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S3 Summer Edition Beth Alison Berggren
15 Plays30 days ago
In this episode of Dial It In, Trygve Olsen and Dave Meyer have a conversation with Beth Alison-Berggren, an Amazon store specialist, known as Babs. The discussion uncovers the complexities of establishing, optimizing, and succeeding on Amazon. Babs shares her extensive experience, including how to list products, compete for the buy box, manage fulfillment, and navigate Amazon's ever-changing rules. The episode also highlights common misconceptions about selling on Amazon, the importance of optimizing product listings for better visibility, and strategies for handling customer reviews. They also discuss the cost implications of selling on the platform, including subscription fees and advertising costs. This episode serves as an essential guide for anyone considering selling products on Amazon, emphasizing the need for dedicated management and professional expertise. Additionally, listeners are treated to humorous anecdotes about Trygve's retirement plans and a side conversation about unusual products like Aztec death whistles.
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Overview
00:00:09
Speaker
Welcome to dial it in a podcast where we talk to fascinating people about marketing sales process improvements and tricks that they use to grow their businesses. Join me Dave Meyer and Trigby Olson of busy web as we bring you interviews on how the best in their fields are dialing it in for their organizations.
00:00:26
Speaker
Let's ring up another episode.
Amazon Selling Journey with Babs
00:00:31
Speaker
Hey everybody, welcome back to this week's Dial It in episode. We're bringing back some of our favorites from the last season, and this episode is all about Amazon. Our guest, her name was Babs, and this is a fascinating episode for me because I really didn't know enough about what it takes to list a product on Amazon, let alone be successful at it.
00:00:52
Speaker
And so Amazon has always been a part of my professional life because it's changed the industry that I work in. and As a result, it's so much harder to do things like e-commerce better than ever before because of the Amazon effect, which Babs talks about in this episode.
00:01:09
Speaker
I've known her forever, respected her for even longer. and so When a client asked me earlier this year what it would take to build an Amazon store, i called her. and Once I started learning about what it would take, I knew immediately we needed to build an episode around it.
00:01:23
Speaker
It's not just the internet, it's a marketplace onto itself that you have to dedicate to in order to make money at. And it is a challenge. If you're considering putting a product on Amazon, this is a really valuable primer into how to do it and how to do it well.
00:01:38
Speaker
So please enjoy and we'll see you next week.
Unique Product Selling Strategies
00:01:42
Speaker
So Dave, I've never made any big secret that I'm desperately trying to get out of here and do something else, right? Gosh, that's new to me. but yeah Well, you remember how i was i was looking at the Aztec death whistle market?
00:01:54
Speaker
Oh, yes. i Trying to get into that as ah as a retirement plan? Yes. Because my ideal plan, obviously, is as once once I retire, is to move to Anaheim and become a boat captain on the Jungle Cruise ride at Disneyland.
00:02:07
Speaker
I can see that. Yeah. But before that, I need a bridge in order to get there. So our friend David runs his own Aztec death whistle company. By the way, for those of you who are listening, I'm not kidding. And it's a real thing.
00:02:19
Speaker
But as I'm looking to identify my product lines that I can sell in order to bridge me to Anaheim, I realized that e-commerce is just exhausting. And I i don't have the tolerance for that.
00:02:32
Speaker
I'm investigating what do I need to sell on Amazon. That's what our guest today is. She's going to be telling us all about how to sell products and what it takes to really build on an Amazon presence. So this is exciting. 58 year old Trigney is really excited for this and also ready to take the Aztec death whistle business by storm.
00:02:52
Speaker
Can't wait. Wow. But before that, do we have a sponsor for today?
Advertisement and Babs' E-commerce Journey
00:02:56
Speaker
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00:03:08
Speaker
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00:03:21
Speaker
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00:03:33
Speaker
Excellent. Our guest today, as I said, is an Amazon store specialist, which I'm super excited about because we got to reconnect with an old friend. Beth Allison Bergeron, known as Babs, and it is true she is known as Babs, is a founder of Bergeron Information Group, or BIG, where she specializes in helping businesses establish, optimize, and scale their Amazon presence.
00:03:54
Speaker
Excellent. With years of experience in e-commerce strategy, product positioning, and marketplace growth, she has guided brands through the complexities of Amazon, from store setup to achieving sustainable sales.
00:04:07
Speaker
Babs is passionate about simplifying the Amazon process so businesses can focus on growth without getting lost in the ever-changing marketplace rules. And i know her very well, so I'm going to say welcome, Babs. And yes, I'm prepared to show you my Aztec death whistle.
00:04:21
Speaker
Yeah. I have heard of one, but I have never seen one. So i know it's a little thing that looks like this, the size of a fist. um And I don't know if the mics will show it, but if cover cover your ears gang, if I blow on it,
00:04:35
Speaker
get Oh yeah, that came through. Yeah. It sounds like a woman screaming, here which is really something that everybody needs and something that you'd buy on Amazon. But welcome to the show. Thanks for joining us.
Challenges of Amazon Marketplace
00:04:47
Speaker
Thank you. Thanks for the introduction. We met years and years ago where you had your own e-commerce business. Yes. i bought an e-commerce business that was selling on Amazon.
