everything. So like it’s really hard for your mental health. You never feel like you’re good enough. So I write about these topics in a way, it’s also like self meditation for myself, where like, I reflect on the topic and it’s just so healing. Crystal: So that’s one thing. Like I talk about those things, you know, on TikTok and, you know, stuff like that, like on LinkedIn, write all those things. So that’s kind of my hobby. But also, you know you know, I meditate almost every day. Like, I have done hundreds of meditation sessions for the last two to three years. And I also read a lot of books you know, spiritual books, you know, ranging from Buddhism to you know, to, to mindfulness to like some kind of medical books in the medical area. And I, you know, I have my own like, you know, like obviously I have my own therapist, but I don’t just use one therapist. So like, for example, I also going to like, use energy healers, I go use a medium. So like, I go to that route? Yeah, yeah. To, to kind of make myself understand, you know, like the, the things in the spiritual world, because there’s things in the material world that we talk about. But in the spiritual world, there is such a rich world. Bradley Sutton: Sounds like you need a coffin shelf. I think, you might be the target market for for my spooky stuff here, Crystal: Oh my God. I was just talking to my quality inspector the other day in China, and they told me me that the most spooky inspection they ever done was like a two coffin, actual coffin company, and they need to inspect the coffins, and it was so great. Bradley Sutton: Oh, so they have to lie inside of it. Crystal: Yeah, they need to lie inside of it. Bradley Sutton: Oh my goodness. Nah, nah, I’d be like, nah, I’m good. All right. Yeah, this passes, this passes. Okay. So, so that’s some good, you know mental health and physical health you know, routines. But what about, what about some specific, let’s go going back to Amazon. Yeah. strategy or marketing, like, you know, specific PPPC strategy, specific keyword research you were doing? Listing optimization. I actually leveraging ai. Like whatever yeah, yeah. What can you tell us? Crystal: I will go back to a few sourcing tips. Bradley Sutton: Okay. Crystal: I like that. ’cause You know, first of Bradley Sutton: All, you’re definitely an expert on that. Crystal: First of all, I’m Chinese, right? I was born and raised in China, spent like 20 years there. So I know China like quite well. And so, so I felt like that I can give some advice on. And secondly, like, I felt like a lot of people you know, like, let me put it in this way, a few days ago, like I was talking to Amazon itself, and they said that they couldn’t find good sourcing service providers. And now if you do sourcing, like you probably need to listen to this because they need it. But anyway, so sourcing, I felt like it’s an area where like a lot of people struggle with themselves, especially if you’re individual sellers. So from China, like the first thing I wanna say, and I think that Kevin King probably said it in one of his courses with you as well, but said that you know, in China there’s different areas for sourcing different things. Crystal: Yeah. So if you want to like source for like wood you might need to look in one area. If you want to like source for textile, you need to look for another area. And if you want to source for electronics, some other area, so that’s a hundred percent true. And sometimes, a lot of times those materials and those products are like actually concentrated in one city. So that means if you source anywhere outside of that specific city, you are actually getting worse material, worse product, and and worse price. So like when you look for factories, like always try to, you know, like see where they’re located and see like whether they are in, you know, the the area that these products have, you know, like are concentrated in. So that’s number one. And number two is that be careful when you use sourcing agencies, because before, like I actually used one myself, like now I do it all my sourcing myself. Crystal: If I need help from another sourcing person. I used somebody I could trust, but sourcing agencies always be careful when they’re in China, because you needed to, first of all, sometimes they get kickbacks from the factories, so maybe they, they were like, okay, I’m gonna do a sourcing, this is a price, but they, and this is a money I charge you, but they also keep some money for themselves from the factory. So to be extremely careful of that. And then one way to get around it is that like, I would just have them to gimme a list of factories, right? If I were to be the person who use associate agency and be like, I’m going to reach out to them myself, right? Like, don’t reach out to them like, your work is down here, or something like that. Crystal: Or do like, project with them the end there. Or I will also go reach out to a few more factories besides the one they suggest me just to compare the price and terms and stuff like that to see if there’s no, like, no abnormalities there. And then you also need to always order maybe like few samples from the sourcing agency, but also some factory you choose. Because in the past when I used the sourcing agency every single time, the factory the sample, they give it to me. It’s always worse., the samples I found myself from other factories for some reason, you know, so quality is right. That’s why the price is cheaper. And perhaps they also, you know, you know, have a kickback themselves, right? So that’s something I wanted to, to say. Yeah. Bradley Sutton: Okay. That’s, that’s good. I think that’s important to, to understand about that. What about on the negotiation side? Obviously, you know, not everybody is a native Chinese speaker and obvi, you know, you would have advantage over me, for example, or my daughter can speak Chinese, so I can probably get her a little bit, but for the average person from Europe or North America, yeah. You know, what are some tips on the negotiation? You know how can we get the best the best deal out there? Crystal: Best deal out there, man. I think it really depends on who you’re talking to. So it is funny because like some of the companies, they have like almost two divisions. So they have a international division and they have a local division. And if you are like a foreigner, a westerner, they give you a white person price. And if you are a Chinese, you talk to the main Mandarin, they give you a Chinese person price and the Chinese person price will be cheaper than, you know, the Westerner price. And this is validated, like, I know this because they told me. So I felt like, you know, it’s obviously better to have somebody negotiate on your behalf who’s Chinese, right? If you trust ’em, right? Because, you know, just based on what I just told you about the sourcing agency thing. Crystal: But also another thing is from my own personal experience, there’s, there’s certain times there’s benefits to use a trading company. Like people always say that, oh my gosh, I don’t use a trading company. Like, I don’t understand why, because trading company can give you such a good service that if you just negotiate directly with a factory, they’re never gonna give it to you because of, you know, like something that I mentioned before, like how, you know, they don’t see the you as like the Chinese person price or something like that. But the trading policy sometimes can negotiate on your behalf a better, much better payment terms that you can, you know, like, so for example, if you were to only negotiate on your, you know, with a factory yourself, you can probably get like a best case scenario like what, like 20-80 or something that you need to pay like a hundred percent before, you know, they ship out your products. But if you go with a trading company, sometimes they can give you a better payment terms, which extends beyond, you know, after you have shipped out the products and maybe like 30 days, 60 days, something like that. Because they have, you know, perhaps other clients that they don’t present as well, so they can negotiate together. And they also have that existing relationship with the factory that you don’t have. Bradley Sutton: Okay, cool. Alright. So, so speaking of sourcing in China, again, I meticulously follow you your Instagram because I love living vicariously through others travels as well when I can’t travel. And unfortunately I haven’t been able to get back to China. And I know I saw you a couple of times, it seemed, went back to China, I’m assuming maybe checking with, you know, your sourcing or, or your factories. But tell me about your, your trip to China. Like, what did you learn? Because I think even for you, that was the first time you’ve been back in China for a long time, since the, before the pandemic, right? Crystal: Right. So I think yeah, I have, you know, it’s really o eye-opening experience recently traveling in different countries in Asia, China included. I also went to Vietnam, Amazon inviting me over as a speaker in, you know, I think like a huge big Amazon event in Vietnam where they recruit sellers from. And also got to speak on behalf of Amazon, China in Shanghai to the business there. So I, I gotta see, you know, a lot of different businesses e-commerce businesses and consumer goods businesses in China and Vietnam, and it’s such an like an eye-opening experience. And I felt like it’s two different worlds, right? Like China and the US. So first of all, China’s going through a transition. So first, you know, a lot of people are thinking, you know, like making China cheap stuff. Like they have made a lot of money on Amazon the past 10, 15 years because they are the supplier of the products, right? Crystal: So think about Amazon in 2012. You know, if you can sell a piece of cloth or like a mop or something, you make a load of money, right? Because they need those products, they had no products, and then the Chinese people make those products, right? So if they knew the opportunity on Amazon, they will make a lot of money. So that’s how they did it in the past 10, 20 years. But now they are forced to transition because they no longer well have the product advantage going forward because a lot of, first of all, a lot of manufacturings are transitioning into places like Vietnam, Mexico, et cetera. So things are going to be no longer made in China. In fact, I think yesterday India is going to be the first country outside of China to make iPhone. So secondly that Chinese economy currently is going, you know, pretty bad there might be a deflation risk in China. Crystal: So the businesses in China are also getting, they’re getting less orders from foreign companies. Their domestic economy is not doing it as well. They’re trying to find ways to expand their overseas businesses because it’s not as competitive as domestically. And now how can they compete? They need to look for ways to build proper brands. So China now is in Japan in the 1980s where it was transitioning from made in Japan, cheap stuff to made in Japan brands. So, so they’re going through that transition as well. I believe that in the future the competition you see from China is not going to be those like, you know, like, okay, like let’s go on a price for kind of competition. It’s going to be a stronger competition, and they’re also going to be building, you know, like western oriented brands. So that’s my observation there on my trips. Bradley Sutton: Alright. Interesting. Now, just in general, you know, you were crushing it on Amazon, you know, 2021, first part of 2022. Now we’re, you know, middle second half of 2023. What’s your, what’s your outlook? You know, ’cause it’s, I’m sure you’ve seen it’s not a hundred percent the same game as it was even just two years ago. So, so what, what’s been, you know, some of the biggest differences that you’ve seen and do you have any outlook on how it’s gonna be maybe next year? Crystal: Yeah, so I think because I have built a brand, you know, I started build one in 2020 and I built, started build another one in 2022. I have seen a lot of differences in comparison. So first of all, like Amazon in 2023, there’s so much more competition and I think everybody knows that. Because, you know, D2C brands are getting to Amazon retail brands are getting to Amazon, Amazon originated brands are getting outside investors. So, which means they are stronger themselves. Individual brands are got bought out by aggregators, which means they’re getting institutionalized. So, so the competition is in a complete different level. Like, let me put it this way, in 2020 for example what a plus came out. You know, there’s what, like less than 50% of people in my category are using a plus. Now everybody is using A+. Crystal: Like, that is a basic requirement, right? Almost to people. So, so it’s definitely getting very competitive. So I think it’s very important that you have a reason behind beyond making money to get into the game. So first of all, you need to have a, like either a good product, which means, you know, like a distinctive advantage in your product, like a patent, you know, or something that’s a differentiator that is harder to copy or, you know, in a good category. And either that or you are well founded. So you are able to do, you know, more on marketing more in product developments. And also you can’t just rely on Amazon as one channel. You need to go all channels. And I, I felt like I have heard this, you know, from other people too, but I think in 2023 it becomes a lot more important than before just because of the sheer amount of competition. Bradley Sutton: Okay, cool. Alright, well you know, you, you know the drill since this is your second time around, what’s we, we always close with a 30-second tip, but before we get to there, how can people find you on the interwebs? Maybe they follow, follow your story a little bit, maybe reach out to you in the future? Crystal: Yeah, so I’m actually you know, if you are interested in for example, offer unique services that you think is suitable for Asian sellers, just because, you know, I do have a network here you know, in Singapore and in China and, you know, just because of what I mentioned before, where like they are trying to, you know, build, you know, actually Western brands. So if you do offer unique services in those areas you know, I am looking for good partners, service providers to work together. And if you have unique product ideas or you want to work together in any kind of capacity, you can always reach out to me on Instagram, my name is it is the, the handle is literally Crystal Ren but it is xtalren, so X T A L R E N, that’s my Instagram handle. You can DM me anytime if you wanted to contact me for anything. Bradley Sutton: Okay, cool. Alright. What’s your 30-second tip of the date? Crystal: So one tip I learned to increase your productivity by the way is to color different activities you do. So put everything together on your calendar. Like, if you go take a shower, you put it on your calendar. If you go to do some paperwork, you go put it on your calendar, but you want to categorize them differently. So, for example, I categorize them based on, you know, deep work, shallow work. So deep work could be something like a drafting agreement, right? With a supplier. And that would probably take like two to three hours of uninterrupted time. And shallow work would be something like I don’t know, like you know, putting together expense report, you know, so that’s some kind of administrative work that you need to do. And you know, there’s other things, for example, like personal time you know, a shower. Crystal: So you mark them differently to make sure that you have enough of deep work time a week so that you know how much, how many hours you spend on deep work, how many hours do you spend on shallow work, which is something that you wanna shrink as much as possible and how, how many hours do you spend on personal time, which maybe perhaps that’s something that you wanna protect right? And you also want to make sure that you have a balanced life so you’re not overworking. So by coloring them into different categories, you can see that visually whether you’re being productive and whether you are having like a balanced week. And that’s what I’ve been doing for now, like six, seven months now. Bradley Sutton: Okay. All right. I like it. I like it. So you gave us two 30-second tips. We’re at the beginning, one at the end. I like it. All right, well let you know, you’ve done a lot in the last few years and, you know, we’ll definitely have you back next year and who knows what you’re gonna be able to tell us. Maybe you’ve already exited this new medical brand then, or maybe you’ve, you’ve grown it to seven figures. I’m very excited to see what the future holds. Look forward to seeing you hopefully at at, at an event and wish you the best of success in your endeavors. Crystal: Thank you so much, Bradley.