00:04:59
Speaker
And at the time they were doing, that it was down to dribs and drabs. They had been very big. And then there was all sorts of kerfuffle and it just tanked. By the time i purchased it, it was doing like maybe $13,000 year.
00:05:12
Speaker
which is not, was not covering the fees of what they were paying. Not just to Amazon, but they had other platforms that they had third-party tools that they had layered in. And it's an interesting experience buying a business that's losing money. They come in a great discounted price, but it also doesn't come with any of the basis to help you grow it large from there.
00:05:35
Speaker
It was also in a category that knew absolutely nothing about tools. I am not handy and never have been. And I had to explain the difference between the metric and the inches.
00:05:46
Speaker
Yeah. You got the two different types. Is it a metric wrench or is it on whatever? now I still don't know what the difference is. I just know one's an inches and one's an in metric. So I had to learn about what inventory I did have and figure out what was selling and quickly figured out that most difficult way to try to make money on Amazon is to sell products that other people are already selling.
00:06:09
Speaker
Because what happens on Amazon is you then compete for the buy box. So let's say Trigby, let's take your Amazon death whistle. Yes. You want to list it on Amazon and you go and you create your store and you but establish a your business there.
00:06:22
Speaker
And then you search for your product and discover that there are a thousand other vendors selling the exact same product. Yep. That product will have an ASIN associated to it, which is a unique product identifier. It's kind of like their version of a UPC.
00:06:39
Speaker
And because you, as a seller, you can buy a UPC and put it on it and try to say it's a different product when it really isn't. So you could have your own UPC. You need to have, there's a very certain kind of UPC you need to have. You can buy cheap UPCs and you'll find that someone else is using a UPC on Amazon for something else. And that's an incredible hit.
00:06:59
Speaker
you know So buy the good UPCs. But if you're lucky and you look on Amazon and your product does not exist, then you get to create the ASIN. And at at that point, you can't own the ASIN unless someone else could prove that they're buying the exact same product and then they can list the exact same product.
00:07:16
Speaker
If you do have someone competing with you, as I said, you have a buy box. Owning the buy box is based on a couple of things. You're the health of your account and your price.
00:07:27
Speaker
So let's say you're terrible at following up on customer service requests, but you've got the cheapest price. you still not be You still might not get the buy box because Amazon doesn't want a seller who's not good at doing customer support or is it following the rules to get the buy box.
00:07:45
Speaker
So you have to have account in good health and you have to have the lowest price. Think that
Brand Integrity and Exclusivity on Amazon
00:07:51
Speaker
through. If there's other people selling the same product that you are and everyone wants the buy box, what happens it ends up being a chase down to the bottom penny.
00:08:00
Speaker
And everyone's running after that lower price to get the buy box, hoping the other competitors will either give up, take the product off, or run out of inventory and not restock it because it's too hard to compete on that item.
00:08:13
Speaker
That's the business I bought was doing that very thing. They were buying discounted stuff through discounted discounters like wholesalers around the US, bringing them to inexpensive products and competing for the buy box.
00:08:26
Speaker
You do enough volume in that, it can go well. But I felt it would be way better tactic to add in products that I exclusively or like make agreements with manufacturers.
00:08:38
Speaker
Let me sell your product for you on Amazon. I take the headache away from having to deal with Amazon. I'm the only one who's selling that product on Amazon. It also helps if someone's a manufacturer and they don't want to, say, upset their distributor network.
00:08:54
Speaker
So they don't want to be the one selling it directly on Amazon. If I'm selling to the third party, then I just have to ensure that I'm selling it retail rather than their distributor price so that I'm not competing with their distributor network.
00:09:06
Speaker
So that's what I did is I added in proprietary lines with my manufacturers that I had made agreements with. And the last one I made an agreement with went gangbusters.
00:09:17
Speaker
Within the first year i was selling their product, I grew the business to half a million dollars in just their product. yeah And how much retail was the product? They were expensive. There were many splits.
00:09:28
Speaker
So they I think the least expensive one was around $1,700, $1,800. Still, it was crazy volume. It was so busy. I was so busy fielding customer requests because I was fulfilling it. So I had to do all the customer service like it hasn't arrived or it arrived damaged. So I had to deal with all those to keep my account healthy.
00:09:47
Speaker
yeah I did the classic mistake and I know better. i have an MBA. I knew better than to put all my eggs in one basket. And now 99% of my sales was in this one front line.
00:09:58
Speaker
And I knew it was a risk. I knew i was not, I needed to go find something else to add into it. But I was just so busy dealing with all that. I didn't do it. And also that business way, why should we have her sell that?
00:10:12
Speaker
We could do the same thing. So they opened up their own Amazon. know And then it gave me 24 hours to stop selling their product. Oh, no. have to compete for the buy box.
00:10:24
Speaker
We could have agreed on map pricing, but why should they split the sales between me and themselves? Which I understood in theory, but it'd be nice to have a little bit more than 24 hour notice.
00:10:37
Speaker
Babs, it seems like in Amazon, especially, and in news that I've seen and just browsing as a casual purchaser, that competition is one of those really cutthroat things. And especially I've seen or heard competition you know People will buy or a successful product will come up and then all of a sudden, magically, it seems like there's three or four of the exact same product.