In this episode, Vincenzo Toscano shares his inspiring journey, from being a literal rocket scientist to a successful Amazon seller and agency owner. Diving into the nitty-gritty, he discusses upcoming case studies with Helium 10 and explores the strongest Amazon marketplaces. Gain valuable insights as he unravels the differences between managing accounts in the US and EU, divulges his Amazon launch strategies, and reveals how to stay relevant on the platform. Listen in for Vincenzo’s top listing optimization tactics, utilizing Amazon’s Search Query Performance, effective product research methods, selling tips for Walmart, and a collection of both horror and success stories from his clients. Don’t miss this episode! In episode 477 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Vincenzo discuss: 02:02 – Vincenzo’s Backstory 03:41 – Today’s Guest Is A Literal Rocket Scientist 05:11 – Selling On Amazon And Managing His Agency 06:47 – Talking About His Upcoming Case Studies With Helium 10 07:44 – What Are The Strongest Amazon Marketplaces? 08:43 – Differences In Managing An Amazon Account In US & EU 10:59 – Sharing Vincenzo’s Amazon Launch Strategies 15:06 – How To Know What Amazon Thinks Is Relevant For An ASIN 19:33 – Vincenzo’s Top Amazon Listing Optimization Strategies 21:48 – Utilizing Search Query Performance 23:56 – Vincenzo’s Product Research Methods 26:14 – Selling On Walmart Tips 31:19 – Horror Stories And Success Stories From Vincenzo’s Clients 33:50 – Find Ecomcy At The Seller Solutions Hub 34:31 – How To Contact Vincenzo Toscano 35:12 – Vincenzo’s 60-Second Tip ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast ► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension ► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup  (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life) ► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft ► Watch The Podcasts On Youtube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos Transcript Bradley Sutton: Today we’ve got a great story from somebody who went from being a rocket scientist to now running a large Amazon agency and running a lot of his own brands, and he’s gonna give us all of the latest strategies as far as PPC, Amazon Launch, and even Walmart. How cool is that? Pretty cool I think. Bradley Sutton: Wanna keep up to date with trending topics in the e-commerce world? Make sure to subscribe to our blog. We regularly release articles that talk about things such as shipping and logistics, e-commerce, and other countries, the latest changes to Amazon Seller Central, how to get set up on new platforms like Newegg, how to write and publish a book on Amazon KDP, and much, much more. Check these articles out at h10.me/blog. Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers podcast by Helium 10. I’m your host, Bradley Sutton. And this is the show that’s a completely BS free, unscripted and unrehearsed organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. And we’ve got somebody here who’s been helping serious sellers out there for years. Vincenzo. How’s my italian accent? Vincenzo: Thank you Bradley. How you doing? Bradley Sutton: How’s it going? You are actually in the UK right now? Vincenzo: Yes, I live in the UK in London, but I’m from Italy, as you can say, from my name. Bradley Sutton: Yes. Yes. I think I told you this before, but my favorite or one of my favorites, you know Korean dramas. I watch tons of Korean dramas. Like I probably watch a hundred in the last few years, but one of the top five is one from Netflix and it’s called Vincenzo. Vincenzo: I know Bradley Sutton: About a Korean guy who was born in Italy. Vincenzo: Yeah, actually I got a team in Asia, and, and they told me, they always tell me, oh, this is happening right now in the, in the series and all that. And it’s like, it’s crazy that there’s this guy that’s very famous called Vincenzo, but yeah. Bradley Sutton: Yep. Yep. But so you were born in Italy, in Naples, you had said? Vincenzo: Yes, I was born in Italy in Naples. When I was around three, my family moved for business purposes in Venezuela, South America. That’s why I just speak Spanish. Bradley Sutton: That’s why you speak Spanish, because I know you’ve come on a Spanish podcast before. Okay. Now things are coming into a picture here. Vincenzo: Yeah. I went to Venezuela, lived there 15 years, and then unfortunately with everything that happened with the country, I left the country. And from there I went to the US. I lived close to one year in New York. Then from New York. I went to Toronto another year or so. And then from there I, I chose the UK to pursue like my undergrad degree and my master’s, which is completely different for what I do, which is Whoa, whoa. Bradley Sutton: What did you what were you studying? Vincenzo: So, I studied aerospace engineering and I specialize in everything in terms of control systems and computer science behind turbines. Bradley Sutton: Okay. So then did you ever work in that after you got your degrees? Vincenzo: Yeah, so actually I, I used to work for Roll Royce. You know, roll Royce is very well known for cars, but actually their biggest one of the biggest revenue streams is making turbines for airplanes. And they had a, a manufacture ca facility here in Darby, which Darby the easiest way to find Darby in the uk. If you put a finger in the middle of the UK, that Zaby is the most centric city in the whole uk. And I was working there, I worked there for two years. Yeah, Bradley Sutton: That’s kind of like being a rocket scientist in turbine there. Vincenzo: Yeah. Okay. We could say that. Yeah.. So then, Bradley Sutton: You know, I’m sure that’s a good paying job. Yeah. What then inspired? Like, were, did you start doing stuff on the side while you were working there, like getting into e-commerce, or, or how did this this happen? Vincenzo: Yeah, so the thing is, I love engineering. I love everything when it comes to space, all that kind of stuff. But the thing is, because I come from a family that is very business oriented it reached a point that, you know, it was getting that I wanted more freedom in terms of location, in terms of time in terms of how much money I could do. And I remember looking online, that was around, around 2017 or so, you know, ways of doing money online. And that’s how I came into contact with Amazon. And then from there, I started using my part of my salary as an engineer mm-hmm. <Affirmative> to basically just try things on Amazon, sell products and so on. And from there I started selling multiple products. I, I did brands and everything and that. Bradley Sutton: Which marketplace did you open up in? Vincenzo: So I started first in the uk, the next one into Europe, and then also us. Yeah. Yeah. What, what was Bradley Sutton: The first product you sold? Vincenzo: So the first product, which then it was became very saturated. It was, you know, these elastic bands to do like exercise. Oh yeah. Bradley Sutton: Uhhuh <affirmative> Vincenzo: Yeah, super saturated. And I will never advise <laugh> anybody here in this podcast to do the product. But, you know that time it wasn’t that saturated. That’s was one of the first products. And from there, you know I started selling products and eventually I was making more money by selling the, actually my engineering job. And from there, you know, that was also the period when all these Amazon events conferences were becoming a thing in, in Europe and the USA, so Bradley Sutton: What year are we talking about right now when you’re selling? So we’re Vincenzo: Talking 2018, around that 2018. Bradley Sutton: Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Vincenzo: Cool. And then from there, I started going to events or so, and then I realized, you know, actually I could also make money basically supporting brands and also business owners, because I realized there were a, a lot of people going to these conferences. They had an amazing product, amazing brand, which is difficult to do. They did the most difficult part, but they did not really know how to operate. Right. And, and from my experience of being a seller, then I say, oh, actually there’s a another opportunity here. And that’s how I also found that a comse where we’re basically a full Amazon and now actually also Walmart, a full brand management agency. So yeah, it’s been a journey <laugh>. Bradley Sutton: Okay. Now, have you all throughout this time, did you keep your own private label accounts going and still selling yourself, or you just switched a hundred percent to just doing the agency? Vincenzo: Yes. I keep selling, actually. I also doing a little bit of the wholesale approach as well, working with some direct manufacturers. And something I also very excited about which I’m, I’m on the work of doing, I also gonna explore the vendor work, so I’m working with some partners to also do the vendor program, like with some brands we’re working, bringing from overseas. So yeah, I’m still a seller, but I will say where I’m spending most of the time, to be honest, is with agency. We’ve been growing quite fast last couple of months, and now I’m more focused on building the teams, all the processes, and making sure we’re basically giving the best service and resource to our clients that trust us, you know? Yeah. Bradley Sutton: Okay. Now, from when you started on Amazon, you know, 2017, 2018, around there, did you start using Helium 10 from day one, or, or you started later in your career? Vincenzo: So I remember when I started, my first actually tool was viral launch from my close friend Casey Gauss. Yeah, Viral Launch started with that. And then I remember after, you know, listening many goats with AM/PM Podcast. Which was basically the biggest podcast at the time. And still right now, one of the biggest. Manny Announced that, you know, the, he was bringing Helium 10 and start playing with it. And to be honest, since then, I switched completely to Helium 10. And that’s the tool I use for all my businesses and also for our clients. And, and in fact, we’re actually working with Helium 10 to do some interesting case studies looking forward to that. But yes, we’ve been using Helium 10 for everything from every second. Bradley Sutton: Okay. Cool. Cool. Now in your experience selling where, what marketplaces have been the s strong, you know, you, you obviously started in the UK, but what marketplace would you say is strongest for you now? Vincenzo: So I would say the strongest are for sure the US and the uk. Those are the strongest. And I think if you talk to a lot of sellers, that’s u usually the norm because, you know, those are some of the biggest markets. Germany is also an interesting one. I’ve been seen traction, but honestly the US and UK are the, are are the ones we’ve seen the most activity, and also with some of our clients the same. Bradley Sutton: H how do some of your strategies differ? Because, you know I mean fortunately for people selling USA unfortunately for those in Europe, there’s a lot of features like in Seller Central, you know, that, that US has available, but that either Europe doesn’t have, you know, like I don’t think Europe has virtual bundles, right? That’s right. Vincenzo: Yeah. Yeah. So like the things though. Bradley Sutton: What are some of the big, the, the biggest differences you say because of things like that where your operations, you know, whether it’s your account or your client’s account where it, there, there’s some huge differences in how you operate an Amazon U s A account versus an Amazon Europe account. Vincenzo: Yeah, so I would say one of the, the, the big benefits of operating in the US and also in in Europe is that a lot of the strategies that right now we’re implementing, let’s say in the us, they haven’t arrived yet in terms of either in the form of knowledge to content or in the form of actually, you know tools through the Amazon platform itself. So the nice thing is that when things are happening in the us usually Europe is six months to one year behind in some of these things. And we can prepare our clients for that and make sure that as soon as they become available in Europe, we’re the first one to, to take advantage of some of those tools. So I think in terms of strategies, of course the US is a, is another animal altogether. Vincenzo: I mean, the US is much more a professional marketplace in terms of the players that actually selling there is much more complex. We see all these huge in, in influx of money that came during the basically aggregator space. And we have all these big companies with hundreds of employees, basically 24/7 when it comes to Amazon. And the US is, is definitely a very tough market would say right now to, to start selling from zero. Where in the Europe, that’s not the case. Actually, in Europe, we’re seeing much easier for some of our clients to penetrate certain niches than the US And that’s actually been a key for a lot of our clients and the way we actually structure the strategy, because what we’re doing with a lot of our clients is the ones that are struggling to the us, we’ve been bringing them to Europe, and we actually opened all the Pan-European program and so on. And with that approach of diversification and actually finding these on top areas, they’ve been seeing a better resource that actually only focusing in the US. Yeah. Bradley Sutton: Okay. Okay. Now you know, one of the, I was just looking at, at your listing on the hub.helium10.com, you know, that’s, that’s where we have like agencies and, and people who are part of our network and, and you guys are actually one of the very few Helium 10 certified agencies in the world. That’s right. I was, I was looking at your, your, your page on there and it says, you know, one of your specialties is Amazon launch. That’s right. So what are some of your, you know, launch strategy are, are you pretty much using PPC for launch? Are you relying on outside traffic? What’s, you know, I, we, we could spend a whole episode talking about this, but what are some of the, the highlights of your launch strategy? Vincenzo: Yeah. Something that’s been working very well for us is using brand analytics data to basically understand which are the main cues we need to focus towards launching. I’m gonna give you a very simple example for this. So the issue when it comes to launchings, that people sometimes thinks it’s all about generating sales at all costs and negative for X amount of time until you get potentially rank organically on certain keywords. But we have identified that lately Amazon has been very heavily focused when it comes to ranking in conversion rate, right? So what we’ve been doing when it comes to launch is that, first of all, we need to of course identify the top 10 keywords that bring the most revenue to our competitors. And you can easily do that with Helium 10 by doing a reverse ASIN with Cerebro. Vincenzo: We find which are the key, where these competitors are ranking on page one, because we know that 70 to 80% of revenue comes from those keywords. Once we identify those 10 keywords, we then also by using a brand analytics, we wanna identify what is the average for example, conversion rate of our competitors on some of these keywords. And once we understand the conversion rate, that’s when we start strategizing the, the launch phase. Because something that we usually do when it comes to PPC, and then I’m gonna come back, why the conversion rate is very important, is that we only start with exact match campaigns and we only start with the top 10 keywords. The reason for that is because when it comes to launch, and I see this a lot of people when it comes to content and events, and a lot of people are actually migrating towards this strategy is the idea of actually launching phrase broad automatic and all these broad campaigns from day on is actually not efficient. Vincenzo: Because first of all, when you’re launching a product for the first time Amazon has no data at all or doesn’t have any real relevancy history attached between certain keywords of the category and your product and what happens. And in fact, you can do this test by going to Amazon when you launch a new listing, if you go and create, for example, a campaign on, on for phrase a, abroad a and look for even suggested keywords, you’re gonna see the tab is empty. Right? The reason why Amazon cannot even suggest a cure in the first place because it has no history. So why would you give free basically a window to Amazon to spend your money around? By Bradley Sutton: The way, do you know how to do that? How to check that in Helium 10? Vincenzo: In what sense? The keywords? Bradley Sutton: No, the what a, the Amazon thinks is relevant to your listing for advertising. I’m gonna drop a knowledge bomb on those. It’ll give you a chance first. Drop Vincenzo: It. Alright, so Bradley Sutton: You put