00:11:03
Speaker
So how do you balance that and how do you manage the business to, you have to just stay ahead of the curve and plan for obsolescence because somebody is going to steal your idea or how does that work?
00:11:14
Speaker
There's a couple of ways people can steal your idea. had one client who he was selling a product that it was his proprietary product, but they got into a situation where they didn't control their SKUs well enough and they changed packaging and they didn't keep their SKUs clean. So let's say you had SKU 1001 for this package and you changed the packaging and you still call it 101.
00:11:37
Speaker
Now you got all this inventory and different packaging that you don't want. So what they did, and they thought it was a great idea at the time, They wholesale everything that was in the old packaging off. And they're like, great, we sold it.
00:11:49
Speaker
Bingo. Now you've wholesaled it out. And there's seven other sellers that are selling your exact same product under your exact same Asa. And now you're doing that death spiral to the bottom penny. And that's exactly what happened to They didn't understand what was going to happen when they sold out for wholesale. They thought that was just a great solution.
00:12:06
Speaker
They understand they opened up the gates to have that kind of competition. Sure. The other way i've seen it happen is i had another client who had her own proprietary product and she had a patent on it.
00:12:18
Speaker
However, some of other Chinese manufacturers took a look at went great product and they knocked it off. And then they started selling it on Amazon. Didn't have to necessarily be at the same ASIN, but if you
Product Restrictions and Logistics on Amazon
00:12:30
Speaker
searched for that product,
00:12:32
Speaker
They both listings came up and their price was lower. So you weren't fighting for the buy box because they were separate ASINs because she owned her brand, but you were still competing for the customer saying, no, I have two options and this one's less expensive.
00:12:44
Speaker
Are there things Amazon won't sell? Yes, there are like, you can't sell adult like sex products. I think there's a, you can't do that. I don't think they do any ammunition and guns. I believe there's other kinds of, I think there's a few other prohibited products, but those are the most obvious ones.
00:13:02
Speaker
Yeah, probably like flammable things, I would guess. I think you can buy like lighter fluid, but you probably couldn't buy like gasoline or something. Probably not. There is like when you're putting a product on, there's all sorts of questions you have to answer. it flammable? Is it hazardous? Because things are getting shipped.
00:13:19
Speaker
Right. need to know if you're selling lithium batteries, they need to know to market as a lithium battery. It can be shipped. You just have to identify it as that. Cause there's different things that you have to do for shipping lithium batteries. It has to be labeled.
00:13:32
Speaker
Correct. You have to handle it slightly differently. You can't jump up and down on the books as much as you would maybe if it was the other way. Yeah. And as, as for some of the other prohibited things I think one of the most famous.
00:13:44
Speaker
that I've seen in memes anyway, Amazon products is the 55 gallon drum of lube. And you know, that, i so I don't think that quite counts, but it's a, it's very kind of suspicious. You get 55 gallon drum of barbecue sauce though. So it's there you go. That, that would be right.
00:14:01
Speaker
right That's lot of barred us. you You'll appreciate this, and you can nerd out a little with ah with us, Babs, is I did i had ah an ammo company as a prospecting source once, and their needs from a digital standpoint were absolutely ridiculous because they needed to have ah thousand calls, which is basically how many times your point of sale, your e-commerce store is hitting your inventory system. They didn't have ah thousand a minute.
00:14:32
Speaker
Whoa, because if, if there's a whiff of any sort of gun band or any sort of gun protest, owners would just start buying in mass. And so they would get a run on ammo.
00:14:47
Speaker
And so they would frequently be caught if they didn't have that level of monster sophistication of their digital, their digital processes, they would be able, they would run out inventory. They wouldn't even know.
00:15:00
Speaker
so Well, okay.
Amazon Store Setup and Misconceptions
00:15:03
Speaker
My, my adult animal products are probably not going to fly. And I guess I'm going to have to stay for another couple of weeks here, but what so far I have a product that want to sell it on Amazon. Where do I start?
00:15:14
Speaker
You have to set up your account first and give them the information on your business or business tax ID number, that all that kind of stuff. You get on, you start creating your store.
00:15:25
Speaker
You can add products one by one, or you can add them through an upload sheet. I'll say that adding products and knowing how to add them correctly is probably the first hurdle that stops clients.
00:15:38
Speaker
that they get into it, they try to list the product and it won't list correctly or it won't display correctly. And especially if it's something that's configurable, so you've got something, t-shirts and they come different sizes and different colors.
00:15:50
Speaker
Can they struggle to get that configurability to come out right? And what many who get frustrated do at that point is they list every single size and color separately. The problem with that is if I go in and buy like a medium t-shirt and I decide I want a large as well, have to go find that other large.
00:16:10
Speaker
And, you know, not everyone identifies on Amazon how to find the store that the person has put up. Because when you list on Amazon, you don't have to set up a store, but it's smart to if you have more than one item.