your, you put your ACE in once it’s done, once you have it active you, or even if it’s not active, you can do this. You throw it into cerebral and most people, you know, 99% of people who use Cerebro That’s right. They’re doing it in order to just see, hey, like, I just wanna see where it’s ranking organically or sponsor whatever. That there’s nothing that’s a hundred percent right. You know, that that’s what you should be doing. But fil when you have a brand new listing, it’s not gonna show anything for organic and sponsored. That’s right. ’cause It’s just new. So you filter it for Amazon recommended, and then sort it by the rank Amazon recommended rank, and the one that’s number one, we’re actually pulling that from the Amazon API. In the advertising API of what score it gives that keyword. Bradley Sutton: So then if you have trouble like, like getting impressions, it’s like, like you just said, it’s probably because Amazon doesn’t think you’re relevant. And so if you wanna know what Amazon thinks of your new listing put into Cerebro, we’re pulling from that Amazon advertising a p i, and then you could see look for rank 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, because that those are the highest keywords. And I, I did that I was launching this you know, one, one of these socks as one of these tests, and it’s about bringing me like coffee, right? And so because it’s a sock, like I couldn’t get anything for like coffee keywords in advertising, even though it was a, I mean, a hundred percent like the number one keyword for this is bring me coffee socks or something. So I threw it into Cerebro and I was like, there was nothing about coffee. It was just all like, just regular socks or men’s socks and so that’s how you can tell what Amazon thinks is relevant. Alright, go ahead. Vincenzo: It’s very interesting. And actually to also add on top of that tip, we also need to ensure, of course, to that work efficiently to make sure you have a very, very well optimized listing. Because if you didn’t do a very well optimization in terms of the keywords you put on the listing, or even choose the right sub category, which is a huge mistake we see all the time, then you could, Amazon will collect your, recommend the wrong keywords because you don’t have their right to categories or the right keywords in the list in the first place. But now going back to the PPC, yes. We do only m match a campaign keywords because we wanna make sure we force basically the system to build the relevancy between which are your top keywords and, and to Amazon. So Amazon understand and create that history link. And while we’re doing these very aggressive Excel match campaigns, we keep a very close eye on the conversion rate. Bradley Sutton: When you say very aggressive, like what is that like? Are you trying to make a bid that’s gonna get you only a top of search? Okay, cool. x Vincenzo: Yeah. And while we do as well to basically in our conversion rate, we cover a very aggressive coupon. So we do like a 30, 40% coupon because we need to understand that when the listeners see new and you have no reviews, you basically need to find a way to make it a no-brainer, a deal that somebody will say, okay, this product has, one doesn’t reviews, this one has zero, but what do I prefer to spend $50 or spend $20 on something very similar? Right? So that’s the thought process you need to do as a brand owner. And that’s what we do. And by making a very aggressive price reduction, then we keep very close AI owner conversion because then by using brand analytics, and we do this on a weekly basis, we wanna make sure that our conversion rate on a specific keyword is very similar to what the top sellers are doing those keywords, because that’s how Amazon understand, okay, these products actually a catching up or having similar performance at the top sellers and actually deserve a spot on the first page. Vincenzo: This is very important. And the reason why I keep emphasizing this is because I see a lot of people only focusing on sales and sales at all costs, but what’s the point of having all the cells that you want by being on the negative X amount of thousands of dollars? If your conversion rate is very bad, then you build a very bad history for your product, and it’s gonna be very difficult for you to then build that organic ranking back again. So that’s the per first part of the launching. The second thing that we do is we bring some kind of external traffic into the formula, right? So the way we do this is first a factor we we’ve been playing around is with influencer marketing. So usually we try to build like a group of five to 10 influencers that very basically have a very warm audience around that specific product. Vincenzo: And we try to come into some kind of agreement when it comes to bringing the extra traffic, especially if we have the brand referral bonus, because with the brand river referral bonds, we get up to 10%, which most of these influencers, if you use only the Amazon influencer product, they get two, 3% at max, and you can do a very nice setup where they make more money, and at the same time they rewire you with that external traffic. And by having a very warm audience, which by the way, what we do in between to filter the traffic we do a landing page, is to make sure that the traffic that comes from external converts very haly. And again, we spike that conversion rate. And Amazon also sees that as a way to rank your product higher. So by combining very aggressive PPC on very relevant queues, making sure you’re converting very high on those queues by being very aggressive with pricing, then con using external traffic, which is external traffic. I gave the example of influencer, but you can also do an email list, you can do even a Google advertisement. There are so many other ways, it depends on your niche, of course. I think those are usually the two approaches most people should be doing nowadays to rank your product higher organically as soon as possible. Yeah. Bradley Sutton: Okay. Now, you know, you talk a lot about conversion rate you know, during launch and after. And obviously the one that, you know, spikes in the first part is, is just having that super low price. You know, where makes a no brainer, but then obviously, you know, you could have that low price and if you have a garbage listing, your conversion rate’s gonna be low, and at the same time you raise the price to regular, you know, potentially your conversion rate could go down. So like what kind of listing optimization things are you doing to try and make sure that your conversion rate always stays pretty high, even at a regular price? Vincenzo: Yeah, something that we do a lot is we use the tool within Amazon to do split testing, and we play a lot mainly with the, with the main image. That’s the thing that we seen spike in the most, the conversion rate. And thankfully with AI, it is very easy now to come up with new images in a matter of seconds, right? Just by having the right prompts and using many tools out there. So what we do is basically we always keeps during the launch phase when it comes to let’s say we have a very aggressive pricing, and then slowly we are gonna start increasing the price because of course we wanna start getting the profitability, we start doing a little split testing with the main image and the title, which are usually the things that we see affecting the most, at least the initial results page, which is what people see the most. Vincenzo: And we do, usually the split testing could last usually between a window of one week to two weeks, periods. And we test different angles, different shadowing, size of the pro main image with the packaging, sometimes even the, the the, the contrast of the colors. And these are things that we keep testing on a week or two weeks period to see if the conversion rate spikes or doesn’t spike. And then that’s how we keep doing split testing. Then after we actually have found the best like image, because it reaches a point after doing a lot of split testing that you’re not gonna have a lot of fluctuation on your results, then you start testing other things such as the title, then you can even do split testing within the listing itself, and always keep an eye that your conversion rate is close to the standard of what your competitors are doing. Because if you keep their conversion rate within those standards, your organic ranking is gonna stay stable right. Than what most people have seen, which is they go to first page because they do all these hundreds of sales to maybe rebates, which is not allowed or external traffic and so on. But once they stick on first page, they don’t stick the landing because of what they don’t have the conversion rate, which is very important. Yeah. Bradley Sutton: So to look at your competitor’s conversion, are you talking about like at the keyword level? So then are you looking at search query performance? So look at your competitors conversion rate. Okay. Vincenzo: That’s right. Bradley Sutton: How else are you using search query performance? You’ve mentioned a couple times, you know, now. Is there any other ways that you’re, it’s in your, your kind of SOP to manage the effectiveness of a listing? Vincenzo: Sure. Another thing that we have a close eye is the basket analysis. So we usually like to understand if people after buying a certain product are buying other accessories or things like that, because then if we identify a strong pattern when it comes to the basket analysis, what we can do with that is basically we can say, okay, these certain competitors keep getting a, a purchase in the same transaction. Let’s actually do some pro targeting, heavy pro targeting on this product because there’s definitely a link there and we can leverage that. And usually if you identify the right you know, matching between data, we have found a good use of that data. Another thing that you can use brand analytics tool is to also understand how your conversion rate throughout the, the funnel improves right from the impression to the actual add to card to the actual purchase. Vincenzo: So if usually throughout the whole channel you see that you’re having some kind of downwards in terms of conversion, like people add to card, but then for some reason then they’re not making a purchase, that’s usually a red flag because if they went all all the way to the funnel and then they’re actually converting approaches, it could be an issue of pricing usually. So then we start playing with pricing. But if the opposite happens, like throughout the whole funnel, impressions are relatively low, then actually from those impression, they conversion become higher in terms of add to cart. And from the add to cart, the purchase conversions much higher. That means the issues that we’re not pumping enough traffic into this listing in the first place. So that’s when we decide actually we need to put more money and scale our advertisement. So that’s usually some of the sort of process we do with brand analytics. Yeah. Bradley Sutton: Okay. Now, for your own brands or for your customers brands who come to you and say, Hey, we’d like to, you know, launch some new products. How are you doing, you know, what are some of your product research methods? Like how are you finding, you know, product line extensions or new opportunities whether it’s a brand new brand or, or, or looking at a brand where, hey, you know, we want to add a couple of SKEWs. What are some of your methods for finding opportunity? Vincenzo: Yeah, so one of the things well, Helium 10 of course, we using Black Box for that. So you can find amazing ideas there when it comes to accessories throughout the whole catalog tool that Black Box gives you in terms of funding competitors, so accessories and things like that. That’s one way of doing it. The second way that we do it is basically by using brand analytics. Just to make a quick point on this again, which is using the, the basket analysis and see if there’s some kind of accessory that people keep buying with your product. Like let’s say you’re selling vitamin, vitamin C and then you see every single person that buy vitamin C buys magnesium. This a correlation there, so maybe you’re missing magnesium, your supplement lineup, let’s try a magnesium. And then when we launch magnesium, we use, for example, sponsor display, a type of target advertisement, and we retarget vitamin sync clients because we have seen from data that people that buy vitamin C realistically could buy also magnesium. Vincenzo: So that’s usually a top process that we can also do. Then the third thing that we can use, we actually will be doing that a lot, and I’m gonna be speaking on a conference next week about this, is using AI. AI has been amazing for this because usually what we can do with AI as well is for example, one simple way of doing this, you can now with AI analyze the reviews of a specific niche, and you can tell, let’s say this AI, tell me what the top things people love about this niche, things that people hate about this niche, a specific product and things that people potentially would like to see on a product. Then with those ideas, you could try to come up with a new variation and maybe a new functionality, a new feature that is lacking on the market. And that’s usually been working very well because then once you have some ideas drafted that AI throws at you, then you could even keep using AI to give you ideas in terms of how you can even start the manufacturing process, the launch process, how you could do the branding. AI is been amazing for them. Bradley Sutton: Okay, cool. What’s a Walmart strategy you can say? You know, a lot of people are reluctant, maybe, you know, sometimes to sell at Walmart but you know, Carrie even has some products that she sells more on Walmart than she does on Amazon. Of course, that’s more the exception, not the rule. But regardless of if a product is a home run or not, I’m sure you have, you know, a couple go-to strategies maybe you’re using for Walmart. Vincenzo: Yeah. So when it comes to Walmart, totally agree with you. So not all the products are, are working on Amazon will work on, on Walmart in the first place. So something that you need to do is first do a market analysis on Walmart as well. And thankfully, you know, Helium 10 has amazing tools when it comes to Walmart as well. So you can analyze the search volume of certain keywords, you can see where the relative revenue that some of your competitors potential competitors are doing Walmart. And then from there you can make a basically a strategy and an educated, basically projectional if it’s gonna be a good market or not for you. What I will say about Walmart, and this is something I’m very excited because you know, in the last couple of months we became official partners with them. Vincenzo: One of the only agencies top only 20 agencies are working directly with them, and we’re one of them. And because we’re having a lot of meetings with them and things in the backend, something that I feel people is missing where is, I understand that we come from the Amazon space and, and everybody is always in law with the seven figures, eight figures and all that kind of stuff. And because they don’t see that now on warmer, sometimes they, they step backwards and, and they don’t do it is warmer right now because of, of the patterns I’m seeing, the numbers I’m seeing and everything is like 2014-2015 Amazon, right? And I feel like maybe you’re not gonna do the same amount of money that you do on Amazon. And maybe you, you could imagine that yes, you’re gonna dilute your efforts by going to Walmart, but I can definitely guarantee you that Walmart, if you jump right now, you’re gonna have the early move advantage. Vincenzo: We’re talking about some of our clients that are paying two to $3, some C P A C P C on Amazon when bring it to Walmart, we’re paying sometimes 50, 70 cents, right? That’s a huge difference. The competition is much lower. And because we already have that, you know, brand Amazon brand that, you know, the Amazon brand is like a survival brand. We know all these tricks are already about P P C, how to some kind of media and all that. And Walmart is only in baby steps compared to Amazon. If you bring that experience and you bring that especially a very good product, I think you’re really set for success because Walmart doing amazing things in the backend, very excited things are coming, and I think it’s really the, the only one I see right now in the market that can compete with Amazon. So definitely give it a try for sure. Bradley Sutton: Alright, so what I wanna do now is, you know, as an agency, you know, you, you have so much experience with, with a a, a lot of sellers, so I’m gonna do one, one negative, and then we’re gonna go one positive, but the negative, you know, you don’t have to mention any names or, you know, throw anybody under the buzz here. What, what is the craziest, stupidest thing that you have seen one of your clients was doing? Like, like, you know, ’cause that always happens. You, you onboard a client and you gotta take a look at their account and see what their strategies have been. And you know, you gotta, yeah. I mean, otherwise you wouldn’t have a job if they were doing everything perfectly. There’s nothing, there’s no reason to hire somebody like Ecomcy, but what is the abs the most face palm event where you’re just like, oh my goodness, I cannot believe these guys were, were doing this. Like, they have never negative matched PPC keyword.. Just something crazy. Can you, is is there anything you can think of like a, a funny story that, that you noticed when you took on a, a client? Vincenzo: Yeah, there are many, but I, I mean, for example, one I can think on top of my mind is this guy that he was doing pretty decent. This, this guy was a, like a, a seven figure seller. And, when we went inside his PPC, I mean, usually when you’re doing seven figures, you expect people should have figured out how to do PPC, right? And we go inside and this guy had campaigns, manual campaigns, like this guy had a campaign with around 500 keywords on it, and the 500 keywords were all mixed between exact phrase and broth. So that he had the, he had the same key or exact phrase, and bro in the same campaign, and he didn’t have any negative match. So it was like a carnival all the, all over the place. What madness and, and yes, that, that’s a very is example. Vincenzo: I can think. Another one is like this sort guy also a very good product and, and branding. And they were doing also nice revenue only doing automatic targeting. They, and this, they’ve been doing fine selling since 2015. They only had automatic campaigns that never Tesla, like product targeting, sponsor brands sponsored display. We have seen even people without using anything in the backend, no search terms or having their own aria. I mean, these are yeah, crazy things like this all the time. And, and it’s, it’s crazy because when these people come to you and you see their revenue, you say how you, you came, you made it this far with all these mistakes and it’s crazy. Yeah. Bradley Sutton: Yeah. Interesting, interesting. All right, let’s flip it to that. Instead of the horror stories, what is some cool success stories? You know, like, you know, somebody, you, you know, you were able to help them with some strategies and they were able to, to double their sales or, or they just try this one thing and you know, they brought in all this, you know, new traffic or, or some, some kind of cool story that you can now share. Vincenzo: Yeah, of course. So we have this supplement brand that came to us. And when they came to us, they were doing like half a million or so in revenue. So they were not very big. And the thing is, this was like a, a client that bought the brand during the aggregator crazy period, right? There was a person that he had no clue about Amazon. They just bought this because his accountant say, oh, Amazon businesses are now hot. You, you should buy one. Okay? And the bought this Amazon brand, they had no clue about Amazon. They came to us like, we just spent all this huge amount of money on buying this brand, and we have no clue. We came in and we had to redo everything from scratch because all the listings were breaking compliance, doing claims that were in, right? Vincenzo: So we didn’t had to do all the images, listings, reapply for some of of, of their categories. On top of that, what we did is because they were doing only USA, we actually have them to expand to, to Europe as well. And now we actually also bring it into Walmart on a span of around, yeah, close to three years. They went from doing, as I say, close to half a million. Now they’re close to hitting 4 million in revenue because of all these crazy things that we did from scratch for them. So this is, this is literally the power of doing things right, because yep, these guys had no clue about Amazon. And we came in and we basically re remade the brand from scratch. And I think just to make an emphasis on this case study, one of the things that brought the bonds revenue for this brand was actually doing the international expansion. Vincenzo: This something, I know people is scared about that because of taxes, because of the languages and all that, but please, guys, if you’re the type of seller that you’re already controlling, 70% of a specific niche, even 60%, don’t lose sleep of getting the extra 10 to 20%. Use the extra, actual extra budget and effort to expand into other marketplaces. Because I feel Amazon, the easiest way to scale are two ways, either new marketplaces or more product. I feel they always this, this sort process for some cells that, oh, is I haven’t reached my potential because I haven’t found the perfect bit or the perfect keyword or the perfect placement. Sometimes the reality is that you reach certain level that, that sit on specific niche and, and the best way to keep growing, just diversify. Don’t, don’t lose sleep on, on having the perfect tacos, you know? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So that’s my advice. Yeah. Bradley Sutton: I like perfect tacos, but I’m talking about the ones that I, that I eat Bradley Sutton: Anyways before we get into your, your final tip, your final strategy of the day I just want to show people like how they can, how they can reach out to you. So guys, just, you know, go to hub.helium10.com and then type in the search Ecomcy and make sure you’re signed into Helium 10 when you do it. Because I didn’t even realize this until I saw this. If you’re signed into Helium 10, you can actually qualify here for a 10% off discount with them and a free consultation. That’s right. But other than here, how can people find you like on the interwebs, you know, maybe and also your, your podcast too. Vincenzo: Yeah, sure. So the agency, if you look for Ecomcy in all the social media platforms, you’re gonna find us. My name Vincenzo Toscano on all the social media. I’m very active, ma mainly on LinkedIn, doing a lot of content there. And the podcast, if you’re interested, is the e-commerce lab. And we also do like two episodes per week, also bring experts from the field to talk Amazon related stuff and e-commerce. Yeah. Bradley Sutton: Alright, so now let’s close it off with your 60-second tip or 60-second strategy. What is something that you haven’t, you know, you’ve been given a strategies the whole day, but what is something you haven’t mentioned that that’s kind of like a quick hitting one that you think people can, can learn from? Vincenzo: Yeah, so when I, when it comes to strategy something that we’ve seen a a lot, I know maybe you have heard this tip before, but it’s focused on the second language of the country you’re selling on. So, for example something we having a lot of success lately with our US brands is using Spanish cures in Canada, we’re using French related cures. For example, in Germany there’s a big population of, of Turkish people Polish and all of that. So there’s a huge potential of using second secondary languages on all these markets. And on top of that, what I would advise as well as an extra plus tip on, on top of this tip in the US for example, you can request your translation to be updated the Spanish one because some of the translation that have been done if the listen is old is it was done with the old translation engine that Amazon had, the backend. So you can actually request Amazon to redo your translation. And this sometimes can help you a lot to reindex for some Spanish queue that you’re not indexing the first time and actually be more relevant for Spanish related keywords. So that would be my tip. Yeah. Cool. Bradley Sutton: Alright, well thank you so much for coming on here and you know, it was fun to come on your podcast. Now, now we, we’ve been on each other, so I’m sure we’ll, we’ll do it again sometime next year and yeah. And I’m excited to see about this case study you’ve been working on with, with the other team and, and we’ll definitely let everybody know when when that’s ready as well. Vincenzo: Yeah, it should be very interesting. And thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure. And until the next one. Yeah. Alright. Bradley Sutton: I hope to see you maybe in Italy if you, if you’re gonna come Yeah, when I go to this event in September, so let’s meet it in Milan. Alright, we’ll see you then. Vincenzo: See you.

Welcome to another episode of our Winning with Walmart Wednesday series! Today’s host is Carrie Miller, and she sits down with two sellers who found massive success in the Walmart marketplace. They share their inspiring stories and reveal the secrets behind obtaining the coveted Walmart Pro Seller Badge. From speeding up inventory check ins WFS to mastering the art of A/B testing for different product types, this dynamic duo provides valuable advice on how to excel selling on Walmart.com. Tune in to learn about their 90-day product launch plan, how to use flat files to solve your technical problems, and the latest Walmart parameters for the Pro Seller Badge eligibility! In episode 476 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Carrie, Gustavo, and Leonardo discuss:  02:06 – Gustavo And Leonardo’s Backstories 03:03 – How Much Are They Selling In Walmart.com? 04:23 – Why Did They Choose Walmart? 06:10 – 90-Day Product Launch Plan In Walmart.com 09:22 – Walmart Changing Parameters For The Pro Seller Badge? 11:20 – Optimizing Your Listings For Walmart.com 14:15 – The Buy 3 Variations In One Listing Technique 15:38 – A/B Testing Your Listings And Product Types 19:07 – Reduced Pricing Strategy 22:07 – How To Get Your WFS Inventory Checked In Faster 23:56 – Check Out The Walmart Lessons Inside Freedom Ticket 25:50 – Selling Liquids In Walmart.com 27:10 – How Do I Turn One Of My Images Counter Clockwise? 32:14 – Walmart Selling Advice ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast ► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension ► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup  (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life) ► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft ► Watch The Podcasts On Youtube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos Transcript Carrie Miller: Today we are gonna be talking to two Walmart sellers who have found quite a bit of success on the Walmart marketplace. They’re going to share their listing optimization strategies, tips on how to get the Pro Seller Badge and tips on how to get your Walmart inventory checked into WFS quicker. How cool is that? Pretty cool. I think Bradley Sutton: If you guys would like to network with other Walmart sellers, make sure join our brand new Facebook group called Helium 10, Winning with Walmart. You can actually just search for that on Facebook, or you can actually go to h10.me/walmartgroup and you can go directly to that page. So make sure to join, you can tag me and carry with questions, and ask questions of other Walmart sellers or even share your own experiences in that Facebook group. Carrie Miller: Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers podcast. I’m gonna be your host, Carrie Miller. And this is our winning with Walmart Wednesday that we do every month where we give you some great Walmart information and we answer all of your Walmart questions. So today I’m really excited because I have two new guests that you’ve probably never seen before, and they are Walmart experts. They’ve been selling on Walmart, and so they’ve got a lot of great knowledge to share. So we’ll ask them some questions, you’ll get to know them about their story. And then we’ll go ahead and take your questions live. Go ahead and bring on our guests and introduce them to you. So we have Gustavo and Leo and they’re from Venezuela. So thanks so much guys for joining. How are you doing? Gustavo: Thank you so much, Carrie, for having us. Carrie Miller: Yeah. So I’m pretty excited to talk about your story. You guys are pretty inspiring. You’re, you know, been working really hard on Walmart. And so I wanted to just kind of give people a background about you just about your kind of e-commerce start and how, you know, your, your company got started. So can you tell us about, you know, just how you got started in, in e-commerce? Gustavo: Well, I don’t know about inspiring. But we started on Amazon in around 2016. We sold household items in the UK. We eventually launched in the US and after a couple of years of trial and error we did reach the bestseller badge with several of our products and, and we got excited and launched new brands and we grew those as well. And so more recently we did hear that Walmart was starting to grow a ton. We decided to give it a try. We knew some people and some brands that have launched there successfully. And so far it’s been really exciting. We really didn’t expect the platform to work as well as it is. Walmart’s like a sign us an account manager. They’re adding new features every day. It’s kind of cool cuz you can see some of the like Amazon features that we’ve known you know, for years starting to pop up on Walmart. So it’s like they’re really putting money into this. And you know, we’re already reaching a good amount of sales things are growing, so it’s exciting. Carrie Miller: Can you tell us maybe how many sales you guys are doing on like a monthly basis or just to give people kind of an idea of like what your sales are in Walmart so far? Leronardo: Sure. We just launched into Walmart, but right now we’re doing that between 20 after eight k a month right now. For the top product in our assortment, we are in average selling like 45, 45 units daily. Even without having top organic ranking position. We even launch for the same position right now. We have the, the second position after, you know, a month of alert work of optimizing our listings, adding rich media, tested the main images, mainly all the, basically all the Amazon, Facebook, and also all the send resources and also suggestions available in your podcast and in your webinar. So we’re very thanking for that. Carrie Miller: Oh, that’s awesome. Yeah, so I mean, 45 sales a day for some products is pretty amazing. I mean that’s you know, more than some people are probably doing on Amazon for some of their products. So really, really exciting news and really inspiring knowing that there is some, you know, definitely some good opportunity on Walmart. So basically the main reason you guys decided then is just you wanted to expand. Why did you guys choose Walmart to start selling? Gustavo: Right. Wo we’ve seen several successful Amazon brands launch to to Walmart. And I mean, we do a lot of modeling. Like, we try to see what the, what is the best brand out there, what are the best brands doing? And if we can, you know, take a similar path, that’s usually a good choice. And so we’ve seen like, hero Cosmetics obviously had a fantastic run at launching from Amazon into retail. I think they recently got acquired by like hundreds of millions. Yeah there’s like, we, you know, there’s like Angry Orange True skin, like a lot of really good brands that have launched from Amazon to retail. So it’s, to us it was like, okay, some of the big brands are doing it, like they’re really successful people are doing it. Like there’s gotta be something there. To us it’s better to come in early. Gustavo: So if Walmart continues to grow, like, I guess, you know, the brands that are in now have a, have a headstart. It’s also easy to find, like in walmart.com particularly, you can look at a lot of information with tools like Helium 10. Helium 10 is actually the one we use the most. Cause you can actually like, analyze the sales. There’s not, like on Amazon, there’s like a thousand softwares that do that, like in, in walmart.com, there’s not too many. It’s also like part of a multi-channel strategy for us. So walmart.com is like the first platform, but ideally we’re trying to look at can we get into Target and Ulta that we’ve heard are fantastic platforms as well. And like, there’s other ones as well. So it’s a, it’s a first step into, into a retail expansion and understanding how other markets work. And we’re seeing that applying a lot of the Amazon strategies do actually work. There’s not a lot of people doing these things. You know, optimizing listings, optimizing your images, doing all the things that you kind of know from Amazon. Carrie Miller: Yeah. That’s awesome. So I guess that leads into my next question cuz when I talked to you before Leo, you mentioned that you have like a 90 day plan when you launch on Walmart and that’s kind of the day, the amount of time that