00:16:22
Speaker
then people can find all your stuff. But I think it's, I personally feel the user interface that I was on doesn't encourage the customer to go find that store very well. They want to keep you on their main search page. Well, I think we need to back up and maybe do some level setting here because I think most people are ah completely surprised many brands are actually on Amazon. Amazon is not and the end-all and be-all that has an encyclopedic knowledge of products.
00:16:50
Speaker
and I'm sure you don't have this number at your fingertips, but can you qualify that in some way of who's using Amazon as a selling point? My guess is there's more a million products in Amazon.
00:17:01
Speaker
but I don't know that for a fact that zero data to. Yeah. Amazon's really turned into a search engine. It's not just a marketplace. And so some brands are using it. They don't really care if they don't sell anything through Amazon.
00:17:16
Speaker
They just want the presence because people are using it as a search engine. So some people go to Amazon, find the product and go, oh, that's interesting. They may buy it on Amazon or they may jump off.
00:17:27
Speaker
And go to that company's website and buy it from them or go find it wherever else. Wow. Babs, I have our research producer was on and listening and she said that there's more than 600 million products on Amazon right I was a little shy. Just a few. Yeah. one that's more yeah Think of like just my tiny little e-commerce company.
00:17:48
Speaker
At one point I probably had a thousand SKUs and that was not a lot of product. but this is This is one of Amazon's little secrets is just as you said, I think people our age look at this and go, Oh, look, it's Jeff in his garage and he's sending my books and it'll be here in two days. Oh, isn't that sweet?
00:18:08
Speaker
If you ask anybody under the age of 40, they don't know that Amazon used to be a book distributor. They think it's a delivery service. Yes. And I think also, i would say the majority people do not who are shopping on Amazon do not understand that they're not buying it from Jeff Bezos.
00:18:26
Speaker
They don't understand they're buying it from a third party. And like I had some friends who were very upset about whatever going on in the world. And they're like, I'm not going buy an Amazon. I said, think it back to when I owned my e-commerce business.
00:18:37
Speaker
You not buying an Amazon hurts me much more than it hurts anybody else. You just see the pause on their face of what?
00:18:48
Speaker
I think it's to the user interface. I don't think a lot of people look to see who it's actually being sold from. It's there, but it's not like really prevalent because your brand and who you are selling it are often two different things.
00:19:02
Speaker
Yeah, and Amazon has trained us from a user experience standpoint to not even look at the seller. and They just go, oh, look, there's the product, there's the pictures, there's the price, click to cart. yeah We had a guest on previously who talked about the one-click buying experience that's patented by Amazon. So they are essentially accelerating the entire e-commerce process, which is then causing a detriment to people to create their own e-commerce process because anytime you do your own one,
00:19:29
Speaker
The key thing is you have to be able to store credit cards, which is a monster liability in order to get that. And if you don't have that, it's going to be slower and people are going to go, oh, I'm just going buy it.
00:19:41
Speaker
Right. Exactly. Exactly. I want us back up for a second because we keep backing up. We should just start. from Yeah. but Let's go back to the beginning. It's a very good place to start. It's Seattle, 1996. There. Jeff was a young man.
00:19:56
Speaker
Yes. Okay. For the folks who do want to support their friends who have an Amazon store or you know of a good brand that you really resonate with and you know that they have an Amazon store,
00:20:10
Speaker
How can you verify that you are working with that company? Like I know that there's sponsored posts and there are tricks to notice to noticing which ones are sponsored and or might be trying to scoop or steal that sale away from the real brand.
00:20:29
Speaker
So how do you decipher that on the Amazon search page? The first thing, if it truly has a registered brand, sure you're looking in the registered brand. Like I must be for a product the other day on Amazon's product. I actually launched when I was the director of product for Stern's called the puddle jump.
00:20:45
Speaker
And if you put in puddle jumpers, it's churras light check. If you put in puddle jumper on Amazon, and I was shocked at the hundreds of knockoffs that came up. And at first I had one on the car.
00:20:56
Speaker
I'm the one who developed this product. And then I looked at closer and went, oh, that's not a Stern's Puddle Jumper. It's a knockoff. I did Puddle Jumper.
Marketing and Advertising on Amazon
00:21:05
Speaker
yeah I've got the first thing is Chiffer Kid Swim Vest, Toddler Swim Vest, Hay Splash Swim Vest.
00:21:12
Speaker
So if it doesn't say Stern's puddle jumper, Stern's in the puddle, then it's not, it's a knockoff. And that's the first way you can identify that it's ah that it's a knockoff. The second way is to look at who's selling it.
00:21:24
Speaker
Look at this seller who's actually selling it and you can click through to the seller page and you can see the reviews for the seller and you can see often their address. And so if you know it's your friend's company, that's in St. Paul, ven Minnesota, and his address shows Cupertino, California,
00:21:40
Speaker
Guess what? It's not. Ding ding ding. Yeah.
00:21:45
Speaker
Now I have something to get Dave for his birthday. Do you want the, do you want the starfish or the alligator? I'm going to need the 17 XL toddler puddle jumper. Okay. They go up to 90 pounds now, I think.
00:21:57
Speaker
Perfect. That's one of them. So for the marketing people who are listening, I think everybody understands that paid media marketing is really the king of the hill strategy. Is that the same thing with Amazon too? It's a pay-to-play marketplace, just like everywhere else is.