it takes you to even get to considered for the Pro Seller Badge. So can you just kind of like walk us through your 90 day plan when you launch a product on Walmart, all the things that you do to optimize and then get the Pro Seller Badge? Leronardo: Yes, for sure. Due our experience in Amazon, we link our strategy of launching Walmart into the process of obtain the Pro Seller Badge in Walmart. Because this, the badge involves all the key elements that are successful seller must have in any marketplace. He wants to participate at first they want, they have to provide a great customer experience through onsite deliveries and also providing great customer services. They have to also target a 90% listing quality score in order to drive conversion across the whole assortment products. Third, they have to be compliant with any Walmart target product policy and content policy in order to have a reliable offer in this marketplace. And also to have consistent sales over these 90 days. So the first thing that we, we, we do to achieve that is to use WFS to reduce our sales exposure to any delay in our shipments and also in the imagery handling in order to fulfill this orders. Leronardo: The second thing that we do is optimizing our listings based on the warmer suggestions, based on the huge same suggestions and also using the best practices that are competitors are using in their listings in Amazon on also in Walmart. The third thing that, that we use is having all our complimentary information updated. I’m referring to the MSDS, I’m referring to the in Snowbird and also to the product labels that are needed to adverse to sustain a case of product content, product ownership, and also to convert our products to WFS. And the fourth, and I think is the most important thing for our company and for our brand is to have a great product. We have a great product that match our customers expectation and also the promises that we make in our business. Carrie Miller: Yeah, that’s very good. That’s really good. I mean, it’s true. The Pro Seller Badge is kind of like a guideline to help you to really not only rank, but just get more sales, but then also people start filtering for the Pro Seller Badge too, which gives you even more sales. So it gives you more exposure. But something I think people don’t know about the Pro Seller Badge too is that you actually get 20% discount off of your referral fees, which is really cool, a really good perk cuz it’s gonna increase your profitability. But did you guys get the email, I think I got it today that said that they’re changing the parameters for the, for the Leronardo: Yes. Carrie Miller: What did you think about that? Leronardo: Yes, and I think it’s a way that Walmart is going to filtering more the sellers that are participating into Walmart because as customer, I always buy, even if we’re in any part of the United States from Walmart, cause it has reliable prices, it has shipments. So I think for one hand it’s a great idea in order to feature in more sellers for the other hand maybe be difficult to meet some of those requirements if you are not participating in programs like WFS. Yeah. If you’re, yes, because you have to, to reduce all exposure to those delinquencies that warm is more targeting this one. Carrie Miller: Yeah, definitely. So if you are fulfilling products yourself, you have to be very careful because the, the qualifications are, I mean, there’s just really no margin for error when it comes to, you know, shipping. So you pretty much have to use WFS if you want the Pro Seller Badge. They also increase the number of sales you have to have within a 90 day period to 250. So I’m curious to see, you know, how many people maybe drop off of the the, the pros seller badge, but that’ll be that’ll be something to watch. Gustavo: We made that mistake at the beginning. We, we launched with our own warehouse and we were fulfilling orders ourselves, but it is just much better. It’s like with Amazon, you eventually realize that you, you need to be using FBA. It’s just works much better. Fees are better, you’ll get the prime badge. Like same thing with Walmart. You, you just need the WFS badge, like we were fulfilling in three days. But if like it was ever four and then you would start to get like you know, your score would decrease cuz you’re not fulfilling on time. And so it is just like go all in. If you’re gonna go to Walmart, just go all in, just send your inventory. It’s gonna be much simpler longer term. Carrie Miller: Yeah, I agree with that. Yeah, cuz especially cuz you can get kicked off the platform if you make certain little mistakes. So it’s, it’s just easier overall, less anxiety probably. Okay, so what tips do you have just in general for optimizing your Walmart listings? Just to, to get them so that they’re going to, you know, rank and, and convert the highest on Walmart? Gustavo: So we track our conversion rate the most. I think that’s one of the, obviously the, the biggest or most important metrics along with like sessions. But when you’re tracking that the main thing, you’re obviously, you’re looking to increase it. But what we do is we will maybe test main images for sure and then the other images in the listing, but it’s like very targeted, like you wanna change, like the position of the product, the appearance of the product, the lighting, everything, anything you can, any items that are inside the product, like in the, in the main image for sure. That’s like super important. It’s probably, you know, with the 80 20, it’s definitely in, in the 20% of things that, that produce 80% of the results. Helium 10 has audiences, which works great for that. Shorter titles, like we’ve learned stuff along the way. Gustavo: Like we used to have long titles like on Amazon and now it’s shorter titles we’re realizing work better. We’ve also realized we can upload videos, which increased conversion a ton. So that’s by creating a case. You can upload videos, which is fantastic for conversion as well. We’re testing out a ton of stuff with the copy inside, so just changing the copy, like the main bullet points stuff that you say inside the listing. Anything that you can to really just bump up your conversion rate, then you just have to be tracking it. Like if you’re not tracking it, you don’t know the result. So you just have like a weekly tracker or even a daily tracker of your conversion rate and you can go, okay, I mean I changed this on Tuesday, it’s been four days. Like how’s it changing? It’s been, it’s been a week. Like sometimes there’s a delay. Carrie Miller: Yeah, well I love how you guys, you know a lot of people just put their listing up on Walmart and they’re like, oh, it should be converting. It’s just like Amazon. But I love that you guys have taken the time to really optimize for Walmart and doing, you know, you can use audiences like you said to split test images because images on Walmart are, I think, the most important thing because you literally have people advertising right. Below you and you have to sell the customer pretty much in the images. So that’s a really good point. But I love how you’re really testing these things and really focusing on all the things that are available on Walmart to, you know, get to the top. And it shows you guys are, you know, successful so far. So it, it’s been Gustavo: One example of that is we’ve realized that a lot when we went, when we went to our orders, we actually have several variations and people were buying all three of the variations at the same time. Yeah. So we saw a lot of people were buying ’em, but we’re, we were never promoting them together. So in the listing we now talk about you should get these all three together cuz they actually do go together. But we weren’t like, oh sweet, we, we weren’t promoting them together after we realized a lot of people are just buying all three right away. We’re like, okay, maybe we should put that on the list and go, you can grab these, you know, together. So that’s just how– Carrie Miller: How are you putting it on the listing? Are you just writing it on there? Gustavo: On one of the images, you could just go, these three go well together and you can give the reasons why they go well together and then you can grab ’em all here and kind of put it– Carrie Miller: How do you help people find it? Do you just like say grab ’em on Walmart or find them on Walmart or Gustavo: Well there if you, we would have all three variations on that same listing so that you could, okay. Like people can easily see that like all those three products are there. It’s just a reminder that you can buy all three right away. Carrie Miller: That’s a really good point cuz some people don’t really think about it. Sometimes you have to tell them what to do. That’s really, really a good like a strategy. So that’s even good for Amazon. So if anyone’s listening that isn’t on Walmart yet, that’s something, you know, you could definitely remind people that they, you know, to get all, all the products on your, all the variations basically. Gustavo: We actually got that idea cuz we try to talk to customers as much as possible. So we had customers on our website and stuff and we call them every so often. And one customer said, oh I, you know, I always buy, I like your product because I can buy all three that I need at the same time, can I just click on add to cart to all three variations? And we’re like, oh, that’s, that’s a good idea. Like, then we checked our orders, we saw that a lot of people were doing, then we’re like, oh, we should, we should really remind people that they can do that here. Carrie Miller: That’s that’s such a good point. Oh my gosh. The little things that really can make a difference. Okay, so going along with you know, AB testing, what do you all think about AB testing the product type and do you have any strategies for that? Leronardo: Yes, it’s very important for us. At first we target the product type and also the path that our competitors have for every keyword. Because if we don’t have the correct product also path, our product is not going be index for the main keywords we’re targeting to. So our recommendation should be to use, maybe to use Helium 10 or also to search manually through the search grid what are the prototypes that our competitors are using. And also because if you, if you target the correct prototype, you’re gonna have a bunch of filtering attributes displaying your listing that were being displayed to the customers before. So these filtering attributes are also very important to be find, to be search searchable in all the keywords that your customer are looking for in, in warmer any changes can be made using a case by submitting a case in support center, even for the club side and also for the shelving bag. We also recommend to use a case instead of changing it through the growth opportunities dashboard because it is more directly and also it’s going to be, you’re gonna, you’re gonna be, you have received a response maybe in the next couple hours, no more than that. Carrie Miller: Do they give you better product type options when you do it that way? Leronardo: No, I usually search for the prototype. Carrie Miller: Well, you know which one you want. Leronardo: Yes, I know what whatever. Because in the, in the growth opportunity dashboard, they, they show you a couple of of them, but sometimes it’s not best. And sometimes also your competitor has a more accurate prototype depending on the first, on the first vaccination that Walmart gave gave to you. Carrie Miller: Okay. Where are you finding these, the product types of your competitors? Is it on the, the shelving path on the listing or where are you looking? Leronardo: Yes. AB testing. Carrie Miller: Okay. Yes. Leronardo: The second last we’re targeting to. Carrie Miller: Okay. Yeah, I mean it’s interesting how much more exposure you can get. Cause I noticed myself just having a challenges getting into certain keywords. So it is really important to, you know, AB test the product type. So how many times is there a product that you had to do multiple, multiple changes on the product type? Like what’s the most you’ve had to change the product type to find the right one? Leronardo: We have a product that has like bestseller product, let me say like around creams, bestseller creams. So you have to look for any specific prototype that is also go, is going help you also to achieve maybe the vessels batch in that category because we know that the four top five, the four five products are going to have the vessels branch. So depending on the prototype, ah, their picks, the popular picks or this kind badge, like the best seller badge are gonna be assigned to you. So it’s very important. Carrie Miller: Yeah. That’s really, that’s a really good point. Yeah, so look at the products. They’re the best seller badge products so that you can look at their product type cuz they probably have the right product type. That’s a really good point. Okay, so something else I wanted to talk about is reduced pricing because a lot of sellers have a hard time getting the reduced tag. And so you’ve actually explained the reason for that to me and maybe a different strategy to get a reduced price on Walmart. So can you talk a little bit about the reduced price strategy that you guys have? Leronardo: Sure. Walmart, since Walmart used the 90 day average price to calculate whether you’re giving the strikethrough or not, you should have a strategy based on when you are going to display it and how much are going to display. At first our, our story is to have two prices. The main pricing that we are advertising any point of time without being containing a deal. And the second price we are using for the flashback and also for campaign or maybe special days we are targeting like weekends where maybe the traffic warmer is higher than other days. It’s very important since Walmart demands that some items in order to participate in these campaigns are also flashbacks, have the strikethrough. If they, if they don’t have it, they’re not going participate. So you have to be very careful. And the second strategy we use is the timeline. If you, you have to, to narrow the timeline, you’re displaying this strike through because if you’re not, if you’re not going to narrow it, the the 90 day average price is going to become lower. So if you want to add, to get this right through to this and also to increase your conversion rate, you’re, you’re gonna have, you’re gonna a lower and lower price. Ok. So in order to be, to get the structure, Carrie Miller: Yeah, so that’s really interesting. I didn’t realize it’s the previous 90 days. So you have to kinda keep beating that 90 day average price when you do the strikethrough. But Flash Picks is probably a good one. So you have your, your main price and then if you get the plat flash picks deals. And I think you mentioned to me too that you can open up a case if you don’t see Flash pick steals available to you in your growth opportunities. Is that correct? Is that what you guys did? Leronardo: Yes, and also because you have to submit offer for any case, for any flash pick or for any campaigns. And you have to be, you have to work with former in order to monitor all this, your submission status. Cause sometimes maybe the campaigns already started and sometimes you get in time, but there are some, maybe if you are offer is not good enough if you’re, if you’re selling also your products in other market places, so search on Amazon and your price is not getting bid by that, but that the price you’re advertising there, maybe you’re not considered. So, but thankfully to our account manager, we, we have been, we run through this and we are taking care of any flash pick on any campaign we’re advertising. Carrie Miller: Very nice, very good. Another question here is we were talking about WFS Walmart fulfillment services and how sometimes, I mean for me it’s taken like two weeks and sometimes a little bit longer to check in inventory and I think you have a strategy to get the products checked in faster. What, what do you think about that and what, what’s the strategy that you use to get your products checked in faster? Leronardo: We usually know that for the timing longer for hazardous products at first to convert our products we use flat file from changing from server fulfillment to warmer fulfillment. We received this advice from support center. Cause at first we were having issues also to cover our products to WFS and the second advice is to having an US compliant MSDS. Sometimes warmer does reject some products, even if they’re not hazardous since they don’t have an MSDS, which is complained to to the US regulations. The second thing we, we need to consider is that we have to, is better to send a print images of the packages instead of a picture. Because in the plot file is is mandatory to send a print picture of the label. So in order to avoid any delay, they should send a print images instead a picture. And the third consideration should be also the, the type, the product type you are sent, you are inputting in the flat file because we at first considered that our products were notone instead since chemicals, they should be considered as them even if they don’t have any hazards component in their formula. Carrie Miller: Okay. Yeah, that’s really interesting. Yeah, so flat files are probably the best way to go on Walmart. And we actually have instructions on how to use flat files for Walmart in our freedom ticket on Walmart. It’s under, for all helium 10 subscribers, it’s in our Freedom tickets. It’s week 11. So our our freedom ticket course that comes with every paid subscription. You can go into that and we’ll, we show you how to do that. There’s another thing that you mentioned to me about flat file uploads though, that was like you were having a hard time updating the product and you said that you need to use the, the original flat file upload in order to update products. Is that right? Leronardo: Yes, that’s right. There are like two flat files. The new items set up flat file or maybe all the conversion flat file or even the change some specification from the prototype but different from the new item setup. The new item setup allows you also to display more keyboard feature attributes and more attributes are display in the, in this flat file. They are not going to be displayed even if you use manual setup the product or even if you change after using the other type of app file. So for us it’s always the best way to also to update any images, to update on any descriptions. Even the key features we copy the with when, since the key feature has like a specific formula, like specific, I have to say like a way to input it in the Walmart seller Central, we always start at first the key features in the manually setup product setup. And then we copy the exact formula that Walmart give us is like a code for a website, you know, when they have like molding, when they have any specific character and then input it into the flat file and put it into a Walmart. Carrie Miller: Wow, that’s pretty interesting info. Okay. Another thing is too, cuz you sell, I think you sell kind of liquids and I, I’ve actually run into an issue on trying to get a product into WFS because they want you to label as a pesticide first and then they check it. And did you have that situation where like for our product we were trying to upload it to WFS, but they said we have to label it as a pesticide and then send the safety data sheet. Did you guys have anything like that when you were trying to get into WFS because you had liquids or were you, did you get accepted right away? Leronardo: We get accepted right, right away since we changed correctly the ide, which was a chemical. Okay. And secondly, we already sent the MSDS stain pesticide product. It wasn’t like any, doesn’t have any hazardous check the standard requirements that are needed to send an MSDS a compliant msds. And some key features like as you said, pesticide, any canus component, any even California regulations that are ingredients should need, it should be staying in the MSDS. As soon as all these criteria are met, we they’re good to, to go. Carrie Miller: Okay. Very good. Very interesting. All right. It looks like we have a question here. How do I turn one of my main images counter clockwise 90 degrees and how do I change the order of variance on an in seem color size? I, I’ve had this issue too, like literally my sizing, it’ll go large large, medium, extra large. It, it’s not an order for the sizing. And I don’t know something must be happening with his images where they’re not like showing up correctly. So do have you guys had this issue? Leronardo: No, we haven’t. We, we, we shouldn’t try to any, any images we submitted into Walmart or any marketplace. We when we upload in this cloud, we try to check if the images are the correct, have the correct size, and also are the correct ones we’re trying to submit. We haven’t, we haven’t confirmed this issue. I dunno, it should even as Carrie Miller: Do you upload your images directly or do you do it in the flat file with a url? Leronardo: We use a flat file with URL might, what you used to do is we, we use Google Drive link. You can, you cannot submit a Google drive in the normal form to download or your copy from Google. You have to transform in a specific formula. We find even in the internet that you would allow to any, any person to only click in Daily Link and that automatically is gonna download the file into your computer without doing anything, without showing display. Like, I dunno, like any new screen, Carrie Miller: Is it like a tiny URL or something like that? Or, Leronardo: Yes, it’s. Carrie Miller: Okay. Leronardo: I can even share with you the formula in order to use it. Carrie Miller: That’d be great. That would be awesome. Gustavo: And that, and that’s probably the best way to upload images. Cause if he is or or if they’re uploading images using like the edit button on the listings, that’s like the worst way to try to upload images. It sometimes they won’t go through so as, as I said flat files are probably best using the link. Otherwise get Carrie Miller: And you have to create new links though for each time you upload on a flat file though, because I’ve noticed that they, when you upload the same flat file or the same images again, it doesn’t, or maybe you wanna change a few or the order you have to change the URLs. Is is that still the case for you guys or changing the URLs every time you re-upload a flat file? Leronardo: What happened with us is at first we weren’t able to modify the order because we have like WFS conversion request pending is while the, we have other conversion WFS conversion that already got involved into Walmart. Ok. So maybe we think it’s a problem in the system on one hand. The second thing that we do is we change the world that we’re displaying. We use like a open hosting cloud in order to always been changing this images. If this is not happening, we always create a case. A case we get a case and we submit the flat file in order to Walmart to consider also the assets and the change on those assets we’re requiring to. Carrie Miller: Okay. Yeah, so maybe that’s probably the way to fix that, is to submit a flat file exact so that you can fix that the image issue. And then what about the order of the variations? Do you use case, do you, did you have to just submit a case when this happened to you? Or what do you do to fix that? Leronardo: We haven’t confirmed this issue. We know that the first a variant that’s going to display or is, is the primary variant. If it’s this is not happening we always create a case in Warren in order to maybe change the order of those variants we we’re displaying. Carrie Miller: Okay. So maybe the yeah, maybe the primary variant should always be the size you want to come first. Maybe that’s something I’ll try. I actually have opened multiple cases because my sizing is wrong too, so that’s really, really helpful. Gustavo: And there’s also a way to change, like the image that appears in the variant, which is, I mean, something small, but like you can maybe use an Oh really add something else to highlight whatever it is you’re, you’re selling. Like if you have different flavors and you have berry and stuff, like you could put like an image of a, of a berry there, like something that can show a little bit more what the berry is. Carrie Miller: Wow. That’s, that’s even better. Gustavo: It’s something small, but it’s kind of cool, which is like, can highlight whatever it is you’re selling. Carrie Miller: Very cool. I think this was a lot of really great Walmart information for everybody who’s listening. So I think it’ll be really helpful, especially just troubleshooting and knowing you should, you know, there are some ways to fix things like with flat files especially, but then also opening up a case is always a good idea too. I wanna thank you guys so much for joining. Is there anything else, any kind of advice that you have as before we let part ways and just that you have advice for anyone who’s wanting to sell in Walmart or thinking about it? What do you guys think? Gustavo: So there, I mean there’s, there’s definitely a couple thing we’ve learned. We were told that Amazon, at Walmart, I can say Walmart Amazon, Walmart might suppress. I, I think Walmart might suppress you if your price like higher than in your other channels. So you, you definitely wanna make sure that you have, you have similar pricing as you have. Like say if you’re selling on Amazon or other marketplaces, try to match those prices. Focus on quality listings. Rich media is a big one, I think like Rich Media is coming up and that’s gonna be very big. I think similar to how Amazon added the a plus, you know, yeah, there’s tons of room to, to explore with adding images, videos, stuff inside your rich media. That’s, that’s gonna be very big. I think it’s gonna help with conversion and a ton of stuff like that. People post reviews quite fast. I think that’s not happening as much with Amazon with like new products. Like people will post reviews fast. So I think it’s important to have a quality product right off, right off the bat. And yeah. And you’ll have to invest in pbc We’re, we hired a, a manager for now, but I think that’s, that’s definitely key as as just as it is with Amazon. Carrie Miller: Yeah. It’s actually crazy how many people, when I ask them if they’ve started pa pay-per-click on Walmart, they’re like, no. Cuz they’re like, you know, they’ll say, oh, I have no sales on Walmart. And I’m like, well, did you do pay-per-click? No. So you would never do that on Amazon. Right. So it’s crazy. Gustavo: You, you have to, yeah. Yeah. It’s part of the, it’s part of just like, you know, knowing how to play that game. Carrie Miller: Yeah, definitely. Well thank you guys so much for joining. Really appreciate you guys taking the time to answer questions and just, you know, show, tell us all the things that you’ve learned. I think this is a lot of really great info for anyone selling at Walmart. I think people are gonna be really excited about it. So thanks again and I guess I’ll see you all later. Bye everyone. Gustavo: Thank you Carrie.

In this exciting episode of SSP, we had the privilege of sitting down with Farhan Huda, he is part of an incredible company that is on track to become the first-ever 10-figure seller that we’ve had in this show! Join us as we dive into Farhan’s captivating backstory, their brand called Utopia, and his manufacturing experiences in China and Pakistan. We also discuss how they reached the impressive 9-figure mark and their journey towards 10-figures.     Farhan also shares his valuable insights on avoiding problems with Amazon, their criteria for successful products, how they’re staying competitive in crowded markets, and strategies for success. Don’t miss out on Farhan’s top strategies for newer sellers and his 60-second tip that could transform your business. This episode is a must-listen! In episode 473 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Farhan discuss:  01:25 – Farhan’s Backstory   03:22 – Talking About Their Brand: Utopia   05:17 – Manufacturing Products In China And Pakistan   11:49 – Hitting The 9-Figure Seller Mark & On The Way To 10-Figures   12:53 – How To Avoid Problems With Amazon   15:30 – “Every Household In The US May Have Bought Our Product”   16:20 – How Often Do They Launch Products?   17:26 – Are All Their Product Launches Successful?   18:45 – Their Criteria For Successful Products   20:08 – How They Stay Competitive In These Product Categories   22:09 – 9-Figure Seller’s Top Strategies For Success   23:56 – Selling In Walmart.com   24:37 – Utopia’s Top Marketplaces Outside The US   25:23 – Should You Consider Manufacturing Products In Pakistan?   27:23 – Farhan’s Hobbies & Healthy Habits Outside The Amazon Grind   29:12 – Top Strategies That Newer Sellers Should Do   31:39 – Why Is There A Big E-commerce Boom In Pakistan?   34:24 – Farhan’s 60-Second Tip ► Instagram: instagram.com/serioussellerspodcast ► Free Amazon Seller Chrome Extension: https://h10.me/extension ► Sign Up For Helium 10: https://h10.me/signup  (Use SSP10 To Save 10% For Life) ► Learn How To Sell on Amazon: https://h10.me/ft ► Watch The Podcasts On Youtube: youtube.com/@Helium10/videos Transcript Bradley Sutton: Today we’ve got a nine figure Helium 10 user who is going to be talking about their story of their company. And if we have them back on the show next year, their trajectory might make them the first 10 figure seller to be on this show. How cool is that? Pretty cool I think. Bradley Sutton: Are you a YouTube blogger, blog writer, course creator, or other kind of influencer or educator? Maybe you just have a network of people interested in e-commerce. Did you know that you can earn commissions of 25% for life? For everyone that you refer to Helium 10, we’ve got many partners earning hundreds, even thousands of dollars monthly in commission from Helium Ten’s partnership program. If you’d like to join our affiliate partner program, please go to h10.me/crushit and tell them you heard about it from the podcast. Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I’m your host, Bradley Sutton. 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 we’ve got a super serious seller here I believe you’re in Canada right now? Is that where you’re calling in from? Farhan: I’m based off of Canada, Bradley Sutton: Yeah. Awesome, awesome. So Farhan, welcome to the show. Where, where in Canada are are you at? Farhan: I’m near Toronto. Mississauga. Bradley Sutton: Okay, cool. How long have you lived out there in Toronto? Farhan: Oh, it’s been a while. I moved to Canada in 2003. So since then I have been in Canada, but I have been working in and out of US all along since I’m here. So I have been traveling quite a while. Yeah. Bradley Sutton: Okay. Originally from Pakistan? Farhan: I was born and raised in Pakistan. Bradley Sutton: What part? Farhan: Karachi. Bradley Sutton: Okay. Been that’s my favorite food in Pakistan when I’ve been there is, is from Karachi. The chicken briani was, Oh my goodness. Amazing. It’s my mouth water, just thinking about it. Yeah. Farhan: Near the beach. And then, I don’t know if you have been to Toronto, but if you come, we have a lot of good Pakistani food. Bradley Sutton: One restaurant here in like, all of San Diego that, or at least that I know of. And so, yeah. All right. I, I’ll, I have another reason now to go visit Toronto. Now I’m assuming you went to university there in Toronto as well? Farhan: So I did my bachelor’s from karachi. Then when I moved here, then I upgraded my degree from University of Toronto. Bradley Sutton: Well, what did you study? Farhan: Computer Science. Bradley Sutton: Computer Science. All right. Now, upon graduation and getting your degrees, is that what you started you know, getting a job in and things? Farhan: Yeah. Yeah. So I, I graduated in a software, and then I worked for a few software companies over here. Then I started my own software company basically working as a consultant. And then my friend was having this startup or expansion of Utopia, basically. He was working in New York as well, and trying to set up Amazon business. And then he needed my help, so I joined them and then expanded from there. Bradley Sutton: Okay, so about what year was this? Farhan: So that was 2014. Bradley Sutton: 2014. Okay. Okay. So Farhan: Yeah, when I started helping Utopia. So it’s about nine years. Bradley Sutton: Did it start as an Amazon based business, or was it a .com business? Was it a you know, brick and mortar business? Farhan: So a little bit of story is that, so my friend started around in 2009, 2010 when he had some stock. So his dad had a towel business in Karachi. Okay. So when he retired, he moved to New York with him. To keep him busy, they imported few, few lots tried to sell on eBay, well before even eBay. They had a wholesaler they contacted, but they didn’t have good experience. So they tried to sell it themselves. So started with eBay and then for a few years did eBay, then Amazon popped up. They started doing Amazon as well. And then obviously eBay went down, and then Amazon picked it up. Bradley Sutton: Yeah. So when you joined the company, what did you join as, or what was your responsibility in those early days? Farhan: Early days, so I was in product management. We were adding more products. So initially I was doing part-time basically I was trying to figure out whether that’s gonna work out or not. So basically initially working on adding new product through Alibaba. Then we went to China, mainly Canton