00:22:10
Speaker
That the sponsor does, if you want, you put your products on Amazon, especially if you're You have similar products to someone else. You probably want to do pay-per-click campaigns on Amazon.
00:22:23
Speaker
They have a pretty good interface that you can figure out and drill down and see what your cost of sales and goods are, cost of sale are. But I found that's another pain point for clients that they wanted the pay-per-click. Then they figure sales are just going to take off. And they look at that page of analytics and their eyes just roll into the back of their hands.
00:22:39
Speaker
They're like, yep, no. And that's when they're like, bads come back in and tell us how to optimize this. So then you get into negative keywords and keywords, make sure it's like doing pay-per-click anywhere else.
00:22:52
Speaker
but Okay. So here's my next idea is I've created a 15 month calendar. The men of BusyWeb, it's pictures of me, action shots of me, Dave and Andy, a producer, Andy, doing things like sitting at our desks, watching YouTube videos, really action shots. And I want to put it on Amazon, of course, because really we need wide distribution. We can't just, so this is not just a friends and family product by any means.
00:23:14
Speaker
I set up my shop. Does it cost me anything to set up my shop? So to have a professional presence on Amazon is 30 or 39 99 a month. So 40 bucks a month. This is by no means professional. This is Andy on a bear skin rug.
00:23:28
Speaker
But if you want to help, just picture in that. If you want to have a store, if you want to have the option to do free shipping, to do fulfill by Amazon, you have to do the professional version.
00:23:40
Speaker
So that's the $40 a month. I get all on that. So then, What does it cost me to do the pay-per-click on average? What sort of a table stakes? Like I tell people, if you're going to do paid media buying, if you're not going to spend at least a thousand dollars a month, you really shouldn't do it.
00:23:57
Speaker
But I'm not a huge pay-per-click expert. I've had helped clients do it and look at that. I'm good at looking at the analytics of it. Sure. I'm really cheap. And I've dealt with clients for the last 17 years that wide variety of sizes and I look more over their budget and what their margins are in their product and say, we want to keep your cost of sales less at like around 10% of what you're selling.
00:24:23
Speaker
Otherwise, you're spending too much money. And if it's not working, we need to figure out why. Is it something wrong with the product or your branding? Let's figure that out first rather than just throwing a ton of money at it to see if it'll stick.
00:24:33
Speaker
had one client who... Put a product on Amazon. There's a hilarious product called the butt muffler. It's a little, it's a carbon little seat cushion that you sit so put on your office chair so that if you happen to toot during the day, supposedly it absorbs the smell and you're not reaching for the spray or anything.
00:24:52
Speaker
Co-workers. Brilliant. Yes. Brilliant. Very funny. He had some very funny videos that he created and they they were selling, but not terribly fast. And so he started doing campaigns and radio ads. And I kept saying, oh, have you done the Mac on this?
00:25:08
Speaker
Here's what your margin is. Here's what your sales are. And I could see what you're spending on advertising and you're overspending your sales. And I know the sales ramped up was still when he started the advertising. and He would get so excited because he'd left his, I remember his phone, he would never turn the sound off on his phone.
00:25:24
Speaker
And I'd go to lunch with him. And his father was going. Ringtone. Yeah. or okay. He was just, ding. He made another sale. And he was like so excited. And like. It's Dave's birthday's coming up. And I haven't picked something out for him. So since I'm looking, Dave, do you want the butt muffler with the starfish or the alligator on it?
00:25:41
Speaker
Alligator, please. Okay. Got it. Hold on. Add to click to add to cart. What's fascinating is I did actually look this up as we were talking and ah that what you're describing is not even on the first page of if you look for the term butt muffler.
00:25:55
Speaker
Oh my goodness. It is something called the Evil Energy 2-inch Resonated Muffler Stainless Steel, which I am putting nowhere near my hiney. Because I'm pretty sure for a car.
00:26:07
Speaker
Yeah, he does not no longer run that business. Okay. It's a very long story. The trajectory at the time where he was doing great sales, but not paying attention to his costs and to his expenses, here that's not a long-term strategy.
00:26:20
Speaker
There's a joke to be had here that I'm just going to struggle with for days that I've heard. Andy is going to be hovering on the mute button on us today. It's going to be delightful. right.
Fulfillment and Shipping Logistics
00:26:29
Speaker
but So for the folks that want to get into this, they probably don't want to have a garage full of product and then ship them all out. So can you tell us a little bit about Amazon fulfillment and how all that stuff works?
00:26:41
Speaker
So when I had my business, I was not a huge fan of fulfillment by Amazon. I looked at, because I had a warehouse that I didn't see this huge advantage to be using fulfillment by Amazon when it weighed my ability to do customer service.
00:26:56
Speaker
And it was slightly more expensive than what it cost me to ship on my own warehouse. However, if you're a small or business that does not have a warehouse or doesn't can't handle the onesie twosie kind of sales, then fulfillment by Amazon is a great option.
00:27:12
Speaker
And it's not unreasonable. The fees overall are 15% or there's like a bottom dollar amount based on the yeah you what you're selling.