Fair few times between 2014 and 2016 added more product expanded the US business. And then between 2016 and 2019, basically we launched 2017 Canada and Europe. And then basically expanded over over there. And so me, from the beginning, I was in the product management. Then I grew from there took our other roles in supply chain, HR, procurement sales and whatnot. Yeah. Bradley Sutton: Now, the family business started in Karachi. Now, at that time, were they manufacturing only in Pakistan, or even at that time you were importing from other countries? Farhan: So initially it was towells only in in Pakistan. And then when it picked up, we saw some, some decent reserves from there. So then we started basically we are brand owners, so we manufacture only in our brand. So we were manufactured from China. So then we added other home textile product words like bed sheets, converters, pillows, curtains, you name it. So until 2018-2019, the other products we were doing from China, and in 2019 we started expanding our, our manufacturing facilities in Karachi and started slowly moving products from China to, to our own facilities. And now it’s about, I would say 80 to 85% manufacturing and in Pakistan, and rest is in China. Bradley Sutton: How do you choose what you make in Pakistan versus what you make in China? Farhan: So it was straightforward initially. Mostly the I would say stainless steel products. So we have, our bigger portfolio is home textile, but we, 20, 25% of our products are plastic based and cookware, stainless steel as well. So, so those were I would say we were, we didn’t have the expertise in the beginning, so, so we were doing those in China initially is still to date we are expanding our manufacturing capacity. The good problem we have is that whatever we manufacture, we, we import or buy ourselves in US and Europe and sell. So there’s always a challenge for the capacity. So if we wanna fill the gap, we want more inventory. So we still, sometimes we take some of the home textile goods from China as well, but mostly the kitchen products, stainless steel, although we are setting up our TNS steel and, and cost iron and product line in Pakistan as well. So the long run goal is to be independent and, and do all the manufacturing in Pakistan. Bradley Sutton: So the, the stuff that you get from China, it’s not necessarily, you don’t run the factory, you don’t have full control like you do in Pakistan, you’re just buying from Farhan: That is correct. So the main reason the business strategy was that. And that came into being around 2017-2018 other big sellers were coming on Amazon. Amazon was doing their own private label, so they were getting bigger orders from the vendors as well. So if you are manufacturing, let’s say from a bigger vendor as well, but they have multiple customers, so I mean, you are not higher up in the priority, and then you will face the supply chain challenges whatnot. So having your own manufacturing capacity, you have control for the manufacturing, supply chain quality and price as well. Bradley Sutton: Once you have a SKU that you’re producing in Pakistan or producing in China, I almost, I’m not sure if I understood correctly, but do you have backup factories at all? Like where sometimes you might make it at one place and sometimes you make it another, or once you have something made somewhere, a hundred percent of the manufacturing is at that factory. Farhan: So the goal is to have a hundred percent manufacturing of that factory, let’s say in Karachi and Pakistan. But if, if we are having some challenges in terms of, let’s say manufacturing capacity or some of the, let’s say the print items, right? We, we, we haven’t scaled up in our manufacturing. So, so, so part of this of the printed products on the Bedsheet side or on the, on the curtain side, we are still doing from China, because we have some, like, we are still setting it up in Pakistan. Bradley Sutton: But what I mean is like, let’s, regardless whether you’re making something in Pakistan or China, yeah. Like it almost sounded like you were saying you, you have like a backup. Sometimes the production is not enough, or Hey, this SKU is only made at this place, this SKU is only made in China, this SKU is, or do you sometimes, oh, man, we’re, we’re, we’re behind in Pakistan, so let’s switch manufacturing to– Farhan: Not like only in one location. Bradley Sutton: So that was why I was asking my question then, is like, that’s interesting to me because like, do you ever run into issues where, you know, the quality is a little bit different or customers notice that something is different, or maybe it’s just like the, the color is slightly off or anything like that when you’re switching back and forth between factories? Farhan: Yeah, yeah. So, so we would try to minimize that, but you’re, you’re right, sometimes the shades challenges are there. Quality. I think a lot of vendors or manufacturers, we are working in China. We are working for about 10 to 12 years, so they know what quality we like. And then we have a very, very strong quality team that do pre-inspections as well in China to make sure that quality is up to the mark. But yeah, on and off, we do run into challenges there sometime. And that could be from either side that one of the recent imports we did. And, and, and there are some, some bad reviews or in quality reviews are coming from there. Yeah. Bradley Sutton: Okay. Interesting. Now, it wasn’t your product, but I, I was just thinking about that. And I ordered some I had bought a new, we, we, we bought a new sofa at our house, and then I bought these like, I don’t know what you call them, like sofa covers mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. And then I just bought like, you know, four or five to test out over one part of the sofa, and we’re like, oh, okay, this is good. Let’s, let’s go ahead and buy the other four. And it was really weird. Like one of them, like, I know I bought the right color, but it was just slightly off. And I’m like, that’s kind of weird. Now, now I’m, I was too lazy to make a bad review and I just figured that nobody you know, my, it’s not so bad where my guests would notice, you know, but I’m like thinking like, Hmm, when you started talking about that, I’m like, huh, I wonder if whoever I bought this from, it, maybe it might have been similar. You know, they’re making, they’re making stuff at different factories and Farhan: Yeah, different locations, different manufacturing. And sometime it could be the different raw material or the way the chemical com compositions are even with the same factory when we make the darker shares like dark gray or black, even so in, when we are doing dying and, and, and other processes, sometimes those they, they can be a little different, right? We try to keep it exact the same, but, but it could be the raw material and, and other, other, other technical details. Yeah. Which could process with the difference of the shared, especially. Yeah. Bradley Sutton: Now, you know, our mutual friend Denise told me that you, you guys are nine figure, you know, company. When did you hit the, the nine figure? What year did you hit the nine figure mark? Farhan: Around 20 16, 20 17? Yeah, I mean, we are on track of, maybe by next year we will hit the billion dollars. So wow. Bradley Sutton: On, on Amazon Marketplace sales or what, what Farhan: On Amazon only? I would say it’s around six 50. I was talking about as a, as a global utopia. Awesome. But mainly big portion is, is Amazon. So Utopia is a umbrella, long mentioned. We have few businesses mainly are around Amazon, which is on Amazon sales, but Utopia Industries is for manufacturing. Then we have Utopia for fulfillment, which is mainly for our logistics, for all the warehousing and delivery from in and out, from warehouse to, to how, Bradley Sutton: How about like Walmart and, and other marketplaces as well. Farhan: We have tried, Walmart is not that big. Ebay, we still do, but I would say still like one to 2%. We do have our own B2B side YouPay d.com, which is about two to 3%, but 95% of our sales e-commerce sales is mainly from, from Amazon. Bradley Sutton: Now, when you have an account that is doing hu literally hundreds of millions of dollars on, on Amazon, like to me, I’d be super scared, you know, cuz Amazon, as we know, just sometimes just randomly my Yeah. Suspended account, like have you guys gotten suspended at all? Or, or your account shut down? Farhan: Yeah. Yeah. We, we had few few nightmares like that. And, and, and most of them when, whenever we, we worked with Amazon. So for the last three, four years, we are their premium account. So we are in the top of the chain. So we have a premium account membership so we work closely with, with the, with that team. So, so probably you’re aware that on and off Amazon run their bot or, or some sort of a algorithm and then they start sending those, those emails that your account is at risk and whatnot. So we worked clo we worked closely with them, but yeah, few years ago, there was a time when, when they kind of for a few days actually our account was stopped, right. And then we worked with the team and it was enabled again, and then we kind of had an SLA with them. Bradley Sutton: I mean, those two or three days, you’re losing more than many Amazon sellers make in a full year. That’s crazy. Farhan: Yeah, it was a million dollar multimillion dollar loss. Right. Wow. But then we work with them, we had an SLA and then now even if we get, it’s not at the account level, it’s usually at the product level. And, and, and most of the time, the, the premium account team, they resolve our issue right away. Like I would say the last month we had one of those emails, I think a lot of sellers got, got those emails. So I just called the guy and then he was able to re have, have it removed more. Bradley Sutton: Yeah. Wow. That’s, that’s kind of crazy. Yeah. I’m looking, I’m looking at your, your, I was just looking at your, your main page on on Amazon here. And there’s, you know, you could just see some of these skews, like this is not the full, you know, just one skew 20,000 units. I mean, you’re selling like literally thousand units a day, onal for, for some of these, these, these products. And it’s just really, really impressive. And I just noticed that while we were on the phone, I was looking just to make sure that betting or that, that, that that throw wasn’t bought from you. But I just happened to, you know, I went to my orders on Amazon and I, I typed in Utopia mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, and sure enough, in 2022 I, I did buy some cotton washcloth. So if you guys are listening out there, check your Amazon orders, look for Utopia and see if PR probably 50% chance you’ve bought some one of the their products. In the past. Farhan: We have saying in our company that at, I mean, every household in us have at least one of our products, especially our bedding products, and we claim that we are like number one online bedding sellers in, in us. So we have been studying, if you see batch years, you will see reviews and then all that from there, you can see how many years we sell every Bradley Sutton: Day. Not exactly what you thought you’d be able to say in 20 years that when you graduated with computer science degree, not really that you’re gonna have a a home product in every household in North America. Farhan: No, I wasn’t even, I, yeah, I never thought of I, I would be doing that. I would probably, okay, I’m on the software side. I’ll probably make some, some products or work for a company. Like, I don’t know, Facebook was not a dead time, but Google and whatnot, and then probably having a startup and whatnot. But I mean, yeah. Bradley Sutton: Now how often, you know, do you guys, how often do you guys launch new products? You know, very often you just kind of stick to your bread and butter, or are you just constantly trying to find the next, you know, new Farhan: Very often solutions? We have dedicated so we have a big product management team, which, which looks after all the marketing, pricing, strategy and whatnot. And within those so we have 11 product teams out of two are dedicated for the research and development. So we have a process like every week we have, we are shortlisting products adding new variants and working on new products as well. So I would say in a given year, we, especially like last two years after Covid, we have been launching every month, tens of tens of product new, new categories as well, obviously in the diff same similar genre, home textile and in home and kitchen. But and a lot of products are, are, are, are being researched and, and in the last phases of launching as well. Bradley Sutton: Now do you, you know, because you have such strong, a strong brand and so much traffic and things like that, are all of your launches successful or sometimes you launch a product and you’re like, Nope, this is just not gonna work out. We’re gonna have to cut this. Farhan: No, we, we had some bad experiences in 2018, 2019 where I think that was not the right time. We tried to introduce some products, some electrical products. We were going out of our comfort zone, I would say or different genre. And then we did some baby pros as well, and even home, home and Kitchen Pro as well. And, and I think we were in that not that mature in terms of launching in 20 18, 20 17. So at that time, I would say our, our success was 15 to 20%, but nowadays for the last, I would say 12 months it’s, it’s easily 70 to 80%. So still, I would say 20, 30% of the product doesn’t work out. We try, we give them each product launch at least couple of cycles, two to three cycles. When I say cycle, it means that delivering decent amount of inventory to Amazon so six to 12 months, and after 12 months of a certain group launch we review and see whether we want to continue that or, or not. But Bradley Sutton: Well, what’s your criteria? Like what, what determines successful versus unsuccessful? Just profitability or a set number of units that you want to do? Farhan: Profitability is, is one thing, but I mean, for the first six to 12 months, we don’t look for profit, right? That’s part of the marketing strategy. So we look for how, how the customer is reacting to it, what are the reviews? If the reviews are 4.7 plus, we are accumulating reviews at a certain pace. So we are selling probably, you know, that one to 2% buyers give you reviews. So if you’re selling enough units, so you’re generating less in first year, you have 300, 500 reviews, good reviews and then you see the potential as well that where you can grow in terms of profitability wise and whether you can take the best seller or not, because where we are the size of, of the company, we are, we only, well, we mainly look for the best seller. Farhan: If we can get a best seller for that particular rescue or, or, or the group, right? If that potential is not there, if you’re not getting a good review from the customer, we still don’t decide to stop it. We, we see why customer is not liking it, whether it’s the quality, whether there’s the feature or is the U s p that’s why it’s not popular that we can improve. But yeah the criteria is to, to get the best seller, good reviews be on the top first page organically for sure. And then, then eventually making the profit on it. Bradley Sutton: Now, traditionally, you know, some of the categories you’re selling in are, are some of the most saturated, you know, most competitive categories out there. So are, are you, is it hard to stay profitable? Like, like are you having to, to play the price war game or because of your brand awareness, you can come in at a higher price point than maybe some of the newer Chinese sellers or, or things? Yeah. Like that and what’s your strategy there? Farhan: So, so for the last two years, it gets very, very price competitive. But for us, I think the main advantage is that we were always very price competitive. We work on volume rather than having a bigger margin on each, each unit. Right. And, and that’s why when we did our manufacturing and we leaned it, so we are vertically integrated, so we try to make our manufacturing cost at minimum and, and, and to keep the profit margin reasonably not very high so that we can give that advantage to the buyer, right? And, and then from, from from, because we were, we have some early seller advantage as well. We have been selling for, for last 10, 12 years. So, so the products they are there, which are mature, adding more variations to that or related product, they pick up very well when we do, yeah. Farhan: New launches. Then through our marketing strategies, like different strategies, selling on the 50% loss and then, and all that coupon strategies, deal strategies, we, we bring a product to a certain level, like first page or close to the best seller, and then we, we focus on, on the profitability. But we don’t, we don’t do like very high margin on, on any of our product. Our product, if you see like converters or pillows or even hangers they’re very price competitive as compared to even Amazon Basics. So because our competitors are like bigger giants, Amazon Basics and <inaudible> and whatnot. So, so, so we, we keep our price very competitive. Bradley Sutton: Now, what, what are some of your you know, let’s talk, you know, some strategies, some unique, some things that you, you think you do are unique. You know, you’ve already talked a little bit you know about, about your, your, your strategy here, but what you know about launching things, but, but what are some other strategies, whether it’s, you know, reviews, whether it’s branding, whether it’s packaging, whether it’s, you know, logistics. Yeah. You know, when you get to this level, I’m sure you’ve, you know, have a few tricks up your, your sleeve. So what, what are some things that you think you’re doing that maybe the majority of Amazon sellers might not be? Farhan: Yeah, obviously I, I won’t be sharing the core, core secret. Secret, Bradley Sutton: Yeah, yeah, sure. Right? Yeah. But please show me all of your SOPs and let, let’s share it with the world Farhan: <Laugh> for sure. But on the high level, obviously, your product needs to first satisfy the customer need, right? So, so what’s your product? Whenever somebody’s launching a product, what are their U s P? It needs to be price competitive, because what you see sells, right? So your, your pictures, your, your videos should be up to the mark. You should do PPC marketing. It goes upfront, but to be competitive, obviously the packaging you mentioned, because if you’re doing fba, it goes with the volume and, and, and, and the dimensions as well, right? So your packaging needs to be accordingly. So it’s, Amazon won’t charge you too much for the FBA fees. Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm. And, and, and then, then the quality of the product and how, how you’re doing your, your marketing through the deals, through the coupons, through through keyword marketing. Obviously this is one of the main, the ppc you need to learn that art and, and, and you need to be on top of it. Amazon changes their algorithm, not very often, but, but, but they do change it often, right? So you need to be well versed about that, so, and then change your marketing strategies accordingly. Bradley Sutton: Okay, cool. Now when you say, Hey, Walmart hasn’t worked out, do you just like, give up on Walmart completely, or you still just sell there? Just don’t put much focus on it? Farhan: We, we still sell. So we, we started on Walmart around 20 18, 20 19, actually, 20 18, 20 19. We tried a lot of platforms. We tried jad.com, we tried sharers, we tried Target, we tried Walmart, and then we said, no. I mean, our, I mean, it could be beneficial, but they’re way behind in terms of our revenue and, and, and return on investment. So, so we focused on Amazon. Recently for the last six months, we are still doing Walmart. You will see few of our products who are there, there are a couple of guys looking after that, but the focus is, is, is very low. Bradley Sutton: Okay. Okay. Foreign marketplaces what’s num number two, three, and four for you as far, obviously, you know, USA is number one, but for foreign Amazon marketplaces, what, what’s some of the top for you Farhan: For us Europe and Canada? So Canada, in terms of revenue, I would say is, is around eight to 10%. But the profitability in Canada is very high interest. Profitability is, is around 15 to 18% uk. We sell all across uk, Europe in Europe, we have France, Germany, Spain, Italy. So if I do combination of all I would say in terms of revenue, 70% in us, 20% uk, Europe, and 10% Canada. But profitability ratios are different, obviously. Bradley Sutton: So, I mean, it makes a lot of sense that your company, you know, manufacturers a lot in, in Pakistan, obviously, you know, the company started there. But for, for anybody, you know, whether somebody’s from Pakistan or not, you know, there are certain perhaps products that you might suggest that, hey, you know, you probably should look at at, at Pakistan as opposed to China. Like, I, I, I agree with you, like, Hey, maybe stainless steel. Yeah. You know, unless you have your own stain, you know, like, like that’s probably, you know, good just to be in China and plastics and, and stuff like that. But would you say anything related to textiles is better to start in Pakistan or only certain kinds of, of textiles? Or how would you suggest to somebody who’s, who’s looking to get into a new niche and they’re like trying to decide where they’re gonna source their product? Farhan: De depending on, on, on the products itself, right? But I mean, home, home textile, if you’re doing any home textile, gu a lot of bigger retailers like Walmart, target, they’re importing from Pakistan, they’re bad shoes, they’re comforters their pillows. So, so the home textile not in Karachi, but even you go on the other province, Punjab, faba site, you have a lot of home textile manufacturing units over there. Spore goods are really good. Some of the dental equipments like FD approved dental equipments for, for dentistry and, and operations and whatnot. We do our cosmetic care products. We have utopia care brand so like scissors, cuticle, nis and whatnot. We do from, from from Pakistan as well. But yeah, any, any of the home textile good. I, I think in terms of quality and price competitiveness Pakistan is, is very good. Garments, even jeans related products they are being manufactured in Pakistan, and, and you will, you will find a very good quality I think in that region, like Bangladesh, Pakistan, the cotton, the quality of the cotton is really good. So, so those, those part sounds really good if, if they’re doing the justice with the manufacturing and, and, and the quality control. Bradley Sutton: Okay. Now, we’ll, we’ll get back into you know, the, the, the Amazon strategies in a couple, couple minutes here, but one, one question I ask a lot of, you know, lately the, my guest is completely non, non entrepreneurial related, but it’s important, I think because, because, you know, I, I had health issues last year and, and as entrepreneurs sometimes we don’t know how to, you know, balance, you know, work, work and life. So just, I’m just curious, number one, what are some of your hobbies that you do when you want to get a, you know, step away from, from Utopia? So what, what’s your, what’s your opposite of utopia your, your personal utopia, and then also what are some of your, your habits, your healthy habits, like whether for mental health or physical health, like, you know, gym you have Yeah, yeah. You know, sports that you do. Go ahead. Farhan: Yeah, so, so first thing is, I mean, I, I have been playing cricket. I don’t know if, you know, there’s a sports like mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, baseball, cricket, it’s very popular in, in that region, Pakistan or England as well. So I still play that that’s the one thing I told my wife and we were getting married that I, I can’t leave cricket behind, so I still play in the summer, in the winter, obviously I play indoor in the summer I play outdoor cricket, right? Okay. Other than that I like biking and hiking. So in summer with, with my cares or with my friends, I go for biking and hiking. So that keeps for, for my mental health and whatnot. I have noticed that it’s very working well for me, if I, if I sleep early around 10, 11 and wake up around 5, 5 30, so I get my, my own time like without, with family and whatnot I get a few hours in the morning before kids wake up, and then in the night as well, I get a proper healthy sleep. So that, that’s working out very well. So that, that’s what keeps my, my mind at peace as well. And I think physically healthy as well, doing gym or just running in the morning. Yeah. Bradley Sutton: Yeah. Okay. All right. Back to the strategies, I’m just curious, you know, you have a lot of experience on, on Amazon now, obviously, you know that the average person who’s just starting or maybe, you know, smaller company looking to expand, they can’t just use the same strategies that you, you know, they, hey, let, let’s, you know, take a huge loss for six months and let’s do this crazy campaign, and, and, and let’s get up to 20,000 units of sales in the, in this, I mean, like, you know, that’s not the average person, but you know, in your experience, like what, what, what should the average person, you know, whether they’re new or, or maybe they are like a, you know, small seven figure company, you know, like what do you see as some of the the niches or, or, or some of the, the opportunity, you know, cuz my opinion, I’m sure you, you agree that some people say, oh, it’s too late to, to sell on Amazon. No, it’s not too late. You know, there, there’s still plenty of opportunity Yeah. On Amazon, you guys have your niche, you guys have your process of what you do. Yes. But when you’re, when you’re doing your, your thing, I’m sure you see other things like, oh, you know, if I was just by myself, I probably would’ve done I probably would, would get into this or, or something like that. Yes. What, what would you think for for people out there? Farhan: No, you are absolutely. I I think it’s still opportunity is there and it’s huge opportunity on, on Amazon all across e-commerce. And especially in e-commerce. Amazon is the giant, right? So opportunity is there for, for anybody who’s starting or, or a small scale as compared to 2012 or 2014, it is a lot of more, more sellers out there. But it’s still, if you, if you can find categories or, or products I will not recommend to go for a niche product because obviously you’ll have to do more marketing and, and you’ll have higher risk score there. So, so products which are everybody’s need, every household need or product where you see less competition, right? Pick those product don’t like start crawling first, then walking and running, right? So look for the products and target maybe 10 units a day, then 20 units a day, 15 units a day, those make those smaller wins. And then then increase your portfolio from there. Target maybe make your milestones in a way that in first three months of selling, you wanna be on the second page on your, your keyword search. Then six months you wanna be on the first page organically, right? Because that’s, that will take you for the long haul. Maybe in the first year, you can be on the first page organically. That would be a great, great success order there. Bradley Sutton: Okay. Cool. Cool. You know, I, I, I, I visited Pakistan a couple of times and seen firsthand the, the kind of like enthusiasm about e-commerce is crazy. Like I did, like, yeah, I don’t know, I’ve probably done five or six events and there’d be anywhere between 500 and a thousand people, you know, at each one. And what, how do you, how, how do you view the, the kind of like, you know, 10 years ago that wasn’t the situation, you know people weren’t into e-commerce. Like, what, what do you, what what’s going on over there? Like, like, why, why? So why all of a sudden is there this big boom, you know, like in the past, maybe people thought about, you know, getting, you know, help for their Amazon business, all right? Maybe Philippines, you know, maybe only India, you know, but like, why, why, why, why is Pakistan coming on so strong lately? Farhan: There, there, there are few, few success stories there as well. Utopia being one, right? When we started and we opened our first office in 2015, and we were having very hard time finding people with the e-commerce marketing experience, let alone Amazon, right? So what we did, we, we looked for the, one of the top a few top business graduates universities, and hired people from there and trained them, right? So over the course of, I would say eight, nine years there were a hundred of resources we hired and, and they moved out of utopia. They start, some of them, I know a few of them, Danish being one, they started their own entrepreneurship training centers as well. They help a lot of sellers as well. They work with other, they, they work with other giants, manufacturing giants or, or corporate giants were there to set up those training centers. Farhan: And at the same time, as I said Pakistan is a, a manufacturing, like one of the bigger strength in Pakistan is, is home textile and manufacturing. So those giants, they got entrusted looking into success of Amazon, success of Utopia and other like enablers and, and whatnot. And, and they, they came up with, with like a big, big, big initiatives to expand. And then on, on the talent side there has been a a lot of good talent. It’s just to show them direction, right? What I have seen when I, when I was kid, everybody was doing like, engineering and, and doctor and whatnot. But now for the last four or five years, it’s, it’s like there’s a boom of e-commerce. People know, and especially with the covid push, everybody’s going towards e-commerce or online sellings or social media, right? So, so on the talent side as well, people are very motivated and, and interested learning e-commerce and, and, and, and the good talent is, is working over there. And, and on, on the training side or on the university side as well people are, are, are taking initiatives and, and, and training those guys in the right direction as well. Bradley Sutton: Cool. Cool. Alright. Something we do on the shows LA last we call either the 60-second tip or 30-second tip. You know, you’ve been giving us different strategies and stuff, but you have something you can say that’s kind of quick hitting maybe 30 or 60 seconds strategy, Amazon or non-Amazon, whatever. Maybe, maybe it’s your own Briani recipe. You wanna, you wanna give in 60 seconds? I’ll let us know what, what, what can you tell us here? Farhan: I’ll, I’ll just say what I, I, I say my, my team. Whatever you guys do, just keep trying. If you’re launching a product or working as a virtual assistant in the beginning whatever field you’re working, try to be the champion of that field. Work. Go for the excellence, right? And then, or be the magnet and, and the other success and money will, will come towards you. So whether it’s been your marketing strategy or you’re making a ani, go for the go for the excellence of that particular task. And, and, and then things will come to you eventually. And then be, be persistent and keep trying. Bradley Sutton: Awesome. Awesome. Well, Farhan, thank you so much for joining us. And Incre, congratulations on all your success. We usually try and invite guests back, you know, maybe once per year, and who knows, maybe by, by the next time you’re on here, you’ll be our first ever 10 figure. Sure. 10 figure seller coming on here. All right. I really hope. Thank you very much and we’ll see you later. Farhan: Thanks for inviting Brad. Have a good day. Take care. Bye.

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Helium 10 Buzz is a weekly show that delivers breaking news in the Amazon, Walmart, and E-commerce space. Plus expert interviews and the training tip for the week.

Helium 10 Buzz is a weekly show that delivers breaking news in the Amazon, Walmart, and E-commerce space. Plus expert interviews and the training tip for the week.

Helium 10 Buzz is a weekly show that brings us the latest Amazon, Walmart, and E-commerce news. Plus more interviews and the ProTraining tip of the week!

It’s hard to know what your e-commerce path will look like. Two friends with completely different entrepreneurial journeys talk about finding success.

A new potential policy will block sellers from leaving comments on customer reviews. Search term impressions share report reveals two new metrics for Sponsored Ads. Weekly News 2020 Wrap-Up. This and more in this week's top stories.

Sellers are reporting decreased inventory capacity when trying to replenish FBA stock, Wish IPO hopes to reposition itself as a cheaper alternative to Amazon Prime, Big changes to VAT Rules on sales to UK customers go into effect January 1st. This and more in this week's top stories.

A record breaking Black Friday surpassed $4.8 Billion in worldwide sales. Walmart+ drops its shopping minimum for free home delivery. Episode 200 of the Serious Sellers Podcast drops this Saturday. This and more in this week's top stories.

New report reveals 1 in 3 US households shopped on Amazon Prime Day. Amazon expected to take in the bulk of online sales this holiday shopping season. This and more in this week's top stories.

Episode 83 of the Serious Sellers Podcast hosts Ryan Ebel, an 8-figure seller with tips on product bundling and creating a solid Amazon partnership.