00:27:23
Speaker
15% of the sale of the item. And then there's some FBA fees. If your inventory, if you ship your inventory to Amazon and it sits there a long time, you start paying storage fees.
00:27:34
Speaker
Oh, yeah. which aren't terrible until you get into fourth quarter and fourth quarter. If you've got slow moving inventory, that's going be very expensive. And you really want to avoid that.
00:27:45
Speaker
And Amazon tries their best to help you understand here's your slow moving inventory. Do something about it, advertise it, lower the price. They alert you or you can ask for inventory to be shipped back to you.
00:27:56
Speaker
You do pay the shipping, but you pay Amazon's rates. which are, you can pay your own, but you shouldn't because they're are really good. Obviously they've negotiated incredible rates. So if you are that seller that doesn't want to do the fulfillment, you ship it into Amazon and it's a pretty straightforward process of your ASIN has to be created on Amazon.
00:28:16
Speaker
You then say you want to send it into a fulfillment center. It walks you through how to package it, where to put it. ah Sometimes you'll have one item you're putting on and they're going to have you send it to three different fulfillment centers.
00:28:29
Speaker
It's their logistics. I can't explain that, but I assume it's based on their assumption of where this going shipping out to because they want the lowest shipping cost as well as the pockets get to them. And probably speed of delivery, right? So if they know that it must ah or that a major municipal center is likely to place a lot of orders, then they could do same day.
00:28:47
Speaker
Right. It's a couple of miles away. Okay, got it. Okay, what what are some of the other sort of misconceptions that people have about the putting their problem in the Amazon?
00:29:00
Speaker
I think the most common one I see is people think it's going to easy. And I always explain, no offense to Amazon, but explain that to me they're gorilla. They're the big gorilla and you just have to learn to deal with them.
00:29:11
Speaker
And if you're patient and dig through, the information is there, but then they have, or at least they had i have, I haven't looked recently, something called Seller University. It's basically all your frequently asked questions, all your things you want to know.
00:29:25
Speaker
can go in there and find they have training videos. They used to have a seller forum where the sellers could chat with each other and ask questions. And that was great. I believe that's shut down. Last couple of times I went into clients' Amazon accounts, I saw nothing about that, which doesn't surprise me. That's shut down. But that was actually a nice resource.
00:29:48
Speaker
But yeah, the most common assumption is that you put it up on Amazon, it's going to sell. Because in 600 million products, it's got to be found. There's got to be an algorithm.
SEO and Passive Income Myths on Amazon
00:29:59
Speaker
Right. Just about the sheer amount of users on Amazon every day. Yeah. Surely they'll pick my product. Maybe. Right. If they find it. If you truly optimize, you have to optimize an Amazon listing the same way you do SEO for a website or for a product on your own e-commerce.
00:30:16
Speaker
It's the same thing. If you don't do it well there, You're not going to do it well on Amazon. So these get rich quick schemes about drop shipping and setting up Amazon stores where you don't even have to buy any product.
00:30:29
Speaker
Really, that's those people are getting into that. Here's one product and here's 40 different ah examples ah of it. It's not a unique thing. It's not 15 months of Andy Wintowski in movement. That's an original product line for sure.
00:30:43
Speaker
Okay. So what are some of the other misconceptions that people have? It's easy. That's one it's that it's free. That's certainly another one. Yeah. It's definitely not free. and think the other, like the scenario that you just mentioned, that's another one that people be like, oh, I think I could earn a lot of passive income doing this.
00:31:02
Speaker
It's, it needs to be marriage like any other business. It really does. You can pull in. Like, I just had a curiosity. i bid on one of those ads. It's like, you can create passive income. And I just wanted to see what was it they were doing.
00:31:14
Speaker
And they gave you a free Shopify account. And then you could use this AI powered bot to seek out products that could be listed on your site and you never had to touch it. For affiliate revenue or.
00:31:28
Speaker
So I clicked the button. I'm like, okay, let's see what kind of products it brought in. It brought in some of the craziest knockoff stuff I've ever seen. And I went, I will have nothing to do with this. No, we we've brought a new term into the chat. Dave, can you explain briefly what affiliate marketing is?
Affiliate Marketing and Cost Management
00:31:43
Speaker
Oh, sure. So affiliate marketing being, if you refer someone and you're the representative that you would get a percentage of the sale. So you're, and you're affiliated with them. A commission. And with that commission. So Amazon has a lot of this where there are affiliate links that you can do. And so people with popular blogs, a lot of times, almost every blog that's gets a ton of traffic has their gift guides for. Yeah. the holiday season.
00:32:12
Speaker
That's all about making affiliate revenue. Got it. Okay. So realistically, if I'm going to sell on Amazon, my 15 months of Andy Wachowski catalog, I'm going to have to do, I'm going to spend the $40. I'm going to have to create a pay-per-click campaign.
00:32:28
Speaker
I'm going to have to optimize it. And then I'm getting, and I haven't even gotten to actually publishing or fulfilling the thing yet. And then your other expenses, if you're going to do FBA is you're going to have to ship it into them.
00:32:40
Speaker
Which, as I said, their shipping rates are quite reasonable, but still that's another expense that you have to look at. Or the kidding of it, because obviously with such a high value product, I want to make sure that there's an unboxing experience because it's approach Andy, a calendar of Andy Watowski's action shots.
00:32:59
Speaker
So you would probably need to do that that packaging experience yourself? Yeah. Amazon will, if you set like strip them a case of something, they will break it up and repackage it for you individually, but they'll charge you for them.
00:33:13
Speaker
Sure. But they're not going to package it up and insert flyers and things like that. It's just bag, zip, label off. So here's a question that I've always wanted to ask somebody. And because you're an expert in this, I'm going to i'm going to start with you.
00:33:28
Speaker
ah Why is it that when I buy small things on Amazon, it comes in the most gigantic box? That is the most, ill the only thing I can think of is that You've got a very mechanized system with people at the end who are not being paid a ton of money. No offense, but it's a lying job and they grab the most community box.
00:33:52
Speaker
It's Or it's a their method of protest that my contact lens solution comes in yeah in a by 36 inch box. You could try. You can come to bed and say, I am gentle. You use this much cardboard to send. And they'll be like, sorry.
00:34:06
Speaker
Okay, great. Let us send you a box to put it in to send it back to us. place back with i When I shipped Fulfilled from my own warehouse, we tried so hard that there's no air left. So long as it was well cool wrapped, it was the product was going arrive, is the package is going to open.
00:34:21
Speaker
But you work pretty hard to make sure that you're using the least amount of materials to get that product there safely. Yeah, I just i just bought a new chair. I'm very proud of it. And there was an unboxing experience, which it was very dramatic. I bought a gaming chair because it's it said to support my neck better. It was a very dramatic thing. And what I was surprised at all of it, and all of it was very cool. All the wheels came in in foam inserts and a lot of thought went into it.
00:34:49
Speaker
And the back, it was pull it out this way and put it on this special pad while you're building the rest of the chair. And I'm like, oh, okay, fine. And then at the end, there were no directions to build the chair. You had to go online.
00:35:02
Speaker
How many parts have you yeah left over after you finished putting it together? None, but I had all the unboxing things because i' now I'm at to the point because I had to buy the chair on the internet. I never got to sit in it.
00:35:14
Speaker
um what So I took a flyer and so far it's been it's been nice. But then, I don't know, I've been sitting here for, I don't know two hours total since I got the chair.
00:35:25
Speaker
But so now I have this giant monstrous box that I'm not going to throw away because I'm petrified. What am I going if I don't want to if I want to send it back? How do I do that? Do I have to read? Do I have to rebox the and up the unboxing? Realistically, all these people are competing for attention just to use.
Amazon's Search Engine Role and Algorithm Changes
00:35:42
Speaker
And I think one of the things you said was really illustrative is that Amazon is basically a search engine unto itself now. Absolutely. And the other interesting thing that I heard you say is that even if people are protesting Amazon, they're really protesting other people who are trying to make a living on it. Absolutely.
00:36:00
Speaker
So here's the big question then. If I want to protest Amazon, how much of a cut does Amazon really take for all this? So we've we talked a little bit about the expenses to set up the shop and put up my lemonade stand in Amazon. But if I sell a product, how much of a spiff is Amazon taking?
00:36:17
Speaker
Basically 15%. Okay. That's it? this you know You have other expenses, but per product as you sell it, it's 15%, depending on the category. Some categories are a little bit higher.
00:36:29
Speaker
I don't think I've ever seen a category this lower, but there are, answers like if let's say a a really low dollar item. a two, $4 item, 15% of that is like a lie.
00:36:42
Speaker
Or if you don't hit that, 15% may not hit their threshold. And so they're going to charge you their minimum dollar amount rather than the 15%. So you may end up paying a larger percentage because it's such a low dollar item.
00:36:54
Speaker
I know we're talking about physical goods, but with Kindle eBooks or audible things to, does that have the same 15%? I would have to look at that category. I've never sold anything in that category for anyone or any client, but I'm sure there's a similar percentage.
00:37:11
Speaker
and Okay. All of this is basically run by an algorithm and just Google search algorithm. Is there a subset of algorithmic studies? Like SEO is basically trying to figure out how to make Google happy.
00:37:26
Speaker
is how do you figure out what, what the algorithm has changed? Like, I think it's common knowledge at this point that Google changes its algorithm every two weeks. So how often does Amazon change theirs?
00:37:38
Speaker
That's a good question. I don't know. i know they dar they are definitely doing changes all the time because I'll go into a client's Amazon account one week. I go in the next week and they change the interface and like, wait, where was that report that I wanted to pull for them?
00:37:53
Speaker
Or also they added more information. They try to provide very supportive information for the vendors, but sometimes it's hard to find figuring out your SEO.
00:38:04
Speaker
Yeah, there's guides there that'll help you, but it's, you need to find someone who could truly help you with SEO and help you figure out keywords and how to find, look at your competitors. What keywords are they using?
00:38:17
Speaker
So what, you know, do you want to use negative keywords? Like I'm selling a fountain. It's a fountain, but it's not a pen. Oh, sure. It means two separate things. Right. So are there general rules or guidelines that you do for like the descriptions and titles of products then?
00:38:32
Speaker
Yes. And Amazon has some really funny rules and some products are on Amazon that do not comply with the rules. They're either like they've been there long enough and the until you start to make a change to that product, then they'll fly. Oh, your description doesn't meet our standards.
00:38:47
Speaker
They don't tend to like the inch mark. They or would like to quote inch yeah or I N. And I'm not sure whether they just have studies of saying that people don't see the little mark, but I had a client that had canvas tarps and that obviously they have to show the size.
00:39:06
Speaker
Every time we would make a change to the listing, we would get into this round and round with Amazon of dozen complies. Okay. Let's try it this way. it complies.
00:39:18
Speaker
What are the sort of couple of must know things people need to do to make their product listings better? Is it just the keyword research? Definitely keyword research. It's like selling any product.
00:39:30
Speaker
Know your competitors, know your target market, and then figure out how to put in the correct keywords that make that product visible to your key market and make you stand apart from your competition.
00:39:42
Speaker
Got it. ah The kind of last thing I want to talk about is reviews.
Review Management and Consulting Services
00:39:49
Speaker
How do you get, how do you work to write that up? Yeah. How do you get reviews? What do you do if you get a bad review?
00:39:55
Speaker
So if you get a bad review, you should respond to it. I mean, just like on your site, on Google or anything, you definitely need to watch the reviews. You definitely need to ask for them. Amazon is not a huge fan of you putting anything inside the packaging of your product saying, please review us on, on Amazon.
00:40:12
Speaker
I was just talking to a client yesterday and said, you can put something in there, encouraging them to look at you guys generally, but you might want to make it an opaque bag because they know they're not a fan of it.
00:40:25
Speaker
And they're not going to open up every bag and look at, see if you have anything in there. So you might get away with it. And if you don't and they find it and they're just going to tell you how to do it. I think everybody's nature is they always want to read the negative reviews because it's titillating and it's interesting and it's, and, but one of the really, one of the more valuable lessons I learned about e-commerce selling, I learned from a former client of ours who makes vegan soup and now he sells it on Amazon. And he said, more than likely the five-star reviews are friends and family.
00:41:03
Speaker
More than likely the one star reviews are just people who are nuts. The thing that you really need to look for is if somebody has a legitimate issue with a product, it's going to be a three star review.
00:41:18
Speaker
And that's where the money happens is in the three star reviews is making sure that you're answering those and dealing with them. Exactly. And it's the answering that's really important to show that the company is watching and that they care and you're right. And they also look on Amazon, it'll say verified purchase.
00:41:33
Speaker
And so a friends and family reviewing it probably not even say verified purchase. That just means they didn't actually buy it. They're reviewing it. Buy it. Exactly. So you could have your family buy one or two or three or four and then review.
00:41:47
Speaker
That would be a smarter way to do it and say, here, I'll give you 20 bucks to buy my product. And then you review it positively. Which is why i have not only won but two Aztec death whistles.
00:42:01
Speaker
So that I could say that I was a verified product reviewer when I did that. agree ah Thank you so much. This has been dizzying and a little bit painful. So I'm going to have to go back to work. Dave, do you have any final thoughts before we wrap up?
00:42:15
Speaker
I do. i One of the funnest parts about the work that we do with our clients is we help them to grow and to sell.
00:42:26
Speaker
And we don't do e-commerce. We don't do Amazon. And that's why it's so enlightening. to get insights from Babs and what really constitutes a real online like digital media purchase because people always do have pie in the sky dreams. is Oh, I've got my Amazon death whistle or my calendar or whatever, and I really want to...
00:42:48
Speaker
do this, but people drastically underestimate it isn't a panacea. It's not going to be a magical. There's no get get rich quick things. There's, it's going to take longer than you probably think.
00:43:02
Speaker
And when at all possible, you should just bring in a pro like Babs to make sure that you do it right. Cause you're going to save yourself months, weeks, and probably tens of thousands of Winstead revenue if you just wing it on your own.
00:43:17
Speaker
Find a pro, talk to members. And my consulting business overall, Amazon is something, just a portion of what I do. It's grown since I own my own e-commerce business. But I started it years before that in helping small to medium-sized businesses identify where they're wasting their money, how they can be more profitable, how they reposition their products, knowing, understanding their target market their competitors better.
00:43:40
Speaker
And Amazon is a good portion of that now because it's such a huge part of what people are wanting to do. But it's, I look at from a larger perspective of, should you be doing this?
Closing Remarks and Contact Information
00:43:51
Speaker
Wow. That's a great final thought. Babs, if people are looking to hire you, learn more about you, where can they find you? LinkedIn is a crazy or burgerinformationgroup.com. And i also have a place on LinkedIn that a page and my profile where you can book an appointment.
00:44:06
Speaker
First consultation is always free. Yeah. All right, Dave, your alligator stuff is added to cart. It should be here by 6 p.m. today. boil This has been another episode of Dial It In, produced by Nicole Fairclough and Andy Witowski. If you're interested in Andy's calendar, please check us out check it out on busyweb.com for future purchases. And boy, he's going to be mad at me for this.
00:44:31
Speaker
And much like Tony Kornheiser, we will try and do better the next time.